John Bolton, the Bush administration’s nominee for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, testifies Monday at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (AFP photo/ Brendan Smialowski). Bolton Tried to Intimidate Analyst, Ex-Official Says By David Ruppe Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The White House nominee for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations attempted to politicize intelligence by intimidating a State Department analyst over the question of whether Cuba had a biological weapons program, a former senior State Department official testified yesterday (see GSN, April 12)...Full Story

Former Top Russian Official Criticizes U.S. Over “Neglect” of Strategic Relationship With Moscow By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The United States has jeopardized the security of the Russian nuclear complex by failing to enter into new arms control talks, a former Russian lawmaker and arms control expert said here Monday...Full Story

Iran Denies Moving Uranium From Isfahan Iran has not moved processed uranium away from a nuclear site that is under watch by the International Atomic Energy Agency, a spokesman for the Iran’s Foreign Ministry said today (see GSN, April 12)...Full Story

	Wednesday, April 13, 2005

U.S. Lawmakers Revive Risk-Based Spending Push By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — U.S. lawmakers are this week renewing efforts to direct more federal antiterrorism grant spending to the highest-risk potential targets (see GSN, March 10). The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee was slated today to discuss a new bill on the subject from Chairwoman Susan Collins (R-Maine), who sought passage last year for a related bill. Meanwhile in the House of Representatives, Homeland Security Committee Chairman Christopher Cox (R-Calif.) and senior Democrat Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) yesterday introduced a new version of legislation long championed by Cox. “Three and a half years have passed since the terrorist attacks on New York and northern Virginia,” Fraternal Order of Police National President Chuck Canterbury said yesterday in offering his support for the House bill. “In this time, it has become clear that the current system of distributing federal Homeland Security grants needs to be reformed.” Current formulas for doling out Homeland Security Department emergency-response grants to state and city agencies involve population-based payments and per-state minimums. Stories of haphazard and seemingly inappropriate spending are commonplace in hearings on the matter. Lawmakers have tried in recent years — so far, to no avail — to pass laws mandating a greater place in the calculus for terrorist threat information and knowledge of infrastructural vulnerabilities. Since being sworn in March 3, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has frequently cited “risk management” as a centerpiece of his plans for the department (see GSN, March 3). In a corresponding bid to make spending more closely match federal terrorism-response priorities, President George W. Bush’s administration is seeking in its fiscal 2006 budget proposal to “restructure” about two-thirds of the Homeland Security grant money in ways that would see more of it spent directly by Washington. The resulting decline in “baseline” funds to states, however, has sparked opposition to the plan in Congress. “Drastically reducing this baseline level of funding,” Collins wrote the Senate Budget Committee last month, “will make it virtually impossible for states and localities to conduct necessary emergency planning activities.” As a result, Congress is once again taking up members’ own plans for reform, which also would cut baseline funds but are generally less drastic than the Bush budget plan. Collins’ bill would cut minimum per-state payments from 0.75 percent to 0.55 percent of the overall grant budget. It would make the percentage “sliding,” with the smallest and least populous states receiving 0.55 percent and larger, more densely populated states receiving a bigger portion. In doling out the remaining money, Homeland Security would have greater latitude to consider states’ and regions’ vulnerabilities and existing capabilities. The House bill would set up a specific antiterrorism grant process, separate for the first time from spending on what the bill terms “pre-Sept. 11” needs that are not strictly related to terrorism. The antiterrorism grants to states, regions and American Indian tribes would be “for the primary purpose of improving the ability of first responders to prevent, prepare for, respond to or mitigate threatened or actual terrorist attacks, especially those involving weapons of mass destruction.” “The Department of Homeland Security should seek to allocate homeland security funding for first responders to meet nationwide needs,” states the bill, which seeks to have state spending better reflect central planning and to have grants better reflect threats. The House legislation goes farther than Collins’ bill in basing spending on risk, reducing the minimum budgetary percentage to 0.25 percent for states that are not thought to be at particularly high risk for a terrorist attack. The Fraternal Order of Police praised the Cox-Thompson bill for seeking to require Homeland Security “to allocate homeland security assistance funds to states or regions based upon risk and then provide, if necessary, additional funds to those states that have not met a minimum threshold of funding.” Back to top       Grand Jury Charges Three in WMD Plot A federal grand jury has indicted three men in connection with a suspected plot to use unconventional weapons against financial sites in New York, New Jersey and Washington, the New York Times reported today (see GSN, Nov. 11, 2004). Dhiren Barot, Nadeem Tarmohammed, and Qaisar Shaffi studied the New York Stock Exchange and Citicorp building in New York, the Prudential Building in Newark and the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Washington from summer 2000 through April 2001, according to court documents. The men are believed to have been planning for an attack through August, when British authorities arrested them and five other suspects connected to the case, the Times reported.  “This conspiracy was alive and kicking up until August of 2004,” Deputy Attorney General James Comey said yesterday in a statement. “The conspiracy laid out in the indictment was designed to kill as many Americans as possible, and the alleged surveillance of these buildings makes these allegations all the more serious,” he said. The terrorist threat led to a heightened alert level and increased security in the three areas. The suspects are each charged with conspiracy to use unconventional weapons in the United States and providing material support to terrorists. They face life in prison if convicted. The three men are also awaiting trial on terrorism-related charges in the United Kingdom. U.S. officials said they would seek the suspects’ extradition from the United Kingdom — which British officials said they would not consider until their trial was over (Johnston/Lichtblau, New York Times, April 13). Back to top       Negroponte Pledges to Improve Intelligence The nominee to become the first U.S. national intelligence director said yesterday his “mandate” is to improve the collection of information and avoid mistakes made by agencies in recent years, the New York Times reported (see GSN, April 12). “In the past four years, our homeland has been attacked, and we have miscalculated the arsenal, if not the intent, of a dangerous adversary,” U.S. Ambassador to Iraq John Negroponte told the Senate intelligence committee. “Our intelligence effort has to generate better results — that’s my mandate, plain and simple.” Negroponte said he would “push the envelope” to affirm his control over the CIA and other agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence community. Republican and Democratic committee members supported that pledge, the Times reported. “We have a broken system, and you have to fix that, and to do that, you need authority,” said committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.). Negroponte did not offer details of his plans as intelligence director, saying that he is still working with the White House to review recommendations on the new position from the presidential WMD intelligence commission (see GSN, March 31). However, he said he would supply clear intelligence assessments and be “more specific about what we do not know.” “I believe in calling things the way I see them. And I believe that the president deserves from his director of national intelligence, and from the intelligence community, unvarnished truth.” The United States needs better intelligence on the nuclear programs of Iran and North Korea, and on insurgents operating in Iraq, Negroponte said. Incorrect assessments of prewar Iraq’s weapons stockpiles have made intelligence agencies “more cautious” in considering other nations’ weaponry, he said. The intelligence committee and full Senate could vote to approve Negroponte’s nomination this week, the Times reported (Douglas Jehl, New York Times, April 13). Back to top

Bolton Tried to Intimidate Analyst, Ex-Official Says By David Ruppe Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The White House nominee for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations attempted to politicize intelligence by intimidating a State Department analyst over the question of whether Cuba had a biological weapons program, a former senior State Department official testified yesterday (see GSN, April 12). “Clearly, there was at least an attempt at pressuring this analyst to do something that he didn’t want to do,” said former Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research Carl Ford, testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the nomination of Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton. The attempt was unsuccessful, he said. “It wasn’t politicization because thankfully the analyst was strong enough to say no, and the State Department management, from the top down, backed that analyst up and said, ‘you did it fine.’” The committee of 10 Republicans and eight Democrats could vote as soon as tomorrow on Bolton. A majority vote is needed for the nomination to go to the Senate for consideration. Ford said Bolton in 2002 personally chastised Christian Westermann, a senior biological weapons analyst in the State Department’s intelligence bureau, and sought to have him fired for opposing a claim Bolton sought to include in a speech that Cuba had a biological warfare program. After the scolding, Ford said he met with Bolton and told him that he could include the contended language in a speech, as long as he made it clear it was a personal opinion and not one of the U.S. intelligence community. He said he essentially told Bolton that if “he was going to say the U.S. government, or that the intelligence community, said X, Y and Z, that he couldn’t say just anything he wanted to. He would have to make sure that that accorded with sources and methods declassification and was in tune with the view of the intelligence community.” “I left that meeting with the perception that I had been asked for the first time to fire an intelligence analyst for what he had said and done,” he said. Bolton