The Center for American Progress, a frequent critic of the Bush administration, issued a report card yesterday assessing the administration’s national security policies. Debate Rages over Bush Nonproliferation Policies By David Ruppe Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — A public debate over the Bush administration’s particular approach to stopping weapons of mass destruction proliferation raged this week, with charges by a liberal group yesterday that White House policies have failed and a senior government official recently asserting progress...Full Story

Russia Boosts Security at Nuclear Weapons Sites Extra troops were sent to guard Russian nuclear facilities across the country last week after militants seized a school in the southern town of Beslan and a suicide bomber killed 10 people in Moscow, Reuters reported (see GSN, May 24)...Full Story

Iranian Lawmaker Links Ratification of Additional Protocol to Establishing Nuclear Fuel Cycle An Iranian parliament leader announced yesterday that his country would not ratify the Additional Protocol to its international nuclear safeguards agreement until it is allowed to develop a complete nuclear fuel cycle, the Tehran Times reported (see GSN, July 7)...Full Story

	Friday, September 10, 2004

Debate Rages over Bush Nonproliferation Policies By David Ruppe Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — A public debate over the Bush administration’s particular approach to stopping weapons of mass destruction proliferation raged this week, with charges by a liberal group yesterday that White House policies have failed and a senior government official recently asserting progress. In a report titled, Failing Grades; America’s Security Three Years After 9/11, the Center for American Progress yesterday gave the administration an “F” grade for stopping the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and materials, calling its policies “weak and contradictory.” The liberal center’s report says less weapon-grade nuclear material was secured in the two years following Sept. 11, 2001, than during the previous two years.  The report calls administration support for U.S. programs to secure WMD materials in the former Soviet Union “marginal,” and says “internal divisions” within the administration have “paralyzed” White House efforts to deal with suspected North Korean and Iranian nuclear proliferation. “Three years later, we have a nuclear-armed North Korea that has rejected international nonproliferation regimes; an aggressive Iran well on the way to developing nuclear fuel cycle capability; and a futile, costly effort to find [former Iraqi president] Saddam Hussein’s nonexistent weapons of mass destruction that has eroded our global credibility,” the report states. It charges the war in Iraq has distracted the government “from more real WMD threats,” such as North Korean and Iranian proliferation, and states that being labeled part of the “Axis of Evil” by Bush in 2002 strengthened those countries’ resolve to develop nuclear weapons. “I think that that certainly accelerated the efforts on the part of those countries to develop their nuclear weapons because the president himself said we’ve got to get Saddam before he develops a nuclear weapon,” former Reagan defense official Lawrence Korb, a report contributor, said yesterday.  “The message is pretty clear to others that [nuclear proliferation] is the way to avoid the United States coming after you and [the war] strengthened those within those countries to move in that direction.” Some Successes Described In a commentary published Monday in the Financial Times, U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton argued that the administration has taken a more ad-hoc approach toward stopping proliferation that has “produced real results” while focusing less on negotiating treaties. He listed as examples: passage of a U.N. Security Council resolution calling on member states to criminalize WMD proliferation, enact export controls and secure sensitive materials within their borders; commitments by G-8 countries and others to raise up to $20 billion over 10 years to secure WMD materials worldwide; and the multilateral Proliferation Security Initiative to interdict WMD transfers. Examples of success include the “unraveling” of a Pakistani-connected nuclear smuggling network and persuading Libya to renounce its WMD plans and capabilities, both of which Bolton said were aided by the interception of a vessel containing nuclear components. President George W. Bush on the campaign trail repeatedly has also portrayed the war in Iraq as a counterproliferation success. “We didn’t find the stockpiles we thought we would find, but Saddam Hussein had the capability of making weapons. He could have passed that capability on to the enemy, and that’s a risk we could not afford to take after September the 11th,” he said Tuesday in a speech in Missouri. Commitment to Arms Control Questioned The Center for American Progress report concedes Libya’s renunciation was “an important achievement,” and attributes the success in part to the interdiction mentioned by Bolton. The report, however, maintains that the Libyan leader Col. Muammar Qadhafi’s decision was the product in part of several years of sustained diplomatic negotiation rather than the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq as some