BWC States Encourage Voluntary Codes of Conduct

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Nations belonging to the Biological Weapons Convention last week approved a report encouraging scientists worldwide to develop codes of conduct with the aim of reducing the risk of biological weapons proliferation (see GSN, Dec. 8).

The text approved at the annual treaty meeting in Geneva was a scaled-back version of a proposal that would have encouraged governments to participate in developing, adopting and promulgating codes of conduct.  

The final version instead promotes codes “voluntarily adopted” by scientists in fields relevant to the treaty. 

“While the primary responsibility for implementing the convention rests with states parties,” the report says, voluntary codes of conduct “can support the object and purpose of the convention by making a significant and effective contribution, in conjunction with other measures.”

The report does not specify what should be included in the codes, except to say they “should require and enable relevant actors to have a clear understanding of the content, purpose and reasonably foreseeable consequences of their activities, and of the need to abide by the obligations contained in the convention.”

Nonaligned Movement nations blocked an earlier proposed text in closed-door discussions, and the final version is weaker, said Jean Pascal Zanders, who directs the nongovernmental Bioweapons Prevention Project from Geneva. 

The final version “has become more of a recommendation, rather than some sort of obligation for states parties to undertake anything in this area,” he said in a phone interview today.

Zanders said, though, that some states parties and independent analysts are skeptical that a stronger version could have significantly strengthened the Biological Weapons Convention.

“Codes are important because they raise issue awareness among the scientific and technical communities [worldwide, who] generally aren’t aware of the BWC ban,” he said.

“In terms of the treaty itself, it’s peripheral. What the treaty needs is an institutional setup to make its implementation permanent. It’s in need of new mechanisms to generate transparency, to allow verification, to allow confidence in the compliance by states parties,” he said.

U.S. officials have argued that because biological technology is inherently dual use, verification is difficult and could be used to compromise U.S. commercial and biological defense research.

The United States in 2001 scuttled negotiations on a verification mechanism for the treaty and instead proposed three sets of annual meetings for states to discuss ways to strengthen biological nonproliferation. The final session this year, focused on developing codes of conduct.

The two prior meetings addressed improving national and international disease surveillance, improving international capabilities for responding to suspicious outbreaks, creating national mechanisms for security and oversight over dangerous pathogens and toxins, and global promotion of national legislation for implementing the decades-old Biological Weapons Convention.

The meetings have kept countries engaged during the period leading to the next treaty review conference, which is expected late next year, Zanders said.

The series of meetings “has had its value,” he said, “but whether this is really what the essence of strengthening the treaty is about, I would say except for national implementation, not really.”

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Experts Struggle With Biotechnology Advances that Could Produce More Lethal Biological Weapons

Scientists are struggling to determine how to handle advances in biotechnology that could be used as weapons by the military or terrorists, the Kansas City Star reported today (see GSN, Nov. 14).

Two members of the Chinese army, in a recent article in Military Review, speculated on how biotechnology could be used on the battlefield. Potential weapons include: bullets that target specific organs, cells, genes or proteins; substances engineered to target one person; biological weapons that kill only one race; a disease that could be easily cured, but with an antidote only the party that created the weapon has; using ultraviolet, radio or electromagnetic waves to cause genetic damage; and a weapon that affects balance or causes memory loss.

“A military attack, therefore, might wound an enemy’s genes, proteins, cells, tissues and organs, causing more damage than conventional weapons could,” the men wrote. “However, such devastating nonlethal effects will require us to pacify the enemy through postwar reconstruction efforts and hatred control.”

The men argued that international treaties would not outlaw these weapons because they would focus on a specific behavior or enemy and not cause mass casualties. 

Restrictions on these types of theoretical weapons have been suggested. A 2003 National Academies of Sciences report recommended preventing research that could increase a microbe’s potency, making it resistant to treatment or detection.

Scientists, however, keep making viruses stronger so that they can study how to defeat stronger infections, according to the Star.

“It’s highly technical about what the definition of ‘more virulent’ is,” said Samuel Miller, director of the Center for Biodefense and Emerging Diseases and a biochemist at the University of Washington. “It becomes controversial.”

Other experts said that the article by the Chinese military scientists glorified the use of biotechnology to create weapons.

“The article is really about the use of nonlethal biological weapons instead of the lethal variety,” said Christian Enemark of the Strategic and Defense Studies Center at Australian National University. 

Some critics have warned that the United States is not spending enough on biotechnology research, and could be unprepared to defend against an attack with these new weapons.

