International officials are encouraging nations to follow the example of the Curie Institute in Paris (above) by developing treatment facilities for radiation victims (AFP photo/Joel Saget). Amid New “Dirty-Bomb” Fears, Ad Hoc Response System Worries International Planners By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — New fears of “dirty bombs” have fueled international officials’ hopes of addressing long-standing, basic inadequacies in the global system for responding to radiation incidents...Full Story

Bush System Could Go On Alert Without Intercept Test By David Ruppe Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The long-range missile defense system President George W. Bush has ordered deployed this year could begin operations using a new interceptor rocket that has not been flight-intercept tested with the system, according to the Missile Defense Agency’s latest testing and deployment timeline (see GSN, Feb. 3)...Full Story

Poland Announces Iraqi Chemical Weapons Find The Polish military said today that artillery shells discovered in Iraq by Polish troops late last month contained deadly chemical weapons agents (see GSN, June 25)...Full Story

	Friday, July 2, 2004

Amid New “Dirty-Bomb” Fears, Ad Hoc Response System Worries International Planners By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — New fears of “dirty bombs” have fueled international officials’ hopes of addressing long-standing, basic inadequacies in the global system for responding to radiation incidents. Increased study of specific radiological-attack scenarios in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, has not improved fundamental preparedness shortcomings, and glaring weaknesses remain in key areas, according to officials Global Security Newswire interviewed recently in Vienna and Washington. Of particular concern is the lack of international capacity to treat victims of a large incident. Officials said an attack or accident that caused more than a few dozen radiation injuries could quickly overwhelm existing capabilities. Such long-standing gaps are increasingly seen as urgent needs amid a general view that radiological terrorism will almost inevitably occur in the years ahead (see GSN, June 23). “The probability has gone up, and that’s the real issue for us,” the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Malcolm Crick said in a telephone interview this week. Speaking from Vienna, where he leads emergency preparedness work in the IAEA Nuclear Safety and Security Department’s Transport and Waste Safety Division, Crick said the world needs “a better tool kit” for radiation events. Seeking better tools, the agency’s Board of Governors last month approved a plan of action for improving radiological preparedness and response, mainly by doing more to help needy countries get up to speed (see GSN, June 10). The plan seeks improvements in areas ranging from communications equipment to broad strategy concerns. It envisions the possibility of new extra-budgetary payments from IAEA members to pay for the effort. “They could manage with the old tool kit, but not so well,” Crick said of response planners. France Struggles to Bear Brunt of Foreign Victims In recent years, a Paris cancer center has aided the U.N. agency by occasionally taking in patients injured in radiological incidents around the world. Among those treated at the Curie Institute have been the victims of a 2001 radiation therapy-machine malfunction in Poland, as well as an Iranian worker severely injured in 1996 after pocketing a shiny piece of iridium, unaware that it was radioactive. The effort has garnered praise for French humanitarianism from IAEA officials, who point to Paris as the leader in providing costly patient treatment, such as complicated repairs of skin and other tissue, following radiation accidents. “In this field,” Transport and Waste Safety Division Director Abel Gonzalez said in an interview last month in Vienna, “there have been countries that have been very generous and others that have been very stingy.” A top doctor at the French institute, however, said the facility accepts the patients only with difficulty. The institute has few beds to spare and is detracting from its primary mission when it uses its resources to treat the patients, said Jean-Marc Cosset, the Curie liaison to the World Health Organization’s radiological emergency-response network. “We are typically using System D,” Cosset said, using a French colloquialism for an improvised approach to a problem. Recently, Cosset sought approval from Curie administrators to bring in a radiation victim from Peru. “They told me, ‘Listen, Jean-Marc, we like you, but stop bringing us dying people,’” he recalled in a telephone interview this week from Paris. The WHO program, known as the Radiation Emergency Preparedness and Assistance Network, links 27 institutes around the world in a bid to provide treatment to people overexposed to radiation in emergencies ― usually industrial or medical accidents, but potentially deliberate attacks. In recent practice, the Curie Institute has taken the lead, in an ad hoc arrangement that both Cosset and Crick said would not suffice in a large incident. A dirty-bomb attack in central Baghdad, for example, could “very, very quickly surpass the capacities” of participating institutions, Cosset said. IAEA officials stressed the particular need for treatment in the international system. They said facilities in many countries could handle the immediate effects of an attack but not necessarily the medium- and