In September/October 2001, following the 9-11 attack, selected U.S. targets were attacked with sophisticated anthrax. The spores were extremely small and coated to enable their efficient dispersal. Small quantities of the powder were placed in envelopes, crudely addressed, and mailed to people who would guarantee publicity – a tabloid newspaper, two Senators, and a major network news commentator. A dozen or so people died, but none of the addressees.

Evidently, the FBI took charge of the investigation. Curiously, the investigators seem to have spent most of their time and resources trying to find a disgruntled U.S. scientist to blame. Alternatively, there has been no information respecting what the CIA is doing, if anything, to ascertain the source or cooperate with the FBI. Missing from the investigation or its coverage in the news media is any recognition that the attack, because of its sophisticated nature, was most likely state-sponsored terrorism and not just a disgruntled individual or even an independent Islamic terrorist operation. Blame for the 9-11 attack was assigned almost instantly. In contrast, it is now over a year since the anthrax attack, and the White House still has not assigned any blame.

In a very real sense, the anthrax incident demonstrated a potential far more frightening than the attack on the World Trade Center. A serious biological warfare attack could disable or kill tens of millions of people. The potential economic damage is incalculable. Yet, rather that think through the implications of this attack, the subject has all but disappeared from television news and the major papers. This may be because no culprit has been identified. It also may be because there is a reluctance to explore the possibility of state sponsorship. In his book, Bush at War, Bob Woodward describes a meeting at which CIA director George Tenet recognized the possibility of state sponsorship, but indicated his reluctance to even mention it. Vice President Richard Cheney quickly agreed that state sponsorship should not be raised, adding by way of explanation, “because we’re not ready to do anything about it.”

Once the door to state sponsorship is opened, the implications are nearly all “politically incorrect” – embarrassing not to mention frightening. Who would want to suggest that those most capable might be Russia, Cuba, and China – even Israel? When the top leadership is not prepared to deal with the issue, do not expect the rank and file to look in that direction. None of them want to be the messenger who brings news that the top echelon does not want to hear. This is part of the CIA culture, especially insofar as countries like Russia and China are concerned. Accordingly, the only “explanation” advanced for what might have happened after 9-11 has been the suggestion that Iraq had the capability to manufacture the particular anthrax that was used and that al-Qaeda was very interested in anthrax as a weapon. Aside from that, no one still knows, or is telling, what happened.

The sophistication of the anthrax used in the attack was unexpected. Moreover, it could have been even more technically advanced had it been modified so that existing vaccines and treatments were ineffective against it. There is no reason that the attack, if repeated, would not work again and even be devastatingly effective if this were the attacker’s objective.

What happened in October, 2001, was only a demonstration of potential. It was not a serious attack. In considering a possible follow-on attack, one should look for at least the same demonstrated competence or, better still, even more potency and sophistication. In the case of biological warfare (BW), 30 to 50 different organisms, some of which may be genetically manipulated to make them antibiotic resistant or very difficult to detect, some designed to have misleading symptoms, need to be seriously addressed in considering a follow-on attack.

What Next?

While individual organisms would be present, it would be a mistake to expect to encounter just individual organisms. Rather, a cocktail of different organisms and toxins should be anticipated. Delivery systems could be, again, the U.S. mail. An individual on a plane or cruise ship could use a pressurized container that looks like a deodorant or hair spray or small perfume dispenser. Even an unwitting human could be used as a delivery system. Aerosols, dust or power forms could be easily disseminated in a building or city. They could also be released miles up wind of the intended target. The list of possibilities is endless.

There is another problem in the manner in which BW and chemical warfare (CW) are viewed – as “weapons of mass destruction” (WMD). This is wrong and grossly misleading. Both CW and BW have more applications and have been used more times in very discriminate attacks against individuals. There are both lethal and non-lethal CW and BW weapons appropriate for attacking selected targets. As such, they are neither for mass or indiscriminant use. The more innovative CBW agents are designed for such use, not as WMD. There are also both lethal and non-lethal forms suitable as weapons for mass use. In non-lethal varieties, they are not for mass destruction. People do not have to be killed in many applications. Often, it is better to merely make people sick or incapacitate them rather than kill them.

