Small-Scale Germ Attack Called Likelier Threat

WASHINGTON — As the nation prepares to combat a bioterrorist threat that political leaders warn could kill millions, those implementing the campaign have begun to focus quietly on the possibility of modestly scaled germ attacks that they believe pose the greatest danger.

Amid warnings from President Clinton and other political leaders that germ warfare could unleash havoc of near-biblical proportions, 29 federal agencies are gearing up for a federal civil defense effort that may spend $1.3 billion next year.

But operational officials said they will concentrate less on the mass terror attacks that could be unleashed by only a few of the most sophisticated terrorists and more on smaller-scale assaults that are within the technical grasp of many terrorist and dissident groups.

They said that they are worried less by the threat of an aircraft fitted with crop-dusting equipment that could theoretically wipe out cities with an aerosol of anthrax spores than by the dangers of a garden pesticide dispenser that might kill several hundred people in a subway. They see less chance of someone contaminating a city water system than of someone bringing illness to dozens of people by spreading salmonella bacteria on a restaurant’s food.

“We want to help cities deal with these much more likely small events that could be [launched by] many more organizations,” said Dr. Robert Knouss, assistant surgeon general and director of the U.S. Office of Emergency Preparedness. “Somebody spraying salmonella on a salad bar is just a lot more likely than the guy spraying 50 kilograms of anthrax spores over Washington, D.C.”

Combating a Threat With Little History

The new focus of the government effort against bioterrorism underscores the difficulties authorities face in trying to calculate risks and prepare defenses against a threat that so far has killed not a single American.

Unlike other security threats, germ terrorism has almost no history in the United States, no past examples to show how it might inflict death. The only real bioterrorism incident in U.S. history occurred in 1984, when members of the Rajneeshee cult in Oregon sprayed salmonella bacteria on 10 local salad bars in an effort to dampen voter turnout and throw an election their way.

When it was over, 751 people had come down with a diarrheal illness. No one died.

Clinton, responding to increased concern about the potential danger, last month called for a 30% increase in federal counterterrorism spending. That set off a wide-open debate among experts about how much of a threat really exists and what should be done--and how much should be spent--to counter it.

Germ warfare technologies have been advancing steadily around the world--especially in countries such as Iraq and Iran that cannot hope to confront the United States with conventional arms. Germ bombs, like chemical weapons, give their users the theoretical capability to inflict the kind of casualties previously associated only with a major military attack.

Advocates for more spending on prevention said that this know-how might be leaked to terrorists by technicians and scientists from the huge Soviet organization called Biopreparat that once employed 30,000 poeple making germ bombs. With the program officially defunded, some former employees might be only too eager to sell their knowledge.

And there is rising risk, some analysts said, from the spread of terrorist and millennialist religious groups, such as Aum Shinrikyo of Japan. The group killed 12 and injured 5,500 in 1995 when it released sarin nerve gas in the Tokyo subway. Earlier, in their efforts to set off an apocalyptic war between the United States and Japan, they tried nine other times to kill with germ agents.

Fictional Accounts Attract Interest

The potential threat clearly has caught the attention of the public. By one count, bioterrorism is the subject of at least 17 books of fiction, including “The Cobra Event,” by Richard Preston, which this spring aroused Clinton’s interest in the subject.

FBI officials, who would take the lead in law enforcement in any germ calamity, said they share concerns that bioterrorist attacks could be catastrophic. Yet, they said, public discussion of the subject has been shot through with exaggerations about the ease with which terrorists could bring harm.

“A lot of hype,” said John F. Lewis, the bureau’s assistant director for national security.

Lewis and others said that they see an increasing number of threats and hoaxes involving biological weapons and a few cases where individuals or groups have gathered potentially dangerous germ cultures.

Last year, the FBI looked into about 100 terrorist threats, of which more than half involved the use of germs, said Robert M. Blitzer, chief of the FBI domestic terrorism section.

“We’ve seen some people growing stuff at home and a few cases where there’ve been arrests,” he said. But, he said, so far the FBI has had no signs that anyone has succeeded in building any device that might be able to inflict a mass-casualty attack.

Anyone who wants to strike a city by spraying anthrax from a plane would need a crop duster with custom-built nozzles that could accommodate germ particles between 1 and 5 microns in size. Particles smaller than that would not have enough mass to float in the air properly. Bigger particles would not be properly absorbed into the lungs.

To generate high casualties, the anthrax would have to be turned into freeze-dried form, which can yield potencies of 100%. But freeze-drying requires complicated, costly equipment that can handle the spores in airtight containers. Only government bioweapon programs, such as Iraq’s, are likely to have such equipment.

