Boston Proposes Rules for Labs Studying Bioagents

Boston laboratories that study biological agents could soon be required to obtain safety permits under new regulations that were to be proposed yesterday by city public health officials, the Boston Globe reported (see GSN, July 12).

The regulations would also require that neighborhoods near the facilities be represented on internal safety boards, and call for regular inspections of the laboratories by internal reviewers and city inspectors.

Finally, the new regulations would require laboratories working with materials that could be used in a bioterrorist attack to provide a list of dangerous substances and an explanation for the research to the city. Previously, only the federal government had access to this kind of information, according to the Globe.

More than 1,000 university, hospital and private biotechnology laboratories in Boston would be subject to the new safety code. 

Boston officials believe their proposed code is the strictest in the country.

“This does seem to be an important time to guarantee that laboratories that are increasing in the city and around the country are operating at the optimal safety level,” said John Auerbach, head of the Boston Public Health Commission.

Safety permits issued by the city would be valid for three years, he added.  

Health officials said that the proposed rules were drafted in response to three Boston University researchers’ exposure to tularemia last year (see GSN, May 11). 

The regulations also address neighborhood concerns about a planned Boston University laboratory where scientists would work with lethal biological agents.

“This will give us some standards to make sure these labs are being monitored,” said Boston Mayor Thomas Menino.   “'These regulations go a long way to show the city is serious about having biolabs in the city and about the safety of them.”

The Boston Public Health Commission must approve the regulations before they take effect. The commission was expected to review the proposal for the first time yesterday.

Klare Allen, who leads a group opposed to the proposed Boston University laboratory, said the rules are “a great first step. It’s something that should have been in place a long time ago.”

“'If they were being inspected all along, then the scientists wouldn't be hurting themselves,” she added, but said the new regulations would not change her opposition to the new laboratory.

Boston is also looking at hiring its first laboratory safety officer, charged with inspecting facilities to ensure they are safely operating. Fines for failure to operate as mandated by the new regulations could be as high as $1,000 per day per violation, according to the Globe (Stephen Smith, Boston Globe, Nov. 15).

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Air Cargo Remains Vulnerable, Report Says

The Bush administration has no schedule for completing a 2-year-old plan to secure air cargo against possible terrorist acts, says a report by congressional investigators expected to be released today (see GSN, Oct. 31).

The Government Accountability Office has found that the Transportation Security Administration has not yet conducted an assessment of vulnerabilities of cargo-carrying planes.

“According to officials, limited resources and competing priorities have delayed agency efforts to conduct such an assessment,” says the report, which was obtained yesterday by the Associated Press.

Several air cargo security measures are in place. Cargo loaded onto passenger aircraft must be carried by a TSA-registered company, while cargo-only airlines have private security plans and randomly inspect some freight.

The Transportation Security Administration has ordered airlines to increase random freight inspections three-fold, hired 100 new inspectors and is testing additional security technology, said spokeswoman Yolanda Clark.

“TSA has established a strong layered system of security in the air cargo arena and recognizes the need to do more,” she said.

The report, however, finds that the agency collects information on less than one-third of registered companies that ship cargo on passenger airlines. It also questions the reliability of that information, AP reported.

Representative Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) said additional inspection regulations must be implemented.

“Uninspected cargo is a risk to air passengers,” Shays said in a statement released yesterday (Leslie Miller, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Nov. 16).

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Congress Failed to Scrutinize Bush Case for Iraq War, Senator Says

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Congress neglected its constitutional responsibilities by failing to sufficiently scrutinize the Bush administration’s justifications and plans for the war in Iraq, a senior Republican senator said yesterday in a critique of U.S. foreign policy (see GSN, Nov. 14).

Speaking here before the Council on Foreign Relations, Senator Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) also criticized the Bush administration’s approach to the war and foreign policy, saying for instance that the United States should “avoid the traps of hubris and imperial temptation that come with great power.”

Hagel said, though, that the October 2002 joint congressional resolution authorizing President George W. Bush to use military force against Iraq was largely a partisan affair and an insufficiently considered one at that. The senator backed the resolution at the time.

