Florida Anthrax Cleanup Resumes

After a contract dispute stopped cleanup work at an anthrax-contaminated Boca Raton, Fla., building, a new cleanup company yesterday took over the job, the New York Sun reported (see GSN, Aug. 18).

Bio-ONE, a firm led by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, originally agreed to decontaminate the building. The firm said work was done there 16 months ago, but some photos stored at the site were not fully cleaned, according to the Sun.

Bio-ONE wanted to destroy the pictures. However, freelance photographers with rights to the pictures would not allow the photos to be incinerated. The firm and the building’s owner, David Rustine, could not agree on how the photographs should be dealt with.

“It was a ‘you go your way, we go our way,’” said Karen Cavanagh, Bio-ONE's chief operating officer and general counsel, adding that her firm was never paid for the work it did there.

Bio-ONE has also canceled plans to move into the building. “We really were committed to making the building itself into a symbol that we can handle these types of issues. Because of what occurred with the owner, obviously that didn't work out,” she said.

Steven Abrams, mayor of Boca Raton, praised Bio-ONE’s work at the building. “Our view is Bio-ONE was really a savior for us because we were at a dead end with the federal government,” he said.

MARCOR Remediation Inc., which was hired to clean the pictures, began work at the building yesterday, according to the Palm Beach County Health Department (Josh Gerstein, New York Sun, Nov. 29).

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Researchers Make Anthrax Breakthrough

Swedish researchers yesterday published their discovery of a substance that neutralizes an enzyme in anthrax that allows the pathogen to multiply, stopping the bioagent before it can spread (see GSN, Nov. 28).

“An anthrax infection in the lungs develops very rapidly and must be stopped as quickly as possible. This can be done by combining the [substance] with ordinary antibiotics that work more slowly,” said Britt-Marie Sj”berg, a researcher who participated in the studies.

Scientists at Stockholm University said the discovery could assist in preparedness for a bioterrorism attack, according to a Swedish Research Council Press release.

“The fact that we have identified a chemically simple and commercially available substance with these properties is of great significance, both practically and in terms of further research,” said Sj”ber.

The findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America yesterday, according to the release (Swedish Research Council release, Nov. 29).

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Former Bush Administration Official Questions Whether Iraq Intelligence was Politicized

Recent revelations about the source of intelligence on weapons of mass destruction before the Iraq war have prompted a former senior Bush administration official to question whether the intelligence was politicized, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, Nov. 22).

“You begin to speculate, you begin to wonder: Was this intelligence spun? Was it politicized? Was it cherry-picked?  Did in fact the American people get fooled? I'm beginning to have my concerns,” Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff for former Secretary of State Colin Powell, said in an interview with the BBC.

Wilkerson said reports on doubts about the credibility of a U.S. informant known as Curveball and of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, an al-Qaeda military instructor, caused him to question whether the United States was duped.

Information provided by al-Libi “led Colin Powell to say at the U.N. on Feb. 5, 2003, that there were some pretty substantive contacts between al-Qaeda and Baghdad.”

However, al-Libi’s statements appear to have been “obtained through interrogation techniques other than those authorized by [the] Geneva” Conventions, Wilkerson said.

“More important than that, we know that there was a Defense Intelligence Agency dissent on that testimony even before Colin Powell made his presentation,” he added. “We never heard about that.”

Wilkerson also criticized Vice President Dick Cheney over prisoner abuse in Afghanistan and Iraq and for the lack of a post-war plan in Iraq. When asked if Cheney was guilty of war crimes, Wilkerson said, “Well, that’s an interesting question. It is certainly a domestic crime to advocate terror, and I would suspect that it is, for whatever it’s worth, an international crime as well” (Associated Press/CNN.com, Nov. 29).

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Critics Blast Indo-U.S. Nuke Deal

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — More than a dozen former senior U.S. nuclear arms control and nonproliferation officials and other experts recently expressed reservations about a potential U.S.-India nuclear energy deal, while a senior Republican legislator this week came out in favor of the agreement (see GSN, Nov. 8).

In a letter to Congress last week, the 16 experts and former officials said the potential deal announced by President George W. Bush in July and awaiting possible resolution next year could significantly undermine U.S. nonproliferation efforts, while doing little to bring the two countries together.

