U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice yesterday urged North Korea to fully declare its nuclear assets as part of the denuclearization process. U.S. researchers have reportedly found evidence suggesting the existence of an undisclosed North Korean uranium program (Paul Richards/Getty Images). Evidence Indicates North Korean Uranium Program Minute amounts of enriched uranium found on North Korean aluminum tubing appears to support the Bush administration’s long-held allegation that the Stalinist regime has operated a secret nuclear effort, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, Dec. 20). North Korea has never publicly acknowledged operating a uranium program alongside its known plutonium-based weapons effort.  To meet the requirement under the ongoing denuclearization negotiations to fully declare its atomic activities, it turned over a small amount of tubing, U.S. and diplomatic sources said.  Testing by U.S. scientists uncovered the uranium traces...Full Story

Low Terror Risk, High Consequences Seen for Nebraska By Chris Schneidmiller Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The city of Scottsbluff, Neb., stands hundreds of miles from the state’s metropolitan centers and halfway across the country from the targets of the Sept. 11 attacks (see GSN, March 10, 2004)...Full Story

Price Tag for Fast Missile Might Top $600 Million By Elaine M. Grossman Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — A U.S. Army program to develop a land-based hypersonic missile capable of hitting targets halfway around the globe within minutes of launch might cost more than $600 million, according to service officials and backers (see GSN, Nov. 8)...Full Story

	Friday, December 21, 2007

Low Terror Risk, High Consequences Seen for Nebraska By Chris Schneidmiller Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The city of Scottsbluff, Neb., stands hundreds of miles from the state’s metropolitan centers and halfway across the country from the targets of the Sept. 11 attacks (see GSN, March 10, 2004). Farmland surrounds the community of less than 15,000 in the far western end of the state.  One main street runs through the small downtown of locally owned businesses and buildings that top out at a few stories.  There are no major financial institutions, no crucial military complexes and no centers of power. Scottsbluff is not going to be placed at the top of any list of probable terrorism targets.  However, in the wake of the 2001 terrorist strikes and the anthrax mailings that followed quickly afterward, no community of any size wants to be left unready for an unlikely but devastating event. The federal government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to secure largely rural states away from the coasts.  While distribution of homeland security funds continues to be a sore point for policy-makers from higher-threat areas (see GSN, July 16), those inside Nebraska say history has proven that there is no predicting where terrible acts of violence will occur. “You just never know what’s coming next with these guys.  They’ve surprised us a couple times in the past with their tactics and techniques,” said Sgt. First Class Chris Rathe, communications team chief for the 72nd Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Team.  “Anything could happen.” The Angry Chemist Scenario With that idea in mind, the Lincoln-based National Guard unit gathered this fall with Scottsbluff firefighters outside the city’s Monument Mall to test their joint ability to respond to an incident involving an unknown but deadly substance. The exercise began with a 911 call that brought two city rescue workers to a vacant Sears outlet store, which until that morning contained little more than a mock, multicolored Volkswagen Beetle and human-size candy cane Christmas decorations.  The firefighters found two people — one a National Guardsman in the role of a victim, the other a mannequin — overcome by chemical fumes.  They began treating the victims, under the watch of three National Guard “observer-controllers” directing the exercise. “Geez, I’m starting to get a little lightheaded here,” said firefighter Ryan Lohr. “You are.  Here you go,” responded National Guard Sgt. Nick Curto, handing Lohr a card indicating that the drill scenario called for the firefighter to himself become sick. The department’s response to the crisis quickly escalated.  Firefighters using breathing apparatus were inside the building first, forcing their way into a storage area where they found another mannequin slumped over a small makeshift chemical set.  The firefighters retreated outside for decontamination, replaced by two colleagues wearing full-body protective gear who confirmed that the man at the desk was dead and that chemical vapor was spreading around the store. Less than an hour after the first alert, the Fire Department called for backup from the 72nd, one of the National Guard units being organized in every U.S. state to support local responders faced with an unconventional weapons incident.  The first team members arrived little more than an hour later and began conferring with firefighters. The action slowed down at that point, intentionally.  The National Guard unit’s job is not to rescue victims of a WMD incident — which should occur before they arrive — but to keep a bad situation from becoming worse.  “When we get into a situation, it’s not the time to do anything quick.  If we hurry up too much, that’s how mistakes are made,” said Lt. Col. Donald Kneifl, team commander.  