Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, who reiterated yesterday that his country would not give up developing a complete nuclear fuel cycle. Three European nations are preparing to offer Iran an incentive package including a light-water nuclear reactor for ending all uranium enrichment activities (AFP photo/Behrouz Mehri). European Powers Could Offer Iran Light-Water Reactor in Exchange for Nuclear Compliance A light-water nuclear reactor is expected to be part of the package France, Germany and the United Kingdom are set to offer Iran tomorrow if it agrees to suspend all uranium enrichment activities ahead of a Nov. 25 International Atomic Energy Agency meeting, according to a confidential document obtained by Agence France-Presse (see GSN, Oct. 19)...Full Story

Railroads, U.S. Said to Agree on Protecting, But Not Rerouting, Chlorine Trains Through Capital By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The United States and railroad companies have agreed on voluntary measures by the companies to address terrorism-vulnerability concerns posed by shipments of chlorine and other toxic materials through the nation’s capital, activist groups said yesterday...Full Story

U.S.-Trained Iraqi Was Key Official, ISG Says By David Ruppe Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — An Iraqi army officer trained in chemical and biological warfare in the United States in the 1960s became a key player in Iraq’s WMD programs, a U.S. report said this month (see GSN, Oct. 7)...Full Story

	Wednesday, October 20, 2004

Railroads, U.S. Said to Agree on Protecting, But Not Rerouting, Chlorine Trains Through Capital By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The United States and railroad companies have agreed on voluntary measures by the companies to address terrorism-vulnerability concerns posed by shipments of chlorine and other toxic materials through the nation’s capital, activist groups said yesterday. Greenpeace and Public Citizen criticized the voluntary nature of the purported agreement and said President George W. Bush’s administration was putting politics before security by delaying any announcement on the plan until after next month’s national elections. The groups expressed concern that the agreed measures would not include rerouting the trains — which Greenpeace said “can now be turned into weapons of mass destruction” by attackers — to avoid the city. The shipments of chlorine gas, which opponents say could create a massive cloud if attacked that would endanger hundreds of thousands of lives, pass within blocks of the U.S. Capitol and other sensitive locations in the center of Washington. Greenpeace has documented the presence and accessibility in Washington of trains clearly labeled to indicate toxic contents such as chlorine, and reports suggest thousands of the shipments may be passing through the city each year. “The feds have all the authority they need to require rerouting, and they simply choose not to do it,” District of Columbia Council member Kathy Patterson, who last year sponsored an unsuccessful proposal to reroute the trains, said yesterday in an interview. Railroads have opposed rerouting, citing economic drawbacks. Neither the U.S. Homeland Security Department nor CSX, the major rail company involved, responded to repeated requests for comment in time for this article. The vulnerability of chlorine shipments through the capital has become a hot topic since the Sept. 11, 2001, al-Qaeda attacks on the United States. Activists say the availability of high-powered rifles and other weapons and the accessibility of urban rail lines make shipping highly toxic materials through cities such as Washington a bad idea. In an oft-cited presentation to the District of Columbia Council, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory scientist Jay Boris said the rupture of a rail tanker carrying a toxic chemical in central Washington could quickly cause mass death. In a “worst-case scenario” involving a stiff breeze, a large holiday crowd on the National Mall and “the absence of an early warning and concerted action,” Boris said, “Over 100,000 people could be seriously harmed or even killed in the first half an hour.” Bosnian Muslim and Chechen forces have employed chlorine and ammonia — another material that is shipped by rail through Washington — in weapons in recent years, and such materials are widely available in the United States, according to RAND Corp. political scientist Theodore Karasik. In a 2002 report for the U.S. Air Force, Karasik said U.S. officials preparing for the 1996 Olympics studied the specific possibility of “improvised chemical devices such as the use of high explosives by terrorists to puncture a train car loaded with chlorine gas.” “Toxic warfare remains a possibility within the United States in large part because of the size of the U.S. industrial infrastructure, which makes greater use of toxic chemicals and produces more industrial waste than any other country in the world,” Karasik wrote. As the United States began bombing Afghanistan in October 2001 in response to the Sept. 11 attacks, railroads stopped shipping hazardous chemicals for three days. Amid talks on whether and how to reroute the trains or implement permanent security improvements, shipments have been halted for such events as presidential State of the Union speeches and a National Football League festival last year on the National Mall, featuring pop star Britney Spears. “We’re in harm’s way 24/7,” Patterson said at a press conference this week, “but thank goodness