U.S President George W. Bush, shown in a news conference today, praised the six-nation process that reached a limited deal with North Korea (Mark Wilson/Getty Images). Significant Work Remains Ahead With North Korea Yesterday’s agreement on moving North Korea toward nuclear disarmament leaves major issues to be resolved at a later date, the New York Times reported (see GSN, Feb. 13). The deal requires Pyongyang to close its Yongbyon nuclear facilities and to allow inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency.  ..Full Story

Experts See More Dangerous World for U.S. By Jon Fox Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said yesterday that the U.S. response to the Sept. 11 attacks over the last five years has not made the world safer from terrorism (see GSN, Jan. 25)...Full Story

U.S. Hails North Korean Deal as Model for Iran U.S. officials have urged Iran to consider yesterday’s agreement with North Korea as a model that could help resolve the Iranian nuclear crisis (see GSN, Feb. 13)...Full Story

	Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Experts See More Dangerous World for U.S. By Jon Fox Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said yesterday that the U.S. response to the Sept. 11 attacks over the last five years has not made the world safer from terrorism (see GSN, Jan. 25). Representative Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas) called for U.S. leaders to focus on  threats not just in the Middle East but in areas such as Africa and Latin America. “I’m struck by the fact that so much of our attention has been taken up by the Middle East,” he said.  “We need to look at emerging threats.”  Reyes, along with Representative Christopher Shays (R-Conn.), spoke at the Center for American Progress as the think tank released its second “Terrorism Index.” The bipartisan poll found that 81 percent of the more than 100 foreign policy experts surveyed believe the world is becoming more dangerous for the United States and the American people. “Five and a half years after 9/11, I’m certainly chagrined that we haven’t made it a safer world,” Reyes said.  “I certainly believe that it is a much more dangerous world. “We need to collect ourselves and come up with a worldwide, comprehensive strategy” to address threats to the United States, he said.  “We’ve got a lot of work to do.” Reyes offered no ideas about what such a strategy might entail but maintained it was imperative. “We have to, as Michael Jordan used to say, ‘Just do it,’” he said. Shays called for a national debate on security policies while venturing that U.S. citizens are safer now than they were before Sept. 11, 2001. “The Cold War is over, and the world is a more dangerous place, but I believe we’re safer,” he said, noting that there was a false sense of security on U.S. soil before the terrorist attacks of 2001. “What we have not still have not had is a debate about what our strategy is today,” said Shays, a member of the House Homeland Security Committee. His own vision of what that strategy is a pre-emptive, likely unilateral approach of “detect, prevent,” he said.  “We aren’t going to wait for a small group of scientists working in a country that tolerates it to create an altered biological agent that is going to wipe out humanity as we know it.” If the United States is confronted with a “world asleep,” whatever administration is at the helm might have little choice but to act alone, Shays said.  “What are you going to do, just join them?” he asked. Still, he said the Bush administration had been “dead wrong” about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the concerns that led up to the 2003 invasion.  “The president lost a tremendous amount of credibility and so did I,” he said (see GSN, Jan. 29). While criticizing the management of the war, Shays has been and remains a stalwart support of U.S. involvement in Iraq. The Center for American Progress survey indicated that 64 percent of the experts believed the United States would suffer another attack on the scale of Sept. 11 within five years.  More than 80 percent believed it was likely or certain to occur within a decade. Forty-one percent of respondents said they believe that the war in Iraq would be the motivation for the next attack on the United States.  During the last survey six months ago, 28 percent cited the war as the likely motivating factor. Sixty percent of the experts said the United States was doing the “worst possible job” managing the war in Iraq. Seventy-three percent of experts identified North Korea as the primary national security concern and said it should be the paramount priority in the coming five years.  Seventy-three percent also thought the totalitarian state was the most likely nation to transfer nuclear materials or technology in the next three to five years (see related GSN story today). Back to top       Senate Bill Cuts Out Scans of All U.S.-Bound Cargo Homeland security legislation introduced in the Senate does not include provisions for radiation scanning of all U.S.-bound sea cargo or screening for explosives on all U.S. airline cargo, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 30). The House of Representatives last month approved both measures in its version of legislation intended to enact additional antiterrorism recommendations from the Sept. 11 commission. The Senate Homeland Security Committee is expected to vote tomorrow on the bill from panel Chairman Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and ranking Republican Susan Collins (R-Maine). The two houses of Congress would have to settle their differences in a conference committee.  The compromise legislation would go back to the House and Senate, and then to President George W. Bush. The White House has argued that the House-backed measures would cost too much and require technology that has yet to be developed, AP reported. The Senate Commerce Committee yesterday also approved aviation security legislation that mandates full screening of airline cargo. The overall House bill is expected to cost $21 billion over five years.  There is no estimate for the corresponding Senate legislation. The two bills also differ on how to allocate security grant funds to state and local governments.  The House legislation focuses on risk factors — such as the determined threat, a community’s vulnerability and overall consequences of a terrorist incident — which helps larger and urban states seeking funds.  The Senate bill would spread out the funding among states (Beverly Lumpkin, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Feb. 13). Back to top

