A guard reaches to restrain former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein as he denounces the tribunal that sentenced him to death yesterday. Hussein remains on trial for the deaths of tense of thousands of Iraqi Kurds (David Furst/Getty Images). Hussein Sentenced to Hang An Iraqi court yesterday convicted former President Saddam Hussein of crimes against humanity and sentenced him to hang.  He was found guilty on charges related to the 1982 deaths of 148 Iraqis after Hussein survived an assassination attempt in their town. Iraqi officials said Hussein could hang as early as next spring, following an automatic appeal of the verdict that is due to begin within 30 days, the New York Times reported.  Hussein’s trial for allegedly ordering the use of chemical weapons against a Kurdish region of the nation would proceed, officials said, but his execution could be completed before that trial is completed (see GSN, Aug. 24)...Full Story

U.S. Nonprofit Helps Former Weapons Scientists By Chris Schneidmiller, Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — As a college physics student in the Soviet Union, Nana Voitenko knew she was on a direct line to a job supporting the superpower’s vast weapons complex (see GSN, Sept. 20)...Full Story

Russia Counters Western Resolution on Iran Russia on Friday delivered a counterproposal to a draft U.N. Security Council resolution to address the Iranian nuclear crisis, the New York Times reported.  The new draft language was introduced at a meeting of the five permanent council members and Germany (see GSN, Nov. 3)...Full Story

	Monday, November 6, 2006

Sentencing Begins in Terror Plot A British prosecutor today described the wide variety of terrorist attacks that a 34-year-old al-Qaeda operative hoped to carry out in the United Kingdom and the United States, the London Guardian reported (see GSN, Oct. 13). Dhiren Barot pleaded guilty last month to conspiracy to murder.  A two-day sentencing hearing began today. Barot and seven other men are suspected of plotting to plotting to detonate a radiological “dirty bomb” in London and to bomb the Stock Exchange and Citigroup buildings in New York, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank buildings in Washington, D.C., and the Prudential building in Newark, N.J. Prosecutor Edmund Lawson indicated those were only some of the attacks planned that never occurred, according to the Guardian. “The plan was to carry out massive explosions here and in the USA, the principal object being to kill hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent people without warning,” Lawson said. Other possible plots included “arson, by means of hijacked petrol tankers, or igniting gas cylinders and even possibly the use of an airplane,” he said. There were plans for “the use of a petrol tanker to cause an explosion, and an attack on London’s rail or underground network, including the Heathrow Express, of an explosion on a tube train while in a tunnel under the Thames,” Lawson added. The plots against the United States were “shelved  …  but not forgotten” following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Lawson said.  Work had continued as late as February 2004. Barot went to Pakistan early that year to receive permission and money from his “terrorist masters” to detonate explosives placed in limousines within three underground parking garages, Lawson said. The eight suspects were arrested in 2004.  The other seven men are scheduled for trial next year (The Guardian, Nov. 6). Barot is believed to be the most senior al-Qaeda operative captured in the United Kingdom, the Associated Press reported (Associated Press/CNN, Nov. 6). Back to top       Prosecution of FBI Terror Cases Drops, Report Finds The U.S. Justice Department is declining to prosecute a growing percentage of terrorism cases developed by the FBI, according to a report released today (see GSN, Oct. 10). Charges were filed in only 19 of 150 cases referred by the FBI between October 2005 and June 2006, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.  That is an 87 percent rejection rate. The rate of nonprosecutions has increased since the 2001 budget year, when the Justice Department rejected 33 percent of FBI cases, the Associated Press reported. The figures, collected from department records, “raise troubling questions about the bureau’s investigation of criminal matters involving individuals the government has identified as international terrorists,” the report states. The Justice Department disputed the figures, saying only 67 percent of FBI cases were rejected in the nine-month period cited by the report. Dismissed cases that were clearly terrorism hoaxes might have been included in the government figures, said Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse.  Some referrals also might have sought subpoenas or other legal orders for cases that ultimately did not lead to charges being filed, he said. The low percentage of prosecutions largely indicates how the FBI has revamped its conduct of investigations since Sept. 11, 2001, said Assistant Director John Miller.  Detection and information gathering on terrorist organizations now take up about half of the agency’s resources, but do not always lead to arrests, he said. “It’s not about the numbers and for TRAC to suggest as much is to be intellectually dishonest,” Miller said. TRAC co-director Susan Long said the results were based on Justice Department figures (Lara Jakes Jordan, Associated Press/Salt Lake Tribune, Nov. 5). Back to top

