19 March 2002
State Official Details Threat of Chemical, Biological Weapons
(Says CBW pose difficult intelligence problem) (4190)
"I can't think of an intelligence problem more difficult at any level
than dealing with biological weapons and chemical weapons," a senior
State Department intelligence official told the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee March 19. "A lot of resources are applied to the
problem. But boy, it is hard."
Carl Ford, the Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and
Research, testified on chemical and biological weapons (CBW) at one of
a series of hearings on the theme "Securing America's Future" that the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee has held since early February. The
purpose of the hearings is to determine "the most urgent threats
facing the United States" and to determine how to prioritize federal
resources to address them, according to committee chairman Senator
Joseph Biden (Democrat, Delaware).
At the outset, Ford cautioned senators that the evidence he would
present to them was "sketchy at best," because "the sources and
methods used to get most of our findings are so sensitive." He urged
senators to get more detailed briefings from the intelligence
community in order to get a fuller appreciation of the problem.
Ford divided chemical and biological weapons (CBW) into three
categories for ease of discussion: battlefield weapons, terrorists'
weapons, and weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The weapons in the
last category, he said, "are the ones that are scariest and that we
have to be certain that we understand and are carefully protecting
ourselves against." He cited attacks on American livestock,
agricultural areas, or poisoning the water for an entire city as
examples of this latter category. He further emphasized that
terrorists "almost certainly would have to have state assistance in
order to have those sorts of weapons."
Ford provided a list of countries that the United States is most
concerned about for possessing CBW in any of these three categories:
-- Iraq: It's likely to have continued its biological warfare program,
he said. It's also one of a small group of countries that have used
chemical weapons -- in Iraq's case, even against its own people.
-- Iran: Has made and stockpiled chemical weapons, and "continues to
seek production, technology, training, expertise, equipment and
chemicals from entities in Russia and China," Ford said.
-- North Korea: Its domestic chemicals industry can produce chemical
agents. "We believe it has a sizable stockpile of agents and weapons,"
Ford said. It also has pursued biological warfare capabilities over
the past four decades, he said.
-- Libya: It "continues its efforts to obtain technologies and
expertise from foreign sources," Ford said.
-- Syria: Has "a long-standing chemical weapons program, and is
pursuing biological weapons," said Ford.
-- Cuba: Has "at least a limited developmental offensive biological
warfare research and development effort," and has "provided dual-use
biotechnology to rogue states," he said.
-- Russia: Has "declared the world's largest stockpile of chemical
agents ... mostly weaponized," he told the committee. Russia also had
the world's largest biological weapons program, and still has
offensive BW capability, he said.
-- China: Has "an advanced chemical warfare program," and is believed
to have had an offensive biological warfare program before acceding to
the Chemical Weapons Convention, said Ford.
"Terrorist interest in chemical and biological weapons has been
growing, and probably will increase in the near term," Ford asserted.
"The threat is real and proven. The ease of acquisition or production
of some of these weapons, and the scale and terror that they can
cause, will likely fuel interest in using them to terrorize," he said.
Following is the text of Ford's prepared remarks:
(begin text)
STATEMENT BY CARL W. FORD, JR.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INTELLIGENCE AND RESEARCH
BEFORE THE SENATE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS HEARING
ON REDUCING THE THREAT OF CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS
MARCH 19, 2002
Chairman Biden, Senator Helms, I am particularly pleased to come
before you today, as I spent many years working for the Senate
Committee on Foreign Relations. I enjoyed those years, and am pleased
now to contribute to your work again, if in a different way.
More states have credible chemical and biological warfare (CBW)
capabilities than ever before. Advanced CBW capabilities and the
widespread public understanding of U.S. vulnerabilities since the
anthrax attacks which followed on the events of September 2001 makes
their use all the more likely. CBW threats challenge not only our
homeland and Americans overseas, but our allies as well. Collaborative
international efforts to meet, reduce and defeat the use of chemical
or biological weapons have become essential. The United States remains
committed to enacting new domestic laws and strengthening treaties and
international WMD-regimes to prevent and deter CBW development and
use. I will highlight those countries not in compliance with their
international obligations. The Administration has raised this
important issue with a number of countries bilaterally.
Since the worldwide CBW threat is growing in breadth and
sophistication, the use of these weapons anywhere in the world would
affect the United States. Crude but lethal attacks can be small and
could strike us in our homes here or in American communities abroad.
