EXECUTIVE PRODUCER:
Admiral Gene LaRocque (USN, Ret.),
Pres., Center for Defense Information
HOST:
Admiral John Shanahan (USN, Ret.)
Director, Center for Defense Information
DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH:
David T. Johnson
DIRECTOR of TELEVISION:
Mark Sugg
PRODUCERS:
Glenn Baker
Jennifer Hazen
Stephen Sapienza
PRINCIPAL ANALYST & SCRIPTWRITER:
Kathryn R. Schultz
SEGMENT PRODUCER:
Glenn Baker
NARRATOR:
Kathryn R. Schultz
VIDEO GRAPHICS:
Adam Luther
ORIGINATION:
Washington, D.C.
PROGRAM NO.:
952
INITIAL BROADCAST:
8 September 1996
CONDITION OF USE:
Credit "AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR" (Center for Defense Information).
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
MARIE CHEVRIER
University of Texas
JOSEPH CIRINCIONE
Henry L. Stimson Center
LEONARD SPECTOR
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
with additional comments from:
President BILL CLINTON, 11 August 1995
WILLIAM PERRY, Secretary of Defense
General JOHN SHALIKASHVILI, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff
All day Monday, Tokyo residents were asking themselves and each other who would commit these acts of indiscriminate murder and why. Investigators have been trying to piece together the methodology of today's sarin gas attack on at least five subway cars at the heart of the morning rush hour.
JOSEPH CIRINCIONE: There's no question that the principal national security threat we face now is the danger that a terrorist group or nation will use chemical, biological or nuclear weapons against the United States troops or against the United States cities.
["AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR" program introduction.]
WILLIAM PERRY, Secretary of Defense:
During the Cold War, the Soviet Union created a massive and a deadly arsenal of nuclear weapons, including what we call the SS-18 and the SS-19 ICBMs. These created a truly dangerous threat to the United States. This threat was described during the 80s in a publication called "Soviet Military Power."
[11 April 1996 DoD news briefing]
NARRATOR: On April 11, 1996, the Pentagon released the successor to "Soviet Military Power" entitled "Proliferation: Threat and Response," a document reflective of the changed world in which we live.
Secretary PERRY:
Today, with the Cold War over, the threat of nuclear holocaust is dramatically reduced and our programs and our investments have been dramatically changed and correspondingly reduced. But another threat in the meantime has increased in intensity and that threat is the one of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction -- nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, biological weapons -- proliferating to countries all over the world.
[same briefing]
NARRATOR: Only five of the more than 190 countries in the world admit possessing nuclear weapons: The United States, the United Kingdom, France, China and Russia. Three more are widely believed to have the capability to make them: Israel, India and Pakistan. Other nations are frequently cited by the Pentagon as seeking nuclear weapons. These include Iran, Iraq, Libya and North Korea. But in actuality, the number of potential nuclear weapons states is shrinking.
LEONARD SPECTOR: I would say that whether we'll see the further threat of nuclear weapons is an open question. And to say that is to say a lot. Because at one stage of history, there was no question you were going to see more of this. Now I'd say you might not.
NARRATOR: Dr. Leonard Spector is director of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Dr. SPECTOR: A number of countries have renounced nuclear capabilities that they have had. South Africa had a small arsenal of six weapons. Romania certainly had a weapons program under the Ceausescu regime that they gave up when he was deposed. Argentina and Brazil were moving toward nuclear weapons; they have now moved to the opposite direction very convincingly. And Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan had these weapons on their territory, which they have now given up.
NARRATOR: On June 4, 1996, Secretary of Defense William Perry took part in a ceremony celebrating the removal of the last nuclear warhead from Ukraine.
Secretary PERRY:
For decades the danger of nuclear war has hung over our heads like a dark cloud, threatening the extinction of all mankind. Now that dark cloud is drifting away. It is altogether fitting that we plant sunflowers here at Provomaysk to symbolize the hope that all feel at seeing the sun shine through again.
[4 June 1996, Provomaysk, Ukraine]
NARRATOR: Given the declining number of potential nuclear weapons states, why is nuclear proliferation viewed as the principal threat to the United States today?