Britney’s not.” A year ago tomorrow, Patterson and fellow council members David Catania and Carol Schwartz introduced their bill to reroute the shipments. Council sources recently indicated the plan has been effectively killed as the federal government exercised its prerogative to review all new District of Columbia laws. The bill would prohibit shipments of chlorine and similar substances through the city except as authorized by a hard-to-obtain city permit: Rail and road shippers seeking such a permit from the city Transportation Department would have to demonstrate “that no practical alternative route to passage through the District of Columbia exists,” that “the ultimate destination for the hazardous materials is an approved facility located in the District of Columbia” or that “an emergency requires passage through the district.” With the bill apparently stalled, Patterson said yesterday that council members are preparing a new measure that would require shippers to notify the city of hazardous shipments and would initiate vulnerability assessments. U.S. Representative Edward Markey (D-Mass.) on July 13 of this year introduced a related bill that would allow the city to reroute hazardous shipments. The House of Representatives Judiciary Committee subsequently approved inclusion of the bill in legislation to implement the recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission, but the final House bill did not include Markey’s measure. Preferring an administrative rather than a legislative solution, the Bush administration has “been saying … repeatedly since the middle of the spring” that it would address the problem, Patterson said. “I think we should have moved forward” already, however, she said. “I also have no confidence in the Bush administration.” A federal-local working group created to explore the situation has completed a vulnerability assessment, a “buffer-zone protection plan” and a “hazard analysis of control points” such as passenger-rail stations, according to Greenpeace Toxics Campaign Legislative Director Rick Hind’s notes from a meeting in May of this year with the federal Transportation Security Administration’s top cargo-security official, Steve Rybicki. The latest concrete sign of progress of the effort to secure the shipments was a notice that appeared two months ago in the Federal Register. The Transportation and Homeland Security departments published the notice to solicit comments on the feasibility of steps to reduce the risk posed by shipments of substances that are toxic by inhalation (TIH). Proposed steps included “improvements to security plans, modification of methods used to identify shipments, enhanced requirements for temporary storage, strengthened tank car integrity and implementation of tracking and communication systems.” Unmentioned in the notice was the possibility of rerouting the trains, a step rail companies and administration officials have consistently opposed. “It might be tempting to simply reroute such shipments around major metropolitan areas,” Federal Railroad Administration head Allan Rutter told a House subcommittee in May, but “we’d have to consider the operational consequences of such a move for cities like Houston or New Orleans or Los Angeles, where those chemicals are manufactured and used. … Facilities located there would be at a competitive disadvantage, affecting thousands of high-wage jobs.” Testifying at the same hearing, Association of American Railroads President Ed Hamberger said, “The uninterrupted flow of hazardous materials is necessary for the health and safety of the U.S., as well as its economic growth.” Environmental and consumer groups have bristled at such statements, rejecting any approach that would be driven by the industry. Hind wrote the Transportation Department (DOT) yesterday expressing “extreme concern that before the closing of this comment period, we have learned from informed sources that the federal government has reached an agreement with the railroads on a rail security plan for the Washington, D.C., area.” “In addition, we have learned that any rerouting by CSX may be ‘voluntary’ and that this arrangement will not be announced until mid-November,” Hind wrote. “This smacks of political game-playing, which has no place in crucial homeland-security issues. … Any agreements or decisions regarding Washington, D.C., should not wait until after the election but should be announced immediately.” In an interview yesterday, Hind said announcing a plan before the elections could stoke voter opposition to Bush in areas through which rerouted shipments — in the event some provision for rerouting was made in the plan — would pass or in cities through which toxic shipments would continue to travel. According to Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook, making the rail-security measures purely voluntary would be especially dangerous in light of Transportation Security Administration chief David Stone’s April 6 statement that any District of Columbia plan would serve as “the baseline” for related situations around the country. “A voluntary agreement on the rerouting of extremely dangerous hazmat transportation in the nation’s capital,” Claybrook wrote yesterday in a letter to the Transportation Department, “would set a perilously low baseline for homeland security and would leave company decisions to the caprice of the marketplace and profit considerations rather than security and safety.” Activists are calling for government regulation instead of the voluntary measures, which Hind in his letter called “unworkable and