Interpol Chief Calls for Increased Southeast Asian Cooperation on Preventing Bioterror

Southeast Asian nations need to boost their cooperation against the threat of bioterrorism, the head of Interpol said yesterday (see GSN, March 27).

While the organization does not know of any specific threats, terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda have trained for biological warfare in Afghanistan, said Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble.

“I have no idea where a bioterrorist attack would occur but what we do know is that al-Qaeda was based in Asia,” Noble said at a bioterrorism preparedness conference in Singapore, according to Agence France-Presse.

“The threat is real because al-Qaeda and the terrorist groups continue to talk about mass casualties,” he said.

Noble said al-Qaeda training in Afghanistan “involved discussions, planning and engaging in bioterrorist attacks.”

He said tougher legislation, improved police training and regional information sharing are needed, AFP reported (see GSN, Feb. 17).

“What needs to be done is first, countries need to determine whether or not their laws permit police and prosecutors to investigate activities that could result in the actual manufacture of bioterrorist weapons,” Noble said.

“Legislation is absolutely important,” he said (Agence France-Presse/Khaleej Times, March 27).

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U.S. Supreme Court Refuses Anthrax Defamation Appeal

The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday refused a request by the New York Times to block a defamation suit filed by former Army scientist Steven Hatfill, who was reported in the newspaper as a “person of interest” in the 2001 anthrax attacks, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Nov. 11, 2005).

Authorities have not determined who was responsible for the mailings. Then-Attorney General John Ashcroft designated Hatfill as a “person of interest,” but the scientist was never charged.

A federal court had dismissed the lawsuit claiming that Times columnist Nicholas Kristof defamed Hatfill by writing that the FBI did not properly investigate the scientist. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the case and the Supreme Court yesterday declined to consider the lawsuit.

The Associated Press, along with about other 30 news organizations, asked the court to better define free-speech protections.

“Reporting on government investigations is critical to the public's ability to evaluate how their elected and appointed officials are executing the responsibility of enforcing the laws and protecting the peace,” wrote attorney Paul Smith in a brief for the news organizations.

Christopher Wright, Hatfill’s attorney, said Kristof’s reporting was riddled with errors and was irresponsible for claiming that Hatfill had failed polygraph tests.

The case will now return to a federal court in Northern Virginia, the site of Hatfiill’s original defamation suit (Gina Holland, Associated Press/San Diego Union-Tribune, March 28).

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France Preparing for Bioterror

French Health Minister Xavier Bertrand last week outlined the country’s bioterrorism preparedness efforts, the Liberation newspaper reported yesterday (see GSN, March 27).

France has “65 million days’ worth of preventive antibiotic treatment; a million days’ worth of remedial treatment against plague, tularemia and anthrax; 72 million smallpox vaccines” stored at 13 hospitals, Bertrand said. 

“Health monitoring must cover all risks, the terrorist threat remaining a priority, alongside avian influenza,” he said. “The water networks of the country’s 16 largest city areas are permanently monitored.”

Paris has allocated nearly $28 million this year for its Biotox emergency response plan for a WMD event, Liberation reported.

One armed forces regiment has also been designated to focus on countering the WMD threat, according to Liberation (Jean-Dominique Merchet, Liberation/BBC Monitoring, March 27).

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Experts Say Australians Not Ready for Terror Attack

An Australian emergency response official said today that citizens there are unprepared for a terrorist attack and should receive emergency training so they do not have to rely on government authorities, the Australian Associated Press reported (see GSN, Dec. 15, 2005).

“Communities today should not be passive recipients of services, but should be active participants in determining their own safety outcomes,” said Bruce Esplin, emergency services commission for Victoria.

“Being aware and alert by having personal plans in place can be the difference between experiencing a scare and being part of a tragedy,” he added.

Western Australia Fire and Emergency Services Authority Director Kevin Cuneo said that first responders often did not know what they were responding to when called to emergencies.

He said “fear of the unknown” stopped emergency responders from properly performing their job when called for chemical, biological or explosives incidents.

“During responses to ... incidents, some emergency service personnel are unwilling to commit in times of uncertainty due to the lack of understanding of what they are dealing with and the recognition of acceptable risk,” he said in a statement. “This has also been demonstrated a number of times during the national counterterrorism exercise program. 

“It is a major issue facing all of those involved in emergency response,” Cuneo said (Australian Associated Press/Yahoo!News, March 28).

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Posting of Iraq Documents Unleashes Speculation

U.S. National Intelligence Director John Negroponte’s office has started posting online Hussein regime documents confiscated by U.S. troops in Iraq, the New York Times reported today (see GSN, March 27).

Only 600 of what could be a million documents and media files have been posted in the first two weeks of the yearlong project. However, some conservative bloggers have seized on snippets of information to confirm prewar theories about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and deposed President Saddam Hussein’s alleged al-Qaeda connections.

