[House Hearing, 107 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
COMBATING TERRORISM: ASSESSING THE THREAT OF A BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS
ATTACK
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY,
VETERANS AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL
RELATIONS
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
OCTOBER 12, 2001
__________
Serial No. 107-103
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house
http://www.house.gov/reform
U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
81-782 WASHINGTON : 2002
__________________________________________________________________________
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland TOM LANTOS, California
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
STEPHEN HORN, California PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii
JOHN L. MICA, Florida CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana DC
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
BOB BARR, Georgia DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
DAN MILLER, Florida ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois
DOUG OSE, California DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
RON LEWIS, Kentucky JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia JIM TURNER, Texas
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
DAVE WELDON, Florida JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
CHRIS CANNON, Utah WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida DIANE E. WATSON, California
C.L. ``BUTCH'' OTTER, Idaho ------ ------
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia ------
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
------ ------ (Independent)
Kevin Binger, Staff Director
Daniel R. Moll, Deputy Staff Director
James C. Wilson, Chief Counsel
Robert A. Briggs, Chief Clerk
Phil Schiliro, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs and International
Relations
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut, Chairman
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York TOM LANTOS, California
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
RON LEWIS, Kentucky JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
DAVE WELDON, Florida DIANE E. WATSON, California
C.L. ``BUTCH'' OTTER, Idaho ------ ------
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia
Ex Officio
DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
Lawrence J. Halloran, Staff Director and Counsel
Nicholas Palarino, Senior Policy Advisor
Jason Chung, Clerk
David Rapallo, Minority Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on October 12, 2001................................. 1
Statement of:
Decker, Raymond, Director, Defense Capabilities Management
Team, U.S. General Accounting Office; Ken Alibek,
president, Advanced Biosystems, Inc.; John Parachini,
policy analyst, Rand Corp.; and Jerrold Post, M.D.,
professor of psychiatry, political psychology and
international affairs, George Washington University........ 4
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Alibek, Ken, president, Advanced Biosystems, Inc., prepared
statement of............................................... 21
Allen, Hon. Thomas H., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Maine, prepared statement of...................... 58
Clay, Hon. Wm. Lacy, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Missouri, prepared statement of................... 66
Decker, Raymond, Director, Defense Capabilities Management
Team, U.S. General Accounting Office, prepared statement of 7
Parachini, John, policy analyst, Rand Corp., prepared
statement of............................................... 27
Post, Jerrold, M.D., professor of psychiatry, political
psychology and international affairs, George Washington
University, prepared statement of.......................... 43
COMBATING TERRORISM: ASSESSING THE THREAT OF A BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS
ATTACK
----------
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2001
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs
and International Relations,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher
Shays (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Shays, Putnam, Gilman, Platts,
Allen, Schakowsky, and Clay.
Staff present: Lawrence J. Halloran, staff director and
counsel; R. Nicholas Palarino, senior policy advisor; Thomas
Costa, professional staff member; Jason M. Chung, clerk; David
Rapallo, minority counsel; and Earley Green, minority assistant
clerk.
Mr. Shays. I would like to call this hearing to order and
welcome our panel and our guests. Before September 11,
assessing the threat of biological terrorism was disdained by
some as little more than an academic or a bureaucratic
exercise. Today, as we worry about access to crop dusters and
suspicious anthrax exposures in Florida, a clear-eyed, a fully
informed view of the threat imposed by weaponized pathogens is
a national security imperative. But we still have no
comprehensive threat assessment and achieving that essential
perspective remains a challenge. Assessing the threat of
bioterrorism requires a sober judgment about the motivations,
intentions and capabilities of people so intoxicated with hate
and evil, they would kill themselves in the act of killing
others.
The questions that confound the assessment process, when
and where will terrorists use biological weapons against us,
how will the agent be disbursed, for what type and magnitude of
attack should we be prepared. Available answers offer little
comfort and less certainty in assessing the threat. Some
conclude the technical difficulties of large scale production
and efficient dissemination reduce the likelihood terrorists
will use lethal agents to inflict mass casualties anytime soon.
Others think those barriers have been or will soon be overcome.
Still others believe that neither large quantities nor wide
dispersions are required to inflict biological terror.
From this cacophony of plausible opinions, those charged
with formulating a national counterterrorism strategy must
glean a rational estimate about the irrational possibility of
biological attack. Perhaps the most difficult dimension of the
threat to assess is the deep-seated, almost primal fear
engendered by the prospect of maliciously induced disease.
For the terrorists, that fear is a potent force multiplier
capable of magnifying a minor manageable outbreak into a major
public crisis. Failure to account for this unique aspect of
biological terrorism understates the threat, increasing our
vulnerability. Overstating the threat based on fear alone
invites overreaction in which we waste scarce resources and
terrorize ourselves with Draconian security restrictions. If
you live in a flood plane, you plan for the 10-year or even 20-
year flood. You don't expect every flood to reach the 100-year
level. If the least likely but worst case scenario dominates
your planning, you would spend every day sitting on the roof in
a raincoat waiting for the catastrophic deluge.
Instead, accepting some risk, you would prudently assess
the likelihood of storm surge, buy an extra case of water and
some flashlights and go on about your life. After September 11,
we all live in a bio-terrorism flood plain and we should plan
accordingly. A workable assessment of the biological threat
demands an open discussion of risks, vulnerabilities and fears.
It is that discussion we continue today. It is the discussion
we will have again October 23, when Health and Human Services
Secretary Tommy Thompson and others will appear before the
subcommittee to discuss the role of vaccines in our near term
and long-term preparedness against biological attack.
We truly welcome our witnesses and thank them for sharing
their time, their expertise and their opinions with us today.
At this time, I think we will recognize our senior and most
experienced member, the gentleman from New York. You have the
floor.
Mr. Gilman. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And I want
to thank you for holding today's hearing to examine the overall
threat posed by biological terrorism and the steps needed to be
taken by our government to establish an effective response to a
biological weapons attack. But I want to commend you, too, for
your continual efforts to try to prepare our government for all
kinds of emergencies that we may be experiencing as a result of
terrorism. Your recent meeting yesterday where we shared
thoughts with some of our experts on anti-terrorism, an
informal meeting, but a highly experienced group that was
giving us some thoughts that we shared together; the
fractionalization hearing on our Government's efforts spread
through so many of our agencies; lack of threat assessment; the
need for force protection; domestic preparedness; detection
technology; hearings on anthrax, chemical warfare.
You ought to be commended for this extremely intensive
review of our government's programs to prepare our Nation
better for these kinds of problems. And I don't think we can
commend you enough for your continual efforts in this area. For
many years, the possibility of a biological terrorist attack
occurring in our Nation seemed absurd, something to be
relegated to the realm of science fiction. Regrettably, the
barbaric events of September 11th, have sharply focused our
national attention on terrorism and have underscored our
vulnerability to future attacks. Indeed, the bioterrorism
debate has been transformed from a question of if to the
seeming inevitably of when and how. The task of developing an
overall strategy to successfully counteract any domestic act of
biological terrorism has proven to be a difficult challenge for
our Federal and State policymakers.
Yet, there can be no doubt that there is now a sense of
urgency for the resolution of this task that was not critical
before this. Biological terrorism is now at the fore of our
national agenda. There has been a great deal of debate in
recent years about the nature of the biological terror, both in
terms of where the threat originates, what specific agents pose
the greatest danger. So far, the media has focused its
attention on anthrax and smallpox, yet those represent merely
two of the many agents which conceivably could be utilized by
terrorists in any future attack. Since September 11th, we have
been engaged in a war on terrorism. The President has told us
it is going to be a long, protracted struggle which we all
recognize; the very real potential of additional attacks on our
own soil. The FBI just yesterday warned us of the possibility
of an imminent attack.
Given that, it is in our interest to place greater effort
on identifying both the capability of those who are likely to
use biological weapons against us as well as to be able to
develop effective counterterrorism measures and responses to
any future attack. I look forward, along with my colleagues, to
the testimony that we are going to hear from our distinguished
panel of witnesses, and I am certain that their experience and
insight will prove helpful to us and to this committee as
Congress works to find its role in this suddenly urgent and
vexing issues.
So once again, Mr. Chairman, thank you for your outstanding
leadership on these important topics. And I hope you will
continue in that vein. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Shays. Thank you, Mr. Chairman yourself. And I would
say whatever compliments go to the staff. We have an excellent
staff on this committee. At this time, I would recognize the
vice-chairman of the committee, Adam Putnam and see if he has
any statement.
Mr. Putnam. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your
continued leadership on this issue. As everyone in this room
knows, this subcommittee has held more hearings on the threats
from terrorism, including chemical and biological weapons, more
than any other committee in the Congress, and we appreciate
your continued leadership and look forward to the testimony
from this panel.
Mr. Shays. Thank the gentleman.
Mr. Platts.
Mr. Platts. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would just echo the
comments of my colleagues and our appreciation for your
leadership in holding these very important hearings and to
convey my sincere thanks to our witnesses here today, to share
your expertise on a critically important issue and at a very
relevant time in our Nation's struggles against threats from
others. So thank you for being here.
Mr. Shays. Before I recognize the witnesses, I just want to
thank the members of this committee for being strong and active
participants. Just recognizing our witnesses and then I will
swear you all in and we will take your testimony. We have
Raymond Decker, Director of Defense Capabilities Management
Team, U.S. General Accounting Office. He is going to talk about
threat and risk assessment and how it is done, more or less.
We will have Ken Alibek, who is the former deputy head of
the Soviet Union bioweapons program and an author of Biohazard
and president of Advanced Biosystems, Inc. John Parachini, a
policy analyst for RAND Corp., biological threat and terrorist
groups. I think you will be addressing that issue and others.
Gerald Post, professor of psychiatry, political psychology
and international affairs, George Washington University, who
will share with us the motivation of terrorists. And it is my
understanding, Dr. Post, that you have probably interviewed
more terrorists than most anyone else.
We have an excellent panel. Just truly an excellent panel.
I would like to invite you all to stand and swear you in. We
swear in all our panelists.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Shays. Everyone has responded in the affirmative. Thank
you very much and have a seat. I am going to ask unanimous
consent that all members of the subcommittee be permitted to
place an opening statement in the record and the record remain
open for 3 days for that purpose. Without objection, so
ordered. I ask further unanimous consent that all witnesses be
permitted to include their written statement in the record.
Without objection, so ordered.
We are going to go in the order that I called you. And let
me say on the outset that I am very appreciative of the fine
work that the General Accounting Office does. And I am also
grateful, Mr. Decker, that you don't say you need to have a
separate panel and that you are willing to participate in a
larger panel. Maybe that doesn't seem unusual to you, but some
in the government like to have their own panel. So I want to
put on the record, thank you. It makes it easier for us to have
a dialog. So you're on, Mr. Decker.
STATEMENTS OF RAYMOND DECKER, DIRECTOR, DEFENSE CAPABILITIES
MANAGEMENT TEAM, U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE; KEN ALIBEK,
PRESIDENT, ADVANCED BIOSYSTEMS, INC.; JOHN PARACHINI, POLICY
ANALYST, RAND CORP.; AND JERROLD POST, M.D., PROFESSOR OF
PSYCHIATRY, POLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS,
GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
Mr. Decker. Chairman Shays and members of the subcommittee,
I am pleased to be here this morning to discuss the issue of
combating terrorism and an approach for managing the risk from
terrorism directed at our homeland. Over the past several
years, we have examined and reported on Federal efforts to
combat terrorism to include weapons of mass destruction at the
request of this committee and others. Our body of work includes
over 60 products, based on information gleaned from a range of
sources to include Federal, State and local governments,
foreign governments and private entities. The events of last
month and the long-term aspects of the national engagement to
combat terrorism highlight the need for effective near and
long-term actions at all levels of government as well as in the
private sector.
The designation of a focal point within the Executive
Office of the President to lead the Office of Homeland Security
is a positive step. As Governor Ridge begins to craft a
national strategy to effectively prepare the Nation from future
attacks, we believe a risk management approach is essential to
underpin decisions which identify requirements, set priorities,
direct actions and allocate resources. A risk management is a
balanced systematic and analytical process to evaluate the
likelihood that a threat will endanger an asset and identify
actions to reduce the risk and mitigate the consequences of an
attack.
We believe a good risk management approach should have
three key elements, threat assessments, vulnerability
assessments and criticality assessments. Allow me to briefly
discuss each assessment. A threat assessment is an important
process that identifies and evaluates threats using various
factors such as capability, intention, past activity and
potential lethality of attacks.
At the national level, the Central Intelligence Agency and
other agencies of the intelligence community are responsible
for those assessments that involve international terrorist
threats. The Federal Bureau of Investigation gathers
information and assesses the threat posed by domestic sources
of terrorism. In 1999, and again, in our most recent report on
combating terrorism, which was released last month--and this is
A22, we had recommended that the FBI prepare a formal
intelligence assessment that assesses the chemical and
biological agents that could be used by domestic terrorists
without the assistance or support of a foreign entity. The FBI
concurred and expects to complete the assessment in December of
this year.
