New Jersey Looks to Improve Biological Safeguards

New Jersey officials are looking for better ways to protect sensitive biological materials stored at state laboratories after facilities have been unable to account for vials of anthrax and plague-infected mice, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, April 24).

The two incidents occurred at separate laboratories in the last year. In both cases, authorities said it appeared the materials had not been lost but remained unaccounted for because of clerical missteps. However, they cannot be sure that is the case.

“The fact that they don't know the answer means they're not running a properly secured facility,” said Rutgers University microbiologist Richard Ebright. “The odds are that it was an accounting error, but it is very possible that one of the persons with access to the lab has removed that material.”

The FBI is investigating both incidents but believes no crimes have occurred, AP reported. The New Jersey Health Department is expected to report today on whether the missing anthrax is due to clerical errors.

New Jersey Homeland Security Director Richard Canas said that while it looks like the missing vials are a result of clerical error, better safeguards are needed.

“I think the genesis was that [laboratories] were inundated with samples” following the 2001 anthrax attacks. “What I would like to see is bringing this number down. Let's at least cull these down into something more manageable.”

More than 300 institutions and 16,500 individuals around the country have been cleared to handle dangerous biological agents in recent years, Ebright said.

“After the mailings in 2001, the logical approach was to tightly restrict the number of institutions and officials with access to the materials,” he said. “Precisely the opposite has happened, unfortunately. This is a case when we've spent money to put ourselves at greater risk.”

He recommended that all dangerous biological agents in the United States be stored in one place.

“If an adversary of the United States, such as al-Qaeda, wanted to obtain this material, the most effective, simple procedure to do so is to plant a person in one of those numerous institutions that the administration has put in place working with this material. Because the number of those institutions has increased and because it happened without an increase in effective security, the risk to the United States has dramatically increased,” he said (Associated Press/Fox News, April 25).

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U.S. House Begins Debate on Intelligence Budget

The U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to begin debate today on the fiscal 2007 intelligence authorization bill, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, April 20).

The House Intelligence Committee unanimously approved the bill, which would provide $1 billion for the national intelligence director’s office and billions more in funding for other intelligence agencies. The legislation is likely to be passed by the full House, according to AP.

Representative Jane Harman (Calif.), the Intelligence Committee’s top Democrat, and Representative Leonard Boswell (D-Iowa) are seeking an amendment requiring National Intelligence Director John Negroponte to provide classified updates on Iran’s nuclear program every three months to congressional intelligence committees.

The House Rules Committee, however, blocked that measure from being considered during today’s debate (Katherine Shrader, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, April 26).

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U.S. Defense Department Seeks Greater WMD Secrecy

A U.S. Defense Department spending request to Congress contains a provision that would exempt all information relating to WMD programs or threats from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act, Cox News Service reported today (see GSN, April 21).

The Pentagon said the measure is designed to prevent terrorists from obtaining sensitive information. 

It would allow the department to keep secret any document that discusses a threat that could affect a significant number of people — a definition of weapons of mass destruction so broad that it could inhibit the delivery of crucial information to state and local governments, as well as conceal safety records at U.S. laboratories and plants, said Rick Blum, coordinator of the Sunshine in Government Initiative.

The exemption would block access to information about possible health threats and U.S. terrorism protection plans, Blum said. 

“The scope of the proposal is enormous,” said Steve Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the American Federation of Scientists. “It would allow the Defense Department to withhold any information having to do with chemicals or radiation, not just what we think of as WMD.”

The Senate Armed Services Committee has not started debate on the spending request that contains the measure, said Charlie Abell, majority staff director for the panel. Drafting is scheduled to begin Tuesday.

“I would tell you that I think we found it a little broad,” said Abell, referring to the WMD measure. 

Representative Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) said the measure illustrates the Bush administration’s inclination toward secrecy.

“This provision is another covert attempt to exempt information from public disclosure,” he said (Cox New Service/Chattanooga Times Free Press, April 26).