unenforceable.” He said yesterday that nongovernmental organizations even rejected a CSX offer of a secret voluntary rerouting agreement. “They said, ‘What if we secretly agreed to rerouting with you guys?’ and we said, ‘What are you smoking?’” Hind said. Hind called in his letter on the Transportation Department not only to eschew voluntary industry solutions but also “to use your existing authority under DOT rules to immediately begin rerouting all rail shipments of TIH substances around Washington, D.C.” Activist groups are supporting rerouting only as a stopgap measure until safer substances can replace materials such as chlorine for many purposes. The September 2001 attacks led the Blue Plains sewage plant in Washington to opt for such a change, switching from chlorine to other chemicals for treating sewage. “Virtually all TIH materials have safer available substitutes, and while those substitutes are acquired, existing TIH materials can be shipped in smaller quantities and on less populated routes,” Hind wrote. In the absence of progress toward such measures, opponents of the chlorine shipments are becoming increasingly frustrated. In a statement this week, Patterson noted al-Qaeda’s tendency to return repeatedly to the same targets, which she said could indicate a future attack on Washington. The Sept. 11 airplane downed in western Pennsylvania has been widely reported to have been on its way to the Capitol or another Washington landmark, a possibility Patterson said is disturbing in light of al-Qaeda’s successful World Trade Center attack eight years after a previous attack failed to down the towers. “Should we in the nation’s capital assume we have eight years of breathing room before a second terrorist attack?” she asked. Back to top       White House Opposes Provision in Senate Bill to Create Counterproliferation Center By Mike Nartker Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — With House and Senate lawmakers set to meet today to develop a compromise intelligence reform bill for final approval, the White House has come out against a provision in the Senate version that would create a national counterproliferation center (see GSN, Oct. 12). Earlier this month, the House and Senate each approved separate versions of legislation intended to implement the intelligence reform proposals put forth this summer by the Sept. 11 commission — chiefly the creation of a national director of intelligence to oversee the U.S. intelligence community and the creation of a National Counterterrorism Center to conduct counterterrorism-related intelligence analysis and operational planning. During final debate on its bill, the Senate approved an amendment by Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) that would create a similar center to focus on counterproliferation efforts.  “As the National Counterterrorism Center focuses on the customers and users of these dangerous technologies and materials (the terrorists), the NCPC [National Counterproliferation Center] will be focusing on the suppliers and brokers of these items.  The NCPC will endeavor to stop these activities before they ever reach the bad guys,” Frist said in a statement earlier this month. In a letter sent yesterday to two members of the House-Senate conference committee developing a compromise bill, the White House came out against the creation of a counterproliferation center, saying instead that it preferred to wait for the recommendations of a presidential commission established in February to examine WMD-related intelligence. “Mandating creation of a National Counterproliferation Center … or other similar organization with insufficient study is premature and risks disrupting ongoing efforts to counter the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction,” says the letter, sent to House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.) and Senate Governmental Affairs Committee Chairwoman Susan Collins (R-Maine). The letter was signed by national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and White House Office of Management and Budget Director Joshua Bolton. A spokeswoman for Frist said earlier this week that the senator was “optimistic” that his amendment would be included in the compromise intelligence reform bill. Members of the House-Senate conference committee are scheduled to meet today to work out the differences between the two intelligence reform bills. Among such differences is the greater level of budgetary and personnel authority provided to the new national intelligence director through the Senate bill, as well as a number of nonintelligence-related provisions in the House bill regarding issues such as expanded antiterrorism powers and border security. In its letter yesterday, the White House came out in favor of the budgetary and personnel authority included in the Senate bill, but also reiterated its opposition to a provision to declassify the total intelligence budget requested by the president and appropriated by Congress. Instead, it favored the House bill’s stance on the issue, which would keep the amount of the total intelligence budget classified. While criticizing both the House and Senate bills for including “excessive and unnecessary details” concerning the structure of the office of the national intelligence director, the White House singled out several provisions in the Senate bill, such as one to create an intelligence ombudsman intended to prevent the politicialization of intelligence. The Senate bill, the White House warned, would create a “cumbersome new bureaucracy” in the national