Former U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix said “no one cared” in the Bush administration about lack of evidence that prewar Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (AFP photo/Paul J. Richards). Interview: Blix Says U.N. Discredited Iraq Intelligence, but “No One Cared”; Calls for a “Reality Check” on Purported Iraq-Terrorism Link Former U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) Executive Chairman Hans Blix spoke this week with Global Security Newswire’s Joe Fiorill about Iraq, where Blix was the lead U.N. weapons inspector prior to last year’s war, and how best to combat the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in the world. Blix, who now leads the international Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission, is on a U.S. tour promoting his new book, Disarming Iraq...Full Story

U.S. to Enforce New Law, Expand Container Security The United States is set to enforce a law that would impose tougher security rules on foreign ports, the New York Times reported today (see GSN, March 23)...Full Story

Terror Warning Prompts U.S. Embassy Closing in U.A.E.; WMD Attack Cited as “Possible Threat” A “specific threat” forced the United States to close its embassy today in the United Arab Emirates, the mission said today (see GSN, June 23, 2003)...Full Story

	Wednesday, March 24, 2004

U.S. to Enforce New Law, Expand Container Security The United States is set to enforce a law that would impose tougher security rules on foreign ports, the New York Times reported today (see GSN, March 23). The Maritime Transportation Security Act of 2002 was designed to protect the U.S. coastline from terrorist attacks. Admiral James Loy, deputy secretary of homeland security and retired commandant of the Coast Guard, pressed for the new law, which was quickly passed by Congress and signed by President George W. Bush 16 months ago. The law and an accompanying United Nations code require all world ships and ports by July 1 to have antiterrorism systems ready — using computers, security, surveillance cameras and other equipment — to protect the United States against an attack by sea, the Times said. Ships that fail to meet the guidelines could be turned away from U.S. waters, while noncompliant ports could be barred from trading with the United States. “We’re dead serious about this,” said Rear Adm. Larry Hereth, director of port security for the Coast Guard.  Maritime security experts say a seaborne terrorist attack could cause major economic damage and cost thousands of lives, and that U.S. port closures in response to threat or attack could be financially devastating. “Their ultimate goal is attacking our economy,” Loy said. “Our link to the global economy is by water — 95 percent of what comes and goes to this country comes and goes by ships,” he added. Public records show that al-Qaeda has sought to use commercial ships to attack the United States for seven years. U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said yesterday that after July 1 the U.S. Coast Guard will have the authority to board foreign ships, provide armed escort and take other necessary measures in ensuring compliance with security rules. “Terrorism is a global menace, and we must fix any weak link that can be exploited,” Ridge said (U.S. State Department Release, March 23). Some say the deadline and cost of the new measures are unreasonable, particularly for poorer countries. “The developing world is saying that the wealthiest, most powerful nation in the world is exporting the cost of protecting itself onto some the world’s poorest countries,” said Stephen Flynn, a retired Coast Guard commander and maritime security expert at the Council on Foreign Relations.  Flynn added, however, that the economic costs to the world could be just as dire if the United States cannot keep its ports secure and open to trade. “If the U.S. locks down its ports for more than two weeks, the entire global trade system crashes,” he warned (Tim Weiner, New York Times, March 24). Back to top       Terror Warning Prompts U.S. Embassy Closing in U.A.E.; WMD Attack Cited as “Possible Threat” A “specific threat” forced the United States to close its embassy today in the United Arab Emirates, the mission said today (see GSN, June 23, 2003). “Embassy Abu Dhabi and the Consulate General in Dubai have temporarily suspended operations for Wednesday, March 24, in light of a specific threat to the Embassy in Abu Dhabi,” said an embassy official statement. “The embassy and consulate will be assessing their security posture on the Thursday-Friday weekend with regard to the re-opening Saturday,” it added (U.S. Embassy statement). The threat comes on the heels of Israel’s killing of Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. The U.S. State Department expressed concern about a possible terrorist attack on U.S. interests in the Middle East and included the possibility of the use of weapons of mass destruction. “Credible information has indicated terrorist groups may be planning attacks against U.S. interests in the Middle East,” the department said in its travel warning to U.S. citizens in the region. “While conventional weapons such as explosive devices are a more immediate threat in many areas, use of nonconventional weapons, including chemical or biological agents must be considered a possible threat,” the statement added (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, March 24). Back to top       Canada to Bolster Antiterror Sea and Border Defenses Canada plans to increase spending on antiterrorism defenses by $452 million, particularly aiming to tighten security at seaports, the Canadian Press reported today (see GSN, March 4). The new money, to be distributed over