The message contained in this publication is clear: countries need a public health system that can respond to the deliberate release of chemical and biological agents. Regrettable though this message may be, the use of poison gas in the war between Iraq and the Islamic Republic of Iran in the 1980s, the recent anthrax incidents in the United States, and the attack with sarin nerve agent, six years earlier, on the Tokyo underground, illustrate why it is necessary to prepare. Russian and Japanese version available: