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WILL TERRORISTS
TURN TO POISON?
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Many
analysts consider chemical and biological weapons to be of limited military
utility, in part because countermeasures exist to keep down battlefield
casualties. Chemical weapons can produce high numbers of casualties when
used against an unprotected civilian population, however. For example,
Iraqi chemical attacks against the city of Halabja, a northern Iraqi
Kurdish village held by Iran during the Iran-lraq war, killed between 3,000
and 5,000 people. But history suggests killing civilians on this scale does
not win wars between states.
What
chemical and biological weapons can do is capture the world's attention and
create fear among possible victims. Saddam's mere threat to use chemical
weapons during the 1991 Gulf War caused thousands of citizens to evacuate
Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, despite strong doubts that Iraq's extended-range,
reduced-payload Scuds could be used effectively to disseminate a chemical
agent. With this capacity to fascinate and frighten, poisons may be ideally
suited for terrorists, for whom creating fear in the target population is
more important than creating casualties per se. To date, however,
terrorists have used chemical and biological weapons rarely, and only to
injure or kill small numbers of people. What constraints have held
terrorists back? And are those constraints eroding?
Trends In Terrorism
As used in this article, the term
"terrorism" will refer to "premeditated, politically
motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by sub-national
or clandestine agents, [usually intended to influence an
audience.]"[1] During the 1970s, the total reported number of
terrorist incidents worldwide was 8,114, resulting in 4,798 fatalities and
6,9O2 injuries. During the 1980s, the total increased nearly four-fold (to
31,426), with fifteen times as many fatalities (70,859), and ten times as
many injuries (47,849).[2] As governments implemented security measures to
protect embassies and prevent hijacking, and as the public became inured to
standard terrorist fare, terrorists took to more and more spectacular
incidents, employing increasingly sophisticated bombs to kill hundreds of
victims on airplanes, in train stations, and in other public places.
The early 1990s have been marked by several
positive developments, along with some negative ones. on the positive side,
all remaining Western hostages held by Iranian fundamentalists were
released from captivity during 1990-92. Many countries formerly engaged in
supplying terrorists with training, weapons, or funds renounced their
patronage role. For example, Syria may have become a moderating influence,
in contrast to its earlier role as instigator. And efforts to stave off
terrorist incidents during the 1991 Gulf War set a precedent for
international cooperation that is still bearing fruit.
Other positive developments include: the
1990 announcement by Czechoslovakia's then-president Vaclav Havel that his
country would no longer sell Semtex (a plastic explosive) to ten-grist
groups; the CLA's and KGB's initiation of negotiations on sharing data
concerning terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction;
and the French authorities' 1992 capture of three top leaders of the Basque
separatist group, which along with the Irish Republican Army was one of the
most feared groups in Europe.
For traditional European left-wing
terrorism, the collapse of communism throughout Eastern and Central Europe
has been a severe blow. Left-wing groups are now bereft of sponsors, safe
havens, and training camps in Europe. They also suffer "from the
absence of a functioning, successful communist model government to replace
the one [they] are fighting against."[3] Some Third World movements
likewise appear to be in disarray.
Of particular significance here is the
revelation by a former member of the East German secret police (the Stasi)
that an East German terrorist camp had been teaching terrorists to use
chemical and biological weapons against civilian targets.[4] In a recorded
interview, an unnamed former Stasi officer describes the Stasi's training
of Iraqis and Palestinians. Terrorists were allegedly taught how to
disseminate chemical and biological agents in public places, such as
airports or train stations, and how to poison water supplies. The former
officer explained that the motivation for such tactics is "to achieve
a demoralizing effect of terrorizing the population, throwing them off
balance, and throwing into confusion the entire structure of the security
forces in the individual countries."[5] He also claimed that agents of
the Iraqi secret police, the Mukhabarat, had been trained to use chemical
and biological weapons. This training allegedly took place in East Germany
in 1980-85, after which it continued in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen.
Along with the good news of the 1990s,
however, has been bad news. The collapse of communism has given rise not
only to nationalist wars in Yugoslavia and the former Soviet Union, but
also to budding terrorist groups in these same regions. In 1991, Serbian
groups made threats against German and Austrian officials in an effort to
discourage diplomatic recognition of Croatia. (These threats were not
carried out.)[6] In Georgia, a group of followers of the ousted president
Zviad Gamsakhurdia went underground in Tbilisi, and have been connected
with many attacks on officials since Eduard Shevardnadze assumed
leadership. Terrorism is also increasing in Estonia and Moldova.
