U.S. Response:  Cities Receive Radiological Detection Equipment

The U.S. Energy Department has provided emergency management officials in Los Angeles and San Francisco with radiological detection equipment, the department announced today (see GSN, Sept. 6, 2002).

The devices were given to the Los Angles Fire Department’s Hazardous Waste Unit, the Los Angeles Port Authority and the San Francisco Health Department.  The equipment transfer was conducted through the Homeland Defense Equipment Reuse (HDER) Program, which provides surplus federal homeland security-related equipment to state and local agencies.

“We are proud to help ensure that our law enforcement and emergency personnel have the necessary equipment and training to prepare them to respond effectively and thoroughly to any emergency,” Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said.  “And, we are pleased to provide DOE resources to help ensure America’s homeland defense,” Abraham said.

Five other U.S. cities have received refurbished radiological detection devices through the HDER program, including Boston, Detroit, New York, Philadelphia and Washington (U.S. Energy Department release, April 25).

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Iraq:  United States to Introduce U.N. Resolution to End Sanctions

The United States plans to introduce next week a U.N. Security Council resolution to lift sanctions against Iraq, according to the Washington Post (see GSN, April 24).

The decision to introduce the resolution, made during a meeting of top Bush administration national security advisers earlier this week, adopted for the most part a Defense Department proposal to eliminate all U.N. control over Iraq, rather than a step-by-step approach advocated by the State Department, according to the Post.

Many Security Council members have said, however, that the U.N. resolutions that established the sanctions regime in the early 1990s call for verifying Iraq’s disarmament of weapons of mass destruction prior to sanctions being lifted.  The Bush administration opposes the return of U.N. inspectors to Iraq, saying they would only interfere with the U.S. WMD search efforts (DeYoung/Lynch, Washington Post, April 25).

The Security Council yesterday temporarily extended limited U.N. control over the Iraqi oil-for-food program until June 3.  The extension leaves the council with more than a month to determine the future of the sanctions regime, the Financial Times reported (Mark Turner, Financial Times, April 24).

Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov yesterday called for a partial lifting of the sanctions against Iraq.

Russia supports a temporary lifting of sanctions “on goods that may be used for humanitarian problems in Iraq,” Ivanov said.  “An overwhelming majority of countries share this approach, therefore it is necessary now to make appropriate decisions,” he said.

Russia has also maintained a position that only the Security Council can fully lift the sanctions.  Prior to doing so, however, Russia wants U.N. inspectors to verify Iraq’s disarmament.

“As for the full lifting of the sanctions, this issue must be resolved on the basis of U.N. Security Council resolutions that were adopted earlier,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said (CNN.com, April 24).

WMD Hunt

Meanwhile, yesterday’s surrender of former Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz to U.S. forces could be invaluable to U.S. efforts to find evidence of Iraqi WMD efforts, according to U.S. officials and Iraqi specialists.

Aziz could also help U.S. forces to learn the fate of ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and other members of his regime, they said.

“It’s almost as good as getting Saddam,” said Judith Yaphe, a senior research professor at the National Defense University.  “He’s the first real insider we’ve got.  This takes us someplace,” she said.

Even though Aziz might not know the precise whereabouts of banned weapons, “he may know a lot about de facto WMD programs,” a U.S. official said.  After the 1991 Gulf War, Aziz was involved in a committee formed to deceive U.N. inspectors and to find ways to covertly continue to develop weapons of mass destruction, according to Kenneth Pollack, a former CIA and National Security Council official (Bryan Bender, Boston Globe, April 25).

A number of U.S. military expert teams are preparing to travel to Iraq next week to assist efforts to disable and destroy any weapons of mass destruction that might be discovered, defense officials said.

The teams will have up to 100 members, with various teams focusing on different types of banned weapons, according to the New York Times.  Currently the teams consist of one nuclear team, one missile team and four chemical and biological teams.  The teams will also destroy any dual-use facilities, technologies and materials that could be used to produce weapons of mass destruction, officials said.

One of the teams’ first tasks will be to establish a central base where discovered weapons could be stored for later destruction, the Times reported.  Such a base will probably be set up at the Muthanna State Enterprise, a former suspected Iraqi chemical weapons plant 40 miles northeast of Baghdad, officials said.

