Bioterror Threat Real, Interpol Chief Says

There is no denying the threat of bioterrorism, Interpol chief Ronald Noble said today at a workshop organized by his agency in Singapore (see GSN, March 24).

“Some people still question whether the threat of bioterrorism is real, they question whether it is truly necessary to prepare for it. I have no doubt that the threat is real,” he said.

“If we have the chance to take measures to protect the citizens of our nations, to help reduce the chances of our countries of becoming a target, then we have a duty to do so,” he said. “Police around the world are now also beginning to recognize and respond to this threat.”

The three-day Interpol conference will offer information on laboratory security, forensic efforts and laws aimed at preventing bioterrorism, the Associated Press reported.

Law enforcement agencies should coordinate their efforts against bioterrorism, said Ho Peng Kee, Singapore’s senior minister of state for law and home affairs.

“We may not realize that a biological attack has occurred until days or even weeks later,” he said. “By that time, the terrorist may already have fled the country or succumbed to the biological agent, and all the valuable investigative leads may have disappeared.”

Southeast Asian terror groups have not used biological agents in attacks. However, a Malaysian biochemist has been connected to al-Qaeda’s biological and chemical weapons development efforts, and a manual found in the Philippines indicated that the terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah was interested in using biological of chemical weapons, AP reported (Christopher Torchia, Associated Press, March 27).

High temperatures and population density and inadequate public health infrastructure make Southeast Asia vulnerable to a major bioterrorism incident, AP reported. Countries in the region are subject to quickly spreading infections and epidemics, health officials said.

Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and other nations need to improve laws against bioterrorism, said Barry Kellman, a weapons control expert at the DePaul University College of Law in Chicago.

The United States believes North Korea has a biological weapons program and fears that weak regulations in China could promote proliferation of dual-use technology that could be used to produce biological weapons, AP reported (Christopher Torchia, Associated Press/Washington Post, March 25).

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Pentagon Anthrax Scare Leads to Response Changes

The U.S. Defense Department is making changes to its biological hazard response plans in the wake of the anthrax scares of March 2005, the American Forces Press Service reported Friday (see GSN, April 14, 2005).

An independent laboratory on March 14, 2004, alerted the Pentagon’s mail screening contractor that samples taken March 10 had tested positive for anthrax. However, mail from that day was incorrectly approved for distribution.

Mail at a Defense Department mail facility in Fairfax County, Va., was placed in a biocabinet. However, the amount of mail in the cabinet blocked airflow and caused an alarm to sound. That was mistakenly believed to be indicating the presence of anthrax, according to Ellen Embrey, deputy assistant defense secretary for force health protection and readiness.

On March 18, a testing system indicated that anthrax was present at the Defense Intelligence Agency mailroom at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington.

Additional testing determined that there was no anthrax in any of the facilities.

A report by the RAND Corp. found that: the Pentagon Remote Delivery Facility ensured that personnel were separated from the threat; the Defense Department correctly notified other agencies of the incident which led to quick decisions on treating the public health issues and those potentially exposed to anthrax; and conducted a strong public health response to the incidents.

The Pentagon identified, screened, treated and offered counseling workers who might have been exposed to the agent, Embrey said. More than 800 people had been tested by March 17.

“Once we were notified that anthrax was detected in the Pentagon mail sample, the first concern was the health and safety of those who may have been exposed,” Embrey said.

The primary area for improvement identified by the report was is the speed and coordination of notification, said Michael Donley, administration and management director for the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

“Especially in the Washington area, where there are multiple agency and interagency partners, we need to work harder at the process by which all the necessary folks get contacted in the appropriate timeliness,” he said.

The Pentagon is preparing guidelines for notification procedures and incident command, Donley said. Incident command is to include operations, logistics, communications and public affairs.

The U.S. Health and Human Services Department, Arlington County public health and other relevant agencies would receive earlier notification in the event of a positive or seemingly positive finding, Embrey said.

New rules should require three organizations to certify that mail is free of weapons agents before it can be released, Donley said. Defense Department officials hope that will prevent mail from being delivered before it is proven safe, AFPS reported.

Pentagon mail facilities were rebuilt to better contain threats, Donley said (Sara Wood, American Forces Press Service/U.S. Defense Department, March 24).