CTR Restrictions Must Be Lifted, Lugar Says U.S. Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) is pressing again this year for lifting restrictions on the Cooperative Threat Reduction program to secure and eliminate weapons of mass destruction in former Soviet states (see GSN, Feb. 2, 2006). This is Lugar’s third attempt to pass such legislation.  The legislation that created the Nunn-Lugar program in 1991 required annual certifications that recipients of U.S. funds were meeting six conditions, including compliance with relevant arms control agreements, a prohibition against replacement of weapons of mass destruction, and facilitation of U.S. verification of weapons disposal. “At the time, these conditions were important to defining the U.S. strategic relationship with each Nunn-Lugar recipient.  The question we must answer today is, what national security benefit do the certification requirements provide the American people?  Do the conditions make it easier or harder to eliminate weapons of mass destruction in Russia or elsewhere?  Do the conditions make it more likely or less likely that weapons are eliminated?” Lugar said Jan. 8 in introducing the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Act of 2007. The certification requirement can be waived each year.  However, it costs the State Department and other agencies “hundreds of man-hours” to conduct the certification and waiver process, Lugar said.  “This time could be better spent tackling the proliferation threats facing our country,” Lugar said.  “Instead of interdicting WMD shipments, identifying the next A.Q. Khan, or locating hidden stocks of chemical and biological weapons, our nonproliferation experts spend their time compiling reports and assembling certification or waiver determinations.” The process of waiving Russia’s certification in 2002 stalled work for months on several projects, including security upgrades at 10 nuclear weapons storage sites and dismantlement of ICBMs, Lugar said. “The events of 2002 are not the exceptions, they are the rule,” he said.  “In some years, Nunn-Lugar funds are not available for expenditure until more than half of the fiscal year has passed, and weapons of mass destruction slated for dismantlement await the U.S. bureaucratic process (U.S. Senator Richard Lugar release, Jan. 9). Back to top