intelligence director’s office that would “hinder, not help, the effort to protect national security.” The White House also said that it “strongly supports” the antiterrorism- and border security-related provisions in the House intelligence bill, which had come under fire from Democratic lawmakers. The administration added, though, that it “strongly opposes” the “overbroad expansion” of authority in the House bill to deport illegal immigrants without court review. Both House and Senate leaders have said they hope to have a final intelligence bill sent to President George W. Bush for his signature before the November elections. Some lawmakers, as well the head of the Sept. 11 commission, have expressed concern, though, that the bill may not be completed by then, according to reports. House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) has reportedly pushed for the conference committee to complete its work this week so the House can vote on the compromise version next week. In its letter, the White House called on House and Senate lawmakers to work quickly to complete a final bill. “The administration urges the conferees to reach agreement on an effective bill to strengthen the nation’s intelligence capabilities that both houses can pass and the president can sign into law as soon as possible to meet the nation’s security needs,” the letter says. Back to top       U.N. Bodies Work Against Terror By Jim Wurst Global Security Newswire UNITED NATIONS — The new directorate designed to improve the United Nations’ counterterrorism activities will soon “play a leading and more proactive role in reinforcing an effective counterterrorism framework on the global, regional and national level,” Ambassador Andrei Denisov of Russia, the chairman of the U.N. Security Council Counterterrorism Committee (CTC), said yesterday. Presenting his regular report on the committee’s work to the council, Denisov said combating terrorism “requires a consolidated and wide-ranging multinational response. By strengthening its structural and working capacity, the CTC is determined to continue playing a proactive role and to provide guidance to international cooperation in preventing and combating terrorism, one of the strongest threats to peace and security.”  U.N. Resolution 1373, adopted weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the United States, requires states to deny terror suspects safe haven for themselves or their finances, cooperate in investigations of terrorism and incorporate antiterrorism provisions in their national laws. The resolution requires states to file reports on their compliance with 1373. The Counterterrorism Committee was established to monitor compliance with the mandate. In March, the council adopted Resolution 1535 which created the directorate to help states fulfill their counterterrorism obligations and to have an in-house expertise on terrorism issues. Helping countries to fulfill their counterterrorism obligations is the only “way that we can begin to close the gap and make more difficult, day by day, the deadly and destructive work of the terrorists,” said Javier Ruperez, the executive director of the secretariat. “We need to build cooperation not only among member states but also international, regional and subregional organizations.” Ruperez said in his first presentation to the Security Council since his appointment in May. “And for those reasons, the executive directorate will double efforts to encourage member states to comply fully with the obligations which they have before them so that they will be armed with the legal and administrative tools to confront the threat of terrorism with full attachment to international law.”  “The council has been tailoring its actions to the new challenges before it while reiterating the connections between organized crime or the trafficking of weapons, including those of mass destruction, and terrorism, and the need to broaden cooperation” among states and international organizations, he added. The Counterterrorism Committee’s priorities include establishing closer cooperation with other Security Council bodies dealing with counterterrorism, strengthening “practical cooperation” with international and regional bodies and developing “direct dialogue and information exchange” with governments, Denisov said. One of the committee’s jobs is to assist governments in submitting the often-complicated reports required by Resolution 1373.   To assist in this, he said, the panel is developing a database on “counterterrorism information and sources of assistance” and an “assistance matrix” covering nations’ requests for assistance and the assistance offered by international and regional organizations. Denisov said another objective is to encourage states to ratify the 12 antiterrorism conventions, which he said are “key … to strengthening the international legal basis for combating and preventing terrorism.” Council members said they welcomed the creation of the directorate and saw it as step to create a coherent U.N. approach to combating terrorism. Several delegates said they hoped the directorate will be able to improve the council’s ability to monitor implementation of Resolution 1373 and to assist states in complying. There was also hope that the office would help avoid politicizing any list of terror suspects since there is no council definition of terrorism, would examine ways to combat terrorist financing and would promote transparency in its own work.  Back to top

