IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei circulated his report on Iranian nuclear activities today (Jean-Christophe Verhaegen/Getty Images). IAEA Report Finds Iran Has Missed Nuclear Deadline As expected, the International Atomic Energy Agency formally reported today that Iran has not heeded a U.N. Security Council deadline for Tehran to suspend its sensitive nuclear activities (see GSN, Feb. 21). The finding, circulated in a six-page report by agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei, clears the way for the council to consider imposing more rigorous sanctions than those it approved in December (see GSN, Jan. 3)...Full Story

More Chlorine Attacks in Iraq Suspected Sunni insurgents in Iraq yesterday exploded a car containing chlorine gas cylinders, the second such attack in two days and the third this year, the Los Angeles Times reported (see GSN, Feb. 21)...Full Story

Congress to Consider Bill to Speed BioShield Program By Jon Fox Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — U.S. lawmakers have introduced legislation hoping to improve an effort to develop medical countermeasures for WMD attacks (see GSN, Jan. 16)...Full Story

	Thursday, February 22, 2007

U.S. Overstates Antiterror Cases, Audit Finds An internal U.S. Justice Department review has found that the number of antiterrorism cases pursued by prosecutors has been overstated in the past four years, the New York Times reported yesterday (see GSN, Nov. 6, 2006). Cases involving only immigration violations, marriage fraud and drug trafficking have been counted as antiterror cases, according to an inspector general’s audit released Tuesday. Counting methods were “decentralized and haphazard,” according to the audit. A Justice Department spokesman, however, disagreed with the report, saying that if anything, prosecutors underreported their antiterror cases to avoid distorting statistics (New York Times, Feb. 21). Back to top       New U.S. Intelligence Director Sworn In The nation’s second director of national intelligence was sworn in Tuesday, vowing to work to prevent terrorist strikes, the Washington Post reported (see GSN, Feb. 2). Retired Vice Adm. John McConnell took the position left by John Negroponte who left the job to become deputy secretary of state (see GSN, Jan. 4). “The time needed to develop a terrorist plot, communicate it around the globe and put it into motion has been drastically reduced,” McConnell said during his swearing-in ceremony.  “The timeline is no longer a calendar — it is a watch” (Walter Pincus, Washington Post, Feb. 21). Back to top

