During a nuclear incident, it is important to avoid radioactive material, if possible.
—A U.S. Homeland Security Department Web site providing businesses with advice on how to prepare for possible terrorist attacks.
Brazilian Science and Technology Minister Eduardo Campos (right, shown in April with U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham) continued this week to limit IAEA access to Brazilian nuclear facilities (AFP photo/Evaristo Sa).
IAEA Says No Inspections Deal Reached With Brazil
The International Atomic Energy Agency announced yesterday it is still negotiating for the opportunity to inspect a uranium enrichment plant in Brazil, despite Brazil’s announcement that an agreement had been worked out, Reuters reported(see GSN, Sept. 23)...Full Story
Nerve Agent Precursor Shipped to North Korea Originated in South Korea, Seoul Officials Say
North Korea acquired more than 100 tons of a chemical weapons precursor material from a South Korean businessman who shipped the it through China, South Korea’s Commerce Ministry announced yesterday, according to Agence France-Presse (see GSN, Sept. 22)...Full Story
China Criticizes U.S. Sanctions Leveled Against Company For Alleged Missile Proliferation Activities
By Mike Nartker Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — China yesterday criticized U.S. sanctions imposed this week against a Chinese company for alleged missile proliferation activities, saying that such allegations were an issue for domestic authorities to resolve (see GSN, Sept. 22)...Full Story
Friday, September 24, 2004
U.S. Issues WMD Advice to Businesses; 9/11 Commission’s Hamilton Concerned About Readiness
By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — The United States yesterday issued detailed instructions to small and medium-sized businesses on how to prepare for and respond to WMD attacks.
The Homeland Security Department launched its Ready Business campaign, instructing companies on how to recognize and react to biological, chemical, nuclear and radiological attacks, as well as natural disasters and non-WMD terrorist attacks. The campaign builds on the existing, more general Ready America program.
“The current state of private-sector preparedness in an age of terrorism remains a concern,” Sept. 11 commission Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton said at a Ready Business launch hosted here by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Many companies fail to see the benefit or need for preparedness, while others acknowledge the importance of planning for an incident but do not know how to do so, said Hamilton, who is also a member of President George W. Bush’s Homeland Security Advisory Council.
Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge officially kicked off the new campaign, telling those at the launch that the approach being promoted is “quite simple: get a kit, make a plan and be informed.”
Advertising Council President Peggy Conlon presented two print advertisements promoting business preparedness, as well as a Ready Business Web site set up as a resource for companies.
Companies should be vigilant about the possibility of chemical and biological attacks via the mail (see GSN, Sept. 10) and should make heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems — through which, experts fear, terrorists could deliver biological or chemical agents — as secure as possible (see GSN, Aug. 26), Homeland Security says on the Web site.
The Web site includes a wide range of advice, telling businesses, “Never use a generator inside, as it may produce deadly carbon monoxide gas,” and, “Create opportunities for breaks where co-workers can talk openly about their fears and hopes.”
Much of the material on the site — organized under the rubrics “Plan to Stay in Business,” “Talk to Your People” and “Protect Your Investment” — is devoted to WMD preparedness and response. One section encourages companies to “be informed” about biological, chemical, nuclear and radiological threats, stressing the importance of watching television and listening to the radio during a suspected attack.
The department outlines potential signs that a WMD event may be taking place and offers criteria for deciding whether to take steps such as sheltering in place and seeking medical care. The Web site indicates that a biological attack “may or may not be immediately obvious,” that dead birds or fish may indicate the presence of dangerous chemicals and that in a suspected radiological attack, workers should stay inside and turn off ventilation systems.
“During a nuclear incident, it is important to avoid radioactive material, if possible,” the department says. “While experts may predict at this time that a nuclear attack is less likely than other types, terrorism by its nature is unpredictable.”
The department also released a fact sheet listing the approximate costs of various actions businesses can take to prepare for an attack. Homeland Security said many steps, such as taking inventory and drawing up a list of emergency contractors, can be taken for free, while others, such as offering first-aid training to workers, can cost less than $500.
“The consequences of not taking action could be severe,” Ridge said at the launch.
Powell Praises Libyan Decision to Disarm During Meeting With Foreign Minister
During a historic meeting yesterday in New York with Libyan Foreign Minister Abdelraham Shalgham, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell praised Libya’s decision to dismantle its WMD program, but said the United States still has concerns over Tripoli’s ties to terrorism, a senior State Department official said (see GSN, Sept. 23).
The 25-minute meeting was the highest-level contact between the two countries in 35 years, according to Agence France-Presse.
“Libya’s decision to abandon pursuit [of] weapons of mass destruction and the Libyan leadership's public emphasis on WMD as [a] source of insecurity rather than security is a positive step and sets a very positive example,” the State Department official quoted Powell as telling Shalgham.
The United States is still concerned, though, over Libya’s connections to terrorism, such as its alleged involvement in a plot to kill Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, the official said.
“We do have serious concerns about the issue of plotting against Saudi Arabia,” the official said. “I think the Libyans understand the significance of our concern about that and the need to follow up further” (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Sept. 24).
House Prepares Draft 9/11 Legislation; Democrats Complain of Extraneous Measures
Republican leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives are looking to add controversial antiterrorism measures to legislation implementing the intelligence reform recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, Sept. 23).
House and Senate Democrats opposing the plan say that provisions on enhanced penalties for chemical or nuclear attacks, pretrial detention for terrorism suspects, warrants and others go beyond what the commission called for in its report, according to AP (see GSN, July 23).
Some groups have complained that many of the proposals are similar to a rumored expansion of the USA Patriot Act.
“Nowhere in its recommendations does the 9/11 commission ask Congress to pass a sequel to the Patriot Act,” said Laura Murphy, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington legislative office.
House Judiciary Committee spokesman Jeff Lungren said the “draft bill deals directly with the recommendations of the 9/11 commission report.”
Representatives Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) and Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), however, called on Congress not to “cloud” the issue with extraneous matters (Jesse Holland, Associated Press/New York Newsday, Sept. 24).
The International Atomic Energy Agency announced yesterday it is still negotiating for the opportunity to inspect a uranium enrichment plant in Brazil, despite Brazil’s announcement that an agreement had been worked out, Reuters reported(see GSN, Sept. 23).
“We’ve made some progress but ... we remain in discussions with Brazilian authorities on this issue,” agency spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said yesterday. “You can interpret that how you like, but we remain in discussions.”
“This place needs to be under supervision 24/7 to make sure there’s no diversion,” a Western diplomat close to the agency said. “We’ll probably need monitoring cameras there.”
Brazilians officials, however, have said they do not want visual inspections of certain aspects of the facility for fear of industrial espionage at the Resende centrifuge facility. The Science and Technology Ministry insisted there had been an agreement, but that it had not been signed, Reuters reported.
“It was a verbal agreement between the minister and (IAEA) director [Mohamed] ElBaradei,” a spokesman for the ministry said. “There is no doubt about it, it will be signed after the inspection in October.”
In light of Saturday’s IAEA resolution calling on Iran to halt all uranium enrichment activities, Brazilian officials asserted that states had the right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes.
“Enriching and reprocessing activities for peaceful purposes are under international supervision,” Science and Technology Minister Eduardo Campos told the agency’s general conference Wednesday. “No initiative in this field should undermine the inalienable right of states to pursue ... nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.”
His ministry said yesterday that no visual inspections of Resende would be allowed in order to “safeguard national science.”
“It’s like if you have a problem in the liver, you don’t need visual observation,” said a ministry spokesman (Reuters/CNN.com, Sept. 23).
As negotiations with Brazil continue, the agency is planning to send “a team of experts who will be arriving Oct. 15 to visit Brazil to look at possible verification approaches for this facility,” Gwozdecky said yesterday.
“After a five-month suspension, negotiations on the inspection of the plant have resumed,” Science and Technology spokeswoman Vera Canfran told Agence France-Presse, adding that Brazil and the agency “were agreed on the principles on which the accord will be based.”
She said the agreement would not be signed before the IAEA team’s arrival next month.
Some nonproliferation experts said that failure by the United States and International Atomic Energy Agency to curtail Brazil’s program, or at least insist on inspections, could undermine calls for and end to Iranian and North Korean nuclear efforts, according to AFP (Agence France-Presse/ChannelNewsAsia.com, Sept. 23).
UNITED NATIONS — Calling the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) “a major instrument in the field of nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation,” the foreign ministers of 42 state parties to the pact yesterday linked the successful implementation of the treaty to the continuing viability of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) (see GSN, Sept. 23).
“The entry into force of the treaty, within the broader framework of multilateral arms control and nonproliferation efforts, is more urgent today than ever before,” they said in a statement issued after a meeting held during the annual debate of the U.N. General Assembly.
