U.S. intelligence leaders ignored doubts within their agencies that aluminum tubes bound for prewar Iraq had nuclear weapon-related uses, according to the White House intelligence study released yesterday (AFP photo/U.S. State Department). CIA Resisted Doubts on Aluminum Tubes Thought to Be for Iraqi Nuke Program The CIA resisted analyses by other government agencies that could have undermined its assertion that aluminum tubes sought by prewar Iraq were meant for a nuclear weapons program, the presidential commission on WMD intelligence said yesterday (see GSN, March 31)...Full Story

Judge to Allow Voluntary Anthrax Vaccinations By David Ruppe Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The U.S. Defense Department can resume vaccinations for anthrax, but should make additional efforts to inform potential recipients that the shots are not mandatory, a federal judge said in a ruling read today but held until Monday (see GSN, March 30)...Full Story

Libya May Have Hidden Details of Chemical, Biological Weapons Programs, Intelligence Commission Says Libya has possibly not disclosed all details of its biological and chemical weapons capabilities since agreeing in late 2003 to abandon its WMD programs, the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction wrote in a report delivered yesterday (see GSN, March 17)...Full Story

	Friday, April 1, 2005

Libya May Have Hidden Details of Chemical, Biological Weapons Programs, Intelligence Commission Says Libya has possibly not disclosed all details of its biological and chemical weapons capabilities since agreeing in late 2003 to abandon its WMD programs, the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction wrote in a report delivered yesterday (see GSN, March 17). “It is clear that Libya has been considerably less forthcoming about the details of its chemical and biological weapons efforts than about its nuclear and missile programs,” the report says. “There is little doubt that important questions remain about Libya’s WMD programs,” it adds. The commission said that any existing Libyan biological or chemical weapons program would not be large, the New York Sun reported. The commission warned that the United States must keep watch on Libya’s disarmament work. Intelligence collection on Libya has become a relatively low priority for Washington and resources have been diverted to other areas of concern, according to the report. “It remains true that the mercurial regime may suddenly shift its plans and intentions, leading to a covert resuscitation of these programs that the intelligence community will be expected to detect,” the report says (Eli Lake, New York Sun, April 1). Back to top       White House Resolve Debated on WMD Report While U.S. President George W. Bush pledged to take action on recommendations from the WMD intelligence commission, Democrats and analysts questioned yesterday whether anything would come from the panel’s report (see GSN, March 31). “To win the war on terror, we will correct what needs to be fixed,” Bush said yesterday at a press conference. White House homeland security adviser Fran Townsend would work to “assure that concrete actions are taken,” Bush said. The commission focused on flaws on the intelligence-gathering effort leading to the war in Iraq, and on U.S. assessments of other WMD programs in nations such as Iran and North Korea. Its recommendations include developing a National Counterproliferation Center, integrating intelligence collection, improving analysis and increasing information sharing by agencies. Panel members said their job did not include examining any role the White House might have played in manipulating the information, according to AP. That did not sit well with some Democrats. “The investigation will not be complete unless we know how the Bush administration may have used or misused intelligence to pursue its own agenda,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) (John Lumpkin, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, April 1). Analysts in Europe also expressed skepticism about the report and changes that might arise from it, AP reported. “The information is not new,” said Eberhard Sandschneider, a policy scholar for the German Council on Foreign Relations. “We have learned the changing reasons for going into Iraq from month to month to month. It started with weapons of mass destruction and ended with human rights.” “I think they will ignore it,” said Danny Warner, a U.S. international relations expert in Geneva. “No heads will roll, nothing will fundamentally change,” Warner added. “I just think everyone’s kind of given up on the United States” (Sam Cage, Associated Press, March 31). Back to top       Canada Announces WMD Strategy Canada has set out four strategic objectives to address the threat of an attack using weapons of mass destruction, a Canadian official announced in a press statement yesterday (see GSN, March 18). The new strategy will focus on prevention, preparedness, response and recovery, according to Anne McLellan, deputy prime minister and minister of public safety and emergency preparedness (Canada News Wire, March 31). Back to top

