By Gerry J. Gilmore - American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Jan. 27, 2006 – The Defense Department is taking more steps to address the threat that terrorists are seeking weapons of mass destruction to use against U.S. forces and the homeland, a senior DoD official told reporters here today.
"If you look at what we've done to date, we've nearly doubled our investments in chemical and biological defenses," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said. "We've implemented any number of important organizational changes to address the challenges that are posed by WMD more effectively."
The U.S. military must have the capability to protect itself against chemical, nuclear and biological weapons, as well as the competency to locate and characterize such threats, Whitman said.
DoD recently consolidated five formerly separate Defense Threat Reduction Agency locations into one headquarters facility, called the Defense Threat Reduction Center, at Fort Belvoir, Va. DTRA provides capabilities to counter the threat posed by WMDs.
"Countering WMD has been a priority for the department in terms of making sure that our future forces are organized, trained, equipped and resourced to deal with all aspects of threats that are posed by WMD," Whitman said.
The upcoming Quadrennial Defense Review and the 2007 defense budget recommendation will likely reflect the need to bolster counter-WMD programs, Whitman said. "I think that you'll see going forward that we'll be further increasing funding for chemical, biological defense programs," Whitman said.
Whitman characterized a news report today speculating on DoD creating a special military task force to prevent terrorists from acquiring WMDs as "a reflection of some of the things that you will see in the future to build upon some of the things that we've already done."
DoD realizes the importance of having organizations designed, trained and equipped to deal with asymmetrical threats presented by chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, Whitman said.
"The QDR is going to address that," he said. "And our way in which we establish priorities will reflect that."
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By Gerry J. Gilmore - American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Jan. 27, 2006 – Iraqi soldiers and police are conducting a house-to-house search for American freelance journalist Jill Carroll, who was taken hostage in the Baghdad area Jan. 7, a senior Iraqi military officer said on U.S. television today.
"We isolate areas in cooperation with the police and go house to house searching for Jill," Lt. Gen. Nasser Abadi told Fox News Channel. "We've done three areas now, and tomorrow we'll finish one big district."
Abadi, the deputy commanding general of Iraqi Joint Forces, expressed hope that his soldiers would soon find the 28-year-old woman who'd been filing Iraq-based stories for the "Christian Science Monitor."
Carroll's abductors have threatened to kill her unless all Iraqi women captives are released from custody.
Yesterday, 424 detainees including five Iraqi women were released from detention facilities in Iraq, U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch told reporters at a Baghdad news conference that day. Lynch said the former detainees involved in that release were found to pose no danger to Iraqi society.
However, the five Iraqi women were not released in response to the threats uttered by Carroll's abductors, Lynch, a spokesman for Multinational Force Iraq, said. "Those female detainees were released as part of (the) normal process and not as (the) result of demands by terrorists and criminals," he said. "We don't negotiate with terrorists and criminals."
Abadi also commented on the 8th Iraqi Army Division's assumption of counterinsurgency operations in the Diwaniyah and Wasit provinces. Those provinces make up a combined geographic area about the size of the state of Kentucky.
"This is a big milestone in our new army's history," Abadi said, noting that Iraq has conducted three successful democratic elections since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime.
"And now we have a better army," he said.