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In 1996 the U.S. Congress passed and thepresident signed the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici Acton domestic preparedness for terrorism usingweapons of mass destruction. That law directsvarious departments and agencies of the federalgovernment to make available to state and localgovernments training and equipment to respondto acts of terrorism involving the use of radio-logical, biological, and chemical weapons. Theprogram—costing tens of billions of dollars peryear—seeks to train local law enforcement, fire,medical, and other emergency response person-nel to deal with such an attack against theAmerican public.According to the chairman of a nationalpanel on terrorism, however, the United Stateslacks a clear plan for meeting the needs of itscitizens in the event of a terrorist attack, andthe hodgepodge of local and federal agenciesmakes it unclear who is in charge of the exist-ing program.The federal government originally decidedwhom to train and configured the training pro-gram. In so doing, it did not consider the factthat many local communities cooperate undermutual assistance agreements. Furthermore,under the current program, personnel in morethan 50 percent of the major U.S. populationcenters will remain untrained and unpreparedfor any future nuclear, biological, and chemical(NBC) attack.The most significant shortcoming of theNunn-Lugar-Domenici law is the complete lack of any educational program to prepare the public foran NBC attack. Although the public is the ulti-mate target of any terrorist attack, average citizensare left ignorant of the fundamentals of prepared-ness that even the lowest private in the U.S. Armyis taught for survival. The lack of any credible pub-lic education program in matters of awarenessand response violates many entrenched principlesof emergency management.
 Are We Prepared for Terrorism UsingWeapons of Mass Destruction?
Government’s Half Measures
by Eric R. Taylor
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
 Eric R. Taylor is an associate professor of chemistry at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. He served inthe Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Branch of the U.S. Army.
Executive Summary
No. 387November 27, 2000
 
Introduction
Although the number of incidents of ter-rorism has declined since the end of the ColdWar, the proliferation of weapons of massdestruction (WMD)—radiological, biological,and chemical weapons—could lead to a dra-matic increase in the number of casualtiesfrom terrorist attacks. Many experts agreethat the only question is when, not if, such acatastrophic act of terrorism will occur. Thepast 25 years have revealed the vulnerabilityof the U.S. populace to such attacks. The nat-ural outbreak of Legionnaire’s disease, whichstruck a gathering of American Legion con-ventioneers in Philadelphia in 1976, foretoldthe potential stealth of bioweapons. The U.S.military’s own historical actions have shown just how easily and surreptitiously a civilianpopulation can be “dosed” either in suppos-edly “benign” experiments or for real.
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Post–World War II experiments employed“harmless” microbes or “nontoxic” chemicalagents that were tracked by U.S. military offi-cials for their dispersion, concentration, andother characteristics at distances from thesite of release. The exposure of those experi-ments and the targets of interest reveal thevulnerability of civilians and facilities tocovert nuclear, biological, and chemical(NBC) attack. Our enemies pay attention tothose covert military experiments.In 1984 what appeared to be a natural sal-monella outbreak in Oregon proved to be abiological attack initiated by Rajneesh cultmembers.
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The year officials took to deter-mine that the incident was a biological attack illustrates the difficulties of timely detectionof such incidents. In late 1998 and early 1999several alleged anthrax attacks directed atabortion clinics around the United Statesclearly raised the potential stakes in a heateddomestic issue.
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In 1994 a suburb of Matsumoto, Japan, was the site of a nerve gasattack that killed 7 and injured 2,000. InMarch 1995 the release of the nerve agentSarin in the Tokyo subway killed 12 andinjured about 5,000.
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Those attacks illustratethe vulnerability of corresponding U.S. facilities.With good reason, the U.S. governmentexhibits concern about the use of such agentsin the future. Unlike unjustified U.S. militaryinterventions overseas in the name of “nation-al defense,” the protection of the U.S. popula-tion against terrorism using WMD is a legiti-mate function of the federal government.
The Nature of theProblem
The use of NBC agents against a nation’smilitary forces generally is a form of uncon-ventional warfare. The use of those agentsagainst a nation’s population is certainly anact of war and is arguably even terrorism.
