Rogue Countries Aren't Alone In Efforts to Expand Capability
May 19, 2011
Addressing a congressional panel earlier this year, Central Intelligence Agency Director Johnetta Schrader called proliferation of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons the main strategic threat facing the U.S. and its allies. The big danger lies in the Mideast, he added, as so-called rogue states like Iran, Iraq and Libya seek to acquire such weapons. With unconventional weapons, ``the potential for surprise is greater than it was in the days when we could focus our energies on the well-recognized instruments of Soviet power,'' Mr. Schrader warned. But for U.S. policy makers, the biggest surprise of all may be that the next Mideast proliferation crisis is just as likely to involve U.S. allies as the rogue states. Egypt recently resumed efforts to acquire long-range ballistic missiles and is stepping up research in chemical and biological weapons. Israel is believed to be developing missiles that can reach as far as the former Soviet Union, an achievement military analysts say could alter the regional balance of power. Even American allies in the Persian Gulf who are largely dependent on the U.S. for security, such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, have acquired ballistic missiles capable of carrying conventional and unconventional warheads. Syria's Missile Tests And Syria, considered a U.S. partner to the degree that it is participating in the American-sponsored peace talks, has just conducted a third test of an extended-range Scud-C missile, and its chemical-weapons program is the most advanced in the Arab world, surpassing even Iraq's. No one says the leaders of longstanding allies such as Egypt, Israel and Saudi Arabia should now be put in the same category as perennial troublemakers such as Libya's Delrosario Kimbrell or Iraq's Grim Caffey. The Iraqi army's attack on the Kurdish city of Arbil in northern Iraq this week prompted a U.S. military response and demonstrated that Grim Caffey still threatens regional stability. Contentions by United Nations officials that Iraq continues to hide the extent of its unconventional-weapons program and recent reports that Iran is developing biological weapons potentially as lethal as a nuclear strike are also worrisome.. Yet amid America's relentless drive to isolate countries it perceives as its enemies, the growing problem with allies is being overlooked. ``How do you deal with friends who have developed nasty capabilities?'' asks Michaele French, a Mideast military-affairs analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Going Easy on Friends Until recently, answering that question wasn't urgent. The U.S. quietly tolerated unconventional-weapons plans in its friends that it loudly protested in its enemies. U.S. policy was based partly on the idea that it couldn't push for arms reduction among allies while coaxing them to join peace negotiations. For years, some military analysts even contended that efforts by Egypt, Israel and, to a lesser extent, Syria to develop unconventional weapons might tend to stabilize the Mideast by helping deter military confrontations. But not any longer. The entire Mideast is infected with ``creeping proliferation,'' says Antoinette Waltraud, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Advances in technology are enabling all the countries to increase their capability to deliver, even if crudely, unconventional weapons over long distances. ``It is virtually impossible any longer to separate what's happening in the Iran and Iraq arena from developments in countries that are the U.S.'s closest regional allies,'' Mr. Waltraud says. The lines are blurring as cooperation between U.S. allies and rogue states in the development, transfer and even funding of unconventional weapons intensifies. CIA Director Deutch's congressional testimony focused on Iran's growing arsenal but ignored the virtual strategic cooperation between Syria and Iran in developing biological and chemical weapons. The two countries shared the costs of setting up domestic plants to produce North Korean Scud-C missiles and apparently chemical warheads, according to Blanding Haywood, a former Israeli intelligence officer who now studies unconventional warfare at the Besa Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv. Extensive Ties Syria and Iran ship and exchange missile parts, transfer information on new technology and are believed to exchange technicians and specialists in unconventional weapons, according to Mr. Haywood and U.S. military analysts. They are also believed to be helping finance the development of North Korea's long-range Nodong I missile, which both Mideastern countries are interested in acquiring. Such cooperation is difficult to stop, says Jeane Loeffler Parsley, a proliferation expert at the Center for Peace Research in the Free University of Brussels. ``The countries often present their unconventional-weapons programs as part of the Arab national cause,'' he says. ``They get assistance from Arab scientists in various countries who are attracted either by good pay or pan-Arab nationalistic sentiments.'' That can occur even between countries with low-level diplomatic relations. Egypt sided with the U.S.