Russia’s nuclear facility at Mayak, where the United States is helping to build a fissile material storage facility (above), contains significant quantities of highly enriched uranium that a new Swedish report proposes to address (DTRA photo). Eliminating Russian HEU Stockpile Needs European Help, Swedish Study Says By Mike Nartker Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — A report released this week by the Swedish Nuclear Power Inspectorate (SKI) proposes that European countries help reduce stockpiles of Russian highly enriched uranium by financing the blending down of the material to a lower enrichment level (see GSN, March 26)...Full Story

North Korea Talks End, Little Progress Reported Working group talks on the Korea Peninsula’s nuclear crisis ended today in Beijing with little progress due to glaring differences between North Korea and the United States, Reuters reported (see GSN, May 13)...Full Story

U.S. Missile Defense Offers No Safety, Scientists Say By David Ruppe Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The 20-interceptor long-range missile defense system President George W. Bush has ordered fielded over the next two years will provide the United States almost no protection against an attack, a new analysis by nongovernmental scientists argues...Full Story

Libya Ends Military Trade With Countries of “Proliferation Concern” By Mike Nartker Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — Libya has agreed to end all military trade with countries considered to be of serious “proliferation concern” — specifically Iran, North Korea and Syria, the U.S. State Department announced yesterday (see GSN, May 5)...Full Story

	Friday, May 14, 2004

Red Tape Discouraging Technology Vendors, House Leaders Tell U.S. Homeland Security Chief By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — A U.S. Homeland Security Department program intended to encourage development of antiterrorism technology by limiting vendors’ legal liability appears to be having the opposite effect because of inefficiency in the approval process and concerns about the strength of the protection provided, three House committee chairmen told the department in a letter released yesterday (see GSN, May 11). “Nobody wants developing technologies that can detect or prevent acts of terrorism involving biological, chemical, nuclear and other potentially devastating weapons to be stuck in the approval pipeline at the Department of Homeland Security and not protecting the American public,” Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) said yesterday in a statement explaining his concerns. Under the Support Antiterrorism by Fostering Effective Technologies (SAFETY) Act of 2002, Homeland Security can review potential vendors’ technologies and, based on that analysis, set limits on the vendors’ legal liability in case their products fail during a terrorist attack. Each company is required to carry insurance in the amount of its liability limit as set by the department. The act was designed to encourage technology development by protecting vendors from the potentially backbreaking sums they could be forced to pay in lawsuits resulting from product failure. Instead, the committee heads said Tuesday in the letter to Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, a slow, complicated application process and concerns about the efficacy of the protection provided may be dissuading companies from opting in. “The analysis to be undertaken by the department for the designation and certification of a given technology was intended to be simple and straightforward ―a means of facilitating transactions, not erecting additional barriers to deployment,” wrote Sensenbrenner, Select Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Christopher Cox (R-Calif.) and Government Reform Committee Chairman Tom Davis (R-Va.). “It is vitally important,” the three wrote, “that SAFETY Act review be seen as an efficient gateway to commercially advantageous and airtight protections for sellers … from liability for acts of terrorism, not an uncertain process in which critical homeland security devices and services can get bogged down in lengthy and burdensome bureaucratic reviews. Unfortunately, we are concerned that the latter scenario may be the one that is unfolding. To date, we understand that DHS has received disappointingly few SAFETY Act applications and has yet to designate a single technology ― even though some applications have been pending since late last fall.” Homeland Security expects within weeks to announce its first group of SAFETY Act approvals, a department spokesperson said today. The department has deemed eight of 17 full applications it received ― it also received 83 exploratory “preapplications” ― to be complete. Department Science and Technology Undersecretary Charles McQueary may now accept, reject or ask for more information about each proposal. “We’ll know a lot more in, hopefully, the next couple of weeks,” said liability defense lawyer Raymond Biagini, a McKenna Long & Aldridge partner representing four companies whose applications have made it into Homeland Security’s final group of eight. In 2002, at the behest of several defense-contractor clients, Biagini wrote what later became a key passage of the SAFETY Act. Biagini said his clients have submitted applications involving, among other things, air filtration and pathogen neutralization, bomb detection and services related to chemical- and biological-weapon detection. “The issue of services and whether antiterror services will be granted SAFETY Act coverage seems to be, in some people’s minds, an issue. My view is that DHS has spoken very clearly and said that