U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton led the U.S. delegation to the Biological Weapons Convention review conference in 2001, when the United States reversed past policies to negotiate measures to enforce the treaty (AFP photo). BWC 30th Anniversary Passes with Little Fanfare By David Ruppe Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The 30th anniversary of the entry into force of the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention came and went Saturday with little fanfare and notably differing levels of praise from its major sponsors (see GSN, Dec. 13, 2004)...Full Story

India Quietly Welcomes U.S. Decision to Sell Arms to Both South Asian Nuclear Rivals Although it has publicly criticized the U.S. decision to resume fighter aircraft sales to Pakistan, India is quietly welcoming the shift in U.S. policy to allow much greater defense cooperation, experts said yesterday (see GSN, March 28)...Full Story

North Korea Not Showing Serious Commitment to Six-Party Nuclear Talks, U.S. Envoy Says North Korea is not displaying a serious interest in returning to the six-party talks on its nuclear program, a senior U.S. negotiator said today (see GSN, March 25)...Full Story

	Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Barton Claims Another Iraq Survey Group Member Resigned Over Interference by Coalition Members Australian microbiologist Rod Barton yesterday said he was not the only representative from his nation to resign in frustration last year from the Iraq Survey Group, the Sydney Morning Herald reported today (see GSN, Feb. 14). Barton has said he left the U.S.-led weapons search team after the CIA censored his findings to make it appear in a March 2004 interim report that Iraq might have possessed weapons of mass destruction. Testifying before an Australian Senate committee, Barton said another team member resigned shortly before he did, also in frustration over meddling by British and U.S. authorities. The team member was not identified (Tom Allard, Sydney Morning Herald, March 29). Back to top

India Quietly Welcomes U.S. Decision to Sell Arms to Both South Asian Nuclear Rivals Although it has publicly criticized the U.S. decision to resume fighter aircraft sales to Pakistan, India is quietly welcoming the shift in U.S. policy to allow much greater defense cooperation, experts said yesterday (see GSN, March 28). The Bush administration announced Friday that it would end a long-standing ban and allow Pakistan to purchase F-16 fighters. The ban had been imposed in 1990 as part of U.S. policy to discourage nuclear proliferation. (Pearson/Chakravarty, Agence France-Presse I/Sify.com, March 29). “We see [the sale] as unnecessary,” Indian Defense Minister Pranab Mukherjee said yesterday. “The reasons and arguments for this step are not valid as one doesn’t need F-16s and such lethal weapons to fight terrorism. These are for full-fledged war.” (Agence France-Presse II, March 28) The new U.S. policy, however, also includes a willingness to sell India advanced combat aircraft, including the F-18 fighter, and to provide other technologies as well, including command and control systems, early warning radars and missile defenses, Agence France-Presse reported today. Indian officials have publicly said only that they would consider the U.S. offer, but, “Even India, with a long tradition of making foreign policy self-goals, will find it hard to say ‘no’ to the extraordinary offer the Bush administration has put on the table — a promise to assist it in becoming a world power in return for resumption of arms sales to Pakistan,” said longtime South Asian commentator C. Raja Mohan. Mohan expressed doubt that India was genuinely concerned about seeing more F-16s in Pakistan. “Today, no one in India can credibly argue that additional F-16s in Pakistan’s hands will alter the military balance in South Asia,” he said. India has already acquired more-advanced Su-30 combat aircraft from Russia and is shopping for additional aircraft from other countries as well, AFP reported (Agence France-Presse I). Under the deal announced Friday, Pakistan is expected to purchase at least 25 F-16C and F-16D aircraft and to upgrade about 28 older versions already in its arsenal, the Financial Times reported today. The deal would be worth about $1 billion, according to Pakistani officials (Bokhari/Marcelo, Financial Times, March 29). Back to top       North Korea Not Showing Serious Commitment to Six-Party Nuclear Talks, U.S. Envoy Says North Korea is not displaying a serious interest in returning to the six-party talks on its nuclear program, a senior U.S. negotiator said today (see GSN, March 25). Leaders in Pyongyang have said they will not resume talks until the United States ends its “hostile policy” against the United States. They have also demanded an apology from U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for calling North Korea an “outpost of tyranny.” “For the North Koreans to be fixating on one statement and not addressing, or not even being willing to address, the fundamental issues that bring us together, really calls into question how serious they are about the process,” said U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Christopher Hill. “For them to really be talking about seeking apologies … is really not a serious answer to a serious issue.” Hill encouraged the other negotiating nations — China, Japan, Russia and South Korea — to maintain pressure on North Korea to rejoin the talks. “One option that is not available to us is to walk away from this problem,” he said (Jim Gomez, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, March 29). A Chinese “goodwill delegation” arrived today in North Korea, Agence France-Presse reported (Agence France-Presse, March 29). Meanwhile, the commander of U.S. Pacific Command expressed concerns today about North Korea’s weapons programs. North Korea “has demonstrated a track record of less than predictable decision-making,” said U.S. Navy Adm. William Fallon. Pyongyang’s ballistic missile program is “one of the few in the world in the hands of people that give us reason to pause,” he said. “If in fact they do have nuclear weapons and if they were to marry up those weapons to the delivery systems, it they were to proliferate those delivery systems to other nations, it’s a real concern,” Fallon said (Hrvoje Hranjski, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, March 29). Back to top       Nuclear Material Protection Pact to Be Strengthened An international treaty on the protection of nuclear materials will be strengthened this year to require additional safeguards against diversion of substances by terrorists, the Kyodo news agency reported yesterday (see GSN, March 21). The Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Materials now only requires its 110 signatories to take measures to protect nuclear materials such as plutonium during international shipments. The revised policy would require safeguards for substances that are being used, stockpiled or shipped within a nation’s borders, sources told Kyodo. The proposal also calls on governments to develop response scenarios for the potential theft of nuclear material, or damage to such material. Members would be required to protect nuclear facilities, even in the absence of atomic material. Representatives from the member countries are set to meet in July in Vienna to approve the revisions. The leading nations support the proposal, Kyodo reported. The United States and Russia are among the pact’s members (Kyodo/BBC Monitoring, March 29). Back to top       Russia to Test New Strategic Missile Russia plans to test a new submarine-launched ballistic missile this summer, ITAR-Tass reported yesterday (see GSN, Nov. 18, 2004). The next-generation Bulava would be capable of carrying up to 10 nuclear warheads and would have a maximum range of at least 8,000 kilometers, according to ITAR-Tass. “In spite of the rather serious difficulties, caused by financing delays, we shall do our best to carry out the first launching in the third quarter of the year,” said Yuri Solomonov, director of the Moscow Combustion Engineering Institute, where the missile was designed. Past reports have indicated that the missile was already flight-tested (see GSN, Nov. 2, 2004), but those tests were limited to verifying that the missile could be ejected safely from a submerged submarine before igniting its engine, according to ITAR-Tass (ITAR-Tass, March 28). Back to top