A deliberate response ensures the threat is correctly identified and that victims receive the appropriate treatment, he said. Combined teams of firefighters and National Guard personnel over a period of hours twice more entered the contaminated area to further assess the situation and collect samples for analysis.  Emergency workers outside coordinated the activity and prepared to treat anyone who became sick. It would ultimately be found that the laboratory was the work of “Barney Gumble” — named for the often inebriated “Simpsons” character — a recently laid-off chemistry professor who intended to use a sarin nerve agent derivative against his former employer.  The exercise ended poorly for Gumble, the dead mannequin at the desk, but well for everyone else as the threat was contained. “I believe that the training session … went extremely well,” said Capt. Troy Shoemaker, HAZMAT coordinator for the Scottsbluff Fire Department.  “It was a learning experience from the planning of the exercise to the actual conducting of the exercise.” An Unlikely Target? Shoemaker and his counterparts were training for an event they, of course, hope never happens.  Residing in a predominantly rural state with few obvious targets for terrorism, their hopes are more likely than not to be met. “When you multiply threat times vulnerability times consequence, the threat is quite a bit higher in the urban areas,” said Brian Jackson, associate director for the homeland security program at the RAND Corp. From the outside, at least, nothing about Nebraska stands out that would give it a significant profile for terrorists.  It is the 16th largest U.S. state but has a population of not quite 1.8 million, less than the New York City borough of Queens, and features no national monument such as Mount Rushmore that could attract the wrong sort of attention. Much of the populations is focused in and around two midsize cities, Omaha and Lincoln, neither of which is included among the 45 urban areas considered by the Homeland Security Department to be most at risk for a terrorist attack.  The list begins with New York and five other major metropolitan areas and moves onto smaller cities such as Miami and El Paso. Larger urban areas simply have more high-value targets and a greater density of potential victims.  Terrorists are also more likely to be drawn to a major U.S. city where an attack would have greater symbolic value and ensure they receive nearly instantaneous coverage from media organizations with an international reach, said John Horgan, director of the International Center for the Study of Terrorism at Penn State University. Nebraska has received more than $88 million over the last six fiscal years from the Homeland Security Grant Program, which encompasses five major terrorism and disaster preparedness funding initiatives.  That is less than Puerto Rico, though if they believe the amount of funding the state has received is insufficient for its protection, officials here are not prepared to say so publicly. All told the Homeland Security program has provided more than $365 million to Nebraska, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming — middle American states with small populations and no urban areas at the top of the threat scale. Congress and the Bush administration have been faulted repeatedly for spreading funding around rather than focusing on securing the locations most likely to suffer an attack.   “By crafting legislative grant formulas that guarantee every state and city some federal dole for homeland security, Congress ensures that it spends a little on everything and does nothing well.  This approach might be acceptable for some federal grant programs, but it is not acceptable in matters of national security,” the conservative Heritage Foundation said in a May 2007 report. Nebraska Lt. Gov. Rick Sheehy, who leads the state’s homeland security efforts, said there is both necessity and value in the funding.  The state needs money to meet federal mandates for preparedness and response, while local agencies that receive the bulk of grant funding are expected to follow the state focus of preparing for “all hazards,” whether they result from nature, accidents or terrorism. Finally, Sheehy and other officials argue that any view of Nebraska as completely off the radar when it comes to terrorism is misleading. “I don’t think we can let our guard down on our backside,” Sheehy said.  “We don’t where or when the next attack will occur.” Threats Authorities in Nebraska point to the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City to illustrate that the Midwest has and could be again a target for terrorism.  Nebraska was also one of five states in which Luke Helder in 2002 is believed to have deposited pipe bombs in an attempt to create a “smiley face” of explosions across middle of the United States. “There’s areas here in the state of Nebraska that we are concerned about and try to keep good track of and make sure we’re securing,” said Kneifl, the National Guard team commander.  “The antiterrorism folks talk about the fact that the terrorists try to find the softer targets to go to.  If they find a hard target then they’ll divert and go somewhere that’s softer.  That’s not to say that any of the rural areas are really softer targets.” An attack here is generally considered more likely to come from a U.S.-born hate group or other extremist organization, though officials are not willing to dismiss a foreign threat.  “There are extremists with all kinds of issues with the federal government,” said Col. Bryan Tuma, head of the Nebraska State Patrol.  