Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, shown last week at the White House, has said that North Korea might have acquired advanced centrifuge technology from former top Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan (Tim Sloan/Getty Images). North Korea Might Have Received Advanced Centrifuges from Khan The black market nuclear network operated by former top Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan might have sent advanced nuclear centrifuges to North Korea, Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said in memoirs published yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 18). That claim could raise questions about Pyongyang’s progress in secret efforts to enrich uranium, the New York Times reported...Full Story

U.S. Open to Direct Meeting With North Korea North Korea needs only commit to return to multilateral negotiations on its nuclear program to open the door for direct meetings with the United States, Agence France-Presse reported today (see GSN, Sept. 25)...Full Story

Russia Agrees to Take Serbian Spent Fuel Russia has agreed remove spent nuclear fuel from a dormant Serbian research reactor to prevent terrorists from acquiring material for radiological weapons, a Serbian official said yesterday (see GSN, July 27)...Full Story

	Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Senators Want U.S. Intelligence Report Released The leading members of the Senate intelligence committee are seeking the release of the latest U.S. National Intelligence Estimate, which states that the war in Iraq has boosted the jihad movement around the world, the New York Times reported today (see GSN, Aug. 23). The classified document also found that the global threat of terrorism has increased since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks against the United States, the Times reported Sunday (Mark Mazzetti, New York Times I, Sept. 24). The estimate represents the consensus of the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies.  It is the first such report since the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. “I think the administration should declassify this document so the American people can see the material for themselves and come to their own conclusions,” Senate intelligence committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) said in a statement. He and ranking committee Democrat John Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) said sensitive material should be removed from the document before it is released. The White House indicated that it would not release the document, to ensure that U.S. knowledge of the operations of terrorist groups remains a secret, the Times reported. “What we don’t want to do is tell them what we know so they know how to operate around that,” said White House domestic security adviser Frances Townsend. House Democrats are seeking formal hearings on the report (Mark Mazzetti, New York Times II, Sept. 26). Back to top       U.S. Cities Net $191 Million in Antiterror Funds The Homeland Security Department announced $191 million in grants yesterday to help major U.S. cities protect against terrorist threats, the Washington Post reported (see GSN, Sept. 13). The grants came in the last week of the fiscal year and appeared to supplement funds to cities that had complained of being shortchanged in a round of grants awarded earlier this year, according to the Post (see GSN, June 1). In both rounds of grants the department this year issued $399 million around the nation to beef up security at chemical sites, railroad facilities, nuclear power plants and other critical infrastructures.  Last year, the department awarded $388 million for similar efforts. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Cherthoff urged urban areas not to consider the funding as a competition among cities. “Risk is not the entire story.  What’s also important is what is the need that is being satisfied,” he said.  “What we’re trying to do is move away from looking at grants as if … every year it’s a horse race. … If you want a horse race, you go to Pimlico” (Spencer Hsu, Washington Post, Sept. 26). Back to top