Joseph Cirincione, senior associate at the Henry L. Stimson Center, explains.
Mr. CIRINCIONE: Ironically, it's the end of the Cold War that has suddenly made this threat more real and the materials more readily available to groups who wish to do us harm.
NARRATOR: The most difficult part of building a nuclear weapon has always been obtaining the fissile materials necessary to produce a nuclear explosion.
Mr. CIRINCIONE: With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, suddenly the materials -- the plutonium, the highly enriched uranium, the chemical manufacturing plants -- were suddenly no longer under the control of central Soviet military command.
NARRATOR: These nuclear materials potentially could be used to make a nuclear weapon, or, with considerably less effort and investment, a radiological weapon. Dr. Kathleen Bailey of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory explains the difference.
KATHLEEN BAILEY: A radiological weapon is taking nuclear material -- and it doesn't have to be uranium or plutonium, it can be any dangerous radioactive material -- and basically packing explosives in or around it, so that when it goes off it just spreads the stuff everywhere and contaminates not only the environment but presents a health hazard to the victims. A nuclear weapon, of course, is one which actually achieves criticality and there is a nuclear yield from it, and it's going to be much, much more destructive.
Dr. SPECTOR: You could create quite a mess with a radiological device where you wouldn't have a nuclear explosion, but you would have an explosion with radioactive debris. We saw a hint of this now in Russia, where the Chechen rebels actually placed a chunk of radioactive cesium in a park in Moscow and said that there was more somewhere else that might be used in a terrorist device.
My own view is to say that ain't so bad. We know how to decontaminate areas that have radioactive junk on them. It's very easy to detect. It's not going to be fatal immediately. I don't want to see it, but we know how to deal with that. You can also track these things down because they often have a radioactive signature.
Biological weapons and chemical weapons are much, much more dangerous. If you get a little drop of cesium on your skin and you brush it off. We can monitor it and probably you're going to be alright in the long term. You get a few drops of some of these chemical weapons on your skin and it's over.
NARRATOR: There is widespread agreement that a more realistic threat to the United States today is posed by chemical and biological weapons. Such weapons might prove especially attractive to terrorists.
Dr. BAILEY: The likelihood of chemo-bio attack is much easier for the terrorist scenario because those are cheap weapons to put together, technologically very simple. Whereas, nuclear is extremely expensive and very difficult.
MARIE CHEVRIER: There are approximately 25 countries that are suspected of having interest in or some sort of chemical weapons programs.
NARRATOR: Dr. Marie Chevrier is professor of political economy at the University of Texas at Dallas.
Dr. CHEVRIER: Of those 25, there is a subset of from around 10 to 12, depending on the source of your information, that are listed as having biological weapons programs, as capable of having biological weapons programs, or possibly interested in acquiring biological weapons programs.
NARRATOR: Nuclear, chemical and biological weapons could potentially be delivered using ballistic or cruise missiles. Today, however, only Russia, China, the United Kingdom and France have the ability to strike the United States directly.
In the wake of the bombings in Oklahoma City and Atlanta, today there is concern that terrorist, subnational or militia groups might acquire weapons of mass destruction. These weapons could be delivered in many different ways, including in the back of a van or in the form of an airborne spray from a crop duster.
Mr. CIRINCIONE: The group that destroyed the World Trade Center, as revealed during their trial, actually had chemical agents inside the explosive in the World Trade Center. They intended to have a chemical terrorist incident. The trigger went off too soon, the device did not work properly, thankfully.
NARRATOR: In March 1995, the Aum Shinrikyo religious cult used a sarin nerve gas-like substance in a Tokyo subway, killing 12 and injuring 5,500 people.
Biological weapons, which include anthrax, bubonic plague and even smallpox could potentially be even more deadly. Kathleen Bailey describes such a terrorist scenario from her novel, "Death for Cause."
Dr. BAILEY: In my book, I hypothesize that a terrorist group, a very, very small group of only three people, manufactures biological agents and then delivers it in a subway. This book came out before the Aum Shinrikyo event, by the way. And they also use it in street areas that are crowded with shoppers and pedestrians.