Claimed No Disagreement Over Intelligence Ford yesterday described himself as a loyal Republican, “conservative to the core,” and a “huge fan of Vice President [Dick] Cheney.” “So the notion of coming before you and making critical remarks about a presidential nominee is not something I take lightly,” he said. Bolton told the committee Monday he had sought to have Westermann removed from his position because of the way he had opposed inclusion of the language, not because of the analysis itself. “It has nothing to do with the substance of intelligence, the analysis or anything. There’s no substance disagreement here,” he said. Bolton said the analyst went behind his back by distributing the language to other agencies without first clearing it with his office. Senator Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) noted that then-acting Assistant Secretary for Intelligence and Research Thomas Fingar had concluded Westermann should not have noted the intelligence bureau’s opposition to the language when circulating the speech language. Ford said, “as best as I can tell, the analyst followed the procedure.” In congressional testimony later in 2002, Ford used “essentially exactly the same language” on Cuba that Bolton sought, the undersecretary said yesterday. At that time Ford said Havana had a biological weapons “effort,” not a “program” (see GSN, June 6, 2002). After failing to find any banned weapons in Iraq as officials had predicted, the Bush administration in 2004 conducted a new assessment of Cuba’s biological weapons capacity and concluded that it is no longer clear that Cuba has an active offensive biological weapons program, the New York Times reported last September. Powell Stepped in Committee member Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) yesterday charged that Bolton’s confrontation with Westermann and two other analysts, one at the CIA, effectively intimidated intelligence analysts who might disagree with him. “We are kidding ourselves if we don’t think that these incidents have had a chilling effect on other analysts,” he said. Ford said that then-Secretary of State Colin Powell met with agency intelligence staffers following the Westermann incident and urged them to maintain their objectivity. Powell communicated that “we should not be impacted by this episode,” Ford said. Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) said that appointing Bolton could undermine U.S. credibility at the United Nations, in light of inaccurate U.S. assertions regarding suspected Iraqi banned weapons program in 2003 prior to the war. “Would it be fair to say that this kind of incident, this kind of attitude about intelligence, might affect the level of credibility with which Mr. Bolton might be viewed as a spokesperson at the United Nations?” he asked Ford. “I think that it may indeed be a factor in the perceptions that others have of Secretary Bolton,” Ford said. Committee Chairman Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) said that Ford had told committee staff last week that his main criticism of Bolton was his management style, not over the intelligence. Senator Lincoln Chafee (R-R.I.), considered to be a potential “no” vote that could create a tie blocking the nomination, reportedly said after Ford’s testimony he was still “inclined” to vote in favor of Bolton’s appointment. Back to top

Former Top Russian Official Criticizes U.S. Over “Neglect” of Strategic Relationship With Moscow By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The United States has jeopardized the security of the Russian nuclear complex by failing to enter into new arms control talks, a former Russian lawmaker and arms control expert said here Monday. Russia and the United States in February agreed to step up their cooperation on nuclear site security (see GSN, April 11), but former State Duma Defense Committee Deputy Chairman Alexei Arbatov said Washington’s “neglect” of strategic matters in relations with Russia works counter to such steps. The bilateral arms control process has historically served to diversify domestic input from governmental and nongovernmental agencies into Russian defense policy, making control of Moscow’s nuclear weapon complex more democratic, Arbatov said. He spoke at a conference here on “governing nuclear weapons,” hosted by the Geneva Center for Democratic Control of Armed Forces and the Swiss Foundation for World Affairs. Such an impetus would be useful at present, but U.S. policy is instead endangering Russian and global security, Arbatov said. “Neglect of Russian-American strategic nuclear relations has been really detrimental,” he said. A continued “animus” relationship between the countries where nuclear weapons are concerned, Arbatov added, hampers U.S.-Russian cooperation against terrorism and nuclear proliferation (see GSN, April 5). A new arms control push, he said, “is a sine qua non of this transition phase between a state of animus and a state of allies.” In Russia, Arbatov said, governance of nuclear weapons is “a sort of matryoshka problem” — a reference to traditional Russian nesting dolls, which he said illustrate nuclear control as a problem within a problem. Since government policy-making generally is less democratic than it should be, Arbatov said, control of nuclear weapons within the government is not a “subject for democratic accountability.” Nuclear control is nevertheless solid in the sense that the military is accountable to the civilian leadership, Arbatov said. “With [President Vladimir] Putin’s Russia,” he said, “this control is very strong.  