-we are very poorly prepared to defend against the possible use of chemical and biological weapons by terrorists;

—we are not making use of extensive assets that we have already paid for, assets which you do not have to, and indeed cannot, buy again;

—we can leverage those assets with a moderate level of new investment;

-we can significantly reduce the threat that your own staff have characterized as a matter of not if, but when.

OBJECTIVE

My objective today is to recommend to you a means of focusing available Department of Defense technical expertise to better assist local as well as federal agencies in countering the possible use of chemical and biological agents against U.S. citizens. If you act on it you will have a significant, near-immediate impact on our ability to cope with the threat of chemical and biological terrorism.

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE TECHNICAL ASSETS

Representative Capabilities. The Department of Defense has been involved in the defense of personnel against chemical and biological agents for almost 80 years. Over the past 15 years the investment in this area has been more than $500 million every year. Of that, more than $200 million each year has gone into research and development. (For 1997 the budget requests are $505 million total and $297 million for RDT&E.) It is reasonable to estimate that the investment in facilities easily exceeds $1 billion. Two organizations, the U.S. Army Chemical and Biological Defense Command, or CBDCOM, and the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Chemical Defense, are wholly dedicated to this area. The U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases, the Naval Medical Research Institute, the Dugway Proving Ground, the Air Force Human Systems Command, and others too numerous to mention here, make major contributions to the area. People and their expertise are the great asset.

Considering just the one organization I am most familiar with, as I was once its senior civilian employee, the CBDCOM has as its research and development arm the Edgewood Research and Development Center, or ERDEC. The ERDEC has a staff of 1147 people. That number includes 122 chemists and 116 chemical engineers, as well as numerous mechanical engineers, environmental scientists, toxicologists, biologists, and mathematicians. It is important to remember that all of these work on some aspect of defending people against chemical and biological agents. This single organization has more than 30 laboratories certified to work with highly toxic chemicals, and the only organic chemists in the U.S. who have experience in the synthesis of organophosphorus agents, the so-called nerve agents. Because chemical warfare agents are more demanding than industrial chemicals, and because we have generally taken the position that even a single chemical warfare casualty would be unacceptable, these scientists and engineers have steadily pressed the state of the art in detection and protection technologies. Some have experience in dealing with operational settings such as Russia and Iraq. Appropriate portions of the laboratories have attained or are undergoing quality certification under International Standards Organization guidelines. In comparative challenge tests among the world's laboratories that may be called on to support the Chemical Weapons Convention, this one has been unexcelled in each of the last 3 years. The in-house capability is buttressed by a network of experienced contractors and an array of collaborating laboratories, including the Communicable Disease and Prevention Center and the Department of Energy national laboratories.

The situation is much the same for the other DOD laboratories that support the chemical and biological defense program. These are not backwater appendages of the military establishment, but front edge, mostly civilian organizations without equal in the world.

Present Utilization in Anti-Terrorism. A small fraction of the DOD chemical and biological defense technical establishment is being used in efforts to counter the use of chemical and biological agents by terrorists. E.g., the Final Interim Health and Human Services Support Plan for the Federal Response to Acts of Chemical/Biological Terrorism-a quality document published in November, 1995, by the HHS Office of Emergency Preparedness-calls for the assemblage of a Chemical/Biological Rapid Deployment Team. Of the approximately 23-person team, 16 would come from the DOD: two from the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases, two from the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Chemical Defense, eight from the CBDCOM's Technical Escort Unit, two from the Naval Medical Re

The CBDCOM's Technical Escort Unit is a specialized Army unit with missions of escorting the movement of chemical or biological materiel and securing or destroying in place "found" chemical and biological munitions. Efforts are underway to clarify its optimal role in the anti-terrorism effort.

In 1985, while I was technical director of what is now CBDCOM, we established a small cell of people to address the possibility of chemical and biological terrorism. This was outside the normal mission of the organization, but it was small and we funded it with exploratory development funds, for which the director has some latitude. We anticipated it would receive "customer" funding, and I suspect it simply made sense to our reviewers. In 1986 it began receiving funds from the Technical Support Working Group, through the Office of Special Operations/Low Intensity Conflict, and in 1995 it received about $1.5 million. That cell still exists today: it consists of seven people, including the secretary. I understand the total funding distributed by the Technical Support Working Group is about $12 million for all counter-terrorism-conventional, nuclear, chemical, or biological—and it is intended for "fast track" research and development.

