I don't know about the rest of America, but as a former intelligence analyst, what we don't know right now about nuclear proliferation in the world scares the hell out of me. Let's review just some of the news reports over the last several weeks.
Many have probably heard of A.Q. Khan, the Pakistani nuclear scientist, ostensibly the father of their nuclear bomb, and know something of the fact that he transferred nuclear secrets to Iran, North Korea, and Libya. It was just reported that he provided Libya with nuclear warhead plans much more complete and detailed than previously known. What many don't realize, however, is that he also traveled far and wide to Afghanistan, Egypt, Ivory Coast, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates and China. And though the U.S. intelligence community had been watching him from as far back as 1987 even they are not sure what he did while he was in those countries. To date Pakistan has not allowed the U.S. to debrief Mr. Khan.
Osama Bin Laden who has already declared it a Muslim duty to acquire nuclear weapons, recently received a Fatwa, or religious declaration, approving his use of one. This in my judgment is an ominous indicator. CIA Director Porter Goss, in what was described as an unusually blunt statement before an open hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the Al Qaida terror group is seeking ways to thwart U.S. security improvements since 9-11 to again attack the U.S. homeland. "It may be only a matter of time before al-Qaida or other groups attempt to use chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons. We must focus on that," Goss said.
Also, when pressed, Goss stated he could not account for missing weapons grade nuclear materials out of the former Soviet Union. In fact we know it's been leaking out of there for years. In 1994 and 1995 smuggling attempts were pervasive and expanding. According to the 1996 report on the Current and Projected Threats to the United States, then DIA Director LTG Patrick Hughes noted that “the largest seizure of weapons-useable plutonium…occurred in Munich in August 1994, carried on a Lufthansa flight from Moscow.” About 350 grams of plutonium 239 was recovered, an amount equal to 10% of that required for an efficient nuclear explosion. He further noted that in 1995, “A large number of incidents did occur involving illicit trafficking of nuclear materials (from the former Soviet Union) but there were no reported cases involving weapons-useable material. The fact that no weapons-useable cases were noted does not necessarily mean that none occurred,” he added.
Weapons useable material is the fissile material that an A Q Khan network could theoretically fabricate into a weapon and transfer. Hughes continued, “Because of pervasive crime and corruption as well as continued poor economic conditions in the countries of the former Soviet Union, illicit trafficking of nuclear materials continues to be of concern for U.S. national security.” Russia's nuclear material security has been lax, with poorly guarded and maintained storage facilities, underpaid staff and more worrisome, poorly inventoried stockpiles; the reality is under the communist system it was not certain how much total weapons grade materials were produced and if it's all accounted for.
In January, another news item indicated that North Korea may have purchased a complete nuclear weapon from Pakistan or a former Soviet Republic. Moreover, for years it has been reported in the media that Al Qaida purchased “suitcase nukes” from former KGB agents. While the reliability of that information may be questioned, one has to consider if North Korea could purchase a weapon, why couldn't Al Qaida? No wonder in one of his departing statements, former Attorney General John Ashcroft warned that the greatest danger facing the United States in the war on terror is that Al Qaida or other such groups could get a nuclear bomb.
FBI Director Robert Mueller also cautioned of the risk posed by radicalized Muslim converts inside the United States and said he worries about a sleeper operatives who may have been in place for years, awaiting orders to launch an attack.
Ostensibly there are 57 known Al Qaida “cells” inside the U.S. today. But Al Qaida is not the sole threat, many terrorism analysts believe that the Hizbullah terrorist organization, based out of Lebanon and also present inside the United States, makes the al Qaida network look like a club squad team.
The Hizbullah network in this hemisphere ranges from the Tri-border area of South America through Colombia, Venezuela, and Panama to the U.S. and Canada. A new book titled, Lightening out of Lebanon provides a good indication of this by detailing the formation on one such “sleeper cell” in of all places, Charlotte, North Carolina. That group of Lebanese expatriate and Hizbullah operatives was running a criminal network of cigarette smugglers raising millions of dollars in funds for the terror group. While Osama Bin Laden's organization reflects the efforts of a “self-made” man, Hizbullah is a state sponsored terrorist organization of Iran, well assisted by Iran's highly capable intelligence service; that combination makes Hizbullah probably the most dangerous outfit on the planet; more so if Iran acquires nuclear weapons.
Last year a news item stated that 25 Chechens had crossed the border into Texas. As an Infantryman and someone who spent years evaluating Colombia's insurgency, what I put together from that report is that these aren't tourists. More than likely they are combat veterans from the Chechen war zone; they are training cadres entering the U.S. to link up with these “sleeper cells” or new converts and prepare them for combat operations. To me, the term “cell” is too euphemistic, it leaves one with the impression of secretive people sitting around chat rooms or going to meetings exchanging hate tracts about what a “Great Satan” America is.
Better put, these “cells” are combat formations or terrorist fronts, with support and attack teams, preparing for some type of terrorist or other military style mission inside our Country — inside your state, inside your peaceful little rural county.
I have yet to hear it put this way when discussing al Qaida, or Hizbullah, but Al Qaida represents an active insurgency inside the United States; they have already conducted one strategic strike on 9-11 and are, by all public pronouncements planning to conduct other operations. Hizbullah and for that matter, the Hamas terrorist organization, represent what I would describe as a latent insurgent threat, waiting only to be activated. Yes, our homeland is part of the battlespace.
