A Maryland Transportation Authority Police officer stands guard at the Port of Baltimore in June. The port will participate in terrorism preparedness drills next week (Getty Images/Alex Wong). U.S. Ports Begin New Catastrophic Terrorist Attack Drills By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — U.S. ports are preparing for catastrophic terrorism in a major new program of security drills that began last week in the San Francisco Bay area and continues next week in Baltimore (see GSN, Aug. 11)...Full Story

North Korea Nuclear Talks Could Resume Sept. 2 Multilateral talks on North Korea’s nuclear program could resume on Sept. 2, Reuters reported today (see GSN, Aug. 24)...Full Story

Missile Defense Tests Delayed Until Next Year By David Ruppe Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The U.S. Missile Defense Agency says it is again delaying intercept testing of its flagship anti-ICBM program until next year, even as it continues to deploy additional interceptors in Alaska (see GSN, Aug. 23)...Full Story

	Thursday, August 25, 2005

U.S. Ports Begin New Catastrophic Terrorist Attack Drills By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — U.S. ports are preparing for catastrophic terrorism in a major new program of security drills that began last week in the San Francisco Bay area and continues next week in Baltimore (see GSN, Aug. 11). The federal Port Security Training Exercises Program (PortSTEP) is to bring together government and private-sector officials responsible for maritime transportation and commerce, emergency response and land transit in 40 port districts around the United States. Officials participate in fictitious incident scenarios intended to reflect the terrorist threat environment. “Everyone was really, really engaged because the scenarios were very realistic” in the San Francisco Bay exercises, Universal Systems and Technology Inc. Vice President for Homeland Security David Holmes said yesterday. The company, known as Unitech, was the lead contractor for last week’s exercises and will fill that role for most of the exercises scheduled around the country through September 2007. The U.S. Coast Guard and Transportation Security Administration are administering the program. Holmes would not specifically say whether weapons of mass destruction figured in the San Francisco Bay scenarios. “You certainly have to know what the realities are today, what the challenges are today” in order to design realistic exercises, Holmes said. “What are the events that could shut down, for example, transportation or the shipping industry on the West Coast?” The 40 sets of exercises are being conducted in seaports and inland ports of various sizes and terrorist threat profiles, ranging from Chicago to San Juan, Virgin Islands. Holmes said exercises would be tailored to the ports’ varying situations, potentially involving threats to cruise ships in San Juan or to sea commerce in Long Beach, Calif. “There are different challenges based upon levels of readiness, levels of resource,” he said. “A lot of it is threat-risk-based. As a contractor, we are certainly aware of the Department of Homeland Security’s — particularly this secretary’s — focus on ensuring that we are spending the resources correctly based upon threat-risk.” The overall goal of the program is to harmonize and improve security efforts among different agencies, companies, transportation modes and regions potentially affected by threats to ports. Last week’s participants included city and state emergency management agencies, fire departments, port administrators and land transportation entities, Holmes said. Federal and contractor officials refused to divulge specific exercise scenarios, but the Transportation Security Administration said last week that “scenarios range from how officials react to discovering a suspect cargo container to an explosion at a seaport rail yard.” “Through these exercises and other programs,” Coast Guard port security head Capt. Frank Sturm said last week, “we will be continually testing and evaluating how ready we are to deal with an actual threat to our ports.” For now, the exercises are of the “advanced tabletop” variety, which involves top officials’ reacting to specific attack scenarios but not actually deploying emergency personnel and resources in response to the fictitious incident. The Baltimore exercise is set to kick off Wednesday, and the first full-scale, nontabletop exercises will begin about a year from now, Holmes said. In the two-day San Francisco Bay event, hosted by the California Maritime Academy, such techniques as live fictitious news broadcasts were used to impart realism to the proceedings. Different participants were progressively given different pieces of information. Holmes said the exercises involved more than 100 participants and yielded valuable insights. “The notion of testing any plan is to look for ways to improve it,” he said. “We learned certain things that we needed to refine.” Back to top