The type of weapon they employ would depend on their resources and capabilities.  Tuma noted, one day after a teenager killed eight shoppers at an Omaha mall this month, that it would not take a sophisticated weapon to have a devastating impact. Acts of sabotage in Nebraska could have statewide, nationwide or even international repercussions, officials said.  Some vulnerabilities mirror those found around the nation while others are linked more closely to the characteristics of the state. Nebraska houses two nuclear reactors and other critical infrastructure, along with sites that draw large gatherings of people to one place.  More than 80,000 fans can fill Memorial Stadium in Lincoln for a Nebraska Cornhuskers football game.  “When the stadium’s full it’s the third-largest community in Nebraska,” Tuma said. The state is a leading agricultural producer, making it a frontrunner for contamination of livestock or crops that could prove economically disastrous should widespread eradications become necessary.  Nebraska last year had the second-highest cattle count in the nation, with more than 6.6 million heads, and was sixth in the nation in the number of farm hogs and pigs, with 3 million.  It produced nearly 1.2 billion bushels of corn in 2006, the third-highest national total, also raising the fifth-highest U.S. yield of soybeans and the sixth-highest crops of alfalfa hay and winter wheat. One cow carrying foot-and-mouth disease could infect others if brought to auction, state officials said.  The damage could spread from there.  Cattle sold at auction “will go out to 10, 15 different states and maybe a couple of foreign countries.  Something introduced at one of those cattle auctions or sales barns could become a nationwide threat,” said Cindy Newsham, response and recovery director for the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency. “Agriculture is the No. 1 industry in Nebraska,” said Tom Jensen, emergency coordinator for the Nebraska Agriculture Department.  “There’s no question that a wide-scale incident would be very damaging economically.” Jensen noted that certain “zoonotic” agents such as plague or anthrax could spread from animals to humans, which would make an act of agroterrorism more than an economic strike.  The psychological effects could stretch across the nation as Americans found they could no longer trust the food supply and that terrorists had crossed a new barrier in the types of attacks they are capable of carrying out, Penn State’s Horgan said.  He said, though, that the resources and technical expertise needed to carry out a systemic infection of crops or livestock are beyond the abilities of most terrorists.  “Realistically, terrorist groups don’t know this kind of thing.” Materials used in agriculture, found in large amounts across the state, provide an opportunity for terrorists as well.  Ammonium nitrate is a common fertilizer that can be used to produce explosives — as seen in the Oklahoma City bombing.  Chemicals stored at various locations around Nebraska could be a target or an asset for terrorists, according to state officials.  Interstate 80 and major railways used to move goods and hazardous materials through Nebraska might also be hit, they said. Sheehy said he believes terrorists will eventually use improvised explosive devices or even radiological “dirty bombs” within the United States.  Attacks involving those weapons, in even the most out of the way location, would have exactly the nationwide demoralizing effect terrorists are looking for, Sheehy added. Challenges and Preparations Nebraska’s limited population relative to its large size creates a situation in which crucial emergency response and medical resources needed in the aftermath of a disaster might not be immediately available. “Where a rural area might have one hospital in driving distance of any incident, a major urban area would have multiple hospitals within driving distance to treat more victims,” said the RAND Corp.’s Jackson. “The challenges that we face here in the more rural areas is that a lot of our political subdivisions are a lot farther away,” the National Guard’s Kneifl said.  “In the event of a crisis we have to work a little harder to get to places because of the large distances that separate us.” Geography is not the only barrier to a rapid and comprehensive response to an incident, officials said.  Not all fire departments have the training or equipment to manage a hazardous materials event and many, including Scottsbluff, are at least partly staffed by volunteers with jobs and responsibilities fully separate from their emergency duties. Nebraska’s preparations for a potential act of terrorism in some fashions are not dissimilar to those found in any state — identifying and securing potential targets; purchasing equipment, from night-vision goggles for nuclear reactor security personnel to communications technology enabling different agencies to maintain contact during an emergency; conducting local and statewide planning and training exercises — while emphasizing cooperation to meet the challenges connected directly to its size and dispersed population. “We realize because of our large geographical area, our low population density, our volunteer networks and our limited resources we had to work together, we had to cooperate and pull together all the available resources,” Tuma said.  “And I think we’ve done that, by and large.” For instance: —The state signed memorandums of understanding with 10 municipalities that have full-time firefighters who have received technician-level certification.  