Speaking at a news conference after the meeting, Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja and Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi said the officials would work to have more nations ratify the treaty. “We will continue to keep it on the international agenda,” Tuomioja said.
The statement says, “We affirm that the CTBT will make an important contribution towards preventing the proliferation of materials, technologies and knowledge that can be used for nuclear weapons, one of the most important challenges the world is facing today.”
“The treaty was an integral part of the 1995 agreements” that allowed the indefinite extension of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and has been seen since “as a practical step to achieving NPT nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation objectives,” according to the statement. Therefore, “Progress on this issue would also contribute to a positive outcome of the 2005 Review Conference of the NPT.”
The ministers also called on governments “to continue a moratorium on nuclear weapon test explosions or any other nuclear explosions.” The last nuclear test explosions were conducted by India and Pakistan in 1998. “Voluntary adherence to such a moratorium is of the highest importance, but does not have the same permanent and legally binding effect as the entry into force of the treaty,” according to the statement.
The treaty has been signed by 172 states and ratified by 117 of those nations. To enter into force, 44 states named in the treaty must be among the ratifying states. The treaty is still 12 nations short of that goal, with the United States, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and Iran among the holdouts. “We commit ourselves individually and together to make the treaty a focus of attention at the highest political levels and to take measures to facilitate the signature and ratification process,” the ministerial declaration says.
The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization, based in Vienna, has an International Monitoring System that include more than 100 seismic, hydroacoustic and infrasound monitoring stations (see GSN, Sept. 17). Tuomioja said he was “confident” that the system could detect a clandestine nuclear test. “Obviously there will be some time before the entry into force and any shortfalls we still have can be corrected by then,” he said.
The diplomats would not comment on whether the treaty organization believes the recent explosion in North Korea was nuclear or conventional. The organization shares its findings only with parties to the treaty.
The International Atomic Energy Agency today called on North Korea to allow nuclear inspectors back into the country, after they were expelled in December 2002, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Sept. 22).
A resolution adopted by consensus at the agency’s annual general conference in Vienna “calls upon” Pyongyang “to promptly accept comprehensive IAEA safeguards and cooperate with the agency in their full and effective implementation.”
The agency early last year reported North Korea in noncompliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. It passed a similar resolution last year regarding the return of inspectors (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, Sept. 24).
Meanwhile, the U.S. ambassador to South Korea said today that Seoul’s cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog over concerns about its past nuclear experiments (see GSN, Sept. 13) should serve as an example to Pyongyang, Reuters reported.
“I know that this is an issue that the North Koreans say is important to them. They should cooperate with the IAEA the way the Republic of Korea has cooperated with IAEA,” said Ambassador Christopher Hill (Paul Eckert, Reuters, Sept. 24).
In a statement to the IAEA general conference this week, the South Korea delegate told officials that “the experiments in question were conducted without the knowledge or authorization of my government and were performed on a laboratory scale exclusively for research purposes and involving only a milligram quantity of nuclear material.”
“As soon as these incidents came to the attention of my government, we informed the IAEA on our own initiative of all the relevant information that we acquired through the investigation,” Ambassador Chang Beom-cho added. “In line with our steadfast commitment to transparency and openness, the Republic of Korea has extended full, proactive and exemplary cooperation to the IAEA and will continue to do so to facilitate the thorough verification work by the Agency’s inspectors.”
Hill also said the five countries negotiating with Pyongyang on its nuclear work need to form a united front, Reuters reported.
“We must make it very clear to the North Koreans that they face a strategic choice: either begin the process of joining the international community or keep their weapons,” he said. “They cannot do both.”
He added that North Korean leaders should not wait to see who wins the U.S. presidential election before resuming talks.
“There’s a consensus in the U.S. among all political elites that North Korea must get rid of its nuclear weapons. There’s no tolerance for North Korea to retain nuclear weapons,” he said (Reuters, Sept. 24).
Elsewhere, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said yesterday that reports of North Korean preparations to test a missile capable of targeting neighboring states would not alter the U.S. approach to the nuclear standoff, according to the State Department.
“It would be very unfortunate if the North Koreans were to do something like this and break out of the moratorium that they have been following for a number of years,” he said. “We would stay very firmly embedded in the six-party framework, and we would not be intimidated with respect to our policies,” Powell said (Judy Aita, U.S. State Department release, Sept. 23).
