Administration says projects comply with germ-war treaty

The Bush administration argues that its biodefense research complies with the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, the 1972 treaty outlawing biological- weapons manufacture, because U.S. motives are pure.

Current and former administration officials say the treaty hinges on intent, and that making small amounts of biowarfare pathogens for study is permitted under a broad interpretation of the treaty. Some argue that a strong biodefense in an age of genetic engineering trumps concerns over what's seen as legal hair-splitting.

"How can I go to the people of this country and say, 'I can't do this important research because some arms-control advocate told me I can't'?" asked Penrose "Parney" Albright, former Homeland Security assistant secretary for science and technology.

But some international-law experts think that certain experiments envisioned for the lab could violate the treaty's ban on developing, stockpiling, acquiring or retaining microbes "of types and in quantities that have no justification" for peaceful purposes.

"The main problem with the 'defensive intent' test is that it does not reflect what the treaty actually says," said David Fidler, an Indiana University School of Law professor and expert on the bioweapons convention. The treaty, largely a U.S. creation, does not make a distinction between defensive and offensive activities, Fidler said.

More practically, arms experts say, future U.S. governments may find it harder to object if other countries test genetically engineered pathogens and novel delivery systems, invoking the same need for biodefense.

In the past five years, numerous governments, including some in the developing world — India, China and Cuba among them — have begun building high-security labs for studying lethal bacteria and viruses.