A British review on prewar Iraqi intelligence reported today that Prime Minister Tony Blair and his cabinet did not exaggerate claims about Iraqi WMD capabilities, but that a prewar British dossier failed to include adequate intelligence caveats on Saddam Hussein’s alleged weapons program (AFP photo/Martyn Hayhow). British Dossier on Prewar Iraqi WMD Efforts Failed to Contain Sufficient Caveats, Inquiry Finds By Mike Nartker Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — A 2002 British dossier on Iraq’s alleged WMD efforts did not contain sufficient caveats on the quality of the intelligence upon which the document’s assessments were based, according to a report released today on the British inquiry into intelligence used to support the invasion (see GSN, July 9). The inquiry, launched in February and headed by former civil servant Robin Butler, found that the assessments in the September 2002 dossier “went to (although not beyond) the outer limits of the intelligence available.” The inquiry also found that a “serious weakness” of the dossier was that it did not make “sufficiently clear” the caveats included by British intelligence for the information on which assessments were based...Full Story

U.S. Intelligence was “Reasonable” in Assessing That Prewar Iraq May Have Sought Uranium, Report Says By Mike Nartker Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The Bush administration may have moved too quickly last year to back away from allegations that prewar Iraq sought to obtain uranium from Africa, according a report released last week by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (see GSN, July 13)...Full Story

Defense Scholars Impugn U.S. Biological-Attack Readiness; Rural Hospitals Called “Weakest Link” By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — Rural hospitals constitute a serious gap in U.S. defenses against a biological attack, according to a report released today by the National Defense University...Full Story

	Wednesday, July 14, 2004

South Korea Compiles Antiterrorism Manual South Korea has created a manual for categorizing and responding to terrorist attacks, including those using weapons of mass destruction, the Korea Times reported today (see GSN, July 6). The manual lists eight categories of terrorist attacks: “general,” “airplane,” “chemical weapons,” “biological weapons,” “radioactive weapons,” “military establishments,” “maritime,” and “overseas.” It outlines specific government responses for each and has been distributed to several government agencies, according to the Times (Korea Times, July 14). Back to top

British Dossier on Prewar Iraqi WMD Efforts Failed to Contain Sufficient Caveats, Inquiry Finds By Mike Nartker Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — A 2002 British dossier on Iraq’s alleged WMD efforts did not contain sufficient caveats on the quality of the intelligence upon which the document’s assessments were based, according to a report released today on the British inquiry into intelligence used to support the invasion (see GSN, July 9). The inquiry, launched in February and headed by former civil servant Robin Butler, found that the assessments in the September 2002 dossier “went to (although not beyond) the outer limits of the intelligence available.” The inquiry also found that a “serious weakness” of the dossier was that it did not make “sufficiently clear” the caveats included by British intelligence for the information on which assessments were based. “We conclude that, if intelligence is to be used more widely by governments in public debate in future, those doing so must be careful to explain its uses and limitations,” the inquiry said in its report. The inquiry found, though, “no evidence” that the British government deliberately exaggerated available intelligence to bolster the case for war. In addition, no evidence was found that British intelligence analysts were pressured to come to certain conclusions. British Prime Minister Tony Blair today praised the report for its “balanced judgments.” He also said that the report shows that the government had not sought to deceive the British public to justify war. “I only hope that now … people will not disrespect the other’s point of view but will accept that those that agree and those that disagree with the war in Iraq, hold their views not because they are warmongers on the one hand or closet supporters of [former Iraqi President] Saddam [Hussein] on the other, but because of a genuine difference of judgment as to the right thing to have done,” Blair said in a statement. “There was no conspiracy.  There was no impropriety,” he added. While saying that he took “full responsibility” for the mistakes listed in the report, Blair also defended his decision to join the United States in invading Iraq. “I cannot honestly say I believe getting rid of Saddam was a mistake at all.  Iraq, the region, the wider world is a better and safer place without Saddam,” he said. Opposition spokesman Michael Howard, though, criticized Blair for failing to include caveats made in intelligence reports in his public statements on the alleged threat posed by Iraq. “I hope that we will not face another war in the foreseeable future. But if we did and this prime minister identified the threat, would the country believe him?” Howard said in a statement.  “The issue is the prime minister’s credibility. The question he must ask himself is does he have any credibility left?” Howard added. In its report, the inquiry said the British government’s belief in 2002 that stronger action was needed to enforce Iraqi WMD disarmament obligations was not based on new intelligence developments, and that there was no new intelligence at the time to indicate that Iraq posed more of an immediate concern than the activities of some other countries.  While saying that it was still too early to determine conclusively whether prewar Iraq possessed stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, the inquiry concluded that: *         prior to last year’s invasion, Iraq had the “strategic intention” of relaunching its nuclear weapons program once U.N. weapons inspections were relaxed and international sanctions were lifted; *         Iraq was conducting illicit research and procurement activities to maintain its WMD capabilities; *         Iraq was developing ballistic missiles that violated U.N-mandated restrictions on range and payload capabilities; but *         Iraq also did not possess “significant, if any” biological and chemical weapons stockpiles fit for use. According to the report, the inquiry was “impressed by the quality” of British intelligence assessments of prewar Iraq’s nuclear capabilities. While finding that intelligence assessments of prewar Iraq’s biological and chemical weapons efforts were “less assured,” the inquiry noted the “inherent difficulties” in assessing such efforts, such as the relative ease of keeping them secret through the use of dual-use technologies. The results of the British inquiry into prewar intelligence on Iraq was less critical than the results of a yearlong review conducted by the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Iraq. In a report released last week, the Senate intelligence panel found that most of the assessments made by U.S. intelligence either exaggerated or were not supported by available information (see GSN, July 12). The British inquiry criticized the human sources used by British intelligence to gather information on prewar Iraq’s WMD efforts, noting that some of the sources may have been asked to report on areas beyond their expertise and that too much faith was placed in information obtained from untested sources.  The inquiry also found that weaknesses in human intelligence gathering were not caused by an over-reliance on Iraqi defectors as sources. In the United States, the Bush administration has come under heavy criticism for using information provided by Iraqi defectors made available by the Iraqi National Congress who were found to have provided false information. Back to top       White House, CIA Refuse Give Intelligence Summary to Senate Panel Investigators The White House and the CIA have refused to provide the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence with a short intelligence summary on prewar Iraq that was prepared for President George W. Bush and contains few of the caveats included in longer intelligence reports, the New York Times reported today (see GSN, July 13). The one-page document prepared in October 2002 describes the findings of a 90-page National Intelligence Estimate prepared on prewar Iraq’s alleged WMD efforts. Such a summary is typically included with intelligence estimates; the staff of the National Intelligence Council prepared the document, according to intelligence officials. Democrats on the Senate intelligence panel said the summary could provide more information on what U.S. intelligence told Bush before the war about Iraq’s alleged WMD efforts, according to the Times. Congressional officials said that notes taken by Senate staff members who were allowed to review the summary indicated that many references were eliminated to debates between intelligence agencies over the conclusions in the larger estimate. “In determining what the president was told about the contents of the NIE dealing with Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, qualifiers and all, there is nothing clearer than this single page,” Senator Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) said in an “additional view” that was published along with the Senate report. Administration and CIA officials have said, though, that the summary is protected by executive privilege. Republican committee members have also denied that the summary contains any significant information (Douglas Jehl, New York Times, July 14). Back to top

