Anthrax reconsidered: WQMED, part II
WQMED -- "weapons of quite massive enough destruction" -- is just a term I coined in response to arguments, by writers like Gregg Easterbrook and Jim Henley, that biological and chemical weapons are not capable of causing mass casualties on a nuclear scale, nor even appreciably more than a "9/11" scale attack. I've never quite understood that point of view, especially in the case of anthrax. The fall 2001 anthrax terror-by-mail seemed to suggest more about the limited resources of the killer (or killers) rather than about what to expect if such killers had more significant quantities of the stuff.

On Monday, the Washington Post reports on new findings that anthrax could be a very deadly mass killer indeed. Lawrence Wein and colleagues at the Stanford School of Business modeled the release of two pounds of anthrax spores from 325 feet (that's what, a 30 story building or so?) over a city of about 11 million with a suburban population of about 700,000. In their article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)*, Wein et al estimate that about 123,000 would die because of the extremely rapid progression of the disease and the sheer difficulty in distributing Cipro medication quickly enough -- especially as symptomatic cases pile up and overwhelm hospitals. Even if Cipro were already stored on location, as many as 60,000 would die.

The study makes practical recommendations. From a "Healthscout" report on the same findings:

Wein is critical of the federal government's establishment of a "Bio-Watch" surveillance system, with sensors designed to pick up signs of airborne anthrax as early as possible. Money for that system would be better spent on distributing packages of Cipro and other antibiotics to the public and hospitals, to be used only if an attack occurs, Wein contends

From Wein's own comments at the Stanford Monday press conference, these conclusions:

(1) the person in charge needs to put the intervention process in motion as soon as the first case is diagnosed,
(2) prophylactic antibiotics need to distributed as rapidly as possible to everyone in the affected region,
(3) the affected population requires aggressive education about the importance of adhering to the full course of treatment, and
(4) we need to quickly create a surge in our capacity to aggressively treat the symptomatic patients.

I assume Tom Ridge got all that, that last part sounds familiar.... Wein is an applied mathematician who used operations research methods -- a key business technique -- and observations from a variety of real world sources, including the fall 2001 anthrax attacks, to arrive at his results.

Now, smart people making models are still just that. And getting two pounds of suitably milled anthrax is probably no snap -- and one potential source for the stuff is going out of business as we speak. But these findings serve fair warning, and merit at least the same attention as writings by journalists and bloggers on the subject.


=====
* UPDATE 6/10/03: I went back for the PNAS link (Acrobat), not available at the time. To read and download the article costs you $5. For some of the upshot, see my comments on a post by the estimable Patrick Nielsen Hayden. posted by Thomas Nephew at 10:53:00 PM -- |    

 

A short note
The prior couple of posts, particularly "The ropes break" were begun at the times indicated, and tinkered around with off and on. Obviously, events have overtaken them.

I'm not happy about this war or any war, even one I support; I have a knot in my stomach every time I turn on the radio or TV. Now I learn that 4 Americans and 8 British have died in a helicopter crash; my discomfort is of no account next to that, or next to the deaths and injuries on both sides that are sure to follow. My condolences to the families of those who died tonight.

I hope you and your loved ones stay safe; especially, may your friends or family serving in Iraq stay alive and well. Let's hope we're all lucky and there's a quick victory, with as few deaths and injuries as possible.


=====
EDIT 10am: Casualty figures corrected from 12 Americans and 4 British posted by Thomas Nephew at 2:10:00 AM -- |    

 

For the record
Tony Blair, House of Commons:

Our fault has not been impatience.

The truth is our patience should have been exhausted weeks and months and years ago. Even now, when if the world united and gave him an ultimatum: comply or face forcible disarmament, he might just do it, the world hesitates and in that hesitation he senses the weakness and therefore continues to defy.

What would any tyrannical regime possessing WMD think viewing the history of the world's diplomatic dance with Saddam? That our capacity to pass firm resolutions is only matched by our feebleness in implementing them.

That is why this indulgence has to stop. Because it is dangerous. It is dangerous if such regimes disbelieve us.

Dangerous if they think they can use our weakness, our hesitation, even the natural urges of our democracy towards peace, against us.

Dangerous because one day they will mistake our innate revulsion against war for permanent incapacity; when in fact, pushed to the limit, we will act. But then when we act, after years of pretence, the action will have to be harder, bigger, more total in its impact. Iraq is not the only regime with WMD. But back away now from this confrontation and future conflicts will be infinitely worse and more devastating.

