NEW YORK As the United States and its allies continue the
fight against international terrorist groups and the countries
that may support them, there is increasing fear Americans at
home will one day face the threat of weapons of mass destruction.
Such weapons include biological, chemical, nuclear and
radiological devices, and range from the silent threat of a
poison gas attack to a cataclysmic nuclear explosion. Those who
would launch such attacks know thousands could die, of course,
but their fundamental motive would be to strike fear and panic
in tens of millions more.
In his State of the Union address on Jan. 28, President Bush
instructed leaders of the FBI, CIA, Homeland Security Department
and the Department of Defense to develop a Terrorist Threat
Integration Center to merge and analyze all types of threat
information in a single location so that the "right people are
in the right places to protect our citizens."
In an effort to better inform our audience on the threat to
America, Fox News offers this Weapons of Mass Destruction
Handbook. The package presents an overview of the general threat
of biological, chemical, nuclear and radiological weapons, along
with much more specific and detailed information on the history,
proliferation, delivery mechanisms and treatment/prevention
options for such weapons.
Biological | Chemical | Nuclear | Radiological | Other | What To
Do
Biological Warfare
History:
Terrorism involving biological weapons referred to along with
chemical weapons as "the poor man's nuclear weapon" can range
from putting deadly substances in the nation's food supply to
the aerosolized release of a contagious virus over a city the
size of New York or San Francisco.
The Biological Weapons Convention, signed in 1972, prohibits the
manufacture, stockpiling and use of biological weapons. But
there are several countries that continue to make and study
them. Some countries' stockpiles are unaccounted for, as is the
case with Iraq.
Former President Nixon banned the production and use of
biological warfare agents in 1969, ending the U.S. biowarfare
program. The Soviet Union's biowarfare program, Biopreparat,
lasted until the 1990s.
The United States in January announced a bioterrorism detection
system that would provide early warning if smallpox, anthrax or
other deadly germs are released into the environment. The system
was tested throughout 2002, including at the Winter Olympics in
Salt Lake City, Utah.
On Jan. 28, Bush announced that he will ask for $6 billion in
his fiscal 2004 budget to launch "Project Bioshield," a major
research and production effort to make sure effective vaccines
and treatments against bioterrorism agents are available.
Weapons:
Anthrax, botulinum toxin, plague, ricin, smallpox, tularemia and
viral hemorrhagic fevers are on the top of the Center for
Disease Control and Prevention's list of biological weapons,
considered "Category A" weapons most likely to be used in an
attack.
"Category B" weapons are second-highest priority to the CDC,
because they are fairly easy to disseminate, cause moderate
amounts of disease and low fatality rates. But these weapons
require specific public-health action such as improved
diagnostic and detection systems. These agents include: Q fever,
brucellosis, glanders, ricin, Enterotoxin B, viral encephalitis,
food safety threats, water safety threats, meliodosis,
psittacosis and typhus fever.
"Category C" weapons, described by the CDC as "emerging
infectious disease threats," are fairly easy to obtain, produce
and disseminate and can produce high rates of disease and
mortality. These include the Nipah virus and Hantavirus.
Other agents some nations may use as weapons include: aflatoxin,
trichothecene mycotoxins, multi-drug tuberculosis, bacteria such
as trench fever and scrub typhus, viruses such as influenza and
various forms of hemorrhagic fever, fungi and protozoa.
Agricultural bioterrorism could produce famine or widespread
malnutrition. These include foot-and-mouth disease, mad cow
disease, swine fever and karnal bunt of wheat.
Delivery Systems:
Biological weapons can be aerosolized, meaning they can be
easily spread into the air and inhaled by humans. These weapons
can also be put into food or water supplies, where they would be
ingested. Many will also cause harm if they contact human skin.
Symptoms:
Symptoms can include flu-like symptoms, exhaustion, pneumonia,
weight loss, stomach pain, diarrhea, respiratory failure and
shock.
Treatment:
Biological weapons often take weeks or months to take their
toll. Public health systems often can't pinpoint bioterrorism
right away, because symptoms often mirror ones exhibited by a
person with the common cold or the flu.
Treatments include antidotes, antibiotics, vaccines and pumping
of the stomach.
Who Has It:
Russia is known to have stockpiles of various biological
weapons. The United States studies some substances, such as
anthrax, in laboratories. Iraq, North Korea and Syria are a few
nations thought to still possess biological weapons.
Chemical Warfare
History:
The first major use of chemical weapons in modern times came
when Germany launched a large-scale poison gas attack against
French troops on the battlefield of Ypres in 1915. Allies
responded with their own chemical weapons.
