Workers erect the administration building at the Russian chemical weapons destruction facility at Shchuchye. Contracting difficulties have delayed construction on other parts of the plant (Nuclear Threat Initiative photo). Russia Confident CW Stockpile Will Be Gone by 2012 By Jon Fox, Global Security Newswire MOSCOW — Russia remains confident that it will meet the 2012 international deadline to destroy its vast chemical weapons stockpile, officials said this week.  Experts and officials from other countries applauded Moscow’s efforts, but expressed doubts about its schedule (see GSN, Sept. 8)...Full Story

U.S. Boosts Planning for Attack on North Korea The U.S. Defense Department is strengthening its nuclear forces in Asia as part of increased planning for a potential strike against North Korea, The Washington Times reported today (see GSN, Nov. 2)...Full Story

Senators Seek Audit of $18B in Biodefense Spending By Chris Strohm, CongressDaily WASHINGTON — In a rare sign of bipartisanship close to the midterm elections, Senate and House Democrats and Republicans asked federal auditors Monday to examine how the government has spent more than $18 billion on biodefense capabilities and technologies since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks (see GSN, Sept. 22)...Full Story

	Friday, November 3, 2006

U.S. Boosts Planning for Attack on North Korea The U.S. Defense Department is strengthening its nuclear forces in Asia as part of increased planning for a potential strike against North Korea, The Washington Times reported today (see GSN, Nov. 2). Work began several months ago, but gained added momentum following North Korea’s test detonation of a nuclear weapon on Oct. 9. “Various military options” are being considered to take out Pyongyang’s nuclear program, a Pentagon official said.  They include detailed plans for using commando raids or guided weapons such as the Tomahawk cruise missile to destroy the Yongbyon plutonium-reprocessing facility.  North Korea would need five to 10 years to replace the facility that provides weapons material, U.S. planners said. “Other than nuclear strikes, which are considered excessive, there are several options now in place.  Planning has been accelerated,” the official said. Another official said that nuclear weapons remain on the menu of deterrents. “We will resort to whatever force levels we need to have, to defend [South Korea].  That nuclear deterrence is in place,” the official said. The forces include bombs and air-launched missiles based in Guam, and nine nuclear missile submarines based in Washington state that are regularly sent to waters around Asia. The planning does not mean that an attack is inevitable, but that the forces are available for use, according to the Times (Bill Gertz, The Washington Times, Nov. 3). Some U.S. experts believe North Korea is capable of placing a nuclear warhead on medium-range missiles that could reach Japan, Reuters reported yesterday. “We’ve assessed that North Korea can put a warhead on a Rodong,” said David Albright, head of the Institute for Science and International Security. “What you’re trying to do is reduce the diameter to fit inside a re-entry vehicle.  You can do that with a crude nuclear weapons design,” he said. GlobalSecurity.Org director John Pike said he has “never been able to understand why there would be any doubt about North Korea’s capacity to put a nuclear weapon on a medium-range ballistic missile.  They’ve had it for several years.” The maximum range of the Rodong is 870 miles, placing all of South Korea and most of Japan within reach.  That could provide deterrent against a U.S. attack, experts told Reuters. “Even if there’s only a 10-percent probability that they’ve produced a few warheads and put them on Rodong missiles, that could still be enough to deter the United States because the possible effect on Japan is catastrophic,” said Daniel Pinkston, a Korea expert at the Monterey Institute’s Center for Nonproliferation Studies (David Morgan, Reuters, Nov. 2). Other U.S. experts questioned North Korea’s capability to fit a nuclear warhead on a missile, Agence France-Presse reported. “I don’t see any evidence to suggest that North Korea has successfully designed a basic nuclear warhead, let alone one small enough and sturdy enough to fit on a missile,” said nonproliferation expert Joseph Cirincione, of the Center for American Progress. Moving from testing a basic nuclear weapon to successfully placing it on a missile is a “huge leap,” he said. “This could take several more tests and flight testing of a re-entry vehicle which they haven’t done,” Cirincione said. “The assessment now is North Korea is not capable of arming a ballistic missile with a working nuclear warhead,” said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association. “What is important for everyone to recognize is that if their program advances and there is more nuclear testing, more missile testing, it would become more likely that they will,” he said. That makes it crucial to succeed in ending Pyongyang’s nuclear program through the six-nation talks, Kimball said (P. Parameswaran, Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Nov. 2). Lead South Korean nuclear negotiator Chun Young-woo said the six-party talks might resume next month.  