Biowarfare Lessons, Emerging 

Biosecurity Issues, and Ways to 

Monitor Dual-Use Biotechnology 

Trends in the Future 

Helen E. Purkitt 

INSS Occasional Paper 61 

September 2005 

USAF Institute for National Security Studies 

USAF Academy, Colorado 
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The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not 

necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of 

the Air Force, the Department of Defense, or the US Government. The 

paper is approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. 

******* 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: 

Helen E. Purkitt is Professor of Political Science at the US Naval 

Academy. She obtained her PhD in International Relations from 

the University of Southern California. Her research and teaching 

interests include political psychology, African politics, and 

emerging national security issues. She is editor of Annual 

Editions/World Politics (McGraw-Hill, 2005) and recently 

completed a co-authored book with Stephen Burgess entitled, South 

Africa’s Weapons of Mass Destruction (Indiana University Book, 

2005). The present study builds upon a 2004 research project 

completed with scientific support by Dr Virgen R. Wells for the 

Defense Threat Reduction Agency entitled, “What’s Over the 

Biotechnological Horizon? R&D trends in South African civilian 

biotechnology and implications for monitoring future dual use 

biotechnology trends in the developing world.” She is currently 

researching the national and international security implications of 

global biotechnology trends for a study sponsored by the Center for 

Technology and National Security Policy at the National Defense 

University in Washington DC.

Comments pertaining to this paper are invited; please forward to: 

 Director, USAF Institute for National Security Studies 

 HQ USAFA/DFES 

 2354 Fairchild Drive, Suite 5L27 

 USAF Academy, CO 80840 

 phone: 719-333-2717 

 fax: 719-333-2716 

 email: inss@usafa.af.mil 

Visit the Institute for National Security Studies home page at 

http://www.usafa.af.mil/inss
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TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Foreword vii 

Executive Summary ix 

Introduction 1 

Lessons from Iraq 2 

 Lesson #1: Recruit the “Best and Brightest” 3 

 Lesson #2: Focus on Readily Available Pathogens 8 

 Lesson #3: Weapons of Disruption, Terror 10 

 Lesson #4: Open Literature and Covert Research 14 

 Lesson #5: Dual-Use Facilities and Mobile Labs 15 

 Lesson #6: Visibility of Research vs. Production 19 

 Lesson #7: Only a Combined, International Effort 

 Can Counter 21 

 Lesson #8: BW Inspections Difficult to Conduct 

 After a War 25 

Some Contemporary Issues in the Developed and 

Developing Worlds 26 

 Issue #1: Biological Peer-Reviewed Research 27 

 Issue #2: New Restrictions on Selected Agents 30 

 Issue #3: Foreign Graduate Students 32 

 Key Emerging Biosecurity Issues and Trends 

 in the Developing World 35 

Ways to Monitor Emerging Dual-Use Biological 

 Proliferation Threats 47 

Conclusion 54 

Interviews 58 

Notes 59 
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FOREWORD 

We are pleased to publish this sixty-first volume in the 

Occasional Paper series of the United States Air Force Institute for 

National Security Studies (INSS). In it, Helen Purkitt makes three 

important contributions to our understanding and policy approach 

to the dangerous and important issues surrounding advances in 

biotechnology and threats of biowarfare and bioterrorism. She 

outlines clearly and systematically some significant lessons from 

the former biowarfare programs in Iraq and South Africa, providing 

real-world lenses into what were active programs in developing 

states. She follows by raising several important issues that are 

emerging in biotechnology developments across developing states, 

particularly in Africa. Finally, given the emphasis being placed on 

the biotechnology sector worldwide, and the problems associated 

with detecting and monitoring weapons programs disguisable 

among commercial, dual-use facilities and processes, she suggests 

some novel approaches to monitoring biotechnology development 

in hopes of identifying and tracking programs of interest. The 

biological weapons threat is complex, and it is not adequately 

addressed to date by any of the existing nonproliferation or 

counterproliferation efforts, which gives special significance to 

examinations such as that presented in this paper. 

About the Institute

INSS is primarily sponsored by the Strategic Security 

Directorate, Headquarters US Air Force (HQ USAF/XOS), and the 

Dean of the Faculty, USAF Academy. Other sponsors include the 

Secretary of Defense’s Office of Net Assessment (OSD/NA); the 

Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA); the Air Force 

Information Warfare Center (AFIWC); The Army Foreign Military 

Studies Office (FMSO); the Army Environmental Policy Institute 

(AEPI); the United States Northern Command/North American 

Aerospace Defense Command (NORTHCOM/NORAD); and the 

United States Military Academy Combating Terrorism Center 

(CTC). The mission of the Institute is “to promote national security 

research for the Department of Defense within the military 

academic community, to foster the development of strategic 

perspective within the United States Armed Forces, and to support 

national security discourse through outreach and education.” Its 

research focuses on the areas of greatest interest to our sponsors: 

arms control and strategic security, counterproliferation and force 
viii

protection, homeland defense and combating terrorism, regional and 

emerging national security issues, air and space issues and 

planning, and information operations and warfare. 

INSS coordinates and focuses outside thinking in various 

disciplines and across the military services to develop new ideas for 

defense policy making. To that end, the Institute develops topics, 

selects researchers from within the military academic community, 

and administers sponsored research. It reaches out to and partners 

with education and research organizations across and beyond the 

military academic community to bring broad focus to issues of 

national security interest. And it hosts conferences and workshops 

and facilitates the dissemination of information to a wide range of 

private and government organizations. In these ways, INSS 

facilitates valuable, cost-effective research to meet the needs of our 

sponsors. We appreciate your continued interest in INSS and our 

research products. 

JAMES M. SMITH 

 Director 
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 

The study summarizes policy lessons for future efforts to 

monitor possible covert biological warfare programs based on 

recent investigations of past Iraqi and South African covert 

biowarfare programs. This comparative case study approach 

identified several commonalities in past biowarfare programs in 

developing countries. One was a tendency of governments to 

recruit some of the brightest graduate students studying in several 

different fields of science and send them abroad for advanced 

studies at western universities. This trend changed dramatically 

after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, and it is 

now much more likely that future scientists working for 

government-sponsored bioweapons programs or for terrorist groups 

in the developing world will receive their advanced training at nonwestern institutions in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. 

A second commonality is that covert biological weapons 

research and development efforts in several developing countries 

have focused on exploiting readily available, naturally occurring 

pathogens for use as weapons of mass disruption or terror, in 

addition to efforts to develop sophisticated, genetically modified, 

weaponized organisms delivered in sophisticated delivery systems 

that approximated the weapons development pattern in the United 

States and the former Soviet Union. Both the Iraqi and South 

African former biowarfare programs relied heavily on open-source 

literature to secretly develop biological pathogens at multiple dualuse civilian facilities. This diffusion of covert research and 

development facilities is likely to increasingly in the future as 

mobile equipment and production facilities are now much more 

readily available for sale to any interested buyer. While these 

trends will make it difficult to detect preliminary covert biowarfarerelated research and development, the full-scale production of 

biowarfare weapons will continue to be difficult to hide. 

Both the Iraqi and South African cases documented that no 

single control strategy was entirely effective at stopping covert 

biological research and development. However, a combined 

approach based on import controls, sanctions, good intelligence on 

the ground from bilateral sources, and continuous international 

inspections that was backed by a strong international consensus (in 

the case of Iraq) was remarkably effective at disrupting, slowing 

down the research and development process, and substantially 

raising the cost of conducting covert biowarfare programs. The final 
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lesson that emerged from both cases is the fact that it continues to 

be difficult to control the movements of former biowarfare 

scientists and technicians. 

The second section of this study identified and discusses new 

biosecurity issues that emerged since September 11, 2001. This 

project, based on interviews with a variety of experts in the United 

States and earlier interviews with South African experts and 

government officials, documented that experts and policymakers in 

the developed and developing world held very different views on 

important biosecurity issues. Recent efforts in the United States 

have focused on better ways to control and manage: 1) peer review 

biological publications with possible biowarfare applications, 2) the 

flow of foreign graduate students in the physical sciences studying 

in the US, and 3) government-funded research using select agents. 

These security issues increasingly collide with the economic 

development goals embraced by many public and private actors in 

developing countries who are trying to increase civilian 

biotechnology research and development capacity across several 

different sectors in their country in order to produce high-valued 

biotechnology exports and jobs. The result is a host of new 

economic and security issues that will not be easily resolved. 

Several examples of future biosecurity issues are presented based 

on recent efforts by South Africa and other African countries to 

participate in the global technology revolution. The paper 

concludes with a typology and some possible indicators and 

methods that may be useful to monitor emerging dual-use biological 

proliferation threats in the future. 
BIOWARFARE LESSONS, EMERGING BIOSECURITY 

ISSUES, AND WAYS TO MONITOR DUAL-USE 

BIOTECHNOLOGY TRENDS IN THE FUTURE 

INTRODUCTION 

This study was completed during 2004 at the US Naval Academy. 

The report had several objectives. First, it summarizes some patterns 

that emerged from recent investigations of the Iraqi covert biological 

weapons (BW) program and how it evolved over time. The purpose of 

the analysis is to identify “lessons learned from Iraq’s BW program” 

that may be useful for understanding future biological weapons 

proliferation threats throughout the world. While it may be too soon to 

develop broad policy lessons from the Iraqi case, several key insights 

have already come to light from earlier UN and more recent US-led 

investigations that will be useful for understanding similarities and 

differences in how covert biowarfare programs evolve in the 

developing world. 

Second, the report identifies three important current issues in 

biosecurity in the United States and some trends in civilian 

biotechnology in the developing world that should be of greater interest 

to proliferation analysts in the United States. The original plan for this 

research was to assess the feasibility of a set of policy 

recommendations developed at the end of an earlier report.1

 However, 

it soon became clear that researchers in the United States are focused 

on very different issues when they discuss current and future 

biotechnology research and proliferation issues. Consequently, this 

research focused on summarizing the key issues of concern to scientists 

in the developed world and key trends that may be developing in many 

nation-states in the developing world. 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends 

2

Third, the report identifies new types of actors and presents a 

typology of countries in the world based on their involvement in 

civilian biotechnology research and development commitment to 

biological non-proliferation norms. These analytical constructs may 

help future efforts to monitor trends in civilian biotechnology 

worldwide by identifying some of the key actors and locations where 

dual-use biowarfare research is likely to occur. 

The report concludes by summarizing the most important trends in 

biotechnology related to dual-use research programs and recommends 

that the United States government focus more on ways to monitor 

trends at the junction of civilian biotechnology and dual-use 

proliferation threats. 

LESSONS FROM IRAQ 

It is too soon to develop definitive policy lessons from the Iraqi 

effort to develop covert biological weapons. However, several insights 

have already emerged that may prove useful for understanding future 

patterns of covert biowarfare programs throughout the developing 

world. This section describes some key aspects of the Iraqi covert 

biological weapons program over time. Special attention is paid to 

comparing the Iraqi and South African programs because both of these 

developing countries had the requisite scientific and technical base to 

develop sophisticated covert R&D programs, both were loosely run 

programs where a great deal of power resided in the hands of program 

managers rather than senior politicians, and both programs were widely 

thought to be among the most sophisticated programs in the developing 

world at the time of their demise. 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends

3

Policy Lesson #1: Recruit the “best and brightest” graduate 

students from several fields (i.e., human and animal life science) 

and send them abroad for training relevant to chemical-biological 

programs. 

A common characteristic of the Iraqi biowarfare program, when 

compared to other covert biological programs initiated by countries in 

the developing world during the 1960s and 1970s, was the fact that 

many members of the first generation of professionals who were 

recruited into covert biological warfare programs went abroad for 

advanced studies or for shorter-term training programs.2

 This trend of 

sending selectees to the United States or to Europe was the dominant 

pattern during the first phase of the Iraqi secret biological program that 

ran from about 1960 to about 1985. According to the recently released 

Inspector General’s report, widely referred to as the Duelfer Report, 

junior Iraqi military officers were routinely sent to Ft McClellan in the 

United States during the 1960s to learn more about chemical-biological 

warfare. A small group of about nine scientists was recruited to begin 

working on covert biological research. These professionals were 

chosen from several different disciplines and drawn from several 

ministries, including Higher Education, Defense, and Health. The 

common denominator among the first generation of Iraqi chem-bio 

weapons scientists was that they were selected for their qualifications 

and were among the most promising scientists of their generation 

during the 1970s. Several of these scientists were sent abroad for 

additional advanced training. For example, Dr Rihab Rashid Taha, a 

plant scientist and former Iraqi BW scientist, was sent to Great Britain 

for an advanced degree. Later Dr. Muzhir (Muder Moder) Al Falluji, a 

lead biologist, was also sent abroad. Over time, political considerations 

entered into the selection process. Thus, by the mid-1980s, recruits 

were chosen more for their loyalty to the regime rather than for their 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends 

4

technical skills or as junior scientists capable of making major 

breakthroughs in research and development. The Iraqi scientists 

increasingly relied upon a mentor system within highly 

compartmentalized clusters. By the 1990s as politics became an even 

more important criteria for the Iraqi program, many of the senior 

scientists who played large leadership roles were foreigners who had 

been recruited from neighboring countries.3

 

Another shared characteristic of Iraq’s early clandestine research, 

when compared to several other early covert programs in the 

developing world, was that chemical and biological research efforts 

were often combined, especially during the early years. After a few 

years more specialized dedicated labs were built at Al Hasan in the 

suburbs of Baghdad and at Ibn-Sina Center.4

 By the late 1970s the first 

Iraqi chem-bio program had failed to produce any significant results. 

One reason cited by investigators who examined why Al Hasan failed 

to produce any significant output was extensive fraud by several of the 

senior managers of the program. In response to this investigation, the 

government parceled out the staff and facilities to several different 

agencies from late 1979 through 1985. According to the Duelfer 

report, the best scientists went to the Iraqi Intelligence Service (ISS). 

