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An Interview with Dr. Kanatjan Alibekov

Dr. Kanatjan Alibekov was the former First Deputy Director of Biopreparat from 1988 to 1992. Biopreparat was the Soviet Union's biological weapons program. Alibekov defected from the Soviet Union and moved to Washington, DC in 1992.

Worst case scenario, what could happen?

Just to be scientifically correct, let me give you an example. Some[time] in the 60s here in the United States, and in the 80s in the Soviet Union, there were so-called [modern] experiments using some non-pathogenic bacteria spread in some metro systems. After this, calculations were completed. What we would see, for example, in case of applying a small amount of some agents in metro systems, up to 10,000 infected and dead people. And we can give many more examples, but you know, this is a real capability of biological weapons.

If they had been infectious viruses?

If they had been infectious viruses, the amount of people infected and dead would average dozens of thousands.

How much of a concern is this? Is this just a group of old Cold War warriors that are worried about the next thing. It seems that we are safe from a nuclear war now that the Cold War is over.

No. Let's analyze the logic of weapons development, the history of weapons development ... the problem with biological weapons [is that] they are very complex. But any weapon that has been developed eventually was used in terrorist attacks. Until recently, we hadn't seen anything with applying chemical weapons, but we've seen it recently. Now we can say, if we follow this logic, biological agents, biological weapons could be used in the future. In my opinion, that's not a matter of if; that's a matter of when.

What are the ramifications of this type of weapon being used on a society?

As I said before, the logic of developing weapons and, eventually us[ing] these weapons in terrorist acts, then biological weapons could be undetected. A person or group of people who use it can escape from a place of appl[ication], even from a country of application, undetected. In my opinion, biological agents and biological weapons are very terrifying weapons ... we don't have a capability to detect these weapons before they're applied, before they're used. They're very attractive for possible application, they're not very expensive and [they're] relatively easy to manufacture.

What would happen to New York City, for instance, if a smallpox attack happened?

It might be a full destruction of any vital activity. A lot of dead people. Full paralysis of medical system. Huge panic. People would try to escape from the city. And because they're contagious, they would form new foci of epidemics around. We would see a fast developing epidemic.

Can you compare the number of scientists that are now working in the field here in the U.S., compared to the number of scientists or facilities that were involved in the Soviet program?

Let me give this example, anthrax. In the Soviet Union, thousands of people were involved in developing an anthrax biological weapon. Here in the United States, maybe two or three people were involved in developing protection against anthrax. The amount of people who do something just to develop real protection against plague here in the United States is less than amount of institutions and organizations in the Soviet Union (the former Soviet Union) that were involved in plague problem as well.

Because of the power of these weapons, how good a tool of blackmail is it to terrorist groups?

Yes, that's a problem for this country ... because it's a very powerful country and unfortunately this type of country is not liked very often. There is a very high probability that biological weapons in the future could be some kind of instrument for blackmailing. Just imagine this type of scenario. A group of possible terrorists, now located here in the United States. They have some devices. And for example, if the United States tries to organize some kind of military action against an Arab country (because this country supports terrorist groups and such), and the leader of that country declares that if the United States tries just to fight this country, 50 terrorist groups armed with biological weapons would commit these acts, how would the United States behave in this situation? Nobody knows. And what kind of consequences this government should expect if they really used biological agents and biological weapons, is relatively severe consequences. This is a possible way just to blackmail a superpower.

What else should be done immediately? What else do you consider to be absolutely necessary to start out?

The best way is to organize a special panel of scientists, intelligence people, government, and develop a national program of bio-defense.

Your suggestion is to begin the process and the research--what would be the first step?

Probably not just the first step. We need to make several steps. Political steps first of all. We need to develop a procedure [on] how to organize mandatory inspections, not just between the United States and Russia. We [can't] forget that there are several countries that are interested in developing biological weapons. That's why we need to undertake some political steps.

Second, we need to continue developing vaccines, but we don't have to rely on vaccines ... we need to start developing something else.

Is one problem with the vaccines that there is always a variety of bugs that could be used?

First of all, the amount of agents [that] could be used in biological weapons averages 50-70. But if we add possible genetically altered agents, this figure reaches 100 and more. Could somebody imagine 100 vaccines? Could somebody imagine that groups or population vaccinated against dozens or even hundreds possible diseases? That's impossible.

Why? What would happen to somebody who is vaccinated?

First of all, we don't have such amount of vaccines. Second, if you vaccinate simultaneously against five, six, seven or ten diseases, this person could die just after such huge amount of vaccination. Of course, if you vaccinate against one or two diseases, that's not a problem.

And another problem we need to discuss: What is possible for the troops, is absolutely impossible for civilian population. I cannot imagine how we can vaccinate the entire population of the United States against agents. And even if we had all these vaccines, it wouldn't be possible to vaccinate because it's impossible. We need to start thinking using some other ways.

In many cases, [there is] no necessity to develop vaccines. We [can't] forget that our bodies have so-called non-specific immune system. If we are able to develop preparations to boost our non-specific immune system, it would be helpful to develop so-called pre-exposure, post-exposure preparations. It would be not to use for civilian population. If we're talking about treatment when a set of symptoms appears, for example, after using biological weapons, we need to develop specific treatments based on so-called direct action drugs and then substances that could boost non-specific immune system as well.

But that could take many years. Are we in danger until that point?

I don't believe it. It would take just two or three, maximum five years, if we start analyzing this situation, if we start putting some money in such projects.

Right now, with what the Soviet Union is going through, the instability of the government, the problem with the economy, does that scare you? Could that have an effect on the problem of proliferation?

If you imagine an angry country, a country that is collapsing, but this country has a huge military capability, of manufacturing and applying weapons of mass destruction--that's very scary. What we need to do, until this government is in power, to solve this problem, to reduce a possible threat from this country in the future, by developing something to control these weapons better, to destroy some capabilities. And specifically, when you are talking about my area of biological weapons, we need to do everything possible to destroy this country's offensive biological capabilities.

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Original Interview appeared at PBS.

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