IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei (left) and Iranian nuclear chief Gholamreza Aghazadeh at a press briefing earlier this year. Recent disclosures by Iran and Libya could spur changes to the international nonproliferation regime (AFP Photo/Atta Kenare). New Nuclear Hotspots Could Bolster Nonproliferation Reform By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — As the International Atomic Energy Agency and the United States scramble to take stock of long-concealed WMD programs in Iran and Libya, experts and diplomats here and in Vienna are saying the cases illustrate the need for changes in the international nonproliferation regime (see GSN, Dec. 31, 2003)...Full Story

Bush Administration Thwarting Scrutiny of Missile Defense, Hill Critics Say By David Ruppe Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — A string of administration policies over the past two years has greatly reduced congressional oversight of the military’s most expensive weapons development effort, its $9 billion annual missile ballistic defense program, senior congressional Democrats have charged...Full Story

U.S. Scientists Hunted Dirty Bombs Last Month Last month, the Bush administration sent teams of nuclear scientists armed with radiation detectors to five U.S. cities to search for possible radiological weapons due to terrorism concerns, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, Dec. 4)...Full Story

	Wednesday, January 7, 2004

New Nuclear Hotspots Could Bolster Nonproliferation Reform By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — As the International Atomic Energy Agency and the United States scramble to take stock of long-concealed WMD programs in Iran and Libya, experts and diplomats here and in Vienna are saying the cases illustrate the need for changes in the international nonproliferation regime (see GSN, Dec. 31, 2003). U.S. President George W. Bush announced last month that Libyan leader Col. Muammar Qadhafi had promised the United States and the United Kingdom that Libya would “disclose and dismantle” its WMD programs and would allow immediate and unfettered inspections. Since Bush’s announcement, U.S., British and IAEA delegations have visited the country amid controversy over whether the United States or the U.N. nuclear watchdog should bear ultimate responsibility for dismantling Libya’s nuclear program. Although some have called the U.S.-driven Libya episode evidence of the agency’s inefficacy, Center for Strategic and International Studies Senior Fellow Anthony Cordesman said the IAEA is doing what it is supposed to do. “When you set up international organizations in ways which make them dependent on member countries and their intelligence data, then you have to accept what the limitations are. You can’t go around blaming the organization for being what it’s chartered to be,” said Cordesman, a former director of intelligence assessment in the U.S. defense secretary’s office. Meanwhile, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei has been seeking to revamp the global nuclear nonproliferation regime and the agency at its center. The Libya case, as well as the international response to Iran’s disclosure last year of long-secret nuclear programs, could weigh heavily in determining the success or failure of ElBaradei’s efforts. “On the surface, it’s a good development,” IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said by telephone from Vienna, “and if Libya and Iran go well, and there aren’t any surprises down the road, it will help shore up the nonproliferation regime a little bit, and hopefully, the Libya model will be an example that others will follow as well.” Gwozdecky added, however, that the cases demonstrate “what ElBaradei has been saying for a long time [about] the limitations or the flaws of the system” ― the current nonproliferation regime, after all, did not prevent either country from engaging for years in secret nuclear work. “What Libya shows from an agency perspective,” agreed one Western diplomat in Vienna, “is something that the United States and ElBaradei have been saying all along. … We need to evolve beyond the simple NPT [Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty].” In a much-discussed Oct. 18 article in The Economist, ElBaradei recommended steps such as promoting “proliferation-resistant nuclear energy systems” and bringing all reprocessing and enrichment of nuclear materials, as well as spent fuel management and disposal, under multinational control. “While I in no way wish to undercut the importance of states’ adherence to their NPT obligations,” ElBaradei wrote, “I believe it is time to being designing a framework more suited to the threats and realities of the 21st century.” Expanding on ElBaradei’s published recommendations, a Western diplomat in Vienna said the agency needs more “authority to do credible inspections” via wider acceptance of enhanced safeguards agreements the agency has with individual nations; stronger controls on exports of nuclear material and technology; broader sharing of information among countries seeking to curb proliferation; and ― because “a country [that] is determined to find security in weapons of mass destruction … can well find a way to beat all these measures” ― “a global security framework where countries’ broader security interests are being addressed.” The agency’s attention to such proposals has generated considerable interest in nonproliferation circles, but diplomatic and expert sources indicated countries such as the United States are far from signing on. Nuclear Control