This approach to threat assessment leads to important conclusions that should inform policy decisions. First, the degree of risk declines as the level of desired casualties increases insofar as the contingency involving higher levels of casualties become less likely.

Second, we should not take great comfort from this conclusion because, despite the low probability of catastrophic attacks in the United States, there is still ample cause for concern because we do not know how massive a mass attack has to be. Worst case scenarios need not happen to stress the response system to the point of collapse. Moreover, the danger and harm inherent in the use of chemical and especially biological weapons is not limited to physical casualties. As we have seen with the anthrax attacks, psychological impacts and social and economic disruption are also potentially severe.

Third, the events of September 11 and subsequent anthrax attacks suggest that the connections between state and non-state actors warrant increased attention. Analysts have tended to conceptualize and address the state CBW proliferation challenge and chemical and biological terrorism along separate tracks.

Today, the distinction between war and terrorism has become blurred and they have become inextricably linked. Our adversaries have declared war on the West and the United States in particular and they are using terrorist tactics as part of their campaign. We confront an adversary that is not necessarily a State, although it might be, but nevertheless has chemical and terrorism weapons potential, at a minimum.

As this war unfolds, then, the United States may find itself at war against one or more chemical and biological armed adversaries, whether a state or non-state. How do they think about the strategic and tactical utility of such weapons? Saying that chemical and biological capabilities will be part of an asymmetric strategy of either a state or a terrorist is not enough. Different strategic goals point to different chemical and biological weapons uses and a number of possibilities, each of which has both a limited and an ultimate form, suggest themselves as examples.

One, the desire to generate fear among the U.S. population, ultimately pushing such fear to the point that it raises questions about the integrity of U.S. society.

Second, slowing military action or ultimately crippling U.S. strategies that depend on power projection and coalition warfare.

Or third, disrupting the U.S. economy or ultimately undermining it by attacking such critical components as the agricultural sector, a threat that I believe has received insufficient attention, or the financial centers of the country. The willingness of terrorists or states to resort to chemical or biological capabilities depends on these kinds of strategic objectives, and our response depends, in part, on understanding what those strategic objectives might be.

What does this approach to defining the threat suggest about the needs for responding effectively? First, that because the threat is a multi-dimensional one and a complex one, an effective response must be strategic in nature, one that addresses requirements that span a spectrum from deterrence through prevention, defense, and

To perform each of these strategic missions effectively, difficult challenges must be overcome. Effective responses, for example, 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 System, and long-term measures, including an effective research and development program.

Second, a strategic response is also a multi-faceted response. A range of tools must be exploited. These include intelligence, defenses, both active and passive, diplomacy, legal measures, preparedness, financial measures, military options, and arms control. Each of these tools of policy contributes something to an effective response to the CBW proliferation challenge, but each tool has shortcomings that must be overcome and none of them constitutes a silver bullet that provides the total answer.

In this context, export controls have an important role to play, but it is not necessarily the traditional contribution of the past. Export control regimes can be effective in delaying the acquisition of sensitive technologies by a committed proliferator. 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.

This does not mean that export controls should be abandoned. They perform other functions. Regulation through export controls, for example, facilitates the global dissemination of materials and equipment. By defining the rules of the game by which companies must abide, for example, export controls make it easier for those companies to engage in international trade and cooperation.

It is this kind of newly defined role for export controls that should be emphasized in the future. At the same time, the United States must maintain open markets and avoid neo-protectionist practices that deny or severely limit access to markets or appropriate technology which would make key states less inclined to pursue cooperative measures.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Senator AKAKA. Thank you for your statement.

Dr. Tucker, we welcome your statement.

TESTIMONY OF JONATHAN B. TUCKER, Ph.D.,1 DIRECTOR, CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL NONPROLIFERATION PROGRAM, CENTER FOR NONPROLIFERATION STUDIES, MONTEREY INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

Mr. TUCKER. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, distinguished Members of the Subcommittee and guests, many thanks for the opportunity to appear before you today 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. 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

1The prepared statement of Mr. Tucker with an attached table appears in the Appendix on

chemical and biological weapons poses a clear and present danger to U.S. national security.

The anthrax that was mailed to Senator Tom Daschle's office contained dried spores that were milled to an extremely fine powder and treated with chemical additives so they would readily become airborne and infect through the lungs. These facts suggest that the perpetrators, whoever they are, had access to specialized military technology and expertise related to the weaponization of anthrax. Although to date the exposures have remained limited, a large-scale attack by the chemical or biological agent against U.S. targets at home or abroad is now a real possibility.

Because the senders of the anthrax-tainted letters may have received assistance from former weapons scientists or from a state sponsor, it is important to assess which states possess chemical and biological weapons capabilities and the extent to which trade in dual-use materials and technologies contributes to clandestine CBW programs. Evidence from open sources indicates that roughly 13 countries are actively seeking biological warfare capabilities and closer to 20 are seeking chemical warfare capabilities. Proliferant states of particular concern to the United States include Iraq, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria. More information on statelevel proliferation is contained in a table attached to my written testimony.1

Furthermore, over the past decade, sub-state groups have been increasingly interested in acquiring chemical and biological weapons. The Japanese doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo, the Kurdistan Workers' Party, and bin Laden's al Qaeda are only a few of the groups actively pursuing weapons of mass destruction capabilities. In recent years, the growing availability of dual-use technologies, materials, information, and expertise associated with production and delivery of chemical and biological weapons has exacerbated the problem of CBW proliferation. Indeed, the relative ease of acquiring these weapons when compared to advanced conventional or nuclear weapons has increased their attractiveness to states that cannot afford more advanced weapons or are technically incapable of developing them. Nearly all the materials and equipment used to make chemical and biological weapons are dual-use, complicating the control, detection, and interdiction of proliferation-relevant exports.

