The United States maintains a single WC-135W Constant Phoenix aircraft for collecting airborne debris to identify the source of a detonated nuclear weapon (U.S. Air Force photo). Dwindling Scientific Expertise Threatens U.S. Nuclear Forensics By Jon Fox Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The U.S. ability to ascertain the origins of nuclear material relies on a declining number of nuclear scientists with crucial radiochemical experience, and in a decade the nation’s government laboratories could face a serious shortage of those experts (see GSN, June 1), a Los Alamos National Laboratory official said yesterday...Full Story

U.S. Experts Arrive in North Korea An eight-person team of U.S. experts arrived today in North Korea, where they are expected to prepare procedures for disabling the Stalinist state’s nuclear complex, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Oct. 11)...Full Story

U.N. Powers to Hold Iran Sanctions Talks Next Week The United States announced yesterday that political directors from six nations have planned Oct. 17 talks on a new round of possible U.N. Security Council sanctions against Iran for refusing to halt its uranium enrichment efforts, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Oct. 10)...Full Story

	Thursday, October 11, 2007

Budget Delay Holds up DOD WMD Defense Programs Congressional delays in approving the fiscal 2008 defense spending bill are expected to stall the startup of several chemical and biological defense programs at the U.S. Defense Department, Inside Missile Defense reported yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 13). Army Maj. Gen. Steve Reeves, joint program executive officer for chemical and biological defense, said last week he told program managers not to “plan on any execution until the second quarter” of the fiscal year that began Oct. 1. Among the affected programs are the Joint Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Reconnaissance Program, which would receive $123 million under the Pentagon budget, and the Joint Portable Decontamination System, set to receive more than $22 million in the spending plan. Work on issuing contracts can progress for the time being but the actual contracts would be made subject to funding, according to Reeves. A continuing resolution would provide incremental funding for the defense program while lawmakers consider full spending levels.  Reeves said the defense appropriations legislation should be finalized before the beginning of December. The chem-bio defense program for fiscal 2008 is seeking roughly $599 million for science and technology, $549 million for procurement and $231 million for advanced development.  Thirty-seven percent of that money would be directed toward medical work, with 21 percent slotted for sensor efforts. The House defense appropriations and authorization bills, along with the Senate defense authorization legislation, supported the full funding request or even added more money for the program, Inside Missile Defense reported.  However, Senate appropriators reduced the amount by $150 million (Daniel Wasserbly, Inside Missile Defense, Oct. 10). Back to top

