THE MOST DEADLY WEAPON OF ALL

British efforts to curb the proliferation of biological weapons are being blocked by the

US among others, writes David Shukman

IN THE build-up to the Gulf war of 1991, as the western public was being introduced to the bland, sanitising language of the American military, officials let it be known that among the places which were to be bombed were what they called Iraq's 'NBC assets'. This diminutive term describes the most devastating and frightening weapons ever invented. In the initials, 'N' stands for `nuclear'.

Although the extent of Saddam Hus- sein's nuclear weapons programme would only be discovered by United Nations inspectors after the conflict, several key sites had been identified and were subse- quently attacked. Similarly, the 'C' or `chemical' weapons factories and stores were relatively well known to allied intelli- gence (Iraq's use of nerve agent against the Kurds had been confirmed by then) and were therefore included in the target list. But the 13' or 'biological' weapons were the least-known quantity. Yet it was these weapons — highly infectious and rapidly acting bacteria such as anthrax which held the greatest potential for wip- ing out huge sections of the allied lines and shattering the coalition war effort.

The lack of intelligence on Iraq's ability to launch deadly micro-organisms at the allies — by rocket or bomb or sprayed from aircraft — was a source of intense anxiety for western leaders. The then chairman of the US Joint Chiefs, General Colin Powell, later admitted to Congress that biological weaponry was 'the one that scares me to death, perhaps even more so than tactical nuclear weapons'.

Although antidotes were available for specific weapons such as anthrax (British

found the injections painful with debilitating side-effects) and gas-masks would offer protection (since most germ weapons have to be inhaled to be effec- tive), allied forces had only the most basic systems for detecting that a biological attack was under way.

Pentagon war-games have shown how one small crop-sprayer flying along the Saudi border could have infected large numbers of soldiers before their symptoms became sufficiently severe to warrant alarm. In the few days before death, as the bacteria would have multiplied and taken hold, the victims themselves would have become involuntary weapons by contami- nating the people trying to help them: bio- logical fifth columnists, an enemy within.

The precise manner in which biological weapons attack the human body are well documented. In the second world war, the Japanese, at a notorious camp in Manchuria known as 731, tested different agents on allied prisoners, and the results were then seized by the Americans. Pho- tographs of victims of anthrax, for example, show how even in mild infections of the skin grotesque inflammations result; if the anthrax pores reach the lungs, then chok- ing and fever cause a painful death within four days.

Even survivors of a military unit hit in this way would find their morale sapped by the sight of the distorted, bleeding faces of dying colleagues. The impact of a biologi- cal attack on a city where millions of civil- ians might become infected is even more ghastly to contemplate. Little wonder that the Gulf war allies were so terrified of their vulnerability. Even air power, which played a pivotal role in most other aspects of the conflict, was no solution. The bombing of one suspected biological weapons plant, at Abu Ghuraib in Baghdad, was played up to the full by Iraqi propagandists. The factory, they claimed, was for the production of pow- dered baby milk, a line seemingly accepted by many of the western journalists taken to see the wreckage; one British correspon- dent reported somewhat gleefully that she was using the milk powder in her coffee. The allies, though, stood by their version: that the plant was, in fact, manufacturing botulinal toxin which in the minutest quan- tity leads to the usually fatal poisoning known as botulism. The intelligence was apparently compelling, and those involved still maintain that the Iraqis had something to hide. One senior American scientist, who was drafted in to analyse the evi- dence, told me that satellite photographs had even shown the Iraqis hurriedly shift- ing canisters out of the plant and hiding them in the desert outside Baghdad. In the event, Saddam Hussein's 'NBC assets' didn't appear. He was either unwill- ing or unable to use his biological and chemical weapons, and his nuclear bomb wasn't ready in time. Yet his pursuit of these arms with their power to bully his neighbours and the region beyond remains a critical concern (all the more so follow- ing his threatening actions on the Kuwaiti border last month). Although the UN inspectors sent to Iraq after the war have managed to destroy its most prominent weapons — the superguns, the chemical shells, the Scud missiles and the nuclear plants geared to military as opposed to civil use — they have found the task of tackling the biological weapons' potential the hardest of all.

In part this is because of the efforts of the Iraqis. The plant at Salman Pak, though damaged by bombing, had been bulldozed flat and had had its equipment removed by the time the inspectors arrived. The Iraqis declined to explain why this had been done, and to this day no one knows where the laboratory apparatus has gone. A more significant problem, though, is the nature of germ weapons production itself. The uncomfortable fact is that to churn out large amounts of biological agent (when only one-tenth of one-mil- lionth of a gram of anthrax is enough to kill), a production plant can be not only cheap, quick to assemble and small enough to hide in the most modest building but also can be readily switched from a benign use to a military one.

The 'single-cell protein plant' at Al- Hakum is one example. The private belief among UN inspectors is that this sophisti- cated factory (which has the appearance, on UN video, of a miniature oil refinery, with its tangle of pipework and myriad controls) was built to produce germ weapons. For that reason, it was bombed in the Gulf war. Later, the Iraqis declared that its purpose was to manufacture ani- mal vaccines, a perfectly legitimate use, and went on to make an extraordinary effort, in the face of sanctions, to canni- balise machinery from other sites to reassemble a working plant. Yet the very processes that yield products which help Iraqi agriculture can also produce the organisms traditionally associated with weapons of war.

