EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana (left) and top Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani greet each other before today’s nuclear talks in Berlin (Sean Gallup/Getty Images). EU, Iranian Officials Meet European Union and Iranian officials met again this evening in Berlin to discuss resolving the Iranian nuclear crisis, Bloomberg reported.  Top Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana plan to meet, but would not brief reporters afterward, said German Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Jaeger (see GSN, Sept. 22; Donahue/Nasseri, Bloomberg, Sept. 27). The crisis currently hinges on whether Iran will suspend its uranium enrichment activities before substantive talks can resume to find a long-term solution to the dispute over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.  ..Full Story

Khan Tried to Hide Role in Iran Nuclear Program Former top Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan sought to hide from international inspectors his delivery of nuclear technology to Iran, Agence France-Presse reported yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 26)...Full Story

Democrats Urge Full Cargo Screens at Overseas Ports By Jon Fox, Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — Democrats yesterday received little support from Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff in their call for all U.S.-bound maritime cargo to pass through radiation detectors before leaving overseas ports (see GSN, Sept. 15)...Full Story

	Wednesday, September 27, 2006

White House Releases Intelligence Report The White House yesterday released portions of the latest National Intelligence Estimate on global terrorism, which found that the war in Iraq has spurred Islamic extremism, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Sept. 26). The report, the consensus of the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, declared that Islamic extremists have gained numbers and expanded geographically in recent years. “If this trend continues, threats to U.S. interests at home and abroad will become more diverse, leading to increasing attacks worldwide,” the report states.  “The confluence of shared purpose and dispersed actors will make it harder to find and undermine jihadist groups.” Among the findings were:  that increased involvement of Iraqis in al-Qaeda operations in Iraq could allow foreign members to move on to other countries; that many countries beyond Iran and Syria — the primary state sponsors of terrorism — might find their resources exploited by terrorists; that the factors promoting Islamic extremism, including delays in reform, the war in Iraq and opposition to the United States, outweigh the movement’s weaknesses; and that the Internet will be increasingly used for extremist communication, training and recruitment and for gathering support. Even the limited good news came with conditions, AP reported.  For example, analysts said that extremists could lose support in the face of increased political responsiveness in Muslim nations.  Eliminating the leadership of al-Qaeda would probably cause the group to break apart, the report states.  U.S. forces killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in June (see GSN, June 8), but Ayman al-Zawahiri and terrorist chief Osama bin Laden remain at large. President George W. Bush and other administration officials questioned the connection of the war to increased terrorism and other findings in the report. “My judgment is, if we weren’t in Iraq, they’d find some other excuse, because they have ambitions,” Bush said. White House homeland security adviser Frances Townsend questioned the reported increase in jihadists. “I don’t think there’s any question there’s an increase in rhetoric,” she said.  However, “I think it’s difficult to count the number of true jihadists that are willing to commit murder or kill themselves in the process” (Katherine Shrader, Associated Press/Cape Cod Times, Sept. 27). U.S. intelligence chief John Negroponte said Monday the report did not claim that the United States faced a higher threat of terrorism, Agence France-Presse reported. “We are certainly more vigilant, we are better prepared, in that sense I think we can safely say that we are safer,” he said. Negroponte acknowledged that the “Iraq jihad in shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives.” “However, should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed, fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight,” he said. “These [news] stories left the incorrect impression that this NIE dealt principally with the relationship between Iraq and international terrorism,” he said (Stephen Collinson, Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Sept. 25). Democrats and at least one foreign leader were not convinced by administration arguments. The war in Iraq has “led certainly to more extremism and terrorism around the world,” Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said during an appearance yesterday on “The Daily Show” (Reuters/Yahoo!News, Sept. 27). “The war in Iraq had made us less safe,” said Senator John Rockefeller (D-W.Va.).  The report makes “it clear that the intelligence community — all 16 agencies — believe the war in Iraq has fueled terrorism” (Mark Mazzetti, New York Times, Sept. 27). Back to top

PSI Workshop Held in London Representatives from nations that support the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative gathered this week in London to discuss industry involvement in the effort to halt trafficking of WMD materials, the U.S. Defense Department announced yesterday (see GSN, July 7). Officials from the FBI and Defense, State and Homeland Security departments met Monday and yesterday with representatives from 19 nations.  Topics of discussion included “port governance, the roles of freight forwarders and shipping line owners and operators, the disposition of cargo, implications of the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation, the government decision-making process, and how industry can further participate with PSI supportive nations,” according to a Pentagon release. “The workshop reflects the continued efforts of PSI governments and industry partners to work together against those engaged in WMD-related proliferation trafficking.  The goal is to disrupt WMD-related trafficking networks that support this dangerous trade,” David Cooper, nonproliferation policy director in the office of the secretary of defense, said in the release. Previous PSI government-industry workshops were held in 2004 in Denmark and 2005 in Los Angeles (U.S. Defense Department release, Sept. 26). Back to top

