Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, shown yesterday at U.N. headquarters in New York, has reportedly expressed Tehran’s willingness to share nuclear technology with other Islamic states (Getty Images/Maxim Marmur). Iran Willing to Offer Nuclear Aid to Islamic States Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said yesterday that his country is willing to share nuclear technology with other Islamic nations, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Sept. 15). “The Islamic Republic in no way seeks weapons of mass destruction and with respect to the needs of Islamic nations for nuclear technology, we are ready to transfer nuclear knowledge to these countries,” the IRNA news agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying...Full Story

Former U.S. State Department Nonproliferation Chief Opposes Nuclear Pre-Emption Policy By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — A veteran diplomat who until last year headed U.S. State Department nonproliferation activities spoke out today against a policy of nuclear pre-emption and in favor of greater transparency about disarmament progress (see GSN, Sept. 14)...Full Story

North Korea Rejects Chinese Nuclear Weapons Proposal Pyongyang today rejected a Chinese proposal to resolve the North Korean nuclear crisis, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Sept. 15)...Full Story

	Friday, September 16, 2005

U.K. Detains Former Ricin Suspects As the United Kingdom detained former suspects in an alleged ricin plot against London, Prime Minister Tony Blair defended proposed antiterrorism legislation and his government’s move to expel terror suspects, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, July 7). “Virtually every country in Europe, following terrorist acts, has been toughening up their legislation,” Blair told the BBC before leaving for New York last night. British authorities yesterday detained seven foreign residents for deportation. Some are Algerians who had been charged with planning to distribute ricin around London, AP reported.  Ten men were arrested in that case. Testing ultimately found no ricin in a suspect’s apartment and only one man was convicted (see GSN, Sept. 15). The United Kingdom is negotiating with Libya, Algeria and other African and Middle Eastern nations to ensure that deportees would not be tortured upon returning to their home country, AP reported. Parliament is also considering a Counterterrorism Bill that would ban “indirect incitement” of terrorist acts. The focus is on Islamic clerics who might be encouraging violent acts by their younger followers, according to AP. The legislation would also allow terror suspects to be held for up to three months without charges — as opposed to the present two weeks — and outlaw attendance at terrorism training camps and the publication or sale of materials that promote terrorism. Blair rejected arguments that the deportation agreements and new law amount to an assault on human rights. “I think when people say this is an abrogation of our traditional civil liberties, I think it is possible to exaggerate that,” he said (Ed Johnson, Associated Press, Sept. 16). Back to top

Philippines Lacks WMD Defenses Police in the Philippines lack the training and equipment to deal with a biological or chemical weapon incident, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported today (see GSN, July 6, 2004). Police units have received no training in responding to an incident similar to the 1995 sarin attack on the Tokyo subway system, a senior police intelligence officer said. Authorities do not have protective gear or equipment for containing toxins such as anthrax or sarin, and possess few gas masks, the Inquirer reported. The only upside is that terrorists in the country appear to favor conventional bombs over unconventional weapons, the official said. The Philippines has a bomb data center that provides training and analysis. Nonetheless, the intelligence officer recommended additional funding for WMD training and equipment (Luige del Puerto, Philippine Daily Inquirer, Sept. 16). Back to top