As for the Stasi training of Iraqis, some
experts believe that Stasi officials reluctant to return to a unified
Germany are still training agents in Iraq. Moreover, despite Syria's show
of moderation, one U.S. government study found that "most
experts" consider it unlikely that Damascus will relinquish terrorism.[7]
Libya, likewise, is engaged in merely cosmetic renunciations of terrorism
according to senior U.S. officials--closing five publicly identified
training camps, but continuing five not so listed.[8]
Among the thousands of terrorist incidents
each year, only a small percentage involve poison. From 1968 to 1980, the
CIA recorded twenty-two incidents around the world in which "exotic
pollutants," including biological and radiological as well as chemical
materials, were used. The incidents therefore accounted for less than
one-half of one percent of all terrorist incidents during that period, and
apparently none of the twenty-two incidents involved weapons per se.[9]
One of the best-known incidents involving a
threat of chemical contamination occurred in 1989. An unidentified person,
presumed to be Chilean, called the U.S. embassy in Santiago claiming that
he had poisoned fruit destined for the United States and Japan. The caller
proclaimed that killing policemen and placing bombs had not resolved the
problems of Chile's lower classes, and that he wanted to involve other
countries in addition to Chile.[10] An exhaustive search by the U.S. Food
and Drug Administration led to the discovery of two grapes that contained
small quantities of cyanide, although the quantity was too small to harm a
human being. The Chilean fruit industry claimed that the episode cost Chile
$333 million.[11] In 1991, the Chilean government joined forces with
Chilean fruit growers and exporters to sue the United States for damages
totaling $466 million.[12] Because the telephone caller in this case
inflicted tremendous economic harm on noncombatants, the incident could
properly be classified as terrorism if it was politically motivated. But
the caller's motivation is not known. Nor is it clear that any tampering
actually took place.[13]
There have been a number of similar cases in
the last decade. In January 1986, the Australian, British, Canadian, and
U.S. embassies in Colombo, Sri Lanka, received letters purporting to be
from a Tamil guerrilla group and warning that tea destined for export had
been poisoned with potassium cyanide.[14] In 1984, the candy manufacturer
Mars reportedly lost $4.5 million after a hoax in the United Kingdom in
which the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) purportedly claimed to have spiked
chocolate bars with rat,poison, to protest tooth decay experiments
conducted on live monkeys. Eight bars were found to contain a note,
allegedly from ALF, claiming that "cruelty based products" had
been adulterated. No poison was found, however.[15] British police later
charged four members of ALF with injecting toxic mercury into turkeys sold
at supermarkets, protesting their slaughter during the Christmas season.[16]
The same group was suspected by police of poisoning eggs found in British
supermarkets in 1989. The eggs were punctured and marked with a skull and
crossbones. An attached message signed "ALF" warned that the eggs
had been poisoned.[17]
Similar cases have occurred in Japan, where
soft drinks and other items sold in vending machines have frequently been
targeted, resulting in at least 10 deaths and 35 serious injuries. These
cases have become known as the vending machine murders. As with the
incident involving Chilean fruit, however, it is not known if the Japanese
cases have a political motivation. But obviously terrorists, by conducting
product tampering crimes of this type on a larger scale, could wreak havoc
on the economy of a targeted nation.
Unfortunately, instructions on how to carry
out these activities are easy to find: murder manuals (the publication of
which is protected by the First Amendment) are advertised in journals that
are found in magazine shops all over the United States. Nor is there any
hindrance to purchasing such manuals. on one occasion, this author called
up a publisher of murder manuals and expressed a wish to purchase manuals
with instructions on how to poison people. The operator asked whether I was
also interested in bombs or silencers. I told her no, I only wanted to
poison people. She asked for my credit card number and address and promptly
mailed me the manual, without further questions.
Chemical agents and poisons have been used
periodically at every stage in history, from the Peloponnesian Wars in the
fifth century B.C. to the Iran-Iraq War in 1980-88. This has not been the
case with modern biological weapons, the use of which in war has never been
confirmed by an international organization. The incubation period for
pathogenic agents is from several hours to several weeks. This, together
with the difficulty of controlling the spread of disease, makes biological
agents even less useful than chemical weapons on the battlefield.
But even as chemical weapons have been used
throughout history, so have they been reviled. The 17th century scholar
Hugo Grotius explained that "from old times the law of nations--if not
all nations, certainly of those of the better sort--has been that it is not
permissible to kill an enemy by poison.... Livy calls the poisoning of
enemies secret crimes.... Cicero refers to it as an atrocity." Grotius
also claims that it is forbidden to "poison weapons or waters.... John
of Salisbury has rightly stated the principle in these words: 'I do not
read that it is permissible under any law to use poison, although I see
that poisoning is sometimes resorted to by unbelievers.'"[18]
This horror of chemical weapons has never
been adequately explained. It may be, in part, that they affect only living
things, and, in part, that they are indiscriminate weapons, affecting
combatants and civilians alike. on the other hand, some analysts argue that
chemical weapons are ideal weapons because they disable far more often than
they kill: they have a low fatality to casualty ratio. Thus, Amos A. Fries
and Clarence J. West have said of chemical warfare: "Instead of being
the most horrible [form of warfare], it is the most humane. "[19] In
any case, chemical weapons have been denounced as uncivilized and banned
repeatedly by international law.
Codification of the customary laws of war
began in the nineteenth century. Two principles relevant to chemical
warfare--that citizens should be spared and that poisons should not be
used--were included in the Lieber Code of 1863. This "Code for the
Government of Armies in the Field" was developed by U.S. political
philosopher Francis Lieber for the Union government. It was distributed to
the Union Army's commanding officers as "General orders 100."
Article XVI of that code defined "military necessity" as not
admitting "the use of poison in any way." Article XXII stated
that "the unarmed citizen is to be spared in person, property, and
honor as much as the exigencies of war will admit." Although the code
applied only to U.S. forces, it served as a model for several European
countries' military codes in the 19th century. The 1868 Declaration of St.
