The United States, under Chemical Weapon Convention requirements, destroys weapons at Utah’s Deseret Chemical Depot, pictured above. The deadline for countries to enact laws to implement the treaty is next week (Reagan Frey/Getty Images). Deadline Approaches for CWC National Measures By Chris Schneidmiller Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — Parties to the 12-year-old Chemical Weapons Convention are nearing a deadline next week to enact laws to implement the treaty’s ban on production or possession of toxic weapons (see GSN, July 1, 2004)...Full Story

Nuclear Bunker Buster Cut, Not Necessarily Killed By David Ruppe Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — While congressional leaders agreed last week to cut proposed Energy Department funding to finish studying a new earth-penetrating nuclear weapons capability, the effort may continue under a new name (see GSN, Oct. 26)...Full Story

U.S. Must Manage Panic, Misinformation in WMD Event, Other Disasters, Chertoff Says By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The United States must improve its plans for handling the less-than-ideal conditions that would inevitably arise during a WMD event or other disaster, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said today (see GSN, Oct. 21)...Full Story

	Friday, November 4, 2005

U.S. Must Manage Panic, Misinformation in WMD Event, Other Disasters, Chertoff Says By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The United States must improve its plans for handling the less-than-ideal conditions that would inevitably arise during a WMD event or other disaster, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said today (see GSN, Oct. 21). Emergency-response plans must account for obstacles posed by “panic,” “anxiety” and “misinformation” among responders and the public during earthquakes, hurricanes and biological attacks, Chertoff said during a meeting of the International Association of Fire Chiefs. “We’ve simply got to recognize that these are a part of the challenge and to build our planning to take account of that,” Chertoff said. The secretary said Homeland Security would pay attention to how such factors are addressed as it reviews emergency-response plans from around the country. In a wide-ranging address, Chertoff delved into lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina and mentioned several specific matters of concern to firefighters as they plan for future multijurisdiction disaster responses. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, Chertoff said, must make strides in its logistical ability to deliver people and resources more quickly to aid disaster-stricken regions. The agency was heavily criticized in the wake of Katrina as being slow to deliver help to the Gulf Coast. “Right now,” he added of the emergency agency, “it’s a 20th-century organization.” Asked by a fire chief about communications problems among local, state and federal officials that plagued the hurricane response, Chertoff said a bigger problem than the lack of interoperability in communications equipment was “a lack of operability,” as much infrastructure was disabled by the storm. “You can’t have interoperability problems if nothing operates,” he said. Among potential responses to the “operability” problem, Chertoff named the use of airborne repeaters and increased availability of satellite telephones. Asked whether the federal government plans to organize a national mutual-aid network to facilitate help among different jurisdictions in terrorism and other crises, Chertoff expressed an aversion to a “national, top-down” system. He praised the congressionally endorsed Emergency Mutual Aid Compact, the dominant mutual-aid system used by the country’s states. “The EMAC system does work well, and we’re always looking for areas where we can encourage improvements,” Chertoff said. In a meeting with Chertoff last month, mayors cited problems with the state-based compact and asked for a formal federal blessing of direct city-to-city mutual aid (see GSN, Oct. 25). Chertoff said Homeland Security plans to provide $580 million to firefighters in fiscal 2006 and that the new National Incident Management System also should help firefighters in responding to terrorism and other disasters. He added that Washington plans increasingly to call on fire departments to carry a message of individual responsibility to people around the country: Healthy, competent people should prepare in advance to weather disasters, he said, so that emergency responders can devote more time in a crisis to helping those who most need help. “We need to enlist your credibility and experience to carry the message to the American people,” he told the chiefs. Back to top

Nuclear Bunker Buster Cut, Not Necessarily Killed By David Ruppe Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — While congressional leaders agreed last week to cut proposed Energy Department funding to finish studying a new earth-penetrating nuclear weapons capability, the effort may continue under a new name (see GSN, Oct. 26). In a press release last week, Senator Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) announced that House and Senate conferees for the fiscal 2006 Energy and Water Appropriations bill agreed to withhold $4 million requested by the Bush administration for the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator study. The Senate bill had contained the funding while the House legislation did not. Domenici said the Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) had requested the money be eliminated and that the focus of research be shifted toward developing conventional penetrators. In a letter to a member of Congress