Test caption test test Iran Developing Nuclear Weapon Delivery Systems, U.S. Intelligence Claims U.S. intelligence agencies have uncovered indications that Iran is attempting to adapt missiles to carry nuclear warheads, Secretary of State Colin Powell said yesterday (see GSN, Nov. 17). “I have seen some information that would suggest that they have been actively working on delivery systems. … You don’t have a weapon until you put it in something that can deliver a weapon,” Powell said. “I’m not talking about uranium or fissile material or the warhead; I’m talking about what one does with a warhead.” “I’m talking about information that says they not only have these missiles, but I am aware of information that suggests that they were working hard as to how to put the two together,” Powell added. One expert told the Washington Post that Powell’s remarks indicated Iran was attempting to develop a nuclear warhead small enough to fit on a missile...Full Story

Putin Nuclear Comments Probably Described New Submarine-Launched Strategic Missile, Experts Say By Mike Nartker Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — Russian President Vladimir Putin was probably referring to the Bulava submarine-launched ballistic missile when he commented yesterday on his country’s development of new and unique nuclear weapons systems, according to U.S. and Russian experts (see GSN, Nov. 17)...Full Story

Experts Say Biological Weapons Ban Can Be Monitored By David Ruppe Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — International compliance with the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) can be routinely monitored, a group of U.S. biopharmaceutical industry experts said yesterday in a report challenging some core tenets of the Bush administration opposition to a formal inspections mechanism...Full Story

	Thursday, November 18, 2004

Homeland Security-Backed Public Database Launched By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism yesterday launched a government-funded online database of public terrorism information that some experts called the most comprehensive yet available. The U.S. Homeland Security Department’s Office for Domestic Preparedness provided $5 million over the last three years to help create the database, which contains a trove of RAND Corp. data on terrorist incidents and groups stretching back to 1968, as well as hundreds of legal documents from terrorism cases. The Web site is updated several times a month, and results can be sorted by terrorist group, person, date, location, information source and other criteria. “It’s the most comprehensive (terrorism Web site) I’ve seen and the most user-friendly,” Heritage Foundation terrorism expert James Carafano said in a press release the institute distributed yesterday at the launch of the database, held here at the Army-Navy Club. The U.S. Terrorist Threat Integration Center maintains a limited-access Web site of “sensitive but unclassified” information, but experts and officials at yesterday’s launch said effort by the Oklahoma City nonprofit organization is the first public site of its kind. They said users may include policy analysts, lawyers, journalists and students. An open-source terrorism database “was needed; it was a void that has now been filled,” Office for Domestic Preparedness head Suzanne Mencer said at the launch. Mencer stressed the database’s combination of foreign and domestic information. “I tell people when they continually only mention al-Qaeda that I have two words for them: Oklahoma City,” she said. Former CIA Center for the Study of Intelligence head Lloyd Salvetti agreed that the database may help to correct an overemphasis on Osama bin Laden’s organization. “Al-Qaeda is not the sole threat,” Salvetti said at the launch. “Jihadism … will come at us from many different regions of the world.” Salvetti, who recently served as a consultant to the Sept. 11 commission, said the commission found a need for more attention to open-source information such as that catalogued in the new database. “There is an enormous amount of information available that does not require stealing secrets,” he said. In testimony last year to the Sept. 11 panel, House of Representatives Select Committee on Homeland Security Staff Director John Gannon said the federal government’s intelligence analysts rely on “vital sources of information and expertise that reside and will increasingly reside outside the intelligence community. … They must routinely collect more open-source information.” “Their managers must make this happen. … They must come to accept that they do not and will not originate all information critical to them,” Gannon told the panel. Back to top

Russian General Describes Plan for Military, Civilian Bioterrorism Countermeasures The Russian military is implementing several bioterrorism countermeasures in conjunction with the work of several ministries and government departments, according to a newspaper interview published Saturday with the chief of the Russian Federation’s Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Troops (see GSN, April 26). The threat of a bioterror attack cannot be dismissed, Lt. Gen. Vladimir Filippov told the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper. Crews trained to detect and mitigate the effects of such an attack must be prepared to take correct actions “as swiftly as possible to prevent people being contaminated,” he said. “A Unified System for the Detection and Evaluation of a Radiation, Chemical or Biological Situation is functioning in the Russian Federation armed forces and is constantly being upgraded,” Filippov said. “This facilitates the timely notification of the appropriate agencies regarding a given type of contamination so that they can take soundly based decisions on eliminating the consequences of contamination.” Russia has also established the Center for Special Laboratory Diagnostics and the Treatment of Particularly Dangerous Infectious Diseases “to facilitate more effective countering of terrorist acts of this nature,” he said. Filippov also said he expect his Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Troops to be provided with new equipment by the end of next year. “A set of fundamentally new chemical reconnaissance instruments intended for installation aboard specialized reconnaissance vehicles will be added to the inventory in the not too distant future,” he said. “The adoption for supply of a remote radiation, chemical and biological reconnaissance complex enabling personnel to avoid contact with a contaminated environment will also be an important step in renewing the troops’ instrument pool.” The troops are expected to receive new protective gear and access to a “polyfunctional foaming agent” that neutralizes toxic agents and renders the equipment invisible to radar and infrared emission bands, according to Filippov. The unit should also obtain 15 new ARS-14K chemical spray trucks for treatment of roads and terrain sectors, as well as personnel decontamination procedures. Russian scientists, meanwhile, have created some 50 new prophylactic drugs, including an Ebola inoculation, according to Filippov (Krasnaya Zvezda/BBC Monitoring, Nov. 17). Back to top

Iran Developing Nuclear Weapon Delivery Systems, U.S. Intelligence Claims U.S. intelligence agencies have uncovered indications that Iran is attempting to adapt missiles to carry nuclear warheads, Secretary of State Colin Powell said yesterday (see GSN, Nov. 17). “I have seen some information that would suggest that they have been actively working on delivery systems. … You don’t have a weapon until you put it in something that can deliver a weapon,” Powell said. “I’m not talking about uranium or fissile material or the warhead; I’m talking about what one does with a warhead.” “I’m talking about information that says they not only have these missiles, but I am aware of information that suggests that they were working hard as to how to put the two together,” Powell added. One expert told the Washington Post that Powell’s remarks indicated Iran was attempting to develop a nuclear warhead small enough to fit on a missile. “Powell appears to be saying the Iranians are working very hard on this capability,” said Joseph Cirincione, director of the Nonproliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He added that Powell’s statements were surprising in light of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s report this week that it had found no proof that Iran was pursuing a military nuclear capability. Powell also said Washington had not yet decided on a course of action given Iran’s agreement with European countries Sunday to suspend some nuclear activities. U.S. monitoring of verification efforts will occur “with necessary and deserved caution because for 20 years the Iranians have been trying to hide things from the international community,” he said (Wright/Richburg, Washington Post, Nov. 18). Meanwhile, Iran today refuted charges by a dissident group that it was using a facility near Tehran to secretly develop a nuclear weapon, Agence France-Presse reported. “I totally deny these allegations. This site is not a nuclear site and has nothing to do with our nuclear activities. Iran has no undeclared nuclear activities,” nuclear negotiator Hossein Mousavian told AFP. Iran has already “declared all our nuclear sites and all our nuclear activities” to the International Atomic Energy Agency, he said. “We have always responded positively to the agency’s inspections requests. We have always cooperated,” Mousavian said in response to questions about whether the agency would be allowed to visit the suspected site. Pakistan also rejected the National Council of Resistance of Iran claim that Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan provided Tehran with a bomb blueprint, according to AFP (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, Nov. 18). The charges were leveled eight days before the agency’s Board of Governors is scheduled to consider whether Iran should be referred to the U.N. Security Council over its nuclear activities, the New York Times reported.  “The timing of these revelations raises suspicions that the group is attempting to derail Iran’s deal with the Europeans, particularly since there is no evidence to back up any of these claims,” said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security. The claim that Khan supplied Iran with highly enriched uranium in 2001 “seems preposterous, given the fact that was a year when the United States was really cracking down on Pakistan’s nuclear export activities,” Albright said. Another expert noted that the exiled group has revealed accurate information about Iran’s nuclear activities in the past. “Everything that came out initially about the Iranian clandestine program was from this organization,” said Paul Leventhal of the Nuclear Control Institute in Washington. The International Atomic Energy Agency said it is investigating all credible information on Iran’s nuclear program. “We follow up every solid lead,” said agency spokesman Mark Gwozdecky. Proof that Iran received highly enriched uranium or bomb designs from any source could disrupt European efforts to negotiate a nuclear agreement with Tehran. “The game is over if all this is true,” said one Western diplomat close to the agency. “But the IAEA needs more than suspicions, and the Iranian resistance hasn’t given it anything it can follow up on.” (Elaine Sciolino, New York Times, Nov. 17). In Tehran today, the trial of four Iranians accused of espionage in relation to the country’s nuclear program began, AFP reported. “These individuals, who infiltrated nuclear facilities and managed to win the confidence of the officials, were spying for foreign countries,” Ali Mobacheri, the head of Tehran’s revolutionary courts, told a state-run newspaper. “They are in prison and their trial is under way,” he added. While neither the accused nor the countries they allegedly spied for were identified, the news report says that “in the past these individuals also spied for Iraq.” (Agence France Presse/SpaceWar.com, Nov. 18). Back to top       Putin Nuclear Comments Probably Described New Submarine-Launched Strategic Missile, Experts Say By Mike Nartker Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — Russian President Vladimir Putin was probably referring to the Bulava submarine-launched ballistic missile when he commented yesterday on his country’s development of new and unique nuclear weapons systems, according to U.S. and Russian experts (see GSN, Nov. 17). Putin made his remarks during an annual meeting of high-level Russian military officers, according to reports. “We are not only conducting research and successful testing of the newest nuclear missile systems,” Putin was quoted by the New York Times as saying in remarks carried by Russian news agencies and broadcast on NTV. “I am certain that in the immediate years to come we will be armed with them. These are such developments and such systems that other nuclear states do not have and will not have in the immediate years to come.” While Putin did not specify which system he was referring to, U.S. and Russian experts told Global Security Newswire that he was probably speaking of the Bulava SLBM, which is now being developed. The Bulava is the submarine-launched variant of Russia’s Topol-M ICBM, the first to be deployed following the collapse of the Soviet Union.  The solid-fueled Bulava has a range of 10,000 kilometers. The missile is believed to be capable of defeating terminal-phase missile defense systems through capabilities such as evasive maneuvering warheads; as well as being equipped with countermeasures and decoys to combat midcourse missile defense systems, said Yuri Yudin of the Analytical Center for Nonproliferation at All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Experimental Physics in the closed Russian city of Sarov. The missile also has new, faster-burning engines, making it less vulnerable to boost-phase defense systems, he said.  The missile is also reportedly able to withstand attacks involving laser technology, such as the U.S. Airborne Laser System currently under development (see GSN, Nov. 12). In addition, the Bulava warhead is shielded against radiation and electromagnetic disturbance, Yudin said. “Apparently President Putin kept all those things in mind when he said that ‘they will be developments of the kind that other nuclear powers do not and will not have in the near future,’” Yudin said. The Bulava is also believed to be able to carry as many as 10 warheads, capable of hitting different targets, though with a reduced ability to counter missile defense systems, according to experts. In September, Russia conducted a test involving a mockup of the Bulava system to determine if it could be successfully launched while a submarine is submerged (see GSN, Sept. 8). The test was reported by Russian media to have been a success. The missile is set to be deployed on the new Borey-class nuclear submarine, the first of which is expected to be commissioned in 2006 (see GSN, Aug. 7, 2003). The submarine is expected to carry 12 Bulava missiles, according to reports. The Bulava could also be deployed on land, though it is not yet clear if Russia plans to do so, said Alexander Pikayev of the Carnegie Moscow Center. Such a move could signal a return to MIRV-capable ICBMs, he said, noting that the Topol-M has so far only been deployed with single warheads. Putin’s comments were the subject of questions by reporters at both yesterday’s White House and State Department press briefings. Stressing improved U.S. relations with Russia, Bush administration spokesmen said there was little concern regarding Putin’s remarks. “We have regular, ongoing consultations with the Russians pursuant to our agreements in the Moscow Treaty about weapons modernization programs and about our respective strategic force plans. Those consultations, I think, are very fruitful, they’re consistent, and they give us a very good comfort level about what Russia is doing, and presumably vice versa, about what we’re doing; so we do not perceive Russia's nuclear sustainment and modernization activities as threatening,” State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said. Ereli was referring to the U.S.-Russian Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, which took effect last year and requires both countries to reduce their numbers of deployed nuclear weapons by 2012. White House press spokesman Scott McClellan noted U.S.-Russian efforts to reduce their nuclear arsenals in his response to questions on Putin’s comments. “We don’t view it as something that is new. It’s something that we are well aware of, that they were working on some modernization efforts for their military,” McClellan said of Putin’s comments. “We have a very different relationship than we did during the Cold War. And we are working together to significantly reduce our nuclear arsenals.” Russian experts said they believed Putin’s remarks were meant to indicate the progress made so far in Russia’s efforts to reform and modernize its military. His remarks also were probably intended to show that despite Moscow’s prior focus on its conventional military forces, its strategic capabilities would not be ignored in the modernization effort, they said. Putin’s remarks may also have been a signal to foreign audiences as well, experts said. “Putin once more reasserted Russia’s status as a great power possessing a credible nuclear deterrent capability,” said Daniil Kobyakov of the PIR Center in Moscow. Back to top       Federal Officials Consider Turning Over Y-12 Security to Plant’s Operating Contractor The operating contractor for the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Tennessee might take over security for the facility following a series of security mishaps, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, Nov. 9). “We expect to make the decision within the next few weeks,” said Walter Perry of the U.S. Energy Department’s Oak Ridge office. Wackenhut Services recently received a six-month extension on its contract with the National Nuclear Security Administration, according to AP. However, Y-12 operating contractor BWXT has reportedly been pressing to consolidate its roles at the facility. Supporters argue that consolidation would improve communication between operating and security teams. In January, a federal inspector general claimed that Wackenhut guards cheated on performance drills, according to AP, and in September semiautomatic handgun training went awry when live ammunition was mistakenly used and a bullet struck a refrigerator. Wackenhut has “made dramatic improvements in the protective force,” said Lee Brooks, the company’s deputy general manager for the Oak Ridge facility (Associated Press, Nov. 18). Back to top       New Mexico Governor Urges University of California to Continue Managing Los Alamos Laboratory The University of California should seek to renew its contract to manage the Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson said yesterday (see GSN, Oct. 13). “If you pursue the competition strongly, I believe UC will win and the nation will be better off,” he told members of the university’s governing board, according to the Associated Press. The university has managed the nuclear laboratory for 60 years on no-bid contracts, according to AP, but recent security lapses and claims of fiscal mismanagement caused federal authorities to call for open bidding when the existing contract ends in September 2005. University of California officials have not committed to making a bid. Richardson recommended that the university seek an industrial partner to which it could delegate problematic tasks such as security and safety, leaving it free to focus on science and research. Potential competitors for the contract include the University of Texas and Texas A&M, but Richardson said he did not expect there would be “too many takers.” (Michelle Locke, Associated Press/San Jose Mercury News, Nov. 18). Back to top