The Bush administration should be pressing the case internationally against the use of biotechnology to develop weapons, said Jonathan Tucker, senior researcher at the Monterey Institute of International Studies’ Center for Nonproliferation Studies.

“We should be reinforcing the norm that this kind of thing is wrong,” he said (Scott Canon, Kansas City Star, Dec. 12).

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U.S. Official Warns of WMD Terrorism

U.S. Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Robert Joseph on Friday warned that terrorist acquisition of weapons of mass destruction would have lethal consequences, the Press Trust of India reported yesterday (see GSN, Aug. 24).

“If terrorists acquire these weapons they're likely to employ them with potentially catastrophic effects,” he said in a speech at the University of Virginia. 

A terrorist group possessing the necessary technical ability would only need fissile material to construct a primitive nuclear weapon, Joseph said.

“We cannot rest as long as enough material for even one nuclear weapon remains unsecured,” he said.

An attack with a biological weapon is also possible. “The bioterror challenge presents a low cost means of a potentially high impact attack,” he said (Press Trust of India, Dec. 11).

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U.S. Offers WMD Response Training in Albania

The United States last week conducted WMD response training for Albanian military, police, medical and emergency personnel, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Jan. 13).

The U.S. Embassy in Tirana said 167 people received training from a State Department team on “how to appropriately respond to and resolve an incident involving the use of chemical, biological or radiological weapons.”

The department’s Antiterrorism Assistance program sponsored the training, the embassy statement adds (Associated Press, Dec. 9)

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EU-Iran Nuclear Talks Scheduled

Officials from the European Union and Iran are expected to resume nuclear negotiations on Dec. 21, but diplomats said expectations for a resolution to the standoff remained “very low,” Agence France-Presse reported Saturday (see GSN, Dec. 9).

“Dec. 21 is confirmed. It will probably be in Vienna but the venue is not totally locked up,” said one Western diplomat.

Russian experts will not attend the meeting as previously anticipated, according to diplomats.

“Expectations are very low,” said the Western diplomat said. “The EU-3 [France, Germany and the United Kingdom] expect Iran to press for agreement on a pilot centrifuge plant. The EU-3 will make clear that that is unacceptable, and that time is about to run out on the Iranians” (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, Dec. 10).

Iran yesterday announced that the talks would be crucial for the possibility of a negotiated solution to the crisis, AFP reported.

“This meeting will be very serious. Everything depends on this meeting,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi.

Asefi said Iran would not compromise on its commitment to conduct sensitive nuclear fuel work.

“We believe that we must be treated without discrimination. We don’t want more than others and we won’t settle for anything less,” he said.

“If the Europeans are rational and act according to [the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty] and international agreements, there is nothing to worry about and the meeting will have a good result,” he said (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, Dec. 11).

Tehran yesterday also announced that it would welcome U.S. assistance in building another nuclear power plant, the Associated Press reported.

“America can take part in international bidding for the construction of Iran’s nuclear power plant if they observe the basic standards and quality,” said Asefi, apparently referring to a 360-megawatt light-water reactor planned for southwestern Iran (Nasser Karimi, Associated Press/Washington Post, Dec. 11).

Gholamreza Aghazadeh, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, described a Russian compromise proposal that would transfer Iran’s nuclear enrichment to Russia as “flawed,” AP reported yesterday. He said Russian officials have not discussed the plan with their Iranian counterparts, and that Iran plans to move forward with its in-house nuclear fuel cycle work.

Gregory Schulte, U.S. ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, said the announcement was “sad and ironic,” given that it coincided with IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei’s acceptance of the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize (see related story, GSN, today).

“It underscores that Iran is today’s greatest threat to the proliferation regime,” Schulte told AP.

ElBaradei on Friday warned again that the world was losing patience with Iran over the lack of transparency surrounding its nuclear activities.

In response, Aghazadeh said, “Iran is also losing its patience with them” (Ali Akbar Dareini, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Dec. 11).

Meanwhile, U.S. Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Robert Joseph on Friday called Tehran “very aggressive, very determined to develop nuclear weapons.”

“Once they begin to enrich [uranium], that is the point of no return,” he said.

Disarmament talks with North Korea are “easy compared to Iran,” Joseph said.

Unlike Pyongyang, Tehran has vast resources and “is not motivated by a desire to stay isolated. Iran has a very aggressive agenda,” he said, citing as an example, the statement by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that Israel should be “wiped off the map” (Barry Schweid, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Dec. 9).

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has ordered his Defense Ministry to prepare by late March for a strike on Iran’s nuclear installations, the London Times reported yesterday.

