Topeka — The chances of a terrorist using a crop-duster to launch an anthrax attack on Kansas are somewhere between slim and none, the state's leading expert on bioterrorism said Thursday.
Such an attack, said Jerry Jaax, associate vice provost at Kansas State University, could kill hundreds of thousands of people.
But "if I'm a terrorist and that's my intent, I'm not going to do that in Wichita, Topeka or Kansas City," Jaax said during an informational meeting with Kansas bankers. "I'm going to Washington (D.C.), New York or San Francisco because that's where the people are and that's where I can do the most damage."
An attack on Kansas, he said, is more likely to involve introduction of diseases meant to wipe out grain or livestock production, crippling the region's economy.
"When it comes to agroterrorism, we are at ground zero for that," Jaax said. And no threat is more real or more worthy of dread than someone introducing the foot-and-mouth virus to the state's feedyards.
The foot-and-mouth disease, he said, is one of the most contagious in the world. Overnight, thousands of cattle would have to be killed, millions of dollars would be lost, and buyers would put a ban on Kansas beef.
Jaax, who spent almost 25 years with the U.S. Biological Arms Control Treaty Office at Fort Detrick, Md., said the potential for an agroterrorism attack is every bit as real as those posed by anthrax-laced envelopes and hijacked airplanes.
He reminded the 25 bankers in the audience that Osama bin Laden's plan of attack calls for attacking the "economic structure" of the United States.
Forcing the slaughter of 1.8 million cattle in western Kansas would certainly accomplish that, Jaax said.
Jaax assured the group that "at least 20 countries that have serious ideological differences with the United States" are capable of supplying al-Qaida-type groups with weapons of bioterrorism.
Jaax encouraged the bankers to back calls for increasing the state's ability to detect and respond to bioterrorism.
"How much is that going to cost? I don't know," he said. "If we spend a lot of money, (an attack) might not happen or it might happen anyway. But sticking our head in the sand and saying 'Gee, I hope nothing happens,' is the wrong strategy."
Cathy Ziegler, assistant vice president in charge of cash services and wholesale payments at the Federal Reserve Board in Kansas City, Mo., assured the group that steps have been taken to keep banks supplied with cash and to maintain their ability to wire money if the reserve board were attacked.
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