U.S. biological defense plans are drawing criticism from arms control advocates who fear it could violate and undermine the Biological Weapons Convention (AFP photo/Thomas White). Proposed U.S. Biological Research Could Challenge Treaty Restrictions, Experts Charge By David Ruppe Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — Offering a controversial justification, the Bush administration is planning to perform certain biological defense activities that some arms control experts say could violate the Biological Weapons Convention and potentially render its restrictions meaningless...Full Story

U.S. Ports Can Detect Dirty Bomb, Hutchinson Says By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — Security improvements made since Sept. 11, 2001, have given U.S. authorities confidence they can detect a “dirty bomb” arriving by sea, the lead federal official for the effort said yesterday (see GSN, March 23)...Full Story

U.S. to Expand Military Vaccinations By Marina Malenic Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The U.S. Defense Department announced today that it would expand its anthrax and smallpox vaccination programs to include all personnel deployed by U.S. Central Command and, for the first time, select units within U.S. Pacific Command (see GSN, May 18)...Full Story

	Wednesday, June 30, 2004

U.S. Ports Can Detect Dirty Bomb, Hutchinson Says By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — Security improvements made since Sept. 11, 2001, have given U.S. authorities confidence they can detect a “dirty bomb” arriving by sea, the lead federal official for the effort said yesterday (see GSN, March 23). Homeland Security Undersecretary for Border and Transportation Security Asa Hutchinson told a packed National Press Club auditorium that U.S. ports are mostly compliant with sweeping new security measures that go into effect tomorrow around the world (see GSN, June 22). Speaking as part of a panel convened at the club by George Mason University Law School’s Critical Infrastructure Protection Program, Hutchinson responded to general disagreement over who should pay for security enhancements by stressing the responsibilities of the private sector and the limits of government action (see GSN, April 13). In response to questions about U.S. capability to fend off a radiological attack by sea, Hutchinson said, “I believe that we have the systems in place in order to detect that.” “Is it possible for a radiological bomb to get through? … There always can be a means,” he added. In a confidential memorandum last week, the FBI warned law-enforcement officials that terrorists could use small boats or floating objects such as inner tubes to deliver a bomb to U.S. shores. Hutchinson yesterday played down the warning. “There has been historic reporting ― [I] wouldn’t relate it to anything current,” he said. “We have to have creative minds” in planning for potential attacks, he added, calling the memorandum “a law-enforcement information package as to something that could be utilized” by terrorists. He said that using small craft would be difficult for terrorists and that no intelligence indicates they are now considering such attacks in the United States. Effect of New International Code Disputed The Associated Press reported last week that only about 10 percent of world ports would by tomorrow’s deadline be in compliance with the new International Maritime Organization port-security code, which requires new screening measures to intercept suspicious and dangerous sea shipments. U.S. and industry officials on yesterday’s panel highlighted progress they have made in port security since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, but one Democratic panelist expressed doubt about the significance of the deadline. Hutchinson described a heightened law-enforcement presence at U.S. ports, including an increase in the number of bomb-sniffing dogs, as well as new identification and background checks and wider use of surveillance cameras. Both he and U.S. Coast Guard port-security head Larry Hereth emphasized that the United States will systematically inspect ships coming from the many world ports that are not in compliance with the new code. The most definitive effect of the code, according to several officials on the panel, is that as of tomorrow, proper documentation will be required for any ship to enter any U.S. port. “If they don’t have a new international certificate, we will deny them entry,” said Hereth, port-security director in the Coast Guard Marine Safety, Security and Environmental Protection Directorate. Hereth added that the United States is helping noncompliant ports around the world to meet the new rules. Local and industry officials echoed Hereth’s assurances about denial of entry to uncertified craft. Maryland Port Administration Executive Director Jim White said the new measures are a far cry from pre-9/11 practice. “Prior to 9/11, if you had a friendly wave and you knew your way around a terminal, all you had to do was wave, and you were around 85 percent of the marine terminals in the United States,” White said. Carl Bentzel, senior Democratic counsel for the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, characterized tomorrow’s deadline as important only on paper. Bentzel said that at many ports, the deadline means only that a plan has been submitted. He added that much of the new system relies on cargo manifests provided by shippers themselves, leaving ports open to deliberate deceit. “The next year or two years will be the most important time,” Bentzel said. Costs Emerge as a Sticking Point Much of the discussion was given over to panelists’ airing of disagreements over who ― the federal government, state and local governments or the private sector ― should pay for security improvements at U.S. ports. The