On a bleak island in the Aral Sea, one hundred monkeys are tethered to posts set in parallel rows stretching out toward the horizon. A muffled thud breaks the stillness. Far in the distance, a small metal sphere lifts into the sky then hurtles downward, rotating, until it shatters in a second explosion.
Some seventy-five feet above the groud, a cloud the color of dark mustard begins to unfurl, gently dissolving as it glides down toward the monkeys. They pull at their chains and begin to cry. Some bury their heads between their legs. A few cover their mouths or noses, but it is too late: they have already begun to die.
At the other end of the island, a handful of men in biological protective suits observe the scene through binoculars, taking notes. In a few hours, they will receive the still-breathing monkeys and return them to cages where the animals will be under continuous examination for the next several days until, one by one, they die of anthrax or tularemia, Q fever, brucellosis, glanders, or plague. These are the tests I supervised throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. They formed the foundation of the Soviet Union's spectacular breakthroughs in biological warfare.
Between 1988 and 1992, I was the first chief deputy of Biopreparat, the Soviet state pharmaceutical agency whose primary function was to develop and produce weapons made from the most dangerous viruses, toxins, and bacteria known to man. Biopreparat was the hub of a clandestine empire of research, testing, and manufacturing facilities spread over more than forty sites in Russia and Kazakhstan. Nearly every important government institution played a role in the Soviet biological weapons program: the Ministry of Defense, the Ministries of Agriculture and Health, the Soviet Academy of Sciences, the Communist Party Central Committee, and, of course, the KGB. The System, as Biopreparat was often called, was more successful than the Kremlin had ever dared to hope.
Over a twenty-year period that began, ironically, with Moscow's endorsement of the Biological Weapons Convention in 1972, the Soviet Union built the largest and most advanced biological warfare establishment in the world. We were among the 140 signatories of the convention, pledging "not to develop, produce, stockpile, or otherwise acquire or retain" biological agents for offensive military purposes. At the same time, through our covert program, we stockpiled hundreds of tons of anthrax and dozens of tons of plague and smallpox near Moscow and other Russian cities for use against the United States and its Western allies.
What went on in Biopreparat's labs was one of the most closely guarded secrets of the Cold War.
Before I became an expert in biological warfare I was trained as a physician. The government I served perceived no contradiction between the oath every doctor takes to preserve life and our preparations for mass murder. For a long time, neither did I.
Less than a decade ago, I was a much-decorated army colonel, marked out for further promotion in one of the Soviet Union's most elite military programs. If I had stayed in Russia, I would have been a major general by now, and you would never have heard my name. But in 1992, after seventeen years inside Biopreparat, I resigned my position and fled with my family to the United States. In numerous debriefing sessions, I provided U.S. officials with their first comprehensive picture of our activities. Most of what I told them has never been revealed in public.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the danger once posed by our weapons work has largely diminished. Biopreparat claims that it no longer conducts offensive research, and Russia's stockpile of germs and viruses has been destroyed. But the threat of a biological attack has increased as the knowledge developed in our labs--of lethal formulations that took our scientists years to discover--has spread to rogue regimes and terrorist groups. [ed. note--the author has no proof that the Russian threat has diminished as he claims, and the rogue regimes and terror organizations answer to Moscow.] Bioweapons are no longer contained within the bipolar world of the Cold War. They are cheap, easy to make, and easy to use. In the coming years, they will become very much a part of our lives.
Since leaving Moscow I have encountered an alarming level of ignorance about biological weapons. Some of the best scientists I've met in the West say it isn't possible to alter viruses genetically to make reliable weapons, or to store enough of a given pathogen for strategic purposes, or to deliver it in a way that assures maximum killing power. My knowledge and experience tell me that they are wrong. I have written this book to explain why.
There are some who maintain that discussing the subject will cause needless alarm. But existing defenses against these weapons are dangerously inadequate, and when biological terror strikes, as I'm convinced it will, public ignorance will only heighten the disaster. The first step we must take to protect ourselves is to understand what biological weapons are and how they work. The alternative is to remain as helpless as the monkeys in the Aral Sea.
Ken Alibek, Foreward to his 1999 book Biohazard
Now, the information I received tonight.
Joseph Moshe (Moshe is the man's middle name) is a bio-scientist. He works (worked?) for a unit within Mossad. He is an Israeli citizen.
The Secret Service was not the agency involved in the surveillance of Moshe at his home in California. This was done by the FBI, who had orders to detain him, or "bring him in."
Moshe did not send a threat to the White House. Rather, he communicated that he intended to go public with information he had regarding the flu vaccine that is being prepared by Baxter Labs, an Austrian company.
The information is this: The vaccine is being manufactured in Ukraine. It is not a vaccine at all, but rather an engineered genetically mutated bio-weapon meant to cause sickness and death. Moshe informed the White House he intended to go public with this information. When he became aware that the FBI was about to detain him, he packed some belongings in his car and set out for the Israeli consulate, located in close proximity to the federal building where the standoff took place. FBI pursuit kept him from reaching his destination.
Mounted on top of the large black vehicle was a microwave weapon which fried the electronics in Moshe's car as well as any communication devices he had which might have been used to contact the media or others who could help him.
Moshe did not suffer the same effects of the gas and pepper spray that others would have because he had built up an immunity to such weapons as a by-product of his Mossad training.
Moshe was not handcuffed because he was not placed under arrest. After leaving police or FBI custody, he returned to Israel, where he is at this time.
The information comes from one of my confidential sources. I have reason to believe it is accurate. If I receive more information I will post it.
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