U.S. Nonprofit Helps Former Weapons Scientists By Chris Schneidmiller, Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — As a college physics student in the Soviet Union, Nana Voitenko knew she was on a direct line to a job supporting the superpower’s vast weapons complex (see GSN, Sept. 20). Following the dissolution of the communist bloc, she could not even be sure she would have a job. Today, with support from the United States, Voitenko conducts diabetes research in Ukraine. “I’m completely happy that my research may help to improve human life rather than to destroy it,” she said. That is a sentiment the United States would like to hear from all weapons scientists, engineers and technicians left idle by the fall of the Soviet Union.  To that end, it has operated major initiatives for more than a decade aimed at keeping them engaged in peaceful research at home, rather than potentially employed by unfriendly nations with a need for weapons expertise. Voitenko’s benefactor, though, was not the U.S. government.  It was a nonprofit agency that operates from across the Potomac River in Arlington, Va.  The U.S. Civilian Research and Development Foundation since its inception in  1995 has been offering grants, training and other resources to former Soviet weapons scientists and their civilian counterparts.  At a time when the Washington is cutting back some of its scientific redirection programs, the organization aims to be a consistent source of support for the Eurasian research community. “People, particularly when they’re in stressed circumstances, can still do bad things and they can do it in bad places,” Eric Novotny, the foundation’s vice president for programs, said in an interview. There were plenty of candidates from the Soviet Union. The communist state operated a superpower-sized weapons complex that included 35,000 nuclear weapons and 10 “closed” cities dedicated to the production of the atomic arsenal.  It had 40,000 metric tons of chemical weapons, the world’s largest arsenal of materials such as sarin, VX and mustard agent.  Developing and maintaining those programs required tens of thousands of workers.  Moscow’s nuclear weapons program is believed to have employed 70,000 people.  Another 60,000 supported research and development of biological weapons, even after the Soviet Union signed the Biological Weapons Convention in 1975, one expert said. “It was the only way to use our background and knowledge at that time,” Voitenko said of weapons work.  “The salary at … defense-related installations was much higher than academic institutions.  Of course, a lot of students preferred to work at that program.” After the Cold War Voitenko in 1990 received a bachelor’s degree in physics, with a focus on low temperatures.  Had she continued in that field, she might have gone to work producing devices for missile control. Instead, she quit an internship at an institute conducting defense research and switched to biophysics for her graduate and postgraduate studies.  Meanwhile, the Soviet Union came apart in 1991. That cause a weapons program once controlled by a powerful central government to be spread across up to 15 suddenly autonomous nations.  Tens of thousands of skilled research workers found themselves without jobs or holding jobs in which they could not be sure when or if they would be paid. “It was really a bad time.  The salary of a doctoral fellow was about $5 a month.  Even this miserable salary was not paid in time.  We waited several months for our salaries and it was absolutely nothing due to the rate of high inflation,” Voitenko said. Voitenko in 1992 began working at the Bogomoletz Institute of Physiology in Kiev while continuing her studies.  The institute lacked funding for heating, much less chemicals and equipment, she said.  Colleagues who had already moved to foreign laboratories passed on supplies, while Voitenko’s parents in Azerbaijan sent her food. The paucity of resources and nearly nonexistent salary finally persuaded Voitenko to follow departed co-workers abroad.  An acquaintance invited her to join the research team at Iowa State University, and she left Kiev for Ames in 1997.  The fear internationally was that some of her fellow researchers would seek employment in more dangerous nations.  Several thousand nuclear personnel probably had expertise that could have proven useful to a nation looking to produce an atomic weapon, said Elena Sokova, director of the Newly Independent States Nonproliferation Program at the Monterey Institute’s Center for Nonproliferation Studies. Leaders in Moscow and the capitals of the newly independent nations did not have the money to pay their weapons personnel or the resources to completely monitor their whereabouts, Sokova said. There is no known instance of a Soviet weapons scientist actually turning up in a rogue nation, Sokova said.  That is not for lack of trying by some.  Russian authorities stopped a plane-full of scientists from leaving the country for North Korea in 1992, the Christian Science Monitor reported in September.  A Russian arms expert was arrested in 1998 on suspicion of spying for Iraq.  