IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei met today in Tripoli with Libyan nuclear officials (AFP photo/Joe Klamar). Nuclear Weapon State Processed Uranium for Libya, IAEA Says By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — Breaching its obligations under international nuclear agreements, Libya failed over two decades to declare activities including importation and conversion of uranium and small-scale separation of plutonium, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Friday in a report to its Board of Governors (see GSN, Feb. 17)...Full Story

Iran Admits to Covertly Purchasing Nuclear Equipment Iran yesterday acknowledged that it had covertly purchased components for its nuclear program on the international nuclear black market, according to Reuters (see GSN, Feb. 20)...Full Story

U.S. Promises New WMD Detection Capabilities Within a Year By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The United States will over the next year develop new capabilities for detecting nuclear material in shipping containers and a new generation of biological- and chemical-agent detectors, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said today...Full Story

	Monday, February 23, 2004

U.S. Promises New WMD Detection Capabilities Within a Year By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The United States will over the next year develop new capabilities for detecting nuclear material in shipping containers and a new generation of biological- and chemical-agent detectors, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said today. In a speech at George Washington University marking the Homeland Security Department’s first anniversary, Ridge outlined second-year goals for the department. They included greater cooperation with business; better interoperability of communications and other emergency management equipment; better citizen preparedness; and a more standardized, integrated picture of the terrorist threat and of the level of vulnerability to attack around the country. Among science and technology priorities, Ridge highlighted the WMD detectors. “Over the year,” he said, “Homeland Security will be buttoning up our lab coats a little higher and committing to specific goals ― developing new capabilities for detecting the presence of nuclear materials in shipping containers and vehicles and developing next-generation biological and chemical detectors, ones uniquely sensitive enough to redirect air flow to allow evacuation of buildings if a dangerous pathogen is detected.” “Both capabilities are critical to a war where speed of knowledge and action is vital to the protection of the public,” Ridge said. Among other specific benchmarks, Ridge predicted “real-time nationwide connectivity between all 50 states and territories” within the year, including “cyberconnectivity” within three months; a secure videoconferencing network in all governors’ offices by July; an integrated national database of critical infrastructure by December; and the expansion of the Container Security Initiative, which currently provides increased scrutiny of shipping containers at 17 foreign ports, to 10 more such ports within the next 12 months. “A year from now, I invite you to come back and grade us ― see if performance met the goals,” Ridge said. Ridge named the WMD detection programs as his top priorities for the department’s Science and Technology Directorate. Back to top       States Say They Are “Allocating,” Not “Spending,” Antiterrorism Funds on Time By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — State homeland security chiefs on Friday disputed charges that a state-level logjam is preventing federal funds for terrorism and WMD response from reaching local-level first responders (see GSN, Feb. 12). “The money is not stuck anywhere. ... Every state has met every deadline given to us by the [federal] Department of Homeland Security,” Indiana Counterterrorism and Security Council Director Clifford Ong told reporters at a briefing organized by the National Governors Association. The officials suggested the dispute stems at least in part from differences of terminology. States are required to “pass through” 80 percent of funds from the federal Homeland Security Department’s largest first-responder grant program within 45 days of receiving the grants, but the state officials said the provision requires them to “allocate,” not necessarily to “spend,” the money. Virginia Homeland Security Director George Foresman said he frequently fields calls from local officials who are unaware he has allocated — that is, designated, but not provided — funds to their jurisdictions. The Office for Domestic Preparedness, which administers the grants, would see its funding cut by 18.5 percent under the Bush administration’s proposed fiscal 2005 budget, despite predictions last year by U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge that the office’s budget would grow considerably (see GSN, Feb. 4). In discussing the cut, federal officials said billions of allocated federal dollars have not reached local jurisdictions. The U.S. Conference of Mayors said in a report last month that states have failed to provide most U.S. cities with funds from the largest Office for Domestic Preparedness grant program. Ridge said Feb. 12 that a “logjam” is resulting from the lack of a “single distribution mechanism between states and the local communities,” but the state officials at Friday’s briefing