five years, will be used for marine and cyber security, border protection and other initiatives. This funding brings the total of Canadian federal spending on terror security following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States to $6.2 billion, the Canadian Press said. Canadian Public Safety Minister Anne McLellan called the increase a “substantial investment” in the country’s security. Peter MacKay, a Conservative member of Canada’s Parliament, said a “huge, gaping hole” remains in the budget for security, leaving Canada unable to secure its shores. “It’s extremely disappointing given the fact that there is still a very real and present danger in North America,” MacKay said. Security officials in Canada have long been concerned that a radiological or biological weapon could be brought to a Canadian port in a shipping container, according to the Canadian Press. In light of U.S. efforts to bolster maritime security through enhanced spending, Canada’s port authorities are lobbying their government for similar spending increases (Canadian Press/Edmonton Journal, March 24). Back to top       Correction GSN yesterday incorrectly cited former U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill as the author of The Price of Loyalty. The book was written by Ron Suskind. Back to top

Blix Says U.N. Discredited Iraq Intelligence, but “No One Cared”; Calls for a “Reality Check” on Purported Iraq-Terrorism Link Former U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) Executive Chairman Hans Blix spoke this week with Global Security Newswire’s Joe Fiorill about Iraq, where Blix was the lead U.N. weapons inspector prior to last year’s war, and how best to combat the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in the world. Blix, who now leads the international Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission, is on a U.S. tour promoting his new book, Disarming Iraq. Global Security Newswire: Do you believe the war in Iraq was justified, whether by a WMD threat or for some other reason? Hans Blix: No, I don’t think so, but there are many types of justifications. The simplest one is, perhaps, the almost limitless legal one, and it’s interesting that neither the U.K. nor the U.S. really advanced the doctrine of pre-emptive war. They are both saying that Iraq had violated a long series of resolutions, including the latest, [U.N. Security Council Resolution] 1441. I also think that such a contention, which might be reasonable, could be advanced ― but by the Security Council.  My view is that the Security Council owns its own resolutions, and if they are breached, then the council can authorize action, but individual members cannot. … So this is on the legal side. Now, what people most look at, of course, is weapons of mass destruction. Was there justification on that score?  And I think, to be fair, one must measure that at the time when they started the war, not now. Now we will know that there aren’t any weapons, but, to be fair, I think we should look at that time. And I don’t think it was justified at that time either. [U.S.] President [George W.] Bush has said that war and armed force is only the means of last resort; it was not the means of last resort in March last year. On the contrary, one could say that the evidence was beginning to fall apart. There was the tendency, which I commented upon in the Security Council, of equating “unaccounted for” with “existing.” There were lots of things unaccounted for, which we sort of identified as question marks, but there was also [Deputy U.S. Defense Secretary Paul] Wolfowitz and others who said, well, where are they? … Then, as of January, when the U.S.A. and others gave us sites to visit, in no case did we find any weapons of mass destruction, and they claimed they were the best sites. I said publicly somewhere, if these were the best, what was the rest? GSN: The United States might say that the Security Council resolutions put the onus on Iraq to demonstrate it had disarmed. Blix: That’s right, but even so, you can come ― I mean, I don’t doubt that you can come to a conclusion that Iraq had breached resolutions, but in that case, my point is simply that it’s the council that has to authorize it. They can’t do it.  Not the U.S. Now, as to a violation of Resolution 1441, it’s not self-evident that there was a violation of it. The U.S. would say there were false statements and that there were omissions, but you know, if you omit mentioning something you don’t have, it’s not much of an omission. However, I agree that on the missile sector, there were breaches, and we ordered them to destroy some. They were not terribly vast breaches. … On the other hand, [former chief U.S. inspector David] Kay has said that they had plans for more, and we had, certainly, suspicions of that. So in that sector, yes, I think one could come to that conclusion. But it’s nevertheless, in my view, the council that can authorize them. … When you have [Security Council members] who are prepared to go ahead with a war ignoring that they could not have a majority of support for it and probably even have the majority against it ― that, I think, is demeaning and reducing the council’s standing and authority. The U.S. saying that the council loses its relevance if it doesn’t vote with us, it would turn irrelevant if it didn’t work with the U.S. ― I think this is not very attractive. … GSN: And you saw no evidence to support the U.S. perception of a WMD threat. Blix: There were sites that we had visited, quite a number of sites, and in no case had we found anything. And the nuclear sphere ― which, after all, is the most important ― was the area in which you had the fewest question marks. By the time that the war started, the