Institute founder Paul Leventhal said any IAEA-generated reform efforts reflect the agency’s having “struck out” with would-be proliferators such as Libya. “It really reflects that [ElBaradei is] getting scared,” said Leventhal, who favors sweeping changes in the nonproliferation regime, including a comprehensive ban on civilian use of weapons-usable fissile material. Leventhal said ElBaradei’s proposals do not address the threat inherent in most civilian use of nuclear energy. ElBaradei’s proposed multinational system of enrichment and reprocessing, he said, could provide dangerous information to countries that are in good standing with the IAEA but are seeking to develop a nuclear weapon. Calls for stronger export controls are inappropriate, Leventhal added, since the current IAEA-associated supply regime is a “total bust.” Reach of Additional Protocol Limited As IAEA members seek to prevent the emergence of more Libyas and Irans, many countries, notably the United States, are focusing in particular on promoting an enhanced international monitoring regime in the form of an Additional Protocol to IAEA safeguards agreements. The protocol provides for more intrusive IAEA inspections in countries that sign on to it, a move Iran made in December and Libya is expected to make within months. One diplomat said Washington and ElBaradei are both engaged in an “evolution toward the Additional Protocol as the gold standard.” “If you want the IAEA to be vibrant, and you want the IAEA to be effective in stopping nuclear proliferation, then you have to get [IAEA inspectors] out of an accountancy role” by making the Additional Protocol as universal as possible, said the diplomat. Cordesman called the protocol a useful “deterrent” of illicit nuclear weapon development. Any country that signs the protocol and later considers nuclear weapon development, he said, will know that “its activities are going to be detected, and then it either has to allow them to be found, or it has to essentially deny IAEA inspection.” Nothing in the protocol, however, would remove the fundamental difficulty of detecting small-scale, undeclared nuclear activity of the sort seen in Libya and Iran, sources agreed. “Even with the Additional Protocol,” said Gwozdecky of the Libyan programs, “we would be hard-pressed to detect this kind of low-level experimental activity.” According to Leventhal, an IAEA armed with Additional Protocols for countries of concern would still need significant outside help, notably in intelligence. “The agency alone cannot really do the job in an adversarial situation where the inspected country is determined to cheat,” Leventhal said. Given the IAEA’s limits, U.S. officials have expressed disapproval of ElBaradei’s statement last week that Libya’s nuclear weapon program was “in the very early stages of development,” and U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell reportedly called ElBaradei late last week to defuse the controversy (see GSN, Dec. 29, 2003). Leventhal said the IAEA can know only what Libya is willing to tell it, adding, “I guess the first thing I’d like to see is a little bit more humility on the part of ElBaradei.” Cordesman acknowledged the agency is dependent on cooperation from countries suspected of weapon development, but he defended the agency against charges it is overstepping its competency. “Every inspection tends to be different, and everything depends on how cooperative the country is,” said Cordesman, but “there is also a tendency at times to set impossible goals.” Although the IAEA cannot detect small-scale weapon research, he said, “Nuclear weapons are not something that you put together in your garage, and if the IAEA is given reasonable access, it should be possible to find out whether Libya has made any significant advances in centrifuge enrichment.” “Next Wave” of Nuclear Admissions Termed Unlikely The rapid succession of developments in Iran and Libya has obliged the IAEA to undertake special missions to both countries, but sources agreed that the agency’s Safeguards Division has enough personnel to handle the extra work and that the Iran and Libya cases are not likely to be followed by a wave of similar disclosures by other countries. One Western diplomat said the number of countries that could emerge as new causes of nuclear weapon concern is limited. “I don’t know that there are that many other countries that sort of fit this ― international terrorism combined with pursuit of the bomb. … I don’t see any next wave,” said the diplomat. In any case, the diplomat added, “There’s no need to have a flood of new inspectors. … What’s important is that they have enough funds to be technologically on the cutting edge and … enough guys to do the job.” IAEA spokesman Gwozdecky agreed. “The important thing is not the number of bodies on the ground, but the competence of the inspectors, the quality of their analysis and the breadth of their experience,” he said. Back to top       Washington to Conduct Three-Way Talks With London, Tripoli The United States plans to conduct three-way talks with the United Kingdom and Libya prior to U.S. and British experts conducting an assessment of Libya’s nuclear program, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 6). The United States began meeting with the United Kingdom last week on the issue, with a visit by Undersecretary of State John Bolton to London. After further U.S.