Biological Terrorism Dangers Overstated, Expert Says

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — U.S. biodefense advocates have been “crying wolf” on the potential for catastrophic bioterrorism, playing up worst-case scenarios and driving billions of dollars into developing questionable defenses against questionable threats, a U.S. military analyst said yesterday (see GSN, March 9).

Prominent exercises and arguments since the Sept. 11 attacks suggesting terrorists could effectively use biological weapons to create catastrophic destruction are backed by few facts and little hard, reliable data, said Anthony Cordesman, who holds the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and is a national security analyst for ABC News. 

“I’m not convinced that we have been willing to admit the level of uncertainty, the level of difficulty, and the lack of credible data, particularly on an unclassified level,” he said, speaking at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars here.

While Cordesman acknowledged he has no technical background in biological defense, he does have several decades of government national security experience. That includes shutting down U.S. military biological warfare programs at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in the early 1970s after the United States signed on to the Biological Weapons Convention.

Before the offensive programs were terminated, he said, little research was done that decisively showed how to effectively weaponize biological agents — which Cordesman described as producing “stable particulates that are disseminated in the air of a very precise size.”

“Frankly, we simply did not know how to analyze the impact of weaponization in biological weapons when we terminated our programs,” he said.

Cordesman also has served as a national security assistant to Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) on the Senate Armed Services Committee, as intelligence assessment director in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and as civilian assistant to the deputy defense secretary.

He said commercial experts have questioned the reliability of data developed by U.S. biological weapons designers on the effectiveness of disseminating such deadly agents.

Cordesman said any future biological terrorism would most likely be on a limited scale, and that the United States should focus more on preparing to respond to such an incident and discouraging panic than on “planning for the end of the world.”

“I think it is much more likely it will be a low-level, very crude attack with physiological, political and economic impacts at least initially,” he said.

Cordesman criticized exercises predicating massive casualties from terrorist attacks such as the much-publicized “Atlantic Storm” conducted by several nongovernmental U.S. organizations in January.

“Where are these lethality data coming from? Have you ever read the footnotes on them?” Cordesman said. “It’s a study done years and years ago that was actually using data derived by somebody else and repeating it again and again.”

The Atlantic Storm scenario had terrorists enlisting expert help to build aerosolized smallpox weapons used in one day to ultimately infect more than 600,000 people in multiple countries, killing 25 percent of victims.

While Cordesman did not participate, he was an “observer” to Atlantic Storm’s predecessor, “Dark Winter,” which in the summer of 2001 was conducted by many of the same people. Experts criticized that exercise for assuming an initial smallpox transmission rate of 10 people for every person infected and a 33-percent fatality rate, killing as many as 1 million people.

“I have almost stopped going to biological war games. I don’t find them credible.  I don’t find them parametric. I don’t find people are briefing on the uncertainties involved or creating realistic models for decision makers,” he said.

“Time and again, they’re either valid by focusing on one narrow issue or are simply designed to scare the hell out of everybody and show how important the issue is. The time is over frankly where you should run these models,” he said.

A senior organizer defended the exercises in an e-mail to Global Security Newswire.

“Cordesman buttonholed me during Dark Winter to tell me how great the exercise was; apparently he changed his mind,” said Tara O’Toole, chief executive officer of the Center for Biosecurity of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

“The whole point of both Dark Winter and Atlantic Storm was to increase awareness of bioterrorist threats,” she said. “As a genre, smallpox was supposed to be illustrative of the array of potential bioweapons attacks and the types of problems and decisions leaders would confront. In this regard, both exercises met with some success.”

A program from Cordesman’s own network, ABC News’s “Nightline,” over two nights covered favorably the play-by-play of Atlantic Storm, which included former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, a French former health minister, a Canadian former foreign minister, and a former prime minister of Norway who was also director general of the World Health Organization. 

Cordesman did not spare the program his critique. “I think it was very deterministic. I think it was designed to show how serious the problem could be and that’s what I might expect from a media analysis,” he said. “Did I think it was valid?  Could you tell within the limits of uncertainty whether this met a credible case?   No.”