Especially when assessing the CBW “terrorist” threat, it seems imperative to recognize that the objective of terrorists is not simply, as usually characterized, to create terror in the hearts and minds of civilians. In a recent proclamation assessed as coming from Osama bin Laden, he clearly stated economic damage as a priority objective. The target is the leadership, not the people. Economic damage could be accomplished, for example, by contaminating important port facilities to bring trade to an abrupt halt for some time. An attack on agricultural production could have enormous consequences. Would it take much to push several U.S. airlines into bankruptcy? It would be almost trivial to contaminate the water main serving a building or office complex. Chlorine is no guard against a carefully selected biological or chemical warfare agent. Over fifteen years ago a Cuban CW expert said they had enough toxins to contaminate 30 percent of the U.S. water supplies. Incidentally, Cuba has been an active, albeit silent, partner in Warsaw Pact CBW R&D since 1962. There is also concern that oil supplies could be targeted, which itself is not usually regarded as terrorism in the sense that it’s objective is economic, not “indiscriminant terror.”

The implication emerging out of the recent threats is a different form of terrorism, one that does not necessarily depend on blowing up innocent civilians. The real target might be terror in the hearts and minds of national leaders in manners not considered by most governments. An obvious example is the PLO suicide attacks against Israeli citizens, which has the government very frightened. Citizens are leaving Israel. What happens if the PLO terrorists stop blowing themselves up and start using covert CW and BW dissemination, including dissemination several miles up wind of various Israeli cities? Additionally, terrorism need not depend on publicity, a good example being covert threats to governments that no one wants made public.

Returning to the anthrax demonstration, it failed to kill the people to whom the letters were addressed probably because that was not a critical objective. Had that been an objective, the letters would have been professionally addressed, sent to homes rather than offices, and with return addresses such that the addressee would have opened the letter, or whatever, and read it with interest. The release of powder could have been not evident by simply using less powder. Alternatively, it would not have been necessary to use powder. Other ways and agents could be even more effective and less revealing. The letters were just intended to demonstrate, or test, the simplicity of the operation and the difficulty in subsequently tracking down those responsible. Having some people die in the process was necessary to complete the picture, but it really did not matter who was killed.

As indicated above, the operation likely was “state sponsored.” The “state” could have been a terrorist state or just as easily a presumed friendly state. It would, at any rate, seem to have been a state that knew the 9-11 attack was coming and pretty much when it was coming because the anthrax letters were tied to the 9-11 coattails. This raises the possibility that 9-11 itself may also have been assisted by a state sponsor. Why does concern for what happened in the case of the anthrax seem to be far less serious in the White House than concern for the war on terrorism and getting Saddam?

In other words, the anthrax operation (and 9-11 for that matter) may not have been just a “terrorist” event as that term is commonly understood. This poses a new challenge in which we have to stop and try to understand what is happening. Instincts and gut reactions may, in this instance, be more of a liability than an asset. This also suggests that intelligence input has to be very carefully assessed because of the ingrained mind set associated with so many of those in intelligence who have been more adept at sweeping important information respecting terrorism, CBW, and state sponsorship under the rug than in assessing its meaning and significant implications.

It was clear in the anthrax demonstration that there were more screw-ups and failures in the highly touted U.S. medical system than successes, which should come as no surprise. What is not evident, is that in the next attack, if there is one, the failures likely will still dominate because those in charge do not seem to be thinking “outside the box.” Nor is there any interest in examining the real reasons behind the demise of many aspects of our medical system any more than there has been a national security interest is asking how and why 9-11 happened in the first place. Several thoughtful articles have been written, but rarely do they seem to find their way into the official circles.

