THE SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY OF BIOTERRORISM

Abstract

Bracing for Armageddon? The Science and Politics of Bioterrorism in America, by William R. Clark. Oxford University Press, 2005. 221 pages, $21.95.

Keywords:

• Biological weapons
• terrorism
• anthrax
• nerve agents
• Al Qaeda
• Aum Shinrikyo

Notes

1. For U.S. annual cancer mortality statistics see: American Cancer Society, “Cancer Statistics 2008 Presentation,” PowerPoint, <www.cancer.org/docroot/PRO/content/PRO_1_1_Cancer_Statistics_2008_Presentation.asp>. For statistics on mortality due to smoking see, “Cigarette Smoking Among Adults—United States, 2006,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 56 (November 9, 2007), pp. 1157–1161. Because smoking is estimated to contribute roughly 160,000 of the cancer deaths per year, that amount was subtracted from the total to avoid double counting. For statistics on mortality due to obesity, see, Ali Hl Mokdad et al., “Actual Causes of Death in the United States, 2000,” Journal of the American Medical Association 291 (March 10, 2004), pp. 1238–1245; David B. Allison et al., “Annual Deaths Attributable to Obesity in the United States,” Journal of the American Medical Association 282 (October 27, 1999), pp. 1530–1538; JoAnn E. Manson et al., “The Escalating Pandemics of Obesity and Sedentary Life,” Archives of Internal Medicine 164 (February 9, 2004), pp. 249–258; and Katherine M. Flegal, Barry I. Graubard, David F. Williamson, et al., “Underweight, Overweight, and Obesity,” Journal of the American Medical Association 298 (2007), pp. 2028–2037. Mortality due to obesity costs the United States $90 billion in direct health costs per year. The obesity mortality figure of 365,000 was based on U.S. data for 2000 and has certainly been surpassed by now.

2. Kevin Sack, “Guidelines Set for Preventing Hospital Infections,” New York Times, October 9, 2008, p. A21. The cost alone of treating these infections is estimated at $20 billion per year.

3. “Federal Funding for Biological Weapons Prevention and Defense, Fiscal Years 2001 to 2009,” Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, April 14, 2008, <www.armscontrolcenter.org/media/fy2009_bw_budgetv2.pdf>. An additional billion was added in August 2008, but the fiscal 2009 figure includes a one-time allocation of $2.5 billion, possibly leaving expected future annual levels at $7.5 billion.

4. White House, “Homeland Security Presidential Directive 10: Biodefense for the 21^st Century,” April 2004, <www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nspd/hspd-10.html>. Gregory S. Parnell et al., “Department of Homeland Security's Threat Risk Assessment: A Call for Change,” National Research Council, 2008.

5. “US Senate Leader Urges ‘Manhattan Project’ Against Bio-Terror Threat,” Agence France Presse, January 27, 2005.

6. National Intelligence Council, “The Terrorist Threat to the Homeland,” National Intelligence Estimate, July 2007.

7. Bob Graham and Jim Talent, et al., World At Risk: The Report of the Commission on the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism (New York: Vintage Books, 2008), p. 11, <www.preventwmd.gov/report>.

8. Jeffrey W. Runge, testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Homeland Security, Subcommittee on Emerging Threats, Cybersecurity, and Science and Technology, July 22, 2008.

9. “Joint Statement of Mr. Robert Hooks, Mr. Eric Myers and Dr. Jeffrey Stiefel, U.S. Department of Homeland Security regarding “One Year Later 'Implementing the Biosurveillance Requirements of the 9/11 Act,’” before the House Committee on Homeland Security, Subcommittee on Emerging Threats, Cybersecurity, and Science and Technology, July 16, 2008.

10. Ann Scott Tyson, “Military Prepares for Threats During Presidential Transition,” Washington Post, October 26, 2008, p. A18.

11. David Ignatius, ”Don't Politicize Terrorism,” Washington Post, August 17, 2004, p. A15; “Officials Discuss How to Delay Election Day,” CNN.com, July 12, 2004; and Fred Barbash, “Homeland Security Requests Informal Election Review,” Washington Post, July 12, 2004, <www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44676-2004Jul12.html>.

12. Spencer S. Hsu, “In WMD Report, US Gets a C,” Washington Post, September 9, 2008, p. A21

13. Spencer S. Hsu, “In WMD Report, US Gets a C,” Washington Post, September 9, 2008, p. A21

14. Siobhan Gorman and David Crawford, “WMD Panel Urges Focus on Biological Threats,” Wall Street Journal, September 9, 2008.