-British meetings, senior Libyan officials will also take part, a senior U.S. official said (Barry Schweid, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Jan. 6). The Financial Times reported today that U.S. and British officials are expected to meet with Libyan experts over the next week to plan the dismantlement of Libyan WMD programs. The International Atomic Energy Agency, though, will not take part in the meetings, but will instead be later briefed by a U.S.-British team, according to Western diplomats in Vienna (Roula Khalaf, Financial Times, Jan. 7). U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said yesterday, however, that the IAEA would be the lead agency in monitoring Libya’s disarmament. “It was the atomic agency that sent in a team to follow through, it is the atomic agency that is going to inspect to ensure that Libya is really going to be rid of weapons of mass destruction,” Annan said (Schweid, Associated Press). Pakistan Investigating Proliferation Claims, U.S. Says Meanwhile, the United States has said that Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf is investigating claims that Pakistani centrifuge designs were used in Libya’s nuclear program. While refusing to confirm a recent New York Times report that Pakistan was the source of Libya’s centrifuge technology, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell noted past U.S. concerns about possible Pakistani proliferation. “I’m very pleased now that President Musharraf is aggressively moving to investigate all of that,” Powell said. In addition, the White House has suggested that “rogue” Pakistani scientists interested in “personal gain” may be responsible for the proliferation of Pakistani nuclear technology (Channel NewsAsia, Jan. 7). Back to top       Iraq Conducted WMD Research After First Gulf War, but Made Little Progress U.S. and British weapons inspectors working in Iraq have found evidence of hidden WMD research by the former regime of President Saddam Hussein, but little evidence that such research was used to build new or advanced WMD programs, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, Dec. 31, 2003). Reviews of available evidence have found that prewar Iraq possessed a WMD infrastructure that was far less useful than was believed by U.S. analysts prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom, according to the Post. Iraqi industry and science officials have described facilities that were crippled by conflict and international sanctions. In addition, the remnants of Iraq’s WMD programs were filled with internal conflicts among personnel, many of whom attempted to use the programs for personal financial gain, the Post reported. In one instance, interviews with Iraqi scientists led coalition inspectors to search for Iraqi work with animal poxes, which are harmless to humans on their own but can be used as substitutes for smallpox in research, the Post reported. One Iraqi biologist, Rihab Taha, has told interrogators that she received an order in 1990 to develop a biological weapon based on a virus. Also in 1990, virologist Hazem Ali began research on camelpox.  If Taha’s statement were true, it would counter the long-standing Iraqi claim that it did not conduct research on offensive viral weapons, the Post reported. An analyst said that investigators believed that Taha’s statement indicated an intent to use smallpox as a weapon. “Hearing that from the lips of the people involved is kind of like that MasterCard commercial: ‘Priceless,’” the analyst said. Taha, however, also told interrogators that Iraq did not have access to smallpox, according to Post. In addition, Ali’s research was stopped after only 45 days due to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and did not resume, the Post reported. In addition to crippled research and production capabilities, investigators have also found widespread instances of corruption within prewar Iraq’s WMD efforts, the Post reported. George Healey, a Canadian nuclear physicist and weapon inspector, said that entire programs were invented or had their efforts distorted in attempts to steal funding. “They had a system to graft money out of oil-for-food,” Healey said, referring to the U.N. program that supervised Iraqi exports and imports after 1991. “What you had to have was a project — the more expensive the better, because the more you can buy, the more you can graft out of it. You’d have difficulty believing how much that explains,” he added. Sufiyan Taha Mahmoud, who worked for the Iraqi National Monitoring Directorate, said that the invented and exaggerated research programs also led to conflicts with U.N. inspectors. “They couldn’t build anything … but they had to hide the documents because they related to prohibited activities,” Mahmoud said (Barton Gellman, Washington Post, Jan. 7). Back to top       U.S. Senator Urges White House Staffers to Cooperate With CIA Leak Investigation By Mike Nartker Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The White House came under criticism yesterday for failing to order employees to comply with a new U.S. Justice Department tactic in the investigation of the leak of a CIA operative’s identity (see GSN, Dec. 31). The Justice Department is investigating the leak of the identity and CIA status of the wife of former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson. This summer, Wilson publicly criticized evidence offered by the Bush administration to justify the invasion of Iraq. Soon after Wilson aired his criticism, his wife’s name and status as an undercover CIA operative was made public in a column by Robert Novak — a move Wilson has alleged was meant as an intimidation tactic. Last week, NBC News reported that investigators in the case have