A meeting of U.S. mayors (pictured above) yesterday asked Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff for more money for WMD detectors (Alex Wong/Getty Images). Mayors Ask Homeland Security Chief for Additional Support By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — U.S. mayors yesterday met for the first time with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, asking him to provide more funding for chemical- and biological-agent detection in public transportation systems and to address a host of disaster-response concerns (see GSN, Oct. 20)...Full Story

U.S. Warns North Korea Not to Resume Six-Party Nuclear Negotiations With “Preconditions” North Korea must come to the next round of six-nation nuclear talks without any new demands, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday (see GSN, Oct. 21)...Full Story

Iran, U.S. Discuss Nuclear Issue with Russia Top U.S. and Iranian officials held separate discussions yesterday with senior Russian officials in Moscow on Tehran’s controversial nuclear program, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Oct. 21)...Full Story

	Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Mayors Ask Homeland Security Chief for Additional Support By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — U.S. mayors yesterday met for the first time with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, asking him to provide more funding for chemical- and biological-agent detection in public transportation systems and to address a host of disaster-response concerns (see GSN, Oct. 20). In what they described as the first in a series of meetings, the mayors gave Chertoff 10 pages of requests for improvements in Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster response, military involvement in local response efforts, communications interoperability, transportation security and emergency-response funding. “After seeing firsthand the devastating impact of Hurricane Katrina on Louisiana and the Gulf Coast area and talking to mayors from this region, we recognize more than ever that much more work is needed in the federal-local partnership on disaster preparedness and emergency response,” U.S. Conference of Mayors President Beverly O’Neill told reporters after a group of the conference’s members met with Chertoff. “He gave us assurances that we’re going to work together,” said O’Neill, the mayor of Long Beach, Calif. The mayors portrayed federal aid for public-transportation security as dramatically under funded. They said Washington has provided $400 million in funds for the purpose since the al-Qaeda attacks of 2001, compared with $6 billion in needs identified by transit agencies around the country. The federal government should fund “permanent chemical, biological and explosive detection systems” and other security equipment in public transportation systems, as well as cameras and other security equipment in ports, the mayors said. They asked that local officials be notified whenever hazardous materials are transported by rail through their jurisdictions. Cities Cite Slow Disaster-Aid System, Seek to Streamline The mayors asked for greater city autonomy and more direct federal-city interaction on security matters, which they said are now mainly handled between the federal government and state governments. They stressed the effectiveness of direct city-to-city help in disasters, an approach they said is hampered by current federal reimbursement practices. In particular, the mayors cited problems with the Emergency Management Assistance Compact, a federally endorsed agreement under which disaster-hit states can receive direct help from other states. When the compact is invoked, a state receiving aid is responsible for reimbursing states that provide aid, and Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster aid is often provided in turn to the disaster-affected state. The mayors said that during Hurricane Katrina, the system’s state-to-state setup acted as a brake on aid delivery, with waits for approvals under the compact often delaying city-to-city help by days. Under the dominant EMAC system, aid from one city to another must go through state channels, which can lead to a delay. “The help we were asking for is that this be blessed … so that we can get reimbursement without first having to beg for forgiveness,” Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley said. Meridian, Miss., Mayor John Robert Smith said Davenport, Ala., was ready to send response help to his Katrina-hit city immediately after the storm made landfall but that the process was lengthened from one to seven days by the compact’s processes. “The most critical partnerships in the first 72 hours already exist,” Smith said, “and that’s city to city and mayor to mayor.” Back to top       GM to Open Research Center in Russia General Motors Corp. is today expected to announce the opening of a new science center in Russia that will employ former Soviet WMD scientists to produce new automobile technology, Bloomberg News reported (see GSN, Feb. 25). Several Western companies, including General Electric, Boeing and Schlumberger Ltd. have found employees among some 60,000 former Soviet weapons researchers, according to Bloomberg. “We now have researchers working in laboratories which 15 years ago even the CIA couldn’t penetrate,” said GM research and development chief Alan Taub. “It’s a whole new world” (Green/Katz, Bloomberg News, Oct. 25). Back to top       Experts Warns of WMD Terrorism Terrorists are almost certain to use weapons of mass destruction, a top international terrorism expert said today (see GSN, Sept. 30). While technical, moral and political issues were believed 15 years ago to reduce the likelihood of an act of WMD terrorism, such an attack is now thought to be inevitable, said Bruce Hoffman, corporate chairman in counterterrorism at the RAND Corp. “The likelihood of some major terrorist chemical, biological or radiological attack grows each year as more groups and individuals are drawn to this mode of attack primarily for its corrosive psychological effects on society in addition to its killing potential,” Hoffman said at a conference in Australia. “It is close to a certainty that there will be some chemical, biological or radiological incident,” he added, according to the Australian Associated Press. Hoffman noted a bright spot on nuclear security — that well-organized groups like al-Qaeda have not acquired radioactive materials from the former Soviet Union (Max Blenkin, Australian Associated Press/The Australian, Oct. 25). Meanwhile, U.N. high representative for Bosnia Paddy Ashdown said there is a high likelihood that WMD terrorism will take place within a decade, Agence France-Presse reported yesterday. “We shall be lucky, I think, if the U.N. reaches 70 years without having confronted the real threat of nuclear, chemical or biological terrorism,” he said (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, Oct. 24). Back to top       U.S. Military Criticizes Disaster Response Plans A U.S. Defense Department review of the government’s response to Hurricane Katrina found that the National Response Plan does not detail how federal agencies should assist local agencies during disasters, the Baltimore Sun reported yesterday (see GSN, Oct. 21). The National Response Plan, released earlier this year, would be employed in the event of a catastrophic event, including the detonation of a weapon of mass destruction. It is meant to improve coordination between local, state and federal agencies following such an incident. The Pentagon report, expected to be completed later this year, said current training exercises do not provide adequate disaster-response testing. The plan also lacks specifics on how federal agencies like the Pentagon and the Federal Emergency Management Agency should respond. Response exercises often fail to include the correct personnel, including senior decision makers and local officials, military officials said. The report also questions the rigor and realism of drilling, with some exercises ending before participants are fully put to the test. Officials said the tests are cut short because of cost and time concerns. Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke, when asked about the criticisms, said, “I am not going to judge the plan, and I am not going to judge the operators involved in the plan.” He added: “When we're farther along in our after-action efforts, we'll be in a better place to identify if any of those lessons learned are going to be applicable to the National Response Plan in the future.” The federal government needs plans for responding to 15 different events, including terrorist attacks with weapons of mass destruction, said Paul McHale, assistant defense secretary for homeland defense. “The National Response Plan took some major steps forward. We have to bring that high-level document down to a more practical level,” he said. McHale said training drills “have not been sufficiently challenging.” He added that chemical and biological attack simulations have lasted several days and included state, local and federal officials. Exercises that disable local transportation systems, allowing the Pentagon to use its Transportation Command to move patients and other victims, should also be staged, McHale said. A senior official at the Pentagon said these exercises many times aren’t thorough enough. The Pentagon review of the response plan also found that local needs, including law enforcement and communications support, must be met. Military officials familiar with the plan said it was too vague.  Military officials believe the Pentagon needs to play a “broader role” in disaster response. McHale said previously that active-duty troops should only be used to respond to “catastrophic events” (Tom Bowman, Baltimore Sun, Oct. 24). Back to top

