NATO SENIOR DEFENSE GROUP ON PROLIFERATION (DGP)

C O N F I D E N T I A L USNATO 000624

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

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

E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/01/2017
TAGS: MARR MCAP MNUC NATO PARM PREL
SUBJECT: NATO SENIOR DEFENSE GROUP ON PROLIFERATION (DGP)
STEERING COMMITTEE MEETINGS, SEP 14, 2007, AND OCT 11, 2007

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


1. (C) The NATO Senior Defense Group on Proliferation (DGP)
Steering Committee met on September 14th 2007 and October
11th 2007 at NATO Headquarters in Brussels. Both meetings
were co-chaired by senior representatives of the United
States and of Poland.


2. (C) A paper entitled &Maritime Interdiction Aimed at the
Prevention of Trafficking by Sea of WMD8 was approved by the
DGP in July and was endorsed by the North Atlantic Council
(NAC) under the silence procedure on September 26. The paper
describes the strategic context, extant political guidance,
and general legal considerations for such operations and
recommends that the NAC task appropriate NATO Bodies to
explore the issue further and develop proposals for its
consideration. The Chair announced that consultations would
be conducted on the process of managing the various tasks
contained in the paper. Allied Command Transformation (ACT)
will provide a briefing on maritime interdiction detection
capabilities early in the new year.


3. (C) The Co-chairs updated the DGP on the status of the
policy document entitled &Fostering Host-Nation and
Partners, CBRN Defense Capabilities.8 Inputs provided by
nations during the summer months, primarily concerning the
status of partner and contact countries and the term &host
nation,8 were incorporated into the second draft of the
paper. Comments received from Turkey and Belgium immediately
prior to the meeting on October 11 would be incorporated into
the paper by the International Staff (IS) who would re-issue
the paper under silence to expire on October 19 (NOTE:
Action has since been completed and paper has been approved
by the DGP under the silence procedure).


4. (C) The next NATO summit will take place in BucQest in
April 2008 and presents an ideal opportunity to highlight the
many projects underway in the DGP. The WMD Centre briefed
the committee on the form and content of DGP visibility at
previous summits which consisted of the seminal contributions
to the Washington and Prague summits, an activity display at
Riga and important wording in the communiqus of others.
Romania offered some ideas on topics that could be considered
for the Bucharest Summit and highlighted the understandable
importance their country attaches to DGP recognition.
Without other inputs, the Chair asked the WMD Centre to
prepare a working paper by the end of October which might
serve to stimulate discussion on the issue at the November
DGP plenary meeting and again encouraged nations to
contribute ideas and suggestions to the WMDC beforehand
(NOTE: Action has since been completed and paper was issued
on November 5).


5. (C) The 2007 DGP Seminar took place in Prague, July
10-13, as the closing event of the Czech DGP Co-chairmanship.
The seminar included demonstrations of a terrorist attack on
a high-visibility event and a dirty-bomb attack on a military
base followed by a static display of Czech defense equipment
and capabilities. The seminar report, which highlights the
twenty-six presentations given to over a hundred attendees,
was issued by the WMD Centre for review and comment on
September 11. The Chair announced that comments had been
received from three nations. The comments would be
incorporated into a new version to be redistributed under a
short silence period ending October 19 (NOTE: Action has
since been completed and report has been approved by the DGP
under the silence procedure.) Greece asked that the term
&agreed framework8 not be used in the report. They went on
to say that the NATO-EU Capabilities Group has no authority
and is not acting on an agreed basis. France recommended the
phrase "concrete proposals" might be a good solution.


6. (C) The date for the 2007 NAC WMD Seminar was confirmed
as the morning of November 15. The WMD Centre briefed the
DGP on the foci of past seminars and on the primary objective
for this year, which was to provide an opportunity for
ambassadors to discuss operational issues and the political
impact of such current initiatives as host-nation support,
cooperation with other NATO bodies and interaction with the
media. The background and details of each section of the

scenario were explained and the questions that would
hopefully prompt discussion were reviewed. The Chair pointed
out the need to align the conduct and outcome of the seminar
with opportunities provided by the Bucharest summit. Norway
reminded the group that it was important to foster discussion
at the political level and felt that some of the issues in
the past had been too technical. Norway,s concern about the
political aspect of the discussion was echoed by France and
Germany, who went on to say that we might have discussion at
the seminar which surfaces in Bucharest as well. Germany
also indicated a desire to focus more on the future view to
spark conversation on &transformation.8 Canada felt that
the issue of threat qualification was missing and wanted it
addressed. The Head of the WMD Centre observed that the
military authorities would essentially be absent because of
another commitment on that day and that this could be an
opportunity to forego laborious military concerns and focus
directly at the political level. The WMD Centre stated that
it planned to conduct a POCs briefing on the seminar about
one week before the event in order to provide them details
with which to spin-up their ambassadors.


7. (C) SHAPE updated the committee on the Concept of
Operations (CONOPS) of the newly renamed Combined Joint CBRN
Defense Task Force. The Military Committee (MC) approved the
first CONOPS in 2004. With the experience of four rotations
and the lessons-learned from High-Visibility Events, it
became apparent that the CONOPS needed to be revised and a
review workshop was conducted in March 2006 in Sonthofen.
The tasking for military implementation of the Comprehensive
Political Guidance (CPG) in October 2006 provided additional
impetus and a new CONOPS was approved by the MC in July 2007.
Key changes in the new version permit the participation in
the Task Force of NATO partner nations, incorporates
procedures for CBRN Reach-Back and Intelligence Fusion,
supports the full range of tasks outlined in the Render Safe
concept and enlarges the scope of support to non-NRF
activities. The way-ahead for the CONOPS, being lead by ACT,
include a Task Force re-enforcement policy which would permit
it to be augmented when needed by nations with special
capabilities. Several nations expressed their satisfaction
with the direction of the new CONOPS and their wish to remain
abreast of its implementation. The NMA commented that NRF
force generation shortfalls will present challenges to the
implementation of the CONOPS and that, since they are likely
to continue, they are of concern to the DGP. Another such
briefing will be offered for the February 2008 DGP meeting in
EAPC format.