services are covered under the act, assuming you meet all the criteria you need to meet,” he said. The congressmen said the department should “unequivocally dispel any lingering notion that the SAFETY Act is to be narrowly construed and applied,” such as the idea that the act does not apply to vendors that could obtain “some limited insurance coverage” without the benefit of Homeland Security protection. The department should give highest priority to “critical technologies,” the lawmakers said, and it should be predisposed to approve products for which government buyers have already begun procurement processes. The legislators also expressed concern about “the department’s apparent intent to condition designation and certification of antiterrorism technologies on the seller satisfying additional operating criteria” and about a provision in the interim regulation now governing the SAFETY Act process that requires the department to terminate automatically its approval of any product that changes significantly. Each of those two situations, the chairmen said, could create a “litigation loophole” that could defeat the purpose of the SAFETY Act program. “The letter is a helpful letter in that … it points out how the SAFETY Act implementation process can be streamlined, can be made more applicant-friendly, and therefore, lower the barrier to entry for applicants,” Biagini said. In addition, he said, the letter “points out and emphasizes the spirit within which I wrote the provision that I wrote, which kicked off the SAFETY Act.” The goal was a process that would encourage quick deployment of technologies, he said, “but not one that became too bogged down.” “We will continue to work with Congress to strengthen the SAFETY Act,” said the department spokesperson, adding that Homeland Security has “worked to provide applicants with a straightforward and uncomplicated application process” and offers technical assistance to applicants throughout the process. The act’s protections for government contractors spurred objections from some Democrats during 2002 congressional debate on the Homeland Security Act, which created the Homeland Security Department and of which the SAFETY Act is a part. Representative Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) at the time spoke of a “last-minute legal loophole that has been tacked onto the” Homeland Security Act, adding, “The goal is clearly to rid corporations of responsibility for the harm their products cause.” Biagini said the law is fundamentally a good one and that industry and government are willing to work together to improve its implementation. “We have a glass that is half full,” he said. Back to top       GAO Calls Antiterrorism Grant Delays “Natural” By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — Playing down a long-simmering dispute between states and cities, a U.S. General Accounting Office official yesterday described as “natural” the delays in the pipeline that carries federal Homeland Security Department funds to local emergency-response agencies. Reports last month from the department’s Office of the Inspector General (see GSN, April 9) and from the House Select Committee on Homeland Security (see GSN, April 28), confirmed by “preliminary” GAO research, “support the conclusion that local first responders may not have anticipated the natural delays that should have been expected in the complex process of distributing dramatically increased funding through multiple governmental levels while maintaining procedures to ensure proper standards of accountability at each level,” GAO homeland security head William Jenkins told the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Building and Emergency Management. Akron Mayor and incoming U.S. Conference of Mayors President Donald Plusquellic said problems were to be expected in getting “huge amounts of money out to the local governments, where the real homeland security takes place” but that Homeland Security should have set up an emergency system for funding local antiterrorism needs. “There should have been an immediate process, a simple immediate process to get money out to where it was needed, and that was never developed,” Plusquellic said today in an interview. He accused the federal government of having “an overwhelming concern, almost obsession,” with seeking to save money by avoiding redundancy in local response spending, instead of speedily providing funds for needs identified by local officials. A January report by the mayors’ group indicated that states failed to provide most U.S. cities with funds from Homeland Security’s Office for Domestic Preparedness, which administers the department’s emergency-responder grants. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge in February called the delays a “logjam,” but state officials took exception to the term and have maintained they quickly allocate the funds but that actual spending is often delayed in various administrative and legal bottlenecks. Citing the inspector general’s report, Jenkins said a federal requirement that states “pass through” most of the money to municipalities within 45 days of receiving the funding “had a limited effect, because most states met the 45-day deadline by counting funds as transferred when the states agreed to allocate a specific amount of the grant to a local jurisdiction, even if the state had not determined how the funds would be spent or when contracts for goods and services would be let.” Jenkins took no clear position on whether that approach is proper, but he outlined a range of mostly unavoidable obstacles to speedy distribution of the grant money. State and local planning and budgetary requirements, he said, held up some funds, while other municipalities had to fulfill legal requirements related to procurement or to the acceptance of funds from the states. Certain local agencies, he added, lacked administrative procedures for managing funds for purchases that would then be reimbursed by the states ― the process states use when distributing the Office for Domestic Preparedness grants. Jenkins echoed the inspector general’s and the committee’s common finding that the office’s grant process itself, in Jenkins’ terms, “was not a major factor in delaying the distribution of funds to states.”  “The evidence available suggests that the process is becoming more efficient and that all levels of government are discovering and institutionalizing ways to streamline the grant distribution system. These increased efficiencies, however, will not continue to occur unless federal, state and local government each continue to examine their processes for ways to expedite funding for the equipment and training needed by the nation’s first responders,” Jenkins said. “At the same time,” he said, “it is important that the quest for speed in distributing funds does not hamper the planning and accountability needed to ensure that the funds are spent on the basis of a comprehensive, well-coordinated plan.” Plusquellic, who also sits on a federally created task force that is seeking ways to speed the flow of funds (see GSN, March 16), said that “there has been a serious failure” to address cities’ need for immediate funds in the wake of the September 2001 attacks. “What has happened,” the mayor said, “is the local governments have had to take up this additional cost, and we’ve absorbed it in spite of the fact that there were promises 2 1/2 years ago. We met in the White House a month after Sept. 11, in October 2001. We met, and the president committed over $30 billion for homeland security, and not one mayor said, ‘Well, boy, that isn’t enough.’ But what we imagined was that Congress was going to act quicker, and that the process of getting some money out was going to be developed so that there was a matching of the immediate needs with some immediate funds coming out of Washington quickly, and then develop a long-term system that is honed and is improved every month, every year.” Plusquellic said he expects the task force report to be made public in less than a month. “I think we’re going to have some recommendations that … [at] least recommend changes to the system that will, hopefully, help get this where it should be by now,” he said. “We ought to get down and thank God that there hasn’t been another tragic event here,” he added, “because had there been, I think the public would have been outraged to know how long it’s taken for this system to get the money out.” Back to top

Libya Ends Military Trade With Countries of “Proliferation Concern” By Mike Nartker Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — Libya has agreed to end all military trade with countries considered to be of serious “proliferation concern” — specifically Iran, North Korea and Syria, the U.S. State Department announced yesterday (see GSN, May 5). Libya’s decision was announced yesterday in a Libyan statement read by U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton during a State Department press briefing. In its statement, Libya said the move stemmed from its decision late last year to dismantle its WMD programs. “Libya will not deal in any military goods or services with states which Libya considers to be of serious weapons of mass destruction proliferation concern,” Bolton said, quoting the statement. Agence France-Presse reported today, however, that the Libyan Foreign Ministry said that its announcement did not specifically identify any countries as being barred from arms trade with the African nation. “The Libyan statement was clear, it cited no country and was not aimed at Syria,” AFP quoted the ministry as saying in a statement carried by the official news agency JANA. “Tripoli cannot say that Syria has WMD since it is a peaceful country whose land is occupied and is threatened by Israel,” the ministry said. Bolton praised the Libyan decision, calling it a sign of Tripoli’s intent to renounce weapons of mass destruction and to rejoin the international community. “When a state like Libya, which was pursuing weapons of mass destruction and advanced delivery systems, not only gives up the pursuit of those assets, but says it’s not going to have military dealings with other states that are pursuing weapons of mass destruction, I think that’s a very important step forward,” he said. Libya also plans to announce that it will end all trade in missiles and related items with countries that are not members of the Missile Technology Control Regime, which seeks to restrict the spread of critical missile technologies by establishing common export controls among its 33 members, Bolton said. An announcement is “imminent,” a State Department official told Global Security Newswire today. Wade Boese of the Arms Control Association told GSN today that the announcements are more symbolic than significant, and are probably intended to provide assurances that Libya will not renege on its promise to no longer possess missiles beyond the MTCR parameters, capable of carrying a 500-kilogram payload over a 300-kilometer range. During yesterday’s press conference, Bolton said the Libyan move would affect North Korea, which he said has used exports of ballistic missiles and related technologies to fund “other dangerous activities,” such as its nuclear efforts. Libya purchased a large portion of its missile arsenal from North Korea, including five Scud C and “several hundred” Scud B missiles, Bolton said. “This is a symbol by Libya of a decision not to have any further purchases from North Korea of any military goods or services, particularly on the missile front. It is consistent with what we have urged other states in the region to cut off their purchaser relationships with North Korea, as part of our overall effort to squeeze North Korean WMD sales to reduce the amount of money they have for their nuclear weapons program,” he said. The impact of Libya’s decision regarding Iran and Syria is less clear. Bolton yesterday refused to provide details as to what military-related trade Libya has engaged in with the two countries. “Not to get into the specifics, the point is, Iran and Syria are very serious proliferant states, states we consider, in the case of Iran, of sufficient concern,” he said.  