asked Bush administration officials to sign a waiver releasing journalists from any promises of confidentiality they made to their sources. NBC News cited legal experts who said that the purpose of the forms would be to push journalists into revealing the identity of Novak’s sources. Earlier this week, White House press secretary Scott McClellan refused to say under repeated questioning whether White House employees would be directed to sign the waiver, instead saying that President George W. Bush expected White House staffers to “cooperate fully” with the investigation. “The president has directed the White House to cooperate fully with the career officials who are leading this investigation. And that’s exactly what he expects the White House to continue doing. We have been and we will continue to do so. I think also in the spirit of cooperating fully with the career officials who are investigating this matter, it’s important that we do everything we can to preserve the integrity of the investigation and not compromise it,” McClellan said. Yesterday, however, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) sent a letter to White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card calling on the White House to order its employees to sign the waivers. “‘Full cooperation’ requires freeing these journalists from their obligations to protect their sources. I hope you will do so as soon as possible,” Schumer wrote. In a press statement, Schumer, who has been a strong advocate of an investigation into the leak of Wilson’s wife’s identity and a frequent critic of the Justice Department’s efforts, noted the previous decision by the White House Counsel’s office to set a deadline for complying with a Justice Department request for phone and e-mail records. “It took long enough to get the Justice Department to do the right thing with regard to this case, we shouldn’t have to keep pestering the White House to cooperate,” Schumer said, A Justice Department spokesman yesterday was unable to comment on the White House’s cooperation with the waiver request or with the leak investigation overall. While reaffirming the White House’s cooperation yesterday, McClellan offered veiled criticism of Schumer’s efforts. “It would be unfortunate if people are seeking to politicize a serious matter, like leaking classified information, for partisan gain,” he said. Even if the White House compels its staff to sign the waivers, though, they may have little use in the investigation. According to Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, states that have dealt with the issue of reporters’ privilege have determined that the privilege rests with the journalists and not their sources. The waivers “will have no effect on the journalists’ behavior whatsoever,” she told Global Security Newswire today. Instead of being an effective investigative measure, Dalglish said that the waivers were more likely intended to get “political mileage” by shifting the blame for lack of progress in the case to a lack of cooperation by journalists. Throughout the course of the investigation, both Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft, who has since recused himself from the case, have publicly suggested that the media would play a role in its success or failure. “I have no idea whether we’ll find out who the leaker is, partially because, in all due respect to your profession, you do a very good job of protecting the leakers,” Bush said during an October press conference. Back to top       Washington, London Reject Syrian Right to WMD U.S. and British officials have said that Syria must abandon its weapons of mass destruction, even without a pledge by Israel to give up its long-suspected nuclear weapons arsenal, the London Telegraph reported today (see GSN, Jan. 7). In an interview this week, Syrian President Bashar Assad said that Syria would not abandon its WMD programs unless Israel did the same with its suspected stockpile of nuclear weapons. The United Kingdom and the United States, however, have taken the position that Arab states with weapons of mass destruction must first disarm and then the Israelis, according to the Telegraph. “Israel is in a unique position as the only state whose very existence is threatened,” a senior British government source said yesterday. “There is no point asking for a WMD-free Middle East while there are countries parading missiles with a sign up the side saying ‘Death to Israel,’” the source said (Anton La Guardia, London Telegraph, Jan. 7). Back to top       United States, Azerbaijan Sign Nonproliferation Agreement The United States and Azerbaijan last week signed an agreement on cooperating against WMD proliferation, according to ITAR-Tass. Under the agreement, Azerbaijan will receive $10 million, which will be used to improve border controls, develop improved WMD detection capabilities and to prevent illegal WMD shipments (ITAR-Tass, Jan. 2). Back to top