Mr. CIRINCIONE: I think it's likely over the next 25 years we will see a major incident involving nuclear, chemical or biological weapons on the soil of the United States
Secretary PERRY:
So, what do we do about this problem? And our response to it is first to try to prevent it; secondly, to deter the threats that we cannot prevent; and then finally, if necessary, to defend against those threats.
[11 April 1996 DoD news briefing]
NARRATOR: One way to prevent a threat is to limit, reduce or eliminate weapons and the materials needed to make them through arms control agreements.
For example, the Chemical Weapons Convention, or CWC, will make the possession of chemical weapons illegal. But experts disagree about whether the treaty will prove effective.
Dr. BAILEY: Unfortunately, the Chemical Weapons Convention is completely unverifiable. It's not even minimally verifiable.
NARRATOR: Dr. Bailey points to the United Nations experience in Iraq. It was not until Iraq volunteered the information that the United Nations found evidence of nerve gas production.
Dr. BAILEY: Now imagine, here's the Chemical Weapons Convention with less intrusiveness associated with it than what we used in Iraq, and now we want to believe that somehow those measures, those inspection measures will be able to uncover chemical agents in other countries? It just won't work. Technologically, it won't work.
NARRATOR: But because of the Chemical Weapons Convention, the United States will be able to inspect suspected facilities in other nations which are party to the treaty.
Dr. CHEVRIER: Are we as a country and is the international community better off with a treaty that allows us to go in and inspect, and impose sanctions if we find anything that we don't like, then without a treaty that allows the proliferation of CW to go on unchecked? We're better off with a treaty.
General JOHN SHALIKASHVILI, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff:
From a military perspective, the Chemical Weapons Convention is clearly in our national interest. The convention's advantages outweigh its shortcomings.
NARRATOR: This same argument over verification has been applied to the Biological Weapons Convention.
Dr. CHEVRIER: I think the question is not what the standard for verification is, whether it's effective, or adequate, or total. But, in fact, by having mechanisms within the treaty that allow one country to inspect facilities in another country, are we more likely to see fewer countries with BW or less likely?
NARRATOR: Parties to the Biological Weapons Convention are currently negotiating a protocol to the treaty which will give the BWC the teeth it currently lacks.
Dr. CHEVRIER: The role of the US as the remaining superpower and the leadership of the US needs to be behind that protocol for it to move forward.
NARRATOR: Other arms control treaties aim to prevent the new emergence of a threat. For example, under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT, more than 160 nations have voluntarily given up the right to possess nuclear weapons.
Another arms control agreement currently under negotiation would completely ban nuclear explosive tests. Although the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty cannot totally preclude a nation or terrorist group from building a crude nuclear device, its advocates believe it will greatly hamper efforts to build more sophisticated weapons.
President BILL CLINTON (11 August 1995):
American leaders since Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy have believed the comprehensive test ban would be a major stride towards stopping the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Now, as then, such a treaty would greatly strengthen the security of the United States and nations throughout the world. But now, unlike then, such a treaty is within our reach.
NARRATOR: Another approach to stem the spread of weapons of mass destruction calls for addressing the reasons why nations pursue such weapons in the first place.
Dr. SPECTOR: One dimension, of course, is to try to ease the security concerns of many states around the world.
NARRATOR: For example, if tensions were reduced in the Asian subcontinent, India and Pakistan might follow the example set by Argentina and Brazil and call a halt to their arms race. Also, strengthening the peace process in the Middle East could make nations there less likely to pursue or use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. It could also make US troops deployed in the region less vulnerable to attack.
Perhaps the most important ongoing arms control effort is the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, commonly referred to as the Nunn-Lugar program.
Dr. SPECTOR: One of the fundamental problems that really can bring down the whole non-proliferation enterprise would be the leakage of nuclear weapon material out of the former Soviet Union and especially Russia, where you have hundreds of tons of this stuff not particularly well-protected. In some cases, rather poorly protected; in some cases, a bit better.
The Cooperative Threat Reduction Program is aimed, in part, at helping the Russians to better protect this material, and we have a whole panoply of different ways of working with the Russians.
NARRATOR: Through the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, the United States is helping to secure these nuclear materials and to destroy weapons once targeted against us.