Petersburg, signed by seventeen European countries but not the United
States, forbade the use of certain projectiles. The Declaration of Brussels
of 1874 expressly forbade the use of poisons, but was never adopted by any
state. The first international treaty to prohibit projectiles for the
dispersion of poisonous gases was a declaration adopted by the first Hague
Convention in 1899. Part II of the 1899 Hague Conventions, "Respecting
the Laws and Customs of War on Land," protects the lives of civilians
and bans poisons and poisoned weapons. Part IV of the 1907 Hague
Conventions reiterates these prohibitions. The Geneva Protocol of 1925 bans
the use of chemical and biological weapons in war, but many signatories
reserved the right to retaliate in kind if an aggressor used these weapons
first. The Biological Weapons Convention of 1972 bans production and
possession of biological weapons and toxins. A new chemical weapons
convention (CWC) to ban development, possession, use, and transfer of
chemical weapons was completed in August 1992 and opened for signature in
January 1993.[20]
Given this history, chemical and biological
weapons could appeal to terrorists precisely because of what Harvey J.
McGeorge calls the "aura of odium"[21] that surrounds them. In
the mind of the terrorist, chemical and biological weapons might possess
some of the transcendent terror of nuclear weapons, without presenting such
formidable technical challenges. Even a threat to use chemical and
biological weapons would capture the attention of an audience inured to
more familiar tactics, such as assassinations and bombings using
conventional weapons.
Terrorists might also view chemical and
biological weapons as a cheap way to enhance their prestige and power in
the eyes of an audience impressed by technical expertise. McGeorge suggests
that these weapons could represent to terrorists three kinds of power:
Power to the people: terrorists' use of
chemical and biological weapons would "end the state's monopoly on
'superviolence' and the people will no longer be forced to yield when in
opposition."
Scientific power: chemical and biological
weapons represent "the ultimate scientific weapon."
Mystical power: "Religious
fundamentalism and the biblical references to epidemics as instruments of
divine retribution may encourage those who see themselves as God's
emissaries."[22]
Another potential advantage of chemical and
biological weapons is that they can impose enormous damage on a target
country or company (possibly by threat alone, without injuring a single
person). A case in point is the Chilean fruit incident described above.
In the past, terrorists may have considered
chemical and biological weapons too difficult to acquire or use. If so,
this is probably no longer the case, particularly for state-sponsored
terrorists. A 1991 U.S. government study claimed that for some scenarios
involving chemical and biological weapons "the level of technological
sophistication required . . . may be lower than was the case for some of
the sophisticated bombs that have been used against civilian
aircraft."[23] Terrorists wouldn't necessarily have to manufacture the
weapons themselves, however. The easiest way to get chemical and biological
weapons might be directly from a state-sponsor of terrorism. As mentioned
previously, Iran, Iraq, Libya, N. Korea, and Syria--all listed by the State
Department as supporters of terrorism--are believed to possess at least
some capability for chemical and biological warfare. Terrorists lacking
state sponsors might be able to buy chemical and biological weapons, to buy
the expertise to make them, or to steal them.
Making weapons. A number of terrorist groups
have produced small stockpiles of toxins or biological agents, which were
subsequently found by the police. In 1972, members of the "order of
the Rising Sun," a U.S. neo-Nazi group, were found in possession of 80
pounds of typhoid bacillus that they had apparently produced
themselves.[24] The group had intended to use the material to poison the
water systems of Chicago, St. Louis, and other Midwestern cities.
The Baader Meinhof gang allegedly stole
mustard gas from a West German material depot in France in 1975.[25] In
1979, the group was alleged to be preparing to use biological agents, for
which they were reportedly being trained in Beirut by a radical Palestinian
group.[26] And in 1984, an apartment in Paris rented by members of the gang
was found to have a bathtub full of flasks containing botulinum
clostridium.[27]
Poison Manuals. Poisoning manuals easily
obtainable in the United States provide detailed instructions on how to set
up a chemistry laboratory, and how to order chemicals through the mail
without arousing suspicion.
One such manual instructs readers how to
tamper with pharmaceutical capsules, and tells them how chlorine (a
poisonous gas used as a weapon in World War I) can be disseminated in a
crowd. The manual's author also describes how to add a sufficient quantity
of a commonly available chemical to a punch bowl to kill everybody at a
party, and claims that testing poisons on drunkards is more informative
than testing poisons on stray cats, because the latter are suprisingly
immune to poisons lethal to humans.
In 1982 (the year of the first widely
reported tampering incident--the Tylenol case), only a few poisoning
manuals were available, and these were relatively hard to find. Today there
are more than twenty-five how-to books on product tampering alone, and they
are heavily advertised.[28]
Buying weapons. Crude chemical poisons that
could be used to contaminate food, water, or pharmaceuticals are relatively
easy to acquire. Pathogens that could be used as biological weapons--such
as the common food poisons salmonella, shigella, and Staphylococcus--are
easily procurable from clinical microbiology laboratories. For example, two
Canadians were arrested in 1984 after placing orders with a Maryland
research facility for cultures of botulinum and tetanus. The Canadians
falsely claimed to be working for a research firm. Although the botulinum
culture was not sent, one ampule of frozen tetanus culture was never
recovered, and officials claimed that it could be reproduced in quantities
sufficient to be dangerous. The same Rockville, Maryland, firm was alleged
to have shipped to Iraq the bacteria that cause tularemia (Francisella
tularensis).