Powell Calls North Korean Nuclear Offer “Positive” U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell yesterday praised the recent North Korean offer to freeze nuclear activities in exchange for economic incentives, calling the move a “positive statement” (see GSN, Jan. 6). “They in effect said they won’t test, and they implied that they would give up all aspects of their nuclear program, not just their weapons program. And this is an interesting step on their part, a positive step,” Powell said. “We hope that it will allow us to move more rapidly toward six-party framework talks,” he added. Previous six-nation talks on the nuclear standoff have included China, Japan, North Korea, Russia and South Korea and the United States. Powell also said that lines of communication are open between Washington and Pyongyang. “Because we are not sitting at a table does not mean we have not been talking to each other,” he said, adding that “a lot of papers have gone back and forth and we are in touch with our four partners in this effort, and some of our partners are directly in touch with North Korea” (Tom Carter, Washington Times, Jan. 7). Some U.S. officials, meanwhile, are concerned that China is leading a push to freeze North Korea’s nuclear facilities at Yongbyon while ignoring the issue of North Korean uranium enrichment. The current nuclear crisis began in October 2002 when U.S. officials said that North Korea was operating a clandestine uranium enrichment program, but Chinese officials said last week that they are not convinced the U.S. accusations are valid. North Korean officials have said they never admitted to an enrichment program — as U.S. officials have said they did — or operated an enrichment program. “As long as they [North Korean officials] continue to deny the existence of the highly enriched uranium program, it is guaranteed the talks will fail,” a Bush administration official said (Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, Jan. 7). Meanwhile, a private team of U.S. nuclear and foreign policy experts flew from Beijing to Pyongyang yesterday. The group hopes to visit Yongbyon (Tim Johnson, Knight Ridder/Miami Herald, Jan. 7). John Lewis, a Stanford professor and a leader of the delegation, said that it was not clear what North Korean officials would allow them to see. “It’s like going to Disneyland and not knowing what rides you’re going to go on,” he said, adding, “we’ll know what we’ve seen when we get back” (Jonathan Watts, London Guardian, Jan. 7). Back to top       France Test-Fires Ballistic Missile France has test-fired a full-scale, unarmed version of its M-51 ballistic missile, Aviation Week and Space Technology reported Monday (see GSN, Sept. 12, 2002). The missile was fired from an underwater launcher near a French naval base at Toulon. French officials hoped to use the test to measure the missile’s performance before breaching the water’s surface. The M-51 ICBM is scheduled to enter service around 2010, according to Aviation Week (Patricia Parmalee, Aviation Week and Space Technology, Jan. 5). Back to top       B-2 Bomber Faces Upgrades, New Airspace Restrictions Despite existing plans and steep bills to upgrade the B-2 bomber, the U.S. Air Force faces new restrictions on the stealth aircraft’s capabilities, Aviation Week and Space Technology reported Monday (see GSN, Oct. 28, 2003). Because of an avionics shortcoming and restrictions in airspace governed by reduced vertical separation minimums, the bomber must fly below 28,000 feet during Atlantic crossings. The United States and Europe are poised to increase the RVSM requirements, thereby increasing restrictions on the B-2, according to Aviation Week. The aircraft is currently feeling the pinch of its 1980s-era computer hardware and processing capacity is reaching its limits. The Air Force is considering a variety of technology upgrades to the B-2, an effort that is “one of our priority needs,” according to Lt. Col. Robert O’Neil, a B-2 program monitor in the U.S. Air Combat Command. In the fiscal 2004 defense budget, lawmakers allocated money toward research on future bomber technologies but the Air Force will be allowed to shift some of that funding to B-2 upgrades (see GSN, Sept. 25, 2003). Service officials are also looking to add new weapons to the B-2’s arsenal, Aviation Week reported. Testing is set to be completed early next year to certify a stealth cruise missile for use by the B-2, and the Air Force is also expected to certify the B-2 to use more modern gravity bombs next year (Robert Wall, Aviation Week and Space Technology, Jan. 5). Back to top

Lawyers Seeking to Expand Anthrax Vaccination Lawsuit An attorney for the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the U.S. Defense Department’s anthrax vaccination program has said that the suit will be modified to include a class-action certification, InsideDefense.com reported yesterday. Last month, a federal judge issued a temporary injunction against the vaccination program. The Justice Department has argued, however, that the court should vacate the injunction or apply it only to the six anonymous plaintiffs who filed the lawsuit barring a class action, according to InsideDefense.com. John Michels, a lead attorney in the lawsuit, has said that the plaintiffs believe a class-action certification is not needed to invalidate a policy. Michels also said, though, that he had and co-counsel Mark Zaid can show that every military service member is similarly affected. “I don’t think we need a class action to have the court enforce this properly across the military,” Michels said. “But if that’s where the government wants to take us in this case, I guess that’s where we’ll end up,” he said. The federal judge in the case is expected to hold a hearing today on the Justice Deaprtment’s emergency motion to stay the temporary injunction, InsideDefense.com reported (Elaine Grossman, InsideDefense.com, Jan. 6). Back to top

