FBI, Homeland Security Boost Antiterrorism Planning

The FBI yesterday announced that it has formed a new investigative unit aimed at preventing terrorist attacks involving weapons of mass destruction, the Washington Post reported (see GSN, Dec. 5, 2005).

FBI Director Robert Mueller said the new WMD Directorate, the appointment of an associate deputy to handle administrative matters, and other senior-level personnel moves are components of a plan to block acts of terrorism.

The plan also calls for placing the FBI Laboratory and other technical support services within a new science-and-technology division.

Mueller has implemented numerous changes since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Post reported. The modifications announced yesterday mark the third phase in remaking the FBI into a modern, fast-moving domestic intelligence service, he said. The agency has previously boosted counterterror staffing and added a directorate focused on intelligence gathering and analysis.

“We have grown as an organization substantially since September 11,” Mueller said in a release. “It made sense in my mind to evolve the organization to what you see today” (Dan Eggen, The Washington Post, July 27).

Meanwhile, the Homeland Security Department is scheduled to announce today plans to have national intelligence analysts work alongside state and local authorities in four states to improve information sharing on terrorism and disaster response, USA Today reported. Homeland Security personnel ultimately are expected to work in each of the 38 U.S. “fusion” centers where law enforcement agents investigate leads, tighten security and prepare for disasters, said Charles Allen, Homeland Security chief intelligence officer.

“We’re going to move as rapidly as we can,” Allen said.

Intelligence analysts in the first part of the plan are to be stationed at centers in New York, Los Angeles, Baton Rouge, La., and Reisterstown, Md., near Baltimore. Department personnel should be in place at all the centers by the end of 2008, Allen said.

Local police departments have accused Homeland Security of not providing adequate information about potential terrorist threats. Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton said the new system would help fix that problem.

“We’ve had some frustration … but this is progress,” he said. “The name of the game is intelligence — the earlier, the better; the more, the better.”

Homeland Security sent out more than 1,260 notices last year, but Bratton and others have said that the bulletins lack detail, USA Today reported.

Having a Homeland Security intelligence analyst on site should boost a center’s ability to identify a potential threat and make decisions on a response, said Maryland homeland security spokesman James Pettit.

“Nothing replaces face-to-face contact,” he said (Mimi Hall, USA Today, July 27).

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Bolton Back for Confirmation as U.N. Ambassador

As U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton returns to Washington for further nomination hearings today, international diplomats and U.S. lawmakers say that his behavior has made the Untied States increasingly isolated within the international body, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, Sept. 22, 2005).

“He sometimes makes it very difficult to build bridges because he is a very honest and blunt person,” said South African U.N Ambassador Dumisani Shadrack Kumalo. He added that the perception of many countries within Group of 77 developed nations is that “Ambassador Bolton wants to prove nothing works at the United Nations.”

“The first thing you learn in diplomatic school is never move yourself into a position of isolation, because even the biggest power will not sustain that position,” said Gunter Plueger, who retired in June as Germany’s U.N. ambassador.

Bolton’s temporary appointment expires in January and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will decide if his post should become permanent.   Democratic leaders said they plan to oppose Bolton’s appointment.

“Mr. Bolton’s performance at the U.N. only confirms my conviction that he’s the wrong person for this job,” Senator Joseph Biden (D-Del.) said. Biden indicated that Democrats might filibuster against a Senate vote unless the White House releases papers he believes divulge Bolton’s use of National Security Agency intercepts involving U.S. citizens (see GSN, May 4, 2005).

The Bush administration is seeking a quick appointment. Senator George Voinovich (R-Ohio), who opposed Bolton’s appointment last year, said he now supports the nomination, writing in a Washington Post commentary last week that Bolton’s behavior has “tempered.”

Bolton’s supporters said his forcefulness in pursuing U.S. interests has aggravated foreign diplomats, including those from Western allies, the Post reported.

“Bolton is not loved at Turtle Bay,” the Manhattan community where the United Nations is based, “but he is well-respected and he is regarded as a force to be reckoned with,” said Nile Gardiner of the conservative Heritage Foundation. “He has done a very successful job in terms of highlighting the huge, myriad failures within the United Nations.”