largely rejected the claim. Foresman said that “momentum is only beginning to build” in programs run by Ridge’s department, which is barely a year old. In a subsequent interview with Global Security Newswire, Foresman said states are meeting federal deadlines, but he questioned the usefulness of the deadlines. “Congress should not have to dictate how long it takes to get the money out,” he said. State Officials Say More Education Needed For Local Officials In responding to charges of a logjam, the state officials said the funding process has been widely misunderstood by local officials. “One place where the states have not done what we should have done is education,” said Foresman. The officials stressed that federal money is distributed to reimburse local jurisdictions’ costs, not in advance; that broad threat assessments and response planning should be the basis for spending; and that it is still early in the current two-year grant-giving period. “When you’re at the early stage of a two-year program,” said Foresman, “you’re not going to have expended all of the dollars.” Added Missouri Homeland Security Director Tim Daniel: “It’s a two-year program, and we are at the early stages of a 10-year plan. Just because there is $15 billion [provided in the past three years by the federal office] doesn’t mean that there has been $15 billion spent; it means there is $15 billion allocated.” The state officials acknowledged that more spending is needed to properly equip the country’s local first responders, but said Office for Domestic Preparedness funds can never completely cover the needs of local agencies. “Clearly, there is a gap, but the question at the end of the day is, ‘What do we need to get, versus what do we want to get?’” Foresman said. The officials added that the funds must be spent deliberately, based on an overall strategy. A federally produced national threat assessment that would underlie such targeted spending “is not something that we’re probably going to get done any time in the near term,” Foresman said. His projection contradicted Feb. 12 testimony by Ridge, who told the House Select Committee on Homeland Security that the assessment would be ready within three months. States submitted statewide threat assessments and response plans to Washington at the end of last month (see GSN, Feb. 13). Back to top

Pentagon Continues to Fund Iraqi National Congress Information Program The U.S. Defense Department is set to pay up to $4 million this year for information from the Iraqi National Congress, a former opposition group whose sources have been described as providing little useful information on prewar Iraq’s WMD efforts, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported Sunday (see GSN, Feb. 17). The funding would go to the INC’s Information Collection Program, said two senior U.S. officials and a U.S. defense official. The Defense Intelligence Agency has determined since the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom that the group’s sources provided little worthwhile information on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, according to the Inquirer. The U.S. defense official said it was worthwhile to continue funding the INC’s information program because it has been useful to the Iraq Survey Group, which is searching Iraq for evidence of WMD efforts, and to U.S. counterinsurgency operations in Iraq. “To call all of it (INC intelligence) useless is too negative,” the defense official said. A senior Bush administration official, however, expressed doubts about the program. “A huge amount of what was collected hasn’t panned out,” the official said. “Some of it has turned out to have been either wrong or fabricated,” he added (Landay/Strobel, Philadelphia Inquirer, Feb. 22). CIA Did Not Share Full Information With U.N. Weapons Inspectors Meanwhile, U.S. Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said Friday that the CIA did not fully share information on alleged Iraqi WMD sites with U.N. weapons inspectors prior to the war, according to the Washington Post. The CIA recently declassified the number of the priority top suspect WMD sites provided to U.N. inspectors, showing that “21 of the 105 high and medium priority top suspect sites on the CIA list were not shared” with U.N. inspectors, Levin said. Of the 21 sites, four were listed as high priority and 17 were medium priority, according to the Post. None of the 21 sites were found to have contained weapons of mass destruction. In a letter last month to Levin that disclosed the numbers, the CIA said it had provided U.N. inspectors “with the intelligence that we judged would be fruitful in their search for prohibited material and activities in Iraq” (Walter Pincus, Washington Post, Feb. 22). Pentagon Iraq Handbook Devoted Few Pages to WMD A Pentagon intelligence guide on Iraq that was provided to U.S. forces six months before Operation Iraqi Freedom suggested there was little risk posed by alleged Iraqi chemical weapons, according to the London Sunday Times. The Iraq Country Handbook included only two pages on the possible danger posed by Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. In contrast, the handbook included 11 pages on poisonous snakes, spiders and plants, the Sunday Times reported (Stephen Grey, London Sunday Times, Feb. 22). Back to top       U.S. State Department Excluded From Annual WMD Threat Hearing The U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research was not invited