The importance of understanding the strategic objective, whether of the leadership of a terrorist group or of a nation-state, underlines the need for better intelligence about and analysis of the strategic cultures of our adversaries. What does this approach to defining the threat suggest about the needs for responding effectively to that threat? First, because the threat is multidimensional and complex, an effective response must be strategic in nature. Effective action depends on the existence of a strategy that - for both the military and domestic defense dimensions - defines the contribution of each individual tool of policy, relates them to one another, and integrates them in such a way that they all work together toward the achievement of defined goals and objectives. A strategic response addresses requirements that span a spectrum: deterrence-preventiondefense-preparedness-response. Today, to perform each of these strategic missions effectively, difficult challenges must be overcome. Although there is a temptation to rely on deterrence, for example, because the problem has often looked too hard, the concept of deterrence cannot be translated easily from its Cold War context. We need to understand better the requirements of deterrence and how to do it in the current, more complex environment. Similarly, effective responses - whether on the battlefield or in terms of homeland defense - demand meeting both short-term needs such as adapting military concepts of operations or upgrading the public health systems, and long-term measures, including an effective research and development program. Second, a strategic response is also a multifaceted response. A range of tools must be exploited. These include intelligence, defenses (both passive and active), diplomacy, legal measures, preparedness efforts, financial measures, and military options. Arms control is also important, but, particularly with respect to biological weapons, classic multilateral arms control (of the kind reflected in the Chemical Weapons Convention) is unlikely to yield significant results. The combination of politics, science and technology, and treaty language that surrounds the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and efforts to negotiate a legally binding protocol to the BWC argue for an approach that goes beyond the traditional modalities of arms control to new ways of thinking about how to strengthen the Convention and the norm against BW which the treaty embodies. Export controls also have an important role to play, but it is not necessarily the traditional contribution of the past. Export control regimes - which do not really control but rather regulate through licensing systems can be effective in delaying the acquisition of sensitive technologies, but in the longer term they cannot realistically be expected to stop the transfer of technology that may be used for weapons purposes, particularly since so much of that technology also has legitimate commercial, medical, and other uses. If Iraq was capable of assembling the necessary materials and equipment for a robust CBW program as much as 15 years ago, how much more difficult will it be to deny access to technology to a determined player in an era of rapidly expanding knowledge and accelerating global dissemination of capabilities? But this does not mean that export controls should be abandoned, they perform other functions. Regulation through export controls facilitates the global dissemination of materials and equipment. By defining the rules of the game by which companies must abide, for example, export controls is easier for those companies to engage in international trade and cooperation. As Brad Roberts, chair of the CBACI Research Council, has argued, export controls can, in fact, be trade enablers rather than trade constraints. It is this role for export controls that should be emphasized in the future. At the same time, the United States must maintain open markets and avoid neoprotectionist practices that deny or severely limit access to markets or appropriate technology which would make key states less inclined to pursue cooperative measures. Each tool of policy contributes something to an effective response to the CBW proliferation challenge. But each tool also has shortcomings that must be overcome, and none of them constitutes a silver bullet that provides the total answer. Rather, for an effective response, the individual tools of policy - including export controls – must be integrated into a coherent strategic framework that realizes the synergies among the various tools of strategy, and facilitates tradeoffs among them so that they do not work at cross-purposes but maximize their potential contribution. The CBW threat is not static and will continue to evolve. Changing actors and evolving technology - especially in biology-related areas – will be major drivers of such change. In this fluid environment, like the offense-defense relationship in military affairs, the relationship between CBW proliferators -- whether state or non-state -- and responders is constantly in flux. It is not always possible to state precisely at any given time how the balance stands between them. The important point, however, is that certainty will only be achieved if we take ourselves out of the game and do nothing. Then we are certain to lose. It is not a loss that the nation or the world can afford. The Proliferation of Chemical and Biological Weapons Materials Testimony by Jonathan B. Tucker, Ph.D. Director, Chemical & Biological Nonproliferation Program before the Subcommittee on International Security, U.S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs November 7, 2001, 2:30 p.m. Room 342, Dirksen Senate Office Building Mr. Chairman, distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, and guests: Many thanks for the opportunity to testify before you this afternoon on a topic of great importance and concern in the aftermath of September 11: the proliferation of chemical and biological weapons to states and terrorist organizations.1 The recent series of anthrax attacks through the U.S. mail indicates that the global spread of dual-use technologies, materials, and scientific know-how relevant to the production and delivery of chemical and biological weapons (CBW) poses a direct threat to U.S. national security. Indeed, although to date the exposures to anthrax-contaminated letters have so far remained limited, a large-scale attack with a chemical or biological agent against U.S. targets at home or abroad now appears to be a real possibility. Until the recent wave of anthrax attacks, experts disagreed over the likelihood that such an attack would occur in the foreseeable future. Previously, only a few terrorist groups had acquired and used unconventional weapons, and nearly all had encountered major technical hurdles in doing so. Perhaps the best-known example occurred in March 1995, when the Japanese doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo released sarin nerve agent in the Tokyo subway, killing 12 people and injuring nearly a thousand. While psychologically devastating, this attack fell far short of the cult's goal of killing tens of thousands of civilians with the aim of triggering widespread anarchy and enabling Aum to seize control of the Japanese government. Despite Aum's estimated net worth of roughly $1 billion and its active recruitment of chemists and biologists from Japanese universities to create a CBW arsenal, the cult failed in repeated attempts to carry out true mass-casualty 1 I am grateful to Cheryl Loeb and Gary Ackerman of the Monterey Institute for their invaluable assistance in preparing this testimony. attacks with either chemical or biological weapons. This case suggests that terrorist acquisition and delivery of CBW agents on a large scale is technically challenging. Nevertheless, the ongoing anthrax attacks against the United States indicate that the prospect of sub-state groups acquiring and using a biological weapon is no longer theoretical; bioterrorism has become a clear and present danger. Moreover, the high quality of the anthrax mailed to Senator Tom Daschle's office, containing dried spores that were reportedly milled to an extremely fine powder and processed with chemical additives so that they would readily become airborne and infect through the lungs, suggests that the perpetrators had access to specialized technology and know-how related to the "weaponization" of anthrax. Perhaps they acquired a limited supply of the material on the international black market, or more worrisome-developed a manufacturing capability for dried anthrax powder. If the latter is true, the perpetrators would have the potential to disseminate larger quantities of dried anthrax spores through the air, potentially exposing thousands of people. Given the real possibility that the perpetrators have received assistance from former weapons scientists or from a state-sponsor, it is important to assess: (1) which states have been assessed to possess chemical and biological weapons, and (2) the extent to which trade in dual-use materials and technologies contributes to clandestine CBW programs. My testimony will first discuss the state and sub-state actors of CBW proliferation concern. I will then turn to technologies and materials that could be employed to produce and deliver these agents. States of CBW Proliferation Concern Evidence from open sources indicates that roughly 13 countries are actively seeking biological and chemical warfare capabilities. Proliferant states of particular concern to the United States include Iraq, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria. (For more information on state-level chemical and biological weapons programs, see Table 1.) Iraq The current status of Iraq's chemical and biological weapons programs is unknown because of that country's efforts since 1991 to conceal the full extent of its prohibited activities. Iraq's expulsion of inspectors from the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) in December 1998, and Baghdad's continuing refusal to admit inspectors from the successor agency, the United Nations Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), has further impeded international efforts to assess the status of Iraq's prohibited weapons programs. It appears likely, however, that Iraq has rebuilt key elements of its chemical and pharmaceutical production infrastructure that were destroyed during the Gulf War and by UNSCOM. These dual-use facilities could easily be converted to the production of CBW agents, and probably already have been. Various reports indicate that Iraq may retain a sizable stockpile of chemical munitions, including 25 or more special chemical/biological warheads for the al-Hussein ballistic missile and 2,000 aerial bombs. Iraq is also believed to possess sufficient precursor chemicals to produce hundreds of tons of mustard gas, VX, and other nerve agents. In short, Iraq retains the materials and technical expertise to revive its chemical |