Rowan Scarborough
Joe Stefula sent this article to us. We reproduce it in
the public interest, as the Washington Times is not widely read outside of
Washington, DC
"Rumsfeld's
War" (Regnery Publishing Inc.), the new book by Rowan Scarborough, defense
and national security reporter for The Washington Times, details the defense
secretary's determination to transform the military. The book is available at Amazon.Com
"It's a
different world today," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told an
audience of Marines in Okinawa.
"We
have to become much more agile," Rumsfeld said, talking with the troops about
terrorism and other threats during a "town-hall" meeting in November.
"We have to be able to move in hours or days instead of weeks or months or
years."
Rumsfeld's
boss, President Bush, had not singled out individual threats to national
security in his inaugural address in January 2001, less than nine months before
the terrorist attacks.
But even
then, Rumsfeld and other Bush aides realized they needed new strategies against
Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, as well as against the nuclear programs of Iran
and North Korea.
"We
will build our defenses beyond challenge, lest weakness invite challenge,"
Bush said after his swearing-in. "We will confront weapons of mass
destruction, so that a new century is spared new horrors. The enemies of
liberty and our country should make no mistake: America remains engaged in the
world by history and by choice, shaping a balance of power that favors
freedom."
Waiting for
the new president at the Pentagon was a classified, 160-page report on future
threats stretching to the year 2020. Analysts at the Defense Intelligence
Agency prepared the secret report for the Clinton administration, the
Pentagon's own CIA in miniature, which sends agents around the world to collect
information.
The DIA
report, compiled in 1999, still is used actively today by Rumsfeld and others
in the Bush administration with the required security clearance. I obtained a
copy of the report, called "A Primer on the Future Threat" and
stamped SECRET.
Among the
chilling predictions:
*The radical
Islamic state of Iran planned to have nuclear capability by 2008 and 10 to 20
nuclear weapons by 2020, including missiles capable of striking Europe.
*China would
more than quadruple its nuclear arsenal of intercontinental ballistic missiles
(ICBMs) capable of reaching the United States, skyrocketing from 40 to as many
as 220 missiles.
*Stalinist
North Korea could hold as many as 10 atomic weapons, including ICBMs.
*Israel
would maintain a nuclear arsenal of about 80 warheads.
*Warring
neighbors Pakistan and India would continue to entrench themselves in the
nuclear club by building nuclear-tipped missiles, more than doubling their
stockpiles. India would launch its first submarine that fires ballistic
missiles.
*Mexico,
Saudi Arabia, Colombia and Indonesia were among nations in danger of economic
failure and collapse, with "profound implications for the United
States."
"While
the message is sobering, my intent in preparing this primer is not to instill
fear or foreboding," Army Lt. Gen. Patrick M. Hughes, then DIA director,
wrote in a foreword to the secret report. "Rather, I hope that by
identifying and discussing in realistic terms the emerging threat environment,
such knowledge will help leadership better understand and prepare for it."
Terrorists'
aims
The DIA report,
warning of the "emergence of less predictable groups," forecasted
that international terrorism posed a growing threat.
"It is
probable that terrorist organizations or individuals will employ a weapon of
mass destruction [WMD] against U.S. interests by 2020," the report says.
"Heightened publicity about the vulnerability of civilian targets, an
increased interest in inflicting mass casualties ... and greater availability
of WMD-related production knowledge and technology have already drawn the
attention of some terrorist organizations.
"Additionally,
the hoax or blackmail value of WMD is a potentially powerful psychological
weapon in itself, and its ... use can be expected to increase."
The DIA notes
that the Soviet Union developed a nerve agent that, after the communist state's
collapse, spread to other countries and cannot be controlled through the 1997
Chemical Weapons Convention.
Chemical
weapons are easier to obtain than some terrorists might realize, the report
adds.
"Many
of the components needed for chemical or biological agent weaponization are
used in other types of weapons systems, many of which are available in the
international arms market," it says. "Chemical and biological agents
can be disseminated by tube and rocket artillery, ground and naval mines,
aerial bombs ... and a wide variety of spray devices.
