BIOTERRORISM: FBI’s assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate: 100% chance of a bioterrorism attack

 Feb 21, 2011 – In an interview with Newsmax, Dr. Vahid Majidi, the FBI’s assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate, said the probability that the U.S. will be hit with a weapons of mass destruction attack at some point is 100 percent. "Such an attack could be launched by foreign terrorists, lone wolves who are terrorists, or even by criminal elements, Majidi said. It would most likely employ chemical, biological, or radiological weapons rather than a nuclear device."
Of the three, biological weapons are the most dangerous. In Germs of War, a book the predicted 9/11, details of how biological weapons are made were described, as well as how "designer bugs" or "superbugs" can be made. These germs can be resistant to antibiotics are other germicidal agents. In addition, they can be made from bits and pieces of different bacteria or virus, making an accurate identification impossible. While US agencies concentrate on agents like smallpox and anthrax, the reality is that superbugs can be far more lethal. Majidi said similarly “You can design an organism de novo that never existed before. While there is no known articulated threat, this is something that we feel is a technology or science that potentially can be misused, either accidentally or on purpose.”
Germs of War, in addition to predicting 9/11, also described efforts by Al Queda to obtain biological weapons. This was confirmed in the Newsmax interview. "As it is, Majidi said, American intelligence picks up hundreds of reports each year of foreign terrorists obtaining WMD". When American forces invaded Afghanistan, they found that al-Qaida was working on what Majidi calls a “nascent” weapons of mass destruction effort involving chemical and biological weapons."
So while the NIH and US Army pours money on smallpox, anthrax, and other known pathogens, the real danger of designer superbugs goes un-addressed.
Germs of War was published in 1999 and described an attack by Afghan based terrorists on the US. The only difference between the book and 9/11 was that planes were used instead of superbugs. In view of the unrest in the Arab world, this is especially important

http://www.prlog.org/11318556-bioterrorism-to-hit-us-as-per-fbi.html

BIOTERRORISM: Defector admits to WMD lies that triggered Iraq war

Martin Chulov and Helen Pidd 15 February 2011

The defector who convinced the White House that Iraq had a secret biological weapons programme has admitted for the first time that he lied about his story, then watched in shock as it was used to justify the war.

Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, codenamed Curveball by German and American intelligence officials who dealt with his claims, has told the Guardian that he fabricated tales of mobile bioweapons trucks and clandestine factories in an attempt to bring down the Saddam Hussein regime, from which he had fled in 1995.
"Maybe I was right, maybe I was not right," he said. "They gave me this chance. I had the chance to fabricate something to topple the regime. I and my sons are proud of that and we are proud that we were the reason to give Iraq the margin of democracy."
The admission comes just after the eighth anniversary of Colin Powell's speech to the United Nations in which the then-US secretary of state relied heavily on lies that Janabi had told the German secret service, the BND. It also follows the release of former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld's memoirs, in which he admitted Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction programme.
The careers of both men were seriously damaged by their use of Janabi's claims, which he now says could have been – and were – discredited well before Powell's landmark speech to the UN on 5 February 2003.
The former CIA chief in Europe Tyler Drumheller describes Janabi's admission as "fascinating", and said the emergence of the truth "makes me feel better". "I think there are still a number of people who still thought there was something in that. Even now," said Drumheller.
In the only other at length interview Janabi has given he denied all knowledge of his supposed role in helping the US build a case for invading Saddam's Iraq.
In a series of meetings with the Guardian in Germany where he has been granted asylum, he said he had told a German official, who he identified as Dr Paul, about mobile bioweapons trucks throughout 2000. He said the BND had identified him as a Baghdad-trained chemical engineer and approached him shortly after 13 March of that year, looking for inside information about Saddam's Iraq.
"I had a problem with the Saddam regime," he said. "I wanted to get rid of him and now I had this chance."
He portrays the BND as gullible and so eager to tease details from him that they gave him a Perry's Chemical Engineering Handbook to help communicate. He still has the book in his small, rented flat in Karlsruhe, south-west Germany.
"They were asking me about pumps for filtration, how to make detergent after the reaction," he said. "Any engineer who studied in this field can explain or answer any question they asked."
Janabi claimed he was first exposed as a liar as early as mid-2000, when the BND travelled to a Gulf city, believed to be Dubai, to speak with his former boss at the Military Industries Commission in Iraq, Dr Bassil Latif.
The Guardian has learned separately that British intelligence officials were at that meeting, investigating a claim made by Janabi that Latif's son, who was studying in Britain, was procuring weapons for Saddam.
That claim was proven false, and Latif strongly denied Janabi's claim of mobile bioweapons trucks and another allegation that 12 people had died during an accident at a secret bioweapons facility in south-east Baghdad.
The German officials returned to confront him with Latif's version. "He says, 'There are no trucks,' and I say, 'OK, when [Latif says] there no trucks then [there are none],'" Janabi recalled.
He said the BND did not contact him again until the end of May 2002. But he said it soon became clear that he was still being taken seriously.
He claimed the officials gave him an incentive to speak by implying that his then pregnant Moroccan-born wife may not be able to travel from Spain to join him in Germany if he did not co-operate with them. "He says, you work with us or your wife and child go to Morocco."
The meetings continued throughout 2002 and it became apparent to Janabi that a case for war was being constructed. He said he was not asked again about the bioweapons trucks until a month before Powell's speech.
After the speech, Janabi said he called his handler at the BND and accused the secret service of breaking an agreement that they would not share anything he had told them with another country. He said he was told not to speak and placed in confinement for around 90 days.
With the US now leaving Iraq, Janabi said he was comfortable with what he did, despite the chaos of the past eight years and the civilian death toll in Iraq, which stands at more than 100,000.
"I tell you something when I hear anybody – not just in Iraq but in any war – [is] killed, I am very sad. But give me another solution. Can you give me another solution?
"Believe me, there was no other way to bring about freedom to Iraq. There were no other possibilities."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/15/defector-admits-wmd-lies-iraq-war

