Customer Reviews

Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War

5 star:		(43)
4 star:		(29)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

As others have noted, the editors of the New York Times have discovered that one of the authors of this book was manipulated by Ahmed Chalabi's false claims that Iraq had WMD.
Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraq war lobby used New York Times reporter Judith Miller to make the case for invading Iraq.
Infomation in this book has been discredited.

This book came out at the same time that Judith Miller was doing the incredibly bad reporting for the NYTimes that lead the US into the Iraq War. Much of her reporting on WMD spurred interest in her book and increased its sales. I wonder how much her incredibly bad reporting that the Times has now repudiated as false and misleading can be credited to unconscious credulousness centered on the knowledge that more WMD fear would increase her book sales?

Even a week ago I would have said this is book is probably the best popular introduction to the subject. Now that the New York Times has effectively called into question every word published on the subject by its reporter, Judith Miller, I feel I should warn folks to read the book with the NYT's admitted failures in mind. It's not clear how this scandal relates to the information in the book not associated with Iraq's bio-chem weapons programs, but those sections at least are thoroughly tainted by the evolving story of how Iran/Chalabi/White House/DoD collaborated to manipulate public/government opinion by feeding Miller disinformation.

As a molecular biologist, I was shocked at what was discussed in this book. Descriptions of potential weapons, or weapons that were being worked on when the Soviet Union fell sent shivers down my spine. The authors have thouroughly researched the material and present it more as fact rather than a story.
To learn that West Nile virus was used as a "model" to demonstrate how the government could "contain" an invectious disease, only to find that we totally failed to contain demonstrates how real this danger may be. Unfortunetly, you also gain the insight of how politics actually works. The creation of the programs would cost billions and if they "work" they appear as wasted money since the programs success would result in no attacks.

Some parts of the book read rather slowly, but serve as the foundation required for the modern discussions that are addressed later in the book.

As a molecular biologist, I was shocked at what was discussed in this book. Descriptions of potential weapons, or weapons that were being worked on when the Soviet Union fell sent shivers down my spine. The authors have thouroughly researched the material and present it more as fact rather than a story.

To learn that West Nile virus was used as a "model" to demonstrate how the government could "contain" an invectious disease, only to find that we totally failed to contain demonstrates how real this danger may be. Unfortunetly, you also gain the insight of how politics actually works. The creation of the programs would cost billions and if they "work" they appear as wasted money since the programs success would result in no attacks.

Some parts of the book read rather slowly, but serve as the foundation required for the modern discussions that are addressed later in the book.

Since September 11 and the Anthrax letters people have become more aware of the threat of biological weapons. In this book we can read about two attacks that have happened before: salmonella by the Baghwan Cult in Oregon and the famous sarin gas attack in the Tokyo Subway.

These three journalists have done a lot of research into the different bio weapons programs in the US, USSR and other nations. Through personal interviews we also know that President Clinton was very knowledgable about the threat.

There is also a nice chapter on Iraq and their programs during the 80s and 90s and the role the US played in this.

They have been given documents by the Pentagon and the White House, so you are never really sure if they can write absolutely free, but it's worth reading as a good book on bio terrorism, a not so visible threat

What these three authors are up to here is known in the trade as "selling your notes." This is a poorly organized, poorly written and boring account of a fascinating subject. Do not waste your money or your time.

This book's largest contribution, I think, is the meticulous way that it documents how most scientists don't belong in the room assessing threats and intelligence any more than one should turn to them for business strategy.

Scientists, by training and temperament, are usually people who will argue that the sky isn't blue, and won't believe anything until it is proved beyond the shadow of a doubt. Even then, they maintain skepticism. It's their profession to do so. What is worse, they tend to have an overweening self confidence and certainty.

The activity and conclusions of Meselson in particular, in convincing the DOD and presidents that biological weapons were not being worked on, is a case history that should give leaders pause. Very well meaning, having learned a specific way of arriving at scientific truth by painstaking repeated experiment and results, he was utterly and completely wrong, and incapable of understanding his limitations or lack of fitness for the role that he grabbed for himself in determining policy.

