The following sections examine various facets of the NBC/ M proliferation threat, including: the threat of nuclear diversion from the FSU; the CW/ BW terrorist threat; and the military threat posed by CW/ BW, ballistic and cruise missiles, and underground and hardened NBC facilities. In addition, a brief study of Iraq's CW/ BW programs is also provided. For additional information on proliferation threats, the reader is referred to the April 1996 OSD report entitled Proliferation: Threat and Response.

3.2 The Threat of Nuclear Diversion

The chilling reality is that nuclear materials, technologies, and expertise are more accessible now than at any other time in history - due in part to the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the region's worsened economic conditions and political instabilities. This problem is exacerbated by the increasing diffusion of modern technology through the growth of the world market, making it harder to detect illicit diversions of materials and technologies relevant to a nuclear weapons program.

U. S. Intelligence is taking all possible measures to support aggressively U. S. Government efforts to ensure the security of nuclear materials and technologies. There are several reasons why U. S. Intelligence is concerned about the security of nuclear materials.

The protection of fissile material in the FSU has thus become more critical at the same time that it has become more difficult. Many of the institutional mechanisms that once curtailed the spread of nuclear materials, technology, and knowledge no longer exist or are present only in a weakened capacity. Effective new methods of control have yet to be fully implemented for a large portion of the world's nuclear related materials, technology, and information.

The list of potential proliferators is not limited to states with nuclear weapons ambitions. There are many non- state actors, such as separatists and terrorist groups, criminal organizations, and individual thieves who could choose to further their cause by using fissile or non- fissile (but radioactive) nuclear materials. Despite press articles claiming numerous instances of nuclear trafficking worldwide, U. S. Intelligence has no evidence that any fissile materials have been acquired by terrorist organizations. There are no indications of state sponsored attempts to arm terrorist organizations with nuclear material, fissile or non- fissile. Furthermore, conventional weapons such as improvised explosives remain the most likely option for terrorist groups because they are much easier to use and can be effective as tools of terror. Unfortunately, this does not preclude the possibility that a terrorist group could acquire enough nuclear material, potentially through illicit trades, to conduct an operation, especially one specifically designed to incite panic.

A non- state actor does not necessarily need fissile material - which is more difficult to acquire - for its purposes. Depending upon the group's objectives, any radioactive material could suffice, but the use of non- fissile materials would likely result in low levels of contamination with very little physical damage. But non- fissile radioactive materials dispersed by a conventional explosive or even released accidentally could cause damage to property and the environment, and cause social, political, and economic disruption. Examples of non- fissionable, radioactive materials seen in press reports are cesium- 137, strontium- 90, and cobalt- 60. These cannot be used in nuclear weapons but could be used to contaminate water supplies, business centers, government facilities, or transportation networks. Although it is unlikely they would cause significant numbers of casualties, they could cause physical disruption, interruption of economic activity, and psychological trauma to the work force and general populace, and require some measure of post-incident clean- up. Non- state actors already have attempted to use radioactive materials in recent operations. For example:

3.3 The Terrorist Threat of Chemical and Biological Weapons

The continued existence of states such as Iran, Libya, and Syria, which remain on the State Department's terrorist list, highlights the danger of potential state sponsorship of a terrorist's CW or BW program, although there is no evidence of state sponsors providing CW or BW or the technologies to produce them to terrorist groups.

The Aum Shinrikyo. The investigation of Aum leader Shoko Asahara has resulted in a number of revelations about the cult's activities. Press reports allege that:

3.4 The Military Threat of Chemical and Biological Weapons

Aimed at certain critical nodes in the military infrastructure of the U. S., either domestically or abroad, CW and BW could seriously disrupt the execution and tempo of military operations. Contamination of mobilization/ logistics nodes, ports, and other choke points created during force projection (e. g., the ports at Al Jubyal and Ad Dammam during the Gulf War) could delay the initiation of military campaigns, increase the exposure and vulnerability of troops, and threaten the very success of military operations. It is imperative, therefore, that U. S. forces be prepared to operate effectively in CW/ BW contaminated environments while simultaneously being able to detect and identify threat agents, treat casualties, and remediate contaminated areas.

The Soviet Union may have had the most advanced CW and BW programs in the world; at the very least, it certainly had the largest. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the current economic and unemployment problems of the states of the FSU may have a significant impact in the coming years on the direction and pace of CW and BW development throughout the world. While not sanctioned by the standing governments of FSU states, individuals and organizations may be tempted to sell related knowledge and materiel for hard currency just to survive. Certainly, the scientists and engineers formerly employed in the Soviet CW/ BW weapons complex could be vulnerable to this temptation. Just as the level of protection and control of nuclear materials has declined since the fall of the Soviet Union, so too could CW and BW knowledge and material become vulnerable to pilfering by entrepreneurs looking to turn a quick profit in the international proliferation marketplace.

Press reports indicate that the Soviet Union may also have developed CW agents which are harder to detect, protect against, and treat than standard nerve and other conventional CW agents. Proliferation of knowledge and material associated with these CW agents to regions of instability or by rogue nations could severely impact U. S. national interests, national policy, and military strategy. The prospect of facing a country, such as Iraq, equipped not just with CW, but with CW for which we do not possess adequate means of protection or detection is a sobering thought, indeed.

Another, less well understood, CW threat is the potential for a Bhopal- like event resulting from deliberate targeting of industrial facilities in populated areas. U. S. forces operating in industrial areas could face a combined threat of conventional CW agents and exposure to industrial chemicals released either deliberately by saboteurs or as a result of collateral effects associated with military attack operations (i. e., by friend or foe).

