In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, representatives from the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program (CTR) described how the 21 year-old program to reduce Weapons of Mass Destruction is shifting to more of a biological threat reduction effort and expanding from the Caucases to other regions.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, newly independent republics faced the challenge of dealing with deadly pathogens at sites left unprotected and vulnerable to theft. Extensive efforts to assist in this region have been undertaken for the past two decades.
“We are beginning to shift focus in the biological program to Africa and the Middle East, so in time we will transition over to those areas of the world as well,” stated Madelyn R. Creedon, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Global Strategic Affairs.
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