One blogger quoted a document on a scheme to put anthrax into U.S. leaflets dropped in Iraq.  

“Saddam’s WMD and terrorist connections all proven in one document!!!” he wrote

U.S. intelligence officials dispute such conclusions.

“Our view is there’s nothing in here that changes what we know today,” said a senior U.S. intelligence official. “There is no smoking gun on WMD, al-Qaeda, those kinds of issues.”

The documents have been posted on a U.S. Foreign Military Studies Office Web page. Most have yet to be translated from Arabic to English.

Arabic linguists reviewed all the documents, at least briefly, officials said. The documents do not change the government’s stand, they said. Negroponte’s office also attached a disclaimer, saying Washington does not vouch for their authenticity.

One administration official said there was little potential harm in releasing the files, the Times reported.

“If anyone in the intelligence community thought there was valid information in those documents that supported either of those questions — WMD or al-Qaeda — they would have shouted them from the rooftops,” the official said.

However, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), who pushed to have the documents released, believes they warrant further study. Hoekstra said his intent was to “unleash the power of the Net” to complete translation and analysis.

“People today ought to be able to have a closer look inside Saddam’s regime,” he said.

Some intelligence analysts are highly critical of that view, according to the Times.

“There’s no quality control,” said Michael Scheuer, a former CIA terrorism specialist. “You’ll have guys out there with a smattering of Arabic drawing all kinds of crazy conclusions. Rush Limbaugh will cherry-pick from the right, and Al Franken will cherry-pick from the left” (Scott Shane, New York Times, March 28).

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Indian Foreign Secretary in U.S. to Promote Nuclear Deal

Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran was expected to arrive in Washington today as part of an effort to sell the Indian-U.S. nuclear sharing agreement to U.S. lawmakers, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, March 27).

Saran is to meet with lawmakers and State Department officials. His visit is expected to be followed by a number of Indian ministers who will meet with U.S. officials, and speak at think tanks, business gatherings and press conferences in Washington. These officials are expected to argue that the United States must approve the deal if India is to meet growing energy demands.

Lawmakers are expected to ask difficult questions about the deal, as some are worried that it could undermine international nonproliferation efforts.

Congress had little involvement in preparing the deal, according to Jon Wolfsthal, a nonproliferation analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Visits from Indian officials will give members of Congress the opportunity to ask questions on issues the White House has called deal-breakers, such as pressing New Delhi to agree to halt nuclear material production.

Lawmakers “are going to want to find out for themselves where the limits of Indian flexibility are,” Wolfsthal said.

U.S. Institute of Peace South Asia analyst Christine Fair said the Indian officials “know they have an uphill battle.”

“There are a lot of skeptics in Congress who do not believe that we need to have a nuclear deal inked with the Indians for our relationship with the Indians to go forward,” Fair said.

The Washington meetings indicate that the State Department does not “think they can sell this thing alone,” said Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. “They need all the help they can get.”

A bill has been introduced on Capitol Hill that would allow India to receive civilian nuclear technology the United States despite not having submitted to full nuclear inspections. New Delhi has refused to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and join the international nonproliferation regime, according to AP (Foster Klug, Associated Press/Baltimore Sun, March 27).

U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said yesterday he is open to ideas from lawmakers “as long as they don't require us to go back and break the agreement, reopen negotiations,” AFX News reported.

“We frankly think it is such a complex deal and we probably won't be able to put it back together again” if new demands are made by Congress, Burns said at a Council on Foreign Relations event.

Representative Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) has said that lawmakers could only give conditional support to the deal. Lawmakers “may seek conditions” for the approval of the deal, he said. 

“This is a complex agreement with profound implications for U.S. and global interests. Congress will need to take a close look at its many provisions in order to come to an informed decision,” he added.

Burns said the White House would consider ideas that would “strengthen” the agreement.

“If members of Congress have ideas that would not be deal breakers or require us to renegotiate, and they think and we think those ideas can strengthen the arrangement, we are all ears,” Burns said. 

He added that “there is a difference between ideas or conditions that are meant to strengthen the agreement and ideas or conditions that are meant to essentially have us go back and renegotiate it.

“And I said we are open to the former and not to the latter,” he said (AFX News/Forbes.com, March 28).

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Little Movement at U.N. Security Council Informal Talks on Iran Nuclear Controversy

Envoys from the U.N. Security Council’s five permanent members yesterday held two rounds of inconclusive informal talks on the Iranian nuclear crisis, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, March 27).

In between yesterday’s morning and afternoon sessions, the delegates from China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States met with envoys from the 10 other council members, diplomats told AFP. The five ambassadors said they planned to meet again morning. 

“We don’t have a deal but we continued our discussions, we will continue them and we edged forward. ... But it’s edging forward,” said British U.N. Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry.

