Bush Might Limit Distribution of Germ Weapons Information

U.S. stockpiles of offensive germ warfare agents were destroyed nearly three decades ago as part of the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention. But the government kept the blueprints for manufacturing such weapons, and continues to sell them.

"The administration is generally conscious of this issue," John H. Marburger III, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said in a telephone interview Sunday. "There are obviously people thinking about what to do about it."

The administration is likely to take action on the matter, Marburger said, adding that he did not know what action would be taken nor when.

Homeland Security director Tom Ridge hinted that the administration is strongly considering placing new restrictions on the information.

"We are a very open society and we're very much an information society, and there are a lot of us that think that some of the information we share with the public probably should be restricted in some fashion," Ridge said on CNN's "Late Edition."

Marburger and other administration officials are "looking to see what kind of information should be so easily available in the public domain," Ridge said. Members of Congress have also aired concerns about the issue, he said.

"We are open, we are trusting, but we have to be a little bit more careful and a little bit more vigilant," Ridge said. "And we may have to take a look at these kinds of issues from a different perspective because of the tragedy of September 11 and the follow-on incidents that we've had to deal with."

Several agencies are weighing the level of danger and possible action, Marburger said. A spokeswoman for the Defense Department said Sunday she could not comment, as did a White House spokesman. Representatives of the Justice Department and the White House Office of Homeland Security did not return calls.

Marburger said he had not personally seen the documents on assembling such weapons. Among the questions is how dangerous they are, he said.

"It is clear that they are based on a picture of biology that's almost 50 years old," he said. "It's not clear to me how useful they are."

The New York Times first reported on the documents and the debate in Sunday editions, and said despite their age, the manuals contain information that could help produce the kind of anthrax powder infected at least 18 people and killed five in the United States last year.

According to the newspaper, federal agencies routinely sell the now-declassified documents to historians and researchers. The government provides more sensitive papers on the subject after Freedom of Information Act requests.

Dr. Harry G. Dangerfield, a retired Army colonel, is preparing a report for the military that will call for the reclassification of more than 200 reports that he told the newspaper are cookbooks for turning germs into weapons.

Any such move to reclassify the manuals would run into resistance from advocates of public access to government documents.

Moreover, an executive order signed by then-President Clinton in 1995 bars reclassification, the Times said. The Bush administration is considering its own order allowing the documents to once again be kept from public view, it reported. Marburger said Sunday he did not know about any such move.