long-term treatment needs that would follow. “What you need immediately is an ability to manage contamination. Most hospitals … have barrier control for dealing with any type of agent or contaminant that somebody might be carrying,” Crick said. Although the United States has been especially vocal in drawing world attention to the potential for radiological attacks, the country by many accounts has little to offer in treatment of radiation victims, illustrating the conflicting priorities that have marked efforts to improve the global system. U.S. interest in global response spiked after 9/11, according to international officials ― “The pendulum went from zero to infinity,” Gonzalez said ― but nothing indicates France will lose its standing as the leader in caring for radiation-injured patients. “In the United States,” Cosset said, “there is no equivalent” to the Curie Institute. The Radiation Emergency Assistance Center/Training Site in Oak Ridge, Tenn., is the U.S. “collaborating center” in the WHO network. In a description of its activities posted on its Web site, the center says it “serves as a focal point for advice and possible medical care in cases of human radiation exposure.” The description includes references to the center’s diagnostic and consultative contributions following accidents in several Western Hemisphere countries, but makes no mention of capacity or plans to treat patients from an incident abroad. Crick said an IAEA-WHO update of the global network is planned but that for the moment, response to a large event would remain ad hoc. “I don’t think the capacity is there in any way other than several extremely good places that have a lot of depth. There’s not a lot of breadth that’s openly available,” Crick said. “We have basic arrangements. … It’s just we want to extend them and strengthen them,” he added. Dirty-Bomb, Accident Responses Differ Little Patient treatment is just one area where international officials are seeking improvements. The IAEA plan approved last month envisions a wide array of actions grouped in sections on assistance, communications and sustainability. Implementing the two international treaties that govern radiation-incident response, the Convention on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident and the Convention on Assistance in the case of a Nuclear Accident or Radiological Emergency, is “very hard,” Gonzalez said. Although countries have gradually reached a “common interpretation” of the texts, he said, problem areas ― reporting requirements in incidents with effects that cross borders, for example ― remain. The action plan, according to Gonzalez, was created as a realistic approach to seeking the necessary changes. “The lawyers will tell you that they will never reopen the conventions to clarify,” he said. The plan’s authors cite post-9/11 concern about radiological attacks as one of several factors that “highlight” the need for improvements in the response system. Few of the measures being sought by international officials, however, are specific to terrorism. Instead, new attack fears are being harnessed in a bid to spur action on deficiencies that could pose problems in any radiological incident. In an attack, said Crick, “Basically, you’re drawing on the normal arrangements that you need to have in place anyway.” Gonzalez said the International Atomic Energy Agency “was aware and concerned of this problem” of radiological terrorism “much before Sept. 11” but that “there are other problems which, believe it or not, have higher priority.” One such high-priority problem, he said, is the need to protect patients against radiation accidents. Although a heightened awareness of terrorism following Sept. 11, 2001, has unmistakably raised the profile of radiation-incident response, some observers have expressed concern that too much focus on dirty bombs could drain resources that might otherwise be used to address basic shortcomings in the system. In an e-mail yesterday to GSN, an official in the U.S. Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration dismissed such fears, endorsing an all-hazards approach. “We help build emergency-management systems that can address nuclear emergencies and/or lesser accidents regardless of initiating events. We work with international partners to develop policies, procedures, training and crisis centers that can channel communications and resources whether responders are facing a dirty bomb or reactor accident,” the official said. Post-9/11 priorities have nonetheless led to a flurry of activity intended specifically to address radiological-attack scenarios. In one recent example of the trend, the International Commission on Radiological Protection has drafted a report on response to dirty-bomb attacks, Protecting People Against Radiation Exposure in the Aftermath of a Radiological Attack, and plans to publish it later this year. Like Crick, the report’s authors stress that attack planning differs little from preparations for radiological accidents. They identify several ways, however, in which an attack could pose unusual problems. Since an attack could take place anywhere, according to the draft, local authorities may not be equipped to respond. The authors add that the impact of an attack could be “much more significant” than that of an accident and that in any case, “Public perception will probably be that the malevolent act poses a greater risk.” Coordinating radiation response with police work, the draft indicates, could pose another novel problem. International officials appear