Japanese officials said today that they would seek information from North Korean officials about the rumored launch preparations at talks in Beijing this weekend, Reuters reported.
“It is necessary to find out what is going on,” chief cabinet secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said.
“According to the Pyongyang Declaration, North Korea will continue a moratorium on missile launches and of course we believe they will obey this,” Hosoda said, referring to a joint statement issued by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il in September 2002.
“In terms of self-defense, however, there is a need to always be alert to this sort of thing, and we must respond properly,” he added (Elaine Lies, Reuters/Yahoo!News, Sept. 24).
A German businessman suspected of involvement in the smuggling of nuclear weapons-related equipment was arrested Tuesday, the Washington Post reported (see GSN, Sept. 15).
German prosecutors said that the man, identified as Helmut R., is believed to have arranged for the delivery of plutonium-separating equipment to an unidentified country for use in a nuclear weapons program, according to the Post. The man was arrested Tuesday in the German town of Friedrichshafen in an operation that also involved raids on his home and workshop in Friedrichshafen, a business in northern Germany and two sites in Switzerland, according to a statement issued by the German prosecutor’s office in Karlsruhe.
The man was released on bail and no charges have been filed (Craig Whitlock, Washington Post, Sept. 24).
Former Iraqi nuclear weapons scientist Mahdi Obeidi has written a new book describing prewar Iraq’s pre-1991 efforts to build nuclear weapons, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, June 27, 2003).
“Although [former Iraqi President] Saddam [Hussein] never had nuclear weapons at his disposal, the story of how close Iraq came to developing them should serve as a red flag to the international community,” Obeidi wrote with co-author Kurt Pitzer in The Bomb in My Garden, to be released Sunday.
According to AP, Obeidi describes in his book how he kept designs and prototypes of uranium enrichment centrifuges buried in his garden for more than 10 years to hide them from U.N. weapons inspectors. Obeidi has since provided the components and designs to the United States (Katherine Pfleger Shrader, Associated Press/Boston Globe, Sept. 23).
Morocco and Tanzania this week signed Additional Protocols to their respective International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards agreements, the agency announced yesterday (see GSN, June 22).
The Additional Protocol grants the agency the authority to conduct more intrusive monitoring of a country’s nuclear activities.
The IAEA’s Board of Governors last week approved the Additional Protocols for Algeria, Benin, Mauritius and Serbia and Montenegro (Xinhua News Agency, Sept. 24).
Tunisia Ratifies Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty
Tunisia yesterday submitted its ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, according to the CTBT Organization (seeGSN, Sept. 23). To date, 117 countries have ratified the agreement, including 32 of the 44 nations whose ratifications are necessary for the treaty to enter into force (CTBT Organization release, Sept. 24).
Nerve Agent Precursor Shipped to North Korea Originated in South Korea, Seoul Officials Say
North Korea acquired more than 100 tons of a chemical weapons precursor material from a South Korean businessman who shipped the it through China, South Korea’s Commerce Ministry announced yesterday, according to Agence France-Presse (see GSN, Sept. 22).
Between June and September last year, 107 tons of sodium cyanide were exported without Seoul’s approval to an importer in Dandong, China, on the North Korean border, according to a ministry statement. The unidentified Chinese firm then sent the shipment to a North Korean trading firm.
The dual-use chemical is subject to multilateral export control regimes to which South Korea is a signatory, according to AFP.
The ministry said it first learned of the illegal shipments October last year. The unidentified South Korean businessman was reported to prosecutors and in January received a jail sentence of 18 months suspended for two years.
The ministry also said authorities were checking a report that a Malaysian company exported 40 tons of sodium cyanide, 15 tons of which was acquired from South Korea, to North Korea last month, AFP reported (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Sept. 24).
South Korean officials also said today that they have increased monitoring to prevent such materials from again reaching North Korea, Korea Times reported.
Under South Korea’s trade laws, sodium cyanide is categorized as a strategic material, which requires special permission for trading, according to the Times.
“Although the government has made efforts to strengthen control of strategic material export, it is difficult to monitor the movement of exports via a third country,” said Commerce, Industry and Energy Ministry official Seo Young-joo.
“We are developing a comprehensive measure against the loopholes in exporting strategic materials. We will strengthen controls of strategic material exports to countries that attempt to re-export Korean imports to a third country outside of ‘International Multilateral Export Control’ like North Korea,” he said.
Seoul plans to create an online information system of strategic material trade guidelines, Seo said.