Bill Clinton, Guardian:

Russia and France opposed this resolution and said they would veto it, because inspections are proceeding, weapons are being destroyed and there is therefore no need for a force ultimatum. Essentially they have decided Iraq presents no threat even if it never disarms, at least as long as inspectors are there.

The veto threat did not help the diplomacy. It's too bad, because if a majority of the security council had adopted the Blair approach, Saddam would have had no room for further evasion and he still might have disarmed without invasion and bloodshed. Now, it appears that force will be used to disarm and depose him.

As Blair has said, in war there will be civilian was well as military casualties. There is, too, as both Britain and America agree, some risk of Saddam using or transferring his weapons to terrorists. There is as well the possibility that more angry young Muslims can be recruited to terrorism. But if we leave Iraq with chemical and biological weapons, after 12 years of defiance, there is a considerable risk that one day these weapons will fall into the wrong hands and put many more lives at risk than will be lost in overthrowing Saddam.

George Bush, Address to the Nation:

The cause of peace requires all free nations to recognize new and undeniable realities. In the 20th century, some chose to appease murderous dictators, whose threats were allowed to grow into genocide and global war. In this century, when evil men plot chemical, biological and nuclear terror, a policy of appeasement could bring destruction of a kind never before seen on this earth.

Terrorists and terror states do not reveal these threats with fair notice, in formal declarations -- and responding to such enemies only after they have struck first is not self-defense, it is suicide. The security of the world requires disarming Saddam Hussein now.

posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:54:00 PM -- |    

 

The ropes break
That's the title of German editorialist Josef Joffe's latest article in Die Zeit (now a week old or so), subtitled "Europe, Russia, USA: the rubble heap before the first shot." Excerpts:

We are experiencing an unprecedented power struggle with the goal of rechaining the Gulliver once hemmed in by the Soviet Union. [...]

We are experiencing the true end of the post-war era that began with the self-disembowelment of the Soviet Union on Christmas Day 1991. Old friends become embittered opponents, who unite with old enemies against the "last remaining superpower." The battle cry is "one nation, one vote," and the war aim is to outnumber the very large one with the many small ones, to tie him down to international institutions like the UN. The logic of this drama has little to do with Saddam Hussein any more.

The result will show, whether the mechanisms of the 18th century still function in the 21st. But it's probable that both sides will dramatically miscalculate -- Americans just as the new "axis powers." Of course Bush the Second can win the Iraq war alone. But then what? The UN, should it not decline to a league of nations, would then just be a humanitarian global bureaucracy. The Anti-Gulliver reflex would encompass ever more Lilliputians. The "empire" would have to recognizae that the most pressing problems of the 21st century -- from protectionism to terrorism, from mass migration to climate change -- can't be solved with precision munitions, but only with cooperation.

And the Europeans? Fundamentally, they undervalue the military just as much as the Americans set too great a store in it -- no wonder, because [Americans] have firepower and [Europeans] don't. France et al know very well that it has only been the American deployments that compelled the dictator to uncover the first centimeters of his arsenal. They know very well that it's easy to blow the peace horn while riding on the running board of American superpower. And they signal to Gulliver: "We decide, when and if you are unchained." [...]

... The retreat and humiliation of the USA can not really be in Europe's interest -- let alone Saddam Hussein's triumph. That would be the absolute worst lesson for North Korea, Iran, and Al Qaeda, as well as the end of the Security Council as a bulwark against the new world disorder. But it can't be in the interest of the USA to reply to the European "No war, never!" with "Yes, war, immediately!"; that would just make the wreckage worse.

What's left? There's at least one consensus in the Security Council: Saddam Hussein's disarmament. America's opponents know that the massive deployment [Aufmarsch] is the only chance for a halfway peaceful disarmament via long term inspections -- if the clock could be slowed to allow more than two bad choices: retreat or attack. That means that Paris, Moscow, and Berlin would have to replace their politics of blockade (which unfortunately works for Saddam Hussein) with conditional cooperation. To be concrete: France and and Russia participate in the military threat, to achieve two things. They remove Saddam Hussein's illusion of "divide and conquer", and they win a real voice in American strategy. After a while even the Germans could follow -- for example, by helping to protect Turkish air space. Others could help by subsidizing the military presence.

