Secret operations

One of the key goals for U.S. national security is to ensure that terrorists do not gain access to weapons of mass destruction.

That effort has been slowed somewhat due to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Admiral Eric Olson, head of U.S. special forces.

Fewer commandos are free to work in this area and training has deteriorated, Adm. Olson told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

As far back as 1998, Osama bin Laden told Time magazine that acquiring weapons of mass destruction "for the defense of Muslims is a religious duty."

The threat is growing, then-director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair told a congressional committee in February. "The time when only a few states had access to the most dangerous technologies is over," he said.

Al-Qaida continues to pursue the weapons, according to a study by Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

Bloomberg News reports that Defense Secretary Robert Gates has shifted $147 million over the next four years to purchase new technology for elite commandos working in this area. The Pentagon's Defense Threat Reduction Agency is fielding "new technologies to improve" the commandos' "ability to detect, disable, interdict, neutralize and destroy chemical, biological and nuclear production, storage and weaponization facilities."

These are the missions we seldom read about, but which are essential to national security in these times.