Which countries are likely possess biological weapons today in violation of international law?
JG: Israel, South Africa, and Iraq secretly pursued development of their own biological weapons programs, in imitation of the major nations. In the last decade, some sources have listed as many as 12 other nations that might be threats. Recently Libya, one of these “rogue nations,” as they were tagged by the US, was revealed not to have biological weapons, although it did pursue chemical and nuclear weapons. Biological weapons are complex and require considerable resources, for example, a range of scientists and production facilities. In today’s world, keeping such a program secret has become much more difficult than forty or fifty years ago. At the same time, new biotechnologies could make biological weapons attractive again, for nations that sought, for example, to subject entire populations. Q: What about civilian populations? Have they ever been targeted by biological weapons? JG: First, the concept of the enemy civilian as a target was an essential component of all the biological