to take part in the annual worldwide threat hearing scheduled to be held tomorrow by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, despite the bureau’s relatively accurate assessment of Iraq’s prewar WMD capabilities, according to the Los Angeles Times (see GSN, Feb. 10). The bureau has participated in the hearing every year since it began in the early 1990s, congressional and Bush administration officials said. The bureau’s skeptical assessments of Iraq’s alleged WMD efforts ultimately turned out to be more correct than those prepared by other U.S. intelligence agencies, the Times reported. “At the very time when I & R seems to have been right and everyone else wrong, it’s at least unusual that this year for the first time they’re not invited,” a congressional staffer said. A Republican aide to the Senate intelligence panel said the bureau was not invited because committee members mainly wanted to hear from CIA Director George Tenet and FBI Director Robert Mueller. The bureau also only has an acting director who has not been confirmed by the Senate, the aide said. The bureau is not concerned about the lack of an invitation, in part because the hearing typically focuses on the more prominent witnesses, a senior State Department official said. “We really are sort of training wheels on the side of the George Tenet show,” the official said (Greg Miller, Los Angeles Times, Feb. 21). Back to top

Nuclear Weapon State Processed Uranium for Libya, IAEA Says By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — Breaching its obligations under international nuclear agreements, Libya failed over two decades to declare activities including importation and conversion of uranium and small-scale separation of plutonium, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Friday in a report to its Board of Governors (see GSN, Feb. 17). Two months ago, Libya announced that it had pursued illicit WMD programs, but would dismantle them with international verification, including by the IAEA. Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei left Vienna today for a two-day visit to Libya, telling reporters, according to Reuters, that he plans to “take stock of where we are and agree with them on the next set of inspection activities and hopefully to move forward.” In one disclosure that could have implications beyond Libya, the IAEA report states that Tripoli acknowledged secretly exporting uranium ore concentrate in 1985 to another country for processing into uranium compounds that were then sent back to Libya. The agency said Libya failed to report reimporting the material but was not required to report the initial export since the other country was a nuclear weapon state. The declared nuclear weapon states in 1985 were China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States. China and France had not then acceded to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty but still would have been considered nuclear weapon states as pertained to Libya’s reporting obligations, said Brookings Institution proliferation expert Michael Levi. Institute for Science and International Security President David Albright said the Soviet Union and China “had a history of not reporting things to the IAEA” and are the most likely culprits in the Libya processing deal. “I think it’s just hard to know. … It was a time when people weren’t scrutinizing these things very carefully,” Albright said today in an interview. The IAEA said that “the Libyan declaration to the agency is not clear about the exact amount exported” and that uranium hexafluoride obtained by Libya in the transaction has now been transferred to the United States under IAEA seal. Report Shows Scope of Libyan Programs Friday’s confidential report precedes a board meeting slated to begin March 8. The report could lead the board to refer the Libyan case to the U.N. Security Council but, because it contains praise for Libya’s recent openness, is not likely to lead to U.N. sanctions, said a Western diplomat cited Friday by Reuters. Albright said the report shows that “it’s very important that Libya gave this up.” “I don’t know how long it would have taken them to finish, or make a bomb. It might have been many years,” Albright said. Levi said the report demonstrates the shortcomings of the existing international nonproliferation regime. “It shows a real failure of the system of controls over the last 20 years [but also] shows a real pattern of active cooperation on the part of Libya, which is really the model of how a state that wants to disarm should be disarming,” Levi said. The report provides a comprehensive account of information Libya has now provided to the IAEA. It also indicates shortcomings in Libya’s new cooperation, including a lack of clarity about certain subjects, failure to provide some information about foreign sources of nuclear material, and various instances in which Libya has “undertaken to submit” documentation but has not yet done so. “The pattern over and over,” said Levi, “is that the IAEA finds a problem, and Libya not only acts to redress that problem, but suggests further remedies, and that’s the behavior pattern of a state that wants to be engaged in this process.” Shortcomings in Libya’s cooperation are most likely the result of time constraints, Levi added. “We’re already far deeper into detail on the Libyan program than we ever have been on the Iranian program, for example. It is getting to a point where basic bookkeeping