U.S. President George W. Bush looks on as John Bolton speaks to reporters this morning following his recess appointment as U.N. ambassador (Getty Images/Mark Wilson). Bolton Becomes U.N. Ambassador in Recess Appointment With the Senate in recess, U.S. President George W. Bush today appointed John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, July 26). “This post is too important to leave vacant any longer, especially during a war and a vital debate about U.N. reform,” Bush said at a news conference this morning, where he was joined by Bolton and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. ..Full Story

Iran Says it Will Resume Uranium Conversion Today Iran announced it would break U.N. seals on its Isfahan uranium conversion plant today and resume work, Reuters reported (see GSN, July 29)...Full Story

North Korea Says It Will Rejoin NPT, Allow Inspections Once Nuclear Standoff is Resolved North Korea has announced its intention rejoin the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty upon resolution of the international dispute over its nuclear weapons program, Agence France-Presse reported yesterday (see GSN, July 29)...Full Story

	Monday, August 1, 2005

Bolton Becomes U.N. Ambassador in Recess Appointment With the Senate in recess, U.S. President George W. Bush today appointed John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, July 26). “This post is too important to leave vacant any longer, especially during a war and a vital debate about U.N. reform,” Bush said at a news conference this morning, where he was joined by Bolton and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.  The recess appointment will last until the next session of Congress begins in January 2007, according to AP. “It will be a distinct privilege to be an advocate for America's values and interests at the U.N. and, in the words of the U.N. charter, to help maintain international peace and security,” said Bolton at the news conference. Bush said the former undersecretary of state had the backing of most senators but “because of partisan delaying tactics by a handful of senators, John was unfairly denied the up-or-down vote that he deserves.” U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said the president had a right to make the recess appointment and pledged to work with the ambassador. “We look forward to working with him as I do with the other 190 ambassadors, and we will welcome him at a time when we are in the midst of major reform,” Annan said. Some Republicans on Capitol Hill praised Bolton’s appointment. “The president did the right thing by sending Mr. Bolton to the U.N. He is a smart, principled and straightforward candidate, and will represent the president and America well on the world stage,” said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.). However, Ohio Republican Senator George Voinovich said the recess appointment will damage Bolton at the U.N. General Assembly. “I am truly concerned that a recess appointment will only add to John Bolton's baggage and his lack of credibility with the United Nations.” Prominent Democrats blasted the move.   Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) called Bolton a “seriously flawed and weakened candidate” and said the president “chose to stonewall the Senate” with the recess appointment. Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) called the appointment “a devious maneuver that evades the constitutional requirement of Senate consent and only further darkens the cloud over Mr. Bolton's credibility at the U.N.” “The president has done a real disservice to our nation by appointing an individual who lacks to the credibility to further U.S. interests at the United Nations,” added Senator Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) (Terence Hunt, Associated Press I/Yahoo!News, Aug. 1). Over the weekend, Senate Democrats charged that Bolton was “not truthful” when answering questions about his record, the New York Times reported Saturday. The accusation was made in a letter to the president signed by 35 Democrats and one independent, according to the Times. The Times also reported that Senate Democrats planned the symbolic move of formally sending Bolton’s name back to the White House when the Senate adjourned. Democrats hoped this would make a recess appointment more uncomfortable for the president (Steven Weisman, New York Times, July 30). Back to top       State Department Modifies Nonproliferation Offices The U.S. State Department plans to consolidate two offices to form the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, which will include an office focusing on terrorists seeking weapons of mass destruction, Agence France-Presse reported Friday (see GSN, July 15). “Securing America from terrorist attack is more than a matter of law enforcement,” said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, announcing a set of organizational changes to department officials and diplomats. “We must also confront the ideology of hatred in foreign societies by supporting the universal hope of liberty and the inherent appeal of democracy.” As part of the reorganization, Rice said the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs will be strengthened. The Verification and Compliance Bureau will now be called the Verification, Compliance and Implementation Bureau and will be given an expanded mission. Finally, Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky will now be called the undersecretary of state for democracy and global affairs and will focus on the international promotion of democracy, according to AFP (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, July 29). Back to top