Between 2002 and August 2004, South Korea exported a total of 146,046 tons of sodium cyanide to 10 countries — including China Thailand, Russia and Indonesia — according to the ministry. Exports to China were the highest, reaching 42,399 tons (Seo Jee-yeon, Korea Times, Sept. 24).
Western Companies, Russian Scientific Institutes to Meet to Discuss Chemical Research Commercialization
By Mike Nartker Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — Representatives from Western companies and scientific institutes in the former Soviet Union are set to meet next week as part of efforts to prevent former Soviet chemical weapons scientists from transferring their expertise to rogue states or terrorist groups (see GSN, Sept. 24, 2003).
The conference, set to be held Sept. 27-29 in Moscow, is intended to help scientists from chemical research and production institutes in Russia and other former Soviet states to commercialize their efforts. More than 200 people have registered to attend the conference, which is being sponsored by the U.S. State Department’s Bio-Chem Redirect Program.
Conference participants, according to a State Department official, include representatives from 35 Western companies including General Electric, Dow Chemical and Sigma-Aldrich, as well as a number of smaller firms. Scientists from 25 research institutes in Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Ukraine are also planning to attend.
All of the institutes being represented at the conference are “priorities for engagement,” the State Department official said, meaning that each employ at least one former Soviet chemical weapons scientist.
Nonproliferation experts said the conference is the first time an effort was being made to engage former chemical weapons scientists. Much of the chemical nonproliferation focus in former Soviet states has been on the elimination of the vast stockpile of remaining actual chemical weapons, said Raphael Della Ratta of the Russian-American Nuclear Security Advisory Council in Washington (see GSN, July 26).
The various research institutes are set at the conference to present overviews of their technical capabilities and research projects, in what the State Department official described as an attempt to “market themselves” to Western companies. The conference will also include presentations intended to aid commercializing research efforts in Russia and Eurasia.
In addition, “matchmaking” sessions are scheduled to allow representatives from Western companies to request and meet specific Russian and Eurasian scientists. The various Western companies attending the conference have “vastly taken advantage” of such sessions, the State Department official said.
There has been a “tremendous response” from Western companies in attending the conference, the official said.
“The former Soviet Union is an untapped marketplace for chemical science and research,” the official said. “Hopefully some good fruitful relationships will come out of this.”
Chinese, Japanese Experts Work to Recover More Than 700 World War II-Era Chemical Munitions
Chinese and Japanese experts are working this month to recover Japanese World War II-era chemical weapons buried in a northeastern Chinese city, according to China Daily (see GSN, Aug. 27).
A team of 30 Japanese experts, along with 100 Chinese experts, is working to recover potentially more than 700 chemical munitions, located under a steel mill in the city of Ningan, China Daily reported. The effort began early this month and is expected to be competed by Sept. 28, according to Zhou Bolin, an expert at the Chinese Defense Ministry.
Weapons are set to be temporarily stored in Ningan before being destroyed. Tainted soil around the burial site is also expected to be removed (China Daily, Sept. 24).
The daily cost of operating the Newport Chemical Agent Disposal Facility in Indiana is estimated at $300,000 — a $50,000 per day increase since the U.S. Army reported on facility expenses a year ago, the Terre Haute, Ind., Tribune-Star reported yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 17).
The latest figure is an estimate from June 4 through Aug. 4 for facility and laboratory operations, program management, staffing and other costs, according Army project site manager Jeff Brubaker. In addition to the $300,000, the cost of running the depot’s stockpile storage operations is slightly more than $60,000 per day, Brubaker said.
The Army is preparing to neutralize 1,269 tons of VX nerve agent at the Newport facility. The Army is working to destroy the munitions stored at Newport and seven other sites to meet its obligation to destroy its chemical weapons stockpile under the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention.
Although U.S. officials claim to have costs and destruction schedules under control, Craig Williams of the Chemical Weapons Working Group of Kentucky said there have been cost overruns and work delays at every site.
“The program is $22 billion over budget and at least 17 years behind schedule,” Williams said.
Army Chemical Materials Agency spokeswoman Marilyn Daughdrill confirmed Williams’ numbers.
Cost estimates for the program were established in 1985 when “Congress told us to destroy the stockpile by 2004,” she said. “We were extraordinarily optimistic” (Patricia Pastore, Tribune-Star, Sept. 23).