question is an important one, said Center for American Progress National Defense and Homeland Security Director Philip Crowley, because “largely speaking, port security right now is an unfunded requirement.” President George W. Bush’s administration is requesting $46 million for port security in its fiscal 2005 budget proposal, while the Coast Guard has estimated more than $7 billion is needed over the next decade to implement new port-security requirements. With many states and cities in financial turmoil, said Crowley, “Right now, the resources are not there.” Maryland’s White said the Port of Baltimore has spent $4 million in recent years on security improvements, compared with a federal contribution of $10 million. He cast security spending as a drag on competitiveness for the port. “The East Coast is so competitive that there’s no way the ports on the East Coast can absorb these costs. … The means just aren’t there to continue at that pace,” White said. “The airports get a dollar, each port gets a nickel. It just doesn’t seem fair,” he added in a reference to large amounts of federal spending on air security in the wake of the 2001 al-Qaeda attacks. Hutchinson called the comparison to airports “a little difficult to sustain,” saying that post-9/11 government spending initially focused on air security because the attacks were carried out by air. “As we move to other modes of transportation ― rail is an issue ― you’ll see a little bit different solution package,” Hutchinson said. He added, though, that “if you’re going to enhance security, you have to have investment by the private sector.” Heritage Foundation senior research fellow James Carafano sought to reverse White’s characterization of security spending as a liability for ports, saying the industry should make security part of its “business model,” as other sectors have done in the past with efforts such as environmental protection and workplace safety. Carafano called his approach more “sustainable” since it does “not depend on gobs of federal funds every year.” The top priority for new federal spending, Carafano said, should be modernizing and expanding the Coast Guard. “We have a Coast Guard that’s grossly underfunded and grossly undermanned for the mission that it has,” Carafano said. The Coast Guard’s Hereth largely agreed. “The Coast Guard does need an improved resource picture,” he said, but “the trends are very positive” in recent budgets. The General Accounting Office said in a report yesterday that delays appear to be arising in the Coast Guard’s 2-year-old modernization program, called Deepwater, but that “the degree to which the Deepwater program is on track … is difficult to determine, because the Coast Guard has not updated the schedule.” The office recommended that the Coast Guard update its acquisition schedule more often to “allow Congress to base [budgetary] decisions on accurate information.” Back to top       Maritime Vulnerability to Terrorists Should Not Correlate Directly to a Major Threat, Expert Says Shipping industry vulnerability to terrorist attacks does not necessarily indicate that a concrete terror threat exists, Lloyd’s List reported today (see GSN, June 22). “Vulnerability should not be confused with threat,” said RAND Corp. senior adviser Brian Jenkins. “The difficulty in assessing terrorists’ capabilities and intentions has shifted focus to vulnerability analysis,” he added during the International Maritime Bureau’s triannual meeting on piracy and maritime security in Malaysia. Bureau Director Potengal Mukundan agreed. “We have to be very careful,” he said. “We shouldn’t confuse threat analysis with vulnerability,” he added. Jenkins questioned the likelihood of the often-discussed idea that terrorists could use a shipping container to deliver a nuclear weapon. Given the high cost of acquiring such a weapon, he said, terrorists would probably seek a less risky deliver method (Marcus Hand, Lloyd’s List, June 30). Back to top       United Kingdom May be Unable to Counter WMD Attacks, Parliamentary Committee Says The United Kingdom may be unable to prevent a terrorist attack involving weapons of mass destruction, a British parliamentary committee warned in an annual report released yesterday (see GSN, May 24). The British government underestimated the threat posed by al-Qaeda prior to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and had not provided adequate funding to British intelligence agencies, according to the Intelligence and Security Committee. “Terrorist organizations are still attempting to acquire chemical, biological and nuclear materials as well as the technology to produce them,” the report states, according to the Associated Press. “Should they become better able to use these materials, the threat to the U.K., its citizens and its interests would escalate and our ability to cope with such attacks would be in question,” it added. British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s office said it would soon respond to the committee’s report, AP reported (Ed Johnson, Associated Press, June 29). Back to top