The State Department official said there is a public record of Libya’s past history of military cooperation with Iran. For example, a CIA report says that during the first half of 2003, Libya had been dependent on entities in Iran and other countries for aid to its missile program. Syria, however, has long been known as a purchaser of military technologies and not an exporter, Boese said. He said the only military equipment Syria could likely export was “antiquated” Soviet-era items. Yesterday’s statement may instead have been intended, along with a White House announcement earlier this week imposing economic sanctions against Syria, to further isolate and pressure Damascus into changing its policies, Boese said. The Bush administration may be attempting to render Syria “untouchable” by mentioning it along with the other two members of the so-called “axis of evil” — Iran and North Korea, he said (see GSN, May 13). “Even Libya, a former terrorist state, is breaking ties with them,” Boese said. The Syrian Embassy in Washington did not return calls for comment by deadline. Bolton did not discuss whether the Libyan announcement covered military trade with Pakistan. Earlier this year, top Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan confessed to transferring Pakistani nuclear technology to Libya, along with Iran and North Korea. “The question of Libya’s dealings with the other countries that I’ve indicated is that we have discussed with the Libyans the three countries that I’ve named,” Bolton said. “That’s what we have to say about it,” he added. Unlike Syria, the United States does not want to lump Pakistan in with Iran and North Korea because it understands the “sensitive position” of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and does not want to place him in a “tighter spot,” Boese said. Bolton yesterday refused to comment on whether the United States was close to restoring full diplomatic ties with Libya, saying only that “the course ahead has been determined by prior negotiations.” Already, the United States has removed most of the economic sanctions standing against Libya and has begun laying the framework to restore diplomatic ties with Tripoli. It has not yet taken Libya off the list of terrorism-sponsoring nations (see GSN, April 26). Bolton also said yesterday that there were still aspects of Libya’s WMD dismantlement that need to be completed, including disposing of nerve agent stocks and addressing the issue of the fate of Libya’s Scud B arsenal. According to reports, the United States is considering allowing Libya to maintain its Scud B missiles after converting them to shorter ranges (see GSN, April 12). In addition, “longer-term implementation issues” still need to be resolved, Bolton said. “We’re satisfied with the progress we’ve made. This announcement today is a further step in that direction,” he said. Back to top       Killings Draw Calls to Evacuate Iraqi Scientists The assassinations of several former Iraqi weapons scientists, along with the worsening security situation in that country, have led some nonproliferation experts to call for the remaining researchers to be removed from the country, the journal Nature reported yesterday. Between five and 10 researchers have been killed in the past six months, according to a U.S. State Department official who runs programs aimed at redirecting the scientists’ expertise in chemical, biological and nuclear weapons (see GSN, April 30). “The most common explanation is that they’ve shown an interest in working with the coalition,” said the official. These incidents should cause the United States to focus on removing the researchers from harm’s way, said David Albright, a former nuclear weapons inspector in Iraq. “They should shift the program to getting people out,” said Albright, who heads the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington. “There are scientists with secret documents who could go to Iran or Syria,” he added (Jim Giles, Nature, May 13). Back to top       Panama-U.S. Shipping Accord Makes Waves Panama’s reciprocal ship inspection agreement with the United States, signed in Washington Wednesday, places the Central American nation at greater risk of terrorist attacks, Panamanian officials and activists said yesterday in criticizing the accord, the Xinhua News Agency reported (see GSN, May 13). Former Foreign Minister Fernando Eleta also said the agreement breaks the principle of neutrality or free passage for ships passing through the Panama Canal, the daily newspaper El Panama America reported. The agreement violates international law, said Julio Yao, president of the Panamanian Peace and Justice Service. Members of the Panamanian Maritime Right Association said they were not consulted before the agreement was signed (Xinhua, May 14). Back to top       NATO Seeks New Partners to Combat Proliferation NATO is seeking partners beyond the alliance to help combat WMD proliferation and terrorism, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said yesterday (see GSN, May 4). NATO is examining increasing its cooperation with countries in the Caucasus region and in Central Asia, de Hoop Scheffer said during a speech before the Romanian Parliament. “Terrorism and proliferation are global challenges,” de Hoop Scheffer said. “To combat them, we require coalitions even bigger than NATO,” he added (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, May 13). Back to top