Some of Cordesman’s major points echoed a Congressional Research Service report released in May 2004, which concluded that biological terrorism against the United States would be expected to produce mass terror but limited casualties.

“The potential public threat posed by [chemical and biological] terrorism is not accurately assessed through the development of worst-case scenario exercises such as Dark Winter” and others that point to U.S. vulnerabilities but not likely threats, it says.

Cordesman said there is poor decision-making on how biological defense money should be spent and poor accounting of the money is used.

“We are spending a hell of a lot of money, on what is in many ways, almost anybody’s guess,” he said.

“What are we spending it for? When will there be deliverables?  What will the deliverables be?  How well will they deal with terrorism? Find me the report, find me the analysis [that gives the answers],” he said.

The federal government across agencies spends as much as $7 billion a year on biological defense, he said.

On vaccine development and stockpiling programs, which reportedly account for a significant portion of the expenditures, he said, “If you look each of them you can’t figure out the cost and effectiveness.”

“I suspect if nothing else, I could put some of that money into the public health program and stop spending a significant portion of it pretty quickly,” he said.

Cordesman also criticized a prominent commission’s report on U.S. intelligence capabilities regarding weapons of mass destruction, released in March, for disclosing insufficient information to help the public understand any al-Qaeda biological weapons capabilities.

The commission, also known as the Robb-Silberman panel, concluded al-Qaeda had assembled capabilities for producing an unspecified deadly agent, supposedly anthrax.

Cordesman challenged the report’s recommendation to invest more heavily in spies to penetrate the al-Qaeda network. “I’m not sure we can necessarily count on penetrating into these groups.”

Even were U.S. intelligence able to infiltrate such groups, he said, a lack of understanding about effectively weaponizing biological weapons would hamper efforts to understand the capabilities of other states or groups.

While the United States conducted some weapons dissemination tests in the past, the research was not extensive or particularly successful, he said.

“The few tests which were actually effective, and they were chemical not biological, had as much of a mistake rate as a success,” he said.

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Screening, Education Could Limit Health Problems Related to Smallpox Vaccine, Study Finds

By Chris Schneidmiller
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Extensive screening and education appear to have reduced the potential for serious side effects among people who were vaccinated against smallpox in recent years, according to an article published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association (see GSN, Nov.14).

Still, the vaccine was not without risks — at least three people died shortly after receiving the shot during a U.S. Health and Human Services vaccination program and two suffered permanent disabilities. Nevertheless, researchers said the safety system set up for vaccine recipients could point the way to safeguarding patients who are exposed to the pathogen in an act of bioterrorism.

Health and Human Services between Jan. 24 and Oct. 31, 2003, administered the Dryvax smallpox vaccine to 37,901 civilian medical professionals and first responders in 55 jurisdictions, according to the article by Centers for Disease Control researcher Christine Casey and 18 colleagues. That count was far less than the millions of volunteers the Bush administration hoped to inoculate so that they could safely provide medical and emergency care following an intentional release of smallpox.

All potential volunteers received educational material that included a questionnaire that would help them determine if they had risk factors such as eczema or immune system deficiencies that could lead to health problems following vaccination.

Recipients also received instructions on proper care for the vaccine injection site and details on reporting any “adverse events” following vaccination. An adverse event is a health problem that arises following vaccination that cannot be directly connected to the treatment, the article states. An “adverse reaction” is one that is found to be caused by the shot.

There were no reports of potentially fatal adverse reactions or reactions that required treatment with the vaccinia immune globulin, the article states. “The absence … provides indirect evidence of effective vaccination screening and education, as well as attentive vaccination site care and monitoring,” the article states.

“The goal of the education and the screening was to make this as safe a vaccine administration program as possible for the adverse events we know about and were able to prevent. And I would say that we succeeded in that with this program,” Gina Mootrey, associate science director for the epidemiology and surveillance division of the CDC National Immunization Program, said in an interview.

Volunteers were also monitored following vaccination. State and local jurisdictions contacted the recipients within 28 days to ensure that any serious health effects had been identified, the article states.

