Washington Post: The Secretive Fight Against Bioterror

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The Secretive Fight Against Bioterror

The government is building a highly classified facility to research

biological weapons, but its closed-door approach has raised concerns.

By Joby Warrick

Washington Post Staff Writer

Sunday, July 30, 2006; A01

On the grounds of a military base an hour's drive from the capital, the Bush

administration is building a massive biodefense laboratory unlike any seen

since biological weapons were banned 34 years ago.

The heart of the lab is a cluster of sealed chambers built to contain the

world's deadliest bacteria and viruses. There, scientists will spend their days

simulating the unthinkable: bioterrorism attacks in the form of lethal

anthrax spores rendered as wispy powders that can drift for miles on a summer

breeze, or common viruses turned into deadly superbugs that ordinary drugs and

vaccines cannot stop.

The work at this new lab, at Fort Detrick, Md., could someday save thousands

of lives -- or, some fear, create new risks and place the United States in

violation of international treaties. In either case, much of what transpires

at the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center (NBACC) may

never be publicly known, because the Bush administration intends to operate the

facility largely in secret.

In an unusual arrangement, the building itself will be classified as highly

restricted space, from the reception desk to the lab benches to the cages

where animals are kept. Few federal facilities, including nuclear labs, operate

with such stealth. It is this opacity that some arms-control experts say has

become a defining characteristic of U.S. biodefense policy as carried out by

the Department of Homeland Security, NBACC's creator.

Since the department's founding in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks,

its officials have dramatically expanded the government's ability to conduct

realistic tests of the pathogens and tactics that might be used in a

bioterrorism attack. Some of the research falls within what many arms-control

experts

say is a legal gray zone, skirting the edges of an international treaty

outlawing the production of even small amounts of biological weapons.

The administration dismisses these concerns, however, insisting that the

work of NBACC is purely defensive and thus fully legal. It has rejected calls

for oversight by independent observers outside the department's network of

government scientists and contractors. And it defends the secrecy as necessary

to protect Americans.

" Where the research exposes vulnerability, I've got to protect that, for the

public's interest, " said Bernard , NBACC's scientific director. " We

don't need to be showing perpetrators the holes in our defense. "

Tara O'Toole, founder of the Center for Biosecurity at the University of

Pittsburgh Medical Center and an adviser to the Defense Department on

bioterrorism, said the secrecy fits a larger pattern and could have

consequences. " The

philosophy and practice behind NBACC looks like much of the rest of the

administration's philosophy and practice: 'Our intent is good, so we can do

whatever we want,' " O'Toole said. " This approach will only lead to trouble. "

Although they acknowledge the need to shield the results of some sensitive

projects from public view, critics of NBACC fear that excessive secrecy could

actually increase the risk of bioterrorism. That would happen, they say, if

the lab fosters ill-designed experiments conducted without proper scrutiny or

if its work fuels suspicions that could lead other countries to pursue secret

biological research.

The few public documents that describe NBACC's research mission have done

little to quiet those fears. A computer slide show prepared by the center's

directors in 2004 offers a to-do list that suggests the lab will be making and

testing small amounts of weaponized microbes and, perhaps, genetically

engineered viruses and bacteria. It also calls for " red team " exercises that

simulate attacks by hostile groups.

NBACC's close ties to the U.S. intelligence community have also caused

concern among the agency's critics. The CIA has assigned advisers to the lab,

including at least one member of the " Z-Division, " an elite group jointly

operated with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory that specializes in

analyzing

and duplicating weapons systems of potential adversaries, officials familiar

with the program confirm.

Bioweapons experts say the nature of the research envisioned for NBACC

demands an unusually high degree of transparency to reassure Americans and the

rest of the world of the U.S. government's intentions.

" If we saw others doing this kind of research, we would view it as an

infringement of the bioweapons treaty, " said Milton Leitenberg, a senior

research

scholar and weapons expert at the University of land's School of Public

Policy. " You can't go around the world yelling about Iranian and North Korean

programs -- about which we know very little -- when we've got all this going

on. "

Creating the Weapons of Terrorism

Created without public fanfare a few months after the 2001 anthrax attacks,

NBACC is intended to be the chief U.S. biological research institution

engaged in something called " science-based threat assessment. " It seeks to

quantitatively answer one of the most difficult questions in biodefense: What's

the

worst that can happen?