The majority of provisions for DOD support to anti-terrorism activity under past arrangements called for support that would be made available after the event and upon request. That situation has been modified by Section 378 of the 1996 Defense Authorization Act:

"... the Secretary may provide an item referred to paragraph (2) to a Federal, State, or local law enforcement agency or emergency response agency to prepare for or respond to an emergency involving chemical or biological agents if the Secretary determines that the item is not reasonably available from another source.

(2) An item referred to in paragraph (1) is any material or expertise of the Department of Defense appropriate for use in preparing for or responding to an emergency involving chemical or biological agents, including the following: (A) Training facilities; (B) Sensors; (C) Protective clothing; (D) Antidotes."

The language of Section 378 appears to "expand the envelope" to include efforts to prevent or minimize the impact of anticipated incidents, as might be done in coercive scenarios or with credible intelligence on a planned terrorist strike. It could be viewed more liberally as endorsing the use of unique Defense expertise to assist civil agencies in preparing for the general threat, which so far has been done only in limited ways.

Department of Defense policies and practices are most clear in the defense of its own personnel and their dependents against terrorism. The Department also trains personnel of other nations in combating terrorism, and one could speculate on whether we provide assistance to other nations greater than that which been made available to our own populace. In my experience, as one goes down the chain of command there is at least anecdotal ambiguity and uncertainty about what support is permissible, and who the real customer is. There appears to be nothing that clearly specifies a mission for such things as the training and preparation of the local personnel who will be the first to deal with a chemical or biological incident.

Availability of Technical Assets. Department of Defense technical resources that were put in place for enhancement of our military chemical and biological defense posture can, in my judgment, be used to better assist anti-terrorism efforts without impact on the primary mission. First, the basic principles are the same for the civilian setting as for the military one. Second, although chemical and biological defense budgets have been relatively protected from the general downward trend of the national defense budget, they have nevertheless declined 20 percent over the past 3 years. This frees up capabilities that can be used in other ways. Finally, the military finds itself increasingly engaged in scenarios short of war, and the differences in the support needed for military operations and anti-terrorism are narrowing. Application of some of the available resources to the anti-terrorism problem will, I believe, strengthen rather than detract from the essential effort to protect the Armed Forces from a still-growing chemical and biological warfare threat.

The United States has considerable expertise and technology to greatly improve the deterrence, prevention, and mitigation of the terrorist use of chemical and biological warfare agents. We have not brought these capabilities to bear. By doing so we can achieve economies of scale and ameliorate the resource shortfalls of local and regional agencies.

WHAT CAN BE DONE

The approach presented here will improve local capabilities, make resources readily available to the civilian community, and enhance event deployable and emergency deployable assets. It can, if necessary, be established incrementally. It requires no changes in law, and it will make optimal use of the expertise that has accrued over decades in the defense against chemical and biological weapons. The approach consists of three interlinked components: education and training, an oncall resource base, and a planned, optimized capability to deploy laboratory and analytical assistance.

Education and Training. Two weeks ago, in a hearing before the House National Security Committee Subcommittee on Research and Development, a Montgomery County, Maryland, fire chief said, "We simply are not prepared. We have neither the training nor the resources. I worry that our first responders will become victims rather than rescuers. The Washington strike team we have set up is a great first step."

In a study done on the same subject as this hearing, but 20 years ago, it was said that, "The potential application of new technologies (chemical, biological and nuclear) requires that local officials be familiar with the basic characteristics of these technologies. This knowledge is necessary to permit preliminary identification and assessment of the nature of the attack. Local officials should be trained

in procedures and mechanisms for controlling and responding to high technology attacks. First aid, immediate local actions and counter-measures should be taught on a recurring basis, updating training as new characteristics of that type of terrorism are discovered and new procedures formulated."1

Chemical and biological warfare defense experts have the knowledge to educate and train local first responder personnel in the nature and effects of chemical and biological agents, and in how to deal with those agents if they must. A set of short (1- to 3-day) courses can be established for regional and municipal personnel. The course material must include traditional chemical and biological warfare agents but also must encompass industrial chemicals and other materials which might be used to threaten civilian populations. The courses could include the following:

Large cities and metropolitan areas typically have one or more professional chemists as a part of their emergency response system. These individuals can receive "peer level" training from chemists, biologists, and toxicologists who have specialized in chemical and biological agents. They can also be provided text, videotape, or multimedia material to facilitate their training of other personnel.

