U.S. Representative Christopher Cox (R-Calif.) is expected to head the House’s newly created committee on homeland security. House Approves New Homeland Security Committee By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The U.S. House of Representatives yesterday approved rules creating a permanent, standing homeland security committee to replace the current Select Committee on Homeland Security (see GSN, Jan. 4)...Full Story

U.S. Army Awaits Correction to Controversial Patent By David Ruppe Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — After more than a year, the U.S. Army is still waiting for corrections to a patent that critics say suggests the Army has developed an aerosol dispersion device in violation of international arms control treaties (see GSN, May 28, 2003)...Full Story

Iran to Allow IAEA to Visit Suspected Nuclear Site Iran has granted International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors permission to visit a military complex near Tehran that the United States believes is part of a clandestine nuclear weapons program, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, Dec. 6, 2004)...Full Story

	Wednesday, January 5, 2005

House Approves New Homeland Security Committee By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The U.S. House of Representatives yesterday approved rules creating a permanent, standing homeland security committee to replace the current Select Committee on Homeland Security (see GSN, Jan. 4). The move follows more than a year of complaints by Homeland Security Department officials, members of Congress and outside observers about the fragmented and redundant nature of legislative oversight of the department. Homeland Security officials have had to testify before 88 different House committees and subcommittees, according to an oft-cited count, creating what the existing committee last year called “chaos for the department” (see GSN, Oct. 1, 2004). “The House is now prepared to give the Department of Homeland Security every tool necessary to stop terrorists before they kill more Americans,” Representative Christopher Cox (R-Calif.), the chairman of the existing select committee, said in a statement. The new panel’s creation does not appear likely to end turf battles over Homeland Security oversight. Leaders of other House committees with jurisdiction over various agency activities succeeded in keeping some oversight of areas such as immigration, the Secret Service and general emergency response. In choosing to retain some dispersal of oversight, the House rejected a proposal by Representatives Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) and Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) that followed more closely the recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission, which in its final report last year called for a single panel with Homeland Security jurisdiction in each congressional chamber. Shays nevertheless supported the new panel. “While there are still improvements to be made establishing the committee’s jurisdiction, this is a very positive step forward,” he said yesterday in a statement. The Republican leadership of the existing select committee issued a press release describing the new rules as “falling short of [the Sept. 11 commission’s] sweeping recommendation” but adding that “the new committee will have by far the most significant responsibility for homeland security policy of any committee in the House or Senate.” The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee last year affirmed its homeland security jurisdiction by changing its name to the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, but sources indicated key House members believe their new panel is set up to wield considerably more clout over Homeland Security than the Senate panel. Cox, who the press release indicated is “expected to chair the new committee,” said the panel “will permit the House to give the Department of Homeland Security the same legislative support and dedicated oversight that the Committee on Armed Services provides to the Department of Defense.” Representative Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), who with the retirement of Jim Turner (D-Texas) became the senior Democrat on the select panel, said in a statement that “the real work must start now.” “From this point forward, there is no excuse for congressional inaction,” Thompson said. The size of the new committee is still being negotiated, but membership is expected to “decrease substantially” from that of the existing 29-member temporary panel, select committee spokeswoman Jennifer Page said today. Back to top

Czech Republic Considers Abandoning Shelters The Czech government should stop paying for the upkeep of Cold War-era shelters designed to protect civilians in the event of war or a nuclear attack, according to an Interior Ministry draft strategy paper submitted today (see GSN, July 14, 2004). Interior Minister Frantisek Bublan said last month that other needs, such as installing chemical agent sensors in the Prague Metro subway system, were a priority for the country, the Czech News Agency reported. With the fear of a nuclear strike or invasion greatly abated, the shelters should either be demolished or converted for commercial uses, according to the report. “It is absolutely unpromising and inefficient not only to insist on preserving the existing network of old shelters in peaceful times, but to support its expansion,” the report says. Officials who drafted the report advocated establishment of a national coordination and assessment center for weapons of mass destruction, according to the Czech News Agency. Meanwhile, the State Nuclear Safety Authority added radiation-monitoring equipment to five chemical laboratories, the Interior Ministry reported in the draft report (Czech National News Agency, Jan. 4). Back to top