Former U.S. Chemical Weapons Production Site Declared Free of Weapons The U.S. Rocky Mountain Arsenal in Colorado, which once possessed 60 percent of the U.S. chemical weapons production capability, has been declared both free of chemical weapons and the means to produce them, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, April 4, 2002). The destruction of the production facilities at the site began in the last decade and was recently completed, said Charles Scharmann, program manager for the cleanup of the site. After inspecting the site in October, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons certified that it no longer possesses chemical weapons or production facilities, he said. “It is a significant milestone for us,” Scharmann said (Robert Weller, Associated Press/Environmental News Network, Jan. 7). Back to top

Bush Administration Thwarting Scrutiny of Missile Defense, Hill Critics Say By David Ruppe Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — A string of administration policies over the past two years has greatly reduced congressional oversight of the military’s most expensive weapons development effort, its $9 billion annual missile ballistic defense program, senior congressional Democrats have charged. The critics have said the measures have left Congress largely in the dark about technical, cost and schedule statuses of the Missile Defense Agency’s numerous developmental efforts as well as attempts to address fundamental problems with key systems, even as spending has nearly doubled in recent years and President George W. Bush has ordered an initial fielding of the main, ground-based interceptor system by October. The policies alleged by the legislators and other critics include: the formal elimination of program performance measures and reporting requirements applicable to major weapons programs; the marginalization of traditional overseers; the cancellation and simplification of major testing plans; and the classification of some test performance data and other information. “The Pentagon has eliminated virtually all outside oversight over its missile defense programs,” said Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. The administration “has wrapped the details and rationale of its missile defense test plans under a veil of secrecy, significantly limiting Congress’ ability to oversee the program, and shutting the public out of the issue,” said Sen. Carl Levin (Mich.), the committee’s senior Democrat.  In statements issued to Global Security Newswire, both senators suggested the administration has sought reduced oversight with the aim of stifling criticism of the main ground-based interceptor system that Bush has ordered fielded by hiding serious problems and technological immaturities. The administration “apparently did this in order to hide the flaws of the missile defense the administration intends to deploy in September 2004,” Reed said. “By eliminating effective oversight over the program, the administration no doubt hoped to avoid the criticism that such oversight would bring,” said Levin. The increased secrecy — combined with statements by senior officials such as one last March claiming 90 percent effectiveness for the ground-based system — may lead many in Congress to think oversight is not needed, said Philip Coyle, the Pentagon’s top testing official under the Clinton administration. “Taxpayers and many members of Congress will assume that tax dollars have produced effective hit-to-kill missile defenses, which they haven’t,” he said. While not speaking to motives, Representative John Spratt (D-S.C.), a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, also alleged reduced oversight. “I still don’t think we’re getting the kind of periodic information that we need to really know how well $9.2 billion is being spent and how much we’re advancing toward our goal with this system,” he said. Security and Bush Goal Cited The Missile Defense Agency through a spokesman refused to directly address the criticisms. “It isn’t appropriate for MDA to respond to Congressional oversight concerns through the Global Security [Newswire] Web site or any other media,” said spokesman Richard Lehner in an e-mail. Officials though have previously attributed reduced oversight to a new “capabilities-based” management approach they say is intended to help them meet Bush’s October fielding goal. The administration made various changes “in response to the high priority for missile defense articulated by President Bush,” then-Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics E. C. “Pete” Aldridge said in March 2002 testimony. Agency Director Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish said in a November Washington Post story that the program has been cloaked in greater secrecy to avoid revealing too much detail to potential enemies. He said, though, that Congress is given ample information. “When it comes to the Hill, we bend over backwards,” he said. Lehner said his agency “regularly briefs and provides for-the-record responses to questions submitted by Congress on all aspects of missile defense development and testing.” Harald Stavenas, a majority spokesman for the House Armed Services Committee, said legislators still could get missile defense information through hearings. “If some people think the reporting makes it tougher to get a hold of the programs that’s one thing, but through the hearing process we have the means of getting answers and we will continue to do that,” he said. Spratt, who stressed he values the personal MDA briefings he has received, said hearings could not provide for sufficient oversight. “What are you overseeing if you just sit there and listen to them tell you it’s doing such and such? You’ve got to have last year’s baseline to do this year’s oversight,” he said. Benchmarks Eliminated Reductions in oversight began