Black markets. Another possible means of
obtaining chemical and biological weapons would be stealing or buying them
from states of the former Soviet Union. The potential for Soviet nuclear
weapons to fall into the wrong hands has been well analyzed in the
literature. But few have recognized the danger that Soviet expertise in
chemical or biological weapons could be sold. one senior NATO official who
has recognized the danger reportedly said: "I am astonished to see the
debate focused on nuclear weapons. I am more concerned about chemical
weapons, not to mention biological weapons."[29]
Although the extent of the Soviet Union's
offensive biological warfare effort is just beginning to be revealed,
President Boris Yeltsin confirmed in May 1992 that the Soviet government
was engaged in illegal development of biological agents.[30] CIA Director
Robert Gates claimed in December 1992 that the Russian military had been
developing biological weapons outside of civilian control, without the
knowledge of past and present leaders.[31]
The small quantities of chemical and
biological weaponry required by a terrorist group would make it especially
difficult to track the flow of the weapons, or of the precursor chemicals,
to terrorist groups. These weapons are under much tighter control than
conventional weapons. But the large amount of conventional ordinance that
has disappeared (together with persistent, unconfirmed rumors about stolen
nuclear materials) suggests that Western government officials should work
together with Russian officials to secure the safety of chemical and
biological weapon stocks. Unlike strategic nuclear weapons, chemical
agent-filled munitions are not protected by Permissive Action Links, which
prevent unauthorized detonation of nuclear weapons.
Buying expertise. An even more likely way
for terrorists to acquire chemical and biological weapons is by hiring
underemployed, underpaid, or underappreciated experts in the field. For example,
a single Russian expert could fashion a crude but lethal chemical or
biological weapon, given access to a chemistry or biology laboratory. This
is not the case for production of a nuclear device, which would require
difficult-to-acquire materials and equipment, as well as the expertise of
both physicists and engineers.
The first questions that come to mind in
studying the potential terrorist use of chemical and biological weapons
are: If the weapons possess such advantages, why have terrorists used them
so infrequently in the past? And why on such a small scale? Analysts say
that terrorists tend to stick to "tried and true" tactics, and prefer
to avoid innovations that involve risk. Bombing (which can be performed by
one person with relatively little risk) accounts for over half of all
terrorist incidents conducted in the last twenty years. Terrorists change
their tactics only when forced to--usually by government countermeasures
that make a particular tactic no longer cost-effective. For example, when
governments turned their embassies into veritable fortresses and installed
metal-detecting devices at airports, terrorists changed their preferred tactics
from embassy-seizing and hijacking to assassinations and bombing.
Terrorists might escalate to chemical and biological weapons if they found
that traditional tactics were not working, for example, if governments
became more proficient at preventing terrorists from using Semtex to blow
up airplanes. Nevertheless, escalation to chemical and biological weapons
would entail at least four separate kinds of major risks for terrorists:
The risk that the operation would fail.
The personal risk to which terrorists would
be exposed in producing (or otherwise acquiring), transporting, and
disseminating the lethal agent, including the possibility that the
terrorists themselves would be killed.
The risk that governments would respond with
drastic measures.
The risk that the terrorists' perceived
constituents would be repulsed.
The first two risks seem minimal in light of
a point mentioned earlier: although technical difficulties may have
deterred terrorists' use of chemical and biological weapons in the past,
they are unlikely to continue to be a binding constraint, especially for
low-technology incidents. A 1984 CIA "Special National Intelligence
Estimate" reportedly concluded that "clandestine production of
[chemical and biological weapons] for multiple-casualty attacks raises no
greater technical obstacles than does the clandestine production of
chemical narcotics or heroin." It went on to say that chemical and
biological weapons were not yet popular among terrorists, probably because
they are terrified of the weapons, but that "one successful incident
involving such agent would significantly lower the threshold of restraint
on their application by other terrorists."[32] It must be stressed,
however, that sophisticated delivery systems for chemical and especially for
biological agents are still likely to be out of reach for most terrorists.
Thus, if the potential for destruction posed
by chemical and biological weapons continues to go unrealized, the
principal reasons are likely to be fear of inciting a government crack-down
against the terrorist group or for fear of alienating perceived
constituencies. This last risk has a varying impact. Some terrorist groups
may be little constrained by it, but some may be greatly inhibited by
self-imposed moral and political restraints. Brian Jenkins, a well-known
terrorism expert, explains that terrorists "worry about the public
backlash. You don't poison the public water supply and still call yourself
the people's vanguard."[33] Terrorists want "a lot of people
watching, not a lot of people dead."[34] By the same token, the
decision to use more lethal tactics could also provoke dissension within
the group itself, leading to the potential for betrayal.
Moral constraints might quickly erode,
however. Terrorists tend to copy the actions of other terrorists. Jeffrey
Simon, formerly an analyst at Rand, gives the examples of the rash of car
bombings that followed the first few that occurred in Lebanon in the early
1980s, and several attempts to place bombs aboard airplanes in the wake of
the Sikh terrorists' midair bombing of an Air India jet in 1985.[35]
Conceivably, if chemical and biological weapons were initiated as a
terrorist tool, their use could become relatively common, especially for
low-level incidents, such as tampering with products.
Analysts claim that terrorists emulate
states as well as other terrorists. To the extent that the acquisition or
use of chemical and biological weapons is perceived to enhance states'
power or prestige, terrorists may emulate these countries. The 1984 CIA
study mentioned above reportedly considered the possibility that the use of
chemical warfare by the Soviet Union or Iraq "could influence the
attitudes of terrorists toward use of [chemical and biological
weapons]."[36] on the other hand, a public decision by states to
relinquish chemical weapons (as required by signatories of the recently
completed chemical weapons convention) could help to reestablish the norm
of non-use of chemical weapons, which could potentially lessen chemical
weapons' potential appeal for some terrorists.