Iran Says it Will Resume Uranium Conversion Today Iran announced it would break U.N. seals on its Isfahan uranium conversion plant today and resume work, Reuters reported (see GSN, July 29). “Iran sent a letter to the [International Atomic Energy Agency]. Iran is to remove the seals today,” said Supreme National Security Council spokesman Ali Aga-Mohammadi. “Iran has decided to resume the uranium conversion activities at ... Isfahan on Aug. 1,” says the letter, which was obtained by Reuters (Jon Hemming, Reuters, Aug. 1). Tehran had earlier announced that Monday was the final day that the European Union could halt the resumption of nuclear work by submitting its proposal on Iran’s atomic program. The European nations had already missed a Sunday deadline. “This is the last day that the Europeans can offer their proposals,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi. The European Union, however, said yesterday that it had only promised to deliver “full and detailed proposals” within the week (Reuters, Aug. 1). Iran had also said today it could delay resuming uranium conversion if the European negotiators agreed to discuss the possibility of allowing Tehran to enrich its own uranium, Reuters reported (Reuters II, Aug. 1). IAEA inspectors are already in Tehran, said Asefi said yesterday, and could quickly travel to Isfahan, where uranium conversion would take place, the Associated Press reported. “Since our nuclear policy is transparent and legal, we will start activity upon delivering the letter to the IAEA, with the inspectors in attendance,” Asefi said. Later Sunday, Melissa Fleming, a spokeswoman for the U.N. nuclear watchdog, said the agency had not received any official notification from Iran about resumption of activity at Isfahan (Nasser Karimi, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, July 31). The United Kingdom warned Tehran to retract its “unnecessary and damaging threat” to restart sensitive nuclear work, the London Times reported today. London announced that resuming nuclear work would probably kill the EU diplomatic effort to resolve the standoff. “The foreign ministers (of France, Germany and the United Kingdom) and the EU high representative have just written to Iran’s chief negotiator on nuclear activities — confirming that full and detailed proposals would be given to Iran in a week’s time,” the Foreign Office said in a statement (Navai/Rumbelow, The Times, Aug. 1). The European Commission also warned Iran not to resume nuclear work, Reuters reported. “The commission very much hopes for a negotiated solution. We would also hope that no steps would be taken over the coming days to endanger such a negotiated solution,” said a spokesman for the European Union executive (Reuters III, Aug. 1). The International Atomic Energy Agency would need at least three days to convene an emergency session if the situation were to intensify, Agence France-Presse reported yesterday. “At least 72 hours” would be needed to convene an IAEA Board of Governors meeting, which has the authority to refer Iran’s case to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions, an agency spokesman said (Agence France-Presse/IranMania.com, July 31). Meanwhile, the European Union is set to propose security guarantees for Tehran if it agrees to permanently end uranium enrichment, the Associated Press reported. The forthcoming proposal includes “guarantees about Iran’s integrity, independence, national sovereignty” and nonaggression toward Iran, top Iranian nuclear negotiator Hassan Rohani told IRNA yesterday. “If Europe enjoys a serious political will about Iran’s nuclear fuel cycle, there will be the possibility of understanding,” IRNA quoted Rohani as saying. EU officials planned to offer Iran “security guarantees,” a senior European diplomat confirmed, but he added that no country could give “a 100 percent guarantee” to another country that it would not be invaded (Karimi, Associated Press, July 31). The European Union is also preparing to offer Iran economic cooperation and a guaranteed nuclear fuel supply in exchange for Tehran’s permanent renunciation of fissile material production, the Washington Post reported today. The offer would recognize Tehran’s right to a civilian nuclear program that is “safe, economically viable and proliferation proof,” diplomats close to the negotiations told the Post (Dafna Linzer, Washington Post, Aug. 1). Washington last week provided Iranian diagrams, computer files and other Farsi-language documents to the International Atomic Energy Agency that allegedly point to Tehran’s possession of a nuclear warhead, the London Times reported. An Iranian “black box” is mentioned in of the Farsi-language documents acquired by the CIA, the Times reported, and U.S. nuclear experts reportedly believe “box” is a codename for a nuclear warhead. Mujaheddin-e-Khalk, a militant Iranian opposition organization labeled as a terrorist organization by the State Department, provided the documents. “I would take anything from them with a grain of salt,” said a former CIA counterintelligence director. The Bush administration, however, is proceeding “extremely carefully” in handling the new intelligence, said Judith Kipper, director of the Middle East Forum at the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations. “We’re certainly not seeing a rerun of Iraq,” she said. “I don’t think they’ll mess around with intelligence again” (Tony Allen-Mills, The Times, July 31). Meanwhile, the State Department Friday called on Tehran to respond to allegations that president-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was one of the captors who took hostages at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979, AP reported. “It is the responsibility of the Iranian government to respond to these charges frankly and clearly,” said spokesman Sean McCormack (Barry Schweid, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, July 29). Iran, meanwhile, said the U.S. accusations were due to frustration over its failure to influence Iran’s elections, Reuters reported. "Such remarks in the run-up to the transfer of power in the Islamic Republic of Iran derive from U.S. disillusion with Iran's independent policies and our nation's ignoring the White House demand to boycott the elections," Foreign Ministry spokesman Asefi said in a statement Friday (Reuters, July 30). Back to top       North Korea Says It Will Rejoin NPT, Allow Inspections Once Nuclear Standoff is Resolved North Korea has announced its intention rejoin the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty upon resolution of the international dispute over its nuclear weapons program, Agence France-Presse reported yesterday (see GSN, July 29). North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun was quoted by state media as saying that Pyongyang would rejoin the pact and allow international inspections “once the nuclear issue is resolved smoothly” (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, July 