Ballistic Missile NBC Weapon Delivery Systems. Ballistic missiles offer potential proliferators several advantages in delivering NBC weapons. This is evidenced by the fact that many of the states thought to possess or seeking to possess NBC weapons also have programs to develop or acquire ballistic missiles. Ballistic missiles are less expensive to acquire and sustain than a modern air force. They have a relatively low profile infrastructure, and the use of mobile launchers makes them far less vulnerable to U. S. offensive operations than, for example, manned aircraft with ties to fixed air bases. The U. S. experience in the Gulf War demonstrated the exceptional challenge posed by mobile ballistic missile launchers to counterforce operations. Perhaps the greatest attraction of ballistic missiles is the difficulty in defending against them.

The potential for coercion is, perhaps, the long- range ballistic missile's greatest value to proliferators and the greatest challenge for those seeking to restrain them. Beyond their coercive value in threatening distant cities and their ability to distract and tie up military resources seeking to counter them, ballistic missiles - if sufficiently accurate and/ or lethal - can pose a direct military threat as well. During the Gulf War, 25 percent of U. S. combat fatalities resulted from a single SCUD missile strike on a makeshift barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Whether as a terror weapon against civilian populations or as a means to threaten the rear of U. S. and coalition forces, ballistic missiles can be an effective offensive weapon, even in the midst of U. S. air superiority. This is particularly the case with NBC- armed ballistic missiles. Because of their ability to spread lethal effects over wide areas, arming ballistic missiles with NBC weapons can, to some extent, compensate for a lack of missile accuracy. An inaccurate ballistic missile armed with conventional high explosives can be transformed from a militarily ineffective terror weapon to a militarily significant weapon by adding an NBC warhead. Hence, those who seek to develop or acquire NBC weapons will likely seek to develop or acquire ballistic missiles as well, and sometimes, unfortunately, vice versa.

Cruise Missile NBC Weapon Delivery Systems. Article 2 of the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty provides a useful definition: "A cruise missile is an unmanned, self-propelled vehicle that sustains flight through the use of aerodynamic lift over most of its flight." Cruise missiles may be even less expensive and more accurate than ballistic missiles, and their smaller size may make them an even more elusive target for counterforce operations. Furthermore, they may also be more difficult to defend against than manned aircraft because of their lower radar cross- section and flight characteristics. Cruise missiles tend to be small, easy to hide, capable of being launched from a variety of mobile launch platforms (air, ground, and sea based) without significant modifications to the missile, relatively hard to detect in flight, and potentially accurate to a few tens of meters (e. g., via the Global Positioning System). Even unsophisticated general aviation aircraft and commercially available remotely piloted vehicles could be turned into an unmanned cruise missile of sorts and configured to accomplish a variety of militarily significant missions. Such aircraft are widely available and inexpensive to purchase, support, and operate. Even though short- range anti- ship cruise missiles are already widely available, there are only a few countries that possess long- range, land- attack cruise missiles. However, there are no technological barriers preventing even developing nations from developing or purchasing these relatively inexpensive, potentially very accurate NBC weapon delivery systems. Although they can be designed to deliver their payloads to great distances (both the U. S. and the FSU built cruise missiles with range capabilities of more than 3,000 km), the majority of currently available cruise- type missiles have ranges typically less than about 500 km.

Underground and Hardened NBC/ M Facilities. Some countries are concealing NBC/ M facilities and protecting them from attack by constructing underground and other hardened facilities. Placing an NBC/ M capability - a weapon, a delivery system, or an NBC weapon production complex - within an underground facility enhances a country's ability to conceal the facility's location, in addition to providing considerable protection against attack. Outer perimeter protection in such facilities may involve concrete and steel roofs with earth cover. Other options include the use of tunnels, including existing coal and salt mine complexes and natural caves that can be both deep and extensive. Within a hardened complex such measures as blast doors, barriers, turns in tunnels, and expansion chambers can channel and deflect blast waves to mitigate their destructive effects. Modern excavating equipment has speeded the process of constructing such facilities while also reducing construction costs.

The Iraqi shallow buried and hardened facilities attacked during the Gulf War were for the most part remnants of an earlier generation of protective facilities construction. Because of the success achieved by U. S. weapons against these facilities, a new trend has been observed: the increased use of deep underground structures, such as abandoned mines or tunnels, to protect high value military assets. A proliferant state's NBC/ M forces and supporting infrastructure elements are one such high value military asset. Libya's construction of the Tarhunah tunnel complex, a suspected large scale CW production facility, is an example of this trend recently reported in the press. This complex is illustrated in Figure 3.2.

3.5 Iraq: A Country Study

Iraq's Biological Warfare Program. Following the August 1995 defections of high level Iraqi officials, Iraq revealed substantial additional information about its extensive BW program. The Iraqi Government adopted a policy to acquire additional BW in 1974. R& D began in 1975, but went into hiatus in 1978. In 1985, Iraq restarted BW R& D. Initial work focused on literature studies, until bacterial strains were received from overseas in April 1986. Additionally, Iraq's revelations to the UN included the following information on the production and weaponization of its BW agents:

Iraq's Chemical Warfare Program. These revelations further demonstrated the ability of a determined proliferator to hide some information about its CW/ BW programs even when subjected to systematic and continued scrutiny and included:

Response to the Threat.