Posted on 05/20/2002 2:30:16 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
Douglas Burton
Insight Magazine, February 2000
Clinton fund-raiser Charles Trie has admitted to the FBI that he conducted a business deal that gave Red China equipment capable of producing deadly biological weapons.
Peter Leitner, a senior Defense Department licensing analyst who specializes in export controls of dual-use technology, has reviewed Insight’s copies of the confidential FBI interviews with Trie. Leitner says the transfer of the highly sophisticated pharmaceutical-grade fermenting machine poses significant risks to U.S. security at home and abroad if used to make advanced germ-warfare products such as anthrax and botulism.
The evidence of the fermenting machine’s sale and transfer sometime in 1993 to the Changchun Biological Products Institute is alarming, according to Leitner, given that the Chinese facility has been flagged by some experts as a biological-weapons laboratory run by the People’s Liberation Army. Leitner tells Insight: “This whole affair has the classic earmarks of a Chinese military-intelligence operation.”
A summary of Trie’s depositions to the FBI reads, in part: “Trie acknowledged being a close friend of Dr. Peter Fu, a research biochemist who was chief of the toxicology branch of an FDA facility near Little Rock,” adding that “the Fus withdrew from the partnership in 1992 or 1993.” Trie also told the FBI that Zhang was present when Trie formed United Biotech and that Trie had introduced Fu to Zhang in Little Rock.
The 500-liter fermentation tank transferred to the Changchun facility would be prohibited for sale by the Department of Defense’s Militarily Critical Technologies List because it allows the manufacture of large quantities of biological agents, such as botulism or anthrax bacteria, for military purposes, Leitner says. Several 500-liter tanks of this type were discovered in Iraq and seized as contraband by U.N. Special Commission inspectors in 1991. According to government sources, China has listed the Changchun facility on the international registry of facilities producing biological or chemical agents but claims its only use at this time is for the production of pharmaceuticals such as hepatitis vaccines.
1. Immediate cruise missile strikes on Cuban military facilities.
2. Several weeks of B-52 raids on suspected bio-war facilities and critical C4I facilities (including Lourdes).
3. Naval blockade.
My thesis is that if the Cold War really ended in 1991, then no one will help Cuba, and, we'll be able to at long last depose Castro and ensure the development of a responsible regime reflective of Cuba's Spanish roots and innate (e.g. if not terrorised by autocratic Communist totalitarianism) Western, Euro-Carribean orientation. And if the ChiCOMs and supposedly reborn Russians come to the aid of Cuba, then we'll have smoked out some folks who were simply stringing us along. This is what is known as the antitdote to appeasement and Neville Chamberlainism...
Fomenting Freedom - Circumventing Castro to reach the Cuban people***Engaging Cuba, in fact, has the unavoidable consequence of propping up the Communist dictatorship. European money that flooded in starting in the early 1990's after the fall of the Soviet Union was vital to the survival of the regime, and it gave Castro a financial shot in the arm.
European cash almost solely lines Castro's pockets because of the way the dictator has fashioned the terms of engagement. Foreign companies must establish joint ventures with the Cuban government, with a cut of the profits going to Castro. But the despot nets more cash from the labor arrangement: Workers are not employed by foreign companies; they are rented.
Companies pay Castro's machine approximately $1,000 per month per worker, in hard cash. The regime, in turn, shells out less than $20 - per month - to each worker, in pesos. In other words, 98 percent of all wages paid by foreign companies in Cuba are funneled straight to Castro.
Because Castro has been denied American cash from such joint ventures and for several other reasons, the embargo has worked, even if it hasn't dethroned him. The embargo has put Castro in a box, and has robbed him of resources to fund his extracurricular activities. As a senior administration official noted, "If Castro has to spend $40 million on food, that's $40 million he's not spending to develop biological weapons."
Despite the morally despicable conditions for joint ventures, a large number of Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill are pressing for engagement with Castro. In fairness, many simply don't understand that the communist dictatorship relies on foreign cash for its very existence, but ignorance should not be an excuse for ignorant policy.
Bush's speech may pave the way for expunging Congress's blissful ignorance, and likely will be cheered on Capitol Hill in the long run.***
If nations want to build weapons that target effectively America, then those nations' business becomes America's business. There is no going around the need to prevent others from leveraging US politics with pointing their weapons at us. It is one thing to have a defensive force and sovereign militarisation, it is another to constantly acquire America as a target. Purely offensive bio and Chem weapons combined with Castro's overimaginative hatred of America and political vigilatism definitely fit that bill. Moreover, the fate of the Cuban exiles in Florida make the demands even more stringent on Cuba, including forcing the communist oligarch of Cuba to forego their ill acquired assets. After all, it all stems from that unresolved aggression that continues today.
The concern then was a different wepaon of mass destruction - Russian nukes. Why today this contemporary Cuban biothreat doesn't cause a similar reaction by the U.S. is beyond me.
Other recipients of Cuban biotechnology research include India, China, Brazil, Egypt, Malaysia, South Africa, Tunisia, Algeria, Great Britain, Venezuela and Mexico.
So, shall the US commense embargoes and bombing now?
A summary of Trie’s depositions to the FBI reads, in part: “Trie acknowledged being a close friend of Dr. Peter Fu, a research biochemist who was chief of the toxicology branch of an FDA facility near Little Rock,” adding that “the Fus withdrew from the partnership in 1992 or 1993.” Trie also told the FBI that Zhang was present when Trie formed United Biotech and that Trie had introduced Fu to Zhang in Little Rock.
you might want to see this clip on Charlie Trie and a Little Rock biotech firm
Thanks for the ping!
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