I can say that this is the achilles heel of the scientific community of advisers. Scientists are, with rare exceptions, thought followers, not leaders, and unable to project the knowledge they establish forward. If this were not true, scientists would be almost universally wealthy, and excellent inventors and engineers. But who invented the personal computer? Who invented thousands of other things and took them forward? Who understands disruptive technologies, scientists or venture capitalists?

The reason I say that this book doesn't go far enough is that even people like Lederer, who also mean very well, and have worked so hard to stop genetic engineering being used for weapons, are UTTERLY out of their MINDS and extremely dangerous to you and I. They have backed us into a corner with biological weapons; a corner which we are quite likely to all die in. I kid you not.

Why do I say this? Because it is the sheerest academic hubris to think that high level scientists are required to invent new biological weapons. As a matter of fact, scientists, in general, are the least qualified to invent such things. They have little interest in it, they don't tend to engineering creativity. The computer profession has learned this very well. PhD and MS degrees in computer science are if little value in the real world as a rule. Anyone at all can work on computer viruses, or software to do anything one might like. All they need is tools and manuals. Microsoft was not built by employing PhDs folks. PhD computer scientists have contributed very little to the software profession beyond the invention of the basic electronics and concept.

Genetic engineering, as the technology becomes more disseminated and more automated, becomes more and more of a computer exercise. Like the software profession, genetic engineering innovations will follow as this knowledge dissemination explodes outward which the academic crowd will have trouble simply tracking.

Since these scientists do not have a lock on this knowledge, and since the technology is not terribly expensive, how could anyone in their right mind think that they could control the development of biological weapons simply by legislating them out of the US military budget? For god's sake, that is farcical! And yet - that is what we have done.

That means that had Lederer and others actually thought the matter through, they would have realized that every effort to block the development of biological weapons by nations did NOTHING except raising our vulnerability to biological weapons.

All we have done is to stick our head in the sand collectively. So we have arrived, right now, at a juncture where such weapons can be conceived and produced by anyone who cares to learn the technology. And nobody seems to realize it!

We are like a people who, having discovered gunpowder, have decided that we will only allow anyone to even think about using it for firecrackers. Meanwhile, the barbarians are out there, and they are inventing guns. We, congratulating ourselves on what good guys we are, are spending all our energy developing and defending against bows, arrows, spears and swords. It's obvious to a dimwit who is going to win in a biological war if the barbarians do their homework right.

You should be far more frightened than you are. Nobody takes this seriously enough.

"Germs" covers the recent history of biological warfare as well as may be expected, given the extremely secretive nature of the subject. It sheds light on the fact that America is very unprepared for a massive biological attack, yet at the same time is not likely to experience one. While small-scale attacks are possible and maybe even likely to occur, the fact is that they are not likely to succeed to any great extent due to the difficulty of creating a bug that is sufficiently virulent and able to survive on its own outside of the lab. Certainly more can and should be done to prevent and/or contain any such attacks, but at the same time, people should not be losing much sleep over it.
Probably the most interesting thing about this book is the level of paranoia and moral superiority displayed by the American government. They spent so much time and money scrutinizing the Soviet Union, sure that they were violating the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention of 1972, even after the collapse of the Union. And of course, the soviets were doing just that and even admitted to it. But the level of moral superiority is just disgusting, as the U.S. was just as guilty as they were, probably even more guilty than the book leads one to believe.

I read this book for the purpose of gaining an understanding of the dangers of bio-terrorism and wanted to be more informed on national preparedness to this threat. This book was well written, well researched, balanced, and informative. It showed the increasing importance bio-terrorism is playing on public decisions. The first part of the book gives a little history of germ warfare already instigated by radical terrorist groups, and the role it played in the Cold War. In more recent history, concerns about possible germ warfare and/or bio terrorist attacks led to certain actions in the era of Desert Storm. I would have desired the book progress from giving an excellent historical account to explaining the current public debate, Is there protection to be afforded by spending money on public health measures ? Is protection feasible given the variety of microbes that can be created in a world where gene splicing is becoming commonplace? Is a good defense possible in the future?