Significant Work Remains Ahead With North Korea Yesterday’s agreement on moving North Korea toward nuclear disarmament leaves major issues to be resolved at a later date, the New York Times reported (see GSN, Feb. 13). The deal requires Pyongyang to close its Yongbyon nuclear facilities and to allow inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency.  Major issues to be faced another day are fully denuclearizing North Korea, obtaining a list from Pyongyang of all nuclear activities, and what to do with its present plutonium program. The White House heralded the agreement at the six-nation negotiations in Beijing as a diplomatic success, though only part of a larger effort. “These talks represent the best opportunity to use diplomacy to address North Korea’s nuclear programs,” President George W. Bush said in a statement.  “They reflect the common commitment of the participants to a Korean Peninsula that is free of nuclear weapons.” Critics from the left and the right took shots at the agreement. Senator Joseph Biden (D-Del.) said the agreement “takes us back to the future,” referring to the 1994 Agreed Framework in which the United States, South Korea and Japan pledged to provide fuel and light-water reactors for suspension of Pyongyang’s nuclear program. “The good news is that it freezes in place North Korea’s nuclear program,” said Biden, one of a host of politicians vying for the presidency in 2008.  “The bad news is that North Korea’s program is more dangerous to us now than it was in 2002, when President Bush rejected virtually the same deal he is now embracing. Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, a hard-liner on North Korea, said the deal is weak. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice disagreed:  “I just think he’s wrong” (Cooper/Yardley, New York Times I, Feb. 14). The leaders of North Korea and the United States both faced pressures that pushed them toward concessions on the nuclear standoff, the Times reported. Bush, facing chaos in Iraq and his party’s loss of power in the November elections, had the opportunity to show success in the effort to peacefully closing North Korea’s nuclear program.  The possibility that Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and North Korea might be more dangerous at the end of his term than the beginning “can’t be very appealing,” one senior administration official said. North Korean leader Kim Jong Il made a major strategic error in detonating a nuclear bomb on Oct. 9.  That angered its sole close ally, China, which suspended military aid and supported U.S. financial moves against the regime, the Times reported. “As a political statement, their test was a red flare,” said Robert Gallucci, the lead negotiator for the Agreed Framework.  “It gave President Bush and the Chinese some leverage” (David Sanger, New York Times II, Feb. 14). A key point was a meeting last month in Berlin between Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and chief U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill, who was in Germany for talks with his North Korean counterpart. Hill provided a one-page description of the North Korean offer, administration officials told the Times.  Rice spoke by telephone with Bush, who authorized Hill to continue with negotiations on the offer. Pyongyang’s first steps must be completed within 60 days.  It would then receive energy, food and other support equivalent to 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil. Several nations would provide the equivalent of 950,000 tons of fuel oil when North Korea completes denuclearization (Cooper/Yardley, New York Times). Hill also said the United States would within 30 days resolve the dispute over Macau-based Banco Delta Asia and its reported involvement in illicit North Korean financial activities, the Washington Post reported.  Up to a third of $24 million in frozen North Korean accounts at the bank could be judged legitimate and released, U.S. officials said (Kessler/Cody, Washington Post, Feb. 14). Doubts remain about the ultimate likelihood of denuclearization, Reuters reported. “Freezing, suspending, disabling isn’t necessarily the same as abandonment,” said North Korea specialist Zhang Lianggui of the Chinese Communist Party Central Party School.  “So we still need to discount the possibility that North Korea will really abandon nuclear weapons.  That’s a much more difficult and long-term issue.” If Pyongyang fails to meet its obligations under the deal, there is “still the possibility of sanctions through the international community,” said White House spokesman Tony Snow (Reuters/New York Times, Feb. 13). The International Atomic Energy Agency governing board will discuss the return of inspectors to North Korea when it meets in early next month, agency head Mohamed ElBaradei said. When that return occurs remains to be seen, as does how much access inspectors would have upon arrival, the Associated Press reported.  Another question is whether inspectors might seek to verify the U.S. claim that Pyongyang has a uranium enrichment program that could produce weapon-grade material. “The teams are ready, the equipment is in place,” a diplomat in Vienna said (George Jahn, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Feb. 13). Back to top       U.S. Hails North Korean Deal as Model for Iran U.S. officials have urged Iran to consider yesterday’s agreement with North Korea as a model that could help resolve the Iranian nuclear crisis (see GSN, Feb. 13). Six-nation talks in Beijing achieved a limited deal yesterday under which North Korea would freeze its nuclear activities in exchange for receiving fuel oil (see related GSN story, today). White House spokesman Tony Snow called the North Korean deal a “template” for Iran.  North Korea made the deal “because the international community asserted pressure, they felt the pressure and they understood that we were serious,” Snow said (Arshad Mohammed, Reuters/Washington Post, Feb. 13). “It’s a good story of international cooperation and of bringing together the right states to bring together the right set of incentives and disincentives,” said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (Michael Adler, Agence France-Presse, Feb. 13). “We hope the Iranians are similarly going to return to the table because we have offered some real opportunities for them,” Snow added. Nonproliferation experts offered different views of whether a North Korea-type solution could work with Iran.  One offered an optimistic view. “We see a pattern developing.  We negotiated a deal with Libya.  Now we are negotiating a deal with North Korea.  They give up their weapons programs in exchange for a new relationship with the United States,” said Joseph Cirincione of the Center for American Progress. “North Korea was a more difficult deal than Libya and Iran will be more difficult still, but the approach is clear,” he added.  “A successful deal with North Korea will be a powerful argument in Tehran for those who favor negotiating.” Other analysts were more pessimistic. Yesterday’s agreement would send “a dangerously accommodating signal not only to North Korea, but also to Iran and any other aspiring nuclear weapons state,” said Heritage Foundation analyst Bruce Klingner (Mohammed, Reuters). Mark Fitzpatrick, an expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, agreed. “The North Korean case shows that if you act with provocation and develop and test nuclear weapons, the superpowers will pay attention to you,” he said.  “That’s a dangerous lesson if that’s what Iran takes out of this.” Still, a resolution to the North Korean crisis could make “Iran more conspicuous,” because it would be the last state of the “axis of evil” identified by U.S. President George W. Bush, said former French official Francois Heisbourg (Adler, Agence France-Presse). Back to top       Nuclear Terror Prevention Group Seeks More Members Thirteen nations agreed yesterday to encourage more countries to join their initiative to prevent nuclear terrorism, The New Anatolian reported (see GSN, Feb. 12). Ending a two-day meeting in Ankara, Turkey, the group discussed measures to strengthen their domestic controls over nuclear material, to improve security at their nuclear installations and to interfere with terrorist financing schemes, according to the Anatolian. The meeting was the second session of the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism, an effort announced at last year’s Group of Eight summit in St. Petersburg, Russia.  The first meeting was held in Morocco late last year (see GSN, Oct. 31, 2006), and the third is scheduled to convene in June in Kazakhstan (The New Anatolian, Feb. 14). The group “emphasized the importance of broadening the initiative immediately following the meeting to include nations committed to combating nuclear terrorism,” according to a joint statement released by U.S. delegation leader Undersecretary of State Robert Joseph and Russian delegation leader Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Kislyak (U.S. State Department  release, Feb. 13). Iran, however, would not be welcome to join. “Iran facilitates terrorism and is seeking nuclear weapons,” Joseph said (The New Anatolian). Back to top       Los Alamos Must Correct “Perceptions,” Director Says Los Alamos National Laboratory staff must take personal responsibility for improving perceptions of poor security conditions there or risk having Washington lawmakers intervene, laboratory Director Michael Anastasio told workers Monday (see GSN, Feb. 1). For some members of Congress, “frustration was high enough that they felt that if they don’t see improvements and change at the laboratory, that they may need to take it in their own hands to make some more dramatic change themselves,” Anastasio told reporters after meeting with laboratory workers. The New Mexico laboratory has drawn greater congressional scrutiny following a series of security lapses culminating in the discovery last year that a contract worker had removed hundreds of classified documents (see GSN, Nov. 6, 2006). Possibly agitating workers more was Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman’s comment last month that the security problems were the result of “arrogance” among nuclear scientists. To reporters, Anastasio did not specifically criticize Bodman’s assessment. “Right now, we’re at a place where there’s a set of perceptions, and we’ve got to change those perceptions.  And the perceptions are that the lab needs to improve,” he said. Laboratory workers must take the lead, he said. “I went over with them that I do have confidence that the laboratory can rise to this, and we can improve the laboratory, that it’s in our hands,” he said.  “And it’s a big opportunity for us. … If we fail to do that, we miss our opportunity, then the danger is others are going to do it for us” (Andy Lenderman, Santa Fe New Mexican, Feb. 13). Back to top       Russia, Saudi Arabia Look Toward Nuclear Cooperation There should be no barriers to civilian nuclear cooperation between Russia and Saudi Arabia, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said today (see GSN, Feb. 12). “There is no obstacle to cooperate with Russia on … nuclear energy,” he said during a press conference. While visiting Riyadh Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow might help Saudi Arabia with atomic energy, Reuters reported. “On nuclear energy, there was a (Russian) contact with the kingdom and the Gulf Cooperation Council,” he said (Reuters/New York Times, Feb. 14). Back to top

