U.S. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), shown in February, has received a blistering letter from the International Atomic Energy Agency complaining about a recent committee report on Iran (Getty Images). IAEA Blasts U.S. House Report on Iran In an unusually public moment, senior U.N. nuclear inspectors have harshly objected to the findings of a U.S. House committee report on Iran’s nuclear program, the Washington Post reported today.  They called the parts of the document “outrageous and dishonest” and directly rebutted several claims (see GSN, Aug. 24). The House Intelligence Committee released the report last month accusing U.S. intelligence agencies of understating Iran’s nuclear capabilities and plans.  It charged that intelligence analysts were shying away from making assertive accusations about Iran’s nuclear weapon ambitions because they were trying too hard to avoid mistakes similar to those made in assessing Iraq’s WMD capabilities prior to the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. In a letter to committee Chairman Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), International Atomic Energy Agency officials said the report contained “erroneous, misleading and unsubstantiated statements.”Full Story

Iran’s Elite Split on Nuclear Program, Author Says By Jon Fox, Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The author of a recently published book on Iran’s nuclear program yesterday said there is a fundamental division among the ruling elite in Tehran on the purpose of its national nuclear effort (see GSN, Sept. 13)...Full Story

South Africa’s “Dr. Death” Remains on Payroll The head of South Africa’s apartheid-era biological weapons program continues to draw a military stipend, seven years after he was suspended from the South African Defense Force, it was reported this week (see GSN, Oct. 20, 2005)...Full Story

	Thursday, September 14, 2006

Democratic Port Security Bill Revisions Fail Democrats yesterday failed to add revisions to a U.S. port security bill that would have called for increasing safeguards in other sectors, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Sept. 13). The Senate voted 57-41 against the changes, which included beefing up security for trains, buses and chemical plants. “It is an interesting hodgepodge of provisions that are irrelevant to the underlying bill,” said Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine).  “What it does not include are provisions that have to do with port security.” A final vote on the bill could occur today (Associated Press I/Worcester Telegram & Gazette News, Sept. 13). Meanwhile, the Homeland Security Department yesterday selected three companies to develop nuclear material detection systems to be used at U.S. seaports, AP reported. L-3 Communications Holdings Inc., American Science & Engineering Inc., and Science Applications International Corp. each received seven-year deals. They all must spend the first two years developing prototype systems that would go through a rigid approval process.  Functioning systems could earn each firm up to $450 million, according to Vayl Oxford, director of the DHS Domestic Nuclear Detection Office. Existing systems can detect radioactive material but cannot determine if it presents a threat.  They are “essentially the same X-ray as a doctor’s office,” Oxford said. The new Cargo Advanced Automated Radiography Systems would be able to detect highly enriched uranium, weapon-grade plutonium and other potentially weaponized material, along with their shapes, Oxford said.  The agency would buy as many as 300 of the systems through 2012. Eliminating false alarms will be a priority, said Howard Reichel, assistant director at the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (Dan Caterinicchia, Associated Press II/Yahoo!News, Sept. 13). Back to top

Japan Considers Export Law Revision The Japanese government is considering revising its export control laws to better prevent trade in technology that could be used to develop weapons of mass destruction, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 12). Tokyo has been stung by recent cases of illicit export of weapons material.  Authorities last month arrested the president of Mitutoyo Corp. and four employees for shipping equipment that could be used to produce nuclear weapons.  A Tokyo trading firm was fined in August for delivering to North Korea a freeze dryer that could be used to dry bacteria for biological weapons (see GSN, Aug. 14). Exporters in Japan are now required to receive government approval for exports of sensitive material worth $425 or more to Iran, Iraq, Libya and North Korea, AP reported.  Companies could soon be required to receive permission for all sensitive exports, no matter the value of the material. Japan might remove Libya from that list of nations, said Naoyuki Hasegawa, security export control director for the Japanese Trade Ministry.  This follows Tripoli’s 2003 renunciation of weapons of mass destruction. The export law changes are expected to be submitted later this year, Hasegawa said (Hiroko Tabuchi, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Sept. 13). Back to top       Cuba Denies WMD Charges A Cuban scientist said yesterday that his nation is not developing biological or chemical weapons, rejecting U.S. claims from years past that a biotechnology center was involved in military work, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Sept. 22, 2004). “We have no ties to anything related to biological weapons, it has nothing to do with what we focus on,” Luis Herrera Martinez, director of the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, said during a Nonaligned Movement summit in Havana. Then-Undersecretary of State John Bolton said in 2002 that Cuba possessed “at least a limited offensive biological warfare” system. It would be “stupid” for Cuban scientists to develop such weapons, Herrera said. “We don’t have the money to be dedicated to that, and we are not interested,” he said.  “We would have to be stupid to be doing what these accusations imply, we wouldn’t even be able to do anything like that.  It doesn’t make any sense, it does not go with our work ethic or interests.” The center has produced 91 products, 33 of which are used against infectious disease, Herrera said (Associated Press/The Star, Sept. 14). Back to top

IAEA Blasts U.S. House Report on Iran In an unusually public moment, senior U.N. nuclear inspectors have harshly objected to the findings of a U.S. House committee report on Iran’s nuclear program, the Washington Post reported today.  They called the parts of the document “outrageous and dishonest” and directly rebutted several claims (see GSN, Aug. 24). The House Intelligence Committee released the report last month accusing U.S. intelligence agencies of understating Iran’s nuclear capabilities and plans.  It charged that intelligence analysts were shying away from making assertive accusations about Iran’s nuclear weapon ambitions because they were trying too hard to avoid mistakes similar to those made in assessing Iraq’s WMD capabilities prior to the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. In a letter to committee Chairman Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), International Atomic Energy Agency officials said the report contained “erroneous, misleading and unsubstantiated statements.” style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  The letter was signed by Vilmos Cserveny, director of the agency’s office of external relations and policy coordination. A copy of the letter was also given to the U.S. ambassador to the agency, Gregory Schulte, in Vienna, where the IAEA Board of Governors is meeting this week (see GSN, Sept. 13). The letter identified five major errors in the report, including an assertion that Iran has produced weapon-grade uranium at its enrichment facility in Natanz.  The letter said that charge was “incorrect,” and that Iran has enriched uranium only to 3.5-percent levels, when weapon-grade is considered to be 90 percent or greater. The report also asserted that the agency had transferred a senior inspector from the Iran case after he raised “concerns about Iranian deception regarding its nuclear program.”  The officials’ letter said the inspector has not been transferred. The committee report was primarily authored by a one staffer, a former aide to U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, and it was publicly released without full committee approval, the Post reported.  The staffer, Frederick Fleitz, is now preparing a report on the North Korean nuclear crisis, according to the Post. It was “clearly not prepared in a manner that we can rely on,” said committee member Rush Holt (D-N.J.). Several U.S. intelligence officials told the Post that the report had at a least a dozen mistaken or unprovable assertions. “This is like prewar Iraq all over again,” said Institute for Science and International Security President David Albright.  “You have an Iranian nuclear threat that is spun up, using bad information that’s cherry-picked and a report that trashes inspectors” (Dafna Linzer, Washington Post I, Sept. 14). Meanwhile, senior European Union and Iranian officials yesterday postponed planned diplomatic discussions on the nuclear crisis, the Associated Press reported. EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and top Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani had planned for the Paris session today to be their third meeting in recent days.  The meeting was expected to proceed, but with lower-level officials, according to AP (George Jahn, Associated Press/Washington Post, Sept. 14). Back to top       Iran’s Elite Split on Nuclear Program, Author Says By Jon Fox, Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The author of a recently published book on Iran’s nuclear program yesterday said there is a fundamental division among the ruling elite in Tehran on the purpose of its national nuclear effort (see GSN, Sept. 13). “The Iranian elite is united on Iran playing a major regional role and in seeing the nuclear program as an essential element in this,” said Shahram Chubin, author of Iran’s Nuclear Ambitions.  “However, they differ very much on the kind of Iran they want and on the sort of role it should play.” Within the Iranian regime, “realists” led by former presidents Mohammad Khatami and Akbar Rafsanjani regard the nuclear program as a point of leverage with the West, Chubin said yesterday at a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace event. In the eyes of this more moderate wing of the ruling establishment, Iran’s nuclear capability can be used as a bargaining chip to move Tehran toward engaging the international community and becoming “a normal state,” he said. These “realists,” supported by a young, urban, middle-class constituency, envision Iran moving closer to globalization and giving up its “revolutionary pretensions,” said Chubin, director of studies at the Geneva Center for Security Policy. Their support comes from “people who really want the state to become a state.” Taking a harder line, however, is a more conservative wing of the regime —embodied by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Ali Larijani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council — which sees the nuclear program as way to counterbalance Western nations and to level the international playing field.  This group envisions “the nuclear capability as a means to confronting the West on equal terms in order to pursue the Islamic revolution with Iran as a model,” Chubin said. “The nuclear issue is at the end of the day very much an instrument by which the conservatives are entrenching themselves in Iran,” he said, describing it as a means of “legitimization” of the regime. While there is an internal debate about how far and how fast to push the nuclear program, Chubin suggested that neither element within the regime might actually want to push the program to weaponization. Iranian leaders, he said, do not want to pull the nation out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.  Developing nuclear weapons might, in fact, run counter to national interests.  “They know, whether they believe it or not, that there would be a certain diplomatic fallout in the region and not just with the U.S.” He described the conservatives as playing to the rural elements of the population who might not have benefited from the Islamic revolution but believe the original goals of the movement need to be honored.  The group, which he said appears to have the backing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, also draws support from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. “The elite divisions … are very, very real,” he said. Under Ahmadinejad, the Revolutionary Guards is becoming a more politicized interest group, Chubin cautioned. “They’re not a side element in the regime” Referring to the military organization, he said, “The same people who are in charge of the nuclear installations are also in charge of contacts with terrorist organizations abroad.” Compelling Iran to suspend its enrichment program is impossible “without the implicit threat of military force,” he said.  Unfortunately, the regime might not regard the threat of force as a reality.  “I don’t think they believe it, and I think they’re making a big mistake.” Chubin said the argument that Iran needs to enrich uranium to fuel domestic electricity-generating reactors “lacks plausibility.” “What is the rush for enrichment?” he said.  “It might be justified if you have a dozen reactors, but you don’t.  So, what’s the rush for enrichment?” Back to top       U.S. Denies Seeking Direct Talks with North Korea South Korea and the United States offered conflicting statements on whether Washington’s chief envoy had sought direct talks with his North Korean counterpart on Pyongyang’s nuclear program, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, Sept. 13). An unidentified South Korean Foreign Ministry official said U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill made such an offer while in China last week. South Korean Vice Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan confirmed that statement. “I understand that Assistant Secretary Hill made such a gesture of his own initiative,” in hopes of restarting the six-nation negotiations on North Korea’s nuclear program, Yu said. Hill denied making the offer, but reaffirmed his willingness to meeting directly with North Korean officials during resumed nuclear talks, AP reported (Jae-Soon Chang, Associated Press, Sept. 14). North Korea must decide if it wants the multilateral negotiations to move forward, the White House said yesterday. “The impetus is on the North Koreans.  Nobody wants a nuclearized peninsula, that’s well recognized.  People are still trying to figure out the proper way to proceed on it,” said spokesman Tony Snow. “The North Koreans need to come back to the table,” Snow added (Paul Tighe, Bloomberg, Sept. 14). The visit today by South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun to the White House comes amidst increasing divergence between his nation and the United States on handling the nuclear crisis, the New York Times reported. Roh favors negotiations to bring Pyongyang into the international community, while U.S. President George W. Bush wants to increase sanctions to force North Korea to end its nuclear and illicit programs. While the Bush administration is preparing additional financial punishments in response to North Korea’s July missile tests, Seoul has played down the importance of the missile flights and restarted aid and investment in its neighbor. The differences between Seoul and Washington are now “as wide as the Sea of Japan,” one senior White House official said.  Bush sees Roh as supporting a program of appeasement that is destined to fail, while Roh believes Bush’s tactics are more likely to lead to a violent response from Pyongyang than disarmament, the Times reported (David Sanger, New York Times, Sept. 14). Back to top