31). Paek also presented Pyongyang’s conditions for such a resolution: North Korea’s removal from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism; an end to U.S. sanctions on North Korea; and removal of U.S. nuclear weapons that Pyongyang has said are deployed in South Korea, Reuters reported (Ueno/Kim, Reuters, July 31). The U.S. and North Korean delegations at six-nation nuclear talks in Beijing held two more bilateral meetings over the weekend to discuss the wording of a revised Chinese proposal on developing a framework to end the nuclear crisis, AFP reported. “Overnight, the Chinese host put together the second draft,” Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, the chief U.S. delegate to the talks, said today. “My delegation did some internal discussions about it, seeing what points we are more pleased with, what points we’re still concerned about,” he said. Japan also raised objections to the initial version because it did not refer to the abductions of Japanese nationals by North Korea, Jiji Press quoted a Japanese delegation source as saying. In addition, Tokyo objected to the document because it did not use the term nuclear “dismantlement” as sought by the United States and Japan. The draft did, however, propose security guarantees for North Korea, a primary concern to Pyongyang, the Kyodo news agency reported (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Aug. 1). Hill seemed to indicate that Washington might be willing to allow Pyongyang to retain an atomic energy program if it rejoined the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, AFP reported. “We don’t challenge the fact that they have the rights to this under the treaty, but we challenge whether they should be exercising these rights,” said Hill. “The question is how that will work and when that will work and frankly how it will work with other parties,” he said (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, July 29). North Korea has rejected a South Korean offer of electricity aid in return for Pyongyang abandoning its nuclear program. The North is also demanding nuclear energy reactors, Reuters reported. “The North says the electricity proposal is conditional on the dismantling of nuclear programs and is no different from the existing (U.S.) dismantle-first demand,” the South Korean JoongAng daily quoted an official in Seoul as saying (Reuters, July 30). Russia, meanwhile, offered to cooperate with Pyongyang on nuclear energy program if the North were to rejoin the treaty, ITAR-Tass reported. An atomic energy program would help North Korea “resolve acute energy problems,” said Valeriy Yermolov, deputy head of the Russian delegation in Beijing. However, “international law and Russian legislation do not allow cooperation even in the peaceful nuclear energy sector with a state which is not a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency and has not signed an agreement on guarantees with the IAEA,” Yermolov said (ITAR-Tass/BBC Monitoring, Aug. 1). Back to top       Central Asian Nations to Sign Nuclear Pact This Year Five former Soviet republics in Central Asia are expected to sign a treaty by October establishing a nuclear weapon-free zone in their region, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported Saturday (see GSN, Feb. 10). The agreement would ban development, acquisition or possession of atomic weapons within Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, according to RFL/RE. It would be the five countries’ first formal security arrangement since they gained independence. If signed by their five heads of state, the treaty would still require parliamentary ratification in each country before going into effect. “Except (for the) Moscow Treaty, nothing happened during [the last five years] in the field of nuclear disarmament,” said Tsutomu Ishiguri, a negotiations facilitator from the U.N.’s disarmament affairs department. “This is only one concrete result and it should be really highlighted, the importance of this agreement.” The Kazakh city of Semipalatinsk, the site of some 500 Soviet nuclear tests, is expected to host the signing, which would produce the world’s fifth formal nuclear weapon-free zone. While expressing support in principle for nuclear weapon-free zones, the five declared nuclear powers under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty — China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States — remain undecided as to whether they will provide security guarantees for the five Central Asian neighbors upon signing of the treaty (Robert McMahon, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty/Eurasianet.org, July 30). Back to top       U.S. Intelligence on Prewar Iraq Nuclear Program Suppressed, Former CIA Officer Says in Lawsuit A CIA informant provided evidence in spring 2001 that Iraq had abandoned a key component of its nuclear weapons program, but that intelligence was never passed on to other U.S. agencies or top policy-makers, the New York Times reported today (see GSN, Dec. 9, 2004). The informant said Baghdad’s uranium enrichment program had ended years earlier and that some discarded centrifuge components were on sale by the Hussein regime, an anonymous former CIA officer said in a federal lawsuit filed in December. He said his reports came just as the CIA was altering its view that Iraq did not have an operating nuclear program, according to the lawsuit, and he was told to focus on other countries. The officer was fired last year, the Times reported, and the lawsuit alleges that he was dismissed in retaliation for challenging certain weapons-related assumptions at the agency. The ex-officer found out he was the subject of a counterintelligence investigation and accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a female contact in 2003. Eight months later, the agency’s inspector general’s office announced the officer was under investigation for embezzling money designated for use as payments to informants. He has denied all the charges, according to the Times. His reporting on the Iraqi nuclear program was not addressed in a presidential commission’s report on Iraqi intelligence failures or in a 2004 report by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on prewar intelligence, the former officer said. The commission was not aware of the officer’s allegations, a former senior staff member said. The former officer did meet with Senate intelligence committee staffers in a closed-door session last December, months after the panel issued its report (James Risen, New York Times, Aug. 1). Back to top       U.S. to Deliver Fighter Jets to Pakistan Pakistan expects to receive two used F-16 fighter jets in coming months from the United States, Agence France-Presse reported yesterday (see GSN, June 19). Congress is expected to approve the deal later this month and Pakistani pilots could then fly the aircraft home by October, Dawn reported (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, July 31). Back to top

