The Dallas Morning News October 05, 2002
Are troops in right gear for chemical, biological war?
U.S. preparing for the worst in possible battle with Iraq
By JIM LANDERS
WASHINGTON - U.S. military planners are preparing to face chemical and biological weapons attacks should President Bush order an invasion of Iraq.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has dispersed and hidden his chemical and biological weapons so widely that U.S. intelligence does not know where they are. The mystery puts them beyond the reach of U.S. airstrikes or commando teams trained to dismantle weapons of mass destruction.
Not even an occupying army could track down all of Mr. Hussein's hidden bunkers and weapons labs, Mr. Rumsfeld has said - an argument he has used to promote a policy of regime change in Baghdad rather than disarmament.
"Many of his capabilities are mobile. They have been widely disbursed into dozens and dozens and dozens of different locations," Mr. Rumsfeld told the Greater Atlanta Chamber of Commerce last week.
"Vast underground networks and facilities and sophisticated denial and deception techniques have been employed. In addition, they have been placed in close proximity to hospitals, schools, mosques and churches."
Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress that the military's planning assumes the worst: a war with Iraq in which U.S. forces are under attack in a chemical and biological weapons battlefield.
Mr. Hussein gave orders to launch chemical and biological weapons attacks during the 1991 Gulf War if U.S. forces turned their assault toward Baghdad, according to documents recovered by U.N. inspectors after the war.
John Pike, who runs the intelligence and national security think tank globalsecurity.org, said the big questions in a war with Saddam Hussein are speed and the quality of U.S. defensive gear.
"Can you provoke the regime into collapsing in a short period of time? And is American chemical gear up to the challenge of being subject to a continuous drizzle of poisonous gas in the week it takes to get to Baghdad?" he asked.
'Somewhat better off'
With veterans still angered about the mysteries of Gulf War syndrome from the first war with Iraq, Gen. Myers wasn't very reassuring about what might happen. "We are somewhat better off than we were a decade ago," he told the Senate Armed Services Committee. "Obviously, the protective equipment has improved over time. It's still cumbersome, more cumbersome than it should be, but it's much better than it was a decade ago."
The congressional General Accounting Office released a report Monday criticizing the military for not giving chemical and biological warfare protection a higher priority. The Pentagon has acquired 1.5 million lighter, more durable protective suits since the Gulf War, but still has 3 million of the older ones and cannot find 250,000 suits in its inventory that are considered defective.
The military's sensor technology has improved since the Gulf War. In exercises, special detection vehicles have identified airborne poisonous chemicals within seconds of their release, and other gear can spot poison gas plumes in the distance. Biological attacks are much harder to identify, however.
Iraq apparently did not use chemical or biological weapons in the 1990-1991 Gulf War. Former Secretary of State James A. Baker III warned Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz that the use of such weapons would lead to the elimination of Mr. Hussein's regime and hinted that U.S. forces might retaliate with tactical nuclear weapons.
Former CIA analyst and White House national security aide Kenneth Pollack, in a new book titled The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq, argues that the warning did not deter Mr. Hussein from delegating authority to launch biological and chemical weapons against U.S.-led forces.
Mr. Hussein gave orders that any attack on Baghdad should be met with chemical and biological artillery strikes. Mr. Pollack cites a CIA report that Iraq tried to launch a biological weapon airstrike against U.S. forces shortly after the war began.
Three MIG-21 fighters were to test U.S. air defenses for the attack, but were shot down over the Persian Gulf. The follow-up attack with a low-flying jet equipped with the biological weapon sprayer and its escorts was canceled, according to the CIA report. The information was never confirmed.
Mr. Hussein did order chemical weapons deployed to Kuwait for possible use against U.S. forces, and on Aug. 5, 1990, ordered them loaded aboard Iraqi aircraft as U.S. forces began to land in Kuwait.
Iraqi defectors and other sources say Mr. Hussein feared nuclear retaliation if he launched such attacks against Israel. But the Iraqi leader ordered a crash effort to assemble one nuclear bomb to be fitted into a Scud missile if Iraq wereinvaded.
"It was his doomsday weapon," Mr. Pollack writes. "If his own demise were imminent, he planned to take everybody down with him - no threats, no demonstration flash in the desert for diplomatic leverage."
After the war, U.N. inspectors found that Iraq had produced a multitude of lethal chemicals and germs, including VX, sarin, mustard gas, cancer-causing agents such as aflatoxin, anthrax and botulin. Thousands of artillery shells loaded with these agents were never tracked down.
Disrupting orders
Since all of the weapons can't be found or destroyed from the air, U.S. strategies aim at disrupting the chain of command carrying the orders to use them. Mr. Rumsfeld is warning Iraqi military commanders that they'll be treated as war criminals if they use chemical, biological or radiological weapons. "Saddam Hussein might not have anything to lose personally, but beneath him in the chain of command, those other people would most certainly have a great deal to lose," Mr. Rumsfeld testified before Congress. "And wise Iraqis would not obey orders to use weapons of mass destruction."
Gen. Myers said Patriot anti-missile batteries are more accurate today than they were in the Gulf War, when they had a 50 percent chance of hitting incoming Scud missile warheads. Newer Patriot missiles are already stationed in Israel and Kuwait.
More than 500,000 active-duty soldiers have received anthrax inoculations, though the program was halted after a controversy over the effectiveness of the shots and possible side effects. Gen. Myers told Congress that the inoculation program resumed in September.
U.S. special forces units have been trained to locate and disarm biological, chemical and nuclear weapons, and such teams would likely see action in Iraq, Mr. Pike said.
"They are going to attempt to dissuade Iraqi commanders from following orders. They are going to have commando teams go after suspected storage sites. I gather they've already deployed additional Patriot anti-missile interceptors," Mr. Pike said.
"But the reality is the centerpiece of American strategy here is chemical protective gear. All of these other things might reduce or diminish the size, intensity and effectiveness of these weapons, but none will eliminate it. It comes down to, 'How good are the American gas masks?' "
Copyright 2002 The Dallas Morning News
