Israeli Response:  Israeli Contractor Purrfects Pet Shelter

Supergum, an Israeli defense contractor, has developed a tent to protect family pets from chemical or biological attacks, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported yesterday.

“Many Israelis feel like their pets are part of the family.  We’ve received dozens and dozens of calls from people wanting something for their pets.  We now have an answer for them,” said Roni Srour, Supergum’s vice president.

The new device, called How Meow, uses the same protective filters and air blowers that the company supplies to the Israeli army.  Pet owners place their animal companions in a travel cage or similar enclosure and then seal the pet in.  The battery operated filter and blower are designed to keep the pet safe for six hours, the Journal-Constitution reported.

“Veterinarians have tested the system on dogs, cats and parrots.  They stayed inside for six hours, and none showed any signs of distress or any medical problems,” said Sheila Baron, the product’s development director (Margaret Coker, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Feb. 9).

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U.S. Response:  Pentagon Officials Ignore Chemical Defenses, Report Says

By David McGlinchey
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Top U.S. defense officials do not pay enough attention to potential chemical or biological attacks and might not wake up to the danger until the military suffers devastating casualties, according to a Cato Institute report Wednesday by a former U.S. Army chemical and biological training specialist (see GSN, Oct. 16, 2002).

The Pentagon is not ready to deal with such an attack in Iraq, the report says.

The Army declined to comment on the report directly, but a spokeswoman said the Army’s combat units will be prepared for nuclear, biological and chemical weapons if they are sent into combat.

“We have better equipment and capability than we did in Desert Storm,” said Army spokeswoman Nicole Dowell.

A array of U.S. officials — from General Accounting Office investigators to Pentagon Inspector General Joseph Schmitz — have criticized the Defense Department’s chemical and biological defense equipment in recent months.  There has been little public criticism, however, of training or military leadership in this area.

“Senior commanders present a major roadblock to implementing realistic and technically meaningful NBC training for the troops,” according to the report by Eric Taylor, now a chemistry professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.  Previously, Taylor served as a captain in the Army Chemical Corps and he has authored Lethal Mists: An Introduction to the Natural and Military Sciences of Chemical, Biological Warfare and Terrorism.

The most glaring weakness in U.S. chemical and biological defenses is “seniormost officers who regard NBC as a waste of time, a nuisance, a pain in the neck,” Taylor told Global Security Newswire.

After observing training exercises in 2000 and 2001, Taylor concluded that military personnel are insufficiently prepared for an attack with weapons of mass destruction.  The problem, he said, is a lack of preparation.

The report says that military units need 40 hours of annual training to prepare for an attack, but “the military services require only four hours of training per year for new recruits and two hours of refresher training thereafter.”

Only 30 percent of the Army’s Chemical Corps officers have science degrees, which compromises the training further, according to the report.

Taylor visited several military bases in 2000 and 2001, observed training exercises and interviewed personnel across the services for his report.

The Defense Department suffers from a lack of classroom instruction, insufficient testing and poorly focused training in its chemical and biological defense efforts, the report says.  Specialized military personnel receive better training than most, but a poor training program for the military as a whole “may some day prove disastrously lethal and make the first American troops confronting CB weapons sacrificial lambs,” the report says.

“I have been concerned that the only real way the starred officers in charge of the U.S. armed forces will ever get the message is if we suffer” heavy losses from a nuclear, biological or chemical attack, Taylor said in an interview.

Some service officials have seen an increase in funds for protective equipment, but there has not been a matching increase in funding for training, the report says.

While Taylor criticizes the training that he observed, he said that in the end it is senior leadership that is holding back progress on chemical, biological and nuclear defense training.

“Any impetus for change must come from the top,” Taylor said.

During one interview with a service member, Taylor was told that “most commanders fear and would rather avoid the training because they don’t understand it themselves,” according to the report.

Another member of a military medical unit said that units in the 1991 Gulf War asked chemical or biological related questions but medical personnel did not know the answers.