yellowcake contract [Iraq’s alleged bid to obtain nuclear material in Niger] had exploded, and the aluminum tubes [which Iraq allegedly intended for uranium enrichment work] were pretty clear, too ― that it wasn’t anything. Both [International Atomic Energy Agency Director General] Mohamed [ElBaradei] and I … had stated that there was no infrastructure left and that we understood the whole program. There were simply some questions left which really didn’t relate with disarmament. One of the more interesting ones was that Iraq had received information from a foreign country, I think about nuclear weaponry. And they never told us who it would be, but today, with the knowledge about the [nuclear black market run by Pakistan scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan], one begins to wonder whether it was not from there. So that was the kind of question, but that did not really suggest that Iraq had a capability any longer. That’s my main objection ― that nuclear is the most important weapon, and there was no area which was less dangerous, and [that was] even admitted by the U.S. In my book, I describe that when France and Russia wanted to have a sort of settlement to dilute the sanctions system, the U.S. was not prepared to do that, but they were prepared, at one stage, to discuss closing the nuclear dossier. Then you had [U.S. Secretary of State Colin] Powell’s performance at the U.N., and there, I was the only one who commented upon one of the cases. I only chose one; there were several we could not check, really. Because [the intelligence was based on] intercepted telephone calls and so forth, we could not check. But the one about the decontamination trucks ― we had had our inspectors in the place, we had taken environmental samples, we could see nothing about biological or chemical, and the trucks that we had seen were water trucks. So I’m concluding in the book that I have published that there was a lack of critical thinking, there was probably not a wish to do critical thinking, and there was a will to do spin. … When you saw that, you felt, hey, this is a bit of an oversell. GSN: You’ve used the term “faith-based” to describe the Bush administration’s approach to Iraq. Do you mean to tie the religious views of U.S. officials to what you are calling a failure of critical thinking? Blix: No.  I think I comment in the book that both Blair and Bush are religious persons, but no, I do not have the feeling that religion played a role. I mean, of course, Bush may be inclined to see it as representative of evil, and I think Saddam fits rather nicely in such a role. But it’s not that I’ve traced any religious thinking behind this. The WMDs, of course, is the area which they advanced. Which I think played a role, but I think they ― through the lack of critical thinking, both at the intelligence level and government level ― they [created] a sort of virtual reality. And we pointed it out, but they ignored us. Which is the more strange because after the war, we had heard that they felt that in 1998, when the UNSCOM [UNMOVIC’s predecessor agency in Iraq, the U.N. Special Commission] inspectors left, that thereafter, they didn’t have any information. So it shows, on the one hand, how much information they got from the UNSCOM, and on the other hand, how little they had after. Why did they not look more at what we found? Because we were there for 3 1/2 months.  So they didn’t. Other justifications have come … afterwards, like that the war sent a signal to Libya and to Iran, to North Korea. GSN: How do you react to those suggestions? Blix: Well, we didn’t hear much about that before the war. A little, a little.  And I think, by and large, the Libyan case has been going on for a long time and perhaps is more evidence of the value of containment ― that the Libyans had been under sanctions for a long time and [Libyan Leader Muammar] Qadhafi got tired of this. But I don’t exclude [the possibility that the Iraq war] gave it a bit of a push. As to Iran and North Korea, well, their geopolitical situations are very different from Iraq’s. Again, it could have given a push, because they know that they are dealing with countries that are not taking things easily, but … no one could have justified the war in March by saying, “We want to send signals to Iran and North Korea.” GSN: But you have defended the use of military pressure in moving these situations along. How do you strike a balance that might prevent a situation like Iraq ― an unnecessary war, as you see it? Blix: Here you are in the doctrines both of pre-emptive war and counterproliferation, as they term it. Counterproliferation is more muscular. … The most prominent case of it was the Israeli attack on the Iraq reactor in 1981. It was the Osirak reactor.  They destroyed it in a rather spectacular raid, and they were condemned by a unanimous Security Council, with the U.S. represented by Jeane Kirkpatrick. And they were then criticized that they had used this attack in a situation where they had not exhausted their other means of grappling with the problem. So that is interesting. Now the whole discussion about when can pre-emptive strikes be used is an important one for the future. …  We have heard [U.S. national security adviser] Condoleezza Rice say that we cannot sit and wait for a mushroom cloud, and we have heard President Bush say that if it is imminent, it is too late. But we have also heard him say there is a gathering danger. GSN: Which is not an imminent threat. Blix: No, that’s not imminent.  