Crossing Boundaries

Good Morning. Thank you for inviting me to speak at this year’s conference. It’s always a pleasure to learn what little, and not so little, things Dr. Alibek has planned for the coming months. And, speaking of not so little things, congratulations to Ken and the National Center for Biodefense’s new plans for a $40 million dollar biocontainment laboratory. Having known Ken for several years now, I think I can safely say we can all expect to hear big things from this lab in the not-too-distant future.

So why am I here today, speaking to an assembly of medical practitioners and biodefense experts? In a lot of ways, I think your community and mine are alike. We are both trying to detect and understand the unknown--in some cases, the same unknown--a mysterious outbreak of an unknown pathogen. I believe that the similarities of our missions need to become a convergent path, not coincidental encounters.

As Assistant Secretary for Verification and Compliance, I am charged with leading all verification and compliance of international arms control, nonproliferation, and disarmament agreements and commitments for the U.S. Government. This includes the Biological Weapons Convention and the Chemical Weapons Convention; two conventions of which we should have a mutual interest.

But what does verification and compliance mean? In simplest terms, verification means observing and detecting activities in another state. That is, we look to see if a country’s activities match up to what they are claiming they’re doing or have committed to do. In a biological context, it could mean observing activity at a BSL-3 or 4 lab and determining if the activity is as the lab claims it to be.

The next step, then, is compliance. If the activity at a lab is NOT as they claim it to be, are they in violation of any of their international or bilateral commitments. And, if the lab is in violation, is the country also in violation? A compliance, or non-compliance, judgement is not a simple process. It is usually not based on a single anomalous event. Rather, the judgement is based on a considered review of all the available information on a country’s program and a clear understanding of the obligations that the country has undertaken in any arms control or nonproliferation agreements and arrangements.

And please notice that I said we rely on ALL the available information, not intelligence. The Intelligence Community has a wide and impressive variety of collection capabilities. But they don’t have everything and they don’t know everything. For that reason, the Verification and Compliance Bureau relies on a true "all source analysis" to reach our compliance findings. This means information from the Intelligence Community, but also unclassified reporting from the international news media, NGOs, outside experts, and something called "gray lit"--unclassified scientific journals and documents not widely available to the open community.

To that end, my bureau has been working closely with Ken and his experts at Advanced Biosystems to exploit scientific publications from various countries in an effort to better understand both the depth and variety of research that is being conducted in a state’s laboratories and academic facilities. This research project has already had some unexpected payoffs for the arms control community. We have discovered just how hard it is to get a good picture of a country’s program if they don’t want you to know what is going on. Supposedly open websites are encrypted with smart cards that are not easily obtained, some publishing is deliberately misleading, and some facilities simply prohibit the publishing of scientific research, no matter how innocuous the research.

Then, on the other hand, we all recall the Australian publication of the questionable research on interleukin-4 and genetic resistance to mouse pox. I doubt that any of us suspect Australia of having a biological weapons program, but the value of this research is highly suspect. But it also clearly demonstrates why it’s important for us to make our compliance judgements based on ALL the available information, not isolated data points.

Which brings us back to my earlier comment about a natural convergence of interests between the arms control community and the scientific and bio-medical communities. Biotechnology is evolving at an amazing rate. Technologies that a few years ago won people the Nobel Prize are now being used at the high school level and newer technologies are racing to the forefront. By comparison, the arms control community works at a glacial pace. The Chemical Weapons Convention, for example, took nine years from the time a draft text was tabled at the Conference on Disarmament before the United Nations endorsed the Convention in November 1992.

So, I wish you all the best success on this year’s conference. We in the arms control community need for you to have a successful and illuminating conference. Thank you.

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