Predicting how terrorists might use chemical
and biological weapons is difficult, because terrorists rarely discuss
their motivations and objectives. What one can do is try to hypothesize
logically about terrorist tactics, targets, and objectives. The following
three lists proceed according to the difficulty of the terrorist operation.
For that reason, the lists probably proceed also according to the unlikelihood
of the operations.
Potential tactics involved in an operation
might include one or more of the following: threats to use chemical or
biological weapons; tampering with products; assault; theft of governments'
chemical or biological weapon stocks, or of toxic pesticides, or of other
toxic materials; development of chemical or biological agents, or training
in chemical or biological warfare; exploding a bomb or missile containing
chemical or biological agents.
Possible operations might include one or
more of the following targets of contamination: foods; pharmaceuticals;
water; direct poisoning of a person or persons via blood; air dissemination
on an airplane, train, or subway; air dissemination in a building; air
dissemination over a city or parts of a city. Tampering with products or
assaulting persons with a small quantity of noxious agents, such as a
pesticide that is harmful to human beings, would be feasible for almost any
terrorist. Air dissemination of chemical or biological agents over large
areas would be far more difficult, and terrorists lacking state-sponsors
would probably be incapable of this operation.
Lastly, there are six broad objectives that
terrorists could seek to realize through the use of chemical and biological
weapons:
Inflicting economic and political costs on
the target country by poisoning fruits or other commodities;
Imposing costs on particular corporations
perceived to be icons of the target country (for example, poisoning a few
batches of Coca-Cola, or Stolichnaya vodka, or Guinness stout);
Creating fear in the target population, by
killing or threatening to kill random people, perhaps large numbers of
people;
Compelling exiled dissidents' or defectors'
obedience to the state (in the case of state-sponsored terrorism);
Exacting revenge against the state for
oppression of indigenous minorities, such as the Iraqi oppression of the
Kurds;
Forcing a withdrawal of military forces from
foreign deployments.
Analysis of The Rand Database of
Contamination Incidents reveals that food is the preferred target of
contamination for terrorists and criminals.[37] Food was the target of
contamination in 45 percent of the incidents. Food is also the most common
of tampering complaints received by the FDA. Water contamination comprises
19 percent of the Rand incidents, and pharmaceuticals 10 percent. Air
dissemination was attempted or threatened in only 10 percent of the
incidents. Direct poisoning of persons via injection was attempted or
threatened in 3 percent of the incidents. Product tampering is by far the
most preferred tactic: 31 percent of the incidents involve tampering.
Assault on persons constitutes 10 percent of the incidents, followed by
sabotage, comprising 9 percent.
Slightly less than half of the incidents--41
percent--involve threats that were never carried out. As discussed above,
however, unfulfilled threats are by no means harmless. They may cost a
great deal in terms of consumers' confidence in the safety of products or
foods (which is ultimately translated into lost revenues), and can damage
citizens' confidence in their government. They may also reduce the
inclination of authorities and the public to react seriously to warnings of
terrorist acts that may be genuine. of the 195 incidents in an extract of
the database, 20 resulted in at least one death, 80 were incidents that had
the potential to cause fatalities, and 24 resulted in at least one injury.
The total number of deaths was 86, and the total number of injuries was
776.
This last figure needs to be heavily
discounted, however, because it is skewed by a highly doubtful incident. In
1983, more than 300 schoolgirls in the Israel-occupied West Bank were
hospitalized for nausea and dizziness, supposedly caused by a "poison
gas" attack. A second wave of illness, involving 394 others, followed.
Two doctors from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control concluded that the
incident "may have been triggered initially either by psychological
factors or by subtoxic exposure to hydrogen sulfide" from a latrine.[38]
Another alleged incident has been entirely
excluded from the extract here analyzed. In 1981, the Soviet news agency
Tass claimed that 620 people had been killed in Spain, and 1500 made ill,
when a viral epidemic spread from a U.S. biological weapons stockpile. Most
Western observers consider the allegation to be simply a disinformation
campaign by the former regime, launched in retaliation for the U.S.
allegation (since confirmed by Moscow) that a 1979 anthrax epidemic
occurred in the area of Sverdlovsk as a result of an accident at a
germ-warfare facility.
All of the incidents that were carried out
were low-technology operations resulting in a relatively small number of
deaths or injuries. The most highly lethal incident was a 1985 case in
Lebanon, in which Palestinian terrorists reportedly drugged the tea of Amal
movement members and of soldiers, and then slaughtered them.
Looking ahead, then, it is probably
reasonable to assume that if terrorists use chemical and biological
weapons, they will begin with low-technology operations similar to those
that have already been perpetrated, such as tampering with food
products--the most popular tactic/target pair to date. A slightly
higher-technology, higher-lethality, and far more dramatic incident would
be to poison people in an enclosed area, disseminating the agent in the
air. For example, a glass-lined suitcase full of nerve agent could be
released into the air intake ducts of a building. A fire extinguisher or
other container filled with nerve agent could be used to kill people on an
airplane. (of course, airport inspectors are already instructed not to
allow passengers to bring fire extinguishers onto airplanes, but the author
recently brought one undetected through the metal detector at Boston's
Logan Airport.) other, more spectacular incidents are considered elsewhere
in the literature. Acts of massive destruction, involving as many as
hundreds of thousands of deaths, might be possible with biological weapons,
but these "macro-terrorist" scenarios are less likely to be
carried out than scenarios similar in lethality to previous terrorist
incidents.