U.S. Intelligence was “Reasonable” in Assessing That Prewar Iraq May Have Sought Uranium, Report Says By Mike Nartker Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The Bush administration may have moved too quickly last year to back away from allegations that prewar Iraq sought to obtain uranium from Africa, according a report released last week by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (see GSN, July 13). During the run-up to Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Bush administration listed Iraq’s alleged attempts to obtain uranium as evidence that former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was seeking to relaunch a nuclear weapons program. Citing British intelligence, U.S. President George W. Bush included the claim in his Jan. 28, 2003, State of the Union address (see GSN, April 30). In March 2003, however, the International Atomic Energy Agency determined that documents provided by the United States purporting to show an Iraq-Niger uranium agreement were forgeries. The following July, a senior Bush administration official said in a statement authorized by the White House that the uranium claim should not have been included in Bush’s speech. In its yearlong inquiry into prewar intelligence on Iraqi WMD efforts, though, the Senate intelligence panel concluded that prior to receiving the forged documents in October 2002, it had been “reasonable” for U.S. intelligence to conclude that Iraq might have sought uranium from Africa. The committee also criticized U.S. intelligence for failing to yet provide a conclusive assessment on the matter. The Senate report provides a detailed account of U.S. intelligence efforts to ascertain Iraq’s possible uranium procurement in Niger, which began in October 2001 when the CIA issued a report citing a foreign intelligence service as indicating that Niger had been in negotiations with Iraq since 1999 on a shipment of several tons of uranium. In February 2002, the CIA issued a second and more detailed report on the alleged uranium transaction, citing again a foreign intelligence source as having provided the information. According to the Senate report, CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency analysts were “impressed” by the second and more detailed report on the alleged uranium transaction deal. Analysts from the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, however, were more skeptical and doubted that Niger would attempt to sell uranium to Iraq. The Financial Times recently reported, though, that the original allegations of an alleged Iraq-Niger deal were made by an European intelligence service that conducted three years of surveillance of alleged uranium smuggling efforts within African countries — efforts that are suspected of involving Iraq. The Times reported that intelligence on the alleged uranium smuggling in Niger was passed to the United States in late 2001 (see GSN, June 28). The Senate report also examines the February 2002 trip to Niger by former U.S. Ambassador to Gabon Joseph Wilson, who was dispatched by the CIA to learn more information following a request from Vice President Dick Cheney. Wilson later told the Senate intelligence committee that after meeting with former Nigerien officials, he believed that there was no basis for the uranium allegations. A March 2002 intelligence report based on Wilson’s trip, though, said that former Nigerien Prime Minister Ibrahim Mayaki said that a businessman had approached him in June 1999 to meet with Iraqi officials to increase “commercial relations” between the two countries, the Senate report says. The March report also said that Mayaki interpreted the proposal as meaning that the Iraqi delegation wanted to discuss uranium sales. According to media reports, Wilson identified the businessman as former Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed Sahhaf. Wilson told committee staff that while Mayaki met with the Iraqi delegation, the Nigerien prime minister had been wary of discussing trade issues with a country under U.N. sanctions and had avoided such discussions, the Senate report says. In addition to Niger, U.S. intelligence received in 2002 other signs that prewar Iraq had sought uranium in Africa, according to the Senate report. It cites several intelligence reports indicating that Iraq had sought to obtain uranium from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and that an Iraqi delegation had traveled in March and April 1999 to Somalia to discuss obtaining uranium from a Somali. In September 2002, the British government released a dossier on Iraq’s alleged WMD efforts, which included the claim later cited by Bush that Iraq had sought to obtain uranium from Africa. The United Kingdom has continued to stand by that claim, saying its intelligence did not base the assessment on the forged documents — a finding reaffirmed today by the results of a British inquiry into prewar Iraq intelligence (see related GSN story, today). Even after October 2002, when the United States received copies of the forged documents, there were still indications of possible Iraqi efforts to obtain uranium from Africa, and more specifically Niger, according to the Senate report. It cites a brief U.S. Navy report issued the following month that indicated that a “large quantity” of Nigerien uranium was being stored in a warehouse in Cotonou, Benin. The Navy report said that the uranium had been sold to Iraq by the Nigerien president and provided the name and contact information for a West African businessman who allegedly brokered the deal. While the Navy report indicated that businessman was willing to discuss the alleged transaction, he was never contacted by U.S. intelligence and no effort has been made to determine whether the businessman had any useful information, according to the Senate report.  “No one even thought to do that,” a CIA official was quoted in the Senate report as having told the panel. U.S. officials found no uranium inside the warehouse during a December 2002 investigation, only bales of cotton, the report says. It adds, though, that the CIA was unable to determine whether the cotton may have hidden the uranium and that no radiation-detection equipment was used during the search. Back to top       North Korea Defends Iranian Nuclear Program North Korea’s ambassador to Iran announced yesterday his country’s support for Tehran’s peaceful use of nuclear technology, according to Iran’s official news agency (see GSN, July 13). Ambassador Kim Chong Ryong added that still-unproven U.S. claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction stockpiles show that U.S. allegations against North Korea and Iran are spurious (IRNA, July 13). Meanwhile, Iran announced yesterday that talks with France, Germany and the United Kingdom over Tehran’s nuclear program would resume later this month, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, July 13). Iran’s Supreme National Security Council gave no further details as to the dates and location for the talks, nor what level of official interaction would occur, IRNA reported. European diplomats in Iran said officials from the four countries had been in “regular contact” on the nuclear issue. However, they said ministerial-level negotiations could not take place until Iran was prepared to make more concessions to the International Atomic Energy Agency, according to AFP (Agence France-Presse/Pakistan Daily Times, July 13). Back to top       Los Alamos Director Threatens Employees Who Fail to Follow Security Procedures Los Alamos National Laboratory employees who ignore security procedures could lose their jobs, laboratory director Pete Nanos said Monday (see GSN, July 12). Last week, Los Alamos officials reported the loss of two pieces of “computer removable electronic media,” such as computer discs, that contained classified information. Last week’s incident was the fourth time in about a year-and-a-half that Los Alamos officials have acknowledged losing classified material, the Albuquerque Journal reported.  Describing last week’s loss as an example of “willful disregard” of security procedures, Pete Nanos told New Mexico state lawmakers that those laboratory employees that continue to fail to follow security guidelines will be dismissed. “We’re going high and right on this, and the fact of the matter is, if we have to, we will fire you all,” Nanos said (Albuquerque Journal, July 13). The Project on Government Oversight said today that missing media involved in last week’s incident were classified ZIP disks. In addition, the group also accused Los Alamos of failing to disclose that two classified hard drives had been lost from the same division as the ZIP disks. According to POGO, sources have said that Los Alamos discovered that an employee had removed the hard drives without signing them out, placed them in his pickup truck and took them to another location.  The hard drives have since been located, POGO said (Project on Government Oversight release, July 14). Back to top       North Korea “Not Interested” in U.S. Offer; China Turns Down Fuel Oil Request The most recent U.S. offer of aid in exchange for nuclear disarmament is “nothing new,” a North Korean diplomat said Monday in dismissing the proposal (see GSN, July 13). “We are not interested in that,” Han Song Ryol, deputy chief of Pyongyang’s mission to the United Nations, told the Yonhap News Agency. Asked if North Korea could emulate Libya in its nuclear disarmament, as suggested by U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice last week, Han said there was no parallel to be drawn. “There is no need to compare the two countries; we are not Libya,” he said. “The U.S. and Britain are said to have negotiated with Libya through ‘quiet diplomacy’ but we have not had any type of negotiations with the U.S. so far,” he added (Yonhap, July 13). U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said yesterday he had not seen Han’s statement, but said the Bush administration continues to urge North Korea to consider the proposal. “I would not describe anything we’ve seen as a definitive response [to the offer], and we’re looking for them to study it carefully, take advantage of the opportunity that we’re offering to move forward towards the goal,” Boucher said. Meanwhile, China has rejected North Korean requests for fuel due to concerns it could be used for missile and nuclear development, according to military sources familiar with relations between the two countries.  Several times within the last year, North Korea requested a special type of fuel that burns well under freezing temperatures, the military sources said, according to Kyodo News Service. China turned down the requests because the substance could be used in combustion experiments to develop long-range ballistic missiles and for nuclear development, the sources added (Kyodo News Service/Japan Today, July 13). Elsewhere, the summit meeting set for July 21-22 between South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is expected to focus on North Korea’s nuclear program, a senior South Korean official said yesterday. “The North Korean nuclear issue will be at the top of the agenda for the summit talks,” said Foreign Affairs-Trade Minister Ban Ki-moon (Shim Jae-yun, Korea Times, July 13). Back to top

