bio-warfare column

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
21

Sorry to have to correct Unca Cecil, but the U.S. military most certainly did not halt its bio-warefare programs in the 70’s as mentioned in the referenced column. While I don’t feel comfortable providing details I can assure you that as late as 1985 the U.S. Army was actively engaged in biological warfare research.

Pull out a map of Utah and follow a line west and over the Wasatch Range, you’ll find a large area marked “Not Open TO Public” extending into Nevada. The area is named “Wendover Range”. Tucked into the easternmost part of the range is a small military compound marked Dugway Proving Ground. A large number of micro-biologists and virologists were housed and employed there until at least December of '85. What does this prove? Nothing. Bear in mind though that Dugway was briefly in the news in 1969 after an airborne test of an aerosal weapon went wrong and resulted in the deaths of several hundred heads of livestock.

Area 51? That place is for pussies: Dugway, now that was one spooky place.

22

Cecil’s presentation is pretty well grounded in fact, unlike many such articles I’ve seen over the years. In fact I used to work for a company whose expertise was centered in counterterrorism, specifically against biological, nuclear, and chemical weapons. Spent about 8 years there, working on projects related to the Chemical Weapons Convention, Russian demilitarization, Iraqi weapons inspections, and other fun things.
Most recently, before I left to pursue other interests, I was part of a government-sponsored training team whose job was to help emergency workers in major cities (and throughout the US) prepare for possible US incidents involving weapons of mass destruction. (Check out http://www.nbc-prepare.org.)

By far the scariest of the lot are the bio agents, but many chemical weapons are fairly easy to make in small quantities. They’re not too expensive in either case, and it is a little easier to handle chemical weapons than bio. Remember what terrorists want–they want media attention, they want to show the world that the government is bad, that authorities cannot stop them. To do that, they want big numbers and scary effects. It’s hard to generate either the numbers or the nasty effects without using large quantities of dangerous stuff in very public places, and logistics can be a nightmare. Ask a former Army Chemical Corps chemist sometime.

In Japan, they put low-grade sarin in baggies, threw the bags into paper lunchbags, and poked a hole in the side with an umbrella as they left the subway car. The value to the terrorist wasn’t the handful of folks they actually killed or even the larger amount who got sick–it was the thousands of panicking people who feared that their seasonal allergies were symptomatic of impending doom, and therefore flooded the hospitals and emergency centers.

We’ve done an awful lot to keep our cops, firemen, hazmat teams, EMTs, paramedics, doctors, and nurses informed. All the big-ticket cities are routinely training all emergency workers in what to look out for, and what to do. These folks are smart and brave, and the hardest part for them is to suppress their basic instinct to run in and save the victims long enough to don protective gear. Trust me, if anything were to happen, it would not be long before experts were there to help out, and I sincerely doubt that we’ll see any major incidents as long as we’re reasonably vigilant.

The average US citizen has far, far more to fear from SUV-driving, cel-phone talking soccer moms than from anthrax-bearing terrorists or lunatics chuckling behind tanks of bubbling green toxic gas.

I had the privilege to work with some really smart folks who know their stuff–one guy’s dad actually invented some of the nastier chemical agents, and he’s spent most of his life figuring out how protect us from them or get rid of them–and I trust their assessments. Yes, there is always a vague threat that a bad guy might figure it out, do it better than the cult did on the Tokyo subway, but it’s VERY unlikely to happen here. But the good guys who defend and protect us are busy, too. For fun and more info, check out http://www.sbccom.apgea.army.mil (home to the Army Soldier, Biological, and Chemical Command), the FBI’s home pages, and the many links you’ll find to official sources.

(Sorry I sound like an advertisement!)

23

A lot of folks seem to think these places are like Area 51. They aren’t. Most of the work in BOTH bases, as well as in Edgewood Area of Aberdeen Proving Ground in MD and Ft. McClellan, AL, has been defensive.

In fact, almost all of our resources (and I’m talking chem/bio facilities and trained people here) have been devoted to two things for the past 30 years:

  1. protecting soldiers from enemy use, and
  2. destroying the unwanted vast stockpile of old chemicals.

