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Issue Brief
Jason Pate
Senior Research Associate and WMD Terrorism Database
Manager
Gary Ackerman
Senior Research Associate
Chemical and Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Program
Center for Nonproliferation Studies
October 2001 (updated March 2003)
Issue
Introduction Issue
Brief Relevant
Resources
Issue Brief
The September 11 attacks and the subsequent anthrax letters, combined with evidence of Al-Qaida's interest in toxic agents, have focused renewed attention on the possibility of terrorism involving chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weapons, commonly called weapons of mass destruction (WMD). WMD terrorism is not a new phenomenon: in March 1995, the Japanese doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo released sarin nerve agent in the Tokyo subway, killing 12 and injuring over 1,000. This incident, perpetrated by an apocalyptic group seeking to inflict mass casualties, demonstrated that at least some terrorist groups are capable of acquiring and using chemical weapons. Mass-casualty terrorism is also not new to the United States. In April 1995, a truck bomb destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 and injuring more than 700. Perpetrated by a lone actor influenced by right-wing ideology, this unprecedented attack brought the threat of mass-casualty terrorism-albeit with conventional explosives-to the American heartland.
WMD Training
In the aftermath of these events, some analysts declared that a new
era of terrorism had emerged, one involving a sea-change in
terrorist tactics and goals. With religion arguably replacing
politics as the primary ideological motivation for terrorist groups,
it was possible to envision terrorist groups, relatively
unconstrained by societal norms, seeking to perpetrate more extreme
acts of violence than more "traditional" terrorist organizations.
For example, Usama bin Ladin, the alleged mastermind of the
September 11 attacks, the 1999 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen, and
the 1998 near-simultaneous bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya
and Tanzania, openly declared an interest in acquiring WMD for
attacks against American targets; more recently, alleged members of
his organization have been apprehended with dangerous poisons. At
the same time, the spread of dual-use technologies and WMD-relevant
materials to state-sponsors of terrorism and the lack of controls on
weapons materials and know-how in the former Soviet Union have
raised serious concerns about the increasing threat of terrorists
acquiring and using WMD. This is especially relevant in the context
of increasing tensions and possible conflict between the United
States and countries that have developed WMD and have supported
terrorist groups in the past, such as Iraq and North Korea.
The Anthrax Attacks and Bioterrorism
The anthrax letters of 2001 were an entirely new phenomenon. They
moved the threat of bioterrorism, which had previously been mostly
theoretical, closer to reality. Despite hundreds of anthrax hoaxes
in the few years prior to October 2001, the anthrax letters
represented the first time that actual, virulent anthrax spores were
sent through the mail. The attacks were scattered, isolated
incidents targeted at prominent media and political figures, but
also resulted in a number of people, notably postal workers and
congressional staff, suffering from collateral exposure. One of the
most significant aspects is that, thus far, the perpetrator remains
at-large.
There have been conflicting reports from various government agencies
regarding the quality of the anthrax used in the attacks. It may
have been highly sophisticated: milled to a fine powder and treated
with chemical additives to keep the spores from clumping and
becoming weighed down by humidity, so that they aerosolize more
readily.
The Perpetrators
The fact that the anthrax may have been milled to a fine powder and
mixed with chemicals-techniques involving specialized military
knowledge unlikely to be available to laboratory
microbiologists-suggests that the perpetrator(s) may have been
involved at one point in time with the biological weapons program of
a state-perhaps even a scientist who worked on the former U.S.
biological weapons program. Although the chemical additives are
readily available, the critical skill is knowing which additives to
use, and how and when to use them.
These findings are consistent with a number of hypotheses: the
perpetrators were aided by a foreign state, were assisted by
scientists who once worked in a state-level bioweapons program, or
purchased the anthrax on the international black market. The FBI has
released only a vague profile of the perpetrator(s), as most
probably male, with a scientific background and an intimate
knowledge of Trenton, New Jersey.