BIOTERRORISM: New Technologies, Future Weapons: Gene Sequencing and Synthetic

August 24, 2010
Ethel Machi and Jena Baker McNeill
Since the completion of the human genome project in 2003, there has been a surge of investment and discovery in both the gene sequencing and synthetic biology sectors of biotechnology. While the information contained in genome databases is not inherently dangerous, it can be used for destructive purposes. With synthesis technology becoming less expensive, more accurate, and faster every year, it is foreseeable that by 2020 malefactors will have the ability to manipulate genomes in order to engineer new bioterrorism weapons.
With every technological advancement come new national security risks. Without a clear understanding of the actual risks associated with synthetic biology, the U.S. is in danger of responding to fears with overregulation. To create regulation that fits the technology, the U.S. should fund risk assessments on the impact of synthesis and sequencing—giving policymakers a better idea of where the highest likelihood of terrorism lies. Simultaneously, and to continue leading the biotechnology revolution, the U.S. also needs to provide federal funding for synthetic biology and gene sequencing research. These steps, coupled with a strong strategy for bioterrorism that confronts issues of prevention and response/surge capacity, would allow America to reap the rewards of these emerging technologies while avoiding many of their attendant perils.
Select Agent Classifications Are No Longer Effective
In the past, one way that government agencies combated bioterrorism was by restricting access to the pathogens themselves. For instance, the Centers for Disease Control and the Department of Agriculture have worked together to regulate the laboratory use of “select agents” (pathogens and biological agents that have the potential to pose a severe threat to public health, such as the Ebola virus). But with the advent of DNA synthesis technology, simply restricting access to the actual pathogen no longer provides the security that it once did. Since the gene sequence is a blueprint, once an organism has been sequenced it can be synthesized without using samples of existing cultures or stock DNA.
In today’s market it costs just a few thousand dollars to design a custom DNA sequence, order it from a manufacturer, and within a few weeks receive the DNA in the mail. Since select agents are currently not defined by their DNA sequences, terrorists can actually order subsets of select agent DNA and assemble them to create entire pathogens. The possibility for attack by a bioterrorism weapon containing a select agent will be greater in the future as synthesis technology continues to advance.
New Restrictions and Regulations?
Since terrorists would not be able to fabricate select agents without access to the requisite genomes, it seems at first glance that restricting access to genomic databases could ameliorate much of the problem. In actuality, the gene databases are a fundamental tool for researchers. Future advances in gene sequencing and synthesis would be severely hindered by government regulation of these databases. No other area of life science depends as much on online databases. In fact, the gene sequencing and DNA synthesis fields are so database-driven that most scientific journals require genome data to be deposited into these databases as a prerequisite for publication.
Moreover, the full genetic sequence for many select agents and other pathogenic genomes (smallpox, botulism, anthrax) are already in Internet-accessible databases that currently mandate free, unfettered, and anonymous access. Once a genome has been released onto the Web, it makes little sense to restrict future publication of that genome. (Posting to the Internet is easy; removing all copies of a post is a near-impossible feat.)
Regulation Tailored to the Risks
Overregulation has a negative effect on research, while under-regulation would undoubtedly expose the U.S. to national security risks. Federal agencies such as the NIH and the NSF may be best suited to conduct ongoing risk assessments for synthetic biology and gene sequencing technologies.
