International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei (left) and Ali Akbar Salehi, Iranian representative to the IAEA (IAEA photo). Officials Praise Iranian Openness as Nuclear Deadline Passes As today’s deadline for Iranian nuclear transparency passed, the top international nuclear inspector tentatively praised Tehran’s cooperation while saying that efforts to verify Iranian disclosures would take months (see GSN, Oct. 30)...Full Story

U.S. Concedes It Will Miss Final Chemical Weapons Destruction Deadline By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The United States cannot destroy all of its chemical weapons until at least 2008 and possibly as late as 2016, according to legislators and defense officials who spoke at a congressional hearing yesterday. The estimates mean that Washington will certainly miss the 2007 deadline set by the Chemical Weapons Convention to destroy the entire U.S. stockpile (see GSN, May 7)...Full Story

Antinuclear Group Publishes Plutonium Shipment Timetables Despite French Defense Decree By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — To highlight the terrorist risks of using plutonium in civilian power programs, an antinuclear group has made public a timetable for a Nov. 10 rail shipment of nuclear fuel from the La Hague reprocessing plant in northern France to a storage site in Germany (see GSN, Oct. 15)...Full Story

	Friday, October 31, 2003

Officials, Experts Debate U.S. Strategy on Syria By Mike Nartker Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — Bush administration officials yesterday reaffirmed their concerns that Syria has WMD programs and supports terrorism and they issued tacit support for a bill that would impose economic sanctions against Damascus for such activities. Several Middle East experts said yesterday, however, that a more balanced policy of both “carrots and sticks” was needed toward Syria (see GSN, Oct. 16). In a speech yesterday in London, U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton outlined U.S. assessments of Syria’s WMD capabilities. He described Syria’s chemical weapons program as “one of the most advanced Arab state” programs and said that Damascus both has stockpiles of usable sarin agent and is working to develop more toxic chemical agents such as VX. In addition, the United States also believes that Syria is working to develop an “offensive biological weapons capability,” Bolton said. In Washington, State Department counterterrorism coordinator Cofer Black yesterday told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that there is “little” evidence that Syria is reducing its support of terrorism. That support, when combined with WMD aims, poses a significant threat to the United States, he said. “A threat to our country posed by states who both sponsor terrorism and pursue weapons of mass destruction is one which we cannot and will not ignore. Syria, a sponsor of numerous terrorist organizations, is a country whose actions we must follow carefully in this regard,” Black said. He added, however, that there is no evidence that Syria has transferred weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups or that Damascus would allow terrorists to obtain such weapons. Earlier this month, the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to approve the Syrian Accountability Act, which would impose a ban on the export of U.S. military and dual-use items to Syria. The bill would also require the president to impose at least two of six additional sanctions included in the bill against Syria, such as a freeze of Syrian assets and a downgrading of U.S. diplomatic representation. The president would have the authority, however, to issue a six-month waiver of the six additional sanctions for national security reasons. Once imposed, the sanctions in the bill could only be lifted if the president were to certify that four conditions are met, including that Syria no longer provides support for terrorism and that it has ceased the development of biological and chemical weapons.  Andy Fisher, a spokesman for Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), told Global Security Newswire today that the Syrian Accountability Act could be brought to the Senate floor for a vote at any time. The Senate version of the bill contains an amendment that would broaden the presidential waiver authority to allow the president to waive both sets of included sanctions, he said. “There will be little or no opposition” to the bill when it comes up for a vote, Fisher said. In testimony yesterday before the Senate foreign affairs panel, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs William Burns reiterated the Bush administration’s tacit support for the Syria sanctions bill, describing the current state of U.S.-Syrian relations as “poor.” “The administration’s position … is that we are not going to oppose its passage,” Burns said. The White House chose to not oppose the bill because other long-standing efforts have failed to alter Syrian behavior, Burns said. “I’m not sure if it was an all-of-a-sudden decision as much as it is an accumulation of efforts on our part that didn’t produce, haven’t yet produced all the results we want to see. We’re going to keep at it, keep open the possibility of more normal relations. But that’s going to require tangible actions on the part of the Syrian leadership,” Burns said. Burns said in his testimony that he was unsure how strongly the bill would affect Syrian policies, but said he was hopeful it would be positive. “It’s hard to predict what the impact is going to be. We certainly hope that passage of the act, should it be passed, as well as our continuing direct efforts with the Syrians, our efforts with the Europeans and others, is going to have an impact, a positive impact,” Burns said. “Both Carrots and Sticks” Needed, Experts Say Several Middle East experts told the committee yesterday, however, that the threat of additional sanctions alone would not be enough to affect Syrian policies regarding terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. “When we in the United States use the old stick approach with Syria, the best we can get is half-hearted cooperation,” said Murhaf Jouejati of the Middle East Institute. “By using your stick, Mr. chairman, we are unwittingly delaying the reforms in Syria that we are hoping for,” he added. Flynt Leverett of the Brookings Institution said that a lack of discussion in U.S. foreign policy on providing benefits to Damascus for its cooperation on issues of concern represents a “serious deficiency in the policy debate right now.” “The consistent message that I hear from Syria with regard to our policy differences with the regime in Damascus is, ‘You keep telling us you want us to change our behavior, but you won’t tell us what’s in it for us if we do,’” Leverett said. “I think we should make it clear both what is in it for Syria is it behaves more constructively, and what will happen to them if they don’t behave more constructively,” he said. Leverett proposed that a “sunset provision” be included to the sanctions bill, which would force the president and the Congress to later re-examine the bill to see if its measures were effective. He also called for the United States to develop a “road map” to address Syria’s support for terrorism — an approach that would include both calls for Damascus to take verifiable steps against terrorist groups and the promise of removing Syria from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism if it were to do so. Back to top