with a January 2002 memorandum by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that did several significant things, the critics say. First, for missile defense programs the memo waived traditional regulatory requirements for setting and meeting cost, schedule and performance benchmarks applicable to major weapons systems under research and development. “What you want is for every major component of the system some sort of statement of how much it’s going to cost, what its going to do, what its criticality to the overall system is, and when it can be supplied,” Spratt said. “If you don’t know what the system is originally designated to do, it’s awful hard to have a yardstick to measure its technical progress,” he said. The traditional standards were replaced by “evolving standards,” Spratt said. “They’re capabilities standards. Not objective standards that we have set for ourselves. They’ve simply said we are going to build to the margins of our capability,” he said. The move “eliminated accountability and made it impossible to know how well missile defenses are supposed to work,” Reed said.  One Giant Program Rumsfeld’s memo also ordered the formal elimination of nearly all long-, medium-, and short-range missile defense programs, redesignating the various activities as one comprehensive missile defense program. That move, critics say and officials acknowledge, eliminated legally required reporting requirements for the individual programs and enabled the MDA director to transfer funds among the activities. It also eliminated requirements for reporting of cost overruns for those particular activities, “so that no one will know when a program is seriously off-track and over-budget,” Reed said. The requirement to file traditional program documentation, such as Selected Acquisition Reports and Operational Requirements Documents, was discontinued for the individual activities. Those reports were replaced by wholly classified documents considered by staffers to be less useful because they are classified and because they do not include system per-unit cost estimates and for most programs technical performance measures, congressional trackers said. Missile defense officials, citing their capabilities-based approach, also have refused to project long-term costs for the various systems, or say what specific threat types if any they are being designed to defeat and what the future system as a whole might look like.  The future “architecture” would eventually be determined to some extent by whatever technological development produces, they said. Rumsfeld’s memo also “streamlined” executive oversight by transferring management authority over missile defense programs from the Pentagon’s undersecretary for acquisition, technology and logistics, the military’s top acquisition official, to the director of the Missile Defense Agency, which manages the various programs.  As a result, the agency would effectively oversee itself, Levin said, an approach he said could potentially lead to a disaster on par with Enron and Worldcom. Less information is an inevitable product of the development philosophy the administration is applying, said one congressional aide. “The whole philosophy is we don’t know what we’re going to get, we don’t know where we’re going with this in the end,” the staffer said. “The consequence is the Congress and the American taxpayer and the U.S. military itself don’t know what they’re getting and whether it will be any good,” said former top tester Coyle. “The Missile Defense Agency is not explaining the limitations of the system, nor of the tests that have been conducting so far,” he said. Aldridge in March 2002 testimony defended the new approaches. “We believe that integrating several programs into one, centralizing their management within a single defense agency with greater authority, responsibility, and flexibility, and providing a more streamlined oversight process will cause missile defenses to be developed and deployed in a much more efficient manner than would be possible under the former structure,” he said.   More Recent Policies Since Rumsfeld’s 2002 memo, the Bush administration has further reduced oversight in a number of other ways, the critics said, including by classifying previously open details about U.S. tests and systems. They cited the administration’s decision in spring 2002 to classify specific details on targets and countermeasures for flight-intercept testing. The Pentagon had previously provided such details, and some experts had used them to criticize the testing regime as too weak. Without such data, “no one can say your tests aren’t challenging,” said Victoria Samson, an analyst with the Center for Defense Information. A congressional aide also criticized the Pentagon’s classification of the “systems engineering document,” which he said contains details on the technical capabilities of U.S. systems. “It makes it harder for members who are off the Armed Services Committees to get information, because most will not have the right security clearances,” the aide said. Independent Testing Official Levin also said the administration has greatly reduced the oversight role of the Pentagon’s top testing official, the director for operational test and evaluation (DOT&E). Congress created the position in early 1980s in response to previous developmental crises that resulted in billions of dollars in back fixes. “Under the current administration, however, the role of DOT&E has been minimized to the point where the most recent test plan for missile defense, dated August 2003, was neither seen