administration officials have suggested. It gives the White House even less credit regarding Pakistan, saying the administration has “failed to exert sufficient pressure” on Pakistan to prove it shut down a nuclear weapons technology black market and to compel a full accounting of other countries’ involvement. The report also criticizes the administration’s policies regarding numerous arms control agreements. Administration exploration of new nuclear weapons capabilities, pursuit of missile defense at the expense of the Antiballistic Missile Treaty, and unwillingness to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, “have undermined our leadership on nonproliferation and encouraged other nations to abandon nuclear arms control regimes,” the report says. It faults the administration also for opposing an inspections protocol to the Biological Weapons Convention, for making “little progress” in getting Russia to account for its chemical and biological weapons stores, for not having an agreement on dismantling any U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons, and for “failure to pursue [a] verifiable Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty” (see GSN, July 30). The administration this year announced a plan to reduce the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile by nearly half (see GSN, June 4). New Approach Described Bolton in his article suggested the administration’s approach relies less on “cumbersome treaty-based bureaucracies” and more on using military capabilities, or counterproliferation, including ad-hoc “cooperative action” against proliferators. “The Bush administration is reinventing the nonproliferation regime it inherited, crafting policies to fill gaping holes, reinforcing earlier patchwork fixes, assembling allies, creating precedents and changing perceived realities and stilted legal thinking,” he wrote. The approach includes “making more robust use of existing authorities, including sanctions, interdiction and credible export controls.  Most importantly, we have taken significant steps to improve coordination between sovereign states to act against proliferators,” Bolton wrote. Bolton appeared to deride the traditional, arms-control approach to nonproliferation as ineffective. “This administration is working to make up for decades of stillborn plans, wishful thinking and irresponsible passivity.  We’re already late, but we are no longer bystanders wringing our hands and hoping that somehow we will find shelter from gathering threats,” he wrote. “We are no longer lost in endless international negotiations whose point seems to be negotiation rather than decision,” he said, and in apparent justification of the decision to invade Iraq without U. N. Security Council approval, added, we are “no longer waiting beneath the empty protection of a reluctant international body while seeking grudging permission to take measures to protect ourselves.” “We are just at the beginning, but it is an extraordinary beginning,” he wrote. Back to top

Russia Boosts Security at Nuclear Weapons Sites Extra troops were sent to guard Russian nuclear facilities across the country last week after militants seized a school in the southern town of Beslan and a suicide bomber killed 10 people in Moscow, Reuters reported (see GSN, May 24). “After the latest terrorist attacks security services decided to send more interior ministry troops to all nuclear sites across the country,” a Russian Atomic Energy Agency spokesman said, declining to say how many troops were sent. He said the government extended the order immediately after militants seized a school near the Chechnya region, igniting a three-day siege that ended with the deaths of more than 300 people (Reuters/Yahoo!News, Sept. 1). Former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn and Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), original authors of the U.S. efforts to secure Russian nuclear warheads and dismantle nuclear delivery systems, proposed further action. Russia’s Duma, according to Lugar, has in recent months delayed ratification of an agreement to facilitate new funding by the world’s industrialized nations to secure Russian weapons of mass destruction. “Russia’s Duma and the Russian hierarchy felt this (effort to secure vulnerable arsenals) was interesting but not very essential,” Lugar said.  “Perhaps now they should ... act with urgency.” Nunn urged greater transparency regarding protection of small nuclear weapons, which he described as “weapons that one man can carry that can wipe out a good part of a major city.” “Both [the United States and Russia] should have transparency to assure that small weapons that can be transported easily are secured,” he said. Nunn also proposed that the United States help to consolidate Russia’s nuclear stockpile, which is widely dispersed across the country in a Cold War configuration designed to increase survivability of some warheads in case of attack. “We should offer to help Russia consolidate their nuclear weapons in a few areas,” Nunn said.  “And then guard the heck out of them” (Martin Schram, Scripps Howard/Cincinnati Post, Sept. 9). [EDITOR’S NOTE: Sam Nunn is chief executive officer of the Nuclear Threat Initiative.  