Confronting the Horror
of Biological Warfare
The Los Angeles Times November 30, 1997
NEWARK, N.J.--Saddam Hussein's biological game-playing
should fool no one. Following Iraq's defeat in the 1991 Gulf War, the
Iraqi leader agreed to let U.N. inspectors
supervise the elimination of his country's germ and chemical weapons.
Six years later, the inspectors are convinced that Iraq still is
hiding germ-war leftovers, and maybe some new stocks.
But while trying to find and destroy these arsenals,
U.N. inspectors have been denied entry to Hussein's palaces. Last
week, the Iraqis suddenly announced that the palaces might be opened
to inspection, but U.S. officials remained wary. There are 78 of them,
any of which could be a
biological-weapons factory.
Whether Hussein's principal aim is to taunt the United
States and its allies or to intimidate his neighbors is
unclear. But anything less than unconditional access to
suspected locations would invite a biological or chemical
nightmare.
One special fright about germ weapons is just how
quickly and easily they can be made. A single disease-producing
bacterium, which can divide every 20 minutes, could give rise to more
than a billion bacteria in 10 hours. Thus, a vial about the size of a
bottle of aspirin tablets could yield a huge arsenal in less than a
week. For some diseases, like anthrax, inhaling a few thousand
bacteria, which would take up less area than the period at the end of
this sentence, could be fatal.
Without the restraint imposed by outside monitors, Iraq'
s know-how from its earlier biological and chemical warfare
programs could create a catalog of horrors. A whiff of a nerve agent
like sarin or VX, or a single drop on the skin, can kill in minutes.
But a biological arsenal would be even more frightening.
A 1993 government study indicated that 220 pounds of anthrax bacteria
released from a slow-flying airplane could kill 3 million people. And
anthrax is not even contagious. An attack with the bacteria that cause
plague, or the viruses that cause smallpox, could start an epidemic.
The 1995 release of sarin by a Japanese cult in the
Tokyo subway showed how dreadful a chemical attack could be. The nerve
agent killed 12 people and injured 5,500. Had the poison been a
biological agent, the subway might still be unusable, as past
biological warfare tests suggest. During the 1940s, British and
American scientists released anthrax bacteria in tests on Gruinard
Island, off the coast of Scotland. It took 40 years before the island
could be sufficiently decontaminated for humans to return.
Similarly, during a six-day period in 1966, the army
released bacteria it considered to be harmless, called
bacillus subtilis, into the New York subway. Testers would toss a
light bulb filled with bacteria onto the tracks as a train entered the
station. The air currents whipped up by the train spread the germs
around.
Although presenting some risk to passengers, those
bacteria were not as dangerous as actual germ-war agents. But the
test showed that more than a million New Yorkers were exposed to the
bacilli. The army's report concluded that had the bacteria been true
pathogens, "a large portion of the working population in downtown New
York City would be exposed to disease." Contagious agents would have
infected passengers who then would unknowingly transmit disease to
their families and friends far beyond the area of original release.
The roots of repugnance toward poison weapons are deep.
Such weapons were singled out for disdain more than 2,000
years ago in Hindu writings and in Greek and Roman codes of
conduct. Roman law provided special punishment to poisoners, including
banishment and exposure to wild animals. Biological warfare were the
first to be banned entirely by international agreement. In outlawing
them, the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention describes their use as
"repugnant to the conscience of mankind."
The taboo against the use of biological agents is not
ironclad. But just as individuals who commit murder or incest deserve
punishment, so should leaders and nations that traffic in banned
weapons face penalties. Hussein demonstrated his unwillingness to
abide by moral constraints when he used poison gas against Iran and
his own citizens in the 1980s. Allowing him to develop biological or
chemical arsenals vastly increases the probability that these weapons
will be used again.
Unless the international community insists that Iraqi
territory be opened to unfettered inspection, the next use
of poison weapons may not be Hussein's fault alone. We all will have
been his accomplices.
by Leonard A. Cole