earlier last month, however, the agency said it wanted to complete the study, including a pending “impact test” in which a mock warhead would be slammed into a huge block of concrete at high speed. Text of the NNSA letter, obtained by Global Security Newswire, said the agency wants to complete the study at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico as planned, but with Defense Department funding and after renaming the effort. “The administration continues to believe the proposed execution of an impact test is essential to complete this study,” the letter says. The Defense Department “already spends over $200 million annually” at Sandia, the letter says. “Because information developed in this study would also be valuable in the development of conventional earth penetrators, the [Energy] department supports renaming the program,” the letter states. The letter “says we need to do this sled test for the RNEP project, and that it also gives us information about conventional earth penetrators,” said Daryl Kimball, executive director for the Arms Control Association. NNSA spokesman Bryan Wilkes refused to comment on whether or not the agency had requested the funding be cut or had abandoned the study. Program Was Called Abandoned Following Domenici’s announcement last week, several lawmakers and multiple news reports said the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator study was canceled. “I have long cautioned against an RNEP weapon and I am relieved that the administration has abandoned this irresponsible and dangerous path,” Representative Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.) said in an Oct. 26 press release. An Oct. 25 Associated Press story appearing in the Washington Post reported, “The Bush administration has abandoned research into a nuclear ‘bunker-buster’ warhead.” BBC News the next day ran the headline “U.S. cancels ‘mini-nukes’ program.” Domenici, who chairs the Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee that oversees the program, however, did not exactly say the program was canceled.  He stated in the press release that the National Nuclear Security Administration had asked to drop Energy Department funding, reflecting a “change in policy” favoring research on conventional penetrator options. He noted a shift of “focus” toward examining conventional penetrators, not abandonment of the nuclear option. The study should “evolve around more conventional weapons rather than tactical nuclear devices,” Domenici said. Furthermore, Domenici somewhat cryptically said he “expects the final Energy and Water Appropriations Bill to continue to include language addressing RNEP and the Defense Department capabilities developed at Sandia National Laboratories.” The conferees continue to negotiate House-Senate differences over the bill. Sign of Political Opposition Experts have said that were the impact test to occur next year as planned, its results could inform a government decision to fully develop either a conventional or nuclear earth penetrating weapon. The NNSA letter last month also said: “It would provide important information regarding whether earth penetrators regardless of payload could provide a feasible and affordable means to [have the ability to destroy] hard and deeply buried targets.” The degree to which the test could guide a decision on whether to pursue a nuclear penetrator, though, might depend on whether the penetrator shell contains a mock atomic warhead — as had been planned — or a mock conventional warhead, critics say. “If they are going to be testing how a warhead, a nuclear package could withstand this impact, then they are continuing RNEP under the guise of something else,” Kimball said. However, Kimball and other critics said that even if an impact test provided evidence supporting development of a new nuclear capability, the White House would have trouble getting such a project past lawmakers. “Congress for two straight years has rejected the funding and if this sled test is a success, it would be a major political challenge to get Congress to reverse its position,” said Council for a Livable World President John Isaacs. Back to top       U.S. Has Moderate Expectations for Next Round of North Korea Nuclear Disarmament Talks A senior U.S. official said yesterday that an upcoming session of six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear program could be relatively brief yet productive (see GSN, Nov. 4). The official said Pyongyang could submit a plan for dismantlement at the negotiations scheduled to begin Wednesday. “If the North Korean government arrives at the table and says, ‘here is our plan for dismantling our nuclear programs, and our plan for a nuclear-free peninsula,’ and that is on its face acceptable to all the other governments, then clearly that would merit further and intensive discussions,” he said. “We will see if it happens,” the official added (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, Nov. 3). The State Department, however, announced yesterday that Washington has limited expectations for next week’s meeting, the Associated Press reported. Department spokesman Sean McCormack said next week’s discussion on specifically how to end Pyongyang’s nuclear program “will really be, I think, the beginning of that conversation. I expect that conversation to continue on into the next round” (Barry Schweid, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Nov. 3). Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing today expressed his belief that there would be progress at next week’s negotiations, AFP reported. “We have confidence that thanks to the patient and flexible efforts of the various parties, the six-party talks will be carried forward, despite that we are quite sure that some problems will be unavoidable,” Li said. He added that the high level of coffee consumption by delegates at the last round of talks was an indication of “difficulties along the way” in talks. “(We calculated that it) added up to 2,500 cappuccinos (coffees) consumed by all the participants and staff members,” Li said. “Another estimate put it at 4,000 cappuccinos, all these cappuccinos were of course at my cost and were imported from EU countries,” he said. Li predicted lower caffeine consumption at next week’s meeting (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, Nov. 4). Meanwhile, Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency head Alexander Rumyantsev said Moscow was willing to participate in building light-water reactors in North Korea, ITAR-Tass reported today. “If North Korea rejoins the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and asks us for help with building a light-water reactor, why not participate in this,” Rumyantsev said. He added that such construction was likely to be undertaken by “a major international consortium” (ITAR-Tass/BBC Monitoring, Nov. 4). Back to top       Italians Name Source of Forged Niger Documents The head of Italy’s military intelligence agency yesterday told Italian lawmakers that a freelance agent was the source of forged documents detailing alleged efforts by prewar Iraq to buy uranium from Niger, the New York Times reported (see GSN, Nov. 3). SISMI chief Nicolo Pollari identified Rocco Martino to a parliamentary commission in Rome that oversees the agency. Pollari told the panel Martino had been “kicked out of the agency,” but did not say Martino forged the documents, according to Senator Massimo Brutti. Martino has been quoted in news reports as saying the documents came from a source in Niger’s embassy in Rome. While Martino has been suspected for some time, this is the first time the intelligence agency has formally acknowledged his role. Brutti said yesterday the United States had been warned that the documents were fakes in early 2003.  “At about the same time as the State of the Union address, [Italian intelligence] said that the dossier doesn't correspond to the truth,” he said, adding that he does not know if the warning came before President George W. Bush cited the documents in the speech in making his case for war. Brutti later seemingly backed away from this statement, telling wire services that because Pollari’s agency never had the documents, he could not speak to their value. Senator Luigi Malabarba said that Pollari told the committee that Martino was “offering the documents not on behalf of SISMI but on behalf of the French” and that Martino said he was working for French intelligence. A French intelligence official would not comment on whether Martino was a French agent but called Pollari’s assertion “scandalous.” Pollari pledged that no Italian intelligence agents were involved in forging or distributing the documents, according to Brutti and committee Chairman Enzo Bianco. Committee members also saw documents in support of Pollari, including a July letter from FBI Director Robert Mueller. The message, confirmed by FBI officials, said the documents were distributed by a person for profit and dismissed the idea that Italian intelligence services misled U.S investigators.   As a result, the FBI has closed its investigation of the documents (Sciolino/Povoledo, New York Times, Nov. 4). Back to top       IAEA Chief Urges Multinational Nuclear Oversight Nuclear proliferation can best be blocked through multinational oversight of atomic technology, International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said yesterday (see GSN, Nov. 1). “We cannot afford to have every country be sitting on an enrichment factory,” he said during a speech at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Such technology could give countries the ability to develop atomic weapons in a period of months, he said. ElBaradei also said military action should only be taken once diplomacy has completely failed to enforce countries’ obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. “Clearly we need to use every possible means that we have before we think of other alternatives. Are we saying, never, never will we use force? No, but we could only talk about using force when it is the last resort, and it is the best resort,” he said. He added, however, that treaty membership was unlikely to increase in the near future. “We bagged as many as we can. I don’t think these three [India, Pakistan and Israel] are going to come to the NPT through the normal route,” he said (Theo Emery, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Nov. 3). Back to top       Pakistan Postpones F-16 Purchases Pakistan plans to postpone the planned purchase of U.S. F-16 fighter jets in order to focus funding on rebuilding efforts after last month’s massive earthquake, the country’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, said today (see GSN, Sept. 8). “We are going to postpone [the purchase] ... we want to bring maximum relief and construction efforts,” Musharraf said (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Nov. 4). Back to top       Weapon-Grade Nuclear Material at Los Alamos Relocated for Security Reasons Weapon-grade plutonium and uranium has been moved from a technical area at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico to more secure sites, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, Oct. 11). The materials had been housed at the laboratory’s Technical Area 18, which has experienced security failures in recent years, according to AP. The transfer was also a cost-cutting measure, said Los Alamos spokesman Kevin Roark. “Over the years it’s become increasingly more expensive to have secure areas,” Roark said yesterday. The material was moved to the Nevada Test Site, the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee, and to Technical Area 55 at Los Alamos, according to the National Nuclear Security Administration. Material housed at Technical Area 55 is expected to eventually be moved to the Nevada Test Site, said agency spokesman Bryan Wilkes (Matt Mygatt, Associated Press/Albuquerque Journal, Nov. 3). Back to top

