Nations told chemical attack serious threat

ANDREW BUNCOMBE reports on the global response to the threat of chemicals.

WASHINGTON - Advances in technology have made it possible for terrorists to kill millions of people with chemical or biological weapons, says the World Health Organisation.

In a draft of a 179-page report that was rushed out after calls for advice on how to combat germ warfare, the United Nations health agency said: "The magnitude of possible impacts on civilian populations of their use or threatened use obliges governments both to seek prevention and to prepare response plans."

The alert comes as United States authorities warn of possible chemical airborne raids after the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington on September 11.

"We must prepare for the possibility that people are deliberately harmed with biological or chemical agents," Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland told a meeting of Western Hemisphere Health Ministers.

Her comments came amid growing concern in the US that terrorists may next strike with biological or chemical agents.

US Attorney-General John Ashcroft told a congressional hearing yesterday that Mohamed Atta, a suspect in the hijacking of a commercial airliner that crashed into New York's World Trade Center, "was acquiring knowledge of cropdusting aircraft prior to the attack of September 11".

He said the FBI feared an attack with cropdusting aircraft against an unknown target and security officials nationwide were on alert to prevent it.

Ashcroft described the use of such aircraft to deliver chemical or biological weapons of mass destruction as a potential threat to Americans, and advised for the second time in two weeks a ban on all flights by cropduster aircraft until today.

A flight manual for cropdusters was found among the possessions of Zacarias Moussaoui, who is in federal custody on immigration violations. He was detained after he sought flight training in Minnesota.

Bruntland said there was global capacity and experience to control serious disease outbreaks but stressed the need to strengthen national contingency plans, particularly in countries where infectious disease outbreaks were rare.

She said the WHO, a specialised UN agency, was ready to assist should nations face such attacks.

"During the past week we have upgraded our procedures for helping countries respond to suspected incidents of deliberate infection," she told the directing council of the Pan-American Health Organisation.

She added that guidelines for containing disease outbreaks were available on the WHO website.

Any infectious agent or toxic chemical could in theory be engineered for deliberate use as a weapon. Experts believe that smallpox, anthrax, botulism and the plague are most likely to be used.

WHO said outbreaks of infectious disease should be detected through the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network, a web of local and regional laboratories staffed with public health experts and aided by internet-based information systems to continually monitor rumours of disease around the world.

The WHO's report was issued as it emerged that J. D. "Will" Lee, the general manager of South Florida Crop Care in Belle Glade, said he was visited by two or three men of Middle Eastern origin almost every weekend for six to eight weeks before the attacks in New York and Washington. He said they were persistent and asked "odd questions" about his blue and yellow 502 Air Tractor cropduster.

"I wouldn't spend any time talking to them or telling them anything because I didn't think it was any of their business," said Lee.

Often arriving in rented vans at the Belle Glade municipal airport, where the cropdusting business is located, the men asked about the range of the aircraft, what quantity of chemicals it would haul, how difficult it was to fly and how much fuel it would carry, he said.

Lee said that a colleague, James Lester, had identified one of the men to the FBI as Mohamed Atta.

Lester told the Washington Post that Atta repeatedly asked him to let him see the interior of the cockpit and asked how to start the planes. Lester refused the requests. "I just told the guys, 'You can't get in the airplane'," he said. "They just kept standing around."

What the men planned to do with the cropdusters is unclear but there are fears that they intended to use them to spray deadly germs or chemicals.

A Government official said: "The theory is that they were looking into this as a back-up to their main objective or else as a whole other type of operation that could still be a concern. There are certainly enough questions to elevate our concerns."

Intelligence sources have already said they believe that Osama bin Laden and his network may have access to such weapons.

Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, said at the weekend that countries sponsoring terrorism had "very active chemical and biological warfare programmes".

He added: "We know that they are in close contact with terrorist networks."

- INDEPENDENT

Full coverage: Terror in America

Pictures: Day 1 | Day 2 | Brooklyn Bridge live webcam

Video

The fatal flights

Emergency telephone numbers:

United Airlines: 0168 1800 932 8555

American Airlines: 0168 1800 245 0999

NZ Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade: 0800 872 111

US Embassy in Wellington (recorded info): 04 472 2068