The fact that the same strain of anthrax appears to have been used
in the letter attacks directed against individuals in Florida, New
York, and Washington, D.C. also suggests that this is a coordinated
effort by a single individual (i.e., a biological Unabomber), a
small domestic group, or a large network such as Al-Qaida. Still,
the identity of the perpetrator or perpetrators remains unclear.
Some evidence, such as the quality of the anthrax, points to an
international source, but other evidence points in the direction of
domestic terrorists.
Mass-Casualty Terrorism
According to terrorism scholar Bruce Hoffman, until September 11,
2001, fewer than 1,000 Americans had been killed in terrorist
attacks in the United States or abroad since 1968. The quantum leap
in casualties-with more than 3,000 dead-is particularly alarming in
terms of terrorist motivations. Terrorist trends have suggested an
increase in casualties per incident, and the September 11 attacks
appear to conform to this pattern. However, the anthrax incidents
have been small in scale, with the apparent intent of frightening
rather than killing large numbers of people.
It is possible that the perpetrators of the anthrax attacks had only
a limited amount of powdered anthrax spores-enough to deliver in
small amounts through the mail, but not enough to disseminate
through the air as an aerosol cloud that could infect large numbers
of people. They may also not have been motivated to inflict mass
casualties, even if they could. Critics have also pointed out the
significant technical hurdles to the use of chemical or biological
weapons to cause massive numbers of casualties. Despite Aum
Shinrikyo's vast financial resources and scientific expertise, it
was unable to perpetrate mass-casualty attacks with either chemical
or biological weapons. In any case, large numbers of casualties can
be caused by terrorists without resorting to WMD. The September 11
terrorists did not require advanced weaponry to cause mass
casualties and mass destruction. They used a low-technology
operation and returned to decades-old terrorist tactics-hijacking
planes-to achieve their goals.
One thing that the 2001 anthrax attacks made abundantly clear is
that public health is a key component of U.S. national security. The
anthrax attacks revealed serious gaps in the public health system,
particularly at the state and local levels. Fortunately, alert
physicians diagnosed the early cases correctly. One would hope that
the attacks served as a lesson to public health officials by putting
them on guard for the possibility of a covert bioterrorist attack,
thus lessening the impact of any future attack. Yet many other
doctors and health departments in other cities and towns around the
country are not prepared to recognize or contain a bioterrorist
attack. These gaps must be remedied immediately if the country is to
be prepared for more serious threats. Indeed, improving the public
health infrastructure will help address the threat posed by
bioterrorism as well as the arguably much greater threat from
emerging infectious diseases.
The silver lining of the current dark cloud is that there is a
window of opportunity to improve our preparedness for a larger-scale
biological attack. It is important, however, to address these
vulnerabilities in a systematic and determined way, rather than
continuing to ride the sine wave of alarmism and complacency that
has plagued earlier efforts to improve domestic preparedness.
U.S. policymakers must also be prepared for an entirely different
type of attack. If terrorists have access to a significant
manufacturing capability, the United States must be prepared for the
possibility of an escalation from targeted attacks to mass-casualty
attacks with powdered anthrax or some other agent. The most ominous,
but not the most likely, threat would involve the deliberate release
of a contagious agent, such as pneumonic plague or smallpox. The
health system would then have to detect and contain the outbreak
before it spread widely.
Concerns about mass-casualty bioterrorism have again been raised in
connection with Usama bin Ladin's Al-Qaida group. Uncorroborated
testimony in a high-profile Egyptian trial in 1999 indicated that
Al-Qaida had acquired dangerous biological agents such as the
anthrax bacterium, the Ebola virus, salmonella, and botulinum toxin,
while other reports mentioned plague and ricin. Al-Qaida's purported
research efforts were focused on weaponizing anthrax, and U.S.
forces discovered a partially built biological weapons lab near
Kandahar that was designed to produce anthrax even though no actual
agents were found. There is still no conclusive evidence that Al-Qaida
succeeded in weaponizing any of these agents. However, in January
2003, traces of the toxin ricin was found in an apartment in London
used by a group of men potentially linked to Al-Qaida.