Boston Airport Plans Quarantine Station Boston’s Logan International Airport plans to open a quarantine station by the end this year for passengers that show symptoms consistent with a biological attack or infectious disease, the Boston Globe reported yesterday (see GSN, Nov. 2). The Massachusetts Port Authority is constructing the quarantine area. It will be staffed by five Centers for Disease Control and Prevention personnel who will evaluate passengers and train airline workers to detect infectious disease symptoms. “We are most interested in people with fever accompanied by rash, stiff neck, jaundice, cough, or unusual bleeding and severe diarrhea with or without fever,” said Maria Pia Sanchez, lead CDC officer at Logan. Only a small percentage of travelers are expected to be brought into the quarantine station, according to agency officials. However, use of the station would increase following an outbreak of an infectious disease caused by a bioterrorist attack or similar event (Bruce Mohl, Boston Globe, Nov. 3).  Back to top

Deadline Approaches for CWC National Measures By Chris Schneidmiller Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — Parties to the 12-year-old Chemical Weapons Convention are nearing a deadline next week to enact laws to implement the treaty’s ban on production or possession of toxic weapons (see GSN, July 1, 2004). The treaty’s Article 7 requires its members to create domestic rules banning any actions prohibited under the pact. Countries must also designate an agency to monitor chemical activity and to operate as the point of contact for the treaty’s oversight body and other convention nations. Member nations agreed at their May 2003 annual conference to require that Article 7 obligations be met by the 10th Session of the Conference of States Parties, which is scheduled to begin Monday in The Hague. “Doing it in 2 1/2 years was something that the crafters knew was going to be very ambitious, but they were not going to shy away from it, either,” said Peter Kaiser, spokesman for the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. There are now 175 treaty states; 151 have designated a national authority, while 105 nations have passed the required laws and administrative measures and 47 countries are preparing regulations. The treaty was opened for signature in 1993 and entered into force in 1997. Additional countries should come into compliance by the time the conference ends Nov. 11, Kaiser said.  He declined to identify the nations that have not yet implemented their national measures. However, OPCW Director General Rogelio Pfirter, in an April speech, noted several Caribbean island nations that had recently received Article 7 assistance visits from the organization — Dominica, Saint Lucia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Trinidad and Tobago. Representatives from those nations did not respond to requests for information on their treaty efforts. Perhaps more notable than the nations that have not yet met the obligations is that the six nations with declared chemical weapons stocks — Albania, India, Libya, Russia, South Korea and the United States — have taken the required measures, said Paul Walker, director of the Legacy program at Global Green USA. “The most important thing is that all those countries have implemented legislation, that they’re going forward with destruction,” Walker said. Other nations with suspected chemical arsenals — including Egypt, North Korea and Syria — have yet to sign the treaty. Alongside its national implementation effort, the organization is pressing forward with its universality program to have all U.N.-recognized nations join the convention. While the risks for most countries of a terrorist chemical incident are “pretty minor,” they cannot be dismissed, Walker said. Even common chemicals such as chlorine could be used to cause injury, he said. National measures increase a nation’s oversight of chemical activities. Absent or inadequate regulations heighten the risk that prohibited activities could be occurring without leaders’ knowledge or ability to take action, said John Gilbert, senior science fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation. “An example is the Aum Shinrikyo sarin attack in Tokyo in 1995. At that time, it was not illegal in Japan to manufacture or store sarin — although committing murder with sarin was prosecutable,” Gilbert said by e-mail. “Japan later fixed this.” Doing the Right Thing Some countries that have not set their national measures have no chemical industry and appear at little risk for becoming home to any illicit weapons development. Some are also faced with more immediate troubles. Others have only recently joined the treaty and have not had time to finish the work, Kaiser said. “In my opinion, there are also some countries that just don’t care,” Gilbert said. “The CWC is not a priority for countries that are overwhelmed with economic and social problems and several just haven’t devoted any resources to complying.” Meeting the treaty requirements can involve extensive effort. Penal codes and administrative policies must be developed and approved. Personnel must