Jeff Johnson, CNSNews.com
Thursday October 4, 2001

The U.S. is currently at risk of cyber, chemical, biological, and even nuclear attacks, according to a panel of scientists assembled by the Defense Department.

The Defense Science Board (DSB) was established more than forty years ago to examine emerging technologies and strategies in warfare, and to evaluate their potential to threaten U.S. national security.

The DSB established four task forces prior to the September 11 terrorist attacks to examine the specific threats posed by chemical, biological, nuclear, and information warfare attacks, and to make recommendations about how to prevent and respond to each type of threat.

Dr. William Schneider, Jr., chairman of the DSB, says U.S. intelligence has always had to deal with threats from other nations, but has more recently had to adapt to collecting information about "sub-national actors" such as terrorist organizations.

"Indications and warnings, and attributions in this context are very hard problems for intelligence," Schneider said, "and the U.S. Intelligence community today is not well positioned or provisioned to deal with it."

Dr. Roger Hagengruber is chairman of the DSB task force on unconventional nuclear warfare defense. He says that the threat of a nuclear terrorist attack against the U.S. has risen in the not too distant past.

"This threat is relatively unlikely in comparison with some of the other threats," Hagengruber said. "The change in Russia has increased the threat, there is no question about it."

He suggests increasing the intelligence community's ability to detect "subtle indicators of nuclear interest" expressed by nations or terrorist organizations as the best way to protect against the threat of nuclear terrorism.

The chairman of the DSB task force on chemical and biological weapons, Dr. George Whitesides, warns that the greatest risk posed by a potential attack in those areas may be the government's failure to take the threat seriously enough.

"We are convinced that there is the potential for very grave harm in biological weapons," Whitesides said. "The use of smallpox, for example, could kill tens of millions of people."

He says DOD and the intelligence community must treat the threat of a biological attack as seriously as the threat of a nuclear strike if they are going to effectively deal with the risks.

An even greater risk, according to Whitesides, is the potential for the development of advanced biological weapons. If terrorists or a rogue nation were to acquire anthrax or smallpox, and then intentionally mutate the viruses into more anti-biotic-resistant strains, "we would have a problem that would be very difficult to overcome," he said.

The greatest chemical weapons threat posed to the U.S. may not be nerve gas or other agents produced specifically as weapons, according to Whitesides.

"A very serious problem, I think, is large quantities of industrial chemicals, which are stored and transported, and which could be, in principle, hijacked or used by terrorists in a mode vaguely analogous to the use of the aircraft in the World Trade Tower," he added.

Larry Wright, chairman of the DSB task force on information warfare, believes cyber attacks against the U.S. government and military, which already number in the thousands per year, will only grow more frequent and more intense.

"As the United States begins to conduct attacks on terrorist organizations around the world, we should anticipate cyber attacks of some nature," he said. "Our communications networks surround the globe, and we can be attacked anywhere."

The DSB recommendations for preventing the various types of attacks include development and deployment of monitoring and detection equipment to provide the earliest possible warning of potential threats. Another area in which the DSB recommends change is the development of "human intelligence," the training of covert operatives who can then infiltrate organizations and collect information.

Whitesides says possibly the most important step government can take is to begin regularly practicing how it will respond to the various types of attack if or when they happen.

"It is crucial to exercise and 'red game,'" he said, referring to war games in which U.S. agents play the role of enemies. "It is crucial that they know what steps to take, how to work together, what telephone calls to make...at the moment, our defense would be fragmented."

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