Biological Terrorism

Biological weapons offer terrorists a combination of advantages that surpass even

chemical or nuclear weapons

By M. Pietrantoni & Mad Abe

We have become accustomed to associating terrorist attacks with spectacular

displays of immediate destruction. Bomb blasts, and the devastation caused by
driving commercial airliners into buildings are what come to mind when news of the
latest terrorist atrocity breaks.

Yet the most devastating attack we could face may not come in the guise of an
explosion. It may well be a silent attack. One that we may not even know has taken
place until the body count begins to rise.

"Germ terrorism is the most dangerous threat to our national security in the
foreseeable future. " — Former CIA Director James Woolsey.

In the almost three years since the terrorist attacks of 9/11/01, a new phrase has
entered both the vocabulary and the consciousness of the American public —
"Weapons of Mass Destruction," or "WMDs." Once the stuff of Tom Clancy and
Eric Pinnell techno thrillers, and Cold War deterrence strategies, WMDs are now
considered key weapons of terrorists seeking to inflict carnage on the US and our
allies.

WMDs fall into three categories: chemical, radiological, and biological. All three
have the capacity (depending upon the specific agent used) of inflicting horrendous
casualties if used against an unprepared and unsuspecting civilian population. But
of the three, the most worrisome to authorities tasked with combating terrorism, or
mitigating the effects of such an attack if it occurs, is the threat posed by the
release of an effective biological agent.

There are a variety of reasons why a bioterror attack provokes such anxiety among
officials. Often called the "poor man's nuke," biological weapons offer terrorists a
combination of advantages that surpass even chemical or nuclear weapons.

Psychological Effects

One of the main goals of a terrorist is to terrorize and intimidate his enemy.
Instilling terror and fear in a targeted population can be accomplished effectively by
the deliberate spreading of disfiguring and lethal diseases among that population.
A disease, once unleashed, continues to spread among a population, particularly a
modern mobile population. The population itself becomes the vector that spreads
the disease. Smallpox, released in an airport, for example, will spread rapidly
across a country and around the world, as travelers who have no idea they have
been exposed, infect others on their journeys.

Lethality

Gram for gram, biological agents are thousands of times more potent than even
the most lethal chemical weapon.

Type A botulin toxin, for example, considered by experts one of the most likely
agents terrorists might use, has been described as "the most lethal substance
known." A single gram of botulin toxin, the weight of a paper clip, could kill more
than a million people.

Anthrax, used in the postal attacks in the immediate aftermath of 9/11/01, is also
considered a likely candidate for use by terrorists in a large scale attack. Dr.
Graham Pearson, the former chief director of Britain's chemical and biological
military research efforts, is quoted in a 1994 research paper as saying: "Anthrax
sprayed from the back of an aircraft on a cool, calm night, could take out all of
Washington, D.C. This could cause up to three million fatalities, compared with two
million from a hydrogen bomb." Dr. Pearson was talking about an attack using 100
kilograms (about 225 pounds) of anthrax.

Ease Of Acquisition

Bioweapons are attractive to terrorists for another reason. Many of the more
virulent bioagents are nowhere near as difficult to acquire or manufacture as their
chemical or radiological counterparts.

Bioweapons fall into three categories: bacterial, viral, and toxins. While viruses
such as smallpox, tularemia or ebola would be difficult (but by no means
impossible) for terrorists to isolate, culture, and weaponize, bacterial agents such
as anthrax, and even more so toxins such as ricin and botulism, are well within the
ability of a terrorist group to acquire and refine into a weaponized form.

Ease Of Distribution

Biological agents can be dispersed against a target population using relatively low
tech means. Aerosol dispersal systems can be mounted on crop dusting aircraft, or
concealed in ordinary panel vans and vented as they are being driven through city
streets. Similarly, they can be introduced into the ventilation systems of venues
containing large numbers of transient people such as sporting events, conventions,
airports and railroad stations, or even densely packed office towers.

They can also be used to contaminate water and food supplies. Milk is of particular
concern to antiterrorist planners, since the temperatures reached during the
pasteurization process are insufficient to neutralize toxins such as botulin Even the
tankers used to transport milk, once it has been processed, represent a vulnerable
point which terrorists might exploit.

Because biological pathogens are odorless, tasteless and invisible, and symptoms
can take from days to weeks to appear once an attack is launched, they make an
ideal weapon in the arsenal of the terrorist.

