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Widened threat from unconventional weapons face Bush administration

SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Saturday, January 13, 2001

WASHINGTON — The incoming administration of President-elect George W. Bush faces a world in which 25 countries now possess or are in the process of acquiring and developing nonconventional capabilities. This includes nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.

A new Pentagon report, entitled "Proliferation: Threat and Response," also said Osama Bin Laden's agents have received chemical weapons and are being trained in their use. The report said terrorists aligned with Bin Laden had planned a chemical weapons attack in New York as early as 1993. The terrorists gathered the components but did not assemble it.

"The followers of Osama Bin Laden have already trained with the use of toxic chemicals," a Defense Department report says.

Defense Secretary-designate Donald Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday that the Bush administration will focus on defending against terrorism and nonconventional attacks. "In a world of smaller, but in some respects more deadly threats, the ability to defend ourselves and our friends against attacks by missiles and other terror weapons can strengthen deterrence and provide an important compliment purely to retaliatory capabilities," Rumsfeld said.

Iran and North Korea — both of which have either intermediate- or long-range missiles — already have biological and chemical weapons, the report said. Iran is seeking nuclear weapons while neighboring Iraq wants to restore its pre-Gulf war capability.

"Iraq which prior to the 1991 Gulf War had developed chemical and biological weapons and associated delivery means, and was close to a nuclear capability, may have reconstituted these efforts since the departure of UN inspectors from Iraq in late 1998," the report said.

Libya has chemical capabilities and is trying to buy long-range missiles, the report said.

U.S. officials said Bin Laden will be a leading concern for Bush. They said his administration will have to deal with the prospect that Bin Laden and his allies will launch nonconventional weapons attacks against U.S. targets.

The fight against Bin Laden, the officials said, will involve billions of dollars to stop the proliferation of nonconventional weapons as well as to establish a response by U.S. authorities to any such attack. Scenarios include attacks on U.S. troops abroad and on civilians within the United States.

"So the next administration is going to have to continue these important efforts to reduce the flow of terror weapons going into the global arms bazaar," Defense Secretary William Cohen said. "It's going to have to improve the readiness of our forces to protect themselves and survive and fight on one of these contaminated battlefields. It's going to have to direct additional billions of dollars to these efforts; continue with the new joint task force [and] special teams of National Guardsmen. They're both designed to assist communities in the event of an attack on U.S. soil."

Saturday, January 13, 2001



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