U.S. military forces may use a surprise one-two punch of secret weapons to neutralize Iraqi chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction in the event of war. The first, a high power microwave (HPM) burst delivered via a cruise missile or other guided munition, would act like an electronic lightning bolt to disrupt computerized command facilities as well as guidance systems aboard enemy missiles. The second knockout punch would be what the military calls an agent defeat weapon (ADW) that uses an incendiary explosive to first burn any harmful chemicals and biological toxins and then further inactivate them with chlorine and acid cleansers.

The U.S. military won't comment on these weapons, but defense analysts note that high-powered microwave and agent defeat weapons have been in development for some years, and it is probable that their development has been accelerated in recent months as the crisis with Iraq has intensified. Experts point to the rapid development of the bunker-busting thermobaric bombs used in Afghanistan as a precedent for using weapons still in the development stage.

Whether U.S. troops will face a biological or chemical threat in Iraq is unclear, say defense analysts like John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.Org, and Michael Levi, director of the strategic security project of the Federation of American Scientists. They note the failure of United Nations inspectors to find chem/bio weapons in Iraq as well as persistent rumors that such weapons have been moved to another country. "What everyone says is that they've moved the stuff out of the country," Levi comments. "If we find their weapons of mass destruction, we're probably going to find them in Syria." Pike, meanwhile, credits Israeli intelligence services as the source of those rumors, calling it a disinformation campaign whose purpose is to put Syria next on the American hit list. "I have difficulty understanding how Israeli intelligence would have come into possession of such information," Pike states.

Given such uncertainty, U.S. forces will at minimum be targeting enemy missile launchers. However, the mobile nature of many missile launchers makes them hard to find and harder to hit. It¿s likely then, Pike predicts, that American forces will target any suspect bio/chem facilities in the early hours of the war.

It is against suspect facilities that HPM and ADW weapons might be most effective. A HPM weapon generates a short, intense surge of electromagnetic (EMP) energy similar to that produced by a nuclear explosion. The EMP burst produces thousands of volts, which can penetrate through seams in a building and fry any unshielded semiconductors in the area. Although the effective blast area of a HPM weapon is much smaller than that of a nuclear weapon, its blast radius is still likely to measure in the hundreds of meters. This is larger than the blast area of more precisely targeted GPS or laser-guided bombs used against specific buildings. A HPM weapon would be useful against large-acreage targets like Saddam Hussein's presidential palaces, where the precise location of a chem/bio facility is unknown, Pike observes. HPM attacks are also stealthy--only a close inspection of the affected electronic components will reveal evidence of the assault.

But whether HPM weapons should be used in the vicinity of civilian facilities such as hospitals or mosques is a big issue that will be difficult to address. "Do I also kill all the Iraqis with pacemakers in a nearby mosque?" Pike remarks. "That's the type of question the U.S. will need to answer." [For more on HPM safety, see "Do Microwave Weapons Kill?]

Also potentially available are vehicle-mounted microwave guns, prototypes of which were developed by the U.S. Air Force at its Kirtland, New Mexico, base even before 9/11. A microwave gun would employ an electrical pulse to create a stream of high-energy particles that are accelerated into a cavity. The cavity causes the charged particles to "bunch," or accelerate coherently, creating electromagnetic radiation in the form of microwaves. A specially designed antenna would then target incoming missiles or mobile launchers.