Iran to Allow IAEA to Visit Suspected Nuclear Site Iran has granted International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors permission to visit a military complex near Tehran that the United States believes is part of a clandestine nuclear weapons program, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, Dec. 6, 2004). A team is expected to examine the Parchin site “within days or weeks,” agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei told AP (George Jahn, Associated Press/Seattle Post Intelligencer, Jan. 5). Meanwhile, cost disputes have delayed the finalization of a long-planned agreement between Iran and Russia for Moscow to supply fuel for the Russian-built Bushehr nuclear reactor, Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency chief Alexander Rumyantsev said yesterday. The agreement has been delayed because of a dispute over Russia’s planned fee to Iran for the return of the spent material, according to Reuters. “We have told them they have to pay for spent fuel, just like fresh fuel,” Rumyantsev said, adding that the fee would be based on future market rates. Russia and Iran have until the middle of the year to complete the agreement in order for the Bushehr reactor to go online in early 2006 as scheduled, according to Rumyantsev (Reuters/deepikaglobal.com, Jan. 4). Back to top       IAEA Investigates Egyptian Nuclear Experiments The International Atomic Energy Agency is awaiting test results from environmental samples taken from nuclear sites near Cairo as part of its investigation of Egyptian nuclear experiments, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, Jan. 4). Egypt is allowing inspectors to visit sites, interview scientists and review documents connected to the country’s nuclear program, a diplomat familiar with the investigation said. There is no indication that the unreported experiments dating back to the 1970s involved uranium enrichment or plutonium separation or that they were organized by the government, according to diplomats (Dafna Linzer, Washington Post, Jan. 5). So far, it has not been considered necessary to report the matter to the IAEA Board of Governors, but the progress of the investigation could be included in the agency’s report to the board next month, according to diplomats.  The agency has denied taking giving Egypt in breaks in the investigation, according to the Financial Times. IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei is a former Egyptian diplomat (Roula Khalaf, Financial Times, Jan. 5). Back to top       U.S. Congressional Delegation to Visit North Korea Six members of the U.S. House of Representatives are expected to travel to North Korea next week, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Jan. 4). The bipartisan delegation headed by Representative Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) is also expected to visit China, Japan, Russia and South Korea, the four other participants in six-party talks aimed at resolving the standoff over Pyongyang’s nuclear program, AP reported. The group is scheduled to depart Washington on Sunday, having rescheduled a trip that was canceled more than a year ago due to opposition from the Bush administration. The White House has approved this trip, Weldon told AP. Weldon said the group would attempt to show North Korean “the real face of America.” “This is not just some Johnny-come-lately or shoot-from-the-hip approach,” he said. While the visit would be aimed at promoting dialogue between Washington and Pyongyang, Weldon said the group would not represent the Bush administration or engage in negotiations with North Korean officials. “We don’t go as diplomats,” he said. “We’re not going over to negotiate anything” (Liz Sidoti, Associated Press/Chicago Tribune, Jan. 4). Meanwhile, South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-young said yesterday that South Korea does not advocate regime change in North Korea and that Seoul’s previous policy of competing against Pyongyang’s communist system has been reversed. Chung said Seoul would not encourage mass defections of North Korean refugees, saying Pyongyang could feel threatened by such a move. “Undermining the North with North Korean defectors is not our policy,” Chung said in an interview with MBC radio. “The policy to compete with each system is already obsolete” (Joo Sang-min, Korea Herald, Jan. 5). Back to top       Russia Conducted Subcritical Nuclear Tests Last Year Russia last year conducted a set of successful subcritical tests of its nuclear arsenal, ITAR-Tass reported today (see GSN, Oct. 13, 2004). The tests were conducted at the test range in Novaya Zemlya in the northern part of the country (German Solomatin, ITAR-Tass, Jan. 5). Back to top       ElBaradei Warns United States Against Spying Confirmation that the United States has been spying on the International Atomic Energy Agency “would bother me a lot,” agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said today (see GSN, Dec. 13). Last month, the Washington Post reported that the United States had intercepted telephone calls between ElBaradei and Iranian diplomats. ElBaradei said he knew nothing more about the alleged spying than what had been reported. “If it were true obviously it’s something which is a major violation of our right to independence,” he said. “If you tamper with our independence, you really tamper with the whole fabric of multilaterialism and the United Nations system as we know it” (Agence France-Presse/Khaleej Times, Jan. 5). Back to top