Sources inside Israel’s special forces command said the highest stage of readiness for an operation was ordered last week, according to the Sunday Times.

Israeli intelligence has warned that Iran was operating secret uranium enrichment facilities in civilian locations. Defense sources in Israel have concluded that the end of March will be the “point of no return” when Iran will be capable of manufacturing an atomic weapon, according to the Sunday Times.

“Israel — and not only Israel — cannot accept a nuclear Iran,” Sharon has warned. “We have the ability to deal with this and we’re making all the necessary preparations to be ready for such a situation.”

“If we opt for the military strike it must not be less than 100 percent successful. It will resemble the destruction of the Egyptian air force in three hours in June 1967,” said a military source (Mahnaimi/Baxter, Sunday Times, Dec. 11).

However, Israeli Defense Ministry official Amos Gilad yesterday denied that his nation already had a plan in the works to attack Iran in March, AP reported.

“Right now the situation requires the focus on the international issue of protecting the peace of world,” Gilad told Israel Radio. 

“But it isn’t correct to say that a country that is threatened should deny that it will ever consider a different option,” he added (Laurie Copans, Associated Press/Washington Post, Dec. 11).

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North Korea Suspends Six-Party Nuclear Disarmament Talks, Citing U.S. Economic Sanctions

North Korea has suspended multilateral talks on its nuclear programs “for an indefinite period” because of U.S. financial sanctions against eight of its firms, Agence France-Presse reported today (see GSN, Dec. 15).

A North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman accused the United States of “faking up lies” about the regime’s involvement in currency counterfeiting.

“The U.S. is now overturning the basic principles of the joint statement reached at the six-party talks one by one,” the spokesman said in a statement Sunday.

“It scuttled the D.P.R.K.-U.S. financial talks, in particular, holding off the six-party talks for an indefinite period,” he said.

A proposed bilateral meeting on the U.S. sanctions this month was canceled. Washington was only willing to conduct a briefing, while Pyongyang sought negotiations, according to AFP.

U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Alexander Vershbow’s characterization of Pyongyang last week as a “criminal regime” was tantamount to a “declaration of war,” a spokesman for North Korea’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland said Saturday (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, Dec. 11).

Vershbow today called on Seoul to make economic cooperation with Pyongyang dependent on progress at nuclear talks, AP reported.

Vershbow also warned South Korea to refrain from technology transfers that could assist the North Korean military.

“Despite our best efforts to engage with North Korea, and despite our best intentions, we cannot turn our faces away from the fact that North Korea remains a military threat, with over (a) million troops, a claim to possess nuclear weapons and near-total control of its own people,” Vershbow said.

“We cannot make the mistake of transferring technologies that will end up increasing the North’s military threat,” he said.

While the United States does not oppose some cooperation between Pyongyang and Seoul, Vershbow said “coordination of our efforts is necessary” (Burt Herman, Associated Press/China Daily, Dec. 12).

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French Official Claims U.S. Told No Proof Existed to Back Claims of Iraqi-Niger Uranium Connection

The French intelligence service repeatedly told the United States that there was no evidence to support the claim that Iraq tried to buy uranium in Niger a year before U.S. President George W. Bush mentioned the incident in his 2003 State of the Union address, the Los Angeles Times reported yesterday (see GSN, Dec. 8).

France warned the United States about the lack of evidence in 2001 and 2002, according to a former CIA official and Alain Chouet, the former head of French intelligence. The French Direction Generale de la Securite Exterieure conducted investigations at the request of the CIA in Niger and other former French colonies regarding the claim. 

A U.S. official said the Chouet’s account was “at odds with our understanding of the issue.” However, the former CIA official and a current French official backed Chouet’s story.

The French warnings did not stop the White House from using the alleged Niger incident in making its case for the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, according to the Times.

France’s investigation began in 2001, when the CIA asked it to make sure uranium in Niger and other countries was secure. In 2002, the CIA asked France twice for similar assistance, this time seeking more specific information on whether Niger had agreed to sell 500 metric tons of uranium that could be used in a nuclear weapons program to then-Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

A five- or six-man team sent to Niger found no evidence that the sale occurred.   French officials noticed that the details of the alleged sale matched information in faked documents earlier offered to France by an Italian informant.

“We told the Americans, ‘Bull - - - -. It doesn't make any sense,’” Chouet said.

“We had the feeling that we had been heard,” he said. “There was nothing more to say other than that” (Hamburger/Wallsten/Drogin, Los Angeles Times, Dec. 11).