Now, I understand all this against the background of 9/11 ― that if they get wind of another 9/11, they are not going to sit still. They will not; that I understand. But that brings us then immediately to the crucial importance of intelligence, because if you do not have good intelligence, then you may send cruise missiles on things that are totally innocuous and [end up] attacking civilians, as it were. … I mean, here a whole war [in Iraq] is started on intelligence that they firmly believe in, and it is shaky. We know that Wolfowitz had a number of other reasons. He talked about the WMDs as a democratically selected ground ... I understand that, because I think no other ground would have been enough to persuade Congress or the U.K. Parliament on this one. If they had said, “We want to create a democracy,” which was also written by a number of people in the media ― well, I don’t think the Congress would have said, “We’ll go to war in Iraq to create a democracy.” GSN: You’ve started a commission now that’s looking into how to stop proliferation. Given the intelligence problems you describe in Iraq, how does one find and counter WMD proliferation threats? Blix: I think the first barrier against proliferation, and also against terrorism, is always in the political field. I don’t dispute at all the notion that you must meet terrorism firmly, but the first barrier ― you cannot be so overwhelmed by military thinking that you leave it to that stage. Then it’s too late, and it’s horrible. … The somewhat obvious [step is] to move towards peaceful settlement in the Middle East, because that’s the most bleeding wound that we have, and included in that is also a zone free of weapons of mass destruction. Because Iraq needs assurances not only about Israel, but they need assurances about Iran, and vice versa. I don’t think there would have been any move from the Iranian side towards the capacity to enrich uranium unless you had had it in Iraq. Now similarly, in India and Pakistan, the solution lies in a diplomatic resolution of the Kashmir problem, and for North Korea, it lies in assurances of some kind that their borders will be inviolable and that they will be gradually helped to some economic movement forward. All this will take away the incentives to go for weapons of mass destruction. That will not really cover terrorism, because they have other axes to grind. But in terrorism, I think the U.S. did exactly, absolutely the right thing in the case of Afghanistan. … GSN: Getting back to intelligence, you have said that UNSCOM was not independent enough of the national agencies. But the United States and UNMOVIC failed to communicate where Iraq was concerned. Was UNMOVIC perhaps too independent? Blix: No, I think we were not too independent. See, the problem with UNSCOM was that they did not appear to the Iraqis, and also not to the General Assembly and the world at large, as independent of the CIA and of the U.K., etc. It began by the simple fact that UNSCOM did not have its own financing. … The ideal thing is that you have cooperation, so that the intelligence gives you sites to go to. That’s the most important, and we also had satellite images, but they may have espionage, and they have telephone interception and so forth. So, sites, yes. GSN: And that’s what happened in Iraq. Blix: Yes, except that since there weren’t any weapons, they were mistaken. ... But that’s what they give. Now what should they have back?  Well, they should certainly have feedback ― that if we go to a site given by intelligence, and if we don’t find anything, then we’ll tell them, because that will give them some information about the source they had. So it’s not that they can be totally silent; they can’t. But it should not be a situation where they can use you ― that in fact, the international organization is an extended arm of intelligence. Then it’s no longer the international community, and you can’t expect to have much cooperation with the Iraqis on that score. GSN: But in Iraq, you did go back to the United States, and you said, “Here are the sites you gave us. We went there.  There’s nothing there.” Blix: But things were falling apart for them.  If we had been allowed to stay for a couple of months more, we probably would have been to all the sites they had. All in all, we went to about 700 sites. GSN: And you had already gone to the sites that were the most likely candidates? Blix: Yes, and they ought to have been a little shaken by that, because that was what shook me. I’ve also confessed that if you asked me in December, “What are your gut feelings?” I would say, “I’m not here to tell anybody my gut feelings. I’m here to inspect.”  Period. However, my gut feelings were like everybody else: “I think they have something.” But that feeling was shaken in January.  When they didn’t find anything, well, then I certainly began to be more doubtful, and I said so to Condoleezza Rice, and I said so to the Security Council, but no one cared. GSN: Is there anything that could have been done differently to change their reaction to what you had to report back to them? Blix: Well, I mean, they are intelligent people, so gradually they must have seen the shakiness at the time. They had it from the inside.  