Defense Researchers Urge Improvements in Protecting U.S. Military Forces Against Disease

By Joe Fiorill
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — U.S. forces in the field could benefit from a host of changes in how they are protected against infectious disease, researchers say in a paper released yesterday by the National Defense University Center for Technology and National Security Policy (see GSN, Nov. 18).

In their study, policy center researchers Donald Thompson and Cheryl Loeb and Johns Hopkins University professor Joel Swerdlow call for improvements in technology development, medical support policies and procedures, civilian-military cooperation and disease monitoring and surveillance.

“Changing military doctrine and tactics call for a fresh approach to force protection,” the researchers write.

“Rapid deployment of military forces, revised distribution of medical resources in theater, improved body armor and modern combat casualty-care efforts are leading to different illnesses and injuries from those seen in previous conflicts,” they write. “Emerging infectious diseases in the context of urban warfare, low-intensity conflict and the rapid movement of service members and civilians have made a new approach to military medical support imperative.”

Among the study’s recommendations are faster field tests for certain diseases, better environmental sampling, heightened infection control and improved understanding of local diseases in places where forces are deployed.

The study also indicates a need for “cooperative disease-response and -control strategies in conjunction with federal, state and local public-health officials,” the linking of civilian and military medical research and intelligence with combatant commands, better tracking of service members in transit, and monitoring of health-care personnel “as a sentinel population of disease outbreaks.”

Although the study’s main focus is on naturally occurring diseases and not biological attacks, Swerdlow said today that it can often be initially unclear whether disease outbreaks among troops stem from nature or from malicious intent.

“When you encounter an infection in the real world, especially in the first instance, it may become increasingly difficult to know whether it’s naturally occurring or humanly encouraged,” he said in an interview.

The study reviews the history of diseases’ effects on deployed troops and warns of “disturbing trends in the development of infectious diseases in military forces deployed overseas, suggesting that line commanders and their medical advisers may be forgetting some of the most basic elements of disease prevention.”

The researchers say a renewed focus on natural disease is needed, but Swerdlow said today that such a shift does not have to imply giving less attention to biowarfare threats.

“It’s not a zero-sum game,” he said. “Paying more attention to one doesn’t mean less attention to another.”

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U.S. Seeks to Resume Mandatory Anthrax Vaccinations

The U.S. military should be allowed to resume mandatory anthrax vaccinations of its personnel, the Bush administration argued yesterday to a federal appeals court (see GSN, Aug. 2).

A federal judge last year stopped the mandatory program because of problems with the Food and Drug Administration’s approval process for the anthrax vaccine. Six anonymous soldiers had challenged the vaccination program.

Appeals Judge David Tatel asked attorney John Michels, who is representing the six people, why the label of the vaccine, which indicates it is for high-risk individuals, does not apply to military personnel.

Michels said that the government originally restricted use of the vaccine. “Nobody thought this stuff was licensed for inhalation anthrax,” he said.

The Bush administration and plaintiffs have disagreed whether the product was licensed only to protect against anthrax contracted through skin contact.

“'The labeling does not include any limitation,” said Justice Department lawyer Michael Raab (Pete Yost, Associated Press/Boston Globe, Dec. 1).

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U.S. Command Declares Global Strike Capability

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Strategic Command announced yesterday it had achieved an operational capability for rapidly striking targets around the globe using nuclear or conventional weapons, after last month testing its capacity for nuclear war against a fictional country believed to represent North Korea (see GSN, Oct. 21).

In a press release yesterday, STRATCOM said a new Joint Functional Component Command for Space and Global Strike on Nov. 18 “met requirements necessary to declare an initial operational capability.”

The requirements were met, it said, “following a rigorous test of integrated planning and operational execution capabilities during Exercise Global Lightning.”

The annual Global Lightning exercise last month tested U.S. strategic warfare capabilities, including the so-called CONPLAN 8022 mission for a global strike, according to publicly available military documents.

CONPLAN 8022 is “a new strike plan that includes [a] pre-emptive nuclear strike against weapons of mass destruction facilities anywhere in the world,” said Hans Kristensen, a consultant for the Natural Resources Defense Council. Kristensen first published the STRATCOM press release on his Web site, nukestrat.com.

Military analyst William Arkin, in a column on the Washington Post Web site in October, wrote that the classified exercise involved the response to a radiological “dirty bomb” attack on Alabama by the fictional country Purple or allied terrorists. “In the exercise, Purple is a Northeast Asian nation thinly veiled as North Korea,” according to Arkin. 

Maj. Jeff Jones, STRATCOM spokesman, said today that the exercise incorporated various scenarios and added, “Everything is fictional that we put in the exercise.”

Global Lightning employed command and control personnel, according to the STRATCOM release. 

