California Man Arrested for Anthrax Threats

A California man was arrested Monday for sending letters containing a white powder to several federal and private offices in the state, The Argus reported (see GSN, Oct. 13, 2005).

Paul Charles Steeves, 43, appeared in court yesterday in Oakland to face federal charges of sending threatening communications across state lines via the Internet and of conveying false and misleading information indicating use of biological weapons. He remains in custody and is scheduled for another hearing Friday.

Steeves allegedly sent letters to the U.S. Probation Office in Oakland, the New Bridge Foundation in Berkeley, and in FBI office in Watsonville. Each letter arrived last week.  They all contained a white powder and a piece of paper on which Steeves’ name was signed, according to an FBI affidavit.

Also in the envelopes were pictures of actress Drew Barrymore, a picture of the 2001 World Trade Center attack, and handwritten and typewritten text referring to an acquaintance of Barrymore.

Hazardous materials teams from the FBI tested the substance in each letter, which turned out to be harmless.

Prosecutors also claim that Steeves on Internet message boards threatened to carry out a chemical attack on Jan. 16.

“Tell Drew Barrymore that I, Paul Steeves in Santa Cruz, had expected her to peacefully contact me. Now it’s war,” he wrote on a Barrymore fan site.

When arrested, Steeves told authorities he was “glad you guys came because I was going to keep mailing those letters for the next 15 or 20 years.” Investigators also found photographs of Barrymore, baking soda and photocopies of text identical to the copy in the letter.

If convicted, Steeves faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $500,000 fine, plus restitution (Josh Richman, The Argus, Jan. 25).

Meanwhile, a Maryland man was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison for sending anthrax threat letters containing white powder, the Washington Post reported yesterday.

Robert Finch pleaded guilty in October to mailing threatening communications. Court document said in March 2005 he sent letters with the white powder to courthouses in Garrett and Worcester counties in Maryland, to police in Alaska and to a former police chief in Kentucky. 

He also sent letters threatening Baltimore County State's Attorney Sandra O'Connor and her family, as well as a bomb-threat letter to a Kentucky elementary school (Washington Post, Jan. 24).

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Ohio Unveils Antiterrorism Strategy Center

Ohio yesterday opened a new center to identify possible terrorist activity by linking information resources from various state agencies, the Columbus Dispatch reported (see GSN, Oct. 12, 2005).

The Ohio Strategic Analysis and Information Center was launched with $590,000 in federal funding, according to the Dispatch. It is expected to function as a nerve center for state government, allowing agencies to exchange intelligence that could uncover terrorist plots, the center’s chief said yesterday.

“A traditional information center (only) has law enforcement in it,” said Ohio Homeland Security Deputy Director Richard Rawlins. “We found after 9/11 that we need to do a lot better.”

Several states — including Texas, Massachusetts and Indiana — have opened such centers in the past year, according to the Dispatch. Some critics have suggested the centers are aimed at collecting federal grant money rather than stopping terrorists.

“I think they’ll have to come in and make their case for what kind of benefits it will have,” said Republican state Senator Jeff Jacobson. “We always want to make sure we’re getting good value for any kind of expenditure.”

Some experts have said the centers’ effectiveness remains to be proven.

“These are works in progress,” said Bob Pence, a retired FBI agent and counterterrorism consultant. “No one has gotten far enough along to say it’s been an outstanding success or a failure. There are going to be some painful steps along the way, and there’s going to be some waste” (James Nash, Columbus Dispatch, Jan. 24).

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Alternative Defense Review Calls for U.S. Nuclear Cuts, Higher Focus on Homeland Defense

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The United States military needs increased focus on unconventional warfare and defense against nuclear and biological weapons, and less on developing certain advanced conventional weaponry, according to a report released here yesterday by a prominent liberal think tank (see GSN, Jan. 17).

“The United States’ unmatched military technological superiority is no longer enough to guarantee that Americans will be safe and that U.S. forces will prevail in battle and in securing the peace,” according to “Restoring American Military Power, a Progressive Quadrennial Defense Review,” by the Center for American Progress.

“Nation-states no longer possess a monopoly on the ability to develop and deploy nuclear and biological weapons. In Iraq, suicide bombings and crude explosive devices are claiming more lives of U.S. troops than tanks or enemy troops. New capabilities are required,” it says.

The review is intended to provide a counter-vision for the much-anticipated Defense Department Quadrennial Defense Review expected to soon be released.

The group’s report advocates cutting development and production of eight major weapons types: the F-22 fighter, Virginia class submarine, DD(X) Destroyer, V-22 Osprey, C-130J transport aircraft, offensive space-based weaponry, further deployment of the U.S. national missile defense system; and “obsolete and unnecessary elements of the nuclear posture.”

