Edward N LUTTWAK
22/12/99
janes.com
SENIOR FELLOW, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES, WASHINGTON DC
Studiously ignoring the world's great humanitarian catastrophes of Sudan where at least two million people already have died with more dying each day; of Angola where starvation and disease are adding daily to the several hundred thousand victims of endless fighting; of Rwanda where the most preventable of genocides unfolded unresisted; and of Sierra Leone where numbers are beside the point given the peculiar atrocity of its bandenkrieg the USA and its allies instead decided to bomb Serbia-Montenegro in a bid to secure the political rights of some two million Albanians. NATO in the process promoted anti-Westernism in Russia, damaged relations with the Chinese government, and established a UN protectorate that must now exist as long as the Serb-Albanian hostility does indefinitely.
ASDS is contagious it seems. Nullifying long years of inter-military co-operation with the Indonesian armed forces, Australia has boldly taken the lead in the East Timor intervention, upending its entire policy of Asian 'good-neighbourliness', on which its long-term future depends. Earlier, there were feckless US interventions in such places as Somalia and Haiti, which indeed prompted an early diagnosis by Dr Michael Mandelbaum ("foreign policy as social work") who could still then believe that it was only a Clinton Administration malady. ASDS may have other causes as well, but two seem most obvious.
No longer preoccupied by the Cold War, the US and its NATO allies, and others including Australia, evidently now have spare military capacity. This generates bureaucratic impulses to look for action. The US Joint Staff, for example, is exploring the possibility that peacekeeping missions might also eventuate in ex-Soviet Central Asia; certainly the last place on earth where US interests might be advanced by a US military presence.
No longer disciplined by the hard strategic priorities of preserving a global equilibrium with the Soviet Union and its client states, the foreign-policy machinery in the USA and elsewhere allows the arbitrary choices of media coverage Kosovo, yes; Sudan, no to distort its priorities. But not quite. There is another and much greater distortion: the no-casualty rule of "Post-Heroic" warfare, as I call it.
When the USA abandoned Somalia in 1993 after 18 soldiers were killed in a failed commando raid in Mogadishu, it became clear there were no significant national interests to justify the loss of more US soldiers' lives. But when the diplomatic costs and risk of casualties increased, highlighting the immediate need to end the conflict in Kosovo, the zero-casualty rule still prevented any use of armed helicopters or fixed-wing aircraft for intensive low-altitude attacks against Serbian ground forces, which likely would have forced an end to the conflict instead of awaiting Belgrade's eventual decision to withdraw.
It was comforting to believe the Somalia argument that the acceptance of casualties reflects rational calculations: X interests justify Y casualties. In reality, affluent, low birth-rate societies simply do not tolerate casualties for any reason short of immediate self-defence. Hence we have the paradoxical ASDS conjunction of eager interventionism with a plain refusal to fight except insofar as it can be done by remote bombardment with cruise missiles or exhaustively protected aircraft, whose pilots statistically fly in greater safety than the passengers of some third world airlines. In the meantime, it is Kosovo, yes, Sierra Leone, no, even though neither has any justification unless humanitarian, and the latter's need for a UN protectorate is so much greater. But of course, there are no high-contrast targets in Sierra Leone.
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Excerpted from: ERRI DAILY INTELLIGENCE REPORT-ERRI Risk Assessment Services-Tuesday, February 10, 1998 Vol. 4 - 041
THE WMD/TERRORIST THREAT FROM IRAQ
By Steve Macko, ERRI Risk Analyst
emergency.com
According to some security experts, Iraq might threaten or even carry out a terrorist biological or chemical assault if the United States conducts an air attack in effort to make Saddam Hussein comply with U.N. weapons inspections.
Some other experts disagree about the likelihood of such a threat and Iraq's capability to make good on it. But they say that Washington should be preparing for such a contingency and that its ability to respond is severely lacking, both at home and abroad.
David Kay, the former chief weapons inspector for the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) on Iraq, said, "One shouldn't focus entirely on missile warheads as the means of delivery" for an Iraqi terrorist act. Conceivably, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein might greet a U.S. ultimatum "to free up U.N. inspections or else" with an announcement that Iraq has pre-positioned "weapons of terror in, say, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Paris or the United Arab Emirates. Can you imagine the pressure that would be brought to bear not to do the 'or else?'"
Kay said that in some ways, terrorism is a more effective threat than missiles because of the extreme difficulty of defending against it and the psychological effect it inflicts on civilians. He said, "You can't move Patriot missiles into this or that country and say they will take care of the terrorists."
The former chief of UNSCOM believes that sustained aerial assaults on Iraq are needed, not only against suspected weapons of mass destruction (WMD) sites, but also against "those institutions and means that keep Saddam in power -- the Republican Guard bases and the 50 or so helicopters we allowed them to keep" after the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
Long-time independent terrorism specialist Neil C. Livingstone has described what he calls a "nightmare" terrorist scenario. The hypothesis is that Iraq has already pre-positioned a variety of biological and chemical agents in vacant warehouses in perhaps a dozen or more U.S. cities. The agents are deployed with their own dispersal mechanisms -- internal generators, external booms, capsules -- for release in aerosol form from smokestacks or dispersion in municipal water supplies. To prove the threat is real, Iraq replies to a U.S. ultimatum by disclosing the location of a single site where Saddam has pre-positioned, say, nerve agents, anthrax or botulism.
According to Livingstone, biological and chemical weapons are attractive to terrorists because they can be released surreptitiously on a timed-release basis, enabling the perpetrators to escape undetected. He said, "We know biologicals have an incubation period, and it might be three days, maybe longer, maybe shorter, before we knew what the hell hit us." Livingstone cited U.S. government studies that portray the catastrophic effects of a biological or chemical terrorist attack on a major U.S. city -- possibly up to 250,000 casualties, and combined economic and cleanup costs approaching a trillion dollars.
