Rating: 
Summary: Ominous and chilling
Review: This book is made all the more chilling given the recent spate of anthrax incidents. Many of Dr. Alibek's former colleagues are out of work and poor, and would be easy for anyone with money and a grudge to recruit. It also is frightening that Dr. Alibek warned the intelligence community when he was debriefed, and was not taken entirely seriously.I recommend this book to anyone with an interest in current events.
Rating: 
Summary: Biohazard
Review: Left, with a desire to know more,I was disappointed when I had finished the terrifying chapters of information this book has to offer. Fascinating details offer a glimpse into the Science, Politics and History of the Bioweaponeering Enemy that was the USSR, which has now shattered into many smaller, poorer and possibly more unstable enemies with information to sell.
Also interesting is how a human being such as Kanatjan Alibek started out his educational career desiring to help his fellow man as a physician, but even after taking the Hipocratic oath, his government was able to corrupt his talents to use them for death. His escape to the United States has freed him to use his knowlege and expertise for good and not evil, one such deed being enlightening the public by publishing his work in this writing.
Hopefully it will help to influence readers to realize that although we are a peaceloving nation, wishing no harm upon the innocent, some nations, such as the once USSR, do not view life nor the world through the same eyes. Americans and America should be aware of what has been developed secretly, blatantly in spite of treaties in place. This book is a revelation that truly grasps the reader and doesn't let go.
Rating:
Summary: from the belly of the biobeast: the confessions of Dr.Alibek
Review: In Biohazard, Dr. Kenneth Alibek, born Kanatjan Alibekov in what is now the country of Kazakhstan, then simply another satrapy of the sprawling Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, shares the incredible story of his work in what is perhaps the best-kept secret of the twentieth century - Biopreparat, the mammoth chain of state-of-the-art biological weapon development and production plants, mostly built AFTER Leonid Brezhnev solemnly stood beside the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and told the world that the Soviet Union would never make or use biological weapons again. In the years since then, Alibek tells us how the Soviets not only developed newer and deadlier germs than had ever existed before but under the authority of no less a man than Mikhail Gorbachev filled the warheads of ICBMs with those foul brews and pointed them at the very United States for whom he publicly expressed such friendship. Perestroika, right.... It was not until Brezhnev and his Communist empire were both dead and his signature on the biological weapons almost twenty-five years dry that Russia totally got out of that business... and no one is sure but that one of the hundred-odd factories of death strung from the Ukraine to the Pacific Coast of Siberia isn't still silently brewing a ghastly postscript to the story which Alibek shares with us. Frankly, Ken Alibek's book is adequately written, well enough to not actually be unpleasant to read, but not outstandingly so. Its great value is in the unique knowledge Alibek shares with us. Picking up a copy of "Biohazard" and reading it allows Alibek to throw the doors of secrecy over one of the deadliest human enterprises ever and show us things so awful that until Americans actually started getting anthrax in the mail, we preferred to simply pretend that they didn't exist. Alibek's book tells us how this came to be in the first place, how a bacillus so fragile that it shrivels and dies within minutes in sunlight has been turned into a weapon that has terrified a nation, while the people who made it worked in secrecy so absolute that the most knowledgeable scientists on biological warfare in the United States scoffed at the idea that the Soviets could be brewing up tons and tons of deadly germs for over twenty years. There are actually two horror stories in "Biohazard" - the diseases are horrible enough, but the idea of a multi-billion dollar effort operating undetected, almost unsuspected, for twenty years is even worse... what might be lurking in the vastness of China, or in some isolated laboratory complex in India or Argentina? We might find out the hard way. Just the sheer information in "Biohazard" earns four stars. I must disagree with some of the other reviewers on this site who condemn the author of Biohazard. Even after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Dr. Alibek stood at the pinnacle of power, both in the surviving, retooling post-Soviet Biopreparat, where he had been groomed for the highest leadership post, and in his native Kazahkstan, where after independence and the fall of the Soviet Union. Instead of accepting this power and helping maintain the charade, Alibek actively turned down appointments to lead the highest posts dealing with both health and death in both the governments with which he was associated... the man turned all of that down in order to defect, to rip down the career of a lifetime for a very uncertain future, for the sake of his conscience. What Dr. Alibek did in Biopreparat, he did in the sincere belief that he was defending his country. Once he found that we in the United States had been true to our word and had dismantled our bioweapons program, he risked his job, even his life, to shame his colleagues into doing likewise, and finally left Russia in hopes of helping tear down all the work of his lifetime...
Rating:
Summary: Naivitee in the highest ranks
Review: Why mix two lethal agents into one supermicrobe to murder the enemy when either one alone could do the job? This, along with calling the concept of mixing E-bola with Smallpox to form a doubly lethal WMD, "sheer fantasy" were comments placed to Kanatjan Alibekov when being debreifed about his experience working with Biopreparat in the USSR before defecting to the US. You see, our government advised Mr. Alibekov, "all we are interested in is what you do know, not your military interpretations of what Russia may be interested in doing with this biological knowlege."