The weapons are costly but unnecessary, providing little additional advantage over other existing systems, according to the report.

“United States weapons systems are not matched to threats, and the Pentagon has more programs on the drawing board than it can afford” given recent record-setting budget deficit levels, it says.

The report advocates doubling Pentagon expenditures on homeland defense to “at least $20 billion” annually, to increase its capacities to support civil authorities following unconventional and high-explosive attacks or other incidents. The National Guard should focus more on protecting the homeland from major disasters rather than on major combat operations elsewhere, it says.

Among the report’s numerous recommendations is withdrawing tactical U.S. nuclear weapons from Europe, which it says are costly and have “no strategic utility,” while reducing the U.S. strategic nuclear arsenal significantly down to 1,000 warheads, with 600 deployed and 400 in reserve. Those numbers, it says, should be sufficient to address military targets in China and Russia, as well as a limited number of targets in “extreme regimes.”

“The strategy should be based on two principles: military targets are the only legitimate target for nuclear weapons, and any use of nuclear weapons must be proportionate to the threat,” it says.

The report further advocates abandoning development of a new earth penetrating nuclear weapon capability, maintaining a “surge capacity” for building additional warheads if needed, resuming arms control negotiations with Russia, continuing the administration’s Reliable Replacement Warhead program, and eventually ratifying the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

The report advocates pre-emptive U.S. military action against imminent threats, while criticizing the administration’s policy of preventive war against possible future threats.

Center senior fellow Lawrence Korb, a former Reagan administration defense official and one of the report’s primary authors, unveiled the document yesterday.

Michele Flournoy, also a former defense official and now a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, critiqued the report following its release. Along with the center report, Fluornoy said she had seen a draft of the Pentagon’s Quadrennial Defense Review.

Both documents, she said, start from a similar premise: “We’re over invested as a military, as the Department of Defense, in capabilities to deal with high-end warfighting, against very traditional military threats and we’re under invested in capabilities to deal with irregular warfare, like terrorism, like insurgency and stability operations … catastrophic threats like WMD terrorism, and so forth.”

She said, though, the judgments about defense strategy that emerge from that conclusion differ in the documents.

“While both documents place a lot of rhetorical emphasis on homeland defense, or priority for the military, in the [center’s] document there is much more putting money where your mouth is” — recommendations for shifting money toward homeland security.

In the Pentagon’s document, “it’s very difficult to find much, with a couple of exceptions,” she said.

“Whether or not we all agree with every word in [the center’s] document … the fact that you have an alternative on the table to force people to have a constructive debate is absolutely critical at this time, given the stakes involved,” she said.

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Key Foreign Ministers to Discuss Iran Nuclear Standoff

Six key nations plan to send representatives to a meeting Monday in London to discuss what actions should be taken regarding Iran’s controversial nuclear activities, the New York Times reported (see GSN, Jan. 24).

Foreign ministers from China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States plan to use the session as a final opportunity to develop a common policy before the Feb. 2 emergency International Atomic Energy Agency board meeting (Elaine Sciolino, New York Times, Jan. 25).

The United States and the European Union are considering a new approach in pushing for Security Council action, Kyodo News reported today.

“It’s a three-step approach,” said one expert.

“First urge Iran to suspend enrichment activities and come back to talks with the EU, second give more [inspection] authority to the IAEA,” the expert said. “If Iran doesn’t comply, they will go to sanctions.”

The agency’s safeguard inspections are focused on accounting for enriched uranium and other fissile material rather than on unearthing clandestine atomic weapons programs. The United States wants to bolster that authority before pushing for sanctions, one Bush administration official told Kyodo.

“It is certainly not our intention to ask the Security Council immediately … to impose sanctions on Iran,” the official said.

“At first what the Security Council should do is try to use its authority and credibility to call upon the Iranians to do the very same thing that the IAEA Board of Governors has almost unanimously called upon Iran to do in the past,” the official said (Kyodo/Yahoo!News, Jan. 25).

Meanwhile, several U.S. lawmakers have expressed support for tough action against Iran at the Security Council and for keeping open the option of military action, the Associated Press reported today.

“It’s important to give diplomacy a try, but I don’t believe we should take any option — including military force — off the table,” said Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas).

“If you eliminate the threat of military action, the possibility of it, then there’s no way to secure compliance,” said Representative Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.).

Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said military force should remain an option, but that the United States and the European Union must focus on gaining Chinese and Russian support for “a tough posture” at the Security Council that includes sanctions.

