By Mike Nartker
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — Nearly 20 years after they were imposed, U.S. President George W. Bush lifted economic sanctions from Libya on Monday to reward Tripoli for the progress made in disclosing and dismantling its WMD programs (see GSN, Sept. 17). Bush signed an executive order ending the national emergency declared in 1986, eliminating the requirement for U.S. companies to obtain Treasury Department licenses before engaging in trade with Libya. The move also allows for direct air travel between the United States and Libya and releases more than $1 billion worth of frozen assets. The move is expected to be met by a payment of more than $1 billion from Libya to the families of the victims of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said in a statement. Monday’s action was the latest in a set of rewards the United States has offered Libya since it agreed late last year to dismantle its WMD programs. The Bush administration in April began lifting economic sanctions against Libya, and in June decided to resume direct diplomatic links with Tripoli. In his statement Monday, McClellan outlined the steps Libya has taken to fulfill its pledges to eliminate its WMD and long-range missile programs, including: ú aiding the removal of “all significant elements” of its declared nuclear weapons program, shipping hundreds of tons of material and equipment to the United States; ú signing and implementing the Additional Protocol to its International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards agreement, which gives the agency authority to conduct more intrusive monitoring of Libya’s nuclear efforts; ú beginning the conversion of its Rabta chemical weapons facility into a pharmaceutical plant; ú destroying its chemical munitions stockpile and preparing chemical weapons agents for destruction under international supervision; ú eliminating its Scud C ballistic missile arsenal; and ú agreeing to eliminate its Scud B ballistic missile arsenal. There had been previous suggestions that Libya might have been allowed to convert its Scud B missiles to carry smaller payloads for shorter ranges (see GSN, April 12). According to the State Department, Libya has also agreed to convert a reactor at Tajura to use low enriched uranium as fuel. “Concerns over weapons of mass destruction no longer pose a barrier to the normalization of U.S.-Libyan relations,” McClellan said. The White House’s move to lift economic sanctions against Libya as “overdue,” former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs David Mack. With the end in 2003 to multilateral sanctions imposed by the United Nations against Libya, unilateral U.S. sanctions were much less effective in modifying Tripoli’s behavior, said Mack, vice president of the Middle East Institute here. Mack also said today that Libya could serve as an example to other countries of the “concrete benefits” of “coming in out of the cold.” In addition, the European Union has decided to end its arms embargo against Libya and to implement the U.N. decision to lift economic sanctions, Reuters reported today. Even though the White House has decided to lift economic sanctions, Libya will remain on the U.S. State Department’s list of terrorism-sponsoring nations, which means that restrictions on foreign assistance, arms exports and dual-use exports will stay in place. Before Libya can be removed from the list, Congress must receive notification 45 days in advance of action that Tripoli has provided no support for terrorist organizations within the past six months and that it has announced a policy of continued nonsupport for terrorism, said State Department spokeswoman Susan Pittman. Pittman yesterday refused to comment on what progress Libya has made on being taken off the list of terrorism-sponsoring nations, saying only that some outstanding issues need to be resolved. “They know what they need to do,” she said. One source of concern, according to McClellan, is allegations of Libyan involvement in a plot to assassinate Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah — claims that Tripoli has denied (see GSN, July 30). “We welcome Libya’s formal renunciation of terrorism and Libyan support in the global war against terrorism, but we must establish confidence that Libya has made a strategic decision that is being carried out in practice by all Libyan agencies and officials,” McClellan said. Libya is expected to release an additional payment of $2 million to the families of each victim of the Lockerbie bombing once it is removed from the list of terrorism-sponsoring countries, reports indicate. Meanwhile, Agence France-Presse reported yesterday that U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham is considering an invitation to visit Libya. “I was invited to make a trip to Libya at some point in the future and we will take that under serious consideration,” Abraham said during a news conference in Istanbul. He added, though, that no trip would occur until after the U.S. November elections.