Additionally, we recommended that the FBI produce a
national level threat assessment using intelligence estimates
and input from the intelligence community and others to form
the basis for and to prioritize programs developed to combat
terrorism to include weapons of mass destruction.
Again, the FBI concurred and expects to complete this
classified study later this month. Mr. Chairman, as you know,
in April 2000, we released a report on how other countries,
Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany and Israel are
organized to combat terrorism. And we noted that these five
countries place great emphasis on threat assessments which
address the likelihood of attack. Since they stress their
primary objective is prevention, these assessments have a
significant importance in their planning and a response
depending events.
However, I must caution that since all attacks may not be
prevented, the following two assessments are essential in
preparation. A vulnerability assessment identifies weaknesses
in physical structures, security systems, plans, procedures and
a variety of other areas that could be exploited by terrorists.
For example, a common physical vulnerability might be the close
proximity of a parking area near a building or structure with
the obvious concern being a vehicle laden with explosives.
Normally, a multi-disciplinary team of experts in engineering,
security, information systems, health and other areas normally
would conduct this vulnerability assessment. Teams within an
organization can perform these assessments, which is the case
used by the Department of Defense.
In a 1998 report, GAO report, we noted that a major U.S.
multinational firm used the same approach to better focus its
efforts in overseas facilities. The final assessment is the
criticality assessment, and these are designed to identify
which assets are most important to an organization's mission or
represent a significant target which merit enhanced protection.
For example, nuclear power plants, key bridges, major
computer networks might be identified as critical assets based
on national security or economic importance. Some facilities
might be critical at certain times and not at other times. For
example, sports stadiums or a shopping center filled with
people might represent a critical asset. Typically, the
affected organization would perform its own criticality
assessment. And we note that the report of the Interagency
Commission on Crime and Security in the U.S. seaports issued
late last year, stress the need for these assessments in
conjunction with threat and vulnerability assessments.
Mr. Chairman, simply stated, one must know as much as
possible about threat, identify one's weaknesses to potential
attack and determine which assets are most important and
require special attention in order to make sound decisions on
preparedness while leveraging limited resources. I have one
caveat about threat assessments. Our national goal is to
understand the threat and create assessments to guide our
actions. To this end, there are continuous efforts by the
intelligence and law enforcement communities to assess foreign
and domestic threats to the Nation. However, even with these
efforts, we may never have enough information on all threats.
So there may be a tendency to use worst-case scenarios in this
situation. Since worst-case scenarios focus on vulnerabilities
and vulnerabilities are almost unlimited and would require
exhaustive resources, we believe it is essential that a careful
balance exist using all three assessment elements in preparing
and protecting against threats.
In summary, threat, vulnerability and criticality
assessments, when completed and evaluated together in a risk
management-based approach, will allow leaders and managers to
make key decisions which will better prepare against potential
terrorist attacks that may include weapons of mass destruction.
If this risk management approach were adopted throughout the
Federal Government and by other segments of society, we believe
a more effective and efficient preparation in-depth against
acts of terrorism directed at our homeland could be affected.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my statement and I will be
pleased to respond to any questions that the committee may
have.
Mr. Shays. Thank you, Mr. Decker. It is a very helpful
statement. And we will definitely have questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Decker follows:]
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Mr. Shays. Dr. Alibek.
Mr. Alibek. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee,
thank very much for inviting me here. And I think my 26-year
long experience in the field of biological weapons and
biological weapons defense make me, I hope, at least,
experience gives me some right to discuss this issue.
Before I came to the United States in 1992, I was
scientific leader of this program in the former Soviet Union. I
was responsible for a large number of scientists and
technicians involved in this program.
Mr. Shays. The rumor is it was 30,000.
Mr. Alibek. 30,000 people and about 40 facilities involved
in research and development of biological weapons and research
and development in defense against biological weapons. And we
were on both sides to develop weapons and to develop defense.
And now we know in this country, in the United States, we have
a great deal of confusion when we discuss biological weapons
and biological weapon threat. Some experts discuss and say
biological weapons present very significant threat.
Some people say no, it is not a threat whatsoever. In my
opinion, makes us as disarmed and we don't pay much attention
to necessity to the structure of biological weapons defense.
The problem is this: We discuss in many cases--we discuss
anthrax. We discuss smallpox. We discuss some ways to analyze
biological weapons and whether or not it is difficult. But the
problem is this: This issue is much wider and bigger because
when we discuss biological weapons, what we need to keep in
mind are several dozen biological agents could be used in
biological weapons.
There are many deployment techniques. And these techniques
are not just aerosol deployment. There are many others. It is
not a situation where someone has to develop a very
sophisticated device to deploy biological weapons. These
techniques could be, I would say, used with very primitive
devices. And, you know, many such things, in my opinion, make
biological weapons very dangerous, and very effective weapons
could be used.
And some people ask why biological weapons? What is the
difference between biological weapons, nuclear weapons or
regular conventional weapons? In my opinion, biological weapons
have a very significant attractiveness because of many reasons.
As I said before, a number of different agents could be used;
many, many different techniques. And the great diversity of
biological weapons make them effective weapons. And what is
important to keep in mind, biological weapons impose infectious
diseases, and each biological weapon could result in absolutely
different consequences. I provided, with some examples, for
example, smallpox, anthrax, plague and Marburg infections. And
what I would like to say it's just a small number of examples,
but if you analyze all these agents and weapons, you could see
how diversified these weapons are.
And unfortunately, our understanding of biological weapons
is not, I would say, comprehensive enough. What we need to do
now, we need to rectify our understanding and knowledge of
biological weapons. As soon as we start understanding what is a
real threat to biological weapons, we start understanding what
kind of defense we need to develop. The problem is this: If we
still consider existing approaches in developing defense
against biological weapons are perfect approaches, or plausible
approaches, in my opinion, we make significant mistake. What I
notice when we discuss this issue--when I read many testimonies
or articles, we discuss antibiotics. We discuss vaccines. I
have nothing against antibiotics.
In many cases, they could protect against bacterial
biological weapons. But when we discuss vaccines, there is a
very important situation why we discuss vaccines. We discuss
vaccines as a possible protection for troops or in some other
scenarios. Vaccines are not good protection against--in the
case of bioterrorism. And you know, when we discuss and assess
to spend much money to develop vaccines, it causes a
significant question. Why? Vaccine needs to be introduced well
in advance first. You are not capable to vaccinate entire
population. You have no idea against what agent you need to
vaccinate people and so on and so forth. And there is another
issue. Many vaccines have not developed yet.
But we continue pushing this vaccine issue at the same
time, you know, in my opinion, it shifts us toward wrong
direction. What we need to keep in mind in the medical defense,
there are three major areas: Prophylactics or prophylaxes we
call it, urgent prophylactics and treatment. And, you know,
when we spend our major resources to develop vaccines, we don't
spend much time or resources to develop treatment and to
develop urgent prophylaxes. In my opinion, it is a significant
mistake that needs to be corrected. There is another issue--it
is just one of the part of biological weapons.
Mr. Shays. Say that last point over again--the last point.
Mr. Alibek. In my opinion, when we discuss a necessity to
develop new vaccines, to spend hundreds of millions of dollars
to develop new vaccines, we are making a very significant
mistake because vaccines are not a good protection in
bioterrorism. Now we have got many agencies, many departments
involved in this business. We know that these agencies and
these departments have many subcontractors working in this
field. But you know when we try to understand what is the scope
of the problem and what the scope of the work, for example,
their agencies and departments do, in my opinion, it wouldn't
be possible just to create more or less comprehensive and
truthful picture. In my opinion, the problem is this: We still
suffer lack of coordination between these agencies. And do you
know if we don't realize there is time just to develop a
completely new system, we should include, in my opinion, a
necessity to establish a new agency, agency which would be
responsible completely just to work in the field of biodefense.
And this agency would have responsibility and would have
overall authority and would be able just to manage and revise
what is being done by any agency, by any department in the
United States.
In this case, this agency would be able to establish a
system, I would say, highly centralized system to develop
protection against biological weapons. The problem is this. We
live in democratic country, but when we talk about national
security issues or when
you talk about bioterrorism and possible huge number of
casualties, there is no democracy here. It must be highly
centralized and very effective system. Thank you.
Mr. Shays. Thank you, Dr. Alibek.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Alibek follows:]
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Mr. Shays. We will now go to Mr. Parachini.
Mr. Parachini. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
committee for the privilege and opportunity to testify here.
Since the tragic events of September 11th, many Americans have
become concerned about the prospect of biological terrorism.
After all, it seems plausible that hijackers willing to kill
themselves, those aboard commercial airliners and thousands
more in the World Trade Center and Pentagon might be willing to
use biological agents to kill indiscriminately. Yet it is
important to maintain some perspective of the relative dangers.
20th century history of warfare, terrorism and crime involving
biological agents is much less deadly than that of the history
with conventional explosives.
While history is not a perfect guide to the future, it does
provide a context for our thinking about the future. We need to
take account of history and hedge against the seeming
imponderables of the future. When it comes to the feasibility
of using biological weapons, States are more likely to have the
resources, technical capabilities, organizational capacity to
assemble the people, know-how, material and equipment to
produce such weapons and to be able to clandestinely deliver
them to valued targets. Mustering the resources and
capabilities to inflict devastating strikes with biological
agents has proved to be formidable tasks even for States.
While some terrorist groups may attempt large scale
biological attempts, perpetrating an attack on a scale as that
of September 11th is not likely. At the moment, only States are
able to perpetrate clandestinely biological attacks and they
are extremely reluctant to do so. Limited attacks using
biological agents as common as salmonella and as rare as
anthrax are possible. But the scope and scale of such attacks
will be modest.
On balance, then, a State's ability to command resources
and organize them for certain priorities scientific and
industrial objectives presents the potential for the greatest
threat in bioterrorism. What is more likely than a conscious
decision by a country's command authority is that an
unauthorized faction within a State might take it upon itself
to use a subnational group to do its dirty group. The alleged
involvement of the Iranian Government's security services in
the attack on American military personnel in Khobart Towers
seems to be an example of this type of involvement.
When it comes to the feasibility of biological terrorism
perpetrated by subnational groups and individuals, the range of
capability and the level of consequence depends on whether the
groups or individuals are State-sponsored or not. High
consequence biological attacks would probably require the
assistance of a State sponsor or some other source of
considerable resources. Money, arms, logistical support
training, even training on how to operate in a chemically
contaminated environment, are all forms of assistance States
have provided to terrorists. But historically, they have not
crossed the threshold and provided biological weapons material
to insurgency groups or terrorist organizations.
Natural question at this time is whether an organization
such as al Qaeda with the financial support of Osama bin Laden
might be able to amass the resources for a significant
biological attack. Think as we consider this possibility, we
need to not only look at the opportunities, but the
disincentives. Too often we envision what we fear and do not
take into account the thinking of somebody else. We think they
are thinking like we fear as opposed to how they are thinking.
And I think the most important thing I would draw your
attention to is that terrorists have readily turned to more
available alternatives, explosives.
And indeed, on September 11th, they took an ordinary means
of modern transportation and turned it into an extraordinary
killing device. The only two cases we have where terrorists
have used biological weapons, one in 1984, where it was a
religious cult group, the Rajneeshee, and another 11 years
later by the Aum Shinrikyo. Neither of these inflicted the
level of casualties that are regularly the product of
conventional explosives. Both of these cases had unusual
aspects to them and unusual aspects about their leadership.
They were obsessed with poisoning. There were limits on what
these groups could do. It is very different than that which can
be perpetrated by a State.
Let me conclude by saying that the possibility is remote of
a mass scale biological weapons attack. Small scale attacks,
biocrimes, like we may see in Florida, are possible. The
government has the responsibility to do all that it can to
prevent, protect and respond to events that seem unlikely. The
challenge is to determine how much to prepare for a low
probability, albeit potentially catastrophic attack, while at
the same time guarding against not focusing enough on more
probable events with significant but not necessarily
catastrophic consequences.
With that, Mr. Chairman, let me conclude. And I will be
glad to answer any questions you or the members of the
committee have.
Mr. Shays. Thank you very much for your testimony and we
will have a number of questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Parachini follows:]
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Mr. Shays. Dr. Post, you can end this panel and then we
will start with the questions.
Dr. Post. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I am
honored to have the opportunity of addressing you on this
important topic. A great deal of attention has been paid to the
vulnerability of American society and what terrorists could do.
I will be confining my remarks to what terrorists would do and
wouldn't do, what their motivations and incentives are and what
their constraints are for committing acts of the chem-
bioterrorism. First, a note of vocabulary. There is a term
often in use and I hope that this committee can play a role in
killing this term and that is, weapons of mass destruction
terrorism. It is an unfortunate term that is all too readily
used. Certainly on September 11th, we saw mass destruction
terrorism, indeed catastrophic super terrorism perpetrated in
the guise of conventional terrorism.