Eliminating Russian HEU Stockpile Needs European Help, Swedish Study Says By Mike Nartker Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — A report released this week by the Swedish Nuclear Power Inspectorate (SKI) proposes that European countries help reduce stockpiles of Russian highly enriched uranium by financing the blending down of the material to a lower enrichment level (see GSN, March 26). Russia has 1,000 to 1,500 metric tons of highly enriched uranium stored at more than 50 sites, according to the report prepared by a panel of international experts. The report warns that the radioactive material poses an attractive target to terrorists seeking to develop a crude nuclear weapon and cites concerns that Russian storage sites are poorly secured. To help reduce the risk, the report proposes that the European Union finance the blending down of Russian uranium to a level below 20-percent enrichment, making it unusable for weapons purposes. Russia would be allowed to retain the resultant low-enriched uranium, which could be sold abroad for use as civilian nuclear power plant fuel, the report says.  The report estimates the total cost of the effort at $10 billion. It states that donor countries should only pay for the blending down of the material, either through interest-free loans or possible debt swaps, and not the later conversion of the material into civilian fuel.  Another potential clause would require Russia to use the profits gained by the sale of the converted uranium to improve security at its nuclear material storage sites, Lars van Dassen, director of the Swedish Nuclear Nonproliferation Assistance Program at the inspectorate, said Tuesday. The proposal is similar to a U.S.-Russian effort, known as Megatons to Megawatts, which seeks to blend down 500 tons of highly enriched uranium that Moscow has declared to be in excess of its national security needs. Under the 20-year program, which was launched in 1994, Russia converts material removed from its nuclear warheads into low-enriched uranium, which is then purchased by the U.S. Enrichment Corp. for sale as civilian nuclear plant fuel. To date, the effort has eliminated more than 200 metric tons of Russian highly enriched uranium. The Megatons to Megawatts program demonstrated how “commercial means” could be used to convert weapon-grade materials to civilian purposes, van Dassen said. He said that one key difference between the U.S.-Russian effort and the proposal for the European Union — allowing Russia to retain possession of the blended down material — came out of the fact that most EU members are “violently opposed” to nuclear fuel and would be “reluctant” to take control of the uranium. An effort modeled exactly on the Megatons to Megawatts program would be seen by many EU members as an attempt to expand the use of nuclear power and would therefore be strongly opposed, he said. The SKI report has been submitted to the Swedish Foreign Office for further consideration, van Dassen said. The issue of HEU elimination is being considered “in a very pronounced manner” by Sweden, he said. Praising the European proposal as potentially useful, Matthew Bunn of Harvard University’s Project on Managing the Atom said Tuesday that any future agreement would have to be “structured carefully” to serve all interests. One hurdle the proposed European HEU deal might face, according to the report, is that Russia has not declared any additional amounts of highly enriched uranium as being in excess of its national security needs beyond that already covered by the Megatons to Megawatts program. This has led to a “lukewarm” reaction from Russia to the proposal, van Dassen said. The report also notes, though, that Russia did not designate the initial 500 tons as excessive until the United States demonstrated a willingness to purchase surplus material. Russia could have as much as “hundreds of tons” of excess highly enriched beyond the material covered by the Megatons to Megawatts program, Bunn said. Rose Gottemoeller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said today that the European proposal would need to include verification and transparency measures such as those used in the U.S.-Russian HEU deal to ensure that the downblending was actually being conducted and on military-related materials. The Megatons to Megawatts program uses both on-site monitoring by U.S. teams that visit Russian sites several times per year and a technological monitoring system to track the material when inspectors are not present. Another concern is that Russia also does not view HEU elimination as a high nonproliferation priority, van Dassen said. Under a program initiated in 2002 by the Group of Eight global economic powers to help fund nonproliferation projects, primarily in Russia, Moscow has instead chosen to focus more on nuclear submarine dismantlement and chemical weapons disposal, he said. A “main difficulty” for Russia in implementing the European proposal would be in securing adequate funding from the EU, said Danill Kobyakov of the PIR Center in Moscow. The EU has been slow to implement its funding pledge under the G-8 Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction and any possible funding increases are expected only after 2007 when a new budgetary cycle begins, he said today. Kobyakov also said, though, that he believes Russia would “be in general favorable” to the proposal. “I do not think that there are any serious obstacles to its development,” he said in a written response to questions. Also uncertain, Kobyakov said, is how the European proposal would affect the world HEU market and its possible impact on the U.S.