NTI is the sole sponsor of Global Security Newswire, which is published independently by National Journal Group.] Back to top       Iranian Opposition Group Blows Nuclear Whistle, Receives Terrorist Designation By Terrence Henry National Journal WASHINGTON — Until their organization was declared a terrorist group last year, Alireza Jafarzadeh and Soona Samsami were working out of a narrow, cramped, windowless office with two desks at the National Press Building.  Jafarzadeh and Samsami, members of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a group of Iranian exiles opposed to the current regime in their native country, had enjoyed a busy year in 2003, disclosing new intelligence on Iran’s program to develop nuclear weapons.  Unlike the intelligence supplied by an Iraqi exile group more familiar to Americans — Ahmed Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress — the information provided by the Iranians proved true:  Iran was indeed hiding nuclear facilities from the United Nations and was constructing sites to make uranium and plutonium (see GSN, Sept. 9). But on Friday, Aug. 15, 2003, early in the morning, the State Department designated the National Council of Resistance of Iran a terrorist organization, adding the group to a list of those found “to have committed, or to pose a significant risk of committing, acts of terrorism that threaten the security ...  of the United States.”  The NCRI’s offices were summarily closed and $100,000 of their assets seized. When a terrorist group is discovered working in an office in the middle of downtown Washington, one might expect a large, swooping raid by the FBI and SWAT teams wielding guns and wearing bulletproof vests, or at least a discreet seizure by undercover FBI agents and D.C. Metropolitan Police.  But according to Jafarzadeh, Samsami, and their lawyers, no FBI agents, no State Department officials, not even the police were there to close the office.  Instead, the only government officials to show up that morning were agents from the Treasury Department.  They simply went to the NCRI office and placed a one-page notice on the door, affixed with bright-green tape, notifying them of the closure and warning them not to enter under severe penalty.  The locks were not changed, the office was not entered, and to this day, neither Jafarzadeh nor Samsami, nor any of their staff and associates, have been interviewed or detained by the FBI or police.  The office was left alone — without a guard or surveillance — until about a month later, when Treasury agents politely arranged entry with Jafarzadeh and the NCRI’s attorneys, who had the keys to the office and would be on hand to facilitate the government’s seizure of documents.  But when the agents went through the office, they seized only phone and utility bills, financial records, and lease documents, leaving the rest of the group’s materials alone.  Paul Enzinna, an attorney for the NCRI who works for the firm Baker Botts, said that judging by the records Treasury took, its agents were there to block the organization financially, not to seize evidence that could prove that the NCRI was a terrorist group. Jafarzadeh, a short man with an owlish face, thick mustache, and ever-present half-smile, was the NCRI’s official spokesman in the United States.  There was nothing clandestine about his public actions: He regularly held press conferences in Washington on Iran’s weapons development and human-rights violations.  He continues to be a reliable source for many journalists and nuclear watchdog groups.  But the closure of the NCRI has made it impossible for him to have an official platform.  “Since last year, the level of activity the NCRI had in the U.S.  — both in the Congress and in the media — revealing a lot of Iran’s rogue activities has been seriously damaged,” Jafarzadeh told National Journal.  “That’s certainly made Iran very happy; they welcomed the closure of the office last year.” Indeed, once the State Department announced the closure of the offices, Iran lavished rare praise on the United States for taking a “positive step” and urged additional action against the group and its affiliates.  Jafarzadeh’s colleague at the NCRI was Samsami, a middle-aged woman with a ready sense of humor who is a longtime U.S. resident.  Samsami’s work in the NCRI was focused on women’s-rights and human-rights violations in Iran and on Tehran’s biological and chemical weapons development.  “In every state before the office was closed, we had a huge network of Iranians working [on] anti-fundamentalism and looking for democratic and secular government in Iran,” she said in an interview.  “This was not just one office that was closed....  We’re talking about disappointing thousands of Iranians [in the United States] who were working for a cause — a secular, democratic government in Iran.” Jafarzadeh and Samsami also used their charm and location to establish a close relationship with the U.S. media, as well as with several members of Congress, including Representatives  Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) and Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), all of whom sit on the House International Relations Committee.  Because of the NCRI, major U.S. newspapers were able to run front-page stories in 2002 and 2003 with detailed satellite photos showing Iran’s nuclear and biological weapons facilities, and congressional committees had sources outside the U.S. intelligence community briefing them on Iran’s weapons development.  