“We in Congress also should be assigned some blame here. We let this all unfold right in front of our eyes with very little questioning, very little oversight. And I think it was a straight up or down Republican vote, and I’m a Republican,” he said.

“If [Democratic President Bill] Clinton had been president, I suspect we would have been a bit more interested in oversight hearings,” he said. 

The resolution received strong support in both houses of Congress from Republicans and partial support from Democrats. While the March 2003 invasion succeeded with few problems, the U.S.-led coalition subsequently failed to find evidence of the alleged Iraqi WMD programs that were used to help justify the war, and coalition forces have battled an ongoing insurgency in the country.

Hagel argued that Congress ignored its constitutional authority and responsibility to participate in the decision to go to war.

“The course of events in Iraq has laid bare the failure to prepare for, plan for, and understand the broad consequences and implications of the decision to overthrow [former Iraqi President] Saddam Hussein and occupy Iraq. Where is the accountability?” he said.

“The American people should demand that the president request a declaration of war and the Congress formally declare war, if and when the president believes that committing troops is in the vital national security interests of this country,” he said.

Part of the administration’s case for war included claims — since shown to have lacked strong supporting evidence — that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons stocks, was attempting to acquire nuclear weapons, and might soon share them with its alleged allies in al-Qaeda.

Asked after the event whether Congress should have done a better job in particular of scrutinizing the intelligence and the arguments used to justify the war, Hagel responded, “I think all of us had that responsibility.”

His mea culpas yesterday differed somewhat from those of two prominent Democrats recently. 

“I was wrong. … It was a mistake to vote for this war in 2002,” former senator and 2004 Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards (D-N.C.) said in a Nov. 13 opinion piece in the Washington Post.

While Edwards said his vote was made in error, he cast blame for the mistake on the Bush administration, which he said, “in some cases, manipulated [intelligence on Iraqi weapons] to fit a political agenda.”

Last month, 2004 presidential candidate Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) at Georgetown University similarly said, “I accept my share of the responsibility” for the vote to authorize force. He also blamed the administration.

“The truth is, if the Bush administration had come to the United States Senate and acknowledged there was no ‘slam-dunk case’ that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, acknowledged that Iraq was not connected to 9/11, there never would have even been a vote to authorize the use of force,” he said.

Both senators, then considered Democratic presidential contenders, voted for the October 2002 resolution. 

Other prominent Democrats, however, did not support authorizing force, arguing that the administration had provided insufficient evidence that Iraq posed an imminent threat justifying a U.S. attack.

Recalling the “Gulf of Tonkin Resolution” leading to the Vietnam War, Senator Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) said in a floor debate before the resolution vote, “Congress is again being asked to vote on the use of force without hard evidence that the country poses an imminent threat to the national security of the United States. We are being asked to vote on a resolution authorizing the use of force in a hyped up, politically charged atmosphere in an election year. Congress is again being rushed to judgment.”

Hagel said Congress recently has begun taking an increased role in U.S. foreign policy-making, citing the approval of an amendment authored by Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) prohibiting cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of U.S. government detainees and a Senate vote yesterday urging steps toward a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.

Hagel voted in favor of both measures. Yesterday’s vote on Iraq, he said, was “a significant step toward the Congress exercising its constitutional responsibilities in matters of war.” 

Bush recently has said his administration did not misuse prewar intelligence on Iraqi weapons, that Democrats also supported the war and believed Iraq possessed banned weapons, and that critics alleging misuse were undermining the war effort and “deeply irresponsible.”

Hagel criticized Bush’s argument, saying, “The Bush administration must understand that each American has a right to question our policies in Iraq and should not be demonized for disagreeing with him,” he said.

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Rumsfeld Joins Iraq War Defense

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld yesterday joined the White House in defending the Iraq war, quoting former President Bill Clinton and some his administration’s officials as saying in the 1990s that former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein wanted to use weapons of mass destruction, Reuters reported (see GSN, Nov. 15).

Rumsfeld quoted Clinton as saying in 1998, “other countries possess weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles.”