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Warhead Program Undermines U.S. Nuclear Deterrent, Critics Say

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — U.S. Energy Department and national nuclear laboratory officials in recent years have wrongly undermined confidence in the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal with statements intended to promote development of a new stockpile of more “reliable” warheads, nongovernmental critics said this month (see GSN, March 31).

While U.S. officials have given no indication that there is anything wrong with the reliability of the arsenal today, they have repeatedly postulated future problems to argue a need for developing new weapons.

“The path we are currently on — successive refurbishments of the Cold War legacy stockpile — presents increased risk in our being able to assure high confidence in the continued safety and reliability of that stockpile over the very long term (many decades) without nuclear testing,” an official with the DOE National Nuclear Security Administration, said today by e-mail.

A key congressional committee appears to have been convinced that the existing arsenal needs to be eventually junked and replaced by a fleet of “Reliable Replacement Warheads” that have yet to be designed, developed, or assessed for their feasibility, critics said.

“They’re beginning to erode the confidence of the [House Appropriations Committee], just by this suggestive language, despite any evidence in the public domain that there’s anything wrong with the stockpile,” Robert Nelson, senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in a recent interview.

Even the name of the proposed new program suggests a reliability problem with the existing arsenal. “I guess it’s one of those things that if you start to repeat it enough” it becomes conventional wisdom, he said.

Nelson and other critics noted a statement by the House Appropriations Committee in its report last year on the fiscal 2006 energy and water development bill, which said the panel’s confidence in stockpile maintenance is wavering and recommended reducing investment in that effort and increasing funding for the Reliable Replacement Warhead program.

“Congressional testimony by [National Nuclear Security Administration] officials is beginning to erode the confidence of the committee that the science-based stockpile stewardship is performing as advertised,” the committee said, according to a Congressional Research Service report published in March.

It recommended “redirect[ing] ASCI [Advanced Simulation and Computing] funding to maintain current life extension production capabilities pending the initiation of the Reliable Replacement Warhead program.”

The ASCI program is considered a core component of the Energy Department’s existing Stockpile Stewardship Program in light of a U.S. nuclear test moratorium, intended to enable researchers to model and certify how aging and refurbished weapons and components would work.

Overall, the committee recommended cutting stockpile support work by $137 million for fiscal 2006 from $1.283 billion and concluded the Reliable Replacement Warhead program would provide “reliable nuclear deterrence” and a smaller stockpile by 2025, the CRS report said.

“It’s like they’re undercutting the very program that is intended to maintain the current arsenal in order to build up the RRW program … so you’re getting what you asked for,” Nelson said.

“One way to make it [the Reliable Replacement Warhead program] look more appealing is to eliminate the alternatives,” said physicist Richard Garwin, at an event yesterday sponsored by the Arms Control Association.

Other key committees were more conservative, approving $25 million for a Reliable Replacement Warhead study but not recommending cuts such as suggested by the House Appropriations Committee. 

Ultimately, congressional appropriators opted to increase funding by about $100 million for the stockpile work, though they cut ASCI funding for by $54 million.

Latest Assessment

The Reliable Replacement Warhead program is in its infancy and the Energy Department is working to determine whether the concept is feasible. 

The program would involves developing new warheads comprised mainly of existing, already proven parts, which supposedly would avoid a need to resume nuclear testing to certify their capability and reliability. 

The warheads would be designed to less exacting specifications than those of the arsenal designed during the Cold War, enabling greater reliability, U.S. officials have said.

The Energy Department argued in a report to Congress earlier this year that the program is needed because there are concerns by the directors of the Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos, and Sandia national laboratories, as well as at the U.S. Strategic Command, that the existing arsenal cannot remain reliable over an extended period.

“The current approach to nuclear stockpile sustainment — successive refurbishments of existing warheads that were developed during the Cold War — may not be the right path to achieve long-term sustainability of the stockpile,” it said.

“Evolution away from tested designs, resulting from the inevitable accumulations of small changes over the extended lifetimes of these highly optimized systems, is what gives rise to this concern. Also important, warhead components designed, built, and fielded with 1970s technology are increasingly difficult and costly to remanufacture,” it said.