You take the drones, for instance. We know now that the U.S. Air Force did not believe that these were for biological and chemical weapons. We know on the enrichment side, the aluminum tubes, that it was the Energy Department that doubted it, and they are the ones that do enrichment in the U.S. So they had it from the inside as well, but there must have been some sort of psychological political pressure that things were there, there were other people who said, no, no ― there was a wish to come to a conclusion. … GSN: You have attributed the “psychological political pressure” that you mention to 9/11. U.S. officials continue to speak of a link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda; [former White House antiterrorism official] Richard Clarke writes that President Bush, on Sept. 12, 2001, was insisting that a link be found to Saddam Hussein. Was there any such link? Blix: I would like to see some shred of evidence. I think that a reality check is desirable. I have understanding also for the argument that governments do not have the luxury of inspectors: We go in, and we report what we see, with the black and white and gray. Governments have to come to decisions, and they normally have to do that on less than 100 percent data. However, I don’t think that exonerates them from examining the data they have with a critical mind, especially if you go to war, because if you do that, as in this case, I think it undoubtedly leads to a lack of credibility afterwards. GSN: What is going to happen to UNMOVIC? Blix: The resolutions are still in force, all of them, and that means also that the monitoring phase is still left. Because the resolutions [stipulated] that this was two phases. One was the inspection phase, during which you would find all the weapons and all the programs and you would eliminate them. That would be followed by a phase of monitoring, in which the inspectors would have exactly the same rights as before, but they would make sure that no new mushrooms were going up anywhere. The question is, then, will the Security Council continue to have this, or will they dismantle all the inspection regime, including the monitoring? And then, Iraq would revert to the other regimes you have ― namely, the Nonproliferation Treaty and traditional inspection under that treaty, and the Chemical Weapons Convention [which Iraq has not yet signed]. So you would have no checking of biological, or the missile field. Considering that [U.N. Security Council] Resolution 687 was really seeing inspection in Iraq as a step towards a zone free of weapons of mass destruction, I think there would be a strong argument saying, let’s maintain monitoring of Iraq, and let UNMOVIC continue with what it does ― namely, the biological and missile, at any rate, and perhaps also the chemical, in the case of Iraq ― and then say that we should not go down in inspection anywhere in the Middle East, we should go up. So ask the Iranians to take this Additional Protocol under the NPT, which they have promised they will. … That would be one. And get the whole Middle East to move in that direction. There will be resistance to doing that so long as Israel has not taken a step forward, but the Israelis might perhaps take one step forward. They might perhaps submit some peaceful installations that they have which are not under inspection. They could show their goodwill.  Now, real fruition will not come until you have a peaceful settlement in the Middle East, but the point I make is that they should not go backward in the case of Iraq. Back to top       Blair to Meet Qadhafi Tomorrow in Tripoli British Prime Minister Tony Blair is expected tomorrow to meet with Libyan Leader Muammar Qadhafi in Tripoli, according to the London Telegraph (see GSN, March 23). News of the trip was revealed by Qadhafi’s son Saif al-Islam in an interview with a United Arab Emirates newspaper, according to the Telegraph. Blair’s office refused to confirm the report, the Telegraph reported. “For the first time in modern history, a British prime minister will visit Libya,” Saif al-Islam Qadhafi was quoted as saying. He also said that Blair would discuss with Libyan officials military cooperation and a lifting of sanctions against the North African nation (George Jones, London Telegraph, March 24). Meanwhile, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State William Burns met with Qadhafi in Tripoli yesterday and provided the Libyan leader with a letter from U.S. President George W. Bush on improving U.S.-Libyan relations, according to the Washington Post. Burns led a delegation of State Department and National Security Council officials to Libya. In his talks with Qadhafi and other Libyan officials, Burns discussed both countries opening liaison offices in each other’s capitals, “reflecting the growing depth and breadth of our bilateral engagement,” the State Department said. Burns also discussed new measures to normalize trade and praised Libya for its “excellent progress” in dismantling its WMD programs, the Post reported. The United States is not yet ready to fully lift sanctions against Libya, according to the Post. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said there are still “a number of issues” that need to be resolved, including Libya’s support for terrorism and its human rights record (Robin Wright, Washington Post, March 24). Back to top       ElBaradei, Mubarak Discuss Middle East WMD-Free Zone Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei discussed weapons of mass destruction during a meeting today in Cairo, an Egyptian official said (see GSN, Dec. 30, 2003).  The official said that the meeting included a discussion of the creation of a WMD-free zone in the Middle East and efforts to begin a dialogue with Israel to support such a zone (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, March 24). Back to top

