Chemical and Biological Warfare Unmasked

By Joseph D. Douglass Jr.
The Wall Street Journal, 02 November 1995

“The number one security challenge in the United States now and
probably for years ahead is to prevent these weapons of mass
destruction, whether chemical, biological or nuclear — and the
scientific knowledge of how to make them — from going all over the
world, to rogue groups, to terrorist groups, to rogue nations.”

Sam Nunn, ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee,
speaking on “Face the Nation,” Oct. 15, 1995.

For the first time in more than 25 years, the U.S. may be waking up
to the seriousness of chemical and biological warfare (CBW). Several
interrelated events have caused this awakening.

• Five Russian defectors have reported on a massive 25-year effort
  to create qualitatively new families of CBW agents using the most
  advanced biotechnology. Arms control treaties were disregarded by both
  the Soviets and Russians. The Soviet program, code named Biopreparat, is
  roughly 10 times larger than U.S. CBW intelligence specialists had
  estimated prior to the Soviet breakup.

Diplomatic efforts were initiated to convince the Soviets to cease
and desist. These pressures were expanded as more information became
available and as the leadership changed. Their response has been denial,
evasion and repeated stonewalling. By mid-1994, U.S. authorities began
to recognize that the Russian leadership either would not, or could not,
stop the programs, whose total magnitude is still unknown.

• The Gulf War exposed serious deficiencies in protective gear, gas
  masks, troop training and supplies of antidotes. Had Iraq unleashed its
  capability against the arriving U.S. deployments, the results could have
  been disastrous. To heighten concerns, this summer we learned that U.S.
  intelligence had seriously underestimated Iraq’s CBW capabilities and
  that Iraq had a large stockpile of bombs and other munitions containing
  Clostridium botulinum, Bacillus anthracis and mixtures of fungal toxins
  similar to the “yellow rain” of Southeast Asia and Afghanistan fame.
  Prudence would suggest that estimates apropos China, North Korea, Cuba,
  Syria, Egypt, Israel, Libya and Iran are also too low.
• In the wake of the Soviet breakup, a varied assortment of
  individuals emerged hawking military weapons and know-how. While nuclear
  proliferation and missile and submarine sales have received the most
  attention, by far the worst problem is CBW proliferation.

To gauge its seriousness, recognize that the Soviet Biopreparat
program involved more than 30,000 scientists, engineers and technicians
— the top scientific talent in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
They had been working since 1970 to create CBW agents that were
different from (and more sophisticated than) nerve agents.

• The most recent event to raise consciousness is one Sen. Nunn
  highlighted: the release of a sarin nerve agent in the Tokyo commuter
  train by the Aum cult earlier this year.

Reports in the open press have credited this cult with more than
10,000 members in Japan, 30,000 members in Russia and ties to North
Korea; sufficient chemicals to manufacture six tons of nerve agents; the
ingredients to produce botulinum toxin; attempts to obtain the Ebola
virus; testing sarin on sheep in Australia; planning a coup in Japan; a
war chest between $300 million and $1 billion; a Russian helicopter and
two unmanned drones, ideal CBW delivery systems; setting up companies in
America to obtain CBW supplies; preaching global Armageddon; and
planning a CBW party for the upcoming Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation
forum in honor of visiting officials, including President Clinton.

This high-level awakening is long overdue and reflected in a sudden
increase in CBW sensor development research and counterproliferation
programs. Unfortunately, most of these efforts will accomplish little
without corresponding changes in perceptions, policy, intelligence and
organization.

Since 1969, the “conventional wisdom” has been that neither chemical
nor biological weapons had any strategic value. Chemical weapons posed
only a “battlefield” problem and biological weapons would be used only
as an adjunct to general nuclear war, which was not worth worrying
about.

This perception blithely disregards 25 years of revolutionary
advances in the biological and chemical sciences and the potential
products of the Russian program. There is no allowance for “nonmilitary”
CBW applications. Yet the most troublesome developments in the Russian
CBW program are agents designed for covert use against diplomats,
politicians and business executives. Also absent is serious attention to
terrorist motivations and options.

U.S. CBW policy has put its full faith and credit in arms control.
While laudable, arms control has serious limitations; it did not stop
the Soviets, who used it to their advantage. When modern technology is
considered, arms control becomes unmanageable. CBW agents designed for
intelligence, political or commercial applications never make the
agenda. Finally, arms control hardly applies to non-nation-state
players, such as the Aum cult.

This problem is exacerbated because so little thinking in the U.S.
has been directed to examining what can be done in CBW with modern
biotechnology. U.S. CBW thinking can be fairly said to lag that of the
Russia’s by a decade or more.

While an awakening has begun, actions suggest that the interest is
still more superficial than real. There is no indication that any of the
steps required to bring about meaningful change are under way or even
under consideration. About the only visible action is the typical U.S.
money and technology response. However, much more is needed than merely
throwing money at the problem. A sea change in thinking is required.

The battlefield problem is serious but minor when compared with the
rest of the problem. There is a panoply of new agents for military use
whose target is not the battlefield. There are more agents designed for
nonmilitary application — arguably the main thrust of Russian R&D. No
U.S. agency now addresses these developments. CBW agents designed to put
populated regions to sleep rarely appear in U.S. studies. Terrorism, and
the techniques a rogue nation or disgruntled cult might employ, are not
high-priority subjects. What consequences might have emerged had the Aum
cult not been so open and technically careless in its operations?

On the defense side, a major overhaul of the procurement system is
needed. Because the field has been so neglected for so long, it is, in
general, not what one would describe as imaginative, inspired or
energetic. Rather, with a few notable exceptions, programs are the
product of mismanaged momentum. There is no effective advocacy group, no
high-level political representation and extremely limited technical
competence.

Stopping proliferation is critical. An effective counterproliferation
program has to start with serious intelligence collection directed
against the former Soviet Union. Mounting such an effort when the top
brass still views such action as being politically incorrect, and when
mid-level officials sabotage new collection initiatives, will be
difficult. But it must be done.

It seems imperative to create a capability that is prepared to
respond to events in real time — a CBW counterpart to the Nuclear
Emergency Search Team organized many years ago to deal with a nuclear
accident or weapons theft. Such a group would have the mission and
mechanisms to examine the problem in all its lurid detail and set
meaningful requirements for intelligence and technology. To work,
however, it would have to be composed of people not part of the
institutional CBW mind-set.

Where we are headed is anyone’s guess. Our top leadership now
understands that the terrorist threat is serious. The next logical step
is for them to expand their horizons and consider also the fruits of
modern technology, the full range of Russian CBW, and sophisticated
nonmilitary CBW uses.

Mr. Douglass is co-author of “CBW: The Poor Man’s Atomic Bomb”
(Institute for Foreign Policy Analyses, 1984) and “America the
Vulnerable: The Threat of Chemical and Biological Warfare” (Lexington
Books, 1987).