CIA Resisted Doubts on Aluminum Tubes Thought to Be for Iraqi Nuke Program The CIA resisted analyses by other government agencies that could have undermined its assertion that aluminum tubes sought by prewar Iraq were meant for a nuclear weapons program, the presidential commission on WMD intelligence said yesterday (see GSN, March 31). The agency intercepted tube samples in April 2001, and determined they were meant for use in uranium enrichment centrifuges. The CIA Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation and Arms Control Center (WINPAC) stuck to that analysis even in the face of doubts from the Energy Department and other agencies, the Washington Post reported. The aluminum tubes were featured prominently in a 2002 National Intelligence Estimate claiming that Iraq had restarted its nuclear weapons program. CIA officials also repeatedly referred to the tubes as part of an enrichment program. The CIA’s position was based on claims that ranged from questionable to clearly untrue, the report found. Agency officials twice refused requests by the federal Joint Atomic Energy Intelligence Committee to review the evidence, the commission report states. A WINPAC analyst used a contractor to perform tests, rather than sending the work to centrifuge technology experts at the DOE Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. The analyst also rejected the contractor results, according to the Post. A panel of experts put together by the CIA determined the tubes were meant for a nuclear weapons program based on “a stack of documents provided by the CIA,” the report states. Energy Department experts informed the CIA shortly after the tubes were found that the tubes appeared for intended for manufacturing an Italian-designed rocket called Medusa. Iraq was known to be building copies of the Medusa, the Post reported. “The intercepted tubes were not only well-suited, but were in fact a precise fit, for Iraq’s conventional rockets,” the commission report states. However, “certain agencies were more wedded to the analytical position that the tubes were destined for a nuclear program.” The report notes that Energy Department officially supported the case by the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency that Iraq was resuming nuclear weapons work, the Post reported. “DOE didn’t want to come out before the war and say (Iraq) wasn’t reconstituting,” one analyst told the commission (Linzer/Gellman, Washington Post, April 1). Back to top       U.S. to Study North Korea Statement on Talks Washington is studying Pyongyang’s statement that it wants six-party nuclear talks involving China, Japan, North Korea, Russia, South Korea and the United States to be transformed into a wide-ranging disarmament discussion, Agence France-Presse reported today (see GSN, March 31). “We’ll study it (the statement) carefully. We’re starting to look at it now.  It’s not really clear what they mean,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said yesterday. He added that the talks are still meant to free the Korean Peninsula of nuclear weapons. “That’s true and that’s something everybody’s accepted,” he said (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, April 1). The statement by Pyongyang “was not helpful,” said U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Christopher Hill. “Serious problems should not be dealt with … sarcastic statements,” said Hill, adding that North Korea should “stop with these silly press announcements” and resume negotiations (Burt Herman, Associated Press/ABC News, April 1). Meanwhile, North Korea today set a date for its Supreme People’s Assembly to meet, after last month postponing a regular session of the body, Reuters reported. The third session of the 11th Supreme People’s Assembly is set to meet on April 11, according to Pyongyang’s official news agency. Analysts had speculated Pyongyang might have canceled the meeting to focus attention on controversy surrounding its nuclear program (Reuters, March 31). Elsewhere, a British official said yesterday that the international community should consider penalties if Pyongyang fails to remedy its human rights record and to adequately address its nuclear weapons program, AFP reported. “If … North Korea does not in time, genuinely and constructively, engage both on our human rights concerns and on the concerns about its possession of nuclear weapons, then we will have to look for tougher options of containment or sanctions,” said Foreign Secretary Bill Rammell (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, March 31). Back to top

