Global Security Newswire: By National Journal

    Issue for Monday, January 8, 2007

    Week in Review

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  nuclear  
Israel Practices Nuclear Strike on Iran, Report Says Full Story
U.S. to Meld Two Designs for New Nuclear Warhead Full Story
North Korea Ready for Test, South Lawmaker Says Full Story
New NNSA Chief Chosen Full Story
Local Critics Pan U.S. “Divine Strake” Explosion Full Story
Recent Stories

  biological  
Drugs Helped Prevent Anthrax Spread in 2001 Attack Full Story
Recent Stories

  chemical  
Anfal Trial Resumes in Iraq Full Story
DuPont Pulls Out of VX Waste Disposal Plan Full Story
Recent Stories

  missile1  
Russia Protests U.S. Sanctions Full Story
Recent Stories

  missile2  
Japan Could Aid Missile Defense Laser Technology Full Story
Recent Stories

  other  
Study Finds Progress Made in Stemming “Dirty Bomb” Threat Full Story
Polonium Poisoning Spurs Fear of Terror Attack Full Story
Recent Stories

 

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As soon as the green light is given, it will be one mission, one strike and the Iranian nuclear project will be demolished.
—An Israeli military official, on reported plans for tactical nuclear strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites.


Los Angeles police officers suit up for a “dirty bomb” drill in 2004.  A National Research Council report last week praised U.S. efforts to help former Soviet states secure materials that could be used in radiological weapons (David McNew/Getty Images).
Los Angeles police officers suit up for a “dirty bomb” drill in 2004. A National Research Council report last week praised U.S. efforts to help former Soviet states secure materials that could be used in radiological weapons (David McNew/Getty Images).
Study Finds Progress Made in Stemming “Dirty Bomb” Threat

By Jon Fox
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Despite limited funding from both Moscow and Washington, a cooperative program to secure radiation sources in Russia that could be used in radiological “dirty bombs” has made a “very good start,” according to a study by the National Research Council (see GSN, Jan. 3)...Full Story

Israel Practices Nuclear Strike on Iran, Report Says

The Israeli air force has been training to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities with tactical nuclear weapons to prevent Tehran from acquiring its own nuclear weapon capability, the London Sunday Times reported yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 5)...Full Story

U.S. to Meld Two Designs for New Nuclear Warhead

Following a review of two competing designs for a new U.S. nuclear warhead, the Bush administration is expected this week to announce no winner, but rather to call for a third design that incorporates the best features of the two proposals, the New York Times reported yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 26, 2006)...Full Story

Current Issue Monday, January 8, 2007
nuclear

Israel Practices Nuclear Strike on Iran, Report Says


The Israeli air force has been training to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities with tactical nuclear weapons to prevent Tehran from acquiring its own nuclear weapon capability, the London Sunday Times reported yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 5).

Two squadrons have conducted long-range test flights to practice the pre-emptive mission, which would entail dropping laser-guided conventional weapons on top of buried Iranian facilities followed by low-yield nuclear weapons, according to the Times.

Three targets would be attacked under the plan —  Iran’s uranium centrifuge plant at Natanz, its uranium conversion facility at Isfahan and its heavy-water reactor now under construction at Arak, the Times reported.

“As soon as the green light is given, it will be one mission, one strike and the Iranian nuclear project will be demolished,” said one Israeli military source.

The initial use of conventional weapons is intended to burrow holes for the nuclear weapons, thereby getting the nuclear charge closer to the target while containing more radioactive fallout.

Israeli officials believe Iran would not retaliate significantly following the attack for fear of a second strike, according to the Times (Mahnaimi/Baxter, London Sunday Times, Jan. 7).

Israeli officials publicly denied the report yesterday and stated the nation’s support for a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear crisis, the Associated Press reported.

“If diplomacy succeeds, the problem can be solved peaceably,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev.

Outside experts suggested the report could be an effort to ramp up pressure on Iran to seek a diplomatic solution to the crisis.

“I refuse to believe that anyone here would consider using nuclear weapons against Iran,” said Reuven Pedatzur, a prominent defense analyst and newspaper columnist.  “It is possible that this was a leak done on purpose, as deterrence, to say: ‘Someone better hold us back, before we do something crazy’” (David Stringer, Associated Press/ABC News, Jan. 7).

In response the Times report,  Iran warned against any nation using military force.