As for the likelihood that terrorists will
use chemical and biological weapons, a number of factors suggest that such
tactics may be more probable now than in the past. These factors include
terrorists' increasing tendency to target random, innocent bystanders; the
growing sophistication of terrorists' weapons and tactics; the increasing
availability of chemical and biological weapons, including proliferation of
these weapons to terrorist-supporting states; and terrorists' possible
perception that their audience has become jaded.
An analysis of the Rand database mentioned
above indicates that terrorist incidents comprised about one quarter of all
incidents of purposeful contamination listed for the years 1968-1987. Using
the categories employed by the database, the author has calculated the
following percentages for each type of incident: criminal, mentally
unbalanced, or false tampering report, 60 percent; terrorist, 21 percent;
protesters, 7 percent; state-sponsored, 4 percent; religious, 0.5 percent;
and unknown, 8 percent.
Governments should be aware of terrorists'
potential to escalate to chemical and biological weapons, and should take
steps to reduce the threat.
Ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention. For
twenty-four years, negotiators at the United Nations Conference on
Disarmament in Geneva worked on a treaty to ban the production, prossession,
transfer, and use of chemical weapons. Superpower rivalry strongly impeded
progress during most of that time. on August 26, 1992, the negotiators
reached a breakthrough: a final, compromise draft was presented to the
Conference. The United Nations General Assembly endorsed the treaty on
November 30, 1992, and it was opened for signature on January 13, 1993. (As
of this writing, 125 states have signed the treaty.) The next step is
ratification. The treaty is expected to enter into force in 1995.
There are two ways in which an international
convention to ban chemical weapons might affect terrorists' potential to
use chemical weapons. First, some terrorists might be influenced by
strengthened norms against the use of chemical weapons, although the most notorious
and violent groups probably would not. Most terrorist activities are
already prohibited by international law, and there is little reason to
believe that a law banning chemical weapons would inhibit terrorists any
more than treaties that prohibit attacking civilians during armed conflict
or prohibit taking hostages. But terrorist groups that are particularly
concerned about their image may be deterred from escalating to chemical
weapons if the countries of the world have recently expressed their revulsion
for those weapons.
Secondly, it is possible that the Chemical
Weapons Convention would have a modest impact on terrorists' access to
chemical weapons. To the extent that state-sponsors of terrorist activities
involving chemical weapons are hampered by the treaty, or to the extent
that sellers of chemical weapons are hampered by the treaty, some
ten-grists' potential for some types of chemical-weapon operations could
also be impaired by the treaty.
The CWC proscribes sale not only of chemical
weapons, but of precursors (chemical reagents used to produce chemical
weapons), technologies, and know-how. This applies not only to state
parties but to all persons under state parties' jurisdiction. Thus, in the
likely event that Russia ratifies the treaty, any Russian experts in
chemical weapons who might be tempted to sell their expertise would be
liable under such laws.
Detection is more problematic. Clandestine
production of chemical agents in the quantities required for terrorist use
would probably be impossible to detect even under the most stringent
inspection regime imaginable. Nevertheless, the increased scrutiny of
parties' chemical industries will raise the cost of manufacturing or
acquiring chemical agents, even in the quantities required for some terrorist
applications. Even non-parties' ability to acquire chemical weapons may be
hampered by the treaty, because parties are prohibited from selling
precursors to non-parties.
Admittedly, terrorists' potential to carry
out low-technology tactics--such as tampering with foods and
pharmaceuticals, or dumping crude poisons into unprotected water
supplies--would be affected only to the extent that the terrorists were
affected by the CWC's affirmation of norms. Low-technology incidents of
this kind do not require state sponsors.
Make information on chemical weapons harder
to come by. The CWC states explicitly that parties to the treaty must enact
legislation to punish any natural or legal persons who engage in activities
prohibited by the convention. These prohibited activities include:
To develop, produce, otherwise acquire,
stockpile or retain chemical weapons; To assist, encourage or induce, in
any way, anyone to engage in any activity prohibited to a State Party under
this Convention.
This language suggests that providing
instruction on poisoning people may be illegal under the terms of the
treaty. In particular, depending on how legal scholars interpret the word
"assist," there may be two possible ways in which the courts
could go after authors, publishers, or advertisers of poisoning manuals.
one possibility is that writing or publishing how-to-poison manuals is a
form of "assistance," and that these activities will have to be
punished under the rules for domestic implementation of the CWC.
Alternatively, it may now be possible to hold sellers and advertisers of
such books liable if tamperers or murderers use the techniques described.
Although the right to advocate poisoning people is protected under the
First Amendment, it may be that advertising how-to-poison instruction
manuals is not, especially if the chemical weapon ban is ratified.
Relevant here may be an incident in which
Soldier of Fortune magazine published an advertisement, by a
self-proclaimed "mercenary," which carried the headline "Gun
for Hire," and contained the sentence "All jobs considered."
When a man was killed, and the advertiser convicted of being involved in
the murder plot, a jury found the magazine negligent for having run the ad
and awarded the man's sons $4.3 million. Upholding the judgment the 11th
Circuit Court of Appeals said, "The First Amendment permits a state to
impose . . . liability . . . for negligently publishing a commercial
advertisement where the ad on its face, and without the need for
investigation, makes it apparent that there is a substantial danger of ham
to the public." The U.S. Supreme Court recently refused to hear an
appeal of the Circuit Court ruling, thus implicitly endorsing this
limitation on commercial expression. Clearly, the precedent is worthy of further
study.[39]
Strengthen the Biological Weapons
Convention. one of the principal failings of the Biological Weapons
Convention (BWC) is its lack of an enforcement mechanism. Because offensive
and defensive biological-agent developments are difficult to distinguish,
and because such developments could be extremely small-scale, the BWC has
long been considered inherently unverifiable. Systematic verification of
dual-potential facilities could be extremely costly with very little
payoff. Information about countries' biological weapons programs will
probably come primarily from human intelligence and national technical
means.