Similarly, the so-called weapons of mass destruction, chem-
bio, radiological, nuclear, in fact, can be used with exquisite
precision to the point of being able to kill a single
individual in an assassination. Let me first take the committee
rather swiftly through the spectrum of terrorism. I am going to
attempt to both differentiate the threat by group and by attack
type. And these remarks are elaborated in my prepared
statement. You will see----
Mr. Shays. Now we have one in front of the table--you can't
see it, but if we are looking down, don't think we are not
paying attention.
Dr. Post. First, across the top and differentiating, this
is really quite variegated spectrum of terrorist groups. We
have crusaders, criminals and crazies. Let me emphasize as a
psychiatrist who has been working and understanding terrorist
psychology, terrorists are not crazed psychotics despite the
often misinterpretation of the public. In fact, terrorist
groups expel emotionally disturbed members from their groups.
They are a security risk. At the middle tier, I note in
particular State-supported terrorism. As Mr. Parachini stated a
moment ago, this is of grave concern for the reasons he
indicated, in terms of the resources necessary, and I will come
back to that in a moment. I will be focusing on the motivations
and constraints for the sub State groups.
First, across the left, we have social revolutionary
terrorism. This is the groups who were particularly prominent
during the 70's and 80's, red brigades, Red Army faction in
this country, the Weather Underground following Marxist,
Leninist doctrine. Still present, though, we have Japanese Red
Army, a number Colombian social revolutionary groups as well.
Right wing terrorism on the rise. In fact, a number of the
small attacks of chemical biological terrorism have come from
individual extremists within the right wing fringe. Nationalist
separatist terrorism refers to the groups seeking to have an
independent nation, be it the provisional Irish Republican Army
in Northern Ireland who have heard about the troubles from
their fathers and grandfathers in the publics of northern
Ireland or the radical Palestinian terrorists hearing of the
lands taken from their families in the coffee houses of Beirut
in the occupied territories.
Of particular concern is the group that I have labeled
religious extremist terrorism, both including new religions
such as Aum Shinrikyo, which gave us the event which
precipitated in many ways the major concern with this, the
sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subways and religious extreme and
religious fundamentalist terrorism. And of particular concern
now, of course, Islamist radical extremist terrorism.
Now if we could have the second graphic, please. What I
would like to do now is walk you swiftly through this graphic.
Down the left I have the groups I have just mentioned. Across
the top, I have noted different types of attack. From my point
of view, the major psychological thresholds across is not the
weapon type, but the willingness to create mass casualties as
was tragically demonstrated on September 11th. In fact, to echo
Mr. Parachini, one could cause mass casualties with
conventional weapons as has been done on a number of occasions
going back to the Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.
Mr. Shays. Just announcing that we are going into session
at 11 a.m., you know, I say that but I am not necessarily
right. I am still confused by this. Am I right guys, are we
going into session at 11 a.m., or is that a vote? We'll figure
it out later.
Dr. Post. I have also noted CBW hoax. I emphasize this
because this is insufficiently considered. One can have a very
powerful--successful terrorist act without ever spreading a
molecule of substance about--and we have insufficiently
considered our preparation for this. And finally, small scale
attacks, large scale attacks and then the catastrophic attacks
of which Mr. Parachini spoke. Now for the first two types,
social revolutionary and national separatist groups, they are
interested in influencing the west calling attention to their
cause. It would be quite counterproductive for them to have
either a mass casualty attack or an attack which damaged their
constituents.
It is possible but remote that they would choose to have a
small scale attack that doesn't affect their constituents. Thus
a Palestinian group might attack in Tel Aviv, but not in
Jerusalem. For the right wing groups, we see some groups who
have indeed participated lacking though, in fact, the resource
and technology. Let me focus on the last two groups, the
religious fundamentalist groups and the new religion terrorist.
Here, in my judgment, there is little psychological constraint
as has been demonstrated. Indeed, there is a desire to cause
extreme casualties. In fact, some of the terrorists I have
interviewed are quite interesting in saying there is no moral
red line in terms of the amount of destruction.
However, here we have, again, an issue where the resources
necessary to carry this out are simply not present for the
group. And what would be a great hazard here would be if we had
a State supporting these groups such as Iraq, which has been
one of the areas of concern. In my judgment, we need to be
focusing our intelligence resources in particular on the groups
of greatest concern, which would be those groups responsible
for more than 40 percent of the attacks in recent years where
no responsibility has been claimed. They are not interested in
influencing the west. They are interested in expelling the
west. They don't need that New York Times headline, God knows.
And this is the group of greatest concern. But even so, it
is not of major concern, from my point of view, in my
analytical judgment, in terms of catastrophic attacks. There is
a possibility of focal attacks only. And we should not, in
overreacting to this, neglect to focus on conventional
terrorism because it is conventional terrorism that continues
to be the source of mass casualties and continues to be the
method of choice. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Post follows:]
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Mr. Shays. My staff is a little disappointed with you, Dr.
Post, because they were enjoying your testimony hoping you
would read it. You were talking about religious fundamentalist
terrorism and you say they were seeking to influence the west
in the establishment. But in the past decades no
responsibility's claimed for upwards of 40 percent of terrorist
acts. We believe this is because of the increasing frequency of
terrorist acts by radical religious extremist terrorists.
They're not trying to influence the west, rather, the radical
Islamic terrorists are trying to expel the secular modernizing
west and they do not need their name identified in a New York
Times headline or in a story on CNN. They are ``killing in the
name of God,'' and don't need official notice. After all, God
knows.
Somehow my staff thought that was rather an ingenious
statement. So it is on the record, OK, Larry. At this time, I
will call on Mr. Putnam.
Mr. Putnam. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank the panel
for their outstanding opening remarks. My first question is for
Dr. Alibek. You have related the history of the Castro regime's
involvement in bioweapons development since the early 1980's,
including a comment that you gave to the Miami Herald in 1999.
As a Floridian, I am very concerned because Cuba has a hostile
regime 90 miles off shore. What information do you have for us
on the status of the Cuban regime's production of bioweapons?
Mr. Alibek. I think of this question because in 1999, it
was quite a confusing situation because when I gave that
interview, the State Department issued information saying that
they had no information about any Cuban offensive biological
weapons problem. But at the same time, Defense Intelligence
Agency included Cuba in a group of countries involved in
biological weapons activity. But my personal opinion and my
personal experience of this, we have some information about
this Cuban activity. We knew Cuba was interested in biological
weapons research and development work. We knew that there were
several centers; one of them was located close to Havana
involved in, I would say, in military biological technology.
And what was most amazing to us, we consider Cuba is not a
well-developed country. But at the same time, Cuba has a very
perfectly developed system of engineering and is capable to
develop genetic engineering agents. They've got the desire to
develop genetically engineered biological weapons. In my
opinion, I strongly believe, and I still believe, this country
discovered this capability and what the size of this program
and what the level of achievement, of course, it is up to our
intelligence services.
Mr. Putnam. In the course of your work in the Soviet Union
and your contacts with some of the Soviet satellite States, was
there ever any motivation to develop biological or chemical
weapons for the purpose of destroying agricultural crops or
agriterrorism as opposed to inflicting mass casualties?
Mr. Alibek. You are certainly right when you ask this
question because in the Soviet Union, for example, there was a
huge program. And this program included several directions and
one direction, for example, to develop biological weapons to
infect and kill human beings, troops and civilian population.
Another was the program by the minister of agriculture.
Mr. Shays. Another problem or program?
Mr. Alibek. Another program to develop anti-crop and anti-
livestock biological weapons. And there were several
institutions involved in this business. And they developed, for
example, biological weapons like rinderpest, African swine
fever, foot in mouth disease, specifically intended to infect
livestock. There was another part of this program to destroy
crops, wheat, rye, rice and corn. Biological weapons program,
they are huge programs and they include many different
directions. And undoubt, agricultural weapons are usually a
part of large biological weapons programs.
Mr. Putnam. Is it safe to say that a number of the
researchers who were working on those agricultural programs
have now spread out through a number of other nations and
regimes since the collapse of the Soviet Union?
Mr. Alibek. Yes, you're right. Many of them are now
overseas and work for some other countries.
From my personal experience I know in the West, just in the
West, we've got tens to hundreds of scientists with quite
sophisticated biological weapons knowledge. How many of them
now in the Middle East or some other countries, we have no
idea. But there was some information that some of them left for
Iran, for Iraq and for some other countries.
Mr. Putnam. Dr. Post, I have a very brief amount of time
remaining and so much to ask.
From a psychological perspective is there a desire for a
number of these regimes to focus on agricultural terrorism,
attacking food safety scenarios, or are they more focused on
the spectacle of an explosion and bodies in the streets and
casualties and things of that sort?
Dr. Post. One has to differentiate among both the regimes
and the groups. For groups seeking to strike out and damage us,
there certainly could be a motivation to strike out in the
agricultural area. For groups seeking that terrorist
spectacular, to have attention and notice paid to them, that
would be much less likely just because of the nature of the
manner in which the threat has persisted. This is certainly an
area of significant concern from my point of view which has yet
not been sufficiently addressed.
Mr. Putnam. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Shays. Thank the gentleman.
Mr. Allen, do you have a question?
I'm sorry. I would like to acknowledge that Mr. Allen is
here and Ms. Schakowsky and Mr. Clay.
Mr. Allen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman; and thank you all for
being here today.
I was struck by some of the differences I detected in Mr.
Decker's testimony and Dr. Alibek's, so I would like to sort of
push it back to you. I thought I heard Mr. Decker saying--I
hope I heard Mr. Decker saying--that we need to go through a
risk management process. We need to evaluate all the different
threats out there. I thought the outline that you raised was a
good one to look at a threat assessment, a vulnerability
assessment and a criticality assessment.
That's not what we've been doing in this country, and I
can't help but think that the whole debate over missile defense
would continue to be very different--if we actually looked at
the threat of an ICBM being fired at this country in the
context of all the different threats we face from states and
from terrorist groups, we would approach it differently. And if
it didn't feel so much like a crusade on the part of the
advocates, those of us who are skeptics might have reacted a
little differently.
I thought I heard Dr. Alibek saying there really are
thousands of different biological agents out there that could
be used.
The question that I'm interested in is how is it possible
for us as a government and as a country, two different things,
to start to do real risk management and bringing it to bear in
this debate?
Here's what I'm thinking: I think the GAO 2 years ago
recommended that a threat and risk assessment be developed by
the FBI. The FBI said we would do it. I don't know if it's
being done. I would like Mr. Decker to respond to that, the
status of the recommendations and so on.
But my overall question for any of you is, should we be
asking different agencies like the FBI or the CIA or the
Department of Defense to do separate threat and risk
assessments and then try to get those separate assessments,
kind of evaluate them, or do we want these different agencies
to set up a structure that will allow them to do the threat and
risk assessments together?
Because I think we are in trouble if we just let the media
take whatever threat is out there, whether it's anthrax 1 day
or some other biological agent another day or whatever, if we
keep moving from crisis to crisis based on the latest story, we
will not be doing our job well. That's a bit rambling. But what
I'm looking for is some advice on the approach we could take to
get to a more disciplined analysis of the threats and
vulnerabilities that are out there.
Maybe, Mr. Decker, you should begin. I have taken too much
time. I apologize.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Thomas H. Allen follows:]
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Mr. Decker. Sir, let me start with one piece of this. In
kind of looking at what Governor Ridge has to do, he's leading
an Office on Homeland Security. We're not sure what that
homeland security truly means. But if you read the Executive
order, clearly it's to combat acts of terrorism. That's pretty
clear.
One aspect of working on a national strategy has to be an
understanding of the threat. Understanding the threat and
threat assessments are two slightly different issues.
One, the understanding of threat is something that is
continuous, it's long term, it has hooks into the past, just
like Mr. Parachini mentioned, that allows you then to do a
threat assessment which I would make the analogy is more like a
snapshot in time. It gives you an appreciation for a lot of
different factors that can be used in a quantifiable way to
make certain decisions.
Now, the issue that I would raise, sir, is there are
agencies, organizations that are better prepared and better
structured and based on their mission to do threat assessments.
I do think that the threat assessments, that process in the
intelligence community and to a lesser degree with the law
enforcement community, there is a difference in approach and
model.
But with the intelligence community they probably do good
assessments at the national level, looking at specific issues,
long-term issues, and these are typically call national
intelligence estimates. These estimates, these assessments
provide a road map, if you will, on understanding an issue that
I would submit other experts should use when you do risk
management.
Risk management basically is a discussion. It's a
conversation with people of different disciplines, different
backgrounds, different perspectives, that are experts in an
area to be able to make sense out of what the threat
implication is to our assets. And to make sense out of that,
you have to know a lot about yourself. What's vulnerable and
has most important?