The recent commission headed by Dr. Kissinger is in no sense an effort to understand what happened. How could Dr. Kissinger render an independent judgment respecting an agency that is well aware of many skeletons that he wants to keep buried? Serious as they are, such concerns, however, are really just a diversion away from the real heart of the problem. The White House has stalled over a year in getting any answers out to the public. The new commission hopes to have its report finished in 18 months. If a complete internal analysis of what happened was not completed months ago, all top and middle-level officials in the CIA and FBI should be fired. Anyone who has worked in intelligence knows that when there is a significant failure, there is an immediate high-priority effort to understand what happened while the events are still fresh in people’s minds so that the cause(s) of the failure can be addressed. The 9-11 attack was such an event. It was certainly the most significant high-profile intelligence failure (setting aside the collapse of the Soviet Union) since the OSS (the CIA’s predecessor) was created. What makes 9-11 increasingly troublesome is the question: Was this just an intelligence failure or was it equally a failure in Presidential decision-making? Or, is there something else lurking in the shadows that we are not being told?

As we look at the response to the anthrax attack, what is evident is a collection of actions, such as small pox immunizations and anthrax vaccines, that do not begin to reflect the types of concerns touched upon above; that is, the variety and sophistication of the threat. The responses introduced are, as are most of the defense measures, driven by considerations that are really about 30 years old and do not deal with a realistic present-day threat. They may reduce one or two vulnerabilities, but in the process they create others. Anyway, what good are they if the hospitals are all jammed with people who think they are sick and may well be sick, but without being hit by anything other than a virus coupled with the fear and anxiety generated by television news of some new unexplained illnesses that are spreading? In the government’s efforts to socialize U.S. medicine, strengths and flexibility needed to cope with uncertainty have been lost and preparedness may well continue down hill, notwithstanding all the training for first responders.

The Heart of The Problem

Most nations, particularly the United States, have not paid attention to the CBW threat and the impact of technological advances since 1969 when President Nixon unilaterally took the United States out of the biological, toxin, and chemical warfare business and decided, against all reason, to “solve” this difficult problem with nonsense arms control treaties. The process of worshiping the arms control god has required officials and other advocates to close their eyes and minds to problems of verification and to the advancements made possible by modern day science and technology.

This process was complemented by a fraud deliberately propagated by top intelligence and defense scientists for a good twenty years in which the ideas that either chemical or biological warfare had some strategic significance, that it was possible to eliminate inherent difficulties and disadvantages of CBW, and that our enemies were capable of using modern techniques of genetic engineering, gene splicing, and so forth to achieve major breakthroughs were simply too unreasonable to be given serious attention. Complaints from those with concern were swept under the rugs.

This fraud was accepted for another simple reason. No one in the national security or health system likes chemical and biological warfare or wants to be involved with it. The military have never liked CBW because it is expensive (both defense equipment and training costs) and defensive measures almost preclude fighting. It is extremely difficult to fight when you are in a “protective” posture. All you can really do is survive and even then only for a short time. The military has all they can manage just trying to cope with 1960s variety nerve agents and traditional biological warfare agents. Why make an exceedingly difficult problem any more impossible by suggesting how worse it might become if the technical advances of the past thirty years are added into the threat.

After President Nixon renounced biological and toxin warfare and announced a no-first-use chemical warfare policy, preparations went down hill very rapidly and skilled people left the field. Within three years the Army was trying to disband its Chemical Corps. The quality of intelligence took a nosedive as well and for over 25 years, there were fewer professionals in that intelligence field than you have fingers on your hands (some would say one hand). The view (read policy) of the top CIA expert (there only was one) in biological warfare was that he would not find a biological warfare threat because doing so was likely to put the U.S. back in the BW business and that would be bad. One Army professional in biological warfare intelligence put together a briefing to warn people about some of the work the Soviet Union appeared to be doing. He was ordered to stop giving briefings unless personally authorized by the Army Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence. University professors did their best to undermine interest in the field by trying to get people to believe that Yellow Rain in Afghanistan and Southeast Asia was just bee dung. When terrorism began attracting attention, the Centers for Disease Control CDC) was given the responsibility for chemical and biological terrorism. But, CDC wanted nothing to do with the mission and they ignored their assigned responsibility.