Dwindling Scientific Expertise Threatens U.S. Nuclear Forensics By Jon Fox Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The U.S. ability to ascertain the origins of nuclear material relies on a declining number of nuclear scientists with crucial radiochemical experience, and in a decade the nation’s government laboratories could face a serious shortage of those experts (see GSN, June 1), a Los Alamos National Laboratory official said yesterday. There are just a handful of scientists working on the issue full time, but perhaps more troubling is the age of those scientists.  The majority of scientists at the government laboratories who spent more than half of their time working on what experts call nuclear forensics and attribution are older than 50, according to a survey conducted by the National Technical Nuclear Forensics Center. “In some cases we have retirees staffing significant roles,” Carol Burns, head of the nuclear and radiochemistry division at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, told a congressional panel. Nuclear forensics describes the process of analyzing nuclear material either in a weapon, before or after detonation, or intercepted during smuggling.  The goal would be to determine where it came from, what those in the field call attribution. Within the national research laboratories there are about 20 to 30 people spending most of their time on forensics.  When one adds those giving some smaller portion of their attention to the issue that number increases to about 200, Burns told a House Homeland Security subcommittee on science and emerging threats. While the number of scientists working in the field might be modest, the federal government has been quietly devoting additional resources to nuclear forensics and the challenge of attribution, establishing the National Technical Nuclear Forensics Center and working to collect a database of nuclear “fingerprints.”  Such a database could allow analysts to pinpoint the origin of fissile material either before or after a nuclear blast. “Nuclear forensics is now increasingly recognized as having the potential to serve as a central pillar of deterrence in the 21st century,” Vayl Oxford, head of the Homeland Security Department’s Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, told the panel yesterday.  “The importance of nuclear forensics cannot be understated.” Such a crucial scientific pursuit — one that experts admit still poses a number of technical challenges — rests on “the shoulders of a relatively small cadre of experts at the national labs,” Oxford said.  “We are all facing the challenges of recruiting and retaining the nuclear experts that we rely on so heavily to achieve our mission.” As the most experienced radiochemists age and retire, the national laboratories could face a serious problem 10 years down the road, Burns said.  Unfortunately, addressing that shortage is not as simple as looking to the best universities for the next crop of physicists. Since the late 1960s the number of students earning doctorates in fields such as radiochemistry and nuclear chemistry has steadily declined, as has the number of faculty in those fields. A 2005 survey found that 75 percent of professors in these fields were more than 50 years old. The expertise required for nuclear forensics is not something a scientist is likely to have developed in a university setting but rather knowledge that must come firsthand or be conveyed by experienced workers, Burns noted. “For instance, both at Los Alamos and nationwide, we have a dwindling number of radiochemists who have analyzed the debris from a nuclear explosion and worked with designers to assess the nature of a device,” she told the committee.  “It takes years of working with senior staff and retirees to build this competence in a new worker.” Burns told lawmakers that a number of programs, including an Energy Department-funded summer school for undergraduate students interested in nuclear and radiochemistry, are helping to funnel future scientists toward graduate programs relevant to the challenges of nuclear forensics. Still, that may not be enough, and Burns said it is likely that the U.S. laboratories would be unable to build a sufficient base of workers trained academically in the necessary field. Considering that, “it is important to enlist scientists from other disciplines in solving the technical challenges of nuclear forensics,” she wrote in her prepared testimony for the committee.  “We must provide a broader range of scientists with access to the facilities and tools to conduct work on radiological and nuclear [material], perhaps through cooperative programs at the national laboratories.” While a potential scarcity of scientists confronts those on the frontlines of nuclear forensic research, the government agencies involved have been pushing ahead to advance U.S. capabilities. Recent emphasis in the forensics field has been on reducing the time between collecting nuclear samples and completing the analysis of their origin.  “In some cases weeks or months may be required,” said Steven Aoki, deputy undersecretary for counterterrorism at the Energy Department, said. If a nuclear weapon were to detonate in the United States, weeks to months might be an unacceptable timeline to determine the origin of the device.  A recent nuclear attribution workshop at the National Defense University stressed the intense pressure the president and his advisers would be under to rapidly determine the weapon’s return address. Such a determination would be necessary to enable a response from the United States and would help prevent a potential follow-up attack, according testimony from Michael Evenson, associate director for operations at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. The hearing was held before the committee was scheduled to consider a bill calling on the president to pursue international agreements to lay the framework for more effective attribution efforts, such as information sharing about known nuclear signatures. The bill, “The Nuclear Forensics and Attribution Act,” also includes the authorization of $20 million annually for the next three years to fund attribution efforts within the Homeland Security Department.  