15. Letter to Kevin McCarthy, Chair, Platform Committee, Republican National Committee, by the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, August 1, 2008.

16. SRS Technologies, “Quantification of Open Source Research Publications in Biological Sciences for Biological Weapons Development Utility,” Final Report, Prepared for Defense Threat Reduction Agency, June 16, 2003.

17. This citation is being withheld to prevent the further spread of information to those interested in developing B. anthracis as a weapon.

18. Milton Leitenberg, Assessing the Biological Weapons and Bioterrorism Threat (Carlisle, Pennsylvania: U.S. Army War College, December 2005) pp. 11–20, <www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB639.pdf>.

19. CIA, “Unclassified Report to Congress on the Acquisition of Technology Relating to Weapons of Mass Destruction and Advanced Conventional Munitions, 1 July Through 31 December 2003,” <www.fas.org/irp/threat/july_dec2003.htm>.

20. Lieutenant General Michael Maples, “Current and Projected National Security Threats to the United States,” Statement for the Record before the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, January 11, 2007, <intelligence.senate.gov/070111/maples.pdf>.

21. I have picked at random one example from many. It appears in a chapter by the deputy director of the U.S. Air Force Counterproliferation Center that sets out to dispel “important myths” suggesting that the BW threat was less than imminent. “The likelihood that biological weapons will be used against our nation continues to rise. … Additionally, more countries today have active BW programs than at any other time.” Col. Jim Davis, “A Biological Wake-Up Call: Prevalent Myths and Likely Scenarios,” in Jim Davis and Barry Schneider, The Gathering Biological Warfare Storm (Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama: USAF Counterproliferation Center), April 2002, pp. 289–91.

22. Personal communication, senior U.S. intelligence official, June 2008.

23. Personal communications, senior U.S. intelligence official, 1997–99.

24. The 2005 Silberman-Robb Commission report claims that Al Qaeda in Afghanistan did obtain “Agent X,” which is understood to have meant a B. anthracis pathogenic strain, and not a vaccine strain. The claim appears to be incorrect. See Leitenberg, Assessing the Biological Weapons and Bioterrorism Threat, pp. 36–38.

25. Cross-topical comparisons can often provide useful insights. Although not a biological pathogen, the chemical contamination of a wide variety of food products in China with the small chemical compound melamine demonstrated that the motive of financial profit and not “terrorism” led to the use of the compound as an adulterant in a wide array of processed foods.

26. White House, “Homeland Security Presidential Directive 10: Biodefense for the 21^st Century,” April 2004, <www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nspd/hspd-10.html>.

27. Alan Pearson, “Documents on the Department of Homeland Security 2006 Bioterrorism Risk Assessment,” Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, January 9, 2008.

28. Gregory S. Parnell, Luciana L. Borio, Gerald G. Brown, David Banks, Alyson G. Wilson, “Scientists Urge DHS to Improve Bioterrorism Risk Assessment,” Biosecurity and Bioterrorism: Biodefense Strategy, Practice, and Science 6 (October 2008).

29. Clark does not provide the original source but relies on the quotation in a secondary source. Quoted in Susan Wright, “Terrorists and Biological Weapons: Forging the Linkage in the Clinton Administration,” Politics and the Life Sciences 25 (2007), p. 100.

30. Barry Kellman, Bioviolence: Preventing Biological Terror and Crime, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. 1. Kellman's book is also flawed by serious errors in its historical details as well as in its description of the epidemiology of diseases it discusses. However, given the book's publisher and the author's reputation as an international expert, the book is likely to be seen worldwide and considered authoritative. See George P. Schmid and Arnold F. Kaufman, book review of Bioviolence, Bulletin of the World Health Organization 86 (October 2008), p. 815. Three other 2008 books of related interest are David P. Fidler and Larry Gostin, Biosecurity in the Global Age (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008); Jacqueline Langwith, ed. Bioterrorism, Opposing Viewpoints Series (Detroit: Gale/Cengage Learning, 2008), a book designed for students, pairing essentially opposite viewpoints on twelve individual issues within the overall subject; and Anne L. Clunan, ed., Terrorism, War, or Disease (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008), a more scholarly examination of case studies to determine whether an outbreak of disease is a deliberate use of biological weapons, a deliberate false allegation, or a natural disease outbreak.

31. Anne Applebaum, “Only a Game,” Washington Post, January 19, 2005, p. A19.

32. Personal communication, former senior Department of Homeland Security official, March 8, 2007.

33. Elisabeth Bumiller and Eric Schmitt, “Threats and Responses: The Vice President; Cheney, Little Seen by Public, Plays a Visible Role for Bush,” New York Times, January 31, 2003; and Jane Mayer, “Excerpt: The Dark Side,” National Public Radio, July 15, 2008, <www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyid=92528583>. Clark erroneously refers to Dark Winter as “a government exercise.” It was not. It was staged by a collaboration of several private groups.