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Bush Looked for Non-WMD Reasons for War, Memo Says

U.S. President George W. Bush in January 2003 mentioned several options for forcing a war with Iraq in the absence of weapons of mass destruction, including assassinating Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, the New York Times reported today (see GSN, March 22).

Bush told British Prime Minister Tony Blair during a Jan. 31 meeting that his plans for invasion would not be stopped by lack of a second U.N. resolution on Iraq or inspectors’ inability to find unconventional weapons in the country, according to a memo by David Manning, who was then Blair’s chief foreign policy adviser.

“Our diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning,” according to the memo on the discussion by the two leaders and six leading aides.

“The start date for the military campaign was not penciled in for 10 March,” Manning wrote. “That was when the bombing would begin.”

The meeting occurred five days before then-Secretary of State Colin Powell briefed the U.N. Security Council with evidence of Iraq’s alleged WMD programs. No unconventional weapons have been found since the fall of the Hussein regime.

Blair and Bush noted at the meeting that international inspectors had not found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the Times reported. Bush mentioned several possible plans for leading Iraq into war, according to the memo.

“The U.S. was thinking of flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in U.N. colors,” the memo states. “If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach.”

Bush also said the “U.S. might be able to bring out a defector who would give a public presentation about Saddam’s WMD.”

Another option would be to assassinate Hussein, Bush is noted as saying in the memo.

The British press last month reported on Bush’s proposals. It is not clear in the memo whether the president was speaking in an off-hand fashion, or if the proposals were included in a White House plan, according to the Times. The memo does not indicate how Blair reacted to the potential assassination of Hussein.

National Security Council spokesman Frederick Jones said that Bush’s conversation with Blair did not contradict his public statements in the buildup to the March 2003 invasion.

“While the use of force was a last option, we recognized that it might be necessary and were planning accordingly,” he said.

“Saddam Hussein was given every opportunity to comply, but he chose continued defiance, even after being given one final opportunity to comply or face serious consequences. Our public and private comments are fully consistent” (Don Van Natta Jr., New York Times, March 27).

High-level prewar Iraqi officials doubted whether Baghdad had weapons of mass destruction even as Hussein played up their existence in hopes of preventing an attack by Israel, United Press International reported Saturday.

Hussein adviser Ali Hassan al-Majid — also known as “Chemical Ali” — “was convinced Iraq no longer possessed WMD, but claims many within the ruling circle always believed they did,” according to a report by the Iraqi Perspectives Project at the U.S. Joint Forces Command.

The CIA belief in Iraqi unconventional weapons persuaded one official in Baghdad that they existed, UPI reported.

By late 2002, Hussein was attempting to cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors and to eliminate WMD remnants, the report states.   However, the report also says there is support for U.S. weapons inspectors’ postwar conclusion that Hussein planned to reconstitute chemical, biological or nuclear weapons programs once he was freed from economic sanctions, UPI reported (Pamela Hess, United Press International, March 25).

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Australia to Host PSI Exercise

Australia is scheduled to host a multinational military exercise next week under the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative, Agence France-Presse reported today (see GSN, Aug. 17, 2005).

The program is based on a series of bilateral agreements and aimed at interdicting illicit WMD-related cargo on the high seas. Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States are expected to participate in Pacific Protector 06 on April 6, the Australian Defense Department announced.

The drill is expected to consist of the interception of a ship suspected of carrying weapons of mass destruction, as well as land exercises around Darwin, Australia, the department said in a statement (Agence France-Presse, March 27).

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Iran Reportedly Steps Up Nuclear Work

It is only a matter of days until Iran takes its next steps toward resuming uranium enrichment, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday (see GSN, March 24).

One non-Western official said engineers at the Natanz facility are likely to begin testing vacuum sealing on centrifuges and related equipment in the next couple days. Uranium hexafluoride gas could then be fed two weeks later into a 164-centrifuge cascade, the official said.

Iran has opted to skip the typical testing of individual centrifuges in favor of quickly putting together as many as possible, diplomats told the Times.

They added that Tehran plans to begin assembling more cascades by the middle of next month. Natanz has space for up to six cascades of 164 centrifuges each, according to the Times.