“With Saddam, there is one big difference: he has used them … the international community had little doubt then, and I have no doubt today, that left unchecked Saddam Hussein will use these terrible weapons again,” Clinton said after ordering military action against Iraq, according to Rumsfeld.

Rumsfeld said that it might helpful for Democrats now criticizing the war “to take a moment to retrace the actual history.”

He said that in 1998 Congress passed and Clinton signed the Iraqi Liberation Act that made it U.S. policy “to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power.”

Rumsfeld also quoted former Vice President Al Gore as saying in 1998 that “if you get someone like Saddam Hussein to get nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, chemical weapons, biological weapons, how many people is he going to kill with such weapons?”

Finally, Rumsfeld quoted then-Secretary of State Madeline Albright as saying, “the risk that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us and our allies is the greatest security threat we face” (Charles Aldinger, Reuters, Nov. 15).

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California Stages Mock Terrorist Attack

Officials held several mock terrorist events yesterday in California as part of a disaster preparedness drill, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Oct. 13).

Officials said multiple WMD explosion simulations had been scheduled for Oakland as part of the $1.7 million statewide terrorism preparedness exercise called Golden Guardian 2005.

About 2,500 local, state and federal disaster personnel from 160 agencies — including local police and fire departments, the U.S. Coast Guard, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the FBI — participated in the exercise, AP reported.

Lessons learned from the exercise will help authorities prepare for a natural disaster, said Oakland police Sgt. Gary Tolleson.

“This was sold as good practice not just for a WMD attack, but for the next quake or the next big hills fire,” Tolleson said. “I’m very positive about the contacts we’ve made” (Associated Press/Monterey County Herald, Nov. 15).

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Iran is Test of IAEA Relevance, Gingrich Says

By Joe Fiorill
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Talks over Iran’s nuclear programs should be seen as a test of the relevance of the International Atomic Energy Agency as a forum for handling such problems, former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Newt Gingrich said yesterday (see GSN, Nov. 15).

The failure of a U.S. bid to send the Iran case to the U.N. Security Council, which could impose economic sanctions over Tehran’s alleged pursuit of a nuclear weapon, would indicate the nuclear agency is unable to take even minimal steps to address pressing crises, Gingrich told a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee.

The nuclear agency’s Board of Governors meets next week at its Vienna headquarters in the latest in a two-year series of meetings focusing on the Iran impasse. At its last meeting in September, the board found that Iran was not complying with its nonproliferation commitments, a step needed to begin a sequence of events the Bush administration believes is required to end with a Security Council referral.

“The IAEA should see itself as being under test next week, not the United States,” said Gingrich, who is now a chairman of the U.S. Institute of Peace’s Task Force on the United Nations.

The Nobel Peace Prize awarded last month to the U.N. nuclear watchdog and to its director general, Mohamed ElBaradei, has been widely seen as strengthening the agency’s hand in resisting U.S. pressure and seeking a diplomatic solution to the Iran standoff.

Gingrich said sanctions are unlikely to prevent Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, since such measures tend to strengthen tyrannical governments and encourage corruption. Short of a “naval blockade,” he said, “countries don’t collapse” because of economic penalties.

“We’ve had sanctions against [Cuban President] Fidel Castro since 1960. We had sanctions against [toppled Iraqi President] Saddam Hussein for years,” the Georgia Republican told the Federal Financial Management, Government Information and International Security Subcommittee.

The Iran case presents the world with two options, Gingrich said: potentially “lose Tel Aviv and Jerusalem” by allowing a “genocidal, homicidal regime” in Tehran to obtain a nuclear weapon — a reference to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s remark last month that Israel should be “wiped off the map” — or “replace the regime.” A “simple, small first step” toward the second option, he said, would be to suspend Iranian membership in the United Nations.

Fellow conservatives on the subcommittee and among the witnesses at the hearing echoed Gingrich’s calls for a hard line with Iran.

Subcommittee Chairman Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) expressed alarm at Ahmadinejad’s comments on Israel, which Tehran has since sought to temper.

“There should be no doubt that Iran isn’t just blustering here. Iran has a history of carrying out its threats,” Coburn said. The United States should pursue “regime change” in Iran, he said, because “democracies tend not to threaten other democracies.”