Chinese Ambassador Wang Guangya said there was minimal progress despite several new proposals from the European and Russian delegates. “We will refer back to capitals and come back tomorrow,” he said.

Japanese Ambassador Kenzo Oshima said he did not expect any consensus to emerge prior to Thursday’s planned meeting in Berlin of foreign ministers from the five powers and Germany.

“If they are to meet Thursday in Berlin, one would expect as the most likely ... that there will be no agreement before that,” Oshima said. “It’s not easy” (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, March 28).

U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said yesterday that lack of consensus at the United Nations would not stop the Berlin meeting from happening, the Associated Press reported.

U.S. officials have indicated that the meeting had been intended to examine “next steps” beyond the U.N. statement on Iran. Some speculation has emerged, however, that Western powers would switch gears and push for a strong resolution, forcing China and Russia to either veto the move or abstain.

“Right now we’re working on the presidential statement. That’s where the focus of our energies is,” McCormack said (Beth Gardiner, Associated Press/Pravda, March 28).

International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei yesterday called on Tehran to fully suspend uranium enrichment work and resume negotiations with the European Union, Reuters reported.

“We are not in a position today to say that (Iran’s nuclear) program is exclusively for peaceful purposes,” ElBaradei said after meeting with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

“We would like Iran to suspend its enrichment program,” he said.

ElBaradei said he hoped adoption of a Security Council statement would push all parties to the negotiating table (Louis Charbonneau, Reuters, March 27).

German Deputy Foreign Minister Gernot Erler said today that Tehran should freeze all uranium enrichment-related activity for the time being, Reuters reported.

Erler said a proposal released last month by the International Crisis Group that would allow Iran to keep a limited enrichment capability after a waiting period and more intrusive inspections could be a solution to the standoff.

“I was very impressed by the ICG proposals. I think we can consider these proposals but only on the basis that we have a united and common position in the Security Council,” he said.

Iran’s ambassador to the agency said the EU powers had rejected an offer earlier this month whereby Tehran would have suspended industrial-scale enrichment and continued only nuclear fuel research.

“Iran has been and still is ready to go for negotiations,” said Ali Asghar Soltanieh (Louis Charbonneau, Reuters, March 28).

Meanwhile, analysts said that resolving the standoff would require several rounds of negotiations, U.N. diplomacy and possibly direct U.S. contact with Iran, the Christian Science Monitor reported today.

“My guess is that something like ‘smart sanctions,’ that are essentially limited to making life less agreeable for the Iranian regime, would take three diplomatic cycles [at the U.N.] and are six months to a year out,” said James Dobbins, director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at the RAND Corp. “That means anything like (economic) sanctions or legitimized military action is pretty far away.”

While the Bush administration appears to be counting on a diplomatic solution, one analyst said Washington seems unwilling to take the initiative.

“The U.S.-Iran relationship would have to change dramatically,” said Ray Takeyh of the Council on Foreign Relations. Iran would want “a reduction of its strategic anxieties” (Howard LaFranchi, Christian Science Monitor, March 28).

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Australia Close to Uranium Sale Deal with China

A deal for Australia to sell uranium to China could be finalized next week, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, March 14).

Australian Prime Minister John Howard said today that talks have focused on Australia’s condition that the material be used only for energy purposes.

“We have made very good progress,” he said. “It's possible that the discussions could be satisfactorily concluded so that something could be said or signed when the Chinese premier visits Australia next week.”

A Chinese official said two deals were close to being signed — one that allows the export of uranium to China and another that allows China to participate in uranium mining and exploration in Australia.

The agreements are expected to be signed during Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s visit to Australia, which is scheduled to begin Saturday, said Chinese Foreign Ministry official Liu Jieyi.

The agreements address “the peaceful use of nuclear energy” and would meet International Atomic Energy Agency standards, Liu added.

Howard also has not ruled out allowing uranium sales to India, which is now forbidden because it has not signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The prime minister added that Canberra was “not contemplating” a change in that policy, AFP reported.

He said a delegation of Australian officials would visit India and the United States in April to discuss details of a planned nuclear technology sharing agreement between New Delhi and Washington (Agence France Presse/TODAYOnline.com, March 28).

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U.S. Allows for Possible Discussion of Financial Sanctions at North Korea Nuclear Talks

The United States yesterday left open the possibility of discussing financial issues it has previously said are off the table at multilateral nuclear disarmament talks with North Korea, the Yonhap News Agency reported (see GSN, March 24).

A U.S. State Department official said yesterday that, while the stalled negotiations should focus on the nuclear issue, participants “can bring up whatever they want to in the six-party talks.”

Pyongyang has said it would boycott nuclear talks until the United States retracts penalties Washington says were imposed on North Korean entities in retaliation for illicit financial activities (Yonhap News Agency, March 28).

North Korea warned today that U.S. pressure tactics would not work, the Associated Press reported.