Although some experts doubt the United States will find any WMD evidence in Iraq, defense officials said they had to be prepared for the possibility that such weapons and materials are found.

“One of the challenges we have in planning is we don’t know the scope of the mission,” said Stephen Younger, director of the Pentagon’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency, which leads the effort.  “If nothing is found, we’ll have nothing to eliminate.  But I’m reasonably confident that things will be found,” he said (William Broad, New York Times, April 25).

Almost three weeks after capturing the Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center — the main facility in Iraq’s former nuclear program — the Bush administration still has not conducted an extensive inventory of the radiological materials housed at the site to make sure none have been stolen, according to U.S. military officials (see GSN, April 14).

Before the war, the Tuwaitha site contained almost 3,900 pounds of partially enriched uranium, more than 94 tons of natural uranium and small quantities of cesium, cobalt and strontium, according to reports compiled during the 1990s by the International Atomic Energy Agency.  The United States does not know if these materials remain secure, however, because it has not sent investigators to examine the site, defense officials said.  It is known, though, that the Tuwaitha complex was unguarded for days and that some looters were able to get inside, according to Pentagon and U.S. Central Command officials.

Interagency disputes are partially responsible for the delay in investigating the Tuwaitha complex, officials said.  Civilian Pentagon policy officials had originally proposed to conduct a complete inspection without the involvement of the IAEA, which would have required U.S. experts to break the agency’s seals placed on safeguarded nuclear materials, according to the Washington Post.  Other Pentagon and U.S. State Department offices responsible for treaty compliance, international organization and nonproliferation, however, objected to that proposal.

U.S. forces at the site have not broken any IAEA seals, said Lt. Col. Michael Slifka, a senior leader at the Central Command’s Sensitive Site Exploitation Planning Team.  He also said he did not know if others had broken the seals, however, because he has not been authorized to send an expert team to the site.

“For force protection reasons, because of the folks we’ve got there, we aren’t in a position to go inside,” Slifka said (Barton Gellman, Washington Post, April 25).

Bush Confident WMD Will Be Found

U.S. President George W. Bush said yesterday that Iraqi officials and scientists have provided information that Hussein might have destroyed or hidden biological and chemical weapons stockpiles prior to the war. 

“We are learning more as we interrogate or have discussions with Iraqi scientists and people within the Iraqi structure, that perhaps he destroyed some, perhaps he dispersed some,” Bush said in an interview with NBC News.

Even so, Bush said he was confident U.S. troops would find evidence of Iraqi WMD efforts.  While the United States has only examined about 90 out of hundreds of suspect sites, those sites that have been examined have been designated as the most likely to conceal weapons, Bush said.

“And so we will find them,” Bush said.  “But it’s going to take time to find them.  And the best way to find them is to continue to collect information from the humans, Iraqis who were involved in hiding them,” he said.

Bush acknowledged, however, that U.S. credibility would be questioned until proof of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction was discovered.

“I think there’s going to be skepticism until people find out there was, in fact, a weapons of mass destruction program,” Bush said (Stevenson/Sanger, New York Times, April 25).

Even if no such Iraqi weapons were found, it would not mean the war against Iraq was not justified, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said today.

“People are now trying to suggest that somehow the decision to take military action was entirely conditional on subsequently finding chemical and biological weapons material,” Straw said.  “That wasn’t the case,” he said.

The international community “accepted that Saddam had these weapons and they posed a threat,” Straw said.    “Did we overstate the threat?  I don’t think we overstated the threat,” he added (Associated Press/MSNBC.com, April 25).

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NATO Response:  WMD Response Team to Be Ready by Year’s End

By David McGlinchey
Global Security Newswire

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is on schedule to deploy its new WMD response team by the end of this year, according to E.C. Whiteside, head of NATO’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Center’s Political Affairs Division (see GSN, Nov. 21, 2002).

A prototype response team is already in place and has been conducting exercises throughout Europe and North America, according to documents provided by Whiteside.  The team is scheduled to become active after Exercise Allied Action, hosted by Turkey in November.

The response team, which would be NATO’s first, is part of a larger effort by the alliance to confront new threats and develop an overall capability to respond to nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, Whiteside said.

That effort includes developing a disease surveillance system to alert NATO commanders of unusual infectious epidemics, a deployable analytical laboratory to investigate potentially contaminated sites, a stockpile of medicines, and defense material and improved training.

