HE’S LED THE WAR ON NERVE AGENTS AND GAS ATTACKS... BUT IT’S COVID THAT HAS HIM REALLY WORRIED
It’s a neon advert to those who would harm us, says our foremost chemical weapons expert
MUSTARD GAS usually smells like garlic, onions... or mustard. But sometimes it has no odour at all. Chlorine cannot penetrate your skin, but can be lethal if inhaled. And you’ll know after just 10 minutes if you have encountered the nerve agent Sarin – typical symptoms include pinpoint pupils and convulsions: you’ll have just 10 minutes to get hold of some atropine to reverse the effects. Hamish de Bretton- Gordon OBE, the former commanding officer of the UK’s Joint Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear ( CBRN) Battalion, is running through just a few of the nightmarish weapons in our enemies’ arsenals. He has worked in war zones all over the world. But it’s a very different threat that has currently got his attention. “Anybody looking to do harm is seeing what Covid is doing and thinking ‘ Crikey, this is interesting stuff’,” says the counterterrorism expert of the pathogen that has brought the world to its knees. “Covid- 19 has really woken everybody up to what a biological attack could be like. Just like the Novichok poisoning in Salisbury in 2018, it’s exactly what every dictator, despot or rogue state seeking to create terror is looking for. “A few drops of something nasty and you’ve got headline news for two years, and possible economic collapse. It’s a neon advertisement to people looking to do us harm.” This worries Hamish. And if he is worried, we should be worried – possibly very worried – because his unique first- hand understanding means he continues to advise the Government at the highest level. “The Salisbury attack was so brazen, so reckless, that it almost defied belief,” says the man who also commanded Nato’s Rapid Reaction CBRN Battalion. He describes the poisoning in March 2018 of former KGB double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, as a “really professional attack” in his gripping new autobiography Chemical Warrior. Now it appears to have happened again, with the Novichok poisoning on August 20 of Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s arch- critic, the opposition politician Alexei Navalny. He is thought to have sipped a cup of tea laced with the same nerve agent that nearly killed the Skripals and caused the death of Dawn Sturgess when she touched a discarded perfume bottle weeks later. It is one of a deadly group of nerve agents developed by the Soviet military in the 1970s and 1980s. Navalny shrieked in pain before deteriorating rapidly on a plane to Moscow that was forced to make an emergency landing. The anti- corruption campaigner was later transferred to a military hospital in Berlin where he remains critically ill and has just come out of an induced coma. Last Wednesday, the German government announced that toxicology tests had produced “unequivocal evidence” that he had been poisoned with Novichok. Officials called on the Russian government for an explanation. None has yet been forthcoming. “There is no plausible explanation at this moment, other than this is a Russian statesponsored attempted execution,” asserts Hamish, 57, the day after the news broke. “Only Russia has developed and made Novichok at their military chemical laboratory at Shikany in central Russia.”
HE ADDS, archly: “The lab was mysteriously razed to the ground a few weeks after the Salisbury attack. The poisoning has all the hallmarks of a Russian Secret Service operation, similar to the Skripol and Litvinenko attacks.” In November 2006, Alexander Litvinenko, a Russian defector and former officer of the Russian secret service, was poisoned by radioactive polonium- 210 at his home in Lincolnshire. A public enquiry in January 2015 found his murder was a Russian secret police operation probably personally approved by Putin. In one key aspect, however, Hamish believes Navalny’s case to be surprising. “Though it is possible Navalny drank the Novichok, you would expect death very quickly so it is more likely he touched something with Novichok on, or somebody put it on him. “If this is the case, there could be a huge contamination issue at the airport and his hotel. It took 18 months to clear up Salisbury for a tiny bit of Novichok,” Hamish explains. Clearly extremely concerned by the recent assault, he points out Russia is a signatory of the Chemical Weapons convention, and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons ( OPCW) should investigate. “This is a
callous attack with no concern for the population or collateral damage. However, if the aim was to take out the main critic and opposition leader it has been successful. I can’t imagine Navalny ever going back to Russia,” he says. “And there have been a host of similar attacks at other times by other perpetrators.” He cites Georgi Markov in September 1978. The Bulgarian dissident writer was assassinated via a micro- engineered pellet containing ricin – a toxin from the castor oil plant – fired into his leg from an umbrella by the Bulgarian Secret Service using, it has been suggested, KGB assistance. He also mentions the assassination of Kim Jong- nam, the older half- brother of Kim Jong- un, leader of North Korea. Jong- nam was attacked with VX nerve agent used by North Korean agents in Malaysia’s capital, Kuala Lumpur, in February 2017; an event that saw North Korea relisted as a state sponsor of terrorism by the US nine months later. “Such events are likely to reoccur, it’s just a question of when,” he adds. “Fortunately, the really toxic, nasty stuff is only made in a few places and would be incredibly expensive. Islamic State was trying to buy enriched uranium at $ 40million a kilo – they had that sort of money. But the North Koreans might sell weapons to other people, if the price is right.” For 30 years, Hamish has served and volunteered in conflict zones around the world. As the Army’s foremost chemical weapons expert, he built up a unique first- hand understanding of how to prevent attacks. At great danger, he also
‘ It’s exactly what every despot or rogue state seeking to create terror is looking for’
unearthed evidence of multiple chemical attacks in Syria. So he is a man well placed to comment on the likely source of Covid- 19. “Yes, there are a few suggestions that it might be manmade,” says the father of two. “Covid is bizarre in that it is a not very toxic pathogen that has brought the world to its knees. It is very transmissible and it is certainly killing people, but it’s the same people who die each year from flu, a small population.” While the morbidity rate of Ebola is around 80 per cent – compared to about one per cent for Covid- 19 – he points out that the much more deadly pathogens don’t have the same transmissibility. “With Ebola you can’t move; with Covid you can be asymptomatic. People generally believe it’s made a jump from animals and humans, and was an event waiting to happen. People in my world are already talking about Covid- 25 – how do we ensure that another pandemic doesn’t bring the world to its knees again, five years from now.” ITH wry gallows humour he says: “The only sensible thing Donald Trump has said is ‘ don’t make the solution worse than the problem’,” and he agrees China has a lot of questions to answer. “Not least, why it suppressed its knowledge of Covid- 19 for seven days, allowing it to spread around the world. “The most likely explanation is that it crossed from animals in the wet market, but we do know Covid viruses were being worked on in Wuhan for a couple of years, and the Americans withdrew their funding because they were worried about security. “The scenario of a deadly release from a Level 4 containment laboratory is entirely possible. These high security labs mostly do good work such as hunting cancer drugs. “The danger is that when you are producing a vaccine for smallpox, you have to handle the pathogens you are looking to affect. Not every facility has the security of our own Porton Down. There were five such labs in the world 30 years ago – now there are 70.” It is plausible that Covid- 19 escaped from Wuhan. “But there are a whole bunch of other labs we don’t know about. “We need biological weapons to be policed properly and with proper legislation, but currently they are a poor relation to chemical weapons”. But he is convinced we will have a number of vaccines in the next few months. “Next year, the pharmaceutical companies will be fighting for Covid business,” he predicts.