-Russian HEU deal. He said that the issue of the commercial impact on the major international nuclear fuel companies still needed to be considered. Bunn said the proposal would not prevent the United States from reaching another HEU agreement with Russia once the Megatons to Megawatts program expires. He said the stockpiled low-enriched uranium created through the European proposal could be used to fill any future U.S.-Russian agreement, adding that the U.S. nuclear industry is already assuming that deliveries would continue once the Megatons to Megawatt program has expired. Back to top       North Korea Talks End, Little Progress Reported Working group talks on the Korea Peninsula’s nuclear crisis ended today in Beijing with little progress due to glaring differences between North Korea and the United States, Reuters reported (see GSN, May 13). North Korea, the United States, South Korea, Japan, China and Russia agreed to meet for another round of working group discussions to pave the way for a third round of high-level multilateral talks, North Korean negotiator Pak Myong Kuk said. A South Korean official suggested there was no breakdown in negotiations, saying the discussions ended on a “wholesome” note. Representatives from North Korea and the United States held a bilateral meeting today. Pak told reporters afterward that U.S. negotiators referred to statements by Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan indicating he had provided North Korea with uranium enrichment technology. “This is merely unrealistic and false information,” Pak said, contending that only missile trade had been conducted between Pyongyang and Karachi. The U.S. allegation, he said, “is intended to create a mood of collective pressure on us. ... We rejected the U.S. claim and made clear that we will never accept it” (Kim/Ruwitch, Reuters, May 14). Earlier today, North Korea called “humiliating” the U.S. demand that it dismantle its nuclear program before seeking aid in return, but promised it would continue multilateral talks “with patience.” The U.S. demand [for complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement of its nuclear program] “is the kind of humiliating measure that can only be imposed on a country defeated in a war,” Pak said (Audra Ang, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, May 14). Meanwhile, Japan said yesterday that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi plans to travel to North Korea on May 22 for talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. The two plan to discuss the release of family members of Japanese citizens abducted in the 1970s, as well as North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and other bilateral issues, with hopes of eventually normalizing relations between the neighbors, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said. “The aim is to restore trust between Japan and North Korea,” Hosoda said (Joseph Coleman, Associated Press/Idaho State Journal, May 14). The North Korean nuclear standoff is expected to be an issue during talks today among foreign ministers of the Group of Eight global economic powers, the U.S. State Department said. “I would expect, since many of these governments are concerned about North Korea, that we will discuss North Korea,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar, May 14). Back to top       Evidence of Weapon-Grade Uranium Production Found in Iran, Diplomats Say International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors have detected in Iran a pattern of radiation contamination that could be the result of attempts to enrich uranium to weapon-grade levels, diplomats said this week as the agency anticipates delivery of a report from Iran on its nuclear activities (see GSN, May 13). One diplomat said that if Iran was not “working on something that hasn’t been declared, the contamination should be evenly spread throughout Iran’s nuclear installations,” Agence France-Presse reported. Particles of highly enriched uranium have been found in specific areas instead of spread in a uniform pattern, hinting “someone brought material or equipment and then removed it,” the diplomat explained. Another diplomat confirmed the instances of contamination at various sites but downplayed their significance. “They’ve moved equipment and we find what we expect to find. Unfortunately we don’t learn much about it,” he said. Nuclear expert David Albright said one would only try to enrich uranium that was already enriched to 36 percent, the purity level of particles that inspectors found at one site, if one planned to build a nuclear weapon. IAEA inspectors have been examining “places that have to do with Iran’s nuclear program,” including dual-use facilities not obviously related to suspect nuclear work, the first diplomat said. The inspectors have also sought other sites where there is 36-percent enriched contamination, he added. Iran has contended that the contamination came from imported components from countries such as Pakistan, known to be involved in a nuclear black market. However, the diplomat said that equipment imported from Russia or fuel used in research reactors was more likely to be the source for this particular kind of contamination (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, May 14). Meanwhile, Iran said it has drafted a report that provides a complete description of its nuclear program and would present it to the IAEA “very soon,” Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations in Vienna said yesterday. “The report is ready,” Iranian envoy Pirooz Hosseini said. “After a final review by the experts, we will hand it over very soon to the agency,” he added (Murphy/Golovnina, Reuters/Yahoo!News, May 14). Back to top