U.S. Warns North Korea Not to Resume Six-Party Nuclear Negotiations With “Preconditions” North Korea must come to the next round of six-nation nuclear talks without any new demands, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday (see GSN, Oct. 21). “I assume they are going to come back. If they come back it’s without preconditions, because that’s the only basis on which the talks will be restarted,” Rice said, according to the Associated Press. Pyongyang previously demanded that it receive a light-water nuclear reactor for energy generation in exchange for potentially dismantling its nuclear program. Rice, however, said the issue could not yet be addressed concretely. North Korea must first eliminate its nuclear weapons effort in a verifiable manner, she said. “The light-water reactor issue continues to be an abstraction,” she said (Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Oct. 24). Pyongyang yesterday confirmed plans to participate in another round of talks, AP reported. “This reflects our sincere stand to respect and faithfully abide by the principles agreed upon in the Beijing Joint Statement” reached during last month’s meeting, said a spokesman for the North Korean Foreign Ministry. Pyongyang’s official news agency, meanwhile, accused the United States of being unfaithful to the agreement. “The United States ... has been careless in its words and deeds quite contrary to the spirit of the statement,” it said (Associated Press II, Oct. 24). Talks could resume for four days beginning Nov. 8 in Beijing, the Japanese daily Sankei Shimbun reported today (Reuters/Yahoo!News, Oct. 24). However, China said today that exact dates had not yet been agreed upon. “In the statement issued at the last round, it was agreed to hold [talks] in November. We hope this schedule will be realized,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, Oct. 25). Meanwhile, Li Bin, Beijing’s special envoy for Korean Peninsula affairs, is meeting with Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, the top U.S. envoy to the talks, in the United States this week, Yonhap reported. Li is scheduled to depart for South Korea for consultations Friday, according to Yonhap (Yonhap/BBC Monitoring, Oct. 25). Back to top       Iran, U.S. Discuss Nuclear Issue with Russia Top U.S. and Iranian officials held separate discussions yesterday with senior Russian officials in Moscow on Tehran’s controversial nuclear program, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Oct. 21). U.S. national security adviser Stephen Hadley met with President Vladimir Putin, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian atomic energy agency chief Alexander Rumyantsev. Lavrov and Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki met later that afternoon. Mottaki said Tehran planned to resume contacts with European countries to discuss its sensitive nuclear work, AP reported. Lavrov said the goal was to find a way to secure Iran’s right to civilian nuclear technology while at the same time removing “any doubts as to the peaceful character of such activity.” Russia’s Kommersant daily reported yesterday that Russian officials have proposed a joint venture in which Russia would enrich uranium for use by Iran on the condition that Tehran agrees to halt development of its indigenous enrichment program. Tehran, however, has not expressed any interest in the proposal and has insisted on its right to produce it own nuclear fuel, Kommersant reported (Judith Ingram, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Oct. 24). Lavrov also reaffirmed Russia’s position that the International Atomic Energy Agency, rather than the U.N. Security Council, should handle any concerns about Iran’s program, Agence France-Presse reported. “Our common position is that we have to continue to deal with all the questions raised through the IAEA,” Lavrov said. Mottaki repeated Tehran’s threat that, if the nuclear case is sent to the Security Council, Iran would abandon the Additional Protocol to its IAEA safeguards agreement, which allows short-notice international inspections of nuclear sites (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, Oct. 24). Back to top       China Calls on U.S. to Stop Punishing Chinese Companies Accused of Weapons Proliferation China yesterday called on the United States to halt issuing sanctions against Chinese companies suspected of aiding weapons proliferation, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Sept. 27). “The United States does not follow international practices in punishing the enterprises,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan. “We request that they should stop.” Kong did not offer details of the suspect companies or their alleged activities. “There are some accusations on China’s efforts regarding nonproliferation. We don’t think those accusation are based on fact,” he continued. “Everybody knows China has formulated a series of very strict regulations and laws on nonproliferation and export controls” (Agence France-Presse, Oct. 25). Back to top