ElBaradei Clears Iran-Russia Nuclear Deal; Rafsanjani Says Iran Will Prevail in Nuclear Standoff International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei yesterday discounted concerns about Russia’s construction of a nuclear power plant for Iran at Bushehr, according to Agence France-Presse (see GSN, May 26). “Bushehr is a bilateral project between the Russian Federation and Iran,” ElBaradei said. “Bushehr is not currently at the center of international concern because Bushehr is a project to produce nuclear energy, and it has the agreement to send the spent fuel back to Russia,” he added, referring to an as-yet-unsigned agreement in principle (Associated Press/Moscow Times, June 30). ElBaradei, traveling in Russia, added that the controversial $800 million project was not on his agenda for discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “Bushehr was not discussed,” ElBaradei said. “We did not discuss it with Putin because it is not a subject of any concern on our part,” he added (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, June 29). Meanwhile, former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said yesterday that Iran would continue developing its nuclear program “to the end,” Agence France-Presse reported. “The United States has put pressure on Iran since the Islamic revolution but has always suffered setbacks,” said Rafsanjani. “This time too it will suffer a defeat and we will continue our program to the end,” he told Iran’s official news agency. However, he added that Iran would adhere to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency. “We are ready to work within the framework of NPT, with all our activities being transparent, so that they can see for themselves our nuclear program is for peaceful and not military applications,” he said (Agence France-Presse/Daily Times, June 29). Rafsanjani also warned Europeans yesterday not to do anything that might force Iran to withdraw from the treaty or to reject ratifying the Additional Protocol to its IAEA safeguards agreement. “We have not started gaining access to nuclear technology with the help of Europeans, so we are not dependent on them,” Rafsanjani said. “[The Europeans] should act wisely and admit that we are ready to act within the framework of the NPT and that everything is transparent and that they should admit our nuclear programs are geared to peaceful, not military purposes,” he added (Tehran Times, June 30). Elsewhere, environmental samples taken Monday by IAEA inspectors at the Lavizan suspected nuclear site in Iran will take several weeks to be analyzed, an agency spokesman said (see GSN, June 29). Inspectors visited additional sites on yesterday (CNN, June 28). Back to top       Pyongyang Wants 2 Million Kilowatts for Nuclear Freeze The United States must arrange for the supply of 2 million kilowatts of energy aid and make other concessions if it wants North Korea to freeze its nuclear programs, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, June 29). “Before North Korea starts freezing its nuclear program, the United States must provide our country with compensatory energy assistance in the amount equivalent to 2 million kilowatts, remove North Korea from the list of countries facilitating terrorism, and lift sanctions and the economic blockade from our country,” said Pak Ui Chun, Pyongyang’s ambassador to Russia. “The freeze will begin when the granting of compensation begins,” he added (Associated Press, June 30). North Korea had indicated at the talks in Beijing last week that it would request 2 million kilowatts of energy aid, the amount of energy that a light-water reactor such as the one envisioned under the 1994 Agreed Framework would provide, according to Jon Wolfsthal, a nuclear expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Wolfsthal noted that this was a relatively large amount of energy for a country of North Korea’s size and development level. “There’s no way they could handle 2 million kilowatts,” said Wolfsthal. “If we handed them a plug it would blow out every circuit in the country,” he added (Marina Malenic, Global Security Newswire, June 25).. Meanwhile, Japan said yesterday it hopes to normalize relations with North Korea by 2006, Agence France-Presse reported. “If we can, I want to realize it within two years,” Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told the Yomiuri Shimbun. “If the two sides sincerely enact the Japan-North Korea Pyongyang declaration … the normalization of diplomatic relations will result,” he added. “I’m an optimist,” he told the Nihon Keizai Shimbun (Agence France-Presse/Minjok-Tongshin, June 30). Back to top       Brazil Denies Blocking IAEA Inspections, Wants Protections for Industrial Secrets Brazil said yesterday it was not blocking International Atomic Energy Agency inspections of a uranium enrichment facility, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, April 20). “Brazil accepts inspections,” said Defense Minister Jose Viegas.  Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said yesterday, however, that Brazil could be found in violation of its treaty obligations if it does not allow inspections of the country’s Resende uranium enrichment plant (Associated Press/Fresno Bee, June 29). Viegas said that any inspections process would need to safeguards to Brazil’s industrial secrets, the Xinhua News Agency reported. “It is necessary … to negotiate with the international agency the specific characteristics of future protection accords that will rule the inspections at the Resende’s production units,” he said. ElBaradei had stipulated that the agency would not reveal any industrial methods. “We have inspected uranium enrichment centers in many countries without revealing any industrial secret,” he said. “Brazil will not be the exception,” he added (Xinhua, June 30). Back to top       China Opposes India, Pakistan Receiving Special Status China said yesterday that it opposes according India and Pakistan with the status of official nuclear weapons states (see GSN, June 18). “The international community should stick to the spirit and principles enshrined in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) as well as the consensus reached in the U.N. Security Council Resolution 1172,” Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Shen Guofang said (IndiaExpress.com, June 29). The 1998 Security Council resolution condemned nuclear tests by the two South Asian nations and called on them to halt their nuclear weapons programs. Back to top       U.S. Energy Department Begins Los Alamos National Laboratory Management Contract Bidding Process The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration on Monday called for entities looking to manage the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico to submit an “expression of interest” — the first step in the contract bidding process, according to the Albuquerque Journal (see GSN, June 10). The Los Alamos laboratory is operated by the University of California, but the Energy Department last year decided to open the facility’s management contract to competition after a series of management and security lapses. The University of California has said it will compete to retain the contract, but others, such as the University of Texas and U.S. defense contractor Lockheed Martin, have also expressed interest, the Journal reported (Albuquerque Journal, June 29). Back to top