A CIA internal review has found that while there were errors in the analyses on prewar Iraq, the agency’s conclusion that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction was reasonable given the intelligence available before the invasion, the New York Times reported today (see GSN, June 17). An internal document dated August 2004 and obtained by the Times details the conclusions of the Iraq WMD Review Group, which completed a 10-month review in May. The group’s findings state that there were problems of “sourcing,” “insufficient follow-up” and “imprecise language” in prewar Iraq intelligence. In addition, the review found a number of cases where analysts “misrepresented the meaning” of intelligence reports, according to the Times. The agency failed to confirm assertions in an October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons and was restarting its nuclear weapons program, the review found. It also said the CIA’s analytical branch had “never been more junior or more inexperienced” than it is now. In an interview with the Times, acting CIA Director John McLaughlin noted the conclusion reached by the internal review that the CIA’s prewar Iraq assessments were reasonable given the available intelligence at the time. “We’re not kidding ourselves,” McLaughlin said. “Reasonable doesn’t mean we were right” (Douglas Jehl, New York Times, Sept. 22).
By Jim Wurst
Global Security Newswire
UNITED NATIONS — U.S. President George W. Bush, speaking yesterday at the United Nations, called for greater international efforts to help stabilize Iraq because a democratic Iraq “is good for the long term security of us all.” On the opening day of the two-week general debate of the new General Assembly, Bush said progress is being made in creating democracies in Afghanistan and Iraq but that terrorists are challenging that work. “Today, the Iraqi and Afghan people are on the path to democracy and freedom. The governments that are rising will pose no threat to others. Instead of harboring terrorists, they are fighting terrorist groups,” he said. “A democratic Iraq has ruthless enemies — because terrorists know the stakes in that country. They know that a free Iraq in the heart of the Middle East will be a decisive blow against their ambitions for that region.” Bush said the interim Iraqi government of Ayad Allawi “has earned the support of every nation that believes in self-determination and desires peace. … Coalition forces now serving in Iraq are confronting the terrorists and foreign fighters, so peaceful nations around the world will never have to face them within our own borders.” The Iraqi prime minister, who was in the General Assembly hall, is scheduled to address the assembly on Friday. “We must continue to show our commitment to democracy in those nations,” Bush said. “As members of the United Nations, we all have a stake in the success of the world's newest democracies.” “We are determined to destroy terror networks wherever they operate — and the United States is grateful to every nation that is helping to seize terrorist assets, track down their operatives and disrupt their plans,” Bush added. “We are determined to end the state sponsorship of terror.” In his only reference to weapons of mass destruction, Bush said, “We are determined to prevent proliferation, and to enforce the demands of the world.” His speech was met with subdued applause at the conclusion. This is the third year in a row that Iraq has been a feature of Bush's address to the General Assembly. In 2002, he challenged the United Nations to confront the government of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, which Bush called “a grave and gathering danger. To suggest otherwise is to hope against the evidence.” He said the United Nations risked becoming “irrelevant” if it did not act. In 2003, after the war, he was less emphatic about Hussein’s arsenals of weapons of mass destruction and ties to al-Qaeda — charges that have never been proven — and instead called on the United Nations to assist in rebuilding Iraq. In his address to the General Assembly yesterday morning, Secretary General Kofi Annan did not directly criticize U.S. policy as he did last week when he called the U.S. invasion of Iraq “illegal.” Instead he took an indirect approach by stressing the need to strengthen the international rule of law. “The rule of law is at risk around the world. Again and again, we see fundamental laws shamelessly disregarded,” he said. The “prevalence” of terrorist attacks and other acts of violence “reflects our collective failure to uphold the law and to instill respect for it in our fellow men and women. We all have a duty to do whatever we can to restore that respect.” “From trade to terrorism, from the law of the sea to weapons of mass destruction, states have created an impressive body of norms and laws,” Annan said. “Yet this framework is riddled with gaps and weaknesses. Too often it is applied selectively and enforced arbitrarily.” In an apparent critique of U.S. opposition to verification and other monitoring provisions for arms-control agreements, Annan said, “It is by strengthening and implementing disarmament treaties, including their verification provisions, that we can best defend ourselves against the proliferation — and potential use — of weapons of mass destruction.” He added, “It is by applying the law that we can deny financial resources and safe havens to terrorists — an essential element in any strategy for defeating terrorism.”