Citizens Groups Say U.S. Army Inaccurate in Response to Solution for VX Waste Processing A coalition of organizations led by the Chemical Weapons Working Group yesterday alleged factual inaccuracies in a U.S. Army response to a proposal for disposing of waste product from VX neutralization (see GSN, Sept. 15). The groups maintain that the waste product can safely be treated at Indiana’s Newport Chemical Agent Disposal Facility, as opposed to transporting the product to New Jersey to be processed and drained into the Delaware River, according to a Chemical Weapon Working Group press statement. The organizations sent a letter of protest yesterday to Army Chemical Materials Agency head Michael Parker. They contend that the Army’s statement that Indiana residents support treating the waste off-site was not true. Groups, individuals, local governments and politicians in Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey oppose transporting the waste, the group said. Also, the groups claimed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Environmental Protection Agency urged the Army this year to avoid processing the wastewater at a DuPont plant in New Jersey. The Army also inaccurately played up the technical challenges of using an on-site treatment facility in Indiana, has presented no evidence that shipping the waste would save money, and misstated support from state regulators, even though New Jersey and Delaware state officials oppose the existing plan, according to the press release. “It's disheartening that the Army continues to press forward on a poor decision made years ago, in light of growing opposition, advances in technical capabilities to treat this material where it is, and identified negative impacts to the Delaware River,” said Chemical Weapons Working Group Director Craig Williams said in the press release. “It's time for this off-site option to go away” (Chemical Weapons Working Group release, Oct. 24). Back to top       Mustard Gas-Filled Munition Found in Delaware A 75 mm munition filled with mustard gas was found last week at a clamshell processing plant in Delaware, The News Journal reported (see GSN, Aug. 12). The weapon was taken to Dover Air Force base and will be destroyed by the U.S. Army’s Nonstockpile Chemical Materiel project, officials said. It will be the third weapon destroyed at the base.  More than 312 World War I- and II-era munitions have been found in the area, most coming from an offshore military dumping project. Clamshell processing plants have taken extra steps to ensure the weapons are found before the clamshells are transported for use in driveways, according to the News Journal (Andre Taylor, News Journal, Oct. 22). Back to top

U.S. Demonstrates Nuclear Security in China The United States yesterday began a weeklong series of nuclear safety demonstrations in China to assist that country’s nuclear energy sector in preventing theft or diversion of radioactive materials, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Sept. 28). Designed by U.S. nuclear weapons laboratory scientists, the $6 million event was organized by the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration. Chinese officials and nuclear power plant representatives are participating, according to AP. The series is expected to include workshops on security systems, radioactive material tracking technology and export controls, said NNSA chief Linton Brooks.  As part of one demonstration, security equipment will be installed at a national nuclear institute in Beijing and will remain once the session ends, Brooks said.  “Chinese take security seriously, but you can always benefit from an exchange of technology,” Brooks said. He declined to comment directly on Washington’s knowledge of possible incidents of nuclear material theft or attempted theft in China. “You don’t wait until material has been lost and then improve security,” he said. Brooks added that his agency is cooperating with several dozen governments on nuclear security (Joe McDonald, Associated Press, Oct. 25).       Back to top

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