“Any action against the Islamic republic will not go without a response and the aggressor would regret the action very quickly,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini (Agence France-Presse/Khaleej Times, Jan. 7).

Iranian Moderates Dissent

Also in Iran, reformist lawmakers said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has damaged the country’s standing in the international community and called for a change to the nation’s nuclear policy.

“The only way to pass the crisis is to build confidence … but holding a Holocaust conference and financing the Hamas government creates mistrust and tension,” said Noureddin Pirmoazzen, spokesman for the parliament’s reformist faction.  The reformist group seeks to reclaim the power it had before Ahmadinejad’s 2005 election, when he succeeded two-term reformist President Mohammad Khatami, Reuters reported.

The reformist group could seek to remove members of Ahmadinejad’s  Cabinet, Pirmoazzen said.

“We hope to witness a return to the manner of Khatami’s government and see the crisis is solved in the next 60 days, or else we will have no alternative but to impeach Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki,” he said.

Pirmoazzen acknowledged that an impeachment motion would probably fail in parliament, but he said there were more than 10 votes needed to call for an impeachment motion (Reuters/New York Times, Jan. 7).


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U.S. to Meld Two Designs for New Nuclear Warhead


Following a review of two competing designs for a new U.S. nuclear warhead, the Bush administration is expected this week to announce no winner, but rather to call for a third design that incorporates the best features of the two proposals, the New York Times reported yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 26, 2006).

Two major U.S. nuclear warhead laboratories submitted their designs last year for the Reliable Replacement Warhead, a weapon intended to replace existing U.S. strategic warheads.  The Bush administration has sought a new warhead that would be more robust and more resistant to accidental or unauthorized use (see GSN, Dec. 5, 2006).

U.S. officials have argued that more reliable weapons will ease the way for the major reductions to the stockpile by giving U.S. commanders and allies greater confidence that the remaining weapons will work as planned.

“We will not ‘un-invent’ nuclear weapons, and we will not walk away from the world,” said Gen. James Cartwright, head of the U.S. Strategic Command.  “Right now, it is not the nation’s position that zero is the answer to the size of our inventory.”

“So, if you are going to have these weapons, they should be safe, they should be able to be secured, and they should be reliable if used,” he added.

The decision to create a hybrid design could slow the warhead’s development and production and enhances the possibility that the United States could resume nuclear testing to confirm the design.

Energy Department spokesman Bryan Wilkes told the Times that no warhead design would be accepted if it required explosive nuclear tests, but senior administration officials have not made similar commitments, the Times reported.

The two submitted designs represented very different approaches, according to the Times.

A team from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California based its design on a warhead that was tested in the 1980s before the U.S. testing moratorium began in 1991.

The design group from Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico opted for a more innovative design that included features of many earlier warheads, according to the Times.

The decision to combine these two efforts was seen by some experts as a way to protect the laboratories and their work forces.

“It’s spreading the wealth,” said former Livermore weapons designer Ray Kidder.  Federal officials “tend to do that fairly rigorously so as to keep the labs alive.  To foreclose the possibility of closure, they try to divide the workload.”

Cartwright said it was important to sustain U.S. personnel who are experts in nuclear weapons.

“We are starting to get to the point where the people who actually have experience designing a weapon are reaching a point at which they will start to leave the industry,” he said.  “And are we able to attract the minds that we will need to sustain this activity?”

Critics of the Reliable Replacement Warhead program have argued that pursuing a new warhead undermines U.S. policy as Washington copes with nonproliferation crises in North Korea and Iran.

In addition, they have argued that U.S. weapons are already sufficiently reliable, pointing to a recent scientific study finding that the plutonium cores of U.S. weapons can be expected to remain functional for up to 100 years (see GSN, Nov. 30, 2006).

“This research eliminates a major rationale” for the new warhead, said nuclear weapons specialist Lisbeth Gronlund of the Union of Concerned Scientists (New York Times, Jan. 7).


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North Korea Ready for Test, South Lawmaker Says


A South Korean lawmaker said yesterday he believes that North Korea is ready to carry out another nuclear test but is not likely to do so in the immediate future, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Jan. 5).

Personnel movement and construction activity at the site of the Oct. 9 nuclear blast indicates preparations for a second test, according to Grand National Party lawmaker Chung Hyung-keun.  He said a government official told him that up to 15 individuals and an unknown object were seen at the west side of a tunnel used in the first test.

