Presentation Transcript

1. Dr Peter Eachus 27th -28th June 2013 Chemical Biological Attack in the UK: Myth or Reality ? Radiological Nuclear
2. CBRN: 4Categories of WMDs
3. How Real is the Threat? Covert Development Environment Probability of a CBRN attack Access to materials = + + Expertise + Intent Arguably the most important factor All can be sourced with sufficient funding
4. “Make a WMD in the kitchen of your mom” Chemical weapons….. (Chlorine, Sarin) Biological weapons….. (Anthrax, Ricin) RDDs ….. (Smoke detectors) Nuclear weapon …… (Suitcase nuclear bomb)
5. The vulnerabilities….. Iraqi insurgents have developed improvised chemical weapons using vehicle borne explosives coupled to tanks of chlorine. Bleach + acid In the UK over 1.6 million tonnes of chlorine are produced annually and 150,000 tons are transported by road. And 400,000 tons by rail. In 2005 a railroad accident in Graniteville, South Carolina led to a chlorine spill that killed 9 people.
6. “Using a credit card and fake headed note paper, a reporter for BBC Radio 4's Today programme was able to buy a cocktail of ingredients which could be used to make sarin gas.” Dimethyl methylphosphonate, phosphorus trichloride, sodium fluoride and alcohol , the chemicals required, would cost about $150 for sufficient to make 250 grams of sarin. Shoko Asahara founder of AumShinrikyo launched an attack on the Tokyo underground killing 12 and injuring thousands. Kurdish victims of Saddam Hussein Syrian victim of sarin ?
7. DIY Anthrax Production….. 3 months
8. Anthrax Bioterrorism To produce an effective WMD terrorists would have to produce an aerosol form of anthrax so that is could be dispersed by spraying. The source of the spray could be a tall building but a crop dusting plane would be more effective. Spraying just 100 kg on a large city could result in 3 million deaths. Anthrax spores are very resilient and a city sprayed in this way could remain infected for over 40 years.
9. Signs and Symptoms Inhalation anthrax: Fever, malaise, fatigue, cough, chest discomfort, stridor (noisy breathing), respiratory distress, dyspnea (shortness of breath), and cyanosis (bluish discoloration of the skin). Cutaneous anthrax: Raised itchy bump to vesicle which progresses to painless ulcer (1-3cm) with black area in the center. Swollen lymph nodes and flu-like symptoms. Ingested anthrax: Flu-like symptoms, nausea, loss of appetite, vomiting, fever, abdominal pain, and severe diarrhea. Lethality: Fifty percent of the people exposed to 8,000 to 50,000 spores may become infected with anthrax; if untreated anthrax can be lethal to 95% of those infected.
10. Weapons Grade Anthrax For weapons grade anthrax the spores have to be of a size that can be easily inhaled into the lungs. Weapons grade anthrax will be highly concentrated, 1 trillion spores per gram. This is 100 million times the average dose needed to kill a person. As can be seen here anthrax spores have a tendency to clump and this makes inhalation less likely. Producing anthrax spores is relatively easy. Chemicals have to be added to the spores to prevent this clumping. It will then have the appearance and consistency of talcum powder. Producing weapons grade anthrax is much more difficult.
11. Aerosol Dispersion of Anthrax Spores
12. Ricin is extracted from castor beans and is 1,000 times more toxic than cyanide. It can be fatal when inhaled, swallowed or injected, although it is possible to recover from exposure. Castor beans are typically used to make castor oil, and ricin is a by-product of that process, according to the CDC. “Federal authorities stated that the poison ricin was found in envelopes sent to both President Obama and Sen. Roger Wicker, a Mississippi Republican.” "The technology for making it is low enough that literally any crank working in his basement can create a ricin preparation of some sort," Jonathan Tucker, a biological weapons expert . White supremacist and son sentenced over UK ricin plot
13. Radiological Dispersion Device (RDD)
14. Radiological Dispersion Device (RDD)
15. Potential Isotopes Used in RDDs
16. Recent Concerns In 1987 in Goiania, Brazil, scavengers broke into an abandoned cancer clinic and took a metal canister from a radiotherapy machine. They broke open the canister releasing the Cesium-137. The resulting contamination led to four deaths, an arm amputation, 28 people suffering from radiation burns and more than 200 from radioactive contamination. Panic among the local population required the monitoring of 112,000 people. The clean up operation cost $20 million but the total economic cost, due to lost tourism etc, was estimated as hundreds of millions of dollars.
17. Recent Concerns In 1996 in Moscow, Islamic militants from Chechnya planted a Cesium-137 RDD in Moscow’s Izamilovo Park. The source was a radiotherapy machine from a cancer clinic. In May 2002 US authorities arrest Jose Padilla, also known as Abdullah Al-Mujahir, an AQ operative, allegedly on a reconnaissance mission to find materials and potential targets for a RDD attack. In 2003 in Amiriya, Iraq, insurgents looted Cobolt-60 from a former military testing site.
18. Recent Concerns In 2010 two Armenians, a businessman and a physicist pleaded guilty to smuggling highly enriched uranium (HEU) into Georgia in March, hiding it in a lead-lined package on a train from Yerevan to Tbilisi. SumbatTonoyan HrantOhanyan The 18g uranium sample that SumbatTonoyan and HrantOhanyan were smuggling is thought to have been stolen several years ago. US tests have confirmed it is 89.4% enriched, usable in a nuclear warhead. They thought they were selling their sample to a representative of an Islamist group as a precursor to a bigger consignment. But the buyer was an undercover police officer.
19. Nuclear Terrorism Little Boy, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima contained approximately 55 kg of uranium 235 of which less than 1 kilogram underwent fission but this produced a yield equivalent to 16,000 tons of TNT. The blast radius was several miles and 66,000 people died immediately as a result of the blast, fire or falling debris, and 69,000 were badly injured. Within half a mile of ground zero everything was vaporised. Almost all buildings within a 2 mile radius were destroyed by the blast.
20. DIY Nuclear terrorism 50 kilograms: Weight of a solid sphere of 100 percent uranium-235 just large enough to achieve a critical mass without a reflector. Diameter of such a sphere: 6.74 in (17.2 cm), comparable to an average honeydew melon. Only 8 kilograms of Plutonium is needed for a nuclear weapon but the technology for the detonation of this type of weapon is far more complex Between 1991-2002 there were over 700 illicit trafficking incidents involving the theft and smuggling of nuclear materials. Stanford Database on Nuclear Smuggling, Theft and Orphan Radiation Sources (DSTO)
21. A Suitcase Nuclear Weapon Calculate the blast radius of a suitcase nuclear weapon
22. Estimating the Probability of a CBRN Attack in the UK
23. Conclusions It has been estimated that the probability of a terrorist attack using a CBRN weapon in the next 10 years is between 1% and 60%. The consequences of a successful WMD attack by terrorists will be immense, politically, economically, socially and not least psychologically. It will be a game changer……. “Today we were unlucky, but remember we only have to be lucky once – you will have to be lucky always.” IRA spokesman following the attempted assassination of Margaret Thatcher in the 1984 Brighton bomb.