Whiteside described the effort at an international security conference hosted by the Energy Department’s Sandia National Laboratories.

In the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, NATO officials assessed what the organization could offer to the war on terrorism, he said.  Until this effort, the organization has relied on WMD teams from member countries to address WMD defense needs, Whiteside added.

NATO’s Senior Defense Group on Proliferation developed the initiatives and alliance defense ministers endorsed the effort last June.

“They were designed to serve as a first step in addressing the most critical deficiencies in NATO’s NBC defenses.  These initiatives will be developed … and will emphasize multinational participation and the rapid fielding of enhanced capabilities,” according to a NATO release.

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U.S. Response:  Pentagon Restructures Management for WMD Defense Program

U.S. officials have approved a plan for a new management structure for the U.S. Chemical and Biological Defense Program, the Defense Department said yesterday.

Various items such as protective equipment, chemical and biological agent detectors, decontamination equipment and medical countermeasures are acquired through the program, which would see the streamlining of a number of management positions and the strengthening of accountability for different program elements under the new plan, according to a Pentagon release.  The naming of a new joint program executive officer is also planned.

Dale Klein, assistant to the secretary of defense for nuclear, chemical and biological defense programs, and Anna Johnson-Winegar, deputy assistant to the secretary of defense for chemical and biological defense, will oversee the program.  The science and technology areas of the program and its financial management will be handled by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, the Defense Department said (Defense Department release, April 24).

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North Korea:  Pyongyang Threatens to Export Nuclear Weapons; Claims Fuel Rod Reprocessing Nearly Complete

In a direct conversation in Beijing on Wednesday, North Korea threatened to export nuclear weapons if the United States does not restore its former commitment to provide energy to the isolated communist nation, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, April 24).

North Korea issued its threat Wednesday, the opening day of a series of talks between U.S., North Korean and Chinese officials, U.S. officials said.  North Korean envoy Li Gun pulled aside his U.S. counterpart, Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly, and told him North Korea possessed nuclear weapons.

“We can’t dismantle them,” Li told Kelly.  “It’s up to you whether we do a physical demonstration or transfer them,” Li said.

U.S. officials are still assessing precisely what Li meant by his remarks, including whether they were a threat to conduct an actual test, according to the Washington Post.  Whatever Li’s statement might have meant, “it was very fast, very categorical and obviously very scripted,” a senior official said.

During a formal session of the talks, Li also said that North Korea was close to completing the reprocessing of 8,000 spent fuel rods that were being stored at the Yongbyon nuclear complex.  U.S. intelligence analysts, however, have not been able to confirm the claim, the Post reported.  During the talks, Kelly tried to press Li to confirm that he truly meant to say that North Korea had finished reprocessing the spent fuel rods, because North Korean officials have previously made contradictory statements on the issue.

Negotiating Positions

North Korea presented what was described as an extensive proposal for ending the nuclear crisis, the Post reported.  In the proposal, North Korea wanted to re-establish the 1994 Agreed Framework, under which it agreed to end its nuclear program in exchange for energy aid, but it would only end its nuclear program once the United States has fulfilled its side of the agreement.  The U.S. delegation, however, said North Korea must verifiably dismantle its nuclear program before other U.S.-North Korean issues could be addressed, the Post reported.

Yesterday, the second day in the planned three-day talks, the parties never met in a three-way discussion.  Instead, Chinese officials held separate meetings with the U.S. and North Korean delegations, according to the Post.  Today, the United States and North Korea again held separate meetings with the Chinese delegation and then a “brief informal trilateral meeting” was held before Kelly left for Seoul and Tokyo.

Chinese Reaction

Privately, Chinese officials were “in disbelief over Li Gun’s categorical statements,” a U.S. official said (Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, April 25).

Publicly, however, Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said the meeting “signifies a good beginning.”

All three countries have “agreed to maintain contacts through diplomatic channels regarding continuing the process of talks,” a Chinese Foreign Ministry statement said (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, April 25).

Bush Reacts

U.S. President George W. Bush dismissed North Korea’s claims yesterday, saying Pyongyang was “back to the old blackmail game” and that the United States would not be intimidated.

“This will give us an opportunity to say to the North Koreans and the world we’re not going to be threatened,” Bush said.