and accounting problems are maybe a legitimate reason for the slowness,” Levi said. The report includes frequent indirect references to the recently uncovered global nuclear underground allegedly run by Pakistani national hero Abdul Qadeer Khan with help from Sri Lankan businessman Buhary Syed Abu Tahir. The IAEA is investigating the network, which allegedly supplied nuclear weapon technology to Libya and other countries (see GSN, Feb. 20). “A network has existed,” the agency said Friday in its report, “whereby actual technological know-how originates from one source, while the delivery of equipment and some of the materials have taken place through intermediaries, who have played a coordinating role, subcontracting the manufacturing to entities in yet other countries. This supply chain appears to have made use of false end-user certificates whereby, in some cases, the original supplier may not have known the actual end use. However, in other cases, the original supplier may have been aware at least of the possibility of misuse and perhaps even the actual end use, since the identity of equipment, such as serial numbers, had been removed.” Libya announced on Dec. 19, 2003, that it intended to eliminate its WMD programs and sign the Additional Protocol to its IAEA safeguards agreement, which allows for more intrusive inspections and which Libya again vowed to sign in a letter received last week by the IAEA. The Dec. 19 announcement was followed by a meeting of IAEA and Libyan representatives the next day in Vienna, where the agency is located; a Dec. 27-29 visit by ElBaradei to Libya; and a Jan. 20-29 visit to Libya by a team of IAEA inspectors. Describing what it has learned since Libya’s announcement, the IAEA said, “Over an extended period of time, Libya was in breach of its obligation to comply with the provisions of the [IAEA] safeguards agreement. The failure by Libya to report nuclear material, facilities and activities, particularly those related to enrichment, and its acquisition of nuclear weapon design and fabrication documents are matters of the utmost concern.” The IAEA added, though, that Tripoli is now displaying “active cooperation and openness,” including granting “unrestricted access” to IAEA inspectors. Violations highlighted in the report include failure in 1985, 2000 and 2001 to declare uranium hexafluoride imports; failure in 1985 and 2002 to declare importation of other uranium compounds; failure to declare conversion of uranium ore concentrate into uranium oxides, uranium tetrafluoride and uranium metal; failure to declare production and irradiation of uranium targets and subsequent processing of the material, including the separation of a small amount of plutonium; and failure to provide design information for a pilot centrifuge facility, a uranium conversion facility and hot cells for a research reactor. Libya Says It Never Tested Equipment With Nuclear Material The most comprehensive section of the report centers on Libya’s foreign-aided efforts to build facilities for enriching uranium in centrifuges. Libya told the agency it obtained a large amount of uranium enrichment equipment in a multifaceted effort over two decades but never tested its enrichment centrifuges with nuclear material. “In the early 1980s,” the IAEA said it was told by Libya, “a foreign expert assisted by Libyan technicians initiated research and development on uranium gas centrifuge enrichment at Tajura, using a centrifuge design that the expert had brought with him. ... By the time the expert left (around 1992), Libya had not yet been able to produce an operating centrifuge and had not conducted any experiments using nuclear material. However, experience had been gained in the design and operation of centrifuge equipment, vacuum technology and mass spectrometry, which proved to be useful in the next phase of the enrichment program.” Libya told the agency that in 1995, it moved to “reinvigorate its nuclear activities, including gas centrifuge uranium enrichment.” Tripoli said that in the following years, it imported 20 assembled L-1 centrifuges and components for assembly of 200 others, ultimately installing a complete single centrifuge at al-Hashan and successfully testing it in October 2000. According to the agency, Libya said it then installed more centrifuges in cascades at the same site but dismantled and moved them “for security reasons” in April 2002. The agency said some of the equipment remains in storage in Libya, while the rest has been moved out of the country — presumably to the United States. “Libya has stated that no nuclear material had been used during any tests conducted on the L-1 centrifuges,” the IAEA said. In a separate program, Libya claims to have received two L-2 centrifuges in September 2000 and to subsequently ordering 10,000 more. The centrifuges began arriving from abroad in large quantities in December 2002, and according to the agency, “Libya had received a considerable number of parts, mainly casings,” by December 2003. “Libya has also given information to the agency about the seizure in early October 2003 of a freight ship at a northern Mediterranean port, carrying centrifuge enrichment-related equipment manufactured elsewhere,” the agency said. Uranium Imports, Plutonium Production Libya says that between 1978 and the entry into force of its safeguards agreement in 1980, it imported 1,263 metric tons of uranium ore concentrate, material that was undeclared until recently, according