Biochem terror: a reality check

But even spending $10 million dollars, Aum Shinrikyo chemists were unable to scale up to industrial production of Sarin. A basement lab, according to a Pentagon report, would take 20 years to manufacture enough of the chemical to kill 10,000 people.

Even assuming a terrorist organization got its hands on a deadly chemical or germ, dispersing them in such a way as to kill large numbers of people would require skills that only a handful of governments have ever mastered.

One of the most common fears is that city reservoirs might be poisoned, rendering kitchen taps instruments of death. But the huge amounts of agent that would have to be dumped in a reservoir to have any effect would make this approach impracticable, experts say.

Moreover, the chemicals used to purify city water supplies "destroy all but the hardiest agents," according to a report by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Nor is aerial spraying much easier. A terrorist cannot use anthrax cells, for example, which degrade to impotence after a few minutes' exposure to sunlight. Instead, the cells must be stressed through a complex procedure that transforms them into spores, and then suspended in a formulation that does not clog the nozzle of a spraygun.

"That is somewhat of a trick," says Dr. Zilinskas. "The US and Soviet Armies did it, but only after years of testing by very, very good people." Crop dusters, for example, cannot disperse a spray finer than 40 microns. But doctors say particles must be smaller than 10 microns to enter the lungs and infect a victim

Transport also poses a problem: Unless the anthrax was in dry form (and the Iraqi government never mastered the drying process) it would have to be smuggled into the United States in bulky containers of sludge, unless it had been secretly manufactured in America.

Nonetheless, US officials say they have evidence that Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect behind the Sept. 11 attacks, has been experimenting with germ warfare.

CIA director George Tenet warned last June that "terrorists who fly no national flag are trying to acquire chemical and biological weapons."

Should bioterrorists unleash an attack on America, the country's long neglected public healthcare system, in its current state, might not be able to detect an attack quickly enough to properly limit its effect and treat victims, say experts.

Few doctors or nurses are trained to recognize the symptoms of plague or anthrax infection, hospitals do not communicate with one another enough to detect patterns of illness, there are not enough spare beds to cope with a sudden surge in patients, and there are shortages of vaccine against illnesses such as smallpox or anthrax.

"No place in the United States could handle an event with casualties in the thousands over a short period of time," warns Moodie, pointing to "dry run" exercises in recent years around the country that left authorities helpless.

Remedying the problems "is neither easy nor cheap," worries Moodie. "And it needs the integration of many players into a strategic approach." More than 40 US agencies have some sort of role in countering bioterrorism, he says, "and many of them have never been at the same table together."

The recent Cabinet-level appointment of Tom Ridge, Governor of Pennsylvania, as the new "Homeland Security" chief, is intended to put some order into a system where different branches of government cannot even agree on which biological agents pose the greatest risks.

The feeling of alarm that has swept America, says Moodie, could be just the catalyst needed to reform a neglected and badly organized system that offers citizens little protection in the event of a bioterror attack.

"The only certainty we have is that we will lose if we do nothing," he argues. "Sept. 11 created the opportunity to ensure that we don't do nothing."

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