In return for a slice of federal funding for training and equipment those departments agreed to respond if called to a crisis in another community with lesser capabilities.  The 72nd CST also has reciprocal agreements with teams in neighboring states to respond to an incident if they are closer. —The FBI office in Omaha leads a Joint Terrorism Task Force covering Iowa and Nebraska and including law enforcement personnel from both states.  Among other initiatives, task force members maintain contacts with citizens and representatives of the private sector that could be targets — chemical, energy, agriculture — to encourage them to contact authorities if they identify suspicious activity. With fewer than 100 agents conducting investigations across two states, the office relies on those contacts for word on possible threats, said supervising Special Agent Jim Ammons. “The people we’re surrounded by are very willing to call us up and say, hey I have a question here or I’m seeing activity over here,” he said. The office receives between 20 and 25 calls per month regarding suspicious packages or questionable activity.  Some have warranted further investigation but none ultimately led authorities to terrorists. — The Nebraska Agriculture Department provided educational programs to officials and agricultural producers in all 93 of the state’s counties, Jensen said.  The programs included vulnerability assessments for acts of agroterrorism.  The state’s emergency operations plan has also been updated to include preparations for such an incident. “Our part would be to make sure we are integrated well with other state agencies, local governments and the national government, with regards to either an animal incident, a food incident, an air incident, a plant crop incident, really making sure our plan is an all-hazards plan,” Jensen said. The job of the National Guard Civil Support Team is entirely collaborative — to be there when a civilian emergency agency finds its resources outstripped by an event.  The team of 18 soldiers and four airmen, certified for operations in February 2006, offers expertise in communications, medicine, materials analysis, hot-zone survey and other operations. The team’s primary role is to assist and advise local authorities trying to manage a disaster, and it has the know-how and technology to take on a number of tasks — whether that means ensuring communications between different agencies are maintained in even the most remote locations, identifying the type of biological or chemical contamination or charting the movement of a plume of radioactive material. “We’re the ones that should be called if there’s an unknown hazard out there,” Kneifl said. Team members arrived in Scottsbluff in a set of dark blue vehicles packed with equipment and technology.  The day before the exercise, they spent more than an hour in the mall parking lot displaying their capabilities for the firefighters with whom they would be working. The exercise was the first time that city personnel had hands-on experience working with the team, which could prove important if the two agencies must come together during an actual crisis, Shoemaker said.  The department is scheduled in early 2008 to participate with other local agencies in another exercise with the 72nd and its counterpart from Wyoming. The two-day trip to Scottsbluff was one part of a continuous training regimen for team members involving personal instruction and cooperative drills with other Civil Support Teams.  The National Guard team tries to conduct at least one exercise per month with civilian first-responder agencies, said the CST’s Rathe.  These drills offer local departments an opportunity to see its strengths and limitations.  They also provide a more realistic view of an actual response.  “To think that we’re going to go in and just do it on our own without any civilian first responders there, you’d just be whittling yourself into a box,” he said. Confidence Nebraska officials acknowledge that the only true test of preparedness would be an actual act of terrorism, and that it is impossible to safeguard every person or structure at all times. They know that there could be problems ahead for the security program, particularly when it comes to money.  After an initial burst of homeland security funding in the wake of Sept. 11, many states have seen grant levels drop drastically in the last couple years.  That leaves Nebraska authorities pondering how they will maintain equipment bought with federal money and how they will continue to meet mandates the federal government is no longer willing to pay for. Despite challenges and uncertainty, leaders in the state said they are ready to respond to an act of terrorism should it occur.  As proof, the lieutenant governor pointed to a report this week that listed Nebraska among the states best prepared for an act of biological terrorism (see GSN, Dec. 19). “When you think of Nebraska and the Midwest you think maybe we’re not so ready, but I believe we’re a lot more ready than a lot of states are for something to happen,” said Capt. Mary Mangels, medical operations officer for the National Guard team. Back to top