It is unknown if Li’s claims that North Korea possessed nuclear weapons referred to the one or two bombs U.S. intelligence agencies have believed North Korea has possessed for 10 years, or if Li’s claim was an overstatement of North Korea’s nuclear capability in an attempt to deter the United States from attacking its nuclear sites, according to the New York Times.

The CIA believes that North Korea probably reprocessed enough material before the Agreed Framework to build up to two nuclear weapons, the Times reported.  There has only been unclear evidence to back such a belief, however, such as an assessment of North Korea’s technical capability and what one former senior intelligence official described as “a good deal of supposition.”

“The only surprise here was that they admitted it,” a senior Bush administration official said.  “That fact itself is hardly new,” the official added (David Sanger, New York Times, April 25).

Some Question North Korea’s Claims

South Korean and Japanese experts today said they doubted North Korea’s weapon possession and reprocessing claims.

South Korean nuclear analyst Kang Jungmin said he doubted that North Korea was close to completing the reprocessing of its spent fuel rod supply, noting that the heat generated by reprocessing would be easily detected by U.S. satellites.

“It’s a sheer lie.  There is no sign whatsoever that North Korea has restarted its reprocessing facility,” Kang said.  “Even if it has restarted its facility, it would take them four or five months to complete the reprocessing,” Kang added.

Toshimitsu Shigemura, professor of international relations at Takushoku University in Japan, said he did not believe North Korea possessed nuclear weapons.

“North Korea believes the U.S. was able to invade Iraq because Iraq didn’t have nuclear weapons, so it is saying it has nuclear weapons,” Shigemura said (Sang-hun Choe, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, April 25).

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South Asia:  Pre-Emption Comments Indicate Escalating Tensions, Experts Say

By Mike Nartker
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Indian Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha’s comments earlier this month suggesting that Pakistan would be an appropriate target for pre-emptive military action indicate an escalation of hostilities between the two nuclear-armed South Asian rivals, experts told Global Security Newswire this week (see GSN, April 7).

Early this month, Sinha said Pakistan was a “fit case” for a pre-emptive strike, — much like Iraq — because it possesses weapons of mass destruction, provides sanctuary for terrorists and lacks democracy.  Soon after, Pakistani officials responded in kind to Sinha’s remarks, saying India was itself ripe for pre-emptive action for also possessing weapons of mass destruction.

“India is a fit case for a pre-emptive strike,” Pakistani Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed was quoted by the Islamic Republic News Agency as saying.  “If India thinks, and could do so, then we also have the right to go for a pre-emptive strike,” he said.

While India and Pakistan have often exchanged heated rhetoric, Sinha’s pre-emption comments cannot be taken lightly, said Hussain Haqqani of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.  “When do we know when it is no longer posturing?” he said. 

A number of previous conflicts between India and Pakistan ended in such a way as to leave both countries with “scores to settle,” said Michael Krepon, founding president of the Henry L. Stimson Center.  For example, an attack by Kashmiri separatists on the Indian Parliament in December 2001 led to India mobilizing its armed forces on the border with Pakistan for almost 10 months.  All-out war was averted, however, after the United States pressured Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf to crack down on militant Kashmiri separatist groups based on the Pakistani side of the “line of control” that divides the disputed Kashmir province.

The question facing India now is what to do if another such attack were to occur, Krepon said, adding that some Indian military officials were “frustrated” when the military was mobilized without going to war.  He warned that some experts are predicting a new wave of violence to begin in Kashmir during the spring and summer because of improving weather conditions.

“People are worried,” Krepon said.

Teresita Schaffer, director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ South Asia program, said India believes Musharaff has not followed through on his pledge to combat cross-border terrorism (see GSN, April 18).  There is increasing belief among Indian officials that the current situation requires a larger response than last year’s mobilization, she said.    

Sinha’s use of the term “pre-emption” might have been part of a strategy to create a foundation for future action, according to some experts.  During the debate over the U.S. National Security Strategy, which includes the use of pre-emptive attacks, some officials and experts feared that other countries would use the new U.S. strategy to justify their own actions (see GSN, Sept. 23, 2002).

“It sets in motion a series of uncontrollable actions that could be taken by China, by Russia, by Israel, Pakistan, India, North Korea,” U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) said in a speech late last year, referring to the U.S. strategy (see GSN, Dec. 13, 2002).

