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CNN Live At Daybreak

America's New War: Fear of Biological Terrorist Event

Aired September 19, 2001 - 07:26   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOHN KING, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESP.: And as the U.S. military mulls its options, U.S. officials also trying to keep track of just what the terrorists might do in response to any U.S. military strikes.

CNN national security correspondent David Ensor now about the threat by terrorists of perhaps using less conventional weapons, ones capable of killing very large numbers of people.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID ENSOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The most likely biological killer terrorist might use, experts say, is anthrax. It can easily be found in cow pastures. Agents made from it produce fever, stomach pain, then a horrible death.

D.A. HENDERSON, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY: It is spread -- well, let's say in a biological terrorist event, it would go by aerosol. You'd dry it and spread it as a spray and let it drift over a long way.

ENSOR: Still more terrifying, though much harder for terrorists to get their hands on, a disease that was eradicated in the 1970s, smallpox.

JONATHAN TUCKER, MONTEREY INSTITUTE: To be able to move smallpox simply means to have a device within a writing ink pen that could very easily pass -- at any customs office could very easily pass through any metal detector. And you can have enough smallpox in there to start the world's first epidemic.

ENSOR: Smallpox spreads like wildfire. It is estimated to have killed 120 million people in the 20th century.

HENDERSON: Then there would be some small lesions on the skin. You wouldn't be sure what they where for maybe two, three, four days.

ENSOR: The only official stocks of the virus are in one U.S. and one Russian lab. But there may be others.

JONATHAN TUCKER, AUTHOR, "SCOURGE": There is circumstantial evidence that Iraq, North Korea and Russia have undeclared stocks of smallpox. ENSOR: In the Cold War, the Soviet Union developed smallpox and anthrax weapons that could be lobbed into the U.S. on an intercontinental missile. The Russians now insist they only have biological agents for vaccine research.

But a defector says that is not true, and that the weapons could end up in the wrong hands.

KEN ALIBEK, BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS EXPERT: In my opinion, it's a clear and present danger.

ENSOR: Still, barring leakage from Russia or help from, for example, Iraq, Osama Bin Laden and his al Qaeda group would have great difficulty getting their hands on a biological weapon.

TUCKER: We should improve our intelligence about what terrorists are doing in this area, but we shouldn't panic. I think the threat is still quite small.

ENSOR: The threat is small because biological agents are so hard to produce and hard to make into weapons. By contrast, the threat of a chemical attack may be greater, but the U.S. is relatively well prepared against it. As the serin gas attack the Tokyo subway showed six years ago, chemical agents can only affect a limited area. If U.S. troops were to head into Afghanistan, though, going after Bin Laden and his group, experts say they could need chemical protection.

(on camera): According to newspaper reports, satellite pictures of terrorist training camps outside Jalalabad in Afghanistan show dead animals on test ranges, suggesting the militants may have been experimenting with various chemical agents.

David Ensor, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: Something once unthinkable, now a relatively common sight here in Washington. Law enforcement officials at times of high alert wearing not only weapons on their belts, but gas masks as well -- now back to Paula Zahn in New York.

PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, thanks, John.

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