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IAEA Chief Accepts Nobel Peace Prize

International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei accepted the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize on Saturday, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Dec. 9).

ElBaradei and his agency received the award in Oslo for their work in curbing nuclear weapons proliferation.

“We are in a race against time,” he said regarding efforts to keep atomic weapons out of terrorist hands. “In four years, we have completed perhaps 50 percent of the work. But this is not fast enough.”

The world must change its attitude toward nuclear weapons, making them as much of a taboo as slavery or genocide, ElBaradei said (Doug Mellgren, Associated Press/Washington Post, Dec. 11).

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India Designates Civilian, Military Nuclear Sites

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said New Delhi’s designation of its military and civilian nuclear facilities is at an “advanced stage,” Agence France-Presse reported today (see GSN, Dec. 7).

India must create separate nuclear programs before a nuclear technology sharing agreement with the United States can move forward, according to AFP.

Singh was quoted in the Indian press as saying progress has been made in identifying what plants are civilian and would be subject to inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Dec. 12).

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Dutch Find CIA Had No Hand in Missing Khan Info

The CIA was not involved in the disappearance of a dossier used to prosecute former Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan in the Netherlands, Dutch Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner said Friday (see GSN, Aug. 9).

Khan was convicted in abstentia in 1983 of stealing from a research center nuclear secrets he later used to develop the Pakistani bomb. His conviction was overturned in 1985 on a technicality, the Associated Press reported.

Donner said in a letter to parliament released Friday that all that remained in the dossier was “a few administrative documents, such as the 1983 verdict and the decision on appeal in 1985.” Donner said the rest of the dossier was probably destroyed in the 1990s but that other possibilities could not be ruled out. The Justice Ministry plans to draft new guidelines so that materials from important cases will be preserved, he said.

“As for the idea that the CIA played any role in the manner in which the criminal dossier of Khan was administered, no evidence of that was found,” Donner told parliament.

According to former Dutch Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers, the CIA asked Dutch officials not to prosecute Khan when the theft was discovered in the 1970s and when Khan returned to the Netherlands in 1986. He said the CIA wanted to continue monitoring Khan (Associated Press/OutlookIndia.com, Dec. 9).

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Second Reactor Restarts at Newport CW Depot

The second chemical agent neutralization reactor at the U.S. Army’s Newport Chemical Agent Disposal Facility in Indiana resumed operation on Friday, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Dec. 6).

This is the first time both Newport reactors have been online at the same time since a wastewater spill from Reactor 1 in October. Reactor 1 was restarted three weeks ago following upgrades, said site manager Jeff Brubaker.

“We now have both reactors operating concurrently for the first time since the end of October, so that's certainly a very positive accomplishment,” he said.

Brubaker said workers are aiming by late next month to eliminate about 720 gallons of VX nerve agent per day — twice what is now being processed.

The facility by Friday had destroyed 8,772 gallons of VX, creating 48,257 gallons of hydrolysate wastewater.   This waste has been stored in 13 4,000-gallon tanks. Another 27 tanks are available at the depot to store waste, according to AP.

Brubaker said that as the rate of processing increases, another 20 to 25 tanks would be needed each month to contain the waste (Rick Callahan, Associated Press/Lexington Herald-Leader, Dec. 9).

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Bush Administration Attempts to Keep Supreme Court From Hearing “Dirty Bomb” Suspect’s Case

The Supreme Court should not review the Bush administration’s decision to jail a U.S. citizen identified as an enemy combatant indefinitely without charge, administration officials argued Friday before a federal appeals court (see GSN, Nov. 23).

The appellate court ruling that had allowed Jose Padilla to remain imprisoned now irrelevant because the “dirty bomb” suspect has been charged, the administration argued. Padilla is accused of supplying funding and recruits for terrorism; no charges have been filed related to his once-alleged intent to detonate a radiological weapon in the United States.

The White House hopes to avoid a Supreme Court decision on whether hundreds of suspected terrorists now in U.S. custody can remain held indefinitely as enemy combatants

“Narrowing the charges would avoid sensitive evidentiary issues that may implicate core national security concerns and constitutional issues,” the Justice Department also said in its filing.

Padilla’s lawyers have argued that a Supreme Court review of the case is necessary because the government could reinstate their client’s designation as an enemy combatant at any time, Knight Ridder reported.

The Justice Department said in its filing that Padilla was “unlikely” to again be designated as an enemy combatant.

Meanwhile, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), said he was mounting a “formal inquiry” into Justice Department methods in the Padilla case (Frank Davies, Knight Ridder/Contra Costa Times, Dec. 10)

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