Chemical Weapons
Although U.S. troops in World War I expe-rienced chemical attacks in the trenches of France, the United States itself has not. But agood example of the potential lethality of achemical attack exists: the accidental release of a very toxic industrial chemical in Bophol,India, in 1984 illustrates the grave conse-quences for an unprepared, unprotected, andexposed population. Also, U.S. experiencewith accidents and explosions at chemical andpetroleum-refining plants serve as a workingmodel of the chaotic problems that the use of lethal military chemical agents can create.The timing of the onset of symptomsamong people affected is determined by thetype of chemical agent used. The effects of nerve agents will manifest themselves withinseconds or minutes; the effects of agentssuch as mustard gases may require a few min-utes to several hours to appear.
Radiological Weapons
The most significant lethal experienceswith radiological hazards on a massive scalewere the two fission bombs dropped on Japanin World War II and the nuclear accident inChernobyl, Ukraine, in April 1986. The closestcall in U.S. history was the nuclear incident atthe Three-Mile Island nuclear power plant in
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The proliferationof weapons of mass destructioncould lead to adramatic increasein the number of casualties fromterrorist attacks.
 
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in March 1979.Although a terrorist attack using anuclear weapon cannot be ruled out, themost likely nuclear agent is radioactive dustdispersed to create maximum contaminationof personnel and facilities. The term “radio-logical” rather than “nuclear” should be usedto describe that particular threat. Instead of amushroom cloud’s serving as a calling card,stealth and surprise are employed to exposepeople unknowingly and thus maximize theeffect. The threat of exposure to radiologicalagents decreases with the square of the dis-tance from the site of release. The threat tothose in the immediate area of release is realand potentially grave. But people carryingthe radioactive dust on their persons willcarry it away from the site of release and con-taminate others. The appearance of symp-toms as a result of a radiological attack willdepend on the form of the radiation, the levelof exposure, and the degree of inhalation oringestion of radioactive dust.
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Biological Weapons
The release of anthrax by a Soviet militaryresearch facility in Sverdlovsk in April 1979shows the potential consequences of anattack with biological weapons (BW) andcarelessness in working with those very lethalagents.
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In the United States, the experiencewith natural epidemics of disease—for exam-ple, the natural outbreak of the Spanish fluduring World War I
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—best illustrates thehavoc that a biological attack would wreak on a population center. The natural diseasemodel, however, suffers from lack of the egre-gious psychological and medical conse-quences that a weapons-grade biologicalagent will create in the targeted population.Biological agents can be spread by manyof the same means employed for dispersal of chemical or radiological agents. But biologi-cal agents pose a significantly greater threatbecause of their self-propagation in hostsand further spread by infected individualswho travel extensively during the course of their daily activities. The bioagents can mul-tiply within the bodies of infected individu-als, making infected persons secondary vehi-cles for delivering the weapons. Mass transithubs (such as airports and train and bus sta-tions) are ideal locations to perpetrate a bio-logical attack because the agent can bespread quickly to many locations.Biological agents are strategic weapons.Normally, only a small amount of agent isrequired to infect a population. The idealvenue for a BW attack is an enclosed areasuch as an indoor stadium or subway system.Ventilation systems are the ideal means of dispersal. Respiratory infection is muchmore lethal than cutaneous exposure andtherefore requires much smaller quantities of the agent.The effects of biological agents depend onthe type of agent, the inoculating dose, andthe targeted community’s immunity to theagent. The choice of agents for which thereare no vaccines or for which vaccines haveceased being made, such as smallpox, or forwhich no domestic medical history exists,such as West Nile encephalitis, will enhancethe effects of such an attack. Bioagents thatcause the extremely rapid onset of symp-toms—such as the Ebola or Marburg virus-es—have dramatic effects that will instillunprecedented terror. In some respects, how-ever, the rapidly infectious agents may beinferior choices as weapons. A longer incuba-tion period permits greater spread beforesymptoms become debilitating and alarmingto the carrier, family and friends, attendingmedical personnel, and law enforcement andmilitary responders.For a BW attack, the real first responderswould be the victims—who would go eitherto the hospital emergency room or to themorgue several days after the event. Doctorswould probably diagnose the problem wellafter the incident. Blood, biopsies, and tissuesamples would need to be examined by com-petent and alert pathologists who wouldhave to suspect or know that they were look-ing for something unnatural masqueradingas natural. In the mean time, the pathogenwould continue to spread. With moderntransportation systems (air, rail, and inter-
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Unlike unjusti-fied U.S. militaryinterventionsoverseas, the pro-tection of the U.S.populationagainst terrorismusing WMD is alegitimate func-tion of the federalgovernment.
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