Chem-Bio field suffers a knowledge gap.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew
• Position: Technology Tomorrow

On Aug. 3, helicopters dropped barrels of suspected chlorine gas on the Syrian town of Saraqeb, sending dozens of victims, including women and children, to the hospital.

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A half a world away on the same day, the National Defense Industrial Association's chemical, biological and nuclear defense division held a conference at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland, co-sponsored by the joint program executive office for chemical and biological defense.

One of the underlying messages at the three-day conference was that the mission to protect warfighters from these two categories of weapons of mass destruction doesn't receive a whole lot of attention in the halls of the Pentagon.

The often repeated joke among troops is that the NBC in nuclear-biological-chemical stands for "nobody cares." Army Col. Scott Estes, deputy director of the joint requirements office for chemical-biological radiological and nuclear defense, said, "I carry stuff to generals all the time, [and] the first question I get is: 'Why are we doing this?'... And I think, 'Oh no, here we go again.' And this goes all the way up to the three-star level."

Estes was responding to an inquiry from Brig. Gen. William King III, commander of the Army 20th chemical-biological-radiological-nuclear and explosive command, as to why in more than three decades there hasn't been a major live exercise involving the simulated employment of weapons of mass destruction. A new exercise and its subsequent studies could inform the forces of their shortcomings and needs. The last one was the CANE exercises, or Combined Arms in an NBC Environment, where troops participated in full-blown wargames and were called upon to fight during simulated chemical and nuclear attacks. The Pentagon has two studies about CBRN threats in the works, Estes said, but King wondered how effective they would be.

"Yes, to answer your question directly, we are kicking the can to the right," Estes responded. CANE-type exercises are expensive to stage because they involve equipping and training soldiers, Estes said.

"It's not just cost, but it's senior leader bandwidth when right now they are trying to fight these wars... but I will take things in there that I think are no-brainers--this is easy--first question I get [again] is: 'why are we doing this?'" Estes said. King responded: "What gave us our 30-year plan was the CANE study.... The environment has dramatically changed. So we have to figure out how to...