IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei, shown in September, has pressed Iran to comply with a plan to disclose its nuclear history (Samuel Kubani/Getty Images). ElBaradei Urges Iran to Follow Disclosure Plan International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei has urged Iran to follow the  “work plan” that commits Tehran to disclose information on its past nuclear activities, the Financial Times reported yesterday (see GSN, Oct. 2)...Full Story

2005 TOPOFF Terror Drill Report Remains Incomplete as Next Exercise Begins This Month As the United States plans a major terrorism response exercise this month, U.S. lawmakers have complained that the Homeland Security Department has still not released the results of the previous drill held two years ago, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, Sept. 26)...Full Story

North Korea Promises Nuclear Disablement North Korea has signed on to an agreement calling for it by the end of this year to detail its full nuclear holdings and to shutter facilities at the Yongbyon nuclear complex, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, Oct. 2)...Full Story

	Wednesday, October 3, 2007

2005 TOPOFF Terror Drill Report Remains Incomplete as Next Exercise Begins This Month As the United States plans a major terrorism response exercise this month, U.S. lawmakers have complained that the Homeland Security Department has still not released the results of the previous drill held two years ago, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, Sept. 26). The Homeland Security Department has scheduled the Top Officials 4 exercise to begin Oct. 15 and expects to include thousands of personnel, including high-ranking officials from the Defense and Homeland Security departments (see GSN, Nov. 7, 2006). The drill calls for the mock detonation of radiological weapons at a power plant in Guam, a bridge in Portland, Ore., and a busy highway intersection in Arizona, according to documents acquired by AP.  The exercise will test the local and federal response to the events, in particular how all responding agencies coordinate their efforts. “Lessons learned from the exercise will provide valuable insights to guide future planning for securing the nation against terrorist attacks, disasters and other emergencies,” says the Homeland Security Web site. The previous large-scale exercise, TOPOFF 3, was held in 2005, but a final report remains under review, AP reported (see GSN, Feb. 1, 2006). Such delays are “not acceptable,” said former Homeland Security Department Secretary Tom Ridge. A U.S. House Homeland Security subcommittee has scheduled a hearing today on the matter (Eileen Sullivan, Associated Press/Google News, Oct. 3). Back to top