Officials Praise Iranian Openness as Nuclear Deadline Passes As today’s deadline for Iranian nuclear transparency passed, the top international nuclear inspector tentatively praised Tehran’s cooperation while saying that efforts to verify Iranian disclosures would take months (see GSN, Oct. 30). Iran submitted a report describing its nuclear program to the International Atomic Energy Agency last week after the agency’s Board of Governors set an Oct. 31 deadline (see GSN, Oct. 23). IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said yesterday that Iran’s nuclear declaration appears to be comprehensive. “I think we are making good progress. Iran has submitted what (it) assured me to be a comprehensive and accurate declaration,” ElBaradei said. “I think I could say that at first glance the report is comprehensive but we still have to do a lot of fine-tuning, we still have to do a lot of questioning, and that is why we are there [in Iran] right now and we will continue to be there doing an inspection for quite a few months in fact,” he added. ElBaradei also said he expects Iran to announce formally next week that it will sign the Additional Protocol to its IAEA safeguards agreement, which would allow the agency to conduct more intrusive monitoring of Iran’s nuclear activities (Reuters/Financial Times, Oct. 31). ElBaradei said Iran has shown greater openness to allowing agency officials to visit its nuclear facilities. “We also have been given access to all the sites that we wanted,” he said (Vanessa Gera, Associated Press/London Guardian, Oct. 31). Back to top       Antinuclear Group Publishes Plutonium Shipment Timetables Despite French Defense Decree By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — To highlight the terrorist risks of using plutonium in civilian power programs, an antinuclear group has made public a timetable for a Nov. 10 rail shipment of nuclear fuel from the La Hague reprocessing plant in northern France to a storage site in Germany (see GSN, Oct. 15). “If a little association like ours can succeed in getting the timetables, the terrorists can get them very easily too,” said Pascal Braud, from the French activist group Sortir du Nucleaire. To illustrate the ineffectiveness of a recent French government decree classifying a variety of information about nuclear material as secret, the group today announced the timetable’s publication on the Web site of a friendly German nongovernmental organization. Sortir du Nucleaire spokesman Stephane Lhomme wrote in an e-mail to Global Security Newswire that his group, which regularly published such information before Paris issued its decree, no longer does so. “But, by ‘chance,’ this timetable ‘turns up’ on the site of our German partners. That is all.  We have no comment on this fact,” Lhomme wrote. He added that the publication is a way to “show that this is an absurd decree.” “We expect the government to completely repeal this decree, which in no way ensures public security. The shipments of nuclear material are indefensible. We demand the end of nuclear material shipments,” Lhomme wrote. Braud added in a telephone interview, “We have always monitored the trains, even after the decree, except that we could [no longer publish the information] on our Internet site, because we do not have the right.” Braud added, though, that Ministry of Industry senior defense official Didier Lallemand, who issued the July decree and is reportedly revising it at the government’s request, has told NGO representatives he does not object to the publication of train timetables, only truck schedules. Lallemand could not be contacted in time for this article. Germany sends spent fuel from its Gorleben plant to La Hague for reprocessing, and the fuel is then shipped back to Gorleben. French and German activist groups have long contended that security for such shipments is inadequate, and groups such as Greenpeace, which in February stopped a truck carrying plutonium from La Hague to southern France, scorn government assurances that shipments are protected in part by varying timetables (see GSN, July 15). A spokesman for the French company Areva, which along with partner Cogema runs operations at La Hague, said timetables for train shipments of nuclear material are generally communicated “shortly before departure” to police chiefs along the route. Braud said he is confident the timetable published on the German site is correct and will not change, because the trains use regular rail lines and must vie for slots in a tight schedule with passenger and other freight trains. Back to top       U.S. Officials Cautious, Hopeful After North Korea Agrees to Talk U.S. officials reacted with cautious optimism yesterday to reports of North Korea’s willingness to hold another round of talks on defusing the Korean nuclear crisis (see GSN, Oct. 30). Following talks with a senior Chinese official, North Korea said it was willing to participate in talks if they lead to a “package solution based on the principle of simultaneous actions.” “We are encouraged by the reports we have seen that North Korea has agreed in principle to continue the six-party talks,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan said yesterday. The first round of six-way talks were held in Beijing in August and included the United States, North and South Korea, China, Russia and Japan. “The president has made it very clear that the multilateral or the multiparty process provides the best hope for achieving our shared objective of getting North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions and end its nuclear weapons program,” McClellan added. The U.S. State Department expressed concern that North Korea might be demanding an agreement that did not require Pyongyang to make several U.S.-sought moves before it receives any benefits in exchange. “I would just point out ‘simultaneity’ is not a word that we have used,” said U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher. “That may be the way they have described the proposals they made at an earlier round of talks. We have also got ideas and put proposals on the table,” he added. The United States, according to Boucher, is trying to achieve “a series of steps that would have to be taken in order to achieve a verifiable and irreversible end to North Korea’s nuclear weapons program” (Anthony Faiola, Washington Post, Oct. 31). A top North Korean defector — in Washington for talks with U.S. lawmakers — warned against trusting North Korea in any agreement. “I don’t think that any promise made by Kim Jong Il is of any significance,” said Hwang Jang Yop, a former high-ranking North Korean official who defected six years ago (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Oct. 31). “I don’t understand how we can actually guarantee the continued existence of a dictator that abuses human rights,” Hwang said of a U.S. offer to provide a written promise not to attack North Korea. “It’s almost like you Americans telling the terrorist organizations that ‘if you promise not to terrorize people again, we will leave you alone.’ That’s not what the war on terror is about,” he added (Shaughnessy/Labott, CNN.com, Oct. 30). Back to top