Defense Scholars Impugn U.S. Biological-Attack Readiness; Rural Hospitals Called “Weakest Link” By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — Rural hospitals constitute a serious gap in U.S. defenses against a biological attack, according to a report released today by the National Defense University. The strain of new terrorism worries in public health is especially hard on the approximately 2,000 rural hospitals around the United States, which tend to be less well-equipped and more generally vulnerable than their suburban and urban counterparts, indicates Hometown Hospitals: The Weakest Link?, written by public-health expert Elin Gursky of ANSER. “We have vulnerable hospitals generally, and particularly, our older rural hospitals have in some ways greater vulnerability … and far less capacity than we might imagine,” Gursky said today in an interview. The report is one of three that the university released today which raise doubts about U.S. preparedness for a biological attack. In Looking for Trouble: A Policy-Maker’s Guide to Biosensing, researchers led by Robert Armstrong of the university’s Center for Technology and National Security Policy recommend shifting resources in the $60 million federal Biowatch program away from sensing devices and toward health monitoring of public servants such as police and firefighters. In Who You Gonna Call? Responding to a Medical Emergency with the Strategic National Stockpile, the center’s Stephen Prior explores deficiencies in the U.S. vaccine stockpile program. Gursky, formerly a senior fellow at Johns Hopkins University’s now-defunct Center for Civilian Biodefense Strategies, wrote the rural-hospital report after traveling the country to speak with hospital staff, police, firefighters and elected officials. Country hospitals, she said today on the sidelines of a biological security conference organized by Student Pugwash U.S.A., need more guidance about how to prepare for major outbreaks occurring naturally or resulting from malicious acts. Many of the hospitals, Gursky said, are “wide open” ― unlike suburban and urban hospitals with limited points of entry and tight security ― and lack the emergency-room triage operations that are common in newer facilities. Compounding the problem, nurses and doctors at the rural hospitals often fail to take proper precautions, Gursky said. “When Uncle Joe walks in, you’re not going to put gloves on,” she said, describing the prevailing culture at many of the hospitals. In the report, Gursky provides case studies of rural hospitals around the country. She writes that many are “relatively old and structurally porous, incapable of containing or preventing the aerosolized spread of an infectious disease”; have just enough equipment and staff and no surge capacity; and use unreliable communications systems. Rural hospitals, Gursky writes, will need help in case of an attack, but no adequate support system now exists to provide that aid. “A catastrophic event or an act of bioterrorism,” she writes, “will require that rural hospitals receive outside assistance to sustain ongoing operations, intervene upon the potentially unremitting flow of medical emergencies and contain the epidemic sequelae of a deliberately deployed pathogen. However, coordinated and reliable systems of hospital support still evade current response paradigms, attributable in large part to the stovepiped streams of money and nonintegrated planning efforts prevalent across the spectrum of civilian and noncivilian sectors that have identified terrorism-response roles and responsibilities.” Rural hospitals are important to overall U.S. defenses, Gursky said, because terrorists might see the facilities as easy targets and because many escape plans call for city-dwellers and suburbanites to take refuge in the country. The symbolic effect of a terrorist strike in a rural region is also not to be underestimated, she said. “The panic and the fear are going to be in the heartland of America,” Gursky said. Back to top       Hatfill Files Defamation Lawsuit Former U.S. Army biologist Steven Hatfill, who has been publicly named as a “person of interest” in the FBI’s investigation of the 2001 anthrax attacks, filed a lawsuit yesterday accusing the New York Times and columnist Nicholas Kristof of defamation by naming him as the likely culprit in the incidents, according to the Washington Post (see GSN, March 30). Kristof criticized the FBI in 2002 for failing to fully investigate a man he identified as “Mr. Z.,” a person Kristof said was the subject of speculation within the U.S. biodefense community of being behind the anthrax attacks. Kristof later identified Hatfill as Mr. Z., but also said that Hatfill deserved the “presumption of