BWC 30th Anniversary Passes with Little Fanfare By David Ruppe Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The 30th anniversary of the entry into force of the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention came and went Saturday with little fanfare and notably differing levels of praise from its major sponsors (see GSN, Dec. 13, 2004). The United Kingdom released a one-page, U.S.-British-Russian statement Saturday noting the anniversary and reaffirming support for the treaty.  The text released yesterday by the U.S. State Department, however, differs from the British version by omitting certain words of praise for the treaty. For example, the two-paragraph U.S. text does not include this paragraph found in the British statement: “The convention was the first to ban an entire class of weapons of mass destruction and is one of the first and crucial components in the nonproliferation tool-box. It remains as relevant today as it was when it was first drafted, although the threats we face have evolved. The international response to those new threats builds on the strong foundation of the existing multilateral disarmament framework of which the BWC is a part.” “The State Department site offers a shorter, less supportive statement, which does not include this language,” said Angela Woodward, acting director of the Verification Research, Training and Information Center in London. She said a similar text released by the European Union, which is not a party to the treaty, “is by far the strongest of the three.” It calls for a commitment “to developing measures to verify compliance with the BTWC,” Woodward said. The European Union version said further that the next major review conference of the treaty scheduled for 2006 would “be a good opportunity for all states parties to review the operation of the convention, to reiterate their commitment to the international norm against BW and to agree on measures to strengthen the BTWC, taking into account recent developments.” The United States since 2001 has opposed developing a mechanism for verifying treaty compliance. Treaty Troubles The United States led negotiations on developing the now 153-member treaty following President Richard Nixon’s announcement in November 1969 that his administration would unilaterally and unconditionally renounce biological weapons and close down the U.S. offensive program. The treaty explicitly prohibits the development of biological agents “of types and in quantities that have no justification for prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes.” However, arms control experts say the convention has lacked sufficient teeth to ensure compliance among states parties. “In the 30 years since the entry into force the states parties have been unable to agree on how to strengthen the convention with strong mechanisms to monitor, verify or enforce state compliance,” according to a statement issued last week by the nongovernmental Bioweapons Prevention Project in Geneva. “This means that the treaty, at present, is little more than a gentleman’s agreement,” it said. The Soviet Union maintained an offensive biological weapons program in violation of the treaty until it was formally shut down in 1992 by Russian President Boris Yeltsin. Experts suspect key elements of the Russian program remain intact and that work “outside the scope of legitimate biological defense activity may be occurring now,” a U.S. official told Congress in 2002.  An analysis by the Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, Calif., says that other countries may have offensive programs and be producing weapons, citing China, Iran, Egypt and Israel. The latter two are not treaty parties. U.S. Position The United States, meanwhile, was criticized in 2001 for blocking an effort it previously led to strengthen the treaty by creating an inspections mechanism. A senior official said the treaty was “inherently unverifiable” because offensive and defensive biological weapons research involved the same kind of work, and that inspections could compromise U.S. commercial biotechnology and defensive research (see GSN, Nov. 15, 2002). A group of experts in November presented a report arguing the inspections could be effective (see GSN, Nov. 18, 2004). Washington pressed instead for strengthening national laws to enforce the treaty and for a three-year series of meetings beginning in 2003 to discuss several issues prior to the 2006 review conference (see GSN, Dec. 13, 2004). “The United States continues to attach importance to the BWC and the work we have undertaken in the 2003-2005 timeframe, which is already demonstrating its utility,” U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary for Arms Control Implementation Donald Mahley said in a speech to treaty parties in December. “Our governments will continue to work to strengthen the convention by participating fully in the current three-year work program, by encouraging its universality, and by pressing for full implementation of, and compliance with, the convention by all its states parties,” according to the U.S., British and Russian statement yesterday. Critics have called the meetings ineffectual as they lack authority to compel action toward improving treaty compliance and do not allow sufficient time for representatives to seriously discuss their respective issues. The most recent session ended with the release by states parties of a statement that contained no recommendations or commitments. Several nongovernmental organizations last month held meetings in Berlin, Brussels and Geneva to mark the anniversary and discuss the treaty. “I think on both sides of the Atlantic, people aren’t sure how to approach [the review conference next year] and what the approach to strengthening the BWC should be,” said Oliver Meier, who represents the Arms Control Association in Berlin. Back to top       Anthrax Detector Installed in Wyoming Mail Facility Anthrax-detection equipment has been placed in the largest U.S. Postal Service mail distribution center in Wyoming, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, Oct. 18, 2004). The Cheyenne Mail Processing and Distribution Center handles about 840,000 parcels each day. It is one of the first mail distribution sites in the Rocky Mountain region to receive the equipment, which eventually will be placed at 283 processing facilities around the nation (Associated Press/Casper Star-Tribune, March 28). Back to top

