DoD Urges Stronger Ties to Stop Chem-Bio Attack

The Pentagon sees stronger allied partnerships as key to preventing chemical and biological attacks, according to a senior U.S. Defense Department official.

Agreements with the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia to work together to thwart "the unique threats that are coming our way" are even more critical as defense budgets decline globally, the officials said.

"We recognize, more so than ever, it's our partnerships that's going to enable us to field the best capabilities for our forces, for our nations working together," the official said Dec. 8. The official spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of topic.

The Pentagon is facing a more than $450 billion reduction to planned spending over the next decade. It is unclear how the Pentagon budget reductions will impact the chemical and biological division. However, "there's a shared understanding that the [weapons of mass destruction] threat is very real, very serious and it is still a very high priority."

To that end, Pentagon officials are conducting a "strategic review and analysis" of chemical and biological defense programs, which kicked off in August, the official said. To address the spending reductions, officials realize "we needed to relook the whole" chemical and biological defense enterprise.

In addition, the Pentagon has started participating in a series of exercises with South Korea that are "taking a look at the bio defense problem in that region," the official said. The drill uses a "whole-of-government approach" and includes Seoul's Ministry of Defense, Center for Disease Control, law enforcement and others.

"We're helping our colleagues there go through some of the learning experiences we had in the United States in that interagency environment," the official said. "It's a new challenge for them, but the threat is ever more present on the peninsula today."

Chemical Weapons Inspectors to Return to Libya

UNITED NATIONS - International weapons inspectors will visit Libya within weeks to check new secret chemical arms stockpiles found since the fall of Moammar Gadhafi, a weapons treaty spokesman said Nov. 10.
"Eyes in the sky" are watching over the security of the caches which Libya's National Transitional Council reported to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, said its spokesman Michael Luhan.

Inspectors went to Libya last week to check the safety of the stockpile that Gadhafi revealed in 2004 after his country signed the treaty which orders a global ban on chemical weapons.
Luhan said the weapons base at Ruwagha in the Libyan desert was "in order."
"Those stockpiles remain in place. There had been no tampering, no diversions despite the emergency and the insecurity."
The Libyan authorities must now make a new declaration about the new caches.
"They have provided general descriptive information of what is there," Luhan told AFP.
Luhan said the OPCW hoped to carry out a new visit "in the next three or four weeks."
"We also hope to keep a small group of inspectors on the ground, to liaise with the government on security arrangements."
Canada, the United States and Britain have offered technical assistance to Libya with the destruction of the weapons.
Countries in the chemical weapons treaty "have had different kinds of forces on the ground and they have been focused on certain things such as keeping eyes in the sky on the chemical weapons out on the desert, making sure there is a semblance of security," Luhan said.
After the stockpiles have been assessed, the OPCW will set the Libyan government a deadline to complete destruction of the stockpile.
Luhan praised the NTC for having "proactively and very quickly brought the existence of these two undisclosed stockpiles to the attention of the international community."
The OPCW "will set what we feel would be a reasonable deadline, to keep pressure on the government to address this but also give enough latitude as it is becoming a new government," the spokesman said.
At the Ruwagha facility in southeast Libya, the Gadhafi government declared 25 tons of liquid sulfur mustard gas, 1,400 tons of precursor chemicals intended for use as nerve agents and 3,500 unfilled aerial bombs designed to carry the chemical weapons.