APPENDIX 9
Memorandum from Dr Stephen Pullinger,
Executive Director, International Security Information Service
(ISIS)
WMD AND IRAQ
BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS
1. The term `weapons of mass destruction'
(WMD) refers to nuclear (and radiological), biological and chemical
weaponry. To an extent the aggregation of the term obscures the
particular nature of the threat posed by each of these types of
weapon. When communicating its concerns to the British people
about biological weapons in particular the government needs to
provide more explanation.
2. Most people have a conception of nuclear
weapons and the devastation they can cause—the images of
mushroom clouds and horrifically scarred victims at Hiroshima
and Nagasaki. Similarly, chemical weapons conjure pictures of
choking troops in the trenches of World War One. But, with regard
to biological weapons (BW), there is a much more uncertain public
perception. Most people associate the term `biological' more with
soap powder than disease.
3. This problem of public perception must
be addressed urgently. Biological warfare is the deliberate use
of disease—bacteria (such as anthrax or plague), viruses
(such as smallpox or Ebola) and toxins—that can attack people,
animals or plants.
4. It is a myth that BW have only a limited
military application and utility. The quantities needed to cause
casualties are much smaller than those needed for chemical weapons
and the number of potential casualties are more akin to those
resulting from nuclear use.
5. The former Soviet Union and Iraq are
two countries that are known to have developed extensive
BW programmes, but others are also suspected of having done so.
6. BW may also be attractive to terrorists.
Unlike nuclear weapons, BW can be produced relatively easily and
cheaply and the technical/scientific expertise needed is not great.
The Aum Shinrikyo sect, for example, responsible for the Tokyo
subway chemical weapon attack in 1995, had also attempted to use
them, although without causing any casualties. It was working
on botulinum toxin and anthrax, and had assembled several devices
to disseminate such agents.
7. The impact of naturally occurring disease
can be enormous. Take two examples. The strain of influenza that
swept through Europe after World War I killed more people than
were killed during that war, and more quickly. The spread of Foot
and Mouth through Britain in 2000-01 inflicted billions of pounds
worth of damage to our farming and tourist industries and beyond.
8. We are now seeing rapid advances in biotechnology,
some of which is based on the manipulation of genes and on alterations
to the genetic structure of cells. While this revolution will
offer many benefits to the world, it will also open up a whole
new range of prohibited applications that could lead to the development
of new and more efficient biological weapons. For example, it
might be possible to modify a micro-organism to change the way
it interacts with the immune system, say, to dramatically increase
the lethality of influenza. The Soviet Union apparently developed
a genetically engineered strain of plague that was resistant to
antibiotics.
9. Disease can take hold before one realises
the scale and nature of the problem, let alone from where the
outbreak originated, and let alone also whether the disease arose
naturally or was introduced deliberately. This delayed effect
means that attribution is difficult and, especially when an endemic
disease is used for an attack, it is plausible both to hide and
deny the BW attack.
10. Nor can one assume that BW will necessarily
remain under strict government control, and their use, therefore,
be determined by rational calculation of political leaders. States
can break up—as did the former Soviet Union—controls
over BW programmes can dissipate as a result, and unemployed scientists
can be hired by new masters. Over 60,000 scientists were employed
on BW-related work in the former Soviet Union. Many are now without
jobs. Who knows where they all are, or whether they are marketing
their dangerous expertise for others to exploit?
11. Perhaps the most frightening scenario
for biological warfare is the "suicide infector", who
deliberately infects himself with the smallpox virus, travels
to a major city and then spreads the infection—perhaps by
simply touring around on public transport. By the time the health
authorities became aware of the problem they were facing it would
be too late to save the lives of enormous numbers of people. Moreover,
simply making the public aware of that problem would inevitably
result in unimaginable social consequences. The draconian enforcement
of sealing off a major city from contact with the rest of the
country is frightening to contemplate in itself.
12. In the context of biological warfare,
therefore, concepts of containment and deterrence begin to lose
relevance. Those who might pursue the cultivation and manipulation
of disease for nefarious purposes must be stopped, not simply
contained. Once viruses and bacteria spread and infections multiply
through invisible micro-organisms, all rational calculations about
deterrence theory appear redundant.
POLICY TOWARDS
IRAQ
13. Although there may be disagreement about
the extent of Iraq's WMD programmes, few would contest that such
programmes exist. We also know that Iraq has used its chemical
weapons previously, against its own Kurdish population and against
Iran, but that it did not use any WMD during the Gulf War against
the Allies.
