Leak: US fears theft of bioweapons from India labs
By RAVI NESSMAN, Associated Press Ravi Nessman, Associated Press – 2 hrs 13 mins ago
U.S. officials fear lax security at Indian laboratories could make the facilities targets for terrorists seeking biological weapons to launch attacks across the globe, according to comments in a leaked U.S. diplomatic cable made public Friday.
The cable was part of a trove of documents sent from the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi that was obtained by the website WikiLeaks and published Friday by the British newspaper The Guardian.
The cables also dealt with accusations of Indian torture in Kashmir, India's complaints about Pakistan's handling of the Mumbai terror attacks, and the concerns of
Rahul Gandhi— seen as India's prime-minister-in-waiting — that Hindu extremists posed a greater danger to India than Islamist militants.
One of the cables from June 2006 raised concerns that terrorist groups could take advantage of weak security at Indian laboratories to steal "bacteria, parasites, viruses or toxins."
"Terrorists planning attacks anywhere in the world could use India's advanced biotechnology industry and large biomedical research community as potential sources of biological agents," read the cable, marked "confidential." "Given the strong air connections Delhi shares with the rest of the world and the vulnerabilities that might be exploited at airports, a witting or unwitting person could easily take hazardous materials into or out of the country."
"Getting into a facility to obtain lethal bio-agents is not very difficult here," one expert, whose name was redacted from the cable, told U.S. diplomats.
A second expert said that academic research facilities maintain only very loose security procedures. "The harsh reality is that you can bribe a guard with a pack of cigarettes to get inside," the expert was quoted as saying.
One source told the diplomats that India's thousands of biological scientists also might be recruited, either out of ideological sympathies or for money.
An Indian government official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly address the issue, dismissed the concerns as "far-fetched and fanciful."
However, Suman Sahai, a biotechnology expert, told The Associated Press that security remains very poor at biotech firms four years after the cable was written.
The regulatory system is porous, employees are easily influenced and those leaving public laboratories to work for private companies often steal seeds, genetic material and other sensitive property before they head out the door, she said.
While India has not been the target of a biological attack, it has suffered devastating conventional terror strikes, including a 2001 attack on its parliament and the 2008 attack by 10 Pakistan-based militants who laid siege to the city of Mumbai for 60 hours.
Indian officials made it clear that they were focusing more on a possible nuclear or chemical attack — presumably from longtime rival Pakistan — than a biological one, which they considered unlikely to happen, the cable read.
India's surveillance system and its public health system were ill-prepared for the possibility of such an attack, the cable said.
While many countries are poorly prepared for a bioterror attack, the cable said, "few live in the kind of dangerous neighborhood that India does, where terrorism, lax security, petty corruption, high population density, weak public health and agricultural infrastructures, and a booming and sophisticated biotech industry coexist."
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Originally Posted by Steely Glint