U.S Remains Vulnerable to Bioattack Warnings continue that the United States is unprepared for a bioterrorist attack despite a $20 billion increase in preparedness funding since 2001, USA Today reported today (see GSN, July 13). “We're almost four years after 9/11, and we've made maybe six months’ worth of progress,” said Irwin Redlener, director of Columbia University’s National Center for Disaster Preparedness. “We’re wasting billions and billions of dollars.” “This challenge is larger than almost anything we’ve ever faced,” said William Raub, head of public health emergency preparedness at the Health and Human Services Department. While admitting the government is not close to being adequately prepared, Raub said “I don’t think anyone here has anything to apologize for.” Local governments are not capable to delivering bioterror countermeasures to citizens after they have been taken from the national stockpile. “Not a single city in America is prepared,” said Richard Falkenrath, a former White House homeland security official. Also, development of new drugs and vaccines to combat a bioterrorism attack has been slow despite available funding from Project Bioshield. Drug companies, fearful of lawsuits, have not developed the products despite guarantees from the government that the drug would be purchased, according to USA Today. Finally, hospitals are not ready for the surge of patients that would follow an attack. “Hospital preparedness is an exercise in fantasy,” said Jerome Hauer, former Health and Human Services preparedness director. “Most people think having 100 beds is surge capacity. But most cities, if they were to have 10,000-15,000 patients, would be brought to their knees” (Mimi Hall, USA Today, Aug. 1). Meanwhile, Health and Human Services is working on a plan to get drugs from the national stockpile into the public’s hands after an attack, USA Today reported. Raub said the stockpile has enough drugs to treat up to 60 million people for anthrax, and that these drugs can be delivered to any city in the United States within 12 hours. No city has prepared a plan to quickly distribute the drugs, Raub said. Health and Human Services last year created the Cities Readiness Initiative, a $27 million, 21-city program designed on improving local preparedness. The public health system is “one of the weakest links in our national defense,” said Shelley Hearne, director of the Trust for America’s Health. The U.S. Postal Service is being considered to deliver drugs to communities, according to USA Today. Postal Service spokesman Gerry McKiernan said postal workers have given the idea “varying degrees of enthusiasm.” “We stand ready to assist,” he said.   “Letter carriers feel as though we’re on the front lines anyway after the anthrax attacks.” The government also needs to work out plans for setting up and staffing distribution centers where drugs would be given to the public.   This could be difficult, as in 2003 the government largely failed to persuade health-care workers to be vaccinated against smallpox so that the workers could remain uninfected and distribute vaccines, USA Today reported. Only 38,000 workers ended up taking the smallpox vaccine, well short of the government’s goal of 500,000. Many were scared off by potential side effects of the vaccine, and Raub said a safer vaccine is “a couple of years off anyway.” Cities are also challenged to come up with plans for quarantines. “Some of the cities are still shaking their heads” at the difficulty of the task, Raub said (Mimi Hall, USA Today II, Aug. 1). Back to top

