Four Articles

[HARDCORE]

FYI, Some have requested SPC Kurt Hickman's information either for their own purposes, or, to send support to the family. I would encourage all who can to write into this family, letting them know your story, and/or support for Kurt.

They're going through a hard time, and every little bit helps.

Randi

This email address is for Bill, the father, however, he gets messages to Kurt.

bill20@adelphia.net

Address:

38 Towpath Rd

Granville Ohio 43023



All can be found at:
http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues....html#FBF621DA

U.S. Has "Clear Evidence" of WMD Programs, White House Says

Meanwhile, the Bush administration said in a report released Saturday that the invasion of Iraq had produced "clear evidence of Saddam's illegal weapon program," according to the Washington Post.

The report, 2003: A Year of Accomplishment for the American People, also notes new intelligence linking Iraq to terrorist organizations, the Post reported. A senior Bush administration official said that the new information connecting Hussein to terrorism came from Iraqi intelligence files recovered by the CIA (Mike Allen, Washington Post, Dec. 14).

The acting head of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection
Commission has said, though, that much of the evidence of Iraqi WMD activities found by coalition forces was known to the United Nations before the war, according to the Washington Post (see GSN, Dec. 4).

In an interview with the Post and in a report to the U.N. Security Council, Demetrius Perricos said that the only significant find made public by the Iraq Survey Group, which is conducting the hunt for Iraqi WMD evidence, was that Iraq paid North Korea $10 million for missile technology that was never delivered (see GSN, Dec. 1).

A senior U.S. intelligence official said that the Iraq Survey Group stood by its report and that Perricos had only seen the unclassified version. The unit's search is still not complete, the official said (Walter Pincus, Washington Post, Dec. 14).

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Chemical Warfare Could Challenge U.S. Success in a Possible War With North Korea


By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire



WASHINGTON - Senior U.S. military officials and independent experts are concerned North Korea would use chemical or biological weapons tactically to devastate U.S. and South Korean forces in the event of war, potentially producing a dilemma of U.S. retreat or nuclear retaliation.

The concern is that North Korea would aggressively use such banned weapons in a war while keeping its nuclear weapons in reserve to deter a U.S. nuclear response. Since the 1991 Gulf War, Washington has maintained an ambiguous policy of hinting that the United States might retaliate to a chemical or biological weapons attack by using nuclear weapons.

The use of chemical weapons early in a conflict could be particularly devastating to U.S. forces, by causing significant troop and civilian casualties, reducing battle effectiveness, and closing down operations at major ports and bases, experts and officials say.

The U.S. military has sought to bolster its chemical and biological weapons defense capabilities but officials admit that technical and procedural improvements are still needed (see GSN, Dec. 9).

War with North Korea under such circumstances could be "more like World War I or World War II" than any of the recent conflicts the United States has been engaged in, according to Brig. Gen. David Clary, director of the U.S. Air Force Homeland Security Directorate.

"If the next conflict were to take place on the Korean Peninsula, the U.S.-ROK casualty rate likely would be very high, and the degree of difficulty in confronting a formidable asymmetric adversary like North Korea would be daunting, even for the world's only superpower," wrote Air Force Counterproliferation Center Director Barry Schneider in a Center-published article last month.

Potential 'Show-Stopper'


U.S. military officials tend not to publicly highlight U.S. weaknesses
regarding potential foes, but in the past year, as U.S.-North Korean tensions have heightened over the Pyongyang's nuclear activities, there have been rare and candid acknowledgements.

Referring to the perceived chemical threat, Navy Admiral Thomas Fargo, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, told Congress in June that he believed the likelihood of war is low, but added, "the stakes would be very high if war occurred, and even higher if North Korea continues to pursue a nuclear capability."

The demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, he said, "borders the most heavily-armed strip of territory on Earth. And as a result, many South Koreans live within range of North Korea's artillery, some of which we know to be armed with chemical warheads."

Fargo was even more candid about the concern in little noticed prepared testimony in March, saying that WMD use could become "a potential show-stopper for the U.S. military operations, causing significant operational risk" to U.S. war plans.

"CBRNE [Chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and high-yield
explosives] is a critical operating condition and potentially the greatest threat I face," he said.

"That's about the strongest statement I've seen from a combatant commander to date. His war plans could fail against these threats," said Bruce Bennett, research leader for strategy, force planning and counterproliferation at RAND.

Schneider wrote last month that North Korea might use chemical and biological attacks to weaken U.S. and South Korean border defenses. Furthermore, with its suspected nuclear weapons reserved to deter a U.S. nuclear response, Pyongyang could also use longer-range weapons to contaminate South Korean and Japanese ports and airfields, he wrote.