be trained and money must be spent. Those obstacles can be overcome with support and pressure from the organization and the other convention nations, Walker said. The threat of sanctions against countries that remain out of compliance is an option, according to Gilbert. Kaiser said a primary focus of next week’s conference is expected to be strategies for encouraging all CWC nations to undertake the national implementation process. The work can take from three months to two years, Kaiser said. Along with passing the required laws member states must establish controls on imports and exports of dual-use materials, license certain chemical production facilities and organize the national authority to work with OPCW officials and industry representatives. Once a country finishes these steps, it is ready to begin cataloging chemical sites that could be used for terrorist purposes, and to take action against those who would misuse toxic materials, according to the organization. “The national implementation legislation is the only avenue by which you can create a legal chemical weapons ban at the national level by which you can prosecute,” Kaiser said. By meeting their treaty requirements, member states also free themselves from restrictions on chemical commerce — such as limits on buying or selling some dual-use substances that could be used in weapons. “They have to know why this is important not only for security but for economic development,” Kaiser said.  Taking steps to meet the Chemical Weapons Convention commitments can help leaders meet their obligations under U.N. Security Council Resolution 1540, which requires nations to adopt rules and regulations to prevent proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The organization and its members that have already gone through the process are supporting the remaining nations, officials said. “The United States is taking part in the international effort to encourage other countries to meet the November 2005 deadline,” said State Department spokeswoman Nancy Beck. That includes sending U.S. experts to OPCW workshops, she said. Twenty-five treaty members — from Algeria to the United Kingdom — and the European Union have supplied financial support and expertise to assist other nations in fulfilling their Article 7 obligations, Kaiser said. The organization itself has conducted more than two dozen instructional workshops, four national authority training conferences and 51 technical assistance visits to specific countries. Additional support ranges from providing templates and drafting kits for legislation to donating computers and software. It is “country-by-country, tailor-made assistance,” Kaiser said. While not all treaty states will meet the deadline, Walker said he hopes to see them enact the necessary measures in the coming years.  “It would be nice to get full implementing legislation by all members by the 10th anniversary of the treaty’s entrance into force, April 2007,” he said. “I think that’s doable.” Back to top       All Russian CW Disposal Sites to Be Working by 2009 All planned Russian chemical weapons destruction facilities are expected to be operational by 2009, Viktor Kholstov, deputy chairman of the country’s Federal Industry Agency, said yesterday (see GSN, Nov. 3). “In 2009 all seven sites needed in Russia to destroy chemical weapons within the relevant international convention will start to operate,” Kholstov said during a press conference in Moscow. Work at Russia’s first disposal site, at Gorny, expected to end this year, according to ITAR-Tass.  “The second facility will be put into operation before the end of the year in the settlement of Kambarka (Udmurtia),” Kholstov said. A third facility is expected to begin operations by mid-2006 in the Kirov region, followed by plants in the Kurgan, Bryansk and Penza regions in 2008 and another site in the Udmurtia region in 2009, he said. Kholstov said 1,000 of Russia’s 40,000 tons of chemical weapons have been eliminated to date. “In 2007, within the framework of the second stage of implementing the [Chemical Weapons Convention], Russia should destroy 8,000 tons of chemical weapons, about 20 percent of the amount accumulated,” he added (ITAR-Tass, Nov. 3). Kholstov also said that foreign investors should finance roughly 30 percent of Russia’s chemical weapons disposal work. A press release circulated at the press conference said, “As of 1 June 2005, the declared sum of aid by foreign sponsors of the program equaled about $1.73 billion, but only a little over $311 million were received for the implementation of specific projects” (Interfax, Nov. 3). Back to top       Diluted Nerve Agent Missing from CW Storage Facility A vial of diluted sarin nerve agent was discovered missing Wednesday during an audit at the Deseret Chemical Depot in Utah, according to the U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency (see GSN, Sept. 22). Quality assurance personnel at the Chemical Agent Munitions Disposal System facility discovered the missing vial, triggering an investigation. The vial contained less that 2 milliliters of the nerve agent, which was diluted to the point that it posed no health risks. Diluted agent is routinely used to calibrate air-monitoring equipment, according to a press release. “While the contents of the vial pose no threat to the public or workers, this situation is unacceptable,” Col. Raymond Van Pelt, depot commander, said in the release. “I have asked the Chemical Materials Agency to assist in the investigation and help us refine accountability procedures” (U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency release, Nov. 3).     Back to top

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