At the same time, there are fears that potential conflict with Iraq
could result in Saddam Hussein becoming desperate enough to hand
over some of his suspected remaining biological weapons arsenal to
terrorists in the hopes that they will use the weapons against the
United States.
Preparations and Consequence Management for Bioterrorism
Preventing mass-casualty terrorism with WMD agents and, if
prevention fails, managing the consequences of an attack, is an
enormously demanding task. Since 1995, the United States has
allocated enormous resources to combating WMD terrorism. Numerous
government programs have been created in an effort to prevent and
deter terrorism or to mitigate the effects of a major attack. These
efforts have focused on enhancing the ability of local
first-responders to decontaminate and treat survivors, augmented by
additional capabilities at the state and federal levels. But
analysts have criticized the significant overlap and redundancy
among various federal counterterrorism programs, as well as the lack
of a clear strategy for integrating these diverse elements into a
coherent whole. The events of September 11 and the subsequent
anthrax attacks have also contributed to these efforts. President
Bush, together with Congress, created a new government agency, the
Department of Homeland Security, in an effort to ensure greater
coordination in response and intelligence collaboration.
Planning domestic preparedness requires coordinating not only some
40 federal agencies, but also a large number of state and local
agencies, as well as important elements of the private sector. The
creation of the Department of Homeland Security is a useful first
step, but the department's head, Tom Ridge, will have to overcome
budgetary bottlenecks and chronic turf battles among rival federal
bureaucracies.
In order to be prepared for a range of contingencies, the first line
of defense is to train doctors to recognize the effects of a variety
of biological threat agents, and to establish clear channels of
communication among primary care physicians and local health
departments, as well as among local, state, and federal public
health officials. These various levels must be integrated by e-mail
and other communications networks into a seamless web. Diagnostic
laboratories around the country also need to have the appropriate
tests to identify exotic disease agents such as anthrax in patient
specimens. Finally, national distribution mechanisms for drugs and
vaccines must be developed so that an outbreak of disease can be
contained rapidly. The private sector, such as the U.S. chemical
industry, transportation, energy, telecommunications infrastructure,
and food companies, will also need to spend more to ensure the
safety and security of their products and services.
The optimal approach to WMD terrorism is prevention, rather than
consequence mitigation. U.S. counterterrorism efforts designed to
address this threat have generally been developed in the absence of
a realistic assessment of terrorist motivations and technical
capabilities for using WMD. To the extent possible, intelligence
collection and analysis capabilities must be strengthened to assess
the ability of terrorists to acquire, produce, and deliver
biological and chemical agents. Improved capabilities are needed to
distinguish between natural and deliberate outbreaks of disease.
These new challenges will require the intelligence community to
improve its depth of expertise in microbiology, chemistry, and
epidemiology.
Conclusion
The threat of bioterrorism has not receded since the anthrax attacks
of 2001, especially since the perpetrator or perpetrators of those
attacks remains unidentified. Recent reports concerning Al-Qaida's
efforts to develop biological weapons and the possibility of
conflict in Iraq have only increased fears. Despite some empirically
based studies and the rich literature on terrorism and WMD issues,
the threat of escalation to WMD terrorism remains poorly understood.
Continued threat assessments, evaluations and re-evaluations of
current policies, and heightened vigilance on the part of
intelligence agencies will be essential to prepare for the future.
See the following "Relevant Resources" section for web-based
resources that offer some insights into these issues.
Issue
Introduction
Issue
Brief
Relevant
Resources
This
material is produced independently for NTI by the James
Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the
Monterey Institute of International Studies and does not
necessarily reflect the opinions of and has not been
independently verified by NTI or its directors,
officers, employees, agents. Copyright © 2007 by MIIS.