Judge to Allow Voluntary Anthrax Vaccinations By David Ruppe Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The U.S. Defense Department can resume vaccinations for anthrax, but should make additional efforts to inform potential recipients that the shots are not mandatory, a federal judge said in a ruling read today but held until Monday (see GSN, March 30). U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan said the vaccinations could occur under an “emergency use authorization” issued by senior government officials in January, which allows for voluntary vaccinations using drugs not licensed by the Food and Drug administration — without soliciting the informed consent of the potential recipients. Lawyers representing six unidentified soldiers and civilian contractors who sued the government to stop the mandatory vaccinations have argued that soldiers could more readily be pressured to take the vaccine under the emergency use authorization. U.S. law allows the government to conduct vaccinations with unlicensed drugs after obtaining either the recipient’s informed consent or a presidential waiver of the consent requirement. There has been no such waiver.  Citing that law, Sullivan in October issued an injunction to stop a Defense Department program of mandatory mass anthrax vaccinations without informed consent. However, a law passed last year after that ruling allows unlicensed drugs to be administered voluntarily, without informed consent, in the event of an emergency. Senior government officials declared a state of emergency in January. Soliciting informed consent includes providing extensive information on the drug’s possible side effects to the potential recipient prior to the vaccination. The emergency use authorization law, lawyers for the plaintiffs said, allows officials to provide less information about potential side effects and is not specific about when such information should be provided. A U.S. government lawyer, Andrew Tannenbaum, told Sullivan today that he anticipated that the Defense Department would give potential recipients a brochure describing some of the possible side effects prior to vaccination. Under questioning, though, Tannenbaum conceded that the brochure did not inform potential recipients about Sullivan’s October ruling that the vaccinations could not be compulsory. Sullivan delayed activation of the ruling until Monday to give the Bush administration time to say first what additional measures it would take to inform potential recipients of the judge’s injunction last year forbidding mandatory vaccinations.  Sullivan suggested posting the ruling prominently at each of the hundreds of military vaccination sites around the world. “Service-people may not know they have a choice to make,” he said. The Defense Department has posted the October ruling on a Web page. Sullivan rebuked the department for previously compelling vaccinations for some military personnel after his ruling went into effect. Back to top       CIA Analysts Concerned About Faulty Iraq WMD Source Were “Forced to Leave,” Report Says CIA analysts who expressed concern about the agency’s top source for information about prewar Iraq’s alleged biological weapons programs were “forced to leave” the unit that led analysis of the source’s claims, the presidential Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction said yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 28). Allegations that former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was building mobile biological weapons laboratories were based almost solely on information provided by an Iraqi defector identified as “Curveball,” according to the New York Times. CIA officials in fall 2002 had never met the defector, who had been providing information through German intelligence officials. With the Bush administration weighing the possibility of an invasion of Iraq, a senior CIA official asked Germany to grant direct access to Curveball. The official was told Curveball had suffered a nervous breakdown, according to the commission report. “You don’t want to see him because he’s crazy,” the official recalled being told. There were serious concerns that Curveball might be a “fabricator,” the official learned. Several senior CIA officials then quietly attempted to stop the United States from using information from Curveball, eventually taking their concerns to then-Deputy Director John McLaughlin and then-Director George Tenet. The concerns were not relayed to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who used information supplied by Curveball about Iraq’s alleged mobile biological weapons laboratories in his presentation outlining the U.S. case for war at the U.N. Security Council on Feb. 5, 2003. The night before Powell’s speech, Tenet called the division chief responsible for Iraq intelligence at his home, at which time the official said he told Tenet the Curveball information “has problems,” the Times reported. Tenet said, “Yeah, yeah,” and then mentioned that he was exhausted, the report states. Tenet later told the commission said the division chief had not given him such a warning (David Barstow, New York Times, April 1). Back to top       U.S. Was Wrong to Shift Bioterror Funds Based on Nonexpenditure Allegations, Auditors Say By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The United States was wrong when it alleged last year that states and cities were failing to spend much of their federal bioterrorism funding, federal auditors said in a report released yesterday, rejecting the U.S. Health and Human Services Department’s basis for shifting fiscal 2004 funding from local and state grants to other bioterrorism programs (see GSN, Feb. 8). “Jurisdictions have expended a substantial amount of Public Health Preparedness and Response for Bioterrorism program funds,” the Government Accountability Office said in the Feb. 28 report. Senators Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) and Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), respectively the top Democrats on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, commissioned the report last year and issued a statement this week urging President George W. Bush’s administration to reverse the shift. “If HHS had looked closely at what states and localities were doing with their grants, as GAO did, it would have realized that states were using the grant program to better prepare themselves for a bioterror attack,” Lieberman said. “Instead of working with jurisdictions to figure out what was going on, HHS reprogrammed the funds and undermined the ability of states and local governments to improve the very bioterrorism capabilities the grants were intended to create. States and local governments need more bioterrorism funding, not