Export controls also have a large role to play.
Dr. SPECTOR: We have a very robust international regime for controlling exports of things. And many countries, let's say Libya, simply can't get a program launched because they can't get their hands on anything that's useful and they have no capability at home to kind of crank up a nuclear program.
NARRATOR: If a nation does manage to obtain the key technology or the weapons, then efforts focus on "rolling back" the program.
Secretary PERRY:
The North Korea Framework Agreement, that is an example of not only controlling nuclear weapons, but rolling them back.
[11 April 1996 DoD press briefing.]
NARRATOR: In the October 1994 Framework Agreement, North Korea agreed to open its facilities and freeze its suspected nuclear weapons program in exchange for light water reactors, oil, and expanded engagement with the international community.
Mr. CIRINCIONE: The US part of the deal with North Korea is to provide a few tens of millions of dollars in aid primarily for fuel oil, for example, to help them heat parts of their country that these nuclear reactors were supposed to heat. Unfortunately, there are some very shortsighted people in the Congress who don't want to give any aid to North Korea.
They don't bat an eyelash when we ask for hundreds of millions of dollars for a new weapons system, but when tens of millions of dollars could solve a major proliferation problem, they balk. Hopefully, that shortsightedness will be overcome by patient diplomacy with our own Congress, so that we can continue our diplomacy with North Korea and put an end to that country's weapons program.
NARRATOR: If diplomacy doesn't work, military force might be used to prevent a nation from acquiring or using weapons of mass destruction.
In 1981, Israel destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak which it believed would help Iraq develop nuclear weapons. While some argue that this was a significant setback to Iraq, others believed that it spurred Iraq to build chemical weapons nd drove the Iraqi nuclear program deeper underground where it was not discovered until after the Gulf War.
A more recent threat of force was issued by the United States against Libya in early 1996. US intelligence sources warned that an underground facility being constructed near Tarhunah would be used for the production of chemical weapons. Secretary of Defense Perry then warned the Libyans that the United States was prepared to use force to keep the plant from operating.
Dr. SPECTOR: If you use this threat properly, you may get some real results without actually having to destroy anything or use force. It may be the threat that will be sufficient.
NARRATOR: While destroying such a facility in wartime might prove advantageous, it is not something that Dr. Spector would advocate in peacetime.
Dr. SPECTOR: If you knocked out Tarhunah, for example, in Libya, they still have tons, and tons, and tons of chemical agent previously made and who knows where some of that stuff might not show up. So, I think you don't want to contemplate knocking our installations of this kind in peacetime.
NARRATOR: The Pentagon and Department of Energy are developing weapons capable of destroying a facility like Tarhunah. According to Assistant Secretary of Defense Harold Smith, although the US military could not destroy the Tarhunah facility using current conventional weapons, it is developing both nuclear and new conventional weapons that could destroy the facility. Smith promised that the nuclear bunker-busting weapon, a modification of the B-61 nuclear bomb, would be ready by the end of 1996.
Secretary Perry later backed off, maintaining that nuclear weapons were not being considered for use against the Tarhunah plant. Officials from the Pentagon declined our requests for an interview to clarify this question.
Advocates of maintaining nuclear weapons argue that by having these types of bunker-busting weapons and by maintaining a large nuclear arsenal, we might be able to deter nations from trying to obtain weapons of mass destruction in the first place.
Secretary PERRY:
In our nuclear posture review, we reaffirmed the importance of maintaining nuclear weapons as deterrents. But I would like to point out that both the conventional and nuclear force, as deterrents, not only must be strong, but they must be perceived that the United States has the willpower to use that strength.
[same press briefing.]
NARRATOR: Critics counter that by retaining thousands of nuclear weapons, the United States is pushing other nations to develop nuclear weapons of their own, or at a minimum, the poor man's version -- chemical and biological weapons.
Mr. CIRINCIONE: It's essential that the United States set the example for the rest of the world. As long as we have people in the United States saying that we need nuclear weapons, what's to prevent a military leader in any other country from saying, well, we need them, too?
NARRATOR: Just as Presidents Nixon and Bush set the stage for the Biological and Chemical Weapons Conventions when they renounced these weapons, so too must the United States disown and thus devalue nuclear weapons.