14. If Iraq is found to be pursuing nuclear,
chemical and biological weapons programmes it will be in contravention
not only of the UN Security Council's disarmament resolutions,
but also to the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
(NPT), and Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC).
15. The UK Government's policy is to ensure
the successful implementation of Iraq's WMD disarmament obligations.
One would expect that even those opposed to taking military action
against Iraq to enforce those obligations—should it come
to that—would agree that Iraq should desist from its pursuit
of WMD.
16. The first question is how do you enforce
those obligations upon Iraq if it refuses to comply? And the answer
to that is contingent on one's assessment of the balance of risk
and consequence of either disarming Iraq forcibly or failing to
do so.
17. There are, of course, enormous risks
in trying to disarm Iraq through military means, if the inspection
route fails: the almost inevitable deaths of large numbers of
Iraqi civilians, as well as of combatants on both sides; the possible
use of WMD by Iraq against Allied and Israeli targets; the consequences
for the region of Israel being drawn into a wider Middle Eastern
war; the impact on the global economy (at least in the short term),
and so on.
18. Not acting forcibly to disarm Iraq,
on the other hand, carries risks too. Were the international community
to back down, one could expect an emboldened Saddam to continue
or accelerate his WMD programmes. At some point in the future
he might develop a deliverable nuclear capability and/or develop
significant stocks of deadly viruses and nerve agent. How would
this impact on regional and global security?
19. The first point to make is that Israel
may not await the development of such a deliverable capability.
As it did in 1981, when it attacked and destroyed Iraq' s Osirak
nuclear plant, Israel might take pre-emptive military action against
Iraq's latent WMD programmes. One recalls the oft-stated maxim
that "Israel would not be the first to use weapons of mass
destruction in the Middle East, but nor would it be the second".
20. Clearly, the US Administration (and
perhaps also HMG) has decided that it is not prepared to accept
the constraints of a deterrent relationship with Iraq, as it did
have to accept previously with the Soviet Union. In other words,
the US wants to be able to act in defence of its strategic interests
in the Middle East without fear of being confronted by a state
capable of hitting US targets with a weapon of mass destruction.
(Nor does the US or UK have confidence that a stable deterrent
relationship with Iraq could be established in any case.)
21. The US does not want a nuclear-armed
Iraq to use its military muscle to acquire control over a vast
portion of the world's oil reserves and then to hold the world
to ransom through threat of nuclear or biological use if anyone
tries to reverse Iraqi conquests. Under this scenario it would
be the rest of the world, including the US, that would be deterred
from acting.
22. Proponents of the `containment' strategy
would argue that Iraq would not and should not ever be allowed
to exercise its military muscle in this way; that deployed Allied
forces in the region would always keep Iraq's forces contained.
Saddam's strong sense of self-preservation would dissuade him
from acting in ways that invited devastating retaliation and his
subsequent demise.
23. Yet, it is beyond peradventure that
Iraq's possession of WMD, especially if capable of reaching major
European targets and beyond, would at the very least destabilise
the region and prove a constant source of political and economic
uncertainty.
24. If Iraqi scientists are allowed a free
hand to develop, enhance and weaponise deadly diseases how confident
could we be that such diseases would not one day and by one means
or another spread sickness and death on an epidemic scale against
vulnerable populations?
25. For the reasons set out above it is
imperative that British Government policy towards Iraq should
be one of WMD disarmament, pursued through the United Nations
and prosecuted within international law. In the longer term, as
the Committee has previously recommended
Britain...has a key role and a key responsibility
in trying to put all Weapons of Mass Destruction under international
arms control regimes and in making progress towards their complete
elimination. This must surely be one of the highest foreign policy
priorities for the Government.[6]
26. If and when we achieve a world in which
the possession of all weapons of mass destruction is banned, ensuring
strict compliance with that international norm will be paramount.
Intrusive inspections and UN Security resolutions backed, if necessary,
by force will become vital components of a world free from the
scourge of WMD. How we deal with Iraq today may signal how likely
we are to reach such a world.
Dr Stephen Pullinger
Executive Director
International Security Information Service (ISIS)
October 2002
6 Weapons of Mass Destruction, Eighth Report of
Foreign Affairs Committee, Session 1999-2000, HC 407, Para.
124, p.xxxix. Back
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