Iran is also suspected of seeking the expertise of former Soviet biological weapons scientists, according to the Nuclear Threat Initiative. “I would say that the threat was very prominent in the early ‘90s and mid-90s when Russia had these great difficulties, economic difficulties, restructuring,” Sokova said.  The United States and other nations quickly took notice of this threat.  The U.S. Energy Department established the Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention (IPP) and the Nuclear Cities Initiative (NCI) in the 1990s, their intent to produce civilian employment for Soviet biological, chemical, missile and nuclear weapons personnel. The first program has engaged 16,000 scientists, engineers and technicians at 180 institutes across the former Soviet Union in research and commercial efforts.  More than 7,000 are presently at work on projects.  In total, they have produced 30 technologies — from improved prosthetic designs to new radar technology — that are on the market or have received venture capital. The recently expired Nuclear Cities Initiative focused on three “closed” cities that house major nuclear research and production facilities.  U.S. and Russian agencies, working in tandem since 1998, sought to reduce the size of the weapons complex at those sites while ensuring that personnel there did not find themselves without work.  The project employed 1,600 workers and developed or expanded 26 businesses in those cities. The United States has also been a party to the International Science and Technology Center, which since 1994 has provided more than $590 million in research funding to 58,000 research personnel in Russia and other former Soviet states. Scientific Collaboration Between Former Enemies The Civilian Research and Development Foundation has a somewhat different take on this effort.  The congressionally authorized organization’s first mission has been to promote scientific collaboration between former Soviet republics and the United States.  The hope is that this effort will allow scientists to work in their home country, thereby strengthening its scientific and technological infrastructure.  Grants to fund research projects are offered on a competitive basis, with weapons scientists receiving some preference in funding. The foundation uses a number of methods to strengthen collaboration, the foundation’s Novotny said.  Research projects must involve personnel from both the United States and a former Soviet state.  Funding is also available for cooperative commercial projects and for Eurasian science and technology entrepreneurs to visit the United States and make connections with companies and investors here. Weapons research lends itself to work in other sectors, according to Novotny.  For example, scientists who once produced lethal biological pathogens are also likely to have expertise in areas such as infectious diseases, agriculture and water desalinization that can be put to good use.  “Traditionally, we’ve found that former weapons researchers translate well … to nuclear medicine, geosciences, pharmaceutics and material sciences,” Novotny stated by e-mail. With an extensive list of public and nongovernmental funders, the foundation to date has dedicated nearly $100 million in roughly 3,000 research grants.  Of that, $45 million has gone to projects involving more than 2,500 former weapons researchers.  The organization also promotes separate avenues of funding by making connections between U.S. and Eurasian entities. With CRDF support, scientists at a Georgian institute are working with the Battelle Memorial Institute in Ohio to develop a method for rapid anthrax identification.  Nine former Russian weapons scientists at the Kurchatov Institute are helping develop a treatment for bone metastases. “Who better to develop those needs than the people who were trying to get you in the first place?” said Chris Robinson, nonproliferation programs director at the foundation. Voitenko applied for a CRDF grant before she left for the United States.  It came through in 1998 and she returned to the Bogomoletz Institute.  Her team of researchers has now received four grants totaling $660,000 — two directly from the foundation and two it helped arrange from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. California-based SciClone Pharmaceuticals joined with former biological weapons scientists at St. Petersburg-based Verta to receive CRDF and IPP funding. The firms are jointly developing an oral drug that could be given to boost the immune systems of people suffering from suppressed systems through infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and hepatitis C. “I think over the years we’ve had up to 60 different bioweapons scientists involved on various projects,” said Cynthia Tuthill, SciClone senior vice president and chief scientific officer. “They have not sat down with me and said, ‘Yeah, we took the plague organism and we added this gene in order to make it work in the air better’ or something like that,” she added.  “We’ve never actually gone there.  It would be sort of awkward, I think.” SciClone is more interested in the Russian scientists’ present work than their past.  The Russians supplied a proof of concept that their drug has efficacy against infectious disease and conducted a human clinical trial, years before the U.S. company could have done the work on its own, Tuthill said.  