8. (C) The WMD Centre provided a briefing to the committee
on the NATO Strategic Intelligence Estimate, including MC161,
165 and 166. These documents provide NATO-agreed statements
on the risks and threats facing the Alliance, are important
elements of the NATO Intel Warning System and crisis
management process, and provide levels of concern from
routine through abnormal and significant to extreme. The
documents provide statements on countries of concern and the
collective terrorist threat facing NATO.


9. (C) The Medical Branch of the International Military
Staff (IMS) provided a presentation on NATO Medical
Intelligence. Until recently there was no medical
intelligence in the information provided to the operational
commander. In 2003 the Strategic Commands established a
MEDINT course at Oberammergau and added staff positions at
Allied Command Operations (ACO). The focus is now on how
MEDINT will support the NATO Indicators and Warning System
(NIWS) and how to improve sharing of information over the
Battlefield Information, Collection and Evaluation System
(BICES).


10. (C) As part of the DGP,s continuing efforts to monitor
capabilities of the CBRN Defense Battalion, the USAF Homeland
Medical Plans section of the Office of Air Force Surgeon
General provided a presentation on their Joint Biological
Agent Identification Detection System (JBAIDS). This system
is a joint-services capability to identify bacterial and
viral agents using real-time PCR technology. It is normally
housed in a BSL-2 testing trailer and is deployed at Military
Treatment Facilities worldwide. A BioVeris M1M system is

available as well for identifying toxins.


11. (C) The COMEDs representative provided an update on the
NATO Disease Surveillance System (DSS). He reported on the
June 2007 seminar in Halifax during which procedures for
civil-military interface in disease surveillance were
developed. Following that, in Warsaw in September, plans
were approved for implementation of a new entity ) the
Multinational Medical Analysis Center. Five nations will
contribute expertise to the center to be co-located with
national facilities in Munich and other nations may
subsequently elect to participate as well. The operating
procedures will be developed to focus on the medical analysis
cycle: the collection of data, analysis, interpretation and
dissemination of results to operational commanders. The
overall timeline for development of the NATO DSS remains
unchanged since the last report: we have an interim
capability now, advanced capability is expected in 2008 with
full capability in the 2010-2012 window. Portugal wished to
know to what extent Medical Intelligence (MEDINT) would play
a role in the Munich center and was informed by the briefer
that its function was to focus on the appearance of symptoms
and their interpretation and that MEDINT would play a
supporting role.


12. (C) The WMD Centre reported on the June 12 and October 8
meetings of the NATO-EU Capabilities Group. At the former,
the IS gave a presentation on NATO CBRN activities. At the
latter, the EU reciprocated with a presentation on
bio-detection programs and those for countering IEDs. By all
reports, both events were rather perfunctory and provoked
little discussion of substance other than several
interventions expressing the wish to avoid duplication of
effort. Following the WMD Centre report, Canada stated that
the DGP should focus on what they called &incoherence of
activities8 between the two organizations, i.e., nations
being asked different things by each. The Czech Republic
highlighted the importance of these discussions and proposed
that the EU and NATO determine in which ways their respective
military operations differ from one another and which CBRN
capabilities may be common to both. As a next step, a
single-issue NATO-EU meeting, reinforced by experts, could be
held to exchange information on CBRN defense and force
protection more broadly with a view toward identifying areas
of potential duplication.


13. (C) The WMD Center reviewed the results of the last
joint meeting with Ukraine at which it was agreed to exchange
information on concepts, CBRN protection, and NATO standards.
Furthermore, steps would be taken to increase their
participation in NATO activities where appropriate and to
assist them with language training. The Czech Republic is
leading the effort to improve the exchange of CBRN
information with the Ukraine and provided the DGP with a
report on its planning for a January 16, 2008, workshop with
them. The topic will be CBRN Policy and several nations have
stepped forward to offer briefings. The committee decided to
establish a tiger-team of interested nations to work the
issue. The preliminary agenda for the workshop will be sent
to the Ukraine by the Czech Republic. Romania asked if the
workshop is to be supported by experts and was informed that
nations could decide who to send but the desired participants
from the Ukraine were the senior civil policy makers and
nations should plan accordingly. Hungary thanked the Czech
Republic for their very capable leadership on this project
and offered to assist in any way possible. Bulgaria affirmed
their un-reserved support for dialog with the Ukraine and
stated their intention to participate.


14. (C) The document entitled &Fostering Host-Nation and
Partners, CBRN Defense Capabilities8 tasks the WMD Centre
to host a tabletop exercise of interested partners to discuss
the threat of WMD and how best to leverage their defense
capabilities in a combined operating environment. The WMD
Centre briefed the group on its initial thoughts for this
exercise. The format for such an event might consist of a
threat briefing, some scene-setting activities involving a
bio-attack, presentations by nations on what their response
to such an event might be, followed by a general discussion.
The NAC WMD seminar in November may provide some ideas or

direction. The envisioned date is April 2008,
notwithstanding the Bucharest Summit and CMX 08 which take
place in the same month. Although the objective of the event
is clear, its characterization as an exercise is not firm yet
and the identification of the "international partners" has
been carefully avoided.
NULAND