Iran Willing to Offer Nuclear Aid to Islamic States Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said yesterday that his country is willing to share nuclear technology with other Islamic nations, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Sept. 15). “The Islamic Republic in no way seeks weapons of mass destruction and with respect to the needs of Islamic nations for nuclear technology, we are ready to transfer nuclear knowledge to these countries,” the IRNA news agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying. Ahmadinejad made the offer during talks with Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan while at the U.N. summit in New York, according to AFP (Agence France-Presse/Borneo Bulletin, Sept. 15). The United States was quick to denounce Ahmadinejad’s statement, the Associated Press reported. Due to Iran’s record of “trying to develop weapons of mass destruction, supporting terror, we view with concern any suggestion that Iran would seek to contribute to very destabilizing and unhelpful international behavior,” said State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli. The United States and allied nations are working “resolutely and with common cause to prevent Iran from developing the kind of capabilities that would prove so destabilizing for the region and for the world as a whole,” he continued. “Remarks or reported remarks such as this I think just serve to underscore the importance and the urgency of acting together to confront this threat” (Associated Press, Sept. 15). Meanwhile, a plan by the European Union and United States to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council is losing steam, the Associated Press reported. Instead, the countries are considering setting a deadline of several weeks for Iran to meet demands that would reduce concerns about its nuclear program, according to AP. “It would not be a change in policy but a change in timing,” said a European official in Vienna. An International Atomic Energy Agency resolution to send the matter to the Security Council would have “only a slim majority,” the official added. The EU nations continue to support Iran’s referral to the Security Council, said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice   “The question is how much support can you bring that is non-European support,” she said. Diplomats said European support for referral was less firm than portrayed by Rice. Some countries, including Italy, Spain and Portugal, are publicly questioning the authority of France, the United Kingdom and Germany to negotiate for the European Union, according to AP. An IAEA diplomat said high-level talks are taking place between Iran and EU countries on concessions Tehran was prepared to make to avoid referral to the Security Council (George Jahn, Associated Press/Macon Telegraph, Sept. 15). Back in New York, foreign ministers from the EU-3 met yesterday with their Iranian counterpart and later with Ahmadinejad, Agence France-Presse reported. “We had a very thorough exchange of the different positions of the EU-3 and the new government of Iran,” said British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.  “We're going to listen carefully to what the president has to say and we'll take it from there,” he added, referring to a speech tomorrow in which Ahmadinejad is set to offer a new proposal on the nuclear issue. This was the first talk between the parties since May 25. European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, who attended the meeting with Ahmadinejad, said that no negotiations took place. “We have only prepared the ground. If it is possible to continue? … it's not clear yet. We have to wait until the speech” (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Sept. 16). An Iranian official discussed the content of the speech, according to the Financial Times. “Iran will suggest international cooperation for uranium enrichment, and invite Europe, Russia, China and South Africa to joint ventures in which Iran keeps its nuclear fuel cycle while the international community can make sure there is no diversion,” said a senior official involved in negotiations. “The cooperation is not necessarily for new (nuclear) sites — it can be in the sites we already have,” said Ali Agha Mohammadi, a spokesman for Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. European diplomats questioned whether their governments would accept the proposal, according to the Times. The Times also reported that the compromise offer could impair the push by the United States and the European Union to refer Iran to the Security Council (Blitz/Bozorgmehr/Dinmore/Dombey/Smyth, Financial Times, Sept. 16). Back to top       Former U.S. State Department Nonproliferation Chief Opposes Nuclear Pre-Emption Policy By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — A veteran diplomat who until last year headed U.S. State Department nonproliferation activities spoke out today against a policy of nuclear pre-emption and in favor of greater transparency about disarmament progress (see GSN, Sept. 14). Former Assistant Secretary of State for Nonproliferation John Wolf expressed concern about the potential consequences of a reportedly imminent U.S. Defense Department policy change envisioning pre-emptive nuclear strikes against enemy WMD sites. Speaking at an Arms Control Association panel discussion on obstacles to nonproliferation, Wolf asked what the United States would have done if it had a nuclear pre-emption policy in place two years ago and launched an atomic strike on Iraq. “‘Whoops’ is not a good enough response,” said Wolf, now president of the Eisenhower Fellowships. The U.S. experience in Iraq is “a huge scarlet warning flag about the dangers of such a policy change,” Wolf said. Wolf called for a back-to-basics approach to divisions over the global nonproliferation regime. He said countries should renew their commitment to the three major components of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty —disarmament, nonproliferation and availability of nuclear energy — rather than selectively focusing on only certain parts of that bargain according to their nuclear status and interests. “The treaty fails if members attempt to differentiate between good states who can be trusted with nuclear weapons and all the others,” Wolf said. “Nonweapons states are correct in tweaking the P-5 [the five nuclear-weapon states that sit as permanent members of the U.N. Security Council] for their obscure path toward disarmament … but what is of most concern is the palpable unwillingness to target those who are cheating,” he said. Wolf added that the perception in some quarters that the United States is doing too little to disarm could be the result of insufficient transparency by Washington about disarmament programs. “It could be that we shield the actual progress that we’re making,” he said. “Why the obfuscation?  