Senators Raise Concerns on Nuclear Weapons Programs By David Ruppe Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON đ– Democratic senators yesterday raised concerns about the Bush administration’s fiscal 2005 budget request for nuclear weapons research and development, suggesting a tough congressional fight over the plans in the coming months (See GSN, March 22). Democrats on the Senate Appropriations and Armed Services committees indicated problems with two particular efforts  – a feasibility study on a high-yield earth penetrating nuclear weapon and research and development of low-yield weapons. They questioned whether research and development work on such “advanced concepts” programs, for which the administration is seeking $37 million in fiscal 2005, is part of a plan to develop and build new or modified nuclear weapons.  “I am very suspicious. I think I know where you’re going and I think it’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” said Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), addressing National Nuclear Security Administrator Linton Brooks at a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing. Republican Subcommittee Chairman Pete Domenici of New Mexico said he backs Feinstein’s opposition to developing new weapons. “I don’t favor a new round of the development of nuclear weapons, I think I’m as firm on that as is the distinguished senator from California,” he said. Domenici said, though, that he believes the research and development program is intended to keep weapons scientists challenged and free of unreasonable restrictions. He asked, “whether we can ask our great scientists to just close their minds to these issues and say they cannot study them even if they fall before their face?” “The California senator can contend we’re building new weapons. I’ll contend we’re researching them,” he said. Potential for New Weapons Brooks told the committee the advanced concepts work was being done with an eye toward possibly deploying new nuclear weapons capabilities and for training scientists and engineers. The 2002 Nuclear Posture Review “directed NNSA to begin a modest effort to examine concepts that could be deployed to further enhance the deterrent capabilities of the stockpile in response to the national security challenges of the 21st century,” he said in a written statement to the subcommittee. He also wrote that the advanced concepts work is sought “to train the next generation of nuclear weapons scientists and engineers.” Brooks told the committee there is a “clear military utility” for the earth penetrator, but said that advanced development would only begin with administration and congressional approval.  “Despite this obvious utility for the capability, we will move beyond the study stage only if the president approves and if funds are authorized and appropriated by Congress,” he said. Brooks said the administration has “no plans” for developing low-yield nuclear weapons, repeating testimony before a House committee last Thursday that there has been “a misunderstanding of our intent.” He left open the possibility that current work could lead to new weapons, saying, “We intend to use advanced concepts funds to investigate new ideas, not necessarily new weapons.” Long-Term Projections Feinstein cited a Congressional Research Service analysis published last week that showed the administration this year projects a $485 million future cost for the earth-penetrating weapon that includes post-study development work. “I think that number casts doubts on the contention that this is just a study. … I think it means the administration is determined to develop and field a new generation of nuclear weapons,” she said. Domenici urged Brooks to explain the administration’s intentions “unequivocally: what we are doing and we are authorizing, and what we are not doing and what we are not authorizing, because nobody on this committee is voting to do this, we’re voting to study it. … To study it is a small amount of money, to do it is a lot of money.” Brooks said the budget projection for the post-study work was given “only to preserve the president’s option. There won’t be any decision made until the study is completed.” Senator Harry Reid (D-Nev.) warned Brooks to “tread very carefully” on the funding question. “Congressional support for these programs is not very strong and I would encourage you to be very candid on a regular basis with your plans and intentions for all of these programs,” Reid said. He noted a letter Brooks sent to the national laboratories last December, “the one that said seemed to indicate it was OK to move forward as planned despite congressional guidance concerns us all.” Brooks said the letter was “poorly drafted.” Opposition to Offensively Aimed Weapons Feinstein charged the administration’s efforts are aimed at developing “tactical battlefield” weapons, more usable because they might cause fewer casualties.   Senator Robert Bennett (R-Utah) said he would oppose future funding for any new nuclear weapons intended for nonretaliatory use. “If indeed this president or some future president were to come to Congress while I was sitting in Congress to say, ‘OK, we’ve done the research, we think this is a viable weapon, we want now to fund it and we’re going to use it in a situation quite like Iraq,’ this senator would not vote in favor of that,” he said. “My view of a deterrent and the use of a nuclear stockpile during the Cold War is that it is never used unless the other side puts you in a position where you do it,” he said. Brooks said the nuclear weapons programs are intended for improving U.S. deterrence capabilities and that the high-yield earth penetrator “does not represent a change in our policy of deterrence.” Having more effective and usable weapons improves nuclear deterrence, he said. “We need to be able to tell those leaders there is nothing you can do that is beyond the reach of American power,” he said. Feinstein called the high-yield earth penetrator “bizarre” and “catastrophic.” “With the greatest respect, I think to have only the ability to destroy cities and kill people has its own set of problems,” Brooks said.  