“We have to be judicious in how we apply sanctions — there may be some sanctions that may not make a difference,” Obama added.

Some lawmakers suggested that regime change was needed in Iran.

“Ultimately, there must be change in the country’s leadership,” said Senator Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.). “The current Iranian government is a corrupt and dangerous regime that’s out of step with its citizens” (Liz Sidoti, Associated Press I/Yahoo!News, Jan. 25).

Iran today gave tentative support for Moscow’s offer to enrich uranium on Iran’s behalf in Russian territory, Agence France-Presse reported.

“We positively evaluate this offer,” said top Iranian negotiator Ali Larijani, who was in Moscow for talks with Russian officials.

“This plan can be perfected” during further negotiations next month, he added.

“Russia’s idea is good, but … favorable conditions concerning the time and place” of enrichment still to be worked out, he said.

Larijani reiterated Iran’s willingness to resume nuclear negotiations with the European Union, AFP reported (Agence France-Presse I/TurkishPress.com, Jan. 25).

Larijani and Russia’s national security chief announced yesterday that the U.N. nuclear watchdog must find a diplomatic solution to the crisis, AP reported.

“Both sides expressed their desire to solve the issue in a diplomatic way within the framework of the International Atomic Energy Agency,” Russia’s Security Council announced after the meeting between Igor Ivanov and Larijani (Vladimir Isachenkov, Associated Press II/Yahoo!News, Jan. 25).

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, traveling in China, said today that Beijing and Washington had no major differences on the crisis over Iran’s nuclear program, Reuters reported.

Zoellick said Chinese officials were concerned about “tactics and timing” but that the two nations agreed on “core principals” (Reuters, Jan. 25).

Zoellick said he warned Chinese officials yesterday that nuclear weapons development in the Middle East could affect their energy security, AP reported.

“In their own interests for energy security, they need to steer this in another direction,” he said (Associated Press III/Yahoo!News, Jan. 25).

Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar today threatened to put Israel in “an eternal coma,” AFP reported.

“Israel does not have the courage to attack Iran, and if it commits such a big mistake, the defenders of Islamic Iran will put Israel in an eternal coma like (Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon,” Najjar said (Agence France-Presse II/Middle East Online, Jan. 25).

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U.S. Won’t Predict Future of Indo-U.S. Nuke Deal

U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns would not predict whether a nuclear technology sharing agreement between the United States and India would be in place before President George W. Bush visits India in March, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, Jan. 23).

Burns said discussion with Indian officials last week did not result in a required plan for New Delhi to separate military and civilian reactors. Completing the deal in time for the president’s visit is a “possibility but not a certainty,” he said.

Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran last week said the president’s visit is “really reflective of the very significant transformation that has taken place, and is taking place, in India-U.S. relations.”

New Delhi commentator Raja Mohan said that if the deal does collapse, “a lot of people would be quite happy to say, ‘We told you the United States cannot be trusted.’”

However, citing existing cooperation and agreement in other areas, other analysts believe the relationship between the two countries would survive if the deal falls through. 

“The relationship is going to stand on its own,” Burns said (John Lancaster, Washington Post, Jan. 25).

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South Korea Criticizes U.S. Pressure on Pyongyang

South Korea today accused the United States of issuing an “improper” statement about official discussions earlier this week regarding North Korea’s alleged financial crimes, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Jan. 24).

A U.S. statement released yesterday said that a visiting Treasury Department delegation had urged Seoul to take measures against North Korea’s alleged financial crimes and to join U.S.-led efforts aimed at curbing illicit WMD-related shipments on the high seas.

The U.S. delegation “has neither officially nor unofficially urged our government to take specific steps,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Choo Kyu-ho said in response to the statement today.

South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun warned of potential friction between Seoul and Washington.

“The South Korean government does not agree with some forces in the United States that raise issues about North Korea’s regime, put pressure on it and apparently desire to see its collapse,” Roh said.

“If the U.S. government tries to resolve problems through this kind of method, there will be friction, differences of opinion, between South Korea and the United States,” he said.

“It is too early for me to comment on the alleged illegal activities by North Korea,” Roh added. “We need to ascertain the full truth regarding whether the North has committed any illicit activity, whether it is related to the North Korean nuclear dispute and whether there are any intentions to press the North Korean regime” (Agence France-Presse I/Yahoo!News, Jan. 25).

Roh also announced today that he would pursue negotiations toward a permanent peace treaty to replace a Korean War armistice, Reuters reported (Reuters/Yahoo!News, Jan. 24).

Meanwhile, Pyongyang again called on Washington to eliminate sanctions, AFP reported.