By Mike Nartker
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — Democratic presidential nominee Senator John Kerry (Mass.) on Monday sharply attacked one of the main rationales offered by the Bush administration for the invasion of Iraq — that former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had the intent to develop weapons of mass destruction and was seeking the capability to do so (see GSN, Sept. 17). The Iraq Survey Group, the U.S. unit searching for evidence of prewar Iraq’s alleged WMD efforts, is reportedly set to address the issues of intent and WMD capabilities in a report expected to be made public in the next several weeks. In a scathing critique of President George W. Bush’s handling of the Iraq war delivered at New York University, Kerry labeled such issues as merely an “excuse.” “Thirty-five to 40 countries have greater capability to build a nuclear bomb than Iraq did in 2003. Is President Bush saying we should invade all of them? I would have personally concentrated our power and resources on defeating global terrorism and capturing Osama bin Laden,” Kerry said. He also accused the Bush administration of exaggerating prewar Iraq’s actual stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction and links to terrorism. “By one count, the president offered 23 different rationales for this war. If his purpose was to confuse and mislead the American people, he succeeded,” Kerry said. Kerry’s remarks were met by similarly harsh words Monday from Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. “Today my opponent continued his pattern of twisting in the wind with new contradictions of his old positions on Iraq. He apparently woke up this morning and has now decided, no, we should not have invaded Iraq, after just last month saying he still would have voted for force, even knowing everything we know today. Incredibly, he now believes our national security would be stronger with Saddam Hussein in power, not in prison,” Bush said during a re-election campaign stop in New Hampshire. In his remarks, Kerry defended Congress’ decision to grant Bush the authority to use force in Iraq, saying that move was necessary to force Hussein to allow U.N. weapons inspectors to return to his country. Bush, though, “misused” his authority, Kerry said. “The idea was simple. We would get the weapons inspectors back in to verify whether or not Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. And we would convince the world to speak with one voice to Saddam: Disarm or be disarmed,” he said. “Instead, the president rushed to war, without letting the weapons inspectors finish their work. He went purposefully, by choice, without a broad and deep coalition of allies. He acted by choice, without making sure that our troops even had enough body armor. And he plunged ahead by choice, without understanding or preparing for the consequences of postwar, none of which I would have done,” Kerry added. The Bush administration’s focus on Iraq has hurt the war on terrorism and ignored other threats to U.S. security, such as the nuclear efforts of Iran and North Korea, Kerry said. “Let me put it plainly — the president’s policy in Iraq has not strengthened our national security, it has weakened it,” he said. Speaking in Ohio, Cheney rejected Kerry’s accusation that the White House had described prewar Iraq as an “imminent” threat. “Our argument was that Saddam Hussein posed a gathering threat, that in a post-9/11 world we could not wait until a threat was imminent. By then it would be too late to spare American lives,” he said. “This is a profound difference between President Bush and Senator Kerry. As Senator Kerry said in his acceptance speech in Boston, he would respond after an attack on America. … President Bush wants to protect America before we are attacked again,” Cheney added.
