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(C) A New Approach to Uncovering WMD Programs
FROM:
Advanced Analysis Lab
Run Date: 08/27/2003
(S) The National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) lays out a daunting
challenge: "Detect, identify, locate, disrupt, seize, and destroy an adversary's WMD
assets, means of delivery, and associated facilities before the weapons are used."
Many foreign countries hide their true intentions by employing dual-use technology. Advances in
science and technology that help the civilian sector can also, for example, make it easier for
biological warfare (BW) specialists to make more lethal strains and weaponize them with greater
efficiency.
(C) Here's the question: can we model the end-to-end processes used to produce substances for
benign civilian use? ...and from that baseline, can we then determine the specific features that
would distinguish a Bio Warfare Program from a benign civilian pharmaceutical production
effort?
(S) These are some of the questions the Advanced Analysis Lab hopes to answer as it
undertakes a collaborative project with:
Intelligence Analysts from four Product Lines (Middle East North Africa, Proliferation and
Arms Control, Regional Targets, and Geospatial Exploitation);
Modelers using Complex Additive Systems Analysis (CASA); and
Engineers from Lawrence Livermore National Labs.
(S//SI) As the project unfolds, other colleagues will be included as the need arises. A suspect
Iranian BW facility will be chosen for the proof of concept. Computational models will be built to
identify and process data that sheds light on the facility's function. Both classified and
unclassified sources will be used: email and fax traffic, voice transcripts, imagery, open source
publications, and Auto CAD files. CASA will provide a dynamic environment for analyzing this
varied data set; this will include developing and validating both engineering and human-oriented
models in an integrated environment.
(U//FOUO) The project falls in line with the Advanced Analysis Lab's mandate to create and
foster advanced tradecraft. The CASA approach is inherently designed to be applicable across
many target sets, so success here could lead to progress against other targets as well.
Note: The National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction can be found in National
Security Presidential Directive NSPD-17.
"(U//FOUO) SIDtoday articles may not be republished or reposted outside NSANet
without the consent of S0121 (DL sid comms)."
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DERIVED FROM: NSA/CSSM 1-52, DATED 08 JAN 2007 DECLASSIFY ON: 20320108