The Institute for Science and International Security is expected to release a report today indicating that Iran might be able to manufacture enough weapon-grade uranium for a crude nuclear device in three years. Institute President David Albright added, however, that such a scenario assumed Iran’s ability to overcome the many technical hurdles that stand in its way.

Gary Samore, a nonproliferation expert at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, said a more likely estimate was four to five years.

Meanwhile, permanent members of the U.N. Security Council remain deadlocked on how to approach the issue, said acting U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Security and Nonproliferation Stephen Rademaker.

“I don’t think anyone can predict if there will be serious action in the Security Council,” Rademaker said last week.

Russia remains suspicious that any involvement of the Security Council would set the stage for military action.

“The Russian concern is with the medium- and long-term plan: ‘Where’s it going?’” said a diplomat from a European Union country. “Even though we say military action is not an option, they have a concern that we’re going down a route that ends up in a single place.”

Securing Russian support for any action is likely to be more difficult following the leak last week of a letter written by John Sawers of the British Foreign Office to his counterparts in France, Germany and the United States. The message indicated that the Western powers were negotiating a position without consulting China and Russia, according to the Times.

However, Mark Fitzpatrick, a nuclear nonproliferation expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said persuading Moscow to support curtailing Iran’s effort to enrich uranium might soon be a moot point.

“Iran is closer and closer to enrichment, so the effort to deny them the capability is rapidly failing,” he said (Rubin/Farley, Los Angeles Times, March 25).

Officials and diplomats at the International Atomic Energy Agency have complained that the United States is inflating the seriousness of Iran’s nuclear progress, the Associated Press reported yesterday.

A senior agency official on Saturday called U.S. claims that an agency briefing last week on Iran’s progress was “pure speculation and misinformation.”

“It comes from people who are seeking a crisis, not a solution” to the standoff, the official said.

A diplomat in Vienna said some U.S. officials were misrepresenting the agency briefing to Vienna-based representatives of the five permanent Security Council members. While the information about Iran’s progress was not new, the U.S. officials claimed “the ... IAEA was blown away by (Iran’s) progress and had the U.S. redefining its timeline” for Iran’s capacity to make its first nuclear weapon down to three years, the diplomat told AP.

Agency inspectors are scheduled to visit Natanz this week, AP reported (George Jahn, Associated Press/Houston Chronicle, March 26).

Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday that Russian and U.S. diplomats were meeting to discuss the Security Council’s inability to agree on a statement regarding Iran’s nuclear program, Agence France-Presse reported.

Rice said she spoke with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday.

“I think [negotiators are] going to meet later today, to try and resolve these differences, because we do need to speak and speak with one voice,” Rice told “Fox News Sunday.”

“But we shouldn’t delay,” she told CNN’s “Late Edition.” “We do need a presidential statement that makes clear to the Iranians what is clear to everyone.”

Rice told NBC that the United States might seek a meeting of the council’s permanent members plus Germany “to talk about charting a course forward” after a statement is adopted (Agence France-Presse I/Yahoo!News, March 26).

Rice is scheduled to travel to Europe this week to discuss the issue, AFP reported Friday.

She is expected in Berlin for meetings Thursday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and is scheduled to go on to France and the United Kingdom, according to AFP (Agence France-Presse II/Yahoo!News, March 24).

Elsewhere, Iran’s top religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, urged Iranians to resist “the enemy’s threats,” AFP reported yesterday.

“A nation will be able to preserve its honor and glory in this case if it resists without retreat,” he told a military gathering.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, meanwhile, reiterated Iran’s intent to pursue nuclear technology.

“The world must know that Iranian nation will not back down even a step from its right on the issue of nuclear technology,” he said (Agence France-Presse III/Yahoo!News, March 26).

“God willing, the Islamic Republic will fully gain access to nuclear energy for peaceful purposes in this (Iranian) year,” he said (Agence France-Presse IV/IranMania.com, March 25).

One U.S.-based Iran expert said Thursday that the issue of uranium enrichment is a way for Iran to assert its regional ambitions, United Press International reported.

“There are issues where they will negotiate but not acquiesce.  If the purpose of the Security Council negotiations is to stop the fuel cycle, then you are not going to get it,” said Ray Takeyh, a senior fellow at the Council for Foreign Relations.