unconvinced, however, of the wisdom of devoting many resources to planning specifically for attacks. “There’s far too much money being put into precise modeling. … At the end of the day, you have to deal with it as it appears on the day,” Crick said. Attack planning, though, has become “fashionable,” according to Cosset. “There is a ‘we-should-talk-about-it’ aspect of this,” said the doctor. Cosset is a member of the commission but opposed its report for a different reason: He was concerned such a document could be put to nefarious uses. “It’s not worth it to give the means to terrorists,” he said. Cosset’s fears reflect general agreement among the officials interviewed that, however one views the various approaches to improving the response system, an attack is more likely than not to occur at some point. “It’s hard to rule it out now, whereas we wouldn’t even have thought about it before 9/11, other than as a really hypothetical thing,” Crick said. “If someone’s prepared to kill themselves and they really don’t care,” he said, “you have to consider different scenarios that you would have done before.” Back to top

International Intelligence Agencies Were Wrong on Prewar Iraq’s WMD Efforts, U.S. Panel Chairman Says A U.S. Senate inquiry into U.S. intelligence on prewar Iraq has determined that a “worldwide intelligence failure” led to the widespread belief that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, investigating committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) said yesterday (see GSN, July 1). The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report, set to be released by the middle of next week, concludes that international intelligence agencies were involved in an “assumption train” that prewar Iraq possessed banned weapons. After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Roberts said, intelligence agencies were more likely to come to conclusions based on incomplete information due to concerns over another possible attack. “These conclusions literally beg for changes in the intelligence community,” Roberts said. “What we had was a worldwide intelligence failure,” he added (John Hanna, Associated Press/WCCO.com, July 1). Hussein Offers Little Meanwhile, senior officials involved in the detention of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein have said that he provided little useful information on prewar Iraq’s alleged WMD efforts during his seven-month captivity, according to the New York Times. Hussein was interrogated mainly by one intelligence officer in Arabic, the officials said. While no physically coercive methods were used against Hussein, some psychological tactics, such as varying the length of time of questioning, were used, they said. Hussein indicated during his interrogation that he hoped ambiguity over prewar Iraq’s WMD capabilities “would keep the neighbors at bay, while the U.S. would be hung up in interminable debate at the U.N.,” one official said (Lewis/Johnston, New York Times, July 2). The planned trial of Hussein in Iraq for war crimes and crimes against humanity is expected to push aside the debate in the United States over whether prewar Iraq actually possessed weapons of mass destruction, a senior Bush administration official said (see GSN, July 1). “There are still some who argue that it was not the right thing to overthrow him,” the official said. “Put aside the WMD, and go look at the mass graves,” he added (Bill Sammon, Washington Times, July 2). Back to top       Syria, EU Still Haggle Over Trade Pact Language calling on Syria to renounce weapons of mass destruction continues to be a sticking point in the nation’s negotiations for a trade pact with the European Union, EU representative to Syria Franz Hesske said yesterday (see GSN, May 27). “The association agreement is now before the authorities of the Syrian government. The process is not finished.  We hope to iron out the difficulties in not a distant future,” Hesske said. Only two Mediterranean nations, Syria and Libya, do not have association agreements with the EU, Agence France-Presse reported. Damascus is “working with the EU to find a formula which preserves the interests of Syria,” said Syrian official Abdullah Dardari, referring to Syria’s call for the creation of a WMD-free zone in the entire Middle East (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, July 1). Back to top       Libyan, Japanese Officials Discuss Nonproliferation Libya and Japan held a bilateral meeting Wednesday to discuss international nonproliferation issues and Libya’s efforts to dismantle its WMD program, according to the Kyodo News Service (see GSN, June 17). During the meeting, Libyan Foreign Ministry official Guima Ferjani explained to Japanese officials the steps Libya has taken to fulfill a pledge made late last year to renounce weapons of mass destruction and promised to continue to urge North Korea to follow suit, according to Kyodo News Service.  