Evidence Indicates North Korean Uranium Program Minute amounts of enriched uranium found on North Korean aluminum tubing appears to support the Bush administration’s long-held allegation that the Stalinist regime has operated a secret nuclear effort, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, Dec. 20). North Korea has never publicly acknowledged operating a uranium program alongside its known plutonium-based weapons effort.  To meet the requirement under the ongoing denuclearization negotiations to fully declare its atomic activities, it turned over a small amount of tubing, U.S. and diplomatic sources said.  Testing by U.S. scientists uncovered the uranium traces. The uranium might have come through a North Korean program or possibly from other sources, the Post reported.  Pyongyang received from Pakistan a sample centrifuge kit from that could have contaminated the tubing.  A Pakistani-based nuclear smuggling ring has already been found to be the source of enriched uranium traces found on Iranian nuclear equipment. The White House charged in 2002 that North Korean acquisition of 150 tons of aluminum tubing from Russia helped prove that it was conducting a clandestine uranium program.  The 1994 Agreed Framework to shutter Pyongyang’s nuclear program collapsed following the allegation. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reaffirmed the Bush administration’s stand that North Korea must fully detail its nuclear activities in this phase of the denuclearization process, which also includes disabling three key nuclear facilities. “We expect a complete and accurate declaration from North Korea,” she said yesterday.  “If we are to move forward, and if we are to move forward on all of the benefits that would come to North Korea through the successful completion of this second phase, we really must have an accurate declaration” (Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, Dec. 21). Rice said that the disablement effort at the Yongbyon nuclear complex, intended to prevent the facilities from resuming operations for at least a year following any decision to open them again, “has been pretty smooth,” Agence France-Presse reported.  “The North Koreans have taken the steps they said they would take.  We’ve been able to observe them,” she said. “The jury is still out” on whether Pyongyang will meet its end of the year deadline to fulfill the declaration and disablement requirements, Rice said (Agence France-Presse/Spacewar.com, Dec. 21). “We may not meet the end of year deadline, but I think we’ll get there in the end,” said U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Alexander Vershbow (Associated Press/Washington Post, Dec. 21). Pyongyang has not yet proved willing to address alleged nuclear proliferation and other military activities as part of the declaration, a U.S. official told Reuters. “They have real weapons and so they should tell us what the weapons look like,” the official said. “This is where you get into military secrets and, in a country that would keep a sweater size secret, you can imagine the difficulty in revealing military secrets,” he added. U.S. State Department official Sung Kim had mixed success on pressing the issue as he began three days of talk in North Korea, the official said. “It was a mixed picture because we are not there yet with the declaration after day one,” the official said yesterday.  “We made some progress but there are some sticking points remaining” (Mohammed/Pleming, Reuters/Washington Post, Dec. 20). Back to top       Price Tag for Fast Missile Might Top $600 Million By Elaine M. Grossman Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — A U.S. Army program to develop a land-based hypersonic missile capable of hitting targets halfway around the globe within minutes of launch might cost more than $600 million, according to service officials and backers (see GSN, Nov. 8). The Army’s Space and Missile Defense Command, based in Huntsville, Ala., has conceived of an Advanced Hypersonic Weapon that could boost into space aboard a two-stage rocket, separate and glide to a target up to 6,000 kilometers away in less than 35 minutes.   Proponents of the advanced weapon say it could be fielded as early as 2009 for the Defense Department’s “prompt global strike” mission, under which the United States seeks the ability to attack a small number of fleeting targets at long range.  To accomplish that today, the only weapons in the U.S. arsenal with sufficient range and speed are nuclear arms, Pentagon leaders have said.  In an effort to expand targeting options for a U.S. president seeking to avoid nuclear war, the military has proposed developing a new set of conventionally armed, prompt global strike weapons. With terrorist hideouts or rogue nations as its primary targets, an Advanced Hypersonic Weapon could carry a 900-pound penetrator warhead or 900 pounds of rods to impact at Mach 4 speed, according to the system’s advocates.  However, critics have said the Army weapon faces some daunting technological challenges that would require a heavy investment of dollars and time to resolve.  Chief among them is the development of a thermal protection technology capable of withstanding atmospheric flight at extremely high speeds, according to defense experts. The missile defense command has estimated that the Pentagon would spend nearly $390 million on the Advanced Hypersonic Weapon over a five-year period beginning in this fiscal year, during which just two missiles would be built.  Alternatively, with a 55 percent funding boost, the Army could build 16 missiles in the same time frame, military officials told Global Security Newswire.  Under this option, the Pentagon would spend roughly $600 million on the effort through 2012, officials said. One weapon proponent said it is too early to know how many Army missiles might be required, so research and development on the technology should remain the primary focus for now.  