06 June 2002
NATO Defense Ministers Focus on Terrorism, Weapons of Mass Destruction
(U.S. official says weapons of mass destruction pose threat to
civilians) (1850)
NATO defense ministers broadly agreed June 6 that weapons of mass
destruction (WMD) pose a threat to the alliance and to civilian
populations and that there is "a sense of urgency to this WMD
problem," according to a senior U.S. defense official familiar with
the deliberations.
Speaking on background from NATO headquarters in Brussels, the
official said the ministers had detailed discussions on "the problem
of weapons of mass destruction, the nexus between that and terrorism,
and the need for the alliance to develop new capabilities to deal with
those problems and threats."
The official, who declined to be identified, said there is widespread
agreement among alliance members on the need to focus on improvements
in four general areas: combating weapons of mass destruction; pursuing
secure, interoperable communications capabilities; enhancing airlift,
logistics support, and air-to-air refueling capabilities; and
developing a package of advanced conventional capabilities such as
precision-strike weapons.
While a bottom-up review of these areas will not be completed until
the summer of 2003, he said alliance members hope that heads of state
will be able to provide specific guidance for the direction of the
review by the time of the Prague Summit in November.
NATO is exploring a proposal made by the Norwegians, he said, to have
certain countries provide added value to the alliance through
specially acquired expertise in fields such as chemical and biological
weapons detection, special operations functions, or mine-clearing
operations.
Responding to questions from reporters, the official said that Cuba
was mentioned in the context of weapons of mass destruction and that
Syria, Libya, Iraq and North Korea were also discussed.
Following is the transcript of the background briefing:
(begin transcript)
DoD News Briefing
Senior Defense Official
Thursday, June 06, 2002
(Background Briefing at NATO Headquarters, Brussels, Belgium)
Staff: The session is on background as a senior defense official and I
really do apologize that we're late and the fact that we need to leave
at 1:25.
Senior Defense Official: Yes. We were late because the ministers were
having a very long and detailed discussion about the problem of
weapons of mass destruction, the nexus between that and terrorism and
the need for the Alliance to develop new capabilities to deal with
those problems and the threats we will face in the 21st century.
There was widespread agreement among allies that we need to develop a
new approach involving major capabilities in four key areas that could
then be endorsed by heads of state at the Prague Summit. These areas
are: weapons of mass destruction protection; the ability to develop
secure, interoperable communications capabilities...
Q: Would that be number two?
Senior Defense Official: Yes. Number three is to enhance the
alliance's mobility capabilities and its ability to sustain its forces
out of area.
Q: Is that lift?
Senior Defense Official: Lift, logistics support, air-to-air
refueling. Anything that helps you move from one place to another. And
then finally to develop a package of advanced conventional
capabilities, including precision strike capabilities and things like
that. The idea was that this was a tasking to military authorities to
develop a package with specific, concrete goals, and timelines for
achieving those goals, that could be endorsed by heads of state in
Prague.
A second thing that has come out of this is widespread agreement that
the alliance needs to do a zero-based review of its command structure,
to modernize the alliance to deal with new threats, and to focus that
command structure and command elements on new threats -- emphasizing
high readiness capabilities, emphasizing the need to have deployable
forces and command structures. Basically, ministers agreed that this
review would begin as part of -- actually there has been an ongoing
review going on, but this command structure review would be a
zero-based review and it would move forward through Prague then be
endorsed, hopefully, by heads of state, with the idea of it being
implemented sometime next year.
Q: Would the review be done in time for the Prague Summit?
Senior Defense Official: No. The concept would be that by the Prague
Summit there would be enough of a focus in the review for heads of
state to provide guidelines and guidance for the review. The review
would then be completed sometime in the summer of 2003 and implemented
thereafter.
Obviously, this kind of a review will involve looking at headquarters
elements in all the countries, the disposition of the strategic
commands in NATO, the disposition of high readiness force
headquarters... all kinds of elements. So it's a pretty detailed and
comprehensive review. It's going to take some time. But it will be
very important for heads of state to endorse this idea and to provide
guidance to NATO in Prague. So it's kind of a two-step process.
Q: What do you mean by "zero-based?" From the bottom up?