Too late? If the powers are serious about disarmament, then this would at least be a last minute way out of the sterile confrontation. But if Paris/Berlin/Moskau only care about crippling Gulliver -- and Gulliver just wants the war, then all of this would be not just too late, but pointless. A cruel triumph for Saddam Hussein -- whether he wins or loses.

Too late. I'm not going to pick apart this article from a "Gulliverian" point of view; Joffe's right about one thing anyway, there's plenty of blame to go around. But I doubt France and Russia were chafing to be part of the invasion of Iraq; it seems clear those two governments simply don't want Saddam to fall under any circumstances. Given that the US would face Saddam's likely future aggressions, that seems a calculatedly hostile act on the part of those two governments.

Germany ... who knows. It seems a strange fate for that country to all but tail-waggingly follow France's lead. But like the French after the first world war, Germans can't help but recall a terrible second world war, one that ruined their country even more thoroughly than France had been ruined after the first. That war was so horrifying in what happened to Germans (too) -- in Hamburg, Dresden, and dozens of other cities -- that it's forgivable, even so long after, for them to say "My god, no, never again," almost regardless of the situation.

Almost. There's also a lot of moral preening going on, with a peculiarly belligerent, self-righteous twist that can be more than a little hard to take. The silver lining (depending on your views, of course) is that as usual, there's a self-ironizing German word for it, "Hurrapazifismus" (hurrah pacifism).

Still, when I read a rant like this* or hand-wringing like this,** I reflect that it's hard to think of a culture with less to offer than Germany's when it comes to how or even whether to oppose totalitarian regimes bent on war. It's just not part of their history, and it looks like Germans mean to keep it that way for a while yet.

Depending on the outcome of all this, two or three years down the line, I very much hope that relations may be repaired with Germany and the German people. I suppose I ought to have similar hopes for France, Russia, and/or "Europe." There will surely be enough to cooperate about, in all of our self-interests. For the time being, I suppose we'll have to wait and see how well or poorly the war goes -- and what we learn from Baathist files and weapons sites.

And re Gulliver: the analogy might work a little better -- yet serve as even less of an excuse for Messrs Chirac, Schroeder, and Putin -- if Swift had written of Gulliver saving and protecting Lilliput from two ravening giants of his stature. America has little to excuse itself to Europe about regarding the 20th century, and all things considered rather little to be grateful for in the 21st.

-----
* Scholz: "...in contrast to the USA, the rest of the world has apparently developed other values, that identify a war of aggression for what it is, no matter how much one tries to redefine it as "preemptive defense": a violent attack on important values like human dignity, the right to life and peace, or freedom of opinion." Call it a hunch, but I'm guessing all three of those values will be doing quite a bit better this time next year in Iraq than they are right now. And we've been over the "aggression or enforcement?" question before.
** Schaefer: "If you don't read the news, it's as wonderful as ever here [in California]....But I listen to the radio, watch CNN, and read the newspaper and news on the Internet, and the question remains, how and for how long can I live in this country?" Well, there's your problem, dude: the answer just isn't going to be in the newspaper. :)

Looking this over, it may seem like I've forgotten that these are hardly "German" opinions only, there are lots of Americans who feel the same way. So, to be scrupulously fair: they're wrong, too. posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:52:00 PM -- |    

 

Mail bag: Invectives, Slogans and Strong Theoretical Arguments
I got the following letter from a loyal reader last week:

My thoughts keep coming back to your "conversation" with Mark Aveyard, and my great astonishment at his remark .....

"I suppose I'm not only disappointed but surprised at the nearly ubiquitous lack of concern for constructing a strong theoretical argument against the war. I hear invectives and slogans and that's about it."

It seems to me that deep concern, rather than lack of it, has been voiced by many thoughtful people around the world. For example, my latest find was published in [the German daily newspaper] "Die Welt" and is by American historian Paul Kennedy:

"Should the USA act without the support of the United Nations, they will meet massive criticism from the rest of the world. Yet an unwise blow against Baghdad would not mean the "end" of American superpower status. Nevertheless, it isn't unwise to assert that the United States of America would be considerably weaker, if not with respect to its military strength, but in two other, longer-term aspects: a) the self-inflicted harm, be it a rapid victory tempting further acts of hubris [Ueberheblichkeiten], or a bloody action that leads to an opposing reaction among the public; and b) the harm the cause to the international system, transatlantic relations, the fate of good friends like Mr. Blair, and especially the credibility of the United Nations. In brief, it isn't worth the price, as repulsive as Saddam Hussein may be."