More than a dozen nations, including China, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North
Korea, Russia and Syria have the capabilities to produce chemical and
biological agents. Former Soviet biological and chemical facilities
still exist in Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, though none is
active now. Many have been engaged by U.S. threat reduction programs
to try to control proliferation of equipment, materials and knowledge.
Nevertheless, it will always remain difficult to assess how successful
we have been in preventing proliferation -- especially since basic CBW
production does not require large, sophisticated programs or
facilities. Additionally, the worldwide exchange of information via
the Internet facilitates this process.
How likely is the use of CBW?
Compared to nuclear weapons, chemical weapons (CW) and biological
weapons (BW) are easier to acquire and the inherently dual-use nature
of many goods and technologies needed to produce BW and CW makes their
assembly easier. That makes it likely that we will confront such a
threat in the future-again most likely by terrorists.
Chemical agent development is threatening, and the development and
production of traditional chemical agents may be easier because their
formulations are more widespread than biological compounds. The
building blocks of any chemical weapons program come from the chemical
industry. Precursor chemical procurement can be difficult for a state
that cannot produce them indigenously. Nevertheless, World War I-era
CW agents are not difficult to acquire and diagrams and descriptions
of chemical weapons from expired patents remain available in public
libraries or on the Internet.
Virtually all the equipment, technology and materials needed for
biological agent research and development and production are available
on the open market as well as in the secondary markets of the world.
Vaccine research and disease treatment require essentially the same
equipment. Because biological weapons are relatively cheap, easy to
disguise within commercial ventures, and potentially as devastating as
nuclear weapons, states seeking to deter nations with superior
conventional or nuclear forces find them particularly attractive.
Therefore BW will probably continue to gain importance since it can
kill or incapacitate military forces or civilian populations, while
leaving infrastructure intact but contaminated. Its great
disadvantage, that it can also attack one's own side, may be blunted
by advanced vaccination programs. Traditional controls, similar to
those used for fissionable material or delivery systems, cannot be
effective when dangerous pathogens occur naturally and do not depend
on manufacturing settings for production. Procuring BW agents and
using them can be done in different ways with different effects. While
developing an effective biological weapon is more difficult than
popular discussion may indicate, the degree of difficulty depends on
the agent chosen and the sophistication of the delivery method.
Biological weapons have been developed by states for many operational
uses, as well as by terrorist groups.
In addition to direct threats to the American people The United States
is vulnerable to indirect attack. For example, the United States
relies on modern intensive farming production methods that involve
large numbers of healthy susceptible livestock in geographically
concentrated areas, a centralized feed supply, and rapid movement of
animals to markets. In addition, U.S. crops generally lack genetic
diversity, leaving them vulnerable to disease. An anti-livestock BW
attack could result in multiple outbreaks throughout the United States
before the disease is diagnosed. In most cases, confirmation of a
foreign animal disease would result in immediate termination of
exports and potential banning of U.S. livestock products by foreign
governments, probably accompanied by killing infected and exposed
livestock. The economic impact would be enormous; as many as one in
eight U.S. jobs is directly involved in some form of agriculture, from
food production to deliver to retail sales.
Chemical and Biological weapons have been used throughout history, and
we are keenly aware of the recent anthrax attacks as well as past
Iraqi use of chemical weapons against the Kurds in 1988 as well as the
1995 Aum Shinrikyo sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subway. The threat is
real, dangerous and likely to occur again.
Which nations possess weaponized stocks of chemical and biological
agents?
Iraq
Given Iraq's past behavior, it is likely that Baghdad has
reconstituted programs prohibited under UN Security Council
Resolutions. Since the suspension of UN inspections in December of
1998, Baghdad has had more than enough time to reinitiate its CW
programs, programs that had demonstrated the ability to produce deadly
CW before they wre disrupted by Operation Desert Storm, Desert Fox,
and UNSCOM [United Nations Special Commission] inspections. Iraq's
failure to submit an accurate Full, Final, and Complete Disclosure
(FFCD) in either 1995 or 1997, coupled with its extensive concealment
efforts, suggest that the BW program also has continued. Without
inspection and monitoring of programs, however, it is difficult to
determine their current status. Since the Gulf war Iraq has rebuilt
key portions of its chemical production infrastructure for industrial
and commercial use at locations previously identified with their CW
program. Iraq has also rebuilt a plant that produces castor oil,
allegedly for brake fluid. The mash left over from this production,
however, could be used to produce ricin, a biological toxin. Iraq has
attempted to purchase numerous dual-use items for, or under the guise
of, legitimate civilian use. This equipment -- in principle subject to
UN scrutiny -- also could be diverted for WMD purposes. Since the
suspension of UN inspections in December 1998, the risk of diversion
has increased. After Desert Fox, Baghdad again instituted a
reconstruction effort on those facilities destroyed by the US bombing,
including several critical missile production complexes and former
dual-use CW production facilities. In addition, Iraq appears to be
installing or repairing dual-use equipment at CW-related facilities.