A group of experts working under the
auspices of the Federation of American Scientists found that the BWC could
nonetheless be strengthened greatly by the addition of an inspection
mechanism.[40] Further advances in biotechnology could make such a
mechanism,even more important. Although production of the small quantities
of biological weaponry required for terrorist use would be impossible to
prove under such a regime, the costs of production could nonetheless be
raised. The recommendations of the Federation of American Scientists group
should be reconsidered at the next review conference of the BWC.
Improve intelligence. Research on remote
sensing of chemical agents pursued in the context of the CWC may eventually
have spin-offs for monitoring luggage for plastic explosives or poisons.
Researchers and manufacturers should bear in mind this additional potential
application, particularly as the devices become cheaper and the rate of
errors comes down. More research should be devoted to sensing biological
agents in the field.
With respect to tampering, food and
pharmaceutical processors should make themselves aware of the type of
contaminants and tampering techniques recommended in how-to books. They
should conduct experiments to ascertain the feasibility of the recommended
techniques, and the toxicity of the suggested contaminants in their
products.
Chemical and biological quick response teams,
patterned after the Nuclear Emergency Search Team, should be developed.
Teams prepared to respond quickly to emergencies involving chemical or
biological weapons should be composed of verification experts; medical
doctors; specialists in decontamination and protective equipment;
toxicologists; and experts familiar with terrorist groups and tactics.
Additional expertise required for threat assessments will include
psychologists and specialists familiar with product tampering techniques.
Inform the media about the effects of
covering tampering incidents. Analysts in the food processing industry and
non-prescription drug manufacturers' association have observed a high
correlation between widespread news coverage of tampering cases and
"copycat" tamperings, as well as extortion attempts, fake
tamperings, and heightened consumer anxiety. The media should be made aware
of their responsibility in this regard. For example, they might be
encouraged to limit news coverage to the geographical area immediately affected
by a given incident.[41]
Pursue sanctions against state-sponsors of
terrorism. Until now, terrorism has been handled on an ad hoc unilateral
basis: terrorist-supporting states have not been punished by multilateral
institutions in any systematic way. The ad hoc decision of a particular
government to punish violators of international law may have multiple
motivations. Government officials may have domestic political objectives in
mind. They may wish to express moral indignation. They may want to punish
the violator. They are understandably far more prone to react when their
own citizens are the victims. But if the goal of punishment is to deter
transgressions, it is far more effective if countries act together to put
into law the response they are willing to take, and make it clear ahead of
time. When it comes to domestic crime, we don't wait until the crime has
been committed to specify the procedure for judgment and punishment.
Neither should we do so when it comes to state-sponsored terrorism.
In a number of areas, the international
community is moving in the direction of enforcing compliance with
international law, particularly through the United Nations. The 1991
multilateral response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and the 1992 completion
of a new, relatively enforceable ban on chemical weapons are two examples.
Until recently, terrorism has not been on
the list of infractions for which there existed multilateral mechanisms for
response. An important precedent has now been set by the 1992 decision to
impose sanctions against Libya for refusing to turn over suspects in two
terrorist incidents: the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am airliner, which led to
the loss of 270 lives; and the 1989 bombing of a UTA airliner, which killed
171 persons. The authority of the United Nations to impose these sanctions
was subsequently upheld in the World Court. This case is the first time the
United Nations has labelled any nation a terrorist-supporting state, a
label that would have been blocked by the Soviet Union in the past.
Although as of this writing the Libyans have not relinquished the
terrorists, it is clear that the sanctions are beginning to pinch. It is
more difficult to compel states to change behavior in which they are
already engaged than it is to deter future transgressions by altering
states' perceptions of costs and benefits. Libya may now perceive a higher
cost to bombing airliners, and may be less inclined to engage in such
activities in the future.
The next step is to institutionalize the
multilateral application of sanctions against state sponsors of terrorism.
This includes international agreement on how to respond to the threat that
terrorists will start to use chemical or biological weapons. The completion
of the Chemical Weapons Convention is a particularly appropriate occasion.
The biggest threats to international
security in the 1990s stem from areas not necessarily addressed by the
traditional security apparatus. one of these threats is the spread of
chemical and biological weapons to renegade states in unstable regions of
the world. Another concern is terrorism, particularly the prospect that
terrorists will acquire and use weapons of mass destruction. Although
terrorists have so far displayed restraint in this area, the constraints
against their use of chemical and biological weapons are eroding.
The new administration should take seriously
the potential for terrorists and subnational groups to turn to weapons of
mass destruction as a means to attract attention to their causes.
International controls on chemical and biological weapons should be
strengthened. Intelligence agencies and the Departments of Defense and of
Energy should devote greater resources to this problem, including the formation
of chemical and biological quick response teams similar to the Nuclear
Emergency Response Team. And the international community should put
terrorist-supporting states on notice that it will no longer countenance
terrorist-perpetrated violence, by imposing sanctions authorized by the
Security Council against state-sponsors of terrorism.
