Biological Terrorism

Biological Weapons

Biological weapons use pathogens or organisms that cause disease in humans, other animals, or plants. Pathogens include bacteria, viruses, fungi, and toxins (poisons produced by animals or plants). Crude biological weapons (or “agents”) have a long history of use in warfare. In ancient times, wells were poisoned with the carcasses of dead animals, and infected corpses were thrown over the walls of besieged cities in efforts to spread sickness among defenders. During the French and Indian Wars in the 1700s, British troops gave blankets from smallpox victims to Native Americans in order to spread the disease.

Keala Loo, a firefighter with the Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Fire Department Hazardous Materials Team, takes samples of a suspected biological agent in a white powder form dropped during a mock terrorist attack on Ward Field, Naval Station Pearl Harbor, on August 20, 2008, as part of an anti-terrorism field training exercise. The exercise is an integrated, quick reaction, scenario driven event to train emergency personnel in the rapid assessment of and response to escalating levels of alert. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Paul Honnick/Released)

The large number of casualties inflicted by chemical attacks in World War I, along with the military's general distaste for using such weapons, led to the signing of the Geneva Protocol of 1925 (officially, the Protocol for the Prohibition of the [Page 101]Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare), a treaty prohibiting the use of both chemical and biological agents in warfare. However, that treaty did not prohibit nations from manufacturing or stockpiling such weapons, and many nations chose to do just, believing that the possession of these weapons would deter others from using them. The Japanese experimented with the use of biological weapons on a relatively small scale in World War II (Japanese forces attacked Chinese cities by dropping plague-carrying fleas from aircraft, for example), but other major combatants did not use them, possibly because they did not believe that these weapons would be decisive factors in the conflict, and possibly because they feared retaliation in kind.

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