34. Alan Cullison, “Inside al-Qaida's Hard Drive,” Atlantic Monthly, September 2004, <www.theatlantic.com/doc/200409/cullison>; Alan Cullison and Andrew Higgins, “Forgotten Computer Reveals Thinking Behind Four Years of Al-Qaida Doings,” Wall Street Journal, December 31, 2001; and Andrew Higgins and Alan Cullison, “Terrorist's Odyssey: Saga of Dr. Zawahiri Illuminates Roots of Al-Qaida Terror … ,” Wall Street Journal, July 2, 2002.

35. Brian Jenkins, Will Terrorists Go Nuclear?, (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2008) and Rand Corporation Capitol Hill briefing, September 9, 2008. The success of ideas of Graham Allison, a major proponent of the imminence of nuclear terrorism, and like-minded others are indicated by public opinion polls that show that 40 percent of Americans reportedly believe that terrorists will detonate a nuclear weapon within five years. When American nuclear scientists were asked what that likelihood was within ten years, the median answer was 10–20 percent likely; the reply from European nuclear scientists was 1 percent likely. This is described by Jenkins in his Capitol Hill briefing referenced above.

36. Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft, America and the World: Conversations on the Future of American Foreign Policy (New York: Basic Books, 2008), pp. 239–40.

37. Richard Danzig, “Preparing for Catastrophic Bioterrorism: Toward a Long-Term Strategy for Limiting Risk” (Washington, DC: Center for Technology and National Security Policy, National Defense University, May 2008), p.47.

38. David Koplow, “Losing the War on Bioterrorism,” Security Law Commentary, Georgetown Law Center on National Security and the Law, October 6, 2008, <www.securitylawbrief.com/commentary/2008/10/losing-the-war.html>.

39. Laura MacInnis, “WHO Tells Governments to Focus on Health Care,” Reuters, October 14, 2008.

40. Gardiner Harris, “Infant Deaths Fall in US, Though Rate is Still High,” New York Times, October 16, 2008; “29th on Infant Mortality,” New York Times editorial, October 19, 2008, p. WK11.

41. Alan R. Hinman et al., “Vaccine Shortages: History, Impact and Prospects for the Future,” Annual Review of Public Health 27 (2006), pp. 235–259; Frank A. Sloan et al., “The Fragility of the U.S. Vaccine Supply,” New England Journal of Medicine 351 (December 2, 2004), pp. 2443–47; Jerome O. Klein and Martha Geyers, “Vaccine Shortages: Why They Occur and What Needs to be Done to Strengthen Vaccine Supply,” Pediatrics 117 (June 2006), pp. 2269–75; Institute of Medicine, Calling the Shots: Immunization Finance Policies and Practices (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2000); and Institute of Medicine, Financing Vaccines in the 21 ^st Century: Assuring Access and Availability (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2004).

42. Data compilation prepared by Alan Pearson, Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, Washington, DC, October 2008.

43. On October 13, 2008, DHS Secretary Chertoff invoked the liability protection provisions of the act for anthrax countermeasures by a determination that “there is a credible risk that the threat of exposure of B. anthracis and the resulting disease constitutes a public health emergency.” For the full text of the notice in the Federal Register, see <www.libertycoalition.net/chertoff-waives-liability-emergency-anthrax-shots>.

44. Michael T. Osterholm, “Unprepared for a Pandemic,” Foreign Affairs 82 (March/April 2007), pp. 47–57.

45. Maryn McKenna, “The Pandemic Vaccine Puzzle: A Seven-Part Series on the Chances for Immunizing the World against Pandemic Flu,” Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, 2005; “No Room for Complacency About Bird Flu—Experts,” IRIN, October 27, 2008.

46. “Biodefense Research and the Biological Weapons Convention,” pp. 68–85 in Leitenberg, Assessing the Biological Weapons and Bioterrorism Threat.

47. Brian Jenkins offered a similar recommendation regarding nuclear terrorism: “The first thing we have to do is truly understand the threat. Nuclear terrorism is a frightening possibility but it is not inevitable or imminent, and there is no logical progression from truck bombs to nuclear bomb.” See James Kitfield, “Interview: How I Learned Not to Fear the Bomb,” Global Security Newswire, October 20, 2008, <www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/2008_10_20.html#1D29B503>.