“Chances are very high that the North Korean workers moved the facilities into the tunnel to prepare for an additional nuclear test,” Chung told the Yonhap News Agency.

However, he said on his Web site that a test is not likely to occur while Pyongyang remains involved in the six-party talks on its nuclear program and in negotiations with Washington regarding U.S. financial sanctions (Agence France-Presse I/Yahoo!News, Jan. 7).

Experts in South Korea agreed with Chung’s assessment, the Associated Press reported.

North Korea has the technical capability to conduct a nuclear test at any time,” said Paik Hak-soon of the Sejong Institute.  The blast remains an option if negotiations with the United States fail to produce results, he said.

“The North doesn’t need to take any risk as long as the six-way process is under way,” said Koh Yu-hwan of Dongguk University (Associated Press I/International Herald Tribune, Jan. 6).

South Korean Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung said today he does not believe Pyongyang would detonate another weapon, AFP reported.

“Because it’s well aware that a second nuclear test will turn the current situation from dialogue to tougher sanctions, I believe North Korea will not dare conduct an additional nuclear test,” he told Yonhap (Agence France-Presse II, Jan. 8).

The next round of six-party talks could begin “fairly soon,” but is contingent upon signs by North Korea that it is ready to begin moving on denuclearization, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday.

“We did not make the progress that I think we would have liked [at negotiations last month], and we believe that the North Koreans need to come in a more constructive spirit,” she said during a press conference in Washington with South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min-soon.

“But it does not mean there were not very productive discussions that took place during that round,” Rice said, according to AFP.

It is “North Korea’s turn to come back to us with a positive and realistic response” to proposals offered at the December talks in Beijing, Song said.

“I know of no substantive response from the North Koreans,” Rice said (David Millikin, Agence France-Presse III/Khaleej Times, Jan. 6).

Officials from Pyongyang and Washington are expected to meet again this month for further talks on U.S. sanctions, AFP reported.

“A date has not been set yet, but I understand North Korea and the United States have tentatively agreed to meet in the week beginning Jan. 22,” Song said yesterday (Agence France-Presse/Sharewatch.com, Jan. 7).


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New NNSA Chief Chosen


U.S. President George Bush has selected a new head for the National Nuclear Security Administration, following the dismissal of Linton Brooks for his inability to solve security problems at U.S. nuclear laboratories, the Associated Press reported Saturday (see GSN, Jan. 5).

Thomas D’Agostino, the agency’s deputy administrator of defense programs, will take over leadership of the agency on an acting basis.

Brooks’ forced resignation is expected to take effect this month.

“His departure is long overdue,” said Representative Joe Barton (R-Texas).

Brooks’ exit is not enough to fix security problems (see GSN, Nov. 6, 2006; see GSN, June 12, 2006) at the agency charged with overseeing the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile and weapons research laboratories, some lawmakers said.

“It will take more than a new boss to fix the problems, which are fare more systemic and pervasive in nature,” said Representative Edward Markey (D-Mass.).  Markey sits on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which might hold hearings on Energy Department security.

A House Armed Services committee also is expected to conduct a hearing on “the important policy and structural changes” planned for the agency, according to Representative Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.) (Josef Herbert, Associated Press/San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 6).


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Local Critics Pan U.S. “Divine Strake” Explosion


Critics have blasted a U.S. plan to conduct a large conventional explosion at the Nevada Test Site, saying there is no way to predict where radioactive particles present in the soil would end up after the test, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported Saturday (see GSN, Jan. 4).

The U.S. Energy Department last week released a revised draft environmental assessment that concluded there was little risk of anyone being exposed to dangerous radioactive debris from the explosion.  The blast, called Divine Strake, is intended to test the effects of a large explosion on buried bunkers or storage facilities.  The Bush administration initially said the test was designed to simulate a low-yield nuclear weapon, but has retracted that explanation (see GSN, April 7, 2006).

An attorney who represents “downwinders” of the Nevada Test Site, home to hundreds of nuclear test explosions during the Cold War, argued that the assessment was flawed.

“The history of prior blasts reflects that it is not possible to predict where or in what concentrations the deadly alpha emitters will be deposited, but that wherever they end up, the population will suffer increased incident of cancer, disproportionately borne by children,” said attorney Robert Hager in a statement.

Hager cited testing expert Richard Miller, who said even a small release of radiation off the test site could be lethal.