Is it just to keep our options open? With our overwhelming conventional capabilities, do we really need to do that?” Panelists Criticize Lack of U.N., NPT Progress This Year The arms control and diplomatic veterans on the panel deplored the omission of any mention of nonproliferation from the outcome document of this week’s U.N. summit in New York (see GSN, Sept. 14), as well as the stalemate at the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty review conference in May (see GSN, May 31). Wolf expressed disappointment at both developments, describing the NPT troubles in particularly stark terms. “It’s become a [forum] for mind-numbing diatribes,” he said of the treaty review process. Norwegian diplomat Morten Aasland, whose country led an unsuccessful effort to forge amenable nonproliferation language for this week’s U.N. conference statement, said nuclear-weapon states and nonweapon states alike can be blamed for the failure. “An important opportunity was missed,” said Aasland, minister counselor for political affairs at the Norwegian Embassy here. Back to top       North Korea Rejects Chinese Nuclear Weapons Proposal Pyongyang today rejected a Chinese proposal to resolve the North Korean nuclear crisis, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Sept. 15). North Korean officials said they were not willing end the nation’s nuclear activities without concessions from the United States. China had proposed that North Korea give up activities that could be used to produce nuclear weapon materials, but be allowed the right to pursue a peaceful nuclear program.  “We will never give up our nuclear” program unless the United States removes its alleged nuclear weapons from the Korean Peninsula, North Korean spokesman Hyun Hak Bong said. “We will just do it our way.  For us, we cannot stop our way of peaceful nuclear activities for one minute.” Hyun said North Korea would be willing to allow international inspections and co-management of a demanded nuclear reactor to produce electricity. The United States has called talk of a North Korean light-water reactor a “nonstarter.” Nations negotiating with North Korea have offered security guarantees, economic aid and free electricity if Pyongyang agrees to end its nuclear program. North Korea has threatened to boost production of nuclear materials if demands for the reactor are not met.  Six-party talks are scheduled to resume tomorrow in Beijing. “I keep my fingers crossed because still nothing is accepted,” said Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Alexeyev.  Early today, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said the talks had hit a roadblock. Hill later said that he and North Korean chief delegate Kim Kye Gwan had “good” discussions. “At this point, I don't know where these will lead,” Hill said. “We are still in business” (Alexa Olesen, Associated Press/Baltimore Sun, Sept. 16). Hill said, however, that the demand for the reactor has stalled the talks, according to Agence France-Presse.  “It has been very obvious to us that they are not so much interested in electricity,” he said. “They are not interested in economic assistance, they seem to be interested in a light-water reactor as a sort of trophy” (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Sept. 16).    U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice the United States is considering freezing North Korean financial assets if there is no progress in the six-nation negotiations in the next five days, Reuters reported. “We're not sitting still, you know, we're working on antiproliferation measures that help to protect us,” Rice said in an interview with the New York Post. “So we're not wholly dependent on negotiations to get this done “The (U.S.) president signed an executive order, if you remember, that freezes assets and some entities that we believe that are engaging in proliferation trade,” she said. “So we'll see, I think in the next five or so days … whether or not they're prepared to make a strategic choice about their nuclear weapons programs ... and that will show us whether we can get a deal” (Reuters/New York Times, Sept. 16). Any agreement on North Korea’s nuclear program must include the normalization of relations between Washington and Pyongyang, said South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, in New York for the U.N. summit. He said he was confident that the standoff could be ended but admitted he was concerned about the situation. “Every time I think about the North Korean nuclear weapons issue, I always pray to God,” he said. “I ask you to do the same” (Olesen, Associated Press, Sept. 16). Back to top       U.S. Official to Visit India for Nuclear Talks U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns plans to visit India next month to press forward with the two countries’ plan for nuclear energy cooperation, Agence France-Presse reported today (see GSN, Sept. 9). The Bush administration remains committed to the program, despite India’s increasing relationship with Iran and what some lawmakers saw as anti-U.S. statements made last week by Indian Foreign Minister Natwar Singh. Some U.S. legislators have argued that Washington should halt its nuclear cooperation program unless India backs the effort to bring Iran to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions over Tehran’s nuclear program. Burns said India offered assurances this week at the U.N. summit in New York that it opposes nuclear weapons development by Iran, AFP reported. “We’ve been told by the Indian government that in fact the position of the government is that it does not wish Iran to have a nuclear weapon, it does wish Iran to return to negotiations,” Burns told the Indian news channel NDTV. “These are positive comments and as long as we can be working together on this issue then I … think we can convince the Congress of the United States that we ought to go forward with the civil nuclear cooperation deal (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Sept. 16). Back to top       Russians Protect Nuclear Plant in Terrorism Drill Russian authorities successfully safeguarded a nuclear power plant from a mock attack in the Atom-2005 antiterrorism exercise that ended yesterday, RIA Novosti reported (see GSN, Sept. 15). Fake terrorists infiltrated the town of Zarechnyy in the Sverdlovsk Region with the intent of attack government sites and the Beloyarsk plant, a source said. Authorities prepared a plan to uncover and disable the attackers. Additional patrols were placed around the plant, which is already tightly protected, RIA Novosti reported. Dogs were used to track the terrorists; they also detected explosives, weapons and drugs at checkpoints around the town. Several infiltrators were caught in the town before they could carry out the attack. The 10-day exercise involved personnel from the Russian Federal Security Service, the Interior Ministry, the Emergencies Ministry and the Atomic Energy Agency. It ended with a successful raid on a facility that had been taken over by the terrorists. The drill proved that the nuclear plant is adequately safeguarded against attack, according to the facility’s information center. Personnel involved in the drill also uncovered actual firearms and drugs and several wanted individuals in the midst of their work, RIA Novosti reported (RIA Novosti, Sept. 15). Back to top