to the report. In December 2003, the IAEA said, Libya “provided information about the export in 1985 of some of the UOC [uranium ore concentrate] for processing into a variety of uranium compounds” by the unnamed nuclear weapon state. Libya told the agency the processed uranium was returned to Libya in 1985. Libya has also told the agency it secretly imported two small cylinders of uranium hexafluoride in September 2000 and a large cylinder of the same material in February 2001. “Libya has not yet confirmed the origin of these UF6 imports,” the agency said, adding that it has determined the small cylinders contain natural and depleted uranium and the large cylinder contains about 1.7 metric tons of low-enriched uranium. “It’s enough to start up your centrifuge program. … It’s not enough for a bomb,” Albright said. As recently as 2002, according to Libyan claims cited in the report, Libya failed to report the import of more uranium compounds for use in chemical laboratories. Regarding uranium conversion activities, the IAEA said Libya claims to have conducted undeclared laboratory- and bench-scale conversion experiments in the 1980s; in 1984 received a pilot conversion facility ordered from abroad; and used the facility’s portable modules to build a full-fledged conversion facility. Libya said most of the facility was dismantled in 2003 and relocated. Libya said no uranium was processed in the facility, which is estimated to have an annual feed capacity of 30 metric tons of uranium. The facility could produce uranium tetrafluoride, uranium oxide and uranium metal but not uranium hexafluoride. According to Tripoli, there has been no production of the latter inside Libya. Libya also told the IAEA it failed to report making “several dozen” uranium oxide and uranium metal targets “on a gram scale” and irradiating them in a research reactor between 1984 and 1990. Libya extracted radioactive isotopes from 38 of the targets, each of which contained “about 1 gram” of uranium, the IAEA said, adding that another 48 irradiated targets were not processed and are now in storage. “Libya has indicated that plutonium (in very small quantities) was separated from at least two of the irradiated targets,” the agency said. Levi said the separation “shows that safeguards short of Additional Protocol safeguards are next to useless.” “They were playing around and didn’t tell the IAEA. … It confirms they had bad intent,” Albright said. Materials Sent to U.S. Are Subject to IAEA “Requirements and Procedures” Some of the material Libya handed over following its December announcement was transported to the United States, where IAEA seals are being opened in the presence of IAEA personnel (see GSN, Feb. 6).  Libya told the IAEA during the Jan. 20-29 visit that it “had agreed to transfer to the U.S.A. sensitive design information, nuclear weapon-related documents and most of the previously undeclared enrichment equipment, subject to agency verification requirements and procedures,” the IAEA said in Friday’s report, adding that it told Libya at the time that “these items constituted a part of the agency’s evidence and were to remain under agency seal and legal custody until the agency has been able to verify the correctness and completeness of Libya’s declarations.” Libya has told the agency it provided copies of nuclear weapon design and production documents — “the only such documentation existing in Libya” — to the United Kingdom and the United States before the December 2003 IAEA visit to Libya. The agency said it initially sealed the original documents on Dec. 31, 2003, and sealed them again Jan. 20 after reviewing them and before they were sent to the United States. “The agency has been assured that these documents will remain accessible to the agency for further examination, including forensic analysis, until the agency has been able to verify the correctness and completeness of Libya’s declarations,” the IAEA said. Back to top       Iran Admits to Covertly Purchasing Nuclear Equipment Iran yesterday acknowledged that it had covertly purchased components for its nuclear program on the international nuclear black market, according to Reuters (see GSN, Feb. 20). “We have bought some things from some dealers but we don’t know what the source was or what country they came from,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said yesterday. “It happens that some of those (dealers) were from some subcontinent countries,” he said. Top Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan has reportedly confessed to having transferred nuclear technology to Iran and other countries. On Friday, Malaysian police investigating the nuclear black market revealed by Khan reported that he had sold millions of dollars worth of uranium enrichment centrifuge components to Iran in the mid-1990s (see related GSN story, today). Iran has informed the International Atomic Energy Agency about the purchases, Asefi said. Western diplomats in Vienna said Tehran has provided the IAEA with the names of five European middleman and six Pakistani scientists who aided Iran’s nuclear program (Parinoosh Arami, Reuters, Feb. 22). Asefi’s statement came after the head of the Iranian Supreme National Security Council, Hassan Rohani, met with IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei in Vienna, according to the New York Times. During the meeting, ElBaradei is believed to have summarized the results of a report the IAEA is expected to release