less.” Bioterrorism preparedness grants from Health and Human Services’ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to states and municipalities increased “almost twentyfold” in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, al-Qaeda attacks on the United States, the auditors wrote. Last year, however, the department shifted $55 million of the grant funds to support the Cities Readiness Initiative, meant to boost cities’ capacity for delivering medicine in emergencies; to boost capacity at CDC quarantine stations; and to bolster the Biosense program, which aims to detect emerging diseases by collecting and analyzing data from hospitals, pharmacies and other entities around the country. In explaining the shift, Health and Human Services said jurisdictions were failing to expend or designate for expenditure enough of the funds with sufficient speed. Contradicting that claim, the audit office said that of the funds it studied, more than four-fifths of fiscal 2002 funds and more than half of fiscal 2003 funds were spent in a timely manner, while more than five-sixths of fiscal 2001 and 2002 funds and more than three-fourths of fiscal 2003 funds were obligated quickly enough. The office was also asked to report on factors jurisdictions cited as contributing to whatever spending delays did occur and on what the jurisdictions did to address such problems. “Many jurisdictions reported facing challenges, partly related to administrative processes, that delayed their obligation and expenditure of bioterrorism funds,” it said. “These included work force issues such as hiring freezes, contracting and procurement processes to ensure responsible use of public funds and lengthy information technology upgrades. Some jurisdictions have simplified these processes to expedite the obligation and expenditure of funds.” The National Association of County and City Health Officials issued a statement yesterday calling on the Bush administration and Congress to restore the funds to states and localities. The association also blasted what it called a $130 million cut in local and state bioterrorism programs in the White House’s fiscal 2006 budget proposal. “It’s outrageous,” said the association’s executive director, Patrick Libbey, “that the proposed budget reduces funding for local health departments to fight bioterrorism and would force them to scale back their efforts.” Back to top       United States Needs Better Intelligence on Biological Weapons Threats, Commission Says Ineffective intelligence efforts have left the United States unprepared to detect or block a potential biological weapons attack, the presidential commission on WMD intelligence said yesterday (see GSN, March 2). U.S. intelligence agencies have not fully searched for evidence of possible stockpiles of agents such as anthrax or smallpox, the report said. The CIA and other agencies have not tightly monitored even publicly available information about biological weapons, the report says. The commission recommended better cooperation between scientists and the intelligence community to improve the detection of biological weapons, the New York Times reported. It also called for international laws against production of biological weapons (Eric Lipton, New York Times, April 1). The commission also found that the al-Qaeda terrorist organization had made greater progress in developing a biological weapon before the Sept. 11 attacks than U.S. officials had realized, the Associated Press reported. U.S. intelligence officials were taken aback by the group’s progress in weaponizing a pathogen identified by the commission as “Agent X” for security reasons. “Al-Qaeda’s biological program was further along, particularly with regard to Agent X, than prewar intelligence indicated,” the report says. “The program was extensive, well-organized, and operated for two years before Sept. 11, but intelligence insights into the program were limited.” However, the terrorist group had not developed an actual weapon, the report states. Al-Qaeda’s Agent X research was conducted in Afghanistan, according to the report. It was discovered only after U.S.-led forces overthrew the ruling Taliban. The terrorist organization is known to have conducted research on anthrax weapons in Afghanistan, U.S. officials have previously disclosed (John Lumpkin, Associated Press/Detroit Free Press, March 31). Back to top       Anthrax Spore Activation Studied U.S. scientists are studying how dormant anthrax spores become activated, enabling them to cause infection, Wake Forest University announced Wednesday (see GSN, Sept. 10, 2004). “A key aspect of anthrax spore biology concerns the germination process through which the dormant spore becomes a reproductive, disease-causing bacterium,” principal investigator Al Claiborne of Wake Forest said in a press release. “The potential importance of such a germination control mechanism is clear, as spore germination and outgrowth are fundamental to proliferation.” “Basic understanding of the regulatory signals that promote germination will enable discoveries leading to drugs that block the process,” added Claiborne, co-director of the Center for Structural Biology at the North Carolina university. Work by scientists at Wake Forest, Virginia Tech, the University of California, San Diego, and the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in Maryland is being funded by a grant from the Southeast Regional Center of Excellence in Biodefense and Emerging Infections, based at Duke University (Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center release, March 30). Back to top       Agencies Finalize Rules on Biological Agents The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Agriculture Department have finalized their rules on safeguarding weaponizable microbes and toxins at university laboratories, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported today (see GSN, Dec. 12, 2002). Corresponding guidelines from the CDC and Agriculture Department were published separately on March 18 in the Federal Register. Final rules are similar to regulations from 2002 and 2003 that required tighter security at laboratories working with microbes, background checks on scientists and registration of facilities and researchers with the federal government, the Chronicle reported. The final CDC rules do not include details requested by some universities on specific security improvements that are needed. The agency also did not alter the list of specific microbes defined as select agents, according to the Chronicle. There were small changes to the Agriculture Department list. Together the lists cover more than 60 bacteria, fungi, toxins and viruses (Jeffrey Brainard, The Chronicle of Higher Education, April 1). Back to top

