Saturday, December 22, 2007
A short note on the risks of bioterrorism
Stratfor sent out an email on the risks of bioterrorism that is so interesting I thought I would push against the edges of fair use and post a lengthy excerpt (in return for giving you the link to their new home page):
Earlier in December, Interpol hosted a bioterrorism tabletop exercise at its headquarters in Lyon, France, that was code named "Black Death." The scenario for the exercise involved militants unleashing a biological agent at a large sporting event, using air horns to disperse the agent into the unwitting crowd. According to the opening statement given by Interpol Secretary-General Ronald Noble, "Using disease, terrorists can substantially multiply the devastation and societal disruption that they cause, and they can do it without sophisticated infrastructure or state support. For this very reason, we would be mistaken to treat a worst-case scenario as a remote possibility. Instead, we must deal with this as an eventuality for which we need to be prepared."
In this season of large college bowl games and the National Football League playoffs in the United States, and large nonsporting events such as the New Year's Eve celebration in New York's Times Square -- not to mention the upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing -- a discussion of bioterrorism and the threat it poses might be of interest.
First, it must be recognized that during the past several decades of the modern terrorist era, biological weapons have been used very infrequently -- and there are some very good reasons for this. Contrary to their portrayal in movies and television shows, biological agents are difficult to manufacture and deploy effectively in the real world. In spite of the fear such substances engender, even in cases in which they have been somewhat effective they have proven to be less effective and more costly than more conventional attacks using firearms and explosives.
In fact, nobody even noticed what was perhaps the largest malevolent deployment of biological agents in history, in which thousands of gallons of liquid anthrax and botulinum toxin were released during several attacks in a major metropolitan area over a three-year period. This use of biological agents was perpetrated by the Japanese apocalyptic cult Aum Shinrikyo. An examination of the group's chemical and biological weapons (CBW) program provides some important insight into biological weapons, their costs -- and their limitations.
In the late 1980s, Aum's team of trained scientists spent millions of dollars to develop a series of state-of-the-art biological weapons research and production laboratories. The group experimented with botulinum toxin, anthrax, cholera and Q fever and even tried to acquire the Ebola virus. The group hoped to produce enough biological agent to trigger a global Armageddon. Between April of 1990 and August of 1993, Aum conducted seven large-scale attacks involving the use of thousands of gallons of biological agents -- four with anthrax and three with botulinum toxin.
The group's first attempts at unleashing mega-death on the world involved the use of botulinum toxin. In April of 1990, Aum used a fleet of three trucks equipped with aerosol sprayers to release liquid botulinum toxin on targets that included the Imperial Palace, the Diet and the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, two U.S. naval bases and the airport in Narita. In spite of the massive quantities of agent released, there were no mass casualties and, in fact, nobody outside of the cult was even aware the attacks had taken place.
When the botulinum operations failed to produce results, Aum's scientists went back to the drawing board and retooled their biological weapons facilities to produce anthrax. By mid-1993, they were ready to launch attacks involving anthrax, and between June and August of 1993 the group sprayed thousands of gallons of aerosolized liquid anthrax in Tokyo. This time Aum not only employed its fleet of sprayer trucks, but also use sprayers mounted on the roof of their headquarters to disperse a cloud of aerosolized anthrax over the city. Again, the attacks produced no results and were not even noticed. It was only after the group's successful 1995 subway attacks using sarin nerve agent that a Japanese government investigation discovered that the 1990 and 1993 biological attacks had occurred.
Aum Shinrikyo's team of highly trained scientists worked under ideal conditions in a first-world country with a virtually unlimited budget. The team worked in large, modern facilities to produce substantial quantities of biological weapons. Despite the millions of dollars the group spent on its bioweapons program, it still faced problems in creating virulent biological agents, and it also found it difficult to dispense those agents effectively.
Even when the group switched to employing a nerve agent, it only succeeded in killing a handful of people. A comparison between the Aum Shinrikyo Tokyo subway attack and the jihadist attack against the Madrid trains in 2004 shows that chemical/biological attacks are more expensive to produce and yield fewer results than attacks using conventional explosives. In the March 1995 Tokyo subway attack -- Aum's most successful -- the group placed 11 sarin-filled plastic bags on five different subway trains and killed 12 people. In the 2004 Madrid attack, jihadists detonated 10 improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and killed 191 people. Aum's CBW program cost millions and took years of research and effort; the Madrid bombings only cost a few thousand dollars, and the IEDs were assembled in a few days.
The most deadly biological terrorism attack to date was the case involving a series of letters containing anthrax in the weeks following the Sept. 11 attacks -- a case the FBI calls Amerithrax. While the Amerithrax letters did cause panic and result in companies all across the country temporarily shutting down if a panicked employee spotted a bit of drywall dust or powdered sugar from doughnuts eaten by someone on the last shift, in practical terms, the attacks were very ineffective. The Amerithrax letters resulted in five deaths; another 22 victims were infected but recovered after receiving medical treatment. The letters did not succeed in infecting senior officials at the media companies targeted by the first wave of letters, or Sens. Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy, who were targeted by a second wave of letters.
By way of comparison, John Mohammed, the so-called "D.C. Sniper," was able to cause mass panic and kill twice as many people (10) by simply purchasing and using one assault rifle. This required far less time, effort and expense than producing the anthrax spores used in the Amerithrax case. It is this cost-benefit ratio that, from a militant's perspective, makes firearms and explosives more attractive weapons for an attack. This then is the primary reason that more attacks using biological weapons have not been executed: The cost is higher than the benefit.