Types Of Biological Threats

There are literally dozens of biological agents which could be used by terrorists. In
1999 the US government through the Centers for Disease Control, CDC, and its
Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Office, sought to rank the threat posed
by these agents.

Potential pathogens were each evaluated according to the following criteria: 1)

Public health impact based on illness and death; 2) Delivery potential to large
populations based on the stability of the agent, ability to mass produce and
distribute a virulent agent, and potential for person-to-person transmission of the
agent; 3) Public perception as related to public fear and potential civil disruption; 4)
Special public health preparedness needs based on stockpile requirements,
enhanced surveillance, or diagnostic needs.

What resulted from this analysis is popularly known as the A, B, and C, lists.
Agents assigned to category A present the greatest potential for mass casualties,
and have a medium to high potential for large scale dissemination. Category A
agents would also have the greatest psychological impact upon the public, causing
mass fear and even the potential outbreak of civil disorder.

Category B agents generally have a lower morbidity and mortality rate (sickness
and death) than Category A agents, although some may be equally easy to
disseminate. In addition Category B agents generally do not share the level of
public awareness (and thus fear and potential panic) of Category A agents.

Category C agents are currently not perceived as presenting a high bioterrorism

threat in the short term, but do present an element of risk as future threats.

Six biological agents comprise Category A: smallpox, anthrax, plague, botulism,

tularemia, and viral hemorrhagic fevers such as ebola or marburg.

Smallpox

Smallpox has been a scourge of mankind for thousands of years. In the 20th
Century alone an estimated 500 million people died from smallpox. In theory
smallpox has been eradicated because of a concentrated 50-year multinational
effort. Only two confirmed samples of the virus are known to exist, one in Russia
and one in the US. However, it is known that other nations, such as North Korea,
have used smallpox in bioweapons research. Antiterrorism experts consider it
probable that terrorist groups could gain access to hidden stores of the virus.
Marvin Cetron, president of Forecasting International Ltd., a firm specializing in
threat assessment and currently consulting with the Pentagon and FBI, notes, "I
think the chance is about 80 percent of terrorists obtaining smallpox."

Anthrax

Unlike smallpox, which is a virus, anthrax, an acute infectious disease, is caused

by a relatively common spore-forming bacterium. Anthrax spores can lie dormant in
soil for decades. The disease can be contracted through cuts or abrasions on the
skin (cutaneous), through consumption of contaminated food products
(gastrointestinal), or through inhalation. Inhalational anthrax is the most severe
form of the disease and is usually fatal. Despite the anthrax attack through the
postal system immediately following the terrorist attacks of 9/11/01, which used
highly weaponized anthrax in a microscopically fine powder form, most anti-
terrorism experts consider an aerosol dispersal of anthrax as the most likely route
for a terrorist attack.

From the terrorists' point of view, anthrax has one drawback as a bioweapon. The
spread of the infection from person to person is unlikely, meaning that only people
directly exposed to the spores during the attack are likely to be affected.

Plague

The use of plague as a terrorist biological weapon would most likely be intended to
have as much of a psychological impact as physical. Fear of plague, like that of
smallpox, is almost genetically embedded in the memory of mankind.

Fleas have historically been the most common transmission route for plague.
However the biological weapons programs of countries such as Iraq, North Korea
and a host of others have all successfully weaponized the plague bacillus. In
theory, plague should be among the easiest of all biopathogens for terrorists to
obtain.

Like anthrax, however, one factor limiting the usefulness of plague as a terror
weapon is that it is not easily transmitted from person to person.

Botulism

Botulism differs from viral or bacterial agents in that it is an extremely deadly

neurotoxin that is very easy to produce in relatively large quantities. In fact it is so
easy to produce that home canners have to take extra safety precautions to make
sure that the items they preserve do not become reservoirs for botulism
contamination.
As a biological weapon botulism can be used either as a food contaminate or,
through aerosolization, as an inhalation agent. Four nations currently listed by the
US as state sponsors of terrorism have weaponized botulin toxin, Iran, Iraq, Syria,
and North Korea. Following the first Gulf War, Iraq admitted having produced
19,000 liters of concentrated botulin toxin.

Tularemia

Tularemia is caused by a bacteria found in many animals, particularly rodents,

rabbits, foxes and hares. Tularemia causes severe and debilitating respiratory
distress and pneumonia. While tularemia can be contracted by inhaling the
bacteria, the most frequent method of transmission is the bite of an infected insect,
ingestion of contaminated food or water, or mishandling of infected animal
carcasses.

