Where I Stand — Mike O’Callaghan: Our latest wakeup call

Sunday, July 18, 1999 | 9:46 a.m.

Mike O'Callaghan is the Las Vegas Sun executive editor.

* A DISGRUNTLED Russian scientist at Ozersk (Chelyabinsk-65) acquires 20 kilograms of highly enriched uranium and sells it to the government in Tehran.

* Anthrax is released in a Boston subway station during rush hour, sending 6,000 people to hospital emergency rooms.

* Analysts estimate that North Korean scientists have assembled 10 nuclear weapons, and intelligence officials receive reports that Pyongyang is planning to sell at least two of these devices.

* Saddam Hussein launches Scud missiles armed with a nerve agent against forward-deployed U.S. forces in Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

These events have not taken place. But they could.

This is the opening chapter of an extensive report entitled "Combating Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction" which was delivered last week to Congress. The report of the Commission to Assist the Organization of the Federal Government to Combat the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction was written by 12 prominent Americans headed up by former CIA director John M. Deutch.

The report was boiled down by the majority of media outlets as resulting in the recommendation that a new top-level deputy be assigned to the National Security Council to coordinate federal planning and response to an attack and increase export controls. Actually it was much more than this and even one of these suggestions resulted in commission member Sen. J. James Exon disagreeing. Exon believes the problem is serious enough to demand a national director who is an "individual of national standing, one highly respected by Cabinet secretaries, visible previously in this area, and with a proven reputation for getting things accomplished. This individual should be prepared to obligate his or her full-time talents, at the request of the President, for a period of at least two years, to jump start this vital task." This person would report directly to the pres ident of the United States. The commission believes that any plan will only be effective if the president is fully involved as an individual.

So what did the commission learn that made them want to move quickly into the area of controlling weapons of mass destruction (WMD)? The report noted that "The Persian Gulf War gave vivid warning of our technology weakness against weapons of mass destruction. There was no equipment to detect biological weapons, and our chemical sensors were plagued by false alarms and thus virtually useless; our forces in the Gulf were essentially blind to biological and chemical attack. We found that our troops also lacked adequate protective measures and procedures, including sufficient protective clothing, vaccinations, and other critical items. We found the threats to civilian populations were even worse, as nations neighboring the Gulf ran out of gas masks and quickly discovered they had no civil defenses effective against biological and chemical attack."

Now, nine years later, "after billions of dollars of WMD technology expenditures" the commission found little progress made in combating WMD proliferation. The report gave eight examples of our shortcomings, including:

* "Loudspeaker announcements and shouting (called 'voice alerts') remain our principal means of alert against biological and chemical attacks.

* "We still can detect only a handful of the thousands of possible chemical and biological threats, and those few that can be detected require the use of many sensors that have limited range.

* "Security guards remain at great risk; their only threat detectors have low sensitivity, high false alarm rates, require long inspection times, lack portability, and are intrusive.

* "Deeply buried WMD facilities still cannot be effectively detected, characterized, or defeated, which may affect the credibility of our nuclear deterrent. We also lack the know-how needed to contain the spread of threat agents that are released by destroying above ground facilities."

Even among biological sensor programs there is little cooperation between agencies to share and wisely use what is available.

So now we have an extensive report with corrective recommendations. Will only the easy ones be passed and funded by Congress and the remainder collect dust in government files? Will any strong answers even be considered before being watered down and amended to death? Will it take another terrorist strike like the sarin gas attack on Tokyo trains in 1995? This attack resulted in 12 dead and 5,500 injured.

Author Walter Laqueur, in his recently published "The New Terrorism," gives a long list of biological and chemical weapons and their targets. Laqueur points out that "There are vaccines that can neutralize most of the existing agents, and antibiotics that can be given both prophylactically and as a treatment. But this is not entirely reassuring, because there is always the possibility that those bent on launching biological warfare may use an agent that has undergone biological mutation and against which existing antibiotics and vaccines are ineffective ..."

May I suggest that Congress has a report recommending strong action to correct several defensive shortcomings that leave Americans vulnerable to both blackmail and death at the hands of terrorists and rogue nations.

Now let's see what they do with it.