Seoul is talking with Tokyo and Japan about scheduling informal meetings before the next round of negotiations, the Associated Press reported. “How much substantial progress can be made once the talks resume is much more important at this point than how soon we open the talks,” he said today.  “It is important to thoroughly prepare ahead, to coordinate between related countries and to do our homework thoroughly” (Bo-Mi Lim, Associated Press I, Nov. 3). The outcome of the talks “depend on the U.S. attitude,” said Kim Yong Nam, No. 2 leader in North Korea. He said Pyongyang offered to return to the talks to allow Washington to save face rather than being seen as giving in to North Korea’s demands to discuss U.S. financial sanctions. Chun said, though, “there is no way the U.S. can promise a solution” to its financial dispute with North Korea. “I think North Korea has become aware of the reality and had decided to solve this issue at the six-party talks,” he said.  Pyongyang “has no more cards to play after the nuclear test,” Chun said (Bo-Mi Lim, Associated Press II/USA Today, Nov. 3). Meanwhile, U.S. Undersecretaries of State Nicholas Burns and Robert Joseph are to meet with Chinese, Japanese, Russian and South Korean officials next week to discuss implementation of U.N. sanctions on North Korea, AP reported (Associated Press III/NASDAQ.com, Nov. 2). Back to top       Classified Nuclear Weapons Data Taken From Los Alamos So Technician Could Work at Home, Lawyer Says A woman under investigation for removing classified documents from Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory in New Mexico took both paper and electronic files from the site in August so that she could work at home, her attorney said yesterday (see GSN, Nov. 2). Jessica Quintana, a 22-year-old former contract worker at the nuclear weapons laboratory, had been employed on a project to convert paper documents to electronic format.  None of the material she brought home was given to anyone else or copied in any way, said lawyer Stephen Aarons. “It was downloaded, but it was never uploaded,” he said. Aarons said Quintana brought the material home to help meet a deadline to index the documents, but she never did the work and forgot about the documents. The information was discovered last month after local police arrested a man at her home for drug and parole infractions.  A subsequent search yielded more than 200 paper documents and three portable data storage devices containing more than 400 files, according to an Energy Department memo acquired by the laboratory watchdog group Nuclear Watch New Mexico. Quintana held a Sigma 15 Q clearance, according to the memo, a security level that would have permitted her to read documents about permissive action links, the methods used to ensure that nuclear weapons cannot be detonated without formal authorization. Although she was working with technical documents, she did not understand them, Aarons said. “She doesn’t know anything about nuclear weapons,” he said.  “She knows how to scan documents.” “There was no espionage, but a person trying to do her job who made a bad judgment on how to do her job,” Aarons added (Deborah Baker, Associated Press/Santa Fe New Mexican, Nov. 3). Back to top       U.S. Shutters Web Site With Iraqi Nuclear Info Federal administrators yesterday closed an official U.S. Web site that had posted detailed Iraqi documents describing the nation’s past progress toward building a nuclear weapon, the New York Times reported (see GSN, March 28). Officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency had complained to U.S. officials in Vienna last week that the information on the site could aid nuclear proliferators, according to the Times. “It’s a cookbook,” said a senior diplomat in Europe.  “If you had this, it would short-circuit a lot of things.” The nuclear documents on the site titled “Operation Iraqi Freedom Document Portal” contained charts, diagrams and detailed descriptions of Iraqi efforts to build a bomb before the 1991 Gulf War.  Experts told the Times that the information was more detailed than other material available on the Internet. The documents were “a road map that helps you get from point A to point B, but only if you already have a car,” said a senior U.S. intelligence official. “For the U.S. to toss a match into this flammable material is very irresponsible,” said Bryan Siebert, a former classification director at the U.S. Energy Department.  “There’s a lot of things about nuclear weapons that are secret and should remain so.” The documents were posted earlier this year after Republican leaders in the U.S. House and Senate argued that releasing documents captured after the 2003 invasion of Iraq would help unearth evidence of Iraqi WMD activity.  The congressional leaders contended that the volume of information had overwhelmed U.S. intelligence analysts and therefore members of the public could, in effect, assist in examining the tens of thousands of documents, the Times reported. National Intelligence Director John Negroponte resisted the push to make the information public, but the White House ordered the Web site’s creation after Republican lawmakers proposed legislation to force their release, according to the Times. Earlier this year, Web site administrators removed some documents about manufacturing chemical weapons after U.N. officials in New York protested. The future of the site remains uncertain. “While strict criteria had already been established to govern posted documents, the material currently on the Web site, as well as the procedures used to post new documents, will be carefully reviewed before the site becomes available again,” said Negroponte spokesman Chad Kolton (William Broad, New York Times, Nov. 3). Back to top        “Divine Strake” Explosion Remains Unscheduled There is no new date yet for the “Divine Strake” U.S. test detonation of 700 tons of chemical explosives, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, Nov. 3). “At this point, there is no explosion authorized,” Justice Department attorney Carolyn Blanco said during a court hearing conducted by conference call. She reaffirmed that the test would not occur before 2007.  Another hearing was scheduled for Feb. 1. A Defense Department official told Global Security Newswire in April that the test is intended to model a low-yield nuclear strike against a hardened target (see GSN, April 4). The explosion had originally been scheduled for June 2 at the Nevada Test Site but was suspended indefinitely in the face of vocal opposition and a lawsuit.  Western Shoshone tribe members and “downwinders” sued to block the test, concerned that it could stir up radioactive material from nuclear tests conducted over four decades at the site.  Utah lawmakers also opposed the explosion, AP reported. Other locations for the test are reportedly being considered (Associated Press/North County Times, Nov. 3). Back to top       World Powers to Meet on Iran Today U.N. Security Council powers were scheduled to meet today in New York to continue discussing possible action against Iran, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Nov. 2). The meeting would hear from Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin, who visited Moscow this week for instructions, according to AFP.  Top Russian officials have so far criticized a draft council resolution — crafted by France, Germany and the United Kingdom — that would impose trade and travel restrictions on Iran as punishment for Tehran’s refusal to suspend its nuclear program (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Nov. 2). That criticism continued today in Brussels, where Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the draft resolution did not stick to the goals agreed upon last month during a London meeting between the European nations, China, Russia and the United States (see GSN, Oct. 10). Those goals called for “reasonable” sanctions against Iran, Lavrov said, ones that would “be proportional given the actual situation as regards the nuclear program in Iran and should also be in stages.” “We were prepared and are still prepared to draw up measures of that sort,” he added.  “What the EU troika drew up went way beyond what was agreed” (Reuters, Nov. 3). Back to top       U.S. Behind Schedule on Warhead Reliability Tests Reliability testing of warheads in the U.S. nuclear arsenal has fallen behind schedule, the Energy Department inspector general said in a report issued yesterday (see GSN, Oct. 20). The United States annually conducts laboratory and flight tests on missile warhead and bomb components to ensure that the nine types of U.S. nuclear warheads remain in functioning order, the Washington Post reported. “The surveillance program’s role in assessing and ensuring confidence in the reliability of the weapons stockpile is increasingly important as the nuclear weapons stockpile ages,” Inspector General Gregory Friedman stated in a report to Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman. “As a result of the continuing backlog of surveillance tests, the department lacks vital information about the reliability of the stockpile … (and) as a result of testing delays, important operating anomalies or other defects could go undetected,” Friedman added. In 2005, there were laboratory testing backlogs for seven of the weapons systems and flight testing delays for six, the report states The agency plans to improve facilities, revise safety studies and possibly discard certain test requirements in order to erase most of the backlog by September 2007, according to Friedman (Walter Pincus, Washington Post, Nov. 3). Back to top