The NCRI made a key disclosure in August 2002 about two Iranian nuclear facilities, in Natanz and Arak, that were thought to be capable of making weapon-grade uranium and plutonium, the key ingredients for nuclear weapons.  (The NCRI said the intelligence came from an extensive network of dissidents inside Iran.) Once U.N. inspectors finally had a look at the facilities, they found traces of highly enriched uranium, suitable for weapons, and massive halls of enrichment machines that could make material for dozens of nuclear weapons a year.  Just as U.N. inspectors were finishing their first report on Iran’s nuclear program in the summer of 2003, and publicly establishing that Iran had lied about its capabilities, the U.S.  State Department shut down the NCRI. The now-tarnished Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress, however, stayed on the State Department’s payroll, providing to the CIA what later was found to be outright false information on Iraq, at a cost of $350,000 a month and a total of $33 million.  “The CIA gets it completely wrong with Iraq, but they get it right — so far — in Iran,” Sherman said of the NCRI.  “And which one do we shut down? The one that gives us the information we don’t want to deal with.” According to the State Department, the official reason the NCRI was deemed a terrorist group was its links to a 40-year-old, Marxist-inspired, militant Iranian group called the Mujahadeen-e Khalq (“The People’s Mujahadeen”), known in Washington acronym speak as the MEK.  The State Department claimed that a “variety of sources” proved that the NCRI “functioned as part of the MEK and ...  supported the MEK’s acts of terrorism.” The MEK is by no means an angelic group.  It is linked to the killings of Americans in the 1970s.  It was harbored and supported by Saddam Hussein.  It is responsible for numerous terrorist acts against Iran, many of which have killed civilians, and the most visible of which, in February 2000, consisted of dozens of attacks on the country.  Its base of operations for most of these attacks was the large Camp Ashraf in eastern Iraq, home to some 3,800 of its members.  The U.S. military bombed the MEK camp when it invaded Iraq last year, subsequently disarmed the group, and confined it to its camp.  “They’re no Amnesty International,” Sherman told National Journal.  “They’ve done some pretty bad things in the past.” But Sherman and Tancredo — as well as the NCRI and its attorneys — think the State Department’s designation of NCRI as an “alias” group linked with the MEK had a different purpose.  They suspect that the closure of the NCRI office was simply a political capitulation to get Iran to stop meddling in Iraq, since Tehran’s actions were seriously hindering U.S. efforts against the insurgency in Iraq at the time.  “Look, by August of 2003, things weren’t going so wonderful in Iraq,” Sherman said.  “And a desire to kowtow to Tehran increased as things got poorer in Iraq.  It created a domestic public-relations need to snuff out or minimize information about Iran and created a strategic and diplomatic incentive to pacify Tehran and beg them not to do anything embarrassing in [Iraq].  It’s a twofer.” Since early 2001, the MEK has kept a low profile and has refrained from attacking Iran.  To be on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations, the group must have carried out attacks within the past two years.  But after receiving no evidence from the State Department that the group has done so, “we came to the conclusion that although there was certainly a spotty record in the past for them, there is nothing at the present time — except for their opposition to the present regime in Iran — that can explain their being listed” as a terrorist group, Tancredo said.  The Defense Department seems to think so as well, saying the group has abided by its vow not to attack Iran from its camp.  The Pentagon has now granted “protected persons” status to the group’s members, in accordance with the Geneva Conventions.  They are under the care and watch of the United States. Tancredo thinks both the MEK and the NCRI, although disarmed, could still play an important role in a more aggressive policy toward Iran.  “Why wouldn’t we use these people to make life more difficult for the government of Iran?” Tancredo asked.  “I would just like them to be meddlesome, that’s all.  I’d like them to be a little thorn in the side of the government of Iran.” After more than a year of negotiations fizzled recently between Iran and European countries, Iran announced that it is again building centrifuges to make weapons-grade uranium, although it continues to insist the fuel is only for civilian nuclear power plants.  Washington is now pushing for the matter to be taken to the U.N. Security Council this month for possible sanctions. Meanwhile, since the NCRI office was closed, both Jafarzadeh and Samsami have remained in Washington and are still working to be something of an irritant to Iran.  But they are no longer allowed to organize Iranian exiles in the United States, conduct press conferences, or officially pass information to U.N. inspectors.  Instead, they now work as one-person teams.  Samsami has continued her advocacy for Muslim women’s rights, attending U.N. conferences and running her own watchdog group.  