The report added, “Improved warhead performance margins will sustain confidence in reliability, reduce uncertainty due to long-term aging, and reduce the likelihood that underground nuclear testing will be required in the future to resolve a technical problem in the stockpile.”

The department’s National Nuclear Security Administration is conducting a Reliable Replacement Warhead design competition as part of a technical feasibility study that also will evaluate the concept’s potential costs and ability to produce weapons that would not require nuclear testing for certification (see GSN, April 25). The study is scheduled for completion in November.

Critics of the Reliable Replacement Warhead program question whether the program could increase sustainability to an already reliable arsenal, in light of the stated objective that newly designed weapons would not be subjected to nuclear testing.

The current arsenal is based on 60 years of research and more than 1,000 nuclear tests, Nelson said, adding that existing weapons’ parts can be remanufactured “to their original specifications.”

Critics have also noted an objective of the proposed program is to provide an infrastructure available for developing new weapons capabilities. They fear the program would put the United States back into the nuclear weapons development business, mostly abandoned with the end of the Cold War, and potentially reignite a relatively dormant qualitative nuclear arms competition among the major powers.

Officials “will sooner or later call for a political demand for testing, and that will open the floodgates for the Russians and the Chinese,” the latter of which “can make real improvements” to their arsenal as they have only conducted 43 tests, Garwin said.

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Bush Administration Expresses Concern on Iranian Intention to Share Nuclear Technology

Iran’s stated intention to share its nuclear technology with other nations is a cause for concern, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday (see GSN, April 25).

We “have to be concerned when there are statements from Iran that Iran would not only have this technology, but would share it, share technology and expertise,” said Rice, traveling in Turkey.

“That’s one of the fears, that there would be that kind of escape, if you will, of technology and expertise,” she said, according to the Associated Press.

Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said his country was “against the expansion of nuclear arms in our region” and that he hoped “this issue is solved peacefully as a result of diplomatic efforts.”

Earlier in Greece, Rice did not receive the support she sought for sanctions again Tehran.

“We believe there must be coordination within the European Union, and decisions will be taken within the framework of the Security Council,” said Greek Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis (Anne Gearan, Associated Press/ABCNews.com, April 26).

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton yesterday said Iran’s threat to share nuclear technology was worrisome, Agence France-Presse reported.

“It shows how irresponsible Iran is and why it represents, in our view, a grave threat of proliferation,” Bolton said. “This is exactly the kind of conduct we have feared, exactly the kind of conduct that risks the spread of nuclear technology and ultimately the spread of nuclear weapons” (Agence France-Presse I/Yahoo!News, April 25).

U.S. officials have said an International Atomic Energy Agency report to the United Nations due Friday is certain to find that Iran has failed to comply with agency and Security Council demands that it halt uranium enrichment, AFP reported today.

However, tough Security Council action remains unlikely in the face of opposition from permanent members Russia and China. Washington has in turn redoubled its lobbying efforts for action outside the council framework. It has suggested implementation of asset freezes, travel restrictions on Iranian leaders or trade restrictions. 

Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns urged an embargo on weapons-related technology sales to Tehran, while Undersecretary of State Robert Joseph pressed Arab countries to crack down on Iranian bank accounts and front companies and to intercept suspect shipments.

“We’re just talking about the reality of how the world works and diplomacy works,” Burns said. “You have to work through a variety of channels.”

France and the United Kingdom are expected in the coming weeks to introduce a resolution under Chapter 7 of the U.N. charter, which authorizes possible sanctions or force, AFP reported (Peter Mackler, Agence France-Presse II, April 26).

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said today that Iran would ignore all Security Council demands to halt its nuclear program, AFP reported.

“We won’t back down one iota on our lawful and inalienable rights,” he said.

Meanwhile, the head of Iran’s nuclear agency, Gholamreza Aghazadeh, was in Vienna “for technical talks” with IAEA deputy chief Olli Heinonen, said agency spokeswoman Melissa Fleming. 

Aghazadeh is also due to meet with Director General Mohamed ElBaradei, one diplomat said.

“The Iranians are coming here to provide information. If they do, they might get to see ElBaradei, otherwise there is nothing to talk about,” said another diplomat.