“Unless there [are] a lot of bargaining carrots, Iran will feel as though they are abandoning an essential part of themselves,” said Col. Patrick Lang, former director of Middle East intelligence at the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency.

He also dismissed the option of a commando-style U.S. raid on Iranian facilities.

The “idea that a bunch of guys with machine guns and a bunch of planes” could sufficiently damage Iran’s nuclear program is “just silly,” Lang said.

He said Israel lacks the necessary equipment for an air campaign against key nuclear installations.

“The United States is the only country in the world that has capability of carrying out the estimated thousand strike sorties needed to destroy the Iran’s nuclear program,” he said.

“The objective has to be not to destroy the program, but to set it back a desired number of years,” Lang said.

He cautioned that the United States must assume that Iran has taken into account the likelihood of an air strike and has set up decoys and redundancy programs (Katherine Gypson, United Press International/MENAFN.com, March 26).

Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Washington is not looking for quick military action against Iran, AFP reported.

“Iran is a long way from needing any kind of military solution,” Pace told Turkey’s NTV news channel on Friday.

“The United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia — other countries, certainly the Turkish government — are all working to persuade the Iranian government to function in a way that is not dangerous or threatening to its neighbors, to have power, but not nuclear weapons power,” said Pace.

“There are many more things to be done politically and diplomatically before anybody, any country, considers some kind of a military option,” he added (Agence France-Presse V/Yahoo!News, March 24).

Germany is investigating seven people, mostly Russian nationals, over exports of German nuclear-related equipment to Iran, Reuters reported today.

German authorities seized cash, equipment and records in raids last week, said Benedikt Welfens, spokesman for the prosecutors’ office in Potsdam. The German-made equipment, worth $2.4 million to $3.6 million, was delivered to Iran via Russia, he said.

The equipment could be used “on the margins” of an Iranian nuclear program, Welfens said. He said the exports would be considered illegal if exporters knew that the equipment was destined for Iran.

“We believe one of the firms had knowledge of that,” he said (Reuters/Yahoo!News, March 27).

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ElBaradei Seeks More Security Council Power on Nukes

International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei on Saturday called for the U.N. Security Council to receive increased authority to address the spread of nuclear weapons, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Nov. 16, 2005).

“It is clearly time for the Security Council to be reformed, expanded and strengthened, as part of the current efforts to reform and revitalize the United Nations,” ElBaradei said during a speech in Germany on nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament.

“When dealing with threats of nuclear proliferation and arms control, the Security Council has too often fallen short,” he said.

In the case of Iraq, ElBaradei said the U.N. had for more than 10 years imposed economic sanctions “which were manipulated to the advantage of the ruthless regime in power, and resulted in the death and suffering of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians.”

“The council could not later agree, in 2003, on either the need for or the timing of the use of force in Iraq,” he said.

There has been “little effort to address nuclear proliferation threats in context, by dealing with the drivers of insecurity that give rise to proliferation,” ElBaradei said.

“It has not responded or followed up effectively to the emergence of new countries with nuclear weapons. And it has not exercised its arms limitation mandate,” he added (Agence France-Presse/Channel NewsAsia, March 25).

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Brooks Outlines Strategy to Secure Nuclear Material

U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration chief Linton Brooks said the United States is continuing to fund several programs aimed at preventing terrorists from acquiring or transporting nuclear weapons, USA Today reported today (see GSN, March 24).

The United States is helping Russia modernize security systems at nuclear storage sites through an effort begun in 1991. In addition, Soviet nuclear warheads and weapon-grade plutonium and uranium have been consolidated over the past decade at more secure sites in Russia, Brooks said.

Through the “Megatons to Megawatts” program, Russia has converted 287 tons of highly enriched uranium into reactor fuel sold to U.S. power companies since 1993. An additional 265 tons is set to be converted over the next seven years, Brooks said.

The United States has also assisted Russia and nearby states with installation of nuclear detection equipment at border crossings. The Energy Department “Megaports” initiative is placing cargo-screening devices at four international ports, with plans under way to install systems at another 10 sites, Brooks added (John Diamond, USA Today, March 27).