Policy makers and advisors do not want to admit that CBW arms control has been a flop. That this would be the case was as clear in 1972 when it was evident that the Soviets had no intent on keeping the agreements. Their only interest was in using the agreements to slow, or stop, U.S. advances, and they succeeded. Arms control was accepted as the “solution” and it still remains such today. In this area also, the arms control treaty designers are totally overwhelmed when they try to apply their tools and techniques to sophisticated and technically advanced CBW agents. Today there are whole families of new CBW agents, concepts of use, and targets that were generally unknown twenty-five years ago. They are still unknown to most of those whose responsibility is CBW defense.

There is no evident interest in opening this Pandora’s box today. When top scientists from the Soviet and Russian chemical and biological warfare programs defected in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the debriefers were more interested in what Russia had destroyed than in its accomplishments and development programs. Col. Dr. Kanatjan Alibekov [Ken Alibek] was deputy director of Biopreparat, a large Soviet/Russian biological warfare program. In his book, Biohazard, published in 1999, seven years after he defected, he describes his amazement with the lack of interest the U.S. authorities evidenced about the Soviet/Russian capabilities. “Throughout my career,” he wrote, “I had worried that American scientists would surpass us. Now I found myself struggling to persuade them how far the science of germ warfare had come.” The “Americans believed Russia’s biological weaponry no longer constituted a significant threat” and had come to that conclusion without even knowing the nature of the threat or where it was headed.

As he settled into his new life in the United States, Alibek continued to monitor Russian activities as best he could by reading the Russian technical and scientific journals. He was able to identify several developments with serious implications because of their relevance to R&D programs he had known about. He tried to find someone in the U.S. government who was interested in his findings. He could not find anyone. The advice he was given tells the story: “I was cautioned by [U.S.] government officials against speaking out too bluntly against Russia. Even if I was right, they argued, there was no point in pushing Moscow further than it was willing or able to go…Perhaps there are questionable activities going on, but for the moment, diplomacy requires us to keep silent.”

The bottom line is don’t expect a reasonable CBW threat assessment to come out of intelligence, defense, and those responsible for our nation’s health. It would simply be embarrassing and out of character. They do not like the field, they have been deliberately burying related information and intelligence for thirty years, they have done their best to sabotage important sources, as recently as five years ago, and none of them are about to take the time to return to Go and start over. Retrieving “old” intelligence and reports is additionally difficult because much of the material has been ignored or buried at White House direction. This, when all is said and done, may be the real heart of the problem.

What Can Be Done

Respecting individual defense, there are excellent actions that individuals can take to increase their security relatively independent of the particular threat. Exactly such an approach has been recognized and explained Dr. Russell L. Blaylock in his new book Health and Nutrition Secrets That Can Save Your Life (Health Press, 2002). There, in Chapter 16, he addresses the question, how can WE defend ourselves and our families against the ravages of chemical, biological, and radiological warfare. For an introduction to his innovative approach, see the Winter 2001 issue of Medical Sentinel.

There are also positive, if not essential, actions that can help agencies such as the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security better understand the nature of the threat, which to be sensible has to include new, innovative, CBW agents, delivery systems, and targets as well as the traditional ones. The main trouble is that the process of improving our understanding in these matters presents challenges to vested interests, both domestic and foreign, and to long-established policies against realistic threat assessments.

Unfortunately, there is no indication that the “system” that is responsible for national security will take any such suggestions today any more seriously than they were taken in the past. NIH (not-invented-here) ideas do not survive well in the Washington environment, particularly when the subject is something the top echelons do not want to hear.

© 2002 Joseph D. Douglass, Jr.
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