As for Jafarzadeh, he has started a one-man consulting firm and has carried his cause of regime change in Iran to an even larger forum, that of 24-hour cable news — he is now a talking head employed by Fox News Channel. Back to top       Iranian Lawmaker Links Ratification of Additional Protocol to Establishing Nuclear Fuel Cycle An Iranian parliament leader announced yesterday that his country would not ratify the Additional Protocol to its international nuclear safeguards agreement until it is allowed to develop a complete nuclear fuel cycle, the Tehran Times reported (see GSN, July 7). Hamid Reza Haji-baba’i of the Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee also said Iran would not agree to a European demand to suspend all nuclear work (see GSN, Sept. 9). Iran does not, however, intend to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Haji-baba’i said. Ratifying the protocol would codify the right of international inspectors to perform more intrusive examinations of Iran’s nuclear facilities (Tehran Times, Sept. 9). Back to top       British, Chinese Officials Visit North Korea The first British government minister to visit North Korea headed to Pyongyang today as part of the effort to persuade Pyongyang to give up its nuclear programs, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Sept. 9). “This is the start of a very, very long haul to try to edge North Korea back from complete isolation,” Foreign Office Minister Bill Rammell said yesterday, prior to leaving for Pyongyang and scheduled meetings with Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun and other senior leaders. He added that he would ask North Korea to use Libya as an example of the benefits of weapons abandonment.  The North African nation has re-entered the international community after halting its WMD programs following negotiations with the United Kingdom and the United States. Rammell said he would tell leaders in Pyongyang that North Korea could receive international aid in exchange for cooperation on the nuclear issue (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, Sept. 9). Meanwhile, a Chinese delegation led by Li Changchun, a top Chinese Communist Party leader, arrived today in Pyongyang, AFP reported. The Korean Central News Agency announced that the delegation was on “an official goodwill visit,” but the mission is widely seen as an attempt to bring Pyongyang back to the nuclear negotiating table, according to AFP (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, Sept. 10). Elsewhere, Japanese, U.S. and South Korean officials meeting in Tokyo today said they hoped a fourth round of six-party nuclear talks would take place this month as planned, despite recent revelations that Seoul has conducted clandestine nuclear experiments, AFP reported. “They confirmed the importance of holding the fourth round of six-way talks in September as agreed upon at the third round of talks,” a Japanese Foreign Ministry official said.  “They shared the view that [news of South Korean uranium and plutonium experiments] should have no direct impact on the six-way talks,” the official added (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, Sept. 10). South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon, however, said today that prospects were low for talks commencing this month, AFP reported. “It appears circumstances are turning in a direction that makes it difficult to be optimistic about whether the six-party talks can be held or not (this month),” Ban said in a radio interview (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, Sept. 10). Back to top       U.S. Should Reassess Support for Programs to Address Aging Russian Nuclear Submarines, GAO Report Says By Marina Malenic Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — As U.S.-funded WMD threat reduction projects advance toward completion in Russia, Washington’s participation in the Arctic Military Environmental Cooperation program ought to be reassessed, the Government Accountability Office concluded in a report released yesterday (see GSN, Aug. 5). Norway, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States participate in the multilateral effort to reduce the environmental effects of Russia’s arctic military activities, particularly Russia’s aging fleet of nuclear-powered submarines. The U.S. Defense Department, in a 1999 program plan submitted to Congress, stated that AMEC projects would support the goals of U.S. threat reduction programs, specifically efforts to dismantle Russian ballistic missile submarines.  The congressional auditors found, however, that only one of eight AMEC projects supported the threat reduction goals. The environmental cooperation program is heading in a new direction that represents a significant expansion from its original charter, the report states.  Moreover, AMEC officials have not adequately justified expanding the program to secure spent nuclear fuel and other material and to address security problems at Russian shipyards, naval bases, support vessels, and other facilities associated with the dismantlement process. The U.S. Defense Department, which is responsible for U.S. projects aimed at securing nuclear materials in Russia, told GAO investigators that spent nuclear fuel and other associated radioactive materials from Russia’s nuclear submarines do not pose a high-priority security threat and that the department would not fund any new initiatives in this area. The report also identifies AMEC member countries’ financial contributions to the program.  