BWC Countries Agree to Review Conference Agenda

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — A committee of parties to the Biological Weapons Convention last week agreed that its 170 signatories should hold a three-week review late this year that would allow for broad, unrestricted discussions on potential measures to strengthen the treaty (see GSN, April 27).

The provisional agenda agreed upon provides for, “Review of the operation of the convention with a view to ensuring that its purposes are being realized,” according to a press release from the preparatory committee.

“The entire convention is going to be reviewed, which is good,” said Jean Pascal Zanders, who directs the nongovernmental Bioweapons Prevention Project from Geneva.

The committee further agreed that delegates would approve actions by consensus at the sixth treaty review conference, which is the usual practice.

The committee “also considered and agreed upon draft rules of procedure; background documentation; publicity; final documents; appointment of a provisional secretary general; and financial arrangements for the review conference,” according to the press release.

The sixth five-year treaty review conference is scheduled from Nov. 20 through Dec. 8 in Geneva. It comes after the contentious 2001 review conference that collapsed when the United States withdrew its support for ad hoc negotiations toward a treaty verification protocol.

The conference also will follow failed attempts by Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty members to decide on an agenda prior to an unproductive review conference for that pact last spring. That occurred in part because the United States had refused to acknowledge commitments it made at the 2000 review conference.

“People are very pleased that the different perspectives on the protocol and ad hoc group didn’t conspire to block an agenda at all,” Richard Lennane, spokesman for the 78-member committee, said in a telephone interview today. “The language in item 11 sort of leaves it open for people to raise the issues they think need to be raised. The language is flexible enough to keep everybody happy.”

“The good thing is while the [BWC] prep conference focused on process instead of what might be results, you do need a process to get results and we now have a process,” said Richard Guthrie, chemical and biological weapons project leader for the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

During the mostly closed-door, three-day preparatory committee talks in Geneva, the United States successfully pressed to exclude any explicit reference to discussions about creating a verification mechanism from the agenda, observers said. Other countries have favored resuming negotiations about such a mechanism.

“The precedent in the past is you take the previous review conference agenda and you use that as your starting point to discuss what to talk about for this one coming up,” Guthrie said.

“And of course the last review conference had bits about the ad hoc group and verification protocol, so when the draft agenda was introduced, it was obviously a little bit controversial,” he said.

The mandate of the ad hoc group that was negotiating the protocol remains technically active, although it has not met since verification negotiations were suspended in 2001.

The approved agenda language allows for the possibility of continuing intercessional meetings — discussions about relevant issues that have occurred three times since the last review conferences, Zanders said.

Whether such a process would continue partially depends upon whether countries can agree on topics for discussion and decide whether recommendations produced during the intercession meetings should be binding on treaty parties, he said.

U.S. Ambassador Donald Mahley, acting deputy assistant secretary of state for threat reduction, export controls and negotiations, announced at the meeting that it would be his last international meeting dealing with biological weapons.

Mahley had negotiated in favor of the verification protocol during the Clinton administration, then appeared to faithfully represent the Bush administration’s opposition to it, Guthrie said.

“As far as I am concerned, this is a strong convention,” Mahley said, according to Guthrie, who was in attendance during the speech.

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More Than Half of 2005 Terror Deaths Occurred In Iraq, U.S. State Department Report Says

More than half of the deaths worldwide caused by terrorist attacks in 2005 occurred in Iraq, the U.S. State Department reported last week in its annual Country Reports on Terrorism (see GSN, April 28, 2005).

The National Counterterrorism Center reported roughly 11,000 terror incidents last year, resulting in more than 14,600 noncombatant deaths. About 3,500 of those attacks and 8,300 deaths occurred in Iraq.

Fifty-six U.S. nonmilitary personnel were killed by terrorists in 205, 47 of them in Iraq.

An estimated 360 suicide bombings killed 3,000 people, Counterterrorism Center Deputy Director Russ Travers said Friday at a briefing.

The total number of terrorist strikes last year was nearly four times as many as was seen in 2004, the Washington Post reported (Karen DeYoung, Washington Post, April 29).

The State Department said that the increase resulted from a broadening of the definition of terrorism, and cautioned against comparing 2005 against figures from previous years.

The report also details terrorists’ continued interest in obtaining biological, chemical, nuclear or radiological weapons.

“The complete production of a nuclear weapon likely remains beyond the reach of terrorists for the foreseeable future,” the report states. “Terrorists may, however, seek to link up with a variety of facilitators to develop their own nuclear capability.”

Such facilitators could include criminal organizations or black market proliferation networks such as that once operated by former top Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.