EU, Iranian Officials Meet European Union and Iranian officials met again this evening in Berlin to discuss resolving the Iranian nuclear crisis, Bloomberg reported.  Top Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana plan to meet, but would not brief reporters afterward, said German Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Jaeger (see GSN, Sept. 22; Donahue/Nasseri, Bloomberg, Sept. 27). The crisis currently hinges on whether Iran will suspend its uranium enrichment activities before substantive talks can resume to find a long-term solution to the dispute over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.  The United States has demanded that a verifiable freeze be in place before it sends any officials to negotiate, and the U.N. Security Council has also demanded a freeze. “The United States will not be at the table for any negotiations absent a suspension as outlined by the [International Atomic Energy Agency] and the Security Council,” U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said yesterday.  “That means it has to be a verifiable suspension.  And suspension means suspension means suspension” (Agence France-Presse I/Yahoo!News, Sept. 26). Faced with Iran’s refusal to meet the U.S. or Security Council demands, leading European nations have been seeking a compromise package with less rigid demands on the timing of any suspension (Guy Jackson, Agence France-Presse II/Yahoo!News, Sept. 27). One face-saving measure reportedly under consideration would be for Iran to secretly suspend its sensitive nuclear activities for 90 days, but such secrecy would be difficult to maintain with IAEA inspectors monitoring the program (Bill Gertz, Washington Times, Sept. 26). Asked to confirm this possibility, McCormack told reporters yesterday, “An accurate answer to that question would involve having a very clear and accurate insight into the decision-making process of the Iranian regime, which we don’t have” (Agence France-Presse I). Back to top       Khan Tried to Hide Role in Iran Nuclear Program Former top Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan sought to hide from international inspectors his delivery of nuclear technology to Iran, Agence France-Presse reported yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 26). Khan wrote two letters asking Iranian officials not to discuss him with the International Atomic Energy Agency, Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf wrote in his memoir, In the Line of Fire. “He also advised them to name dead people during investigations, just as he was naming dead people in Pakistan,” Musharraf wrote. In one of the letters, Khan discussed Pakistan’s investigation of his black market nuclear network with his daughter, who lived in London. “The letter, besides being critical of the government for the investigation, contained detailed instructions for her to go public on Pakistan’s nuclear secrets through certain British journalists,” Musharraf wrote. He described the discovery of Khan’s proliferation network as “perhaps one of the most serious and saddest crises that I have ever faced.” “The West in general and the United States in particular wanted the scalp, but to the people of Pakistan he was a hero, a household name, and the father of Pakistan’s pride — its atom bomb,” Musharraf wrote. The president said Khan found support for his network from people in Europe and some Indians, AFP reported. “There is a strong probability that the Indian uranium enrichment program may have its roots in the Dubai-based network and could be a copy of Pakistani centrifuge design,” he wrote (Agence France-Presse I/Gulf Times, Sept. 26). Members of the political opposition in Pakistan are blasting Musharraf for giving away what they believe to be state secrets in his book, AFP reported today.  Among those are the president’s statement that Pakistan’s nuclear program was not operational in 1999, in the midst of a violent conflict with India. “He had no constitutional right to use state expense to sell the book and reveal state secrets to generate interest,” said Liaqat Baluch, head of an alliance of six Islamic fundamentalist political parties.  The alliance plans to bring up the matter next month in parliament (Agence France-Presse II/Yahoo!News, Sept. 27). Back to top       Democrats Urge Full Cargo Screens at Overseas Ports By Jon Fox, Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — Democrats yesterday received little support from Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff in their call for all U.S.-bound maritime cargo to pass through radiation detectors before leaving overseas ports (see GSN, Sept. 15). Requiring such screening would slash the amount of foreign trade with the United States by 75 percent and is not currently possible, Chertoff told the House Homeland Security Committee. “It’s a wonderful aspiration, but it’s not a realistic mandate,” he said, adding that it would be “as unrealistic as passing a law that says in three years cancer has to be cured.” Chertoff appeared before the committee to outline his agency’s plans for the coming year.  He said that 80 percent of all maritime shipping containers would pass through radiation detectors at U.S. ports by the end of this year, and that the percentage should reach 100 percent by the end of 2007. Representative Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) expressed surprise at Chertoff’s figures.  “I didn’t know we were anywhere near that,” he said, but quickly added that scanning cargo before it hits U.S. shores seems like a logical and necessary step. “Why can’t we do it on the other side of the ocean before they start?” DeFazio asked.  “It seems to me with a WMD you’d want to screen on the other side.” He asked why there appeared to be reluctance on the part of the Bush administration to require such radiation scanning at ports of origin. “We don’t own the foreign ports, congressman,” Chertoff said.  He also offered a number of other potential problems, including overseas ports with levels of background radiation that would trigger an incessant string of false positives, lack of adequate manpower at ports, and governments that simply would not want to implement such a program. “The point is if we don’t push them they’re not going to do it,” DeFazio responded. Working to detect nuclear material when a shipping container has arrived in the United States leaves the country open to a devastating act of nuclear terrorism, DeFazio suggested.  “If I know my nuclear weapon is going to be found out at the U.S. port I’ll just detonate it at the port.” Despite obstacles to screening at overseas ports, the United States has inspectors stationed at 44 overseas ports who screen roughly 80 percent of U.S.-bound cargo, according to Chertoff’s testimony.  Under the Homeland Security Container Security Initiative, the number of ports with U.S. inspectors is due to increase to 50 and the percentage of cargo screened to 82 percent by the end of 2006. Under the separate Energy Department Megaports Initiative, the United States has provided radiation detection equipment and training for officials at a number ports in other countries, including Greece, the Bahamas, Spain, Sri Lanka, Singapore and the Netherlands. Representative Edward Markey (D-Mass.) used his five minutes of speaking time to pounce on Chertoff’s comments likening mandating foreign screening to requiring a cure for cancer. “I think that’s a faulty analogy,” Markey said, adding that a better analogy would be passing a law requiring women to be screened for breast cancer and men for prostate cancer. “We’re not calling for an elimination of nuclear bombs anymore than we would call for a cure for cancer,” he said.  “What we are saying though is that there are detection devices that can be put in place to protect Americans at an early stage.” Like DeFazio, Markey turned Chertoff’s appearance before the committee into an opportunity to question the priorities of the current Republican administration.  “I just think your administration has not done the job to protect us against the greatest al-Qaeda terrorist threat,” he said. The discussion came within the context of a broader congressional debate on port security.  The House and Senate have both passed versions of a port security bill. The Senate bill, which authorizes spending $835 million in fiscal 2007, would fund installation of radiation detectors at the 22 largest U.S. ports and 1,000 new agents to screen cargo containers coming off ships. Neither bill includes a provision to ensure that all U.S.-bound containers are scanned for radiation overseas. The Senate legislation requires inspection overseas of cargo considered suspicious and establishes a pilot program to scan containers for radiation at three overseas ports. The bill would authorize nearly $3.3 billion in port-security funding over the next six years and provide for $400 in security grants for individual ports.  The House and the Senate versions must still be reconciled before the legislation can become law. Back to top       Nuclear Weapons for “Self-Defense,” North Korea Says A senior North Korean official yesterday in a speech at the United Nations lashed out at the United States and claimed that his country’s nuclear weapons were needed for “self-defense,” Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Sept. 26). “Possession of deterrent power, solely for self-defense, is fully in line with the interests of the regional countries for peace and security,” said Deputy Foreign Minister Choe Su Hon. “The U.S. adventurous military maneuvers such as military exercises and economic blockade against the D.P.R.K. continue to be tolerated, while the routine missile test fires for our army for self-defense have been picked up to be condemned as ‘a threat to international peace and security,’” he added. “Worse still are the invasions on sovereign states either openly committed or disregarded and even fanned up under the pretext of ‘nonproliferation’ and ‘antiterrorism,’ giving rise to a massacre of innocent people and the serious destruction of international peace and security,” Choe said (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Sept. 26). Choe indicated that Pyongyang would not return to six-nation talks on its nuclear program, the Associated Press reported. “It is quite preposterous that the D.P.R.K., under the groundless U.S. sanctions, takes part in the talks on discussing its own nuclear abandonment,” he said. “It is crystal clear that the U.S. is not in favor of the six-party talks and the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” Choe added. Washington played down Choe’s rhetoric. “I wouldn’t pay too much attention to that.  We’re trying to step up our work with the South Koreans to make sure we’re really in synch,” said Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill (Edith Lederer, Associated Press/ABC News, Sept. 27). Meanwhile, South Korean opposition lawmakers said yesterday the United States is prepared to use military force should North Korea test a nuclear weapon, The Korea Times reported. Washington also plans to maintain sanctions against Pyongyang, they said. “There has been a controversy about Washington’s North Korea policy,” said Chun Yu-ok, a member of a Grand National Party delegation that visited Washington.  “But we clearly confirmed Washington’s stance this time.  The U.S. sanctions against North Korea will go on consistently and strongly, according to principle.” U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Alexander Vershbow said yesterday that Washington continues to support diplomacy in handling the nuclear standoff (Park Song-wu, The Korea Times, Sept. 27). Elsewhere, one expert said a plan offered by a U.S. lawmaker to have former President George H.W. Bush lead a delegation to North Korea is unlikely to come to pass, the Yonhap News Agency reported. Representative Jim Leach (R-Iowa) said such a move could help break the deadlock on talks. “The goal should be to induce both a negotiating commitment and an attitudinal breakthrough,” he said. A trip by such a delegation is not “very likely,” Don Oberdorfer, head of the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University, told Radio Free Asia.  “The administration has taken a position that North Korea must move first to return to the talks” (Yonhap News Agency, Sept. 27). Back to top       Nonproliferation Regime Needs Help, GAO Finds International efforts to curb nuclear proliferation have made notable progress in the past 15 years but remain lacking in many areas, a senior U.S. Government Accountability Office official said yesterday (see GSN, Nov. 8, 2005). The International Atomic Energy Agency, for example, has uncovered illicit nuclear activity in Iran (see GSN, Sept. 22), South Korea (see GSN, Nov. 26, 2004) and Egypt (see GSN, March 2, 2005).  However, experts consulted by the Government Accountability Office warned that “a determined country can still conceal a nuclear weapons program,” said Gene Aloise, GAO natural resources and environment director, in testimony given to a House Government Reform subcommittee. The U.N. nuclear watchdog is hampered by four particular weaknesses, Aloise said: —It has poor access to India, Israel, North Korea and Pakistan, all nations that are outside the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty regime while believed to possess nuclear weapons; —More than half of NPT nations have not yet brought into force the Additional Protocol to their agency safeguards agreements, a measure that would allow the agency greater monitoring powers; —About 60 percent of NPT nations avoid serious agency review because they possess small quantities of nuclear material (see GSN, April 27, 2005) or because they have not yet completed comprehensive safeguards agreements; and —A personnel crisis faces the agency over the next five years as many nuclear inspectors and related managers are due to retire. Other elements of the international nonproliferation regime also need improvement, Aloise said. The Nuclear Suppliers Group, the 45-nation informal body that sets nuclear trade guidelines, does not share information well among its members, creating the possibility that one nation could approve the sale of precisely the same nuclear technology that another country denied. Aloise also praised U.S. efforts to secure nuclear materials and weapons in the former Soviet Union, but cautioned that many hurdles remain, including Russia’s continuing reluctance to open some sites to U.S. personnel (see GSN, Aug. 18) and a troubled program to operate radiation detector (GAO release, Sept. 26). Back to top

