NATO SENIOR DEFENSE GROUP ON PROLIFERATION (DGP)

C O N F I D E N T I A L USNATO 000321

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

STATE FOR T, EUR/PRA, EUR/RPM, AND AC/SEA
DEFENSE FOR GSA (BENKERT, GROSS)

E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/21/2017
TAGS: MARR MCAP MNUC NATO PARM PREL
SUBJECT: NATO SENIOR DEFENSE GROUP ON PROLIFERATION (DGP)
STEERING COMMITTEE MEETING, APR 25, 2007


Classified By: D/DEFAD CLARENCE JUHL FOR REASONS 1.4 (B&D)


1. (C) SUMMARY. On April 25, 2007, Ms. Deanna DeSante,
Senior Assistant for Combating WMD Policy, OASD/GSA and Mr.
Ivo Halak, Director of Strategic Planning Department, Czech
Republic, co-chaired the Senior Defense Group on
Proliferation Steering Committee (DGP-SC) meeting. The
DGP-SC discussed Strengthening Host-Nation Chemical,
Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN) Defense
Capabilities, the Prevention of Trafficking Weapons of Mass
DestructioQ(WMD) through Maritime Interdiction, the DGP
contribution to the Joint Committee on Proliferation (JCP)
Progress Report, the 2007-2008 Work Programme, the upcoming
2007 North Atlantic Council (NAC) Weapons of Mass Destruction
(WMD) Seminar, a Disease Surveillance System capability, the
CBRN Virtual Stockpile, the next steps in the DGP
consultations with Ukraine and the Euro-Atlantic Partnership
Council (EAPC),and NATO-European Union (EU) Cooperation in
CBRN Defense. The next meeting will be in Plenary format on
May 24.

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DGP POLICY GUIDANCE
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2. (U) Under the heading of DGP Policy Guidance, the Group
first considered a discussion paper on Maritime Interdiction
Operations. France, Spain, Germany, and Belgium delegations
offered comments that, while they supported the policy
guidance within the paper, that they were not in favor of
expanding Operation Active Endeavor (OAE). The French
representative commented that the paper should focus on the
political decision to undertake maritime interdiction of WMD
and not yet presuppose the mechanism to accomplish this
mission. The Spanish delegate also recommended that the
Policy Coordination Group (PCG) review the document before it
went to the North Atlantic Council (NAC). The Turkish
delegate commented that the intelligence sharing was the
primary issue and wished to see the identification of options
and the clarification of governing legal issues. A new
version of the paper will be produced in time for the May
Plenary.


3. (U) The next topic was a discussion of a Food-for-Thought
paper on Building Host Nation CBRN Defense Capabilities.
Italy opined that the paper is workable, but that some
capabilities will take a long time to develop. They would
like to see a list of the non-NATO countries under
consideration and an elaboration of the methods to be used.
Turkey would like to see the paper re-focused on building
host nation capabilities in out-of-area operations as
resources are scarce and the procedures need to be
de-conflicted with other existing mechanisms and appropriate
to the threat. Germany felt that there was some question
about what the term "host nation" meant in the context of
current NATO operations and would like this term defined in
the paper. National comments will be incorporated in a new
version to be issued prior to the May 24 Plenary.

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DGP AND NATO ACTIVITIES
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4. (U) A report from the Joint Committee on Proliferation
(JCP) is under preparation for submission to the Defense
Ministerial in June. The draft DGP portion of this document
was recently issued and discussion covered the period of the
report and handling procedures for the Ministerial. The WMD
Center (WMDC) advised that the period of the report should be
"since Riga" (instead of 2006-2007). In view of the
count-down to June, delegates were requested to submit
comments on this document within two weeks, and a new version
will be circulated prior to the next meeting. As a related
topic, the Work Programme for 2007-08 was reviewed with
Belgium observing that there were new elements and ambitions,
and that identification of the lead bodies and desired
outcomes was needed for each item. Alignment with the
Comprehensive Political Guidance (CPG) will be essential.
Delegates were also asked for comments on this document
within two weeks, foQincorporation into a new document by

the next meeting.