"An
increasing number of countries are also capable of employing unmanned aerial
vehicles, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles for chemical and biological
attack. Terrorist use should also be anticipated, primarily in improvised
devices, probably in association with an explosive."
The DIA
warns that the combination of drug trafficking and terrorism could produce more
failed states, requiring U.S. intervention.
"Drug-related
corruption will reach epidemic levels in certain countries," the DIA says.
"This may require a more direct response from the United States to protect
our national security."
WMD dangers
Nations
deemed capable by 1999 of delivering both chemical and biological agents
included Iraq, Russia, China and North Korea.
"Iran
has a chemical weapons capability and probably a limited biological agent
delivery means," the DIA report says. "Libya, Egypt, India, Taiwan,
Israel, South Korea and Syria have chemical weapons capabilities.
"Pakistan,
Sudan, Serbia and Croatia are believed to have programs to develop [chemical
weapon] capabilities. Moreover, Libya, Syria and Pakistan probably can produce
biological agents on a limited scale and presumably have some means of delivery
even if not by military systems."
By 2020,
Egypt, India, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia will have deployed medium-range
ballistic missile systems, "and WMD payloads will be available in each of
these countries," the report says. India, China, North Korea, Indonesia
and Turkey will develop or acquire short-range missile systems.
"Future
conflicts," the DIA predicts, "probably will involve the use of these
weapon systems with WMD, including nuclear weapons."
The report
predicts the United States will keep its status as the world's pre-eminent
power for the next 20 years.
"The
key 'peer' candidates all have long-term larger problems, and none has the
capability or the will to usurp the U.S. over this time frame," the report
says. " ... The United States will remain the sole superpower through its
economic, political, military, cultural and technological superiority for at
least the first quarter of the next century."
Still, the
report says a "camp" of unaligned countries would continue to try to
limit U.S. power. This group included Russia, China, France, India, Mexico,
Iran and Iraq.
Strategic
ambitions
The DIA
report that Rumsfeld's Pentagon inherited also made these findings and
predictions as of 1999:
*Iran
"is slowly but steadily building an offensive capability far in excess of
its mere defensive needs" and poses the biggest threat in the Persian Gulf
now that the U.S.-led coalition has ousted Saddam in Iraq.
In addition
to nuclear aims, Iran was "seeking self-sufficiency" in dual-use
equipment to produce biological agents for weapons, as well as protective
clothing resistant to chemical or biological weapons and medical protection
against biological agents.
"Iran
should have a greater capability to disrupt the flow of commerce in the Gulf
over the next decade, primarily through the use of mine warfare and integrated
anti-ship cruise missiles. In fact, absent U.S. intervention, Iran could close
the Strait of Hormuz to maritime traffic indefinitely."
*North
Korea's communist regime, appearing firmly in control, possessed two to four
nuclear weapons of limited yield and an offensive biological and chemical
arsenal of uncertain size but thought to include "anthrax, plague, cholera
and toxins."
"The
likelihood that North Korea will initiate a war to reunify the peninsula is
diminishing, but the possibility of conflict spurred by internal instability,
miscalculation or provocation is increasing."
*China
planned to reduce its People's Liberation Army of 2.5 million by 20 percent,
make big increases in strategic forces, deploy its first ballistic-missile
submarine and achieve a four-fold boost in spy satellites, to 15 orbiters.
Even though
the number of Chinese ICBMs capable of striking the United States will jump to
220, "Nothing indicates China will field the much larger number of
missiles necessary to shift from a limited, retaliatory strategy to a
first-strike, war-fighting strategy."
'Going to
school'
It is not
clear how much of the DIA's report was absorbed by Rumsfeld and other key Bush
administration officials before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
But it is a
certainty that they have done so by now, and that Rumsfeld has his own ideas on
how to meet the threats. The secretary of defense is moving to enlarge special
forces, improve intelligence collection and analysis so that it is
"actionable," and streamline the military for war-fighting in the
21st century.
"We
have to have a mindset that is willing to continuously go to school on the
terrorists," Rumsfeld said in October, "just as terrorists are going
to school on us and watching what we do.
"And,"
he said, "we've got to be able to move inside of their decision cycles and
react sufficiently fast, given the difficulty of intelligence."