Incineration Proceeds Slowly at Pine Bluff The first two days of chemical weapons incineration at the Pine Bluff Arsenal proceeded more slowly than anticipated, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, March 30). Six M55 rockets carrying the nerve agent sarin had been destroyed by Thursday, although officials had hoped to eliminate 30 in that time. “It is important to understand that (operators) will employ slow and deliberate processing during the first several months,” said Randy Long, site project manager. “There will be days when no processing occurs so we can assess performance and conduct equipment maintenance.” “This deliberately slow and limited startup will ensure the plant equipment and crew demonstrate the same proficiency in processing actual rockets as they did when processing thousands of practice rockets,” Long added (Associated Press, March 31). Back to top

Missile Shield Performance “Uncertain,” GAO Says The U.S. Missile Defense Agency went $370 million over budget in fiscal 2004 and the performance of its ballistic missile defense system “remains uncertain and unverified,” the Government Accountability Office said Thursday in a report (see GSN, March 16). The report said the Missile Defense Agency had performed planned activities last year toward bringing the missile shield online, including installation of missile interceptors in Alaska and California, development of command and control software, and increasing surveillance and tracking capabilities on Navy ships equipped with Aegis systems. “However, the performance of the system remains uncertain and unverified, because a number of flight tests slipped into fiscal year 2005 and MDA has not successfully conducted an end-to-end flight test using operationally representative hardware and software,” the report states. Cost overruns in fiscal 2004 forced the agency to redirect funds from other projects, defer some work to fiscal 2005 and request additional money to fund the delayed work, according to the report. While the Missile Defense Agency plans to seek $10 billion each year in funding, it will be competing against hundreds of other Defense Department programs, the report states. The agency also must deal with “unanticipated cost growth,” such as the additional $1.5 billion to be spent on a prototype airplane for the Airborne Laser program, according to the report (see GSN, Nov. 12, 2004). “Procurement and sustainment will demand increasing funding as more missile defense components are fielded over time,” it adds (Government Accountability Office report, March 31).   Back to top

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