While material for a radiological “dirty bomb” would be easier to obtain than nuclear weapons material, “most radiological materials lack sufficient strength to present a public health risk,” according to the report. Even the most dangerous materials would only cause deaths in the dozens.

Organizations such as al-Qaeda have shown interest in preparing biological weapons, despite the “substantial technical expertise” needed to develop such a pathogen, the report states. An unfinished biological weapons laboratory found in Afghanistan is evidence of the significant effort al-Qaeda has made in that sector.

There have been no terrorist incidents involving chemical weapons since the 1995 sarin attack on the Tokyo subway system, the State Department said. Evidence exists, however, of terrorists’ efforts to develop such weapons.

“Preventing chemical terrorism is particularly challenging as terrorists can, with relative ease, use commercial industrial toxins, pesticides, and other commonly available chemical agents as low-cost alternatives to conventional attacks,” the report states.

State sponsorship of potential WMD terrorism, particularly by Iran, remains a concern. 

Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Syria remain on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, as do Libya and Sudan despite taking “significant steps” against terrorists, according to the State Department.

Iran and Syria, in particular, provide resources, guidance and havens for terrorists, according to the report (U.S. State Department, Country Reports on Terrorism, April 28).

“Again in 2005, Iran remained the most active sponsor of terrorism,” State Department counterterrorism chief Hank Crumpton said at the briefing. Tehran has “provided assistance to anticoalition forces in Iraq,” has encouraged terror efforts against Israel, and has refused to offer any aid in curbing al-Qaeda, he said.

Talks continue that could lead to Libya’s removal from the state sponsors list, Crumpton said. Sudan appears likely to remain on the list as long as violence in Darfur continues.

Crumpton said that he believes that international efforts to eliminate terrorists have mad the world safer.

“In response to our success, you see al-Qaeda and affiliates shifting how they operate, reducing their numbers. And so I think they are less capable of hitting our homeland. I think they have less global strategic strength right now,” he said. “But at the same time, you have got a number of loosely linked networks that are small or more diffuse and more difficult for use to detect and to engage” (U.S. State Department briefing, April 28).

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Iran Sought WMD Information in Netherlands

The Dutch intelligence services believe Iran last year tried to acquire information about weapons of mass destruction in the Netherlands, Agence France-Presse reported Friday (see GSN, Dec. 12).

“We have seen some activities in that sense,” said Dutch intelligence chief Sybrand van Hulst, according to the ANP news agency.

“So-called countries of concern have persisted in 2005 in their attempts to get information and means for the deployment of weapons of mass destruction,” the intelligence services said in their annual report. That report also names Pakistan and North Korea as “countries of concern,” AFP reported (Agence France-Presse/IranMania.com, April 28).

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Iran Proposes Return of Nuclear Dossier to IAEA

Iran would allow international inspectors to resume more rigorous monitoring of Iran’s nuclear facilities if the diplomatic discussion of Tehran’s nuclear activities were to return to the International Atomic Energy Agency instead of remaining at the U.N. Security Council, Iranian officials said Saturday (see GSN, April 28).

“If the issue is returned to the International Atomic Energy Agency, we will be ready to allow intrusive inspections,” said Iran’s deputy nuclear chief, Mohammed Saeedi.

The United States said the plan was unacceptable, the Associated Press reported.

“Today’s statement does not change our position that the Iranian government must give up its nuclear ambitions, nor does it affect our decision to move forward to the United Nations Security Council,” said White House spokesman Blaine Rethmeier (Ali Akbar Dareini, Associated Press I/Yahoo!News, April 29).

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also yesterday dismissed the offer, AP reported.

“I think they’re playing games,” Rice told ABC’s “This Week” television program. “But obviously, if they’re not playing games, they should come clean. They should stop the enrichment, suspend the enrichment” (Libby Quaid, Associated Press II/Yahoo!News, May 1).

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki that Tehran must halt uranium enrichment and cooperate with the U.N. nuclear watchdog, AP reported.

Saeedi, however, said Tehran would continue its work.

“Our efforts are to use the most sophisticated machines, like in Germany, Netherlands, Japan and Brazil,” he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he believed that Western nations would stop Iran’s suspected WMD efforts.

“The West — above all under the leadership of the United States — will ensure that Iran under no circumstances comes to possess unconventional weapons,” Olmert was quoted as saying in Germany’s Bild newspaper. “The president of the United States is a very brave man who understands that very well” (Dareini, Associated Press, April 29).

Iran yesterday said it would ignore any U.N. Security Council resolution against its nuclear program and said it would retaliate against any military attack, Reuters reported.

