MILITARY OPERATIONS
chemical manufacturing facilities. There is a choice of delivery systems - artillery rounds, air-dropped bombs, rockets and missiles. Syria’s close connection with Iran, and also to the Iran-sponsored Hezbollah terrorist group –which has a long-held record of firing rockets into Israeli territory – further complicates the crisis. Aerial surveillance and joint US-Jordanian plans will attempt to prevent CW proliferation in the region. The US DoD has estimated that 75,000 US troops would be needed to protect all Syrian CW facilities – providing they were sent in before looting or other release of CW. In the fog of civil war any remaining security of the many CW sites are prone to theft by terrorists, including al-Qaeda. A possible scenario is the use of CW by rogue Syrian army commanders on opposition forces. Or, as the CNS report states, that the multifarious armed opposition groups could try to seize CW depots to deny government forces the ability to use them. Dangers of CW release arise from attempts by government forces to re-occupy the sites using heavy weaponry. Judging by the scenes of destruction in the Syrian city of Homs, the environmental consequences would be severe.
Iran – on the brink Iran stays uppermost as the main threat in the region due to its burgeoning nuclear and missile programmes - and is suspected of also developing CBW. In the face of increased trade and financial sanctions the Iranians continue to deny IAEA access to the Parchin site on the grounds it is a military facility. Aerial surveillance has detected a structure suspected of housing a detonation tank for compression of explosives at the site, which gives weight to IAEA and other expert suspicions that Iran is carrying out experiments on high-explosive detonations and triggering mechanisms. An attack on Iran, increasingly predicted in 2012, could if the underground or other facilities are breached produce radioactive contamination on a potentially wide scale, with subsequent exposure to civilians and forces or agencies operating on the ground.
Reconnaissance on the ground Operation Desert Storm was the last major military campaign where CBRN defence was a prime factor in planning and reconnaissance as - unlike the Second Gulf War - the Iraqis actually possessed chemical and biological weapons (CBW) in varying stages of development. In an age of improvised CBRN threats, joint forces are likely to encounter involve TICs and novel materials that are undetectable or unidentifiable by traditional detection techniques.
The US is developing, from FY 2013, the CBRN Dismounted Reconnaissance System (DRS) for reconnaissance and surveillance, post-attack hazard assessment, sensitive site assessment, and area monitoring, and the Next Generation Chemical Point Detector (NGCPD) for handheld, stationary, and on-the-move point detection, identification and quantification. The aim is to pick out and identify CWA and TICs in limited environments - confined spaces and terrain that is inaccessible to CBRN reconnaissance vehicles. In these scenarios only dismounted CBRN reconnaissance can be carried out – mirroring the constant and perilous foot-patrol searches for IEDs. The NGCPD is hailed as giving joint forces the combined means to interdict CBRN operations as well as for force protection and homeland security.
All-hazards approach Along with the advanced detection suites installed on board reconnaissance vehicles, intelligence gathering is a vital adjunct in hunting down CBRN in the field. Biosurveillance on military operations includes obtaining information on disease patterns in local populations and at military bases, where food poisoning outbreaks, such as the one described above in Nangarhar province, are common. Biodefence efforts are also increasingly to enhance protection against
Preparedness is being geared as much towards small-scale attacks as for the long-predicted mass- casualty, high-tech CBRN incident
A technician from the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) from the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, TN inspects casks of highly enriched uranium aboard a US Air Force C-17 on February 14, 2012. NNSA (below) Casks of HEU aboard a US Air Force C-17. NNSA
indigenous diseases and new, modified strains from laboratories, and to dealing with civilian or troop exposure to misplaced radioactive materials. As a ‘pick-and-mix’ deployment of
conventional and unconventional weapons is more likely from insurgents and terrorists, preparedness is also being geared as much towards small-scale attacks – such as come from TIC use - as for the long-predicted mass-casualty, high-tech CBRN incident associated more with older Cold-War weapons capabilities.
This opens up a new era of force protection
against TICs, and also particulates from such as depleted uranium (DU) weapons, given the number of troops suffering from ‘Gulf War Syndrome’ and similar chronic illnesses and symptoms, many of them long term. Such weapons have been used in the Balkan and both Gulf War campaigns, and scattered reports released during the Libyan uprising claim that some NATO missiles fired from jets were DU-tipped. Immediate decontamination of affected areas, troops and equipment may not always be possible in the fog and heat of war.
On top of this, the veritable epidemic of
soldiers returning with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) alone will test resources and future capability – therefore, preparedness against injurious substances, whatever the source, is paramount. This reflects the ‘all- hazards’ approach increasingly applied to homeland CBRN defence – which may be needed in military operations as we enter a new and increasingly unstable period of conflicts.
CHEMICAL, BIOLOGICAL & NUCLEAR WARFARE | 2012/02 | 41
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