Bioterror Alerts Could Cause Harm, Report Says A study by New York City researchers has found that public alerts regarding the threat of bioterrorism could actually cause negative health effects, Yeshiva University announced in January (see GSN, March 3, 2005). “Unlike public health messages that portray dire scenarios to try to scare people into quitting smoking or using seatbelts, similar bioterrorism scenarios do not lead to any measurable beneficial behavior changes,” researcher Hillel Cohen, associate professor of epidemiology and population health at the university’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine, said in a press release. “Public health programs, which these alerts fall under, and other health interventions are typically evaluated by weighing efficacy and safety.  If a public health program can induce stress and anxiety in the population, these should be considered potentially adverse effects that need evaluation,” he added. Cohen and fellow researchers conducted a study involving 116 student volunteers.  Two messages were sent at random to the students, one depicting a significant bioterrorism incident in detail, the other addressing bioterrorism as a relatively minor danger in comparison to other public health risks. Students who received the alarming message were designated as the “experimental” group, while the remaining study participants became the “control” group, the release said. Researchers used the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory to determine the students’ responses to the alerts. “We saw a statistically significant increase in the ‘state anxiety’ levels for the experimental group and a decrease in similar magnitude for the control group,” Cohen said.  “And while there was negligible change in ‘trait scores’ for the control group, we found a significant increase in anxiety in the experimental group,” Cohen said in the release. A broad, independent study is needed of the efficacy and safety of bioterrorism alerts, researchers said.  “Doing so could prevent potentially harmful warnings that do little more than raise anxiety among the general population without offering a beneficial action for the public to take,” according to Cohen. The Yeshiva researchers published their study in a recent issue of the International Quarterly of Community Health Education (Albert Einstein College of Medicine release, Jan. 22). Back to top