Senators Seek Audit of $18B in Biodefense Spending By Chris Strohm, CongressDaily WASHINGTON — In a rare sign of bipartisanship close to the midterm elections, Senate and House Democrats and Republicans asked federal auditors Monday to examine how the government has spent more than $18 billion on biodefense capabilities and technologies since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks (see GSN, Sept. 22). The government began pouring billions of dollars into biodefense research and development after the terrorist attacks and after the deaths of five people exposed to anthrax spores mailed to two Senate offices and news organizations.  The mailings remain an unsolved crime (see related GSN story, today). “Having reached the fifth anniversary of the anthrax attacks, we believe Congress and the administration would benefit from a comprehensive assessment by the Government Accountability Office of currently deployed airborne or environmental biological threat detection technologies and those that are planned or under development,” lawmakers wrote in a letter to Comptroller General David Walker (see GSN, Nov. 2). The letter was spearheaded by Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairwoman Susan Collins (R-Maine) and ranking member Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.).  It was signed by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and ranking member Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) A congressional aide said the request was prompted by another GAO investigation that concluded the Homeland Security Department does not have a sound analytical basis for spending about $1.2 billion over five years on advanced nuclear-detection equipment at U.S. ports and border crossings (see GSN, Oct. 18).  The results of that investigation were made public earlier this month. Homeland Security stands behind its investment strategy, however, and contends that GAO misunderstood some aspects of its program.  Lawmakers are trying to head off wasting billions to develop biodefense technology that does not work, the aide said. A June report by the nonpartisan Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation found that 11 federal agencies have spent or allocated more than $36 billion to address the threat of biological weapons since the 9/11 attacks (see GSN, June 27).  Of that, funding for biodefense research, development, testing and evaluation will reach more than $18 billion by the end of fiscal 2007, the report states. The lawmakers asked GAO to examine several areas, including how the government will determine the effectiveness of biological detection technologies; the effectiveness of developing technologies with current and future threats; plans to test and evaluate new technologies; the costs of research and development; and whether the government is also tapping private sector resources to develop technologies. “Given the complexity of the subject and the need to gather information from many sectors of the federal government, academia and the private sector, we recognize that it may be necessary and prudent for GAO to accomplish this technology assessment with a sequence of reports,” lawmakers added. Back to top       Anthrax Case Appears Cold at Fifth Anniversary The fifth anniversary of the U.S. anthrax mailings that killed five people has arrived with no indication that the case will be resolved, prompting increasing criticism of the FBI’s handling of the investigation, the Los Angeles Times reported today (see GSN, Oct. 26). Bureau officials, who once spoke confidently about the case, are no longer offering briefings on the case for victims or lawmakers.  The size of the agency’s task force has been halved.  The latest head of the investigation is known for working on complicated “cold cases” at the international level. “Their public pronouncements about their confidence levels were obviously way off the mark all the way along,” said former South Dakota Democratic Senator Tom Daschle, whose office was targeted in the attacks.  “It has sort of been the domestic version of Iraq.  They made a lot of assumptions that turned out not to be accurate.” “Clearly, the whole investigation has gone very cold,” Daschle added.  “Because it has become so cold, they are all the more apprehensive about acknowledging that they do not have any real good evidence or leads.” The FBI said it ended the briefings to prevent leaks of important information to the press, the Times reported. “We have a substantial number of agents continuing to work on that case, and my expectation is that it will be solved and that the person or persons responsible will be brought to justice,” said FBI Director Robert Mueller.  “Some cases take longer than others.” The FBI has likened this investigation to that of the Unabomber, which lasted for 17 years. The investigation has been sizable — involving 9,100 FBI interviews and 6,000 subpoenas — but seemingly marred by missteps, according to the Times. Investigators early on focused on biologist Stephen Hatfill, who had worked at the U.S. Army laboratory that studied the strain of anthrax used in the attacks.  Then-Attorney General John Ashcroft identified Hatfill as a “person of interest.” No charges have been filed against Hatfill, who has maintained his innocence and sued the Justice Department and FBI for defamation. “In how many investigations does the attorney general personally go out there and start talking about persons of interest?  It should never happen,” said former federal prosecutor Stephen Freccero, who prosecuted Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski.  “That was a huge mistake.  It was appalling.  All the basic rules of a covert investigation were violated.” The investigation has not identified other clear suspects in the last few years, said one former law enforcement official. The belief initially that only experts using high-technology equipment could have produced the type of anthrax used in the attacks might also have created a narrow grouping of suspects, the Times reported.  The spores have since been determined not to have been produced from an unusual strain or to have been “weaponized” (see GSN, Sept. 25). “The way they were thinking was that it had to be a scientist at one of these … laboratories,” the former official said.  “Now, all of a sudden, you have people who may be hobbyists or … chemists who think that can do this stuff and might have done this stuff” (Schmitt/Meyer, Los Angeles Times, Nov. 3). Meanwhile, the New York Times yesterday sustained another setback in its defense against a defamation lawsuit filed by Hatfill. A federal judge ruled in support of a U.S. magistrate’s decision last month that the newspaper must identify three sources that columnist Nicholas Kristof used in preparing pieces on the anthrax attacks, the Times reported (see GSN, Oct. 24).  The earlier decision was “not clearly erroneous or contrary to law,” according to Judge Claude Hilton (Neil Lewis, New York Times, Nov. 3). Back to top       Possible Progress Cited Against Two Deadly Viruses Two New York scientists have discovered a protein fragment that they hope will defeat infections from a pair of lethal viruses that could be used by terrorists, Newsday reported today (see GSN, March 1). The two pathogens, the Hendra and Nipah viruses, are carried by fruit bats and have been shown to cause lethal disease in other animals and humans.  Both have been included on a federal list of viruses that could be used as biological weapons, according to Newsday. “People could, theoretically, go out into the field and collect Hendra virus from bats,” said Anne Moscona, a research professor at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City. She and fellow researcher Matteo Porotto have identified a protein fragment, or peptide, that appears to inhibit the Hendra virus, they wrote in the current issue of Virology.  Further development could yield protection against both deadly viruses, Porotto said (Delthia Ricks, Newsday, Nov. 3). Back to top

Russia Confident CW Stockpile Will Be Gone by 2012 By Jon Fox, Global Security Newswire MOSCOW — Russia remains confident that it will meet the 2012 international deadline to destroy its vast chemical weapons stockpile, officials said this week.  Experts and officials from other countries applauded Moscow’s efforts, but expressed doubts about its schedule (see GSN, Sept. 8). Once it became clear that neither the United States nor Russia would meet the original April 2007 cutoff date under the Chemical Weapons Convention, both nations this year appealed to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to extend the weapons disposal deadline by five years. Before it applied for the extension, however, the United States indicated that the destruction of U.S. chemical weapons was likely to continue through 2017.  Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told Congress that just two-thirds of the U.S. stockpile would be destroyed by 2012 (see GSN, April 18). Speaking here Wednesday at a forum on chemical weapon destruction, a senior Russian Foreign Ministry official said emphatically that his nation would meet the 2012 deadline. “We should and will fulfill our obligation at any cost,” Valery Biryukov said. Russian financial commitments to chemical weapon destruction projects have been increasing steadily to more than $600 million for the coming year, Russian officials said.  Russia’s chemical weapon stockpile of 40,000 metric tons is the largest in the world, and only three of its planned seven destruction facilities have been completed.  