U.S.-Trained Iraqi Was Key Official, ISG Says By David Ruppe Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — An Iraqi army officer trained in chemical and biological warfare in the United States in the 1960s became a key player in Iraq’s WMD programs, a U.S. report said this month (see GSN, Oct. 7). At the time, such training was considered legal under international law and was provided by the United States to numerous countries around the world (see GSN Jan. 28, 2003). The United States then had its own biological and chemical weapons programs and did not renounce such weapons respectively until late 1969 and the early 1990s. International conventions banning biological and chemical weapons entered into force in 1975 and 1997. Global Security Newswire first reported the official’s story in 2003 (see GSN, Feb. 25, 2003). It was confirmed with new details by the Iraq Survey Group report on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction activities that was delivered to Congress this month and posted by the CIA on the Internet The officer, Brig. Gen. Nizar Attar, was among a group of junior Iraqi officers sent abroad in the 1960s for biological and chemical warfare training, the report said. He “attended the CBW [chemical and biological warfare] course at Fort McClellan in the U.S.,” a program in Alabama that GSN reported included at the time lessons in both offensive and defensive chemical warfare. Attar also was believed to have studied at a Soviet “chemical defense” academy in 1964 and again in that country in the mid-1970s. Attar was a key player in the development of Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons capabilities as the country sought such weapons primarily for strategic deterrence, prestige, and in the 1980s defense during the Iran-Iraq war, according to the Iraq Survey Group report. He “spearheaded what later became the largest campaign in the pursuit of chemical weapons in Iraq’s history,” it said. Training Laid a ‘Foundation’ Iraq’s interest in chemical warfare “began in the early 1960s and escalated in response to a perceived threat from Iran and Israel to [a] comprehensive CW research program by the mid-1970s,” the report states. While the country used chemical weapons to defend against “Iranian human wave attacks,” it also used them against Iraqi Kurdish civilians in 1983 and 1988 and against Shi’a Iraqis in 1991, according to the report. The training abroad received by Attar and other junior officers became the “foundation” for later chemical and biological weapons programs, the report said. The junior officers pushed for an offensive chemical weapons program, against the resistance of more senior officers who favored defense only, and their efforts were ultimately embraced by then-future Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s Baathist party, it said. Some prominent Iraqi chemical weapons experts would receive doctorates in the 1970s from the Chemical Warfare Academy in Moscow, it said. Attar, who some U.N. inspectors described as the “father” of Iraq’s chemical program, headed the Iraqi Chemical Corps and eventually rose to lead the country’s chemical weapons program at Iraq’s Al Muthanna State Establishment during the early 1980s, the report said. With the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war in 1980, a large industrial-scale program called “Project 922” was launched for producing various agent munitions. “West German businesses, using East German designs, supervised the creation of what was at the time the world’s most modern and best-planned CW facility under the cover of pesticide production,” the report states. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein “believed Iraqi WMD capabilities had played a central role in winning of the Iran-Iraq war and were vital to Iraq’s national security,” according to the report. Biological Weapons Work Attar was also believed responsible for introducing an ambitious and successful biological warfare program at Al Muthanna. Iraqi efforts to develop biological weapons faltered in the 1970s, until the program was begun at Al Muthanna under Attar’s direction, according to the report. Biological weapons were seen as providing a “counterbalance to deter foreign threats,” it said, citing suspected Israeli WMD capabilities. The “outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war in 1980 altered Baghdad’s perception of the value of WMD and led to a reinvigoration of the BW program,” the report states. Attar appointed Dr. Rihab Rashid Taha Al ‘Azzawi as head of the biological weapons program in 1984. Under her leadership, “the program moved steadily through a series of discrete phases,” it said. Notably, Rihab ordered reference strains from various foreign sources, including, from “under the guise of work at Baghdad University,” multiple isolates of pathogens from the American Type Culture Collection including B. anthracis. “By 1988, Iraqi production was begun of anthrax, botulinum toxin and Clostridium perfringens. By early 1990, Iraq was methodically advancing toward the acquisition of a BW component to its arsenal of WMD.” Attar left the position at Al Muthanna in 1987, the report states, but as previously reported was believed to have become a senior adviser to Hussein by early 1991. Back to top       Four More Ports Join U.S. Cargo Inspection Effort The British ports of Liverpool, Southampton, Thamesport and Tilbury are expected to fully implement the Container Security Initiative on Nov. 1, U.S. and British officials announced yesterday (see GSN, Aug. 26). “By implementing the CSI in a further four U.K. ports, Customs demonstrates commitment in the fight against terrorism,” British Paymaster General and Customs Minister Dawn Primarolo said. “We will continue to share intelligence and cooperate with our partners overseas to prevent suspect material from falling into the hands of terrorists.” The program is scheduled to remain in a testing phase at the four seaports through the end of October, according to the U.S. Homeland Security Department.  