Biohysteria

Isn’t it enough is enough?

Six years ago I wrote this article and forgot to publish it in internet. Today I found it and decided to publish. Why ? Because some people in US still are trying to convince about this non-existent treat.

Probably I am not single person who is shocked by almost everyday warning of the people in US by upcoming biological attack of America on TV and newspapers. It is continuing more than decade and have achieved a pinnacle after September 11 disaster. Not too many but very energetic specialists and journalists are contributing to this large scale campaign. So far we have unfortunately only victims as result of it. Much more than result of another obsession with a Y2K bug. For me last one is an example of very good organized corruption in History of modern America with I hope unintentional involvement of two branches of the government. Sure USA lost on this fraud more than 10 billions dollars but there were ( thanks God ) no losses of human lives. I’m not going to blame all of these specialists and a lobby of biological defense people. But I’m sure that I have to try to explain from my point of view the realities of the biological and chemical weapons threat by the terrorists or states with a irresponsible regimes and give an example of use of doubtful specialist from Russia.

First victims of anti-biological rage came with a victory in Gulf War. Before this military campaign tens of thousands soldiers were vaccinated against the antrax. After this war thousands of veterans are suffering from unknown decease more likely originated as witnessed many doctors resulted by this unfortunate vaccination. It is almost absolutely clear that Gulf veterans decease wasn’t originated from the exposure of the soldiers to Irak’s chemical weapons (CA). Why ? Because at first there is no evidence that Irak did use the CA during this war. Unfortunately there was an accident connected with a irresponsible destroying of the Irak’s CA storage by barbaric method of explosion. It was very possible that part of chemical agents were pulled out by dust and smog created by the explosion and covering by them relatively big area occupied by ally troops. Secondary many soldiers being that time far from this area have the same symptoms of Gulf veterans decease.

Last victims of the antrax are widely known and they definitely are not connected with a terrorist attack. Opposite is more likely true: they are victims of the domestic criminal connected with a development of the BW or defense against it. Unfortunately it is impossible to avoid assumption that this directly or indirectly was not inspired by BW defense specialists to drive out funds for themselves. It would be not excessive to tell that aggressive lobbying by BW defense specialists in Congress and the covering by mass-media created situation close to the hysteria. Sometimes I and my family are right now naming CNN as antrax channel.

I’d want to emphasis that there are no base to support the opinion that terrorists will use the biological weapon with an antrax or something similar to that. Why? Because there is no biological weapon in all world to use it like even the chemical weapons. I am sure that if some extreme creasy to be terrorist would have try to use non-weaponized biological agent he’ll kill himself before to begin to kill others. It is true also about so called countries with irresponsible regimes. Sure they can have or produce significant quantities of antrax or another biological agent but there is an unresolved task of the weaponizing of these agents. The problems connected with this task were fortunately extremely difficult and funds required for their resolution were meaningless from the point of view of military strategy. Even Soviet Union couldn’t (or didn’t want) develop an effective delivery system of these agents to the aimed objects for covering by them a meaningful area. Proposed systems were not tested at the military polygons because there was no corresponding infrastructure for a testing including the field-analytical chemistry, medical service and hospitals for emergency cases. The extreme safety rules and regulations which are necessary to meet at such works have absolutely excluded even the primary evaluations. Exactly because of these circumstances the examples of a real biological weapon never was used at any military exercises. If Deputy Minister of the Foreign Affairs of Russia G.Berdennikov at the 1996 Conference of signatories of the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention told that Russia never developed, produced, or stored biological weapons it is absolutely true. Probably nobody will suppose that a powder is a weapon before it’ll be used in bombs, rockets or bullets et ct. The same should be fair about antrax or any biological agent. In this relation there is no doubt about chemical agents.

For instance ricin is natural product extracted from some beans and like antrax is a powder and extremely poisonous. It was very tempting for specialists to try to use it as chemical weapon. Russian chemical weapon specialists in GosNIIOChT spent a lot of time and funds for weaponizing of the ricin without any visible success. Neverthless nobody have tried to give it as a chemical weapon.