Ferjani refused to comment yesterday, though, on allegations made by the International Atomic Energy Agency that Libya had obtained uranium enrichment centrifuge components from a Japanese company (see GSN, March 12; Kyodo News Service/BBC Monitoring, July 1). Back to top       New WMD Agent Tracking System to be Implemented The National Atmospheric Release Advisory Center is developing the ability to track and predict the movement of WMD releases, according to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The laboratory’s center can model the movement of nuclear, radiological, chemical and biological agents in the atmosphere, and estimate their impact on the surrounding population, the laboratory said (see GSN, April 23). “NARAC is a widely used tool for pre-event emergency planning,” Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory project leader Ashok Gadgil said in a prepared statement, “but planners currently only have information about outdoor concentrations. This new capability will give planners and emergency commanders access to accurate, real-time estimates of indoor and outdoor toxics concentrations, which provide a basis for informed evacuation decisions.” Developed partly in response to the 2001 anthrax attacks, the enhanced capability is the result of a two-year collaboration between NARAC, based at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and Gadgil’s team from the Environmental Energy Technologies Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The effort, which also involves Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico and the University of California at Berkeley, is geared toward minimizing casualties in buildings and transportation facilities in the event of a chemical or biological release (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory release, July 1). Back to top

Powell Meets North Korean Foreign Minister; Rice to Visit South Korea Next Week Secretary of State Colin Powell and North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun met this morning in Indonesia, the Washington Post reported (see GSN, June 30). The State Department announced after the 20-minute meeting that Powell “emphasized the administration’s proposals to move forward on dismantlement of North Korea’s nuclear programs” and that “there was an opportunity for concrete progress.” The “discussion was useful to help clarify each side’s proposals,” agency spokesman Richard Boucher added. North Korea also issued a statement following the two officials’ meeting during the regional forum of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, according to the Post. “If the United States is of the position to improve the bilateral relations, (North Korea) also will not regard the U.S. as a permanent enemy,” said the statement, attributed to Paek. Yesterday, Powell emphasized that the United States would only provide aid to North Korea once it demonstrates “irreversible steps” leading to dismantlement of its nuclear programs. “We have to see deeds before we are prepared to put something on the table,” he said (Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, July 2). Meanwhile, North Korea said yesterday that a freeze on plutonium it had proposed only covers materials reprocessed after Jan. 10, 2003, when it announced its withdrawal from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Reuters reported. Pyongyang’s ambassador to China, Choe Jin Su, clarified the proposal, offered during the six-party talks in Beijing last week, in an interview yesterday with Kyodo News (Reuters, July 1). Elsewhere, U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice is preparing to visit South Korea next week, the office of President Roh Moo-hyun announced today, according to Agence France-Presse. Rice is expected to arrive in Seoul on July 9 as U.S. President George W. Bush’s special envoy to discuss North Korea’s nuclear programs, among other issues, with Roh (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, July 2). Back to top

Poland Announces Iraqi Chemical Weapons Find The Polish military said today that artillery shells discovered in Iraq by Polish troops late last month contained deadly chemical weapons agents (see GSN, June 25). In late June, Polish troops discovered 17 Grad rockets and two mortar shells filled with chemicals, according to Reuters.  “The results of ... analysis confirmed that chemical agent GB-GF, cyclosarin, was found in the shells,” the Polish-led unit of the coalition force in Iraq said in a statement on Friday. “Beyond doubt these are shells from the 1980-1988 period, of the type used against Kurds and during the Iraq-Iran war,” the unit added. U.S. officials said yesterday that further tests were being conducted on the shells discovered by Polish troops (Reuters, July 2). U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in an interview released yesterday that Polish Defense Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski told him about the discovery when they met earlier this week during a NATO summit in Turkey. “Now these are weapons that we always knew Saddam Hussein had that he had not declared, and they have tested them,” Rumsfeld said. A Defense Department spokesman said the discovered munitions are apparently the same weapons that chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq Charles Duelfer discussed during a June 24 television interview. Duelfer told Fox News that up to 12 shells had been found, but a U.S. official said the number might have increased since then (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, July 1). Back to top       Top Russian Chemical Weapons Disposal Official Target of Purported Attempt to Seek U.S. Investigation By Mike Nartker Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — A top Russian chemical weapons disarmament official this week was the target of a fraudulent effort to spark a U.S. investigation into whether he mishandled international aid money provided to Russia in the late 1990s (see GSN, Nov. 13, 2003). Early this week, a letter purportedly from five U.S. lawmakers sent to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell appeared in the Russian daily newspaper Novaya Gazeta and was subsequently the topic of a number of Russian media reports. The letter, which was dated June 4 and written on what appeared to be U.S. congressional letterhead, calls on Powell to investigate whether Sergei Kiriyenko misused funds provided to Russia by the International Monetary Fund during the country’s 1998 economic crisis. The letter said Kiriyenko purchased property in the United States in an attempt to gain U.S. permanent residency status.  