U.S. Wants Last-Minute Changes to U.N. Reform Plan The United States has submitted more than 750 amendments to a draft U.N. reform document, including provisions to strengthen language on curbing WMD proliferation and terrorism, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, Aug. 3). U.S. Ambassador John Bolton presented the proposed U.S. amendments, contained in a confidential 36-page document obtained by Post, this week to some U.N. ambassadors. Bolton also objected during individual meetings with other diplomats this week to language urging a moratorium on nuclear testing and support for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, U.S. and U.N. diplomats said. The U.N. summit on poverty and reform begins Sept. 14. General Assembly President Jean Ping hopes to gather representatives of up to 30 nations beforehand for final talks on the reform document. Bolton told the delegates that, if no agreement could be reached, the entire reform document could be replaced with a brief statement, or divided into themes that nations could choose to support individually, the diplomats said. “Time is short. In order to maximize our chances of success, I suggest we begin the negotiations immediately, this week if possible,” Bolton wrote yesterday in a confidential letter to U.N. delegates (Colum Lynch, Washington Post, Aug. 25). Back to top

North Korea Nuclear Talks Could Resume Sept. 2 Multilateral talks on North Korea’s nuclear program could resume on Sept. 2, Reuters reported today (see GSN, Aug. 24). “I think there will be more progress than before,” Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei, Beijing’s top envoy to the six-nation talks, reportedly told Mizuho Fukushima, the leader of Japan’s Social Democratic Party, during a visit to Tokyo. However, a North Korean diplomatic source in Beijing questioned whether the talks would actually begin again next week, according to Interfax. A senior South Korean official, meanwhile, expressed optimism yesterday about the likelihood of a disarmament deal, lauding Washington’s latest offer. “There has never been a more positive signal in 50 years than what the United States has offered the North,” said Vice Foreign Minister Lee Tae-sik. “The United States has promised normalization of relations in return for North Korea giving up all its nuclear programs. I think there will be some good result soon,” he said (Elaine Lies, Reuters, Aug. 25). North Korean and U.S. officials met Tuesday in New York to prepare for the next round of talks, Agence France-Presse reported. U.S. diplomat Joseph DeTrani had “a positive meeting” with the North Korean delegation, said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, Aug. 24). Khan Network Elsewhere, Pakistani leader Gen. Pervez Musharraf said former top nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan might have sold uranium hexafluoride to Pyongyang, the New York Times reported. Musharraf, though, said “tons and tons” of the material and thousands of centrifuges would be needed to make weapon-grade uranium. Musharraf reiterated that Islamabad had not known of Khan’s nuclear exports. Some U.S. experts, however, said it was extremely unlikely that Pakistani military officials would not have noticed the technology shipments. “I think it would be absolutely shocking that they not have some idea,” said George Perkovich, a nonproliferation expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “There were planes flying back and forth.” The Pakistani leader also denied allegations that Islamabad acquired North Korean long-range missile technology in the 1990s in exchange for assisting Pyongyang with its nuclear program. Pakistan is sharing “whatever Dr. A. Q. Khan has told us” with Western countries, Musharraf added (Masood/Rohde, New York Times, Aug. 25). Back to top       IAEA Planning to Revisit Iranian Military Complex The International Atomic Energy Agency is working to schedule a fresh visit to Iran’s Parchin military site, where Washington has accused Tehran of hiding part of a clandestine nuclear weapons program, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, Aug. 24). An agreement on another inspection could soon be reached, said one diplomat close to the agency. The agency is also planning to present new findings about Iran’s plutonium experiments in a report to agency’s governing board on Sept. 3, diplomats told AP. While it has questioned Iran’s secrecy on the small-scale experiments, the agency to date has not connected the work to weapons activity (George Jahn, Associated Press, Aug. 24). Meanwhile, the United States is “working hard behind the scenes” at the agency board to refer Iran’s case to the U.N. Security Council for possible economic sanctions if it does not suspend all sensitive nuclear work by Sept. 2, a Western diplomat told Agence France-Presse. The diplomat said Washington and its European allies agreed they “now need to do a full-court lobbying press on other board members, especially Russia, China, South Africa, India and other influential [Nonaligned Movement] types.” Washington wants an emergency board session Sept. 6 or 7, while some allies want to wait until Sept. 19, after the U.N. world summit in New York. “You can be sure (U.N. Secretary General Kofi) Annan and [IAEA Director General Mohamed] ElBaradei will use this summit to have talks, and the Iranian president will be there,” a senior European diplomat said. A nonaligned diplomat said Russia opposes an emergency meeting next month as it would “cast a pall on the proceedings in New York.” While Western countries are convinced they have sufficient votes to send the matter to the Security Council, according to London-based nonproliferation analyst Gary Samore, they are still seeking a unanimous vote. “I assume this issue is going to New York by the end of the month. I don’t see any room for delay and the Iranians are not showing any signs that they are going to back down,” he said (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, Aug. 24). Elsewhere, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said yesterday Tehran was preparing new proposals for negotiations with the European Union, AP reported. Iran’s parliament, however, approved most of Ahmadinejad’s hard-line Cabinet nominees, increasing the likelihood of confrontation with the West, according to AP. A State Department spokesman said the diplomatic process “still has legs.” “We would encourage the Iranian government to engage with the EU-3 negotiators in a serious and constructive way,” said spokesman Sean McCormack. “And we would encourage them to take [the] offer that is on the table” (Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Aug. 25). Back to top