U.S. Researchers Produce Genetically Enhanced Mousepox A team of U.S. researchers have created a genetically engineered mousepox virus that can evade vaccines, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, Oct. 27). The federally funded team at St. Louis University developed the new virus and then produced a successful countermeasure. Team leader and university professor Mark Buller rejected suggestions that the research could aid terrorists. “The whole focus was to contribute to the biodefense agenda of the country,” Buller said.  Buller’s team spliced a gene known to suppress the immune system into a mousepox gene, and then injected the strand into vaccinated mice. All the mice died. “All this is out there,” Buller said of biotechnology. “There are cookbooks easily attainable on how to make this stuff,” he added. Mousepox cannot be passed to humans, but it appears similar to smallpox and is useful for research, according to AP. “In the Soviet Union, there was some research trying to develop genetically engineered smallpox,” said former Soviet bioweapons researcher Ken Alibek. “It wasn’t very successful, but now with all the new advances in technology, know that it’s pretty much obvious that it can be done,” he added (Paul Elias, Associated Press/Kansas City Star, Oct. 31). Back to top       TOPOFF 2 Exercise Illustrated Weaknesses, FEMA Says A report prepared by the U.S. Homeland Security Department’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) says that a WMD-response exercise held six months ago demonstrated a lack of information-sharing and uncertainties as to chains of command among U.S. agencies, the Wall Street Journal reported (see GSN, Oct. 21.). During the TOPOFF2 exercise, emergency response teams could not obtain vital equipment because it was unknown which agency was responsible for them, according to the report. It also says that officials deployed emergency response personnel and equipment without notifying their superiors, the Journal reported.  FEMA also found that federal agents did not share intelligence because of a lack of security clearances and that there was widespread confusion over Homeland Security’s color-coded terrorist threat level, according to the Journal.  “Fortunately, this was only a test,” the report says. “However, if a real incident occurs before final procedures are established, such unnecessary confusion will be unacceptable,” it says. A government observer at the exercise said the extent of confusion was significant because it occurred despite the extensive prenotification of the state and federal officials, according to the Journal. “The criticisms are among the worst I’ve ever heard, especially when you take into account the scope of this drill,” the observer said (Robert Block, Wall Street Journal, Oct. 31). Back to top