Incineration at Pine Bluff to Begin Today Rockets containing the nerve agent sarin will be the first chemical weapons to be destroyed at the Pine Bluff Arsenal in Arkansas because they pose the greatest threat to nearby residents, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, March 23). Thirty M55 rockets were moved from storage yesterday to the Pine Bluff Chemical Agent Disposal Facility, where incineration is set to begin today. “[Chemical] weapons usually have a metal casing, bursters and an agent, but the M55 also has a fuse, a motor and fins that can get it off the installation and into the community in the remote possibility of a disaster,” said Greg Mahall, a spokesman for the U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency. “It’s all about risk reduction. You want to reduce the risk they pose to the community first.” The rockets have been stored since the 1960s at the depot, which also contains rockets carrying VX nerve agent, VX land mines and ton containers of mustard agent. “The M55 rockets pose the greatest risk in storage, but everything is basically equal once it’s in the disposal facility,” Mahall said. “It’s unlikely that anything will happen to breech the arsenal area, but if that would happen, that would happen while the weapons are in storage and it would be contained if they’re in transport or in the disposal facility” (David Hammer, Associated Press, March 29). Back to top

Bolton Hearing Set; Ex-U.S. Officials Protest Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) has scheduled an April 7 confirmation hearing for President George W. Bush’s nominee to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and a group of former U.S. diplomats plans to submit a letter protesting the choice, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, March 9). Early this month, Bush named Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton to the post, a choice that led 59 former State Department officials to protest the selection in letter to Lugar to be sent today, according to AP. “We urge you to reject the nomination,” says the letter, signed by a bipartisan group that includes Arthur Hartman, who served under presidents Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, ultimately serving as ambassador to the Soviet Union. The letter says Bolton has an “an exceptional record” of rejecting arms control as an international security strategy and criticizes him for his “insistence that the U.N. is valuable only when it directly serves the United States.” Other signatories include Princeton Lyman, former ambassador to South Africa and Nigeria; Monteagle Stearns, former ambassador to Greece and the Ivory Coast; and Spurgeon Keeny, former deputy director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (Associated Press, New York Times, March 29).       Back to top

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