U.S. under U.N. law in health emergency

[Guest guest]

U.S. under

U.N. law in health emergency

Bush's

SPP power grab sets stage for military to

manage flu threats

 

 

 

 

 

Posted: August 28, 2007

11:15 p.m. Eastern

By Jerome R. Corsi

© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

David Nabarro is new U.N. system influenza coordinator

 

 

 

 

The Security and

Prosperity Partnership of North America summit

in Canada released a plan

that establishes U.N. law along with regulations by the World Trade

Organization and World Health Organization

as supreme over U.S.

law during a pandemic and sets the stage for militarizing the

management of

continental health emergencies.

The "North

American Plan for Avian & Pandemic Influenza" was finalized at

the

SPP summit last week in Montebello, Quebec.

 

At the same

time, the U.S. Northern Command, or NORTHCOM, has created

a webpage dedicated to avian flu and has been running

exercises in preparation for the possible use of U.S. military forces

in a

continental domestic emergency involving avian flu or pandemic

influenza.

With virtually

no media attention, in 2005 President Bush

shifted U.S.

policy on avian flu and pandemic influenza, placing the country under

international guidelines not specifically determined by domestic

agencies.

The policy shift

was formalized Sept. 14, 2005, when Bush announced a

new International

Partnership on Avian and Pandemic Influenza to a High-Level Plenary

Meeting

of the U.N. General Assembly, in New York.

The new

International Partnership on Avian and Pandemic

Influenza was designed to supersede an earlier November 2005 Homeland

Security report that called for a U.S. national strategy that would

be

coordinated by the Departments of Homeland Security, Health and

Agriculture.

The 2005 plan,

operative until Bush announced the International

Partnership on Avian and Pandemic Influenza, directed the State

Department to

work with the WHO and U.N., but it does not mention that international

health

controls are to be considered controlling over relevant U.S. statutes

or

authorities.

Under the

International Partnership on Avian and Pandemic

Influenza, Bush agreed the U.S.

would work through the U.N. system influenza coordinator to develop a

continental

emergency response plan operating through authorities under the WTO, North

American Free Trade Agreement and the U.N. Food

and

Agriculture Organization.

WND could find

no evidence the Bush administration presented

the Influenza Partnership plan to Congress for oversight or approval.

The SPP plan for

avian and pandemic influenza announced at the

Canadian summit last week embraces the international control principles

Bush

first announced to the U.N. in his 2005 International Partnership on

Avian and

Pandemic Influenza declaration.

The SPP plan

gives primacy for avian and pandemic influenza

management to plans developed by the WHO, WTO, U.N. and NAFTA

directives

– not decisions made by U.S.

agencies.

The U.N.-WHO-WTO-NAFTA

plan advanced by SPP features a

prominent role for the U.N. system influenza coordinator as a central

international director in the case of a North American avian flu or

pandemic

influenza outbreak.

In Sept. 2005, Dr.

David Nabarro was appointed the first U.N.

system

influenza coordinator, a position which also places him as a senior

policy

adviser to the U.N. director-general.

Nabarro joined

the WHO in

1999 and was appointed WHO executive director of sustainable

development and health

environments in July 2002.

In a Sept.

29, 2005, press

conference at the U.N., Nabarro made

clear that

his job was to prepare for the H5N1 virus, known as the avian flu.

Nabarro fueled

the global

fear that an epidemic was virtually inevitable.

In response to a

question about the 1918-1919 flu pandemic that

killed approximately 40 million people worldwide, Nabarro

commented, "I am certain there will be another pandemic sometime."

Nabarro

stressed at the

press conference that he saw as inevitable a worldwide pandemic

influenza

coming soon that would kill millions.

He quantified

the deaths he expected as follows: "I'm not,

at the moment at liberty to give you a prediction on numbers, but I

just want

to stress, that, let's say, the range of deaths could be anything from

5 to 150

million."

In a March

8, 2006, U.N. press conference that was reported

on a State Department website, Nabarro

predicted

an outbreak of the H5N1 virus would "reach the Americas

within the next six to 12

months."

On Feb. 1,

2006, NORTHCOM

hosted representatives of more than 40 international, federal and state

agencies for "an exercise designed to provoke discussion and

determine

what governmental actions, including military support, would be

necessary in

the event of an influenza pandemic in the United States."

 

NORTHCOM and

other governmental websites document the growing

role the Bush administration plans for the U.S.

military to be involved in

continental domestic emergencies involving health, including avian flu

and

pandemic influenza.

NORTHCOM

participated in a nationwide Joint Chiefs of Staff-directed exercise

– code-named Exercise Ardent Sentry 06 – to rehearse cooperation

between Department of Defense and local, state and federal agencies, as

well as

the Canadian government.

A pandemic

influenza crisis was one of the four scenarios gamed

in Exercise Ardent Sentry 06, involving

a scenario of a plague in Mexico reaching across the border into

Arizona and

New Mexico.

As has been

customary in SPP documents and declarations, the Montebello,

Canada, announcement of the North

American Plan for Avian & Pandemic Influenza acknowledges in

passing the

sovereignty of the three nations.

The announcement

says, "The Plan is not intended to

replace existing arrangements or agreements. As such, each country's

laws are

to be respected and this Plan is to be subordinate and complementary to

domestic response plans, existing arrangements and bilateral or

multilateral

agreements."

Still, the SPP

plan argues the risk from avian and pandemic

influenza was so great to North America that

the leaders of the three nations were compelled "to work collectively

and

with all levels of government, the private sector and

among-non-governmental

organizations to combat avian and pandemic influenza."

Moreover, the

SPP plan openly acknowledges, "The WHO's

international guidance formed much of the basis for

the three countries' planning for North American preparedness and

response."

WND

previously reported NORTHCOM has been established with a command

center at

Peterson Air Force Base, tasked with using

the U.S. military in continental domestic emergency situations.

WND

also has reported President Bush signed in May two documents,

National

Security Presidential Directive-51 and Homeland Security Presidential

Directive-20, which give the office of the president extraordinary

powers to

declare national emergencies and to assume near-dictatorial powers.

Following the Montebello

summit last week, the SPP North American Plan for Avian & Pandemic

Influenza was published on a made-over

SPP

homepage redesigned to feature agreements newly reached by

trilateral

bureaucratic working groups.