U.S. Concedes It Will Miss Final Chemical Weapons Destruction Deadline By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The United States cannot destroy all of its chemical weapons until at least 2008 and possibly as late as 2016, according to legislators and defense officials who spoke at a congressional hearing yesterday. The estimates mean that Washington will certainly miss the 2007 deadline set by the Chemical Weapons Convention to destroy the entire U.S. stockpile (see GSN, May 7). “We will not meet the 100-percent destruction deadline,” Assistant Secretary of Defense for Chemical Demilitarization and Counterproliferation Patrick Wakefield told the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities. Treaty parties last week granted the United States a three-year extension on an interim destruction deadline, moving back the requirement for destroying 45 percent of U.S. chemical weapons to April 2007 (see GSN, Oct. 27). Wakefield said yesterday that the United States would soon request to extend the deadline for destroying the total stockpile as well. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said last week that, besides extending the U.S. 45-percent deadline and other deadlines for partial elimination of U.S. and Russian stockpiles, it had “extended in principle” the deadlines for complete stockpile destruction. The treaty allows for a five-year extension on the final deadline if the parties agree. The subcommittee heard various projections yesterday for when the United States would complete the total destruction of the U.S. stockpile, which once totaled 31,000 metric tons and is still at about 74 percent of that figure, but no speaker said the stockpile would be destroyed by 2007. Representative Martin Meehan (D-Mass.) cited a date of 2014 for complete destruction of the stockpile, while U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency Director Michael Parker said the current “target” is “2008 to 2011” for 100 percent destruction at all sites ― except at a chemical neutralization site in Kentucky, for which no schedule has been set (see GSN, June 18). The head of nuclear and chemical efforts in the Homeland Security Department’s Emergency Preparedness and Response Directorate, Craig Conklin, said operations at the Anniston, Ala., chemical weapons incinerator could continue until 2016 (see GSN, Oct. 30). Washington “risks not meeting” the possible 2012 extended deadline, said General Accounting Office Defense Capabilities and Management Managing Director Henry Hinton. Hinton’s testimony drew heavily on a Sept. 5 GAO report indicating that the U.S. disposal program is in “turmoil” owing to poor leadership (see GSN, Sept. 8). “GAO believes that further delays will occur and costs will grow even higher,” Hinton said yesterday, referring to persistent delays in the U.S. program and a total estimated cost that has ballooned from an initial figure of $1.7 billion to a current estimate of more than $25 billion. As for the newly set 2007 deadline for destroying 45 percent of the stockpile, Parker said the United States is “very confident” of reaching the mark on time. Army Struggles to Streamline Program as Congress Frets Early this year, in the face of mounting concern about delays and cost overruns, the United States created the Army Chemical Materials Agency and placed Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology Claude Bolton in charge of chemical weapons disposal. Bolton initially “resisted” taking the responsibility, he said at yesterday’s hearing, “until I was assured that … we could put some things in place” to remedy the management problems that have dogged the effort. He said he was promised cooperation in implementing streamlined management, developing a clear focus for the effort and setting goals and ways of measuring progress toward them. “We are making progress that will allow us to get a handle on the cost,” said Bolton. Both Wakefield and Parker added that the creation of the Chemical Materials Agency would improve the situation. The chemical weapon destruction program draws on numerous facilities to perform various processes, and timelines diverge significantly at the different sites. Chemical weapons destruction has ended at Johnson Atoll, a U.S. territory in the North Pacific, and is under way in Anniston and at sites in Maryland and Utah, officials said yesterday. Bolton said sites in Oregon and Arkansas are “complete and undergoing systematization” and that construction of an Indiana facility is nearly complete, while related installations in Colorado and Kentucky ― run by the Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternative Program, not the Chemical