Interview with Heather Wokusch, author and blogger
TAMPA, Florida, Mar 25 2008 (IPS) – In early March, the Pentagon s Force Protection Agency released a colourless, odorless gas in Crystal City, Maryland as part of a simulated terror attack intended to track air flows and test an array of chemical sensors.
Heather Wokusch Credit: heatherwokusch.com
Officials insisted that the gas dispersed in Operation Urban Shield was nontoxic , but not everyone is buying that claim.
The Pentagon does minimise the risks of these tests, Heather Wokusch, an investigative journalist and blogger, tells IPS. For instance, it described sulfur hexaflouride, the substance released in Crystal City, as posing no health or safety hazards to people or the environment . Yet sulfur hexaflouride is a suspected respiratory toxicant and neurotoxicant.
In her new article Breaking the Nuremberg Code: The U.S. Military s Human-Testing Programme Returns , Wokusch notes that: Crystal City is one of the urban villages of Arlington County, Virginia. It features upscale offices and residential areas in other words, a lot of civilians. You would think that if the Pentagon is releasing suspected toxicants into such a compressed urban area there would be more warning about potential health risks.
A former jazz singer with a master s degree in clinical psychology, Wokusch is probably best known for her Progressives Handbook series, a detailed analysis of the George W. Bush administration s record on issues from the environment to foreign policy and elections.
Excerpts from an interview with IPS correspondent Mark Weisenmiller follow.
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IPS: Is there a great deal of secrecy surrounding these tests?
HW: Yes, and it is mirrored by secrecy in the research and development of U.S. weapons of mass destruction. The public is largely unaware of the fact that the [George W.] Bush administration has consistently ignored international WMD agreements and funded ever more clandestine and destructive programmes domestically.
Since 2002, for example, the administration has spent over 30 billion dollars on biological defence , even thought the chances of a U.S. citizen dying in a bioterrorism attack are one in 56 million. Put differently, since 2001, federal grants for biowarfare-agent research have soared 2,000 percent, while funding for the research of common diseases such as hepatitis and tuberculosis has actually decreased. Dangerous priorities.
Meanwhile, the administration has reduced pressure on weapons labs to issue declarations and allow inspections, and that has led to less accountability not to mention more opportunities for secrecy and abuse.
IPS: What about the Crystal City tests?
HW: That gets into the next area of secrecy and limited oversight. One consistent factor in these Defence Department open-air tests is a complete lack of coordinated communication. I personally phoned the Pentagon numerous times in the days preceding the Crystal City test requesting some basic information. When would the tests take place? Had the public been informed about potential health risks? Would any consent forms be used? Would any kind of medical follow-up be conducted? Basic questions, but all I got was the runaround. One department transferred me to another and another, and everyone I spoke with seemed generally surprised to hear that an open-air test would be taking place. I finally located an employee apparently connected to the test, but that person has yet to respond to inquiries.
IPS: In a YouTube video, you describe the situation as creepy . Doesn t the Pentagon argue that no live or harmful agents are being used?
HW: Part of the problem is that 95 percent of the chemicals used stateside lack basic safety data, and proper certification is similarly unavailable for other kinds of materials. So the Pentagon may perhaps legally claim that no dangers exist when in fact it would more correct to say that adequate research has not been conducted into the dangers of the substances tested.
As for the word creepy , the U.S. has a long and indeed disturbing history of human-subject testing, often without the consent or the awareness of those involved. U.S. troops were subjected to stateside gas-chamber tests during WWII, for example, and the Army sprayed parts of St. Louis and San Francisco, plus the New York subway system and Washington National Airport, with bacterial tracers between 1949 and 1969. Follow-up information on medical care was rarely provided.
While U.S. open-air testing was officially ended in 1969, after 6,000 sheep died following the apparent release of a nerve agent at an Army facility in Utah, an April 2007 Defence Department report to Congress strongly suggests an imminent return.
IPS: A Google news search of the words human testing and Pentagon found only a small handful of articles discussing the latest tests. One of them was published in New Zealand. Why do you think there has been so little attention paid to the issue by the mainstream media ?
HW: That s a good question. My opinion is that the subject is so inherently outrageous that many simply prefer to look away.
In the U.S., we have a hard enough time facing the broader implications of our nation s military activities. Ongoing atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan, torture, prisoner abuse -let alone the plight of returning veterans are all swept under the carpet by the media.
As such, the Pentagon s directly endangering U.S. citizens with open-air tests is perhaps just too scandalous to ponder.
IPS: How can communities find out if this type of testing is happening in their area? Does anyone in Congress seem interested in greater oversight of these military projects?
HW: The Sunshine Project has a great online map of High Containment Labs and other Facilities of the U.S. Biodefence Programme . It lists which labs are under construction or operational and which have had recent releases or other exposures. While the map also shows open-air testing locations, it has not been updated since February 2008.
The Defence Department s two most recent tests have been in the general Pentagon area, but it s anyone s guess where the next one will be conducted.
To my knowledge, no one in Congress is highly focused on exposing and ending these open-air tests. It will take media attention and public outcry for any progress to be made.
IPS: How have you seen blogging evolve from being digital diaries to, in some cases, investigative journalism ?
HW: The trade-off is that while bloggers usually lack funding and other institutional support, they have the independence to choose stories they really care about. Such was the case with my research on the Pentagon s return to open-air testing.