North Korea Might Have Received Advanced Centrifuges from Khan The black market nuclear network operated by former top Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan might have sent advanced nuclear centrifuges to North Korea, Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said in memoirs published yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 18). That claim could raise questions about Pyongyang’s progress in secret efforts to enrich uranium, the New York Times reported. In his book, “In the Line of Fire,” Musharraf said that he began having suspicions about Khan as early as 1999. “I received a report suggesting that some North Korean nuclear experts, under the guise of missile engineers, had arrived” at Pakistani nuclear laboratories, where they “were being given secret briefings,” Musharraf wrote. He apparently did not alert the United States to his suspicions.  Washington in 2002 collected strong indications of a North Korean uranium enrichment effort, a counterpart to Pyongyang’s known plutonium program.  That program had been suspended for much of the 1990s under a deal with the United States. “It’s a significant admission, since the Pakistanis spent years denying that there was any evidence of dealings with North Korea and telling us, ‘No problem here,’” a senior U.S. intelligence official told the Times. It has been believed that the Khan network supplied Pyongyang with older technology such as the P-1 centrifuge.  However, the Musharraf memoir indicates that North Korea might have received the P-2 centrifuge, which is capable of enriching more uranium at faster speeds. Musharraf in the book reiterated denials by the Pakistani leadership of any knowledge of Khan’s activities.  He does not address the use of Pakistani military flights to transport material to Iran and North Korea. Khan was “such a self-centered and abrasive man that he could not be a team player,” Musharraf wrote. “He had a huge ego. … [Khan] had managed to build himself up into Albert Einstein and J. Robert Oppenheimer rolled into one,” the book states (David Sanger, New York Times, Sept. 26). Musharraf also rejected suspicions that a 1999 confrontation between the Indian military and Pakistani militants almost led the two countries to nuclear war, Agence France-Presse reported yesterday. “The limits of our conventional forces were nowhere in sight, still less in danger of being crossed,” the book states.  “I can also say with authority that in 1999 our nuclear capability was not operational” (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Sept. 25). Back to top       U.S. Open to Direct Meeting With North Korea North Korea needs only commit to return to multilateral negotiations on its nuclear program to open the door for direct meetings with the United States, Agence France-Presse reported today (see GSN, Sept. 25). “We are open to a new approach, as I said last week,” U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Alexander Vershbow said today. “Assistant Secretary [of State Christopher] Hill is open to a bilateral meeting with his North Korean counterpart if Pyongyang commits to return to six-party talks,” he said. Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said yesterday he believes Pyongyang could conduct a nuclear weapon test this year, AFP reported. “As a personal opinion I think you have an even chance of a nuclear device detonation by the end of the year, and that in the longer time it’s more likely than not that North Korea will detonate a nuclear device,” he said at a forum in Seoul. “I think in their logic, it’s the next rational escalation point,” he added (Jun Kwanwoo, Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Sept. 26). Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told the Wall Street Journal that she would make “one last push” to resume the talks during a trip to Asia in the next six weeks, AFP reported. “The current situation isn’t really acceptable,” she said (Agence France-Presse II/Yahoo!News, Sept. 26). Meanwhile a senior North Korean official reportedly said that his country’s nuclear program is close to the point of “no return” after producing no less than five or six weapons, the Yonhap News Agency reported today. “If we could have stopped the process at five or six (nuclear) weapons, perhaps we would have had a way to step back down again.  I am not sure where the threshold of no return is, but we are getting close,” said First Vice Minister Kang Suk Ju this summer, according to Robert Carlin, former head of the Northeast Asia Division at the U.S. State Department. Carlin said in an online article that he received a copy of Kang’s speech from an unknown sender. The speech would be the first accounting by a senior official of North Korea’s nuclear weapons arsenal, Yonhap reported. Kang argued that Washington never made a serious attempt in the six-nation negotiations to resolve the nuclear standoff through diplomacy, and that the talks were unlikely to reconvene. “They were simply an effort by the Americans to corral us, like cattle,” he said. “We are a nuclear power and there is no reason we should, nor any likelihood we could, give that up,” Kang added (Yonhap News Agency, Sept. 26). Back to top       U.S. Senate Likely to Defer Indian Nuclear Deal The U.S. Senate is not expected to vote on the proposed U.S.-Indian nuclear trade pact before lawmakers take their election recess this week, congressional staffers and analysts told the Associated Press (see GSN, Sept. 15). The deal calls for the United States to provide nuclear technology to India, but would require changes to U.S. nuclear nonproliferation laws and to international trade guidelines. A busy legislative agenda, combined with lawmakers’ desire to focus on issues of more interest to voters, probably means that the deal will not receive the Senate’s attention until after the Nov. 7 elections, AP reported. “For this week, the Indian deal is number 58 on the top 10 list,” said analyst Henry Sokolski, director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. The House of Representatives in July approved enabling legislation clearing the way for the United States to drop long-standing nuclear trade restrictions against India (see GSN, July 27). Critics of the deal have urged the Senate to take its time. The Senate legislation “deserves a thorough debate, with sufficient time to address the deep nonproliferation flaws in the proposal,” said Arms Control Association Executive Director Daryl Kimball.  “It would be a grave mistake for the Senate to rush consideration” (Foster Klug, Associated Press/The Hindu, Sept. 26). Back to top       Iran, Russia Agree on Bushehr Fuel Schedule Iran and Russia today agreed on a schedule to send nuclear fuel to the Russian-built nuclear power plant at Bushehr, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Sept. 25). The agreement calls for Russia to deliver 80 tons of fuel in March, said Sergei Shmatko, head of Atomstroiexport, the Russian state-run firm building the plant.  An earlier agreement requires Iran to return spent nuclear fuel to Russia (see GSN, Feb. 28, 2005). The deal also sets September 2007 as a deadline for opening the facility and November 2007 for the initial production of electricity, said Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency spokesman Sergei Novikov (Agence France-Presse/Khaleej Times, Sept. 26). Back to top       U.S. Labs Complete New Warhead Designs Two designs for the next generation of U.S. nuclear warheads have been completed, and the decision on which to produce is expected next month, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, June 13). Competing scientific teams from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico crafted the plans for the Reliable Replacement Warhead. “I have seen the results from both teams and they’re both outstanding,” said Los Alamos director Michael Anastasio. The Nuclear Weapons Council, a group of officials from the Energy and Defense departments, are due to select the design to be used to replace currently deployed U.S. warheads as they age (Heather Clark, Associated Press/Santa Fe New Mexican, Sept. 25). Back to top

