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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| StrategyPage Iran: Biological and Chemical Weapons |
| 2006-03-24 |
| Iran's nuclear program has it in the headlines, and for good reason. The country's leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has made numerous comments that indicate he might not be entirely rational (such as denying the Holocaust). The thought of someone like that having the most powerful weapons in human history rightfully worries people. What gets less attention, but is also worthy of note are Iran's other WMD programs. First, a look at Iran's nuclear program is in order. The Iranian nuclear weapons effort is moving forward, with major research centers in Bushehr, Estegahl, Isfahan, Tehran, Karaj, and Saghand. These centers are protected by the Iranians. Three of these centers (Bushehr, Tehran, and Isfahan) are near airbases that have at least one squadron of fighters. The air base at Bushehr hosts two squadrons of F-4s and a detachment of F-14s. Tehran's air base has a squadron of MiG-29 Fulcrums. Isfahan's air base has a squadron of F-14s and a squadron of F-5s. Estegahl is near Bushehr, and can be protected by the two F-4 squadrons there. Karaj, which is roughly 50 kilometers away from Tehran, can easily be protected by the squadron of Fulcrums at Tehran, while Saghand is in Yazd province (the middle of Iran), and any strike aimed there has to get through Iranian defenses. However, what has been lost in the shuffle is the fact that Iran is already producing chemical and biological weapons. These are weapons of mass destruction – and American policy is very clear: If attacked by chemical or biological weapons, the United States will respond with nuclear weapons. Iran's major chemical weapons production facility is based at Damghan, about 300 kilometers east of Iran. American intelligence agencies estimate that Iran is producing 1,000 tons of chemical weapons a year, including mustard gas, phosgene, and various cyanide agents. These agents are older technology than the sarin nerve gas used in the 1995 Tokyo subway attack, but they can still kill. Iran is also working on biological weapons as well. Intelligence agencies suspect Iran is working on smallpox, which officially has been eradicated save for samples being kept in the United States and Russia. Smallpox incubates for about 12 days, is highly contagious, and kills anywhere from 20 to 40 percent of its victims. Survivors are often left blind in at least one eye. Its nastiness is compounded by the fact that the last known case was in 1978, and there are very few, if any, physicians who have experience treating the disease. Iran's other projects in the biological realm are biotoxins. Unlike biological weapons, they do not rely on having the initial victims infect more people. They are more accurately described as delayed-action chemical weapons. Iran is reportedly working on two types of biotoxins: Mycotoxins (fungi) and ricin. The mycotoxins would likely be used against food supplies – often to cause economic disruption and liver cancer. Ricin, which was used to lace a letter sent to Senator Bill Frist's office in 2004, is intended to kill victims directly – its most famous use being the assassination of Gregory Markov in London in 1978. Iran's WMD programs are rightly viewed with concern given the theocratic regime's support for terrorists. Earlier this month, improved IEDs en route to insurgents in Iraq were captured at the Iranian border. Iran has also been a sponsor of terrorist groups, including Hezbollah, Hamas, PFLC-GC, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. This is a combination that is extremely dangerous, and this suspected combination was enough to topple Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003. Unlike Saddam Hussein's regime, Iran is open about its desire to acquire weapons of mass destruction – and its support for terrorism is also undisputed. |
| Posted by:ed |
| #16 Zen, for sure ... Recent science I've read shows that the interface between interstitial activities ... basically cell wall to cell wall is possibly domintated by dendriet/axion type interaction of proteins which may or may not span the entire wall complex. Think of it, basics of brain activity occur at the most simple level between cell and cell. WOW. Biochem wise, this is HUGE. |
| Posted by: bombay 2006-03-24 20:30 |
| #15 Cool beans, bombay. Protein envelopes seem to be a major key in the big fights, like AIDS. Thank you for the update. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2006-03-24 20:02 |
