NEG/TERRORISM/BIOLOGICAL

BIOLOGICAL TERRORISM WILL NOT KILL VERY MANY PEOPLE

WE MUST REALIZE THAT THE WORST CASE SCENARIO USUALLY NEVER HAPPENS

Among the many possible lessons from the Aum experience is that the worst case scenario is not always what unfolds. Terrorists might look at Aum’s troubles and see that acquiring and using these weapons is a hard rather than an easy proposition. Moreover, terrorists could well see the cult’s attack, which resulted in a severe police clamp-down and domestic legal reform, as having backfired against Aum’s near- and long-term objectives. In short, Aum has often been portrayed as a beacon for terrorists to follow, but it could be just the opposite. If the past is any predictor of the future, weapons of choice for terrorists will remain truck bombs and other conventional tools that are markedly less technically demanding, resource-intensive, and dangerous for the perpetrators.

CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS USED BY TERRORISTS ARE NOT LIKELY TO CAUSE MASS CASUALTIES LIKE CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL WEASPONS CAN

Chemical and biological warfare agents have been the main consid-eration in this article, because they represent the new qualitative ele-ment in the terrorist threat. Toxicants and pathogens have been applied in assassinations and sabotage since time immemorial. The fact that to-day more people may have access to the knowledge and the technolo-gies required to manipulate these agents can increase the quantitative dimension of the threat, but their use will not generally lead to mass ca-sualties. CB weapons, in contrast, are by their very nature indiscriminate, and some military-grade agents can, in theory, produce large numbers of fatalities and other casualties. Their insidiousness, moreover, makes them ideal instruments for terror and chaos.

CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL TERRORIST ATTACKS TAKE PLACE NOW, AND VERY FEW PEOPLE ARE KILLED

As noted in chapter 2, the Center for Nonproliferation Studies database records 126 incidents worldwide where terrorists used chemical or biological substances during this time period, but a combined 45 percent of these cases involved either low-end materials (e.g., tear gas) or are attributed to Aum Shinrikyo. The largest death toll resulting from a single unconventional terrorist attack was nineteen, and in 96 percent of the cases, three or fewer people were injured or killed. No death or injury resulted in 60 percent of the cases where chemical or biological substances were used.

WE ARE NOT ON THE BRINK OF A NEW AGE OF CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL TERRORISM, AND LOCAL SERVICES ARE PREPARED

A crescendo of apprehension has been building in the United States ever since the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo upset the conventional wisdom that possession and use of mass destruction weapons was the province of governments alone. This sect’s shocking 20 March 1995 subway attack was proclaimed the dawn of a new age of "catastrophic" terrorism involving chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. Before long, an array of US leaders went on record with dire "not if, but when" predictions that terrorists would harm large numbers of Americans using chemical and biological agents. This report calls that prediction into question and critically examines the US government’s unconventional terrorism preparedness programs. While the catastrophic terrorism premise is challenged with technical and historical analyses, the appraisal of the US government’s programs comes from those on the front lines of public safety and health care in the United States who contend daily with emergencies small and large. Their pragmatism provides a sensible counterpoint to the hypothetical thinking that has taken the federal preparedness effort on costly, redundant detours and resulted in programs disconnected from the threat, each other, and the front line. Interviews conducted from January 1999 to September 2000 with police, firefighters, paramedics, emergency managers, health care personnel, and public health officials from over thirty cities in twenty-five states revealed that in contrast to Washington, those on the front line emphasize preparedness based on existing assets that are useful in multiple contingencies and structured for long-term maintenance.

JAPAN CHEMICAL BIOLOGICAL TERORIST EXAMPLE SHOWS HOW LITTLE OF A THREAT IT IS

Aum Shinrikyo could not even get past step one, failing to isolate a lethal strain of Clostridium botulinum from the more than 675 existing variants.

As chapter 3 relates, though the sect is credited with producing and disseminating anthrax and botulinum toxin, the cult’s bioweapons program was a serial flop from start to finish. Despite having aggressively recruited scientists, the results of Aum’s chemical and biological weapons programs tend to disprove assertions that acquiring and spreading these agents is shake-‘n-bake easy. Governments have found it necessary to employ hundreds, even thousands, of top-flight scientists to obtain a mass casualty unconventional weapons capability. Surveying the historical record for the last quarter of a century, no individual or group approached the replication of Aum’s constellation of technical skill, intent, and resources directed toward a viable unconventional mass casualty threat. The statistics charting terrorist behavior with chemical and biological substances from 1975 to mid-2000 show that by far the most frequent of terrorist activities domestically were non-credible hoaxes, which are a poor indicator of true terrorist intent to pursue such capabilities and use such weapons.

JAPAN EXAMPLE SHOWS HOW CHEMICAL-BIOLOGICAL TERRORISM IS LESS OF A THREAT

High technical hurdles ultimately limited the range and affected the quality of the warfare agents Aum Shinrikyo was able to develop. Military-grade warfare agents are therefore unlikely to constitute the main threat. As the 1995 sarin attack in the Tokyo underground suggests, a terrorist CB weapon attack may re-sult in relatively few fatalities, and most victims are likely to suffer short or low-level exposure to the chemical or biological warfare agents.