Workers at the Deseret Chemical Depot in Utah on Wednesday detected a mustard agent leak in a storage igloo during routine monitoring operations, the U.S. Army announced in a press release (see GSN, Aug. 26).
Workers entered the storage structure and discovered that the agent originated in a leaking 155mm projectile. Crews decontaminated the area and there was no danger to workers or the environment, according to the Army (U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency release, Sept. 22).
China Criticizes U.S. Sanctions Leveled Against Company For Alleged Missile Proliferation Activities
By Mike Nartker Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — China yesterday criticized U.S. sanctions imposed this week against a Chinese company for alleged missile proliferation activities, saying that such allegations were an issue for domestic authorities to resolve (see GSN, Sept. 22).
On Monday, the United States imposed sanctions against the China New Era Group, an arms trade-related import-export company with ties to the Chinese military, for allegedly aiding the WMD-capable ballistic missile program of an unidentified country. The two-year sanctions prohibit the company from entering into business with or receiving aid from the U.S. government, as well as from exporting goods to the United States. In addition, all defense-related licenses for exports to the company have been suspended.
During a press conference yesterday in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan said that allegations of proliferation by Chinese entities are Beijing’s responsibility to investigate and, if necessary, punish.
“We have repeatedly reaffirmed that we adamantly oppose and prohibit the proliferation activities by any entities and individuals. The process of investigation and handling will immediately start once we find such cases,” Kong said.
“The problem now is that the U.S. takes actions against some Chinese companies and entities on the basis of their domestic laws. We cannot accept such actions at all.We believe such actions by the U.S. will not help expand China-U.S. cooperation on nonproliferation and require the U.S. side to revoke the wrong decision,” he added.
China has sought in recent years to strengthen its domestic export control regulations, such as by adopting in 2002 missile-related export controls similar to those used by members of the multilateral Missile Technology Control Regime (see GSN, Sept. 3, 2002). There have been continued concerns, though, over China’s record of enforcing its regulations.
“We continue to have a mixed picture” of China’s export-control policies, a U.S. State Department official said today, noting the differences between China’s efforts to strengthen regulations and its history of enforcement.
In May, the Chinese Commerce Ministry publicly announced that two companies had been fined the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of dollars for violating missile-related export regulations. The announcement was praised at the time for being the first instance in which China had publicized penalizing companies for violating export-control regulations (see GSN, May 25).
Noting China’s strong opposition to the spread of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles, Kong yesterday emphasized that Beijing would take action against proliferators.
“We prohibit the proliferation activities of any entities or individuals. Once finding such cases, the Chinese government will give penalties in accordance with law,” he said.
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency installed the fourth Ground-based Midcourse Defense missile interceptor Wednesday at Fort Greely, Alaska, the agency announced yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 10).
Two more interceptors are expected to be installed in underground silos by the middle of next month (Aerospace Daily & Defense Report, Sept. 24).
Plausibility of EMP Threat Classified, Expert Says
By David Ruppe Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — Questions about the plausibility of an alleged special electromagnetic pulse nuclear weapon that could to someday wipe out modern U.S. society by damaging or destroy its electrical system cannot be publicly addressed because the answers are classified, a U.S. expert said Wednesday (see GSN, July 23).
Lowell Wood, a physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California,served on a national commission created by Congress that in July reported the potential for an EMP threat and recommended broad, potentially multibillion dollar measures for the nation to minimize its consequences.
The National Commission to Assess the Electromagnetic Pulse Threat to the United States, presenting the executive summary of its report, told Congress that certain nuclear weapons detonated in the upper atmosphere above the United States have “the potential to hold our society seriously at risk and might result in defeat of our military forces.”
It says further that “terrorists or state actors that possess relatively unsophisticated missiles armed with nuclear weapons” could threaten the United States with such weapons within the next 15 years. The United States is particularly vulnerable, it says, because of its dependence on modern electronics for transportation, communications, warm shelter and national security.
Speaking at an event Wednesday on Capitol Hill, Wood said the technology exists to greatly reduce the consequences of such an attack. He urged the federal government and Congress to aggressively address the issue and said it could cost about $10 billion a year over two or more decades to gradually fix weaknesses in critical U.S. infrastructures, such as by configuring major components of the electrical power and telecommunication systems so they would not be damaged from an attack. He also advocated creating high-level positions in the Defense and Homeland Security departments responsible for dealing with the threat, and a space-based defense against such an attack.