U.S. Army Awaits Correction to Controversial Patent By David Ruppe Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — After more than a year, the U.S. Army is still waiting for corrections to a patent that critics say suggests the Army has developed an aerosol dispersion device in violation of international arms control treaties (see GSN, May 28, 2003). The Army’s patent (No. 6,523,478) was awarded in February 2003 for a “rifle-launched nonlethal cargo dispenser,” or a grenade intended to release aerosolized agents.  The patent, which appears on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Web site, said the device could be used to disperse aerosolized agents including “chemical agents” and “biological agents.” That and similar descriptions of its capabilities in the patent, experts have said, suggested the grenade was developed in violation of the Chemical and Biological weapons conventions and the U.S. Biological Weapons Antiterrorism Act of 1989. The latter two prohibit development of devices to deliver biological weapons agents. The Sunshine Project, an arms control advocacy group, first called attention to the patent language, prompting the Army in May 2003 to say it erred and would seek to change the language. A Defense Department spokesman at the time said references in the patent to biological and chemical agents were included “in order to be comprehensive and claim possible payloads as broadly and generically as possible.” “It is clear now, in hindsight, that inserting the term chemical or biological ‘agents’ was unfortunate,” he then said. A “certification of correction” was filed with the Patent Office in June 2003 “deleting the four instances where the words ‘chemical agents, biological agents’ appeared in the patent language,” Army spokeswoman Joan Catherine Michel of the Edgewood Chemical Biological Center in Maryland said in an e-mail last month. She wrote, though, that the Army had not yet received a “certificate of correction” from the Patent Office and has requested a status report.  The Patent Office “told us the Certificate of Correction we submitted was currently with their contractor.  We simply don’t have any control over the process once it is filed in the USPTO,” she said.  The Sunshine Project noted in a November release that the language had not been changed. “The grenade and patent … continue to violate U.S. legal obligations under the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) which forbid, in very strong terms, any development of delivery devices for biological weapons,” the group said, and called on the government to abandon the patent and end work on the device. “You change the patent claim, that doesn’t change the fact that it was developed to deliver chemical and biological weapons,” said Sunshine Project director Ed Hammond. His concern is that the device might be used to deliver nonlethal incapacitating agents, the legality of which has been debated by arms control experts. Army spokeswoman Michel said the device is intended to disperse “obscurant material” on the battlefield for “degrading enemy surveillance sensor capability.” “We take our compliance with the CWC and other international treaties very seriously. Rest assured, the work at ECBC [Edgewood] (including this device) is strictly in line with our defensive mission,” she wrote. The patent does not specify a particular intended use for the device. Instead it said there is “a need” for a device to efficiently and rapidly disperse numerous munitions, including obscurants and chemical and biological agents. Back to top       Experimental Smallpox Vaccine Put on Fast Track The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has awarded “fast track” status to a smallpox vaccine being developed by the pharmaceutical firm Acambis, the company announced today (see GSN, Dec. 10). The decision means the agency will work to expedite approval of the ACAM2000 vaccine, Acambis said in a press release. More than 180 million doses of the vaccine have been added to the U.S. Strategic National Stockpile for emergency use (Acambis press release, Jan. 5). Back to top

Pentagon Proposes Missile Defense Cuts The U.S. Defense Department has proposed budget cuts for advanced weapons systems, including eliminating billions of dollars from the national missile defense program, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, Dec. 20, 2004). An internal budget defense document for fiscal 2006 shows that the missile defense program, a top defense priority for the Bush administration, would be scaled back by $5 billion, according to the Post. The U.S. budget deficit and the cost of the conflict in Iraq made the defense cuts necessary, according to Senator Jack Reed (D-R.I.), a member of the Armed Services Committee. The budget document calls for spending reductions of $55 billion over six years in various defense programs (Weisman/Merle, Washington Post, Jan. 5).   Back to top

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