U.S. Missile Defense Offers No Safety, Scientists Say By David Ruppe Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The 20-interceptor long-range missile defense system President George W. Bush has ordered fielded over the next two years will provide the United States almost no protection against an attack, a new analysis by nongovernmental scientists argues. Furthermore, the additional 20 missiles the administration plans to field in 2006 and 2007 are unlikely to significantly improve the probability of success, the study calculates. The analysis released yesterday, titled Technical Realities: An Analysis of the 2004 Deployment of the a U.S. National Missile Defense System, was written by Union of Concerned Scientists physicists Lisbeth Gronlund and David Wright, MIT professor George Lewis, and Center for Defense Information senior adviser Philip Coyle. Noting that the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) has not yet been tested or proven to work under operationally realistic conditions, the authors judged the system’s potential effectiveness by assessing its acknowledged technical limitations and complexity, and the inherent uncertainty about the nature of any attack. Those factors, the report argues, dramatically reduce the system’s “kill probability” — the potential that a single interceptor could destroy an attacking warhead. Mathematically, the report argues further, a low kill probability could not be offset by firing the number of interceptors planned by the administration. For example, it calculates that if each interceptor had a kill probability of 10 percent, then 20 interceptors would have only a half-percent likelihood of successfully stopping five attacking warheads. “Our technical analysis of this proposed system shows there is no basis to believe that it will have any defensive capability,” said Gronlund. “Deploying more interceptors will not address the fundamental limitations of the Block 2004 [fiscal 2004 and 2005] system that severely constrain its effectiveness, nor will they improve its defensive capability in a meaningful way,” the report says further. Missile Defense Agency officials have argued that the system has demonstrated some limited defensive capability against any likely near-term threat, that some capability is better than none, and that increasing the number of interceptors could significantly increase the system’s effectiveness. “We have established a basic level of confidence with the technology and are ready to mount a limited defense where we presently have none,” agency spokesman Richard Lehner said today in response to the report.  The report recommends canceling the administration’s fielding plans. The Missile Defense Agency is seeking funding this year to begin work on fielding the second batch of up to 20 interceptors, and this month key committees in the House and Senate approved the request. Limitations Identified The scientists based their conclusions on an analysis of the technical capabilities of the system expected to be in place by the end of 2005. They argue that decoys and other countermeasures could easily fool an interceptor, significantly decreasing the probability of success. “Unsophisticated countermeasures that could readily be implemented by countries such as North Korea remain an unsolved problem,” the analysis says. It cites a recent Missile Defense Agency statement concurring with that conclusion, made in a February 2004 General Accounting Office report. The GAO report said a “notable limitation of system effectiveness is the inability of system radars to perform rigorous target discrimination.” MDA responded to the report, “The GAO report correctly identifies the challenges any of our midcourse defensive systems and sensor systems would face in the presence of various decoys and countermeasures” (see GSN, March 11). The scientists’ analysis also concludes that the ground-based system will lack sensor capabilities necessary for tracking a North Korean missile headed for Hawaii. “The Block 2004 system will be able to provide only limited tracking information about a missile attack by North Korea on Hawaii, resulting in a large uncertainly in the location of the threat cloud,” it says. Challenging Asserted Effectiveness Senior U.S. officials have suggested the planned system could have significant capability against a North Korean attack. Missile Defense Agency Director Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish said at a hearing in April that the system would have “very high odds,” and a “substantially greater than zero” chance of engaging and destroying likely threats. He refused to quantify the estimated probability in public. Last year, then-Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Edward Aldridge though told Congress the system would have a 90-percent probability of defeating a simple single warhead attack using multiple interceptors (see GSN, March 21, 2003). The Missile Defense Agency this year invited reporters to participate in a computerized war game simulating a defense using the system that the scientists