Proposed U.S. Biological Research Could Challenge Treaty Restrictions, Experts Charge By David Ruppe Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — Offering a controversial justification, the Bush administration is planning to perform certain biological defense activities that some arms control experts say could violate the Biological Weapons Convention and potentially render its restrictions meaningless. The proposed work could include developing and testing new and existing biological weapons agents and delivery devices, studying new potential means of delivery, and modeling production processes, according to a government presentation delivered earlier this year. It would be funded through a newly created Homeland Security Department “Biothreat Characterization Center” and would occur primarily at a multiagency biological defense campus at Fort Detrick, Md. The program’s principal purpose would be to inform U.S. policy-makers about the nature of the most serious and credible biological threats potentially facing the United States in order to guide defensive efforts, Maureen McCarthy, director of research and development at the Department of Homeland Security, said in an interview with Global Security Newswire. It would comply with the treaty’s restrictions, she said, because the work is intended solely for defense. “The treaty is intent-based. Our intent and the intent of all the biodefense programs going on in the nation right now is to develop protective measures to protect the American public,” she said. “We are and will continue to be fully compliant with the BWC,” McCarthy added. Nongovernmental arms control experts, however, say that elements of the plan would probably violate the 32-year-old treaty’s restriction on developing and producing agent delivery devices. They say, furthermore, that the planned work as a whole could undermine international confidence in and adherence to the treaty because, although the work would be defensive, it would effectively give the United States a modern offensive biological weapons capability. “This is absolutely without any question what one would do to develop an offensive biological weapons capability,” said Mark Wheelis, a professor of microbiology at the University of California-Davis. “We’re going to develop new pathogens for various purposes. We’re going to develop new ways of packaging them, new ways of disseminating them. We’re going to harden them to environmental degradation. We’ll be prepared to go offensive at the drop of a hat if we so desire,” he said. What the administration is planning “would look like a violation to them if anybody else did it,” said former Ambassador James Leonard, who led U.S. negotiations of the treaty. No review has yet been done within the administration on whether the proposed programs would comply with the treaty or U.S. law, but specific proposals would be so evaluated, according to McCarthy. A State Department official said that the department had not done a compliance review and that “relevant interagency consultations are ongoing.” Justification Previously Used The program’s work was ordered by President George W. Bush in a classified presidential directive and explained very generally in a White House initiative called “Biodefense for the 21st Century” announced in April (see GSN, April 28).  “The proliferation of biological materials, technologies, and expertise increases the potential for adversaries to design a pathogen to evade our existing medical and nonmedical countermeasures,” says an unclassified version of the directive.  “To address this challenge, we are taking advantage of these same technologies to ensure that we can anticipate and prepare for the emergence of this threat,” it says. The Biothreat Characterization Center is part of a larger National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center (NBACC), also headquartered at Fort Detrick. Its plans were first publicly detailed by then-NBACC Deputy Director U.S. Army Lt. Col. George W. Korch Jr., in a February slide presentation. The BTCC program activities could include genetically engineering new pathogens, improving the environmental stability of agents, exploring novel ways to package and deliver bioweapons agents, and modeling bioweapons production processes, according to Korch’s slides. The program apparently would be a more coordinated and visible Homeland Security version of classified CIA and DOD efforts initiated during the Clinton administration in the late 1990s and publicly revealed during the Bush administration. The New York Times on Sept. 4, 2001, reported details of such programs, including a CIA project that built and tested a model of a Soviet-designed bomb and the U.S. Army assembly of a mock germ factory for assessing potential terrorist capability. A Pentagon spokeswoman that same day told reporters that the Army intended to develop a copy of a genetically modified Russian anthrax strain to see whether the U.S. anthrax vaccine could handle it. “A functional, gradual, incremental equivalent [to the BTCC], eroding the boundary between defensive and offensive research, may already have been in place for a half dozen years,” said Milton Leitenberg, an arms control expert at the University of Maryland. Military and CIA lawyers reportedly had concluded such work was allowed by the treaty because the intent was defensive, a conclusion some other government officials reportedly disputed.  “The Biological Weapons Convention allows you to do work that is purely defensive in nature,” Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said at the Sept. 4, 2001 press briefing. The administration also that summer said it would oppose a negotiated protocol creating a BWC inspections mechanism, citing in part concerns that inspections might compromise U.S. biological defense secrets. U.S. Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton in a 2002 speech argued that a country’s intent, rather than equipment, should be the used to judge treaty compliance, as offensive equipment also has uses for “the study of defensive measures against a biological attack.” Intent vs. Letter of the Treaty Homeland Security’s McCarthy in her interview with GSN asserted that the treaty allows nations to conduct some biological weapons activity if it is intended for defensive purposes. The treaty is “intent-based,” she said, and “says you can’t do a whole bunch of things unless there’s a justification for prophylactic, or protective, or peaceful purposes,” she said. Critics say that interpretation is at odds with Article 1 of the treaty. While the article’s first paragraph forbids biological weapons agent development, production, stockpiling or acquisition except for types and in quantities justifiable for “prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes,” it makes no such specific exception for delivery devices. Instead, the article’s second paragraph forbids obtaining or producing “weapons, equipment or means of delivery designed to use such agents or toxins for hostile purposes or in armed conflict.”  Echoing Clarke in 2001, McCarthy suggested the Article 1 “prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes” applies generally to biological defense “work.” Leonard disputed that interpretation, saying it appeared to extend the exception for agents to delivery systems.  “Paragraph one and paragraph two are written differently and one has to assume that there’s a reason for that difference,” he said. The obvious reason, he said, is that legitimizing the development and production of delivery devices for defensive purposes would enable countries to develop and build the components for an entire weapon in the name of defense.  It “makes any kind of policing of the treaty, of assuring that it is functioning in a proper way, virtually impossible,” he said. Mary Elizabeth Hoinkes, a former State Department general counsel, said she was convinced after reviewing the BWC negotiating record that the negotiators’ “fear of breakout” drove the more restrictive language for delivery devices. “If you had small amounts of agent, the time to go into production and to switch from research to reduction would be a protection. But if the weapon is lying on the shelf, all you would have to do is gear up the production line,” she said. Anticipated Costs and Benefits Critics also charge that while particular elements of the threat characterization program would probably conflict with Article I, the program as a whole could undermine the treaty by raising doubts about U.S. compliance. Treaty parties might “see this as dangerous to their country to have anybody, especially the trend-setter, the leader, the model, the United States, doing something that is so clearly over the edge of what the treaty permits,” Leonard said. “The costs of creating an ambiguity that bad people predictably would shelter behind … clearly don’t outweigh this alleged advantage of seeing what kind of devices people are going to be interested in developing,” he said. McCarthy, on the other hand, argued the proposed work is needed to help guide U.S. biological defense plans. “This country is investing billions of dollars in biodefense right now. … It is the responsibility of the U.S. government to ensure that we are working on the right problems and so the threat characterization program that we’ve developed is really targeted toward filling in those knowledge gaps,” she said. “Because the last thing in the world we want to do is spend several billion dollars working on yesterday’s problems and find out five years from now we weren’t targeted on working on the right problems,” she said. Leitenberg said the administration is effectively asserting a “justification of necessity” for the proposed activities, as it did with a 2003 Justice Department memorandum on procedures for handling captives. He called it U.S. “exceptionalism” to treaty compliance, and questioned the judgment that such work is necessary. “I argue that the whole basic threat assessment has been exaggerated” by the administration, Leitenberg said. Interagency Discussions Ongoing McCarthy, a former nuclear weapons and Antiballistic Missile Treaty compliance expert at the Defense Department, said Homeland Security has administration backing for the program. “We have reviewed our program plans extensively in the interagency, through the interagency groups,” she said. She said an extensive end-to-end review “was fully coordinated by all the departments in the government, including the State Department, [that mentions a] need to do certain types of research in order to ensure that we understand the threats,” she said. McCarthy said, though, assessments have not yet been done for treaty compliance, and that the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center is just now