Chemical Attack Drill Conducted in Australia More than 200 emergency personnel in the Australian state of Victoria yesterday practiced their response to a chemical weapons attack by terrorists, the Australian Associated Press reported (see GSN, May 26, 2006). The drill at the Caulfield racecourse in Melbourne involved paramedics, officers from the Victoria Police Special Operations Group and hazardous materials specialists from the Melbourne Fire Brigade. “The purpose of this exercise is to test interoperability between the various agencies in terms of managing a serious event that could be related to a chemical incident,” said Inspector Jeff Forti.  “It’s a standard operating procedure, we train regularly with one another and it strengthens the partnerships and the bonds the agencies have and gives us a capacity to test all of our processes and practices that the agencies have” (Australian Associated Press/Border Mail, Feb. 14). Back to top

U.S. Remains Opposed to Space Arms Control Treaty U.S., Chinese and Russian diplomats yesterday debated the merits of using arms control to limit the weaponization of space, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Jan. 23). The discussion at the U.N. Conference on Disarmament in Geneva followed China’s January test of an antisatellite weapon (see GSN, Jan. 19). U.S. Ambassador Christina Rocca criticized the test yesterday. “We must be very concerned about the emerging threats to our space assets,” she told the conference.  “These assets are vital to our national security, including our economic interests, and must be defended” (see GSN, Jan. 23). For their part, Chinese and Russian officials complained that the United States was the “one state” that was blocking efforts to negotiate a treaty banning weapons in space (see GSN, June 11, 2004). “The notion that introducing weapons and threat of force into outer space could be a sustainable way of securing strategic advantage and legitimate defense objectives is fundamentally flawed,” they said in a working paper circulated to the conference’s 65 nations. Rocca said that despite the Chinese test, “we believe there is no arms race in space, and therefore no problem for arms control to solve” (Bradley Klapper, Associated Press, Feb. 13). Back to top

IAEA Installs Radiation Detectors on Croatian Border Croatia officially activated new radiation detection equipment at a border crossing yesterday using equipment provided by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Jan. 31, 2006). “The equipment is designed to help cut off potential routes for smuggling materials that can be used in terrorist attacks,” said Matjaz Prah, head of Croatia’s nuclear security office.  The sensors would be used to detect “uranium, plutonium and thorium, among other radioactive materials that can be used to create nuclear or atomic weapons,” he added. The equipment was installed at a highway station on the Croatian-Slovenian border, about 30 kilometers west of Zagreb (Associated Press/NASDAQ.com, Feb. 13). The installation consists of two fixed portal monitors that scan vehicles automatically, according to an IAEA official.  If radiation is detected, alarms are sounded to alert border guards who can then conduct a more thorough examination using handheld detectors. Planning for the project began in 2003 and the installation was completed late last year, the official said (Greg Webb, Global Security Newswire, Feb. 14). Back to top

About Newswire  |  Contact National Journal  |  Re-Use Guidelines

© Copyright 2008 by National Journal Group, Inc. The material in this section is produced independently for NTI by National Journal Group, Inc. Any reproduction or retransmission, in whole or in part, is a violation of federal law and is strictly prohibited without the consent of the National Journal Group, Inc. All rights reserved.