Kiriyenko is president of the Russian state committee for chemical disarmament and a former prime minister. “Mr. Secretary, these allegations, if true, are of a concern to us. Other than the obvious question of why a former prime minister of Russia would be interested in establishing himself here in the United Sates, we are also concerned about the origin of any such funds utilized by Mr. Kiriyenko,” says the letter, a copy of which was provided to Global Security Newswire by the office of U.S. Representative Charles Norwood (R-Ga.). In addition to Norwood, the letter also carries the names and purported signatures of Representatives Henry Bonilla (R-Texas), Dan Burton (R-Ind.), Phil Crane (R-Ill.) and Mike Pence (R-Ind.). Kiriyenko was “very upset” when he learned of the letter, an official in the U.S. Embassy in Moscow said yesterday. The letter has been determined to be fraudulent, according to the State Department and congressional staff members. Crane spokeswoman Tami Stough said that her office learned of the letter from Russian journalists who called for comment. Stough said she initially had no reason to doubt that the letter was authentic, but learned in discussions with other Crane staffers that no one was familiar with the document. “In short order,” Stough said, the offices of the five lawmakers who purportedly signed the letter contacted each other and determined that none of the five congressmen had actually been involved in writing the missive. On Monday, the five congressmen released a collective statement denying any involvement in the letter. “We have neither collectively nor individually signed any letter to Secretary of State Powell regarding former Prime Minister Kiriyenko and his citizenship status. The letter dated ‘June 4, 2004’ concerning this matter carries our names with forged signatures and absolutely no approval whatsoever,” they said. In addition, a U.S. State Department official said yesterday that the agency never received the forged letter. The official also dismissed the allegations included in the fraudulent document against Kiriyenko, saying that IMF reports indicate Russia is paying back all loans provided both before and after the 1998 economic crisis, in some cases “ahead of schedule.” The official refused to comment, though, on whether Kiriyenko was indeed seeking permanent residency status in the United States, saying that the State Department did not comment on individual visa applications. The Russian Embassy in Washington did not return calls for comment on the incident. Representatives of some of the five lawmakers caught up in the letter incident said yesterday that they did not know why their bosses had been chosen to be the purported signatories. “We’re just as confused as everyone else about it,” said Norwood spokesman Duke Hipp.  Congressional staffers said they did not know who might have been behind the fraud, or that person’s motivation. Stough said, though, that whoever prepared the fraudulent letter appeared to have attempted to emulate the five lawmakers’ signatures. The signatures on the forged letters were “something close” to the real thing, she said. Both the State Department and the U.S. House of Representatives General Counsel’s Office are now investigating the forgery. Back to top       Colorado Public Health Department Issues Construction Permit for Chemical Destruction Plant Initial construction can begin on a chemical agent destruction pilot plant at the Pueblo Chemical Depot after a permit was issued by the Colorado Public Health and Environment Department, the Pueblo Chieftain reported today (see GSN, May 27). The U.S. Army and its contractor, Bechtel National Inc., are still designing the plant, to be located 15 miles east of Pueblo. The plant is being designed to robotically disassemble missiles filled with mustard agent and to process the poison with hot water and caustic solutions, such as sodium hydroxide. The liquid byproduct then would be neutralized using biological treatment processes, according to the Chieftain. The Phase I permit authorizes preliminary work, including construction of underground utilities, road paving and building support facilities. No additional construction and no hazardous waste management activities are allowed under the permit. Approximately 2,600 tons of mustard agent has been stored at the depot since the late 1950s, according to the Chieftain (Pueblo Chieftain, July 2). Back to top

