It's been nearly two weeks since Defense Tech highlighted a series of rather silly Pentagon schemes to fluster enemy soldiers by harassing them with rats, stinging bees, and men in heat. And, since then, the international press has been having a big ol' belly laugh with the so-called "gay sex bomb."

One man isn't smiling, however. That would be Edward Hammond, the bioweapons researcher at the Sunshine Project who, uh, turned me on to the proposed "Harassing, Annoying, and 'Bad Guy' Identifying Chemicals." He says that Pentagon spokesmen fibbed when they claimed that the ideas in the document were "rejected out of hand."

* 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".

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