NIH Employee Pleads Not Guilty to Anthrax Charges A National Institutes of Health employee pleaded not guilty yesterday to making an anthrax threat against the Broward Country, Fla., Property Appraiser’s Office, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Aug. 17). Michelle Ledgister, who works as a public health program analyst for the agency, does not have access to anthrax or other biological agents, according to NIH spokesman Dan Ralbovsky. Ledgister could face a $250,000 fine and up to five years in prison if convicted under a federal antiterrorism law forbidding false anthrax threats, according to AP (Associated Press/Washington Post, Aug. 25). Back to top

Chemical Weapons Depots Slated for Closure The U.S. Base Realignment and Closure Commission yesterday recommended closing two U.S. chemical weapons facilities after workers finish destroying stockpiles at the sites, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, May 16). The Newport Chemical Depot in Indiana and the Umatilla Chemical Depot in Oregon should close once weapon destruction at the facilities is completed, according to the commission. The panel also recommended shuttering the Deseret Chemical Depot in Utah, but called for a study first to see if the facility could be converted for other use, according to AP (Associated Press I/Yahoo!News, Aug. 25). The commission is set to submit its base recommendations to President George W. Bush on Sept. 8. Bush must accept or reject the list by Sept. 23, AP reported. The vote on Deseret overruled the Defense Department recommendation to close the facility. The study will explore whether Deseret could be used to destroy conventional weapons, as pushed for by the four Republican members of Utah’s congressional delegation. For this conversion to occur, Congress would have to change a law that requires the plant be closed once chemical weapons destruction is complete, according to AP. “The commissioners accepted our recommendation to push back the closing date of Deseret and are exploring other ways to use the facility,” said Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) (Mark Thiessen, Associated Press II/Daily Herald, Aug. 24).  A commission member said yesterday that the recommendation to close Umatilla was welcome, AP reported. “This is one of those places where everybody wants it to close,” said James Bilbray. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said the recommendation “means that the Defense Department can focus on safeguarding and permanently cleaning up the chemicals stored in eastern Oregon” (William McCall, Associated Press III/KATU 2, Aug. 24). An analyst told the commission yesterday that destruction of chemical weapons at the Newport facility might take longer than originally expected, moving back the closing date, AP reported. The Army has estimated that weapons disposal would be complete by 2008.  George Delgado, an analyst who studied the recommendation to close the facility, said destruction of VX nerve agent could be completed as late as 2012. It could take an additional three years to close the base, he said. Newport spokeswoman Terry Arthur said yesterday that the VX could be destroyed by late 2008, with the base closing by 2010. “It’s a very loose timeline at this point because everything is contingent on the destruction of the VX and the ultimate disposition of the wastewater,” she said (Charles Wilson, Associated Press IV, Aug. 24).  Back to top       Czech Cabinet Considers CW Nonproliferation Law The government Cabinet of the Czech Republic yesterday approved a bill requiring increased efforts to stop the spread of chemical weapons, the Prague Daily Monitor reported (see GSN, Aug. 8). The amendment changes regulations, particularly in relation to border crossings, for checking for substances that could be used in a chemical weapon.  The bill, which has not been approved by the Czech parliament, implements requirements of the Chemical Weapons Convention, which the Czech Republic joined in 1996, the Monitor reported (Prague Daily Monitor, Aug. 25). Back to top       Leaking Munitions Found at Blue Grass Workers have found mustard gas escaping from two munitions at the Blue Grass Army Depot in Kentucky and are continuing their search for other possible sources of the leaks detected last month in two storage igloos, the Richmond Register reported yesterday (see GSN, Aug. 8). Army officials said the weapons have been placed in leak-proof containers and pose no danger. The weapons storage structures where the leaks were discovered are being filtered to prevent any mustard gas release. The weapons will remain in the storage chamber until the filtering is complete. They then will be moved to a storage facility that holds only containers with leaking mustard weapons, according to the Army (Ronica Brandenburg, Richmond Register, Aug. 24). Meanwhile, the Pueblo Chieftain reported yesterday that low levels of mustard gas continue to leak in a storage igloo at the Pueblo Chemical Depot in Colorado. Workers placed a charcoal filter on the igloo’s vent earlier this month and again on Tuesday. The storage chamber holds containers with leaking weapons, according to the Chieftain. The source of the leak has yet to be identified and monitoring of the igloo will continue. The leaks do not pose a danger to depot workers or nearby residents, according to the Chieftain (Pueblo Chieftain, Aug. 24). Back to top