U.S. Warns of South Asian Arms Race Following Reports of Planned Pakistani Missile Test By Mike Nartker Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The United States warned rivals India and Pakistan yesterday against entering into an “arms race” following reported comments by Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf that his country plans to soon conduct an “important” missile test (see GSN, July 1). “On the issue of missile tests, we clearly remain deeply concerned about the dangers that continue to be posed by both nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles in South Asia. We continue to urge Pakistan and India to take steps to prevent an arms race and to guard against possible nuclear use,” U.S. State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said yesterday. Citing Pakistani media sources, Agence France-Presse yesterday quoted Musharraf as saying earlier this week that Pakistan plans to conduct an “extremely important substantive test” of a missile within the next two months. While Musharraf did not provide any details, according to AFP, some Pakistani newspapers indicated that the test would probably involve a long-range ballistic missile. Some experts have also speculated that the test may involve a solid-fueled missile. A defense official in the Pakistani Embassy in Washington said today that the embassy has received no official information on the planned test, adding that he learned of Musharraf’s comments by television. Pakistan might be planning to use the test to demonstrate that it has achieved a new technological breakthrough, said Charles Pena, director of Defense Policy Studies at the CATO Institute in Washington. Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association in Washington, said today that if Pakistan’s missile test demonstrated a more-advanced system, it could pressure the new Indian government to accelerate its own ballistic missile development efforts. The Indian Embassy in Washington refused to comment on the issue today. Pakistan since late May has conducted two successful tests of its Hatf 5 nuclear-capable missile, which has a range of 1,500 kilometers. Media reports have also indicated that Pakistan would test its long-range Ghauri 3 nuclear-capable missile, which has a range of 3,000 kilometers, but no such test has yet occurred. Musharraf’s reported comments have not resulted in a “marked change” in the U.S. level of concern regarding ballistic missiles in the South Asia, Ereli said. “It is an issue that we continue to raise with both countries,” he added. The United States needs to be “more attentive” to Indian and Pakistani missile tests, which demonstrate that the two countries are improving their ability to use nuclear weapons, Kimball said, adding that the Bush administration needed to do more than “turn the other cheek” when it comes to South Asian missile tests. While it may be desirable to prevent an arms race in South Asia, Pena said, the United States needs to prioritize its nonproliferation efforts. “In the grand scheme of things,” he said, developments in Iran and North Korea pose more of a direct threat to the United States than do ballistic missiles in Pakistan and India. Pakistan has recently worked with India to reduce the risk that missile tests may inadvertently lead to military conflict. During talks held earlier this week in New Delhi, the two countries agreed to develop a formal system of advance notification for missile tests. Such a formal system would increase the confidence the two countries place in the information they receive as opposed to the informal structure used in the past, experts said (see GSN, June 28). Ereli yesterday praised the results of India and Pakistan’s recent talks, which the two countries held as part of a peace dialogue announced early this year. “We are encouraged that India and Pakistan have just agreed to work toward a number of measures to reduce risks in the region, including a more advanced agreement on notification of missile tests,” he said. Experts differed over whether Pakistan’s reported missile test plans clashed with the efforts between Islamabad and New Delhi to reduce tensions and resolve disputes. Kimball said that Musharraf’s comments appeared to be “contradictory” to the spirit of the recent Indian-Pakistani talks.  Pena argued, though, that Musharraf’s comments were more typical of the cyclical nature of the relations between India and Pakistan. As an example, he cited the two countries’ long-standing dispute over the region of Kashmir, which has involved cycles of violence, followed by heated rhetoric by both sides and then a cooling of tensions. Back to top       North Korean Ballistic Missiles Have “Significantly Improved,” Says Head of U.S. Missile Defense North Korea has “significantly” strengthened its ballistic missile program over the last six months in efforts to develop a missile arsenal of various ranges, the head of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency said this week (see GSN, June 10). Pyongyang has adhered to a 1999 moratorium on flight testing its long-range missiles, according to Bloomberg (see GSN, June 28). However, “they haven’t stopped development,” said Air Force Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish. North Korean missile development has “progressed significantly over the last six months,” Kadish said. “Events have occurred that show us that they are working toward having a ballistic missile capability of all ranges across a broad front,” he added, saying the details were classified. Some experts say it’s impossible to be certain of these developments without access to intelligence. “There are some indications that North Korea has continued development work on longer-range ballistic missiles over the past year, but it is not clear if all or any of these missiles are real or if the North Koreans are playing games with us,” said Joseph Cirincione, director for nonproliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (Tony Capaccio, Bloomberg, July 1). Back to top