this week on Iran’s nuclear program, which may have led to the Iranian Foreign Ministry statement, according to U.S. and European diplomats. “The Iranians are admitting to the dimensions of their program bit by bit, as they are confronted with individual pieces of evidence,” said a senior U.S. official. “The Iranians are still stonewalling,” the official said (David Sanger, New York Times, Feb. 23). A senior Western diplomat in Tehran said yesterday, though, that he did not expect any more revelations about Iran’s nuclear program. “I don’t think there will be more nasty surprises on the nuclear file,” the diplomat said (Arami, Reuters). Back to top       Malaysia Clears Businessman of Wrongdoing in Nuclear Network Malaysia has cleared Sri Lankan businessman Buhary Syed Abu Tahir of any wrongdoing after he confessed to aiding top Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan in transferring nuclear technology to Iran and Libya, CNN.com reported yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 20). A three-month investigation found no evidence that Tahir or the company Scomi Precision Engineering, which he contracted to produce parts for Libya’s nuclear program, violated Malaysian law, national police chief Mohamed Bakri Omar said Saturday (CNN.com, Feb. 22). “We are not imposing anything on him,” Mohamed Bakri said. “There is no law to bar anybody from leaving this country.” Malaysian authorities have also cleared Scomi Precision Engineering of participating in nuclear trafficking, according to the Associated Press. They said the company did not know the purpose or the intended recipient of the centrifuge components (Rohan Sullivan, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Feb. 22). In a report released Friday, Malaysian police said Tahir had told them he had aided Khan in selling used centrifuge units to Iran for about $3 million. Tahir also told police that Khan had arranged for uranium hexafluoride and centrifuges to be sent by air from Pakistan to Libya in 2001 and 2002 (The Star, Feb. 21). Meanwhile, Swiss police said Friday that they were investigating whether Swiss engineer Urs Tinner, who was identified by Tahir as playing a role in the international nuclear network, contributed to the production of nuclear weapons (Sullivan, Associated Press). Back to top       Bargaining Continues With North, South Korean Nuclear Proposals Chinese officials said that North Korea has offered to end its nuclear weapons program in return for diplomatic concessions and aid, the BBC reported today. It was not clear if the North’s proposal added any concessions to earlier such offers (see GSN, Feb. 20). Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi today told Japanese Senior Vice Foreign Minister Ichiro Aisawa that North Korea has told China it would “freeze all of its nuclear activities as a step” toward abolition of the program (BBC News, Feb. 23). However, South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo-hyuck said, “A freeze by itself is meaningless.” Lee told reporters after meeting U.S. and Japanese officials in Seoul that the position of those three countries is that “All nuclear programs, including the highly enriched uranium program, must be dismantled.” (Ansfield/Kim, Reuters, Feb. 23). In response to North Korea’s offer, the South unveiled a proposal detailing “countermeasures” to the North’s plan, which the United States is considering, according to the Washington Times (Soo-Jeong Lee, Washington Times, Feb. 23). Lee presented a multiphase plan that includes verification through inspections. A freeze, “is only meaninguful when it is the first step towards dismantlement,” Lee added (Reuters, Feb. 23). Meanwhile the Chinese Xinhua news agency reported that Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov said today that Russia’s position on North Korea’s nuclear prpogram was “very close” to the position held by China. The Chinese position remains unclear, however, as Beijing refuses even to comment on whether ot believes the North has a uranium enrichment program, as the U.S. alleges (Agence France-Presse, Feb. 23). In a story reported by the Asahi Shimbun yesterday, a U.S. official said China seized nuclear weapons manufacturing materials last summer that North Korea had planned to import, inducation that the United States and China may be cooperating under the table for the sake of a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula (Dong-A Iibo, Feb. 22). Back to top       Pantex Suspends Some Operations After Warhead “Anomaly” Found U.S. officials have suspended some operations at the Energy Department’s Pantex facility in Texas after the Los Alamos National Laboratory detected an anomaly in a plutonium pit removed from a nuclear depth charge, according to the Amarillo Globe-News (see GSN, Dec. 12, 2003). The Texas plant stores more than 12,000 pits, the radioactive cores of nuclear weapons, and is responsible for disassembling and repackaging U.S. nuclear weapons into safer storage containers. On Feb. 4, LANL notified Pantex it detected an anomaly in a B-57 pit, officials at the plant said. In response, Pantex officials decided to suspend all handling of B-57 and similar pits until they complete a review of their safety and storage measures. The B-57 is an antisubmarine nuclear weapon dismantled by Pantex in the 1990s. Blair Rhodes, lead manager for the B-57 pit evaluation team, gave no additional information about the anomaly.  “For classification reasons, a description of the pit’s anomaly is not public information,” Rhodes said. “LANL officials had previously notified Pantex that this type of anomaly was possible and that such a condition would not pose safety concerns,” he added. John Conway, chairman of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, said the National Nuclear Security Administration constantly reviews issues that could affect the U.S. atomic stockpile. “As these things age, you want to look at it more carefully,” Conway said. “In the past, we never had weapons maintained as long as these … because we haven’t had nuclear testing for a long time,” he added (Jim McBride, Amarillo Globe-News, Feb 22).  Back to top       Tenet Traveled to Pakistan This Month to Discuss Nonproliferation, Pakistani Officials Say CIA Director George Tenet visited Pakistan earlier this month, in part to discuss nuclear nonproliferation measures, senior Pakistani officials said today (see related GSN story, today). Tenet traveled to Pakistan shortly after top nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan reportedly confessed to have transferred nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea, according to the Associated Press. During his visit, Tenet discussed with Pakistani intelligence officials the implications of the nuclear black market revealed by Khan’s confession, an intelligence official said. The Pakistani Foreign Ministry refused to confirm Tenet’s visit, AP reported. The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad refused to comment on the matter (Munir Ahmad, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Feb. 23). Back to top

Smallpox Virus Should Be Preserved, Russian Scientist Says Russia’s stockpile of smallpox virus should be preserved for at least the next decade, a senior Russian scientist told Reuters last week (see GSN, March 18, 2002). Basic research on the virus could be completed “in the next 10 or 15 years,” said Sergei Netesov, deputy general director of Russia’s Vector laboratory. His facility and the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention are the only two known sites where the virus is stored. The Vector site safeguards 120 strains of the virus still being studied by Russian scientists, according to Reuters. To enable continuing research, Netesov said security at the Russian facility was critically important. “The threat we need to worry about most is theft,” he said. “The system of selecting people has to be very thorough,” he added.  Netesov said Vector staff typically earn $200 to $300 a month, several times higher than the Russian average wage. Staff must be trained in bioethics, and the two tiers of security checks are extremely thorough, according to Netesov. “The weakest link is human beings,” he said. “We have to check a person very closely before we trust him,” he added (Mark Trevelyan, Reuters/PlanetArk, Feb 20).  Back to top       Truckers’ Files Subpoenaed in Ricin Probe A federal grand jury has subpoenaed the files of nine truck drivers employed by a trucking company in Little Rock, Ark., seeking evidence in an October ricin scare at a South Carolina postal facility, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, Oct. 24, 2003). A subpoena sent in late November sought the records from Mail Contractors of America to determine how a vial of ricin reached the Greenville, S.C. center. Authorities believe that someone mailed a package with a vial of the poison enclosed on Oct. 14 or 15. Mail Contractors had the contract for delivering third class mail to the facility at the time. In a subsequent incident, a letter addressed to the White House also contained a vial of the toxin (see GSN, Feb. 4). Both the Greenville and White House mailings were sent by someone using the name “Fallen Angel,” who in a letter threatened to use ricin unless changes were made to federal rules on limits over truckers’ driving hours. No letter has been discovered in a third ricin incident, in which a small amount of the powder was found on Feb. 2 in the Dirksen Senate office mailroom used by the staff of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.). The FBI is offering a $100,000 reward and has appealed for assistance on late-night trucker radio shows (Marilyn Thompson, Washington Post, Feb 23).  Back to top       Missing E. Coli Recovered in Britain A shipment of E. coli 0157 was found in Liverpool three days after its disappearance en route to a British government laboratory, the London Sunday Mirror reported yesterday (see GSN, Aug. 4, 2003). The 90 vials of killer bacteria went missing on Jan. 15, when a courier was sent to gather the materials at the Liverpool Veterinary School. Three days later, the E. coli was traced to an address in Liverpool. A 35-year-old courier company driver was arrested in connection with the incident and later released on bail. A spokesman for Britain’s Health Protection Agency said that there was “no risk to the public,” but declined to comment further in the investigation. The Mirror reported that defense officials fear illegal immigrants from Iraq and Afghanistan working in poultry factories in Suffolk and Norfolk could introduce such a contaminant into the food supply. “Police know terrorists have studied the food manufacturing and distribution process in the West with a view to targeting it,” said British terrorism expert Simon Reeve (Mike Hamilton, London Sunday Mirror, Feb 22).  