developing a compliance process with input from the White House and other agencies that would be used to review particular BTCC proposals. “I can assure you that inside of the administration and certainly inside of the White House they are very engaged with us in the development of the compliance processes that we’re doing,” she said. While the Biothreat Characterization Center already is running with $20 million in funding, McCarthy said it has not initiated any work that might raise compliance questions. “The programs we have going on right now I can assure you are compliant and I take personal responsibility for those programs in my office,” she said. Back to top       U.S. to Expand Military Vaccinations By Marina Malenic Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The U.S. Defense Department announced today that it would expand its anthrax and smallpox vaccination programs to include all personnel deployed by U.S. Central Command and, for the first time, select units within U.S. Pacific Command (see GSN, May 18). Previously, approximately half of deployed personnel had been vaccinated in Central Command, which includes the Afghanistan and Iraq theaters of operation. “It was probably well over half, but this includes everyone,” said William Winkenwerder Jr., assistant secretary of defense for health affairs. “Probably more will be affected in the Pacific Command than in the Central Command,” he added, without discussing specific numbers of expected inoculations or a vaccination schedule.  He said this would be the first time U.S. service members on the Korean Peninsula under the U.S. Pacific Command would receive the vaccinations. Winkenwerder said the decision to expand vaccinations was not in response to any specific threat. “There is no substantial change to the threat situation,” he said. The vaccination program would continue to include personnel in selected units assigned or deployed for 15 or more consecutive days, according to Winkenwerder, including essential civilian employees and contractors.  The Defense Department would offer the vaccinations to family members of those personnel on a voluntary basis, as it has done in the past, he added. He said the decision to expand vaccination came after a periodic review of the program and an evaluation of potential threats. “When we began these vaccination programs we stated that we would periodically review them, evaluating the threats to our forces and vaccine availability,” he said. “We recently completed such an evaluation and determined that the threat continues,” he added. He said the cost of the additional vaccinations would be relatively low and that the necessary doses have already been manufactured and stockpiled. “Additional costs, we expect, are not substantial. Our total budget is roughly $30 billion, this is in the tens of millions,” he said. “Sufficient funds have already been allocated in the 2004 and 2005 budgets,” he added.  The Defense Department continues to reserve a portion of the vaccine supply for use by other federal agencies. “The Office of Homeland Security heads the planning effort among federal agencies for use of the vaccine in case of a domestic emergency,” Winkenwerder said. Anthrax remains one of the top biological warfare threats to U.S. troops, according to Winkenwerder.  “Some of our adversaries, we suspect, possess anthrax,” he said. To date, the Defense Department has vaccinated more than 750,000 service members with more than 2.2 million doses of anthrax vaccine. More than 625,000 service members have received the smallpox vaccine since December 2002, he said. Back to top

Iraq Readies War Crime Charges Against Saddam Hussein, Other Former Officials, for Chemical Attacks Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and 11 other high-level prewar Iraqi officials are set to be arraigned in an Iraqi court tomorrow on a number of war crimes charges, including the 1988 use of chemical weapons against the country’s Kurdish population, according to the Associated Press (see GSN, March 18). The new Iraqi government today took legal, but not physical, custody of the 12 defendants, who are expected to appear in court tomorrow for a reading of the various charges against them, according to AP. In addition to Hussein, the defendants include Ali Hassan al-Majid, also known as “Chemical Ali,” former Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan and former Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz. “The first step has happened,” said Salem Chalabi, director of the Iraqi Special Tribunal that will try the 12 former officials. “I met with him (Saddam) earlier today to explain his rights and what will happen," Chalabi said. Hussein will remain in the physical custody of U.S. forces in Iraq until the new Iraqi government can establish a secure facility in which to hold him, AP reported. The 12 defendants will be designated as Iraqi criminal suspects, which will entitle them to hire their own attorneys or to have counsel appointed for them, Chalabi said. A team of foreign lawyers put together by Hussein’s wife may not be able to represent him, though, because the only foreign lawyers permitted to defend Iraqis without special permission are Palestinians and Syrians, said Baghdad attorney Walid Mohammed al-Shibibi. Other foreign lawyers must first obtain approval from the Iraqi Bar Association. One of Hussein’s appointed attorneys, Ziad al-Khasawneh, said that the defense team is ready to travel to Iraq, but the new government there has not said whether it would provide them with security. “How can the defense team go to a country where it doesn’t enjoy any protection? They will kill us there,” al-Khasawneh said (Jim Krane, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, June 30).   Back to top

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