Compared to the preceding time of [former President Boris] Yeltsin, when control of the military was largely based on his personal relationships … with Putin, this was much more organizationally fortified.” Addressing the conference theme in the context of the United States, former U.S. National Security Council arms control chief Peter Feaver said Washington sets the world standard for “democratic accountability” in governance of nuclear weapons. That has come through a relatively wide-ranging debate conducted in various parts of the government and influenced by nongovernmental forces such as activists and think tanks, he said. “Compared to some nonexistent ideal type, there are many ways in which accountability could be strengthened,” Feaver said, but no other nuclear-weapon states have achieved U.S. levels of accountability. Former U.S. Defense Undersecretary for Policy Walter Slocombe agreed, adding that countries’ ways of controlling their nuclear weapon complexes tend to flow from their political systems. Relative transparency in government, he said, usually corresponds to relative openness in nuclear weapon control. The decision of whether to have nuclear weapons at all, however, has almost always been reserved for top officials, Slocombe said. “That decision has seldom been taken with any real measure of public debate,” he said. Back to top       Iran Denies Moving Uranium From Isfahan Iran has not moved processed uranium away from a nuclear site that is under watch by the International Atomic Energy Agency, a spokesman for the Iran’s Foreign Ministry said today (see GSN, April 12). “Our nuclear activities are transparent and under the supervision of the IAEA,” said spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi. “Iran seeks nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. It would be meaningless for Iran to smuggle” uranium from Isfahan, he said (Reuters, April 13). Iranian nuclear negotiator Hassan Rohani pointed to a decree by leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei banning production, stockpiling or use of nuclear weapons as a primary reason why Tehran would not develop atomic armaments. “It is much more important for us to abide by this decree than the articles of the [Nuclear] Nonproliferation Treaty and its Additional Protocol,” Rohani said, according to Agence France-Presse. “We are fully aware that moving towards acquiring atomic weapons equals losing the international community’s trust as well as a serious obstacle on the way to development of our country,” he added (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, April 12). Israeli intelligence indicated that Iran was nearing “a point of no return” in its development of a nuclear weapon, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told U.S. President George W. Bush on Monday. Sharon also said European negotiators were softening their position and seemed open to Iran’s request to keep some uranium enrichment capability. “This can’t be delayed much longer,” said a senior Israeli official traveling with Sharon. “There is very little time until the point of no return is reached.” Sharon did not, however, indicate that Israel was preparing to attack Iran’s nuclear installations, the New York Times reported. U.S. officials said that while the evidence Sharon presented was not new, he was clearly pushing Bush not to allow the Iran-EU negotiations to drag on. “The Israelis consider the Iranians a big threat and they saw this as another opportunity to convey that to the president,” a U.S. official said.  Washington, meanwhile, has not indicated such a high degree of urgency on Tehran’s nuclear program, according to the Times. In the most recent public U.S. testimony on the subject, Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told Congress on Feb. 16 that “unless constrained by a nuclear nonproliferation agreement, Tehran probably will have the ability to produce nuclear weapons early in the next decade.” Jacoby also said that Iran possesses medium-range missiles that can reach Israel, and that it may be able to develop a long-range missile by 2015 (David Sanger, New York Times, April 13). Back to top       U.N. General Assembly Backs Nuclear Terrorism Treaty The U.N. General Assembly today approved by consensus a treaty that would require member nations to enact laws against unauthorized possession of nuclear devices and radioactive materials, Reuters reported (see GSN, April 4). The Convention on the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism is the first U.N. antiterrorism convention completed since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to Reuters. It mandates prosecution or extradition of individuals who illicitly possess nuclear materials, as well as those who threaten others while possessing such materials. “We urge member states to sign the convention when it is open for signature in September and to ratify it as soon as possible,” said U.S. delegate Stuart Holliday. Twenty-two nations must ratify the pact before it becomes international law. It is set to be open for signature on Sept. 14, according to Reuters (Evelyn Leopold, Reuters, April 13). Back to top       North Korea Unwilling to Provide Major Aid to Pyongyang Until Nuclear Crisis Resolved, Roh Says South Korea will not provide major economic aid to North Korea until the standoff ends over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun said yesterday (see GSN, April 12). “We have a policy to support the North Korean economy and help it stand on its feet,” Roh said. “But the North Korean nuclear problem must be resolved for substantive assistance to be possible,” he added, according to Reuters (Reuters, April 13). Meanwhile, International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohammed ElBaradei said yesterday that North Korea’s nuclear efforts