No Nuclear Testing Intentions Also questioned was the administration’s intention regarding its initiative to reduce the preparation time necessary to conduct a live nuclear weapons test. Brooks said the administration currently has no plans for testing and seeks money, as it did last year, for shortening the lead time so testing could be resumed more quickly in the event it is ordered by the president to address a problem with the nuclear stockpile.  “The president has made it very clear we have no plans of resuming underground testing,” he said. Domenici, meanwhile, scolded the administration for failing to provide Congress a long-overdue report on plans for the nuclear weapons stockpile. “We are eagerly awaiting that report. Soon this committee will begin developing our budget priorities. Failure to produce the stockpile report will have severe consequences for your funding priorities next year,” he said. Brooks said the report “is being worked on literally as we speak, but because of the importance, I think this will have to be personally approved by the president, I can’t predict how long that will take.” Back to top       Russian Navy Chief Retracts Nuclear Disaster Warning The head of the Russian navy, Adm. Vladimir Kuroyedov, yesterday retracted comments he made earlier in the day about the safety of the nuclear reactor on the Russian battle cruiser Peter the Great, according to the Financial Times (see GSN, March 23). Kuroyedov yesterday ordered the battle cruiser, which is armed with 20 ballistic missile launchers, to return to port and gave the ship’s crew two weeks to fix problems found during a recent inspection, according to the Times. Kuroyedov was quoted as saying that the ship was “in such a condition that it may blow up any minute. … It is especially dangerous since the vessel is equipped with a nuclear reactor.” Later in the day, though, Kuroyedov said he had been misunderstood and that there was no risk of a nuclear disaster on the ship. “The ship’s nuclear safety system is fully tested and meets all vital requirements,” Kuroedov said. “However, the state of the living quarters and the general state of the ship is unsatisfactory and fails to meet requirements set down by regulations,” he said (Arkady Ostrovsky, Financial Times, March 23). According to Russian media reports, Kuroyedov did not find any major problems on the Peter the Great during his inspection, but was angered by such things as overfilled ashtrays and poorly hung paintings, the Moscow Times reported. The Times also cited Russian media reports as saying that Kuroyedov’s earlier remarks may have been intended to discredit his former deputy, retired Adm. Igor Kasatonov, who is the uncle of the ship’s commander (Simon Saradzhyan, Moscow Times, March 24).    Back to top       Chinese Diplomat Meets With Kim Jong-Il; South Korea Says North Unlikely to Boycott Talks North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il met today with a Chinese diplomat in Pyongyang to discuss the ongoing nuclear dispute (see GSN, March 23). Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing arrived in North Korea yesterday, the first foreign minister from his country to visit the secretive Stalinist regime in five years. Li is expected to push North Korean officials to settle on dates for working groups prior to the next round of six-party nuclear talks in Beijing scheduled for sometime before July (Hans Greimel, Associated Press/The Guardian, March 24). Meanwhile, South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon said North Korea has hinted, despite public rhetoric to the contrary, that it would take part in working groups, as well as the third round of multilateral talks with China, Russia, Japan, the United States and South Korea. “I don’t think North Korea will boycott the six-way talks,” Ban said today. “North Korea has reaffirmed what was agreed during the second round of six-way talks and has hinted it would participate in the working groups during consultations through diplomatic channels,” he added. Ban plans to meet with Li in Beijing for three days beginning Sunday to discuss a schedule for working groups (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, March 24). Back to top       U.K. Allocates $30 Million For Russian Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage Efforts The United Kingdom will spend $30 million this year to support efforts to reprocess and store spent nuclear fuel in Russia, RIA Novosti reported yesterday (see GSN, Oct. 17, 2003). Projects to be funded include scrapping nuclear submarines at the Russian naval base in Severodvinsk, construction of a new spent fuel storage facility near Murmansk and construction of protective shelters for spent fuel storage sites at the Andreyevskaya Guba naval base, according to Simon Evans, first secretary at the British Embassy in Moscow. He said the $30 million is part of the United Kingdom’s $750 million pledge to the Group of Eight’s Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons of Mass Destruction (RIA Novosti/BBC Monitoring, March 23). Back to top

