Casual Fridays

You need to know this first - Mauroni's "Where Are the WMDs?" doesn't answer the question of what happened to Saddam's CB munitions when our forces went into Iraq in 2003. It is really more of a rhetorical question - that is to say, remember the good old Cold War days when a WMD really meant a strategic nuclear weapon, or at the least the threat of an attack using tons of nerve agent, anthrax or smallpox by strategic bombers? Today, defense agencies and pundits literally use the "CBRNE" term to consider improvised explosive devices, a few grams of ricin, or a lone cylinder of  chlorine as a "WMD." So what's the reality?

This book starts off with an interesting discussion about the history and terminology of WMDs vice nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) weapons and the new term "CBRN." Of course, the chem-bio guys have also used the terms ABC, CBR, NBC, and CBD at times. Very confusing. But this is clear - between 1918 and 1945, no one considered chem or bio weapons as "WMDs." They were just a strategic option. The term didn't exist prior to the first nuke going off. And between 1945 and 1990, no one in the military ranks used the term WMD - that was an arms control term. We had "unconventional" or "strategic" weapons, not WMDs.

Terrorism changed all that. After 1995 (Aum Shinrikyo's sarin attack in Tokyo and the Oklahoma City bombing), the Department of Justice got involved. The RAND consultants supporting the Gilmore commission in 1999 are credited with coming up with the term "terrorist CBRN incident" because they didn't think the term "terrorist WMD" was accurate, considering the small amounts of agent and lack of mass casualty effects. After 2001's anthrax incidents, things really got complicated - politically speaking - and the desire to connect terrorists with "rogue states" with WMD programs while addressing domestic threat concerns resulted in a strange DOD-DHS partnership to twist counterproliferation concepts in with homeland security measures.

Mauroni has a few chapters that discuss how OSD and the services developed the joint chem-bio defense program (after Congress told the DOD to do it in 1994) and how the committee-based, service-focused, part-time organization was not optimally configured to do much more than continue old passive defense programs. In a sense, the members of the "joint" chem-bio groups carried a lot of the baggage of their services' selfish acquisition practices with them, resulting in inefficiencies and lack of progress. The committees were replaced in 2003 with a more robust set of agencies (see the DOD Annual Reports on CB defense for more details). Mauroni highlights this acquisition/requirements discussion with some juicy gossip, but it may be boring for those outside of the CB defense community. It does, however, help explain what our forces had and did not have in terms of CB defense equipment for Operation Iraqi Freedom.

There's a very good discussion on the impact of 9/11 in terms of developing chem-bio protection at the Pentagon. Nice recap of major CB defense issues relating to Operation Enduring Freedom. there were biodefense units sent in in the event that Osama had weaponized anthrax and might use it on the troops in Afghanistan. All they found was papers, some lab equipment, and of course, a video on "how to gas dogs with hydrogen cyanide." There is one chapter on the WMD intelligence collection. Nothing new here, just recaps on the CIA/State Dept/DIA/Washington Post clown car which distributed all the frightening reports that the Bush administration then used in so many speeches in 2002 and 2003.

Mauroni focuses on operations in Iraq for the last half of the book. Lots of details on what DOD did (and didn't do) in terms of getting the right chem-bio gear to CENTCOM. Lots of problems in getting the right decontamination and protective suits, little to no collective protection, some better chem-bio detectors and masks, but not good enough that we didn't have troops using chickens as "gas monitors." What's really interesting is the part where OSD policy's counterproliferation shop comes up with the "great idea" to have a force for picking up the WMDs that they thought would be lying all around. This was the "sensitive site exploitation" idea that was actually started in Afghanistan by CENTCOM and DIA. CENTCOM really, really didn't want to do this in Iraq - they didn't have the people, wanted to focus on combat, and thought it could be done after combat was complete. OSD policy (Feith's boys and girls) pushed the issue, made the Army develop an ad-hoc exploitation force, and watched closely as they found - nothing. And of course, then the Iraq Survey Group went in and found - nothing. At least no new munitions built after 1991. There is a great focus in the book on the Army chemical officers at division, battalion, and company level - what decisions did they have to make, what actions they took.

After two chapters on the war proper, there is one chapter on "lessons learned"  - always an Army favorite - and one chapter on "how do we do CB defense policy better." Basically, every policy challenge from "how clean is clean" to "who do we vaccinate" which were faced in 1990 were resurfaced in 2003 - with equally ad hoc, poorly crafted solutions. Ten years, and little to no maturation in either acquisition or policy solutions for CB defense. Mauroni finishes the book with recommendations on how we need to change the system to ensure that U.S. forces better CB defense capabilities - but nothing is going to happen unless the Congress gets serious on the need for reforms and the U.S. Army senior leaders get serious about developing a long-lasting and robust CB defense capability. Right now, all we here is empty rhetoric about "WMDs" - and that's the real message of this book.

For anyone in the CB defense community, this book is required to understand the tactical and operational concerns facing those developing passive defense and homeland defense solutions for CBRN hazards. For the general public, this book may have too much military slang, acronyms, and specialized terms for easy reading. One would hope that senior DOD civilian and military leaders read the book to better understand why our forces didn't get the right CB defense capabilities - again.

Comments

[IndispensableDestiny]

That's right, we have "empty rhetoric". And Congress funds that "empty rhetoric" at the tune of $1.5 billion per year. Although you reamed me before for objecting the largess, I still think part of the $1.5 billion could be used for something more relevant to the war fighter.

[Robot.Economist]

Beyond "WMDs" and "CBRNE" tags, isn't it a little pejorative to lump chemical weapons and biological/toxin weapons together? I mean, they pose different threats and need to be countered in different ways.

Grouping the two "WMD minorus" may collectively sex them up some, but such tactics delute policy responsiveness. This is nothing compared to how an acronym like CBRNE leaves a defense planning and policy office completely rudderless.

I want to kick CBRNE up a notch to CBRNEG - "Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, Explosive and Gun Weapons."

[J.]

ID, you deliberately misinterpret my remarks. The DOD CBDP ought to have more funds, but Congress and the Pentagon would rather mouth empty words than put their money where their mouths are. That $1.5 billion is a small fraction of DOD CB requirements, an "insurance payment" rather than a complete coverage, and this book demonstrates what a wide, complex area CB defense is (now that homeland security has been added).

Robot.Eco, you'd have to read the book. I think there is a clear difference between chem and bio, but the differing concepts are really warfighting vs counter-terrorism vs consequence management, not necessarily the technical properties of the hazard. DHS has an "all-hazard" approach to managing responses to incidents/accidents, and the more I look at it, the more it makes sense to me. It's not the hazard, it's the conditions under which you're responding.