The Army might ultimately opt to build even more than 16 missiles, though, particularly if the per-missile cost in production appears affordable, said this supporter. “Buy a dozen?  Buy two dozen?” the weapon advocate asked in a telephone interview this week.  “Those are issues down the road.” Lacking the authorization to speak publicly about the program, this source and several others contributed to this article on condition of anonymity. The lion’s share of the near-term investment required for an Advanced Hypersonic Weapon appears to be in research and development, estimated at more than $320 million in fiscal 2005 dollars, without taking annual inflation into account. While the Army is the hypersonic weapon’s official sponsor, the service has never sought funds for its development.  Instead, the effort has survived for two years on congressional earmarks, with lawmakers giving the Army $8.9 million to develop the system in fiscal 2007 and $1.5 million the year before in start-up funding, according to congressional sources. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) — in whose home state the Army project office resides — has spearheaded support for the fledgling program on Capitol Hill.  As the ranking member of a key Senate Armed Services subcommittee overseeing strategic programs, Sessions recently landed another $41.7 million in fiscal 2008 defense appropriations for the hypersonic weapon. Yet with the new five-year budget numbers emerging, some of the weapon’s biggest supporters are finding the price tag higher than expected. Asked to respond to the figures obtained by GSN, one hypersonic weapon backer said the multiyear cost “sounds remarkably high.”  Even Sessions might reconsider his support for the system “if he thought the cost would be so egregious,” this official opined. However, the lofty price tag for the next five years’ work on the hypersonic missile “doesn’t, on its face, provide a problem” for Sessions, said one congressional staffer interviewed today.  “I don’t think [Congress] could carry them on $600 million [in] earmarks for five years, though. … At some point, we believe this should be adopted in [the Army] budget.” Thus far, the Army’s top leaders have preferred to direct service funds into other, higher priority accounts, including ongoing operations in Iraq and procurement programs for weapons such as combat vehicles and helicopters, defense sources said.  That has left Army interest in pursuing the hypersonic weapon largely confined to a handful of service officials and their contractors in Alabama. “It’s not surprising there’s not a lot of Army boosters for this weapon,” Chris Hellman of the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation said in an interview this week.  “I find it hard to believe this is ever going to be a high-priority weapon for them.” For the longer term, once the Advanced Hypersonic Weapon is built and fielded, it appears the Army missile command is exploring the possibility of handing off day-to-day operations to the U.S. Air Force. The hypersonic weapon program office has proposed that the Army and Air Force share responsibility for a prototype weapon during an “initial operating capability” phase, service sources said.  Once the weapon becomes fully operational, the Army would transfer all responsibility — and its attendant personnel and maintenance costs — to the Air Force, GSN has learned. However, the Air Force has funded its own weapon concept for prompt global strike — the Conventional Strike Missile — and appears largely disinterested in inheriting the Army effort, officials said. “The Air Force is just sitting there with horror that anyone is seriously considering this program,” said one defense expert tracking the program. Though there is little interest in the Army weapon at the top reaches of the Pentagon, “Congress just funded it at $41 million,” this observer said.  The Defense Department is reluctant to turn away valuable research and development funds, so the Huntsville command’s hypersonic weapon concept is not expected to disappear anytime soon, several officials said. Back to top       Congress Approves $50 Million for Nuclear Fuel Bank The U.S. Congress this week approved spending $50 million to support a nuclear fuel bank initiative pursued by the International Atomic Energy Agency (see GSN, Aug. 8). Lawmakers in both houses passed the measure as part of a huge omnibus funding package for fiscal 2008.  President George W. Bush is expected the sign the bill into law in the near future. Several nations have expressed interest in a fuel bank concept as a way of discouraging developing nations from building domestic nuclear fuel production facilities that could also be used to manufacture nuclear-weapon materials.  