nor approved by DOT&E prior to it being issued,” Levin said, referring to a document called the “Ballistic Missile Defense System Block ‘04 Master Test Plan.” Levin said the current director, Thomas Christie, has been prevented from involvement “most likely because the rush to meet the president’s artificial deployment deadline has forced the Pentagon to reduce the test plans’ content so much that DOT&E would have been unable to certify that the plan was adequate.” Pentagon spokeswoman Maj. Sandra Burr said Christie reviewed draft versions of a similar test plan and provided comments to the Missile Defense Agency for their consideration. Christie through Burr declined to comment. Some Oversight Remains Congress has managed to gain some independent insight into missile defense activities through investigations by the General Accounting Office and reports required from the testing director’s office, each critical of the administration’s testing program and the technical state of the missile defense technologies, the critics said. A General Accounting Office report last August surveyed the status of 10 critical technologies for the ground-based system and concluded that the Missile Defense Agency had accepted higher cost and schedule risks by beginning integration to meet Bush’s plan before those technologies had matured (see GSN, Sept. 24. 2003). A report from Christie last February said the ground-based system “has yet to demonstrate significant operational capability” due to “the stage of development and . . . testing limitations” (see GSN, Feb. 24, 2003). The testing director is required by a 1983 law to oversee the testing of major defense programs to ensure they are proven effective and suitable prior to being deployed. Citing reduced testing, Christie recently told Inside the Pentagon he was concerned about his ability to judge the ground-based interceptor system’s capability prior to scheduled operations in the fall (see GSN, Jan. 5). Congressional Efforts Congress last year took several steps to bolster missile defense oversight. In the spring, Levin successfully cut legislation proposed by the administration that he said would have waived the requirement for realistic operational testing before missile defense systems can be deployed.  Congress also passed in November legislation requiring the missile defense agency to provide “measurable criteria” for its ballistic missile defense systems and projections for future procurement spending, and for the testing director to approve each missile defense element’s operational testing plans and report annually on testing progress.  “The fiscal year 2004 law, if properly implemented by the Pentagon, will help Congress judge the sufficiency of the missile defense test plans, which is all the more important as the president’s deadline for deployment approaches,” Levin said. “This law, however, does not take the place of the day-to-day oversight the administration should be giving to such an expensive program,” he said. Back to top       Pentagon Considers Cutting Airborne Laser Funding U.S. Defense Department officials are considering reducing funding for the Airborne Laser missile defense system, Aviation Week and Space Technology reported Monday (see GSN, Sept. 5, 2003). Under development, the ABL system would use a laser mounted in a modified Boeing 747 aircraft to shoot down ballistic missiles in their boost phase. While plans for the ABL have not yet been finalized, Pentagon officials say the program will most likely be restructured. Defense Department officials have also discussed the possibility of canceling the program outright. ABL project managers, however, expect to continue working toward a missile shootdown test in early 2005. In the fiscal 2004 defense budget, the ABL system received $344.5 million for near-term activities. The fiscal 2004 budget also includes $265.5 million for longer term ABL efforts, and the program was expected to receive funding boosts in later years as well (Robert Wall, Aviation Week and Space Technology, Jan. 5). Back to top

U.S. Scientists Hunted Dirty Bombs Last Month Last month, the Bush administration sent teams of nuclear scientists armed with radiation detectors to five U.S. cities to search for possible radiological weapons due to terrorism concerns, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, Dec. 4). The U.S. Energy Department scientists were sent to Baltimore, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York and Washington because of large public events being planned in those cities, according to the Post. Starting Dec. 22, the scientists worked covertly in the five cities to take radiation measurements. “Our guys can fit in a sports stadium, a construction site or on Fifth Avenue,” an Energy Department official said. “Their equipment is configured to look like anybody else’s luggage or briefcase,” the official said. The only incident occurred Dec. 29 in Las Vegas, where scientists detected radiation at a rented storage facility, according to the Post. Further tests determined that the material inside the storage unit was radium. As FBI agents worked to secure the site, the owner of the unit, a homeless man, came to the unit and provided authorities with the key. Inside was a small pellet of radium that the homeless man said he had found three years before and did not know what it was. The homeless man did not at that time show any signs of ill health and was released, according to officials (Mintz/Schmidt, Washington Post, Jan. 7).   Back to top

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