Biological Terrorism

via Alex Curtis

The principal characteristic of biological agents that could make their use attractive to terrorists is their extreme toxicity, even compared to other weapons of mass destruction. This factor has been expressed in a number of different ways:

1. Type-A botulinal toxin, with a mean lethal dose estimated to be as low as a few tenths of a microgram (Kupperman and Trent 1979: 65), has been described as "the most lethal substance known" (Kupperman and Smith 1993: 40; Berkowitz et al. 1972: VIII-40). It has variously been estimated to be a thousand times (Kupperman and Trent 1979: 65) or a hundred thousand times (Kupperman and Trent 1979: 57) more deadly than nerve agents.
Theoretically, according to one source, a single ounce of BTX (botulinal toxin) is sufficient to kill 60 million people (Jenkins and Rubin 1978: 224). Another author states that "one-half ounce, properly dispersed, could kill every man, woman, and child in North America" (Livingstone 1982: 110), yet another that just eight ounces of the substance could "kill every living creature on the planet" (Mullins 1992: 102, citing Hersh 1968).
Type A botulinus toxin can be produced for about $400 per kilogram.

2. Some authors maintain that anthrax is an even more deadly agent (Mullins 1992: 102; Kupperman and Trent 1979: 68). According to one study, in principle, if its spores were distributed appropriately, a single gram would be sufficient to kill more than one-third of the population of the US (Kupperman and Smith 1993: 39). The US Law Enforcement Assistance Administration reported in March 1977 that a single ounce of anthrax introduced into the air-conditioning system of a domed stadium could infect 70-80,000 spectators within an hour (Clark 1980: 195). Tons of the nerve agent VX would be required to cause several hundred thousand deaths if released in aerosol form in a crowded urban area, compared to only 50 kg of anthrax spores (Douglass and Livingstone 1987: 17). A 1972 study by the Advanced Concepts Research Corporation of Santa Barbara, California, postulated that an aerosol attack with anthrax spores on the New York City area would result in more than 600,000 deaths (Kupperman and Trent 1979: 68). Dr. Graham Pearson, Head of Britain's Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment, went ever further and has been quoted recently as saying that "Anthrax, sprayed from the back of an aircraft on a cool, calm night, could take out all of Washington DC. This could cause up to three million fatalities compared to two million from a hydrogen bomb" (Majendie 1994).

3. When dumped into a water supply, one gram of typhoid culture has an impact roughly equivalent to 100 grams of the "V" chemical nerve agent, or nearly 20,000 grams (40 pounds) of potassium cyanide (US Senate Committee on the Judiciary, henceforth SCJ, 1990: 3-4). The US Congressional Office of Technology Assessment cites "UN experts" to the effect that a person drinking 100 milliliters (less than half a cup) of untreated water from a 5 million liter reservoir would become severely sick and perhaps die if the reservoir had been contaminated by 1/2 kg of Salmonella typhi (the cause of typhoid fever), whereas it would require 10 tons of the chemical agent potassium cyanide to contaminate the reservoir to the same level of toxicity (OTA 1991: 52).

The smaller quantities of agent needed on account of their lethality help reduce the costs and complexity of their production or other acquisition, in turn eliminating the necessity for a large infrastructure of personnel and facilities, which in turn eases the problem of security and avoidance of detection.

Other advantages include their indetectability to traditional anti-terrorist sensor systems; as Root-Bernstein puts it: "They cannot be revealed by metal detectors, x-ray machines, trained dogs, or neutron bombardment, as can guns, grenades, and plastic explosives."

The time-lag between release of an agent and its perceived effects on humans reduces the chance of a perpetrator being apprehended (Simon 1989: 10; Burrows and Windrem 1994: 483). As Watkins explains: "After infection the organism multiplies and spreads to others during an incubation period before onset of symptoms. Thus, locating the site of an attack and identifying the perpetrator is complicated" (1987: 195). The particular agent may also leave no signature, allowing for the possibility of anonymous attacks (OTA 1992: 37).

In Mengel's words: "...biological technologies are quite adaptable to demonstration attacks on small, isolated targets, while retaining a capacity of a larger attack" (Mengel 1976: 446). The degree of sheer terror (and hence societal disruption) that they may instill in a target population, even with relatively small-scale attacks, given the particularly horrific nature of biological warfare, is virtually DESIGNED to cause the populace to lose all confidence in and allegiance to their own governments, apparently no longer in control.