Biological Weapons

WASHINGTON -- In the opening hours of the war against Iraq, American and Australian forces flew deep into the country and seized or destroyed specific command posts to prevent officers there from ordering the use of chemical and biological weapons, said officials with the coalition forces. The outposts were selected for urgent, risky attacks because intelligence agencies had reported that the field commanders had operational control of those weapons and might have been given authority by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to use them even if he were killed or could no longer communicate his orders.

THE CLOSEST to a time frame for concessions by Saddam Hussein was given yesterday by the U.S. commander in the Mideast region, Gen. Anthony Zinni, who said his forces would be in place to bomb Iraq in "a week or so." That's how much time there is to prevent this attack.President Clinton has responsibly stated the attainable purpose: The mission would be to reduce the rogue state's ability to create and deliver chemical and biological weapons. No promise of eradicating them. No talk about deposing the dictator.

Peter Joseph Stopa, a civilian researcher with the Army who made important scientific and diplomatic contributions to biological defense technologies, died Tuesday at St. Agnes Hospital in Baltimore, three weeks after he was diagnosed with lung cancer. The Freeland resident was 54. Since 1988, Mr. Stopa had worked at the Edgewood Chemical Biological Center at Aberdeen Proving Ground, where he helped develop tools that can detect chemical and biological weapons. He was also a lead liaison between the U.S. and Polish militaries in the two countries' coordination of biological defense efforts.

LONDON - Prime Minister Tony Blair gave his most explicit apology to date yesterday for the flawed intelligence assessments upon which he took Britain to war in Iraq, but he rejected opposition accusations that he had misrepresented that intelligence. "I take full responsibility and apologize for any information given in good faith that has subsequently turned out to be wrong," Blair told the House of Commons during a spirited exchange with opposition members. "What I do not in any way accept is that there was a deception of anyone," Blair said.

FOR MONTHS, President Bush has asked the American people for more time to find the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction he said the war was intended to counter. But David Kay and the U.S. survey team charged with finding Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear weapons provide further evidence that the Bush administration's most dire claims about unconventional Iraqi weapons were wrong and based on discredited intelligence. It is past time for Congress to hold Mr. Bush and his administration to account, beginning with an independent, public investigation of the gathering and handling of intelligence on Iraq.

A confidential Bush administration review has recommended that the United States not accept a draft agreement to enforce the treaty banning germ weapons, American officials said. The recommendations appear certain to distress allies, who back the draft accord and are concerned that the new administration is concentrating too much on new military programs and not enough on treaties and nonproliferation. After six years of negotiations, diplomats in Geneva have produced the draft agreement, known as a protocol, which would establish measures to monitor the ban on biological weapons.

CHICAGO - I was not alarmed to read the news, leaked to the press last week, that the Bush administration has ordered the Pentagon to make plans for the use of nuclear weapons against countries that attack us with weapons of mass destruction. What alarmed me is that no one has explained it to President Bush. The possibility the United States might answer a non-nuclear attack with a nuclear strike was said to represent a sudden and dangerous change. In fact, as Scott Shuger notes in the online magazine Slate, it's been American policy for years.

STANFORD, Calif. -- West Nile virus survived the winter and may be here to stay. New York public health officials announced last week that the mosquito-borne virus, which in humans can cause a fatal inflammation of the brain, was discovered in mosquito populations and in several dead crows. Never before detected in the Western Hemisphere, the virus arrived in New York last summer, killing seven people and infecting hundreds. Now, with the return of summer, North America braces for the annual onslaught of mosquitoes and another deadly outbreak.

ACKNOWLEDGING Americans' wariness about waging war on Iraq, President Bush set out Monday night to explain in straightforward but strong language the reasons the United States must act to disarm the regime of Saddam Hussein. A summation of arguments he has made before, the president's speech reiterated: the Iraqi dictator's disdain for and disregard of United Nations resolutions since the 1991 Persian Gulf war, his use of chemical and biological weapons on his people and his enemies, his hatred of the United States, and America's vulnerability since the Sept.

WASHINGTON - Two high-ranking Defense Department officials denied yesterday that a special Pentagon intelligence unit manipulated information on Iraq's weapons programs and links to al-Qaida in an effort to build public and political support for war. In an unusual news conference, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith and his deputy, William Luti, said the Office of Special Plans was never told to produce evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime...