A bag of seals that once safeguarded North Korean nuclear material. A former U.S. official confirmed today that the material has been moved from its former storage facility (IAEA photo). Former U.S. Envoy Confirms North Korea Has Moved Nuclear Fuel By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — A cooling pond at North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear facility no longer contains spent nuclear fuel from the site’s nuclear reactor, a key participant in a recent visit of private U.S. citizens to the country confirmed today at a Brookings Institution panel discussion (see GSN, Jan. 13). ..Full Story

Western Diplomats Say Iran Continues to Acquire Centrifuge Equipment Western diplomats have said that Iran continues to produce components for uranium enrichment centrifuges, despite Tehran’s previous pledge to suspend its enrichment activities, CNN.com reported yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 12)...Full Story

Kennedy Criticizes Bush WMD Claims on Iraq By David Ruppe Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The Bush administration took more criticism this week for giving allegedly misleading prewar assessments of Iraqi WMD capabilities from Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and a group of former intelligence officers...Full Story

Tests Show No Blister Agent in Iraqi Mortar Shells Further tests conducted on a cache of 36 Iraqi mortar shells have come back negative for the presence of blister agent, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, Jan. 13)...Full Story

	Thursday, January 15, 2004

Cheney Warns of Terrorists’ Continued Interest in Weapons of Mass Destruction By Mike Nartker Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney warned yesterday that terrorists continue to threaten the United States and that terrorist groups remain interested in acquiring weapons of mass destruction (see GSN, Jan. 9). In a speech yesterday to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council, Cheney praised the positive impacts on U.S. national security of two recent international developments — the capture of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and the decision made by Libyan leader Col. Muammar Qadhafi last month to disclose and dismantle his WMD programs.  “The undoing of Saddam’s regime, and the welcome commitments from Colonel Qadhafi, will bring greater security to the American people,” Cheney said. He also warned, however, that “in moments of success, we need to remember the long-term nature of the struggle we are in, and the serious dangers that still exist.” Cheney said that the recovery of terrorist training manuals in Afghanistan and interrogations of captured operatives indicate that terrorists continue to seek to obtain weapons of mass destruction. He painted a bleak picture of the consequences if terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda were successful in their search. “Should they ever acquire such weapons, they would use them without any constraint of reason or morality. Instead of losing thousands of lives, we might lose tens or even hundreds of thousands of lives as the result of a single attack, or a set coordinated of attacks,” Cheney said. “We must do everything in our power to keep terrorists from gaining weapons of mass destruction,” he said. In his remarks, Cheney outlined the measures the Bush administration has taken since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks to better protect the United States against future terrorist acts, such as the creation of the Homeland Security Department and increased cooperation with the members of an expanded NATO. Cheney compared those measures to steps taken by former U.S. President Harry Truman following World War II to counter the threat of international communism, including the creation of the Defense Department, CIA and National Security Council. “All those early commitments, made by one president and carried forward by eight of his successors, helped to bring victory in the Cold War, and unprecedented success for the cause of freedom. In this new century, facing new dangers, the commitments we make will also be decisive,” Cheney said. In addition, the Bush administration has changed U.S. national security strategy to move away from the Cold War-era doctrines of containment and deterrence, which are ineffective against terrorists, Cheney said. To counter the threat of terrorists obtaining weapons of mass destruction, he said, U.S. President George W. Bush implemented the “Bush doctrine,” which makes no distinction between terrorist groups and the countries that support them. “There can be no waiting until the danger has fully materialized. By then it would be too late.  And so we are waging this war in the only way it can be won — by taking the fight directly to the enemy,” Cheney said. He also said that the United States considers the use of military force to be “always the last option.” Even so, Cheney said, “sometimes the last resort must be taken.” Back to top

Kennedy Criticizes Bush WMD Claims on Iraq By David Ruppe Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The Bush administration took more criticism this week for giving allegedly misleading prewar assessments of Iraqi WMD capabilities from Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and a group of former intelligence officers. “If the Congress had been given the right intelligence … that is that [Iraqi President] Saddam Hussein was not involved in 9/11, that Saddam Hussein was not involved with the al-Qaeda, that they didn’t have nuclear weapons, they didn’t have weapons of mass destruction, this nation never would have gone to war,” he said, speaking at an event sponsored by the liberal Center for American Progress. The administration used “misguided ideology, distortions of the truth to take the nation to war,” he said. Kennedy cited a statement in the early days of the administration by Secretary of State Colin Powell that Iraq had been contained by 10 years of U.N. inspections and had developed no significant weapons of mass destruction. “We have kept him contained, kept him in his box,” Powell said at a February 2002 press conference. Powell the next day also said that Hussein “has not developed any significant capabilities with respect to weapons of mass destruction.” Policy Coup Alleged Kennedy charged that administration officials — led by Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz — were predisposed to war with Iraq and sought to make a case for war by alleging an Iraqi connection to the Sept. 11 attacks and Iraqi WMD possession. “The advocates of war in Iraq desperately sought to make the case that Saddam was linked to 9/11 and al-Qaeda, and that he was on the verge of acquiring a nuclear capability,” Kennedy said. He cited various statements by officials characterizing the Iraqi threat, including an Aug. 26, 2002 address by Cheney to the Veterans of Foreign Wars where he said, “Many of us are convinced that Saddam will acquire nuclear weapons fairly soon.” Addressing Bush’s now-famous, 15-word allegation in his 2003 State of the Union address — “British intelligence has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa” — Kennedy called the assertion a “gross abuse of intelligence” and devious. “The deal was sealed,” he said, with Bush’s State of the Union address a year earlier, when he labeled Iraq, Iran and North Korea an “axis of evil,” which Kennedy called an “extraordinary policy coup.” “We lost our previous clear focus on the most imminent threat to our national security — Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda terrorist network,” he said. Kennedy said that since the war the administration “has found no arsenals of chemical or biological weapons. It has found no persuasive connection to al Qaeda” (see related GSN story, today). He continued his charges in an interview with NBC Today, saying administration officials “cooked the evidence” to allege an imminent Iraqi threat. Cheney Cites Failure to Account Meanwhile, Cheney spoke to a Beverly Hills audience last night and continued to allege Iraqi ties to al-Qaeda, but did not cite an imminent threat from Hussein or growing weapons capabilities as the justification for war (see related GSN story, today). He said Hussein’s record of aggression and previous stocks and use of weapons of mass destruction, and failure to fully account them, were the justification. “Saddam Hussein had a lengthy history of reckless and sudden aggression. His regime-cultivated ties to terror, including the al-Qaeda network, and had built, possessed, and used weapons of mass destruction,” he said. “Year after year, the U.N. Security Council demanded that he account for those weapons and that he comply with all the terms of the 1991 Gulf War cease-fire. Year after year, he refused,” he said. “Against that background, the Congress of the United States voted overwhelmingly to authorize the use of force in Iraq,” he said. Addressing Kennedy’s speech in response to a question, White House press spokesman Scott McClellan said yesterday, “I think the case that we outlined [for war] was very clear.” He noted the U.N. Security Council just prior to the war unanimously passed a resolution calling for serious consequences if Hussein failed to comply with international obligations, which included allowing the verified destruction of all weapons of mass destruction. “If you’ll recall, the international community, through the United Nations Security Council, gave Saddam Hussein one final opportunity to comply, after some 12 years of defiance of his international obligations. That resolution, passed unanimously by the United Nations Security Council, called for serious consequences,” he said. The international community recognized for a long time that Saddam Hussein was a dangerous man,” McClellan said. “America is more secure because of the action that we took in Iraq,” he said. Intelligence Officers Ask Bush to Acknowledge Errors An organization of former U.S. intelligence officers, known as Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, also charged the administration with distorting evidence on Iraqi capabilities, by saying that administration officials suppressed evidence Iraq had destroyed its chemical and biological weapons holding after the 1991 Gulf War.  In a letter to Bush Tuesday, they cited among other things a suppressed account by Iraq’s defected head of military industries Hussein Kamel of his destruction order and a U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency report in September 2002 that concluded there was no reliable evidence Iraq possessed such weapons. “This did not prevent your advisers from inserting into your important speech of Oct. 7, 2002 an alarming passage exaggerating what Kamel said about biological agents and omitting altogether what he said about having had them all destroyed,” they wrote. They urged Bush to acknowledge alleged mistakes. “After all the emphasis on weapons of mass destruction as the main reason for war, it will take considerable humility and courage to acknowledge error. But such a step is needed to stem further erosion in the credibility of your administration's statements and the intelligence adduced to justify them,” the letter says. Back to top       Tests Show No Blister Agent in Iraqi Mortar Shells Further tests conducted on a cache of 36 Iraqi mortar shells have come back negative for the presence of blister agent, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, Jan. 13). Specialists from the Iraq Survey Group conducted tests on five of the mortar shells and all returned negative results, the Danish Army said yesterday. “Based on the tests, the experts conclude that none of the shells contain chemical warfare agents,” the Danish Army said. The results of the tests will be sent to the U.S. Energy Department’s Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory for final verification. “There is a certain relief that the shells do not represent a threat to the safety of the local population,” the Danish statement said, but it added that soldiers had expressed “some disappointment” because their mission is to hunt weapons of mass destruction. A U.S. official said that some chemicals routinely used in conventional weapons, such as phosphorous, can produce false positives in field testing equipment, which is designed for safety reasons to err on the side of caution. Since the U.S.-led searches began in Iraq, several weapons finds triggered positive field tests that were later overturned, AP reported (Matthew Rosenberg, Associated Press/The Australian, Jan. 15). Back to top       Japan Offers to Aid Cambodia in Strengthening Export Controls Japan yesterday offered to help Cambodia improve its export control system to prevent shipments of nuclear weapons-related goods from reaching North Korea, according to the Jiji Press Ticker Service (see GSN, Jan. 8). During a meeting with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen in Phnom Penh, Japanese trade minister Shoichi Nakagawa proposed sending two export control specialists to Cambodia next month (Jiji Press Ticker Service, Jan. 15). Back to top

Former U.S. Envoy Confirms North Korea Has Moved Nuclear Fuel By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — A cooling pond at North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear facility no longer contains spent nuclear fuel from the site’s nuclear reactor, a key participant in a recent visit of private U.S. citizens to the country confirmed today at a Brookings Institution panel discussion (see GSN, Jan. 13).  North Korea contends the empty pool supports its assertion that it has separated plutonium from 8,000 spent fuel rods once stored there under international supervision. Jack Pritchard, who resigned in August from his post as a top North Korea official at the U.S. State Department (see GSN, Sept. 10, 2003), said the delegation traveled by car to Yongbyon, meeting with the site’s director and visiting a five-megawatt reactor that “was operational at the time.” North Korean officials, Pritchard said, repeated their claim that they began reprocessing the rods a year ago and finished in June. “I can guarantee you they are not in that spent fuel pond,” Pritchard said of the rods. He refused to speculate, though, about the veracity of North Korea’s claim that it has reprocessed the fuel. “The spent fuel facility was empty. There are no spent fuel rods there. … The North Koreans told us they had moved them out on a regular basis for reprocessing at their reprocessing facility,” Pritchard said. “We had no illusions as to what we were doing and what was happening” at Yongbyon,” said Pritchard, adding that the delegation was not an inspection team and could see only “what they wanted to show us.” Pritchard said that after the Yongbyon visit, North Korean Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Kim Gue Gwan told him, “Just report exactly what you have seen. Do not attempt to shade in any way what you have seen to avoid any potential negative reaction from the United States.” Pritchard said he was “encouraged” by the North Korean’s view that plain facts tend to “clarify” such matters. Pritchard said he spoke for nine hours with Kim, who issued a “flat denial” of claims that North Korea has a secret uranium enrichment program ― a denial Pritchard dismissed in his comments today. Pritchard said that Kim expressed willingness to discuss the matter directly with the United States but also asked Pritchard, “How is it that we can prove that we don’t have something that we don’t have?” “This was one of the clearest denials that we have heard over the last year or so,” said Pritchard. Asked about media reports that the U.S. group was shown a piece of metal identified by North Korean officials as separated plutonium, Pritchard deferred to Siegfried Hecker, a former director of Los Alamos National Laboratory who also took part in the North Korea visit. Hecker is to testify next week before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, two members of which sent staffers on the North Korea trip. According to Pritchard, talks with North Korean officials were cordial, but the officials at times maintained a threatening posture toward the United States. Pritchard, relaying what he called “direct quotes,” said Kim told him, “Time is not on the U.S.’ side. The lapse of time will result in the increase of the quantity and the quality of our nuclear deterrent.” Pritchard yesterday briefed State Department officials on the trip, and Hecker has met with Energy Department officials. Back to top       Western Diplomats Say Iran Continues to Acquire Centrifuge Equipment Western diplomats have said that Iran continues to produce components for uranium enrichment centrifuges, despite Tehran’s previous pledge to suspend its enrichment activities, CNN.com reported yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 12). Iran has closed its uranium enrichment facility at Natanz and has stopped installing new centrifuges, said diplomats based in Vienna, but Tehran has also indicated it will continue to honor contracts with local companies that produce centrifuge components (CNN.com, Jan. 14). Yesterday, the United States said that Iran’s failure to abide by its promise to completely suspend uranium enrichment activities would be “deeply troubling.” “To begin to rebuild the international community’s confidence that Iran has genuinely abandoned its nuclear weapons efforts, the scope of that suspension we believe must ... cover all sensitive aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle,” U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said. Western diplomats have said that Iran believes it would violate the suspension only if it actually enriched uranium. The International Atomic Energy Agency said that it is still discussing with Iran what activities should be suspended. “We are still in consultations about the scope of their suspension,” agency spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said. The IAEA plans to report on Iran’s suspension of its enrichment activities at the next meeting of the agency’s Board of Governors, scheduled for March, Gwozdecky said (Louis Charbonneau, Reuters, Jan. 14). Meanwhile, a senior Iranian official yesterday denied that Tehran had sought help from foreign scientists for its nuclear program (see GSN, Jan. 14). “No scientist from any other country has helped in this regard,” Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Mohsin Aminzadeh said. Aminzadeh also said that Tehran has provided the IAEA with information on five people — three Europeans and two others — who helped Iran purchase equipment for its nuclear efforts. He said that recent allegations that Iran had obtained nuclear-related technology from Pakistan were a “fabrication by media” (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, Jan. 14). Back to top

Sentencing Postponed for Utah Chemical Weapons Supervisor Sentencing for a former chemical weapons destruction technician in Utah was postponed this week and rescheduled for Feb. 4, the Tooele Transcript-Bulletin reported Tuesday (see GSN, Jan. 9). David Yarbrough, a former supervisor at the Deseret Chemical Depot in Tooele, Utah, was convicted last summer of crafting records to falsely indicate that chemical weapons destruction equipment was operating safely. He faces a maximum possible sentence of 35 years in federal prison (Mary Ruth Hammond, Tooele Transcript-Bulletin, Jan. 13). Back to top

China Threatens Taiwan With Large Missile Arsenal, U.S. Officials Say U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Meyers said today that China has deployed a “very large” ballistic missile arsenal against Taiwan, according to Agence France-Presse (see GSN, Dec. 17, 2003). “If you look at the buildup on the Chinese mainland side of the (Taiwan) Straits in terms of surface-to-surface missiles you would see a very large buildup. And China continues to build up its capability opposite Taiwan,” Meyers said during a press conference at the end of a two-day visit to China. Meyers also said that the United States is committed to helping Taiwan defend itself. “The U.S. is committed to helping Taiwan maintain its ability to resist the use of force or coercion to solve this problem,” he said (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, Jan. 15). Meanwhile, Gen. William Begert, commander of the U.S. Air Force in the Pacific, told reporters this week that China has made “significant” improvements over the past three years in its ability to strike Taiwan with aircraft and surface-to-surface missiles. In addition, Begert said that China had “dramatically” improved its ability to coordinate air, land and sea attacks, as well as to conduct electronic warfare. “The Chinese, especially opposite the Taiwan Strait, are improving their capability and improving it pretty dramatically,” Begert said. “Whether Taiwan is keeping up with that is a good question,” he said (Tony Capaccio, Bloomberg.com, Jan. 13). Back to top

U.S. Cruise Missile Defense Improvements Await Dueling Technologies Efforts to improve U.S. cruise missile defenses have suffered from recent Pentagon infighting as top officials debate whether to deploy U.S. missile detection and tracking radars in space or on long-range aircraft, Defense Daily reported today. The U.S. Air Force is seeking to develop and deploy an aircraft-based Multiplatform Radar Technology Insertion Program radar to track moving ground targets and cruise missiles (see GSN, Oct. 4, 2002). Air Force officials have said the system would be most effective on a modified Boeing 767 aircraft called the E-10A, but a top Pentagon official has expressed concern that the Air Force is moving too quickly toward that goal. Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone wrote a Dec. 29 memorandum arguing that the 767 portion of the program was proceeding too quickly and possibly in violation of its mandate. The Air Force appears to be acting “as if it had been given unconditional … authority to proceed on the E-10A version of the radar,” Cambone wrote. Some experts said, however, that Cambone’s concern was based less on procedural issues than on his perception that the aircraft-based radar program threatened a system he favors more. “Cambone’s objection isn’t about whether the Air Force is adhering to guidance,” said Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute. “His objective is that the E-10A could undermine the Space-based Radar,” he added. Such a radar would perform many of the same functions as an aircraft-based radar, but the space-based system would provide improved global coverage, Cambone has argued. Pursuing both technologies at once sets up a serious funding competition, Defense Daily reported. In his memorandum, Cambone asked to meet with Principal Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Michael Wynne by the end of January “to resolve any inconsistencies between” the policies of the Air Force and higher Pentagon officials and to “allow clarifying guidance, if required, to be issued promptly” (Amy Butler, Defense Daily, Jan. 15). Back to top

U.S. Appeals Court Hears Arguments in Yucca Mountain Project Dispute The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia yesterday heard oral arguments from the U.S. federal government and Nevada in their dispute over the U.S. Energy Department’s plan to construct a long-term nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, according to the Washington Post (see GSN, Jan. 14). A three-judge panel consolidated the cases of 13 lawsuits against the Yucca Mountain project, which Nevada strongly opposes, into three main categories considered yesterday. Opponents of the project have said that U.S. Environmental Protection Agency radiation standards are too weak, that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission should demand that the natural characteristics of the site be able to contain the waste without the need for manmade barriers, and that the Energy Department used flawed criteria when selecting Yucca Mountain (Carol Leonnig, Washington Post, Jan. 15). During yesterday’s presentations, two of the three judges on the panel made comments that appeared to back Nevada’s criticism of safety regulations for the Yucca Mountain site, according to Energy Daily. For example, the judges questioned why groundwater protection standards were only set to last for 10,000 years, which is a far shorter time period than had been previously recommended by an expert panel that the government had been directed by Congress to follow, Energy Daily reported. The panel was less supportive, though, of Nevada’s argument that the government had violated the U.S. Constitution by selecting the state as the site of the repository to the exclusion of other possible sites in other states, Energy Daily reported (Jeff Beattie, Energy Daily, Jan. 15). Back to top       Canadian Police to Install Radiation Detectors in Patrol Cars The Royal Canadian Mounted Police plans to equip patrol cars in the Ottawa area with radiation detectors, the Ottawa Citizen reported today (see GSN, March 26, 2002). As many as 40 patrol cars are set to be equipped with radiation detectors, global-positioning equipment and cellular communications gear, according to the Citizen. The detectors will constantly monitor background radiation and will sound an alarm when radiation levels are higher than normal. The police service has said that patrol cars are useful for conducting radiation surveillance because of their mobility and ability to cover large areas (Joanne Laucius, Ottawa Citizen, Jan. 15).   Back to top

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