The issue has gained prominence as Iran has persistently pursued a uranium enrichment program in the face of U.N. Security Council pressure (see GSN, Dec. 13). IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei has repeatedly called for establishing a fuel bank that would in effect guarantee supplies of nuclear fuel to nations that abstain from fuel production activities. Speaking to the U.N. General Assembly in October, ElBaradei said his staff was preparing an analysis of several fuel bank options, including one from Russia (see GSN, Oct. 30). In addition, billionaire investor Warren Buffett, working the Nuclear Threat Initiative, pledged last year to contribute $50 million to a fuel bank initiative, contingent upon the project receiving an additional $100 million from nations (see GSN, Sept. 19, 2006). The $50 million U.S. contribution in the current funding bill would be the first major international commitment to the agency’s fuel bank efforts. The bill says “that $50 million of such funds shall be available until expended for the contribution of the United States to create a low-enriched uranium stockpile for an international nuclear fuel bank supply of nuclear fuel for peaceful means under the International Atomic Energy Agency” (Greg Webb, Global Security Newswire, Dec. 21). Back to top       Legislation Presses Nuclear Threat Reduction The omnibus appropriations bill approved by Congress this week requires the White House to develop a plan to ensure by 2012 the worldwide security of nuclear weapons and material that could be used to produce weapons, Senator Barack Obama  (D-Ill.) announced (see GSN, Dec. 5). “If terrorists get their hands on a nuclear weapon or the essential material to make on, they could cause catastrophic damage to our homeland,” the Democratic presidential contender, who prepared the provision with Senator Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), said in a press release.  “It is imperative that we build a sustain a truly global effort under an aggressive timeline to secure, consolidate, and reduce stockpiles of nuclear weapons and weapons-usable material to keep them out of the wrong hands.” Representative Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) sponsored the Comprehensive Nuclear Threat Reduction measure in the House. The provision requires development of a strategy that would: — safeguard vulnerable facilities used to store nuclear weapons and weapons material from terrorists by 2012; — maintain security and accounting of the material on a continuing basis; — include a strategy for increasing nuclear security funding from other nations, including China, Japan, Russia and the European Union states; and — detail movement toward and barriers to a pact on global nuclear security standards encompassing all nuclear weapons powers and those states that possess weaponizable material (U.S. Senator Barack Obama release, Dec. 20). Back to top       U.N. Powers Fail to Reach Iran Sanctions Compromise U.N. powers were unable to agree on a new sanctions resolution against Iran during talks yesterday, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Dec. 20). “We continue to have some tactical differences about the timing, but more than that, about how deep this (U.N.) resolution should go,” U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said after talks between political directors from China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. “I suspect that at some point this is going to have to go to ministers, as it always does.  But we think that there's enough continuous forward movement, that it’s good for the political officials to keep talking,” she said. Rice stressed that despite the impasse yesterday, all of the countries have agreed on a basic international strategy on Iran that incorporates both punitive measures for Tehran’s uranium enrichment and offers of incentives for halting the program. “We are all in agreement that the two-track strategy that we have been pursuing is the right strategy, because we need to convince Iran that it should stop its enrichment and reprocessing activities,” Rice said (Agence France-Presse/Google News, Dec. 20). Meanwhile, former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani attacked a Russian contractor today for stating that the Bushehr nuclear power plant under construction in Iran would not begin operating before late 2008, the Associated Press reported. Russian news reports yesterday quoted Sergei Shmatko, construction chief for the Russian contractor Atomstroiexport, as saying the plant would not begin generating power until the end of next year. The statements were “unprecedented because they create ambiguities,” Rafsanjani said without elaborating on either the ambiguities or Iran’s current understanding of the plant’s readiness to operate. “Again they are saying just some words,” Rafsanjani said in an address at Tehran University, calling the contractor’s statement misleading.  “Years have passed from the time when they committed to start the plant's operation” (Nasser Karimi, Associated Press/International Herald Tribune, Dec. 21). Back to top       France, India to Hold Talks on Nuclear Deal French President Nicolas Sarkozy could sign a civilian nuclear trade agreement with India during his planned visit to the country on Jan. 24, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said yesterday (see GSN, Dec. 20). Kouchner expressed hope that India would soon reach a nuclear safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency necessary to implement a nuclear deal with the United States and any follow-up accords with Paris, Agence France-Presse reported. “We are in favor of initialing a sort of strategic agreement but we have to wait for the (International Atomic Energy) Agency,” Kouchner said following a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Kouchner added that France was in “favor of India getting back to the international nuclear power agency … We are waiting for that” (Agence France-Presse/Google News, Dec. 21). Back to top       Court Sentences Ex-LANL Employee to Probation A federal judge yesterday sentenced former Los Alamos National Laboratory contract employee Jessica Quintana to two years on probation for removing hundreds of pages of classified nuclear documents from the New Mexico facility, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Dec. 20). U.S. Magistrate Lorenzo Garcia rejected a request from the U.S. Energy Department to order the former archivist to pay $384,150 in restitution, stating that Quintana had no means to pay such a sum and that “all the other costs appear to be costs that came in the aftermath of this incident and I do not view those to be directly related to the conduct of Ms. Quintana.” Quintana removed the documents last year so she could work from home.  