To truly answer that question, there is little choice, current and former

NBACC officials say: Researchers have to make real biological weapons.

" De facto, we are going to make biowarfare pathogens at NBACC in order to

study them, " said Penrose " Parney " Albright, former Homeland Security assistant

secretary for science and technology.

Other government agencies, such as the Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention, study disease threats such as smallpox to discover cures. By

contrast,

NBACC (pronounced EN-back) attempts to get inside the head of a

bioterrorist. It considers the wide array of potential weapons available. It

looks for

the holes in society's defenses where an attacker might achieve the maximum

harm. It explores the risks posed by emerging technologies, such as new DNA

synthesizing techniques that allow the creation of genetically altered or

man-made viruses. And it tries in some cases to test the weapon or delivery

device

that terrorists might use.

Research at NBACC is already underway, in lab space that has been outsourced

or borrowed from the Army's sprawling biodefense campus at Fort Detrick in

Frederick. It was at this compound that the U.S. government researched and

produced offensive biological weapons from the 1940s until President M.

Nixon halted research in 1969. The Army continues to conduct research on

pathogens there.

In June, construction began on a $128 million, 160,000-square-foot facility

inside the same heavily guarded compound. Space inside the eight-story,

glass-and-brick structure will be divided between NBACC's two major divisions:

a

forensic testing center tasked with using modern sleuthing techniques to

identify the possible culprits in future biological attacks; and the Biothreat

Characterization Center, or BTCC, which seeks to predict what such attacks will

look like.

It is the BTCC's wing that will host the airtight, ultra-secure containment

labs where the most controversial research will be done. Homeland Security

officials won't talk about specific projects planned or underway. But the 2004

computer slide show -- posted briefly on a Homeland Security Web site before

its discovery by agency critics prompted an abrupt removal -- offers insight

into NBACC's priorities.

The presentation by NBACC's then-deputy director, Lt. Col. Korch,

listed 16 research priorities for the new lab. Among them:

" Characterize classical, emerging and genetically engineered pathogens for

their BTA [biological threat agent] potential.

" Assess the nature of nontraditional, novel and nonendemic induction of

disease from potential BTA.

" Expand aerosol-challenge testing capacity for non-human primates.

" Apply Red Team operational scenarios and capabilities. "

, the NBACC science director, acknowledged that his work would

include simulating real biological threats -- but not just any threats.

" If I hear a noise on the back porch, will I turn on the light to decide

whether there's something there, or go on my merry way? " asked. " But

I'm only going to do [research] if I have credible information that shows it

truly is a threat. It's not going to be dreamed up out of the mind of a

novelist. "

Administration officials note that there is a tradition for this kind of

biological risk assessment, one that extends at least to the Clinton

administration. In the late 1990s, for example, a clandestine project run by the

Defense Department re-created a genetically modified, drug-resistant strain of

the

anthrax bacteria believed to have been made by Soviet bioweaponeers. Such

research helped the government anticipate and prepare for emerging threats,

according to officials familiar with the anthrax study.

Some arms-control experts see the comparison as troubling. They argued, then

and now, that the work was a possible breach of a U.S.-negotiated

international law.

Legal and Other Pitfalls

The Bush administration argues that its biodefense research complies with

the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, the 1972 treaty outlawing the

manufacture of biological weapons, because U.S. motives are pure.

" All the programs we do are defensive in nature, " said Maureen McCarthy,

Homeland Security's director of research and development, who oversees NBACC.

" Our job is to ensure that the civilian population of the country is protected,

and that we know what the threats are. "

Current and former administration officials say that compliance with the

treaty hinges on intent, and that making small amounts of biowarfare pathogens

for study is permitted under a broad interpretation of the treaty. Some also

argue that the need for a strong biodefense in an age of genetic engineering

trumps concerns over what they see as legal hair-splitting.

" How can I go to the people of this country and say, 'I can't do this

important research because some arms-control advocate told me I can't'? " asked

Albright, the former Homeland Security assistant secretary.

But some experts in international law believe that certain experiments

envisioned for the lab could violate the treaty's ban on developing,

stockpiling,

acquiring or retaining microbes " of types and in quantities that have no

justification " for peaceful purposes.