By Joe Fiorill
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — U.S. researchers yesterday released new software to help commercial buildings around the country assess and reduce their vulnerability to a biological, chemical or radiological attack (see GSN, Aug. 26). The Building Vulnerability Assessment and Mitigation Program asks building managers a lengthy series of questions about emergency plans, building access and heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems, then generates cost-appropriate recommendations for improvements. “You can make improvements without spending thousands and millions of dollars, and there’s things that almost any facility can do,” scientist Tracy Thatcher of the U.S. Energy Department’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory said yesterday in a telephone interview. Interest in protecting buildings against chemical or biological attack has grown steadily since the 2001 anthrax attacks. Many experts view ventilation systems as the most likely vector of a WMD attack on a building, and recent years have seen a surge in efforts to prevent air-circulation systems from propagating attacks. One high-profile effort is the Immune Building program being conducted by the Special Projects Office of the Defense Department’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Defense researchers are studying and testing cutting-edge, HVAC-based WMD defenses with an eye toward a 2006 demonstration at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo. In a program that is more modest but potentially better-suited to offer quick help to the average building manager, Thatcher and her colleagues at Berkeley Laboratory developed their software with funding from the California Energy Commission and have made it available free on the Internet. Although Thatcher said HVAC systems remain the “first line of defense” against an attack, improving ventilation defenses through changes such as installation of high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters can necessitate costly increases in energy consumption, as well as cumbersome structural alterations. The scientists took such obstacles into account as they developed their program. Their software assesses vulnerability “while minimizing energy penalties sometimes associated with improving HVAC system security,” the laboratory said yesterday in a press release. The program prioritizes recommendations based both on threat and on cost. “Lots of buildings end up with lots of low-cost recommendations — low or no cost … and then you have these other things which can be much higher [-cost], and whether or not you choose to do those will depend on whether or not you can afford them,” Thatcher said. Rather than suggesting costly HVAC changes, Thatcher said, the program could recommend that a building manager improve general building security, change mail procedures or ensure that a member of the building’s emergency-response team be familiar with the HVAC system. “The idea is to get people to think about things that you don’t normally think about,” Thatcher said. Some building managers consulted for the project had “thought about it [WMD defense] fairly carefully,” she said, but all had “areas of it [that] they hadn’t really thought about.” The software does not ask building managers about, or recommend, the use of specific technologies. Rather, managers are asked questions such as whether their buildings are “accessible to nonemployees without escort,” whether “all building occupants know how to recognize a chemical or biological agent” and whether they have “the ability to quickly determine wind direction from within the building (e.g., with a windsock or a wind gauge).” Thatcher said ventilation systems remain crucial, however, and most buildings should have certain basic HVAC defenses in place. For example, she said, “You really should have controls that allow you to quickly shut down your fans.” Also important, she added, is “just knowing that you have somebody who understands the ventilation system on your emergency-response team.” Among the obstacles preventing some building managers from taking action, Thatcher said, is a perception that effective changes would be too numerous or too expensive to be feasible. “There’s in some ways too much information with not enough sorting,” Thatcher said.
Syria and the European Union have reached agreement over a nonproliferation clause in a proposed trade deal, Agence France-Presse reported yesterday (see GSN, July 28). The agreement was reached last week during a visit by an EU delegation to Syria, according to a Western diplomat in Beirut. EU foreign ministers must now approve the pact, AFP reported. The trade deal between the EU and Syria has been stalled by a dispute over the EU requirement that all such deals must contain a clause obligating the parties to nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction, AFP reported (Agence France-Presse, Sept. 21).
The upper house of the Pakistani Parliament has approved a bill to strengthen the country’s export controls on nuclear- and biological-related items, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday (see GSN, Sept. 14). The bill provides for a prison sentence of up to 14 years or a fine of up to $285,000, or both, for anyone spreading nuclear technology or hardware. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf is expected to sign the bill into law, the Times reported (Los Angeles Times, Sept. 19).
The United States and India announced yesterday that they plan to increase defense cooperation as part of a strategic partnership intended to combat terrorism and WMD proliferation, according to the Associated Press (see related GSN story, today). During a meeting yesterday on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, U.S. President George W. Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh “recognized the importance of working closely together in the war against terrorism and in combating proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems,” according to a joint statement (Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Sept. 22).
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