The first diplomat said the Iranian visit “doesn’t mean much.” ElBaradei was “upset” that Iran rejected his personal appeal in Tehran earlier this month to comply with agency demands, the diplomat said.

Iran has proposed to continue only the work it has begun while temporarily forgoing expansion of its enrichment program. Diplomats said Aghazadeh may revisit this idea (Michael Adler, Agence France-Presse III/Yahoo!News, April 26).

Iran’s top clerical leader said today that Tehran would retaliate against U.S. interests worldwide if Washington launches an attack on Iran, Reuters reported.

“The Americans should know that if they assault Iran their interests will be harmed anywhere in the world that is possible,” said Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “The Iranian nation will respond to any blow with double the intensity” (Alireza Ronaghi, Reuters, April 26).

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Russia Delivers Nuclear Fuel to India

Russia has delivered fuel for two Indian nuclear reactors, despite a request from the United States to delay the transaction, Reuters reported yesterday (see GSN, March 20).

The United States had asked that the delivery be delayed until Nuclear Suppliers Group rules were changed to unambiguously allow the sale. Some experts said the deal violates international law.

The delivery came as U.S. Congress is considering whether to approve a deal that would allow the United States to share nuclear technology with India. The Nuclear Suppliers Group must also approve the deal.

A senior U.S. official said that the fuel “has been delivered but it has not yet been used. It's in a storage facility.”

“This kind of activity should not take place, in our view, until the NSG has acted. It's not good precedent,” the official said.

He added that while the fuel transfer is an “irritant … (it) has not been a major issue.”

“Russia has clearly violated NSG rules,” said Arms Control Association Director Daryl Kimball. “This is a further step towards the erosion of the NSG guidelines and the United States must speak out more strongly against Russia and India pursuing this.”

India and Russia announced the uranium fuel transfer agreement last month. Moscow invoked the suppliers group’s “safety exemption clause” which allows for a fuel transfer to reactors that pose a potential hazard by running out of fuel.

However, nonproliferation experts reject this claim, saying the reactors would be shut down, not refueled, if there was a danger. 

The United States argued that “there is no immediate safety concern ... but you could make a case in the next year or two that there could be safety problem,” the official said (Carol Giacomo, Reuters I, April 25).

Meanwhile, Indian Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said that New Delhi’s self-imposed nuclear testing moratorium should reduce concerns that U.S. lawmakers have about approving the nuclear agreement, Reuters reported.

“I'm quite confident of this because ... India has accepted these principles,” he said.

The testing issue has emerged as a major obstacle in completion of the deal, according to Reuters.

U.S. officials and experts have said that the deal does not require India to commit to stop testing, but gives the United States the right to stop cooperation if a test occurs.

“If the Indians mean what they say (about not testing), they should have no quibble with this provision,” Kimball said.

He added that if the administration backs away from this provision, “it would be giving India more favorable treatment.”

Shinde said that the world supported the deal. “I think that in the course of time even the American senators, regardless of party, will [back the deal],” he said (Reuters II, New York Times, April 25).

Elsewhere, the first senior-level nonproliferation talks between India and Japan are scheduled to begin Monday, Kyodo News reported. Such talks are expected to be conducted annually.

The U.S.-Indian nuclear agreement is likely to be discussed, along with the status of India’s missile development and reductions of chemical and biological weapons.

Japan is expected to ask India to step up its disarmament efforts, a Japanese official said (Kyodo News/Yahoo!News, April 26).

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Analysts See North Korea Nuclear Talks Sinking

Some analysts believe the six-nation negotiations on North Korea’s nuclear ambitions appear to have been a failed process, the Financial Times reported yesterday (see GSN, April 24).

“I don’t think anything is going to come out of the six-party talks,” said Joel Wit, a North Korea specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “At best it will become something where people meet every seven or eight months and nothing happens. At worst, they won’t meet again.”

None the parties seems eager to resume negotiations, the Times reported.

“The resumption of the talks can’t be an end in itself,” said Chun Yung-woo, South Korea’s chief negotiator. “The best way to use this available time is to do our homework and prepare for progress when the talks resume.”