Bolton has said he built alliances on various issues, but that diplomats who opposed change blocked his efforts to streamline the U.N. system. He added that he stayed away from conflict that “would raise the level of acrimony in an unproductive way.”

Many diplomats who previously said they respected Bolton’s aggressive methods now say that he has undermined work to restrict unnecessary U.N. programs, produce a new human rights council and fix the U.N bureaucracy.

“There is currently a perception among many otherwise quite moderate countries that anything the U.S. supports must have a secret agenda aimed at either subordinating multilateral processes to Washington’s ends or weakening the institutions, and therefore, put crudely, should be opposed without any real discussion of whether they make sense or not,” U.N. Deputy Secretary General Mark Malloch Brown said in a June speech.

An angry Bolton fired back that Brown’s statements insulted the United States and were inappropriate from a civil servant (Colum Lynch, Washington Post, July 27).

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House Approves Nuclear Export Changes for India

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — After allowing just one hour of debate, the U.S. House of Representatives yesterday overwhelmingly passed legislation that would exempt India from decades-old U.S. export control legislation forbidding nuclear trade with countries that have tested nuclear weapons and do not allow international monitoring of all their nuclear facilities (see GSN, July 26).

In July 2005, President George W. Bush agreed to pursue congressional exceptions to the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 as part of a nuclear deal with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

The deal “will permit the U.S. to sell technology to India for nuclear power development. In return, India will open up for inspection its civilian nuclear program to international inspections and also agree not to test nuclear weapons and abide by nuclear export controls,” said Representative Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), who along with Representative Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) introduced the bill.

While the U.S. House yesterday took a step toward implementing the agreement, many of the terms of the future cooperation have not been decided and announced, such as what forms of cooperation might be allowed and what forms of International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards would be applied to Indian facilities.

The 359-68 vote yesterday, one of several steps needed before any U.S. nuclear technology or material might flow to India, occurred after the House struck down several amendments intended to ensure U.S. fissile material does not help India expand its nuclear arsenal. The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty prohibits such assistance “in any way.”

A proposal by Representative Howard Berman (D-Calif.), defeated in a 184-241 vote, would have blocked shipment of nuclear reactor fuel to India until the country halted fissile material production for nuclear weapons.

An amendment by Representative Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), defeated 155-268, would have required presidential assurances that India was not increasing the level of domestic uranium used for nuclear weapons production.

Experts have said a preliminary arrangement negotiated by Bush in March could enable India, by freeing up domestic uranium supplies, to increase its nuclear weapons production capacity from about 10 weapons to 50 per year.

Pakistan, meanwhile, reportedly has begun building a new plutonium production reactor that could enable it to produce 40 to 50 nuclear weapons annually, according to a satellite photo analysis by the U.S.-based Institute for Science and International Security (see GSN, July 24).

“This agreement pours nuclear fuel on the fire of an India-Pakistan nuclear arms race. This agreement will free up 40 to 50 bombs worth of nuclear fuel for Indian nuclear bombs, and the consequence of that will be that Pakistan will respond,” said Representative Ed Markey (D-Mass.) during floor debate.

An amendment by Representative Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), passed unanimously, stated that it is the intent of Congress that U.S. nuclear cooperation with India not contribute to New Delhi’s acquisition of nuclear weapons.

An approved amendment from Representative Jeff Fortenberry (R-Neb.) would require annual reporting by the U.S. president on what New Delhi has done with all its domestic and foreign-supplied uranium, to help gauge whether India has increased its nuclear weapons production as a result of the deal.

The House Rules Committee on Wednesday blocked a proposed amendment by Markey requiring a presidential certification that India is “fully and actively participating in U.S. efforts to dissuade, isolate, and, if necessary, sanction and contain Iran for its efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction.”

U.S. analysts have said India maintains military ties with Iran. Text declaring a January 2003 strategic agreement with Iran appears on the Indian External Affairs Ministry Web site, and says the countries would aim to conduct defense cooperation and training. The joint statement expressed concern about “restrictions imposed on the export of [nuclear] materials, technology and equipment to developing countries and acknowledged the right of these countries to research, production and use of technology, material and equipment for peaceful purposes.”

