9781422280249

D efending O ur N ation

P rotecting against B iological and C hemical A ttack

P rotecting against B iological and C hemical A ttack

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Series Titles C itizen S oldiers : T he N ational G uard

C ustoms and B order P rotection D efending the S kies : T he A ir F orce D efending the G round : T he A rmy D efending the S eas : T he N avy T he D rug E nforcement A dministration H omeland S ecurity T he N ational C ounterterrorism C enter P rotecting A gainst B iological and C hemical A ttack P utting O ut F ires : F irefighters

R escuing H ostages : T he FBI S topping C rime : T he P olice

D efending O ur N ation P rotecting against B iological and C hemical A ttack

F oreword by M anny G omez , E sq ., S ecurity and T errorism E xpert

B y M ichael K errigan

MASON CREST

Mason Crest 450 Parkway Drive, Suite D Broomall, PA 19008 www.masoncrest.com

Copyright © 2018 by Mason Crest, an imprint of National Highlights, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Printed in the United States of America First printing 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Series ISBN: 978-1-4222-3759-5 Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4222-3768-7 ebook ISBN: 978-1-4222-8024-9

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Kerrigan, Michael.

Title: Protecting against biological and chemical attack / FOREWORD BY MANNY  GOMEZ, ESQ., SECURITY AND TERRORISM EXPERT; BY MICHAEL KERRIGAN. Description: Broomall, Pennsylvania : MASON CREST, [2017] | Series: Defending  our nation | Includes index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016053120| ISBN 9781422237687 (hardback) | ISBN  9781422237595 (series) | ISBN 9781422280249 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Biological weapons. | Chemical weapons. | Biological warfare. | Chemical warfare. Classification: LCC UG447.8 .K472 2017 | DDC 358/.34--dc23 Developed and Produced by Print Matters Productions, Inc. (www.printmattersinc.com) Cover and Interior Design by Bill Madrid, Madrid Design Additional Text by Kelly Kagamas Tomkies

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C ontents

F oreword by M anny G omez , E sq . …….…… 6

S eries G lossary …….…….…….…….……73

1  T he S tuff of N ightmares …….…….…… 8

C hronology … .…….…….…….…….……76

2  T he P oor M an ’ s A tomic B omb …….…….22

F urther R esources …….…….…….…….78

3  F ighting the F ear …….…….…….…….36

I ndex …….…….…….…….…….…….……79

4  A C oordinated R esponse …….…….……46

A bout the A uthor and P icture C redits ……80

5  O n the A lert …….…….…….…….……60

V igilance F oreword

W e live in a world where we have to have a constant state of awareness—about our surroundings and who is around us. Law enforcement and the intelligence community cannot predict or stop the next terrorist attack alone. They need the citizenry of America, of the world, to act as a force multiplier in order to help deter, detect, and ultimately defeat a terrorist attack. Technology is ever evolving and is a great weapon in the fight against terrorism. We have facial recognition, we have technology that is able to detect electronic communications through algorithms that may be related to terrorist activity—we also have drones that could spy on com- munities and bomb them without them ever knowing that a drone was there and with no cost of life to us. But ultimately it’s human intelligence and inside information that will help defeat a potential attack. It’s people being aware of what’s going on around them: if a family member, neighbor, coworker has suddenly changed in a manner where he or she is suddenly spouting violent anti- Western rhetoric or radical Islamic fundamentalism, those who notice it have a duty to report it to authorities so that they can do a proper investigation. In turn, the trend since 9/11 has been for international communication as well as federal and local communication. Gone are the days when law enforcement or intelligence organizations kept information to themselves and didn’t dare share it for fear that it might compromise the integrity of the information or for fear that the other organization would get equal credit. So the NYPD wouldn’t tell anything to the FBI, the FBI wouldn’t tell the CIA, and the CIA wouldn’t tell the British counterin- telligence agency, MI6, as an example. Improved as things are, we could do better. We also have to improve global propaganda. Instead of dropping bombs, drop education on individuals who are even considering joining ISIS. Education is salvation. We have the greatest

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production means in the world through Hollywood and so on, so why don’t we match ISIS materi- als? We tried it once but the government itself tried to produce it. This is something that should definitely be privatized.We also need to match the energy of cyber attackers—and we need savvy youth for that. There are numerous ways that you could help in the fight against terror—joining law en- forcement, the military, or not-for-profit organizations like the Peace Corps. If making the world a safer place appeals to you, draw on your particular strengths and put them to use where they are needed. But everybody should serve and be part of this global fight against terrorism in some small way. Certainly, everybody should be a part of the fight by simply being aware of their sur- roundings and knowing when something is not right and acting on that sense. In the investigation after most successful attacks, we know that somebody or some persons or people knew that there was something wrong with the person or persons who perpetrated the attack. Although it feels awkward to tell the authorities that you believe somebody is acting suspicious and may be a terrorist sympathizer or even a terrorist, we have a higher duty not only to society as a whole but to our family, friends, and ultimately ourselves to do something to ultimately stop the next attack. It’s not if there is going to be another attack, but where, when, and how. So being vigilant and being proactive are the orders of the day.

Manny Gomez, Esq. President of MG Security Services,

Chairman of the National Law Enforcement Association, former FBI Special Agent, U.S. Marine, and NYPD Sergeant

P rotecting against B iological and C hemical A ttack

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C hapter 1 T he S tuff of N ightmares

This photomicrograph may not look like much, but the bacterium Bacillus anthracis—cause of the anthrax disease—is extremely deadly.

