THE US defence department plans to spend millions of dollars to buy new vaccines to inoculate troops against germ warfare and develop new bombs to incinerate chemical and biological weapon stocks. This is part of a major effort to protect US troops from poison gas, biological agents and nuclear weapons.

Meanwhile, an official of the country's National Security Council, Heather Wilson, in an article in The Wall Street Journal, urged the US not to hesitate in launching pre-emptive strikes or covert action to promote non-proliferation of mass-destruction weapons.