present a more pressing international arms control issue than Iran’s program, the Associated Press reported. “For us North Korea is a black hole,” he said. While Iran has pursued nuclear negotiations with the European Union, “the parties are now dormant or in a frozen situation” in the North Korea standoff, ElBaradei said. He added that he hoped the nations involved in the six-party talks would find a way to “engage North Korea in a fully substantive discussion” about issues surrounding the nuclear problem, such as regional security and economic sanctions (Associated Press/USA Today, April 13). Back to top       MOX Arrives in South Carolina A shipment of mixed-oxide fuel arrived in the United States this week for testing at a South Carolina nuclear plant, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, April 11). Two ships carrying the fuel, produced through conversion in France of weapon-grade plutonium, arrived at about midnight Monday in Charleston. The fuel was then sent on to the Catawba Nuclear Station, where it will be tested to determine if MOX can be used at U.S. commercial nuclear reactors. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission declared last month that Catawba needed to make security improvements before accepting the shipment. A National Nuclear Security Administration spokesman said those conditions would be met in time, AP reported. “The fuel assemblies are secure and have been secure without any significant incidents,” said agency spokesman Bryan Wilkes. “Everything is on schedule, it’s been on schedule and according to plan” (Jacob Jordan, Associated Press/The Herald-Sun, April 12). Back to top       Prosecutors Want Vanunu Restrictions Continued Israeli prosecutors yesterday requested a six-month extension of restrictions placed on nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu after his release from prison last year, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, March 18). Vanunu is on trial for allegedly violating the terms of his release by speaking with foreign reporters, prosecutors said. The court is expected to reconvene May 19. “It’s a shameful day for Israel’s democracy, that a man who served 18 years, a full sentence, is brought to court for exercising his freedom of speech,” Vanunu told AP. Prosecutors requested the continued restrictions because Israeli security officials believe Vanunu may still possess classified information, AP reported. “I have no more secrets. Only Israel has secrets about its atomic program,” Vanunu said (Associated Press/San Francisco Chronicle, April 13). Back to top       U.S. Air Force Finds No ‘Significant’ Radiation in Hunt for Long-Lost Atomic Bomb Off Georgia Coast The U.S. Air Force has found no indication of the presence of a nuclear bomb lost in 1958 when it tested for radiation off the Georgia coast, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 30, 2004). Retired Air Force pilot Derek Duke searched privately for the bomb and reported detecting radiation last year near Tybee Island. That led to an official government investigation in September. Government tests, however, did not match radiation levels reported by Duke, Col. James DeFrank, the Air Force deputy director of public affairs, stated in a letter supplied to AP. “Since the interagency team did not find the ‘significant’ radiation levels Mr. Duke’s team reported, the focus shifted to the arduous task of analyzing data to determine what the samples did contain,” DeFrank wrote. A final report on the government study is expected to be released this month, AP reported. Duke expressed surprise at the results of the government search. “There’s no question in my mind that the day we reported those readings, they existed,” he said (Russ Bynum, Associated Press/Macon Telegraph, April 12). Back to top

Debate Continues on Chemical Weapons Relocation Lawmakers and a Defense Department official jousted Monday over the best way to eliminate the U.S. chemical weapons stockpile by the 2012 international treaty deadline, the Salt Lake Tribune reported (see GSN, April 8). The Army’s study of potential relocation of weapons to already-operating incinerators from depots in Colorado and Kentucky came under fire again during a Senate Armed Services subcommittee meeting. “The chemical munitions are not going to be transported, one, because it’s a violation of federal law and, two, because community concerns with public safety,” said Senator Ken Salazar (D-Colo.). “It makes … no sense whatsoever for you to be spending significant sums of money to be studying alternatives that we know are illegal under United States law.” Defense Undersecretary Michael Wynne countered that Congress should consider all options to ensure the United States meets its Chemical Weapons Convention obligations, even if it means changing existing law, the Tribune reported. “If you really wanted to comply with the chemical weapons treaty you would accommodate some of the options we’re considering, such as transportation,” he said. The Senate this week is expected to consider a defense spending bill that would bar military consideration of weapons relocation and force the Pentagon to release more than $700 million for construction of neutralization facilities at Blue Grass, Ky., and Pueblo, Colo. A House of Representatives version of the spending bill does not include the language on chemical weapons, according to the Tribune. The Army is set to finish considering weapons elimination options by April 30, meaning it could be concluded before the two houses of Congress approve a bill potentially blocking the study (Robert Gehrke, Salt Lake Tribune, April 12).   Back to top

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