The most respectable arguments


GW: To revert to northern Iraq and Syria in the Middle East, previously there was a paucity of CBRN incidents to focus doctrine on, that is not the case now. Have any incidents caused you to rethink doctrine, or are the attacks so limited there isn’t a fair chance to benchmark yourselves? WK: We have great doctrine for EOD and CBRN operations, but virtually nothing for CBRNE operations. That has been illuminated as a result of the past 18 months in the region. When you look at an IED lab what is EOD unique about it compared to CBRN? The precursors and processes are the same as we would see for chemical weapons, and that is what has come to light. I have been working hard to bring counter IED and CBRN closer together and employ them as total package teams. For some senior leadership that is a novel concept that might be good or not, so I remind them that it has been in existence for 30 years, and we call it tech escort. Tech escort has always had an


organic EOD team embedded in its CBRN reconnaissance capability. All I am doing is looking to expand and re- package that tried and proven capability. We are seeing it real world today in Iraq and Syria, and in our support to inter- agencies, special operations and other partners out there. We are gaining insights into how CBRNE threats are presented and how CBRNE forces may be used against those threats. An army document called Army 2025


said that it would be hard to define the complex and hybrid nature of future threats, but clearly acknowledged that CBRNE threats will exist. Some on the institutional side of the army still struggle with the idea of CBRNE, as the concept is undefined. There is an old OSD document talking about CBRN and high yield explosives, and I have gone back and asked what a high yield explosive is! If I put a blasting cap on the right initiating material then is that blasting cap high yield as it could have the same impact as a WMD!


GW: Has there been any chemical or drone use in Syria that looks new? Does the fact that Syria is now the devil’s playground, as they try combining


things, have an impact in terms of how the 20th sees itself. WK: The enemy is not stagnant, they continue to develop and react to our advanced technology and this is the nature of forces. They are not waiting for a one on one fight with us. They won’t come to a knife fight with a knife, they’ll come with an advanced pistol, or some new way of applying technology to overmatch what we can bring. Mass is always a unique characteristic, we will almost always win when we can bring integrated, synchronised efforts to that mass. We will continue to adapt to the


changes or application of simple civil technologies.Who would have thought of taking a commercial unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and mounting a modified 40mm grenade that can pinpoint target high end vehicles, like an M1 tank? YouTube has ISIL videos where they have been successful putting the 40mm grenade down an open hatch. They are not stopping there. They are continuing to learn from their interaction and are evolving to stay ahead of us. That said, we are doing a good job ourselves, we are watching and adapting fast. We have task force atlas out there who are aggressively getting the word out as they see new changes in the TTPs of the technology being used, so that we can counter it before they become successful.


GW: Another major change is the new headquarters. Will that be anything other than somewhere to hang a jacket? Will it bring any new capability? WK: Yes, it will. We have patched together a bunch of commercial off the shelf systems to make this temporary HQ work, a temporary HQ that we moved into in 2004! We think that the new HQ in Aberdeen North will be built by early 2019, and it will have infrastructure designed to support the connectivity of what we need to maintain awareness and communication with all the COCOMs. We have tightened the connectivity with SOCOM and we are sharing more of our common operational picture with SOCOM and what the COCOMs will also be sharing with us. Now we have a common integrated, holistic C-WMD picture and it is amazing


what we are seeing. Sometimes we are working together and didn’t know it, in others we are working differently in different areas and now we can say ‘I didn’t realise you were there, I am going, and can I send some people to help you or gain situational understanding as I think you are seeing something that I was not aware of?’ We are building a synchronised coordinated effort across those areas.


GW: Finally Dugway and live agents. Dugway are not the only ones that have problems with this. Recently the Center for Domestic Preparedness had issues with much easier to kill ricin. It is unfortunate but this kind of happens. As you look back on your time at Dugway is there something you feel you could have done better, or is it something to be endured? Is it something that will continue to happen in other agencies and countries? WK: I would offer a twofold answer. Firstly, the safety of the workforce is foremost, it always was and continues to be. At none of these places was there ever a malicious intent or a lack of focus on the safety. If you want to stay up with the threat there will always be some risk in doing this business. The materials are deadly, and in some cases we don’t know the science needed to go through the research and development to allow us to fully understand the implications. I wish there was a crystal ball that I


could look into and ask ‘tell me everything about this agent,’ so when I start doing testing and evaluation I know everything there is to know. The reality is that we don’t. We learn on every one of the tests that we run. Sometimes we learn stuff that we knew theoretically and in other cases we learn that was not what we expected to happen, why was it different? I wish I could tell you that this is all controlled and safe and there will never be an incident, that is unrealistic. If we want to do what we are doing and stay current, there will be discovery learning along the way. We can contain it and limit it, we want to contain any negative effect or exposure to anyone, but the reality is that it is part of learning in the science we do.


CBRNe Convergence, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Indiana, USA, 6 - 8 Nov 2017 www.cbrneworld.com/convergence2017 12 CBRNe WORLD June 2017 www.cbrneworld.com


CBRNeWORLD


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