Former Director of Central Intelligence James Woolsey told the subcommittee a “major expansion of our own armed forces” is needed in response to the Iranian threat.

Woolsey, now a vice president with consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, warned against a policy of “appeasement” akin to some European countries’ reactions to the rise of Nazism in Germany. He said Iran would have a nuclear weapon in “extremely short order” if it obtained the necessary material.

“I think the Iranian intent is crystal clear to any objective observer,” Woolsey said.

Woolsey expressed hope that the United States would not have to use force against Iran but added, “I’m afraid … that with respect to this regime, regime change is the only option.”

U.S. President George W. Bush’s description of groups such as al-Qaeda as “Islamofascists” does not go far enough to describe the Iranian president, Woolsey said.

“That is not severe enough for Ahmadinejad, because the Italian Fascists, while terrible, were not genocidal, were not explicitly genocidal, while Ahmadinejad is genocidal,” Woolsey said.

Others at the hearing advocated stronger diplomatic and economic measures to try to change Iran’s plans.

Former U.S. Senator Alfonse D’Amato (R-N.Y.) called for a policy of “constrictive engagement” with Iran in which countries would work together to tighten or loosen economic penalties, according to Tehran’s nuclear conduct.

“It’s very easy to say, ‘We’ll just bring about regime change,’” said D’Amato, but “what policies will we undertake to bring about regime change? … I don’t think the American people are willing at this point to say, ‘Let’s go to war. Let’s bomb them.’”

Former White House nonproliferation adviser Gary Samore said Iran has been making only “tactical concessions” in its dealings with the nuclear agency and called Russia and China, which have resisted sending Iran to the Security Council, the keys to more tangible progress.

“The challenge is to mobilize strong international support for [uranium] enrichment as a red line, having already failed to enforce [uranium] conversion [activities] as the trigger for referral,” said Samore, vice president for global security and sustainability at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Russia and China “basically … do not want to be dragged into a confrontation over Iran’s nuclear program, which could jeopardize their relations with Iran as well as their overall relations with the U.S. and European powers,” Samore said. “We need to convince Moscow and Beijing that the best way to avoid a crisis is to convince Iran not to aggravate the situation by resuming enrichment. That requires a strong warning by Russia and China to Iran not to expect protection if Iran decides to breach the enrichment red line.”

Council on Foreign Relations Middle East Studies Senior Fellow Ray Takeyh called for engagement with Iran, warning that U.S. belligerence would strengthen the hand of the country’s hard-liners generally and with respect to the need for a nuclear weapon. He called for using “soft power,” including “cultural exchanges, academic scholarships and a more relaxed visa policy,” as well as relaxing economic sanctions.

“By integrating Iran into the global economy, the U.S. can generate internal pressures for transparency and decentralization that will press Iran toward a more responsible international conduct,” Takeyh said.

Although Iran is now governed by its right wing, reforms over the last decade have made it “impossible for Iran to become a rigid, authoritarian state,” Takeyh said.

“Iran’s democratic transition must come on its own terms and at its own pace,” Takeyh said. “Iran will change.  However, this will not be a change imposed or accelerated from abroad.”

“It is neither inevitable nor absolute that Iran will become the next member of the nuclear club,” he added, “as its internal debates are real and its course of actions is still unsettled.”

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Defense Bill Blocks Energy RNEP Funding

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate yesterday unanimously passed legislation barring allocation of $4 million requested by the Energy Department to continue study of an earth-penetrating nuclear weapon (see GSN, Nov. 9).

The language sponsored by Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) was approved as an amendment to the Senate’s $492 billion fiscal 2006 defense authorization bill.

“None of the funds authorized to be appropriated to the Department of Energy under this act may be made available for the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator,” it says.

Both the Senate and the House have passed appropriations bills for the Energy and Defense departments that deny funding for the study this fiscal year 2006. However, observers say the Defense Department this fiscal year could request congressional permission to use other defense funds for the study.

The House Armed Services Committee earlier this year approved language in the House version of the defense authorization bill authorizing Defense Department spending on nuclear and conventional penetrator concepts.

