Strategic Command Combating WMD's

StratCom Guides Network Of Agencies In WMD Fight

BY TIM ELFRINK
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
Published Sunday October 7, 2007
Omaha

FORT BELVOIR, Va. —

..."The most serious strategic threat to the U.S. today is the threat of non-state terrorist groups gaining control of and using weapons of mass destruction," said Air Force Gen. Kevin P. Chilton, the new head of the U.S. Strategic Command.

In 2005, Offutt Air Force Base's StratCom was assigned to coordinate all of the Defense Department's far-flung efforts to prevent the nightmare scenario.

The hub of that mission is StratCom's Center for Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction, headquartered at the Army's Fort Belvoir, southwest of Washington, D.C.

StratCom's traditional role is head of U.S. nuclear forces. Its missions have expanded since 2002 to include overseeing the military's space, missile defense, computer network warfare, global strike capabilities, combating weapons of mass destruction, and global intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance work.

To do all that, StratCom officials established separate commands around the country for each major mission, including the Center for Combating WMDs. Each command reports directly to StratCom.

While the WMD center has filled only about 30 of its 50 staff positions since it began operating in January 2006, it's making progress in uniting all Defense Department groups combating weapons of mass destruction.

"Between crawl, walk and run, we're somewhere between crawl and walking," said Army Col. Michael Holland, the WMD center's chief of staff. "But we've accomplished a lot."

Work continues to find staff members from within the military service branches. Projections are that the center will be fully staffed and fully operational by September 2009.

With only 50 staffers of its own, the center won't directly lead the complex job of preventing WMD attacks.

Rather, its role is to act as a central hub for more than 40 armed forces agencies dealing with the problem.

The center's focus is on synchronizing those efforts, compiling the agencies' information on WMD threats and sharing it with all branches of the military.

"Even fully staffed, I don't anticipate (the center) actually leading anything. But we generate the momentum, we jab the right muscles so people do the right things," said Rear Adm. William P. Loeffler, the WMD center's deputy director.

Some of the center's staff also will work with civilian government agencies to more closely align their WMD efforts and the military's programs.

"This is a huge, complex mission . . . and the number of (military and civilian) people involved in it is huge. The center's mission is to gain awareness of what everyone is doing, so we can move toward a coherent national strategy," Loeffler said.

Key Elements Of The Center's Work:

• At a high-tech operations center, specialists compile global WMD intelligence reports — about who is seeking weapons material and where — to offer a "one-stop shop" for military agencies needing the information.

• Staffers work with Defense Department agencies and commands around the world to draft action plans for dealing with WMD threats.

• If the United States needs to quickly locate and dismantle a WMD anywhere in the world, the center pulls together a special 30-person joint military team that could deploy quickly to coordinate such an effort.

"This whole concept . . . came about because of (Operation Iraqi Freedom)," Holland said. "When we went into Iraq and started looking for WMDs, we didn't have an organization that could do this."

• It represents StratCom at the Proliferation Security Initiative, a group of about 80 nations working to prevent the transporting of WMD materials across their borders.

The goal of it all, Loeffler said, is to foster cooperation between all Defense Department groups and international partners working on the WMD problem.

"It's vital that we get all the stakeholders around the table to work on this . . . so we have a unified approach, instead of a bunch of different organizations out there doing their own thing," Loeffler said.

So many organizations worldwide are involved because combating the WMD threat requires a range of actions — everything from diplomacy to military interdiction, Loeffler said.

The easiest way to prevent a WMD attack is to make sure terrorists can't get their hands on such potent weapons.

Defense Department agencies work with international partners to help build better security around nuclear, chemical and biological stockpiles and to police international borders.

Should such efforts fail, the military has a range of more active options: from deploying teams to safely disarm WMDs or intercepting those seeking to buy and sell the weapons, to bombing raids or ground attacks.

Defensive options, including the fledgling U.S. missile defense system and the deterrence of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, also fall under the broad mission of combating WMDs.

Finally, if a terrorist or rogue nation managed to launch a WMD attack, a host of military and outside agencies have plans and personnel ready to respond.

It's probably too early to judge how much StratCom's efforts have improved cooperation among the dozens of Defense Department agencies. But WMD experts say it's a worthy goal.

"Anything that improves interagency coordination . . . is a welcome step, especially six years after 9/11, when we know that terrorist groups like al-Qaida have been seeking nuclear weapons-useful material," said Leonor Tomero, a nuclear nonproliferation expert at the Washington-based Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.

If the United States did face a terrorist group with WMDs, the difficulty of disarming them makes interagency coordination within the Defense Department vital, said Baker Spring, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington think tank.

On all its projects, the center uses the expertise of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, a 1,900-person Defense Department group that researches and develops technology for combating WMDs and helps train military specialists.

StratCom's center is located in the Defense Threat Reduction Agency's headquarters, and Dr. James Tegnelia, a physics expert who once led the Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M., serves at head of both organizations.

"Thanks to the partnership, we are now StratCom's premier agency for these abilities and assessments on combating WMDs," said Holland, the center's chief of staff.

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