ElBaradei Urges Iran to Follow Disclosure Plan International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei has urged Iran to follow the  “work plan” that commits Tehran to disclose information on its past nuclear activities, the Financial Times reported yesterday (see GSN, Oct. 2). ElBaradei said Iran must clarify how it acquired advanced uranium-enriching centrifuges and what research has been conducted the equipment.  ElBaradei is scheduled to report on the work plan’s progress before a Nov. 22 meeting of his agency’s governing board. “I’ve told the Iranians:  ‘This is your litmus test.  You committed yourself to come clean. If you don’t, nobody will be able to come to your support,’” he said. ElBaradei said Iran must address both the extent of its research and development of uranium enrichment and its capability to produce nuclear material that could be used in nuclear weapons. “I would hope that by November we would have resolved these two issues but I can’t say how far we will go,” he said.  “The key is to show that Iran is acting with us in good faith, with good intentions.” He also reaffirmed his views that the work plan was constructive toward resolving the Iranian nuclear crisis and dismissed U.S. charges that he had interfered in diplomacy as “absolutely bonkers” (see GSN, Sept. 10). “I was frankly very surprised and concerned that most of the media was hoodwinked into repeating a myth that this was something we had done on our own — some kind of ‘do it yourself’ diplomacy,” he said, adding he would have no authority in the international community’s decision on whether to allow Iran to continue enriching uranium (Blitz/Khalaf, Financial Times, Oct. 2). Meanwhile, amidst reports that the United States is preparing for military action against Iran, some analysts argued that the Bush administration is most likely to continue pursuing diplomacy, the Christian Science Monitor reported. “I am convinced they have zero interest in a war with Iran,” said the Brookings Institution’s Kenneth Pollack, who visited Iraq in July and has recently talked with key U.S. decision-makers.  “They are completely fixated on Iraq.” However, he added that the U.S. military in Iraq is “apoplectic” about Iran's suspected role in support violent resistance there, resulting in a “steady drumbeat to take stronger and stronger measures against the Iranians.” “If ever [U.S. officials] got a smoking gun, where they could directly trace a line between a dead American military person and an Iranian official — my guess is their first inclination would be:  'How do we use this to get the Russians, Chinese and Europeans to agree to harsher sanctions?  How do we use this as leverage to force the Iranians to get serious in these talks?’” Pollack said.  “I don't think their first inclination is:  ‘OK, now we can unleash the strike on the Iranians that we have wanted to unleash.’” (Scott Peterson, Christian Science Monitor, Oct. 3). Back to top       North Korea Promises Nuclear Disablement North Korea has signed on to an agreement calling for it by the end of this year to detail its full nuclear holdings and to shutter facilities at the Yongbyon nuclear complex, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, Oct. 2). The agreement was tentatively set during four days of six-nation negotiations in Beijing that ended Sunday.  Negotiators from each country then submitted the statement to their capitals for approval. U.S. officials are expected to lead a team of experts to Pyongyang “within the next two weeks to prepare for disablement,” Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei said today.  Washington also plans to pay for the preliminary work. “The disablement of the five megawatt experimental reactor at Yongbyon, the processing plant at Yongbyon and the nuclear fuel rod fabrication facility at Yongbyon will be completed” by Dec. 31, said Wu, reading the statement issued by China, Japan, Russia, the United States and both Koreas. By carrying out nuclear declaration and disablement, Pyongyang would be meeting its obligations under the second phase of a February denuclearization agreement. “These second-phase actions effectively end the D.P.R.K.’s production of plutonium — a major step towards the goal of achieving the verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” said U.S. National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe. The statement calls on Pyongyang and Washington to “increase bilateral exchanges and enhance mutual trust,” AP reported.  It does not include a schedule for North Korea’s sought-after removal from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.  The issue will be undertaken at later sessions on diplomatic normalization between the two nations, according to the statement (Associated Press I/Yahoo!News, Oct. 3). U.S. and North Korean officials developed a “side understanding” to the joint statement on moving efforts forward to take Pyongyang off the terrorism list, the Washington Post reported today.  The matter is something of a high-wire act as U.S. ally Japan has said it first wants North Korea to deal fully with the issue of abducted Japanese citizens. Being “too explicit about when it might happen is not helpful in terms of Japanese-North Korean relations.  We are trying to handle it with sensitivity,” U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said yesterday (Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, Oct. 3). Japan indicated today that it would continue to hold out on the provision of aid to North Korea while awaiting resolution of the abduction issue, AP reported.  The other nations in the statement reaffirmed their commitment to provide Pyongyang with heavy fuel oil and related aid in exchange for denuclearization (Associated Press I). Work on disabling the Yongbyon reactor should begin “in a matter of weeks,” Hill said yesterday after President George W. Bush signed off on the joint statement. “We will then be able to move to what we hope will be a final phase,” he said during a press conference.  “That is in calendar year 2008 which will deal with the actual abandonment of the fissile material.” Pyongyang would be required to declare its full holdings of fissile material, estimated at roughly 110 pounds, AP reported.  It must also address Washington’s concerns regarding suspected uranium enrichment efforts, Hill said. There is a “long with to go” in negotiations, Hill said.  “We have to get denuclearization — complete full, denuclearization,” he added.  “Partial success is not success. “I have to make sure the D.P.R.K. understands that they’ve got to give up the fissile material and the weapons” (Edith Lederer, Associated Press II/Yahoo!News, Oct. 3). Chinese, Russian and U.S. nuclear experts are expected to have access to aluminum tubes that might have contributed to a uranium enrichment program, but diplomats could not say if Pyongyang would acknowledge that it obtained centrifuges for such an initiative, the Post reported (Kessler, Washington Post). Hill said that U.S. personnel would be “heavily involved” at the ground level in North Korean nuclear disablement, Agence France-Presse reported yesterday. “There are some undertakings in this agreement which would involve … the issue of various parties, namely the U.S., participating very heavily in the issue of actual disablement,” he said.  “So we will anticipate having people on the ground to participate in the disablement” (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Oct. 2). Back to top       India Sees Nuclear Deal as Key to Global Cooperation India’s foreign minister this week urged progress on implementing a bilateral nuclear trade agreement with the United States, saying that the deal would trigger international cooperation at many levels (see GSN, Oct. 1). “When I look at the issues of the future, namely energy security, the environment, food security, and the possible spread of weapons of mass destruction, it is clear to me that each issue will require all states, and particularly countries like India and the USA, to work together,” said Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee, in a speech Monday to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.  “The new challenges that are emerging, including protecting the electronically connected and interdependent world from terror and organized crime, are immensely complex.  Handling this complexity requires much closer international cooperation than has been the case till now.” “It is also naive to expect the international system to deal with such complex and significant issues without democratizing international decision-making,” he added.  In recent years, the U.N. Security Council has rebuffed Indian efforts to become a permanent council member. Mukherjee argued that enacting the U.S.-Indian nuclear deal would lead to greater international trade. “The bilateral civil nuclear cooperation agreement that India and the USA have finalized indicates the way forward, which should lead to the lifting of technology restrictions and the opening up of cooperation in this field with several countries,” he said. The deal calls for the United States to provide nuclear materials and technology to India’s civilian nuclear power sector, in exchange for New Delhi placing its entire civilian program under international monitoring. The deal is contingent upon India receiving an exemption from international trade rules that prohibit nuclear sales to nations that have not joined the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and do not allow international oversight of all their nuclear activities. Should the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group agree to change these guidelines, other nations would be able to join the United States in selling nuclear technology to India (see GSN, Oct. 2 and Aug. 16; Greg Webb, Global Security Newswire, Oct. 3). Back to top       NORAD Seeks Notice of Russian Bomber Drills Russia should notify U.S. officials when it plans long-range bomber drills near Canada and the United States, the U.S. Air Force general who heads the North American Aerospace Defense Command said Monday (see GSN, Oct. 3). “There is increased concern any time you have an unidentified aircraft approaching the airspace of either of the two nations,” Gen. Gene Renuart said, according to Reuters. “If the Russians would file a flight plan just to state their intent and general routing that they would be on, that would ease one of our concerns. … Increasing the transparency reduces tension as you're out chasing around after an unknown aircraft,” he said. Renuart added that scrambling fighters to intercept unknown aircraft is an expensive practice and that NORAD was “trying to not send up masses of planes” in response to Russian drills (David Ljunggren, Reuters, Oct. 1). Back to top       New Management Takes Over U.S. Nuclear Lab A new management group assumed control of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California yesterday, a move the U.S. Energy Department hopes will help address security lapses at U.S. nuclear weapon research facilities, Inside Bay Area reported (see GSN, May 9). Bechtel Corp. led a successful effort to win the management contract by assembling a consortium of private contractors and the laboratory’s previous sole operator, the University of California.  “I can assure you that [our] corporate goal is to ensure that the laboratory continues its long and distinguished history of providing the best in science and technology in service to our nation,” said laboratory director George Miller in an e-mail to workers Monday. Laboratory employees have expressed concerns about the change, ranging from worries over congressional funding measures (see GSN, July 19) to unhappiness with reduced worker benefits they will receive. “I ask you to remember that with each change, with every challenge, comes opportunity,” Miller said (Betsy Mason, Inside Bay Area, Oct. 2). Back to top       U.S. Buys New Computers for Nuclear Laboratories A California firm has received a $26.1 million contract to deliver new high-speed computer systems to the three U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories, the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration said yesterday (see GSN, Nov. 16, 2006). Under the contract, Appro is expected to deliver computing systems composed of modular “scalable units” that can be quickly disassembled and reassembled like Lego blocks to fit varying needs for computing power.  Each unit would have 20 teraflops of computing power, enabling it to complete about 20 trillion floating-point operations per second. The computers would be operated under the Advanced Simulation and Computing Program of the NNSA Stockpile Stewardship Program, which simulates nuclear weapons performance to ensure the safety, security and reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile without requiring underground nuclear tests. The new computers would provide computing power for smaller tasks still large enough to require high-performance machines, unburdening laboratory supercomputers to handle larger, more complex calculations relating to stockpile maintenance. They would also standardize computer hardware, software and operating systems between the Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories, saving between 30 and 50 percent in total ownership costs. “This is the first time NNSA has awarded a single contract for all three laboratories,” said NNSA assistant deputy administrator Martin Schoenbauer in a press release.  “Combining the contract for each of NNSA’s three laboratories not only saves money, but continues to move NNSA towards a smaller, more efficient nuclear weapons complex” (U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration release, Oct. 2). Back to top