Democratic senators have vowed to block in the pending conference on the authorization bill any Defense Department funding of the study of nuclear penetrators in fiscal 2006.

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IAEA Director General Could Present Russian Nuclear Compromise Deal to Iran This Weekend

International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei could visit Iran this weekend in hopes of brokering a deal over Tehran’s controversial nuclear program, Reuters reported yesterday (see GSN, Nov. 15).

Moscow’s envoy to the agency yesterday briefed ElBaradei on the proposal for a Russian-Iranian joint venture that would allow Tehran to continue uranium enrichment activities if they take place on Russian soil, Reuters reported.

A source close to the agency said ElBaradei’s trip would go forward if the plan were to gain approval from board members such as France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States, which have pushed for Security Council referral of Iran’s dossier; nations such as China and Russia that have opposed referral; and developing nations with an interest in increased access to nuclear power.

“But there’s still quite a lot of water left to flow under the bridge before a done deal (among key board members),” said the source. “Without that, ElBaradei’s not likely to go and risk such a sensitive visit backfiring in his face.”

The official from an EU power said ElBaradei seemed “optimistic that the Russian deal could go through” and was favored making the trip.

ElBaradei’s latest report on Tehran’s activities is expected to be released to members of the agency’s Board of Governors later this week, ahead of the board meeting scheduled to begin Nov. 24.

Diplomats said the report would be more positive than its predecessor, which prompted the board to pass a resolution critical of Tehran in September.

“We expect the (new) report to be very short ... there will be positive elements in it. Iran permitted the IAEA to visit Parchin (military test site) and early results show no signs of nuclear materials,” said one EU diplomat (Mark Heinrich, Reuters, Nov. 15).

Two agency inspectors are in Isfahan this week , the Iranian Fars News Agency reported yesterday.

The experts are scheduled to visit nuclear facilities in Isfahan and Natanz before departing on Nov. 23, Fars reported (Fars News Agency/BBC Monitoring, Nov. 15).

Russia’s nuclear talks with Iran will continue, Russian Security Council chief Igor Ivanov said in an interview published today by in RIA Novosti.

Ivanov also said Iran’s negotiations with the EU powers ought to resume, the Associated Press reported (Associated Press, Nov. 16).

Meanwhile, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Daniel Fried said yesterday “the world should contemplate a nuclear weapons-armed Iran with the greatest of concern.”

He said the International Atomic Energy Agency must “act with determination and resolve for all of us,” AP reported (Susanna Loof, Associated Press, Nov. 15).

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South Korea Providing Rewards to Pyongyang, Despite Lack of Movement on Nuclear Disarmament

North Korea has been receiving economic and diplomatic incentives from South Korea, even though Pyongyang has made no movement on its September pledge to dismantle its nuclear weapons program, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, Nov. 15).

South Korea’s National Assembly last week approved a $2.6 billion package of economic and humanitarian aid to North Korea, more than doubling its 2005 allocation. The amount is so large that Seoul might have to issue bonds to finance the aid, according to the Post.

An official South Korean liaison office opened in Pyongyang this month for the first time since the Korean War, and a railroad line between the countries is expected to be completed this year.

Such efforts were meant to persuade North Korea to dismantle its nuclear programs, the Post reported, but instead Pyongyang has pledged to restart work on building a 50-megawatt nuclear reactor.

Since the signing of the September agreement, “the mood for reconciliation has improved,” said Moon Dae-keun, economic cooperation director for South Korea’s Unification Ministry. “We still need to resolve the nuclear issue, but the agreement has helped us to move ahead with South-North cooperation.”

Opposition leaders in Seoul, however, have said granting concessions to the North now would be a strategic error.

“We can’t give them everything they want now. Instead, we need to make them understand the consequences if they don’t comply” with the September agreement, said Hwang Jin-ha, a National Assembly member from the opposition Grand National Party. “We should only make positive gestures with food aid, economic assistance and investment when we see real steps being taken to resolve the nuclear issue” (Anthony Faiola, Washington Post, Nov. 16).

Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said today that it remained unclear whether Pyongyang was serious about disarmament, Agence France-Presse reported. 

“I think the jury is out on whether the North Koreans are prepared to do what they need to do, which is to get serious about dismantlement and verification obligations that they undertook,” Rice said.

“Thus far, I think the round that just ended did not have the kind of engagement on that issue from the North Koreans that we might have expected,” she said of last week’s six-party talks (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, Nov. 16).

Elsewhere, Chinese President Hu Jintao and South Korean Prime Minister Roh Moo-hyun agreed yesterday to strengthen bilateral connections and increase their efforts at resolving the standoff over North Korea, the Associated Press reported.

“If the two countries of China and South Korea want to realize their separate development goals, they require a peaceful external environment,” Hu said.

Hu said he and Roh had agreed to create a hot line between their respective capitals (Jae-Soon Chang, Associated Press, Nov. 16).

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New Delhi’s Stance on Iran Could Affect U.S.-Indian Nuclear Deal, Ex-Defense Secretary Says

Former U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen said yesterday that India’s decision on whether to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council could shape Congressional support for a nuclear technology sharing agreement between India and the United States, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Nov. 8).

“It is important for India to say it is still committed to making sure Iran doesn’t become a nuclear weapons country,” Cohen said.

In September, India supported a vote of the International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors finding Iran in noncompliance with its nonproliferation obligations. The coalition government in New Delhi is facing pressure from communist allies to oppose Security Council referral when the board meets again next week, AP reported.

“If India votes against Iran we will raise the matter in Parliament,” said Prakash Karat of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

Cohen said Congress “would be very interested in seeing that India remains true” to its position on Iran. U.S. lawmakers must approve the White House plan for it to become reality.

India, as part of the July agreement, has vowed to separate its military and civilian nuclear facilities. While that would be an extended process, Cohen said, “there are a number of steps that can be taken to show that India is committed to doing precisely that” (Rajesh Mahapatra, Associated Press, Nov. 15).

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Russia Names New Atomic Energy Agency Chief

Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday appointed Sergei Kiriyenko as head of its Federal Atomic Energy Agency, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Nov. 15).

Kiriyenko, a former Russian prime minister, will lead the agency that manages Russian civilian and military nuclear sites. That includes oversight of construction of the Russian-built Bushehr reactor in Iran, according to AFP.

Kiriyenko was serving as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy to the Volga region. He replaces Alexander Rumyantsev, who had led the nuclear agency since 2001 (Agence France-Presse, Nov. 15).

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Correction

Global Security Newswire incorrectly reported yesterday that the House of Representatives had not yet voted on the fiscal 2006 Energy and Water Appropriations bill. The House voted Nov. 9 to approve the bill by a vote of 399-17, the Senate passed it 84-4 Monday, and the bill now awaits the president’s signature.

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OPCW Extends National Implementation Deadline

By Chris Schneidmiller
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention last week gave their fellow member countries an additional year to enact the domestic legislative and administrative measures required to implement the treaty (see GSN, Nov. 4).

Libya also received extra time to eliminate its chemical weapons.

Friday — the last day of the 10th Session of the Conference of States Parties to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons — had been the deadline for nations to meet their obligations under treaty Article 7. While a specific number was not available, dozens of the 175 treaty members have yet to reach full compliance.

“We would have preferred to have greater results accomplished, but the end result was that they weren’t done,” said a U.S. State Department official.

The United States and other member nations were left with the option this year of penalizing their counterparts or putting together a schedule under which the remaining countries could take the required measures, the official said.

There was no clear sign that a consensus decision could have been reached on measures to take against noncomplying nations, the official said. Organizing a vote on the matter would have meant trying to persuade a significant number of countries to vote against themselves. “That’s not usually one of the things countries are inclined to do,” the official said.

In a consensus decision, delegates pushed the deadline back to the next states parties conference in December 2006.

The extension was a demonstration of “goodwill on the part of everyone” toward countries that need additional time or assistance to implement national measures, said OPCW spokesman Peter Kaiser. At least 20 nations joined the pact after the deadline was set in May 2003 — most recently Vanuatu in September.