By the end of the war, chemical warfare had inflicted over 1
million casualties, of which around 90,000 were fatal.
Hydrogen cyanide and carbon monoxide were used by the Germans to
murder millions of people in extermination camps during World
War II.
During the Vietnam War, the United States used tear gas and
several types of defoliants, including Agent Orange.
The 1925 Geneva Protocol prohibits "the use in war of
asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and of bacteriological
methods of warfare." But it didn't prohibit the manufacturing
and stockpiling of these weapons. About 40 countries ratified
the protocol.
More than 140 nations signed the Chemical Weapons Convention of
1993, which bans the development, production and possession of
chemical weapons. Nonetheless, a number of nations are believe
to have the weapons.
Weapons:
Mustard gas, sarin (GB), VX, soman (GD) and tabun.
Other forms of chemical agents include: blood agents, including
arsine, cyanogens chloride and hydrogen chloride; choking
agents, including chlorine, diphosgene and phosgene; other nerve
agents; and vesicants, such as distilled mustard,
ethyldichloroarsine, mustard-lewisite mixture and forms of
nitrogen mustard.
There are also "harassing agents," such as riot control
chemicals and vomiting agents.
Toxic weapons are made from readily available material used in
various industrial operations. The most common types of
hazardous materials used in toxic weapons are irritants, choking
agents, flammable industrial gas, water supply contaminants,
oxidizers, chemical asphyxiates, incendiary gases and liquids,
industrial compounds and organophosphate pesticides.
Various forms of toxic waste, such as petroleum spills, smoke,
refuse, sewage and medical waste also can be used in toxic
warfare. Toxic warfare has been used often in recent years.
Delivery Systems:
Skin contact, inhalation or eye contact are possible delivery
systems. Chemicals can also be deployed via commercial handheld
agricultural sprayers, crop dusters, spray tanks on aircraft or
ships, via munitions delivered in gravity bombs, or in warheads
on ballistic or cruise missiles. Water and food contamination is
also possible.
Symptoms:
Symptoms can range from burning or blistering of the skin and
eyes, coughing, respiratory disease, dizziness, nausea,
drowsiness, headache, convulsions, involuntary defecation and
urination, twitching, jerking and miosis, which is the excessive
contraction of eye pupils.
Treatment:
Methods used to relieve suffering include antibiotics,
antidotes, painkillers, dressings for skin burns, rinsing of
eyes and skin and scrubbing of the skin with bleach or other
household cleaning agents.
Who Has It:
There are reports the Al Qaeda terror network has tried to make
various chemical weapons. Russia and the United States have
known stockpiles of sarin. It is also thought India, South Korea
and Syria, among others, also have supplies of various nerve
agents.
It is not clear how secure such nations can keep these supplies.
Such weapons are attractive to terrorist groups because they are
easily accessible, the parts to make them are generally legal
and cheap to obtain.
As a result, many military and terrorism experts believe there
will be an increasing trend in the use of such weapons.
Nuclear Warfare
History:
Nuclear weapons produce devastating and long-term effects on
human and animal life, as well as the environments in which they
live. These are the hardest of all types of weapons to make
because the critical nuclear elements plutonium and/or highly
enriched uranium are hard to come by, and are very expensive.
The United States dropped one atomic bomb each on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki in 1945, bringing and end to World War II. The Soviet
Union became the next country to develop atomic weapons,
igniting an arms race and a global interest in nuclear fission
devices.
Traditional nuclear weapons are not the only threat. Officials
are concerned terrorists might also target the world's nuclear
power plants and supplies.
One worst-case scenario simulation estimated a one-megaton
explosion in Detroit equivalent to a million tons of TNT
could kill 250,000 people, injure half a million more, and
flatten all buildings within a 1.7-mile radius.
Decades of arms control negotiations have greatly reduced the
number of nuclear weapons around the world. Since 1991, the U.S.
Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program has deactivated
6,032 nuclear warheads and has destroyed 491 ballistic missiles,
438 ballistic missile silos, 101 bombers, 365 submarine-launched
missiles, 408 submarine missile launchers, and 25 strategic
missile submarines. It has sealed 194 nuclear test tunnels.
On May 1, 2000, five nuclear weapon states China, France,
Russia, Britain and the U.S. issued a 23-point joint statement
pledging their "unequivocal commitment to the ultimate goals of
a complete disarmament under strict and effective international
controls."