innocence” and that there was no physical evidence linking him to the attacks. In his federal lawsuit, Hatfill accused Kristof of making “false and defamatory” allegations and the Times of publishing “substandard and unethical journalism.” In response, a Times spokesman said the newspaper believes the case “does not have merit.” “We believe in a case like this, the law protects fair commentary on an important public issue,” spokesman Toby Usnik said (Jerry Markon, Washington Post, July 14). Back to top       NYC Unveils Bioterrorism Detection Lab New York City officials yesterday unveiled a renovated bioterrorism detection laboratory, the New York Daily News reported (see GSN, April 14). The facility, housed within the Public Health Laboratory on the city’s East Side, is equipped to test for a full range of biological weapons, according to the Daily News. The laboratory underwent a $16 million upgrade over the course of the last two years, Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden said at yesterday’s announcement. “New York City is better prepared than ever and better able to respond rapidly,” Frieden said. “When anthrax hit (in 2001), we had literally thousands of specimens that needed to come in very rapidly to a very small laboratory space. And that didn’t work well,” Frieden added. “Where we used to have just a small handful of scientists doing testing, (today) we could have more than 100 scientists working in safe space, reliably trained on state-of-the-art equipment,” Frieden said (Michael Saul, New York Daily News, July 14). Back to top       Scientists Urge Development of Antiviral Drugs to Slow Spread of Smallpox in Case of Attack A panel of scientists has called for collaboration between the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, universities and government agencies to develop new smallpox drugs, according to a report released Monday by the National Academies (see GSN, July 1). Given the urgent need for new drugs to prevent the spread of smallpox were it to be used as a bioterrorism agent, the group’s top recommendation was the engagement of biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies in the effort, said Stephen Harrison of Harvard Medical School, the lead author of the report. With the estimated price tag for developing two or three antiviral drugs at $1.5 billion to $2.5 billion, the government would have to come up with new ways of interacting with these companies, according to Harrison. The panel discussed the possibility of the government offering contracts for development of the drugs and then guaranteeing a market for them. “The Department of Defense has a lot of experience with commissioning such products and acting as the sole market for them,” Harrison said in a prepared release. “But the federal health agencies do not, so we recognized that such arrangements would require significant changes in how they interact with industry,” he added (National Academies release, July 12). Back to top

CDC Distributes Chemical Weapons Antidotes The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has begun a state-by-state distribution of packages of antidotes for use in the event of a chemical weapons attack, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, July 6). The packages, which the CDC began shipping four months ago, contain antidotes to various chemical agents, as well as means of delivery for use at the scene of an attack and in a hospital, AP reported. While the CDC refused to say how many or which states have received the packages so far, kits were sent to both Boston and New York ahead of schedule due to this year’s presidential election political conventions. The CDC hopes to distribute the packages to all 50 states within two years, AP reported (Lauran Neergaard, Associated Press/Houston Chronicle, July 13). Back to top       Czech Senate Votes to Send Specialists to Olympics The Czech Senate voted 62-0 yesterday to send a team of 100 chemical weapons specialists to the Olympic Games this summer, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, June 22). The lower legislative chamber of the Czech Republic approved the move last month, AP reported. NATO requested the Czech specialists be deployed to the Aug. 13-29 games in Athens as part of a force that would respond to any use of weapons of mass destruction (Associated Press/Yahoo!News, July 13). Back to top

Boeing Sees No Major Hurdles for Deploying Defenses “No showstoppers” are expected ahead of the potential Sept. 30 deployment date for the U.S. Ground-based Midcourse Defense, a Boeing official said yesterday (see GSN, July 13). “From a technology standpoint, we see no showstoppers,” Marty Coyne, senior manager, staff operations with the system’s prime contractor, said in an interview with Defense Daily. “We see no showstoppers with deploying the capability,” he added The Fort Greely, Alaska, missile defense base has seen its infrastructure, missile field and silos prepared, Coyne said, and Boeing was “completing the integration and testing and deployment of the interceptors” (Ann Roosevelt, Defense Daily, July 14).   Back to top

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