All adverse events were to be reported to the Centers for Disease Control and to the nationwide Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, Mootrey said. 

There were 822 reports of adverse events — 100 of which were determined to be serious. Eighty-five people required hospital care, with 10 suffering life-threatening conditions.  

Two women, ages 55 and 57, suffered fatal heart attacks within four days of vaccination, while a 45-year-old man died following a heart attack 69 days after his treatment.

“This was the safest possible vaccination program that could be undertaken with the smallpox vaccine, but at its best it remains a very hazardous vaccine,” Vanderbilt University vaccine expert William Schaffner told the Washington Post. “Eighty-five hospitalizations, two permanent disabilities, 10 life-threatening reactions and three deaths. That is not a safe vaccine.”

There were a total of 203 potential cardiac events that were possibly linked to the smallpox inoculations, according to the researchers. That included 21 cases of heart inflammation and 10 “ischemic cardiac events” — heart attacks or angina. Such responses “were not anticipated based on historical data,” the article states. They quickly led to increased screening in Health and Human Services and Defense Department vaccination programs of vaccinees for potential heart problems that could be exacerbated by inoculation.

No heart attacks and angina were reported after the heightened screening was instituted, the article states.

The researchers note in the article that the rate of heart events “identified in civilian vaccinees, including the incidence of sudden death, does not appear to be greater than that expected in a comparable nonvaccinated population.” It remains unknown whether the vaccine actually caused the incidents.

The researchers encouraged additional study of heart and skin risk factors and development of a vaccine less likely to produce reactions as steps toward further reducing potential health effects from the treatment.

Mootrey said the safety system used in the Health and Human Services program could be used in a mass, rapid vaccination effort in preparation for or in the wake of a bioterror incident. The educational material is available and the reporting system operating, she said.

“Our understanding of the adverse events that was gained in this small program would be readily available,” she said. “We wouldn’t have to learn it again.”

A separate study published this week in the Journal reported limited neurologic adverse events connected to the smallpox vaccine.

The Defense and Health and Human Services departments vaccinated 665,000 people from 2002 to 2004. Subsequently, there were 214 reports of neurologic problems potentially linked to the shot. The most common complaint was headaches, with 95 cases, the article states.

There were eight seizures, which resulted in one death. Also reported were 13 cases of suspected meningitis, three incidents of suspected encephalitis and 11 cases of Bell palsy. Twenty-seven of the 39 serious events occurred in first-time vaccines, and 37 of the cases were reported within 12 days of vaccination. The events “occurred in accordance with expected ranges,” according to the article.

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Three Terrorism Suspects Charged in Germany

Three men have been charged in Germany for dealings with the al-Qaeda terrorist organization, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 28).

Ibrahim Mohamed K., a Syrian national, and Yasser Abu S., a Palestinian, were charged Thursday with membership in a foreign terrorist organization. Yasser’s brother, Ismail Abu S., faces a lesser charge of supporting a foreign terrorist organization, federal prosecutors said.

Ibrahim Mohamed K. unsuccessfully sought to obtain unspecified nuclear material late last year, according to chief federal prosecutor Kay Nehm.

“He was a member of al-Qaeda’s command structure with contacts right up to the top leadership, in particular to Osama bin Laden,” Nehm said in a statement (David Rising, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Dec. 6)

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WMD Proliferation Remains Primary Global Security Threat, Australian Foreign Minister Says

It is only a “matter of time” before terrorists obtain weapons of mass destruction, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer warned today (see GSN, Nov. 3).

Downer said the international community must limit the number of countries that produce biological, chemical or nuclear weapons, thereby providing “fewer opportunities for their leakage to terrorists.”

He said all countries should strengthen pertinent multilateral treaties, improve radioactive material security, and stop supplying dual-use materials to states with “troubling” arms programs.

“It’s only a matter of time before determined terrorist groups join forces with unscrupulous proliferators,” Downer said.