The ISS played a key supervisory role in overseeing covert biological 

weapons activities until the overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime 

in 2003.5

 

The Iraqi early pattern of developing a covert chem-bio program is 

remarkably similar to several other known programs in the developing 

world. In many countries early efforts to start a chemical and 

biological initiative have been located within the same government 

sponsored initiative, and often within the same building. The senior 

management head of covert biological weapons programs have more 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends

5

latitude than their counterparts running covert nuclear programs. 

Finally, several past covert biological research programs have also been 

characterized by widespread fraud by senior program managers. 

At least this was the case in South Africa where a close friend of 

the Defense Minister’s nephew, Dr. Wouter Basson, was chosen to lead 

the secret chem-bio program called Project Coast that was housed in 

the South African Military Service (SAMS). It took a few years before 

specialized front companies for chemical and biological weapons 

research were developed. The loose oversight by senior political 

officials is widely cited as the reason why Dr. Basson and several of his 

senior managers were alleged to have engaged in extensive fraud and 

personal profiteering when Project Coast front companies were 

privatized.6

 In both cases, loose oversight by political officials and the 

lack of standard independent accounting procedures seemed to 

encourage corruption that helped to derail weaponization. These 

similarities suggest that such factors as personal graft and corruption 

among the scientific or political elite who are responsible for managing 

covert weapons programs in many developing countries may serve as a 

constraint on developing highly effective biological weapons. 

A comparison of the types of scientists selected to work for Iraqi 

and South African biological weapons programs highlights the fact that 

there are likely to be significant differences and changes in the 

academic credentials and advanced training patterns of the scientists 

recruited to work for a covert biological weapons program in the 

developing world over time. As noted above, members of the first 

generation of Iraqi biological weapons scientists were drawn from a 

variety of academic specialties. What they shared with members of the 

first generation of BW scientists in several other countries is that as a 

group they represented some of the “best and brightest” of their 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends 

6

generation. Many members of the first generation of weapons 

scientists from several countries in the developing world also traveled 

abroad to the United States and Western Europe for training courses 

and advanced education. However, in several cases access to education 

in the west became increasingly difficult to complete by the end of the 

1980s. 

A similar pattern of increased isolation from the west developed in 

South Africa over time as well. In the early years, South Africa 

military officers also routinely went to the United Kingdom and the 

United States for special training in chem-bio programs. However, by 

the late 1970s the United States, along with the United Nations, 

imposed sanctions that made it increasingly difficult over time for 

South African weapons scientists to enter the United States or 

European countries for studies or research visits. Many members of the 

first generation of scientists recruited to work for Project Coast were 

also drawn from a variety of fields. A large number of the scientists 

were veterinarians. Disproportionate numbers of veterinarians were 

recruited in the case of South Africa because members of this 

professional at the time were extremely well-trained, having earned 

advanced degrees in at least two different fields of science.7

 Others 

scientists were trained as chemists or human medical doctors. A large 

number of this first generation received one or more of their degrees in 

the United Kingdom, Germany, or other European countries.8

 By the 

time Project Coast got under way in the late 1970s, South Africa was 

already an isolated state. One important recruitment tool used by 

Project Coast managers was the opportunity to have much greater 

access to the scientific literature than was possible for most South 

African scientific researchers at the time.9

 As a diplomatically isolated 

state, South Africa, much like the Iraqi government in the latter years 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends

7

of the program, also sought to use the expertise of outside experts in 

addition to national scientists.10 

The diversity of academic backgrounds and varying expertise of 

biological weapons scientists in the two countries should cause analysts 

to pause before making sweeping generalizations about the type of 

scientific background required to work on covert weapons programs. 

The fact that many Project Coast scientists were veterinarians, while at 

least one of the better-known Iraqi scientists was a plant scientist, 

suggests how hard it may be in the future to identify nascent biological 

weapons programs hidden in dual-use civilian facilities. 

The adjustments made in both countries due in part to increased 

external pressures and growing isolation, suggests further that patterns 

evident in the past programs may not be replicated in future ones. This 

is particularly true in the current era where the knowledge needed to 

develop biological weapons is becoming widespread throughout the 

world. A question that is increasingly being asked in western analytical 

circles, and one that is covered in more detail in the next section, is 

whether current and future scientists recruited to work for national 

covert biological weapons programs or for terrorist groups, will 

necessarily obtain their advanced education and training in the West. 

Extensive anecdotal and some aggregate data discussed in the next 

section, suggest an important new trend may be in progress whereby 

many of tomorrow’s generations of biological weapon scientists will be 

trained in non-western institutions in Asia, Latin America, and Africa. 

In an era of rapid globalization, due to rising costs of education, and 

most importantly to heightened concerns about terrorism in the West, 

more foreign students, particularly those from Middle East countries, 

seem to be looking at alternative venues for education in the life and 

physical sciences. 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends 

8

Policy Lesson #2: Initial covert biological weapons research and 

development efforts tend to focus on readily available naturally 

occurring pathogens. 

Another interesting aspect of the first program in the 1970s and the 

restarted covert biowarfare programs in Iraq during 1985 until the first 

Gulf War was the fact that Iraqi scientists explored the feasibility of 

using naturally occurring pathogens. Iraqi scientists in their initial 

efforts, and again in the 1980s, studied fungal toxins, including 

trichothecene, mycotoxins, and later aflatoxins. A variety of bacteria, 

toxins, and viruses, including “clostridium botulinum, spores of 

bacillus anthracis, cholera, polio and influenza virus, were involved in 

the restarted program in the early 1980.” Several Iraqi researchers 

involved in both phases told American investigators that “botulinum 

toxin and anthrax were the backbone of the Iraqi pre-1991 BW 

program” restarted in early 1980s.11

Prior to the first Gulf War, several scientists worked on both 

human and animal viruses, i.e. influenza and polio, to determine their 

usefulness as BW agents. The polio virus program appears to have 

been closed in 1979 while work on other viruses continued. One UStrained veterinarian, Dr Muzhir Al Falluji, reportedly also 

experimented with animal orthopox viruses. Work on weaponized 

ricin, at least in a limited fashion, was pursued in the 1980s and again 

prior to the first Gulf war. This research followed earlier work on 

possible use of wheat as a weapon. During the 1980s there were 

several projects, including one sponsored by the Intelligence Services. 

These projects allegedly use human testing but this accusation has not 

been substantiated. There was a collaboration among personnel at Al 

Salman and the military to field test 155 mm shells as a delivery device 

for warheads loaded with ricin at the end of 1990 and possibly also 

after 1992. The Al’Aziziyah farms supplied the Al Tariq Facility with 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends

9

castor beans. Many farmers, scientists, and engineers familiar with this 

project told investigators after the 2003 war that efforts were made to 

weaponize the castor beans. Other staff members continued to 

maintain that the castor beans were processed for use as brake fluid and 

for tire production. Other research appeared to examine the properties 

of castor oil as an anti-foaming agent in the yeast industry and for 

pharmaceutical-related research. A shipment of caster beans for a 

university remains unexplained. However, Dr. Al Azmirlic, a former 

Iraqi Intelligence Officer and the scientific advisor to Saddam between 

1992 and 1996, said that ricin produced at Al Shameir Hospital in Al 

Rashad was than transferred to Al Kaham where it was developed into 

a stable liquid to deliver as aerosol in small rockets, cluster bombs, and 

smoke generators. After the first Gulf War, Iraqi scientists were able to 

restart work on Brucella at the College of Science using an isolate from 

a patient at the Ibn-al-Khatib Hospital. This project was coordinated 

through the Ministry of Health. During the project, Brucella was 

isolated and grown. The researchers extracted and purified the 

endotoxin, tested it on mice, and determined that the toxin was not as 

effective as Shigaq toxin, ricin, or botulinum.12

The Iraqi efforts to restart their biological weapons program by 

using natural pathogens are important because these examples provide 

vivid support for the prediction that both national covert scientists and 

terrorist are likely to use readily available, naturally occurring 

pathogens as weapons in their initial attempts to develop biological 

weapons.

13 At least this was the prediction of the majority of 43 

scientists and researchers interviewed in South Africa during 2003. 

The overwhelming majority of these researchers predicted that the most 

likely bioagent that would be used by national researchers or by 

terrorists living in the developing world would be readily available, 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends 

10

naturally occurring pathogens.14 In recent years, several researchers 

have also noted that hundreds of different types of fungi found on the 

diverse plants and trees in rainfall areas and other rural areas 

throughout the world could be easily processed to form new biowarfare 

pathogens.15 While few scholars in the social sciences have spent time 

analyzing the nature of the threat arising from a host of naturally 

occurring pathogens, more government officials have become aware 

that secret national or terrorist efforts to engage in biological warfare in 

the future is likely to rely upon natural pathogens. To try to counter 

this emerging threat, participants at the most recent Review Conference 

of the Austria Group that was held in June 2004 agreed to add five 

plant pathogens to the control list. This was the first time that plant 

pathogens had been added to the restricted control list since 1993.16

Policy Lesson #3: Many developing countries and terrorist groups 

are more likely to use crude or novel delivery devices to deliver 

biological weapons designed to function as “weapons of mass 

disruption” or “weapons of terror” rather than “weapons of mass 

destruction.” 

In recent years there has been an increased concern about the 

possibility of agro-terrorism attacks in the United States. Much less 

attention to date has focused on the strategic implications of the fact 

that leaders, scientists, and terrorists in the developing world are likely 

to use biological weapons for mass disruption and as “weapons of 

terror” rather than “weapons of mass destruction.” One reason for the 

lack of attention to the use of biological agents as weapons of terror or 

mass disruption may be due to the fact that many strategic analysts are 

still wedded to a model of weaponization that is based on the covert, 

large-scale weaponization efforts of the former Soviet Union’s secret 

biowarfare program.17 This paradigm assumes that national covert 

programs will only pose a threat if they succeed in producing and 

weaponizing large amounts of weaponized biological agents that can be 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends

11

delivered using sophisticated and highly reliable missiles or planes in 

order to produce mass destruction. However, a growing body of 

evidence suggests that secret military programs and efforts by terrorist 

groups, especially those located in the developing world, are likely to 

be smaller scale efforts intent on using biological agents as “agents of 

mass disruption.”18 

The strategic logic of Iraqi military commanders during Saddam 

Hussein’s regime adds some additional confirmatory evidence for the 

hypothesis that biological weapons are most likely to be used as 

weapons of terror rather than mass destruction by politicians and 

military decision makers in the developing world. The outbreak of the 

Iran-Iraqi war in the late 1980s provided a major impetus for Iraq to 

develop biological and chemical weapons that could be used against 

their long-time enemy. Iraqi scientists told both UNSCOM and US 

investigators in the 1990s, and again in 2003, that a crash effort was 

undertaken to develop nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons that 

could be used against their arch enemy, the fundamentalist Shi’a 

Islamists. According to Rolf Ekeus, 

The leadership in Baghdad had seen this war as a reflection of 

Iraq’s strategic role as a gatekeeper for the Arab nation against 

a Persian penetration westwards into Arab territory. The 

wealthy, but military weak, Sunni-ruled Gulf States from 

Saudi Arabia to Oman were considered easy prey for a militant 

Iran. During the eight years of war, Baghdad had learned that 

Iran, with nearly three times Iraq’s population, was a 

formidable enemy that could only be matched with resort to 

chemical weapons. Iraq had concluded that its self-appointed 

role as protector of the Gulf Arabs required WMD to 

compensate for numerical inferiority.19

More recent statements made to Americans investigators since the 

United States invasion in 2003 sheds even more light on the Iraqi 

strategic views about the utility of biological weapons. These recent 

investigations confirmed that Saddam Hussein wanted to use biological 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends 

12

weapons. After the outbreak of Iran-Iraq war in 1980 a reinvigorated 

effort was made to develop biological weapons that could be “put in a 

bomb.”20 According to statements made to American investigators, 

“Saddam envisaged all-out use...in a plan to strike Israeli cities he 

specified that the ‘many years’ agents, presumably anthrax spores, were 

to be employed against his foes.” Even more ominously, Brig. Dr. 

Mahmud Farraj Bilal Al Samarra’I claimed that “if the Iran war lasted 

beyond 1988, Saddam would have used BW.” 21

Despite these statements of intensions, there was a serious gap 

between these goal statements and Iraq’s technological capabilities. 

Consequently, at the end of the 1980s as Iraq faced costly setbacks and 

the possibility of defeat, military leaders developed specific plans to 

use biological-filled projectiles, along with chemical shells and bombs, 

if the conflict had continued much longer. Iraqi military commanders 

were well aware of the weaknesses of biological agent-filled bombs 

and shells and the fact that many of the weapons were likely to 

malfunction. However, Iraqi commanders went ahead and planned to 

use this class of weapon, if authorized by political authorities, during 

the Iran-Iraq war as a “weapon of terror.” The planned delivery device 

for the biological-filled bombs was to be the Al Hussein missiles, along 

with several other devices. By 1990, other facilities were 

manufacturing additional types of delivery devices for BW agents 

including bombs, warheads, and aircraft auxiliary fuel tanks. Military 

planners continued to refine their future plans to use biological 

weapons even though there were continuing technical shortcomings 

with using either the Al Hussein missile or R-400 artillery shells to 

deliver BW agents. Lt General Hazim, Commander of the Surface-to 

Surface Missile Force, explained the strategic logic behind using 

biological weapons by noting that “an Al Hussein with a BW agent 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends

13

filled warhead, would fulfill its purpose, if after impact in an enemy 

country sufficient material survived to enable its detection as BW 

agent. It was a weapon of terror.”22 

Lt. General Hazim’s statement is important for underscoring the 

fact that field commanders treated these reserve weapons as a weapon 

of terror rather than weapons of mass destruction. The Iraqi program 

was patterned after the former Soviet model of weaponization and had 

a similar goal of large-scale production and use of sophisticated 

missiles armed with biological weapons of mass destruction. However, 

when the time came to contemplate actual use, technical deficiencies 

did not prevent the Iraqi military from contemplating the use of 

biological bombs as weapons of mass terror. Unfortunately, the high 

probability that nation-states in the developing world, along with 

terrorist groups, are most likely to pursue biological weapons for the 

purpose of terror and mass disruption rather than mass destruction 

remains a minority view in the west. The way Iraq contemplated using 

biological bombs should help sensitize analysts to the fact that 

biological agents are most likely to be used as weapons of mass 

disruption or terror rather than mass destruction in the developing 

world. 