Markey yesterday before the vote proposed sending the bill back to the House International Relations Committee with instructions to add his amendment.   “India is now the only global power that has yet to get on board with the United States policy on Iran,” he said.  Lantos, the lead Democratic cosponsor of the legislation, spoke in favor of the amendment. “I strongly support this motion.  In committee deliberations, we have made it clear to India that they must make a choice between Tehran and Washington,” he said.

Representative Edward Royce (R-Calif.) said India has shown signs of cooperation on Iran, including supporting an International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors vote declaring Iran noncompliant with its agency safeguards agreement, and that closer energy ties with the United States could draw New Delhi away from Tehran.

“As we continue to engage India, and this agreement is about India’s growing energy needs, as we engage India, we move them away from states like Iran,” he said.

New Delhi, following the IAEA vote, issued a statement to indicate that it did not wholly endorse the declaration. 

The House rejected Markey’s amendment with a 192-235 vote.

The full Senate is not expected to take up its version of the bill at least until after its August recess. Both bills would require additional congressional approval for any specific nuclear trade to occur.

Prime Minister Singh reportedly said in comments today to the Indian Parliament that substantive changes to the July 2005 agreement by the U.S. Congress could prompt India to pull back from the deal.

“If the United States’ legislative process leads to an end product which is not consistent with the [original agreement], that would be the determining factor of what we will do then,” he said, according to the Associated Press.

Indian critics of the deal have complained, among other things, that the House and Senate legislation would effectively commit India to no further nuclear testing or face a halt of U.S. nuclear trade.

Bush and Singh in July 2005 did not include extending India’s testing moratorium as part of the deal. Instead, Singh then issued a unilateral statement that India intended to maintain the suspension.

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U.S., Russia Remove More HEU from Libya

The United States and Russia have removed another 6.6 pounds of highly enriched uranium from Libya, boosting the total to 44 pounds shipped out of the country since Tripoli gave up its WMD programs in 2003, Reuters reported yesterday (see GSN, July 25).

“Libya’s cooperation and commitment was key to this joint nonproliferation effort. It is a clear indication of Libya’s continued commitment to rid itself of weapons of mass destruction and proliferation-sensitive materials,” Linton Brooks, head of the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration, said in a prepared statement. His agency conducted the HEU removal with Russia and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The material was flown to Russia, where it is to be blended down into low-enriched uranium.

About 37 pounds of highly enriched uranium was shipped from Libya in 2004 without a public announcement, a U.S. spokesman said.

The recent shipment continued efforts to fully remove Russian-origin highly enriched uranium from Libya, Reuters reported. The Energy Department agency did not disclose the amount that remains in the country.

The U.S. Global Threat Reduction Initiative seeks to secure international stores of nuclear and radiological material. Libya has joined Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Uzbekistan, Latvia and the Czech Republic in returning roughly 416 pounds of highly enriched uranium to Russia.

Meanwhile, a U.S. official deemed “not credible” the claim this week by Libyan leader Col. Muammar Qadhafi that his country came close to developing nuclear weapons, Reuters reported.

Tripoli had the material but lacked the know-how, the official said. “I don’t think Qadhafi was close” (Reuters/Washington Post, July 26).

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U.S. Seeks Regional Security Meeting as North Korea Continues Boycott of Six-Party Nuclear Talks

The United States today called for an Asian regional security meeting following North Korea’s continuing refusal to rejoin six-nation talks on its nuclear activities, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, July 26).

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said prospects appear bleak for a resumption of six-party talks on the sidelines of this week’s Association of Southeast Asian Nations conference in Malaysia.  The top U.S. envoy to the stalled multilateral negotiations, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, said he planned to convene a wider security session at the conference instead. 

“We will have some kind of multilateral meeting to discuss security issues in Northeast Asia,” Hill said.  He did not comment on whether the delegation from Pyongyang would be asked to attend that meeting.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said today that while Beijing continues to back the six-party talks, it remains “flexible.” Regional discussions “wouldn’t mean that we’re holding a new kind of negotiation, it’s just the way for everyone to exchange views about shared concerns,” she said.