Attempts to regulate trade in dual-use technologies to countries of proliferation concern are extremely difficult. They face intense opposition not only from non-aligned states that claim that such controls are discriminatory, but also from international suppliers, companies, and research institutes that benefit from the commercial sale and transfer of such technologies.

The Chemical Weapons Convention and the Australia Group, an informal forum of 33 exporting counties, restrict trade in chemical weapons precursors, dangerous biological pathogens, and certain types of dual-use equipment. Even so, proliferant states have often been successful in circumventing these controls by purchasing the materials from unscrupulous suppliers and evading interdiction efforts by means of trans-shipment points and front companies.

Given the dual-use dilemma and the rapid diffusion of legitimate chemical, pharmaceutical, and biotechnology industries around the globe, strengthened dual-use export controls can buy time, but they do not offer a long-term solution to the CBW proliferation problem. Accordingly, export controls should be seen as one of a set of policy tools for addressing the proliferation threat, together with active interdiction efforts, passive and active defenses, strengthened consequence-management capabilities, cooperative threat reduction efforts in the former Soviet Union, and multilateral arms control.

Although the Bush Administration has taken a skeptical attitude towards arms control, a strengthened international legal regime banning the possession and use of these weapons, backed by a credible threat of economic sanctions and military action against violators, offers, in my view, the best hope of reversing the spread of these heinous weapons.

Because of the dangerous precedent that has been set by the actual use of biological weapons against civilian targets in the United States, it is vital for the international community to continue to strengthen the existing international norm against possession and use of chemical and biological weapons. Although the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Biological Weapons Convention impose a blanket prohibition on such weapons, both regimes have serious weaknesses that undermine their effectiveness. Accordingly, both regimes must be strengthened if they are to promote the international norm of non-use and non-possession by states of concern, and by extension, sub-state actors, as well.

For example, the United States has repeatedly accused Iran, a party to the Chemical Weapons Convention, of systematically violating its treaty obligations. To date, however, the United States has failed to request a challenge inspection of Iran as permitted under the Chemical Weapons Convention, undermining the credibility of this key element of the treaty's verification regime.

With respect to the Biological Weapons Convention, the Bush Administration decided in July 2001, earlier this year, to withdraw from a 6-year effort to negotiate a legally binding compliance regime. Although the administration has recently proposed an alternative package of voluntary measures, they appear insufficiently intrusive or effective to deter violations or to enhance compliance with the treaty. The administration should work with our European allies to make legally binding the proposed measure for investigation of alleged use of biological weapons and suspicious outbreaks of disease.

To achieve these goals, the United States should devote greater political and financial capital to strengthening the Chemical and Biological Weapons Conventions, make more effective use of existing treaty instruments, for example, by requesting a challenge inspection of Iran and other suspected violators, and seek to brand the possession and use of chemical and biological weapons as a crime against humanity under international law.

That concludes my oral testimony and I would be happy to answer your questions.

TESTIMONY OF ROSE GOTTEMOELLER,1 SENIOR ASSOCIATE, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE

Ms. GOTTEMOELLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for the honor of appearing today before the Subcommittee before you and Senator Thompson.

Suddenly, the press is full of terrible scenarios of suitcase bombs spewing detonation in the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge, a radiological bomb spreading plutonium over the White House, creating a "keep out" zone in central Washington that could last for many years. After reading about threats such as these and scenarios such as these, many people are worried, so I commend the Subcommittee for confronting these complex and difficult issues in the search for new answers in export controls as in other areas.

A simple device of the Hiroshima design is actually not the easiest nuclear capability for a proliferator to acquire, be he a terrorist or a rogue state actor. A simple device of this kind actually requires a large amount of nuclear material to achieve a nuclear explosion. We assume that 15 to 30 kilograms of highly enriched uranium, or three to four kilograms of plutonium are needed for a sophisticated nuclear device, and for a cruder device, a great deal more material may be required.

For this reason, international proliferation policy has stressed keeping nuclear material production and enrichment technologies out of proliferators' hands. Following the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, the possibility that large amounts of weapons-usable material could be stolen from former Soviet nuclear facilities has also become a major concern for nonproliferation policy worldwide. What would have been achieved through years of arduous and expensive production, enrichment, and separation work, that is, a sufficient amount of material to build a bomb, could be acquired in an instant through thievery.

Therefore, in the past decade, an enormous amount of attention and significant U.S. dollars, $173 million in fiscal year 2001 alone, have been spent on cooperating with Russia and the other states in the region to enhance the physical protection of weapons-usable material in facilities that house the Soviet weapons complex.

In contrast to bombs that would produce a nuclear detonation, however, radiological weapons are a simpler capability for a proliferator to acquire, if only because the threat in the case of a radiological device exists across a wide spectrum. The spectrum could range from a low-level nuclear waste package planted in an urban location through a highly toxic nuclear material explosion in the form of a dirty bomb, using conventional explosives to spread material over a wide geographic area. At the very end of the spectrum could be an aircraft attack on a nuclear facility that would turn the facility itself into a radiological weapon.

It is important to stress in looking at this spectrum the different types of radioactive materials that might come into play in a radiological attack. Since 1993, the International Atomic Energy Agency has tracked 175 cases of trafficking in nuclear materials and 201 cases of trafficking in radioactive materials. These are the kinds of materials used for medical and industrial purposes.