Livingstone said, "This is not Cassandra-type stuff, these are very real [terrorist] capabilities. A country that wishes to punish us can pick its time, its place and its vehicle, and it's very unlikely we're prepared to preempt it or respond to it effectively. If convicted terrorist Ramzi Yousef had succeeded in blowing up a dozen U.S commercial airliners in Manila in 1995, he could have paralyzed civil aviation and thrown airlines into bankruptcy. Very few people afterward would've gotten on an airplane anywhere in the world, ten percent or less." Yousef was convicted of plotting against three major airlines, United, Northwest and Delta.
According to experts from the United Nations and Great Britian, Iraq is suspected of having produced three times the amount of anthrax it claims, lied about the amount of aflatoxin biological warfare agent it acquired and "understated" its overall biological weapons field trials.
Richard Butler, the current head of UNSCOM, said as recently as last fall that there was new evidence, despite Iraq's firm denials, that Baghdad had acquired a production capability for VX, the most toxic of chemical nerve agents. UNSCOM believes Iraq procured at least 750 tons of VX precursor chemicals -- plus scores of tons unaccounted for -- and filled at least 75 warheads with chemical or biological warfare agents. Five additional warheads were used for trials and UNSCOM has evidence of "the probable existence" of additional "special" warheads.
It is David Kay's belief that an Iraqi terrorist response to a U.S. threat of, or actual use of force is "highly likely." Other security experts are not so sure.
Edward N. Luttwak, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said, "It's perfectly possible, but Iraqi capability in that regard is not impressive. They had much better infrastructure in the past than they do now. And while they might threaten it, I don't think anybody would be deterred by it. It would not be a very formidable threat. Paris would not be a target because the French are perceived as potential Iraqi allies."
Clark Staten, Senior Analyst and Executive Director of the Chicago-based Emergency Response and Research Institute said, "In reality, and regardless of his hyperbole about Iraq's military preparedness, Mr. Hussein only has two viable retaliatory options available, should the United States undertake a military strike against Iraq...he can facilitate terrorism involving conventional tactics, or he can use weapons of mass destruction (WMD)." "The most devastating scenario possible would combine the two and involve fanatical terrorists using chemical or biological weapons against unprotected American or British civilian populations," Staten added.
An unnamed expert on Middle East affairs is also quoted as saying that Iraq is not likely to attempt a terrorist attack on the Persian Gulf states. The official said, "I think the Iraqis are hoping in general that the gulf states would be more sympathetic to them than they were in the early 1990s, and more inclined to resist U.S. pressure to move forward with military force."
He said that targeting Saudi Arabia, the UAE or Bahrain would be regarded as an Iraqi blunder, unless some of the gulf states allowed their military bases to be used by the U.S. to launch air strikes. Kuwait and Bahrain have given their permission. The U.S. analyst said, "That would make those countries collaborators and Saddam might be less restrained. But I'm not sure he has that many assets available in those countries."
The analyst added that a sophisticated organization would not be needed to mount a terrorist assault in the U.S., comparable to the World Trade Center bombing in New York City. The official said: "It might well be that Saddam could have, or find, such assets, and it certainly calls for vigilance."
However great or small the Iraqi terrorist threat may be, there is broad agreement among almost all security experts that the United States is poorly prepared to deal with it, despite an allotment of Nunn-Lugar anti-WMD funds. Biological warfare detection and protection are better now than they were in 1991, and the U.S. could deploy the Marine Corps' Chemical-Biological-Incident-Response Force (CBIRF) to the gulf, said Kay. But it is only one unit, it cannot be everywhere and the U.S. is short on defense preparations to handle chemical or biological terrorism.
Kay said, "If Saddam threatens Tel Aviv, the Israelis are better prepared to handle themselves, but the populations of the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain are nowhere near as prepared."
Livingstone says that if an Oklahoma City-type bombing were utilized to disperse chemical and biological agents many and possibly all of a city's "first responders" might be killed upon arrival at the scene.
He said, "You lose your police department, your firemen, doctors and emergency workers. You get cascading failures, with people trapped in the wreckage, a contaminated site, inadequate stockpiles of antidotes, lack of protective gear and decontamination equipment. We're almost naked to attack right now."
Staten, who is a retired paramedic, former policeman, hazardous materials instructor, terrorism researcher and analyst, and the author of several articles and a book on emergency preparedness, said that the United States has begun a program to train and equip America's Police/Fire/EMS responders for an attack using chemical or biological weapons, but that it is presently far from complete.
"In the past few years, we've come a long way in ending America's state of denial in regard to our vulnerability to terrorist attack, but, unfortunately...we still have a lot work to do," Staten continued. "Our emergency response forces still need additional education, training drills, effective detection equipment, protective gear, and a confirmed mindset that it can happen here...let's hope we have the time and the financial wherewithal to get everyone prepared before the next attack comes," Staten concluded.
Some Related ERRI Resources On-Line:
08/07/97 -- Emergency Response to Chemical/Biological Terrorist Incidents: emergency.com
06/16/97 -- Chicago Prepares For Terrorist Attack: emergency.com
12/20/96 -- Officials Say We're Not Ready; Training Battles Ensue: emergency.com
08/27/96 -- The Threat Of Chemical And Biological Attack: emergency.com
03/30/96 -- Senate Hearings Say Local Fire and Emergency Services Not Prepared: emergency.com
09/15/95 -- Street Survival In The 90'S: emergency.com
05/22/95 -- Chemical Attack- Are We Prepared?: emergency.com
09/17/91 --The Future Of Terrorism In The 90's: emergency.com
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