“Unfortunately, the proposal for civil nuclear cooperation with India poses far-reaching and potentially adverse implications for U.S. nuclear nonproliferation objectives and promises to do little in the long run to bring India into closer alignment with other U.S. strategic objectives,” they wrote.

The potential U.S. supply of nuclear fuel to India, they said, could “free up” New Delhi’s existing stockpile of, and capacity for producing, nuclear weapons and would not permanently block it from using civilian facilities for military use.

“So far, India has pledged only to accept voluntary safeguards over ‘civilian’ nuclear facilities of its choosing. This could allow India to withdraw any nuclear facility from (International Atomic Energy Agency) safeguards for national security reasons. Such an arrangement would be purely symbolic and would do nothing to prevent the continued production of fissile material for weapons by India,” they wrote.

The authors of the letter include former State Department Office of Nuclear Affairs Director Hal Bengelsdorf; former Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) Directors Ambassador Thomas Graham and John Holum and Assistant Director Lawrence Scheinman; former ACDA general counsel and Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty negotiator George Bunn; former Assistant Secretary of State for Nonproliferation Robert Einhorn; former State Department Director of Nonproliferation and Export Policy Fred McGoldrick; former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Henry Rowen; and former Deputy for Nonproliferation Policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense Henry Sokolski.

The potential deal could require Congress to revise U.S. nuclear export control laws passed in the 1970s after India conducted its first live nuclear test. The letter urged Congress to seek a number of key details from the administration about the potential deal and to insist upon more stringent terms than have been announced by the administration so far.

“On balance, India’s commitments under the current terms of the proposed arrangement do not justify making far-reaching exceptions to U.S. law and international nonproliferation norms,” they wrote.

India’s ambassador to the United States said this month that the imposition of additional requirements on India would break the potential deal (see GSN, Nov. 23).

“I think the authors of the letter believe there are numerous issues that have not yet been examined or explained. And part of the purpose was to help the Congress understand the complexity and the gravity of the proposal,” said Arms Control Association Executive Director Daryl Kimball, who also signed the letter.

“It’s useful to note that the signers of the letter worked on Capitol Hill, the executive branch, [were] Republicans and Democrats,” he said.

Many of the signers were senior officials at the former Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, disbanded by the Clinton administration in 1999 and folded into the State Department’s arms control and nonproliferation infrastructure. The agency’s functions included determining the arms control and nonproliferation implications of potential policy decisions.

The administration this year announced it would scale back that infrastructure, eliminating the arms control and nonproliferation bureaus and their director positions while creating a new consolidated bureau of international security and nonproliferation (see GSN, Sept. 30).

Meanwhile, Representative Dan Burton (R-Ind.), a senior member of the House International Relations Committee, said he is “leaning towards the nuclear agreement,” Press Trust of India reported yesterday.

“But we want a definite separation between civilian and military” elements of India’s nuclear program, said Burton. “If that is assured, I am quite sure it will be addressed.”

The potential deal has thus far elicited mixed reactions from congressional Democratic and Republican leaders.

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Russia Successfully Test-Fires ICBM

Russia today launched one of its aging SS-25 intercontinental ballistic missiles as part of a regular performance test, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Nov. 2).

The ICBM was fired from a mobile launcher in northern Russia and successfully hit a target in the far-eastern Kamchatka Peninsula, Space Forces spokesman Col. Alexei Kuznetsov said in a statement (Associated Press, Nov. 29).

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Israeli Nuclear Whistle-Blower Loses Libel Suit

Israeli nuclear whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu yesterday lost a libel suit against a newspaper that reported in 1999 that he had passed bomb-making tips to Palestinian fellow inmates while he was serving an 18-year prison term for treason, Reuters reported yesterday (see GSN, Nov. 22).

Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court found against the claim that Yedioth Ahronoth had libeled Vanunu by quoting a security chief as saying that Vanunu had been caught advising Hamas militants in Ashkelon’s Shikma prison on bomb manufacture.

Vanunu was ordered to pay $7,700 in court costs, Reuters reported (Dan Williams, Reuters, Nov. 28).