So, at the national level, you could have a threat
assessment and a real good one of everything that you know to
date and then you have to put that into context. How would it
affect my vulnerabilities? How does it exploit my weakness?
What is most important that I have to protect and at what
degree? And that's where leadership comes in to make those hard
decisions. What is an acceptable level of risk once I consider
all these factors?
Mr. Allen. So you're talking about sorting out the large
number of risks that Dr. Alibek was referring to, for example?
Mr. Decker. Yes.
Mr. Alibek. If I may, I'm not against a necessity that you
do risk assessment.
I am not against a necessity to do a risk assessment. But,
you know, I feel always a sort of resistance, reluctance when
we discuss a necessity to develop a sort of priority, what is
more likely and what is less likely and so on and so forth.
Let me give you a couple of examples. In the early 1980's,
before I came to the United States, there was a work--I would
call it risk assessment work in the field of biological
weapons. This work was done by some intelligence services here
in the United States, and the recommendations was sent to the
Department of Defense. And, you know, according to that
assessment, the most threat in biological weapons in the future
would be bacterial biological weapons and toxin biological
weapons.
Resulting from this assessment, the entire division of the
Institute of Medical Defense, medical research, was eliminated,
division which was responsible for protection against
biological weapons in 1980's. And for 10 years it didn't exist.
After some people came from the East and said, OK, guys
let's analyze what we are having here in this field, what was
the result? Yes, biological weapons would--the most effective
biological weapons would be bacterial and viral biological
weapons. Toxins in terms of military deployment wouldn't be
very effective. It was the result of many years study done in
the Soviet Union and, unfortunately, in some other countries.
In this case, you can imagine this type of approach led to
the entire destruction of the entire division and entire
direction in biological weapons defense. If we use this
approach, in my opinion, we--again, we're going to make the
same mistake we already made before in our history.
Mr. Shays. Could I just jump in, if the gentleman would
yield, even though his time has run out, I would like them all
to go through and answer your question. But I would just
intuitively respond that maybe the assessment wasn't done
properly. And I would also say that it would strike me that you
have to update your assessment every year. So that if you had
updated your assessment every year, you might not have found
the result that you ended up with.
Mr. Alibek. Of course, the problem is this: My position
when we discuss biological threat and bioterrorism, you know, I
am saying, that's right. There are many different agents would
be used. There are many techniques could be used. But it's not
a situation in which we are not able to do a comprehensive
analysis and to develop a new understanding, contemporary
modern understanding of biological weapon threat. It's not
something impossible. We can do this. It's only a problem in
this case to find right professionals to do this assessment.
Mr. Shays. Mr. Parachini and Mr. Post, you both want to
respond to his question? Then I will go to Ms. Schakowsky.
Mr. Parachini. I was struck in Mr. Decker's response by his
emphasis as an important part of the threat assessment being
intentions. And to underline your comments, Mr. Allen, you
spoke about some of the skepticism.
Let's go back to the cold war. We tended in retrospect to
overevaluate the threat from the Soviet Union because we were
paying too much attention to capability and insufficient
attention to intention. In dealing with closed societies and
closed groups and organizations such as al Qaeda, we are
significantly impaired from making intelligence estimates of
intention and therefore tend to go to the worst-case scenario.
This really emphasizes how crucial it is to be able to get into
the heads of our adversaries more effectively than we have been
at the present time.
Mr. Shays. The challenge with that, though, is intentions
can change from moment to moment but capability may be a little
more long term. So we could--it would strike me we could think
we know their intention but their intention could change
overnight.
Dr. Post. I don't see it quite that way, that intentions
change from moment to moment. There is a linear track.
Now, having said that, certainly Osama bin Laden is a
remarkably innovative leader. He has spoken in almost taunting
fashion about his willingness to use such weapons, which in
itself is often terrifying.
Mr. Allen. The only thing I would add to that in response
is that when you're trying--it's different, I think, trying to
gauge the intention of a terrorist group, which has a pretty
clearly stated mission in this case, as compared to a state, a
country which isn't going to move anywhere. And part of the
debate about missile defense and the question of intentions is
the fact that missiles that are launched can be traced right
back to the site from which they were launched. But I don't
mean to drag that whole debate into this one.
Dr. Post. Just to elaborate on your point, though, the goal
of no state is to terrorize. They will use terrorism to support
their foreign policy goals, but when it becomes
counterproductive for the state they are deterred just by the
factors you illuminate.
When you have a group whose primary goal is in fact to
create terror in the service of coercion--and I think it should
be remembered terrorism is at heart psychological warfare. It's
violence as communication. It's designed to accomplish goals
through creating terror, not through proliferation of bodies.
Mr. Shays. Ms. Schakowsky, you have been very patient.
Thank you very much. You have the floor.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you, Mr. Chairman; and thank you for
continuing what you started well before September 11th in
looking into these matters.
In that regard, I want to credit Representative Tierney for
some questions that he asked and wanted to ask today that--he
is not here right now. On June 5th and July 11th, this
subcommittee held hearings on the biological weapons
convention; and this international treaty, which was signed in
1972, has 143 signatories prohibiting states from developing
biological agents for offensive purposes. The problem that was
acknowledged was that this treaty contains no inspection
provisions and relies on international political pressure to
ensure that there is compliance. And, as you stated in your
recommendations, Dr. Alibek, that for many years the Soviet
Union was able to hide an enormous biological weapons program.
So, clearly, inspections is an issue.
The last administration developed a protocol that would
establish an inspection regime; and the current administration
has, for unknown reasons, ``concluded that the current version
of the protocol would be inefficient in stopping cheating.''
At the July 10th hearing Mr. Tierney asked the
administration witness, Ambassador Mahley, if he had prepared
an analysis of the objections to this draft protocol which
would require inspections. He said he had. He said that he
would provide it. There was a motion that was adopted in the
subcommittee, and then there was a request in writing.
Three months have passed, and so Mr. Tierney has asked that
the subcommittee take active measures, Mr. Chairman, to obtain
that report by Ambassador Mahley that was promised months ago.
While we understand that these are very busy times for the
administration, but it seems to me that just delivering a
report that was already done is a reasonable request. So I want
to----
Mr. Shays. Would the gentlelady yield? It's an absolutely
reasonable request. We have requested it, and we'll go back and
ask that it be provided.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, on behalf of Mr.
Tierney and myself as well.
I wanted to then ask the panel if it is your belief,
considering we've been talking about how you develop threat
assessment, the relationship of state programs and terrorist
programs developing biological weapons, whether or not this
protocol requiring inspection would give us, in fact, another
level of protection and if it's possible in your view to
implement such a protocol effectively. Anyone who wishes to
respond.
Mr. Parachini. I think part of the question is whether the
protocol helps or hurts. And the intention is clearly to help,
but it in itself will not be sufficient. I think part of the
problem of arms control in the post cold war period is that our
expectations have been very high. Yet it has been very
difficult to pinpoint in a multilateral context the security
problems that we face with an arms control tool. So the arms
control tool will be useful but not sufficient.
My understanding of what Ambassador Mahley has said was
that the administration wants to think about this in a much
broader way and not be locked into just seeing the BWC as the
way to address the problem, that there is a whole range of
other tools such as regulating more effectively commerce and
infectious diseases. We have some regulations in the United
States, but on an international basis it's an open market.
Pathogens are traded around the world without any of the normal
controls.
Disease surveillance, something that the committee I know
has looked at several times, we're getting a little better at
it here in the United States. But we're in a global
environment. Global surveillance in other parts of the world
where emerging infectious diseases are appearing is not near at
the level ours is, and most public health officials in the
United States say ours is not adequate. So these are very
different tools other than arms control to address this
problem.
Ms. Schakowsky. Is there a counterproposal to the protocol?
Mr. Parachini. That is part of the challenge that the
administration is on the hook for, to provide that. These are
not easy solutions, and it's not easy to come up with a package
of new things. This is a totally new environment, and I commend
the administration for trying to do some new thinking. Their
challenge is to do it in a speedy fashion.
Mr. Alibek. If I may, a small addition, in 1999, I was a
part of this process called a three-lateral agreement between
the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union to
inspect or visit some biological weapons facilities--or
suspected of being biological weapons facilities. Now I know
one of the biggest problems was to prove whether or not one or
another facility was actually--is it a BW facility or defense
facility? It's one of the problems.
But when we discuss a new protocol, I envision three major
problems.
First problem is this: Terrorist organizations, they don't
sign any treaties. And for them, of course, it doesn't matter
what kind of protocol we sign. It's not going to affect their
activity.
Second problem, we say, for example, one of the reasons a
new administration----
Ms. Schakowsky. To the extent they may use state-run
facilities to advance their agenda.
Mr. Alibek. Yes, that is right. But the problem is this
when we discuss biological weapons--you know, my biggest
concern is this. When people say biological weapons require
many efforts, we wouldn't see any significant events. We use
some examples cited, Aum Shinrikyo--I feel a very significant
resistance because we use absolute incorrect examples.
The problem is this. When we use example of Aum Shinrikyo,
nobody pays attention. But Aum Shinrikyo was not capable to get
a virulent strain. What they did, they used a non-virulent
strain. That's why they were not able to get any casualties.
When we discuss about likelihood of--small likelihood of
create a significant terrorist attack, I completely disagree. I
know the real power of biological weapons, and I know what kind
of results we can get.
But you know when we discuss this treaty, one of the
biggest problems is this. For example, existing administration,
current administration is saying we cannot put our
pharmaceutical industry in danger because it will let some
inspectors come and see our production facilities and it would
cause some significant harm. It's incorrect.
As a biotechnologist, if I come to a new facility or any
facility and see some equipment, for example, to manufacture
one or another product, it says absolutely nothing to me. What
I need to know, I need to see specific documentation just to
determine whether or not I am able to get some information to
use in my own country.
Mr. Shays. Could I interrupt the gentleman? You said such a
strong statement that no one else has concurred with you. You
said it provides you absolutely no information.
Let me just make my point. I wouldn't suggest it tells you
everything, but it tells you something. I have had more
pharmaceutical people tell me that the shape of the pipes,
where the pipes--where they connect and so on say a lot about
the process that they use to develop the particular
pharmaceutical drug.
Mr. Alibek. That's not true. First of all, all of
technology processes----
Mr. Shays. May I ask you a question? Were you on both sides
of this equation or on one side of the equation?
Mr. Alibek. On both. Because the problem is this. By
technological processes, production facilities, they have quite
similar equipment. There are some differences in equipment
design, some computer programming to program production
facilities. You could see some equipment, for example, special
equipment to purify one product. But, you know, the--a major
know-how is inside of these columns, not outside.
Mr. Shays. I just want to move on. I'm not disagreeing with
you now. You said you've been on both sides and your statement
will stand on the record.
Mr. Alibek. If I may, one more thing. When we include in
this protocol, a necessity to inspect, for example, suspected
facilities, having four member team and 2-week notice, in my
opinion is a mockery. Because for 2 weeks it's possible to hide
any BW production.
Mr. Shays. Could I just ask, is it possible to hide it in a
day?
Mr. Alibek. In small production could be hidden very easily
within 1 to 2-week period.
Mr. Shays. Thank you.
Mr. Clay, you're on.
Mr. Clay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me also thank the witnesses for being here to share
with us their knowledge and experience.
The purpose of the hearing is among the highest priority
that we may have as a country. We have to examine the factors
that should be considered in assessing the risk of biological
terrorism. Just months ago the subject would have been as
serious but would not have had the urgency and the knowledge
that this has to be addressed and acted upon post haste.
September 11, 2001, changed any perception that biological
terrorism was only a possibility. It is now a probability and,
depending on the results of the investigation ongoing in Boca
Raton, FL, it may be a reality. However, we must not assume
answers before the investigation is complete.
The threat is real. It will remain real for the foreseeable
future. The American people need both procedures and actions
for the knowledge of how to implement those procedures that are
established.
Mr. Decker, you have repeatedly reported that we as a
country lack a comprehensive assessment of the terrorist
threats against us. The problem as you describe it is that,
without this assessment, we haven't done a comparison and
prioritization to allow us to plan intelligently. Is that a
correct description of your findings?
[The prepared statement of Hon. Wm. Lacy Clay follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1782.043
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1782.044
Mr. Decker. Congressman Clay, that is correct.
Mr. Clay. OK. And, as a result, there is a risk that our
spending and preparation may be misaligned, is that right?
Mr. Decker. I would hope that our investment returns the
most interest for the Nation, and I'm not sure that's the case
without that threat assessment.
Mr. Shays. Your answer was really a yes, right?
Mr. Decker. Yes.
Mr. Clay. You know, let's talk about preparedness of the
American public. I've heard that you can acquire a vaccine for
anthrax. Should there be a run on getting that vaccine by the
American public? Should we be concerned? And anyone on the
panel can answer.
