MESSAGE
| DATE | 2001-10-16 |
| FROM | Brooklyn Linux Solutions CEO
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [hangout] Bio Terrorism
|
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/17/national/17WEAP.html
October 17, 2001
NEWS ANALYSIS
Sign of Escalating Threat
By STEPHEN ENGELBERG and JUDITH MILLER
ews Analysis
The discovery of what government officials say is high-grade anthrax in a
letter mailed to Congress is the most worrisome development yet in a series
of bioterrorist attacks that has already rattled the nation.
The officials and weapons experts said yesterday that it suggested that
somewhere, someone has access to the sort of germ weapons capable of
inflicting huge casualties.
So far, the officials said, the attacker or attackers have used a
rudimentary delivery system: the mail. Their intent and capabilities remain
unknown, as does the amount of anthrax available to them. But what worries
the officials in Washington is the possibility that an adversary with even
a small quantity could easily find much more effective means of spreading
the disease.
Until yesterday's preliminary analysis of the letter received by Tom
Daschle, the Senate majority leader, the spate of anthrax-laced envelopes
stirred considerable anxiety but posed a limited threat. Some experts
assumed that the anthrax being sent around the country was crudely made,
composed mostly of large particles that fell to the ground and thus
endangered primarily those in the immediate area.
What government officials say arrived in Senator Daschle's office was
significantly more threatening. Following the use of anthrax in Florida, it
suggests that for the first time in history a sophisticated form of anthrax
has been developed and used as a weapon in warfare or bioterrorism.
The key to understanding the danger, experts said, is in the size of the
particles. The anthrax sent to Mr. Daschle, government officials said, was
finely milled so that it would float a considerable distance on the
smallest of air currents.
Producing germs that could be spread as a mist had been the main technical
challenge facing germ warriors throughout the 20th century. Anthrax is what
the Nobel laureate Joshua Lederberg calls a "professional pathogen," a
hardy germ that could wreak havoc if inhaled. The trick was turning it into
an aerosol that lingers.
Decades ago, Soviet and American scientists separately devised methods to
dry and grind anthrax into the tiny particles - five microns or less - that
could easily enter the nostrils and lodge in the lungs.
Experts say an adversary armed with anthrax in this form would have a host
of possible targets for mass terrorism. Experiments by the United States in
the 1960's showed that anthrax released in the New York City subway could
spread widely underground, infecting large numbers of people. Federal
officials used a benign germ related to anthrax to demonstrate the possible
effects.
An enemy with large quantities of high-grade anthrax could mount a credible
attack on a city or large office building. Dried anthrax could be spread
using a crop-duster or small airplane equipped with the appropriate
nozzles. Buildings are an easier target and could be contaminated with a
much smaller amount of anthrax pumped through a garden spray bottle,
experts say.
Victims of an anthrax attack can be easily treated with antibiotics, but
that requires that public health officials recognize the germ has been
dispersed at a particular location. Experts say that detection equipment is
far from reliable, which means the first signs could come when people show
up in the emergency room with flulike symptoms.
Anthrax was one of the most important weapons in both the Soviet Union's
and the United States' germ weapons arsenals.
Officials from both countries say they never used germ weapons, though Ken
Alibek, a prominent defector from the Soviet germ warfare program,
maintains that Moscow may have used germs as weapons against Germany and in
Afghanistan.
The United States abandoned its own germ program in 1969, and soon after
most of the world's nations signed an international treaty banning the
development and possession of such weapons.
The Soviet Union also signed the pact, but cheated on a massive scale, say
former Soviet officials who worked to refine the strains of anthrax, among
other germs, until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1990.
In the 1980's, other nations, notably Iraq, began developing the germ as a
weapon. Iraqi scientists spent more than five years on the project,
cultivating anthrax and processing it into a wet slurry that was loaded
into bombs and missiles.
United Nations inspectors who later studied the Iraqi program said Baghdad
did not manage to produce dry anthrax that could be delivered as an aerosol
though it did buy specialized nozzles for its fleet of crop- dusters.
In the years since, United Nations officials say, Iraq has acquired the
capability to produce the high-grade, dry anthrax of the appropriate
particle size.
None of this history gives investigators much of a hint as to the origins
of the current attack. It is not clear whether the anthrax sent to Senator
Daschle was produced by the attacker or attackers, bought from a foreign
nation or made with the help of a rogue scientist.
Nor was it known whether the attacker or attackers could make or obtain
larger quantities.
Former germ weapons scientists say that neither is easy. It took
experienced Iraqi scientists several years to figure out how to cultivate
large amounts of anthrax, which is the crucial first step to making a
weapon.
Drying the germs is relatively straightforward. But that process creates a
mix of particles that stick together, and most of them are far too large
for use as an effective weapon. Grinding the material to a small, uniform
size without damaging a significant portion of the germs is not easily
done, former American and Soviet germ scientists say.
The discovery of expertly processed anthrax, one former scientist said,
casts serious doubt on the theory advanced by some investigators that the
germ attacks were the work of a lone amateur with a smattering of knowledge
about biology.
"I do think in one form or another, a state was involved," one former
American scientist said. "It could be employees of a former state, such as
a Russian scientist."
Nor is it clear whether Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden's network, was involved
in any way. American intelligence officials say Mr. bin Laden has tried to
acquire nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
Until now, there has been no suggestion that he has succeeded in this goal,
although there have been reports of testing chemicals and crude biological
weapons on animals at one of his training camps in Afghanistan.
The attempted use of anthrax against a United States senator takes
President Bush into a new, uncharted realm, particularly if the attack is
ever linked to a specific nation. On the eve of the gulf war, his father
weighed the question of whether to respond with nuclear weapons to a germ
attack against the United States-led coalition. After a discussion among
his senior advisers, President George Bush decided against such
retaliation. Instead, American officials sent Baghdad an ambiguously
phrased warning that was delivered in a letter from Mr. Bush to Saddam
Hussein.
"Your country," the letter said, "will pay a terrible price if you order
unconscionable acts."
--
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