" The main problem with the 'defensive intent' test is that it does not

reflect what the treaty actually says, " said Fidler, an Indiana

University

School of Law professor and expert on the bioweapons convention. The treaty,

largely a U.S. creation, does not make a distinction between defensive and

offensive activities, Fidler said.

More practically, arms experts say, future U.S. governments may find it

harder to object if other countries test genetically engineered pathogens and

novel delivery systems, invoking the same need for biodefense.

Already, they say, there is evidence abroad of what some are calling a

" global biodefense boom. " In the past five years, numerous governments,

including

some in the developing world -- India, China and Cuba among them -- have

begun building high-security labs for studying the most lethal bacteria and

viruses.

" These labs have become a status symbol, a prestige item, " said Alan

Pearson, a biologist at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. " A

big

question is: Will these labs have transparency? "

Secrecy May Have a Price

When it opens in two years, the NBACC lab will house an impressive

collection of deadly germs and teams of scientists in full-body " spacesuits " to

work

with them. It will also have large aerosol-test chambers where animals will be

exposed to deadly microbes. But the lab's most controversial feature may be

its secrecy.

Homeland Security officials disclosed plans to contractors and other

government agencies to classify the entire lab as a Sensitive Compartmented

Information Facility, or SCIF.

In common practice, a SCIF (pronounced " skiff " ) is a secure room where

highly sensitive information is stored and discussed. Access to SCIFs is

severely

limited, and all of the activity and conversation inside is presumed to be

restricted from public disclosure. There are SCIFs in the U.S. Capitol, where

members of Congress are briefed on military secrets. In U.S. nuclear labs,

computers that store weapons data are housed inside SCIFs.

Homeland Security officials plan to operate all 160,000 square feet of NBACC

as a SCIF. Because of the building's physical security features -- intended

to prevent the accidental release of dangerous pathogens -- it was logical to

operate it as a SCIF, McCarthy said.

" We need to protect information at a level that is appropriate, " McCarthy

added, saying she expects much of the lab's less-sensitive work to be made

public eventually.

But some biodefense experts, including some from past administrations,

viewed the decision as a mistake.

" To overlay NBACC with a default level of high secrecy seems like overkill, "

said Gerald L. Epstein, a former science adviser to the White House's

National Security Council and now a senior fellow with the Center for Strategic

and

International Studies. While accepting that some secrecy is needed, he said

the NBACC plan " sends a message that is not at all helpful. "

NBACC officials also have resisted calls for the kind of broad, independent

oversight that many experts say is necessary to assure other countries and

the American public about their research.

Homeland Security spokesmen insist that NBACC's work will be carefully

monitored, but on the department's terms.

" We have our own processes to scrutinize our research, and it includes

compliance to the bioweapons convention guidelines as well as scientific

oversight, " said , the NBACC scientific director.

In addition to the department's internal review boards, the agency will

bring in small groups of " three or four scientists " on an ad-hoc basis to

review

certain kinds of potentially controversial experiments, said. The

review panels will be " independent, " said, but he noted that only

scientists with government security clearances will be allowed to participate.

Some experts have called for unusual forms of oversight, including panels of

well-respected, internationally known scientists and observers from

overseas. While allowing that the results of some experiments should be kept

confidential, O'Toole, of the Center for Biosecurity, argues that virtually

everything else at NBACC should be publicly accountable if the United States is

to be

a credible leader in preventing the proliferation of bioweapons.

" We're going to have to lean over backward, " O'Toole said. " We have no

leverage among other nation-states if we say, 'We can do whatever we want, but

you

can't. We want to see your biodefense program, but you can't see ours.' "

In recent weeks, NBACC's first officially completed project has drawn

criticism, not because of its methods or procedures, but because heavy

classification has limited its usefulness.

The project was an ambitious attempt to assess and rank the threats posed by

dozens of different pathogens and delivery systems, drawing on hundreds of

studies and extensive computer modeling. When delivered to the White House in

January, it was the most extensive survey of its kind, and one that could

guide the federal government in making decisions about biodefense spending.

Six months later, no one outside a small group of officials and advisers

with top security clearances has seen the results.

" Something this important shouldn't be secret, " said V. Inglesby, an

expert at the Center for Biosecurity who serves on a government advisory

board that was briefed on the results. " How can we make policy decisions about

matters of this scale if we're operating in the dark? "

Tomorrow: A new era of engineered microbes