SciClone, in turn, contributed its own money and research and helped secure the additional funding. The ultimate goal of the two companies is to develop an immune system stimulator that could be marketed around the world.  The Russian government has already approved the drug for use, and the company is now waiting to be allowed to begin manufacturing, Tuthill said. “This has been sort of a pinnacle of my career to know that I’ve been helping to employ these people with really responsible, exciting work that they can feel proud of, with decent salaries and all that, to keep their expertise in the medical field,” Tuthill said. Continuing Challenges Scientific redirection programs for more than a decade have helped keep thousands of scientists on the straight and narrow.  The threat has been further reduced as the Russian government has tightened oversight of its scientists and increased their salaries, Sokova said. The United States recently has begun cutting money from some of its major scientific engagement programs.  Funding for the Global Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention — which encompassed both the IPP and NCI programs — is set at $28 million in this fiscal year, a 30 percent drop from fiscal 2006, according to the Russian American Nuclear Security Advisory Council.  The final Nuclear Cities Initiative projects expired in September, and differences between Moscow and Washington leave little hope it will return, the organization said (see GSN, Sept. 20). Washington also now supplies one-third or less of the annual funding for the International Science and Technology Center, down from more than 50 percent in previous years, Sokova said.  Other nations, particularly Canada and the United Kingdom, have stepped up their participation in the sector, she said. Some Nuclear Cities Initiative projects are likely to find funding in other programs, Sokova said.  The United States has also begun to focus increasingly on redirection of biological scientists through newer programs such as the BioIndustry Initiative. Scientific engagement is clearly becoming less of a priority for the Bush administration, said RANSAC Executive Director Ken Luongo.  It is seen as a “zero-sum game,” in which increased funding for one project means money must be cut from another, he said.  He acknowledged also that officials in Moscow, in particular, have become increasingly hard to work with as Russian influence has grown as the Soviet collapse fades further into history. The problem is that “the job is not nearly done,” Luongo said in a telephone interview. A 2005 survey of 602 Russian biological, chemical and nuclear weapons scientists found their average income to be roughly $110 a month, the Christian Science Monitor reported.  Twenty-eight percent of scientists surveyed who did not have grant funding said they would work for a rogue nation, while 12 percent of those who have funding through a program such as the Nuclear Cities Initiative said they would do so. Weapons scientists, working within secretive and isolated programs, are not likely to have kept up with the rapid changes in their fields, Luongo said.  It remains crucial to bring them back into the mainstream scientific community. “You cannot unlearn what you have learned in these weapons programs and therefore steps should be taken to redirect these people so that they are not tempted by economic circumstances to work for another country,” Luongo said by e-mail. Foundation officials said they have no intention of cutting back.  As U.S. federal funding begins to decline, other partner nations are increasing their commitment to the program to maintain the “knowledge benefits” their scientists receive through collaboration with the West, Novotny said.  There are new challenges to address.  Where nuclear workers were the focus of the early years, the organization now looks more to chemical and biological weapons personnel. Deadly pathogens are found in nature, meaning a microbiologist separated from his country’s military complex stands a better chance of producing such a weapon than his nuclear weapons counterpart.  “It’s much easier to develop pathogens.  You could do it in this room,” Novotny said. Salaries for Russian life scientists have lagged behind their nuclear counterparts, leaving them potentially more vulnerable to enticement.  While an incoming nuclear engineer can now expect to make $1,000 a month in Russia, the government’s support for biological science “is kind of limping behind,” Sokova said.  The nuclear sector remains a going concern and source of pride in Russia, and funding is applied correspondingly. Additional countries might need scientific support, including post-Hussein Iraq and Libya, which renounced its WMD programs in 2003. “As long as there is a threat and there is a need for the type of engagement that CRDF specializes in, we like to think we’ll be here to meet that need,” said foundation communications manager Eric Dyson. Back to top