“The U.S. is calculating that it can achieve its intended purpose if it ties up our hands and legs and stifles us,” the officials Minju Joson newspaper announced. “This is a policy error and mistake that can be committed only by the Bush administration that belittles the other side and has overconfidence in itself.”

“We make this clear that the U.S. will pay a high price for all consequences.”

Pyongyang also urged Washington to give “us nuclear cooperation too,” apparently referring to a pending civilian nuclear technology sharing agreement with India, AP reported (Jae-Soon Chang, Associated Press/China Post, March 28).

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Tokyo Court Rejects Sarin Attack Mastermind Appeal

The Tokyo High Court yesterday rejected the death sentence appeal by the leader of the cult released the nerve agent sarin in the Japanese city’s subway system in 1995, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, March 24).

The court ruled the appeal invalid because lawyers for Aum Supreme Truth leader Shoko Asahara failed to submit it before the Aug. 31, 2005, deadline.

The court can now move to confirm the death sentence. Asahara’s lawyers, however, vowed continued legal action. 

“The decision is literally outrageous and can never be condoned,” a defense lawyer said in a statement. “We will immediately appeal the decision which is deemed invalid.”

Lawyers said they missed the deadline because they could not communicate with Asahara, who would speak only gibberish.

“The court should suspend the trial and provide treatment to the defendant. It is clear that they intend to bury everything in oblivion,” the statement said (Agence France-Presse, March 27).

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Missile Defense Agency Reportedly Blocks Auditors

The U.S. Defense Department’s Inspector General’s Office has accused the Missile Defense Agency of standing in the way of its auditing procedures over the last two years, United Press International reported yesterday (see GSN, May 19).

Investigators last year received only 49 of 245 documents requested within five business days while conducting one audit, and were given only two of 94 documents within that period during an audit in 2004.

The Inspector General’s Office said delays resulted in suspension of another audit for 24 days, Federal Computer Week reported yesterday.

The Defense Department has mandated that the Inspector General’s Office is to have “expeditious and unrestricted access to, and, when required, copies of all records, reports, investigations, audits, documents, papers, recommendations or other material.” However, the Missile Defense Agency has a document-release policy that conflicts with that mandate, the Inspector General’s office said. The agency’s policy states that it must be given up to 10 business days to provide documents, and auditors need to coordinate requests through the agency and its general counsel.

The Inspector General’s Office said the agency’s procedures caused unreasonable delays in submission of documents, according to Federal Computer Week (Martin Sieff, United Press International/SpaceWar.com, March 27).

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GAO Gets Radioactive Material Across U.S. Borders

The U.S. Government Accountability Office in an undercover investigation last year smuggled small amounts of cesium 137 into the United States using counterfeit documents, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, March 2).

The material, used in industrial gauges, set off radiation alarms but was still allowed through border crossings into Texas and Washington state. Enough material was smuggled to make two “radiological” dirty bombs. 

The White House has vowed that within the next 45 days it will give U.S. Customs and Border Protection the tools it needs to determine a document’s authenticity.

U.S. senators were expected at a hearing today to examine security problems uncovered by the GAO investigation. 

The office also labeled as “unlikely” the Homeland Security Department’s goal of installing 3,034 radiation detectors by September 2009 around the United States. It also found that the cost of installation is likely to be $342 million more than expected. From October 2000 to October 2005, about $286 million was spent on installation of the devices at U.S. mail facilities, border crossings, seaports and airports.

“We suffer from a massive ‘blind spot’ in our cargo security measures,” said Senator Norm Coleman (R-Minn.).

He added that the investigation “demonstrated that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is stuck in a pre-9/11 mind-set in a post-9/11 world and must modernize its procedures.”

However, the commission maintained that nuclear security was a priority.

“Security has been of prime importance for us on the materials front and the power plant front since 9/11,” said commission spokesman David McIntyre.

To smuggle cesium across the border, GAO officials posed as employees of a fake company and attempted to cross from Canada and Mexico into the United States. 

When stopped, they presented counterfeit papers and Nuclear Regulatory Commission documents that indicated they were allowed to have and transport the cesium. The agents who confronted the investigators were not able to check whether the documents were authentic, the accountability office found.

“Unless nuclear smugglers in possession of faked license documents raised suspicions in some other way, CBP officers could follow agency guidelines yet unwittingly allow them to enter the country with their illegal nuclear cargo,” the investigators said, adding that the problem is “a significant gap” in national safety protocol.

The cesium would have had limited effect if used in a weapon, said Vayl Oxford, chief of the Homeland Security Department’s Domestic Nuclear Detection Office.

The accountability found that while radiation false alarms are common, customs inspectors generally are proficient in distinguishing actual alarms. Ceramics, fertilizer, bananas and patients who have undergone certain medical procedures can cause false alarms (Liz Sidoti, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, March 28).

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