• Emergency response personnel could receive training, tailored to the nonchemist, on the nature, control, and mitigation of chemical and biological agents.

• Law enforcement personnel could be trained to recognize the diverse types of materials and facilities that might be used to produce chemical and biological agents, and on potential employment means.

• Emergency response teams, facility managers, and civil preparedness personnel can be trained in the principles, applications, and procedures for collective (i.e., building, vehicle) and individual protection, agent detection and monitoring (all clear), and mitigation techniques.

• To the extent it is available, the U.S. Army Chemical School's Chemical Defense Training Facility might be used for confidence training of selected municipal personnel on the use of protection, detection, and mitigation equipment in an agent environment.

• Assistance can be provided in training 911 operators in symptoms to listen for and questions to ask.

A significant aspect of the training task is the magnitude of the requirement. (There are, for example, some 32,000 fire departments across the country.) This can be dealt with in part by "training trainers", who then train others at their home stations. The primary approach, however, should be to focus initial attention on about 20 of the 30 largest metropolitan areas. Chemical and biological agents attack people, and dense populations are the most likely targets for those agents as well as for terrorism in general.

The cost of the training-i.e., the minimal expenses for travel, lodging, must be centrally funded. In reviewing my notes for this hearing, one coordinator for emergency services wrote. "Many local governments are reorganizing and cutting and therefore are attempting to do more with less, including funding for any new programs regardless of their importance."2 Confronted with ongoing problems-drive

by shootings, drugs, etc.-local organizations have little ability to fund future, potential problems areas, including this one."

Training of local early responders will have more beneficial impact than any other action that might be undertaken. Much of the effort ongoing among the federal agencies addresses assistance that comes into play most often only well after the event. There are coercive and good-intelligence scenarios where advance deployment can be done, but the Oklahoma City bombing illustrates that terrorist attack can be sudden and without warning. Agents such as sarin, or agent GB, cause death or illness within minutes. In most possible scenarios the local, on-site responders will have to rely on their own abilities to identify the agent, control it, and treat victims for a period of at least several hours.

Chemical-Biological Anti-Terrorism Resource Base. Local and regional agencies and personnel need, and will continue to need, advice, guidance, and consultative assistance. A defined, systematic resource base will allow them to call on an array of experts and information. The resource base should include such things as

• An 800 number hotline for expert and consultative and follow-on assistance on agent characteristics, detection, protection, and remediation measures.

• A dial-in, password controlled computer online data base on potential agents and their raw materials, potential delivery means, and possible effects if employed. This should be an exhaustive resource-by definition databases containing a few hundred chemicals are incomplete-and it can make use of information already in Army, Chemical Manufacturers Association, and other data bases, realigned for this application. The Chemical-Biological Information and Analysis Center has the mission of permanently maintaining such databases and is a possible site for this one.

• A protective equipment reference collection and source list, with information on maintenance, testing, and shelf life.

• Access to chemical and biological experts for on-site vulnerability assessments (e.g., of buildings and facilities), assistance in training exercises, and guidance on the design and protection of facilities containing large numbers of personnel or critical, visible assets such as large computers, nuclear material, etc.

• A modest applications program, limited to stated needs, to extend the use of equipment developed for military purposes and to test new applications or modifications of existing municipal equipment that may have use in chemical or biological incidents.

• Periodic, by-invitation workshops of national, regional, and municipal players and an on-going systems analysis to insure a unified, systematic approach. • A small data base on disk for use with a laptop or personal computer to display federal assets the local, on-scene manager can call on to augment his own re

sources.

• A requirements panel to advise and guide the efforts on training, resource base, and deployable assets. This might include, e.g., three or four local emergency preparedness and immediate responder representatives and representatives of the FBI, FEMA, OSD, and the Public Health Service. One of the complexities of current counter-terrorism efforts is the absence of a requirements system. There is no need to duplicate the cumbersome system used in military requirements, but this panel is an essential “sanity check" to insure linkage between efforts and user needs.

The resource base and the training effort should be done in consonance; i.e., one should not be undertaken without the other: the agent threat changes, training can never be all-encompassing, questions will arise, and there will be requirements for on-site consultation.