The committee, however, was unable to muster enough members to vote on the proposed legislation. Back to top       U.S. Experts Arrive in North Korea An eight-person team of U.S. experts arrived today in North Korea, where they are expected to prepare procedures for disabling the Stalinist state’s nuclear complex, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Oct. 11). State Department chief Korea expert Sung Kim is leading the team, which is expected to oversee the beginning of disablement of the plutonium-producing reactor at Yongbyon. In an agreement reached last week, Pyongyang pledged by the end of this year to disable the reactor and two other plants at the nuclear complex.  The deal also requires North Korea this year to fully declare its nuclear holdings (Agence France-Presse I/Spacewar.com, Oct. 11). Former U.S. negotiator Robert Gallucci said Pyongyang might be holding 60 kilograms of plutonium, RIA Novosti reported today.  That would be up from six to seven kilograms in the early 1990s. Top U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill estimated the amount at 50 kilograms, which he said could power five to 10 warheads, “depending on how big your bomb is” (RIA Novosti, Oct. 11). North Korean leader Kim Jong Il last week expressed his intention to do away with his country’s nuclear weapons, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun said today. “We have no intention to possess nuclear weapons.  Our will is strong,” Kim said, according to Roh.  The two men met for three days in the second-ever summit between leaders of neighboring nations (Agence France-Presse II/Spacewar.com, Oct. 11). Back to top       U.N. Powers to Hold Iran Sanctions Talks Next Week The United States announced yesterday that political directors from six nations have planned Oct. 17 talks on a new round of possible U.N. Security Council sanctions against Iran for refusing to halt its uranium enrichment efforts, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Oct. 10). Representatives from China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States are expected to meet in Europe next week for the talks, but the exact schedule and location has not been finalized, said U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack. “[U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas] Burns and his political director counterparts are going to be getting together a week from today in Europe to talk about the elements and language that would comprise a sanctions resolution,” McCormack said. “Place and exact time on next Wednesday to be determined; they’re working that out right now,” he added (Agence France-Presse I/Google News, Oct. 10). Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov yesterday warned that no “sudden moves” should be made in the Iran nuclear standoff before the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency reports next month on its progress uncovering details about the Middle Eastern nation’s nuclear program, AFP reported. “Iran is currently cooperating” with the International Atomic Energy Agency, Lavrov told Russian diplomats. “I think it would be absolutely irresponsible to make any sudden moves before the IAEA reports on what is happening in Iran, on whether it is a peaceful nuclear program or whether (there) is a military component,” he said (Agence France-Presse II/Spacewar.com, Oct. 10). Meanwhile, former chief Iranian nuclear envoy Hassan Rohani criticized the nuclear policies of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad yesterday in an address to an Iranian opposition political party, the Associated Press reported. Without referring to Ahmadinejad directly, Rohani told the pro-reform Moderation and Development Party that Iran’s nuclear program has become the focus of international criticism and has crippled Iran economically through sanctions imposed over the program. “On the international stage, we are under threat more than any other time," Rohani said.  “The country's diplomacy will be successful if it doesn't allow the enemy to win the backing of other countries against us.  Unfortunately, the number of our enemies are increasing.  Up to yesterday, Britain stood by the U.S., but now France has joined the United States more closely.” He contested assertions by Ahmadinejad’s administration that the U.N. sanctions were not affecting Iran, arguing instead that “the economic impact is felt in the life of the people” (Ali Dareini, Associated Press/Google News, Oct. 10). Elsewhere, China’s former ambassador to Iran has written in the People’s Daily that recent six-nation disarmament talks with North Korea have offered a model for pursuing diplomacy with Iran, Reuters reported today. “Both involve nuclear issues and both have been seen by the United States as part of an ‘axis of evil,’ but U.S. attitudes towards North Korea and Iran vastly differ,” Ambassador Hua Liming said in the international edition of the Chinese state-controlled newspaper. Hua argued that to end the Iranian nuclear standoff, the United States must hold direct talks with Iran even if Tehran does not comply with U.N. demands that it stop enriching uranium, which could yield a key nuclear bomb ingredient.  He said Iran would be unlikely to make such a concession. While Chinese diplomats have generally been hesitant to share their assessments of the Iran standoff, Hua’s comments have hinted at China’s officials analysis of the situation and concerns about its dangers.  “The United States has three options for Iran:  negotiations, sanctions and armed force,” he wrote. “Clearly, the United States is not interested in negotiations and is more inclined to the latter two options,” he said (Reuters/Washington Post, Oct. 11). Back to top       Indian Communist Parties Express Confidence They Can Block Bilateral U.S Nuclear Deal Left-wing Indian politicians believe they can stop a planned nuclear trade agreement with the United States, a senior Communist Party leader said yesterday (see GSN, Oct. 10). While not formally members of the ruling coalition, a group of four communist parties have threatened to force new elections if the trade deal proceeds.  