U.S. Unprepared for Bioterror, Researchers Say The United States is not prepared for the “real” threat of bioterrorism, according to a panel of public health experts, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported today (see GSN, Jan. 26). Participants in a forum organized by former Sen. Sam Nunn at Georgia Tech yesterday said that despite billions of dollars in government spending, the United States remains vulnerable to attacks using biological weapons, and that much of the population has become complacent about the threat. Among the concerns are the U.S. ability to maintain control of anthrax and other dangerous substances, supply enough vaccines to safeguard the public and limit financial damage in the face of an attack, speakers said. “The biological threat is serious, it is real, it must be dealt with,” said retired Air Force Gen. John Gordon, President George W. Bush’s assistant for homeland security. “There is nowhere where we are doing more right now, and nowhere in homeland security where we have further to go,” he added. The public and many government officials do not perceive the seriousness of the threat, said Tara O’Toole, director of the Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.  “Local leaders, the mayors and the governors who will be charged with bioresponse, are not persuaded that this is a serious threat or that it is their responsibility,” said O’Toole. “This is not on the public’s political agenda,” she added. Nunn, who chaired the Senate Armed Services Committee before retiring from Congress in 1996 and now leads the Nuclear Threat Initiative, said the danger posed by biological weapons is particularly difficult to assess because the materials used to produce them are not under government lock and key. “Unlike the nuclear threat, where nuclear materials are held either by government entities or by public utilities, biological pathogens and the equipment necessary to make biological weapons are routinely and legitimately, and in most cases beneficially, used throughout the pharmaceutical industry, the biotech industry and academic research centers on virtually every college campus in America,” he said. Speakers also said businesses and universities must be included in bioterror planning because they have access to the materials used to weaponize pathogens. They would also likely experience serious economic damage in the face of such an attack and could even be its targets. “If you look at the economic infrastructure in this country, the places that you would list as the most vulnerable to terrorism are mostly owned by businesses,” Nunn said (M.A.J. McKenna, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, March 24). [EDITOR’S NOTE: Sam Nunn is chief executive officer of the Nuclear Threat Initiative.  NTI is the sole sponsor of Global Security Newswire, which is published independently by National Journal Group.] Back to top

Army to Test VX Neutralization The U.S. Army plans to test a process it intends to use to neutralize a highly toxic chemical agent, Associated Press reported today (see GSN, March 23). Officials said samples of VX nerve agent would be sent to laboratories in Illinois and Maryland to determine whether the liquid byproduct of the neutralization process is safe to transport from a chemical depot in Newport, Ind., to New Jersey for additional chemical breakdown and disposal in the Delaware River.  “Testing these samples is critical to ensuring that we are prepared to safely destroy the VX at Newport,” depot commander Lt. Col. Joseph Marquart said yesterday in a prepared statement. A single drop of VX can cause paralysis and death within minutes. About 1,269 tons of the Cold War-era nerve agent are warehoused at the Newport depot, scheduled under the Chemical Weapons Convention for destruction by April 2007. The chemical byproduct of the neutralization process would be hydrolysate, which scientists say is comparable to liquid drain cleaner. The Army said the hydrolysate would not be allowed to leave Indiana unless the concentration of VX was at or below 20 parts per billion. The hydrolysate would be shipped to DuPont’s Secure Environmental Treatment facility in Deepwater, N.J. It would be broken down further before the liquid, still containing some chemical byproducts, would be disposed of in the Delaware River. Army officials believe the entire disposal process should take two years. Some residents in New Jersey and Delaware oppose the plan. A previous Army plan to ship the chemical to Dayton, Ohio, was terminated when citizens there voiced disapproval. “Ohio took a stand and won, and our citizens don’t want the Delaware River further polluted,” said John Kearney, spokesman for the Delaware Clean Air Council (AP/WHAS11.com, March 24). Back to top       Australian Police Conduct Chemical Decontamination Australian Star Force police officers and a mock prisoner underwent chemical decontamination yesterday in Adelaide as part of the Mercury 04 counterterrorism exercise, the largest held in Australia, according to AAP Newsfeed (see GSN, March 22). About 15 Star Force officers and a simulated injured prisoner were sprayed by emergency workers before having their clothing removed, according to AAP Newsfeed. South Australian police officers, firefighters and emergency responders also participated in a scenario involving their response to a terrorist attack involving dangerous chemicals (AAP Newsfeed, March 23). Back to top

U.S. to Deploy Aegis Destroyer in Sea of Japan The United States plans to deploy an Aegis-equipped destroyer in the Sea of Japan this fall to improve missile defense capabilities in the Asia-Pacific region, U.S. Navy Secretary Gordon England said Monday (see GSN, Jan. 13). The destroyer will be sent to the Sea of Japan by the end of September and will serve as a “long-range surveillance and tracking platform,” England said in a speech before the National Missile Defense Conference held in Washington.  The guided missile destroyer would be able to detect missile launches from North Korea. In his remarks, England also outlined a three-stage plan to achieve full missile defense capability, according to the Asahi Shimbun. In the second stage, scheduled for next year, the United States will equip an Aegis destroyer with a Standard Missile-3 interceptor to defend against short- and medium-range missiles. The third stage, scheduled for 2006, will involve the deployment of 10 ships equipped for missile defense operations (Tsutomu Watanabe, Asahi Shimbun, March 24).     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.