Bush System Could Go On Alert Without Intercept Test By David Ruppe Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The long-range missile defense system President George W. Bush has ordered deployed this year could begin operations using a new interceptor rocket that has not been flight-intercept tested with the system, according to the Missile Defense Agency’s latest testing and deployment timeline (see GSN, Feb. 3). The military could soon decide to activate the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, after the first long-range interceptor using the booster is scheduled to go into the ground at Fort Greely, Alaska, and to have a kill vehicle mated to it, in mid-to-late July, according to MDA spokesman Richard Lehner. Reflecting program delays, however, the first flight-intercept test of the system using the booster is not scheduled until late September or early October, Lehner said. The three-stage booster made by Boeing subcontractor Orbital Sciences has been used for years for commercial space launches, but the agency has not used it yet as part of the missile defense system to try to intercept a mock warhead. It has instead used a slower two-stage booster. The agency this year pushed back a scheduled nonintercept flight test (IFT-13c) using the booster first, from March to June, and then from June until late July or early August, according to Lehner. He attributed that delay to a problem with the wiring on the “kill vehicle” affixed on top of the rocket, and noted also a suspected anomaly with a second-stage propellant igniter. Those delays, he said, have pushed back until around late September or early October the first planned intercept test using the Orbital booster (IFT-14), which should occur at the soonest 60 days after IFT-13c so its results can be fully analyzed. The Missile Defense Agency is aiming to have five of the interceptors placed at Fort Greely by Sept. 30, Lehner said, which is also potentially before the flight-intercept test has taken place. Driving the Decision Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish, Missile Defense Agency chief, earlier this year said that the system could be put on alert soon after the first booster is put in the ground at Fort Greely. Lehner said, though, that while that is “technically possible,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the U.S. Northern and Strategic Commands, “among others,” would make that decision and not his agency. “It would be made, at a time of their choosing, based upon their assessment of the military utility of placing the GMD element on alert,” he said. In response to a question, Lehner said he was not aware of any threat concern or other reason driving the activation schedule.  Bloomberg.com, however, quoted Kadish yesterday as saying that North Korea has “significantly” improved the capability of its long-range, offensive ballistic missiles (see related GSN story, today). Pentagon officials have previously signaled that the system is intended to address a potential North Korean ICBM capability. Kadish might have been referring to reports last year that “North Korea may have gotten a Russian submarine-launched missile, a ‘jazzed up Scud,’” said David Wright, an analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists (see GSN, Sept. 12). He questioned, though, whether North Korea would have the capability to reverse engineer and manufacture a better engine for its missiles along those Russian designs, and by doing so pose a credible ICBM threat. Some critics have charged that the deployment timeline is being politically driven, to allow Bush to claim prior to the Nov. 2 election he has made the United States safer with a long-range ballistic missile defense.  As a candidate in 2000, Bush criticized then-President Bill Clinton for the “unfinished business” of having not deployed a national missile defense system. Basing his decision on a Pentagon “Deployment Readiness Review,” Clinton that year deferred a plan to begin deployment after determining the system had not yet proven technically ready. Bush in December 2002 directed the Pentagon to “proceed with plans to deploy a set of initial missile defense capabilities beginning in 2004.” Kadish earlier this year said the timeline for fielding the GMD system was not driven by politics (see GSN, March 26). Question of Added Challenge Critics said that regardless of whether the system is intercept-tested with the booster, the current state of testing is unrealistic because the system is not yet developed to the point that it can undergo operationally realistic testing (see GSN, May 14). Employing the faster booster now, however, should provide an added challenge to the effectiveness of the system, according to Wright. Moving from a two-stage booster to a three-stage booster will “close to double” the closing speed of the interceptor and its target, and cut in half the homing time, he said. “It means the kill vehicle has to maneuver and respond much more quickly to do the intercept,” he said. Missile Defense Agency Spokesman Lehner said that the fact that the new booster is faster should not pose any technical challenges to the overall effectiveness of the system. Though it may be new to the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, Lehner said the booster itself is “not really a new booster, Orbital has been using the design for years for commercial launches so they have a long, documented performance history.” “Remember, the role of the booster is to get the [kill vehicle] to a point in space, and this booster is perfectly capable for that role,” he said.     Back to top

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