South Africa’s “Dr. Death” Remains on Payroll The head of South Africa’s apartheid-era biological weapons program continues to draw a military stipend, seven years after he was suspended from the South African Defense Force, it was reported this week (see GSN, Oct. 20, 2005). Wouter Basson, nicknamed “Dr. Death” for his alleged role in government efforts to kill black activists, was acquitted of murder and other related charges in 2002, but has never been fully restored to active service as a cardiac surgeon with the defense force, which suspended him in 1999 (South Africa Mail and Guardian, Sept. 13).  He earns a $6,800 monthly salary and has said he has no intention of quitting, the South African Broadcasting Corp. reported. “I have not suspended myself, I have no reason to resign.  I have made a career in the defense force for 18 years until I was fired by [then-President F.W.] DeKlerk, which was eventually proved to be a wrongful dismissal.  I was reinstated by [then-President Nelson] Mandela,” Basson said. “If I had a choice, I would be back working and doing my thing.  I have no moral or other obligation to resign from the post,” he added. Basson met this week in Cape Town with Defense Minister Mosiuoa Lekota to discuss his status, SABC reported (SABC, Sept. 14). Senior officials also met yesterday to address the problem, the Mail and Guardian reported. “It’s a very complex labor issue that will be dealt with sooner rather than later,” said defense force chief January Masilela (Mail and Guardian). Back to top       Cornell Develops Anthrax-Detecting Napkin A napkin being developed at Cornell University in New York could one day be used to detect anthrax and other dangerous pathogens, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Aug. 18). The absorbent wipe contains nanofibers carrying antibodies to various biological materials and chemicals.  When wiped on a surface, the antibodies could change color to indicate contact with a bacteria or virus. The antibodies “are going to selectively latch on to whatever pathogen they match,” said Margaret Frey, a professor of fiber science and apparel design.  “Using this method, we should, in theory, be able to quickly activate the fabric to detect whatever is the hazard of the week, whether it is bird flu, mad cow disease or anthrax.” It is expected to take several years to prepare the napkin for commercial production, Frey said (Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Sept. 13). Back to top