She apologized for the incident, stating she had exploited security that she knew was inadequate. “If I could go back and do it, it wouldn't ever cross my mind,” she told the court.  “There's nobody to blame but myself” (Felicia Fonseca, Associated Press/Albuquerque Journal, Dec. 21). Back to top

Russia Delays CW Destruction Plant Operations Russia has delayed opening a facility for destroying liquid and solid chemical weapons waste until next month, RIA Novosti reported today (see GSN, Nov. 1). “The state commission has postponed the opening of the second leg of the Maradykovsky plant for the disposal of chemical weapons in the Kirov Region from Dec. 19, 2007, until Jan. 23, 2008 over the need to continue setup operations,” said Mikhail Manin, head of the regional chemical weapons department (RIA Novosti, Dec. 20). Russia is on schedule to eliminate 45 percent of its chemical weapons stockpile by the end of 2009, a Russian official said Tuesday. “For fulfilling its international obligations, Russia plans putting in operation in 2008 two facilities for destruction of chemical weapons in the settlement of Leonidovka in the Penza Region and in the city of Shchuchye in the Kurgan Region,” said Volga Federal District representative Alexander Konovalov, according to ITAR-Tass. “These facilities will allow Russia to destroy 45 percent of war gases at the third stage, by Dec. 31, 2009,” he said (ITAR-Tass, Dec. 18). Back to top       Last VX Spray Tanks Set for Destruction at Umatilla The last of 156 spray tanks containing VX nerve agent stored at the Umatilla Chemical Depot are expected to be destroyed next week, the U.S. Army announced (see GSN, Nov. 26). The tanks, 15 1/2 feet long and designed to be carried by aircraft, contained a total of 106 tons of the nerve agent.  Workers moved the last of the containers from storage yesterday to the Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility. Tank incineration is occurring alongside the ongoing disposal of M55 rockets carrying VX, which began in October and is expected to be finished in February. Disposal of all VX items at Umatilla, which also include projectiles, land mines and one bulk container, is scheduled for completion in mid-2009.  The plant would then prepare for its final project, elimination of mustard agent. A nearly three-year project to eliminate munitions loaded with sarin nerve agent ended in July 2007 (U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency release, Dec. 20). Back to top

Japanese Patriot Tests Planned in U.S. Japan plans to conduct test launches of Patriot Advanced Capability 3 missile interceptors at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico before March 2009, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Dec. 18). A Japanese Defense Ministry official said that the tests, which would be the nation’s first missile defense exercises to be carried out in the United States, are scheduled to take place during fiscal 2009.  The Japanese newspaper Mainichi reported that the tests might take place late next year, but the ministry source said the timing of the tests has not been finalized. Announcement of the exercise came as Japan and the United States press to develop joint missile defenses in response to missile tests and a nuclear bomb detonation conducted by North Korea. Japanese defense officials have requested nearly $8 million in funding for the PAC-3 tests in the new Japanese budget, the official said. Japan has deployed two of the systems near Tokyo and scheduled major defense exercises for the area.  By March 2011, the country expects to place PAC-3 units at another nine military bases (Chisaki Watanabe, Associated Press/International Herald Tribune, Dec. 21). Security expert Toshiki Kaji, a former high-level official for Japan’s Air Self-Defense Force, cautioned against partnering with the United States in costly missile defense efforts, Kyodo News reported. “Generally speaking, the total costs of long-term joint development of military capabilities with another country tend to swell, possibly three or four times initial estimates,” he said.  The current estimate is more than $8.7 billion, according to Kyodo. Kaji also warned that Russia and China could respond to such Japanese  missile defense tests by stepping up their own missile armaments. “Japan's success will have an impact on the nuclear potential of China and Russia in East Asia.  There is no doubt that the two countries will step up their efforts to develop missiles with a higher performance,” Kaji said. “This system is simply for defense.  We don't recognize this weapon system as posing any threat to other countries,” said Adm. Eiji Yoshikawa, the top commander of Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force, following a Japanese Standard Missile 3 interceptor test this week (Kobayashi/Takei, Kyodo News/Japan Times, Dec. 20). Back to top

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