Dugway, Tooele, Edgewood, and simliar places are far less scary for the research done there in the past 30 years than for the stuff they keep finding out was hidden there during WW2…and they have a hard enough time maintaining funding to stay open and test gas masks and anti-toxins, without engaging in pricey development of new stuff. (We don’t need it as a threat anymore, thanks to the piles of nukes and the fact that most enemy nations have collapsed before the onslaught of our economy or under the weight of their own problems.)

Again, look up the websites for these places. I’ve sat in on budget meetings for these guys. The X-files is a fun show, but let’s be realistic here…

-Jim

24

It seems to me that people are focusing on the problem of killing lots of people, but aren’t stopping to consider that terrorism does not necessarily need to kill many.
Take this scenario. In several medium sized cities, prominent citizens are hit in the face with a pie. No biggie, the people use any of a number of reasonable, known reasons for pie-ing the people (eg they could say it was a PETA protest, or an antinuclear protest or something similar.) The pie throwers are jailed for simple assault, they make bail at the first opportunity. Now, here is the “rest of the story.” The pies were filled with small pox virus that disappeared from the Russian storage unit. The people hit were all under 40 so they are unlikely to have been vaccinated. By the time the people show symptoms of small pox, much less have it diagnosed, the pie throwers are back in their home countries. Average Americans, hearing Small Pox, panic. Small Pox is not a good biowarfare agent for a number of reasons, but it is a good terrorist weapon because people think of it as a bogey man of diseases.

The above scenario could be done with any number of viruses and bacteria. Most would not cause the terror that Small Pox would.

25

Sure–agreed, and note my earlier comments about the goals of the terrorist. Your scenario is far more likely than some that have actually been used–like the guy who got poked with an actual James-Bond-esque needle-in-the-umbrella device loaded with toxin (I’ve got the details SOMEwhere) as part of an assassination attempt. All those smart folks - top-flight chemists, philosophers, doctors, lawyers, strategists, you name it-- in Aum Shyn Rikyo (i know i’ve spelled it wrong!), and what did they use? The same dissemination device Mom uses for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches–plastic sandwich bags in a paper sack.

But realistically, there are far less dangerous and effective ways to get the desired attention (for most terrorist aims). Mostly the aim is to attract attention to a cause or discredit the authorities. Animal rights extremists have caused plenty of chaos just by throwing paint at old ladies in their furs, and largely nonviolent, nonthreatening protests (albeit with fringe elements) in Seattle and DC have brought media focus to issues related to the otherwise boring World Trade Organization. For years the IRA has kept a guerilla war going with good ol’ reliable bombs and guns. Even your local hardware store and the nearest Wall-Mart provide a wealth of potential terrorist devices at low cost, and that’s eXCLUDING the guns and knives.

We should never fall into the trap of thinking it couldn’t happen here, but neither should we cower in our bunkers and stockpile antidotes and canned goods. Enlightened self-interest goes a long way; even terrorists generally don’t want to kill themselves. Injury is more effective than murder and less likely to end badly if you’re caught. Why risk wiping out your whole bad-guy operation by messing with ricin or sarin when you can make a darned effective car bomb? Why get real anthrax when you can mail a box of cinnamon mixed with flour to B’nai B’rith and scare the heck out of everyone?

I am convinced that we’re taking the right tack as a nation–we’re training and equipping the emergency responders (cops, firemen, haz-mat teams, medics) and coordinating military resources so that we can respond quickly and appropriately. (And, not coincidentally, so they don’t get themselves killed treating a gas attack like they would a carbon monoxide leak.) Short of living in perpetual fear, there’s not much else we CAN do, and knowledge is a wonderful form of defense, against the bugs and gas themselves and the fear that lurks behind them. (A good air conditioner, bleach, and lots of water are a wonderful combination for saving lives–who knew?)

(The worst part of it all is that I never realized how much of that job sunk into my subconscious…)