As a bioweapon however, tularemia is most likely to be spread through airborne

inhalation. When contracted through inhalation, tularemia will frequently result in
life threatening pneumonia and widespread systemic infection.

Ebola And VHFs

Without a doubt the most frightening potential bioterrorist weapons on the Category
A list are the VHFs, viral hemorrhagic fevers. Of these the most well know is ebola.

Ebola is one of the most deadly viruses known to man, killing some 50 to 90
percent of those it infects. There is no treatment, no cure, and no preventative
vaccine for ebola. More frightening than those numbers, however, is the way in
which ebola kills its victims.

Once contracted, massive internal bleeding starts. This progresses to bleeding

from the eyes, nose, ears, mouth and every other bodily orifice. Finally the internal
organs begin to liquefy. There is perhaps no more gruesome disease-caused
death than that caused by the ebola virus.

There is debate within the scientific community on whether ebola could be

successfully weaponized. However documents uncovered after the fall of the
Soviet Union indicate that there was an active program to do just that. The US
government considers ebola a serious enough threat to have placed it on the A list.

Dark Winter

Three months prior to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, a two-day exercise was held at
Andrews Air Force Base, Washington, D.C. Code named Dark Winter, the purpose
of the exercise was to examine all aspects of a potential bioterrorist attack on the
US. The results of the Dark Winter exercise both surprised and frightened even
those who participated in it.
Dark Winter simulated a time frame of two weeks over its two-day actual length. In
the scenario, a bioterrorist attack was launched against the United States using
aerosolized smallpox that was released in shopping malls in three states:
Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. Only some 30 grams, (about 1 ounce) of
aerosolized smallpox virus was used, infecting about 3,000 people who had been
shopping at the malls.

As the initial cases of smallpox are diagnosed in Oklahoma (starting about six days
after the release), it becomes obvious that the US has been subjected to an attack,
since the last case of smallpox in the country was in 1974. The news media go on
a 24/7 continuous reporting cycle on the event (much like what actually happened
during the 9/11/01 attacks). Hospital emergency rooms are quickly overwhelmed,
mostly by people with normal colds and flu, who have been panicked because the
initial symptoms are similar. The Oklahoma governor declares an emergency and
activates the National Guard.

The president's cabinet and the National Security Council, NSC, meet and consider
how to allocate the very scarce amount of vaccine that exists, as well as how to
respond to the attack, and whether future attacks are likely.

By the time the NSC meets for the second time (six days later in the scenario),
some 15 States are now affected with over 2,000 reported cases and 300 fatalities.
Violence has broken out in a number of urban areas near vaccination centers,
because vaccine distribution has been limited to those in the immediately affected
areas, medical and emergency personnel and the military. Panic buying and
hoarding of food is reported as some areas report developing shortages because
delivery drivers are unwilling to enter areas with known smallpox outbreaks.

The president considers invoking a number of emergency powers, in effect martial

law, to contain the growing civil unrest and forcibly isolate and quarantine smallpox
victims and those they have been in contact with. Some governors in states without
known smallpox cases have closed borders with states with confirmed cases.

By the time of the third and final (in the scenario) NSC meeting, some 13 days after
the first diagnosed smallpox case, 1,000 people are dead, 16,000 are known to be
infected in 25 States and the outbreak has spread to 10 foreign countries.

The exercise closes with epidemiologists advising the NSC that by the end of the
second generation of the outbreak (less than four weeks from the initially
diagnosed case), 10,000 will be dead and 30,000 infected. By the end of the fourth
generation (less than seven weeks from the start), 1 million will be dead, and 3
million infected, with the epidemic continuing to progress geometrically.

The almost half century of the Cold War came to be characterized by an acronym
that, more than anything else, summed up both the absurdity and logic that kept
the US and Soviet Union from destroying each other. It was called "MAD" or
"Mutually Assured Destruction," and was the policy by which both sides insured
their own survival by having enough nuclear weapons to guarantee that even after
a first strike, enough would remain to destroy the attacker.

Peace activists decried the situation as lunacy, and yet, as absurd as it may seem,
the policy of MAD worked. It worked because neither side was either suicidal or
insane.

Unfortunately we now face an enemy that is driven by a combination of religious

extremism and visceral hatred of the West in general and the United States in
particular. An enemy who glorifies suicidal attacks as a way of achieving immortal
salvation. One who will not shrink from using the vilest methods against us. An
enemy who may well fall outside our definition of rationality.

MAD will not work against the terrorists of the 21st century.

Contents copyright (c) 2004 Modern Survival Magazine

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