Senior Defense Official: Yes. Bottom up review. That's -
There was also, as I said, a great deal of discussion about the
weapons of mass destruction threat and the nexus between that and
terrorism. There was broad agreement that the WMD threat is a threat
to the alliance and especially to civilian populations. There was a
focus on that in some of the communiqué language. And then there was,
perhaps most importantly, the Secretary communicated -- and there was
great resonance with the idea -- that there is a sense of urgency to
this WMD problem. NATO will be a very important part of responding to
that -- for the members of the alliance, along with other
international partners, including the European Union. And so
ministers, as I said, had a long and fairly detailed discussion on
weapons of mass destruction, countries that possess them, the state
sponsors of terrorism, and the like. It was a very interesting give
and take.
Q: Did they discuss specific countries like Iraq in this context?
Senior Defense Official: There was a discussion of a broad range of
countries including Iran and Iraq, North Korea and others in that
context.
Q: On the four capabilities gaps you outlined at the start, even
though the proposals won't be ready until the Prague summit, can you
describe any discussion or ideas that were discussed and the way ahead
on this war?
Senior Defense Official: Well, in the WMD protection area there are
some specific ideas that were endorsed. I don't know if I have those
in front of me.
(TO STAFF) Do you have a copy of those?
Staff: No, I don't think so.
Senior Defense Official: Basically, in this case, it's a sort of
better defenses against the broad range of nuclear, chemical and
biological weapons -- deployable response capabilities -- and things
like that. The alliance in the past has frankly focused more on the
chemical problem, and less on radiological, nuclear and biological
problems. There is a more of an emphasis now, in this initiative, on
the biological side.
Q: This is responding to attack, not prevention?
Senior Defense Official: The initiatives deal with detection,
prevention and response. So it's a broad range of things.
Q: You said there was a sense of urgency about WMD. Was there a sense
of urgency about going after Iraq and its WMD program among the
members?
Senior Defense Official: There wasn't any specific discussion about
how to deal with specific countries. It was more of a broad -- well,
there was obviously a discussion about intelligence and what we know
about these things -- but they weren't developing strategies here for
dealing with specific countries.
Q: Was there a discussion of the President's views, as set forth in
his speech at West Point, on the possible need for a preventive action
against countries that both have weapons of mass destruction and are
involved in terrorism?
Senior Defense Official: There wasn't a specific discussion about the
President's speech, although many ministers noted that this was an
urgent problem and one that the Alliance needed to deal with very
quickly.
Q: What about the notion of pre-emptive action?
Senior Defense Official: There was not a discussion of that.
Senior Defense Official: I would just add to that, as someone who sits
in the back row on these things a lot, also on background. I think
almost -- I should say a majority of the ministers spoke to the
urgency of the situation with regards to weapons of mass destruction
and the nexus with terrorism and the need to take specific and
concrete steps.
Q: Like what? I mean if we're not talking about prevention, what kind
of things could we do?
Senior Defense Official: We're talking about some of the things that
they're going to do, whether it's capabilities, etc. But the
repetition of the words was pretty remarkable.
Q: Was Cuba mentioned among the countries?
Senior Defense Official: Cuba was discussed. Rather, it was not
discussed but Cuba was mentioned.
Q: It was mentioned as a WMD threat?
Senior Defense Official: Yes.
Q: Was it mentioned by Secretary Rumsfeld?
Senior Defense Official: I really wouldn't want to go into a sort-of
'Who said what in the meeting?' I try to avoid that.
Q: Would it be fair to say an American mentioned it?
Senior Defense Official: Well, that's not necessarily a meaningful
distinction, especially since he's pretty much the one who pretty much
does the talking.
Q: How about Syria and Libya?
Senior Defense Official: Both Syria and Libya were also discussed.
Q: Does the Alliance anticipate that individual countries will have
individual roles on the response front? One nation will have
biological response, another will have radiological response?
Senior Defense Official: The discussion did not get quite to that fine
a grain, but there was a consensus that emerged, I think, about the
need to develop special capabilities among the various allies. The
Norwegians actually made a proposal in that regard that I think was a
very positive thing. The concept was that certain countries have got
expertise in certain areas, whether it be mine clearing,
chemical/biological detection or clean up capabilities, special
operations forces, cold weather or mountain warfare . . . You know, in
other words, there will be certain areas where certain allies will be
able to provide a significant value-added to the Alliance by further
developing those capabilities. I think that's another important thing
that came out of this.
Q: Does the U.S. endorse that approach to specialization for
individual countries?
Senior Defense Official: Yes. We think it's a good, fit approach.
Staff: Stand and answer as you go.
Senior Defense Official: Okay. I'm walking out. Last question.
Q: A question on SACLANT (Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic)
Senior Defense Official: The issue of SACLANT was discussed in the
context of the command structure review and there was a lively
discussion about it. There wasn't any decision made.
(end transcript)
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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