Fire Stops Work At Umatilla Chemical Depot A fire Friday night at Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility in Oregon briefly stopped weapons destruction, the Tri-City Herald reported yesterday (see GSN, July 22). Work resumed Saturday afternoon after depot officials consulted with the Oregon Environmental Quality department. The fire — the fourth at the facility since April — started while M55 rockets filled with sarin were being destroyed, the Herald reported. No injuries occurred and no chemicals escaped during the fire, which was extinguished quickly. The fire occurred during the fifth of seven cuts to destroy the 188th rocket eliminated that day, said Umatilla Chemical Depot project manager Don Barclay. More than a quarter of the M55 rockets stored at Umatilla have been destroyed since work began there in September 2004, according to the Herald (Nathan Isaacs, Tri-City Herald, July 31). Back to top       Deseret Finishes Destroying VX, Sarin Nerve Agents The Deseret Chemical Depot in Utah finished destroying its stockpiles of VX and sarin nerve agents on Friday, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, July 6). Work is expected to conclude at the Tooele Chemical Agent Disposal Facility in 2012, following destruction of 125,000 mustard gas weapons, according to AP. Depot spokeswoman Alaine Southworth said half of the country’s sarin agent has now been destroyed (Associated Press/KSL TV, July 31).  Back to top       Russia Chooses Site for CW Disposal Facility The first phase of a new chemical weapons disposal facility is expected to be completed by the end of this year at the Maradykovo depot in Russia’s Kirov region, ITAR-Tass reported last week (see GSN, July 28). The storage facility at Maradykovo houses 40,822 bombs and warheads containing toxic substances, according to Leonid Ogarkov, head of the conventional issues department at the regional administration. Of the 6,936 tons of chemical weapons stored at Maradykovo, 4,000 are expected to be destroyed by the end of April 2007. The entire arsenal is scheduled to be destroyed by 2010, according to BBC (ITAR-Tass/BBC Worldwide Monitoring, July 29). Back to top       Lawyers Cite Mental Problems, Ask Court to Stop Tokyo Gas Attack Mastermind’s Appeals Lawyers for the convicted mastermind behind the 1995 nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway have asked the Tokyo High Court to suspend their client’s appeal because he has a mental disorder and cannot stand trial, Associated Press reported last week (see GSN, June 21). Shoko Asahara, founder of the doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo, was convicted and sentenced to death last year for multiple crimes, including the sarin attack that killed 12. While on trial over an eight-year period, the cult leader fell asleep, mumbled incoherently and made odd gestures. His lawyers initially appealed the sentence, AP reported. The appeals process could take years (Associated Press/Find Law, July 29).   Back to top

About Newswire  |  Contact National Journal  |  Re-Use Guidelines

© Copyright 2008 by National Journal Group, Inc. The material in this section is produced independently for NTI by National Journal Group, Inc. Any reproduction or retransmission, in whole or in part, is a violation of federal law and is strictly prohibited without the consent of the National Journal Group, Inc. All rights reserved.