One Western analyst who has written extensively on the subject is 

Mark Wheelis, who concisely outlined several differences between 

developed and developing societies that make agric-biowarfare and 

humans or animals as delivery systems much more attractive as 

disruptive biological weapons in the developing world. According to 

Wheelis, natural biological pathogens and simple delivery devices (i.e., 

a single infected person) can be a likely disruptive force within a 

population already weakened by malnutrition or other diseases. A few 

cows infected with a highly infectious agent such as foot-and-mouth 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends 

14

disease at an agricultural auction can quickly wreck havoc in a 

monoeconomy. Such attacks require only minimal expertise to develop 

or deliver and can be easily introduced in a highly covert manner.23 

Policy Lesson #4: Open source literature will be used for covert 

BW research. 

Iraqi scientists working on a reorganized covert biological weapons 

program in the 1980s told American debriefers that they used open 

source research literature to help restart the program. Dr. Rihab, who 

was appointed as the new technical head for the second effort to 

develop biological weapons in Iraq, formed a team to conduct literature 

surveys as the first step in a five-year plan to weaponize biological 

agents. Initially, this search included searching indices of the 

Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).24 Dr. 

Rihab’s approach to reconstructing the Iraqi program during a five-year 

plan underscores the dilemma currently being debated by scientists 

within several disciplines and government officials about how best to 

balance the requisite need for scientists to publish and exchange 

research results and ideas with the need of national security. In a 

highly globalized world it seems nearly impossible to stop the flow of 

scientific research results or strategic writings. Two recent examples 

illustrate the current dilemma. The first example pertains to the fact 

that most of the ideas in Wheelis article cited above are also contained 

(in a near verbatim format) in an article written by Ijaz Ahmad Rao 

entitled “Importance of Defensive Biological Weapons in Agroterrorism.” This article is posted on an open web site 

(www.Pakistan.com). 

The second example pertains to a research report authored by 

Richard Guthrie, a researcher working for the same research 

organization used by Iraqi scientists decades ago; SIPRI. Richard 

Guthrie’s report discusses how developments in mapping the human 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends

15

genome, which could lead to improved medicines and vaccines for 

heart and neurological problems, could also be used by terrorists. He 

notes that “the free access to genetic sequence data for the human 

genome and a large number of other genomes, including for pathogenic 

micro-organisms, is a great scientific resource, but it could pose a 

significant threat if misused.” While warning that “biotechnology 

research, particularly concerning human genes, could lead to the 

development of a new class of biological weapons,” he also noted that 

as yet, no plausible threats that have been made.25 While many other 

examples could be illustrated, these two recent examples illustrate how 

scientific and strategic ideas related to biological or strategic ideas that 

were once published in peer reviewed journals and read primarily by a 

specialized audience are now widely available and disseminated 

through the internet to much wider audiences. 

Policy Lesson #5: Covert biological weapons research and 

development will increasingly occur at multiple dual-use civilian 

facilities that will increasingly use mobile equipment and 

production facilities. 

By 1990, Iraq’s second attempt to develop secret production 

facilities at several dual-use sites had succeeded. These dual facilities 

included the Foot and Mouth Disease Vaccine plant (FMDV) at Al 

Dawrah. Here production facilities were also adapted for the 

production of botulinum toxin and maybe also anthrax. Some reports 

claimed that mobile storage containers for anthrax were also developed 

during this period. Research and development activities focused on 

studying the feasibility of using a variety of pathological agents as 

weapons including hemorrhagic conjunctivis, human rotavirus, and 

camel pox.26

During this period, Dr. Taja was reported to have turned down 

proposals to develop mobile labs. However, several UN and US 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends 

16

weapons inspectors continued to collect reports of such facilities having 

been developed.27 When and to what extent Iraq developed mobile 

weapons production facilities continues as a controversial subject that 

is shrouded with conflicting claims. Much of the evidence remains 

classified. However, there were unsubstantiated reports in several US 

newspapers that Iraqi biological weapons equipment, including entire 

laboratory facilities, may have been moved to neighboring countries. 

What is not in doubt is the fact the two mobile labs that were initially 

claimed to be mobile BW labs by the Bush administration in the wake 

of the second Gulf War were quickly diagnosed by a group of experts 

from various US government agencies as being mobile hydrogen 

weather balloon laboratories.28 Regardless, it is clear is that after the 

first Gulf War and the introduction of UN weapons inspectors, Iraqi 

scientists became much more interested in using smaller, more mobile 

pieces of equipment. Partly as a result of the vigorous challenge 

inspections and subsequent destruction of proscribed facilities by the 

UNSCOM weapons inspection team prior to their forced departure in 

1998, the amount of BW material retained by the Iraqi government by 

the end of the 1990s was extremely small. Scott Ritter, a former 

inspector, estimated the size of the former Iraqi bw program thusly: 

All of Iraq’s retained BW material could be carried in fewer 

than ten thirty-five ton trucks, and three to five semi-trailers. 

They could be stored mounted in their vehicles, inside a 

warehouse, or buried underground. The supporting documents 

for this program could be easily kept in a single sedan-size 

vehicle.29

What was developed in the years between the last UN weapon 

inspectors and the US-led investigations after the war is likely to 

remain the subject of some controversy. Part of the controversy centers 

around the question of what, if any, mobile facilities were developed by 

Iraqi scientists. One of the more interesting insights documented in the 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends

17

Duelfer report was the fact that Iraqi scientists nearly 15 years ago 

seriously contemplated developing mobile facilities. What is not 

widely appreciated is that a great deal of progress has been made 

during the subsequent 15 years in reducing the size and cost of 

equipment needed for both civilian and backroom biowarfare research. 

Recent studies have documented that the cost to set up an urban lab in a 

garage or “in the bush” is much lower today than many analysts 

assume.

30 There have also been several advances in biotechnology 

equipment that have been fueled primarily by economic demand and 

the resurgence of highly infectious diseases. For example, recent work 

in biopesticide processes comparing the quality of fungal spores 

manufactured in sterile and non-sterile fermenters found no difference 

in the quality of the product. These findings suggest that it may be 

cost-effective and feasible to use non-sterile equipment in certain 

botechnology applications in the future.31 

Another illustration of how mobile equipment has become 

occurred in South Africa in 2003. In 2003, a visiting Danish researcher 

and two South Africans surprised much of the scientific establishment, 

the government, and the public with their announcement that they had 

“cloned a cow” at a relative remote research station using a new, 

handmade cloning method that used a hand-crancked generator for 

power. 

32 This small-scale collaboration, based on personal links 

established by individual researchers in South Africa and one or a few 

researchers in other countries, is the most typical pattern of 

collaboration in South Africa biological and biotechnology research.33 

Similar small group international collaborations are also found 

throughout Africa and other parts of the developing world. The 

methodology used to clone the first cow in South Africa is so simple 

and cheap that it may signal a new era of affordable cloning for 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends 

18

researchers in developing countries. The technique, called “homemade 

cloning,” to create genetically identical copies of animals is much 

cheaper and simpler than existing methods. According to Michael 

Bishop, ex-president of Infigen, a cattle-cloning company in 

Wisconsin, “It’s a huge step towards roboticising the whole process.” 

The inventors of the new technique claim that personnel can be quickly 

trained to use the method. Currently, researchers are exploring the 

feasibility of using the technique to clone endangered species.34 

While cloning is a relatively simple process that does not require a 

sterile or negative pressurized environment, research and development 

involving many viruses do require the use of a Bio-science Level Three 

(BSL-3) laboratory facility. Work with the most serious viruses, i.e. 

infectious diseases that are transmitted via the air and for which there is 

no known cure, require a BSL-4 laboratory. Equipment requirements 

such as the need for hoods, sterile research environmental conditions, 

and negative pressure work areas have long been thought to be one 

constraint for scientists working in poor countries or for terrorists. 

However, advances in the development of modular mobile laboratories 

that can be set up within hours in even remote locations suggests that 

the equipment and facility requirements that may have served as one 

type of constraint may not function as a barrier much longer. Although 

the current demand for such facilities is limited to organizations such as 

the Center for Disease Control, the demand for mobile laboratories is 

likely to become an increasingly global market in the future.35 

Key actors involved in strengthening the weapons of mass 

destruction regime have attempted in recent years to slow down the 

spread of smaller and more mobile pieces of equipment that have 

serious biological proliferation implications around the world. At the 

June 2002 Review Conference of the Austria Group, an agreement was 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends

19

reached to lower the volume for fomenters on control lists from 100 

liters to 20 liters. Participants at this same meeting also approved 

regulations for the export of machines that could be used to produce 

biological weapons.36 Export restrictions cannot stop a determined 

deviant from obtaining newly prescribed biotechnology equipment 

because of the strength of growing demand for civilian biotechnology 

applications. At the same time that the cost, size, and energy demands 

of civilian biotechnology facilities is lessening, the demand for such 

equipment and facilities is growing as more private companies and 

state-run programs seek to take advantage of advances in civilian 

biotechnology research and development. Thus, the number and nature 

of dual-use biotechnology facilities and equipment that may constitute 

proliferation threats are also increasing. 

Policy Lesson #6: Covert biological warfare research and 

production programs housed in dual-use facilities are difficult to 

detect, but full-scale production activities are difficult to hide. 

According to post-2003 reports, Iraqi scientists had produced large 

quantities of anthrax, botulinum toxin, clostridium perfringens, 

afatoxin, and small quantities of ricin, and had more than 180 BW 

weapons deployed to five hidden sites by the early 1990s.”37 Then 

Desert Storm destroyed most delivery devices, including missiles and 

sprayers. Sadam Hussein ordered stocks hidden and work continued at 

dual-use facilities so that Iraq would be able to resurrect and restart the 

biological program quickly after UN weapons inspectors had left. UN 

weapon inspectors stayed for nearly seven years. During this period 

much of the rest of the stock of BW agents and delivery devices was 

destroyed by persistent UN inspectors. However, allied intelligence 

during and immediately after the war missed the largest Iraqi biological 

weapons plant at Al Hakam. Instead of declaring the country’s 

biological warfare capabilities after the Gulf War, Iraqi government 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends 

20

officials and scientists focused on maintaining and expanding dual-use 

industrial production capabilities at Al Hakam and other facilities. 

By the mid-1990s continuous intrusive UN weapons inspections 

and the pain caused by comprehensive sanctions convinced Saddam 

Hussein that the Iraqi regime should get rid of hidden biological 

weapons and seed stock. The Iraqi government’s goal shifted to 

secretly retaining as much of the Iraqi biological weapons infrastructure 

as was possible in order to be in a position to resume biowarfare 

research and development once the sanctions were lifted and the 

UNSCOM inspectors were gone.38 

From 1992 until 1994 Iraq managed to expand their capabilities of 

dual-use facilities at the Al Hakam facility without being detected by 

UN weapons inspectors. After the UNSCOM inspectors completed 

their first visit to Al Hakam in 1991, managers at the facility were able 

to acquire a 1,500 liter fermentor and a dryer from another 

installation.39 The cover story used to explain the expansion of 

activities at Al Hakam was that the facility was working on single-cell 

protein and biopesticide research.40 Both the electricity and water 

utilities at the plant had to be expanded so that the capabilities “fit” the 

cover story that the plant was used to product biopesticide, called Al 

Nasr or “Victory,” and to conduct research on Single Cell Protein 

(SCP) as alternative to feedstock. 

Throughout the 1990s, the Iraqi covert research and development 

program was able to develop sophisticated, genetically modified 

organisms and some novel processes and procedures. At the Al Hakam 

plant, the post-war dual-use research led by Dr. Al Ma’dhihi developed 

a novel and cheap domestic solution to Iraq’s need for BW growth 

media by using waste products from food and agricultural processes. 

This cheap bacterial growth medium could be used for Bt or for anthrax 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends

21

production. At one point the biopesticide formulations produced at Al 

Hakam in the 1990s had to be stopped and the formulation changed to 

meet the complaints of farmers about the dry Bt product called Al 

ANasr or “Victory” being supplied from Al Hakan. The biopesticide 

was supposed to be sprinkled onto plants but the farmers had difficulty 

using it because the pesticide quickly aerosolized into a cloud and 

didn’t form an adequate residue on the plants.41 Extensive efforts went 

into improving the dry agent formulation for agricultural applications. 

Work on other organisms also progressed, including modeling work 

with anthrax. 

Policy Lesson #7: No single control strategy is effective in stopping 

covert biological research and development, but a combined 

approach backed by a strong international consensus can disrupt 

or slow down the research and development process and 

substantially raise the cost of conducting covert BW research and 

development. 

The recently released Inspector’s General Report to the CIA 

confirms the earlier assessments of UNSCOM inspectors that the Iraqi 

biological program had largely been destroyed and hidden stocks 

degraded by the time the inspectors were asked to leave in 1998. No 

single control strategy—war, comprehensive sanctions, intrusive 

weapons inspection, or export controls—was completely adequate for 

stopping covert biowarfare research and development at civilian 

biotechnology facilities. However, the combined use of these control 

policies, backed up by an international consensus on the importance of 

maintaining checks on the Iraqi regime, worked remarkably well until 

the international consensus deteriorated and the nature of the sanctions 

was modified in the mid-1990s. 

Over time the prolonged comprehensive sanctions plus the 

aggressive on-site inspections of the UNSCOM teams raised the cost of 

maintaining covert biological weapons research so much that in 1995 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends 

22

Saddam Hussein approved a decision to abandon existing secret 

biological programs at such facilities as Al Hakam while continuing 

secret covert research and development at new secret labs run by the 

Iraqi Intelligence Service. Defectors told both UNSCOM and US 

weapon inspectors that Saddam and his advisers were surprised by how 

vigorous the inspections were during the early 1990s. Saddam Hussein 

was reported to have also been concerned about the adverse effects that 

discovery of his secret BW program might have on his goals of getting 

rid of UNSCOM inspection teams. By the mid-1990s, the effects of 

comprehensive sanctions had taken a huge toll on Iraqi commerce and 

the quality of life of Iraqis, and a priority goal of the Saddam Hussein 

regime was to obtain relief from the comprehensive sanctions. 