“What we’re talking about is the ingesting and inhaling of alpha emitters,” such as plutonium, Miller told the Review-Journal.  “If you inhale one particle, you’ll get cancer” (Keith Rogers, Las Vegas Review-Journal, Jan. 6).


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biological

Drugs Helped Prevent Anthrax Spread in 2001 Attack


A new study has found that use of antibiotics and vaccinations helped prevent the spread of anthrax infection after a tainted letter was opened in a Senate office during the 2001 attacks, Bloomberg News reported Saturday (see GSN, Dec. 13, 2006).

The study, published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, also reported that exposure to anthrax spores occurred over a wider area than thought after one letter showed up at the office of then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle.

People in or near Daschle’s office had an immune response.  However, the study also found a response in those in other parts of the Hart building and beyond.

Antibiotics or vaccinations were given to people who were likely to have been exposed to the anthrax spores.  Others both in the Hart building and outside also received treatment (Bloomberg News/Arizona Daily Star, Jan. 6).


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chemical

Anfal Trial Resumes in Iraq


Trial resumed today for six former Iraqi officials charged with orchestrating the Anfal campaign that is believed to have killed up to 180,000 Kurds in the country in the late 1980s, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Jan. 3).

The court today dropped charges against former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, who was executed Dec. 30 after being convicted in an earlier trial of ordering the deaths of 148 people in the town of Dujail.

The surviving defendants are:   Hussein’s cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid, also known as “Chemical Ali” for allegedly ordering use of chemical weapons against Kurds; former Defense Minister Sultan Hashim al-Tai, commander of Task Force Anfal; former military intelligence head Sabir al-Douri; former Mosul governor and Northern Affairs Committee chief Taher Tawfiq al-Ani; former Iraqi armed forces deputy operations director Hussein Rashid Mohammed; and former military intelligence eastern regional chief Farhan Mutlaq Saleh (Sinan Salaheddin, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Jan. 8).

In audio tapes played today in court, Hussein and al-Majid discussed the use of chemical weapons to kill thousands of Kurds, Reuters reported.

“I will strike them with chemical weapons and kill them all and damn anyone who is going to say anything,” said a person identified by prosecutors as al-Majid.

“Yes it’s effective, especially on those who don’t wear a mask immediately, as we understand,” a person identified as Hussein responded.

“Sir, does it exterminate thousands?” someone asked.

“Yes, it exterminates thousands and forces them not to eat or drink and they will have to evacuate their homes without taking anything we them, until we can finally purge them,” Hussein said (Reuters/Yahoo!News, Jan. 8).

All the defendants face charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity (Salaheddin, Associated Press).  Al-Majid is also charged with genocide (Reuters).


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DuPont Pulls Out of VX Waste Disposal Plan


DuPont Co. announced Friday that it would not conduct final treatment of wastewater produced by the chemical neutralization of VX nerve agent stored in Indiana, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported (see GSN, Dec. 22, 2006).

The U.S. Army had selected the DuPont Chamber Works in Deepwater, N.J., to process up to 4 million gallons of hydrolysate and then discharge the wastewater into the Delaware River.

The plan faced strong opposition from environmental groups and from officials in Delaware and New Jersey.  Seven organizations in December sued to block transport of waste produced by the Newport Chemical Agent Disposal Facility.

“There will be no VX byproduct dumped in the Delaware River,” said U.S. Representative Robert Andrews (D-N.J.).  “This is a real victory for the residents of South Jersey and the health of the Delaware River.”

“It’s hard to ever know what’s the straw that broke the camel’s back,” said Tracy Carluccio, deputy director of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, one of the lawsuit plaintiffs.  “All of this was working on DuPont and showed them this was really not in their best interest to move forward.”

All options for dealing with the Newport waste will be considered, Army officials said.  Environmentalists hope to see the hydrolysate treated on-site at Newport.

The Chamber Works facility previously treated 7 million gallons of waste produced by neutralization of mustard agent, the Inquirer reported.

Over the course of 90 public meetings, a review of the plan by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (see GSN, July 28, 2006) and a proposal revision, the company gained support for its plan, according to spokesman Anthony Farina.

“Even with all that support and the traction from all that, it became clear that the regulatory process would be a long one,” he said.  “I think there was a lot of misinformation about the Newport proposal initially” (Troy Graham, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Jan. 8).