Foreign ministers from Japan and South Korea discussed the nuclear issue yesterday and pledged to “make joint efforts to hold the six-party meeting at any level, not only the ministerial level,” a South Korean official said.

Hill said that if a broader meeting is held, “it won’t be discussing six-party talks. It will be discussing broader and more future-type issues” (Jae-Soon Chang, Associated Press I/TheStar.com, July 27).

Rice said ASEAN leaders would use “the momentum that was created by the resolution in the [U.N.] Security Council that binds states to take certain action to prevent any assistance” to North Korea’s WMD efforts, AP reported today.

“I do think it is important to follow up those discussions with the other members of the six parties, but also other interested regional states that might be able to help provide some of the capability that we need to ensure” that illicit materials are not shipped to North Korea, she said (Associated Press II/Yahoo!News, July 27).

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U.N. Iran Resolution Again Delayed

Negotiations among the major powers at the United Nations have yet to yield a draft resolution on Iran’s controversial nuclear program, Agence France-Presse reported today (see GSN, July 26).

Ambassadors had expressed hope that a text would be ready yesterday for submission to the full Security Council. However, a draft sent to Beijing, Berlin, London, Moscow, Paris and Washington, D.C. had not yet been agreed upon, diplomats said.

Diplomats said that a draft might be completed today, AFP reported (Agence France-Presse/IranMania.com, July 27).

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Document Controversy Causes Setback in Lerch Trial

German prosecutors suffered a major setback yesterday in their case against a engineer accused of aiding Libya’s now-defunct nuclear weapons program, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, May 24).

Presiding judge Michael Seidling stopped the trial yesterday, saying prosecutors and investigators possessed documents “about which the court knew nothing.” He said this put the fairness of the trial into doubt.

The trial of Gotthard Lerch, charged with violating export laws by assisting Libya in its acquisition of uranium enrichment equipment between 1999 and 2003, began in March.

Seidling said delays in handling requests for legal assistance from outside Germany had also damaged the proceedings (Associated Press/Gulf News, July 27).

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African Nations Discuss CWC Requirements

Representatives of 15 West and Central African countries met this week in Burkina Faso to discuss the challenges experienced following ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention, according to the Angola Press Agency (see GSN, May 26).

“The aim of this meeting is to provide practical assistance on various legal issues related to the implementation of that convention,” said Elias Olufemi of Nigeria, representing the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

The Chemical Weapons Convention requires all member nations to create national authorities and develop regulations to ensure internal adherence to the treaty.

“The national authorities have noted stiff difficulties in the implementation of the convention despite very strong political commitment,” said Abdourame Barry, national authority coordinator for Burkina Faso. “It was necessary to exert every effort to move forward in the implementation of the convention in our region.”

The treaty now has 178 member states, including the large majority of African nations. Nonmembers in Africa include Angola, Egypt and Somalia. Congo and the Central African Republic have signed but not ratified the pact, according to the OPCW Web site.

“The implementation of these measures is a contribution to peace and stability on the African continent and in the world,” Barry said (Angola Press Agency, July 26).

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Iran, North Korea Cooperation Seen as Increasing

Military and diplomatic ties — including possible missile sales — between Iran and North Korea appear to be on the rise, the Los Angeles Times reported today (see GSN, July 25).

“There are strong incentives for cooperation between the two in terms of weapons of mass destruction," said Daniel Pinkston, a North Korea specialist at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies. “They are both insecure countries that don’t have a lot of friends and have many enemies. They have a shortage of weapons suppliers so it makes sense for them to share data and set up a division of labor for research and development.”

“The Iranians are looking to North Korea for their new [missile] designs,” said former Israeli missile defense chief Uzi Rubin. “Of course, we are worried.  Whatever North Korea makes eventually ends up in the Middle East.”

Rubin said that earlier this month Pyongyang might have tested a missile known as the SS-N-6 or the BM-25, with an estimated range of 1,550 miles. Israeli intelligence chief Amos Yadlin said in April that evidence indicated that 18 such missiles have been transferred from North Korea to an Iranian missile base at Bandar Abbas.

Iran has special interest in the multistage Taepodong missile, which could be used for satellite launches, Rubin said. A Taepodong 2 was among seven North Korean missiles launched earlier this month; it failed in less than one minute.