U.N. ambassadors from the France, the United Kingdom and the United States are expected to introduce a legally binding resolution this week demanding that Iran halt all uranium enrichment work. Failure to comply could lead to sanctions, though permanent council members China and Russia continue to oppose such a move, according to Reuters.

“Iran will not implement any forced resolution,” said top Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani.

“Iran’s plan is to have research and development and the nuclear fuel cycle in Iran,” he said.

“We have thought about a possible military attack,” Larijani said. “What [Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] said should be taken seriously. ... If they want to harm us, we will harm them.”

Diplomats told Reuters that the probable initial move against Iran would be travel restrictions on its leaders rather than sanctions. Iran’s economy would be most vulnerable to sanctions on gasoline imports, bank loans and engineering parts, according to diplomats and analysts. 

However, Iran’s deputy oil minister, Mohammad Hadi Nejad-Hosseinian, said the international community was unlikely to sanction Iran’s energy sector.

“Due to the sensitivity of the oil market, any action like that will increase oil prices very high. I believe (neither) the U.N., (nor) other bodies will put any sanction on oil or the oil industry,” he said (Parisa Hafezi, Reuters I/Yahoo!News, April 30).

Rice said yesterday that such sanctions were not being considered, AP reported.

“No one is talking about going to oil and gas sanctions,” she said.

“I absolutely believe that we have a lot of diplomatic arrows in our quiver at the Security Council and also like-minded states that would be able and willing to look at additional measures if the Security Council does not move quickly enough,” Rice told CBS’ “Face the Nation” (Libby Quaid, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, May 1).

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is expected to travel to the United States this week to help devise a strategy for confronting Iran, Reuters reported today.

German officials said Merkel would try to convince U.S. President George W. Bush of the need for a deliberate approach.

“To preserve unity, Germany and the United States must do everything to show they are willing to exhaust diplomatic solutions,” said Karsten Voigt, coordinator for German-American relations in the German Foreign Ministry (Reuters II/Yahoo!News, May 1).

China’s ambassador to the United Nations, Wang Guangya, refused to say whether Beijing would veto a resolution Western diplomats plan to introduce week, Agence France-Presse reported yesterday. The resolution would reportedly cite Chapter 7 of the U.N. charter open the door for economic or military action against Iran.

“If you introduce a resolution not to reinforce the IAEA but to replace it, that is dangerous,” Wang said.

“The Iranians are already saying that if this issue is being discussed under Chapter 7, they will drop the [Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty] like the North Koreans,” he said.

“This is a technical issue and I don’t think the Security Council as a political organization would be capable of doing this job,” he added (Agence France-Presse I/Yahoo!News, April 29).

Former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said the Security Council is not likely to approve extensive sanctions

“I don’t know that there is a very robust plan, or menu of sanctions. I think that the menu of sanctions would be quite limited. ... I mean those that could actually get through the Security Council,” Powell told British television.

“(The Iranians) have decided to go forward even in the face of potential sanctions, which suggests to me that they have pretty much decided that they can accept whatever sanctions are coming their way,” he added.

Powell also dismissed reports that the United States was preparing a strategic nuclear strike on Iran’s atomic installations.

“Nuclear weapons have not been used since Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” he said. “I think it most unlikely that anybody would seriously contemplate use of a nuclear weapon in the 21st century and especially for such a purpose” (Agence France-Presse II/IranMania.com, April 30).

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Senior Pakistani Scientist Released From Custody

Pakistan yesterday announced the release of a senior nuclear official tied to the proliferation network of former top scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Oct. 25, 2004).

Mohammed Farooq, the former director general of Khan Research Laboratories, was detained in December 2003 when it was revealed that Khan had illicitly exported sensitive technology. Farooq was suspected of participating in the scheme, according to AP.

Authorities advised Farooq to remain at home for “security reasons” following his release last week, said Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan.

Sultan said no one outside Pakistan — including U.S. and International Atomic Energy Agency officials — would be allowed to question Farooq.

“Pakistan is cooperating with the IAEA and other international agencies and will not allow access to him,” he said.

Sultan also would not comment on why Farooq remained jailed after other nuclear officials were released by October 2004.

One analyst said the reason could be Farooq’s central role in the nuclear network.

“Somebody may have been more central than others, and he may have been among them,” said A.H. Nayyar, an analyst at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute in Islamabad (Sadaqat Jan, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, April 30).

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U.S. Looks to Phase Out W-80 Warhead

The United States is considering removing W-80 nuclear warheads from deployment on cruise missiles, Kyodo News reported today (see GSN, April 27).

Gen. James Cartwright recently told lawmakers that the U.S. Strategic Command plans to reduce the number of W-80 warheads, according to Representative David Hobson (R-Ohio).