From the program’s establishment in 1996 to April 2004, member countries contributed about $56 million to the effort.  The United States has been the largest contributor, providing about $31 million, or 56 percent of the total. However, the GAO found that the overall U.S. contribution decreased from fiscal 1999 to fiscal 2004, as U.S.-funded projects were completed and as other AMEC member countries increased assistance. The GAO report recommends that the defense secretary, in consultation with the secretaries of Energy and State, reassess further U.S. involvement in the program. Back to top       ElBaradei Expected to Seek Third IAEA Term International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei is expected to seek a third term in office, despite U.S. opposition on the grounds that no director should serve more than two terms, Agence France-Presse reported today (see GSN, Aug. 16). The chairman of the agency’s Board of Governors distributed a note to board members saying “the director general’s term of office expires on 30 November 2005 ... the director general is available for a further term of office,” indicating that ElBaradei is looking to retain his position he has held since 1997, a diplomat told AFP. The Geneva group of top 10 contributors to the United Nations holds that heads of international organizations should serve only two terms, according to AFP.  The United States supports that position. “This policy has nothing to do with the director general’s qualifications.  The United States thinks that he’s done a very good job leading the agency at a very difficult time but it’s simply a matter of principle and good governance,” a Western official familiar with the U.S. position said (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, Sept. 10). Back to top

Gene Data Should Stay Public, Panel Says By David Ruppe Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — Scientists and the public should continue to be allowed unfettered access to genome data on microbial pathogens, according to a new report by the National Academies of Sciences’ National Research Council.  The recommendation came despite concerns by some Bush administration officials that potential U.S. adversaries could take advantage of the U.S. scientific community’s openness and develop advanced biological weapon technology. Restricting access, however, would slow the exchange of information, potentially barring legitimate researchers from needed information, says the report, Seeking Security: Pathogens, Open Access, and Genome Databases. It “would severely damage the fabric of the global scientific enterprise,” according to a press release accompanying the report. Restrictions also would also be impractical, according to the release. “Digital data are notoriously difficult to control, and files that contain entire genome sequences are small and therefore easily stored and transferred,” it says. It concludes “rapid, unrestricted access” to genomic data “should be encouraged.” Concern Expressed Tom Ridge, who heads the Homeland Security Department which co-sponsored the report, reportedly said yesterday he was not yet convinced that preserving open access is in the best interest of the country. “I want to take a look at the report. But from my point of view laying out recipes for the creation of systems or weapons of mass effect, I’m not sure the restriction on that is necessarily the infringement of free speech,” Ridge said, according to the Associated Press. Anthony Fauci, who heads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, on the other hand, said yesterday, “If somebody really wants to get the data anyway, they will get it,” according to the AP. The report says that genome sequences of more than 100 microbial pathogens — including for smallpox, anthrax, and Ebola — are already publicly available on Internet-accessible databases worldwide and that pathogen data could potentially help terrorists to “engineer even deadlier versions of diseases.” Genome sequences detail the germs’ genes, according to AP. With some rare exceptions, the United States requires that genomic and other data produced with federal funding be made publicly available, the report says.  The report says genomic data on pathogens is not inherently dangerous, but rather, “become dangerous only if the user has a sophisticated ability to exploit them and a malevolent goal.” It advocates more aggressive research using the genomic sequences on defenses against infectious diseases and creation of a group with scientific and security expertise to advise the government on potential genomic science-related threats. The report notes that the Research Council last year recommended a largely volunteer prescreening system for certain types of experiments nationwide, along with educating scientists about the risks and benefits of proposed experiments (see GSN, Oct. 20, 2003). After reviewing that report’s recommendations, the Bush administration in March announced the creation of a national scientific council to advise scientists on preventing sensitive biological research from falling into the hands of terrorists (see GSN, March 5). The National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Homeland Security Department, and the Central Intelligence Agency sponsored the most recent report. Back to top       U.S. Health Officials Underestimated Anthrax Risks During 2001 Mail Attacks, GAO Finds Efforts to protect U.S. postal workers during the 2001 anthrax mailings were delayed because public health agencies underestimated the danger from the spore-laden letters, the U.S. Government Accountability Office said in a report issued yesterday (see GSN, Aug. 19). Nine postal workers in Washington and New Jersey contracted anthrax in fall 2001 after four letters carrying the biological agent were sent to media outlets and the offices of two U.S. senators.  