The initiative permits U.S. authorities to target shipments of high-risk cargo for inspection before they leave international ports for U.S. waters. “The primary purpose of CSI is to protect the global trading system and the trade lanes between CSI ports and the U.S.,” said U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Robert Bonner. “By expanding CSI to the ports of Liverpool, Southampton, Thamesport and Tilbury, the government of the United Kingdom is helping to make a safer, more secure world trading system.” The Container Security Initiative now operates at 30 major seaports in Europe, Asia, Africa and North America, according to the U.S. State Department, and is expected to continue expanding. The initiative was proposed by Bonner and launched in January 2002. The United Kingdom signed a CSI declaration of principles on Dec. 9, 2002, and the program is already operating at the British port of Felixstowe. (State Department release, Oct. 19). Back to top       European Union, Syria Complete Association Agreement The European Union and Syria yesterday signed an economic agreement that includes a clause committing both parties to work to prevent WMD proliferation, according to Agence France-Presse (see GSN, Sept. 22). The agreement, which would create a free-trade zone between Syria and the EU, contains a provision on nonproliferation cooperation. The nonproliferation clause had been largely responsible for delays in reaching the agreement, AFP reported (Agence France-Presse/TurkishPress.com, Oct. 19). All 25 EU members must approve the agreement for it to take effect, according to the Financial Times. French officials, though, have said that it will be a “long process” to approve the agreement, and that Syria will have to make progress on ending its occupation of Lebanon (Daniel Dombey, Financial Times, Oct. 20). Back to top       Cheney Questions Kerry’s Resolve in Face of Nuclear Threat; Edwards Accuses Bush of Incompetence U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney questioned Tuesday whether Democratic presidential hopeful Senator John Kerry (Mass.) had the resolve to fight terrorism, saying the danger faced by the United States includes having a nuclear weapon detonated in a city, the New York Times reported (see GSN, Oct. 6). “The biggest threat we face now as a nation is the possibility of terrorists ending up in the middle of one of our cities with deadlier weapons than have ever before been used against us — biological agents or a nuclear weapon or a chemical weapon of some kind — to be able to threaten the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans,” Cheney said at a campaign stop in Ohio. “John Kerry would lead you to believe he has the same kind of view that [President] George [W.] Bush has, that he would be tough and aggressive,” he added. “I don’t believe it.  I don’t think there’s any evidence to support the proposition that he would, in fact, do it.” The Kerry campaign countered by saying Cheney was engaging in scare tactics and that a potential Kerry administration would take seriously the nuclear threats posed by Iran and North Korea. “He wants to scare Americans about a possible nuclear 9/11 while the Bush administration has been on the sidelines while the nuclear threats from North Korea and Iran, the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism, have increased,” Mark Kitchens, a policy adviser to Kerry, said in a statement (Randal Archibold, New York Times, Oct. 20). Meanwhile, Kerry’s running mate, Senator John Edwards (D-N.C.), accused the Bush administration of failing to require increased security against terrorist attacks at chemical plants as a result of lobbying by the chemical industry. He said the administration had failed to secure “loose” nuclear weapons overseas or adequately protect U.S. airports and ports. “This is not leadership — this is incompetence,” Edwards said (Katharine Webster, Associated Press/Boston Globe, Oct. 19). Back to top

European Powers Could Offer Iran Light-Water Reactor in Exchange for Nuclear Compliance A light-water nuclear reactor is expected to be part of the package France, Germany and the United Kingdom are set to offer Iran tomorrow if it agrees to suspend all uranium enrichment activities ahead of a Nov. 25 International Atomic Energy Agency meeting, according to a confidential document obtained by Agence France-Presse (see GSN, Oct. 19). “We would support the acquisition by Iran of a light water research reactor,” says the document, presented by the three European powers Friday to officials from the Group of Eight industrialized nations in Washington. A light-water reactor would produce a form of plutonium less likely to be used nuclear weapons than the heavy-water reactor Iran is developing, according to AFP. The Europeans told U.S. officials that the document would be “used as the basis to make the offer to Iran” but that it was not the final text, according to a Western diplomat. Washington does not “endorse” the European approach, the diplomat added. “We intend to put to the Iranians an approach containing the immediate decisions we require from them on suspension and draft elements for a long-term agreement