Prepare for the worst

Is the US wimpish over biological weapons? Would the world understand a more aggressive stance? Ken Alibek thinks so. He has a unique perspective. In 1992, he blew the whistle on the Soviet Union’s Biopreparat biowarfare machine. The programme was one of the great deceptions of the cold war because the Soviet Union had signed a treaty banning such work. At its height, Biopreparat employed 10,000 scientists at 40 sites. Kanatjan Alibekov (Alibek’s birth name) was second-in-command at Biopreparat so his defection made him a fabulous prize for the US. Now he’s a key researcher at a major US…