Russia Counters Western Resolution on Iran Russia on Friday delivered a counterproposal to a draft U.N. Security Council resolution to address the Iranian nuclear crisis, the New York Times reported.  The new draft language was introduced at a meeting of the five permanent council members and Germany (see GSN, Nov. 3). “In light of the extent of the Russian changes, we decided that we’ll refer all these back to capitals and meet again at some later date, and that’s basically all we decided,” said U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton. Russian officials, supported more quietly by China, have complained that a European-crafted draft resolution was too punitive against Iran.  That draft calls for the council to impose international trade and travel bans in response to Tehran’s refusal to submit to the council’s demand for a freeze on nuclear activities in Iran (Warren Hoge, New York Times, Nov. 4). Both Moscow and Beijing are concerned that a resolution that leaves open the possibility of U.N.-sanctioned military action would lead down a slippery slope, the Washington Post reported yesterday. “If they agree to sanctions today, they give the authority for military intervention tomorrow,” said Columbia University historian Edward Luck, describing Russian and Chinese fears. Officials from Beijing and Moscow supported this view. “We learned our lesson from what happened in Iraq, and that’s why we want to be very clear,” said a Chinese diplomat. “I don’t believe that we should engage in something which might become a self-fulfilling prophecy,” said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.  “We are convinced that there is no military solution to this crisis.” Ruling out the use of force, however, could undermine the United Nation’s ability to persuade difficult nations to modify their policies, some experts said. “What means of enforcement is credible if you start out by saying in the beginning that ‘Oh, by the way, we’re not going to do the one thing that you’re most afraid of?’” said Patrick Clawson, of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (Colum Lynch, Washington Post, Nov. 5). Iran Continues Nuclear Work Meanwhile, international nuclear inspectors have been examining Iran’s newest set of uranium enrichment centrifuges, Reuters reported yesterday.  Iran announced last month that it had begun operating a second “cascade” of 164 centrifuges. Officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency arrived Friday for a four-day inspection of that and other sites. “They have visited the second cascade and the Isfahan uranium conversion facility,” an Iranian officials announced (Reuters/Washington Post, Nov. 5). Iran is continuing to develop additional centrifuge capacity, according to a lawmaker there. “Other cascades are under way, and we have plans to build many centrifuges in order to supply our nuclear fuel,” said Kazem Jalali, parliament’s national security commission rapporteur. Still, Iran’s capacity remained minimal, he said. “Even if we make 10 164-centrifuge cascades, it still remains at the level of research and development, and we want to reach a certain phase in this level and then start the industrial work,” Jalali said (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Nov. 3). Back to top       Japan, North Korea Quarrel Over Nuclear Talks Japan is demanding that North Korea be allowed to rejoin the six-party talks only as a non-nuclear state, even after it detonated an atomic device last month, the Financial Times reported today (see GSN, Nov. 3). Pyongyang must reaffirm its September 2005 pledge to eliminate its nuclear program before the next round of talks, according to Japanese officials. “These must not be treated as nuclear disarmament talks,” a Foreign Ministry official said.  “We think the other parties — the U.S., South Korea, China and Russia — share this basic view” (David Pilling, Financial Times, Nov. 6). North Korea responded Saturday by saying Japan should not attend the talks at all, Agence France-Presse reported. “It is the view of the D.P.R.K. that since the U.S. attends the six-party talks, there is no need for Japan to participate in them as a local delegate,” said a Foreign Ministry spokesman. “Because it is no more than a state of the U.S. … it is enough for Tokyo just to be informed of the results of the talks by Washington,” he said, according to the official Korean Central News Agency (Agence France-Presse I/Sharewatch.com, Nov. 5). Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said his government would not be deterred from attending the negotiations, AFP reported. “There is absolutely no change to Japan’s stance,” he said (Agence France-Presse II/Sharewatch.com, Nov. 6). The United States said Japan must have a seat at the negotiating table, the Associated Press reported. “These are six-party talks and the United States believes that one of our most important partners in that configuration is Japan,” U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said today in Tokyo.  “Obviously we all stick together and we all participate in these negotiations.” Burns met with Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso.  The two men discussed the potential for officials from the negotiating countries save North Korea to meet for five-way talks during the Nov. 18-19 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Vietnam. “Japan and the U.S. will propose the five-way talks,” Aso said.  “We don’t know yet if the others will go along with the proposal.” South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun said the anticipated resumption of talks this year does not indicate an imminent end to the nuclear crisis, AP reported. “The prospects for the talks may not always be smooth.  