There are many who are learned among you. Release the hounds.
10 Comments:
By 
Purple Avenger, at
Sat Dec 22, 05:57:00 PM:
Relying on airborn dissemination of bio agents is too hit-or-miss.
Large cruise ship kitchen worker...
Concession worker at large stadium events...
Sandwich maker for places that distribute to work site roach coaches...
Of course a half dozen guys simply wandering aimlessly around the country doing completely random murders would terrorize the whole country in a jiffy.
By Kinuachdrach, at
Sat Dec 22, 06:41:00 PM:
The failures are fascinating -- especially laid along side natural successes like the Medieval Black Death which killed perhaps 1/3 of the population. The implication is that we still do not know how to replicate a natural plague -- and maybe modern sanitary provisions render a plague impossible.
But unintended consequences affect terrorists as well as western political elites. If a biological attack did succeed, it would probably disproportionately kill the old and the already sick. Thus, it might actually dig western governments out of the hole they have dug for us all with their unsustainable pension & medical systems.
Perhaps terrorists recognize this possibility, and therefore avoid doing something that might paradoxically leave them facing a less-burdened enemy?
By 
, at
Sat Dec 22, 10:41:00 PM:
Frankly, if the terrorists are so smart why aren't they here doing some basic simple terrorizing?
A couple guys with free access to cash and some high powered rifles and no moral qualms about who they kill could randomly shoot school buses, shopping centers, blow up gasoline tankers at stations, and the list is endless. As long as they paid cash and stayed out of the limelight I think it would be very difficult to catch them. And the country would be in constant terror. There would start to be copycat killers as well.
Why are they not doing some fairly cheap efficient attacks? Are they just too engrossed in planning for the spectacular or has the government quietly stopped some of these folks?
By , at
Sun Dec 23, 12:11:00 AM:
"Are they just too engrossed in planning for the spectacular or has the government quietly stopped some of these folks?"
Little bit of both, I say. Al Qaeda in particular is virtually obsessed with garnering media attention, and thereby multiplying their effects both as an act of terror and as a morale booster for their own. Subtlety doesn't serve them too well in this regard. They'd rather be able to say "be blew up a UN building" than "we poisoned an important Senator."
And a number of terror plots have been quietly thwarted. I'm amazed from time to time about news articles like "authorities have arrested suspect(s) X on terrorism charges; X was in possession of Y pounds of explosives and Z firearms" that soon disappear.
By jj mollo, at
Sun Dec 23, 12:45:00 AM:
Of course a half dozen guys simply wandering aimlessly around the country doing completely random murders would terrorize the whole country in a jiffy.
I suspect we already have more than half a dozen guys out there murdering people at random. There just not doing it as frequently as the DC sniper, nor are the patterns as easily recognized. Whenever there is a consistent pattern, people usually do get freaked out, but the police have pretty good success at shutting them down once they recognize them. If the police didn't report the murders as linked, there would many times not even be a public response.
By Broadsword, at
Sun Dec 23, 10:12:00 AM:
Both "terrorize the whole country in a jiffy" and
"the country would be in constant terror" are simplistic. Are the writers exempting themselves from their predicted "Jiffy Terror"? I disgree with the assumption that the entire nation would be unable to cowboy up. Certainly news readers would increasingly use the phrase 'increasingly terrorized' without any metrics. I believe peoples' vigilance would increase in a "Let's keep our eyes peeled and get these bastards" sort of mood. I know I would.
By , at
Sun Dec 23, 12:01:00 PM:
What amazes me about Aum is that with the amount of money they spent, a lot of people had to be involved. A lot of educated, skilled people. And, from the sound of it, they just kept working away. No one spoke up.
By , at
Sun Dec 23, 01:00:00 PM:
It turns out that, yes, effectively causing large-scale epidemics with "traditional" bioweapons is harder than one might think. But that's the last war, unfortunately. This is the new age of genetic manipulation, in which the average grad student in molecular biology has the expertise to intentionally modify organisms to increase their lethality and transmissibility, and the technology and materials to do so are available in college-level labs and for purchase over the internet. (For examples, google "australian mousepox" and "polio virus created in lab".) What are the odds that religious or other fanatics will figure this out? All too good, I fear. Remember, these things only seem terribly unlikely until they happen.
By , at
Sun Dec 23, 08:50:00 PM:
""Both "terrorize the whole country in a jiffy" and
"the country would be in constant terror" are simplistic. Are the writers exempting themselves from their predicted "Jiffy Terror"? I disgree with the assumption that the entire nation would be unable to cowboy up.""
Yes, simplistic,you are correct. But, if large numbers of citizens began arming themselves and preparing to fight back would the liberals howl so much that the police would spend more time disarming honest citizens than chasing bad guys? I honestly don't know. I know my family and I would resolve not to rely on the government to protect us, but how widespread is that resolve?
By Georg Felis, at
Mon Dec 24, 10:51:00 PM:
"Terrorizing the country" is more a matter of perception than reality. For example, in the Anthrax attack previously referred to, the attack included major media outlets and the Legislative branch. One casualty among the chattering classes is worth several front page stories on the New York Times, or even more if one of our stalwart legislators (Ha!) were to feel threatened. As somebody old enough to remember the Great Johnny Carson Toilet Paper Shortage, there is no event too small or relativly ineffectual that the Media cannot turn into a disaster riveling the Titanic. Or Waterworld. All they seem to need is a push.
