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June 2005
In the first debate of the 2004 presidential election, George Bush and his Democratic rival, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, agreed that proliferation of nuclear weapons was the single greatest danger to U.S. security. While nuclear weapons pose the greatest threat, certain terror groups have made it clear they will use any kind of weapon of mass destruction (WMD)—nuclear, biological, or chemical—against U.S. and other targets.
While most terrorist organizations have never used nor sought WMD, some terrorists want these weapons to inflict mass damage: A 10-kiloton nuclear bomb that exploded in New York City could kill up to 100,000 people within moments of the detonation and could rain intense radioactive contamination over a two- to six-mile radius; spraying an aerial form of anthrax in a major city could kill more than 10,000 people; and blowing up a storage tank of chlorine gas could kill 20,000 people and hospitalize 100,000. “It may be only a matter of time before al Qaeda (http://www.cfrterrorism.org/groups/alqaeda.html)or another group attempts to use chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons,” U.S. Director of Central Intelligence Porter Goss said in testimony before theSenate Intelligence Committee February 17.
Various international agreements are designed to limit the spread of WMD: the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), the Chemical Weapons Convention, and the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention. Bush administration officials and many others have questioned whether such agreements are adequate to deal with the threat of WMD in a post-9/11 world. The Bush administration formulated the much-debated doctrine of preemption to stop “rogue states and their terrorist clients” before they threaten to use WMD and applied it as a rationale for the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. The subsequent failure to uncover a significant Iraqi WMD arsenal or program raised troubling questions about U.S. intelligence agencies’ ability to collect meaningful information on what are, typically, clandestine programs.
Nevertheless, recent tensions over Iran and North Korea offer ample evidence that some countries are prepared to ignore international rules regulating WMD programs. Many nations, reluctant to count on existing agreements to control WMD proliferation, have called for stricter limits. President Bush released a National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction in December 2002. Among the options it offered: interdiction, diplomacy, multilateral cooperation, export controls, sanctions, and, when necessary, force. In May 2003, 10 nations joined with the United States in launching the Proliferation Security Initiative,an effort to interdict ships, planes, and trains carrying suspect cargo; the initiative has since earned the support of some 60 countries. The G-8 Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction established principles to govern the spread of WMD. In April 2004, the United Nations Security Council approved U.N. Resolution 1540,which required all nations to enact laws criminalizing WMD proliferation by non-state actors and to improve the physical protection and controls over materials that can be used to make WMD. A May 2005 meeting convened to review the NPT examined various proposals to stiffen controls on nuclear materials but, in the end, there was no consensus for change.
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
Nuclear weapons pose the greatest threat. One aspect of the danger they represent, often overlooked, is embodied in the thousands of nuclear warheads in the arsenals of the United States and Russia. There are safeguards in place to prevent an accidental launch of these deadly forces, but many WMD specialists worry that far too many of them remain on so-called hair-trigger alert. The 2002 Treaty of Moscow obligates the U.S. and Russia to reduce the number of deployed strategic warheads to around 2,000 each by the end of 2012, but the treaty allows thousands of warheads to remain in reserve stockpiles.
A more likely scenario for a detonation of a nuclear device is in a terror attack. Al Qaeda has sought nuclear material since the early 1990s and has made several attempts to buy nuclear components and manufacture crude nuclear devices, experts say. In May 2003, a Saudi cleric issued a fatwa on behalf of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden that sanctioned using a nuclear weapon against the United States.
It is considered possible but unlikely that terrorists could steal or buy nuclear materials and build a weapon. A more feasible scenario involves radiological weapons that can spread radioactive contamination using conventional explosives—so-called dirty bombs—or non-explosive means of dispersal– spreading the radioactive material with crop dusters, for example. Proliferation experts worry that material for nuclear weapons could come from Russia, where there are several hundred tons of weapons-usable uranium and plutonium; the U.S. Energy Department estimates only about half of Russia’s nuclear materials are adequately secured, despite ongoing international efforts to safeguard them.
The United States has several programs to account for so-called loose nukes. The 1991 Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program to secure fissile material in the former Soviet Union tracks nuclear weapons and material, destroys mothballed weapons, and employs scientists who might otherwise be tempted to sell their expertise on the black market. It has also financed the removal of nuclear weapons from Kazakhstan, Belarus, and Ukraine. At a February meeting in Bratislava, Slovakia, President Bush and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, committed to a series of steps to further secure nuclear weapons. Launched in May 2004, the Global Threat Reduction Initiative plans to remove vulnerable weapons-usable uranium from dozens of nuclear-reactor sites around the world and to convert these reactors to operate on non-weapons-usable fuel. And the Proliferation Security Initiative, begun in 2003, is aimed at halting the smuggling of WMD.