said assumed a 91-percent kill probability (see GSN, March 17). The analysis argues such assumptions are unrealistic. “Based on the poor defense capability in the face of unsophisticated countermeasures, the kill probability is likely to be low, not high,” it says. The inherent complexity of the system will also inevitably further reduce the chances for success, the report says, citing a need for successful tracking, communications, missile launch, separation of the kill vehicle, detection of the target cluster, discrimination of the warhead, and homing by the kill vehicle. “The kill probability will depend on the successful completion of several tasks (none of which have been demonstrated for the GMD system under realistic flight conditions),” it says, and concludes the kill probability of the initial system “is likely to be very low.” Kadish has asserted that the system’s record of intercepting five of eight targets in flight tests demonstrates a basic capability. The report argues the intercept tests were highly controlled, to the point that key weaknesses, such as discrimination, were not tested realistically.  “The system remains in an early stage of development, and … the testing program has provided essentially no data about how the system would perform in a real missile attack,” it says. “Demonstrating hit-to-kill does not prove the concept of midcourse defense,” it says. Kill Probability a Factor for Additional Interceptors Arguing for funds to field a second batch of 20 interceptors, MDA Director Kadish argued at a congressional hearing in March that the number of interceptors, not any hardware limitations, is the primary factor affecting the system’s potential effectiveness. “The system we initially put on alert is modest … not because the inherent capabilities of the sensors and interceptors themselves are somehow deficient, but rather because we will have a small quantity of weapons,” he said. The scientists’ analysis argues that adding another 20 interceptors would not significantly increase the chance of success. For example, if the system were to engage a five-missile attack using interceptors each having a 10-percent kill probability, then firing 20 interceptors instead of five would decrease the probability of at least one warhead getting through from 99.99 percent only to 99.5 percent, the study says. Only with a high kill probability is the benefit of additional interceptors significant, the analysis says. At a 50-percent kill probability against five missiles, for instance, firing 20 interceptors would give only a 28-percent chance of one missile getting through while firing five would give a 97 percent chance, it says. “Because the system cannot counter threats that employ unsophisticated countermeasures, the kill probability will almost certainly be low. Consequently, more interceptors are largely irrelevant to system effectiveness,” it says. Back to top       United States Looking at Russian Radars, Targets to Help Missile Defense Development The United States is considering using Russian radar systems and targets in U.S. missile defense efforts, Representative Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) said Wednesday (see GSN, March 30). The Missile Defense Agency is interested in using Russia’s “very good” expertise in constructing ballistic missile-tracking radars, Weldon said. By obtaining access to radars in Russia, the United States could improve its monitoring of potential Chinese or North Korean ballistic missile threats, he said. In addition, the missile agency would like to work with Russia on producing targets for use in missile defense tests, according to Weldon. He said, though, that it is unlikely that Russia would agree to participate in that effort. “I don’t think the Russians really want to be in a position of having America constantly shoot down what they put up in space,” Weldon said (Marc Selinger, Aerospace Daily & Defense Report, May 13). Back to top       Friendly Fire System Failed in Patriot Incident A British Tornado fighter jet shot down by a U.S. Patriot missile on March 23, 2003 near the Kuwait-Iraq border suffered a failure of the electronic system that was supposed to protect the plane from friendly fire, the Press Association reported today (see GSN, April 26). The Patriot battery fired after it “misidentified” the aircraft as an enemy antiradiation missile, according to a report summarizing findings by a Royal Air Force Board of Inquiry. The Tornado’s pilot and navigator were killed in the incident. Several contributing factors were also cited in the report, including the failure of the Tornado’s “identification friend or foe” system.  The Patriot’s “wide classification criteria” for antiradiation missiles and its rules of engagement also contributed to the accident, the report states. Those criteria were “not sufficiently robust to prevent a friendly aircraft without a functioning IFF system being classified as an antiradiation missile,” according the report (Gavin Cordon, Press Association, May 14). Back to top

NRC to Test Yucca Mountain Shipping Casks The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has decided to conduct full-scale tests of the shipping containers intended to be used to transport spent nuclear fuel to a planned repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, the Associated Press reported Tuesday (see GSN, May 13). The tests would involve subjecting the container to a 75 miles per hour crash and a fully engulfing fire, NRC officials said. Previous container tests involved computer testing and scale models (Associated Press/KRNV.com, May 11).   Back to top

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