US rejects germ warfare treaty

President Bush: walked away from another treaty

First it was the agreement on climate change.

Then an initiative on controlling the trade in small-arms.

Now its the protocol on germ warfare. George W Bush has walked away from another international treaty.

For six years delegates have been trying to find the right form of words to enforce a thirty year ban on biological weapons.

Now in Geneva, the American delegation says it won't support the proposals because as their representative put it: it would put national security and confidential business information at risk.

Elisa Harris now of the University of Maryland was on the National Security Staff responsible for this and other sets of negotiations and treaties in the eight years of the Clinton administration.

She tells PM this should have been a document the United States could live with.