Mr. Decker. I'd let my distinguished colleague, Dr. Alibek,
comment on that.
Mr. Clay. Should there be a run on the anthrax vaccine?
Should the American public start----
Mr. Alibek. Let's imagine the situation. We're able to
manufacture enough doses of vaccine to vaccinate the entire
population of the United States. Theoretically, it's possible,
but it would be a significant problem, financial problem,
logistical problem and so on and so forth, a medical problem as
well.
But, at the same time, let's imagine the situation, as I
said before, there are many different agents and you vaccinate
just against anthrax, it means somebody who has a desire to
deploy biological weapons would use something else. Having
people vaccinated against anthrax we would force these
terrorist groups to develop and to deploy something else--
plague, tuberculosis, something else. When we talk about this,
in my opinion it's not a perfect idea to vaccinate people
because--keeping in mind that the number of agents is quite
large. Any time you vaccinate against one agent you are in
danger to be infected by another one.
Mr. Clay. One more question, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Shays. You have no problem.
Mr. Clay. We agreed that numerous technical problems are
there with acquiring, producing and weaponizing biological
agents.
Mr. Decker, you stated in a past report, ``a leading expert
told us that the whole process entails risk. For example,
anthrax powders easily adhere to rubber gloves and pose a
handling problem. Effectively disseminating the agent can pose
technical challenges in that proper equipment and energy
sources are needed. A less sophisticated product in
dissemination method can cause illness or death.''
As a result of these conclusions, would you say that
terrorists or rogue states are more likely to seek out
legitimate covers for their illegitimate activities such as
pharmaceutical plants or the like?
Mr. Decker. Sir, I have no direct evidence to be able to
support that, but it would seem likely.
Mr. Clay. Likely that they would use these plants as
covers?
Mr. Decker. I can only state that it would seem logical,
but I have no factual documentation to support that.
Mr. Clay. All right. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Shays. Thank the gentleman.
I haven't done my round yet. I'm going to do 5 minutes,
then another 5, then we'll just go back to the other Members.
I'd like to go fairly quickly if I can. If we have agreement,
so then we not discuss those things, only where there might be
disagreement.
Mr. Decker has come forward with the whole concept that
risk management is a systematic and analytical process to
consider the likelihood that a threat will endanger an asset
and so on. Then he broke it down into three: threat assessment,
vulnerability assessment and critical assessment. The bottom
line to a threat assessment is a threat assessment is used to
evaluate the likelihood of a terrorist activity against a given
asset or location. Then he basically said a vulnerability
assessment is a process that identifies weaknesses in fiscal
structures and so on. Then he said a criticality assessment is
a process designed to systematically identify and evaluate
important assets and infrastructures in terms of various
factors such as the mission and so on.
Do any of you disagree with this as being a framework with
which the committee could work in dealing with management, risk
management? Does this make sense to you, Dr. Alibek; to you,
Mr. Parachini; to you, Dr. Post?
Mr. Alibek. In general, it makes sense.
Mr. Parachini. Just make sure I understand.
Mr. Shays. He's giving us a way to process this. I want to
know if you are comfortable with it or whether you would amend
it.
Mr. Parachini. An important part of this, if I understand
what has been proposed, is to factor in motives into the
vulnerability assessment. I think that's what Dr. Post has
talked about. Too often, we just focus on the vulnerability or
we just focus on the criticality, and we don't think what the
capabilities put together with motives might produce. So that's
an important point.
Mr. Shays. OK, did you want to make a point Dr. Alibek?
Mr. Alibek. In my opinion, that is correct. But when we
discuss risk assessment, my position is still the same. We need
to analyze the entire problem and to see what all possible ways
to deploy and to develop biological weapons and what agents
could be used. You know, I would use a broader definition for
risk assessment.
Mr. Shays. OK. Well, I'm going to come right back to you in
a second.
Dr. Post, your issue on motivation, anything else?
Dr. Post. I would concur with what John Parachini has just
said. And to me this is the weakest aspect of our capability of
conducting a thorough risk assessment at this point, an
insufficient ability to have the data to make a good evaluation
of intentions.
Mr. Shays. Let me expose my ignorance, Mr. Decker. I have
basically said continually whenever I've had the opportunity
that we've had three commissions that have come before us. They
said, we don't have a proper assessment of the terrorist
threat, we don't have a strategy to deal with a threat, and we
aren't organized to maximize our resources to be effective to
implement the strategy and succeed against the threat. Now,
I've just made this blanket ``we don't have a proper assessment
of a threat.'' You're breaking that first one down into parts,
correct?
Mr. Decker. Not exactly, sir. What I'm saying is, threat
assessment by itself is not enough----
Mr. Shays. OK.
Mr. Decker [continuing]. To craft a cogent national
strategy with effective actions.
Mr. Shays. So we need more than threat assessment.
Mr. Decker. Yes.
Mr. Shays. So you have termed it risk management, and you
have divided it into these three things--the threat assessment,
vulnerability assessment and criticality assessment.
You jumped in, Mr. Parachini, and said, motives go in
there. Where would motives go in those three or is it a
separate identity? Would it go under threat or would it go--it
would go under threat, I guess.
And you, Dr. Alibek, would take these three and add
something else to it. You spoke too general for me for it to be
helpful.
Mr. Alibek. In my opinion, what needs to be said--not just
threat assessment. Threat assessment, defense assessment is
very important.
Mr. Shays. What, our capability to respond?
Mr. Alibek. Our capability to respond.
Mr. Shays. Help me out, Mr. Decker. Where would that go in
your line of thinking?
Mr. Decker. The risk management approach is when you're
looking at preparedness.
Mr. Shays. OK.
Mr. Decker. We're really talking primarily about the
defense, the preparedness of the homeland.
Mr. Shays. We're talking about the detection and prevention
part of it.
Mr. Alibek. Not just the detection and prevention. Of
course, prevention is very, very important. When we talk about
defense assessment or our preparedness, we need to keep in mind
three major issues--detection, prevention and treatment.
Mr. Shays. What was the last word?
Mr. Alibek. Treatment.
Mr. Shays. Treatment?
Mr. Alibek. Treatment, yeah.
Mr. Shays. How you treat it. OK. My staff understands. Then
they make me feel ignorant here. That meant nothing to me. He
said it five times--treatment, treatment, treatment--but it
doesn't help. What do you mean?
Mr. Alibek. The problem, one of the major things,
biological weapons cause infectious diseases. In terms of
protection----
Mr. Shays. Do you mean response instead of treatment?
Mr. Alibek. No, when we discuss response, we need to keep
in mind three major directions in medical response. I would
say--but not general response. Detection is a technical
response, then protection is a medical response, and medical
and technical response and treatment.
Mr. Shays. Oh, I see. I misunderstood. I was thinking you
meant detect the attack. You mean detect--so in that--I
understand treatment in that basis. You're saying once there is
the like--if you've detected that someone has a pathogen, that
they are--they have been ill, you want to detect it, you want
to protect them and treat them.
Mr. Alibek. That's correct.
Mr. Shays. OK. Now I understand. No wonder you thought I
was an idiot here.
I'm fascinated by your chart, Dr. Post. Because--let me
just first get it here--it seems to me you're almost doing what
the FBI has done. I'm not being really fair to you, so you'll
get a chance to enlighten me. The FBI has said, there will be
an attack, you know. It's like we needed to pay the FBI to tell
us there will be an attack. We all know there is going to be an
attack. We all know it could happen in the next 2 days. We all
know it is serious, and we all know it could happen weeks from
now.
What you did on your scales--on your markings of the X and
the star, you basically--you have the check as being less
constrained and while still unlikely could rationalize such an
act. So the check does not indicate likelihood of committing
such an act but refers to motivation only. Well, that maybe
answers my question.
You're saying that these are not likely but that--help me
out.
Dr. Post. I'm glad you picked up on that. Because I think
the check is somewhat misleading. This doesn't mean they are
likely to do this. They are less psychologically and
motivationally constrained. Having said that, they still need
resource and technology. And if they are succeeding abundantly
with conventional terrorism and don't have the handling risk,
there is really very little incentive to move forward.
The one major caveat in terms of that as I have studied
Osama bin Laden, I've regularly been struck by--I think we can
reliably predict we will be surprised by him. And he is
remarkably innovative. Spends a great deal of time preparing,
and then we have a terrorist spectacular. So I am by no means
confident he would not move in this direction, not that he
can't cause mass casualties with conventional terrorism but
because he recognizes the terror that such an act would
inflict.
Mr. Shays. You want to say something, Mr. Parachini?
Mr. Parachini. Let me contrast with Dr. Post on this point.
I think there is a certain psychic thrill from the explosion or
the dramatic event that a terrorist does not get in the delayed
gratification of making people sick with disease. And if there
was a way that bin Laden could think about to get that
immediate response and there was that immediate sense of fear
it might be of greater interest to him, but there are other
alternatives that he turns to that he does achieve that.
Mr. Shays. Well, a mass exodus of a city because people
think there's a biological or chemical attack would give him
quite a thrill. Because that would be pretty----
Dr. Post. I do agree with that. I don't want to accuse you
of practicing without a license here----
Mr. Shays. You just did.
Dr. Post [continuing]. But I do think indeed that part of
what has been quite gratifying in his several interviews where
he has actually suggested the questions about can bioterrorism
has been that this is a way of inflicting terror and the notion
of terrorizing the United States is a major source of
satisfaction in his mission to be commander in chief of the
Islamic world against the West.
Mr. Parachini. I think if you look at all those interviews
it's actually journalists who raise the question first and then
he then responds to it.
Dr. Post. That's actually not correct. That was my initial
reaction. I've traced that back. The question----
Mr. Shays. This is based on interviews you've had with
different----
Dr. Post. No, no. These are CNN, ABC, CBS interviews.
Mr. Shays. Did I give you credit for something undeserved?
My understanding is that you have had contact and interviewed a
number of----
Dr. Post. We just completed a project interviewing 35
incarcerated Middle Eastern terrorists both in Palestinian and
Israeli prisons and have a number of really quite dramatic
quotes from them.
I also served as expert witness in New York in the Federal
trial of Osama bin Laden.
Mr. Shays. So this is something you have done a lot of
research on.
Dr. Post. Yes. But on your point I agree with you. There is
a satisfaction to the big bang.
Having said that, it's quite clear to me that a major
motivation for Osama bin Laden, as his last two statements
indicated, is inflicting terror. And one gets a great deal--the
mere act of doing that in and of itself is sufficient. But that
leads me to believe that even a focal chem-bio attack which was
then attributed to him would be powerfully magnifying of his
stature.
Mr. Parachini. Here is where Dr. Alibek makes a very
helpful point about treatment and protective measures. It is in
our capacity to control the impact of a biological attack which
is fundamentally different from a chemical attack where you
would have an immediate response. Bin Laden has consistently
moved ahead with explosives. He has killed lots of people. The
only people who--the only subnational entities that have used
biological agents have been people who were obsessed with
poisons.
And Aum, which is the one we fear the most because they are
like bin Laden, had lots of resources, failed in all their
attempts, including the case of anthrax where what they used
was veterinarian vaccine anthrax. It was not a virulent agent.
So this is not as easy to do unless you're possessed to try and
do it.
Bin Laden is not possessed. He is an operator that we
really have to deal with.
Dr. Post. To add to that in one other point, several of the
radical Islamic terrorists we spoke to indicated that the Koran
proscribes the use of poison. And that was a disincentive. Most
of the terrorists we interviewed said there was--they would do
it if they were ordered to do it, but in fact give me a good
Kalashnikov and there was no real consideration of this as a
tactic among the radical Islamic terrorists that we had
interviewed.
Mr. Shays. Let me just say we're going to get back to this
whole issue of treatment. Because I have had too many people--
and not right this minute, though, but because I want to give
Mr. Gilman a chance and Mrs. Schakowsky to come back.
But I just preface it by saying to you, so when I come to
my next round, that when I saw the attack on September 11th I
almost physically fell to my knees in the horror of it, like
all of us did. The absolute horror of seeing the attack, to see
the plane go on another, to see the building just implode, to
hear the explosion at the Pentagon. But I think I fell more to
my knees because I've had so many hearings where I've had
people say to me, credible witnesses, that they have the
capability--pleasant sound--we have the capability. And I
thought they did, but the only restraint on them was they
wouldn't want to have killed so many people. And that went--you
know, that just totally--it just flipped on that moment. They
were willing to annihilate 50,000 people.
So I understand your point that these weapons of biological
and chemical can be very precise so they can be--they can very
much be pinpointed and not a weapon of mass destruction. But
they can also be very indiscriminate.
Dr. Post. This is true. And your point about the
willingness to take mass casualties, one of the questions we
asked in our interviews was was there any moral red line in
terms of the extent of destruction, the extent of casualties;
and for several of the groups, in fact, there are significant
red lines that would be counterproductive for their cause.