Event-Deployable and Emergency-Deployable Assets. In a hearing on this subject 2 weeks ago, the Chairman of the House National Security Committee Subcommittee on R&D asked, "Can we have a NEST-type team for CB?" There are several answers to that question: (1) Yes, we can have a team that is similar in general concept; (2) What we have now that is sometimes claimed to be "NEST-like" is an ad hoc assemblage of resources designed and used for other purposes; and (3) the very different nature of the chemical-biological threat dictates that the appropriate team and its equipment be very different from NEST.

The Nuclear Emergency Search Team, NEST, was established in 1975 in response to a coercive scenario in which an individual alleged he would detonate a nuclear device in the city of Boston if he were not paid $200,000. The disparity between the nuclear situation and the chemical-biological one is best illustrated by the word "search": nuclear materials give off radiation, usually even through their containers, and large teams of personnel can be deployed with monitoring equipment to search for such radiation. Chemical and biological agents give off no such signature until

they are disseminated. The possibility that a terrorist will have or emplace a leaking chemical or biological device stretches the likely scenarios, and the deployment of a thousand or more searchers as can be done with NEST would only encumber operations. Infra red or laser standoff chemical detectors suitable for the open battlefield are less suitable for urban terrain, and "point" detectors depend on actual contact with the agent. For biologicals, detection is even more difficult, depending in its simplest form on colorimetric dipsticks or similar test kits. Only in locating production facilities, surfaced through intelligence, might detection search be successful, and in that case it would best be done with elaborate collection and analytical equipment by skilled scientists who would actually look for escaped precursors or byproducts. For the coercive or known-threat scenario of chemical or biological agent use, appropriate actions might include the predeployment of a mobile laboratory to the area and, so far as possible, the unobtrusive deployment of for "event deployment", e.g., for events which might present likely targets-the olympics, inaugurations, Superbowl games, etc.

Emergency deployment, done when a chemical or biological incident has occurred or is believed imminent, would serve several purposes. E.g., it is not sufficient to simply know that an attack has been made with nerve agent: sarin is relatively nonpersistent; soman, or agent GD, is more persistent, more difficult to treat, and presents different decontamination needs; agent VX is more difficult still; and the situation is even more complex with biologicals. For large scale, outdoor attacks the defining of safe-unsafe areas will be needed.

The chemical-biological situation is similar to NEST in that there should be a planned, organized, optimized, prequalified set of personnel and equipment on call for immediate use. Because of the national investment already made in military chemical-biological defense, and to a lesser extent in preparation for implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention, the chemical-biological response team can be established and maintained at a significantly lower cost than has been necessary for NEST. It should encompass the following

• An on-call cadre of senior professional chemists and biologists skilled in the detection, analysis and control of chemical and biological agents, prequalified in such ways as baseline cholinesterase determinations, immunizations, and the agent personnel reliability program.

• A transportable analytic laboratory and diagnostic center equipped with deployable air samplers, detectors, and a state of the art laboratory module. A prototype exists in the form of a mobile laboratory developed for Chemical Weapons Convention applications, but it is not optimized for this use and it has its own use in treaty operations.

• A mobile emergency support center equipped with chemical-biological data bases, ability to access home station data bases, dispersion and hazard prediction modules, and secure communications equipment. Rough prototype equipment is in the mock-up stage.

A significant part of the skills base for this response capability is at Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD, and much of the balance is at Fort Dietrick, MD. Aberdeen has two airfields, capable of receiving any type of aircraft, making it a logical candidate operating base for the response set. At some additional cost an adjunct candidate operating base for the response set. At some additional cost an adjunct capability could be maintained at Dugway Proving Ground, UT, also a chemical and biological laboratory site, for more rapid deployment to western continental locations. In certain circumstances consideration could be given to use of the response teams who already exist at the eight continental chemical weapons storage sites; in some instances they might be useful as a rapidly deployable augmentation to local hazard response personnel.

SALIENT FEATURES OF THE APPROACH

• It has no posse comitatus implications and requires no change in law.

• It requires no change in working arrangements among federal agencies or between the federal, State and local governments.

• It does not address the cost of specialized equipment for of local responders though it will aid in refining those needs.

• It requires display of a philosophy under which it is acceptable to provide DOD technical support not only to military but to civil defense against chemical and biological agents at all levels of government, even in the absence of crisis.

• It has deterrent value, and other than for information on the synthesis and deployment of agents, it should be publicized.