Such is the UN's concern that time-lapse video cameras have been installed at key points in the factory to watch for any changes of use. Similar arrangements have been made at other factories, and several dozen hospitals and universities are sub- ject to regular inspection. Even breweries and large bakeries — which use the bio- logical process of fermentation in their ordinary work and whose equipment could be put to a more malevolent use — have had to be scrutinised. As one British inspector put it, 'They could brew this stuff up almost anywhere and we'd never know.' The right fermentation flask, a few commercially available ingredients and a handful of competent scientific staff are all that is required; Iraq, of course, meets those conditions easily.

It is not alone. Although no western government will publicly identify the coun- tries suspected of running biological weapons programmes, British officials say the total stands at 'about ten', US State Department sources say 'about a dozen'. (Both Britain and the United States have long since unilaterally abandoned their biological weapons.) Of those, only Russia has confessed, and few believe Boris Yeltsin's claim in 1992 that all work in this area had been stopped; Iraq's protesta- tions of innocence are met with similar cynicism. Other likely suspects include Iran, Israel, Libya, Syria, China, North Korea and Taiwan. But beyond that is a far larger number of countries with the potential swiftly to adapt their biotechnolo- gy industries to military production. The US Congress Office of Technology Assess- ment, in a report earlier this year, estimat- ed that 'well over 100' countries could turn to biological weapons if their governments felt the need arise.

In theory, none of this should be possible because biological weapons have been banned; at least that was what the Biologi- cal Weapons Convention was meant to do in 1972. Yet the treaty must rank as one of the least successful ever agreed in arms control. Not only have up to two of the five permanent members of the Security Coun- cil (Russia and China) apparently flouted it, but also its provisions have been over- taken by progress in science. Just when the treaty was being signed, researchers suc- ceeded for the first time in 'engineering' the genetic make-up of biological material. Using what are known as restriction enzymes, they managed to 'splice' the par- ticular genes of one organism with those of another. It was an advance which opened up the vast and profitable industry of bio- engineering. Synthetic insulin, vaccines for hepatitis, disease-resistant plants are all products of this revolution. Yet, just as the splitting of the atom was once seen purely as a source of cheap electrical power, the engineering of genetic material has a dark side too, spawning dreadful weapons for the future, unchecked by the Convention. Bio-engineering allows organisms to be modified to resist traditional antibiotics; the secret Russian biological warfare establishment Biopreparat did this to develop an incurable form of plague. The new techniques also mean that biological weapons have become even easier to man- ufacture; huge quantities can be 'bred' from a tiny starter culture. Even poisons from the natural world, such as snake or spider venom, can be replicated on a mas- sive scale (the US Army produced litres of venom at Fort Detrick in Maryland, appar- ently 'to see how others might do it'). Few scientists doubt that with further biological engineering it would be possible to isolate the genes representing the venom and insert them into the structure of a highly infectious virus, say, flu; anyone who catches this flu would then suffer the agonising death of a snake or spider bite. Some experts in the field even suggest that future bio-weapons could be targeted against particular ethnic groups, only act- ing against those with a particular genetic composition: ethnic cleansing by test-tube. The science of bio-engineering isn't stand- ing still, nor are those who are thinking about its application.

At Britain's biological and chemical defence centre at Porton Down in Wilt- shire (where a large poster of Saddam hangs in one of the laboratories), the assessment is that a country like Iraq would see little point in pouring money into researching exotic biological weapons when more ordinary ones will do. Yet it is accepted that, since bio-engineering is essentially a commercial undertaking with companies selling their products and for- eign students soaking up the advancing knowledge, the latest techniques are bound to spread. Professor Malcolm Dando of Bradford University estimates that within as little as 20 years the ability to construct new forms of biological weaponry is likely to be in the hands of more than just a few of the most advanced nations.

This prospect has convinced the British Government among others to press for a strengthening of the hapless Biological Weapons Convention. At the moment, the treaty lacks teeth. It has no power to check on cheating, and British proposals, aired during a review conference which began in September in Geneva, call for a system of probing inspections as the only sure way of capping the biological arms race. Yet resis- tance is stiff. The American biotechnology industry fears losing valuable commercial secrets to teams of foreign UN inspectors, and has effectively convinced the Clinton administration (which initially favoured the British approach) that American jobs mat- ter more than international security. 'The risk isn't worth the potential gain,' accord- ing to Don Mahley, the chief US delegate to the talks. Developing nations, too, have been arguing that the proposed inspections would merely amount to imperialist espi- onage. In the end, the Convention is likely to remain as weak as ever.

None of the arcane negotiation would matter if biological weapons were only a theoretical threat, an improbable night- mare. But from the Middle Ages when dis- eased corpses were catapulted into besieged cities, to the second world war when the Japanese killed countless Chinese with plague and anthrax and the Americans dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, to the regime of Saddam and the chemical warfare victims in Kurdish villages, history shows that no NBC weapon is regarded as too distasteful to be pursued and, ultimate- ly, to be put to use.

David Shukman, BBC defence correspon- dent, reports on The Germ Genie' on Assignment on BBC2 at 7.15 p.m. on Satur- day 26 November.