Let me just read: The more an attack hurts the enemy, the
more important it is. That is the measure. The mass killings,
especially the suicide bombings, were the biggest threat, and
so most efforts were devoted to these. The extent of the damage
and the number of casualties are of primary importance. In a
jihad, there are no red lines.
I find that a rather chilling comment.
Mr. Shays. It is chilling.
Mr. Gilman.
Mr. Gilman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Shays. You're going to have 10 minutes.
Mr. Gilman. I'm impressed by Dr. Alibek's focus of
attention on the fact that we don't have a proper, appropriate
coordination amongst our agencies and recommends a single
specialized agency to take over. I note that we have
organizations with some responsibility in our government. DOD,
Defense, Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease
Control, Department of Commerce, Department of Justice, FBI,
CIA, NSA and FEMA, all have some responsibility. But there is
no coordination, as we found in other areas that we're
addressing.
I think his recommendation that there should be an agency
focused solely on biological terrorism, biological defense is a
meritorious one, and I'd like to pursue it, but I'd like our
other panelists to give us their views on Dr. Alibek's
proposal. Mr. Decker.
Mr. Decker. Congressman Gilman, this is the--I think Dr.
Alibek's proposal is analogous to some of the comments from the
Hart-Rudman Commission when they talk about consolidating
certain functions under one organization to deal with border
security issues. And the analogy would be obviously dealing
with bioissues or----
Mr. Gilman. Do you support the proposal?
Mr. Decker. Sir, our agency has not done enough work in
this area to determine is it better for the country to have an
apparatus like this versus improving what we currently have.
Mr. Gilman. Mr. Parachini.
Mr. Parachini. This is sort of a novel concept. It's the
sort of thing one expects from Dr. Alibek, sort of new
thinking. You know, Governor Ridge could take this challenge
on, among others.
Mr. Gilman. Ridge is going to have a myriad of
responsibilities.
But Mr. Alibek is recommending that there be one
specialized agency. What is your feeling? Yes or no.
Mr. Parachini. It might be too narrow of a task. There are
already a number of entities within the Pentagon that work on
biological defense and critically DARPA does a lot of the
research that Dr. Alibek is pointing to. So I would be
reluctant to create yet another government agency to address
this problem when I think already within the Pentagon there is
a fairly robust agency.
Mr. Gilman. Well, besides the Pentagon, all of those other
agencies I just recited that have some part of it--HHS, DOC,
DOJ, CIA, FBI and NSA, FEMA--it seems to me you need some
centralized authority.
Mr. Parachini. There is a natural inclination to find a
central organization to coordinate. If we can accomplish
integration without necessarily overlaying another layer of----
Mr. Gilman. How do you get integration with all of these
agencies out there?
Mr. Parachini. Some of the interagency processes I think
function very well. It's a matter of leadership to task them in
the right way.
Mr. Gilman. How do you feel, Mr. Post?
Dr. Post. Having an intelligence background, having sat in
on many national intelligence meetings, I would think that
something would be lost in having too much of a homogenization
of functions. There is a utility to having different
organizations, and often it would be a greater clarity emerges
from the clash of ideas.
Mr. Gilman. So I take it the consensus is you have some
reservations about pursuing it.
Dr. Alibek.
Mr. Alibek. If I may, to clarify this idea. You know, I am
dealing with many agencies. I talk to many experts from
different agencies and departments. The problem is this. I
didn't mean to--just to have an agency just to conduct this
work. It's a completely different idea. The idea, because as I
said before the problem of biological weapon threat and
biological weapons defense is so comprehensive, is so complex,
it's absolutely impossible to have a huge number of agencies or
departments responsible for different pieces of this huge
puzzle.
And when we start collecting all these pieces of puzzle in
sort of picture what we see now, we see a lot of duplication, I
mean, just many agencies doing the same work. Many government
contractors, they do absolutely the same projects. We see a
huge number of absolutely the same efforts run by different
agencies and departments. And, you know, when you start
collecting you realize we have a lot of work under different
leadership, under different agencies, same work. While at the
same time you can see a lot of holes in this puzzle of
biological weapon threat analysis and defense.
Mr. Gilman. Dr. Alibek, let me interrupt you. Dr. Alibek,
you were the head of an agency in the Soviet Union that
concentrated all of the efforts on biological and chemical
warfare in your agency, is that correct?
Mr. Alibek. Yes, that's absolutely correct.
Mr. Shays. Would the gentleman suspend a second? Does it
also include defense as well as offensive?
Mr. Alibek. It includes both offensive and defensive
issues. Just my personal experience, I don't want a
supercentralization, I would say, but you know when you've got
an agency, it's not a superagency which is capable to do
everything and to remove people and so on and so forth--but
when you've got an agency which is controlling all situation--
the entire situation in this field, when it knows what kind of
agency involved in what kind of work, what subcontractors are
doing what kind of work--now, for example, I can say again you
mentioned specific agencies. I see, for example, there is an
entity, a large government contractor running the project who
develop so-called encyclopedia of biological weapons. We might
be in a senseless work. We spent millions of dollars to do
this. But at the same time there is another agency running
another project with similar tasks.
Mr. Gilman. A lot of overlap.
Mr. Alibek. Not just overlap. A lot of senseless work. A
lot of overlap. In this case, of course, when we say about $240
or $300 million in this field, just if you start analyzing all
this puzzle, you would see that 50 percent of this money is
overlapping each other.
Mr. Gilman. In your agency in the Soviet Union you had over
30,000 workers all concentrating on biological and chemical
warfare.
Mr. Alibek. 30,000 workers, about 40 facilities
concentrated there both biological weapons research, biological
weapon development, biological weapon production, biological
weapons defense.
Mr. Gilman. How long did that agency exist in the Soviet
Union?
Mr. Alibek. It existed from 1973 to 1992. But now a similar
agency exists under the Minister of Defense. It's similar
agency but dealing with military issues of biological weapons
and biological weapons defense. But it's a military agency.
Mr. Gilman. Mr. Chairman, I hope that we can take another
look at all of this since you were so forceful in your
leadership on the fractionalization with other authorities with
regard to terrorism and other aspects of chemical warfare.
Let me ask the panelists, how do we force all of our
agencies to share information? For example, you told us that
there was a lack of sharing of intelligence between the FBI and
the INS with regard to the hostage plane, that one of the
hostage planes had taken place and had there been a sharing it
could have been prevented. What are your thoughts? How do we
improve the sharing of intelligence?
Dr. Post. It seems to me, if I might note, that one of the
better outcomes of this tragic event was cooperation on two
levels which has been deficient in the past, both within the
U.S. Government among agencies where there really is a
significant press now to fully cooperate and share information
and, at least as importantly, among the international
community. One simply cannot assess this problem independently,
either in any agency within the government or the United States
alone without active sharing of information. And I think we are
moving--there has been a kind of quantum leap as I have come to
understand that cooperation.
Mr. Gilman. Any mandates necessary domestically to do that?
Should we have some mandate that there be forceful sharing of
intelligence in----
Dr. Post. There are, of course, problems with the different
perspectives of the agencies which will always be present--
having an informant versus having a witness, is this a crime or
is this a developing information. Understanding--I have been
regularly been struck at interagency meetings between Defense,
CIA and FBI that one has three different perspectives coming to
bear. Terrorism is crime. Terrorism is political action.
Terrorism is a low-intensity conflict.
But the issue you're drawing attention to is absolutely
crucial, and any efforts that can be brought to improve that
cooperation I think would be welcome.
Mr. Gilman. Dr. Alibek, if reports are correct that the
Soviet Union used the biological weapon Glanders against the
Mujahadin in 1982, what is the likelihood that terrorist groups
from Afghanistan would use those kind of weapons against their
adversaries?
Mr. Alibek. Yes, you are absolutely right. There was
credible information about the use of Glanders in 1992 against
Mujahadins in some remote locations of Afghanistan. Glanders is
a bacterial infection, very easy to grow, very easy to
concentrate. If not treated, it has up to 30 percent mortality
rate. Very stable in aerosol and has some persistent forms.
In this case, just when we talk about difficulties, in my
opinion, it's not difficult. Likelihood I would say is high.
Mr. Gilman. Glanders is a--they tell me that is a bacteria
that's highly lethal, is that correct?
Mr. Alibek. It's not highly lethal. I would call it
incapacitating agent. If it stayed well we would have about a 5
percent mortality rate. Without treatment, it would increase up
to 30 percent.
Mr. Gilman. Has any----
Mr. Shays. If the gentleman--it has gone about 12 or 13
minutes.
Mr. Gilman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Shays. Let me ask you, do you gentleman have until
12:30? Does anybody have a problem until 12:30? I'm going to
quickly vote while Ms. Schakowsky--I'm going to let her recess.
I'm going to let her recess in the meantime.
I hope to be back shortly after we recess. Then we'll get
right--started again. Is that all right?
Ms. Schakowsky [presiding]. I just have a couple of
questions.
It seems to me as if Dr. Alibek says one of the goals of
biological weapons is to incite panic and fear. In some degree
that has already been accomplished, that there is an incredible
preoccupation right now with biological terrorism and
emphasized, I think, with the three cases of anthrax right now
in Florida. But it has also focused attention on the public
health infrastructure. And I apologize for being here. I have
looked through the testimony, and I know you were talking about
threat, but if you were to prioritize where we are now putting
our emphasis in response, both to prepare against and to be
ready should something happen, where would you put the priority
of bolstering our public health infrastructure, the capacity to
recognize a biological attack, to have the necessary vaccines,
to have the communication systems that we need?
We have heard about weaknesses on every level. In
comparison, then, to the threat, how important is it to act now
to address the public health infrastructure? Anyone can answer.
Mr. Parachini. The value of your question is it points to
opportunities for what I would call dual-use spending. There
are things that we can do that improve our capabilities and our
public health system to, for example, detect emerging
infectious diseases that occur naturally that are not
intentional. And as a by-product of that, we also include our
capability to--the low probability of an intentional use of a
biological agent.
Ms. Schakowsky. So in comparison, though, for example, in
terms of airline safety, other transportation modes, where
would you put----
Mr. Parachini. Now you are broadening the spectrum beyond
just within the biological area.
Ms. Schakowsky. However you want to frame it. But how
important is it?
Mr. Parachini. Well, I would want to make investments that
we get dual-use benefit across the board. Specialized
investments just to address that terrorist problem or that
terrorist problem today will be outdated tomorrow. And I am not
fully in agreement that the only role of biological weapons is
to inflict terror. And indeed, in 1984, in the United States,
the use of biological agents was not to terrorize, but was
specifically to incapacitate people.
Ms. Schakowsky. Oh, no. I'm just saying if that is one of
the goals that--in part that has been achieved already.
Mr. Parachini. If that is one of the goals, we would have
to have somebody say that is what they intended to do, or we
would have to get a defector, or we would have to have somebody
on a witness stand say that. And while we think that, we
actually have not had a terrorist or a defector talk about
biological weapons for terror. We have them talk about them as
effective killing weapons or effective incapacitating weapons.
But when we are talking about biological weapons for terror, we
are really projecting our fear into what we think they're
thinking. It's not clear to me that's the case.
Mr. Alibek. If I may, when the Soviet Union was developing
biological weapons, the Soviet Union developed its own doctrine
and classification of biological weapons. Biological weapons
have been divided into so-called strategic biological weapons,
operational biological weapons, and the major idea was to kill
as many as possible people. Biological weapons, according to
the Soviet Union's military doctrine, would be used to kill
people. The United States' old--very old program existed in the
1950's and 1960's, intended to use incapacitating biological
weapons.
But what was important for the Soviet military strategists,
everybody understood that in case of deploying biological
weapons, one of the biggest problems would be in the country of
deployment. It is huge panic, full distraction of any activity,
vital military activity, because people actually, in addition
to being infected, diseased and killed, they are afraid of
biological weapons because they don't understand what it is.
And it is one of the biggest problems.
Another I think we are going to need to keep in mind, when
we talk about biological weapons--and you know what worries me?
When we discuss what kind of event we could see and whether or
not we would see a sort of a small event like we saw several
days ago in Florida, or it could result in some significant
casualty number, the problem is this, and just what I would
like to repeat once again: There is no single answer. We cannot
say--we cannot insist saying biological weapons cannot produce
a significant casualty effect. We cannot say at the same time--
we cannot say biological weapons are so effective that we could
see a second doomsday, for example, and to produce sort of a
doomsday scenario.
In my opinion, what we need to do--that is why I said about
our lack of understanding of the biological weapon threat. We
need to understand it. Depending upon many different scenarios,
agents, techniques, concentration of the agent, amount of the
agent deployed and so on and so forth, we could see from dozens
to hundreds of thousands of casualties.
Ms. Schakowsky. I am going to have to go vote, and I am
going to recess the committee right now.
[Recess.]