| #14 I have used many a tool like linked ... although to be fair to 3dc, I did not go through it all. There is good stuff here ... I will say, for those with a passing interest in Biochem ... don't listen to the media/hype these days. It has nothing to do with the genetic (DNA) code/sequence ... EVERYTHING, and I mean everyting boi-active has to do with 3D shaping / stoichiomestry (the shape of molecules). Biochem has 'wasted' decades on gene sequence only to find the shape of the resultant protein has if not as much, but MORE to do with boichemical reactivity as DNA code. |
| Posted by: bombay 2006-03-24 18:40 |
| #13 Ok, lots of links didn't work so here is one page with 664 different free opensource bio-informics programs: SourceForge.Net bio-informics Even more at other places for nano-tech and nano-bio. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2006-03-24 18:33 |
| #12 Yeah, no worries, and you see where I am comming from. It really isn't us Biochem freaks or Chemistry nuts you have to worry about ... it is the meeting of technology with ease of biochem manipulation. The Jihadis that know so-and-so bug is bad don't give a crap about the implications, much like the MSM ... if they can just release one super-bug and bring Bush down the whole world would be fine ... except of course for all the minor details, but that is for the infidel to deal with, isn't it, because everyone knows biologicals don't attack Muslims! |
| Posted by: bombay 2006-03-24 18:25 |
| #11 Nicely explained, bombay. Thanks! Especially as it's lots harder to convince those who know just enough to get into trouble. ;-) |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2006-03-24 17:19 |
| #10 Oh, no, not arguing with you TW, just pointing out that just as in the 60/70s you had to know what you were doing (inside and out, the true depth of knowledge) to build and program a computer ... the same is true for Biochemical 'problems' ... I'd say we are in the waning 70s of computers vs. Biochem. Soon there will be home kits to test your kids for genetic problems (already are actually). The technology is advancing and it is only a matter of time before there are the hardware and software knowledge en masse to cause a problem. Basically, things are becoming automated and easy enough such that someone who knows that a super-bug is x,y,z dangerous or this/that protein will really mess things up, can DO something about it. Times were that you had to know it was bad and HOW to make it bad or execute to really count ... now you may just have to know it is bad and get a hold the equivalent of a best buy commodity computer to DO something about it. And yes, it is somewhat like computer viruses ... they taught us how and rely on our ethics to ensure that we don't ... but just look at the modern world, aside from the rarity who has ethics anymore? What you wrote is conventional wisdom (still) amongst the biochem world. It is partly denial of risk, but also, hey I went through years of this schooling to know this, how could some kid ... Well, just like viruses now, there are manufacture kits and the script kiddies don't really know how or why stuff works, it just does. Soon the technology will be such that you really don't need to understand protein folding, stoichometric chemistry, enzymatic reatction rates, etc -- just that you mix A, with B and press the button and wham ... jihadi paradise. Most of my peers in Biochem are in complete denail of this. |
| Posted by: bombay 2006-03-24 17:01 |
| #9 I yield me to your expertise, bombay. I am merely the child of a biochemist, and the wife of a (non-practicing) chemical engineer, so my knowledge of such things is, um, atmospheric rather than factual. It sounds like your education was much like that of current computer programming students, who are taught to write viruses senior year so they don't do it accidentally. And admittedly I was thrilled to produce chlorine gas when I poured bleach over the kitty urine... But I never was able to produce enough to be harmful. ;-) |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2006-03-24 16:46 |