It will require diverse procedures and taken a long time before the nuclear issue is completely resolved,” he said in a speech read to lawmakers today by Prime Minister Han Myung-sook (Kana Inagaki, Associated Press/ABC News, Nov. 6). North Korea must take “concrete” action to eliminate its nuclear program, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki said today, according to AFP. “While we welcomed the expected resumption of six-way talks, we also agreed that Japan and the United States must continue to cooperate and to use dialogue and pressure to demand concrete measures from North Korea,” said Shiozaki, who met with Burns and Undersecretary of State Robert Joseph. South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon, designated as the next U.N. secretary general, was also in Japan for talks on North Korea with Abe (Kyoko Hasegawa, Agence France-Presse III/Yahoo!News, Nov. 6). Back to top       Japan’s Nuclear Debate Draws Criticism The incoming head of the United Nations today criticized recent remarks by top Japanese officials who advocated discussing whether Tokyo should pursue nuclear arms, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Oct. 27). Following North Korea’s nuclear test last month, Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso and ruling party policy chief Shoichi Nakagawa urged the nation to end its taboo of discussing the nuclear weapons option. “On the option of nuclear arms, which some powerful Japanese politicians have debated since North Korea’s atom bomb test, I would like to express some concerns,” said U.N. Secretary General-designate Ban Ki-moon, currently South Korea’s foreign minister.  “Such remarks would not serve right for the future of one of the most significant U.N. members states and a leading county of Northeast Asia.” Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has reaffirmed his commitment to the non-nuclear principles his nation has followed since the end of World War II. “No one is against this policy,” he told reporters (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Nov. 6). Still, the continuing comments from might suggest Abe is having trouble controlling his Liberal Democratic Party, according to the Associated Press. Party policy head Nakagawa restated his views yesterday. “There must be debate on contingencies, including what to do when a nuclear weapon comes flying (from North Korea),” he said on a television talk show. Even if Japan remain non-nuclear, such statements could cause trouble, said party strategy chief Toshihiro Nikai. “Japan is built on those [non-nuclear] principles … and has finally begun to be seen as a pacifist country,” he said.  “But repeated remarks by top officials can invite misunderstandings” (Hiroko Tabuchi, Associated Press/International Herald Tribune, Nov. 5). Back to top       U.S. Web Site With Iraqi Nuclear Data Remained Available After U.S. Scientists Complained U.S. nuclear scientists warned the Bush administration more than two weeks ago that information posted on an official U.S. Web site provided detailed information about making nuclear weapons, the New York Times reported Saturday (see GSN, Nov. 3). The site contained mostly Arabic-language documents confiscated from Iraq following the 2003 invasion.  Some of the material described Iraqi efforts to build nuclear weapons prior to the 1991 Gulf War.  The site was shut down Thursday after officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency complained and following calls from reporters, the Times reported. Two weeks earlier, though, U.S. scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California had urged the Energy Department to take down some of the material.  Two documents were removed, according to the Times. Those actions, however, were taken by midlevel bureaucrats, and top officials apparently were not notified. The Livermore complaints “never perked up to senior management,” said one senior official. Democrats in the U.S. Congress have called for an investigation and the Energy Department has promised to review the situation (William Broad, New York Times, Nov. 4). Back to top       Nuclear Files Not Top Secret, Laboratory Says No top secret information was in the classified documents found last month in the home of a former contract employee at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, according to a statement Friday from the New Mexico facility (see GSN, Nov. 3). Authorities retrieved about 200 paper documents and portable computer data storage devices containing more than 400 classified files from the home of Jessica Quintana after local police responded to a disturbance there. “None of [the material] was top secret,” said laboratory spokesman Kevin Roark.  “None of it was our most sensitive nuclear weapons information.” Most of the documents were classified at the lowest levels and were more than 20 years old, he added. Quintana’s attorney expressed some relief that the documents were not highly classified because the potential consequences against his client would be reduced. “The law looks at the level of security of documents that are mishandled,” said Stephen Aarons.  “You still shouldn’t be removing them [from the laboratory], so the issues are the same.  But it’s just that we don’t have the damage done in this case that people feared.” Quintana remains under investigation and has not yet been charged with any crime, the Associated Press reported. The laboratory was assessing its security protocols, according to its statement. It was “taking decisive actions to further enhance our existing security measures that protect classified information,” the statement said. Efforts have begun to limit the use of portable storage devices, such as USB flash drives, Roark said. “We’re making them inoperable, where appropriate,” he said (Deborah Baker, Associated Press, Nov. 4). Back to top