In hindsight, the combined effects of challenge inspections that 

destroyed prescribed materials and placed suspect sites under UN 

supervision by inspectors on the ground backed by comprehensive 

sanctions, and periodic bombings in the northern and southern “no-fly 

zones,” proved to be an effective but costly strategy for preventing 

Saddam Hussein from resurrecting his nuclear, chemical, or biological 

programs. While covert biological research and development activities 

did continue, the scale of the efforts was very small and designed to 

maintain existing expertise and facilities rather than engage in full-scale 

production. 

This comprehensive control strategy required a strong global 

consensus and the support of both the United Nations and important 

nation-states in the West and Middle East in bilateral and multilateral 

dealings with the Hussein regime. However, after 1995 the 

international consensus eroded as the pain of sanctions contributed to a 

rise in the infant mortality and lower life expectancy of Iraqis. In place 

of the comprehensive control strategy, a series of stop-gap diplomatic 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends

23

measures were periodically introduced that were designed to prevent 

the status quo from collapsing. Seeing the erosion of support within 

the international community, Saddam continued to challenge the scope 

of the inspectors mandate and to demand relief from the sanctions. The 

result was a series of crises and stand-offs on the ground between Iraqi 

forces and weapons inspectors that culminated in UN inspectors being 

kicked out of Iraq. The fact that neither the United States nor the UN 

challenged Hussein’s decision to expel inspectors beyond a stepped up 

bombing campaign within the no-fly zones signaled an important 

dilution of the control regime. After 1998, it proved nearly impossible 

to obtain a clear intelligence picture of what type of R&D activities 

were occurring in Iraq. Similarly, the Food-for-Peace program 

implemented by the UN signaled another important change in the 

control regime. After changes were made to the international 

sanctions, Saddam had a steady source of money from oil sales that he 

used for other purposes, including covert WMD research.42

While export controls stopped some efforts to obtain equipment, 

materials, and expertise from abroad, there are other instances where 

export controls failed to stop efforts to import equipment and supplies 

into Iraq. An important example of where export controls worked 

occurred in 1995. Iraq attempted to purchase two turnkey 50 cubic 

meter fermentor plants from a Russian Company. However, the deal 

fell through because the company did not receive an export license.43 

In contrast, Iraq was able to make improvements to nitric acid paint at 

al-Qa Qa’ with equipment, materials, and expertise obtain from Russia, 

Yugoslavia, Belarus, and Ukraine as recently as 2002.44

Throughout the 1990s as Iraq expanded its civilian biotech 

facilities to provide a more credible cover story, the regime pursued 

several different strategies in order to obtain needed equipment and 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends 

24

supplies for dual-use production. As noted above, some of the 

equipment was successfully imported from companies in Europe and 

other parts of the world. The Al Hakam plant was able to obtain small, 

five cubic meter fermentation vessels from foreign suppliers. Several 

of the foreign suppliers for Iraq’s civilian biotechnology front 

companies included some of the largest and best known firms involved 

in supply biotechnology equipment and supplies, such as the Italian 

company Olas and the Swiss firm Chemap.45 The managers at the Al 

Hakam plant also borrowed equipment from an Iraqi veterinary vaccine 

plant. Local fabricators were also employed to modify the spray dryers 

at Al Hakam. 

While Iraqi officials were successful for several years in hiding 

covert activities at the Al Hakam plant, the continuous challenge 

inspections and intelligence gathering activities of the UNSCOM 

inspectors eventually were successful and the inspectors became aware 

of the activities at Al Hakam and other sites. The many popular 

accounts that claim that the international community only learned about 

Iraq’s secret biological warfare program after Hussein’s son-in-law 

defected are incorrect. Instead, the inspectors had presented the regime 

with evidence of violations of proscribed activities at Al Hakam, and 

UNSCOM and the Iraqi regime were working on a Full, Final and 

Complete Disclosure at the time that Hussein’s Kamil, Hussein’s sonin-law, defected.46 In fact, the sequence of events suggests that the 

inspection activities may have triggered Kamil’s defection. 

This is an important point as it appears that the dual-use 

capabilities at Al Hakam were discovered by “good intelligence” on the 

ground backed up by painful sanctions and export controls. In 1995 

UN inspectors confronted Iraq with evidence that the country was 

importing excessive quantities of bacterial growth media given the 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends

25

limited biotech industrial capacity at Al Hakam and other sites. Iraqi 

officials acknowledged that they had used the imported materials to 

produce two biological agents. UN and Iraqi officials drafted a Full, 

Final and Complete Disclosure that detailed these activities. Sadam’s 

son-in-law, Hussein Kamil’s defected only two weeks before the 

disclosures were made public. Kamil’s revelations filled in additional 

details and probably hastened the destruction of Al Hakam and several 

other dual-use capabilities. In June 1996, Al Hakam was destroyed and 

the FMDV was disabled. Thus, the dual-use capabilities at Al Hakam 

were discovered by “good intelligence,” the difficulties imposed by 

comprehensive sanctions, all backed up by a strong international 

consensus. 

Policy Lesson #8: Biological weapons inspections are difficult to 

conduct after a war. Controlling the scientists and technicians who 

retain biological weapons knowledge for the rest of their lives is 

one of the more difficult proliferation tasks to “solve.”

Since the US-led Iraqi Freedom Campaign, many of the research 

scientists and technicians who worked on the secret biowarfare 

program have been debriefed, and former suspected WMD sites 

identified by UNSCOM revisited by US weapon inspectors. The most 

recent round of investigations reconfirmed that prior to the war in 2003, 

Hussein’s biological program had been destroyed except for a very 

small amount of research designed to allow scientists to retain their 

skills. The world also learned (again) the difficult lesson that it is 

nearly impossible to control the research scientists and technicians who 

worked on the covert biowarfare program. 

The fact the Iraqis secretly and unilaterally dismantled and 

destroyed much of their biological materials and related documentation 

during the 1990s left lots of questions unanswered, and residual 

uncertainties persists. The extensive amount of damage at known or 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends 

26

suspected sites during the war destroyed additional evidence as did 

widespread looting immediately after the war. American investigators 

also found a widespread tendency among captured Iraqi scientists to 

“blame the dead guy” for key covert weapons development.47 There 

remain a number of unanswered questions. One of the most vexing 

issues is the questions of whether Iraq developed mobile biowarfare 

production capabilities and if so, where are these resources today? 

Another unknown is what research and development was conducted at 

the newer secret Iraqi Intelligence laboratories that were built outside 

of Baghdad after the first Gulf War.48 Answers to these questions may 

never be obtained, and residual uncertainties will no doubt fuel stories 

about covert biological activities in neighboring countries and inside 

Iraq for years to come. 

SOME CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN THE DEVELOPED AND 

DEVELOPING WORLDS 

While Iraq’s former biowarfare program is useful for illustrating 

some aspects of past covert national biological weapons programs, 

there is more interest and concern in the United States and Europe 

about issues more closely related to homeland security since September 

11, 2001 and the anthrax letter attacks the following month. This 

section highlights three issues that may affect biotechnology research 

and development in the United States and some trends in the spread of 

global biotechnology throughout the world. To date, little attention has 

been paid to the proliferation implications of the globalization of 

civilian biotechnology in the national security literature. An important 

reason why in the United States is because analyst are now more 

focused on homeland security issues. These two sets of issues may be 

totally unconnected; however, perceptions of important issues differ so 

widely between and among analysts in the developed and developing 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends

27

world that the issues covered in this section are often presented as 

distinct types of contemporary biosecurity issues. 

US Contemporary Controversial Issue #1: How to, and who 

should, control the publication and the dissemination of biological 

peer review research possible biowarfare implications? 

Since the end of the Cold War much of the nonproliferation efforts 

of the US government in bio-defense has focused on preventing the 

external proliferation of technology and expertise from the former 

Soviet military-industrial complex. Much less attention until recently 

has focused on developing countries. In the past couple of years there 

has been some recognition among national security analyts that several 

countries throughout the developing world, such as Brazil, Cuba, India, 

Malaysia, Taiwan, and South Africa, who have relatively small but 

sophisticated first-world industrial sectors, are also capable of 

producing world-class, dual-use chemical and bio-technology products. 

The lack of evidence that Iraq did in fact restart a covert biowarfare 

program in 2003 has only served to underscore even more dramatically 

how difficult it is likely to be in the future to identify potential BW 

proliferation risks hidden in civilian biotechnology facilities. 

Several middle-level countries throughout the developing world 

remain likely candidates for covert biological weapons programs since 

they developed covert weapons, including biological warfare weapons, 

in their recent past. In addition to more familiar covert weapons 

proliferation concerns, new concerns have emerged recently about the 

possibility that non-state actors, i.e., terrorist groups of different 

ideological persuasions and individuals with access to modern 

laboratory facilities, may soon develop biological pathogens as 

weapons from either naturally occurring pathogens or through 

sophisticated new genetically modified organisms. 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends 

28

Recent concerns about emerging threats in the developing world 

have now merged with longer standing concerns within the western 

scientific community about the possible misuse of medical experiments 

and basic research experiments in genetics and biochemistry. The work 

of a group of animal researchers in Australia a few years ago caused 

alarm bells to go off when their experiments succeeded in finding a 

way to eradiate wild mice by bioengineering a more virulent strain of 

ectromelia virus (mousepox). 

The genetically modified strain killed 60 percent of wild mice. 

Even more disturbing was the fact that the genetically modified strain 

also killed large numbers of mice who had been vaccinated and were 

resistant to the parent virus and a more virulent strand. The Australian 

researchers, aware of the biowarfare implications from this line of 

research that used relatively simple genetic modification techniques, 

were concerned about the possibility that their research would serve as 

a blueprint for terrorists seeking to develop a new strain of pox virus. 

After consulting peers in Pest Animal Control Cooperative Research at 

the Australian National University in Canberra, the researchers 

submitted their research results for publications to the prestigious 

Journal of Virology. The editors of the Journal of Virology, while also 

concerned about the national security threats inherent in the line of 

research, published the results without modification after consulting 

with peer reviewers. The journal really had no other choice since the 

research article would have been published by an Australian or 

European journal if the editors of the prestigious American publication 

had rejected the article.49

This experiment is only one of several recent examples of 

experimental research that results from the creation of organisms or 

knowledge with “dual-use” potential.50 Even before the mousepox 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends

29

experiments, concerns were being raised about the possible misuse of 

biological research. The National Academy of Science report, widely 

referred to as the Fink report and completed during the fall of 2003, 

raised the profile of national security concerns by calling for greater 

participation by experts who are more familiar with national security 

concerns on peer review boards. The National Academy of Science 

report stimulated additional studies by government and private 

organizations that have focused on ways to better manage the national 

security implications of biological research to find ways to better 

manage dual-use scientific research.51 One major outstanding issue is 

who should decide which research results get published and which ones 

do not. A related issue is the question of whether a national security 

review process should be voluntary or compulsory and run by scientists 

or government bureaucrats. The controversy generated to date suggests 

that it will not be easy to reach a consensus view on these issues that 

may impinge on the very essence of the scientific process and free 

speech. 

On March 4, 2004, the Bush administration announced the creation 

of a new federal advisory board designed to help ensure that federally 

funded biological research does not aid bioterrorists. A 25-member 

National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity will advise all federal 

departments and agencies that conduct or fund research that could be 

used by biological terrorists on how best to prevent that from 

happening. At the time of the announcement, Tommy Thompson, the 

Health and Human Services Secretary, noted that, “Sadly, the very 

same tools developed to better the health and condition of humankind 

can be used for its destruction” in announcing board’s creations...for 

the health and security of our nation, we must take the needed steps to 

improve biosecurity measures for this type of research.”52 While the 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends 

30

creation of the board implements one recommendation made in the 

October National Academy of Science report to keep genetically 

engineered viruses and other works from being used for bioterrorism, it 

‘s mandate does not cover privately funded biotechnology research in 

the United States nor public or private research efforts in other 

countries. A host of related issues related to how to regulate the 

dissemination and publication of biotechnology research in medicine 

and several other fields promise to be a highly controversial and vexing 

set of problems in the United States and other developed countries. If 

fact, most of the microbiologists and life scientists interviewed for this 

study cautioned that if not handled correctly, future efforts to regulate 

the dissemination of biological research funded by federal funds may 

affect the ability of United States to remain the premier center for 

scientific research and innovation in a host of commercial fields that 

use biotechnologies.53

US Contemporary Controversial Issue #2: New restrictions on 

select agents. 

Several measures taken by the US government since September 11, 

2001 have been designed to reduce the terrorist threat by increasing 

controls on special pathogens and foreign graduate students.54 

However, there are some preliminary signs that the new control 

measures carry with them some unintentional consequences. 

At the time of September 11, 2001, the US government already had 

a number of restrictions on animal pathogens in place. Several foreign 

and animal pathogens were excluded from the United States by law and 

other pathogens that enter the country are covered by US Department 

of Agriculture regulations. Examples of restricted agents already in the 

United States prior to the 2001 attacks include Foot and Mouth virus, 

African Swine Fever Virus, Bovine Spongioform Encephalitis (BSE), 

Camel Pox Virus, and Newcastle Disease Virus. 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends

31

Several additional restrictions have been added since 2001. The 

Patriot Act of 2001 provides the federal government with broad new 

powers to regulate the possession and handling of microorganisms and 

toxins. The Bioterrorism Preparedness Act of 2002 also contained new 

restrictions on handling microorganisms (i.e., viruses, bacteria, fungi, 

rickettsia) and toxins. The new statutory guidelines, along with earlier 

public health regulations, require researchers to register many more 

toxins as well as all individuals who possess deadly biological weapons 

agents and toxins. Individual researchers who work with these agents 

must now go through extensive screening procedures. The stricter 

security requirements for handling select agents and enhanced criminal 

and civil penalties also include fines of up to $500,000 for violating 

public health security regulations or federal laws. The current 

regulations are designed to counter lapses in earlier requirements that 

allow foreign nationals, including members of the Iraqi secret 

biological weapons program, and American dissidents to purchase 

dangerous pathogens through the mail from the American Type Culture 

Collection and from other locations.55 The Public Health Security and 

Bioterrorism Preparedness Act of 2002 added new requirements for 

protecting sensitive information from public disclosure and new 

regulations for coordinating with other regulations and laws. These 

latter new requirements are among the most controversial of the new 

restrictions. 

