Busting the Anthrax Myth

Stratfor ^ | 7/30/08 | Fred Burton and Scott Stewart

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Dr. Jeffrey W. Runge, chief medical officer at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, told a congressional subcommittee on July 22 that the risk of a large-scale biological attack on the nation is significant and that the U.S. government knows its terrorist enemies have sought to use biological agents as instruments of warfare. Runge also said that the United States believes that capability is within the terrorists’ reach.

Runge gave his testimony before a subcommittee on Emerging Threats, Cybersecurity, and Science and Technology that was holding a field hearing in Providence, R.I., to discuss the topic of “Emerging Biological Threats and Public Health Preparedness.”

(snip)

Later in his testimony, Runge remarked that many do not perceive the threat of bioterrorism to be as significant as that of a nuclear or conventional strike, even though such an attack could kill as many people as a nuclear detonation and have its own long-term environmental effects.

We must admit to being among those who do not perceive the threat of bioterrorism to be as significant as that posed by a nuclear strike. To be fair, it must be noted that we also do not see strikes using chemical or radiological weapons rising to the threshold of a true weapon of mass destruction either. The successful detonation of a nuclear weapon in an American city would be far more devastating than any of these other forms of attack.

In fact, based on the past history of nonstate actors conducting attacks using biological weapons, we remain skeptical that a nonstate actor could conduct a biological weapons strike capable of creating as many casualties as a large strike using conventional explosives — such as the October 2002 Bali bombings that resulted in 202 deaths or the March 2004 train bombings in Madrid that killed 191.

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One paragraph was edited to make it fit as an excerpt. It's long, but an interesting read.

[The_Reader_David]

Stratfor is usually spot on in their analyses, but in this case there is a gaping hole in their analysis:

They assume that al Qaeda would need to deploy ‘weaponized’ biological agents in the way that a rational Western power or Soviet-style dictatorship would deploy them: attempting to infect the enemy from afar.

The Qutbite cult of martyrdom which has reinterpreted the Quran in light of the French existentialist notion of absolute commitment so that killing infidels trumps the Quranic prohibition on suicide allows al Qaeda a delivery system not available to non-Muslim powers: infect operatives with a highly contagious, virulent strain of virus or bacterium with a moderately long incubation period during which the infected person is contagious, and have them go on a last all-expense paid vacation involving lots of air travel between cities in the US and other nations on AQ’s enemies list and plenty of visits to crowded attractions.

[krogers58]

The current heads of the Pakistani ISI should understand that if al Queda were to launch a biological attack, or used any weapon of mass destruction against American civilians, it would pose an existential threat to their country. Given what we've recently discovered in their complicity in terrorist attacks, they and their citizenry are fair game for retaliation. In the event of such an attack emanating from Pakistani soil, the political outcry for retribution would be so great, that we wouldn't invade their country and depose their government. I think, IMHO, that a full scale retaliatory nuclear strike would be in their future. If they think going into the tribal areas and losing a few thousand soldiers is bad, they are ignoring the capability of the US government, and its citizenry for sheer and utter retaliation.

[smokingfrog]

Is all the money we are spending to produce the anthrax vaccine a waste of money then? Is the govt. doing it just because they fear they will be criticized for not having it in the case of another attack?

[sig226]

Are you suggesting that this would be the first time government did something of little or no calculable benefit in order to look good?

Because if you’re suggesting that . . . ;)