There are signs of movement by the noncomplying nations, said John Gilbert, senior science fellow at the Washington-based Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation, who attended the conference. An addendum to the main conference report on national implementation indicated that 25 countries — including Belgium, Serbia and Montenegro and Venezuela — had taken some sort of action between mid-October and the beginning of the meeting. That mostly involved submitting required draft legislation to the organization or to lawmakers for consideration, Gilbert said.

“One thing that did come through was that a number of countries have taken this seriously,” he said.

Noncomplying nations next year will be required to submit reports to the quarterly OPCW Executive Council meetings on their efforts — which include enacting laws against acts barred by the treaty, designating a national authority to oversee peaceful chemical activity within the country, and establishing controls on the import and export of dual-use materials.

The reports will enable OPCW officials to track progress to determine which nations need the most support from the organization and other member states, the State Department official said. He said he hoped the OPCW Technical Secretariat would also develop milestones that countries would be required to meet each quarter.

Selection of measures that could be taken against countries that remain in violation of Article 7 will be “a decision that will be left for the Conference of States Parties a year from now,” the official said.

He said he expects there will be no more than a “handful of bad actors” left then that have no intention of finishing their work. Having only three or five nations to deal with will make it easier for the treaty states to apply some form of penalty, the official said. Gilbert was less optimistic, putting the figure at possibly more than 20 countries either not interested or not able to meet their obligations.

There was similar disagreement on the severity of measures that could be taken a year from now. The State Department official said he would not expect steep fines or restrictions on chemical trade, while Gilbert included those in a menu of options that also included restrictions on OPCW employment for nationals of treaty-violating countries.

Sanctions could actually deter frustrated leaders from trying to address their Article 7 requirements, Kaiser said. He noted withdrawal of voting rights at the conference as one option that could be considered for treaty nations that have not addressed Article 7.

Over the next year the organization and its members will maintain assistance programs for countries developing their national measures, Kaiser said. The U.S. government has personnel from various agencies able to support other treaty states, the State Department official said. Commerce Department officials can provide guidance on organizing chemical industry regulations, while Defense personnel have expertise in security and the State Department can draw on its background as the national authority for the United States.

“We are very optimistic that a year from now that we will see a very marked improvement,” the official said.

At last week’s meeting, treaty parties agreed by consensus to approve an extension for Libya to eliminate its chemical weapons stockpile. Tripoli previously was to have destroyed 23 metric tons of mustard gas and 1,300 tons of precursor chemicals by July 2006, according to another U.S. official.

While a new deadline has not yet been set, Kaiser noted that the convention requires all members to eliminate their chemical stockpiles by April 2007. Treaty states can request an extension to 2012.

Since signing the treaty in 2004, Libya has moved all chemical agents to one site and is reviewing plans for two incinerators to be built there, the State Department official said. However, getting the facility on line has proven more complicated than anticipated.

“Libya has been working very hard on it,” the State Department official said.

Gilbert called the delay “a fact-of-life recognition.” He said the consideration shown to Libya could help persuade nontreaty states suspected of possessing chemical weapons to sign on to the pact.

Also at the conference, treaty states approved the OPCW budget for 2006. The $88 million budget will be split between the organization’s treaty verification duties and costs for administrative and other programs.

With inflation, the budget is slightly smaller than the organization’s spending plan for 2005, Kaiser said.

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Russia Simulates Terror Strike on CW Storage Site

Russian authorities yesterday began a simulated terrorist attack at a chemical weapons storage facility, ITAR-Tass reported (see GSN, Nov. 4).

The drill at the Kambarka facility was conducted to test collaboration between executive and military agencies. It involved personnel from the Interior and Emergencies ministries, the Federal Security Service and the federal department charged with storing and processing chemical weapons, according to German Frizorger, head of the Udmurtia republic’s Natural Resources Ministry regional information and analysis center.

Government personnel practiced attacking a terrorist group, extinguishing fires, rescuing people and evacuating the surrounding area, according to ITAR-Tass.

The Kambarka storage site houses more than 6,300 tons of lewisite (ITAR-Tass, Nov. 15).

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