Chemical and Biological Defense

At the outset of Operation Desert Storm, U.S. military forces, though well equipped to detect Iraqi chemical agents, had only limited ability to spot biological threats. Biological detection kits provided U.S. troops before the start of Operation Desert Storm could not provide advance warning of a biological attack. The kits--useful in aiding diagnosis and treatment of troops exposed to biological agents--would not have prevented casualties. Army documents suggest that, had the Iraqis used biological agents such as anthrax and botulinum toxin, fatalities could have been enormous and the Army's medical treatment system could have been overtaxed. In the past, improving the Army's biological detection capability has been a low priority, despite warnings from the intelligence community about the spread of biological agents. In the wake of Operation Desert Storm, biological detection research now accounts for about 30 percent of total chemical and biological detection research and development funding. The Army has been slow to develop and field adequate chemical and biological detection equipment because its early research efforts have not been based on specific field requirements to defeat known enemy threats. As a result, early research efforts have tended to yield items of marginal utility, and little effort is given to developing new technology to address specific threats.

GAO found that: (1) U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf possessed chemical agent detectors capable of identifying all known Iraqi chemical agents; (2) U.S. forces had limited capability to detect biological agents at the outset of Operation Desert Storm; (3) the Army provided troops with biological detection kits that could manually detect two biological warfare agents, but the kits could not give advance warning of a biological attack; (4) from fiscal years (FY) 1984 through 1989, only 6.8 percent of the money spent to research and develop chemical and biological detection equipment went for biological detection; (5) during FY 1990 and 1991, only 25.5 percent of research and development funds was spent on biological detection; (6) the Army has not developed the new technology that is needed to address specific field requirements; and (7) the Army's exploratory research program places little emphasis on detecting emerging threats, such as microencapsulated and genetically engineered agents.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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