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Workers Prepare to Destroy Waste Left Over from Chemical Weapons Processing at Umatilla

Workers at Umatilla Chemical Depot in Utah have begun implementing plans to destroy “secondary waste” left over after the chemical weapons destruction process, the East Oregonian reported (see GSN, Nov. 7).

“Secondary waste” is defined as anything that came into contact with a chemical agent and the containers the weapons are stored in. It includes “gray water” left over from work in depot laboratories.

“Processing this solution is an important step forward in keeping our commitment to destroy secondary wastes generated during weapons disposal,” said Don Barclay, project manager at the facility.

Barclay said disposal of the gray water and other materials is an important part of weapons processing.

“Eliminating secondary waste is as important as destroying chemical agents,” he said, adding that the U.S. Army has promised that “it will not leave behind a legacy of waste.”

Oregon’s Environmental Quality Department recently approved a permit to allow the gray water to be destroyed in incinerators used to process chemical weapons. Initial plans called for a separate incinerator to be built for secondary waste.

The Army recently asked the department for permission to add a Carbon Micronization System. This system can destroy all carbon waste left over from the facility’s ventilation and pollution abatement system, according to depot official Michael Strong (Hal McCune, East Oregonian, Nov. 25).

Meanwhile, an evacuation plan for the town where Umatilla is located was unveiled last week, the Hermiston Herald reported.

The plan was drafted by the Morrow County Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program and financed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, according to the Herald.

“The public is still being asked to shelter-in-place, which is the safest option,” said Maureen Roxbury, a spokeswoman for the emergency preparedness program. “For motorists, the evacuation route will take them out of town.”

Roxbury said that response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita guided the group as they formulated the plan.

“We are benefiting from those lessons learned,” she said (Karen Hutchinson-Talaski, Hermiston Herald, Nov. 22).

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Anniston CW Disposal Facility to Shut Down for Four Months to Prepare for VX Processing

After completing the destruction of sarin-filled 105mm shells, workers at the Anniston Chemical Agent Disposal Facility in Alabama will start a four-month process to ready the facility to destroy VX weapons, the Anniston Star reported (see GSN, Sept. 28).

Processing of VX is expected to start in June, according to the Star.

“They look the same as the GB [sarin] rockets, they just have a different agent in them,” said Tim Garrett, the Army’s project manager at the facility, of the VX-filled weapons. “We’re going to have to retool the equipment.”

Workers are expected to install an additional 50 chemical monitors to check for VX. Equipment is also expected to be cleaned with a decontamination solution, and samples from around the facility will be taken to ensure all sarin was destroyed.

“From a monitoring perspective, you do not want to deal with two agents at one time,” said Garrett. “You want to eliminate the possibility of GB (sarin) at all times.”

The furnace where the weapons are destroyed will be heated to ensure all sarin was destroyed and then, once cooled, will be inspected. The machine that destroys rockets will be adjusted to destroy VX weapons. Finally, the incinerator that burns the nerve agent will be inspected to verify all sarin has been destroyed, according to the Star.

After work on the equipment is finished, the Army Chemical Materials Agency will check to make sure it is in good working order before VX destruction begins (Brian Lyman, Anniston Star, Nov. 27).

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U.S. Considers Yucca Contractor Change

The U.S. Energy Department is considering changing contractors at the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump in Nevada, the Las Vegas Business Press reported yesterday (see GSN, Nov. 15).

The department’s contract with Bechtel SAIC runs out in March, and Business Press sources said the department plans to open up the bidding process. A Bechtel spokesman said the company has met all requirements under the contract, the newspaper reported.

The department has instructed Bechtel SAIC to make a plan to operate the facility as a noncontainment facility. This would eliminate billions of dollars in costs for construction of spent fuel-handling facilities, making the design “simpler” and the project “more reliable,” according to Paul Golan, director of the department’s Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management.

Senators Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and John Ensign (R-Nev.) praised the move to separate the projects. “We have said all along the project is not safe and the science is bad, but never thought DOE would actually admit it. [It's a] misguided and fraud-riddled project,” they wrote in a joint statement.

Golan said the Energy Department and Bechtel SAIC share blame for problems at the site and that it could be difficult for Bechtel SAIC to get a license to operate the facility. “The bottom line is that this new plan gives us simplification in design, licensing and construction,” he said (Tony Illia, Las Vegas Business Press, Nov. 28).

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