Pentagon once considered building a bomb to turn enemies gay

The Sunshine Project
Statement
17 January 2005

Sunshine Project Responds to Pentagon Statements on
"Harassing, Annoying, and 'Bad Guy' Identifying Chemicals"

(Austin, 17 January) - In the past several days, international media have focused attention on the US Air Force biochemical weapons proposal titled Harassing, Annoying, and 'Bad Guy' Identifying Chemicals. The document was submitted to the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate (JNLWD) in 1994. It was acquired by the Sunshine Project under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and posted on our website in late December.

At the same time in 1994, the US Army proposed developing a number of other drugs, principally narcotics, as "non-lethal" weapons. These documents were also obtained under FOIA and are posted on the Sunshine Project website.

Harassing, Annoying, and 'Bad Guy' Identifying Chemicals proposes development of a mind-altering aphrodisiac weapon for use by the US armed forces, as well as other biochemicals, including one that would render US enemies exceptionally sensitive to sunlight.

With respect to the Air Force proposal, the Department of Defense has recently been quoted as saying the following:

"[The proposal] was rejected out of hand."

DOD Spokesman Lt. Col Barry Venable to Reuters
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6833083/

"It was not taken seriously. It was not considered for further development."

JNLWD spokesman Capt. Daniel McSweeney to the Boston Herald
http://news.bostonherald.com/national/view.bg?articleid=63615

These statements are untrue. The proposal was not rejected out of hand. It has received further consideration. In fact, it was recent Pentagon consideration, in 2000 and 2001, that brought this document to the Sunshine Project's attention and resulted in our FOIA request:

--> In 2000, the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate (JNLWD) prepared a promotional CD-ROM on its work. This CD-ROM, which was distributed to other US military and government agencies in an effort to spur further development of "non-lethal" weapons, contained the Harassing, Annoying, and 'Bad Guy' Identifying Chemicals document. If the proposal had been rejected out of hand and not taken seriously, it would not have been placed in JNLWD's publication.

--> Similarly, in 2001, JNLWD commissioned a study of "non-lethal" weapons by the National Academies of Science (NAS). JNLWD provided information on proposed weapons systems for assessment by an NAS scientific panel. Among the proposals that JNLWD submitted to the NAS for consideration by the nation's pre-eminent scientific advisory organization was Harassing, Annoying, and 'Bad Guy' Identifying Chemicals.

(Click here to see a partial list of documents deposited at NAS and/or contained on the JNLWD CD-ROM.)

Thus, the Pentagon's statements (as quoted in news reports) are inaccurate and should be corrected.

While the Sunshine Project does not have evidence suggesting that Harassing, Annoying, and 'Bad Guy' Identifying Chemicals has been funded, US Army proposals to weaponize narcotics that were made at the time have moved forward. These include proposals such as Antipersonnel Calmative Agents and for development of opiate and sedative biochemical weapons. Those proposals are discussed in detail in the Sunshine Project news release "The Return of ARCAD" available at the URL:

http://www.sunshine-project.org/publications/pr/pr060104.html

According to Sunshine Project Director Edward Hammond: "What the Pentagon's reaction shows is the biochemical dependency problem of the DOD 'non-lethal' weapons program. JNLWD has never divorced itself from biochemical weapons, and when confronted with that fact, it goes into denial. The denials are contradicted by DOD's own records. The fact of the matter is that Pentagon continues to pursue biochemical weapons, perhaps including those proposed by the Air Force, but certainly including those proposed by the Army."