In the process of completing this research I visited a number of 

scientists in laboratories authorized to conduct research with “select 

agents.” My original purpose was to obtain expert views about how 

best to monitor potential biological warfare threats from abroad. 

However, nearly all the scientists wanted to talk about the onerous 

burdens that the new laws and regulations placed on them and their 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends 

32

laboratory staff. Many of these professionals were in the midst of 

doing surveys of all biological and chemical agents in their laboratories 

to ensure they were in compliance with new federal regulations and 

would not be subjected to legal violations carrying hefty financial 

penalties. I repeatedly heard horror stories about how many 

microbiologists and other researchers were thinking of abandoning 

their current research agendas due to the perceived onerous and 

intrusive reporting requirements now in place for those receiving 

federal money. For several of these scientists this type of shift would 

require abandoning a research program that they had worked on for 

years. Nevertheless, several researchers were thinking seriously about 

how to shift their research programs so they would no longer have to 

keep select agents in their laboratories. 

US Contemporary Controversial Issue #3: Foreign graduate 

students. 

Many of the same scientists also conveyed horror stories about 

how several of their current graduate students were unable to get their 

visas renewed. They also reported that foreign graduate students who 

were already accepted into the program were experiencing difficulties 

obtaining visas needed to enter the United States. In two instances, 

senior researchers were concerned about the fact that advanced 

graduate students who had returned to their home country for a 

vacation or the holidays were not allowed back into United States. 

While aggregate statistics are not yet available to determine 

whether these anecdotes constitute a meaningful macro trend, these 

claims deserve to be monitored further since foreign students constitute 

such a large percentage of graduate students in many scientific fields in 

the United States. A decline in the number of foreigners choosing to 

come to the United States for their graduate studies would be a serious 

blow to the United States reputation as the leading country in attracting 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends

33

foreign students and a constraint to the ability of the country to 

maintain its premier position as a leading source of new biological 

discoveries and patents, and thus the economic competitiveness of our 

country. A steady decline in foreign students in the United States 

would also have economic implications. According to one recent 

study, international students contributed $13 billion to the US 

economy.

56

Preliminary recent data indicates that there has been a sharp, shortterm decline in the number of graduate students opting to come to the 

United States for graduate work in science and engineering in 2004. 

For example, one recent survey of 122 member institutions by the 

Council of Graduate Schools reported that the number of foreign 

graduate students enrolling for the first time at American universities in 

2004 had decreased six percent for fall semester from the 2003 

academic year. The fall semester enrollment declines weren’t as steep 

as feared and were much smaller than the decline of 32 percent 

reported last spring.57 However, any decline must be viewed as 

potentially very serious because American universities are so highly 

dependent on foreign students for teaching and research help, 

particularly in the sciences and in engineering. In these fields, 

foreigners typically comprise 50 percent or more of graduate 

enrollment. For example, the number of international student 

applicants at the University of Wisconsin (Wauwatosa) Medical 

College’s Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences for the fall 2004 

term is just half of what it was a year ago. The shrinking pool of 

international student applications is evident in many fields, but may be 

the greatest in scientific and technical fields where federal security 

officials have strong concerns about the wisdom of giving visas to 

foreign students. According to a member of the Wisconsin Technology 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends 

34

Council board, “Someone who wants to come into this country to study 

history will have less of a visa problem than someone who wants to go 

into engineering, computer science, math or especially the biomedical 

sciences, where you have concerns over bioterrorism and 

biohazards,”58 

Most experts believe a major factor accounting for this recent 

decline is the difficulty, or the perceived difficulty, of getting student 

visas under tightened US immigration policies. Other factors include 

anti-Americanism abroad, and increasing competitiveness from 

universities in India, China and Europe.59 To compensate and avoid 

continuing declines in enrollment in the future, many colleges and 

universities are starting to admit more foreign students. This year the 

State Department has tried to streamline the student visa application 

process. Most schools in the United States are also stepping up efforts 

to provide technical help for foreign students. 

The recognition that the United States may be losing graduate 

students to other countries in the developed world, including Great 

Britain and Australia, is growing. However, there is much less 

recognition that countries throughout the world, including many in the 

developing world, are also working hard to recruit students from the 

same global pool of graduate students. For example, a study conducted 

in 2003 found that many foreign students studying in South African 

universities had chosen to obtain their degrees in South Africa rather 

than the United States or Europe due to cost and anti-terrorist 

policies.60 This same study documented that in most science and 

engineering programs at South Africa’s major research universities and 

other colleges, foreign students in graduate programs comprise an even 

larger number of the student body than in the West. Many of these 

foreign graduate students are from neighboring countries in Africa and 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends

35

the Middle East. Just how significant this trend might be is not known 

as few western analysts have looked at this issue. The question of 

where graduate students in the sciences and engineering will opt to go 

for their studies in the future should be explored in future research. A 

very real possibility exists that if entrance restrictions in the US and 

into European Union countries persist, along with growing hostility 

towards students from Middle East countries, many more students in 

Asia, Africa, and Latin American, especially Muslims, may 

increasingly opt to study in research institutions outside the west. 

Key Emerging Biosecurity Issues and Trends in the Developing 

World 

Much of the attention in the United States related to biowarfare and 

bioterrorism has focused on research in human and animal health. 

Much less attention has been directed towards understanding the 

broader biotechnology trends that are occurring throughout the world 

today. Despite the fact that many analysts have labeled the 21st

Century the “biological century,” the broader implications stemming 

from the spread of recently developed biological and chemical 

processes and procedures have yet to receive much attention in the 

literature on international relations and strategic security. 

This is an unfortunate situation because the development of civilian 

biotechnology in developing countries, much like other patterns of 

development in an era of globalization, mirrors the evolution of the 

biotechnology revolution in the United States. Many biotechnology 

companies in the United States today grew out of a partnership between 

the federal government, who provided funds for much of the early basic 

research in several fields, universities, and private companies. Federal 

research funds and contracts also played a key role in developing new 

private biotechnology applications. This loose partnership among 

government, universities, and corporations, especially in the fields of 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends 

36

genetics, chemistry and other sciences, produced a wealth of insights 

and products in the United States that we now lump under the rubric of 

“biotechnology.” 

A great deal of current effort in the developing world is currently 

focused on biotechnology applications in agricultural and industrial 

goods because these fields are already highly lucrative and rapidly 

growing sectors. A recent estimate by the consulting firm McKinsey 

and Co. estimated that by 2010 chemical sales from biotechnology will 

top $US 140 billion. This figure is a substantial increase from the $50 

billion spent today.61 The magnitude of the current emphasis on 

developing consumer products is such that several industry analysts 

now characterize industrial biotechnology activities as the “third 

wave,” following a first and second wave in medicine and 

bioagriculture respectively. 

As the “third wave” of the biotechnology revolution gears up, 

extensive efforts are already underway throughout the world to develop 

biotech applications across several fields using “fourth wave” 

techniques that combine recent innovations in bioinformatics and 

proteomics. The new methodologies are speeding up the development 

time needed to produce new products and are permitting researchers to 

produce products for highly specific applications very rapidly. Much 

of the decrease in product development time is related to the fact that 

new types of computer modeling and testing can often eliminate the 

need for laboratory or animal studies. In medicine, the new 

technologies have already quickly produced new vaccines designed to 

block particular biological and viral agent in humans. After the anthrax 

attack in the United States in 2001, researchers sponsored by the Office 

of Naval Operations were able to develop a new target-specific vaccine 

in less than eighteen months. Today the development time would be 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends

37

much shorter. The rapid development of new smallpox vaccines, and 

ongoing efforts to produce a vaccine for the SARS virus, illustrate one 

important thrust of “fourth wave” biotech methodology. 

Most of the developing countries who are currently participating in 

the civilian biotechnology revolution have adopted a national 

biotechnology strategy that provides government research and 

development support to aid civilian biotechnology research and 

development activities. Most of these governments view the 

development of a civilian biotechnology sector a high priority ranking 

along side information technology as valuable sectors to promote. 

Many of these countries are replicating the United States experience by 

supporting the development of civilian applications of biotechnology 

through a number of different public-private partnerships. Today, 

research and development is occurring worldwide in an effort to 

produce new process, procedures, or products that can be scaled up and 

sold to companies in the developed countries, or in a few cases 

manufactured in the home country. New product lines are being 

developed in several different fields including medicine, industrial 

production, environmental cleanup, animal and plant husbandry, 

cosmetics, and commercial agriculture.62 

While the biotechnology sectors in most of these countries are 

small, each country is seeking to attract foreign and national 

biotechnology companies who will support one or more biotechnology 

R&D divisions, to promote the development of new biotechnology 

startup companies, and to expand the pool of well-trained and creative 

scientists who are interested in helping their country develop niche 

markets in areas that are widely accepted to be ones that will 

experience rapid growth in demands in future years. 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends 

38

One factor fueling the interest of many government officials and 

scientists in the developing world is future projections that genes may 

replace petroleum as the basic unit of commerce as the world economy 

shifts “from the hydrocarbon molecule to bio-based fuels.”63 Whether 

this shift will occur as completely and as quickly as predicted, the 

thesis is an important one to consider as it suggests the possibility of 

major and possibly even revolutionary impacts flowing from 

biotechnological advances in economics, military, and political 

relations in future decades. According to Robert Armstrong, one of the 

more important security implications of a shift to a bio-based economy 

would be to make relations with oil-rich countries less important, and 

relations with gene-rich states—mostly the biodiverse regions along the 

equator—all assume greater significance. Conflicts may arise between 

gene-rich, technology-poor countries that control the basic raw 

materials of a bio-based economy and gene-poor, technology-rich 

nations that control the production methods.”64

Armstrong goes on to predict that America’s instruments of power 

will increasingly be challenged by a shift to a biobased economy. He 

asserts that a large agricultural sector will become as important as 

today’s oil fields because the agricultural industry will provide the most 

cost-effective way to manufacture large volumes of biological materials 

for food and fuel in the future.65 Although Armstrong’s assumption 

that technological innovations can solve the world-wide water shortage 

is highly questionable, his focus on the growing importance of the 

developing world’s rich plant and animal gene pool as a source of new 

products in the midst of a biotechnology revolution serves as a source 

of inspiration to many government officials and biotechnology 

researchers in developing countries who are seeking ways to break 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends

39

through a world trade system dominated by companies housed in the 

developed world. 

Another widespread assumption still held by many analysts in the 

west, who are interested in possible proliferation threats that may be 

hidden behind civilian biotechnology research, pertains to access to 

sophisticated bioinformatics computing facilities and gene, tissue, and 

protein libraries. There is a widespread belief that access to powerful 

computers and relevant libraries will be limited and serve as a 

constraint on the number of users who have access to state-of-the-art 

genetic modifications techniques in the future. Despite the flurry of 

recent research activity focused on the dual-use potential of civilian 

biotechnology, there have been remarkably few empirical studies of 

recent trends in biotechnology in developing countries. This is 

especially true for countries in Africa that is widely assumed away as a 

marginal area with few interesting research or development trends. The 

lack of interest in what is actually going on in developing countries is 

surprising since nearly every state in the developing world, including 

several African countries, is seeking to develop the scientific-industrial 

capacity needed to compete in the biotech revolution. 

A recent survey of civilian biotechnology trends in South Africa 

documented a similar pattern of government-public-and private 

partnership in several different industrial sectors. Not too surprisingly 

given the HIV/AIDS pandemic and the rising incidence of other 

infectious diseases, the most sophisticated biotechnology techniques 

currently underway in South Africa are found in the area of vaccine and 

drug development.66 Many of the most sophisticated biotechnology 

research programs in medical research in South Africa today are 

collaborative research involving colleagues at South African and 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends 

40

United States or European institutions funded by private international 

foundations, foreign governments, or private investment. 

To compensate for the limited resource and talent base, the South 

African government, much like government planners in other 

development countries worldwide, is supporting a number of 

biotechnology initiatives designed to promote the growth of a 

biotechnology private sector. One of the most ambitious initiatives in 

South Africa today is designed to promote more collaboration in 

sophisticated bioinformatics research in South Africa and the broader 

African contexts. The initiative, called the South African National 

Bioinformatics Initiative (SANBI), is in the process of connecting 

researchers at research universities, government research shops, and 

startup private biotech firms together in a national computer network 

whose central node will be at the University of Western Cape (UWC). 

UWC houses the country’s only Cray super computer that is available 

for use for biological research. When the SANBI consortium of 

researchers at universities and public-private institutes is completed 

within the next couple of years, researchers at major universities and in 

several other research institutes will be able to conduct fourthgeneration proteomics and genomics research using the UWC computer 

and state-of-the-art bioinformatics software. Perhaps even more 

significantly, researchers at historically disadvantaged laboratory 

facilities will have access to gene, tissue, and protein libraries and data 

bases. 

SANBI was started by Dr. Winston Hide, an internationally known 

bioinformaticist, who established an international reputation for his 

work isolating the gene for hereditary blindness. Dr. Hide returned to 

South Africa after working in commercial pharmaceutical research and 

research sponsored by the US Department of Energy in the mid-1990s 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends

41

and started SANBI with one post-doctorate. The bioinformatics 

program at UWC now has five doctoral students training in 

bioinformatics. He is the principle architect for the national 

bioinformatics research center and a magnet who attracts world-class 

researchers to UWC.67 In April 1996, researchers who supported the 

master plan concept behind SANBI at several universities (i.e., Pretoria 

and Rhodes in South Africa, University of Pisa in Italy) came together 

to develop a SANBI plan built around the Cray computer at UWC with 

key local node resources in structural bioinformatics at the University 

of Rhodes, Pretoria, and several other universities and the Council for 

Science and Industrial Relations (CSIR). A new Africa Center for 

Gene Therapy (ACGT) was established at the Council for Scientific 

and Industrial Relations in Pretoria to ensure that industrial researchers 

affiliated with CSIR also have ready access to the national network. 