What I would like to know, is why our government wouldn't clean the wax out of it's ears and listen to someone much more knowlegeable and experienced in the enemy's mind? This to me shows how naive our government is. The question isn't "why" would they do it, the question really is, "why not?" Also, more of value would be, "Since these and other deadly microbes are being cultivated, what can our government do to protect it's citizens and residents?" If our government doesn't ask and answer these questions, there may not be tax-paying citizens to pay for our government.
Step one of many, many steps that need to be taken, start producing and administering the small-pox vaccine again. Those of us that did receive this vaccine are long over-due for boosters (once every ten years; or booster upon exposure, after three years from last booster).
It would be very simple for Al-Qaida, or any other American-hating group, to send someone through our airports, on airplanes, from one coast to another, infected with Small-pox. This, of course, would only be the first step. But if science can create these organisms, science can be used for good to produce, or at least try to produce vaccines to prevent or combat these organisms.
This book is incredibly informative about a man's experience with developing organisms for WMD, the infrastructure that hid it from the world and from itself(the USSR), how K. Alibek escaped this regime that distorted his Hipocratic oath, and his journey to the country where he could work honorably in Science and be free to rectify some of this knowlege and experience toward good.
Rating:
Summary: New Perspective
Review: I purchased and read Biohazard in August,along with several other books about Bio,Chemical,and Nuclear threats.I found this book to be no nonsense and easy to understand.As someone who grew up in an age with nuclear threat ever present,in the 60s and 70s I have to wonder about our national complacents here in America,and why it takes an event like we just experienced for people to start being informed about the horrors that exist.The reason that I cannot give a higher rating is that I now find it utterly depressing and too real.I just hope our nations leaders have evaluated this book. as well as Plague Wars, and can implement a plan to try to minimize these threats.I now wonder how the books I read in August have suddenly become more than just an interesting read,as I listen to the constant roar of patrol planes over my house in Va I have a different perspective now.
Rating:
Summary: Bone tingling, spine chilling
Review: After reading this book, it made me think of what our own country is doing with biological weapons. If the Russians were doing it, what makes us think the US wasn't?? It is very scary, but the truth is always scary. I think I would rather die from a nuclear blast, then an exposure to Smallpox. This book is a true wake-up call to the danger behind hap-hazardous foreign affairs, especially in these times when 3rd world countries are getting their hands on second hand Russian military equipment. All it would take, is someone like Saddam to get his hands on an Antrhax bomb and launch it for New York, and this country as we know it would be gone forever. Thanks Mr. Alibek, for opening my eyes! Readers, buy this book, and discover what the Russians were doing behind the Iron Curtain.
Rating:
Summary: Today's reality
Review: From someone who has served in the military for over 15 years and served proudly especially in the Gulf War this book brings to light that with the changing of society and the world itself every country is looking to the cheap mans weapon of biological and chemical weapons. There are many other books out there that are starting to open Americas eyes as to that this will be a common threat in the next century. This book was written by an individual who served in the Russian military and actually headed their BW & CW creations and was in a position of authority when the Sverdlosk incident occured. I think everyone should a least try to read this book because it will open the individuals eyes about how lethal all these types of new weapons are. This type of warfare goes far back in time but now the technology that is in the 21st century can make a big difference.
Rating:
Summary: Biospawn ... go forth and do evil
Review: After reading this book you will not look upon a packed stadium or happy throng at a festival in the same way. Crowds at a park, population centers, sunlovers at a holiday beach ... all appear now as targets of bioterrorism. Even President Clinton has said such an "event" is likely in the next decade. It is not rhetoric. Dr. Ken Alibek (Kanatjan Alibekov) and journalist Stephen Handelman have written a masterful, fast-paced account of Alibek's career as a leading Soviet bioweaponeer. Interspersed with vignettes about mishaps and disasters, "Biohazard" chronicles the Soviet Union's development of lethal biological weapons from the early days to the demise of Soviet communism. Alibek, who found he had no choice but to defect to the West in 1992, gives evidence that the world's largest (and one of the most secret) biological weapons program continues to this day. Alibek should know. In the years leading to his defection he ran the Soviet biological weapons program and was deputy director of Biopreparat, the responsible agency. With 60,000 members and over 100 facilities, Biopreparat made startling breakthrough discoveries in deadly microbiology -- discoveries that even his Western debriefers found difficult to fathom at first. Bioweaponeering work continues in Russia, Alibek contends. But what of those former Soviet microbiologists who have found other jobs with high pay from other foreign countries? As Alibek reports, "The disastrous economic conditions in Russia have driven many of our brightest scientists and technicians to seek work wherever they can get it." There is "lax security" and it is easy to smuggle a vial of freeze-dried powder past an inattentive guard. "Biological agents," Alibek says, "are rumored to be circulating freely in the Russian criminal underworld." In any event, the services of an ex-Biopreparat scientist "would be a bargain at any price. The information he could provide would save months, perhaps years, of costly scientific research for any nation interested in developing, or improving, a biological warfare program." Alibek cites a number of his former colleagues who are now working abroad in such countries as Iraq and North Korea. He also points to meetings between Russian bioweaponeers and officials from Iran and China. The recent spate of terrorist actions in the Mid-East give one pause. Although the preferred method of terror these days seems to be the suicidal use of explosives, it does not take a leap in logic to imagine biological weapons as a substitute. The next time you're in a crowded shopping mall or sports complex, think about that.