Other nations known or believed to have nuclear weapons have not
signed such agreements, however. Among those nations are India,
Pakistan, Israel and North Korea.
Weapons:
Atomic bombs, hydrogen bombs, "loose nukes" and "suitcase" bombs
Delivery Systems:
These weapons are most likely to be delivered in the form of
ballistic missiles or bombs dropped by fly-over bombers.
Terrorists could also cause accidents involving nuclear power
plants, nuclear medicine machines in hospitals and vehicles used
in the transportation of nuclear waste.
The size of an actual nuclear weapon can be quite small,
however, and could easily fit into a large car or truck. That
has sparked a fear among many experts that a nuclear warhead
could simply be driven into a large city by terrorists and
detonated by either a suicide bomber or by remote control.
Symptoms:
If people don't die from the initial impact of the blast,
depending on the dose of radiation received, victims may
experience vomiting, headache, fatigue, weakness, thermal burn-
like skin effects, secondary infections, recurring bleeding and
hair loss and long-term effects such as cancer or birth defects.
Treatment:
Clothing is to be taken off immediately and sealed in an
airtight container. Victims should wash themselves off
completely with soap and water or with bleach, if necessary.
Treatment may also include stomach pumping, laxatives and giving
patients various substances to decrease the absorption of
radiation in the body's cells and tissue.
Who Has It:
The United States has a stockpile of 12,500 nuclear weapons and
103 power plants. Russia has a similar supply. The United
Nation's International Atomic Energy Agency oversees 900 of the
world's nuclear facilities. Pakistan and India have both
exploded nuclear devices in test blasts. Israel and North Korea
are two countries believed to possess nuclear weapons.
Nuclear weapons continue to be a proliferation concern,
particularly when North Korea recently announced it was
continuing its nuclear arms program, and withdrew from the
international Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
One worry of the United States is not so much that North Korea
itself will use what weapons it has, but that it will have no
qualms about selling them to the highest bidder, whether that
bidder be a nation such as Iraq, which sponsors terrorism, or
individual terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda.
Radiological Warfare
History:
Radiological weapons are thought by many to be the likely
choices for terrorists. Unlike nuclear weapons, they spread
radioactive material, which contaminates equipment, facilities,
land and acts as a toxic chemical, which can be harmful, and in
some cases fatal.
A "dirty bomb" is the likely choice for terrorists and can kill
or injure people by exposing them to radioactive materials, such
as cesium-137, iridium-192 or cobalt-60. Atomic experts say the
explosion of a dirty bomb containing one kilogram of plutonium
in the center of Munich, Germany, could ultimately lead to 120
cancer cases attributable to the blast.
Weapons:
"Dirty bomb"
Delivery Systems:
Methods of detonating a dirty bomb include devices such as
bombs or artillery shells used to disperse harmful radioactive
material. This weapon can be used to contaminate livestock, fish
and food crops. Most radioactive material isn't soluble in
water, so that virtually rules it out as a way for terrorists to
contaminate reservoirs or other water supplies.
Terrorists could launch a systemic attack on a nuclear power
plant by venting or overloading a reactor so it acts as a
radiological weapon.
Symptoms:
Symptoms can range from mild effects, such as skin reddening, to
cancer and death.
Acute radiation syndrome radiation sickness is usually
caused when a person gets a high dose of radiation in mere
minutes and can cause nausea, vomiting and diarrhea; later, bone
marrow depletion may lead to weight loss, loss of appetite, flu-
like symptoms, infection and bleeding.
Treatment:
Radiation victims should take off their clothes and wash
themselves with soap and water using bleach if necessary.
Hospital workers will provide treatment depending on the amount
of radiation received.
Who Has It:
Iraq and Al Qaeda are just two of the countries and/or terrorist
groups believed to have dirty bombs. Virtually every country,
however, has the materials to make them. Insecure nuclear
facilities throughout the world compound the problem.
Other Weapons
History:
There are various weapons - many of which are still under
development - that may not fall into the category of
a "biological," "chemical," "radiological" or "nuclear weapon."
Weapons:
"E-Bomb"
Delivery Systems:
An "E-bomb" most likely would be delivered via unmanned cruise
missiles, fired from a long-range 155 mm artillery gun or MLRS
rocket launcher.
Symptoms:
An E-bomb knocks out electronic devices and communication
systems, and melts or fuses electrical wiring together. Home
computer or personal digital assistants would be warm to the
touch, and their data would be destroyed. Lights would flicker
on and off and phones would be scrambled. If a human were
directly hit by high-powered microwaves and is near electrical
equipment or has a pacemaker, he or she may suffer from serious
burns or brain damage.