The biological weapons lobby is intensively using “ a top biological weapons specialist who had ran all program in Russia” Mr. Ken Alibek. They also are giving him as a deflector from Russia. Recently Mr. Ken Alibek with Mr. Stephen Handelman published the book titled “Biohazard” as “the chilling story of the largest covert biological weapons program in the world – told from inside by the man who ran it”. I must say that reading this book was really chilling for reasons I’ll try to explain.

The book is starting from the episode when Mr. Alibek was ordered to come to a meeting at “at Soviet army headquarters on Kirov Street in Moscow”. Mr. Alibek noted that the clipped voice on the phone said “ We’ve set aside a special room for you, Colonel”.

I don’t understand what does mean Mr.Alibek under the “Soviet army headquarters” but nobody in Soviet Union and Russia (also in USA) uses this term. If under this term author means the Defense Ministry of USSR it is definitly not at Kirova Street. It was at Frunzenskaja naberejnaija and right now at Arbat Street in Moscow. If author means under abovementioned term the General Stuff of the Soviet Army or Russian Army it was and is at the Frunze Street. By the way later Mr. Alibek at last pointed out that he means under the “Army Headquarters” the Ministry of Defense.

As a former Russian chemical weapons specialist who had been working within a strict secret system I can say only that it was absolutely impossible by someone to invite or order for something on the telephone.

Further Mr. Alibek is writing about the meeting. According to him general Lebedinsky asked “Are we ready?” After “general led us into an adjoining sound-proof room. Notepads had been placed on the large wooden table, in front of each chair.”

Such a demonstrative violation of the rules of the secrecy would have never happened. This system has required to get any papers or notepads in First Department of the office responsible for a meeting under the personal signature and return them after a work was done. Any kind of lost even one page or list of papers was a very reason to start investigation process with severe consequences for everybody. However Mr. Alibek and other violators “…shook hands, packed our papers, and congratulated one another on a productive session” It was and is absolutely impossible to pack up any papers from a secret meeting because of strict rules. If someone could have forgotten these rules an officer of the First Department will unconditionally stop any violation. For that or other reasons absolutely all secret meetings were supervised by KGB officers. In Soviet army there were adequate officers of the Special Service. It is a real fiction to write that “ Driving back to my office, I opened my briefcase to jot down a few more notes.” It was absolutely impossible to carry out any secret papers from a secret meeting in your briefcase. If you did some notes on the secret notepads after returning them to the office of the First Department you had to ask it to address papers to you office after receiving permission from the Chief of the office who was responsible for the meeting. For the transportation of secret materials there is a secret mail system of KGB. Nobody never could have right to do this instead.

After more than suspicious beginning Mr. Alibek is writing about the unbelievable subject of the meeting in the Defense Ministry. They were discussing a project to launch the intercontinental missiles with disease agents to the USA and Mr.Alibek was calculating how long it’ll take to produce these agents.

I must to tell that it didn’t happen even at the climax of cold war simply because there was never any biological weapon in the arsenal of Soviet army. I’m not going to defend soviet generals, among them there were a lot of creasy ones. However in general they’ve been not creasy to degree to spend almost for nothing from the military point of view billions dollars. They preferred the real weapons to destroy USA and allyes.To tell the truth they really hate chemical weapons specialists supposing that they just distracting funds from the real means. With a taking into account that it allegedly happened in 1988 when almost all economy of the USSR collapsed and the Communist Party was desperately trying to survive and to make both ends meet to keep the country under the control it was absolutely impossible to imagine that such a meeting with such a agenda could have taken place. There is only one reason “to justify” author to write this fiction. Unfortunately he was transferred from the province to Moscow only this year. I must to tell to Mr.Alibek’s attention that any decisions about the development a new weapon or their production before they would have been taken by Politbureau of KPSU were discussed at the level of the experts including a mentioned in the book Military Industrial Commission. It was absolutely impossible by the way how it was explained to Mr. Alibek by some general that “ A decision had been made at the highest levels,…, to arm SS-18 missils with disease agents”. First of all a general should give to Mr. Alibek the text of this decision with a remark “secret of special importance” with his signature that he was familiarized with a document. Only after this unavoidable procedure they could have discussed about any decision.

