Bioterrorism

History of Biowarfare

The potential for use of biological organisms as weapons has been a concern for many decades. Indeed, there are numerous historical accounts of incidents when deliberate activities with polluted or contaminated materials were deemed responsible for significant sickness and disease in humans. Anecdotal examples include Scythian archers (440 BCE) dipping arrowheads in the blood of corpses to increase lethality of the projectiles, Mongols catapulting deceased plague victims over walls of besieged cities in the Crimea (14th century), and the purposeful distribution of smallpox-contaminated blankets among indigenous tribes in the United States.

The 20th century saw global military and ideological conflicts that spurred many of the world's industrialized nations' attempts to develop biological weapons. During World War II, several Imperial Japanese Army units covertly engaged in offensive biowarfare programs, including terminal experiments on prisoners of war and use of bio-weapons against unsuspecting civilian populations in Manchuria and China. During the cold war, the United States and others conducted clandestine offensive biowarfare research and development [Page 95]programs on human, plant, and animal pathogens. In 1969, the United States unilaterally terminated its offensive biowarfare programs.

Alarmed by the proliferation of bioweapons programs, the international community sought to establish restraints. The 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) was the first multilateral disarmament treaty banning the production and use of an entire category of weapons and theoretically halted offensive biowarfare programs in signatory states. However, there was no effective verification regime to monitor treaty compliance. Mounting evidence of Soviet noncompliance with the BWC resulted in the 1992 Trilateral Agreement on biological weapons between the United States, the United Kingdom, and Russia—the successor state to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Neither the Trilateral Agreement nor the BWC could solve the dilemma of accurately assessing dual-use biological programs and facilities—those useful for both peaceful or defensive purposes and those with offensive military aims.

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