Some of these facilities could be converted fairly quickly for
production of CW agents. UNSCOM reported to the Security Council in
December 1998 that Iraq also continued to withhold information related
to its CW program. For example, Baghdad seized from UNSCOM inspectors
an Air Force document discovered by UNSCOM that indicated that Iraq
had not consumed as many CW munitions during the Iran-Iraq war in the
1980s as had been declared by Baghdad. This discrepancy indicates that
Iraq may have hidden an additional 6,000 CW munitions. In 1995, Iraq
admitted to having an offensive BW program and submitted the first in
a series of FFCDs that were supposed to have revealed the full scope
of its BW program. According to UNSCOM, these disclosures are
incomplete and filled with inaccuracies. Since the full scope and
nature of Iraq's BW program was not verified, UNSCOM has reported that
Iraq maintains a knowledge base and industrial infrastructure that
could be used to produce quickly a large amount of BW agents at any
time. Iraq also has continued dual-use research that could improve BW
agent R&D capabilities. With the absence of a monitoring regime and
Iraq's growing industrial self-sufficiency, we remain concerned that
Iraq may again be producing biological warfare agents. Iraq has worked
on its L-29 unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) program, which involves
converting L-29 jet trainer aircraft originally acquired from Eastern
Europe. In the past, Iraq has conducted flights of the L-29, possibly
to test system improvements or to train new pilots. These refurbished
trainer aircraft are believed to have been modified for delivery of
chemical or, more likely, biological warfare agents.
Iran
Iran, a State Party to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), already
has manufactured and stockpiled chemical weapons - including blister,
blood, choking, and probably nerve agents, and the bombs and artillery
shells to deliver them. Tehran continues to seek production
technology, training, expertise, equipment, and chemicals from
entities in Russia and China that could be used to help Iran reach its
goal an indigenous nerve agent production capability. Tehran continued
to seek considerable dual-use biotechnical materials, equipment, and
expertise from abroad -- primarily from entities in Russia and Western
Europe -- ostensibly for civilian uses. We believe that this equipment
and know-how could be applied to Iran's biological warfare (BW)
program. Iran probably began its offensive BW program during the
Iran-Iraq war, and likely has evolved beyond agent research and
development to the capability to produce small quantities of agent.
Iran may have some limited capability to weaponize BW.
North Korea
North Korea has a long-standing chemical weapons program. North
Korea's domestic chemical industry can produce bulk quantities of
nerve, blister, choking, and blood agents. We believe it has a
sizeable stockpile of agents and weapons. These weapons could be on a
variety of delivery vehicles, including ballistic missiles, aircraft,
artillery projectiles and unconventional weapons. North Korea has not
acceded to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), nor is it expected
to do so any time soon.
While North Korea has acceded to the Biological Weapons Convention
(BWC), it nonetheless has pursued biological warfare capabilities over
the last four decades. North Korea likely has a basic biotechnical
infrastructure that could support the production of infectious
biological agents. It is believed to possess a munitions production
infrastructure that would allow it to weaponize agents and may have
biological weapons available for military deployment.
Libya
Libya continues its efforts to obtain technologies and expertise from
foreign sources. Outside assistance is critical to its chemical and
biological weapons programs, and the suspension of UN sanctions in
1999 has allowed Tripoli to expand its procurement effort with old --
primarily West European -- contacts with expertise, parts, and
precursor chemicals for sale. Libya still seeks an offensive CW
capability and an indigenous production capability for weapons.
Evidence suggests Libya also seeks the capability to develop and
produce BW agents. Libya is a state party to the BWC and may soon join
the CWC, however this likely will not mean the end to Libya's ambition
to develop CBW.
Syria
Syria has also vigorously pursued the development of chemical -- and
to a lesser extent biological -- weapons to counter Israel's superior
conventional forces and nuclear weapons. Syria believes that its
chemical and missile forces deter Israeli attacks.