Mr. Shays [presiding]. Mr. Alibek thinks he has until 12:30
to get back. Sometimes wars get started by miscommunication,
but we can deal with it on our own. Calling this hearing to
order.
You all have been informed of a CNN story that an employee
of NBC in New York has tested positive for anthrax, and that
was Friday. The FBI and CDC are investigating. Now, then, they
got the story wrong, because they said the anthrax is not the
same respiratory anthrax that killed a Florida man. The
employee tested positive for cutaneous anthrax. In other words,
it is still the same anthrax, it is just by skin rather than by
air. What is your reaction, Dr. Post, concern?
Dr. Post. Each time we hear one of these events, it
regularly heightens our own suspiciousness, and there is a kind
of hyperactive community now. But I must say that it is
troubling, and I would like to learn more about that, but
especially when it hits a news agency, what could that mean?
Mr. Shays. They make a mistake if they take on the news
industry; don't you think?
Dr. Post. There is no limit to whom they will take on.
Mr. Shays. Why don't I go to you, Mr. Parachini. What I was
going to say to you, as I have said, based on the 20 plus
hearings we have had and the briefings we have had, I say the
following: That it is not a question if there will be a
chemical or biological attack, and it's a question of when,
where and what magnitude. And I qualify the magnitude to be the
less likely is the 100-year storm. Do you find that a statement
you can agree with or disagree?
Mr. Parachini. I agree with that. I think you are
characterizing the scope and magnitude of the problem in the
right way.
Dr. Post. And motivationally, the issue of the 100-year
storm for almost all terrorist groups would be highly
counterproductive and have no positive incentive.
Mr. Shays. Well, I used to think that before, but why now?
I used to think that before, but not anymore. I mean, I don't
see based on your comment about the red line----
Dr. Post. I said for almost all terrorist groups, the one
exception being the Islamist radical extremists who see
themselves as trying to strike a mortal blow at our structure.
Having said that, they are doing quite well, thank you very
much, on using conventional terrorism. And on their own--and I
don't have access to classified intelligence on this matter.
The technological, scientific resource matters that are
necessary really would require cooperation of a state
provision, such as Iraq, and that to me is a very important
area to be zeroing in on human intelligence on the connections
between Iraq and the bin Laden group.
Mr. Shays. Do you have any comment on that? Is that an
uncomfortable statement to have made?
Mr. Decker. I don't think it is uncomfortable. With what we
just experienced, I think it is accurate.
Mr. Shays. Dr. Post, you had said weapons of mass
destruction is not a helpful term because they can be used not
as weapons of mass destruction, or they wouldn't most likely--
--
Dr. Post. The so-called weapons of mass destruction can be
used in small attacks, and you can cause mass destruction with
conventional terrorism. So I think it is semantically
confusing.
Mr. Shays. You don't see a distinction between a chemical,
biological----
Dr. Post. That is CBRN terrorism, and it does have its own
terrorizing aspects, the so-called silent death, but it is not
useful--because it conjures up the spectacle of the
superterrorism, and, in fact, the much more likely use would be
a small local attack.
Mr. Shays. I was born in 1945, 8 years old by 1953. We then
started to--we had the cold war--excuse me, the conventional
World War I, II concept of confrontation gave way to the cold
war, and there was a whole redefinition of how we responded. We
ended up with--I am going to put a reward out for Dr. Alibek.
And anybody gets him gets $10 from me if you get him in the
next 5 minutes, and that is a promise you can bank on. But the
cold war began. And we then--I am trying to think of, you know,
is there some parallels to then and now. I had people tell me
they thought cities would literally be blown up. I lived in a
community in Fairfield County--Jason, you get $10.
I want to get you on your way, but I just wanted to say and
I am going to ask you, Dr. Alibek, this question. It can be a
yes, if it is a yes or no. I just say that it is not a question
if there is going to be a chemical or biological attack, but a
question of not if, but when, where and of what magnitude, and
the magnitude is the thing we talked about most likely to be
small in nature, not large in nature. Is that an uncomfortable
statement, a statement you would agree with or disagree?
Mr. Alibek. I would answer this way now----
Mr. Shays. I want a yes or no first. Would you agree or
disagree. If you don't agree, tell me.
Mr. Alibek. I agree.
Mr. Shays. Now qualify.
Mr. Alibek. Of course, we will be seeing newer and newer
cases of anthrax or some other infections. And we know, for
example, today's case in New York, new information has come in
about a new case of anthrax. But we will be going from small
cases, and probably later we will be seeing a bigger number of
cases of various infections.
Mr. Shays. And all of the three of you agree with Dr. Post
except as not surprising there is no red line anymore, no red
line meaning no limit to what they would be willing to do.
Mr. Alibek. In my opinion, there is no red line.
Mr. Shays. You are not surprised by it?
Mr. Parachini. Well, I guess I would want to texture that a
little more, because I think that the motivations, for example,
are more than just an audience of one and it being God. It is
not just religion. There is a patina of religion here, but it's
other things. They talk about political things. And indeed, bin
Laden in his recent statement has done that, as did Ramzi
Yousef on the stand in New York.
Here's the part where I think it differs a little bit from
there being no red lines. They see themselves as cosmic
warriors engaged in a great struggle, and in order to continue
that struggle which gives them meaning, they have to stay
alive, or some of them have to stay alive. And so they are
willing to do a lot, but it is not that there is no red line,
it's that they're willing to do what it is to fight in this
cosmic struggle.
Mr. Shays. In fact, the red line is way off in the
distance.
Mr. Parachini. I don't think they think about a red line at
all. And so by putting a red line out there, we are imposing
how we think that they'd crash on through it.
Mr. Shays. In a sense you said yes, and it's an interesting
way of qualifying. You said you wanted to add texture to it.
I'm learning every day from you guys. I know my colleague Mr.
Platts wants to ask a question.
Mr. Platts. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have two
questions, and as a nonscientist kind of lay person on these
issues trying to get a good understanding of the threats and
the various aspects of these various biological weapons--the
potential for it, earlier this week I sat in on a briefing with
a doctor from John Hopkins and their civilian biodefense
center, and when he talked about smallpox and the threats of
that being used by terrorists and it spreading, one of the
things he said was that a good nature--and the symptoms, I
think, was 2 days of very intense fevers followed by the onset
of the rash, and that his statement to us was that a person is
not contagious until the onset of the rash. And, Dr. Alibek, in
your testimony, you talk about it being contagious before any
symptoms are visible. And I'd be interested if you could expand
it.
Mr. Alibek. You know, it's one of the biggest disagreements
between Dr. Henderson and myself. He considers smallpox becomes
contagious when we see the onset of this infection.
Unfortunately, we have seen many cases when monkeys became
infectious on the last day of incubation period, and it was
absolutely the same observation from the scientists who visited
India and some other countries when they dealt with smallpox in
those countries. This infection becomes contagious the day
before the onset of these symptoms.
Mr. Platts. That is based on your studies in Russia?
Mr. Alibek. Based on all observations and based on new
study.
Mr. Platts. Well, I think that is an important aspect
because of----
Mr. Alibek. This is the only contagious infection in which
people become contagious before the onset of symptoms.
Mr. Platts. OK. Thank you.
From how to be able to address it, it emphasizes the
importance of an immediate response as opposed to having a day
or 2 or 3 days' kind of cushion to be able to respond.
Mr. Alibek. You know, it is an interesting question, for
example, when we analyze all scientific literature here in the
United States regarding smallpox, you know what kind of
information you find? You know, a very small general
description of smallpox. Russia has studied smallpox for years
from various aspects, especially keeping in mind that Russia,
the Soviet Union, was involved in developing smallpox
biological weapons for decades. In this case, a number of
cases, a number of observations was much greater than here in
the United States. And, you know, it is in many Russian
sources. For example, if you analyze Russian sources, you can
find this specific statement: Infection, this infection becomes
contagious before the onset of symptoms.
Mr. Platts. Thank you.
Second question was for any of the panelist members who
would like to address it is what other aspects of Dr.
Henderson's testimony was the difficulty--and it has been
reported in the press of it being very difficult to take a
crop-dusting plane and adjust it to have such a fine mist that
would be the serious threat. He contended in his statements to
us that it is not true, that it would be very easy to kind of
retrofit, to basically change some valves to make the crop-
dusting plane very much a means of disbursing the biological
element in a very effective way, and I had been interested in
any opinions.
Dr. Post. It is my understanding that one needs to make a
distinction between an urban area and tall buildings, and in
order to get the adequate concentration down, it would be quite
problematic.
I do want to raise what my initial reaction was to this
just to add a totally different element. I found it very
interesting that these inquiries occurred in a rather
indiscrete fashion, in fact just before the event when they
were going to give their lives. My initial question was, was
this done, in fact, to create terror, knowing----
Mr. Platts. Psychological aspect of it?
Dr. Post [continuing]. That they would be discovered, and
was this part of a larger plan? I just raise this as an
additional thought.
Mr. Alibek. What is interesting, I agree with Dr.
Henderson, when somebody says it is very difficult just to
redevelop nozzles of crop dusters and just to have the right
particle size, you know, in my opinion, it's incorrect. When we
water the grass at our houses, there are some systems just to
create mist. It is a very simple nozzle system. When we say it
is very difficult to have biological agents in the right
particle, it's a matter of just a specific nozzle device. And
in this case, if this--usually crop dusters deploy
biopesticides or pesticides--a regular particle size. Settling
was in between 50, 100 microns. When we talk about biological
weapons deployment, this particle size must be between 1 to 25
microns. Some people say 1 to 5. It's incorrect. Up to 25
microns could work. It would cause different manifestations of
infections. But 25 microns work as well.
And in this case, what I would like to say, one of the
types of deployment in the Soviet Union for operation of
biological weapons was to use medium-range bombers with spray
tanks. In each spray tank, to capacity each, it had specially
developed nozzles just to create this means. And, you know,
crop dusters operate on the same principle.
Mr. Platts. You are saying that you are agreeing with Dr.
Henderson that it would be easily done?
Mr. Alibek. He said it would be easy, and I agree it is not
a technically unsolvable problem.
Mr. Parachini. If I can just add, the Iraqis worked on this
for a number of years and were not successful. We have to look
into the future and hedge against that possibility, but let us
keep in perspective the difficulty here.
Mr. Alibek. We worked on this problem, and we used anthrax
over the Virginia Islands using these medium-range bombers, and
the effectiveness of this deployment was unbelievable. And in
1968, deployment of tuleremia of--by American military showed
with the right particle size was able to travel tens of miles
and infect and kill monkeys 40, 50 miles downwind.
Mr. Platts. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And again, my thanks
to all the panelists for their testimony.
Mr. Shays. Dr. Decker, a housekeeping issue here. If we are
trying to assess the threat assessment, part of that is do they
have the capability, say, of delivering a chemical or
biological agent. That would be part of the threat assessment,
right?
Mr. Decker. That's correct.
Mr. Shays. Or a threat assessment, for instance, of
radioactive material would be do they have radioactive
material; or nuclear weapons, do they have a nuclear weapon?
Mr. Decker. And other aspects of that, that's correct.
Dr. Post. If I might add something worth noting in terms of
threat assessment, one would like to know--and this is a human
intelligence question--has this group been recruiting
biochemists, or has it been recruiting inorganic chemists. Has
it been trying to get into its cadre of specialists the kinds
of scientists who could promote this. This would be one of the
kinds of indicators one would look for that a group is making a
transition from conventional terrorism to being really
motivated to pursue bioterrorism.
Mr. Shays. In a briefing we had yesterday, we had Eileen
Pricer, who argues that we don't have the data we need because
we don't take all the public data that is available and mix it
with the security data. And just taking public data, using, you
know, computer systems that are high-speed and able to digest,
you know, literally floors' worth of material, she can take
relationships that are seven times removed, seven units
removed, and when she does that, she ends up with relationships
to the bin Laden group where she sees the purchase of
chemicals, the sending of students to universities. You
wouldn't see it if you isolated it there, but if that unit is
connected to that unit, which is connected to that unit, which
is connected to that unit, you then see the relationship. So we
don't know ultimately the authenticity of how she does it, but
when she does it, she comes up with the kind of answer that you
have just asked, which is a little unsettling.
I just have a few areas of interest here, but I want to--my
staff wants to make sure that I ask one question, and I am
going to keep them on edge and wait to ask that question later.
Makes them pay attention.
Forty offices, 30,000 employees--30,000 employees would
fill up a stadium. That is a lot of people.
Mr. Alibek. Correct.
Mr. Shays. They were all working on biological weapons and
defensive ways to defend?
Mr. Alibek. The great majority of them were working in two
fields, biological weapons offensive issues and biological
weapons defensive issues.
Mr. Shays. And defensive, in your words, are what would
happen----
Mr. Alibek. To development of treatment, of vaccines, and
just to protect against biological infectious diseases.
Mr. Shays. In the process of doing your work, were there
occasions where people became inflicted with a particular
disease and died?