Investigation into 2001 Anthrax Attacks Slows FBI agents and United States Postal Service inspectors are running out of leads in their investigation of the 2001 anthrax mailings that killed five people and contaminated 17 post offices, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, July 29). The agencies have issued more than 5,000 subpoenas, conducted more than 8,000 interviews on four continents and performed dozens of searches at homes, laboratories and other sites. Investigators went twice to Afghanistan following tips that failed to pan out, according to law enforcement sources. In 2003, the FBI spent $250,000 to drain a pond in Maryland to look for potential evidence. They found nothing of use, authorities said. Law enforcement official said the investigation, known as Amerithrax, needs a break.  The FBI has lowered the number of agents dedicated to the case from 31 to 21 over the last year, while the number of Postal Service investigators has gone from 13 to nine. A $2.5 million reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction remains unclaimed, the Post reported. “This globe-spanning investigation remains intensely active and broadly focused,” said FBI spokeswoman Debbie Weierman. “The FBI and U.S. Postal Inspection Service remain steadfastly committed to the 22 victims of the attacks and to bring to justice those responsible.” Law enforcement officials are taking inventory in a report that will review the investigation to this point. The report is expected to address investigators’ primary theory: that a U.S. scientist with access to anthrax was behind the mailings, according to authorities. It also should include the names of people deemed “persons of interest” during the investigation and new scientific tests on the anthrax strain. While the laboratory of origin has not been identified, attention has been paid to the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in Fort Detrick. Investigations in high-profile, complex cases can last for years, law enforcement officials said. “It doesn't sound like they're close to cracking the case,” said Eric Holder, deputy attorney general during the Clinton administration (Allen Lengel, Washington Post, Sept. 16). Back to top       New Jersey Lab Loses Plague-Infected Mice Three mice that went missing after being infected with bubonic plague at a New Jersey bioterrorism laboratory are believed to have been eaten by other mice in a vaccine program, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported today (see GSN, Sept. 9). While not absolutely sure of the mice’s fate, officials said the public should not worry about plague outbreak. The mice were among 24 being studied at the Public Health Research Institute in Newark, N.J. They were divided into three groups of eight, with one set receiving a trial plague vaccine, the second a proven vaccine and the third no vaccine.  The FBI opened an investigation after the mice’s absence was noticed two weeks ago. Investigators found no evidence of terrorism or a crime, Special Agent Steve Siegel said. Several laboratory workers underwent lie-detector tests. “The FBI has expended a tremendous amount of manpower and resources on this matter,” Siegel said. According to the Inquirer, the laboratory staff did not initially consider the possibility that the mice were cannibalized.   The working theory now is that facility personnel did not notice the remains of the three mice when they cleaned and sterilized the sawdust-filled cages after testing was complete. “We believe it was inadvertent and the animal-care staff made a mistake,” said David Perlin, institute president and scientific director. “That doesn’t excuse it.” Perlin said there was no way the mice could have escaped or been removed by laboratory staffers, who will be retrained in handling animals involved in sensitive testing. He said only eight workers have access to the laboratory in which plague research is conducted. These workers must go through five security checkpoints before entering the laboratory. Researchers who worked on the plague vaccine test had Justice Department clearance and were interviewed by the FBI after the mice disappeared, Perlin said. For the disease to spread to a human, a flea would have to bite one of the infected mice and then bite a human. “The odds of that occurring are ridiculous. It's hard to even imagine such a scenario,” said Laurie Garrett, head of the global health program for the Council on Foreign Relations.  “There is no indication that this is a public health threat,” said Jennifer Morcone, spokeswoman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The test vaccine was ultimately found not to work. All mice that received the vaccine died shortly after being infected with plague (Lipka/Vrazo, Philadelphia Inquirer, Sept. 16). Back to top       North Dakota Postal Facility Gets Anthrax Detector The U.S. Postal Service installed yesterday an anthrax detector in the Bismarck, N.D., mail-processing facility, KXMA reported (see GSN, Aug. 5). Biohazard Detection Systems are being installed at more than 280 postal facilities across the country (KXMA, Sept. 15). Back to top

U.S. Denies Chemical Attacks Against Troops The United States yesterday dismissed claims that an al-Qaeda-linked group had used chemical munitions against coalition forces in Iraq, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Sept. 14). “There was no chemical attack against coalition forces,” a U.S. Central Command spokesman said.   “All threats,” including those by the groups to use chemical weapons, are taken “very seriously,” the spokesman said. “If the enemy uses chemical weapons against us, it will be a clear indication of the inherent ruthlessness and brutality of this enemy,” the spokesman said (Agence France-Presse, Sept. 15).   Back to top

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