Poland Wants Security Pact, Air Defenses in Exchange for Hosting U.S. Missile Interceptors Poland would seek a bilateral defense pact with the United States if it were to host a U.S. missile defense installation, Polish Defense Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said yesterday (see GSN, Aug. 21; Jim Wolf, Reuters/Washington Post, Sept. 13). “I need to prove to the Polish people and to parliament, because such a base could not happen without a bill in (parliament), that as a result Poland’s security would increase,” Sikorski told a forum at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.  He was in Washington to accompany Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski on his first official visit to the United States, the Associated Press reported. Some critics have argued that “such a base would be a target, it would be a target of nuclear strikes or terrorist threats or increased penetration by foreign intelligence services,” Sikorski said.  “In other words, there would be downsides, and I would need to go before parliament and say why, overall, it’s a good package” (Associated Press/Houston Chronicle, Sept. 14). Any agreement would therefore need to have a bilateral security agreement and the promise of upgrades to Polish air defenses, he said (Reuters/Washington Post). Back to top       Taiwan to Deploy Home-Grown Missile Defenses Taiwan plans to field domestically developed missile defenses next year to supplement systems purchased from the United States, Agence France-Presse reported yesterday (see GSN, Aug. 1). The Taiwanese system, called the Antitactical Ballistic Missile, is “expected to effectively counter the threat of China’s M-9 and M-11 ballistic missiles,” said one source (see GSN, Feb. 8). Officials had originally planned to deploy the ATBM system in 2005 but met delays, AFP reported.  The system is based on current “Tienkung” (Sky Bow) air-defense missiles. Taiwan intends to eventually have 12 ATBM batteries as well as an indeterminate number of U.S. Patriot missiles, according to Taiwan’s Apple Daily paper.  Currently, three batteries of Patriot Advanced Capability 2 missile interceptors are deployed near Taipei, AFP reported (Agence France-Presse, Sept. 13). Back to top       THAAD Test Halted by Target Malfunction A test of a U.S. Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense missile interceptor failed to come off yesterday when the target missile had to be destroyed shortly after launching, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Aug. 24). An anomaly in the Hera missile forced safety officers at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico to destroy the target two minutes into its flight, said Missile Defense Agency spokeswoman Pam Rogers. The cause of the failure will be investigated, Rogers said. The THAAD interceptor was not launched.  The system is being developed for use against short- to intermediate-range ballistic missiles in the upper atmosphere (Associated Press/Army Times, Sept. 13). Meanwhile, the Missile Defense Agency over the next two months plans to study data from a successful test of its Ground-based Midcourse Defense system in order to determine the configuration of the next test, Inside Missile Defense reported yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 5). While the primary goal of the Sept. 1 test was not interception, the interceptor kill vehicle brought down a target missile over the Pacific Ocean. The test was aimed at “demonstrating the ability of the Upgraded Early Warning Radar at Beale Air Force Base [in California] to acquire, track and report the target warhead, and also to assess the performance of the interceptor missile’s rocket motor system and exoatmospheric kill vehicle,” according to an agency statement. Data from that test will help the agency determine whether to include countermeasures in the next interceptor flight in order to “confuse” the system, said Lt. Gen. Henry Obering, head of the Missile Defense Agency. A nighttime flight and salvo test are also being considered. A salvo test would involve launching more than one target missile, and is “likely” to occur in 2008, an agency spokesman told Inside the Army.  Such a test would be more realistic than a single-target flight, as an enemy might easily fire more than one missile. Timing of a night test “depends on [the Federal Aviation Administration] giving approval for a launch window,” the spokesman said. Missile defense critics told Inside Missile Defense that their concerns have not been resolved by the successful test. “While yes, they did achieve an intercept, this is in no way, shape or form, an end-to-end test of the system,” said Victoria Samson of the Center for Defense Information.  They are missing key components of the GMS system … they don’t having a working (concept of operations), and they are still dependent on a-priori information. “Today’s intercept was the sixth out of 11 attempts, the first one in near four years, and the only one to date with the operationally configured warhead.  This system has much left to prove,” she added (Liang/Roque, Inside Missile Defense, Sept. 13).   Back to top

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