Chemical, Biological Arms: Iran's Other WMDs

The rest of the world may be focused on Iran's nuclear program. But U.S. intelligence agencies, think tanks, and non-governmental organizations just can't shake the suspicion that Iran may be trying to assemble other weapons of mass destruction, too: an arsenal of chemical and biological arms.

Anthony Cordesman, noted chemical-biological (CB) weapons and Middle East analyst for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, has released a few draft reports discussing the current capabilities and uncertainties of Iran's CB warfare programs. The papers offer a pretty god summary of what open-source analysis exists on "the other WMDs" that so many people tend to ignore, as the hysteria mounts about Iran's nuclear program.

Iran is not an easy case to understand, to put it mildly. You may remember that minor conflict in the 1980s where Iraq attacked Iran and started throwing chemical weapons around. The chemical casualties incurred by Iran during that conflict was a major reason why Iran initiated its own chemical weapons program. Iran was an original state signatory to the Biological Weapons Convention in 1973 and signed onto the Chemical Weapons Convention in 1993. The country ratified the CWC in 1997 and declared its past program activities. This was followed by the destruction of Iran's former production sites in the presence of international arms control inspectors. Iran has also been very active in review conferences addressing biological weapons issues.

At the same time, U.S. observers still have a nagging feeling that Iran has been up to something.
Here's the thing - Iran is a country with a modern industrial infrastructure and has been increasing its technological capabilities.
The global economy, enhanced by global communications and transportation options, has benefited Iran just as much as any other growing nation. Russia and China, in particular, have been selling Iran equipment and material that could be used to develop CB weapons, but is legitimately used in commercial facilities and academic laboratories.
Other nations have also been actively participating in the business of selling Iran materials and equipment. Given these facts, Iran has motive and opportunity to develop CB weapons - if its government wants that capability.

And while it could be that Iran's military desires and is pursuing a CB weapons capability, there is no public evidence of active development, testing, weaponization, stockpiling, deployment, or use of
CB weapons. Without (at the least) evidence of testing and weaponization, it is very difficult to claim that Iran's military has a deployable capability to use CB weapons. Iran's government officials have both condemned CB weapons use, but also have noted that there could be incentives in having such a capability. US intelligence officials have, in open testimony, backed off of earlier claims in 2003
that Iran is definitely developing and stockpiling CB weapons to more conservative statements in this year that Iran has the capability to do so, and is suspected of engaging in CB weapons research and development. That's some significant backpedaling.

Cordesman doesn't offer much details in the form of suspected CB
warfare agents or delivery systems, but he does generalize as to the possible. These case studies on agents and possible employment scenarios could apply to any nation with a modern industrial infrastructure, however. He doesn't offer any analysis as to the possibility of Iran supplying CB warfare agents to terrorists, other than to say, sure, it could happen. He ends his report on Iran's biological weapons program assessment with this statement, which is very similar to his conclusions about Tehran's chemical weapons programs:

None of these problems and issues implies that Iran cannot benefit from deploying biological weapons or creating a level of ambiguity that forces any potential enemy to take these threats far more seriously than they are taken today. It is also clear that Iran has the incentive to use biological weapons under some conditions and that such use might be effective.

Biological weapons also present special problems in terms of deterrence in peacetime and controlling escalation in a conflict. This does not mean that Iranian will act on the basis of ideology or ignore risk. Extreme as some Iranian statements are, Iran tends to be pragmatic in practice. Once again, however, crises create new conditions, perceptions,misunderstandings, and levels of risk taking.
Rational bargainers with perfect insight and all the necessary transparency in terms of full knowledge of the situation and risks are theoretical constructs. It is dangerous to assume that even the most prudent decision maker will not take exceptional risks, overreact, or drastically miscalculate in war.

That is to say, we really don't know what Iran has in the form of CB weapons or what they intend to do if it is given the opportunity to develop such weapons. And if that day comes when Iran's military does acknowledge that they have CB weapons, we really don't know what will happen, but they're not irrational leaders. Other than that, it's clear as day that we ought to at least consider the possibility.

[Photo: AP]