FDA Blocks Human Tests of Anthrax Vaccine The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has prohibited human testing of a new anthrax vaccine, possibly signaling the end to the troubled flagship initiative of the Project Bioshield program to develop countermeasures against weapons of mass destruction (see GSN, Sept. 29). In 2004, the United States ordered 75 million doses from California biotechnology firm VaxGen. Inc. of an experimental vaccine that would be more easily administered than the current treatment. The company said Friday it did not know how long it would take to deal with FDA concerns about the vaccine’s deterioration rate once it is placed in the Strategic National Stockpile, the Washington Post reported. “We were encouraged by the improvements we’ve made to the vaccine and the stability data we have compiled, and we felt it supported re-entry into the clinic,” said VaxGen Executive Vice President James Panek.  “Unfortunately the FDA disagreed, citing remaining concerns about the vaccine’s stability.” The FDA decision “is endangering performance of the contract,” Health and Human Services Department contracting officer Brian Goodger stated in a letter Friday to VaxGen.  The issue must be addressed within 10 days or “the government may terminate for default,” he wrote. The contract calls for human safety testing of the vaccine to begin by Nov. 13, the Post reported. VaxGen originally was scheduled to begin delivering the vaccine in November 2005.  That is now not expected to occur until 2008.  The company will not receive most of the money until that point.  There are questions on whether the company will survive long enough to fill the contract (Renae Merle, Washington Post, Nov. 4). Back to top

Hussein Sentenced to Hang An Iraqi court yesterday convicted former President Saddam Hussein of crimes against humanity and sentenced him to hang.  He was found guilty on charges related to the 1982 deaths of 148 Iraqis after Hussein survived an assassination attempt in their town. Iraqi officials said Hussein could hang as early as next spring, following an automatic appeal of the verdict that is due to begin within 30 days, the New York Times reported.  Hussein’s trial for allegedly ordering the use of chemical weapons against a Kurdish region of the nation would proceed, officials said, but his execution could be completed before that trial is completed (see GSN, Aug. 24). “The court has decided to sentence Saddam Hussein al-Majid to death by hanging,” Chief Judge Raouf Rasheed Abdel-Rahman announced.  The five-judge panel found him guilty of willful killing, unlawful imprisonment, forced deportation, torture and “other inhumane acts,” the Times reported.  Two other defendants, including Hussein’s half-brother, were also sentenced to die.  A fourth man was sentenced to life imprisonment. “You don’t decide anything,” Hussein shouted to the panel after hearing the sentence.  “You are the servants of the occupiers and their lackeys!  You are puppets!” (Burns/Semple, New York Times, Nov. 6). The sentence marked a critical point in Iraqi history, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said yesterday. “The verdict placed on the heads of the former regime does not represent a verdict for any one person,” he said.  “It is a verdict on the whole dark era that was unmatched in Iraq’s history” (Hurst/Hendawi, Associated Press/Houston Chronicle, Nov. 6). Back to top

Iran Not Able to Build ICBMs, Russian General Says A senior Russian general said last week that Iran is not yet capable of building long-range ballistic missiles, RIA Novosti reported (see GSN, Nov. 2). “According to our information, Iran does not currently have the technological and technical capability to build an intercontinental (ballistic) missile,” said Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, chief of staff of Russia’s armed forces. Intelligence agencies around the world would monitor any ICBM development by Iran, Baluyevsky said.  International export rules and Tehran’s own nonproliferation pledges should also curtail such an effort, he argued. “Taking into account the above-mentioned factors, the international community has enough leverage to control the global situation related to the development of missiles or nuclear weapons,” Baluyevsky said (RIA Novosti, Nov. 2). Meanwhile, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards said yesterday his country is prepared to export its missile technology, Reuters reported. “We are able to give our missile systems to friendly and neighboring countries,” said commander in chief Yahya Rahim Safavi (Parisa Hafezi, Reuters/Yahoo!News, Nov. 6). Back to top

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