U.S. Extends Smallpox Vaccine Contract The United States has extended a 2004 contract with a Danish pharmaceutical company to develop a smallpox vaccine for people who could suffer dangerous side effects if given existing smallpox treatments, Thomson Financial reported today (see GSN, July 3). Bavarian Nordic received a $15 million contract extension to conduct human trials of its Imvamune vaccine in people with atopic dermatitis, a form of the skin disorder eczema. The company plans to carry out the trials before the extended contract expires in 2010, Bavarian Nordic said in a statement.  The company expects to receive most compensation for the tests at the end of 2008 and 2009. “We are very pleased that the U.S. government has decided to extend the ongoing RFP-2 contract,” said Bavarian Nordic chief executive Anders Hedegaard. “This is an important step in our efforts to develop a safe third-generation smallpox vaccine for the entire population and it builds further on our long-term partnership with the U.S. government,” he said (Thomson Financial/Forbes, Oct. 3). Back to top       Colorado University Opens Biodefense Laboratory Operations are expected to begin soon at a $30 million biodefense research facility at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, the Denver Post reported today (see GSN, Oct. 1). The Rocky Mountain Regional Biocontainment Laboratory is one of 13 such sites being built around the United States, largely through funding from the National Institutes of Health. Researchers are expected to study potentially lethal infectious diseases, some of which have been identified as major bioterrorism threats, including anthrax, plague, tularemia and hemorrhagic fevers.  Their work is intended to result in vaccines, flu strain detection systems and infection countermeasures. The facility has multiple Biosafety Level 3 laboratories designed for safe handling of airborne viruses and bacteria while ensuring they do not escape into the outside environment, the Post reported. The laboratories could be available for use by January, following approval from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Katy Human, Denver Post, Oct. 3). Back to top       Hatfill Seeks Contempt Rulings Against Journalists Two journalists should be held in contempt of court for refusing to divulge the identities of sources for stories they wrote on the investigation of the 2001 anthrax attacks, a former U.S. Army scientist once linked to the case said yesterday (see GSN, Aug. 14). Former Attorney General John Ashcroft called Steven Hatfill a “person of interest” in the mailing of spore-laden parcels that killed five people and sickened 17.  However, no charges have been filed against Hatfill or anyone else in the case. Hatfill from 1997 to 1999 was a researcher at the Army’s infectious disease laboratory.  He claims in a lawsuit that the Justice Department violated federal privacy law by releasing details about him to reporters, the Associated Press reported. A federal court has ordered five journalists to identify sources they used in stories on the investigation, but former USA Today reporter Toni Locy and former CBS News reporter James Stewart said would not identify all the sources. Hatfill is seeking $1,000 daily fines against the two journalists, with the amount doubling after a week and increasing by $1,000 every subsequent week that they refuse to obey the court order, AP reported.  The request from his attorneys would also bar media firms from paying the penalties. Court papers do not say whether the three other journalists — Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman of Newsweek and Allan Lengel of the Washington Post — have identified their sources (Associated Press/San Luis Obispo Tribune, Oct. 2). Back to top