| #8 Part of the problem is too, that the masses are afraid of things they know about or already know to be dangerous. The REAL problem is not delivery mechanisms, or Botulinum, Ricin, etc ... it is the everyday common bug. For me, the real fear, is the creation of a super-common that is resistance to first-round and last-round treatments and/or resistances to muti prong attacks (such as resistance to division-blocker, wall lysis, growth inhibitors, etc ... as an example (not to give anyone ideas, as this would be hard) but an E-coli with resistance to amoxicillin/penicillin, erythromycin, plus resistance to some of the newer antis would be dangerous ... esp. in a warmer climate in the food chain. Anyway, it seems a lot of the focus from the Lay side of things is on a specifc bug, Antrhax, SmallPox, etc -- personally, the real risk is from something that has been overclocked so to speak ... something that we are exposed to everyday. Maybe H1N5 kicked up a notch, but to be honest, messing with virus vectors and whatnot is still a lot harder than bacterial. Watch the news from some nasty new common bug making the killer rounds ... then we are in trouble. The reason it is so risky is typical human complacency a la the 'oh, that is normal fauna, it is probably something else' time goes by, and too late. Anyway, I think we are fearing the big bad bugs and ignoring the little ones we think we've conquered already. Big mistake. |
| Posted by: bombay 2006-03-24 16:17 |
| #7 Oh it does take that much to grow the little devils - Bon Vivant Vichyssoise June/July 1971, New York area 1 dead, 2 criticaly incapacitated, by Type A botulism involved 6,444 tainted cans (Lots #V-141/USA-71, V-110-USA-71 & 072-V-USA-67) The Bon Vivant Soup Company was located at 166 Abington Ave in Newark, New Jersey * Samuel Cochran Jr. victim * Grace Wallace Cochran victim * Paul McDonald victim The real question with Botulism is an effective delivery system. |
| Posted by: Glavinter Uliling4029 2006-03-24 15:53 |
| #6 Good point TW, but it is becoming less and less true each passing day. In my early years of BioChem we were taught enough and had enough access to labs to create some really nasty, nasty things (in the earliest years, even freshman). Back then, it was true, you needed the labs to do anything real and the equipment was expensive beyond expensive. Back then, the PCR manchines were big, booked solid and had waiting lists of weeks/months. The supplies were very expensive, the gels, the samples, the radioactive markers, etc, etc ... I've recently seen in a magazine a 'toy' which allows one (this being for children around 8 or so) to do all the steps to sequence DNA, in a easy toy format. Grind, Isolate, Centrifuge, Elctroporesis, sampling, etc ... all in toy format with a few pushes and heavy automation. Now it is very basic, but wow! Now the PCR machines are smaller than laptops and portable. Kids can sequence DNA at home, etc. Gels and other disposables cost nothing. The point is, just as miniturization and cost advances in Computer Technology has driven use to the masses the same will be true in Bio / Chem arena. I already see it these days as although in Aerospace / Technology I stay up on the biochem world - and often think of returning becase it is now much easier (for those in CS, it is analogous to having to do things in assembler w/ your own memory management vs. an OO language or higher level IDE dev environment). Honestly, it is just a matter of time before someone with a bit / enough knowledge finds access to the the right equipment. Seriously, with home sequencing kits now available as toys, well, can't be that long off. |
| Posted by: bombay 2006-03-24 15:24 |
| #5 Knowledge and ability are one thing. Equipment, especially to grow the biologicals, or to produce large quatities of the chemicals, is something else. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2006-03-24 13:23 |
| #4 The real problem [and threat] is not the government. It is the fact that not only can Iranian, etc governments develop these things, but free agents can as well. There's enough knowledge and ability in the American community, that if provoked, could deliver such a weapon to those who theaten us without government action/inaction. You don't think a random 9/11 act could motivate someone who's lost a loved one, to apply his knowledge to payback in millions for that loss? |
| Posted by: Slique Glulet1210 2006-03-24 10:34 |
| #3 Yep. |
| Posted by: ed 2006-03-24 09:21 |
| #2 These are weapons of mass destruction – and American policy is very clear: If attacked by chemical or biological weapons, the United States will respond with nuclear weapons. Sadly, we demonstrated this is a toothless threat in 2001. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2006-03-24 09:03 |
| #1 Title should be: StrategyPage Iran: Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Weapons |
| Posted by: ed 2006-03-24 08:49 |