Anthrax Dangerous, Difficult Weapon
By CAROLYN SKORNECK
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Anthrax generally is fatal if inhaled and not treated promptly, but it isn't particularly easy to use effectively as a weapon, the commander of the Army's lead biological defense lab told Congress on Thursday.
Although anthrax spores can be sprayed from crop-dusters, "It's not as simple as it's made out to be in the newspapers," Col. Edward Eitzen testified before the House Intelligence terrorism and homeland security subcommittee.
"The old-timers from the old offensive program back before 1970 tell us that these particles tend to stick together," Eitzen said. "So there are certain additives that are required ... to make the particles not clump. If they clump, they'll just fall to the ground, and they won't provide a good aerosol."
Although Eitzen, who heads the Army's Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md., was testifying at an open hearing, he said: "It really bothers me sometimes when things like this are talked about in the open press, because it's almost like giving the terrorists a road map of what they need to do."
"You want to stop there and not do that," said Rep. Tim Roemer, D-Ind., whose questions had elicited the earlier answers.
Eitzen then refused to say which countries are thought to have experimented with bioterrorism weapons.
But Rep. Chris Shays, R-Conn., pointed out that the Defense Department openly lists them on its Web site: Bulgaria, China, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Laos, Libya, North Korea, Russia, South Africa, Syria, Taiwan, and Vietnam.
It was not the only time the question of inadvertently helping the enemy arose during the hearing.
Reps. Ray LaHood, R-Ill., and Gary Condit, D-Calif., asked other witnesses whether former uniformed military leaders and government security experts were saying too much on network TV about the war on terror.
"I've had about enough of it," said Richard Allen, a former national security adviser now on the Defense Policy Board, which advises the secretary of defense. "I do agree that they enlighten the public," he said, but there seems to be "excess revelations of what we have in place and how a piece of equipment works." It would be better if Osama bin Laden were left wondering about such things, Allen said.
Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who now appears regularly on ABC, rejected the criticism.
"There is a lot of self-censorship," he said. "There's an immense amount of just plain noise. We almost always exaggerate the effectiveness of the weapons systems" and sketch out every possible contingency plan, all in two- or three-minute reports.
The end result is confusion, he said.
People in the Taliban "in charge of trying to monitor all the images coming out, ... they probably would have gone stark raving mad," said Cordesman, a former official at the Defense and State departments.
Retired Army Gen. George Joulwan, former Allied commander in Europe now working for the Fox News Channel, said he knows nothing about details of the military operations.
"I have purposely kept myself away from those who are running these operations so I don't give out any classified information," Joulwan said. "I don't try to get into equipment stuff." Instead, he focuses on broader strategy matters, trying to educate people from his experience on "why we need patience to allow the system to work."
___
On the Net: Defense Department anthrax site: http://www.anthrax.osd.mil/
House Intelligence Committee terrorism panel: http://intelligence.house.gov/terrorism.htm
|