which we could start to negotiate as soon as the IAEA verifies that the suspension is in place,” the document says. “The suspension will be indefinite, until we reach an acceptable long-term agreement,” it goes on to say. If Iran fails to agree to the suspension, the Europeans would join the United States in calling for the Iran’s case to be referred to the U.N. Security Council, which could impose sanctions. If, however, Iran agrees to the terms, the European nations would provide access to nuclear fuel for Iran’s civilian reactors, recognition of Iran’s right “to develop a nuclear power generation program to reduce its dependence on oil and gas,” and other incentives. “Much of this has been offered before, but we will pull it together into a single package,” the paper says (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, Oct. 19). “The idea is that Iran would eliminate its plans for a heavy-water reactor and instead go to a light-water reactor system and the EU would help support construction of that,” a U.S. official familiar with the offer told Reuters (Saul Hudson, Reuters, Oct. 20). Iran is interested in buying nuclear fuel from the West, Gholamreza Aghazadeh, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, was quoted as saying yesterday by state-run television. “We may purchase fuel from the West and develop its technology. We have not rejected the West’s fuel proposal, but not losing our right to the technology is the point,” Aghazadeh said (Associated Press/New York Times, Oct. 19). Iranian officials also said yesterday that Tehran would not give up developing a complete nuclear fuel cycle. “We demand respect for our rights to have nuclear technology for civilian use and that no one tries to deprive us of this,” President Mohammad Khatami said. “We are ready to cooperate and believe that dialogue and negotiation are the only ways to reach an understanding” (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, Oct. 20). The head of Iran’s National Security Council, Hassan Rohani, said yesterday that the Iranian leadership favors the re-election of U.S. President George W. Bush, despite the White House’s hard line on Tehran’s nuclear ambitions and other matters. “We do not desire to see Democrats take over,” Rohani said when asked if Iran favored the election of Democratic Senator John Kerry (Mass.). Democrats tend to focus on human rights issues, which has led Iran to prefer Republicans in Tehran’s rare public statements on presidential races, according to the Associated Press. The Bush campaign responded to the Iranian endorsement with a rebuke. “It’s not an endorsement we'll be accepting anytime soon,” Bush campaign spokesman Scott Stanzel said. “Iran should stop its pursuit of nuclear weapons and if they continue in the direction they are going, then we will have to look at what additional action may need to be taken, including looking to the U.N. Security Council.” Kerry’s campaign also had an opinion on the endorsement. “It is telling that this president has received the endorsement of a member of the axis of evil,” Kerry campaign spokeswoman Allison Dobson said (AP/Baltimore Sun, Oct. 20). Back to top       IAEA Team Visits Brazilian Uranium Enrichment Site A three-member International Atomic Energy Agency team conducted an inspection yesterday of a uranium enrichment plant in Brazil, according to Agence France-Presse (see GSN, Oct. 19). The visit was intended to determine whether restrictions agreed to by Brazilian and agency officials would hinder inspectors’ work, AFP reported. During its visit, the team was not allowed to view the frame of the plant’s centrifuges, but received access to tubes, valves and connections, AFP reported. “Before, IAEA access to nuclear plants had to be complete,” said Brazilian National Nuclear Energy Commission President Odair Dias Goncalves. “Today, the IAEA accepts the fact that it is not necessary to have unlimited access to facilities to obtain viable guarantees.” Inspectors were scheduled to announce today whether the limited access was acceptable, AFP reported. If the team determines that the visit was a success, another IAEA team could test the plant’s centrifuge process for leaks, after which the plant could begin operation in about six months, AFP reported (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, Oct. 19). Back to top       India, Pakistan Set Nuclear CBM Talks for December By Mike Nartker Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — Experts from nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan are scheduled to meet later this year to discuss nuclear confidence building measures, the Indian External Affairs Ministry announced today (see GSN, Oct. 8). The talks, to be held Dec. 14-15 in Islamabad, are set to focus on a draft agreement regarding advance notification of missile flight tests conducted by the two countries. The creation of such a system was recommended this summer during expert-level talks held between India and Pakistan, and agreed to during a later meeting between the two countries’ foreign secretaries. Experts have said that a formal advance notification system would help improve the confidence that India and Pakistan each place in the information provided ahead of tests. India and Pakistan have agreed to hold the talks as part of a peace dialogue the two countries launched early this year with the aim of resolving a number of bilateral issues. The dialogue has resulted, though, in little progress on the main dispute between India and Pakistan — control of the Kashmir region, which the countries