"There is little doubt that the perpetrators of attacks in Amman, Bali, Istanbul, London, Madrid, New Delhi, New York and Riyadh — to name a few — would have used deadlier weapons if they had them,” he said (Associated Press/Jakarta Post, Dec. 7)

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No Negotiations on North Korea Sanctions, U.S. Says

The United States today announced that it would not discuss lifting sanctions on several North Korean entities in order to persuade Pyongyang to resume nuclear negotiations, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Dec. 6).

Washington “is not going to negotiate over economic sanctions that have been imposed in accordance with U.S. law,” said U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Alexander Vershbow. “It’s up to North Korea to end the behavior that led to those sanctions.”

The measures were taken because Pyongyang conducted exports “of dangerous military technology, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, the counterfeiting of U.S. currency and many other illicit activities,” Vershbow said.

“Our enforcement of U.S. law should not be used to hold up the six-party talks,” he said.

Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe also said today that North Korea’s objections to the sanctions should not be used to undermine the disarmament negotiations.

“The North Korean position is bringing up a problem that is outside the framework of the six-party talks and is not constructive,” he said (Kelly Olsen, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Dec. 6).

Washington has called for an “informal” meeting of the six nations negotiating the nuclear issue to be held this month in South Korea, said Japan’s main opposition leader, Seiji Maehara.

North Korea has not yet responded, however, to a proposal for a chief delegates meeting Dec. 19 on the resort island of Jeju, Maehara said (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Dec. 7)

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U.S. Lawmaker Says Transparency Needed for India-U.S. Nuclear Technology Sharing Agreement

U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) said yesterday that any U.S. agreement to share nuclear technology with India must be transparent if it is to receive congressional approval, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Nov. 30).

“While the Bush administration has, I think, been very clear in discussions with the Indian government about its expectations, let me emphasize that any Indian plan will have to pass muster with the United States Congress,” Lugar said to Indian delegates in Washington for a U.S.-India Strategic Dialogue.

“That should not be viewed as a threat, but rather as a political challenge that must be met,” he said.

Lugar said that any Indian plan for separation of civilian and military nuclear facilities required under the agreement cannot be “opaque or incomprehensible.”

“More generally, as a politician in the United States Senate charged with guiding this agreement through the legislative branch, I would urge the Indian side to think in maximalist terms and include as many facilities as possible within the scope of the civilian declaration,” he said.

“Conversely, a minimalist approach will likely only delay consideration of this initiative in the U.S. Congress and in the Nuclear Suppliers Group. Or, at worst, it could result in unfavorable action by one or both bodies,” he added.

Lugar cautioned that any plan must be “credible, transparent and defensible from a nonproliferation standpoint.”

The plan must also contain provisions for tracking nuclear materials subject to International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards exported to and used in India, Lugar said.

“The separation plan must ensure, and the safeguards must confirm, that U.S.-India civil nuclear cooperation does not in any way assist India in manufacturing nuclear weapons,” he said. “This is consistent with U.S. obligations under the [Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty] and with U.S. law” (P. Parameswaran, Agence France-Presse/Khaleej Times, Dec. 7).

Meanwhile, the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi announced yesterday that India would be involved in a project to build an experimental nuclear-fusion reactor in France, the Associated Press reported.

The United States and the European Union, which are building the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, agreed to allow India to join the project at a recent meeting in Jeju, South Korea. It is hoped that the reactor will produce a clean and safe energy alternative to fossil fuels, according to AP.

Prospects for India’s participation in the project increased when President George W. Bush announced the Indo-U.S. nuclear pact.

“U.S. support was instrumental in ensuring the final agreement (in Jeju),” according to a U.S. Embassy statement. The decision to allow India to join “represents the first tangible and concrete step toward greater cooperation between the US and India in the nuclear field” (Associated Press/Hindustan Times, Dec. 7).

India yesterday also entered into an agreement with Russia to boost cooperation on nuclear energy and gas and oil projects, the Associated Press reported.

The deal is designed to help meet the needs of India’s growing economy, according to AP.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that he was ready to cooperate with India in the nuclear energy field. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said that Russia is “a wider partner in furthering the objectives of full civil nuclear cooperation between India and the international community.”

“We feel there is a large potential for expansion of cooperation in this area given India's growing energy requirements,” Singh said (Vladimir Isachenkov, Associated Press, Dec. 6).