Global strike attacks could be launched from U.S. long-range bombers, nuclear submarines or land-based ballistic missiles, according to the STRATCOM Web site.

The new command was created Aug. 9 in an attempt to integrate broad elements of U.S. military power into global strike plans and operations. 

That, according to an Arkin commentary in the Washington Post in May, could include anything from electronic jamming to penetrating computer networks, to commando operations, to the use of a nuclear earth penetrator. CONPLAN 8022, he wrote, is intended to address two scenarios using such capabilities: preventing a suspected imminent nuclear attack from a small state, and attacking an adversary’s suspected WMD infrastructure.

STRATCOM Commander Gen. James Cartwright said at an opening ceremony that the new command would help the country convey a “new kind of deterrence.”

According to the STRATCOM release, “The command’s performance during Global Lightning demonstrated preparedness to execute its mission of providing integrated space and global strike capabilities to deter and dissuade aggressors and when directed, defeat adversaries through decisive joint global effects in support of STRATCOM missions.”

According to Arkin’s article in May, CONPLAN 8022 was completed in 2003, “putting in place for the first time a pre-emptive and offensive strike capability against Iran and North Korea.” 

STRATCOM’s readiness for global strike was certified to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and President George W. Bush in January 2004, Arkin reported.

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Chinese Ambassador Says North Korea Would Give Up Nuclear Program for Better Foreign Relations

The prospect of better relations with Japan, South Korea and the United States could lead North Korea to eliminate its nuclear weapons program, China’s ambassador in Seoul said today (see GSN, Dec. 1).

Ambassador Ning Fukui said the “three keys” to North Korean disarmament are mutual trust between Pyongyang and Washington, normalized relations with Tokyo and an improved relationship with Seoul, the Associated Press reported.

“I believe that North Korea is willing to scrap its nuclear weapons,” Ning told Park Geun-hye, head of South Korea’s opposition Grand National Party (Kwang-Tae Kim, Associated Press/Times Leader, Dec. 2).

Meanwhile, U.S. officials remain open to meeting with North Korean representatives to discuss the Treasury Department’s actions against firms suspected of involvement in illegal activities on Pyongyang’s behalf, Reuters reported.

“The offer still stands. And it would appear that the North Korean government isn't interested in accepting this offer for such a briefing,” said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.

McCormack added that the United States is justified in stopping illegal activities and “never offered to engage in negotiations with North Korea on this matter.”

McCormack said nuclear negotiations would not stop the United States from enforcing the law. 

“We are not going to fail to speak out or fail to act, concerning issues that are of concern to us,” he said (Reuters/New York Times, Dec. 1).

South Korea’s head envoy to the nuclear talks, Song Min-soon, said today that the U.S. position over Pyongyang’s counterfeiting of U.S. dollars must not affect the six-party talks, Agence France-Presse reported.

Song said he plans to meet with Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei to this week discuss strategies to ensure this does not occur. 

“The issue of sanctions against North Korea has nothing to do with the six-party talks and the two issues must not be linked to each other. We will discuss with China on how to obviate such negative impacts,” Song said (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Dec. 2).

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U.S. Presses Iran to Resume Nuclear Talks

The U.S. ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency yesterday said it is in Iran’s best interest to resume nuclear negotiations with the European Union, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Dec. 1).

Ambassador Gregory Schulte said the United States hopes “that Iran will be prepared to come back to negotiations and negotiate seriously” and that Tehran has an “opportunity.”

“The question is will the Iranian leadership do what's best for the Iranian people or will they continue down that dangerous path that they are going at present,” he said.

A diplomat with the European Union said the strategy for upcoming talks is “for both sides to put their cards on the table and see if there is any opening for future talks.”

“But the Iranians want to have their cake and eat it. They want to have a meeting at the experts level first, and then at a more senior level, and dictate the terms and content of the meeting, that is when they can resume uranium enrichment,” the diplomat added (Agence France-Presse, Yahoo!News, Dec. 1).

Iran continues to defend its right to a nuclear program, AFP reported.

“If we abandon the nuclear fuel cycle, in 30 or 40 years we will have no more oil and then the countries that have the nuclear fuel cycle will create some kind of nuclear OPEC and say, ‘If you want fuel, you will have to change your foreign policy and culture,’” said chief Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani.

Larijani, speaking to Iranian Revolutionary Guard members, signaled that Tehran is moving away from its suspension of uranium enrichment activities. 

“In my view the suspensions accepted by Iran were unreasonable. The suspension of enrichment was enough to build confidence, but the halt in making (centrifuge) parts and conducting research was not justifiable,” he said.

“The Westerners will have to get used to our new attitude,” he said, adding “if Iran goes nuclear, nobody will be able to challenge it because the stakes would be too high.”

European diplomats said the two-year negotiation process has come to a standstill even as Moscow has sought to resolve the impasse by proposing to site a jointly operated enrichment facility in Russia.