Treatment:
Humans would receive treatment as needed for burns or other
injuries.
Who Has It:
The United States may try to use an E-bomb to seize the Iraqi
airwaves if a war is launched on that country. The e-bomb will
knock out Saddam Hussein's ability to communicate with his
military and the Iraq people.
What To Do
In the Case of a Biological or Chemical Attack:
In case of a biological or chemical attack, listen to your radio
for instructions from authorities on whether to remain inside or
evacuate. If instructed to stay inside, turn off all ventilation
and seek shelter in an internal room, preferably one without
windows. Seal the room with plastic sheeting and duct tape.
Remain in protected areas where toxic vapors are reduced or
eliminated and take a battery-operated radio with you.
Seek medical attention immediately if you suffer from symptoms
of exposure. Pay close attention to all official warnings and
instructions on how to proceed. If exposed, remove clothes and
seal in plastic bag, wash off with soapy water immediately. For
more information, visit the CDC Web site at www.bt.cdc.gov.
If you believe that you have been exposed to a biological or
chemical agent, or if you believe an intentional biological
threat will occur or is occurring, please contact your local
health department and/or your local police or other law
enforcement agency.
For more information on how to respond to an attack, consult
FEMA's "Are You Ready? A Guide to Citizen Preparedness"
For information on state and local health departments:
www.cdc.gov/other.htm#states
Health agency contact directories: www.statepublichealth.org
For questions about smallpox, visit
www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/smallpox/index.asp, or call the CDC public
response hotline at (888) 246-2675 (English), (888) 246-2857
(Espa ol), or (866) 874-2646 (TTY).
Contacts for use by state and local health officials and
healthcare providers: CDC Emergency Response Hotline (24 hours)
770-488-7100, program questions: 404-639-0385.
In the Case of a Nuclear or Radiological Attack:
If there were a threat of a nuclear or radiological attack,
people living around potential targets such as military bases
and chemical plants, may be advised to evacuate. Protection from
radioactive fallout would require taking shelter in an
underground area, or in the middle of a large building. Blast
shelters offer some protection, but cannot withstand a direct
hit from a nuclear detonation. Fallout shelters can be any
protected space where the walls and roof are thick and dense
enough to absorb radiation. The more distance and time you put
between you and the fallout particles, the better. Some fallout
shelters are designated by yellow and black shelter signs,
although many were removed at the end of the Cold War.
During a nuclear attack, do not look at the flash or fireball.
Take cover as quickly as possible below ground, if possible
and stay there until instructed otherwise. If you can't get
inside a building, take cover behind anything, lie flat on the
ground and cover your head. Fallout may not arrive for 20
minutes or so after the blast but can be carried by wind for
hundreds of miles, so seek a shelter that will offer a strong
shield against harmful material that is farther away from where
the device was detonated.
After a radiological or nuclear attack, people shouldn't leave
their shelter until officials say so. The length of your stay
can range from a day to two to four weeks, depending on the
extent of contamination. People who are allowed to come out of
hiding may be evacuated to unaffected areas within a few days.
While in hiding, people are encouraged to use water and food
prudently and cooperate with shelter managers.
Before returning to a home within range of a bomb's shock wave,
check for signs of collapse or damage before entering.
Immediately clean up spilled medicines, drugs or flammables.
Listen to your battery-powered radio for instructions and
information about community services. Do not turn gas back on in
house and turn water back on only after you're sure the water
system is working properly and isn't contaminated. Stay away
from damaged areas and areas marked "radiation hazard"
or "HAZMAT."
For more information on how to respond to an attack, consult
FEMA's "Are You Ready? A Guide to Citizen Preparedness"
For more information on radiation, go to
www.cdc.gov/nceh/radiation/response.htm.
The Red Cross also has information available on how citizens
can prepare for a terrorist attack
www.redcross.org/services/disaster/keepsafe/unexpected.html.
Emergency Alert System:
In case of an emergency, such as some type of terrorist attack,
state or local emergency officials would issue an emergency
alert system message to the local media to tell citizens what
actions to take. The Emergency Broadcast System is used for
this. This sytem is used by local officials almost every day in
cases of natural disasters, hazardous material spills and
similar emergencies.
A national emergency alert system can be activated by FEMA at
the direction of the White House. This would cause an emergency
message to be sent out to a national network of radio stations,
coast to coast. That message then filters down to smaller radio,
TV and cable stations. This system has never been used.