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Roadblocks Increase for U.S.-Indian Nuclear Deal

Significant opposition in Congress and at the Nuclear Suppliers Group could hamper or even undo U.S. efforts to share nuclear technology with India, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Saturday (see GSN, March 25).

Both bodies must approve the deal, which the Bush administration says would bring India further into the nuclear nonproliferation regime by placing civilian atomic sites under international monitoring. U.S. lawmakers, however, are worried that it would reduce their oversight while promoting nuclear proliferation and India’s nuclear weapons efforts.

“Every day that more questions are asked about this deal is another day toward the deal being placed in jeopardy,” said Representative Edward Markey (D-Mass.). “The more (lawmakers) understand the deal, the more trouble the deal will have.”

A GOP staff member said some Republicans in Congress found that nuclear safeguards on India in the proposed deal were not as strong as expected, potentially allowing India to boosts its nuclear arsenal with little international supervision.

“There is tremendous ambivalence on this,” the staffer told the Chronicle. “We are going to expose some fault lines in this agreement that that White House doesn’t want us to expose, and it may not pass.”

The Nuclear Suppliers Group last week decided not to consider the issue during its annual meeting in May.

“There are several countries that have reservations about the deal,” Markey said. “They are insisting on getting enough time to ask their questions” (James Sterngold, San Francisco Chronicle, March 25).

German Chancellor Angela Merkel also questioned the deal in a recent conversation with U.S. President George W. Bush, the Saudi Press Agency reported.

Merkel worries that Iran would use the agreement as another reason to push forward with its uranium enrichment program, which Western nations fear is setting up development of nuclear weapons, according to Der Spiegel magazine (Saudi Press Agency, March 25).

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China’s Nuclear, Missile Development Destabilizing East Asia, Japanese Report Says

A report released today by a Japanese research institute says China’s growing nuclear weapon and ICBM capabilities are shifting the military advantage in the Taiwan Strait toward Beijing, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Dec. 22).

“It can be said that the military balance between China and Taiwan is moving in a direction advantageous to China as it is rapidly modernizing its nuclear and missile capabilities as well as its navy and air force,” the National Institute for Defense Studies announced.

“Although China is not seeking to become a nuclear power equal to the United States, it is likely to continue increasing its capabilities in intercontinental ballistic missiles as well as short-range ballistic missiles unless it abandons the option of unifying Taiwan by force,” the report says.

The expansion and minimal transparency in China’s defense spending is also more generally a “destabilizing factor in East Asia,” the report states.

“It is necessary to pay attention to the progress in China's nuclear capability and ballistic missile development, as well as China’s statements about them and China’s views on the United States,” it adds (Agence France-Presse, March 27).

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U.S. Needs Support for Port Security, Company Says

A Hong Kong firm set to receive the $6 million contract to operate a U.S.-supplied radiation detector at a port in the Bahamas said the United States will need support from private entities to screen cargo around the world, the Associated Press reported Saturday (see GSN, March 24).

The United States cannot reasonably expect to place its own personnel at all foreign ports that ship material to the United States, said John Meredith, group managing director for a subsidiary of Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. Instead, trustworthy companies and foreign governments will have to perform some of the work, he said.

Questions have been raised about the potential for cargo screeners to accept cash from terrorists in exchange for sensitive information about the radiation scanner, and about Hutchison Chairman Li Ka-shing’s connections to China.

Meredith said filming inspectors as they examine cargo is one component of Hutchison’s widespread internal security work. He also rejected concerns about Li, AP reported.

“It’s unfair to go and chop a guy up because he knows people,” Meredith said. “He’s a 100-percent self-made businessman. He’s respected by heads of state everywhere.”

U.S. customs personnel have already been placed at 43 foreign ports through the Container Security Initiative. They work alongside local officials who conduct the actual screening and inspection of cargo, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman Kristi Clemens.

U.S. Senator Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) toured the company’s port in Hong Kong on Saturday.

“The [radiation screening] technology is there and we’ve seen in first hand,” he said. “It is impressive and it does the job. They have a program where every container can be inspected for nuclear weapons.”

While Schumer said he did not object to having a foreign company handle the Bahamas detector, he said U.S. customs agents should still be placed at the port (William Foreman, Associated Press/Washington Post, March 25).

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