Fargo warned in March that the closure of a few strategic choke points in South Korea, Guam and Japan "could stop U.S. forces flows and other critical support operations."

Potentially Catastrophic Dilemma


According to a recent U.S. intelligence community report, North Korea
possesses a stockpile of an unknown size of nerve, blister, choking and
blood agents, and a variety of means for delivery.

An aggressive chemical weapons campaign could present the U.S. president
with several bad options, said Brad Roberts, a researcher with the Institute
for Defense Analyses, which provides analytical studies for the U.S. defense
secretary and the joint military staff. The president could be faced with
choosing between fighting a high-casualty war, throwing in the towel or
resorting to nuclear force to try to end the war quickly, Roberts said.

"We're left with the unhappy choice between not safeguarding some interest
and backing down, and engaging in nuclear retaliation which would be unhappy
from all sorts of perspectives," he said.

The United States eliminated the option of responding in kind to chemical or
biological weapons when President Richard Nixon signed the Biological
Weapons Convention in 1972 and President Bill Clinton signed the chemical
weapons ban in 1993.

As part of its counterproliferation strategy, the U.S. Defense Department
during the Bush administration has been pursuing a range of conventional and
nuclear weapons capabilities for better targeting and neutralizing deeply
buried facilities and chemical and biological weapons. Bush recently
received congressional support for researching such weapons, including
low-yield nuclear weapons that officials argue are more credible for
deterrence because they would cause less collateral destruction than
higher-yield weapons.

Beginning with the Gulf War and continuing up to the most recent Iraq war,
U.S. officials have on occasion publicly implied they might respond to a
chemical or biological attack on U.S. forces with nuclear weapons, as well
as possibly overwhelming conventional force.

But aside from perhaps triggering a North Korean nuclear response by
ordering a U.S. nuclear attack, a U.S. president could also face
international condemnation of such an action and the potential that the U.S.
action would ignite a new era of nuclear proliferation, according to an
article by Harry Conley, also published by the Air Force
Counterproliferation Center last month.

Some deterrence strategists, he wrote, argue that "the goal of nuclear
nonproliferation will be irreparably damaged if America continues to
maintain a policy that allows nuclear first use. The United States should
renounce nuclear retaliation [to chemical or biological attacks], they
argue, and instead threaten a massive conventional response."

Others, he wrote, have argued a nuclear response might be internationally
palatable if the damage is proportional to that caused by the initial
chemical or biological weapons.

Air Force Lt. Col. Carl Baker, a professor at the Asia Pacific Center for
Security Studies, said he agrees with assessments by senior military
officials of U.S. vulnerability to North Korean chemical weapons. He said,
though, that such a scenario would be unlikely because it would lead to
massive casualties.

"The only way that that vulnerability exists is in some sort of apocalyptic
scenario. . I understand that's their job [to make and act on such
assessments], but in the end I think it's difficult for me to envision that
sort of scenario coming out in play," he said.

North Korea appears to understand well U.S. concerns over its potential WMD
use and has been emboldened in its negotiating strategy with the United
States, said RAND's Bennett.

"They've used it already strategically. . Think of the South Korean reaction
over the past few months relative the North Korean threats . and their
willingness to be aggressive on many negotiation issues," he said.

Better Counterproliferation Capabilities Said Needed


There appears to be a consensus among officials and experts that a
prospective U.S. solution to the situation is better chemical and biological
defenses for U.S. and South Korean forces, in addition to other
counterproliferation tools for neutralizing North Korean capabilities such
as better intelligence and theater missile defenses.

"If CBW defense equipment can mitigate the effects of a CBW attack, the
adversary may see no advantage in using weapons of mass destruction," Conley
wrote.

Concern that the unmatched U.S. conventional military might be "equalized"
by the "asymmetric" weapons of mass destruction of a lesser power, Roberts
said, was behind the seminal 1993 speech by then-Defense Secretary Les Aspin
that initiated the military's effort to bolster chemical and biological
defenses and other counterproliferation capabilities.

After 10 years of specific attention to the issue, however, U.S.
capabilities remain distant, experts say.

"Significant differences exist between what we would like to achieve against
CBRNE threats and our actual capabilities," Admiral Fargo testified in
March.

He cited shortages of troop protective equipment and early detection
capabilities, "inadequate decontamination standards, and significant
shortcomings in detailed and actionable intelligence on adversary WMD
processes and facilities."

The Air Force recently has begun implementing a new "concepts of operations"
plan for dealing with chemical attacks, and is working on updating its
biological, radiological and nuclear plans as well. The chemical defense
changes resulted in part from Gen. Clary's direction.