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Iran Tests World’s Patience, ElBaradei Says

International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said the world is losing patience with the ongoing effort to resolve the crisis surrounding Iran’s nuclear program, Reuters reported today (see GSN, Dec. 6).

“This window (for finding a solution) is not present forever. The international community has begun to lose its patience with Iran,” ElBaradei told the Arabic daily Al-Hayat.

“The international community is fearful of Iran acquiring the process of enriching uranium, because if a state obtains the ability to enrich uranium it is not far from the capability to produce nuclear weapons,” he said (Reuters, Dec. 7).

ElBaradei yesterday reaffirmed support for a Russian compromise proposal, the Financial Times reported.

ElBaradei said the proposal, in which Moscow would oversee enrichment of uranium for Iran in Russia, would solve Tehran’s need for nuclear fuel.

“I think it’s a good proposal,” ElBaradei said during an address in London. “It’s a good starting point.”

European diplomats, who are preparing to resume nuclear negotiations with Iran, said a rejection of the deal would be likely to strengthen international opposition to Iran’s nuclear activities.

ElBaradei said it could take agency inspectors until the end of 2006 to fully determine Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

“Most of the pieces of the puzzle are there, but there still are big pieces missing,” he said. “If you want to clear your past, you have to be as transparent as possible” (Peter Spiegel, Financial Times, Dec. 7).

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin said yesterday that the U.N. agency is the correct venue for dealing with the situation, the Associated Press reported.

“We believe that the IAEA potential in settling all problems related to the Iranian nuclear dossier is far from being exhausted,” Putin said.

He said Tehran should “observe their obligations, including those they have taken unilaterally” (Associated Press/ABCNews.com, Dec. 6).

ElBaradei yesterday also said his agency needs adequate funding in order to conduct effective verification, AP reported.

“IAEA verification today operates on an annual budget of about $120 million — a budget comparable to that of the Chelsea football (soccer) club” in England, he said (Thomas Wagner, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Dec. 6).

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Afghanistan Denies Uranium Trafficking Rumors

Afghanistan has denied rumors that traffickers were raiding uranium sources inside the country and smuggling the material across Afghan borders, the Etefaq-e Eslam newspaper reported yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 28).

“Although people say that uranium sources located in the Khan Neshin area of Helmand Province are being extracted and smuggled, I should reiterate that these rumors are baseless and untrue,” said Mines and Industries Minister Mir Mohammad Sediq (Etefaq-e Eslam, Dec. 6).

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Prosecutors Begin to Close Case in Trial of Dutch Businessman Accused of Supporting Genocide

Prosecutors in the trial of a Dutch businessman accused of providing chemicals that were used in Iraqi gas attacks against Kurds in the 1980s summarized their case today in The Hague, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Dec. 6).

Evidence from investigations in Europe, the United States and the Middle East was expected to show that the chemicals supplied by Frans van Anraat were components of the weapons used in the attacks in Iran and Iraq (Associated Press, Dec. 7).

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Sarajevo Hosts Nuclear Smuggling Prevention Meeting

A meeting on strategies for curbing smuggling of nuclear and radioactive materials across borders began yesterday in Sarajevo, the Federation News Agency reported (see GSN, Oct. 14).

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the European Union and the Civil Affairs Ministry of Bosnia and Herzegovina are sponsoring the three-day session.

In 2003, Bosnia and Herzegovina created a state panel to prepare laws to help secure nuclear and radioactive materials and established a regulatory body to help protect against radiological sources. Recommendations of the council are being adopted, according to FENA.

“Regardless of the things mentioned, as well as numerous other activities, [Bosnia and Herzegovina] unfortunately, even 10 years after the war, has still not created an entirely safe environment for the life and work and the improvement of health of its citizens,” said the nation’s Civil Affairs Minister Safet Halilovic. 

Halilovic said that radiological sources, explosives, chemical and other hazardous materials are being found daily in his country. Bosnia and Herzegovina’s long border needs more sophisticated controls to ensure these materials do not leave the country, he added (FENA, Dec. 6).

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