Mr. Alibek. Yes. We had some cases.
Mr. Shays. You had casualties.
Mr. Alibek. But you know what we were able to do because
there were two major systems to develop biological weapons.
Minister of Defense had a great number of people who died
because they started this program in the 1920's and 1930's.
Mr. Shays. When your unit was established after the
Department of Defense, were you the civilian side of this?
Mr. Alibek. We were a completely new entity, specifically
established to develop modern, sophisticated biological
weapons.
Mr. Shays. This is a matter of public record, and I should
know it, so I don't want to spend a lot of time, but it's going
to get me to a question. Is this operation still going on?
Mr. Alibek. The Minister of Defense is still having
facilities, but this system, Biopreparat, has been dismantled.
Mr. Shays. You have 30,000 people give or take.
Mr. Alibek. Many of them have left Biopreparat facilities.
And where these people are, it is very difficult to say.
Mr. Shays. We are not talking about 100 people, but 30,000.
Mr. Alibek. But at least people with sophisticated
knowledge, a number is about 7,000 to 9,000 people.
Mr. Shays. That is a staggering number.
Mr. Alibek. Nobody knows where these people are.
Mr. Shays. Now, in terms of the biological agents, did you
come across some delivery systems that would be very helpful to
the terrorists, or did you hit a wall where you just simply
couldn't deliver a biological agent effectively?
Mr. Alibek. No. Everything was developed. There are three
major delivery systems for deployment because it was a military
program.
Mr. Shays. I don't need to know them. I just want to know
if you did them.
Mr. Alibek. We were able to develop very effective,
sophisticated deployment techniques and means for deployment.
Mr. Shays. Now, some--obviously, if they are military, the
tip of a missile, that's one thing, but were some of them more
subtle so they would be a means that would be a tool that a
terrorist could use?
Mr. Alibek. Some of them, at least 50 percent of this
technique, could be used by terrorists.
Mr. Shays. Give me on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being
confident that terrorists have these weapons to 1 that they
don't. Where would you put it, 10 being most likely that they
had them, or at least the states--let's just go to the states,
the Koreas, the Chinas, the Irans, the Iraqs, the Libyas.
Mr. Alibek. Nine, ten.
Mr. Shays. So, then, all I have to decide is if I think
those countries have them, it's possible the terrorists have
them. And I know what I think.
Mr. Alibek. I'm talking about the countries. If you are
talking about terrorist groups, it is difficult to say.
Mr. Shays. We will all come to our conclusion.
Dr. Post. On that question, might I note, though, the
observation was made, terrorists are mobile and hard to trace
where states are confined within their borders. The risk to a
state of retaliation for it being discovered that it was
providing these weapons to a terrorist group is certainly
profound, and that will be a major--I am not saying it will
stop providing them, but it certainly is a major disincentive
for any state.
Mr. Shays. The only problem with Afghanistan, for instance,
if you believe the story yesterday, I mean, the Taliban and bin
Laden are basically one and the same, if you accept that. This
is--my major other area of questioning and I will get to the
question the staff wants me to ask--well, let me do it now, the
BWC, Biological Weapons Convention, did not stop the Soviet
Union from developing biological weapons. The Soviets signed
the BWC; is that correct?
Mr. Alibek. That's correct. It was signed by the Soviet
Union, but it didn't stop. It even expanded the Soviet Union's
biological weapons program.
Mr. Shays. And I don't believe, but I would be curious, do
you think there is a way you can write a protocol to inspect
all potential places where you would make a biological agent,
or do you think that you could still have secret places that no
one would ever know about?
Mr. Alibek. In my opinion, it is impossible.
Mr. Shays. Impossible?
Mr. Alibek. Impossible, because these protocols would never
be able to inspect all possible locations and all possible
productionsites.
Mr. Shays. And on a timely basis.
Mr. Alibek. It is not just this issue. For example, the
Soviet Union, as soon as that country started understanding
that United States will be pressuring the Soviet Union
severely, they started developing mobile installations for
manufacturing and assembling biological weapons.
Mr. Shays. Then let me just ask this question here. Do you
think that the smallpox is still a Vector or--let me put it
this way. This is what I have to sort out, and all of you can
jump in. You basically had smallpox theoretically that was the
WHO--that is the United States plus the Soviet Union--just
those two and the WHO. But you have the United States
theoretically and the Soviet Union have it, CDC and Vector. I
don't know why other doctors who were dealing with the smallpox
efforts to cure it, why they wouldn't have theoretically all
abided by the request to destroy it. But my question to you is,
are you totally and completely comfortable that smallpox is
contained within Vector and nowhere else?
Mr. Alibek. Absolutely not. I strongly believe that there
are some countries who have secret stocks of this virus. And
specifically we knew North Korea was experimenting with
smallpox in late 1980's, early 1990's. And we knew that Iraq
was experimenting with camelpox as a good surrogate for----
Mr. Shays. You said Iraq?
Mr. Alibek. Camelpox is a good surrogate to model a
smallpox infection. This is just what we know for sure. But in
my opinion, there could be some other countries still having
smallpox stocks.
Mr. Shays. Which gets me to this question--and all of you
could jump in as well in terms of your perspective on it--if I
am asked, you know, by someone from the press or constituents
what can they do--in other words, I know what the government
can do to deal with the threat and the likelihood of a
biological attack. I think I know what my government can do. I
want my government to obviously have the proper threat
assessment, to know the likelihood of when, where and what
magnitude, and if we can determine that. I would like them to
know potentially what kind of biological agent would be used,
you know. And I guess that would be based on percentages, Mr.
Decker, I mean, this more likely than that, but--is that a yes?
Mr. Decker. I think there would be some attempt to quantify
which one would be more probable, but that is problematic in
itself.
Mr. Shays. So then my question is, the best answer I have
is that I want my government to have the antibiotics to deal
with this and potentially the vaccines where a vaccine would be
helpful. Like with anthrax it would be helpful even after
someone has contracted the disease, with the antibiotics. But
what else can the government do? Is it just prevention, or can
we deal with it when it happens?
Mr. Alibek. My position again, vaccines--I don't believe
vaccines are good protection against bioterrorism. What the
government needs to do is to liberate all possible protection
and treatment approaches and just to start paying much
attention to treatment, to medical treatment and to emergency
prophylaxes. Not much has been done in this field.
Mr. Shays. More on treatment than a prophylactic.
Mr. Alibek. More on treatment and emergency prophylaxes.
Mr. Shays. Is that based on your belief there can't be
immunity from a biological attack?
Mr. Alibek. Not just my belief, our experimental data
suggests there are some directions, very promising directions,
could be liberated and could result in appropriate protective
means and approaches against biological weapons.
Mr. Shays. I misunderstand you. I say a prophylactic. Can
you vaccinate someone for all the potential biological agents?
Mr. Alibek. When we say prophylaxes, there are two types of
prophylaxes: first, vaccine prophylaxes and, second, urgent
prophylaxes. It means----
Mr. Shays. When it happens----
Mr. Alibek. You can use it either immediately before or
after exposure. There are different means and approaches to do
this. In this case, keeping in mind that the number of agents
being used in biological weapons is big--I would say large--it
is very, very difficult to imagine that vaccines would have any
volume in this case.
But there are many scientific approaches and many
scientific developments already. For example, you can talk to
DARPA, and they can tell you about the immunological approaches
they develop. In my opinion, there is a very good direction
funded by DARPA. But there is another problem. Since we started
developing vaccines here in this country and in many other
countries, we lost a huge number of scientists who understand
infectious diseases, infectious diseases per se, and, I mean,
we have got a huge number of microbiologists, but we have no
many scientists who can deal with infectious disease.
Mr. Shays. In the United States and Europe?
Mr. Alibek. Unfortunately, yes. We need to revise this
issue, and we need to develop a new level of scientists,
virologists, bacteriologists and experts in infectious
diseases.
Mr. Shays. I would like to have counsel ask a question.
Mr. Halloran. Just in anthrax cases, the island--or not an
island, but the island of Anthrax in the Aral Sea in
Kazakhstan, what can you tell us about the anthrax that's
there? What is the likelihood that it's still virulent; that if
a terrorist from Afghanistan wanted to walk up there with a
scoop and grab some anthrax, what's the likelihood that it's
still virulent and would be useful to a terrorist?
Mr. Alibek. You know, this island in Aral Sea--Russian name
of this island was Virginia Island. It was the Soviet Union
bioweapon proving testing ground. It has been used to test
different biological weapons including the plague, tuberculosis
Glanders and anthrax. The entire island is contaminated,
completely contaminated. You can dig in and isolate spores of
anthrax. They are still virulent, and they could be used if
there is a group having access to this island. It wouldn't be a
big problem to isolate virulent strains of anthrax from that
island.
Mr. Halloran. The island is not guarded?
Mr. Alibek. You can come and have just a very simple
protection, spray-type suits; just a simple protection,
including gloves, masks and just having simple equipment just
to take samples in petri dishes and just to see on the surfaces
of petri dishes and then separate colonies, and you've got
enough material just for growing.
Mr. Halloran. And the expertise required to identify a
lethal strain, is that undergraduate, postgraduate?
Mr. Alibek. Undergraduate. I would say this: A level
enough--in many cases it is not a matter, for example, of
graduating or master's degree knowledge. It is a matter of
commitment and specific desire, specific knowledge. You have a
basic training in biology, but if you commit to a personal
group, you will be able to retrieve this information from many
sources available in the world. In this case, for example, if
you know how to grow microorganisms and you know how to
identify--because it is a simple process--with how to identify
a virulent strain. People think in many cases it is necessary
to infect animals, but if they know that virulent strains have
capsule and they know how to grow, how take a sample or prepare
a slide and just staining the slide and see a capsule, you know
it is a virulent strain.
Mr. Shays. Let me close by asking, is there any question
you would like to ask yourself that you wished I had asked or
some other Member asked? Seriously. Is there a question we
should have asked?
Mr. Parachini. I would just urge the committee at some
point in its deliberations to think through the link between
the state programs and terrorists, because at the moment there
is no open source information to show that evidence. And
indeed, the numbers about the number of people involved in
former state programs who may be around the world are in a fair
amount of dispute. We've heard very large numbers here, but
there are many other views about what the number is and where
those people are, most of whom are in Western countries, most
of whom are in the United States. So that gauge, the threat
requires a little more discussion.
Mr. Shays. You don't want me to assume that if Iraq has
chemical agents, that the terrorists who have worked in Iraq
have them?
Mr. Parachini. That's right. That would be one thing, and
also the former Soviet agents or former Soviet scientists,
given the size of all the number of people that worked in the
program, only a much smaller number actually had weapons,
critical knowledge, and many of them have come here and have
not gone to North Korea, Iraq or Iran. So getting the dimension
of the potential threat is an important thing to run at.
Mr. Shays. Seems to me we can't do it until we have that. I
make the assumption, admittedly based on all the hearings that
we have had, that it is so likely as to be almost absurd not to
think they haven't gotten them, but your point is, I haven't
seen the money. But we have people who have made it very clear
to us that pathetically that resources from the former Soviet
Union to various countries went for a song, that they didn't
pay a lot of money for some of what they got. And one of the
things that concerns me--one of the things that has concerned
me has been--I am sorry. I lost my train of thought, and I just
want to get this point--that you have various republics where
you had nuclear programs in countries other than now Russia. Do
I make the assumption that all the chemical programs were in
the Russia Federation, or were some of them in now what are
independent states, independent countries?
Mr. Alibek. Now, when we talk about, not chemical,
biological weapons program, apart--this program was located
actually in three former Soviet Union republics. The major part
was in Russia. A small part was in Kazakhstan, and the third
part was in Uzbekistan.
Mr. Shays. That shouldn't make me feel good, should it?
Mr. Alibek. Yeah. But when we say how many people knew,
know, and where these people are, what I would like to say I
know because----
Mr. Shays. Short answer.
Mr. Alibek. I am having some Russian scientists working for
me previously involved in Russian biological weapons program.
They've got contacts with Russian scientists who visited Iran
and Iraq and taught in Iran and Iraq, and they told these
people who were in those countries, told that at least Iranian
scientists had very sophisticated knowledge in molecular
biology. They were there.
Mr. Shays. I hear you loud and clear.
Mr. Parachini. The link I am trying to make is between the
terrorist group and the state.
Mr. Shays. I think it is fair.
Dr. Post. And just to add and echo this point, that is a
huge, important intelligence target to be looking at that link,
which we at this point in time scarcely have adequately
covered. It is a human intelligence problem.
Mr. Shays. Let me say to you I think this has been a
wonderful panel, and I appreciate the moments when you were
listening to others and then moments when you were the key
player. If one of you wasn't here, this panel would not have
been as helpful. It was the various contributions that you all
made. And I hope our paths cross again. Very, very valuable
information, and I appreciate it a lot. Thank you very much.
This hearing is closed.
[Whereupon, at 1 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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