P rotecting against B iological and C hemical A ttack

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J ust as Americans were feeling most vulnerable in the aftermath of the terrorist out- rages of September 11, 2001, a series of anthrax attacks compounded public fears. This threat was peculiarly disturbing, in part because it acted invisibly (and all but undetectably) against the human body, but also because it attacked through the most everyday routines of American life. A bomb or a rocket attack not only involves an identifiable enemy, it is also a dramatic ex- ception to the peaceful, orderly rule. But what could be more commonplace than opening a let- ter? What could be more normal than the U.S. Postal Service? The special horror of September 11, 2001, stemmed from the way in which terrorists turned everyday activities, such as going to work or traveling by plane, into opportunities for death and destruction. Whoever was responsible for sending anthrax spores through the mail was clearly bent on producing the same effect, attempting to shatter the peace of American home and business life. Their capacity to create panic and demoralization out of all proportion to their actual effects is perhaps the most dangerous aspect of biological or chemical weapons. An Ancient Anxiety History is punctuated by momentous plagues —one marked the passing of the Golden Age of Athens in the fourth century BCE, for example. Similarly, the Book of Exodus describes the Ten Plagues of Egypt, sent to afflict the realm of the cruel Pharaoh. It is possible that the God of the Israelites moved in less mysterious ways than is normally assumed, attacking the Egyptians with

Words to Understand Spores: Cell made by some plants that is like a seed and can produce a new plant. Plague: Disease that causes death and spreads quickly to large numbers of people. Microbe: Extremely small living thing that can only be seen with a microscope.

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Frogs emerging from the waters of the Nile were the second of the Ten Plagues of Egypt.

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naturally occurring epidemics. It has been suggested in recent years that the fifth and sixth plagues of Egypt, affecting live- stock and people, respectively, might have been outbreaks of anthrax , which takes both animal and human victims. We tend to think of any major epidemic as a plague, but strictly speaking, the term applies only to the disease that is caused by Yersinia pestis , a microbe found on fleas infest- ing an urban rat population. The Black Death was one such epidemic, and between 1347 and 1350, it killed fully one-third of the population of Europe. The Black Bane of 17th-century Europe is thought by modern scholars to have been anthrax, but the Great Plague that rav- aged England around the same time is now considered to have been the last important eruption of true plague.

The Black Death killed fully a third of Europe’s population.

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The advent of modern medicine has consigned the great epidemics to the past, although it is easily forgotten how recent a development this has been. Less than a century ago, influenza, or flu—which today is regarded as a minor, if highly unpleasant, illness—broke out in what was almost certainly the most destructive epidemic in human history. The global epidemic of 1918 is thought to have started here in America, before being taken to Europe by U.S. soldiers on their way to World War I. Casualties in that fearful conflict would eventually be dwarfed by the death toll of a disease that killed 675,000 Americans—and perhaps as many as 50 million people worldwide. “Stand Together!” New Jersey postal worker Norma Wallace was one of several affected by inhalation anthrax—contracted in the line of duty. But when released from intensive care after a decidedly difficult few days, she had a message of inspiration for the American people.  “Even though we have been confronted by a deadly disease, there is recovery, there is hope,” Norma told a news conference in New Jersey on November 5, 2001. “We don’t have to succumb to it,” she went on, impressing all by her dignity and calm. “We can fight together. We can stand together.” Since then, no epidemic in the developed world has come close to the terrible power of the plagues of old—although the scale of AIDS in Africa, as well as the Ebola and Zika viruses, in the developing world is ominous. Dangerous microbes can adapt genetically to keep “one jump ahead” of the scientific medicine that once promised to wipe them out, a fact that leaves doctors feeling less confident than they did just a generation ago. A Recent Reality The use of biological weapons is often assumed to be a comparatively recent threat. However, some scholars suggest that medieval, and even ancient Assyrian, soldiers catapulted diseased bodies over the walls of cities they were besieging, and the Romans are said to have tossed dead and rotting livestock into enemies’ water supplies.

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A sick Native American being cared for by a medicine man in the 1800s.

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There is no doubting the fact that around 95 percent of the Native American population is believed to have perished within a few generations of the arrival of the first European colo- nists. This has been described by some as an act of genocide , even a holocaust, although the evidence tends to suggest an unintended human tragedy caused by an almost complete ignorance of what has been learned by modern epidemiology—the science of infection. As inheritors of a centuries-old tradition of farming and livestock keeping, Europeans were ac- customed to living at close quarters with animals and their infections. Thus they had a “con- ferred immunity” that America’s indigenous peoples, as hunter-gatherers, had never been able to acquire. However, the European colonists cannot entirely escape blame. There is strong evidence suggesting that, in the 18th century, British and French soldiers deliberately gave smallpox- infected clothing to native trading partners. Shocking as such cynicism is, the reality is that these crimes only accelerated what was already inevitable, as these hitherto isolated tribes were increasingly exposed to contact with Europeans and their germs. The first undisputed instance of deliberate biological warfare dates from 1915, when German agents are believed to have injected anthrax into American horses and mules on their way to the Western Front of World War I. The Coming of Chemical Warfare Often regarded as the first modern war, World War I (1914–1918) produced a number of tech- nological innovations. The tracked tank has probably been the most famous in the decades since. As significant in the longer term, however, was the introduction of chemical warfare in the form of what is commonly known as mustard gas, or yperite, from its first use at the Battle of Ypres in Flanders on July 12, 1917.

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