The real challenge for America is to identify and take down the terrorist operational infrastructure inside this country and for that matter this hemisphere, because this is the infrastructure that will deliver a nuclear weapon to our homeland. The Bush Administration's Strategy for Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction acknowledges we are vulnerable to this WMD threat by stating “we know from experience, that we cannot always be successful in preventing and containing the proliferation of WMD to hostile states and terrorists.” Combine that with this definition of the threat found twice in his September 2002 National Security Strategy document that, “The gravest danger our Nation faces lies at the crossroads of radicalism and technology” and it is clear we have a lot of work to do.
But I would argue that what we must do is not the only answer, but more focus must be placed on what others must do. Yes, it's time to put the proliferating countries, networks and the terrorist organizations on notice and more clearly at higher risk, because as we have seen, the proliferation of WMD is not happening magically or in isolation to state actors. It is rogue scientific networks, citizens and entities — corporate or otherwise — of other states that are facilitating this march to Armageddon. It's time, as author and strategist Thomas Barnett might say, to put some “perturbations” on the global WMD proliferation system. We need a new proliferation deterrence strategy.
Classical U.S. nuclear deterrence strategy holds that use of WMD against the United States will invite an unacceptable and punishing response through the full range of our capabilities, up to and including our own use of nuclear weapons. U.S. classical deterrence strategy regarding an attack with WMD from another country remains unchanged under the Bush Strategy; use WMD against us and you risk overwhelming and unacceptable levels of responsive damage.
No one is really arguing the U.S. cannot deter states, rogue or otherwise, from directly attacking the United States. What is unknown and remains the truly unanswered question is this: can the U.S. deter states from the proliferation of WMD weapons or technologies once acquired to third party groups or entities like Al Qaida, who theoretically cannot be deterred or contained and who would employ these weapons in a clandestine fashion? The issue is not simply rogue state acquisition or possession of WMD technology, but their allowing the transfer of that technology to our enemies that is the looming threat. My starting premise is that we can and must deter those states and that terrorists can be contained from using WMD.
Effective deterrence and an effective statement of deterrence require not only clearly implying consequences if deterrence fails, but who the policy is attempting to deter. All the critics of the Bush Strategy have it wrong, the basic strategy is sound; where it needs to be strengthened is in the area of deterrence. The Bush strategy statements in Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction really fail to warn others, whether they are friend or foe, from proliferating technologies to second or third parties that may result in a catastrophic event on U.S. soil. Needless to say a nuclear detonation in a major U.S. city would have incalculable, far-ranging global reverberations beyond the direct physical destruction. Therefore, what is required is a new statement of U.S. proliferation deterrence that addresses what the U.S. response might entail in the event that a catastrophic WMD attack occurs on U.S. soil as a result of an asymmetric, terrorist strike.
That statement roughly formulated should say to effect: “If you are a state sponsor of terror, with or without a WMD research base; or are an avowed enemy of the U.S., and you have a public policy that espouses the hope and bent for the destruction of the U.S.; you clandestinely proliferate (buy or sell) WMD technologies outside international agreements and inspection regimes, then you are subject to being immediately held strategically culpable should there be a catastrophic WMD event inside the U.S.."
I would also make clear that the "U.S. policy considers states, private, corporate or rogue entities that provide or have provided WMD technological assistance to state sponsors of terror or terrorist groups to equally be considered to have provided a fungible contribution to the catastrophic event and likewise held strategically culpable." We need to strongly imply to the world, both friends and enemies, allies or not, that the U.S. policy and relations become "tabula rasa" in the aftermath of a catastrophic WMD attack inside the U.S.; and we reserve the right to punish anyone, anywhere in an immediately responsive fashion.
This is not about far flung FBI forensic investigations, long and mournful speeches, Congressional hearings or 9-11 Commissions; when the mushroom cloud goes up inside the U.S. that will be a “triggering event,” where a range of actions may be initiated and pre-determined states, targets or individuals reached out and touched. This would include both counter-force and counter-value targets with emphasis on targets of “value,” even cultural symbols. The bottom-line statement of policy of the U.S. government should be: “It is unacceptable for there to be a catastrophic WMD event inside the U.S. under any circumstance or relationship.” The U.S. needs to make that crystal clear.
The term “strategically culpable” is designed to be “strategically ambiguous.” It is not an emphatic statement of how the U.S. will respond under a set of circumstances against a set of culprits. Theoretically it might mean that rogue scientific networks strung out around the world with representatives in their Swiss chalets, or private corporate offices are just as liable to wake up to a cruise missile strike as any military industrial or WMD research and development complexes are destroyed. Other states may suffer a range of physical punishment, sanctions, loss of status or changed or clarified U.S. policy positions. There will be a palpable cost to illicit proliferation.
In fact a tough counter-proliferation strategy requires a Presidential decision to actively target rogue proliferators as vital threats to the security of the United States. Yes, I mean precisely to make the WMD proliferation business a life-risking venture for those involved in it whether they are white collared individuals, military, government officials or even diplomats. Spending fifteen years worried about exposing intelligence sources and methods is a dead-end once we are attacked. The purpose of national intelligence and national security in general is to preclude threats from materializing in the first place…not watch them grow as was done with A Q Khan.
This new proliferation deterrent policy forces the other side, the chain of proliferators, to police themselves; it puts the monkey on their back for a change, it forces hostile states, partners, allies or putative allies to closely monitor the activities of their governmental or private firms and citizens, and makes everyone accountable for what they do or fail to do with respect to WMD and proliferation. It forces all actors to recalculate the benefits, costs and risks of their WMD programs. That is the heart of what a deterrent policy should do and be — and it's long overdue.
LTC Joseph C. Myers ( Joseph.Myers@maxwell.af.mil
) is an Infantry and Foreign Area Officer with extensive overseas experience; he has served as the South America Division Chief at the Defense Intelligence Agency and recently completed a Senior Army Fellowship at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies. The views expressed are solely his own."