SANBI’s mission has three components: 1) research, 2) training, 

and 3) to serve as the national server (NCBI) for universities and other 

research entities that will be connected to the SANBI computer 

network. A national computer network is nearing completion in South 

Africa. Once public and private research and industrial laboratories are 

connected to the SANBI computer network, the next task will be to 

implement the longer-term goal of providing access to researchers 

throughout the African continent. Thus, within a decade the SANBI 

network hopes to link researchers in South Africa and Egypt, the two 

countries who are conducted the most sophisticated biotechnology 

research, with researchers with similar interests at research centers of 

excellence throughout Africa. This new network will allow researchers 

in even very poor African countries, such as Sudan, to have access to 

high-speed computer capabilities and several different gene, tissue, and 

protein libraries. 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends 

42

The current South African “SANBI vision” for a continental-wide 

bioinformatics network envisions every African country having one or 

more centers of excellence where sequencing research can occur. Each 

of the centers will require seed money and computer infrastructure, 

including dedicated computer lines. Most South African researchers 

and government officials involved in biotechnology research and 

development believe that other African countries should develop a 

coordinated national program similar to one initiated by Brazil to 

promote domestic biotechnology research and development. 68 Thus, 

many South Africans are working to establish regional hubs throughout 

Africa that are similar to the biological research and innovation centers 

being set up in South Africa today. 

While the SANBI network is still in the process of being set up, the 

ambitious goals of this government-university-private sector initiative 

illustrates how irrelevant past notions of limiting access to the expertise 

and databases necessary are for future potential dual-use applications of 

civilian biotechnology research. If sophisticated bioinformatics 

research is conducted in the near-term future in such poor African 

countries as Tanzania, one would be prudent to assume that similar 

collaborative efforts are being taken in economically more affluent 

regions of the world as well. 

Moreover, recent United Nations activities complement or mirror 

many of the goals found in South Africa’s development plans. Several 

units of the UN have recently called for an increase in the 

biotechnology and computer capacities of African countries. The 

establishment of regional bioinformatics centers of excellence was 

identified as an important goal of the UN Environmental Program at the 

Cartegena Conference. A Forum on Biosafety, established at the 

Cartegena Conference, is also supporting the establishment of regional 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends

43

centers that are capable of conducting research on the safety of new 

GMOs in food products. 

The city of Nairobi, Kenya has already been selected as the future 

regional center for Africa. The United Nations is also sponsoring a 

number of program and conference activities that collectively should 

increase the biotechnology capacity of African countries over time. For 

example, at a recent conference sponsored by the United Nations 

Industrial and Development Organization (UNIDO) in Nairobi, Kenya 

delegates came up with a shopping list of the types of biotechnology 

projects that 17 countries in the developing world should undertake. 

The list of important projects for Africa focused on increased food 

security. Specific programs recommended for African nation-states 

included research on BtMaize, viruses specific to African crops (e.g., 

virus recsi), parasitic weeds, funal toxins (e.g., BT maize), and how to 

counter drought. To implement these programs, UNIDO and the UN 

leadership are encouraging African countries to adopt a cooperative 

regional approach whereby each country has a certain percentage of 

research funds and a different set of rules to guide research.69 

Establishing national and regional research centers capable of 

doing sophisticated research is now a priority of several nongovernmental organizations and governments who fund development 

projects in Africa. More recent funding initiatives designed to help 

African countries develop an indigenous capacity to produce generic 

drugs to combat HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases and thus 

reduce their dependency on high-priced drugs from global 

pharmaceuticals are also calling for more medical research capacity. 

One Swedish non-government organization has supported the 

development of biotechnology capacity throughout East Africa as its 

primary mission. These efforts are succeeding in building new 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends 

44

biotechnology capacity. For example, the East African Research 

Institute at Mekere University in Uganda currently has a modern 

laboratory capable of supporting research in the area of agriculture and 

environment. Laboratory research on the maize tree virus is already 

underway. Researchers working at the new institute also have access to 

modern computer facilities at the Hillary Clinton Bioinformatics 

Computer Laboratory. 

The recent additions at Mekere University appear to be part of a 

wider trend of establishing and upgrading existing research facilities 

throughout Africa. Today, there are several research centers that have 

the laboratory facilities necessary to undertake second- or thirdgeneration research. Many of these facilities are run by international 

organizations affiliated with the United Nations or are national efforts 

that have been able to improve their facilities with funds from outside 

donors. There are now Laser centers in seven countries. The World 

Health Organization runs a Tropical Disease Research Institute in 

Tunisia. In Algeria there are no national agricultural institutes doing 

GM work but there is at least one research project sponsored by 

CTIGR. Algeria also has a large scientific community that has the 

training to conduct biotechnology R&D research in the future. 

Two other African countries already have developed national 

biotechnology strategies. Lesotho recently developed a strategy for 

dealing with genetically modified organisms. Nigeria has formulated a 

national biotechnology strategy. Although little progress has yet been 

made yet in implementing the policy goals articulated in the national 

plans, President Obasanjo of Nigeria recently insisted that 

biotechnology be listed as a priority in the most recent national 

agriculture budget. Nigeria also has several research institutes, such as 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends

45

CEPEI, and many established universities that can serve as the basis for 

sophisticated biotechnology R&D in the future.70 

Food insecurity, the global debate about whether GMO agricultural 

products can be exported to Europe and rising rates of certain infectious 

diseases such as HIV/AIDS, and the need for inexpensive generic drugs 

and vaccines, are the major factors driving new science R&D policy 

initiatives in several African countries. 

A final initiative that should be noted is the African Genome 

Project. African scientists are quick to point out that no Africans 

worked on the Genome Project. To make up for this oversight and to 

promote increased coordination and cooperation among African 

scientists working on advanced biotechnology research, a group of 

researchers in South Africa initiated the series of annual conferences. 

The first African Genome Conference was held in South Africa in 

2003. For the 2004 conference, the South African academics partnered 

with Egyptian researchers at the Ain Shams University in Cairo. The 

South African researchers stressed that they were impressed by the 

amount of biotechnology capacity and research currently being 

conducted in Egypt. Their vision is for these two states to play 

important anchor roles in helping to build capacity and coordination 

among research centers in other parts of Africa. The 2005 Conference 

is scheduled to take place in Kenya and will be held at either Kabete or 

Narobi University. The Kenyan International Livestock Research 

Centre is another host partner for this planned event. 

This brief review of only a few of several initiatives being 

sponsored by the South African government and the United Nations to 

promote biotechnology research and development in Africa suggests 

that there already exists a great deal of human and physical capacity in 

several African countries to engage in sophisticated biotechnology 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends 

46

research. An important constraint on fourth-generation bioinformatics 

research (i.e., advanced genomics and proteomics research) in South 

Africa, Africa, and throughout the developing world in the past was the 

limited access to wide enough band width, high-speed computers, and 

databases needed to do sophisticated informatics research. However, 

the SANBI consortium and other ongoing initiatives in Africa suggest 

that limited access to sophisticated bioinformatics computing facilities 

and gene, tissue, and protein libraries will not be a limiting factor on 

users who are able to gain access to state-of-the-art genetic 

modifications techniques in a number of developing countries, 

including some of the poorest ones in Africa,71 

At one end of the spectrum is a widely held belief among experts in 

the developing world that indigenous naturally occurring pathogens are 

the most likely bioagents to be used as biological weapons. These 

views are remarkably similar to the early research activities of Iraqi 

biowarfare researchers. Many experts throughout the developing world 

believe that economic disruption or financial blackmail rather than 

mass destruction are more probable goals of nation-states or terrorist 

groups than mass destruction. A recent action by the Australia Group 

reflects concern about smaller and more mobile equipment that can be 

used in covert biowarfare. In 2002, the AG passed new export 

restrictions on small fomenters, and in 2004 it prohibited the export in 

five plant pathogens.72 However, recent advances in developing highly 

mobile bio-science laboratories and other technological advances 

suggest that the strategy of attempting to control exports will 

increasingly become an ineffective strategy in the future. 

The genome revolution and the spread of information networks 

allows users in remote locations to conduct sophisticated research is a 

new, extremely complicating factor for the biological nonproliferation 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends

47

regime. As access to sophisticated bioinformatics capabilities and gene 

and protein libraries spreads throughout the world, there is an increased 

danger that future biowarfare scientists or terrorists will start 

experimenting with state-of-the-art techniques to produce novel 

weapons. Ironically, SIPRI, cited by one Iraqi scientist above as the 

initial source for literature searches when Iraq attempted to restart their 

secret biological weapons research program, is now one of the few 

organizations that is warning about the new opportunities for novel 

biowarfare weapons present in bioinformatics capabilities and state-ofthe-art proteomics and genomics methods that are now spreading 

around the world. 

WAYS TO MONITOR EMERGING DUAL-USE BIOLOGICAL 

PROLIFERATION THREATS 

Civilian biotechnology and the information revolution are two 

sectors that virtually every country with any science and technology 

capacity wants promoted. Most countries around the world are copying 

the United States model of encouraging a partnership among key 

players in government, the private sector, and universities. This trend 

means that it is increasingly important to understand trends in the 

political economy of civilian biotechnology in order to understand 

future biowarfare trends. 

One of the most important trends in civilian biotechnology in the 

developing world today is the fact that most countries are trying to find 

a “niche” market in a world political economic system dominated by 

multinational corporations and biotechnology startup countries located 

in the economically advanced countries in North America, Europe, and 

Asia. Competition for market shares in biotechnology global markets 

is already fierce. Thus, many groups of biotechnology entrepreneurs in 

developing countries are attempting to demonstrate “proof of concept” 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends 

48

in order to sell a patented process or product to a multinational 

corporation. The result is that many more actors—nation-states, multinational corporations, and government owned parastatals, 

nongovernmental organizations, private biotech startup companies, and 

even individuals—are increasingly seeking unique partnerships or 

“networks” in order to market their products around the world. While 

most of the attention in bioterrorism research has focused on such wellknown networks as al Qaeda and its offshoots, there are also several 

other types of networks that are engaging in collaborations using 

civilian biotechnology to achieve a shared economic rather than 

political objective. Figure 1 illustrates one such economic network 

Figure 1: Vaccine Manufacturers Network (DCVMN) 

Full Members 

Serum Institute of India 

Fiocruz/Biomarguinhos 

Brazil 

Shantha Biotechnics, Pvt. 

Ltd. India 

P.T. Biofarma, Indonesia 

CIGB, Cuba 

Institut Pasteu, Dakar Sengal 

Prospective Members 

Instituto Butanto, Brazil 

Panacea Biotech, India 

Instituo Finlay, Cuba 

Biological E. India 

Observers 

Thai Red Cross Thailand 

Institut Pasteur de Tunis , 

Tunisia 

Thai GPO Thailand (generic 

anti-viral pill) 

IVAC, Vietnam 

Associate Members 

Birmex, Mexico 

Lanzhou Institute, China 

Vacsera, Egypt 

Chengdu Institute, China 

Shenzen Kangtai, China 

Pasteur Institute, Iran 

Source: FBIS, 2001 

that was formed among a host of different types of actors in 2001 with 

the goal of developing genetic vaccines. The network is working to 

produce both products that can compete with more established vaccine 

suppliers at lower prices and generic vaccines that large pharmaceutical 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends

49

multinationals no longer produce. Several aspects of this network are 

notable. First, it is composed of different types of entities, including 

state-run, parastatal, and private research institutes, along with nongovernmental organizations. Thus, the funding is coming from both 

private and public sources. Second, several of the research institutes 

included in the list were at some point in the past suspected in being 

possible dual-use research and development sites.73 Third, since 2001 

several of these research sites have sought to expand their network 

further to find other state or multinational partnerships. Thus, for 

example, Haber Corporations, the biotechnology startup company of 

the CIGB Research Institute of Cuba, recently entered an agreement 

with a European multinational drug company to engage in further 

vaccine research and development. Haber also signed an agreement in 

2003 with a newly privatized vaccine company in South Africa, 

BioVac, in order to produce six or seven vaccines that are not being 

produced by major pharmaceutical companies.74 These recent 

international collaborations illustrate the fact that more and more 

research labs and biotech startup firms in the developing world in the 

future are likely to forge international links. In such an environment, 

the public or private laboratory that avoids international partners or is 

not following “good laboratory standards and practices” established by 

national governments and international bodies is likely to increasingly 

stand out as an “outlier” in an increasingly internationalized 

biotechnology economy.75

The fact that the world political economy for biotechnology is 

already so highly globalized can be used to develop a preliminary 

classification scheme to track potential dual-use civilian biotechnology 

activities within different types of nation-states in the future (see Table 

1). One parameter used to construct the table relates to a country’s 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends 

50

Table 1: Four Tiers of Countries Engaged in Civilian Biotech* 

TIER 1: Dominant biotechnology countries—“The West”: US, 

Europe (Russia), and offshoots (Japan, Australia) 

TIER 1A: Nations in developing world with significance biotech 

growth potential—India and China

TIER 2: Countries with some biotechnology human and physical 

capabilities—Israel, South Korea, Brazil,South Africa, 

Nigieria, Kenya, Singapore, Thailand, UAE, Dubai, Algeria, 

Egypt, Malaysia, Cuba, Sudan, Pakistan, Iran, North Korea 

TIER 3: Countries with an interest but with little chance of 

developing civilian biotechnology commercial activities—The 

rest of Latin America, Asian-Pacific, Africa (island states, 

Mauritania, Caribbean states, Tanzania, Eritrea)

TIER 4: Collapsed States—Democratic Rep Congo; Somalia

*Note: The listed countries are designated to illustrate the type of 

countries in each category. This is not an exhaustive list of all 

countries with some biotechnology potential. 

economic position, including the government’s interest in developing 

biotechnology, and the human and physical capabilities available to 

produce civilian biotechnology. These types of indicators combined 

with more aggregate economic statistics could be used to develop a 

score of a country’s degree of engagement in the world biotechnology 

economy. The second parameter used to construct the table arrays 

countries along a continuum based on the government’s commitment to 

biological nonproliferation norms, treaties, and laws. Thus, a country 

with a high commitment to biological nonproliferation would be one 

that has signed the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention 

(BWC), routinely attends BWC meetings, is a member of the Australia 

Group, and actively works to enforce export controls on proscribed 

biological (and chemical and nuclear) materials.76 

A country’s overall level of economic development and the human 

and physical capital needed to engage in civilian biotechnology helps 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends

51

locate specific countries in one of four levels or tiers of nation-states 

who are engaged in civilian biotechnology activity. The countries 

listed in Tier 1 of Table 1 are those located in the western world and 

their geographical or historical offshoots. While this is hardly 

surprising, what is notable is the fact that this classification system 

suggests that standard criteria that lump “Western” or economically 

advanced states together may be changing when one focuses only on 

one or a few high tech economic activities, such as biotechnology or 

information technology. When one narrows one’s focus, it is clear that 

there is an important subset of countries that are already at or near the 

same level of research and development in biotechnology across 

several different sectors when compared to economically developed 

western countries. This set (Tier 1A) currently includes only two 

nation-states: China and India. Both countries have committed 

substantial resources to building biotechnology industrial parks, 

research facilities, and university programs that already rival or excel 

what’s available in western countries. If both countries continue their 

current high rates of macroeconomic growth, and manage to avoid 

political conflicts or widespread instability at home, they both will soon 

close the gap in terms of facilities, human capital, and physical 

infrastructure with the US and Europe. 

