Myths About WMD Terrorism

It's not often when I see an article about WMD terrorism that actually makes sense. Even rarer when I see a layperson write the article, so I have to point out this National Defense magazine article by Sandra Erwin and Stew Magnuson.

• Myth #1: U.S. Medical Excellence Extends to Disaster Response. Just-in-time delivery of medicine and supplies means that hospitals don’t find it profitable to stockpile essential items such as vaccines. Because of shortages of nurses and doctors, such institutions may already be understaffed. It can also be assumed that many of these emergency workers will fall victim to the disasters that they are expected to respond to.  
• Myth #2: Big-Budget Technology Is Needed to Counter Biological Terrorism. Michael Pantella, associate director for infectious disease at the University of Iowa Hygienic Laboratory, said that the approach to combating a biological attack should be the same as any infectious disease. It will fall on the public health system to mitigate the effects of a biological weapon. If antibiotics are stockpiled in sufficient numbers, and federally funded laboratories can quickly identify the pathogen, the public health system should be able to respond, he said.
• Myth #3: Smuggled Nukes Easily Can Be Detected at U.S. Entry Ports. Both the number of detectors that are being deployed and their efficacy are “overhyped,” said Charles Blair, director of the Center for Terrorism and Intelligence Studies in San Jose, Calif. ... detecting nuclear materials is tough under any circumstance, said Evan Montgomery, research fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington, D.C. 
• Myth #4: If the U.S. Were the Victim of a Nuclear Attack, It Would Immediately Retaliate. Unless the weapon is delivered by a missile, immediate retaliation is not realistic, experts said. It could take weeks or months to figure out where the nuclear materials came from or how the explosive device was built.
• Myth #5: Terrorists Can Download Nuclear Bomb Recipes From the Internet. There are widespread misconceptions about what it really takes to achieve a nuclear explosion, said [Charles] Blair. The main problem is not the design of the weapon but obtaining the necessary fissile material, he said. “It would be akin to having the blueprint for how to make a handgun, but there are no bullets on the face of the Earth and you have no idea how to make them.”
• Myth #6: Liquefied Natural Gas Ships Are Ticking Time Bombs. Stephen Flynn, senior fellow for counterterrorism and national security studies at the Council of Foreign Relations, noted, “There is no explosion or ‘mushroom cloud’ associated with an LNG fire.  Because it is stored at such an incredibly cold temperature, it is difficult to ignite liquefied natural gas. It must first spill out of the hull and turn into a vapor.  Once the gas does ignite, it burns very hot but the range of the fire would be contained to under one-half a mile.”
• Myth #7: Nerve Gasses Are Terrorists’ Chemical Weapons of Choice. Aum purposefully recruited alienated chemistry and engineering students from top universities and set them to work creating weapons of mass destruction. ... Islamic terrorists in ungoverned territories, given the ability to find technical experts and the funding, could duplicate Aum Shinrikyo’s “success,” but would still have to smuggle the volatile substances in large containers to their intended target. As many counterterrorism experts have pointed out, the 9/11 masterminds did not have to smuggle any weapons into the United States to carry out their plot. They used what was on hand.

Okay, so it's not the most brilliantly analytical article, but it's certainly refreshing to see something other than "WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE FROM TERRORIST NUKES AND NERVE GAS!!! - unless the US government buys into my concept/equipment..."

Comments

[Sven Ortmann]

J, what happened to you? Abducted and replaced?

How can you title a text that includes supposed LNG explosions and bio-weapons with "... WMD ..." ?

[J.]

*sigh* okay Sven, you got me. I didn't like the LNG story being included in the overall discussion, and the article didn't really do a great job fleshing out the myths, but overall it wasn't a bad article. It's hard to find people who don't overblow the WMD issue, so I felt inclined to at least point this out.

As for bio-weapons, hey, the official arms control community and the United Nations still list them as being in the class of WMDs. The article failed to distinguish between terrorist use of bio-weapons, which I agree probably would NOT result in mass casualties as envisioned by many biodefense advocates, and nation-state programs that can develop tons of bio-agent material and employ them as a WMD. But what can you do? We'll make that argument elsewhere, for another day.

[Cheryl Rofer]

I'm not sure they've got it right on the LNG ships. The danger is not just the gas igniting, but a pressure explosion as the liquid responds to a breach in the containment and boils/gasifies almost instantaneously. And ignites, too. There have been some railroad car explosions of this type. But maybe the cooling in the ships is sufficient to prevent this or slow it down.

[Kilo]

"Myth #7: Nerve Gasses Are Terrorists’ Chemical Weapons of Choice"

This is a myth? I've never heard it.
If it is, how'd they come up with it?

Your chemical weapon is an easy thing to waste. You've got a lot of flavours to choose from to get that body count. Why would anyone want to go top shelf like this?
Sure you can whack a guy with a ricin pellet out your umbrella but a lead pipe to the scone does the trick at a fraction of the cost.

[J.]

Kilo, you'd have to come to some of our CB defense forums to understand. The myth is based on these assumptions:

1) Terrorists want to cause mass casualties as evidenced by the highjacked planes on 9/11.
2) "Deadly" nerve agents cause mass casualties, if used in large quantities. Even small amounts could impact hundreds if not thousands because of their lethality in droplet size.
3) Access to technology and the global economy increases the possibilty of a terrorist chem-bio incident.
4) Aum Shinrikyo proved it could happen in 1995, so much more could happen today.
5) Therefore the threat of terrorists using military CW agents is much higher and more possible today than a decade ago.

Mind you, I do not endorse this flawed logic, but it is a popular myth for both counterterrorist "experts" and others interested in scaremongering.