Vietnam can Promote CWC Membership, OPCW Says Vietnam could be crucial in persuading North Korea and Myanmar to sign the Chemical Weapons Convention, the head of the treaty’s monitoring body said yesterday in Hanoi (see GSN, Sept. 26). “We believe Vietnam is in a position to exercise positive influence on some countries in this region which are still not members … namely Myanmar and of course North Korea,” said Rogelio Pfirter, director general of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, according to the Associated Press. The agency said Monday that six nations have signed but not ratified the pact, while nine nations have yet to join the treaty. “I hope that governments in Southeast Asia and in the rest of the continent will realize that it’s in their interest that everyone should join,” Pfirter said. He lauded Vietnam for its adherence to the convention’s requirements, AP reported. “Nonproliferation is particularly relevant these days, because of the danger that not just governments, but also terrorist groups might make use of chemical agents,” Pfirter said (Associated Press, Sept. 26). Back to top

Congressional Appropriators Boost Missile Defense U.S. lawmakers have approved more funds for missile defenses than requested by the Bush administration, in part to procure additional missile interceptors, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported Sunday (see GSN, Sept. 12). In appropriating $9.4 billion for fiscal 2007 missile defense activities, House and Senate conferees agreed that an additional $200 million should go toward developing the Ground-based Midcourse Defense program, a system of interceptors now based in Alaska and California. The Senate Appropriations Committee this year expressed worries about the Missile Defense Agency’s priorities. “The committee is concerned that MDA is investing too much funding in future systems and technology in advance of adequate testing and fielding of currently available technology,” according to a committee statement. The $200 million is intended to correct the agency’s direction, according to the News-Miner.  The new funds are targeted for “test infrastructure, operations support and additional interceptors for ground-based missile defenses,” says a committee release. The total missile defense appropriation is $110 million over the Bush administration’s request (Sam Bishop, Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Sept. 24) Back to top       South Korea Sets Up Missile Defense Command South Korea plans to establish a new missile defense command tomorrow, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, July 13). The new command “is aimed at effectively and countering current and future threats,” said an Army statement, and it will control South Korean artillery and surface-to-surface missiles (Associated Press, Sept. 27).   Back to top

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