The idea of pre-emption, if not that exact term, has been in Indian minds before the U.S. adoption of the strategy, which was manifested in the recent war with Iraq, Krepon said.  Indian officials have thought since at least 1999 that India cannot always be in a “receive mode” of terrorist attacks and that Pakistan needed to be taught a lesson, he said.

India is using pre-emption comments to employ a similar theme as those of the United States in order to maintain freedom of action if New Delhi chooses to go to war, Krepon said, calling Sinha’s comments “opportunistic.”

Haqqani agreed, saying the U.S.-led war against Iraq provided India with a “legal stool to stand on” if it conducted similar action against Pakistan.  “Legalization is important in South Asia,” Haqqani said.

U.S. Role

The current tensions between India and Pakistan appear to have become a significant concern for the United States, according to experts.  Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage is expected to travel to the region next month in an attempt to help reduce tensions (see GSN, April 17). 

Schaffer said she believed Armitage hoped to set the momentum of India-Pakistan relations “on a different course” by his visit.  She does not think Armitage expects to see immediate results, but his visit could begin a period of quiet backchannel diplomacy in preparation for a summit.

Indian Prime Minster Atal Bihari Vajpayee hinted at such a summit during a speech last week in the Kashmiri city of Srinagar.  In his remarks, Vajpayee proposed that India and Pakistan hold talks to resolve their dispute over Kashmir (see GSN, April 21).

“Problems can be resolved by talks,” Vajpayee was quoted as saying by the Washington Post.  “We are ready,” he said.

Pakistani officials early this week said they welcomed the idea of talks.

Haqqani, however, noted that Armitage’s visit would be the third time in the last two years that the United States has had to step in to ease tensions in South Asia.

“Does the United States want to play babysitter in that region for the foreseeable future?” Haqqani said.  “You can’t keep babysitting two nuclear-armed neighbors forever,” he said.

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United States:  U.S. “Bunker Buster” Development Worries Russia

By David McGlinchey
Global Security Newswire

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Russia is concerned about U.S. efforts to develop low-yield nuclear weapons for destroying deeply buried targets, a top Russian nuclear official said yesterday (see GSN, March 7).

In 1994 the U.S. Congress banned research and development on nuclear weapons with yields below five kilotons, but the U.S. Defense Department has asked lawmakers to lift the ban.

“Where did this talk come from to do away with the five-kiloton threshold?” asked Nikolai Voloshin, the head of the Department of Nuclear Ammunition Development and Testing at the Russian Atomic Energy Ministry.

“The idea is being circulated to do lower yield charges, I question the thoughts of using such low-yield weapons, which means that nuclear weapons cease to be a deterrent and become combat weapons,” he told Global Security Newswire at an international security conference here organized by the Energy Department’s Sandia National Laboratories.

Earlier this year, in a draft of the fiscal 2004 Defense Department budget request, Pentagon officials told Congress the ban must be repealed to “train the next generation of nuclear weapons scientists and engineers.”

The Pentagon needs a “revitalized nuclear weapons advanced concepts effort,” but the ban has had a “chilling effect” on any such initiative “by impeding the ability of our scientists and engineers to explore the full range of technical options,” according to the draft request.

Developing the new weapons would not be exceptionally difficult, according to Voloshin.  He questioned U.S. motives in publicizing the debate on potential new nuclear weapons.

“No one denies it can be easily done, why bring all the hype about it?” he asked.

He also criticized the U.S. approach to international arms control agreements, specifically the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which the Bush administration does not support.

“We are very concerned about why the U.S. has not yet ratified the CTBT,” Voloshin said.

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Anthrax:  Suspicious Death Spurs Canada to Quarantine Brazilian Ship

Canadian public health officials yesterday quarantined a cargo ship from Brazil off the port of Halifax because of concerns that a crewmember onboard may have died from exposure to anthrax.

Brazilian public health officials had warned Canadian officials that a crewmember onboard the ship had died and that the possible cause of death was anthrax.  Canadian officials said the cause of death is still unknown (Agence France-Presse, April 24).

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U.S. Plans I:  Army Calls for Accelerated THAAD, MEADS Deployment

A top U.S. Army general called yesterday for the accelerated deployment of two U.S. missile defense systems — the Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system and the Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) (see GSN, May 6, 2002).

