LEAD FOCUS
THE THREAT OF BIOLOGICAL ATTACK -- IS AMERICA PREPARED?
By Steve Macko, ERRI Risk Analyst
C. L. Staten, Sr. National Security Analyst
Protection against biological weapons is still a new issue in regards to the security of the United States and it raises troubling questions. Is preparing for such an event, prudence or paranoia? Should everyone be vaccinated? How real is the threat? Aren't biological agents nearly impossible for attackers to use without hurting themselves?
Biological weapons, though around for centuries, have played no significant role in modern warfare and terrorism. Skeptics point to this history and say that biological strikes of any consequence are unlikely. But officials in Washington from POTUS on down are taking the issue very seriously, with thousands of people and billions of dollars in motion to address the biological warfare threat.
Highly-respected Robert Blitzer, who recently left the FBI after directing its section on domestic terrorism, said: "Eventually, this is going to hurt us. There's no question in my mind."
If one were to follow just Open Source Intelligence, there are trends that suggest the possibility of some kind of biological terrorist event in the near future is a very real possibility:
Uprooted
weapon scientists from Iraq, Russia and South Africa are hunting for new jobs and
spreading biological warfare secrets. Terrorists,
including Osama bin Laden, are increasingly interested in biological agents. Some boast
openly of being able to kill foes with deadly plagues. Radical
states with reputations for supporting terror, such as Iran and Libya, are seeking
biological weapons.Today, officials in Washington stress that they know of no imminent danger, even while acknowledging the limitations of intelligence. Most agree that the threat, while low, is growing. The defenses that Washington is quietly erecting are, however, akin to the insurance that homeowners take out against floods and earthquakes. The odds may be small, this argument
goes, but precautions are warranted since conditions are changing and damage could be great.
FBI Assistant Director for National Security Neil Gallagher said: "To say the threat is low is not to minimize its potential."
R. James Woolsey, director of Central Intelligence from 1993 to 1995, is among the former officials who are worried. Biological terrorism, he says is "the single most dangerous threat to our national security in the foreseeable future."
Biological weapons can be hard to make and use, contrary to myth and claim. It took the United States decades to master the art before renouncing such arms in 1969. In the early 1990s, Aum Shinrikyo, a Japanese cult, launched at least nine biological attacks in Tokyo that were meant to kill millions. But the strikes produced no known injuries or deaths. These attacks occurred before the group's infamous chemical gas attack against the Tokyo subway system.
Dangerous to the attacker as well as the attacked if successful, biological weapons are considered most practical when used far from the aggressor's homeland; intervening land and sea establish what amounts to a quarantine. The main appeal of such weapons is that they are incredibly cheap compared to chemical and atomic arms. Yet pound for pound, biological weapons rival nuclear ones for maiming and killing, and some biological agents are considered superior in that regard; in theory they can annihilate many millions of people.
Clearly, they surpass their nuclear kin as an instrument of fright and disruption: Once sown, infections can spread unpredictably, since they are alive. Experts especially worry about smallpox, which is highly contagious and seen as particularly dangerous since few people are now immunized against it.
Today, the secrets of biological warfare are increasingly up for grabs as weapon scientists from countries that made biological arsenals hunt for new jobs. The nomads are from Iraq (starting in 1991 after Persian Gulf war), Russia (starting in 1992 after the Soviet collapse) and South Africa (starting in 1994 as apartheid fell apart). Russia alone has many thousands of former biological warfare scientists who are increasingly cold, poor and hungry.
Legitimate science also heightens the risk. The global war against infectious disease has produced more than 1,500 germ banks that tend to trade freely in deadly microbes.
Today, at least 17 nations are suspected of having or trying to acquire biological weapons. Perhaps they want to deter foes. The wild card is that some (Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Syria) are also considered to be involved in one way or another with terrorism. Libya worked hard to join the biological warfare club. In 1994, it sought to hire scientists fleeing South Africa's crumbling program, including its head, Dr. Wouter Basson. That move, officials say, was foiled by diplomatic pressure from Washington and London.
United Nations inspectors revealed, however, that Libya may have succeeded in hiring (or perhaps hiding and employing for Baghdad) Dr. Amir Medidi, a top scientist of Iraq's biological effort.