It is very interesting fact that Mr. Alibek who “ran the Soviet BW program” doesn’t give even any hints about the locations of Soviet BW storages with a bombs, rockets, shells and their technical details. Had he really run this program and there were such weapons I think he should give to reader this information. May be someone from very curious environmentalists could go to these locations and tell us about the real existence weapons. Even in the case sometime ago they had been destroyed there is very possibility that environment next to the storages could be contaminated and is still continuing to be a source of many deceases. For instance almost everybody in Russia and West knows right now about locations of the Chemical Weapons storages in USA and Russia and this information I am sure helps people to be more confident about verified and safe destruction of these weapons. By the way there is any copy of a secret document or it’s number with data pointing data of issue which can make an affirmation about the testing, production and stockpiling of BW. It is more than strange. Even I who didn’t ran chemical weapons program have numbers of very important documents including of decision to start to develop and test soviet binary chemical weapons. Two years I kept them in my web-site which recently I deactivated.

Fortunately I am sure Mr. Alibek is not person who “ran the Soviet BW program” and he is definitely not deflector as many BW lobby trying to give us him. They probably didn’t read this book. In last chapters of the book Mr. Alibek is writing how he was working in Alma-Aty ( Capital of the independent country Kazakhstan) and traveling to Moscow and abroad including USA after his retirement from the allegedly secret job. Any person who worked with secrets in USSR and Russia knows that it was and is absolutely impossible to get a travel passport without permission of KGB. I am not person who ran the Soviet Chemical Weapons program but even for me it took almost one year of the struggle with KGB to take permission for travel passport. Only a decision of the special Commission of the Council of the Ministry of Russia under the pressure of many famous former Soviet dissidents helped me solve this problem. Why ? Because I was so called a carrier of secrets. According to Soviet and Russian Code such a person can apply for travel passport only in 5 years after he retired from his job. In special cases this term is much more longer or unspecified. For instance some of my colleagues( even they didn’t ran any big chemical weapons program) from GSNIIOKhT still cannot receive travel passports.

If you are not a carrier of secrets there are no problems with a travel passport in Russia. I am sure one of them is Mr. Alibek who didn’t have any problems to travel to Malta or New York before he allegedly deflected to USA. He and his allegedly chiefs were participating at the international conferences and been photographed. Some of them Mr.Alibek posted in his book. I must say that it is absolutely impossible according to rules of secrecy to participate at the any public conferences and to be photographed. Because of it nobody can find photographs of any chemical weapon designers and developers.

Probably it is clear enough with a BW threat to USA today. Even though BW defense lobby already could pull out several billions from USA budget for the protection against non-existing biological weapons.

Are there any threats of possible BW attack today? Definitely not.

Are there threats of possible attacks with use of CW? With a high level of possibility there are not. However there are possibilities of use of the chemical agents or poisonous chemicals like hydrocyanide or chlorine-gas which could be legally purchased or stolen. It is real disturbing when according to media one of terrorists of September 11 attack was interested by use of agricultural planes which are equipped for dispersing of the solvents with a pesticides. Sure we cannot exclude the use of some versions of binary systems when their components could be precursors of civilian products but for that reason terrorists have to have skilful CW scientists-specialists and for the safety reasons I don’t want to discuss the possible concrete versions. In any case all these possibilities could be realized if the responsible government bodies will not take measures to prevent them. For that reason we have to start the work of investigation of the situation whether there are possibilities to smuggle abovementioned chemicals from industry and agriculture chemicals storages. For the fulfillment of these tasks and permanent monitoring and analyzing the whole situation under the Department of Governor Ridge should be created the Technical Counterintelligence Service.

NOVICHOK CHEMICAL FORMULAS ARE NOT TERRORIST WEAPONS

While I was writing my book “State Secrets: An Insider’s Chronicle of the Russian Chemical Weapons Program”, some people from Washington persistently advised me not to include the formulas of the chemical agents of the Novichok series in my book. These formulas were unknown to all countries of the world except for Russia, and they are not on the Control List of the Chemical Weapons Convention.

It seems that some people thought it would be much better if we just ignored Novichok and its precursors. Then we could count on the goodwill of the Russian Government.

I asked why it would be a bad idea to publish this information, since it would be for the safety of all people. Then the governments would work to have those chemical agents and their precursors included into the Control List. They responded, “Terrorists could use them for their criminal actions.” This kind of reasoning is used all the time now to scare people and prevent any discussion. We are already used to ignoring a lot of real problems thanks to that.

