Chemical Terrorism: Introduction

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Chemical TerrorismIntroduction
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Chemicals as Weapons

• Historical attempts to poison enemy food supplies
• Scientific advances increase mass casualty
  potential
• Technical advancements
• New delivery methods

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Chemical Weapons on the Battlefield

• World War I use
• Chlorine and mustard gas
• World War II developments
• Tabun, Sarin, and Soman by Germany
• VX by Great Britain
• Rocket delivery
• Worldwide outcry for chemical weapon treaties

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Chemical Weapons on the Battlefield

• Potential chemicals for use as WMD
• Organophosphates
• 50,000 known chemicals
• Manufacturing information available to public
• Nicotine sulfate as lethal aerosol

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Chemical Weapons on the Battlefield

• Potential chemicals for use as WMD
• Blood agents
• Choking agents
• Blistering agents
• Other likely chemicals Prussic acid (hydrocyanic
  acid), LSD, pure nicotine, CX

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Growing Threat of Chemical Terrorism

• 1970s moral aversion to CW waning
• Groups unsuccessfully attempted to obtain
  chemical weapons
• Weathermen group
• Animal Liberation Front group
• Neo-Nazi skinhead groups

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Growing Threat of Chemical Terrorism

• 1980s reports of seizures of chemical
  stockpiles and arrests of individuals in
  possession of CW
• Covenant, Sword, and Arm of the Lord group
• Various Palestinian groups

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Growing Threat of Chemical Terrorism

• 1990s Increasing use
• Iraqs chemical weapons use
• Against Iranian Soldiers
• Against own Kurdish population
• Aum Shinrikyo sarin attacks in Tokyo

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CW The Terrorist Risk

• Five levels of risk for terrorist use
• Threatened use, with no real capability
• Unsuccessful attempts to acquire CW
• Actual possession of CW
• Unsuccessful attempts to use CW
• The successful use of CW

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CW The Terrorist Risk

• Why havent we seen more use by terrorists?
• Groups seeking political legitimacy may fear
  severe backlash
• Bombs provide greater shock value and carnage for
  media coverage
• Most likely reason Uncertainty

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CW Advantages

• Advantages
• Inexpensive
• Easy availability
• Long shelf life
• High level of control and containment
• Effect (death or disability) is immediate
• Destroys infrastructure
• Low risk of detection
• Lack of a signature allows anonymity

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CW Availability

• Nerve Agents are a chemical of choice
• Formula and chemical process declassified
  information
• Easy to manufacture from readily available
  components
• For sale on the black market

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CW Availability

• Commercially available pesticides easily
  purchased or stolen
• Military and Law Enforcement agents may be stolen
  under the lax security
• State Sponsorship of terrorist groups provision
  of labs production facilities

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CW Toxicity

• Falls between conventional weapons and biological
  or nuclear weapons
• Environmental conditions are key factor
• Goal of the terrorist
• Harassment vs. death
• Determines type of agent used

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CW Toxicity

• Quantity required to produce heavy casualties
  within square-mile area under idealized
  conditions

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CW Toxicity

• Weapon Grams
• Aerial explosives 320 million
• Fragmentation cluster bombs 32 million
• Hydrocyanic acid 32 million
• Mustard gas 3.2 million
• Sarin nerve gas 800,000
• Crude" nuclear weapon
• (fissionable material only) 5,000
• Type A botulinal toxin 80
• Anthrax spores 8

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CW Toxicity

• Attack on a water supply
• Agent Grams
• Potassium cyanide 18,000
• Nerve agent VX 100
• Typhoid culture 1

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CW Delivery

• Environmental conditions
• Outdoor attacks vs. indoor attacks
• Dissemination problems increase logarithmically
  with increasing target size

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CW Delivery

• Municipal water systems attacks
• 4 billion gallon reservoir, community of 20,000,
  and each person consuming 16 oz of water
• Requires over 14 billion lethal doses to deliver
  one dose per person
• Fluoroacetates
• Requires 600 metric tons to achieve lethal dose

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CW Delivery

• Delivery by terrorists
• Covert contamination of selected foods and
  beverages
• Covert generation of volatile agent in enclosed
  space
• Covert dissemination of non-volatile agent in
  enclosed space
• Overt attack using bursting munitions or
  thermogenerators

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CW Current Trends

• High probability of terrorists use in near future
  
• Likely candidate groups
• Various Palestinian groups
• Al Qaeda and other state-sponsored, Islamic
  fundamentalist groups
• Extremist groups in US and Europe
• Western European and South American terrorist
  groups not high on list at this time

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CW Defense

• Limited defensive capabilities
• Deny terrorists access to weapons and chemicals
  needed for production

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