Experts Say Biological Weapons Ban Can Be Monitored By David Ruppe Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — International compliance with the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) can be routinely monitored, a group of U.S. biopharmaceutical industry experts said yesterday in a report challenging some core tenets of the Bush administration opposition to a formal inspections mechanism. The report, Resuscitating the Bioweapons Ban: U.S. Industry Experts Plans for Treaty Monitoring, was co-produced by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and 14 experts from the U.S. pharmaceutical and biotechnologies industries, most with decades of experience in academia and in companies such as Monsanto, SmithKline Beecham and Merck.  It recommends a strategy for routinely inspecting commercial biotechnology facilities globally for illicit biological weapons activities, which the industry experts formulated during a series of “workshop” meetings this year. “We feel what we have produced, is a way to address this based on practical experience, ourselves being stakeholders who wanted to get involved and see the U.S. take the lead on this,” said workshop member Jennie Hunter-Cevera, president of the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute. That approach, outside experts say, appears tougher and potentially more effective than procedures proposed in a treaty “protocol” discarded by the international community in 2001 upon U.S. pressure and insistence that they would have been too weak to be effective and also too intrusive (see GSN, Nov. 20, 2001). The report recommends, for instance, an inspection team of six to eight people, rather than the four that would have been required by the protocol, one week of advance notice of an inspection rather than two, and more aggressive authorities and procedures for obtaining information from facilities. U.S. officials also have argued that inspections could compromise U.S. biological weapons defense programs and put proprietary commercial information at risk, and that the treaty was inherently “unverifiable” because much of the equipment and processes used for legitimate commercial or defensive work can be used for weapons (see GSN, Nov. 15, 2002). The new report disputes that. “The industry experts assert that highly skilled inspectors using their specified monitoring strategies and techniques should be able to discern legitimate facilities from those that mask illicit weapons activities,” it says. The devised monitoring scheme could be conducted while minimizing the burden on a particular facility from the inspections and without compromising proprietary information, the experts said. Trial Inspections Urged The report recommends conducting government-funded trial inspections at U.S. biopharmaceutical facilities to test its recommendations and says a 1999 law requiring such trials has never been implemented. The group’s effort won preliminary praise from arms-control experts for its toughness, though there was skepticism about the chances for implementation given the Bush administration’s previous opposition to a biological weapons inspections protocol. The proposed activities in almost every case “are as rigorous, or much more rigorous, than the draft BWC protocol,” said Milton Leitenberg, an arms-control expert at the University of Maryland. He said, though, “The U.S. government over a period of three years kept watering down the [draft protocol during negotiations], making it less rigorous.” “The question becomes if the United States cut down over a three-year period the far more rigorous earlier versions of the draft protocol, how is it going to accept this one?” he said. Amy Smithson, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who coordinated the working group’s activities, acknowledged a challenge. “Every time I sat down at the table, [the participants] were aware that the current situation internationally and in the United States is not conducive to the government jumping on the opportunity to conduct these field trial inspections,” she said. She said, though, that the trials would provide useful data for U.S. negotiators at the 2006 Biological Weapons Convention review conference. “If we’re not going to start gathering data now in preparation for this, when are we going to do it?” she said. Smithson also acknowledged that the routine commercial inspections proposed by the group would be just one element of several mechanisms necessary for monitoring treaty compliance. Procedures would need to be developed for conducting challenge inspections in the event a country is suspected of conducting biological weapons activities at a facility, she said. In addition, recommendations would need to be devised and tested in the field for routine inspections of university and government facilities that have the capacity to develop and produce biological weapons. “I think what you see in the 1999 law are requests for trials in a variety of facilities, U.S. government facilities and academic facilities as well. … [The working group’s participants are] trying to lead the way for their industry. Hopefully, someone will step up in these areas as well,” Smithson said. Smithson said the United States did not have hard data from field trials to make its assertions during the protocol negotiations and that tests of the report’s plan could provide data on the feasibility of inspections. “My hope is that my country will actually get on with the process of conducting field trials. Actual data is needed,” she said. Back to top       Infectious Disease Early Warning System Updated, Expanded to Seven Languages By Jim Wurst Global Security Newswire UNITED NATIONS —  Former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn and CNN founder Ted Turner joined international health officials yesterday to unveil an early warning system that will spread the word in seven languages on infectious disease outbreaks worldwide (see GSN, May 5). Developing “partnerships in every direction” in combating infectious diseases — whether caused by natural or terrorist acts — “is going to be a dynamic of our age,” Nunn said at a press conference. “Our response to a biological outbreak, whether caused by nature or caused by a deliberate act of man, depends on our public health infrastructure, not only in our individual countries, but around the globe,” Nunn said. Nunn and Turner are co-chairmen of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, which is providing $500,000 of $1.3 million being used to launch the Global Public Health Intelligence Network II. The network is a joint effort between the nonproliferation group, the World Health Organization and the Public Health Agency of Canada, and updates a system developed in 1998 in Canada. The network will now monitor global news sources and health and science Web sites in seven languages — Arabic, English, French, Russian, simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese and Spanish — for early indications of disease outbreaks, tainted food or water and incidents involving biological, chemical or radioactive materials, according to an NTI press release. The reports are automatically screened for relevance and then analyzed by Canadian health officials. The system highlights “potential threats by determining magnitude and geographic distribution and by identifying control and preventive measures,” according to a fact sheet from the Canadian government. Details on between 100 and 150 incidents will generally be submitted each day to subscribers, which include governmental public health agencies and nongovernmental organizations that work with health issues. While the original network screened and submitted information only in English, the updated version will be sent to members in any of the seven languages based on their preference, according to the NTI press release. “There is a fundamental need for a strengthened network of international cooperation and communication. GPHIN II will be essential in addressing that need,” said Canadian Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh. He said the new network would be the “primary source of information” on outbreaks for the World Health Organization. The initial Global Public Health Intelligence Network has identified early indicators of nearly 40 percent of outbreaks later verified by the World Health Organization. It helped the international health agency identify and respond to disease outbreaks in Kenya, Spain and Zanzibar, and contributed to the fight against SARA, the NTI press release states. Combating infectious disease “has always been a moral imperative, today in our age it is also a security imperative,” Nunn said. He called the network “a quantum leap forward in saving potentially millions of lives.” “The things we should have been doing around the world to protect against infectious disease … are now more on the front screens because of the security (concerns over) bioterrorism,” he said. “The things we need to do now to prevent bioterrorism, and to deal with it if it happens, are also things we should have already been doing on infectious disease.” “You have to have partnerships in every direction,” Nunn said. “Every laboratory dealing with dangerous pathogens, whether private or public, has to be involved in this.   This is truly going to take a massive effort and it’s not going to stop in one or two or three years. This is going to be a dynamic of our age.” [EDITOR’S NOTE: The Nuclear Threat Initiative is the sole sponsor of Global Security Newswire, which is published independently by the National Journal Group.] Back to top

British MP Warns Canada on U.S. Missile Defense A British legislator said Canada will only hurt itself by signing on to the U.S. missile defense program, the CanWest News Service reported today (see GSN, Nov. 15). “You place yourself as a forward platform for U.S. missiles and you become an irrelevancy. You’ve actually thrown sovereignty out of the window,” said British Parliament member Alan Simpson, who traveled to Ottawa to talk to his counterparts about missile defense. Prime Minister Paul Martin has said no decision has been made as to whether Canada would join the program, but his administration has said Parliament would debate the issue after a treaty is signed, according to CanWest. Simpson dismissed such a debate as useless after the fact. “I’m all in favor of people having debates about the merits of wearing parachutes but it’s best to do that before you jump,” he said (David Pugliese, CanWest News Service, Nov. 18).   Back to top

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