In a Tuesday meeting with representatives of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government the parties explained that they “were against the agreement,” the leader told Agence France-Presse. “We told them clearly that we are opposed to the deal and if the government still wanted to proceed they would have to face the consequences,” he said. The nuclear deal would enable India to purchase U.S .nuclear materials and technology in exchange for placing its civilian nuclear sector under international supervision. The communist parties have opposed the agreement over fears that it would give Washington too much influence in domestic Indian affairs. The Communist Party official said other political groups currently backing Singh’s Congress party have also expressed concern over the deal. “We have heard that some other allies of Congress are worried about going for elections,” he said.  “They do not feel that this is an issue worth sacrificing the government for and, I think, are pressuring the government” (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Oct. 10). Back to top       Los Alamos Safety Concerns Force Activity Pause Nuclear safety concerns spurred Los Alamos National Laboratory managers to shut down limited operations late last month in a plutonium storage area, laboratory officials said yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 13). Some activity was suspended at Technical Area 55 in four plutonium storage vaults, where technical auditors had expressed concern that the New Mexico laboratory’s safety evaluations were insufficient, KUNM radio reported yesterday. The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board issued an Aug. 31 notice to the laboratory expressing concern about the site’s “criticality safety evaluations,” the calculations that assess the danger of stored plutonium initiating a nuclear chain reaction. “It means that there might be too much plutonium put in one glove box, or one room or one area,” said laboratory critic Greg Mello, head of the Los Alamos Study Group.  “If there’s too much put together then it will explode or melt, bathing the area in neutrons, killing anybody who happens to be around.” The board said 20 CSEs were convoluted, contradictory or technically deficient, and that another 300 were potentially problematic, KUNM reported. The laboratory paused vault activities on Sept. 21 to recalculate its risk assessments.  Some activities resumed Sept. 27, said laboratory spokesman Kevin Roark. The incident suggests the laboratory has a long way to go to improve its safety practices, Mello said. “Los Alamos has a number of deficiencies in its criticality safety program,” he said.  “People had to be evacuated from a room this summer because too much plutonium was put into one glove box.  So it’s not just a theoretical problem, it’s something that is a very real problem” (Jim Williams, KUNM.org (audio file), Oct. 10). Roark played down the significance of the pause, saying it was taken as a preventive and precautionary measure. “This is the lab’s climate of safety,” he said.  “We’re not going to have another criticality accident here if we can help it.” Longtime supporter Senator Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) also praised the laboratory’s actions, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported. “A routine review of safety-related analyses for a plutonium storage area suggested that the safety margins may be smaller than previously thought,” he said in a statement.  “As a precaution, a decision to suspend certain material movements was made pending a more thorough analysis.” “As I understand it, there has not been any accident or similar triggering event.  No one has been harmed.  Indeed, this action was taken to ensure higher levels of safety in the future,” Domenici added (Wendy Brown, Santa Fe New Mexican, Oct. 9). Back to top       U.S. Defends Progress on New Nuclear Warhead A U.S. Energy Department official last week took issue with analysis of a report that appeared to criticize the Bush administration’s program to develop a new U.S. strategic nuclear warhead, Inside Missile Defense reported yesterday (see GSN, Oct. 1). The Reliable Replacement Warhead is intended to replace nuclear warheads currently in the U.S. stockpile and would reduce the potential need for the United States to resume explosive nuclear testing, officials have said. The JASON Defense Advisory Group, a panel of private evaluators, concluded in August that certifying the new warhead would “require new experiments, enhanced computational tools and improved scientific understanding,” says the report’s executive summary.  Also, “substantial work remains on the physical understanding of the surety mechanisms that are of high priority to RRW,” the summary says. Warhead critics seized the report as evidence of poor Bush administration policy. “The JASON report raises many questions to be addressed before proceeding on RRW,” said Representatives Pete Visclosky (D-Ind.) and David Hobson (R-Ohio) in an Oct. 1 joint statement. A senior Energy Department official, however, said the report actually validated progress that weapon designers have made so far and identified next steps that nuclear weapon laboratories fully supported. “We are in a process now of defining the design, and most of the things that the JASON group suggest we do are things that are in our plan, but they do not occur until the end of this phase and into the next phase,” said Marty Schoenbauer, principal assistant deputy administrator for defense programs operations at the Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration. “If you look at the words they chose, from a weapons designer perspective … working our plan day in and day out, we looked at it and said, ‘great, they told us exactly that we were (supposed) to be where we are at,’” he added (Carlo Munoz, Inside Missile Defense, Oct. 10). Back to top