Anthrax is simpler to handle in a wet form called slurry. But the potency of this wet material is typically 10% to 15%. So a low-tech terrorist could strike in a subway in this way with a hand-held sprayer. But far fewer people would be hurt.

Water Contamination a Huge Undertaking

The contamination of a city water system is also beyond the capability of most terrorists. It would require huge amounts of germs to overcome dilution by vast quantities of water. An attack on restaurant food would be more manageable for many groups.

But even in such cases, the FBI so far has seen little danger from what Lewis called the “home-grown kooks.”

An antigovernment group called the Minnesota Patriots Council is a model of the new risks, some experts said, since the group plotted to kill two law enforcement officers in 1992.

Members of the council planned to rub a solution of a toxin called ricin on doorknobs, expecting that it would be absorbed through victims’ skin, bringing on what one member described as severe “bureaucratic flu”--death.

But in their trial, an FBI expert testified that the group’s scientific knowledge was sorely lacking. The toxin could not have been absorbed through any victim’s skin in that form. In any event, members of the group--including a janitor, a pots-and-pans salesman and a self-styled lawyer--did not get a chance to commit the crimes. The wife of one member, angry after a marital dispute, went to authorities and turned in the group and the 0.7 of a gram of ricin they had concealed in a baby-food jar.

“Basically, these guys were losers,” said W. Seth Carus, an analyst at National Defense University. And so far, he said, the disaffected Americans known to have shown an interest in germ warfare generally have “not been organized enough to be much of a threat.”

“We can get real spun up over a [terrorist] event or two and make them into a major threat,” said Gordon Adams, a senior U.S. budget official for national security until earlier this year and now deputy director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.

“In part, we do that to make the political machinery move,” he said. “But it is not clear how advanced the threat is here, nor is it clear that it has the broad lethality that would justify the attention that’s being given to it.”

Others, however, acknowledge that, while a catastrophic attack may never occur, the risks have edged up enough to require real preparation.

“‘This is a classic dilemma,” said Michael Moodie, a former U.S. arms-control official who now advocates greater preparedness as president of the Chemical & Biological Arms Control Institute. “The odds are that it’s not going to happen in its worst form. . . . And if you got everything you wanted [for defense], it could break the budget.”

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Biological Attacks

Biological agents are organisms, or toxins derived from living organisms, that can be used against people, animals, or crops as opposed to chemical agents that are manmade. The following is a list by W. Seth Carus of the National Defense University of the attempts at biological terrorism.

Date/group: April 1997 / Counter Holocaust Lobbyists of Zion

The attack or threat: Sent a petri dish labelled “anthrachs” to Washington B’nai B’rith. The dish was filled with strawberry gelatin.

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Date/group: February 1997 / James Dalton Bell

The attack or threat: Wrote an internet essay about killing government officials and allegedly investigated toxins. This MIT graduate had a previous arrest for possessing ingredients with which to manufacture methamphetamine.

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Date/group: May 1992 / Minnesota Patriots Council

The attack or threat: An anti-tax group that plotted to kill government officials, using ricin, a substance 6,000 times more poisonous than cyanide.

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Date/group: April 1980-March 1995 / Aum Shinrikyo

The attack or threat: Made at least 9 attempts to spread botulinum and anthrax. Its attempt at poisoning Japanese subway riders with chemical agent, sarin, was more successful and resulted in 12 deaths and thousands of injuries.

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Date/group: Mid-1980s / Tamil secessionist group in Sri Lanka

The attack or threat: Threatened to infect humans and crops with pathogens.

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Date/group: August-September 1984 / Rajneeshee

The attack or threat: In trying to influence a local election, members of this cult spread salmonella through 10 local salad bars. More than 750 people were affected; no fatalities.

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Date/group: October 1981 / Operation Dark Harvest

The attack or threat: Environmentalists spread dirt around a Tory Party gathering that had been gathered from a Scottish island that had been used as a testing area for germ warfare during World War II.

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Date/group: November 1980 / Red Army Faction

The attack or threat: A French revolutionary group that allegedly tried to manufacturebotulinum toxin.

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Date/group: June 1976 / “B. A. Fox”

The attack or threat: Threatened to mail tickets infected with pathogens.

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Date/group: January 1974 / Symbionese Liberation Army

The attack or threat: Allegedly investigated biological warfare.

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Date/group: January 1972 / RISE

The attack or threat: Tried to put typhoid in the Chicago water supply.

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Date/group: November 1970 / Weathermen

The attack or threat: Planned to poison a city’s water supply with germ weapons. Planned to steal the germs from Ft. Detrick, Md., allegedly by blackmailing a gay officer into helping them.

Source: W. Seth Carus; National Defense University

compiled by TRICIA FORD / Los Angeles Times