I reminded these people that the formulas of VX gas, sarin and soman have already been published. In some books it is even possible to find the basics of the production technologies of these agents. No one tried to give me a logical counter-argument or even make a good point. I suspect that the reason for this is that these people really have no real knowledge about their topic of conversation – chemical weapons. Oterwise, they wouldn't have adviced the UN Commission on Irak to go Saddam Husein's palaces before Bush's invasion, to look for his secret chemical agent factories.

To begin with, let’s consider the probability of the production of chemical agents by terrorists. In reality, production is an extremely tricky, dangerous and high-tech business. Can any serious chemical engineer or scientist imagine that this production could take place in an underground bunker, without highly trained and qualified personnel, and without extremely strict safety measures, somewhere in the Swat Valley in Pakistan? It’s not even science fiction, but a pure lie, because of the nature of these agents. Anyone who tried to synthesize and produce them this way would most likely kill himself.

In GOSNIIOKhT, the Russian center for developing chemical weapons where I worked for 26 years, all scientists and engineers, including the departmental and laboratory chiefs, had to pass safety exams every year. The technical personnel had to pass them every six months. The strictness of the technical measure in the laboratories and factories that produced chemical weapons was unprecedented. Even under these circumstances, there were many victims and the consequences were often lethal. My friend Andrei Zheleznyakov died after being poisoned with the Novichok agent A-232, even though he was very experienced and was observing all safety measures.
Formulas in books cannot replace experience, highly qualified engineers and the technological secrets of production. Without them, everything is absolutely useless.

My colleague, Mr. Lippman, who was once the chief engineer at the Volgograd factory for the production of chemical agents in Russia, told me about how the Soviets brought a whole factory for the production of sarin over from Germany after World War Two. With the assistance of two German engineers, they tried to begin the production of sarin there, but it took 6 years for it to get started up. The start up of the small pilot plant for the production of the Soviet VX-gas – known as Substance 33 – took more than 8 years. The experimental production of chemical agents like sarin and VX-gas in Iraq were also an instructive example. After the Gulf War, my colleagues from GOSNIIOKhT along with some Western scientists found some bombs filled with sarin and VX-gas, but in reality this was pretty much pure garbage, consisting mostly of the products of decomposition! It is known that some German businessman sold the technologies and assisted them in their start up, but the primitive technological level of the country made it impossible for anything noteworthy to be produced.

Another reason why it is impossible for terrorists to use chemical agents is that they cannot create weapons from them. Chemical weapons are chemical agents carried in sophisticated bombs or rockets that have reliable delivery systems or launchers. In the case of binary weapons, two chemicals must be mixed together perfectly during flight. The mixing and temperature need to be carefully controlled. Only special military personnel can operate them with minimal risk of poisoning or death. Also, it is impossible to send chemical agents out in envelopes, as someone did with anthrax spores in the US.

So far only the Aum Shinrikyo cult was able to use sarin gas, which has a relatively high volatility, to stage a series of coordinated attacks on the Tokyo Metro in 1995. Twelve people died, and up to 6000 more were injured or poisoned. It is clear this happened because of flaws in the security system of this metro. The volatility of both Novichok and VX-gas are hundreds of times less than that of sarin. For that reason, it is impossible to the same kind of methods Aum Shinrikyo did, and release them, exposing targets. In conclusion, it is clear that chemical agents cannot be used by terrorists, because of their lack of accessibility, their difficulty of manufacture, the lack of delivery systems and the danger posed to terrorist operators.

All of the advice people gave me not to publish formulas of the Novichok chemical agents, based on the argument that terrorists would use them, does not ring true. These agents should be acknowledged and immediately put under the control of the OPCW, the organization that administers the Chemical Weapons Convention. We need to stop mystifying chemical weapons and the non-existent biological weapons. It is time to stop scaring the American people with imaginary problems, in order to blindly extract as much money as possible from them for protection. If you look at the funding these scare tactics have generated for various projects, I am sure that some of them were necessary, but you can also be sure that some unnecessary pet projects of lobbyists were also included.

All these funds should be redirected for practical measures that will truly improve the security of our country and protect us from real danger.