Although we may not be completely prepared to deal with a full scale biological weapon attack, we do have a set playbook for just such an emergency. In the event of the unleashing of a biological weapon, government employees at both the local and state level such as firefighters and police officers will be needed as part of the first line of defense in order to contain furthe

r outbreaks. Also, reserve units, as well as the National Guard, would be useful for similar tasks. Unfortunately, the equipment and training necessary to handle a biological attack of this magnitude would be under the auspices of the CDC, or Center for Disease Control (Perry). In order to protect the United States from a variety of biological attacks, pharmaceutical companies must begin the mass manufacturing of different forms of treatment for several different biological weapons. Coordinating this kind of response system in the event of a biological attack is the responsibility of Tom Ridge, director of the new Office of Homeland Security (Perry, 31).

Biological weapons are much better suited to causing panic and distrust for one's own government than they are suited for being weapons of mass destruction. In fact, the main reason anthrax is one of the most feared bioweapons is because of how easy it is to make, as well as the numerous ways it may be delivered. It creates a sense of complete and total vulnerability. It is believed by Professor Simon Wessely to be more important "to be combating the psychological threat," involved in biological weapons. He also feels that if the public is well informed about biological weapons, the weapons will lose their effectiveness to instill fear, thus making them relatively useless. Professor Wessely states: "When psychological weapons lose their novelty, they lose their primary potency, which is their capacity to cause fear" (Moscrop, 1023).

Although realistically, anthrax has only killed one person, it still has created chaos. "Compared with a smallpox pandemic, the current anthrax scare hardly qualifies as news. But the recent spate of contaminated mail will be remembered less for the pain it caused than for the message it sent," (Ala'Aldeen, 1386).

Such attacks have been unsuccessfully tried before. In Japan, the Aum Shinrikyo cult who was responsible for killing hundreds of people on the subway system using sarin were repeatedly unsuccessful in delivering anthrax (Ala'Aldeen). Finally, if all fifty kilograms of anthrax were to be released on an urban population of approximately five million people, it is feasible that 250,000 people could die. This is, of course, just an estimate taking into account the availability of drugs to treat anthrax, early detection of it, etc. (Ala'Aldeen, 1386).

There have only been two outbreaks of anthrax in the last cent

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