U.S. Issues $55M in Biodefense Contracts Four U.S. firms have received a total of $55.3 million from the Health and Human Services Department to prepare countermeasures against anthrax, plague and tularemia, the agency announced last week (see GSN, Oct. 4). The funding is coming through the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, a new office intended to coordinate research and development of emergency medical countermeasures (see GSN, April 27). “These contracts will help speed the development of new interventions against anthrax, plague and tularemia, three diseases considered to be important bioterror threats,” said NIAID chief Anthony Fauci in a press release.  “The ‘pipeline’ of candidate bioterror countermeasures is fuller than ever, which bodes well for our ongoing efforts to protect Americans from those who would do us harm with biological weapons.” Nanotherapeutics Inc. of Alachua, Fla., received $20 million to develop antibiotics for plague and tularemia, while PharmAthene Inc. of Annapolis, Md., received $13.9 to develop an anthrax antitoxin.  Two previously reported contracts provided Emergent BioSolutions Inc. of Rockville, Md., with $9.5 million for development of an anthrax immune globulin and Elusys Therapeutics Inc. of Pine Brook, N.J., with $11.9 million for anthrax antitoxin development (U.S. Health and Human Services Department release, Oct. 5). Back to top

U.S. Awards Contract to Destroy Hawaiian CW Shells The U.S. Army has awarded a $4.6 million contract to a Colorado company to dispose of 71 chemical weapons munitions discovered at the Schofield Barracks in Hawaii, the Honolulu Advertiser reported (see GSN, Feb. 15, 2006). Army personnel found 152 suspicious weapons rounds while cleaning up a former testing range, according to officials.  The Army determined that 71 of the rounds contained the choking agents chloropicrin or phosgene. An Army spokesman previously said that munitions found at the barracks were believed to be “rounds were used for military training or quality-control testing during World War II.” The Denver-based firm CH2M Hill said it plans to destroy the 71 rounds at the Schofield base inside a portable “controlled detonation chamber,” which it would dismantle and remove after completing the operation. Old chemical weapons rounds could be scattered across more than 1,500 sites covering about 15 million acres in the United States, the company said.  It added that the detonation chamber was developed in response to concerns about the environmental impact of burning or detonating chemical weapons in an exposed setting. The chamber employs explosives to destroy the chemical agent and gases to treat residual chemicals, said Schofield spokeswoman Stefanie Gardin. “All of this takes place in a completely monitored environment in which the air is filtered twice before release,” Gardin said in an e-mail statement (William Cole, Honolulu Advertiser, Oct. 4). Back to top       VX Waste Disposal About Halfway Complete Veolia Environmental Services in Texas has incinerated roughly half of the VX nerve agent disposal wastewater expected to be shipped from the U.S. Army’s Newport Chemical Depot on Indiana, the Beaumont Enterprise reported Friday (see GSN, Sept. 17). The company expects to finish incinerating the 430 shipments of hydrolysate produced by VX neutralization in about one year, said health and safety manager Dan Duncan. On Oct. 4, the plant commemorated reaching the accident-free halfway point of the controversial project, which has faced opposition from environmental organizations and community groups (see GSN, Aug. 24). “There’s been no danger to employees,” Duncan said.  “It’s been done in a way that’s safe for employees and the community.” Duncan said that Veolia and local law enforcement departments monitor the waste shipment trucks on their 18-hour route between the Indiana and Texas facilities.  The drivers of the 4,000-gallon trucks undergo inspections at two-hour intervals, he said. At the plant about three miles outside of Port Arthur, workers pump the hydrolysate into a rotary kiln and then into a combustion chamber to be incinerated at temperatures greater than 2,000 degrees, Duncan said.  Other chemicals are included in the incineration brew to help neutralize the wastewater, which then undergoes final treatment at the site (Christine Rappleye, Beaumont Enterprise, Oct. 5). Back to top

North Korea Tests Solid-Fuel Missile A South Korean lawmaker said today that North Korea in June tested a short-range warhead capable of carrying chemical weapons warheads, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, July 9). The North Korean KN-02 missile has a 75-mile range, enabling it to strike targets south of Seoul, Kim Hak-song of South Korea’s conservative Grand National Party quoted a South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff report as saying. “The KN-O2 missile, as it runs on solid fuel, can be fired easily while being moved around. Its precision strike ability has also improved,” Kim said in a statement. Solid fuel-powered missiles are easier to fuel and stockpile than their liquid fuel-powered counterparts, allowing them to be launched with less preparation time. “Its payload is estimated at 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds) and it can carry chemical and highly explosive warheads,” Kim said (Agence France-Presse/Khaleej Times, Oct. 11).   Back to top

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