U.S. Missile Defense Ready for Action, General Says A senior general said yesterday that the U.S. national missile defense system could be made operational if needed to counter a North Korean threat, the New York Times reported (see GSN, Oct. 3). Northern Command chief Gen. Victor Renuart made his comments following a successful missile intercept test last week. Work is ongoing on system radars in California and the Pacific Ocean and on missile interceptors in Alaska and California.  The missile shield itself has not been designated as operational. Still, Renuart said he was “fully confident that we have all of the pieces in place that, if the nation needed to, we could respond.” “Does the system work?  The answer is yes to that,” said Lt. Gen. Henry Obering, head of the Missile Defense Agency.  “Is it going to work against more complex threats in the future?  We believe it will.” No decoys were used in Friday’s test, but the agency plans to assess the interceptor’s differentiation capabilities with countermeasures during the next test scheduled for the first half of 2008, Obering said.  Critics have derided interceptor testing to date as unrealistic given that the agency has not used even crude decoys such as balloons or pieces of metal that would come off the target, the Times reported. The test Friday should help Washington’s cause as it presses to deploy missile defense interceptors and a radar base in Europe, Obering said (see GSN, Oct. 1). “I think it helps us in a very real way, because, as I have had conversations with our European partners and allied and NATO partners in the past, one of the questions I do get asked is, well, this system is not proven,” he said.  The intercept test, he said, goes a long way “to answering that question” (Thom Shanker, New York Times, Oct. 3). Back to top       Lockheed Delivers Missile Defense Radar to Bahrain Bahrain has received a long-range ballistic missile defense radar from Lockheed Martin under a $43.6 million contract issued by the U.S. Marine Corps in May 2004, the defense contractor announced yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 27, 2003). Designed to operate with the Patriot, Aegis and similar missile defense systems, the AN/TPS-59(V)3B is currently the only existing mobile radar certified to detect tactical ballistic missiles within a 360-degree range, predicting the launch and impact points of incoming enemy missiles and coordinating a defensive response. The system can track single and multiple targets as well as “air-breathing” aircraft, which extract oxygen from the surrounding environment to mix with fuel. “With the successful delivery of the AN/TPS-59(V)3B, the Kingdom of Bahrain has added a vital asset to its existing command and control and missile defense systems,” Ray Dean, the Marine Corps officer who managed the Bahrain radar project, said in a press release.  “We all remain committed to meeting our allies' integrated air and missile defense systems needs.” “Thanks to its strategic location and its status as headquarters of the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet, Bahrain needs superior in-country defense systems," said Representative Jim Walsh (R-N.Y.) in the release.  “I'm pleased that, once again, Lockheed Martin products and Central New York are ensuring the safety of an ally and making U.S. troops more secure” (PR Newswire, Oct. 2).   Back to top

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