Washington seems willing to wait, according to the Times.

“The next phase will involve some significant undertakings so I think we should step back a little,” said a U.S. official. “The real problem is that they [North Korea] have trouble getting to the next phase, which is to verify and dismantle their nuclear weapons program.”

Meanwhile, the Bush administration, encouraged by success of its financial regulatory actions against Pyongyang, is reportedly planning similar additional measures. That includes a planned crackdown on North Korean ships, according to one U.S. official.

Such moves “would exacerbate suspicions in Pyongyang about the U.S. commitment to give up its hostile policy towards North Korea,” warned one South Korean official (Anna Fifield, Financial Times, April 25).

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Idaho Lab to Review Reprocessing Proposals

The Idaho National Laboratory is expected to review proposals from local government and business groups looking to build a new facility to reprocess spent nuclear reactor, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, April 3).

The United States has not reprocessed nuclear fuel since the 1970s because of proliferation concerns. 

“There's a good bit of technology that we need to be a lot more sure of, and some good solid technical work that needs to be done before we would be in a position to make a decision to proceed with such a facility,” said Dennis Spurgeon, U.S. assistant energy secretary for nuclear energy. “Idaho is the lead laboratory for nuclear energy and they are in effect my right arm when it comes to providing that technical analysis.”

Lawmakers set aside $20 million this year for the Energy Department to start considering proposals. The goal of the program is to lower the amount of waste that has to be sent to a nuclear repository and to reclaim some of the fuel for commercial uses. 

The White House has asked for $250 million for fiscal 2007 for the development of a pilot project to prove that reprocessing could be done on a large scale using processes that create less waste and isotopes that decay more quickly (Christopher Smith, Associated Press/Times-News, April 26).

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U.S. Army Report Backs Shipping VX Waste

A U.S. Army report has found that it would take five additional years to complete VX destruction at the Newport Chemical Depot in Indiana if the Army was forced to conduct on-site treatment of wastewater produced by neutralization of the nerve agent, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, April 7).

VX processing is expected to product 4 million gallons of the waste, known as hydrolysate. The Army wants to treat the waste at a DuPont facility in New Jersey and dispose of it in the Delaware River. 

The report found that waste disposal at Newport would cost at least $347 million more than doing the work in New Jersey, AP reported.

Opponents have charged that trace amounts of VX would end up in the river and that trucks carrying the waste could overturn during transportation, harming the environment. 

The Army believes the transportation plan is sound. The Environmental Protection Agency has determined that the waste would not harm the river, according to Jeff Lindblad, a spokesman for the Army Chemical Materials Agency (Associated Press/Boston Herald, April 26).

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Annan Urges Chemical Weapons Convention Ratification

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan in a press statement released yesterday called on all nations to join the Chemical Weapons Convention (see GSN, Feb. 17).

Annan’s statement is intended to commemorate Remembrance Day for Victims of Chemical Weapons, which is Saturday.

“More than 90 years have passed since modern-day chemical weapons were first used, during the 1915 Battle of Ypres in World War I. The British war poet Wilfred Owen described the horror of seeing a fellow soldier ‘guttering, choking, drowning,’” according to Annan’s statement. 

“Since then, chemical weapons have continued to be developed and deployed against both soldiers and civilians, with the arsenal reaching its zenith during the Cold War. It wasn't until April 29, 1997, after long and difficult negotiations, that the Chemical Weapons Convention entered into force. By banning these weapons, the Convention heralded the beginning of the work to destroy the stockpiles that had been amassed. That is the milestone we mark today, as we pay tribute to the victims of chemical warfare — for whom the universality of this convention, when it comes, will come too late,” the statement continues. 

“But much remains to be done, while new challenges have arisen,” according to Annan.

“Participation in the Chemical Weapons Convention is growing, but it remains incomplete. I call on those states that have not yet ratified or acceded to the convention to do so without delay. Meanwhile, all of us must redouble our efforts to work for full implementation of the convention, but also to ensure that chemical weapons are kept out of the hands of nonstate actors,” the statement says (U.N. release, April 26).

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