The main reasons why these two countries are not already grouped 

with other developed nation-states is because there is some doubts 

about whether and the extent to which India’s and China’s support the 

biological nonproliferation norms embodied in such principles as the 

BWC, the Australia Group, and economic norm-setting bodies such as 

the World Trade Organization. Long a flagrant violator of international 

copyright law, most support for China’s recent admission into the 

World Trade Organization was based in part on the idea that China 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends 

52

would be more likely to become a “normal state” as she grows 

economically if the government was a member and had a voice in the 

WTO. 

Future analyses should pay close attention to China’s commitment 

to biological nonproliferation norms at the same time that trends in 

civilian biotechnology within the country are monitored. Similarly, as 

the possibility of a nuclear, chemical, or biological exchange between 

India and Pakistan grows more remote, the hope is that the goal of 

increased participation in the international economic system will 

overtake any existing commitment to developing covert biological 

weapons. The very real possibility of some political unrest in China in 

future years or a regime change in Pakistan and thus a radical change in 

the threat perceptions of India’s leaders might change the current 

assessments. Moreover, commitment to developing civilian 

biotechnology sectors does not preclude the existence of a secret 

weapons program. However, as a country becomes more affluent and 

more integrated into the world economic capitalist system, the political 

costs of maintaining covert weapons program also increase. Thus, the 

possibility exists that world economic integration may help to reduce 

support for secret weapons research within rising economic states. 

The countries included in Tier 2 illustrate even better the harsh 

reality that the development of civilian biotechnology capabilities does 

not preclude covert research or development of covert weapons of mass 

destruction. However, this group of nation-states shares several 

important characteristics in terms of their commitment to develop 

civilian biotechnology applications and the willingness of the 

government to support such activities through national biotech plans, 

policies, and business-friendly tax laws. At the same time, these 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends

53

countries vary on a number of important economic criteria related to 

developing advanced biotechnology applications including: 

-the size of their biotechnology human or physical capacity 

-the size of public and private involvement in biotechnology R&D 

-the amount and source (pubic or private) of investment capital for 

biotech R&D 

-the size of the state sector, and role played by parastatal and 

private biotech companies 

-the role of the government in regulating biotechnology research 

-the size and quality of education programs designed to train future 

scientists and engineers, and technicians 

-the extent of foreign collaborations and efforts to engage in world 

capitalism. 

These nation-states also vary in terms of their commitment to the 

chem-bio non-proliferation regime and adherence to existing treaties, 

laws, and norms. When the nation-states in this tier are arrayed from 

left to right on the basis of the strength of their commitment to 

biological nonproliferation norms, one begins to see how intertwined a 

country’s integration into the world political economy is with their 

commitment to WMD norms. Given the defining role of the two 

parameters it is hardly surprising that North Korea is at the far right end 

of the commitment to nonproliferation norms dimension. This 

continuum of the classification system further illustrates the importance 

of a country’s involvement in the international economic system, in 

addition to the political orientation of the government, in terms of 

whether or not a particular government is likely to be supporting secret 

covert biological weapons research at any given point in time. 

Tier 3 countries are grouped together because they largely function 

as labor reserves and off-shore tax shelters for multinationals, or as 

junior partners in western collaborations. While several of the 

countries in this group have expressed an interest in developing 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends 

54

biotechnology sectors as a way to generate much more foreign capital 

and jobs, none of these countries at this time have the minimal amount 

of human and financial capital, or the physical infrastructure, needed to 

generate indigenous biotechnology research and development. While 

some of these countries have succeeded in attracting foreign investors, 

most of these investments are not value-added collaborations that will 

increase the wealth or knowledge of citizens or the government of the 

country. 

Tier 4 is the set of countries where governance has collapsed and 

there are large portions of the country where terrorists, drug lords, or 

other types of network can easily set up shop and perhaps also a “bush 

chem-bio research and production” facility. While this type of scenario 

is widely discussed, remarkably little unclassified research has been 

directed at identifying the ungovernable areas of the developing world 

where terrorists and other groups can operate free from outside 

observers or intrusions.77 

CONCLUSION 

Future efforts to monitor civilian biotechnology activities in 

conjunction with possible dual-use activities for all countries in the 

world constitute a huge task that requires more structure to be a 

manageable monitoring task. The framework used in Table 1 suggests 

that the number of countries who have the physical and human 

capabilities needed to engage in civilian biotechnology is still relative 

small. Institutional constraints are another problem to future 

monitoring efforts since the analysts who are paid to monitor 

biological, or chemical, or nuclear threats are not the same individuals 

as those whose portfolio it is to monitor scientific and industrial 

developments in particular countries or regions. It may be necessary to 

impose additional institutional requirements, such as the development 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends

55

of integrated databases and annual or biannual reports, in order to get 

analysts in different missions around the world or those working in 

different departments of government agencies to collaborate in 

analyzing the proliferation implications at the nexus between civilian 

biotechnology and biological proliferation. The spread of 

biotechnology expertise and capabilities around the world suggests that 

such data gathering and analysis efforts are important activities that 

should be undertaken. 

The research reported in this paper is based on the assumption that 

current control strategies designed to limit access to biological research 

and development (R&D) knowledge, or specific pieces of equipment, 

supplies, bioinformatics programs, gene and protein libraries that can 

have dual uses are inadequate for dealing with the proliferation of 

biotechnology in the world today. Control strategies such as import 

controls, sanctions, and arms control agreements, combined with efforts 

to enforce arms control agreements or by resorting to military counterproliferation measures, may slow down the acquisition of certain dualuse biotechnology knowledge or equipment. However such strategies 

will be unable to stem the tide of spreading biological knowledge and 

capabilities throughout the world because of the growing demands for 

high tech jobs and economic activities in most countries of the world. 

There is a scientific and economic imperative fueling the spread of 

biotechnology that is resulting in a myriad of new commercial 

applications. Basic research is being translated into new processes and 

procedures in a variety of fields ranging from agriculture, drugs, 

vaccines, new industrial processes and products, to environmental 

waste clean-up and disposal.78 New knowledge is being generated on a 

regular basis as new automatic techniques now make it possible to 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends 

56

sequence the genome for other animals and plants in a matter of weeks 

or months rather than years.79 

The explosion in new knowledge is why more and more analysts 

are now speculating that historians will characterize the 21st Century as 

the “biological age.” Recent trends in the globalization of trade and 

communications reinforce further the sense that it is already impossible 

to stem the flow of biological knowledge and nearly impossible to stop 

the flow of dual-use equipment throughout the world. Most of the 

attention to date has focused on the wealth of new insights and products 

that have been produced in the developed world. 

Nearly every nation-state in the developing world with some 

minimal scientific and industrial capacity has identified biotechnology, 

along with information technology, as desirable economic sectors to 

promote in order to generate high tech, and thus high value, products 

that can be exported and in order to create new, high paying jobs. The 

promise of future economic gains associated with high tech 

biotechnology, has led nearly every country in the developing world 

with any scientific capacity to develop national biotechnology 

strategies and incentive programs to promote the development of 

biotechnology across a number of different sectors. The widespread 

belief that biotechnology may offer a promising new road to future 

economic gains probably more than any other factor is currently fueling 

interest in developing biotechnology capacity and new biostartup 

companies in many countries in the developing world. 

While the economic incentives associated with biotechnology are 

desirable from an economic development perspective, the trend ensures 

that dual-use knowledge and facilities will continue to spread at an 

unprecedented rate when compared to the length of time that it took for 

the proliferation of expertise, critical materials, and equipment needed 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends

57

to produce nuclear weapons. The anthrax attacks underscored the 

extensive disruption that can be caused by releasing a small amount of 

a biological pathogen through the mail. Several analysts have now 

noted in public how many pathogens, such as anthrax and hoof-andmouth that is indigenous in many countries of the world, can be used as 

biowarfare weapons. While many strategic analysts are still using 

analogies from past experiences with covert nuclear or chem-bio 

national programs, there is a growing realization that future uses of 

biological pathogens may involve naturally occurring pathogens and 

novel delivery devices rather than large quantities of weaponized BW 

agents and sophisticated, high tech delivery devices such as missiles.80

There is also a growing recognition that in the future the world 

may simultaneously face biological weapons threats from naturally 

occurring biological pathogens and genetically modified organisms. 

The skill set needed to produce such organisms is now routinely taught 

in graduate school.81 Increasingly, computer distributed networks are 

making it possible for personnel working in geographically remote sites 

to have access to sophisticated bioinformatics computer programs, and 

gene and protein libraries. These resources can be used to develop 

novel new products or new types of biological weapons. These 

scientific and economic trends, combined with evidence that several 

nation-states and terrorist groups continue to be interested in acquiring 

biological weapons, suggest that it will be increasingly important in the 

future to develop additional approaches for monitoring suspected dualuse activities throughout the world and to find new ways to manage this 

still poorly understood class of threats.82 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends 

58

INTERVIEWS 

Dr. Daan Goosen, former Project Coast scientist, Pretoria, South 

Africa, June 26, 2003. 

Dr. Mary Groesch, Senior Advisor for Science Policy, Office of 

Biotechnology Activities, Office of the Director, National Institutes of 

Health, interview, May 2004. 

Dr. Paul Blacker, Advanced Systems and Concepts Organization, 

DTRA, Springfield, VA, October, 2003. 

Mr. Nelson Erickson, Chemnical and Biological Nonproliferation, 

Office of the Assistant Secretary for Defense, ISA, Non-Proliferation, 

May, 2004. 

Dr. Harris, Elisa D. Center for International and Security Studies, 

University of Maryland, April 26, 2004. 

Ms. Sharon Jackson, Senior Analysts, SAIC, Phone Interview, May, 

2004. 

Dr. Hans. G. Jager, Avimune (PTY) Ltd., the largest private poultry 

pathology lab in Africa, and former Director of Research and 

Development, Onderstepoort, Durban, South Africa July 1, 2003. 

Dr. Milton Leitenberg, Center for International and Security Studies, 

University of Maryland. April 26 2004. 

Dr. Jonathan L. Longmire, Advanced Cloning Genomics Technology 

Bioscience Division, Los Alamos National Labs, New Mexico, June, 

2004. 

Dr. Babs Marrone Bioforensic, Los Alamos National Lab, Los 

Alamos, New Mexico, June 2004. 

Capt Joseph Malone, United States Army, phone interview May 2004. 

Dr. Judith Reppy, Professor, Science and Technology Studies, Cornell 

University, Phone interview, May 2004. 

CDR Joshua Segal, History Department, US Naval Academy, 

Interview, May 10, 2004. 

Dr. John D. Steinbruner, Center for International and Security Studies, 

University of Maryland. April 26 2004. 

Ms. Jo Thomas, Special Assistant to the Chancellor of Syracuse 

University, Syracuse, NY, September, 2004. 

Dr. Mark Winfield, University of Pretoria, Plant Biotechnology, 

Agriculture, Crops, and Forests, phone interview June 13, 2003). 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends

59

Dr. Judi Cyndi A. Wells, Nonproliferation Division, N-4, Safeguards 

Systems, MS E541, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, 

NM, June 2004. 

Dr. V.Wells, Microbiologist. Interviews August 2003-February 2004. 

NOTES 

 

1

 The specific policy recommendations for the USG are discussed in more 

detail in a report designed to examine future trends in biotechnology 

research in the developing world. The report is Helen Purkitt, with 

scientific support by Dr. V.G. Wells, What’s over the biotechnology 

horizon: Biotechnology research and development trends in South Africa.

Final Research Report to the Advanced Systems and Concept Organization 

of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, February, 2004. 

2

 Most covert programs in the developing world offered foreign study or 

training as an incentive while recruiting scientist. See Helen Purkitt and 

Steve Burgess, South Africa’s Secret Weapons of Mass Destruction, 

Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2005 and Steve Burgess and 

Helen Purkitt, the Rollback of South Africa’s Biological Warfare Program, 

INSS Occasional Paper 37, US Air Force Academy, February, 2001, for 

details about the importance of foreign study and training for the first 

generation of South African scientists who worked on the secret weapons 

program called Project Coast. 

3

 For example by the mid-1990s, a chemist named Dr Muhammad 'Abd AlMun'im Al Azmirli, an Egyptian, was playing a lead role in conducted 

experiments on prisoners with ricin to determine its effectiveness as a 

biological weapons. Many colleagues blamed Dr. Muhammad’ Abd AlMun’im Al Azmirli, who is now deceased, for the more odious acts 

undertaken by members of the Iraqi bw program in debriefings with 

American investigators in 2004. See Duelfer, Volume 3, 1-10 for more 

details. 