India to Develop Multiwarhead ICBM India is developing a three-stage, multiwarhead ICBM with a range of 9,000-12,000 kilometers, the Deccan Herald reported today (see GSN, May 18). The missile is expected to be ready for testing by 2008 and placed in the Indian arsenal by 2015, Defense Ministry sources told the Herald. New Delhi’s arsenal currently includes 12 Prithvi single-warhead missiles with a range of 150-250 kilometers, according to the Herald (N. Madhuprasad, Deccan Herald, Aug. 25). Back to top

Missile Defense Tests Delayed Until Next Year By David Ruppe Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The U.S. Missile Defense Agency says it is again delaying intercept testing of its flagship anti-ICBM program until next year, even as it continues to deploy additional interceptors in Alaska (see GSN, Aug. 23). The agency is planning two test launches of Ground-based Midcourse Defense system interceptors without targets this year, according to spokesman Richard Lehner. The first launch, scheduled for next month, would test the newly configured interceptor-missile combination and “exercise the command and control system,” he said by e-mail. The second, expected by the end of the year, would launch the interceptor from Vandenberg Air Force Base for the first time, he said.  Missile Defense Agency Director Lt. Gen. Henry Obering “believes this is a prudent approach to exercising command and control, battle management and communications, as well as warfighter participation,” Lehner said. The last attempted intercept using GMD components occurred in November 2002. The kill vehicle failed to separate from its rocket booster in order to strike the target, the agency said then.  Nevertheless, a week later the agency announced a plan to deploy up to 20 interceptor missiles in Alaska and California by the end of 2005, citing a “new security environment and progress made to date in missile defense development efforts.” The plan was spurred by an order that month by President George W. Bush to begin fielding a capability by the end of 2004. The agency has since said it would field an additional 20 missiles in Alaska by the end of 2007 and has asked Congress for initial funding to begin installing up to 10 at an undetermined European site. Critics have charged the Bush administration with possibly wasting billions of dollars on the deployments, as the GMD system has not yet demonstrated, through realistic flight testing, that it could ever work against a real attack. Fielded Interceptor Not Tested The interceptor-missile packages that now are being fielded are different from those used in the 2002 test and before. They use a new, more powerful three-stage booster and an interceptor with new hardware and software. The agency attempted an intercept test using the new combination in December 2004 and January 2005. In both cases, the interceptor failed to leave the launch pad, giving the agency with a five-for-10 record for the highly scripted GMD intercept tests. A panel of experts told the agency in March that a rush to deploy the missiles had undermined quality control, causing those failures (see GSN, June 10).  It recommended that the next system flight test be a nonintercept test, to focus on “obtaining data on flight characteristics” and other information. It said further that the next intercept test should not occur until it was believed it would have an 80-percent probability of success.  In an apparent attempt to step up the pace of testing, the agency recently decided to redirect four interceptor missiles from deployment in Alaska to the testing program, according to Inside Missile Defense (see GSN, Aug. 4). Back to top       Japan, U.S. Mull Faster Missile Defense Deployment Japanese and U.S. officials are considering deploying an advanced early warning radar missile defense system in Japan earlier than scheduled, Jiji Press reported yesterday (see GSN, Aug. 24). The system, consisting of the radar, ground-based Patriot Advanced Capability 3 interceptors and sea-based Standard Missile 3 missiles, is now scheduled to be in place by fiscal 2011. The radar system is expected to be installed between fiscal 2008 and 2011, with the missiles deployed in 2006 and 2007, according to Jiji. Officials now hope the system can be put in place one or two years early. To speed up deployment, the advanced warning radar system would be installed earlier and supplemented by a radar system still in development. Deployment of the missiles would also be moved up, Jiji reported. Japan’s Defense Agency is expected to seek money to speed up the program in its fiscal 2006 budget (Jiji Press, Aug. 24).   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.