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TRAINING, EXERCISES, AND SEMINARS
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5. (C) The DGP needs to identify the topic for the next NAC
WMD Seminar (scheduled for the Fall 2007). The WMDC gave the
DGP a review of the topics that have been featured at each of
the past seminars since the series started and some
suggestions for this year's topic. Germany stated that the
topic must be relevant to the ambassadors and it must guide
future work. Denmark proposed exploring how the Alliance
would cooperate on bio-surveillance in a CBRN event and would
like burden sharing to be a part of the seminar. France
stated that several of the proposed topics were interesting
but two were problematic: when speaking of partnership and
cooperation it is important to preserve the autonomy of each
organization, especially the EU and NATO; and the Berlin Plus
arrangement only provides for exchange of information.
Canada felt that there was a rich menu of ideas and perhaps
several of them could be combined. In any case, we need to
identify what key issues need guidance. The United States
offered that bio-terrorism attack on deployed forces would be
a suitable topic and it could contain elements of disease
surveillance, the virtual stockpile and host nation support.
Poland pointed out that important issues were capabilities
and international outreach. A tiger team will start work
immediately with the objective of defining three potential
seminar scenarios to choose from at the May Plenary.

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CAPABILITIES
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6. (C) The Group received an informative presentation from
Mr Andy Weber (OSD/ISP) on the Biological Threat Reduction
Program (BTRP). The scope, mission and funding of the BTRP
were covered as well as the Threat Agent Detection and
Response software developed by DTRA. In response to a
question on who generally has responsibility for such
affairs, the briefer explained that usually the Ministries of
Health or Agriculture worked these issues. The BTRP
coordinates its efforts with the World Health Organization
(WHO) and others and encourages participation with other
national agencies. The BTRP endeavors to provide improved
infrastructure to the WHO in the interest of global public
health information. France has offered to brief the
committee on their disease surveillance system at a future
meeting. Initial Operating Capability of the NATO Disease
Surveillance System will be featured in the JCP report to
Defense Ministers. The co-chairs will circulate a paper
summarizing the Disease Surveillance System concept for
delegation review.


7. (U) The DGP considered a WMDC discussion paper on the
CBRN Virtual Stockpile. The most recent activity with this
project was a workshop in May 2006 that used the existing
database to stage a small scale exercise. Since then, no
substantive progress has been made and the question to the
nations was what sort of follow-on work should there be?
Belgium began with the question: who is the database for --
the military or the civilians, and what purpose does it
serve? Germany advised the delegates that military
authorities were already on record as having no need for it
and there appeared to be no interest in participation from
the civilian side as well. The WMDC advised that the
discussion should be simplified: the system was simply a list
of POCs to contact if one country needs help. They stated
that the Stockpile was being used and that it was simple to
keep the list of POCs updated, if people would just log onto
the system. The UK and The Netherlands announced that they
would not be inclined to include their information on an
unclassified, albeit password-protected, website. The

SIPDIS
co-chairs invited written comments and indicated that a new
version of the paper would be forthcoming.

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INTERNATIONAL OUTREACH

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8. (C) The WMD Center provided a briefing on the outcome of
the joint meeting with Ukraine held at NATO in March. The
three areas focused on in the discussions included: exchange
of information; CBRN protection equipment; and training. The
objective was to permit more participation by Ukraine in NATO
operations and to ensure that Ukraine's equipment was
compatible with NATO standards. The International Military
Staff (IMS) announced that the soon-to-be released CONOPS for
the CBRN battalion would provide for engagement of partners
and that they would be evaluated against NATO standards. The
identification of CBRN training opportunities for Ukraine
will be pursued. Continuing on the subject of international
outreach, the committee heard a report on recent tiger-team
sessions dealing with joint DGP-EAPC meetings. The past
activities were reviewed and the decision taken to hold a
DGP-EAPC workshop this autumn on a theme yet to be
determined.

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NATO-EU COOPERATION
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9. (C) The NATO-EU Capabilities Group will meet in June to
discuss CBRN issues and the DGP circulated a framework
document for presentation to that group on NATO CBRN
activities, structure, contacts and work plan. France
reminded the Group of the requirement to work through the
NATO-EU Capabilities Group for all correspondence (not
directly to the EU). Spain asked if the EU has expressed the
same level of interest in cooperation on such matters. The
United States pointed out that the existing agreement does
provide for informal contact between NATO and EU staffs and
that the DGP initiative could be seen in that light. A DGP
briefing for the June NATO-EU Capabilities Group meeting will
be created by the WMDC and will be on the May Plenary agenda
for discussion.

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ANY OTHER BUSINESS
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10. (U) The Co-Chairs announced the publishing of the NATO
Media Strategy to deal with CBRN Situations on April 25th
(CM(2007)0033) and reminded delegations that the
Administrative Arrangements for the 2007 DGP Seminar in
Prague (July 10-13) have been distributed and that
Delegations are requested to submit their paperwork by May
31st. The Chairman also reminded delegates that the next
meeting, the DGP Plenary meeting, will occur on May 24th.
NULAND