Little has changed in U.S. military training or education since 1991 and with another Iraq war on the horizon officials should be concerned, the report says.

“This dismal state of affairs should be a wake-up call to officials of the Bush administration as they plan for a second war with Iraq,” according to the report.

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United Kingdom:  Blair Links Iraq to al-Qaeda

British Prime Minister Tony Blair yesterday linked Iraq to the al-Qaeda terrorist network and said that the deadly poison ricin is being manufactured in Iraq and distributed around the world (see GSN, Jan. 10).

“I’m not sitting here and saying that is why we are taking action against Saddam.  It isn’t, but it would not be correct to say there is no evidence linking al-Qaeda and Iraq,” Blair said.

A chemical factory in northern Iraq is producing “ricin and other poisons,” which are being distributed internationally, according to the prime minister.  The factory might not be completely under the control of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Blair said (Russell/Morris, London Independent, Feb. 7).

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Italy:  Court Indicts Chemical Terrorism Suspects

An Italian court yesterday indicted nine Moroccan terrorism suspects accused of planning a chemical attack on the U.S. embassy in Rome, according to a defense lawyer (see GSN, Feb. 25, 2002).

The court also indicted three others — a Pakistani, an Algerian and a Tunisian — suspected of trying to establish a base to launch attacks.  Although the two groups are not believed to be connected, all 12 were charged with “subversive association aimed at international terrorism.”

The Moroccans were arrested after Italian police discovered almost nine pounds of a cyanide-based compound, Associated Press reported (Associated Press/New York Daily News, Feb. 7).

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Iraq:  Powell Details Chemical Weapons Accusations for Security Council

Iraq has a chemical weapons stockpile and is hiding it from U.N. inspectors, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said in his presentation to the U.N. Security Council yesterday.

Powell showed a photograph of what he said were four chemical bunkers at Taji.

The bunkers had specialty security facilities and decontamination trucks, he said (White House release, Feb. 5).

Jonathan Tucker, a former weapons inspector and a chemical and biological expert, supported Powell’s assertions.

“I have no doubt that those trucks are decontamination trucks,” Tucker said.  The photographs also appear to be intentionally blurred to obscure the ability of U.S. satellites, he said (Joby Warrick, Washington Post, Feb. 6).

Powell then showed a later picture of the alleged chemical bunkers.

“The signature vehicles are gone, the tents are gone, it’s been cleaned up, and it was done on the 22nd of December, as the U.N. inspection team is arriving,” he said.  Powell said that U.S. officials suspected Iraq was alerted to plans for the Taji visit.

“We know that Iraq today is actively using its considerable intelligence capabilities to hide its illicit activities.  From our sources, we know that inspectors are under constant surveillance by an army of Iraqi intelligence operatives.  Iraq is relentlessly attempting to tap all of their communications, both voice and electronics,” he said.

Powell then showed another facility that he said was used to transfer chemical weapons from production sites to field units.

Human and photographic intelligence indicated that the site was chemical-related and Iraqi forces later removed a layer of topsoil to hide evidence, he said, showing another photograph.

“The Iraqis literally removed the crust of the earth from large portions of this site in order to conceal chemical weapons evidence that would be there from years of chemical weapons activity,” Powell said.

Iraq has also been illicitly importing equipment, according to Powell.

“Iraq’s procurement efforts include equipment that can filter and separate microorganisms and toxins involved in biological weapons, equipment that can be used to concentrate the agent, growth media that can be used to continue producing anthrax and botulinum toxin, sterilization equipment for laboratories, glass-lined reactors and specialty pumps that can handle corrosive chemical weapons agents and precursors, large amounts of vinyl chloride, a precursor for nerve and blister agents, and other chemicals such as sodium sulfide, an important mustard agent precursor,” Powell said.

Iraq’s claims that the equipment was for legitimate purposes falls apart, Powell said, because the imports were only learned of through communications intercepts.

U.S. officials also claimed to intercept another message, in which two men are heard discussing nerve gas.