Wood refused, however, to respond to questions about whether weapons capable of doing such damage are technologically possible and within reach of so-called “rogue” states and terrorists he said might pose a threat.
“You seriously don’t expect answers in an unclassified [setting] to those sorts of questions?” he said.
Doubts Voiced
Philip Coyle, who was the assistant secretary of defense and Pentagon director of operational test and evaluation during the Clinton administration, however, questioned the certainty of the report’s conclusion that smaller, kiloton-scale nuclear weapons could be developed to produce the catastrophic consequences described by the report.
“The U.S. military does not know how to do this today, and has no way of demonstrating the capability in the future without returning to nuclear testing,” he said by e-mail.
“The fact is that a rogue nation or terrorists that tried this would be very unsure of the results, and would risk massive retaliation from the United States for having achieved nothing,” he wrote.
Coyle, who also worked at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for more than 30 years, also said it is uncertain that even a massive nuclear weapon would cause the scale of destruction the commission predicted.
“Granted, both Russia and China have high-yield nuclear weapons and rockets that can launch such weapons into space. If Russia or China wants to create EMP, they certainly can — although again they could not be sure they would achieve the devastating results postulated by the commission,” he wrote.
Coyle noted that the United States has conducted a test that produced the EMP phenomenon, the 1.4 megaton-yield 1962 Starfish nuclear test, which reportedly knocked out some street lights and a telecommunications relay facility in Honolulu. The commission also had only partial data from a series of Soviet tests in the early 1960s and the damage caused by those tests was quickly repaired.
The effects of the Starfish test were “nothing like the effects postulated in this report,” he wrote. “In both cases, the power outages were brief and quickly repaired. You might notice that in the picture of the Starfish test, the lights in Honolulu are ON.”
A New Thing
The Starfish test did not knock all of the power out in Honolulu, Wood said, because of its distance from the islands, some 800 nautical miles away.
Furthermore, in his presentation arranged by the nonprofit The George C. Marshall Institute, he argued that more effective, lower-yield nuclear EMP threats are newly understood to be possible.
“One of the things that is important to be realized, and that is new, in that it hasn’t been discussed publicly before the EMP commission’s report, is that the magnitude of the EMP is not dependent on yield,” he told the audience.
“One of the standard myths about EMP” is that an effective high-altitude EMP attack requires megaton-class explosives, he said.
EMP effects could be produced by “quite small nuclear explosions, in some cases even more so than from very big ones,” according to a slide in his presentation.
A “tailored” 10-kiloton weapon “may be more EMP threatening” than a standard megaton-class one, it added.
Designs for such tailored EMP weapons “can be found on the Internet,” Wood said.
Wood said his comments were “my own take on the situation,” and not intended to represent those of the commission. The commission’s report, however, appeared to endorse his view.
“Certain types of relatively low-yield nuclear weapons can be employed to generate potentially catastrophic EMP effects over wide geographic areas, and designs for variants of such weapons have been illicitly trafficked for a quarter century,” it says.
It’s Classified
When asked following his presentation whether U.S. scientists have developed and tested a kilotons-scale weapon to demonstrate its EMP capability, Wood said he could not comment.
The commission conducted assessments of what the United States and others know about such weapons and questions about such matters were addressed in a classified session with members of Congress following a public presentation of the commission’s report, he said.
“We presented in open session, then we went up and spent another few more hours and presented in closed session, where they asked and were given answers” to such questions, he said.
“But they are members and it was a tightly closed environment, a doom room,” he said. “I’d be willing to take the chance to inform the American people about what the situation is, but I’m forbidden by law to do so.”
The commission’s five volumes on the subject were: an unclassified executive summary released in July; a classified threat assessment; an unclassified critical infrastructure assessment; a volume on military topics; and an assessment of potential threats.
Wood also refused to comment on whether the U.S. should pursue such technology to see if it worked.
“Those are things that the president and the Congress should decide … the chairmen of the Armed Services [Committees], the secretary of Defense,” he said.
Coyle, in a commentary published in July, said the commission’s report appeared to “extrapolate calculations of extreme weapons effects as if they were a proven fact, and further to puff up rogue nations and terrorists with the capabilities of giants.”
He advocated an independent scientific peer review off the technical basis underlying the commission’s projections of a new EMP threat.
“The Congress has done this in the past to address controversial nuclear weapons issues. Before this commission’s findings become the basis for significant policy and budgetary decisions, we need such an independent scientific review,” he wrote.
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