[1] Title 22 of the United States Code,
Section 2656f (d). The phrase in brackets appears in the definition used in
U.S. State Department, Patterns of Global Terrorism 1991 (Washington, D.C.:
Department of State Publication, 1991).
[2] These statistics are derived from the
database of Business Risks International, now called Pinkerton Risks
International, in Arlington, Virginia. However, the numbers should be
considered very rough. For the many possible sources of error in such
statistics, see Edward Mickolus, Combating International Terrorism: A
Quantitative Analysis (Ph.D. Dissertation, Yale University, 1981).
[3] Pinkerton Risk Assessment Services,
Quarterly Report, January-March, 1992.
[4] This was reported in a documentary
directed by British journalist Gwynne Roberts, shown on January 30, 1991,
on the British Channel 4, as part of the series "Dispatches." See
The Independent, January 30, 1991.
[5] Ibid.
[6] U.S. Department of State, Patterns of
Global Terrorism: 1991 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of State, 1992),
p. 16.
[7] Office of Technology Assessment,
Technology Against Terrorism (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office,
1992), p. 30.
[8] The Washington Post, February 27, 1992;
The Los Angeles Times, September 15, 1991.
[9] Joseph Pilat, "World Watch:
Striking Back at Urban Terrorism," NBC Defense and Technology
International, June 1986, p. 18. (Hereafter, Pilat, "Urban
Terrorism.")
[10] Grigg and Modeland, "The Cyanide
Scare: A Tale of Two Grapes," FDA Consumer, July-August, 1989, p. 7.
(Hereafter, Grigg and Modeland, "The Cyanide Scare.")
[11] Los Angeles Times, October 3, 1990.
[12] "Chilean Government and Fruit
Producers and Exporters Demand $466 Million in Damages from die U.S.,"
Chronicle of Latin American Affairs, August 29, 1991.
[13] Grigg and Modeland, "The Cyanide
Scare."
[14] The New York Times, January 5, 1986;
Facts on File, World News Digest With Index, January 24, 1986.
[15] Pilat, "Urban Terrorism."
[16] "Animal Rights Activists Attack
Scientists' Homes," Associated Press, January 6, 1985.
[17] The Los Angeles Times, March 13, 1985;
TheklsAngeles Times, April 24, 1986.
[18] Leon Friedman, ea., The Law of War: A
Documentary History (New York: Random House, 1972), pp. 38-40. (Hereafter,
Friedman, The Law of War)
[19] Amos A. Fries and Clarence J. West, Gas
in Attack and Gas in Defense(Fort Leavenworth, Kan.: General Services
Schools, n.d.), p. 7, reprinted from the National Service Magazine, June
1919 and July 1919.
[20] See Friedman, The Law of War. See also
John Ellis van Courtland Moon, "Controlling Chemical and Biological
Weapons Through World War 2" in The Encyclopedia of Arms Control and
Disarmament (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, forthcomin); and Jessica
Stern, The Control of Chemical Waepons: A Strategic Analysis (Livermore,
Calif.: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, May 1992) UCRL-LR-110659.
[21] Harvey J. McGeorge, "The Growing
Trend Toward Chemical and Biological Weapons Capability," Defense and
Foreign Affairs, April 1991, p. 5.
[22] Harvey J. McGeorge, "The Deadly
Mixture: Bugs, Gas, and Terrorists," NBC Defense and Technology
International, May 1986, p. 57
[23] Office of Technology Assessment, Technology
Against Terrorism: The Federal Effort (Washington, D.C.: Government
Printing office, 1991), pp. 51-52.
[24] The New York Times, January 19, 1972.
[25] The Economist, May 17, 1975.
[26] The New York Times, April 4, 1982; The
New York Times, June 26, 1978.
[27] The Guardian, April 8, 1980.
[28] Park Elliott Dietz, "Product
Tampering: Crimes and Complaints," Process: The New magazine of the
National Food Processors Association, Spring 1992, p. 8.
[29] International Herald Tribune, December
14, 1991.
[30] Komsomolskaya pravda, May 27, 1992.
[31] The Washington Post, Dec. 2, 1992.
[32] Jack Anderson, "Chemical Arms in
Terrorism Feared by the CIA," The Washington Post, August 27, 1984.
(Hereafter, Anderson, "Chemical Arms.")
[33] Quoted in The Boston Globe, December
27, 1983.
[34] Brian Jenkins, International Terrorism:
The Other World War (Santa Monica, Calif.: Rand, 1985), R-3302-AF, p. 25.
[35] Jeffrey Simon, Terrorists and the
Potential Use of Biological Weapons: A Discussion of Possibilities (Santa
Monica, Calif.: Rand, 1989), p. 13.
[36] Anderson, "Chemical Arms."
[37] For the limitations of this database,
see footnote 12 above. The statistics provided here have been calculated by
the author and are accurate only to the extent that cases omitted from the
database did not differ significantly from included cases in terms of
relative frequency of targets of contamination and tactics. This is
probably a reasonable assumption.
[38] Facts on File, World News Digest With
Index, April 29, 1983.
[39] The Philadelphia Inquirer, January 12,
1993.
[40] Federation of American Scientists
Expert Group on Biological Weapons Verification, Final Report: A Legally
Binding Compliance Regime for the WC (Washington, D.C.: Federation of
American Scientists, 1993).
[41] Park Elliot Dietz, "Product
Tampering and the Press," unpublished manuscript.
~~~~~~~~
by Jessica Eve Stern
Jessica Stern is a Post-doctoral Research
Fellow at the Center for Security and Technology Studies at Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory.
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