One man tells the other to remove any mention of nerve agents from a “wireless communication.”

“Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent.  That is enough agent to fill 16,000 battlefield rockets,” Powell said (White House release, Feb. 5).

Tucker said that amount of chemical weaponry would be militarily insignificant.

“It would be at the margin of significance from a military point of view,” he said.  “But obviously it would be of much greater concern for terrorism,” he added (Warrick, Washington Post).

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United Kingdom:  More Charged in Chemical Investigation

British authorities yesterday charged three North African men with chemical weapons offenses, Reuters reported (see GSN, Jan. 27).

Kamel Bourgass, 27, Mouloud Bouhrama, 31, and Samir Asli, 29, were arrested last month in connection with the Jan. 5 discovery of ricin in a London apartment.  The three were charged with having “articles in circumstances which gave rise to a reasonable suspicion that their possession was for a purpose connected with the commission, instigation or preparation of an act of terrorism.”

The men did not apply for bail and were remanded in custody until early March  (Reuters, Feb. 5).

British police today detained six men and a woman in the latest sweep of antiterrorism raids linked to the chemical weapons investigation, the London Guardian reported.

Authorities arrested two men in Edinburgh, one man in Manchester, a man and a woman in Glasgow and two men in London, the Guardian reported.

“Although searches of the addresses are continuing it is important to stress that there has been no discovery of dangerous substances at this time,” said Tom Wood, deputy chief constable of the Lothian and Borders police force (London Guardian, Feb. 6).

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United States:  Rumsfeld Says Pentagon Wants Use of Nonlethal Gas

By David McGlinchey
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — While senior Pentagon officials are fashioning rules of engagement that will allow the U.S. military to use nonlethal agents if the United States attacks Iraq, the effort has been made “very complex” by the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday (see GSN, Nov. 4, 2002).

“We are doing our best to live within the straitjacket that has been imposed on us on this subject,” Rumsfeld said at a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee.

Russian forces used a gas to subdue hostage-taking militants in a Moscow theater last year, but a large number of hostages were killed in the raid (see GSN, Oct. 31, 2002).

“I’m authorized to use lethal force and authorize troops to shoot somebody, but I’m not authorized in some instances, without a presidential waiver, under the treaty or under the agreements, to authorize the use of nonlethal riot agents,” Rumsfeld said.

Rumsfeld said that he has been trying to “fashion the rules of engagement in a way that we believe is appropriate.  Where we can’t, I go to the president and get a waiver.”

There have been no requests to alter U.S. law or modify any treaties, he said.

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U.S. Response:  FDA Approves Soman Nerve Agent Protection

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration yesterday approved use of pyridostigmine bromide to protect against soman nerve agent, which can kill by causing respiratory failure (see GSN, Feb.3). 

“Today’s action will help protect American troops and others from nerve agent attacks,” Commissioner Mark McClellan said in a press release.

Soldiers are instructed to take one 30-milligram tablet every eight hours prior to anticipated Soman exposure, according to the release.  The drug is not effective, however, during or after exposure to the nerve agent, when antidotes such as atropine must instead be used.  Pyridostigmine bromide also must be used in conjunction with other safety measures, such as gas masks, the release said.

The drug is the first to be approved under the FDA’s “animal efficacy rule,” which allows use of animal data to demonstrate a drug’s effectiveness when it cannot be ethically or feasibly tested on humans, according to the agency release (see GSN, June 4, 2002).  Evidence of the drug’s effectiveness against Soman was found through studies on monkeys and guinea pigs (FDA release, Feb. 5). 

The U.S. military used pyridostigmine bromide during the 1991 Gulf War on an experimental basis, which led to some suspicions that the drug was a cause of Gulf War syndrome, according to the New York Times.  Several postwar studies on the drug, however, “all assert that you can’t attribute any aspects of Gulf War syndrome to this drug,” an FDA spokesman said (Donald McNeil, New York Times, Feb. 6).

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