Construction one of the other plants, the largely U.S.-funded facility at Shchuchye, has been stalled for more than a year (see GSN, Nov. 2). Despite setbacks, Russia has made considerable progress toward treaty benchmarks, said Paul Walker, director of the Legacy Program at Global Green USA.  Considering that Russia began addressing elimination of its chemical weapons stockpiles 10 to 15 years after the United States, “they’re doing actually pretty well,” Walker said. To date, Russia has destroyed about 12 percent of its chemical weapons arsenal, said Viktor Kholstov, deputy head of the Russian Federal Industry Agency and the official at the helm of the national chemical weapons destruction program.  Other recent estimates have been as low as 3 percent. Chemical weapons remain a “burning issue,” Kholstov said.  “It’s the focus of attention in this country and the world. … The stockpiles are considerable and measures need to be taken to destroy them effectively.” Russia has been steadily moving toward milestones, and its progress has been recognized by the international community, said James Harrison, a British Defense Ministry counterproliferation official. At Wednesday’s forum, Harrison was among several diplomatic representatives who reaffirmed their countries’ continued commitment to assist Russia with destroying its chemical weapons.  Russia is receiving considerable financial aid from European nations as well as Canada and the United States as it moves to destroy its blister and nerve agents. Russian officials estimate that the destruction of the entire stockpile would cost roughly $7 billion, a much lower figure than what the United States expects to spend eliminating its chemical weapons.  Working since 1990, the United States has destroyed about 40 percent of its declared 31,000-ton stockpile and cost estimates for the complete program hover around $35 billion, Walker said. One Russian disposal facility, Gorny, has finished neutralization of mustard and lewisite.  Operations began in March of this year at the Kambarka facility and in September at the Maradykovsky plant.  “In the past year, real progress has been made,” said OPCW official Sergey Kisseley. Despite the progress, some observers believe that Russia will find it difficult to meet its intermediate and final disposal goals — 20 percent by April 2007, 45 percent by 2009 and completion three years later. “We all hope that the Russians will succeed in that,” Harrison said.  Walker said he expects Moscow will eventually revise its outlook on the 2012 deadline to reflect a more realistic framework similar to that of the United States. Natalya Kalinina, deputy head of inspection in Russia’s audit bureau, said some of the delays in Russian progress can be attributed to bureaucratic difficulties as the government sought to find its feet in a post-Soviet era.  Troubles with construction at the Shchuchye facility have also contributed to delays. The original schedule for the remote Siberian site in the Ural Mountains included a 2005 completion date that was later pushed back to 2008.  Work has been suspended as Washington has rejected bids for a disassembly line that it says are well above the $60 million estimated cost. Kholstov said there is a “good possibility” that the facility would by mid-2008 begin disposal of 5,400 tons of nerve agent.  One European diplomat, who visited the plant in July, called that timeframe “a fairy tale.”  Walker said 2010 is a more realistic startup date. Even if it ran at full capacity from the day it opened, destruction of all the weapons stored at Shchuchye would likely take more than three years, Walker said. Russia hopes to complete the Leonidovka disposal facility in the Penza region in 2008. The Kizner and Pochep sites are expected to come online in 2009, an OPCW official said. Back to top

Calif. Ports Receive Mobile Radiation Detectors The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach in California have received 18 mobile radiation scanners to aid detection of nuclear material that might pass through the facilities, the Los Angeles Times reported today (see GSN, Nov. 1). The ports are to receive a total of 24 detectors by January.  Eighty-five fixed sensors are already in place at 14 port terminals to scan departing trucks.  U.S. Customs and Border Protection personnel also employ hand-held detectors to examine cargo being unloaded from ships. The full complement of monitors will allow for screening of all containers that enter the country through the ports, the agency said. “The technology we have deployed enhances our critical mission of preventing terrorists or others from attempting to smuggle weapons of mass destruction though U.S. borders,” said Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Ralph Basham (Dan Weikel, Los Angeles Times, Nov. 3).   Back to top

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