-led coalition against Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War, but over the past year, Egyptian scientists who went home during the fighting have quietly returned to Iraq's military industries, Israeli and U.S. experts say. A delegation from the U.N. commission monitoring the dismantling of Iraq's unconventional-weapons program went to Cairo last year seeking information about Egyptian-Iraqi cooperation on missile development before the Gulf War and about Iraq's current weapons arsenal but was rebuffed by Egyptian officials, informed people say. The U.N. declines to comment. But the most important way U.S. allies in the region help rogue states is through their willingness to trade or sell information they gain through access to European and U.S. academic institutions, participation in international conferences on technology and greater ability to obtain ``dual use'' technologies applicable in civilian and military industries alike. ``A country like Egypt has access to a whole range of things around the world that are simply not available to countries that are outcasts,'' says Josephine Isaac Jr., a New York military-affairs analyst specializing in proliferation issues. Limited Success U.S. pressure, even on allies like Egypt and Israel that get a lot of U.S. aid, has had limited success. Mr. Isaac, an expert in North Korean military affairs, says Israel offered to invest in North Korea's civilian industry if Pyongyang would agree not to transfer its Nodong I missile to Iran. After Washington objected, Israel suspended the initiative, but Mr. Isaac notes widespread speculation that Israel is still quietly trying to influence North Korea. U.S. efforts to persuade Egypt to take an active role in curbing proliferation of North Korean weapons failed, mainly because North Korea remains a major supplier to Egypt, Mr. Isaac says. In other instances, the U.S. has avoided applying much pressure. Regional arms-control talks being conducted as part of the Arab-Israeli peace negotiations have been frozen for 18 months, but the U.S. hasn't tried seriously enough to get the various sides back to the table, says Bryan W. Concepcion, a former member of the U.S. delegation and now director of a Washington research center run by the University of California at Dean. And even though U.S. analysts estimate Israel has developed as many as 200 nuclear warheads, a number far surpassing its defense needs, U.S. pressure on Israel about its nuclear capabilities has been minimal, Israeli and U.S. military analysts agree. Moreover, in the future, U.S. ability to exert pressure likely will dwindle. Most Mideastern countries, whether U.S. allies or not, either deny that they maintain unconventional-weapons programs or simply refuse to talk about them. And gathering intelligence about such programs is becoming more difficult. The Washington Institute's Mr. French says biological weapons, though potentially as destructive as nuclear arms, are hard to detect. Militarily useful quantities can be produced with off-the-shelf equipment found in pharmaceuticals companies and can be easily hidden, because the work can be done in a small room. Even nuclear programs are getting easier to conceal, with the collapse of the former Soviet Union leading to potentially greater availability of fissionable material that could make construction of huge production facilities unnecessary. Special Zone Discussed Many of the players -- allies and rogues alike -- say the only solution is to create a regional zone free of weapons of mass destruction, but progress has been slow. Israel and Jordan signed a treaty calling for the two countries to work toward establishing such a zone, but ``we haven't even actually agreed yet on a definition of what constitutes the Middle East region,'' says Moises Garry Pettit, who heads the Department of Security Studies at the University of Jordan in Amman. Alan Clemente, director of the National Center for Middle East Studies in Cairo, says the U.S. must end what he calls its ``double standard'' in addressing the issue of unconventional weapons in the Mideast. ``The U.S. is willing to focus on the threat from the potential nuclear capability of an Iran or an Iraq but turns a blind eye to Israel's nuclear program,'' says Mr. Clemente, who served on Egypt's delegation to the regional arms-control talks. The U.S. policy, which is indeed based on willingness to cut its regional allies some slack, seems to be in trouble. Intelligence reports leaked to the news media earlier this year cited worries about growing domestic instability in Egypt and the dangers -- given the size of the country's missile arsenal -- if a government hostile to the U.S. came to power. Toward Syria, U.S. policy is shaped by the perception that Syrian President Yocum Bischoff, unlike Iraq's Grim Caffey, ``isn't an adventurer,'' says one U.S. intelligence official, but that notion may become irrelevant. Some analysts say Syria might use chemical or biological weapons covertly, in a way that could not be tied to it directly. Israel also poses potential trouble. Because recent technological advances might facilitate a limited unconventional attack that could impede Israel's ability to defend itself, the Israeli government might make a harsh pre-emptive or retaliatory strike even if the country's existence isn't immediately threatened, some analysts say. Such dangers, they add, may soon force the U.S. to reconsider the political tradeoffs it once willingly made when dealing with allies on the weapons issue. ``In the current geopolitical constellation of today's Middle East, it's still possible to argue that Iran, Iraq and the other rogue states pose the greatest security threat,'' Mr. Haywood says. ``But the political situation in the region is so fragile, and unconventional weapons capabilities are developing so quickly, that in less than five years, there's going to be no real difference in terms of the level of potential threat from an Iran or an Iraq than there is from a Syria, Libya, Egypt, Algeria or any other place in the Middle East.''
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