An Easier, but Less Deadly, Recipe for Terror

During a visit to a Russian military base, Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) shows how easy it is to fit a small chemical weapon into a briefcase. (Courtesy Of Sen. Richard G. Lugar)

For Lugar, the delay is seven years too long.

"Fortunately, once the weapons are gone, they're gone," he said. "But until that time there's always a danger that something might happen."

Mail-Order Chemistry

Four years ago, a Houston chemistry professor and defense consultant named James Tour set out to prove a point. In April 2000, after arguing in a journal article that terrorists could obtain dangerous chemicals, he had received a stinging rebuke from the Defense Department. "You are so wrong," an agency weapons expert told Tour, according to his account of the conversation. "We monitor every teaspoon."

So Tour went shopping. He first looked up the formula for the nerve gas sarin and then ordered all the ingredients -- on one form, from a single well-known supply company. If assembled, Tour knew, the chemicals would produce about 11 ounces of pure sarin -- enough, in theory, to kill hundreds of people.

The chemicals arrived by express mail the next day.

Afterward, Tour's critics were skeptical, suggesting that his purchase had escaped scrutiny because he is a well-known professor and frequent customer. So a writer for Scientific American persuaded Tour to coach him in repeating the same order, from the same company, only this time in the writer's name.

The chemicals were delivered the next day.

"You can easily get to the point where you're just one step away," said Tour, a professor at Rice University's Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology. "You buy the chemicals, you mix them, and you have sarin."

The second order was placed in November 2001, at a time when police and security officials were on heightened alert after the Sept. 11 attacks. Government and chemistry industry say safeguards have been significantly strengthened since then. Tour, however, is not so certain.

"If I tried it today, maybe it would take three different forms and three different companies, instead of just one. But I have no doubt that I could bypass the system," he said. "And that's if I use domestic suppliers."

An amateur who acquired ingredients for sarin would still face a daunting challenge in attempting to combine the chemicals in the proper sequence without killing himself. But, as the more recent case of Krar illustrates, it is possible to make a powerful poison using readily available chemicals that can be handled safely.

Police describe Krar, 63, as a member of the militia movement, a loose coalition of groups that espouse pro-gun, anti-government and white-supremacist views. Three years ago, after moving to Tyler, Tex., from New Hampshire, Krar began acquiring a large arsenal that included machine guns, dozens of pipe bombs, grenades and a homemade land mine.

But his most unusual weapon was discovered inside a green ammunition box in his home. Inside the box, according to court records, police found nearly two pounds of sodium cyanide and a pair of vials containing hydrochloric acid. Krar would only have to break the vials to combine the chemicals and create highly lethal hydrogen cyanide gas. If released in a crowded room, the gas could potentially kill scores or even hundreds of people, weapons experts say.

Krar was arrested in April and charged with possessing an illegal chemical weapon. He later pleaded guilty. When asked about the origin of the chemicals, he had no reason to lie. He bought them legally, he told FBI agents, from a gold-plating supply store.

Worst-Case Scenarios

The deadliest kind of chemical attack requires no stolen weapons and no mixing of dangerous chemicals. To kill large numbers of people, weapons experts say, terrorists could target any of the hundreds of chemical factories, storage bins, tanker cars or trucks around the country that contain large amounts of lethal gases.

Just as occurred in the 1984 disaster at the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, a deadly plume of chemicals could travel for miles on the wind and then settle over communities like a suffocating blanket.

Government studies show that casualties from such an event could climb into the tens of thousands or even higher, depending on weather conditions and the chemical involved.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the chemical industry has taken voluntary steps to prevent such an attack. Large chemical plants have been studied for vulnerabilities, gates have been fortified, and transport routes have been altered. The American Chemistry Council, which represents more than 2,000 businesses involved in the chemical trade, says its members spent $800 million last year alone to harden facilities against attack. "Following September 11, and without waiting for government direction, ACC members imposed on themselves a mandatory comprehensive security program," ACC President Tom Reilly said in a statement.

Despite the improvements, security experts who have studied the problem continue to list deadly chemical sabotage as a grave threat. Citing EPA "worst case" estimates of casualties from such an attack, a report by the Government Accountability Office in February listed 123 chemical facilities nationwide where a toxic release could affect more than 1 million people. Still, neither Congress nor the White House has enacted measures to require all chemical plants to assess their security and meet minimum antiterrorism standards, the report states.

The failure has no doubt been noted by groups that seek to damage America's economy and demoralize its people. Tucker, the senior researcher with the Center for Nonproliferation Studies, said a conventional attack aimed at a U.S. chemical facility would surely appeal to al Qaeda.

"It would be consistent with the modus operandi of al Qaeda, which has always sought to use our Western technology against us," he said. "Like September 11, such an attack would not be high-tech. But it could be very effective."