Two employees at the Brentwood postal distribution center in Washington were among the five people who died after being infected. The U.S. Postal Service primarily considered the danger to its personnel when deciding whether to close potentially contaminated facilities, according to managers, union representatives and public health agencies.  However, the health agencies that the Postal Service relied on for assessments underestimated the health risks until the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed anthrax cases at the Brentwood and Trenton, N.J., distribution centers, according to congressional investigators. The Washington and New Jersey facilities were closed, but tainted distribution centers in Florida, Connecticut and New York City remained open during decontamination efforts. “Public health agencies underestimated the health risks to postal employees, in part, because they did not know that anthrax spores could leak from taped, unopened letters in sufficient quantities to cause a fatal form of anthrax,” the GAO report states.  “The Postal Service kept the three other facilities covered by the GAO’s review open because public health officials had advised the agency that employees at those centers were at minimal risk.  CDC and the Postal Service have said they would have made different decisions if they had earlier understood the health risks to postal employees.” Postal workers questioned information supplied by their employer on anthrax due to problems with “accuracy, clarity and timeliness,” the report states.  Problems included incomplete details about the health risk of anthrax and the delayed release of anthrax spore counts at one facility. The report notes that the Postal Service since the attacks has established an information coordination center for its facilities and has developed guidelines for responding to any future attacks. While it has also revised its response guidelines, those rules still do not include terms on which a facility would be evacuated or specify what steps would be taken between an anthrax diagnosis for an employee and confirmation of infection, the GAO report states.  It recommends further updating of the Postal Service guidelines. In a response to the report, the Postal Service said it has or is in the process of revising its emergency response guidelines. The CDC, in its response, noted that the previous major anthrax outbreak occurred in the 1970s.  That left  “agencies with very little to rely on in terms of protocol for handling these types of issues,” the response states (Government Accountability Office report, Sept. 9). Back to top

Oregon Chemical Weapon Incinerator Speeds Up Workers at the Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility in Oregon yesterday began accelerating their work to destroy M55 rockets laden with sarin nerve agent, the Tri-City Herald reported (see GSN, Sept. 9). Incinerator contractor Washington Group International reported destroying two rockets yesterday.  Two more rockets are expected to be drained, chopped and decontaminated today, followed by two tomorrow and four on Sunday. The contractor plans to continue increasing the pace of disposal, according to the Herald.  The permitted maximum rate is 40 rockets per hour, but Washington Group spokesman Rick Kelley said he expects work to top out at about 28 rockets each hour. The $2.4 billion effort to destroy 7.4 million pounds of nerve and mustard agent in 220,604 weapons and containers at the site — about 12 percent of the U.S. stockpile before the destruction program began — is expected to be finished by 2010. Opponents, however, are continuing their efforts to stop the incineration.  After failing to persuade a county judge to issue an injunction, they are taking their case to the Oregon Court of Appeals (Jeannine Koranda, Tri-City Herald, Sept. 10). Back to top

Second Missile Interceptor Installed in Alaska The U.S. Missile Defense Agency installed a second Ground-based Midcourse Defense missile interceptor last week at Fort Greely, and plans to have five in place at the Alaska base by the end of this month (see GSN, July 23). The interceptor was placed in an underground silo on Sept. 4, according to Aerospace Daily & Defense Report.  A third interceptor is expected to be installed “probably within the next 10 days or so,” an agency spokesman said yesterday. The spokesman said the next GMD flight test is still scheduled for late September (see GSN, Aug. 18).  The test could result in a missile interception, though it is not specifically intended to shoot down the target, Aerospace Daily reported (Marc Selinger, Aerospace Daily & Defense Report, Sept. 10).   Back to top

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