The U.S. Navy is prepared to “get rid of the W-80,” one congressional source said.

The W-80 has been produced since 1981 and can be delivered by cruise missiles that have ranges of up to 3,000 kilometers, Kyodo News reported. That distance is not considered long enough when compared to ballistic missiles that can fly more than 7,000 kilometers.

Strategic Command has been studying changes to W-80 deployment, one official said.

“It would be premature to speculate on the outcome” of the study, the official said (Kyodo News/Yahoo!News, May 1).

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Five Countries Organize CWC National Authorities

Five Chemical Weapons Convention member states have established national authorities to implement internal measures required by the treaty, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons announced Friday (see GSN, Nov. 16, 2005).

The nations are Haiti, Niue, Suriname, Tanzania and Yemen.

Article 7 of the treaty states that, “In order to fulfill its obligation under the convention, each state party shall designate or establish a national authority to serve as the national focal point for effective liaison with the organization and other states parties.”

National authorities support CWC member states’ efforts to meet their various obligations under the treaty, including facilitating inspections, providing assistance to the organization, and ensuring that any chemical production within their borders are entirely peaceful (OPCW releases, April 28).

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Russia Continues Lewisite Destruction

The Russian chemical weapons disposal facility at Kambarka has eliminated more than 166 tons of lewisite since opening March 1, ITAR-Tass reported Saturday (see GSN, April 3).

“The capacity of the facility in Kambarka is approximately [six to eight] times that of the industrial complex built in Gorny,” said Valery Malyshev, an officials with the Udmurt government. “Two to three and a half tons of lewisite, one of the most dangerous chemical warfare agents, is eliminated there a day” (ITAR-Tass, April 29).

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Umatilla Munitions Disassembly Room Reopens

A room in which munitions drained of chemical agent are sliced into pieces at the Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility in Oregon was scheduled to reopen last week following a fire earlier in the month, the East Oregonian reported (see GSN, April 10).

The April 5 fire in Explosive Containment Room B was the twelfth since weapons processing began at Umatilla in September 2004.

Fires have generally ignited on the fifth of seven cuts made to the M55 rockets. A previous investigation indicated that the fires occur when the cutting blade hits particles of rocket fuel, according to the Oregonian.

As of midnight Tuesday, the facility had processed 62,304 M55 rockets (East Oregonian, April 27).

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Pakistan Tests Nuclear-Capable Missile

Pakistan on Saturday conducted a test launch of a nuclear-capable ballistic missile, Reuters reported (see GSN, March 21).

“Pakistan today carried out a successful test fire of its long-range surface-to-surface ballistic missile Hatf 6 (Shaheen 2) with outstanding results,” Islamabad announced.

The Hatf 6 has a range of 1,250 miles, Reuters reported.

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz watched the launch at an undisclosed location.

“Pakistan’s strategy of credible minimum deterrence is fully in place and is a guarantee of peace in the region,” Aziz said.

“We will continue to pursue vigorously our security and energy needs from all sources including nuclear,” he said (Reuters/Yahoo!News, April 29).

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Canada, U.S. Expand NORAD

Canada and the United States last week signed a deal to renew and expand responsibilities under the North American Aerospace Defense Command treaty, the Toronto Star reported Saturday (see GSN, March 29).

“The text of a renewed NORAD agreement was signed in Ottawa on April 28 by the minister of national defense and the U.S. ambassador, which signals the end of the negotiating process,” Etienne Allard, a spokesman for Defense Minister Gordon O’Connor, said Friday.

“As per our campaign promise, the new agreement will be tabled in Parliament for debate,” he said.

The new agreement also broadens the treaty’s jurisdiction from defending against air attacks to include surveillance of seacoasts, the Star reported.

“The new agreement expands NORAD’s mission by adding maritime warning to NORAD’s aerospace defense mission,” said U.S. State Department spokeswoman Janelle Hironimus. That calls for using NORAD to watch for seagoing vessels that might be used in a terrorism incident.

While the current agreement expires on May 12, the new deal has no expiration date, “acknowledging the mature nature of the U.S.-Canadian defense partnership,” Hironimus said.

The neighboring countries signed the NORAD pact in 1996. It was amended in 2004 with the task of missile tracking and warning as part of the U.S missile defense program.

NORAD is to continue tracking missiles, but Canada’s involvement in U.S. missile defense will not be reopened, according to Hironimus.

“Canada’s decision is not affected by this agreement and the U.S. is not seeking Canadian participation in the missile defense program,” she said (Bruce Campion-Smith, Toronto Star, April 29).

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