Materials Agency ― will contribute to the effort as well. With the complex operation many times over cost and potentially set to fall behind by as much as a decade, subcommittee members expressed concerns of proliferation and wasted tax dollars. Meehan said the huge remaining stock of chemical agents ― the result, he said, of other Defense Department priorities’ having “won out in the resource game” ― poses a risk of theft by “terrorists seeking to wreak havoc on American citizens.” Subcommittee Chairman Jim Saxton (R-N.J.) added of the program’s cost, “We have lots of uses to which we can put this amount of dollars.” Among other responses to such criticisms, the chemical weapons disposal officials stressed that other countries have also fallen behind. “A number of the other countries are having problems in meeting the convention, said Bolton, adding that in spite of delays and rising costs, “We have done it extremely well, better than anybody else in the world, and we’ve done it safely, and … we have a program that’s coming together in a manner that makes sense.” Added Parker, “The nation being able to commit $25 billion … I think demonstrates to the world that we’re serious about disposing of chemical weapons.” Back to top       Palestinians Have Ability to Launch Chemical Attacks Palestinian insurgents have the ability to use chemical weapons during terrorist attacks but have not yet done so because of the possible repercussions, a senior Israeli security official said this week (see GSN, Jan. 7). “It is not a problem for terrorist organizations to obtain chemical materials, and they are aware of the advantages of such an attack; but on the other hand (they know) it would be considered breaking all the rules of the game,” the official said. Dangerous chemicals are available at numerous commercial sites throughout Israel, the official said. Israeli security officials have previously found traces of common but dangerous chemicals on nails and shrapnel from suicide bombings, but police are not certain that the explosives were intentionally tainted, according to the Jerusalem Post. Israeli police are set to hold their annual major security drill Tuesday. The exercise will simulate a chemical attack on a school (Etgar Lefkovits, Jerusalem Post, Oct. 31). Back to top       Workers Demolish Pine Bluff Chemical Weapons Factories Work crews at Pine Bluff Arsenal in Arkansas this week began destroying buildings once used to produce chemical weapons precursors (see GSN, Oct. 21). The buildings, which produced materials for VX nerve gas, are separate from chemical weapons storage containers at the site. Workers will destroy buildings at the facility and neutralize chemical weapons stored there for the next three or four years. In 2005, arsenal officials will renovate one building to use as a destruction center for tens of thousands of chemical weapons containers (David Hammer, Associated Press, Oct. 31). The Arkansas Supreme Court, meanwhile, yesterday upheld the state’s decision to allow the operation of an incinerator at Pine Bluff Arsenal. “We’re certainly elated about it,” said Chris West, a spokesman for Washington Demilitarization, which is in charge of the disposal. “It means that unless something unforeseen happens, we’re going to be able to carry out our schedule and plans,” he added (Wickline/Gelder, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/NWANews.com, Oct. 31). Back to top       Aum Leader’s Trial Draws to a Close Attorneys for Aum Shinrikyo cult leader Shoko Asahara argued in their closing statements that cult members acted on their own when they conducted a 1995 sarin attack on the Tokyo subway system, the Los Angeles Times reported today (see GSN, Oct. 29). Asahara, currently on trial for ordering the attack, could be sentenced to death if convicted (Los Angeles Times, Oct. 31).  So far, 10 Aum members have been sentenced to death in Japan for their involvement in various cult attacks (Mike Nartker, GSN, Oct. 31). Back to top

Next GMD Intercept Test Slated for Spring 2004 A U.S. Missile Defense Agency spokesman has said that the next intercept test in the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system is set to be conducted by the middle of next year, instead of by the end of 2003 as had once been planned, Defense Daily reported today (see GSN, Oct. 8). The test, Integrated Flight Test-14, will be held “in the spring time,” MDA spokesman Rick Lehner said. The test was delayed so the agency could choose between two still-untested boosters currently under development, he said (see GSN, Oct. 24; Sharon Weinberger, Defense Daily, Oct. 31).   Back to top

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