Rating:
Summary: True Horror
Review: This book belongs in the horror section - it is much more frightening than anything King or Koontz could ever hope to write. Alibek is likely the most informed person on the planet when it comes to the realities of bioweapons, because he was directly responsible for making and testing the worst of them. Alibek's presentation here is strong with names, places, dates and technical facts - showing us how easy it is to make bioweapons, and how grim our futures may turn out if we and our leaders fail to take his warnings seriously.
Rating:
Summary: "I have lost all sense of smell... "
Review: This is just one of these books... I bought it on a hunch, and I wasn't disappointed: Here you have the story of the Soviet biological weapons program told straight from the man at the top. Ken Alibek, previously known by the Kazakh name of Kanatjan Alibekov, started off as a junior researcher working on weaponizing tularemia. He did such a great job, that his next assignment was work on weaponized anthrax. He then moved up to smallpox. Sounds bizzare? Well, you ain't seen nothin' yet: Moving back and forth between maticulous descriptions of the inner working of Soviet science, the Soviet military-industrial complex, the Soviet bureaucracy, and the author's personal biography, you get an eerie sense of bits and pieces of history falling into place, and the resulting picture is beyond belief, beyond imagination, beyond the invention of the sickest minds. The most memorable example is the story of the smallpox eradication effort: Shortly after the Soviet Union started the world-wide campain for eradicating smallpox, it started its research into advanced, weaponized smallpox... What does this mean? It means that while the world thought it got over smallpox, while the World Health Organization was declaring smallpox a thing of the past and countries were stopping the smallpox vaccination programs, the Soviet Union was developing stronger, more virulent smallpox viri for military use -- No longer vaccinated, the world was now ready! Remember the 1979 Anthrax outbreak in Sverdlovsk? It's been long known of the accident in Sverdlovsk, the missing filter in the dehydration chamber, the workers in the nearby ceramics factory that had the highest death toll. But read Biohazard and learn what really happened: Learn about the cover up job, learn about the people that goofed up, learn about the roll played the local communist party chairman at Sverdlovsk, in causing a second wave of Anthrax victims -- Just to spike your curiosity, the name of that chairman is Boris Yeltsin. Learn how the Soviet Union violated the 1972 ban on biological and chemical warfare -- how it signed the treaty and just stepped up research and production plans. Learn of the lies, evasions, tricks it used to mislead the West about the nature of its "defensive" biological research. Learn how nearly all the equipment used for the production of biological agents were purchased in the West, since they're "dual purpose". Learn how the West supplied so much of the expertise, material, samples of bacteria and viri, in order to promote research into vaccines and medicines. Learn of the massive, really awsome throughput of biological agents produced in the Soviet Union -- just for Anthrax we're talking here about hundreds of tons of pure powdered bacteria per year: Enough to kill the entire world population several times over. And this book is gripping, really gripping: Technical detail, Soviet politics, science, life in the Soviet Union -- from the perspective of the privilaged elite of scientists that collaborated with and advanced the Soviet war machine. You'll read about people living in denial, as they walk on the verge of realisation that they live in an oppressive totalitarian society: How they take for granted the KGB's intrusion into their lives, how they inform on their collegues to Get Ahead, how work was "assigned" and how you had to request to be "released" if you wanted to change jobs, and how your request could be denied. How some people excelled in that system, and how it drove others to desparation and alcohol. And then there's the really personal touch. Don't take it for granted -- It's quite surreal to discuss your personal health problems while reporting on the production of weapons of mass destruction but it fits: "I have lost all sense of smell and have the broadest range of allergies of anyone I know. I can't eat butter, cheese, eggs, mayonaise, sausages, chocolate or candy. I swallow two or three pills of anti-allergy medicine a day ... The countless vaccinations I received against anthrax, plague, and tuleremia weakened my resistance to disease and probably shortened my life. A bioweapons lab leaves its mark on a person forever." What does this book mean today? Biological warfare is by far the cheapest and easiest method of mass destruction. The equipment for biological warfare production is dual use and can be purchased openly and relatively inexpensively. Samples of deadly bacteria are not difficult to come by if you know where to look (just follow the ProMed reports!). If someone is not trying to invent some new agent, but rather use existing technology, bacteria and viri to create their own pet killer, it's a relatively straightforward thing to do: It seems as if the hardest thing is not to create the agent but to contain it so that the people making it are not effected. Tens of thousands of technicians and scientists worked on biological warfare in the Soviet Union. These people have experience, expertise, and knowledge. Where are these people today? What do they do for a living (pun intended) ? And for whom?
|
