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By Fred Burton
More than half the residents of small Apex, N.C. (population 29,000) were forced to evacuate their homes after a fire broke out at a hazardous waste disposal facility late Oct. 5. Authorities ordered the evacuation of 17,000 people after it was reported that the fire was producing chlorine gas. This report later proved erroneous, though many other toxic chemicals doubtless were being released by the blaze. Several firefighters and Apex residents reported to the hospital with respiratory problems.
Investigators from U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, an independent federal agency, are now investigating whether incompatible chemicals were improperly stored too close together at the Environmental Quality Industrial Services facility, causing the fire and several explosions. With the probe still under way, it is not clear whether the Apex fire was an accident or was intentionally set. Regardless, the North Carolina incident -- like industrial fires of the past -- raises a number of questions about the vulnerability of chemical plants, storage sites and transportation vehicles in the United States, and the potential consequences if terrorists were to strike such facilities near a metropolitan area.
In this analysis, it is crucial to recognize that the true targets in such an attack would be the populations of metropolitan areas; the chemical sites or transport carriers themselves would, like the aircraft used on 9/11, be harnessed as weapons. This consideration has some bearing on the possibility -- as opposed to the mere technical viability -- of an attack in a given location. If the targeting criteria that have been ascribed to al Qaeda in the past still apply (given the disruption of the organization and reconstitution of the threat since 9/11), strikes involving chemicals would be more likely to be attempted in metropolitan areas that carry symbolism or widespread name recognition within the Muslim world. Though vulnerabilities might apply broadly to facilities around the country, the risk in places like Jersey City, N.J., Houston, Texas, or New Orleans, La., would by this token be elevated.
Chemical Plots
Many militant groups have shown interest in developing and employing chemical weapons in their attacks. These range from Aum Shinrikyo, which used chemical devices in several attacks in Japan, to domestic militants in the United States like Texan William Krar, who in April 2003 was found in possession of a completed sodium cyanide device.
Al Qaeda also figures prominently into this list. It should be recalled that the United States launched a cruise missile against Sudan's al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in 1998, where al Qaeda was believed to be trying to manufacture chemical and biological weapons. In 2001, Ahmed Ressam -- the Algerian national who plotted to blow up Los Angeles International Airport -- testified that al Qaeda members conducted tests using cyanide and other toxins to kill dogs at the Deronta training camp in Afghanistan. Videos recovered by U.S. troops after the invasion of Afghanistan supported this testimony, and al Qaeda training manuals that have been seized included recipes for making biological toxins and chemical agents.
Terrorists and other criminals -- indeed, anyone with an interest in chemical attacks -- today have ready access, through the Internet, to information on how to make these kinds of substances. Recipes for toxins such as ricin, and instructions for creating chemical weapons such as sodium cyanide devices, can be easily downloaded.
Despite the fear that these substances engender, however, they often are quite ineffective as weapons. Clearly, Aum Shinrikyo's efforts to carry out chemical attacks were largely a flop, for all that the group spent many millions of dollars to develop its weapons program and had access to scientific facilities. Militants in Madrid killed far more people (191) with conventional explosives -- and with far less time, effort and cost -- than Aum Shinrikyo did in its Tokyo subway attack, which claimed 12 lives.
One of the most significant challenges terrorists face in chemical weapon plots is the need to manufacture and transport chemicals in quantities sufficient to yield a significant body count. As military commanders learned on the battlefields of Europe during World War I, and during the Iran-Iraq war, chemical agents are volatile and quick to vaporize, and they tend dissipate quickly. As a result, deadly concentrations can be difficult to amass in a real-world setting. Aum Shinrikyo demonstrated, through many failed attacks both before and after the successful Tokyo strike, that small vinyl bags of chemicals simply don't cut it when the goal is to yield high body counts -- even when those bags contain highly lethal chemicals like sarin and are placed in confined spaces, such as subway cars or train station restrooms.
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