The THAAD system should be deployed “as early as possible” to complement the Patriot missile interceptor systems already in use by the Army, said Army Lt. Gen. Joseph Cosumano, head of the Army Space and Missile Defense Command (see related GSN story, today).  The two systems are envisioned to work together, with the Patriot intercepting enemy missiles within the atmosphere and the THAAD system intercepting missiles above the atmosphere, according to Cosumano.

“We need that two-tiered, layered defense in the future,” Cosumano said, “so we would advocate any way to accelerate the fielding of THAAD.”

The Missile Defense Agency has indicated that the THAAD system could be ready to provide an emergency defense capability by the end of 2005, according to Aerospace Daily.

It would also be “very, very useful” to accelerate the MEADS deployment, which has a current fielding date of 2012, Cosumano said (see GSN, April 1; Marc Selinger, Aerospace Daily, April 25).

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U.S. Plans II:  Danish Lawmakers Consider U.S. Radar Upgrade Request

Danish lawmakers Wednesday heard from U.S. officials and nonproliferation analysts on a U.S. request to upgrade the Thule radar facility in Greenland as part of efforts to develop a U.S. national missile defense system (see GSN, March 6).

Assistant Defense Secretary J.D. Crouch urged Danish legislators to allow the United States to improve the radar.

“An upgraded radar plays an important role in the U.S. initial missile defense system in dealing with potential threats emanating from the Middle East,” Crouch said.  “If upgraded, the Thule early warning radar, like other upgraded early warning radars, would detect incoming ballistic missiles, track them and provide info to a missile defense system,” he said.

U.S. nonproliferation analyst Joseph Cirincione argued against approving the U.S. request.  While Denmark might want to approve the request out of a sense of friendship, they should not do so out of concern over the threat of a ballistic missile strike, said Cirincione, director of the Nonproliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment of International Peace.  He argued that the threat of a missile attack is actually decreasing, especially with the U.S. defeat of Iraq.

Danish lawmakers also heard from a representative of Greenland’s home-rule government who argued that the original 1951 agreement authorizing the Thule radar station gave Greenlanders little say in how the facility would be used.

Danish officials have said they would attempt to reach a decision on the U.S. upgrade request before parliament recessed for the summer (Peter Heinlein, VOA News, April 23).

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Space:  Space Operations Were a Key Element in Iraq, U.S. Official Says

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON ð— U.S. space systems played a number of key roles in the conflict against Iraq and will become even more important in future operations, increasing the need for ensuring U.S. control of space, a senior military official said yesterday.

“As we move forward in the 21st century, we’ll have to deal more with … space control, because space has become so important to our conduct in the war fight that there will be lessons that might be learned by our potential adversaries,” said Lt. Gen. Joseph Cosumano, commander of the Army Space and Missile Defense Command.

Increasing U.S. military control of space, which has become a growing Defense Department priority in recent years, is controversial internationally, with many countries ranging from Russia and China to Canada expressing concern about the prospect of an arms race there and the possibility of jeopardizing civilian spacecraft.

U.S. officials have said there is a possibility that a potential adversary might attack U.S. military space systems and have therefore insisted that such risks must be addressed.

New Roles

Cosumano called space the “fourth dimension” of the battlefield in which U.S. military forces operate, the other three being land, sea and air.

“This new dimension … has become more important to war fighters as we’ve moved into the 21st century,” he said, speaking at an event arranged by the National Defense University Foundation and the National Defense Industrial Association.

Cosumano said satellites generally support military intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and communications and specifically provide early warning of missile launches as well as “blue force tracking,” by monitoring the position of U.S. and allied forces to give commanders better information and to prevent friendly fire casualties.

In the recent war in Iraq, satellites “played a significant role in reducing the amount of fratricide, and also played a key role in tying up the war fight, because the combatant commander had great situational awareness of where his soldiers were,” he said.

Cosumano also said commercial satellite imagery would play a role in reconstruction efforts in Iraq, by providing detailed topographical maps of the country.

He said growing numbers of military personnel are connected to space operations, citing 43,000 in the Air force, 17,000 in the Navy, and about 1,700 in the Army, including scientists, engineers and 700 uniformed personnel.

Space, Cosumano said, supports U.S. efforts to integrate forces globally, from information and communications operations, to a globally integrated missile defense, to the ability to strike a target globally in “within minutes, hours or days.”

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