The ultimate terrorist threat: Biological, chemical and nuclear weapons
http://www.adirondackdailyenterprise...articleID=5540
Thursday, January 11, 2007 — Time: 8:42:42 AM EST
By GEORGE J. BRYJAK, Special to the Enterprise
A particularly sinister and deadly category of weapons may signal a new era of global terrorism. Many experts are of the opinion that it’s no longer a question of if but only a matter of time before a biological, chemical or nuclear terrorist attack occurs. However, there is considerable disagreement regarding the effectiveness of these attacks, as measured by physical destruction and human casualties.
Writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Jeffrey Simon noted that biological warfare (BW) attacks could result in “hundreds of thousands, even millions of casualties.†Inasmuch as BW agents are invisible, tasteless and odorless, no one would realize that an onslaught had begun. Simon speculated on how such an attack might be launched:
The aerosol release of BW agents could be accomplished in several ways, including the following:
¯using low-flying planes, crop dusters or trucks equipped with spray tanks and releasing BW agents upwind of populated areas
¯leaving aerosol containers filled with BW agents and timing devices in subways, airports, air conditioning/heating systems in buildings or other crowded places
¯directly contaminating bulk food supplies in restaurants, supermarkets or other places with a BW agent.
In 1995, members of a religious cult in Japan released nerve gas (sarin) on a Tokyo subway train, killing 12 people and hospitalizing more than 5,000. Had the attack been better planned, the delivery system more sophisticated and the sarin gas of higher quality, tens of thousands of people would have died. While the number of casualties was relatively low, the assailants were successful in creating widespread fear among residents of the world’s largest metropolitan area.
Richard Danzig, a biowarfare consultant with the Pentagon, notes that while there are between 1,000 and 10,000 “weaponeers†worldwide with biological arms experience, there are at least one million, perhaps many million “broadly skilled†scientists who could construct bioweapons: “It seems likely that, over a period between a few months and a few years, broadly skilled individuals equipped with modest laboratory equipment can develop biological weapons. Only a thin wall of ignorance and inexperience now protects us.†If Danzig is correct, Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups will have the knowledge and ability to construct bioweapons in the near future.
Terrorists would not have to obtain deadly chemicals and fashion them into weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to launch a successful attack. According to a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report, 123 chemical facilities across the country have toxic “worst-case†scenarios wherein more than one million people would be at risk of exposure if poisonous gases were released. A terrorist attack on one or more of these facilities, which many experts believe have less-than-adequate security, could produce massive casualties.
Terrorism expert Harvey Kushner is more cautious in his assessment of a BW threat. The Long Island University professor argues that the much-talked-about scenario of poisoning a major city’s water supply would be difficult to accomplish. The immense volume of water in reservoirs would dilute a relatively small amount of a toxic agent to the point that it would be inconsequential. Underwater aquifers are not readily accessible and are all but immune from being poisoned.
Regarding the future of chemical terrorism, Kushner notes that it’s not likely members of terrorist organizations can make or dispense the large quantities of these agents needed to inflict mass casualties, “Nor are they likely to have access to the weapon delivery platforms (artillery, aircraft, missiles) available to organized military units.†Kushner concedes the release of limited quantities of chemical agents could produce widespread disruption and panic, triggering a chain of events that might disrupt commerce in a city.
The nightmare scenario that terrorist experts, government officials and law enforcement officials are most concerned about is an attack with nuclear weapons. Kushner believes there is little chance that terrorists could acquire or build a conventional nuclear weapon on their own: “We can say with complete confidence that it would be nearly impossible for a terrorist organization that did not have the support of a government to produce the fissionable uranium or plutonium for a fission bomb from raw materials.â€
However, a study by five former nuclear weapons engineers concluded that a sophisticated terrorist group would have the capability of constructing a workable nuclear bomb from stolen plutonium and highly enriched uranium. In the years following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the chances of terrorists obtaining fissionable material increased as a consequence of poor salaries and low morale among scientific personnel, as well as lax security at weapons laboratories.
William Langewiesche, author of the forthcoming book, “The Atomic Bazaar,†argues that while the odds of a terrorist organization constructing a nuclear bomb are long, the task is not impossible. Building such a device would take approximately four months, with the likely venue a Third World city “where governmental control is lax†and corruption rampant.â€
In his book, “Al Qaeda: Brotherhood of Terror,†Paul Williams states that before 9/11, President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair were warned that Osama bin Laden had purchased 20 “suitcase†nuclear weapons (sometimes called “backpack nukes†because of their small size) from Chechen Mafia figures for $30 million in cash and two tons of opium. Speaking of nuclear weapons, bin Laden reputedly told a Pakistani journalist in 2001, “They’re not hard to obtain if you have contacts in Russia with other Islamist groups.â€
The nuclear scenario is especially ominous in light of the fact that six million containers arrive via ship at U.S. coastal cities every year. Only a fraction of these containers are thoroughly searched by Customs officials. A backpack nuke detonated in the center of a major city could kill tens of thousands of people and expose millions more to radiation poisoning. Williams’ statement on the sale of these weapons to bin Laden is plausible given that a Russian general testified to the U.S. House of Representatives that approximately 40 suitcase-size nuclear devices in his country’s military arsenal were missing. This claim was denied by Russian authorities.
Some experts believe that if terrorist organizations ever employ nuclear weapons, they’re most likely to be radiological dispersal devices (RDDs) or “dirty bombs.†An RDD is a conventional weapon (an artillery shell, for example) that, when detonated, spreads radioactive material and contaminates a geographic area. Writing in a Naval Post Graduate School publication, Jack Boureston and Charles Mahaffey argue that RDDs would fill the needs of terrorists for a number of reasons.
To begin, the ingredients are readily available via commercial enterprises, medical facilities, university laboratories and waste products from nuclear reactors. Second, because the radiological materials in these devices are less radioactive than the compounds in a nuclear weapon, they are much easier to handle when constructing and transporting. Finally, constructing one of these devices is relatively simple as “one need only wrap a radioactive material around conventional explosives.â€
Paul Zimmerman, a nuclear physicist in the Department of War Studies at King’s College, London, notes that polonium, the substance that killed former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, is available on Amazon.com in products “with about 10 percent of a lethal dose.†A polonium device “exploded in a packed arena or on a crowded street could kill dozens or hundreds.†First responders unaware of the chemical makeup of the bomb “might be among the worst wounded.â€
To demonstrate the Russian government’s vulnerability to a DDS attack, Islamic radicals planted, but did not detonate, a dirty bomb in a Moscow Park. There’s no reason to believe that a motivated terrorist group couldn’t do the same in an American city, this time with a catastrophic outcome.
Jag
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