Pentagon Opposes More CW Waste Transport Studies The U.S. Defense Department is hoping to kill language in the fiscal 2007 defense authorization bill that would require another federal study before nerve agent disposal waste can be transported from Indiana to New Jersey, Defense Environment Alert reported last week (see GSN, July 28). The Pentagon made the request last month in an appeal to the chairmen of the House and Senate Armed Services committees.  The House version of the bill requires the Government Accountability Office to study the Army’s cost-benefit analysis for transporting hydrolysate waste created by chemical agent neutralization at the Newport Chemical Depot to a DuPont plant for processing.  The waste could not be relocated for 60 days after submission of the report. The Pentagon argued that the Environmental Protection Agency and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have already approved the transportation plan, so the agency “should be able to continue with plans to pursue environmental permits and contract awards to ship, treat, and dispose of hydrolysate waste off-site.” Delaying waste shipments from Newport would undermine the U.S. effort to meet its Chemical Weapons Convention obligation to eliminate 45 percent of its chemical stockpile by Dec. 31, 2007, the Pentagon said. Officials in Delaware and New Jersey have strongly opposed the plan to ship the waste for treatment at the DuPont plant and final disposal in the Delaware River.  The Army failed to supply lawmakers with an analysis of costs for alternative plans for processing the waste, said Representative Robert Andrews (R-N.J.), who inserted the study language. “That is why Congress had no choice but to ask the (Government Accountability Office) to conduct this cost benefit analysis and why the language authorizing a GAO study is included in this bill,” he said (Defense Environment Alert, Sept. 19). Back to top       Mustard Agent Leak Found at Deseret Workers discovered and contained a mustard agent leak yesterday at the Deseret Chemical Depot in Utah, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Aug. 3). Roughly two tablespoons leaked from a container valve, according to a statement from the depot. Personnel moved the leaking container to another structure for replacement of plugs and valves.  They also replaced the valve on a separate container believed to be leaking mustard vapor. There was no release of vapor from the storage igloo, AP reported (Associated Press/KUTV.com, Sept. 26). Back to top       Central African Republic Joins Chemical Treaty The Central African Republic has acceded to the Chemical Weapons Convention, depositing its instrument of ratification on Sept. 20.  Under treaty rules the nation’s membership formally takes effect on Oct. 20, when it will become the 180th treaty party (see GSN, Sept. 5). Forty-eight out of 53 African nations have now joined the pact (see GSN, July 27).  Worldwide, nine nations have not signed the treaty and six have signed but not yet ratified, according to the treaty’s Hague-based implementing institution, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW release, Sept. 25). Back to top

Russia Agrees to Take Serbian Spent Fuel Russia has agreed remove spent nuclear fuel from a dormant Serbian research reactor to prevent terrorists from acquiring material for radiological weapons, a Serbian official said yesterday (see GSN, July 27). The agreement, signed last week at the International Atomic Energy Agency’s general conference in Vienna, calls for Russia to take possession of about 8,000 spent fuel rods from the reactor at Vinca, just outside Belgrade, said Serbian Science Minister Aleksandar Popovic.  The $10 million transfer would be completed by the end of 2008, he said. The plan was hatched after the agency determined that the spent fuel was poorly secured. “It’s almost like a candy store” for terrorists, agency official Mike Durst said earlier this year. Similar concerns over weapon-usable fresh fuel at the facility prompted a multinational operation to transfer that material to Russia in 2002 (see GSN, Aug. 23, 2002; Pravda, Sept. 25). Back to top       U.S. Distributes $4M for Antiradiation Treatments The U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases announced yesterday that it had distributed nearly $4 million to five researchers for development of antiradiation treatments (see GSN, Aug. 25). The grants, issued under Project Bioshield, are aimed at producing drugs that would eliminate radioactive material in the human body following exposure to a nuclear weapon or radiological “dirty bomb.” “These new grants will help identify new drug candidates that could be acquired by the Strategic National Stockpile of medical countermeasures, which is available to the public after a terrorist or nuclear attack or accidental radioactive exposure,” said agency head Anthony Fauci in a press release. The grants will fund work for 18 months. They went to:  Raymond Bergeron of the University of Florida, who received $1 million; Scott Miller of the University of Utah School of Medicine, who received $675,000; Kenneth Raymond, of the University of California and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, who received $998,325; and Tatiana Levitskaia and Charles Timchalk, both of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Washington state, who respectively received $725,000 and $599,747 (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases release, Sept. 25). Back to top

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