“If the U.S. truly wants the resumption of the six-party talks and their progress, it had better opt for lifting its financial sanctions against the D.P.R.K. and co-existing with it,” the official Korean Central News Agency announced today (Agence France-Presse II/Khaleej Times, Jan. 25).

Washington, however, continues to back the sanctions, the Associated Press reported.

“The U.S. does not regard the action to be in any way related to the six-party (nuclear) talks,” said U.S. Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary Daniel Glaser.

“We have a compelling case to make,” said Glaser, who today briefed Japanese officials on North Korea’s alleged financial misconduct (Associated Press, Jan. 25).

Elsewhere, Seoul’s top nuclear negotiator, Deputy Foreign Minister Song Min-soon, has been appointed Roh’s chief national security adviser, AFP reported.

Yun Byung-se, chief policy coordinator at the National Security Council, is expected to replace Song as the country’s point man at six-nation nuclear talks, the Yonhap News Agency reported (Agence France-Presse III, Jan. 25).

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University Gets Radios in Case of Pine Bluff Trouble

The University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff is scheduled to receive radios that could provide extra communications capability in case of an accident at the nearby Pine Bluff Arsenal, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, Nov. 30, 2005).

University Chancellor Lawrence Davis Jr. said federal funds would pay for the radios (Associated Press/WREG, Jan. 24).

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Missile Defense Agency Hosts War Games for Congress

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency this week is hosting war games for members of Congress, Reuters reported (see GSN, Jan. 20).

One simulation yesterday involved missile launches by a fictional country named “Midland” that targeted Japan, South Korea and the United States. The United States fired nine interceptors; one failed to launch, resulting in a nuclear strike on the Aleutian Islands in Alaska.

John Isaacs, policy director at the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation, said the war games were aimed at bolstering lawmakers’ support for a “program that is seriously in trouble.”

“If the war games were realistic, an awful lot of the missiles would not get off the ground,” Isaacs said.

Senator Wayne Allard (R-Colo.) expressed support for the system despite repeated intercept test failures in recent years.

“This is tough technology,” he said.

Agency spokesman Rick Lehner said he did not know when U.S. Strategic Command would put the system on alert. The system had been scheduled to be designated ready for military use in 2005.

“It could be available in the event of an emergency, but until all the training and procedures are completed, it’s not ready for 24/7 alert status,” Lehner said (Andrea Shalal-Esa, Reuters/Yahoo!News, Jan. 24).

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Russia Calls for Continuous Operation of Azerbaijani Missile Defense Radar Station

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov yesterday called for the continuous operation of a radar station located in the Azerbaijani city of Qabala that is capable of detecting ballistic missiles launched from the south, the Turan news agency reported (see GSN, Dec. 6, 2005).

Russia rents the Qabala radar station.

“The station has to operate accurately and without interruption. Today we discussed joint measures on making sure that the station continues to operate and gets supplies by train,” said Ivanov following talks with Azerbaijani Defense Minister Safar Abiyev.

“During the talks, we also discussed the Russian initiative to set up a naval group [called] Casfor in the Caspian. Setting up this group could be one of the joint measures of the Caspian states to prevent the threat of terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, to fight illegal arms and drugs trade and protect our own economic interests,” Ivanov said (Turan, Jan. 24).

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Diplomat Says U.N. Disarmament Conference in Crisis

A Swiss diplomat said the U.N. Conference on Disarmament is plagued by infighting and is in a state of crisis, SwissInfo.com reported yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 22, 2005).

The annual conference, which uses negotiation to further nuclear and conventional weapons disarmament, is set to begin next week in Geneva.

“The conference is in a crisis and has been for many years. So our first priority (this year) must be to keep it alive,” said J?rg Streuli, deputy permanent representative of Switzerland to the conference.

Streuli added that in the past, the conference has “proved it can be useful. But at the moment it's not working because of the (attitude of) member states.”

Recent criticism has centered on the conference members’ inability to implement existing treaties.

Some critics argue the conference needs reform. 

“You can change the structures all you like, but as long as the position of the members stays the same it is not going to make any difference,” Streuli said. Countries are unwilling to budge on “different positions and concerns,” he added.

The “main problem,” according to Streuli, is disagreement on Iran. 

“In principle countries are entitled to develop nuclear power for civilian use, but this must be under the strict control of the [International Atomic Energy Agency] and it has to be credible that it is not for military purpose,” he said. “So far I think Iran has not been able to prove that it is engaged in purely civilian research” (Ramsey Zarifeh, SwissInfo.com, Jan. 24).

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