Changes such as storing aircraft in bunkers, dispersing base activities, and
making post-attack assessments to identify uncontaminated areas, have been
made that might now allow U.S. planes to operate after WMD attacks.

It might allow for a restoration of operations "within hours, as opposed to
never," Clary said.

Another prospective change is the introduction of new technologies under
evaluation at the Pentagon's Defense Threat Reduction Agency. Among 11
technologies currently approaching deployment is a special body bag for
transporting fatally contaminated soldiers.

Lt. Col. Baker said attaining full protection against a chemical campaign is
ultimately unnecessary and unrealistic.

"Do you put a plastic bubble over Osan Air Base? . When you start trying to
deal with defending yourselves against things like nuclear and biological
and chemical weapons, you end up chasing your tail."

Some Optimism


Pessimism about U.S. prospects against a WMD-using North Korea is by no
means universal.

Maj. Gen. Robert Smolen, director of nuclear and counterproliferation for
the Air Force chief of staff, said at a conference last week that
"scientific and technical advances that we've made have enabled us to
develop operational procedures we now put into the capability enhancements
that are making us far more able to survive, and beyond the survival, taking
the operations back out and producing operational capability that we thought
we had lost before."

Also speaking, Air Force Lt. Gen. Ronald Keys, responsible to the secretary
of the Air Force and chief of staff for nuclear and counterproliferation
policy, said the United States would prevail despite chemical and biological
defense shortcomings.

The Air Force is "prepared to fight and win" against a WMD-armed adversary,
he said in a slide presentation.

Such optimism is under challenge, though.

"How does he know that? I haven't seen any metric that shows the difference
between slogging away and winning," Roberts later told the conference.

"We need to have the ability of the [armed] services to sustain operations
under attack and the combatant commands' war plans have to have sufficient
flexibility to protect our hosts, protect ourselves and to get the job
done," he said.

"And in my view those capabilities haven't come together yet," he said.

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North Korea Rejects Latest Washington Proposal





North Korea today rejected a U.S.-backed proposal to defuse the nuclear
standoff on the Korean Peninsula and restart six-nation talks (see GSN, Dec.
12).

"If the United States wants a 'complete, verifiable and irrevocable'
dismantling of our nuclear program, we also have the right to demand a
'complete, verifiable and irrevocable' security assurance from the United
States," said a commentary by the state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper. "The
United States' strategy of delaying talks will only lead us to continue to
strengthen our nuclear deterrent force," the commentary added.

Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing called U.S. Secretary of State Colin
Powell and urged the United States to take a more flexible stance toward the
standoff (Sang-hun Choe, Associated Press/Philadelphia Inquirer, Dec. 15).

North Korea also criticized Washington for refusing to address its own
proposal.

"But the U.S. in its proposal sent through a channel did not mention the
D.P.R.K.-proposed simultaneous package solution at all but only asserted
that the D.P.R.K. should scrap nuclear weapons program first,'" the Rodong
Sinmun commentary said (Sang-hun Choe, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Dec.
15).

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Health Officials Will Allow Smallpox Compensation Claims


By David McGlinchey
Global Security Newswire



WASHINGTON - The U.S. Health and Human Services Department is expected to
publish an interim document tomorrow to allow civilian smallpox vaccine
recipients to receive compensation if they were made ill by the vaccine (see
GSN, April 14).

In April, U.S. lawmakers passed a bill to provide compensation for those who
fell ill or died as a result of the immunization but claims and payments are
not allowed until the interim final rule is published in the Federal
Register, according to Kevin Ropp, a spokesman for the department's Health
Resources and Services Administration.

U.S. President George W. Bush launched the smallpox immunization program
last December in an attempt to shield the United States from a bioterrorist
attack. U.S. health officials hoped to immunize millions of medical and
emergency workers this year, but fewer than 40,000 health care workers have
received the vaccination and the program has essentially stopped.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported 49 adverse
events through the end of November, including 22 cases of inflammation in
the heart muscle or the sac surrounding the heart. The CDC has reported six
cases of vaccinia, in which the vaccine spreads beyond the immunization
site. Health officials have also recorded 20 cases of inadvertent
inoculation, where the vaccine is spread by the recipient.

Because the final rule has not been in place there are no pending
compensation claims, Ropp said.

There have been no civilian deaths directly linked to the smallpox vaccine
and several experts have said that the CDC and other health officials
overstated the dangers of the vaccine and kept volunteers from participating
in the program (see GSN, June 24).

Sickened volunteers who want to file a claim can do so at the HRSA Web site.

Earlier this year, health officials also published a table that explains the
injuries and criteria needed to receive compensation.