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Anthrax Attacks, Biological Terrorism and Preventive Responses
From: RAND
| By:
John V. Parachini |
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION |
Not long after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, a series of envelopes containing infectious anthrax spores began to appear throughout the United States. While biological weapons are not a new phenomenon, the quality of the anthrax used and the lack of any clear source of the attacks presented a new threat in the realm of bioterrorism.
In this feature, excerpted from testimony before the Subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism, and Government Information, John Parachini, a policy analyst at RAND, discusses ways that governments can act to prevent the proliferation of biological weapons. |
 he sophisticated quality of the anthrax used in the letter sent to Senator Tom Daschle in September 2001 suggests that the bioterrorism threat has reached a new level previously viewed by many analysts as possible, but unlikely. At the moment, this new level of threat is manageable, but we must take into account the profound implications of this shift if we are to devise effective preventive and protective policies. |
There are at least three possible explanations for the origins of the sophisticated anthrax contained in the letter sent to Senator Daschle. All of them have heretofore been considered possible, but unlikely. First, these attacks could be the clandestine act of a state either moving towards wider conflict or secretly inflicting harm because it believes it can do so without detection and attribution. Second, a state could have engaged a terrorist group to conduct the attack or provided the material to a sub-national entity for its own purposes. Third, a terrorist group or individual could have produced this sophisticated quality of anthrax itself or received assistance from scientists willing to sell their expertise. All of these three explanations represent a break with the historical precedents. |
The historical data set of biological weapons use by states or terrorists, covertly or overtly, is very small. Given our potential vulnerabilities, it is a small wonder that states and terrorists have not used disease more often. Understanding why the use of biological weapons has been so infrequent may constructively focus our examination of the current anthrax attacks on measures to reduce the possibility of future attacks. |
State perpetrated bioterrorism
When it comes to the feasibility of using biological weapons, states are most likely to have the resources, technical capabilities, and organizational capacity to assemble the people, know-how, material and equipment to produce such weapons and to be able to clandestinely deliver them to valued targets. Mustering the resources and capabilities to inflict a devastating blow with biological agents has proven to be a formidable task even for states. |
The quality of the anthrax sent to the US Senate in September 2001 reportedly has characteristics generally associated with state biological weapons programs. Clandestine use of a biological agent by a state against the United States has traditionally been viewed as highly unlikely. Fear of devastating retaliation is generally believed to deter states from conducting such attacks. Retaliation would potentially be devastating because some uses of some biological agents can serve as strategic weapons. Conventional wisdom is that states might use a biological weapon like anthrax as a weapon, but only as a last resort |
The United States and the former Soviet Union dedicated considerable national defense resources to their biological weapons programs and both countries encountered significant difficulties along the way. Iraq also dedicated considerable resources to its biological weapons program. While Iraq's effort was more successful than most experts imagined possible, it still encountered a number of significant challenges. A state's ability to command resources and organize them for certain priority scientific and industrial objectives presents the potential for the greatest threat of bioterrorism. Given advances in biological sciences and the plethora of information made public about biological weapons in the last five years, other countries may have learned how to produce anthrax with sophisticated properties. |
However, there are three circumstances when a state might clandestinely wage biological terrorism. First, a state struggling for its existence might be willing to use biological weapons clandestinely as a means to forestall or to prevent imminent defeat. There is no historical example of a state responding with a biological weapon in a moment of desperate struggle for its existence, but it is conceivable. |
While the Taliban government of Afghanistan might be an example of a government in danger of being eliminated, the anthrax attacks started before the United States commenced military operations. Even the logic that a desperate government such as the Taliban or Iraq's Saddam Hussein might lash out against the United States seems improbable. A state perpetrated attack with biological weapons against the United States might cause many casualties, but it would probably not lead to the end of the American form of government nor ensure the conquest of American territory. Short of a barrage attack of ballistic missiles, the US's ability to reconstitute itself remains robust. Even a significant clandestine biological strike on a major city would not topple the system of government in the United States. Thus, the inherent limits of hiding a significant attack constrain the realm of the possible. |
Second, if a state felt it could attack with biological weapons and be undetected, it might do so. In the twentieth century, there are only two significant examples of states using biological agents. In the First World War, Germany sought to disrupt allied logistical capabilities by infecting horses with glanders. The other case involves Japanese use of biological agents during its occupation of China. Only during wartime have states conducted indiscriminate attacks with biological weapons. In the few instances, the attacked state did not have the ability to respond with devastating force. Given the long and powerful reach of modern states, it is hard to imagine a state risking the political and military consequences of discovery. |
A final example is the use of biological agents by a state as a weapon against its own citizens. In the 1980s, both the Bulgarian and the South African governments used biological materials to kill domestic political opponents. South Africa had a significant clandestine chemical and biological program that supported a major effort against regime opponents. Little is known about Bulgarian experience with biological weapons, but government operatives are believed to have assassinated a Bulgarian dissident in London with the toxin ricin, which they received from the Soviet KGB. Aside from state assassinations of regime opponents, states have been extremely reluctant to use biological weapons. |