Please share this with Mr. Aveyard if you think he would be interested.

Dear Loyal Reader,

The credibility of the United Nations is already shot, and it was a self-inflicted wound. Between Bosnia (especially Srebrenice) and the ongoing farce with Iraq, this international "system" isn't one, and I think it doesn't deserve the allegiance of good people like yourself or Dr. Kennedy.

While I appreciate the morality of your position, stated on another occasion, about waiting to be struck first before striking in return, I think the Rhineland analogy I've raised is more appropriate: Iraq is under very exact requirements, which they have failed to meet for 12 years too many. The French should have crushed Hitler's re-occupation of the Rhineland when they had the right and the means to do so. The world paid dearly for their failure. I don't want the world to pay a similar price for failing to crush Saddam.

I'll be happy to pass along the quote to Mark Aveyard, the "diablogger." I agree, he apparently hadn't looked hard for arguments against the war yet. But I don't think you've necessarily found them in Kennedy's statements either. Kennedy simply asserts what he claims is wrong with current U.S. policy, instead of persuading the reader. He assumes the reader shares his view that the US will either be weakened by the hubris of success or by a bloody failure, and assumes that the international system he refers to is worth salvaging in the first place. I notice that Kennedy doesn't argue about the case against Iraq and Saddam itself; instead, he argues that the secondary effects are the important thing: allies -- or "allies"-- ticked off, an institution's credibility damaged, and so forth.

Reading elsewhere in Kennedy's remarks, it's strange to me that Kennedy would bring up the breakup of the League of Nations over Ethiopia as an argument for his point of view. What broke up the League was the realization that they were unwilling and/or unable to enforce their own by-laws against Italy. Once that aggression happened and was not opposed, the League meetings weren't worth attending any more. But what was sad was not the demise of a demonstrably worthless institution, it was the Ethiopian suffering caused by the Italian aggression that the League failed to prevent.

Should vetoes be ignored in the future, the realities of power will guarantee what gentlemen's agreements can not. China and the United States will think about Taiwan the same way no matter what happens in the Security Council about Iraq; India and Pakistan will think about the Kashmir the same way. Many European nations will think about standing by their nominal friends elsewhere the same way, whether those allies are South Korea, Taiwan, Israel, the United States, or nations among their own number.

Alternatively, should other nations wish to build the United Nations back up, they will be careful to say what they mean and mean what they say when drafting Security Council resolutions; they'll spell out timetables and consequences, and pledge the means to enforce those resolutions, instead of just remaining "seized of the matter."

That seems unlikely, of course. I think it's more likely that should the war take place, the U.N. itself will prefer to act as if it hadn't. It will be convenient for all to continue to use the United Nations for the purpose that best suits it: a forum occasionally capable of creating cooperation, not an authoritative decision making body. posted by Thomas Nephew at 5:56:00 PM -- |    

 

.01% chance the big news this week will be from Arecibo, Puerto Rico...
A UC Berkeley press release reports that SETI@home screensaver folks like me (1003 units completed, thank you very much) will have something to look forward to: a followup on the 150 most promising signal sources so far. The project divides up chunks of radio telescope data and distributes it to subscribers like myself; a dedicated screensaver analyzes the data and returns assessments to the SETI@home headquarters at UC Berkeley about the likelihood of the data representing part of an intelligent signal from elsewhere in the universe.

"This is the culmination of more than three years of computing, the largest computation ever done," said UC Berkeley computer scientist David Anderson, director of SETI@home. "It's a milestone for the SETI@home project." [...]

To acknowledge the 4,287,000-plus users who have analyzed radio data, the SETI@home team will post on its Web site the names of those participants who flagged the candidate signals as a result of data analysis on their home computers. Each candidate signal was analyzed by several people, because SETI@home sends the same data to more than one person to double-check results.

But...

"I give it a one in 10,000 chance that one of our candidate signals turns out to be from ET," said [SETI@home chief scientist] Werthimer, who will head for Puerto Rico on March 16.

The final results of the March 18-20 re-observations at the Arecibo radio telescope observatory will be available within two to three months, but scientists will know right away if they've got a promising candidate. posted by Thomas Nephew at 5:40:00 PM -- |