In the run-up to the NPT review conference, held every five years, there was widespread speculation that delegates would agree on new, more stringent limits on nuclear material. Treaty critics say loopholes allow nations to apply the expertise and technology they gain building civilian nuclear-power plants to weapons programs. Various plans, including one from Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), have been proposed to close the loopholes by tightly controlling nuclear fuel.
In addition to the terrorist threat, Iran and North Korea are suspected of having defied international nuclear controls and raced to produce nuclear weapons. The revelation in 2004 that Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan ran a global network that sold nuclear components and expertise to Iran, North Korea, and Libya provided ample evidence of the gaps in the control mechanisms and stoked fears that others—rogue states or terrorists—may already have access to WMD.
The U.S. administration’s policy on Iran and North Korea has combined tough rhetoric and on-again, off-again diplomacy. The fate of the 2003 European-brokered deal to halt Iran’s nuclear-weapons program remains in doubt, leaving the Bush administration to decide how hard to push the IAEA to refer the issue to the U.N. Security Council. The Bush White House backed off from Clinton administration threats to use force if North Korea restarted its nuclear program and resisted the North’s demands for one-on-one talks, endorsing instead the multiparty negotiations that began in Beijing in the fall of 2003.
CHEMICAL WEAPONS
Chemical weapons—gases, herbicides, or other chemical substances that can kill, maim, or incapacitate humans—are easily transportable and can be dispersed as liquids, vapors, gases, and aerosols that attack the body’s nerves, blood, skin, or lungs. Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against Iranian soldiers during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war; in 1988, he used mustard and poison gas against Kurds in the northern Iraqi village of Halabja, killing at least 5,000 and wounding 10,000. A terrorist attack using chemical weapons would cause mass casualties and panic. The 1992 Chemical Weapons Convention prohibits its signatories from developing, stockpiling, trading, or using chemical weapons, and aims to destroy all existing stocks of such weapons. The United States, one of the 187 nations that have signed the convention, has committed to destroying its inventory of chemical agents by 2007, but the immensity of the task casts doubt on whether the deadline will be met. Like the United States, Russia will also likely need several more years to destroy its 40,000 metric tons of chemical weapons.
Qaeda operatives have actively pursued chemical weapons. A Qaeda document found in Afghanistan in the summer of 2002 gave crude directions for making mustard gas, sarin, and other agents that attack the nervous system. Qaeda members also had plans for a cyanide-based chemical weapon using components that are easily available and require little training to assemble and deploy, according to the Central Intelligence Agency.
Many countries have stockpiles of chemical weapons. North Korea, despite its aging chemical plants, can still produce nerve, blister, choking, and blood agents, some experts say. Syria has stockpiles of sarin gas, and has sought assistance from abroad to produce other nerve agents. Libya admitted that it had produced sulfur mustard at a plant near Rabta and had aerial bombs to deliver the gas. It also had the capacity to make mustard gas and nerve agent. Iran is suspected of having stockpiles of nerve, blister, blood, and choking agents.
Efforts to prevent terrorists from using chemical weapons have increased, but experts say it is difficult to measure their effectiveness. A growing number of countries around the world, for example, now enforce licensing regulations on 63 chemical-weapons precursors, as well as human, plant, and animal pathogens and dual-use chemical and biological equipment. Many experts worry that terrorists will steal samples of chemical-weapons stocks or manufacture their own. Experts also express concern that terrorists will target the U.S. chemical industry by attacking vulnerable chemical-storage tanks near populated areas.
BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS
Biological weapons are based on viruses, pathogens, or toxic agents that occur in nature; these diseases were historically spread only through contact with infected people or animals. They include smallpox, plague, botulism, anthrax—a deadly bacterial spore—and viral hemorrhagic fevers, which cause internal bleeding. Letters containing anthrax spores mailed to U.S. government agencies and media figures in 2001 killed only a handful of people but caused widespread concern. No one has been apprehended in the attacks.
Experts say al Qaeda had, and may continue to have, an experimental biological-weapons program that focuses on using anthrax for mass-casualty attacks or other biological agents for smaller-scale purposes.
The Biological Weapons Convention, which entered into force in March 1975, bars the production, stockpiling, acquisition, and retention of microbial or other biological agents, or toxins for non-peaceful purposes; the use of biological weapons is banned by the 1925 Geneva Protocol. North Korea is among the countries suspected of pursuing biological weapons and stockpiling agents. Countries that have sold biological or biotechnology agents include Russia, North Korea, and China, according to a 2003 report to Congress by then-Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet.
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