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missile1

Russia Protests U.S. Sanctions


Russia’s Foreign Ministry has protested U.S. economic sanctions levied Friday against Russian companies for allegedly selling WMD and missile technologies to Iran and Syria, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Jan. 5).

Three Russian firms, including the state-run arms exporter Rosoboronexport, were banned from doing business with the U.S. government or U.S. firms for two years.  Rosoboronexport received similar penalties last year (see GSN, Aug. 7, 2006).

“The United States are not for the first time trying to extend their national laws illegally to foreign countries, forcing them to work according to American rules,” said a Foreign Ministry statement released Saturday.

“The three companies did not violate any international norms on nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction and missile technologies,” added Defense Minister Sergei Lavrov.  “It seems the American government is unhappy about the growing volume of arms and military equipment sold by Russia” (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Jan. 6).


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missile2

Japan Could Aid Missile Defense Laser Technology


The United States plans to ask Japan for help developing laser technology for missile defenses, Agence France-Presse reported Saturday (see GSN, Oct. 27, 2006).

The two nations have been cooperating on deploying missile interceptors, particularly after North Korea’s missile test last year (see GSN, July 5, 2006).

To expand that cooperation, Washington intends to have Japanese companies develop a laser system that could become operational in five years, according to AFP.  The system would be deployed on aircraft and would destroy enemy missiles shortly after launch (see GSN, Oct. 30, 2006; Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Jan. 6).


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other

Study Finds Progress Made in Stemming “Dirty Bomb” Threat

By Jon Fox
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Despite limited funding from both Moscow and Washington, a cooperative program to secure radiation sources in Russia that could be used in radiological “dirty bombs” has made a “very good start,” according to a study by the National Research Council (see GSN, Jan. 3).

The three-year look at the joint threat reduction program determined that initial “quick security fixes” have been important and should continue.  In addition, the report urges the Energy Department to speed up the program that began in 2003.

Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States and Russia have worked together to reduce the threat of nuclear proliferation through programs such as those covered by the Cooperative Threat Reduction effort.

Programs were initially aimed at securing strategic nuclear weapons in four countries born of the Soviet collapse.  The efforts were later expanded to enhance material protection at laboratories and to ensure that Russian weapons specialists were kept employed and directed toward peaceful pursuits.  In 2002, the U.S. energy secretary and his Russian counterpart announced a new push to secure radiation sources that, rather than fueling a nuclear explosion, could be combined with conventional explosives in a dirty bomb (see GSN, May 10, 2002).

Since the inception of the new program, officials have focused on analyzing information in Russian databases to assess the numbers, types and locations of radioactive sources in Russia; to improve security at storage and disposal sites; to collect and dispose of now-unwanted radiation sources; and to accelerate the removal of radiation-powered batteries deployed mainly in the far north of Russia (see GSN, Aug. 25, 2004).

The National Research Council report, which was released late last month after an original 18-month deadline was extended to 36, praises the cooperative activities to tighten the cordons on radioactive material that could find its way into a dirty bomb.  The report suggests there could be more than one million sources of radiation in Russia that are of concern.

The program, which was eventually incorporated into the U.S. Energy Department’s Global Threat Reduction Initiative, has afforded the agency “considerable experience in developing and carrying out significant on-the-ground activities in Russia,” the report concludes.

Between 200 and 300 of the more than 1,000 radiation-powered batteries produced for use in the Soviet Union have been taken out of service in recent years.  Many of the power sources, most of which were used to generate electricity for remote scientific monitoring stations, are now in the process of being dismantled before undergoing disposal (see GSN, Oct. 23, 2002).

In addition, the Energy Department has helped upgrade security at 16 regional storage and disposal facilities designed to deal with disused and orphan radiation sources remaining in Russia.  At one such site near Moscow, upgrades have included underground storage wells, devices to indicate tampering, access control equipment and intrusion detection systems.

“DOE has made a very good start in helping Russia deal with the challenge of security enhancement,” the report states.  “Committed Russian partners seem ready to continue to move forward if they are provided with financial resources.”

The report expresses concern about declining funding to the cooperative program, but says that any expansion of current activities should wait for the Energy Department to outline the best way to proceed if additional funding becomes available.  The report avoids budget specifics.

“This plan should indicate how U.S. resources can leverage larger resources of the Russian government and thereby become an important basis for budget requests to support the program,” it says.