While states can amass the resources and capabilities to wage biological terrorism, considerable disincentives keep them from doing so. A state that undertakes a clandestine attack using biological weapons risks the prospect of the attack being traced back to it. The response to such an attack could be devastating, which is reason for caution. |
State assistance to sub-national entity
An alternative possibility is that a state has provided this sophisticated anthrax to a terrorist group. The terrorist group is either serving as a surrogate for a state or a state is transferring biological weapons to a terrorist group to act on its behalf. Both possibilities have heretofore been viewed as unlikely. |
There are no widely agreed upon historical examples in the open source literature of states providing sub-national groups with biological weapons for overt or covert use. Money, arms, logistical support, and even training on how to operate in a chemically contaminated environment are all forms of assistance states have provided to terrorists. But historically they have not crossed the threshold and provided biological weapons materials to insurgency groups or terrorist organizations. State sponsors have a great incentive to control the activities of the groups they support, because they fear that retaliation may be directed against them if they are connected to a group that used biological weapons. Even if states sought to perpetrate biological attacks for their own purposes, they would probably not trust such an operation to groups or individuals that they do not completely control. |
Sub-national entity perpetrates bioterrorism
Sub-national groups or individuals can develop or acquire their own biological weapons capabilities for clandestine use, but it is not easy. Terrorist groups and individuals historically have not employed biological weapons because of a combination of formidable barriers to acquisition and use, comparatively readily available alternatives, and disincentives. Procurement of materials, recruitment of skilled individuals and sufficient knowledge are some formidable barriers. Even if some of the materials and production equipment are procurable for legitimate scientific or industrial purposes, handling virulent biological materials and fashioning them into weapons capable of producing mass casualties is beyond the reach of most sub-national groups or individuals. |
In the last twenty years, there are only two significant cases of sub-national groups and a few other cases where groups or individuals made efforts to acquire biological materials. In 1984, the Rajneeshees, a religious cult group located in Oregon, sought to win a local election by running its own candidates and intentionally poisoning local townspeople who they feared would vote against them. Using their medical clinics, cult members ordered a variety of bacterial cultures from the American Type Culture Collection located in Maryland. They contaminated ten salad bars with salmonella, sickening at least 751 people. They used commercially available biological agents to incapacitate people clandestinely in order to avoid attracting attention. The intentional character of the outbreak was not recognized for over a year. Members of the cult revealed details about the attacks to authorities in exchange for lighter sentences stemming from other charges. |
The other case occurred more than ten years later, when another religious cult, a Japanese group called the Aum Shinrikyo, sought to develop and deliver biological agents against a number of targets. The Aum's unsuccessful attempts at biological terrorism came to light after it released liquid sarin on the Tokyo subway. |
Aum leaders had delusions of grandeur that far exceeded reality. They imagined a world they sought to create that was not constrained by the world in which they lived. To bring this imaginary world into being, they sought weapons they believed might trigger an apocalypse from which they would emerge as a dominant power. Aum leaders may have deluded themselves into thinking that their organization was a government and military-in-waiting, and hence, seeking to acquire weapons it believed states possessed seemed legitimate. Aum sought pathogens that are generally associated with military biological weapons programs. |
The Aum leadership presents another anomaly. Shoko Asahara, Aum's leader, was a controlling leader obsessed with poisons. He wrote songs in praise of sarin. He also greatly admired another mass poisoner, Adolph Hitler. The leadership mindset of Aum explains a great deal about the group's interest in unconventional weapons. They were fascinated by the means of catalyzing an apocalypse more than they were fascinated by killing large numbers of people. In contrast, Timothy McVeigh, Ramzi Yousef, and Mohammed Atta were determined to kill large numbers of people and the means to do so was merely instrumental. |
One aspect of the Aum biological weapons experience deserves special note when considering the threat of biological terrorism. Aum's global effort to procure biological materials for its nefarious purposes deserves much greater examination. While there is no open source information indicating that the Aum obtained any radiological, biological, or chemical materials in Russia, it certainly tried. That the group tried and succeeded in getting meetings with Russian scientists, some of whom had weapons expertise, is troubling. |
Aum members also traveled to Zaire believing they could obtain samples of the Ebola virus. There is no evidence to indicate that they were successful in their venture. What may have inspired their trip was a newspaper account of a Japanese tourist who developed a hemorrhagic fever after returning from a game safari in Africa. In fact, during the period when Aum members traveled to Zaire, there were no reported outbreaks of Ebola. Aum was trying to obtain biological material from infected people or corpses for weapons purposes. This highlights a very different source of material than the weapons laboratories of the former Soviet Union. It is probably easier to monitor scientific institutes that were once or are currently affiliated with weapons programs than it is to monitor sites of deadly disease outbreaks that occur around the globe. Some thought and attention needs to be given to how natural disease outbreaks might be exploited by terrorists for pernicious purposes. |
Why has biological weapons use been so infrequent?
