They are pretty tough, but not as hard to kill as Bacillus spores - some anthrax spores were cultured from Louis Pasteur's lab coat over a hundred years after it was contaminated.
It is feasible to produce tetanus toxin, and it is a big NBC weapon. Saddam supposedly had many many gallons, enough to kill everyone on the planet.
The article is probably accurate, just the news release was shakey. Quite often, any infective agent is referred to as a 'virus'.
And I knew spores could last a while, but not a hundred years!! That's really scary to think about.
As for the bacillus, we did cultivate lab strains (basically harmless) of it, then tried to kill it by incubating them at various temps - the only thing that worked was autoclaving. Wh also tried to kill it with various pH levels, osmotic pressure, O2 deprivation - they're hardy little suckers. It was of the subtillis variety.
I'm actually considering a career in microbiology because of this class - I'm continually fascinated by the tenacity of microbes