Published Friday, February 21, 2003
relates his experiences
for bad or good
Herald Staff Writer
Bethany Huey will be sleeping a little more soundly after listening to information from a former weapons inspector Wednesday afternoon at Westminster College in New Wilmington.
"It made me feel safer because he wasn't worried about things," said the 20-year-old college sophomore from New Wilmington. "He explained that our water supply is safe and he's not running out to get duct tape."
Kevin Miller, who retired from the Air Force as an arms control inspection team chief and adviser, spoke to some 50 students and teachers about his experiences and what inspectors look for when searching for chemical and biological weapons.
He also explained that there is no "smoking gun" when it comes to inspections. "Unless something was spilled when taking a sample, you could clean it up in a couple of days and you would never be able to tell." That's why unannounced visits are an important part of the current inspections in Iraq, he added.
Miller said that inspectors don't necessarily determine if chemical or biological weapons are being made in any place they inspect, rather, "I could or could not make a specific agent (at this place)."
His reasoning for that is almost every item needed to create either biological or chemical weapons has a "dual usage."
"Virtually any equipment you use for them can be used for legitimate purposes. There are no unique items needed, with a few exceptions,"Miller said.
Items such as a fermentation tank, grinding equipment and even certain chemical agents can all be explained, Miller said. "Ninety percent of fermentation processes are done in pharmaceutical companies. Fermentation tanks are also used in microbreweries." As for the lab equipment needed to create biological weapons, Miller told students they don't need to look any farther than their own campus or the Internet.
"You can buy a pilot plant off the Internet small enough to stick on a tractor-trailer truck," Miller said, pointing to a picture on a film screen that he downloaded from the Internet. "And there's nothing unique about manufacturing a biological weapon. Your biology lab on campus has the capability of creating anthrax. These are some of the hardships we face when trying to determine what's a threat and what isn't."
But he also described some of the things that might be a giveaway. "Automated stacking of drums. What's so dangerous that you can't have people stacking the drums? Also concrete blocks in front of doors that require an 80,000-ton front-end loader to move them. I'd also suspect it if there was a medical facility on site. I'd want to know why, if there was blood testing done, to see if anyone had been exposed to anything."
But he also said the actual preparation can be done in a small area and can be very difficult to find. "You could make biological or chemical weapons in my basement. Are you going to search everyone's basement (in the country)?"
The best protection is human intelligence, Miller said. "Satellites are nice, but no picture is going to tell me what's going on inside. But (physically) getting inside a terrorist organization will."
Although Miller said he was afraid of terrorists, he was not too worried about a chemical or biological attack. "They're not really effective against the modern military. They can put on a gas mask and protective gear. It's not really effective militarily. But against an unprotected civilian country, that's different."
As for putting a chemical agent in the water supply, that, too, would be ineffective because chlorination or water treatments would kill biological weapons, and most chemical weapons are unable to exist in water. He added that a poisonous agent would have to be in high concentration levels to be effective.
"If you put a drop of food coloring in a bucket (of water), how much do you have to drink of the bucket to get the drop? All of it," he said.
Miller wouldn't take a stance on the possibility of war with Iraq, but said the United States has the greatest capability to deal with countries that are making illegal chemical or biological weapons.
"There are not a lot of countries that have the ability to act globally. If the U.S. chooses not to act, there really isn't anyone left to act," Miller said. "If the U.S. doesn't take care of it, who will? Who could?"
Students left the discussion with more information and more questions.
"I was surprised that you're not going to know for sure," said 19-year-old Sandy Edmiston, a college sophomore from New Wilmington. "But it makes me want to find out more actually."
Tacia Despo, 20, a biology major from Jamestown, will be looking at her school lab differently from now on. "I'm going to be asking (my professor) about the instruments in my biology lab and about how any of it could be used to make these. It will just be a conversational thing." she said with a laugh.