FEATURE ARTICLE

November 2004

WMD Defense Lacks Unified Command-Control Structure

by Harold Kennedy

The Defense Department has assigned to multiple units the job of protecting the United States against attacks by weapons of mass destruction. These agencies, however, lack a central command and control structure, said Maj. Gen. John C. Doesburg, head of the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command.

Since 1992, Doesburg said, the Pentagon has parceled out WMD defense tasks to a long list of units, including the U.S. Special Operations Command, the Marine Corps’ Chemical Biological Incident Response Force, the Army’s Technical Escort Unit and Chemical Biological Rapid Response Team, the U.S. Northern Command’s Joint Task Force—Civil Support, and the National Guard’s WMD Civil Support Teams.

In addition, the Army has established—on a provisional basis—a new “Guardian Brigade,” which includes the Technical Escort Unit, the Chemical Biological Rapid Response Team and the Army Reserve Consequence Management Unit, Doesburg said. The Guardian Brigade is designed to be a rapidly deployable WMD-trained organization, able to support two combatant commanders and homeland-response requirements simultaneously.

What is missing amid all of these organizations, Doesburg said, is a central command and control structure. “We need a structure that permits rapid response,” he told a recent National Defense Industrial Association conference.

As an example, Doesburg cited an incident that occurred last May in Baltimore, Md. The Baltimore Harbor Tunnel—a major bottleneck on the strategic north-south highway—was shut down for nearly six hours after workers at a nearby construction site stumbled upon obsolete Navy bombs that had been abandoned there decades ago.

He immediately ordered an ordnance disposal team to work with personnel from the city, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Maryland State Fire Marshal’s Office in removing the munitions. They turned out to be harmless training rounds.

“I didn’t use the chain of command,” Doesburg said, because he felt there wasn’t enough time. As a result, he ran into criticism. “Some people wanted me to pay for the operation out of my own budget.”

Another challenge at RDECOM is pushing technology out of the laboratories. The command employs 24,500 scientists and engineers, and has a $3.5 billion budget. One current focus, Doesburg said, is biological agent-viability detection.

“It’s tough to tell, when it’s initially discovered, whether a biological agent—such as anthrax—is alive or dead,” he said. “Currently, it takes eight to 24 hours to get test results. I want to do it faster, but every time I bring it up, my scientists say it’s too big a problem.”

Another issue, Doesburg said, is where to place chemical detectors in combat units. “A lot of people think the soldiers should wear them,” he said. “The only problem with that is, if they detect a chemical attack, all the detectors tell the soldiers is they’re dead. Is there someplace else we need to place those detectors?”

RDECOM is pushing scientists to field new technologies more quickly, Doesburg said. “Scientists are never satisfied,” he said. “They always think they can make it a little better … It takes us 12 years to field something.”

Back To Top