Mr. CIRINCIONE: We've got to build-down our own arsenals. We have to stop testing our own weapons. We have to stop spending billions of dollars a year on nuclear weapons and lead the rest of the world into the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons. I believe this is possible. I think you can put this genie back in the bottle.
NARRATOR: But what about terrorists? Many believe that neither efforts to devalue weapons of mass destruction nor traditional deterrence will be able to prevent terrorist threats.
Dr. BAILEY: We don't deter terrorists. A terrorist doesn't care if you die and, in many cases, doesn't care if he or she dies.
NARRATOR: Therefore, Dr. Bailey argues, we must be prepared in the event of a nuclear, chemical or biological weapons attack.
Dr. BAILEY: You can't deter them, but you can get better intelligence on them and try to get to them soon and be able to respond effectively if there is an attack. By effectively, I mean cordoning off the area, decontaminating it and taking care of the victims in a way that will enable them to survive.
NARRATOR: The Pentagon is preparing for just those types of situations.
Secretary PERRY:
Defense can be thought of as both passive defense and active defense.
[same press briefing]
NARRATOR: Passive defense includes everything from training to respond to a chemical weapons attack to learning how to use gas masks correctly. Passive defense also requires improved intelligence and detection capabilities, inoculations and antidotes, and the ability to decontaminate equipment and troops.
Dr. BAILEY: I think the best we can do is to try to make sure that our passive defenses are so strong and so good that it basically makes their weapons meaningless. They won't be able to use them effectively. Which is going to require a big effort on our part and in terms of training our people in trying to keep on our toes to be able to resist any attack that they use.
Secretary PERRY:
In addition to that, we started an active defense. We refocussed our active defense program through the ballistic missile defense effort. The first priority on that effort has been the theater missile defense to deal with the threat which is here and now, which are the tactical ballistic missiles such as the Scuds.
The second priority of that was to develop a new generation of systems, represented by THAAD and the Navy Wide Area System, which can deal with the longer range tactical missiles when they emerge as threats. And then finally, the National Missile Defense Program is laid out to meet the threat to the United States as it emerges.
[same press briefing]
NARRATOR: Although active defenses are considered the third line of defense -- after prevention and deterrence -- if you follow the money trail, they receive the most funds.
Mr. CIRINCIONE: Unfortunately, the money does not correspond to the vision laid out in the Department of Defense. Most of the funds in the Department of Defense budget are allocated to that last line of defense. We spend $2.8 billion every year on ballistic missile defense. We spend only a few hundred million on efforts to prevent and reduce the threat. I think that money priority has to be reversed to match the strategic priority the Pentagon lays out.
NARRATOR: Instead of putting its money where is mouth is, the Pentagon spends only 1.7 percent of its budget, $4.3 billion, on efforts aimed at preventing, deterring and defending against the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the means of their delivery.
Despite billing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction as the primary threat to the nation, the majority of military spending still goes for big ticket weapons that were designed to fight the Soviet Union. Weapons such as the F-22 fighter plane, the Seawolf submarine, and the B-2 bomber, weapons which have no role in preventing, deterring or defending us against a nation or terrorists using nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against our troops or our cities.
The threats facing the United States have changed dramatically. Shouldn't our defense dollars be
redirected to meet today's dangers?
ADM JOHN SHANAHAN (USN, Ret.): It's clear that the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons is a significant problem. However, the Pentagon does not need a budget boost, it's already spending at close to Cold War levels. What the United States does need to do is to redirect funds to today's threats and expend more energy on diplomatic and economic efforts.
While many important arms control agreements have been reached in the past few years, much remains to be done, including living up to the promises we made under the Non-Proliferation Treaty to "reduce nuclear weapons globally, with the ultimate aim of eliminating those weapons." For as long as we cling to thousands of nuclear weapons, others will want their own nukes, or at a minimum, chemical and biological weapons. Leadership and a delegitimizing of weapons of mass destruction will be a good place to start.
For "AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR," I am Jack Shanahan.
[End of broadcast.]
(C) Copyright 1996, Center for Defense Information. All Rights Reserved.