While expected to cause limited physical damage and a small number of deaths, experts have said the potential for a dirty bomb to cause significant economic damage and physiological damage is high.  Such an attack could result in the evacuation of a large swath of an urban area followed by the difficulties of a large-scale decontamination.

“The very word ‘radioactive’ makes people scared,” said Matthew Bunn, a senior research associate at Harvard University’s Project on Managing the Atom. 

The likelihood of a dirty bomb attack in the “not too distant future” is also high, the report says, citing a poll of experts who think such a strike is more likely that not to occur within a decade (see GSN, Nov. 2, 2005).

“I think it’s important to be working with Russia to get this radiological material locked down,” Bunn said. 

Still, he noted, Russia has taken steps to address the problem.  Feeling it has the security of its nuclear weapons under control, Russian leaders appear more concerned with the threat of radiological rather than nuclear terrorism, Bunn said.

“Basically there were two problems in the former Soviet Union,” said Charles Ferguson, a nuclear expert with the Council on Foreign Relations.  The government had relatively weak oversight and the number of radiological sources was very high.

The Russian Academy of Sciences pegged the number of radiation sources in Russia at about 500,000, but the National Research Council report suggests it could be as large as 1 million or more.

The report points out that only a small fraction of radiation sources used for scientific, industrial and medical purposes are considered to be high risk by their nature. Despite work on a comprehensive database, however, the catalogue has shortcomings and must be upgraded, the report says.  Only one-third of Russia’s regions have been analyzed, and Moscow, which has the largest number of radiation sources, remains unexamined.

“The Russians I know are worried about the potential of radiological terror acts in Russia,” Ferguson said.

In Moscow, that apparent concern has resulted in a “level of sophistication regarding emergency operations and response capabilities that should be of considerable interest to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security,” the report notes. 

Even with the work accomplished to date, “much more needs to be done by the Russian government and cooperatively to reduce the threat to both U.S. and Russian interests,” the report states.

The report calls for more involvement from the Russian Health and Social Services, Natural Resources and Energy, Agriculture, and Education and Science ministries.  They did not offer specific examples of how those agencies might become involved.

“The focus of the program has been on a few quick fixes, rather than on comprehensive long-term approaches,” the study found, but in each area of the program “Russian activities seem to be on the rise, probably attributable in some measure to the stimulus of the cooperative program.”


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Polonium Poisoning Spurs Fear of Terror Attack


The use of polonium 210 to kill former Russian intelligence officer Alexander Litvinenko has increased concerns that the radioactive material might be used in an act of terrorism, the Washington Post reported yesterday (see GSN, Dec. 14, 2006).

Many deaths and widespread panic could result from an explosive or airborne release of polonium, especially if it occurred in an enclosed area.  Even worse could be tainting of the food or water supply.

“You need a lot of material,” said nuclear physicist Peter Zimmerman, a science and security professor at King’s College London.  “But not more than it is reasonable to think could be diverted from the commercial stream.”

Russia conducts 97 percent of legal polonium production, generating roughly three ounces each year for domestic and foreign companies that use it to reduce static electricity.

Litvinenko’s death has heightened scrutiny on Russia’s production system and controls for polonium, the Post reported.  The International Atomic Energy Agency might enact increased controls of the isotope.  Zimmerman and other scientists would like to see other material used for anti-static purposes.

Russian officials there say there is no reason to fear that material could be diverted for malicious purposes from the production plant.

“I can say with complete certainty that no deviations from the rules of storage and transportation of nuclear materials, including polonium, have been discovered at any structures of our fuel and nuclear complex,” said Konstantin Pulikovsky, who leads the Federal Service for the Oversight of the Environment, Technology and Nuclear Management, according to RIA Novosti.

There were at least 15 incidents in which polonium was lost or stolen prior to 2006, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.  Most occurred in the United States.

A request from a highly placed Russian official for polonium could lead to auditing safeguards being bypassed, said Nick Priest, a professor of radiation toxicology at Middlesex University.  Audits might also not be counted on to track all material, as more polonium than needed is created during production, and the leftover amount is not counted as part of the official supply, he said.

“When they do make these runs, they produce a large amount because it’s got a 138-day half-life and they don’t want to be making it all the time.  It’s not possible to maintain complete control by measurement at the source,” Priest said (Peter Finn, Washington Post, Jan. 7).


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