The use of disease and biological material as a weapon is not a new method of warfare. What is surprising is how infrequently it is has been used. Biological agents may appeal to the new terrorist groups because they affect people indiscriminately and unnoticed, thereby sowing panic. A pattern is emerging that terrorists who perpetrate mass and indiscriminate attacks do not claim responsibility. In contrast to the turgid manifestos issued by terrorists in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, recent mass casualty terrorists have not claimed responsibility until they were imprisoned. Biological agents enable terrorists to preserve their anonymity because of their delayed impact and can be confused with natural disease outbreaks. Instead of the immediate gratification of seeing an explosion or the glory of claiming credit for disrupting society, the biological weapons terrorist may derive satisfaction from seeing society's panicked response to their actions. If this is the case, this is a new motive for the mass casualty terrorist. |
There are a number of countervailing disincentives against states and terrorists using biological weapons, which help to explain why their use is so infrequent. Biological weapons pose considerable technical and operational challenges. Some of the difficulties faced involve acquiring the material, method of production, knowledge of weaponization, and successfully delivering the weapon to the target.. In cases where the terrorist supporters and adversaries are intermingled in the population, biological weapons may inadvertently hit the same people for whom terrorists claim to fight. Terrorists may also hesitate in using biological weapons specifically because breaking the taboo on their use may evoke considerable retaliation. The use of disease as a weapon is widely recognized in most cultures as a means of killing that is beyond the bounds of a civilized society. |
From a psychological perspective, terrorists may be drawn to explosives as arsonists are drawn to fire. The immediate gratification of explosives and the thrill of the blast may meet a psychological need of terrorists that the delayed effects of biological weapons do not. Causing slow death of others may not offer the same psychological thrill achieved by killing with firearms or explosives. |
Perhaps the greatest alternative to using biological weapons is that terrorists can inflict (and have inflicted) many more fatalities and casualties with conventional explosives than with unconventional weapons. Biological weapons present technical and operational challenges that determined killers may not have the patience to overcome. Alternatively, they may simply concentrate their efforts on more readily available options such as explosives. |
Putting aside the spectacular quality of the Aum Shinrikyo subway attack with liquid sarin in Tokyo, far fewer people died or were injured than in similarly spectacular attacks with explosives. In comparison to the bombings of the Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City, the Khobar Towers military barracks in Saudi Arabia, and the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, fewer people died as a result of the sarin release. In comparison with the recent attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the Tokyo subway incident, though clearly tragic, was simply an event of much smaller scale. |
But even if the possibility of a catastrophic biological weapons attack is remote, government has a responsibility to do all that it can to prevent, protect against and respond to unlikely events. The challenge is to determine how much to prepare for a low-probability, albeit potentially catastrophic attack, while at the same time guarding against not focusing enough on more probable events with significant, but not necessarily catastrophic, consequences. |
Nonproliferation measures to address biological terrorism
The recent anthrax attacks highlight a number of improvements the United States needs to undertake in order to better protect its citizenry against bioterrorism. The positive side of these frightening attacks is that they are forcing an upgrade of our capabilities to handle bioterrorism. |
Preventive nonproliferation measures can form the basis for a frontline of defense against attacks with biological weapons. Afterattack response is important because it can help limit the loss of life the destruction of property and the political implications of an attack. However, afterattack measures are not a substitute for preventive and preemptive measures. Completely eliminating the possibility of an attack with unconventional weapons is probably not possible, but reducing the opportunity for states and sub-national groups to acquire unconventional weapons is possible. |
A new global effort must be made to stop the proliferation of dangerous pathogens to irresponsible states, organizations and individuals. There are almost 100 culture collections in the United States and more than 450 collections around the world. The US improved its system in 1995 after an individual with ties to anti-government groups fraudulently sought disease cultures from a culture collection. However, further improvements may still be required. A national registry of where dangerous pathogens are located and who has permission to work with them should be established. It is frightening to note what little regulation other countries have governing the transfer, storage, and use of dangerous pathogens. |
Conclusion
The recent anthrax attacks represent a fundamental shift in the nature of the biological terrorism threat. Fortunately, the scope and magnitude of this shift is far less devastating than the events of September 11. As we face this new phase of biological weapons terrorism, it is important to maintain perspective even though the ability of the perpetrator of the anthrax attacks to terrorize the country is distressing. Fortunately, there have been comparatively few casualties. These attacks should serve to spur government action on a number of fronts to strengthen our national ability to prevent the proliferation of biological weapons, deny and dissuade states and sub-national groups from using them, and develop rapid means to detect an attack and track down the perpetrator should preemptive and preventive measures fail. |
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