EDITORIAL THE LEGACY IS HERE
The increased availability of CBRN and conventional weapons will be a prime issue in 2013
W
e begin the New Year in the shadow of the ongoing threat of chemical weapons (CW) being unleashed by the moribund Syrian regime or its many opponents, or terrorist infi ltrators into that civil-war-torn country; the possibility of an attack on Iran to halt its nuclear programme; the expansion of al-Qaeda further into vulnerable areas in Africa and the
Middle East; and the great unquantifi able: lone wolf attacks (horrifi cally exemplifi ed by the Connecticut shootings in December). Evidence that the Syrians were moving and preparing CW for possible launch emerged in December and further heightened the possibility of US intervention. Just aſt er Christmas Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said the Syrian government had consolidated its CW in “one or two locations” under Russian control amid a rebel onslaught, with its military advisers claimed to have moved some CW to just “one or two centres” to properly safeguard them from acquisition by al-Qaeda. An unverifi ed report on Al Jazeera in early January stated that 7 people died in Homs aſt er they inhaled an unidentifi ed “poisonous gas” used by government forces in the rebel-held al-Bayyada district, according to activists. Aerial strikes would have to take out CW with minimal environmen-
TERRORISM ON THE INCREASE
The number of global terror attacks has dramatically increased during the post-9/11 era despite US and allied eff orts to combat terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen. Based on data from the Global Terrorism Database collected and collated by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), in 2011:
» 91% of terrorist attacks were successful » There were 4,564 terrorist incidents globally, killing 7,473 and injuring 13,961
» A signifi cant level of terrorism is by non-religious groups
» Since 9/11 Western Europe has suff ered 19 times more fatalities than the US.
tal damage – and only under certain climatic conditions -- and employ- ing munitions designed to pierce containers and incinerate harmful materials. But even a concerted attack might leave a signifi cant portion of Assad’s CW as part of his regime’s deadly legacy. Libya’s CW have been somewhat upstaged by the feared use of
Syria’s stocks, which are far larger and more viable. In December a cache of 517 artillery CW shells and eight bombs found at two locations aſt er the fall of Gaddhafi are believed by US and OPCW offi cials to have been provided by Iran before the 2011 uprisings. While deemed “too small for a militarily relevant capacity,” according to the EU Institute for Security Studies, these chemical leſt overs may add to the tons of conventional weapons currently haemorrhaging from Libya as a sizeable legacy problem.
On the practical issue of funding, we also face the likely prospect of
more cuts by the Obama administration on CBRN and defence. For example, the Megaports Initiative (MI) – set up during the Bush admin- istration to combat smuggling of nuclear and radiological materials through foreign seaports – is subject to a 85% funding curb requested by the White House Management and Budget Offi ce in the current budget year, capping fi scal 2013 expenditures at $19.6 million and suspending any expansion of the eff ort that originally aimed to place radiation scanning equipment at 100 foreign seaports by 2018 (from the current 42). According to a report by the US Government Accountability Offi ce
(GAO – the spending watchdog) published in November, the MI’s impact is said to be “diminishing” as it completed deployments at higher-priority facilities and that there is overlap between MI activities and nonproliferation eff orts, such as the DHS Container Security Initiative. The National Nuclear Security Administration also called for a “strategic pause” on MI to allow for a
review of the project and the wider Second Line of Defense programme, proposing a 65% funding cut to the parent eff ort, which also focuses on deploying radiation detection equipment along international borders. If a ‘strategic pause’ is in the offi ng for other programmes, the current US (and other govern- ments making similar cuts) may live to regret it if the dreaded and oſt -forecast CBRN event wreaks damage among their citizens due to an increase in CBRN proliferation to rogue states and terrorists – which the MI and other programmes were set up to try to prevent.❚❙
CBNW 2013/01 05
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80