Syria has a long-standing chemical warfare program, first developed in
the 1970s. Unlike Iran, Iraq, and Libya, Syria has never employed
chemical agents in a conflict. It has a stockpile of the nerve agent
sarin and may be trying to develop advanced nerve agents as well. In
future years, Syria will likely try to improve its infrastructure for
producing and storing chemical agents. It now probably has weaponized
sarin into aerial bombs and SCUD missile warheads, giving Syria the
capability to use chemical agents against Israeli targets. Syria has
not signed the CWC.
Syria is pursuing biological weapons. It has an adequate biotechnical
infrastructure to support a small biological warfare program. Without
significant foreign assistance, it is unlikely that Syria could
advance to the manufacture of significant amounts of biological
weapons for several years. Syria has signed the BWC.
Syria depends on foreign sources for key elements of its chemical and
biological warfare program, including precursor chemicals and key
production equipment. The U.S. has pressed possible supplier states to
Syria to stop such trade, thereby making acquisition of such materials
more difficult. The 33-nation Australia Group coordinates adoption of
stricter export controls in many countries.
Cuba
The United States believes that Cuba has at least a limited,
developmental offensive biological warfare research and development
effort. Cuba has provided dual-use biotechnology to rogue states. We
are concerned that such technology could support BW programs in those
states. We call on Cuba to cease all BW-applicable cooperation with
rogue states and to fully comply with all its obligations under the
Biological Weapons Convention.
Russia
Serious concerns remain about the status of Russian chemical and
biological warfare programs, the accuracy of the information Russia
provided in its declarations, and the willingness of the Russian
defense establishment to eliminate these capabilities. Further, given
that Russia still faces serious economic and political challenges and
the large number of weapons involved, the possibility that some
Russians might sell chemical and biological materials, technologies
and knowledge to other countries or groups continues to exist.
Russia has stated publicly that it opposes proliferation of chemical
and biological weapons. Because of its economic situation and serious
financial shortfalls, Russia remains concerned about the costs of
implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention. It believes the
high destruction costs of its large chemical weapons stockpile
requires Western assistance.
Moscow has declared the world's largest stockpile of chemical agents:
39,969 metric tons of chemical agent, mostly weaponized, including
artillery, aerial bombs, rockets, and missile warheads. U.S. estimates
of the Russian stockpile generally are still larger. The inventory
includes a wide variety of nerve and blister agents in weapons and
stored in bulk. Some Russian chemical weapons incorporate agent
mixtures, while others have added thickening agents to increase the
time of contamination on the target.
According to the Russian CWC declaration, all former Soviet chemical
weapons are stored at seven locations in Russia, mostly in the
Volga/Ural section of the country. During the late 1980s and early
1990s, it carried out an extensive consolidation process of chemical
warfare material, from sites within Russia and from non-Russian
locations.
Russian officials do not deny research has continued but assert that
it aims to develop defenses against chemical weapons, a purpose that
is not banned by the CWC. Many of the components for new binary agents
developed by the former Soviet Union are not on the CWC's schedules of
chemicals and have legitimate civil applications, clouding their
association with chemical weapons use. However, under the CWC, all
chemical weapons are banned, whether or not they are on the CWC
schedules.
The former Soviet offensive biological program was the world's largest
and consisted of both military facilities and nonmilitary research and
development institutes. This program employed thousands of scientists,
engineers, and technicians throughout the former Soviet Union, with
some biological warfare agents developed and weaponized as early as
the 1950s. The Russian government has committed to ending the former
Soviet BW program. It has closed or abandoned plants outside the
Russian Federation and these facilities have been engaged through
cooperative threat reduction programs. Nevertheless, we remain
concerned about Russia's offensive biological warfare capabilities
remain.
Key components of the former Soviet program remain largely intact and
may support a possible future mobilization capability for the
production of biological agents and delivery systems. Moreover, work
outside the scope of legitimate biological defense activity may be
occurring now at selected facilities within Russia. Such activity, if
offensive in nature, would contravene the BWC, to which the former
Soviet government is a signatory. It would also contradict statements
by top Russian political leaders that offensive activity has ceased.
The United States remains concerned by the threat of proliferation,
both of biological warfare expertise and related hardware, from
Russia. Russian scientists, many of whom either are unemployed or
unpaid for an extended period, may be vulnerable to recruitment by
states trying to establish biological warfare programs. The
availability of worldwide information exchange via the Internet
facilitates this process.
