At a remote laboratory complex in Kazakhstan, Russian scientists began animal testing of the Marburg virus, a highly contagious germ that kills by attacking every organ and tissue in the body. This secret testing, described recently by several veterans of the Soviet program, went undetected at the time by Western intelligence agencies, which knew few specifics about the plant's operations. Kazakhstan gave up nuclear, biological and chemical weapons soon after it became independent, and permitted American experts and a handful of reporters to visit the plant. From their observations, and from Soviet defectors, the West has finally learned what was unfolding there in the final years of the Cold War. The belated discovery of this exotic arms research is one of the elements of a fierce dispute in Washington over whether the Russian military is heeding President Boris Yeltsin's 1992 order to abandon germ warfare.
Similar uncertainties loom about Iraq.
Clinton administration officials contend that Russia no longer poses a major threat. Western experts have visited most of its key civilian laboratories, and officials disclosed that Russia had recently moved closer to allowing Western experts to visit its closed military installations, a crucial step that could dispel many of the lingering doubts about Moscow's activities. Administration officials assert that much of what they now understand about the Soviet Union's germ weapons has been gleaned through Western aid programs designed to foster peaceful research projects. But some administration officials and Republicans in Congress assert that Russia is still secretly researching germ weapons, just as it did in the Cold War. The debate turns partly on history.