“The Iranians are digging in. Every time we speak to an official, we hear the same thing: ‘What can you do to force us to give up nuclear technology?’” said one diplomat.   “We want to give the Russian proposal a chance, but let's just say a Security Council referral is still on the cards” (see GSN, Nov. 16; Siavosh Ghazi, Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Dec. 1).

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said yesterday that his country “is not helpless” in the effort to block an Iranian nuclear weapons program, the New York Sun reported.

Sharon said the option of using military force against Iran “of course exists.”

“Before using it, I am sure all diplomatic efforts to press Iran will be exerted,” he said.

“Israel, and not Israel alone, cannot accept a nuclear Iran,” he said. Israel “is not helpless and it takes all the necessary measures” to counter the Iranian threat, Sharon added.

“The efforts of the international community on Iran are all but exhausted,” Israeli Gen. Ze'evi-Farkash told the Knesset's Foreign and Security Committee earlier this week. “If by the end of March (the issue) is not referred to the Security Council, it can be said that the international attempt (to block Iran's nuclear ambitions) has reached a dead end” (Benny Avni, New York Sun, Dec. 2).

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Victims of Iraqi Chemical Weapons Attack Testify at Genocide Trial of Dutch Businessman

Iranian victims of an alleged 1987 Iraqi chemical weapons attack testified this week in the trial of a Dutch businessman suspected of supplying precursor agents to the regime of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Nov. 28).

Frans van Anraat, 63, is charged with complicity in war crimes and genocide carried out by Hussein against Kurds in Iraq and Iran. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

Two witnesses yesterday described a June 1987 Iraqi chemical attack on the Iranian town of Sardasht.

Kurdish day laborer Gader Molanpoor said his pregnant wife and three children were killed in the air strike.

“I saw my children, they could not stand up, they were dizzy, throwing up,” he said.

“They had eye problems and their skin burned … nobody dared to touch them and I had to put them in the ambulance myself,” Molanpoor said.

Sardasht social worker Leila Marouf Zadeh said she saw Iraqi warplanes dropping what turned out to be nerve gas into the town, AFP reported.

“In the hospital I saw many people throwing up, with red skin, they were itching and after a while they got blisters and eventually their skin turned black,” she said.

Zadeh and Molanpoor said they both suffer continued health problems as a result of the chemical attack.

Van Anraat is suspected of supplying Hussein with ingredients for nerve and mustard agents in the 1980s, violating export bans against Iraq. A prosecution witness testified that the businessman alone supplied Baghdad with the mustard-agent component thiodiglycol beginning in 1985.

It is “the most logical to assume that from mid-1985 mustard gas used in attacks was made from ingredients supplied, among others, by van Anraat,” the expert said.

A verdict in the trial is expected on Dec. 23 (Stephanie van den Berg, Agence France-Presse/IranMania, Dec. 1).

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China Agrees to Delayed Removal of Japanese CW

China yesterday indicated that it would approve Japan’s request to move back the deadline to 2012 for completely removing chemical weapons left by the Japanese army after World War II, the Jiji Press Ticker Service reported (see GSN, Nov. 17).

Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei said the Japanese would receive a five-year extension, allowed under the Chemical Weapons Convention if both sides agree to the additional time (Jiji Press Ticker Service, Dec. 1).

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U.S. Army Destroys 1,000 Chemical Agent ID Sets

The U.S. Army as of last month had destroyed 1,000 Chemical Agent Identification Sets stored at the Pine Bluff Arsenal in Arkansas (see GSN, Aug. 11).

More than 170,000 sets were produced between 1928 and 1969, each with glass containers holding small amounts of mustard agent and lewisite. They were used to train the public and military on how to identify and handle chemical agents, according to an Army Chemical Materials Agency press release.

The Army has been destroying the sets since 1979. Another 4,000 items await disposal at Pine Bluff using a mobile system that neutralizes the chemical agent, the release states (U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency release, Nov. 30).

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Israel Tests Arrow Missile Defense System

In a test of its Arrow missile defense system, Israel today successfully intercepted a target similar to Iran’s Shahab 3 ballistic missile, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, April 6).

The test — the 14th of the Arrow system — was conducted in central Israel. The missile system is being developed with the United States and has faced setbacks in the past, according to AP (Associated Press, Dec. 2).

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“Dirty” WMD Documents Reported Found in Chechnya

Documents with details on producing “dirty” radiological, chemical and biological weapons have turned up in Chechnya, Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, head of the Russian General Staff, said yesterday (see GSN, May 6).

Russia needs to boost its efforts to prevent an attack using such weapons, he said.

“Terrorism is seeking ways of creating weapons of mass destruction, which forces us to take preventive steps,” Baluyevsky said.

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