Russian entities remain a significant source of dual-use
biotechnology, chemicals, production technology, and equipment for
Iran. Russia's biological and chemical expertise makes it an
attractive target for Iranians seeking technical information and
training on BW and CW agent production processes.
China
I believe that the Chinese have an advanced chemical warfare program,
including research and development, production, and weaponization
capabilities. Chinese military forces have a good understanding of
chemical warfare doctrine, having studied the tactics and doctrine of
the former Soviet Union. Chinese military forces conduct defensive
chemical warfare training and are prepared to operate in contaminated
environments. In the near future, China is likely to achieve the
necessary expertise and delivery capability to integrate chemical
weapons successfully into overall military operations.
I believe that China's current inventory of chemical agents includes
the full range of traditional agents, and China is researching more
advanced agents. It has a wide variety of delivery systems for
chemical agents, including tube artillery, rockets, mortars,
landmines, aerial bombs, sprayers, and SRBMs. China signed the
Chemical Weapons Convention in January 1993, and ratified it shortly
after the U.S. ratification in April 1997.
China acceded to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention in 1984,
though many believe its declarations under the BWC confidence-building
measures inaccurate and incomplete. China has consistently claimed
that it has never researched, manufactured, produced, or possessed
biological weapons and that it would never do so. However, China
possesses an advanced biotechnology infrastructure and the
biocontainment facilities necessary to perform research and
development on lethal pathogens. It is possible that China has
maintained the offensive biological warfare program it is believed to
have had before acceding to the BWC.
What is the potential access of international terrorist groups to
these stocks and capability to produce and employ CBW?
Terrorist interest in chemical and biological weapons has been growing
and probably will increase in the near term. The threat is real and
proven. The ease of acquisition or production of some of these weapons
and the scale and terror they can cause, will likely fuel interest in
using them to terrorize. The transport and dispersal techniques also
are manageable and can be made effective easily, as seen recently in
using the mail as a delivery system to spread anthrax.
Many of the technologies associated with the development of chemical
and biological agents, have legitimate civil applications. The
increased availability of these technologies, particularly if a group
is already in the United States and therefore not subject to many of
the controls in place that monitor and limit the export of these
technologies, coupled with the relative ease of producing chemical or
biological agents, makes the threat very real.
In addition, the proliferation of such weapons raises the possibility
that some states or rogue entities within these states could provide
chemical or biological weapons to terrorists. It remains unlikely that
a state sponsor would provide such a weapon to a terrorist group. But
an extremist group with no ties to a particular state (but which
likely does have friends in state institutions) could acquire or steal
such a weapon and attempt to use it.
How well can the U.S. monitor the threat?
The proliferation of chemical and biological weapons continues to
change in ways that make it more difficult to monitor and control,
increasing the risk of substantial surprise. Countries and terrorists
determined to maintain and develop these capabilities are
demonstrating greater proficiency in the use of denial and deception
efforts.
State programs have been placing significant emphasis on
self-sufficiency. In bolstering their domestic production
capabilities, and thereby reducing their dependence on others, they
can better insulate their programs against interdiction and
disruption. Although these indigenous capabilities may not always
substitute well for foreign imports -- particularly for more advanced
technologies -- in many cases they may prove adequate. In addition, as
their domestic capabilities grow, traditional recipients of technology
could become new suppliers of technology and expertise to others. We
are increasingly concerned about "secondary proliferation" from
maturing state-sponsored programs, such as those in Iran and North
Korea. These countries and others not members of the Australia Group
do not adhere to its export constraints. Apart from governments,
private companies, scientists, and engineers from countries such as
China and Russia may provide CBW-related assistance to countries or
terrorist organizations. Weak or unenforceable national export
controls, especially on dual-use technology and goods, coupled with
the growing availability of technology, makes the spread of CBW
easier, and therefore more likely. Unfortunately, Mr. Chairman, I
cannot assure you that we can predict and protect against the threats
of CBW attack on the Homeland or American bases, embassies, and
interests abroad. The technology for CBW is too widely available and
the precursors too widespread for us to track. Such weapons tend to be
clumsy, subject to vagaries of wind, weather, and ventilation systems.
Moreover, the users rarely have any immunity from them. We must worry,
however, that in the hands of a fanatic, CW or BW agents could cause
great loss of life. I look forward to you questions.
(end text)
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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