Defense Dept. Board Pushes $4B WMD Protection Plan

The U.S. Defense Department should devote $4 billion each year to a “full spectrum” WMD protection program for the United States, an advisory panel said in a report made public last month (see GSN, Jan. 26, 2005).

The Defense Science Board task force made the recommendation in a May 2007 report. 

The 66-page document included recommendations to reduce chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons threats by improving intelligence collection, formulating new retaliation policies, developing disaster mitigation and response capabilities, improving efforts to deny U.S. enemies access to weapons of mass destruction and creating a Pentagon pilot program to develop plans for responding to catastrophes.

“These recommendations reflect opportunities for the nation that are very high payoff at relatively low cost,” the report says.  “Yet, despite the high payoff and low cost, the task force found no evidence that these efforts are being aggressively pursued.”

In order to improve intelligence, the task force called for the national intelligence director and defense undersecretary for intelligence to monitor “key individuals and entities with WMD expertise and their links to radical states and groups,” and also “increase fielding of deep penetration intelligence programs.”

The United States should “strengthen and broaden international cooperative efforts in nonproliferation” and “remove easy access” to U.S. chemical and radiological substances that could be used in an attack, the report said.

The panel also recommended developing U.S. tactical forensics capabilities and establishing a “WMD-retaliation planning structure to develop military options” for retaliation.

A counter-WMD czar is needed within the executive branch, the panel said.

“The task force believes that one single individual must be charged with this responsibility — someone who is positioned to see the whole WMD picture and who can provide the president an assessment of the nation’s capabilities and readiness to address the threat from WMD.  Today, no one has that visibility,” the board said (Jason Sherman, Inside Missile Defense, Sept. 12).

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