4

 Duelfer Vol. 3: 1 and 6. 

5

 Ibid. 

6

 Purkitt and Burgess, Chapters 5 and 7, 2005; Burgess and Purkitt, 2001. 

7

 Interview with Dr. Hans. G. Jager, Avimune (PTY) Ltd., the largest 

private poultry pathology lab in Africa, and former Director of Research 

and Development, Onderstepoort, Durban, South Africa, 1 July 2003. 

8

 Interview with Dr. Hans G. Jager; see also Purkitt with Wells, 2004. 

9

 Purkitt and Burgess, op. cit. 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends 

60

 

10 In the case of South Africa, Project Coast turned to a US microbiologist 

with ties to the earlier biological warfare program in the US named Dr. 

Larry Creed Ford. For more details see Victor Ray and Helen Purkitt, 

Emerging threats to US homeland security: A case study of the use of 

biological weapons for personal & political motives in California and 

South Africa, (forthcoming). 

11 Duelfer report, Vol. 3: 10. 

12 Research on Brucella was also conducted at Abu Ghurayb Veterinary 

College but no information on the extent of this work was available to 

American investigators. Duelfer, Vol. 3: 23. 

13 Mark Wheelis, Agricultural Biowarfare and Bioterrorism, Edmonds 

Institute Occasional Paper, 2000 (http://www.edmondsinstitute.org/wheelis.html). 

14 See Purkitt with Wells, 2004. 

15 This or a similar observation is found in nearly every published article in 

scientific magazines and journals, i.e., Nature or Science, that discusses 

future bioterrorist attacks. 

16 See the Australia Group web site at: 

http://www.cbwinfo.com/General/Australia.html. 

17 For a description of the Russian program, see Ken Alibek, Biohazard, 

Random House., 1999. 

18 See for example, Wheelis, op cit. 

19 Rolk Ekeus, “Reassessment: The IISS Strategic Dossier on Iraq’s 

Weapons of Mass Destruction, Survival, Vol. 46, 2 (Summer 2004): 78-9. 

20 Duelfer, Vol. 3: 8. 

21 Duelfer, Vol. 3: 1. 

22 Duelfer, Vol. 3: 11. 

23 Wheelis, op cit. 

24 Duelfer, Vol. 3: 9. 

25 Matt Moore, “Global military spending soars during 2003; nearly half by 

US,” Associated Press, 9 June (BC Cycle) 2004. 

26 Duelfer, op cit. 

27 Ibid, see William Rivers Pitt, with Scott Ritter, War on Iraq, New York: 

Context Books, 2002, 237. 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends

61

 

28 Accounts of the quick diagnosis of the two mobile labs as weather 

stations is based on interviews with several experts who were either 

members of the team or involved in the effort to identify the purpose of 

these vehicles: Interviews conducted during 2004 with former weapon 

inspectors and analysts who did not wish to be identified. 

29 Scott Ritter, Endgame: Solving the Iraq Crisis, New York: Simon and 

Schuster, 1999/2002, 237. 

30 For more details, see Helen Purkitt, “International Political Economy 

and National Security Implications of the Biotech Revolution,” Paper 

presented at the ISS Section panel, “Thinking Strategically about 

Biological and Chemical Weapons,” at the International Studies 

Association Annual Conference, Montreal, Canada, March 19, 2004. 

31 Jackson, Payne, and Odelson “Liquid-culture production of blastospores 

of the bioinsecticidal fungus Paecilomyces fumosoroseus using portable 

fermentation equipment,” J. Ind Microbiol Biotechnology 31 (2004): 149-

154. 

32 Sylvia Pagan Westphal, “Handmade cloning cheap and easy,” New 

Scientist, 14 August 2002, NewScientist.com (accessed October 24, 2002). 

33 Phone interview with Dr. Mark Winfield, University of Pretoria, Plant 

Biotechnology, Agriculture, Crops, and Forests, 13 June 2003. 

34 Westphal, op cit. 

35 There are three companies manufacturing and selling mobile, modular 

bio-science level 2 and 3 labs in the United States. Two of these companies 

sell via the internet. 

36 For more details contact the Australia Group web site at 

http://www.cbwinfor.com/General/Australia.html

37 Duelfer, Vol. 3: 10. 

38 Duelfer, Vol. 3: 10-14. 

39 Ibid. 

40 Ibid. 

41 Ibid. 14. 

42 For a recent review of this historical period, see Rolk Ekeus, op cit. 

43 Duelfer, Vol. 3: 14. 

44 Duelfer, Vol. 3: 24. 

45 Ritter, 1999/2002, 235. 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends 

62

 

46 Ekeus, op cit. 

47 Duelfer, op cit. 

48 Duelfer, op cit.: 16. 

49 This account is taken from Gerald Fink, Ronald Atlas, W. Emmett 

Barkley, et al, Biotechnology Research in an age of Terrorism: 

Confronting the Dual Use Dilemma, Washington DC: National Academy 

of Science Press, (pre-publication copy) 2003. 

50 Although the Fink report has received extensive press coverage, there 

were several earlier studies commissioned by the National Academy of 

Science and other public bodies since the early 1990s that have warned of 

the potential for biowarfare misuse in emerging biotechnology and 

chemical research. See Mark Wheelis, Malcolm Dando, and Catherine 

Auer, “Back to bioweapons,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Jan/Feb, 

2003: 40-46 for a summary of some of the new techniques that are of 

concern. 

51 See for example Elise Harris’s unpublished report on industry and 

government responses, University of Maryland, 20 February 2004; a 

forthcoming report by the Center for Biosecurity at the University of 

Pittsburgh, and another forthcoming report by the Chemical and Biological 

Arms Control Institute of Washington DC. Announcement of later two 

reports made at the “Pandemics & Bioterrrorism: Industry & Government 

Responses,” WIIS Science, Technology & Security Policy Forum, 20 

February 2004. 

52 “Board Set up to Keep Research out ob Bioterrorists’ hands,” 

Washington Post, 5 March 2004, A6. 

53 While this point was made by several of the life scientists interviewed 

for this study, none of these scientists wanted to go on the record with such 

a dire prediction. 

54 Special pathogens are a designated group of viruses, bacteria, and toxins 

that are highly contagious, or for which there is no known cure, and that 

therefore require special handling and equipment in Bio-Science Labs at 

the highest levels, i.e. BSL-3 or BSL-4. While the terms biological 

pathogens and agents are used interchangeably in this paper to designate 

many different types of organism there are important distinctions among 

different types of viruses, bacteria, and toxins. Biological agents are found 

in nature; are usually capable of self-replication, and have the capacity to 

produce deleterious effects on other organism, particular humans. In 

contrast, biological materials are not capable of self-replication and are the 

components of biological agents that present a real or potential risk of 

causing illness or injury to humans, plants, and animals. Examples of 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends

63

 

bioharardous material are ethiologic agents and toxins. Biological Toxins 

(Biotoxins) are non-living biohazardous proteins that are naturally 

produced in many different types of living organisms and are thousands of 

times more toxic per weight than chemical agents. Toxins that produce 

natural microorganism are considered to be in the same risk category as 

those organisms by themselves. These definitions were provided by Alfred 

Jin in a presentation entitled “Comprehensive IH Review: Fundamentals of 

Biohazard Control,” presentation prepared for the Hazards Control 

Department, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, July 2004. 

55 In 1989, Dr. Muzhir (Mudher Moder) Al Falluji, one of the leading 

biologists working on the Iraqi secret biowarfare program, tried to get the 

Ames strain of B. Anthracis which he considered “very virulent” while 

attending a scientific workshop abroad. He was unsuccessful in that 

endeavor. According to Thamir'Abd-al-Rahgman, a key figure in Iraq's 

anthrax program, the Iraqis had to settle for the American Type Culture 

Collection (ATCC) strain 14578 as the sole strain of anthrax that was 

developed by the Iraqis as a BW weapons. Duelfer, Vol. 3. 

56 “Foreign students raking it in for the US,” Times News Network, 19 

November 2004. It should be noted that it is also too soon to determine the 

exact nature of what appears to be a complex trend in terms of the numbers 

of types of foreign students coming to the United States. US public 

funding for international students has increased dramatically in recent 

years. The US government funded 10,111 international students in 2003-

04 as opposed to just 3,085 in 2002-03. This was a 228% increase. At the 

same time, students funded by private US sponsorships fell from 14,366 to 

a modest 2,921 in 2003-04, a decline of close to 80%. According to 

statistics supplied by the Dept of Commerce, 81.8% of international 

students at the undergraduate level rely on personal funds; only 10.8% are 

funded by their university. The figures are from the Open Doors survey 

for 2003-04 conducted by the US Institute of International Education. 

57 Associated Press, “Drop in foreign grad students raises alarm,” 5 

November 2004. See also Julie Sneider, “International brain drain: Post9/11 restrictions discourage foreign students in tech, science fields,” The 

Business Journal of Milwaukee Online, 

http://milwaukee.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/stories/2004/05/24/story 

2.html (Accessed October 2, 2005). 

58 Sneider, op cit. 

59 Ibid. 

60 Purkitt with Wells, op cit. 

61 Michael Babbaro, “Wake up and smell the science,” Washington Post, 

15 June 2003, F1, F6. This estimate includes projected earnings from the 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends 

64

 

large biotech busses such as DuPont, Archer, Daniels Midland Co., and 

Dow Chemical Co. 

62 For a more in depth overview of trends in the developing world that is 

still relevant, see G.T. Tzotzos and K.G. Skryabin, Biotechnology in the 

developing world and countries in economic transition. New York: CABI 

Publishing, 2000. 

63 Robert E. Armstrong, “From Petro to Agro: Seed of a New Economy,” 

Defense Horizons. No. 20 (October 2002): 1. 

64 Ibid. 

65 Ibid. 2. 

66 Purkitt with Wells, 3. 

67 Interview by Helen Purkitt with Renfree Christie, Director of Research, 

UWC, Cape Town, 8 July 2003. 

68 See Purkitt and Wells, 2004 for more details. 

69 Interview by Helen Purkitt with Professor Thomson, University of Cape 

Town, 10 July 2003. 

70 Interview with Professor Thomson, 10 July 2003. 

71 The POC for more details about the computer capabilities of SANBI 

and details about how band width serves as a major constraint for 

bioinformatics research in South Africa and throughout the developing 

world is Caspir Schullter, SANBI, University of Western Cape, Bellville, 

South Africa, cschutte@icon.co.za. 

72 See the Australia Group web site at: 

http://www.cbwinfo.com/General/Australia.html. 

73 For more details about individual countries and sites see Monterey 

Institute of International Studies, Center for Nonproliferation Studies, 

Chemical & Biological Weapons Research Page: Possession and 

Programs Past and Present at 

http://cns.miis.edu/research/cbw/possess.htm. 

74 Purkitt with Wells, op cit. 

75 I am indebted to Dr. Daan Goosen, a former South African Project Coast 

scientist, who proposed during an interview with the author in June 2003 

that “open transparency and freedom of information are the key way to 

control biowarfare threats” at the scientific level. His recommendation for 

monitoring the civilian biotechnology sector is to “get more countries in 

the developing world on international laboratory standards” used by the 

United States, the EU, and the OECD. South Africa has a similar body 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends

65

 

that regulates Good Laboratory Practices (GLP) called the South African 

National Accreditation Service. This accreditation body certifies GLP 

based on an internationally recognized standard. The GLP systems of 

accreditation and regulation are based on “good faith” voluntary 

compliance so any lab that is not in compliance would be easier to spot 

once more countries adopted existing standards of accreditation and 

certification. While the approach does not address the problem of the “lab 

in the suburbs” or the bush, a focus on accrediting laboratories may be 

particularly well suited for developing countries where the number of 

public projects and private start-up biotechnology companies are still 

relatively small and where everyone seems to know what other 

biotechnology researchers are doing. Interview with Dr. Daan Goosen, 

Pretoria, South Africa, 26 June 2003. 

76 It is interesting to note that many governments chose not to attend 

routine meetings of signatories of the Biological Treaty during key periods 

when covert biological weapons research is occurring. While this is not a 

reliable indicator in and of itself, when combined with other indicators it 

may serve as a useful “red flag.” I am indebted to Midn. James Saul’s 

paper, USNA 2004, for a further discussion of useful indicators and 

signatures of possible covert biological research and development. 

77 For example, there have been reports that a Columbian drug lord set up 

shop in the south-east region of the Democratic Republic of Congo in the 

late 1990s. Similar rumors have been circulating around Africa for several 

years that there are al Qaeda camps in the Democratic Republic of the 

Congo and in other collapsed African states. However, there was little 

interest within the US and other western governments in investigating 

these types of reports until after 2001. 

78 The growth of new applications tied to the genome project is truly mindboggling. For some sense of how widespread the development of new 

commercial applications of genomic basic research and techniques is, the 

reader is encouraged to peruse the table of contents or weekly 

announcements of such publications as NatureBiotechnology. 

79 Estimate provided by a tour guide at the Genome Sequencing Company, 

Walnut Creek, California, 4 August 2004. 

80 Recent government-sponsored exercises have documented how 

alternative delivery devices, including infecting one or a very few 

individuals in a crowded urban setting, could easily infect large numbers of 

individuals with a highly contagious virus such as smallpox. 

81 This point was stressed by Professor Judith Reppy, Science and 

Technology Studies, Cornell University in a phone interview during May, 

2004. While this point is widely known to life scientists, the implication of 
Biowarfare Lessons, Biosecurity Issues, and Biotechnology Trends 

66

 

these new skills are only now becoming familiar to social scientists 

interested in national biosecurity issues. 

82 For another general overview of some of the emerging problems 

associated with the spread of biotechnology worldwide, see Christopher F. 

Chyba and Alex L. Greninger, “Biotechnology and Bioterrorism: An 

Unprecedented World, Survival, Vol. 46, 2 (Summer 2004): 143-162.