Back to top       Australian Officials Under Fire Over Anthrax Vaccine Risks Defense officials in Australia admitted Saturday to keeping secret a variety of side effects associated with the anthrax vaccine administered to Australian troops bound for Iraq, according to the Canberra Times (see GSN, Dec. 29, 2003). The Australian military’s anthrax vaccination program was suspended for two months in 2001 after personnel headed for Afghanistan suffered side effects. Confidential defense documents released in Australia revealed that nearly 75 percent of troops receiving the injection experienced side effects ranging from swelling in the injected arm to flu-like symptoms. Despite never having identified the problem with the vaccine, injections resumed a year later for troops heading to Iraq, according to the Times. Defense Health Services Director-General Tony Austin said troops were not warned about possible side effects because officials had no evidence that problems would recur. “We were in a position where all we would have been able to tell them was that there had been a probe, we had not been able to identify a cause from that and we had absolutely no evidence to suggest that we were likely to see that again, based on overseas experience and our own experience when we reinstituted the program in Iraq,” Austin said. Last year, 52 Australian troops refused to take the vaccine, disqualifying themselves from serving in Iraq (Canberra Times, Feb 22).  Back to top

Verdict in Aum Shinrikyo Cult Leader Case Expected This Week A Japanese court is expected Friday to issue a verdict in the case of Aum Shinrikyo cult leader Shoko Asahara, who has been on trial for allegedly masterminding a 1995 sarin attack on the Tokyo subway that killed 12 people and sickened thousands, according to the Associated Press (see GSN, Jan. 30). In addition to the 1995 attack, Asahara also faces charges of attempted murder, kidnapping and illegal weapons production. Due to Japan’s 99 percent conviction rate, a guilty verdict and death sentence are widely expected, but Asahara does have a right to appeal, AP reported. Eleven Aum members have already been sentenced to death, but none have yet been executed (Joseph Coleman, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Feb. 22). Back to top

Pakistan Brings Nuclear Missile Into Service Pakistan Saturday formally introduced into its military the nuclear-capable, short-range Hatf 3 Ghaznavi ballistic missile, according to the Associated Press (see GSN, Oct. 3, 2003). The missile, which has been tested over the past two years, has a range of 290 kilometers and is able to hit targets within Pakistan’s rival India (Associated Press/Times of India, Feb. 21). Back to top

Pentagon Seeks $10 Million For Space-Based Missile Interceptor The U.S. Missile Defense Agency plans to pursue efforts next year to develop a space-based missile interceptor, Aerospace Daily reported today (see GSN, Jan. 22). The agency’s fiscal 2005 budget request includes about $10 million for a space-based Kinetic Energy Interceptor test bed, Pentagon sources said. The agency plans to begin testing in space with orbital experiments in 2010 or 2011 and with a limited experimental constellation of satellites in 2012, the sources said. The KEI program works to develop ground-, sea- and space-based missile interceptors to bring down enemy missiles in their boost phase of flight (Marc Selinger, Aerospace Daily, Feb. 23). Back to top

U.S. Supreme Court to Hear “Dirty Bomb” Suspect Case The U.S. Supreme Court said Friday that it will consider whether suspected al-Qaeda operative Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen who was arrested in 2002 on allegations that he was involved in a plot to detonate a “dirty bomb” within the United States, can remain imprisoned without being charged, according to USA Today (see GSN, Feb. 12). After being designated an “enemy combatant” in 2002, Padilla has been held at a U.S. Navy prison without being charged with a crime. In December, a federal appeals court ordered him released, but the Justice Department appealed the decision. On Friday, the Supreme Court announced that it agreed to hear the Justice Department’s appeal. The Supreme Court is expected to hear the case in late April and to issue a decision before it adjourns in late June, USA Today reported (Richard Willing, USA Today, Feb. 23). The Bush administration argues that Padilla can be held indefinitely under the president’s constitutional war powers, and a Sept. 18, 2001 congressional resolution. Attorney General John Ashcroft said the Supreme Court should reaffirm the designation of enemy combatants, while opponents argue that detentions without trials undermine American civil liberties. “Because the president said ‘I think you’re a bad man,’ he’s been in jail for two years,” said Andrew Patel, one of Padilla’s attorneys. “He hasn’t had a chance to defend himself. That’s not the way we do things in this country, when we’re at war or when we’re at peace,” Patel said (Gina Holland, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Feb. 21).   Back to top

About Newswire  |  Contact National Journal  |  Re-Use Guidelines

© Copyright 2008 by National Journal Group, Inc. The material in this section is produced independently for NTI by National Journal Group, Inc. Any reproduction or retransmission, in whole or in part, is a violation of federal law and is strictly prohibited without the consent of the National Journal Group, Inc. All rights reserved.