Kim Tae-woo, a South Korean analyst with the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses in Seoul, said he saw a “high probability of Iranian involvement in these missile tests” (Barbara Demick, Los Angeles Times, July 27).

Meanwhile, U.S. Treasury Undersecretary Stuart Levey said yesterday that U.N. nations should freeze the assets of 11 North Korean entities designated as WMD proliferators by Washington last year, the Yonhap News Agency reported. Such moves would be the initial move in implementing the U.N. Security Council resolution condemning the North Korean missile tests, he said (see GSN, July 17).

“One thing we do believe, at the very least, is that entities that are openly engaged in North Korea’s missile and WMD programs, the entities that we have already designated under our executive order of the U.S., those are entities that should be treated (the same way) by others, at the very least,” Levey said.

He said Washington and its allies were discussing interpretations of the resolution. Some have argued that all funds heading into North Korea could be diverted and that even routine transactions with the country should be stopped.

“Money is fungible so one would have to be careful to make sure that even the best proceeds of routine trade transactions could benefit the WMD or missile programs,” Levey said. However, there was “a long way to go” before that argument was widely adopted, he added.

“What I am concentrating on in the short run is to make sure that those entities are cut off,” he said (Yonhap News Agency/Korea Times, July 27).

North Korean Defense Minister Kim Il Chol said yesterday that Pyongyang would wage “all-out, do-or-die resistance” against those opposed to its missile tests, Agence France-Presse reported.

Kim said North Korea would use “all possible means and methods, not bound by anything.”

“It is a stark reality in the D.P.R.K. that it can survive without sweets but not without bullets,” he said (Agence France-Presse/Gulf Times, July 26).

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Serbian Reactor Still Contains Dangerous Materials

While weapon-grade fissile material was removed four years ago from the Vinca Institute of Nuclear Sciences in Serbia, the facility’s decaying nuclear reactor still contains radioactive materials that could be used to build a radiological “dirty bomb,” the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, Jan. 3, 2003).

The poorly guarded facility is “almost like a candy store” for terrorists, said Mike Durst, the International Atomic Energy Agency official working on ways to secure Vinca.

U.S. President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this month launched the “Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism,” which urges protection of nuclear facilities still housing fissile materials that are short of weapon-grade.

Moscow and Washington four years ago helped Serbia transfer nearly 100 pounds of weapon-grade fuel from Vinca to Russia. Helicopters, heavily armed troops and decoy trucks were deployed for the six-hour operation, in which two nuclear warheads worth of fuel was driven from Vinca to the airport, then flown to a Russian facility.

The Vinca reactor building still holds some 8,000 spent fuel rods — dozens containing uranium enriched to various levels, according to AP. The material useful for manufacture of a dirty bomb is made up of uranium byproducts that would quickly kill anyone tampering with it without wearing protective suits and using other specialized equipment. However, experts have expressed concern that terrorists would be willing to secure the material at the cost of their lives.

There is also the fear that Vinca employees, with monthly incomes of less than $750, would be tempted to sell some of the material on the black market, according to AP.

With a single radiological weapon, which would combine radioactive material with conventional explosives, “you could hit Broadway, and you couldn’t decontaminate it for years,” said Obrad Sotic, former operations manager at Vinca.

Authorities plan to eventually ship the spent fuel to Russia and dismantle the reactor. In the meantime, the International Atomic Energy Agency is helping to install a centrally monitored alarm system and to draft a security plan for police.  

Returning the spent fuel to Russia is expected to cost roughly $10 million, plus the funds necessary to reprocess the fuel once it is safely in Russia. Improving storage is projected to cost another $5 million. Donor countries have already pledged some 60 percent of that amount, but dismantling Vinca would cost yet another $60 million, according to AP.

The 2006 budget for the Serbian Science Ministry, which oversees Vinca, is less than $90 million.

Serbian Science Minister Aleksandar Popovic expressed disappointment that the international community, after the 2002 operation to remove the weapon-grade materials, did not assist with the remaining cleanup.

“Once the spent fuel is gone, I’ll be one happy guy,” he said (George Jahn, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, July 27).

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