As the field develops, regulations should be updated so that they can be narrowly tailored to fit the actual risks—thereby impacting future research as little as possible. In addition, independent committees of industry leaders, agency officials, and academics should be appointed to create regulations based on these risk assessments.
Staying Ahead
As the world’s leader in biotechnology research, the U.S. is currently in an excellent position. However, other nations are beginning to catch up. Around the world, industry and universities alike are working to decode the genetic makeup of thousands of organisms to discover which genes are responsible for what diseases and to create technologies that perform gene sequencing and DNA synthesis faster and more accurately than ever before.
Domestic researchers need to have the funding to develop the next generation of countermeasures for genetically engineered pathogens. Without favorable legislation such as tax breaks, biotechnology companies may begin moving overseas. And without federal funding, top scientists would be unable to perform the fundamental research that will fuel the next stage of synthesis and sequencing technologies. If the U.S. is not far ahead of other nations in its research, it runs a higher risk of being susceptible to attack.
Detecting Synthetic Pathogens
As synthesis and sequencing technologies continue to advance, it will become easier and easier for rogue individuals or bioterrorists to leak man-made pathogens into water and food supplies. To mitigate this risk, the U.S. should promote research into the areas most prone to attack. Next steps should include:
Conducting risk assessments. Without adequate understanding of the risks involved in any technological field, the government may overregulate and stifle scientific and technological progress.
Investing in biotechnology. Other nations recognize the potential of synthetic biology. If the U.S. does not continue to invest in synthetic biology, it will technologically fall behind other countries and run a higher risk of being subjected to a bio-weapons attack.
Move forward with WMD Commission recommendations. In 2008, Congress created the Commission on the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism to study the “risk of WMD terrorism” and to recommend “steps that could be taken to prevent a successful attack on the United States.” As part of this work, the commission took a close look at the threat of bioterrorism and recommended key changes that should be made to both counter and respond to such an act of terrorism. The commission focused on both surge capacity for first responders in the event of an attack and preventing would-be terrorists from gaining access to biological agents.
These recommendations would help ensure that the U.S. remains protected while working on the cutting edge of biotechnology.
Bio-Specific Strategy Needed
The WMD Commission has emphasized the need for a “bio-specific strategy” in terms of preventing acts of bioterrorism. The U.S., however, has significant work to do in terms of developing this strategy in a way that is representative of the risk of bioterrorism, respects legitimate uses of biological agents, and prepares the nation if such a disaster strikes.
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2010/08/New-Technologies-Future-Weapons-Gene-Sequencing-and-Synthetic-Biology

BIOTERRORISM: Emerging and Zoonotic Animal Diseases

The Center of Excellence for Emerging and Zoonotic Animal Diseases held its kickoff in the K-State Alumni Center.
The center's goal is to defend U.S. agricultural systems against bioterrorism and to find solutions to pathogens transferred between humans and animals.
"This is Kansas State University responding to one of the most imminent national threats," said Tom Thornton, President and CEO, Kansas Bioscience Authority. "The Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission, the post 9/11 group that determined imminent terrorist threats, has determined that the most imminent threat to our nation's homeland security is a biological attack."
The center received 12 million dollars from the Department of Homeland Security. Researchers hope the center can provide scientific information in a national emergency.
http://www.ktka.com/news/2010/jun/28/kansas-state-university-launches-animal-disease-ce/