have previously gone to war over and which remains a possible flashpoint. In addition to the nuclear CBM talks, India and Pakistan are scheduled to hold seven additional meetings in their two capitals from late November to mid-December. The talks are set to focus on issues such as road and rail links, trade issues and conventional confidence building measures. Back to top       Seoul Says North Korea Nuclear Talks Could Resume Soon After U.S. Elections Six-nation talks aimed at resolving the nuclear standoff with North Korea could resume shortly after the Nov. 2 U.S. presidential election, a senior South Korean official said yesterday (see GSN, Oct. 19). “There are a lot of discussions on holding the talks at an early date after that,” said Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon. “We believe that it is realistically difficult to expect it before the U.S. presidential election,” he added (Reuters, Oct. 20). North Korea’s No. 2 leader Kim Yong Nam, ending an official visit to Beijing yesterday, experienced strong pressure from China’s three senior leaders to have Pyongyang return to the negotiating table. Chinese President and Communist Party head Hu Jintao, parliament leader Wu Bangguo and Premier Wen Jiabao told Kim they favored a negotiated settlement to the 2-year-old standoff within the framework of the six-party talks, Reuters reported. “The situation surrounding the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula is intricate and complicated and the process of dialogue has run into some difficulties,” the Communist Party’s People’s Daily quoted Wen as telling Kim on Tuesday. “The more it comes under this kind of situation, the more all sides need to be calm, continue through dialogue, increase trust, reduce differences, jointly make efforts to realize the denuclearization of the peninsula and safeguard peace and stability on the peninsula,” he added (John Ruwitch, Reuters, Oct. 20). Back to top       Iraq War Creates Iran, North Korea Nuclear Proliferation Threats, British Think Tank Says The United States’ troubles in Iraq has motivated North Korea and Iran to press forward with their nuclear programs, according to an annual report on global security threats released Tuesday by a London-based think tank (see GSN, June 23). “Motivations in Pyongyang and Tehran run deep, and the U.S. and its allies may not have sufficient instruments of enticement or coercion to achieve disarmament,” said John Chipman, director of the International Institute of Strategic Studies. “In both cases, the threat of effective sanctions is difficult to realize and military options are unappealing.” While future policy toward the two suspected nuclear-weapons developers would depend on the outcome of the Nov. 2 presidential election, the next U.S. administration would have limited options for dealing with the threats, the report states (Peter Spiegel, Financial Times, Oct. 19). 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Denmark Investigates Whether Company Provided WMD-Related Equipment to Iraq The government of Denmark will investigate whether the Danish company Niro sold equipment to Iraq capable of being used to develop biological weapons, according to Agence France-Presse (see GSN, Oct. 8). Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen ordered the inquiry based on allegations made in a CIA report, Possible Breaches of U.N. Sanctions by Danish Companies. “The information in the CIA report is news to us. That’s why the authorities must naturally look into the claims,” Rasmussen told Danish lawmakers. Investigators from the Danish Trade and Industry Ministry and secret service were schedule to visit Niro today. The company has denied any wrongdoing. “We have not delivered one single screw to Iraq since 1989 when we supplied a dryer system used in the industrial ceramics industry,” Niro managing director Niels Graugaard told the Danish financial daily Boersen yesterday (Agence France-Presse, Oct. 19). Back to top

Iran Says it Tested Improved Shahab 3 Iran said it conducted a test firing today of an improved version of its Shahab 3 ballistic missile, Reuters reported (see GSN, Oct. 7). “Iran test fired a more accurate version of the Shahab 3 in the presence of observers,” said Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani (Reuters, Oct. 20). Back to top

Russians Recover Uranium From Scrapyard Russian authorities have recovered two containers of uranium 238 that were discovered at a waste dump near the city of Saratov, the London Times reported today (see GSN, Oct. 7). Several homeless people found the containers and took them to a scrapyard to sell, according to the Times. In addition to the two containers used to store depleted uranium 238, a third container believed to have been used to transport uranium was also discovered, the Times reported. A Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency spokesman said the discovered materials look “very much like lead, so I would not be surprised if someone had simply mistaken it and dumped it at the scrapyard.” Authorities yesterday also seized a truck carrying radioactive materials at the port of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in eastern Russia, according to the Times.  Enough uranium, plutonium and strontium to make a radiological “dirty bomb” were found last week on a train heading to a town near Chechnya, the Times reported. The materials were apparently heading to Ingushetia State University (Jeremy Page, London Times, Oct. 20).         Back to top

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