IAEA Report Finds Iran Has Missed Nuclear Deadline As expected, the International Atomic Energy Agency formally reported today that Iran has not heeded a U.N. Security Council deadline for Tehran to suspend its sensitive nuclear activities (see GSN, Feb. 21). The finding, circulated in a six-page report by agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei, clears the way for the council to consider imposing more rigorous sanctions than those it approved in December (see GSN, Jan. 3). Those measures called on U.N. members to stop any trade of nuclear- or missile-related technologies to Iran and to freeze the assets of nearly two dozen Iranian institutions and individuals. The council demanded that Iran halt any work on developing uranium enrichment or plutonium production technologies.  Its 60-day deadline lapsed yesterday. Today’s report, however, is clear that Iran has not met the U.N. demands. “Iran has not suspended its enrichment related activities,” it says.  Furthermore, construction has continued at Iran’s heavy-water production plant, a facility needed for a planned heavy-water reactor that would produce plutonium. ElBaradei’s conclusions come as no surprise, as Iran has trumpeted recent advances, such as the installation of hundreds of uranium enrichment centrifuges at its Natanz facility (see GSN, Feb. 5).  Today’s report indicates that Iran has nearly completed the installation of two more 164-centrifuge cascades at Natanz, giving it four such cascades at the underground component of the site and two more in an above-ground building.  Iran has declared a goal of installing 3,000 centrifuges at the underground site by May. The report repeats earlier agency complaints that Iran has not provided sufficient information for inspectors to conclude that Iran has revealed all of its nuclear activities or fully explained how some particles of highly enriched uranium have been found on equipment (Greg Webb, Global Security Newswire, Feb. 22). “The Iranians have unfortunately not acceded to the international community’s demands and we will have to consult,” U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said today during a visit to Berlin.  “We will have to decide how to move forward” (Mark Heinrich, Reuters, Feb. 22). U.S. diplomats would probably try to persuade the Security Council to expand its sanctions by targeting officials and companies affiliated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, the Wall Street Journal reported today.  The guard is viewed as the power base behind Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has seen growing dissent over his nuclear policies from opposition leaders in the country. That strategy “buttresses domestic criticism of the regime’s cronyism, and it pulls at the purse strings of the specific element of the Iranian bureaucracy responsible for the region’s most egregious behavior,” said Matthew Levitt, until recently the U.S. Treasury Department’s assistant secretary for intelligence and analysis. Still, council negotiations were unlikely to simply follow U.S. wishes, and Russia and China were likely to resist U.S. goals, according to the Journal. “Russia will control the pace of things going forward,” said one U.S. official (King/Solomon, Wall Street Journal, Feb. 22). Bushehr Dispute Meanwhile, Iran has said that a payment dispute over a power reactor Russia is building for Iran at Bushehr can be easily resolved (see GSN, Feb. 20). Russian officials recently threatened to slow the completion of the reactor and to delay delivery of the first batch of fuel because Iran has missed at least one scheduled payment. The debt is “less than $100 million dollars, and this issue can be settled quickly,” an Iranian diplomatic source told ITAR-Tass. “This is purely a technical issue caused by the recent refusal of Iranian financial institutions from using the U.S. dollar and the transfer to transactions in euro from the beginning of this year,” the source said.  “In this connection, Iran offered Russian partners to accept payments in euro.” “Tehran believes settlements in ‘a strong euro’ more suitable and profitable for both sides, and it is unclear why Moscow refused to accept debt payments in euro,” the source added (ITAR-Tass, Feb. 21). Back to top       Question of North Korean Uranium Enrichment Endangers Agreement to Resolve Nuclear Crisis Concerns over North Korea’s uranium enrichment capabilities could threaten a six-nation nuclear agreement reached last week, the Financial Times reported today (see GSN, Feb. 21). The issue could be a “deal breaker,” said former U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry.  “Much more remains to be done.  Two months from now, we will know whether we have a reasonable probability of completing the agreement” (Anna Fifield, Financial Times, Feb. 22). Perry was scheduled to enter North Korea today to visit an industrial area run jointly by North and South Korea (Associated Press/China Post, Feb. 22). Intelligence gathered during the dismantlement of the nuclear smuggling network once led by top Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan suggested that North Korea had received uranium enrichment centrifuge technology, the Times reported. Confronted with the charge in October 2002, North Korean officials confirmed it, according to the U.S. officials, but North Korea has persistently denied the charge in public. Bush administration officials did not demand that uranium enrichment technology be part of the first stage of the nuclear deal reached last week because they are losing confidence in the charge, said former State Department official Joel Wit. At the Beijing negotiation, U.S. diplomats “backed down” on the enrichment issue, Wit said.   “This is not because the administration has become wimpish and decided to put it aside, but because they did not have any information and started to wonder whether they had been accurate in the first place,” he added. North Korea also showed little interest in tackling the enrichment dispute in the deal’s first stage. “Since they insisted they do not have a [highly enriched uranium] program they did not want that in the agreement,” said a senior Washington official. The extent of North Korea’s enrichment capability could be a matter of interpretation, said some nonproliferation experts. “They probably have some centrifuges set up and they have certainly done some research, but as far as having a large scale facility up and running, that is probably in the distant future," said Daniel Pinkston of the Monterey Institute’s Center for Nonproliferation Studies. “Pyongyang pursued this option in transactions with A.Q. Khan; it also sought to procure substantial quantities of industrial materials needed for an enrichment program through black markets in Europe,” said U.S. Naval War College professor Jonathan Pollack in a recent journal article.  “Yet there is still no definitive evidence of a proven production capability, and it is possible that North Korea long ago shelved major efforts to develop one” (Fifield, Financial Times). The question was debated this week in South Korea’s parliament, where the nation’s top intelligence official said Pyongyang does have an enrichment program. “We believe (the program) exists,” National Intelligence Service chief Kim Man-bok told a parliamentary committee Tuesday, according to participants (Yonhap, Feb. 20). South Korea’s leading envoy to the North, however, contradicted Kim. “We do not have any information on whether North Korea is carrying out a concrete plan to run a uranium enrichment program,” Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung told another committee yesterday.  “(Local) papers gave false reports and the reports did not reflect what the intelligence chief really meant” (Yonhap, Feb. 21). Back to top       U.S. Should Revamp Nuclear Policy, Experts Say By Chris Schneidmiller Global Security Newswire SAN FRANCISCO — A less aggressive U.S. nuclear stance could help put the world on the path away from atomic weapons, but the current policy in Washington threatens to increase rather than reduce the danger, experts said here Friday (see GSN, Dec. 18, 2006). “We are not paying nearly enough attention to making sure that weapons are not used by the U.S. or other countries as we are concerned about whether they will work if we are going to use them,” Lisbeth Gronlund, co-director of the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Gronlund and two others questioned U.S. nuclear policy during a panel discussion at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. It fell to a senior official from the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico to make the case on that panel for the U.S. nuclear deterrent. “The U.S. carries a unique level of responsibility regarding its deterrent force.  The U.S. nuclear deterrent umbrella serves to protect our allies, preserve the strategic balance, and even prevent the creation of new stockpiles by nations that might otherwise feel compelled to do so,” said Linda Branstetter, of Sandia’s Advanced Concepts Group, who cautioned that she was not speaking on behalf of the laboratory or the National Nuclear Security Administration. At issue are the U.S. Reliable Replacement Warhead and Complex 2030 programs. Complex 2030 is a planned major revamping of the U.S. nuclear weapons infrastructure, including replacement or repair of eight facilities (see GSN, Oct. 20, 2006).  The Reliable Replacement Warhead is a component of the larger effort, intended to produce new weapons and parts to replace aging pieces of the U.S. nuclear arsenal without underground testing (see GSN, Feb. 6). U.S. Stockpile Stewardship and Life Extension programs successfully maintained the nuclear arsenal in the post-Cold War era in which there was no testing or development of nuclear weapons.  As the weapons age and undergo multiple parts replacements, maintenance will not be enough to ensure they function if needed, according to administration officials. The Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories have developed competing designs for the first new warhead, a replacement for the W76 carried by submarine-launched Trident missiles.  A panel is expected to select a winning design soon, or potentially call for a design merging parts of both submissions (see GSN, Jan. 8). Ultimately, the renewed nuclear complex would produce around 100 new weapons each year, said John Harvey, policy planning director at the National Nuclear Security Administration, who spoke during a panel discussion Sunday.  Replacement warheads would have a relaxed yield to weight ratio, allowing for improvements to their safety, security, performance margins and ease of manufacturing, Harvey said. “Today we need them, there’s a lot of reasons why we need them,” Gen. James Cartwright, head of U.S. Strategic Command, said Sunday.  “If we’re going to have them, they’ve got to be the safest, most secure and most reliable in our inventory.” The administration argues that fielding new, long-lasting weapons would allow the United States to carry though its plan to reduce the number of deployed weapons from 5,700 to 2,200 by 2012.  The parent program would create by 2030 a more responsive infrastructure — one able to more quickly assemble nuclear weapons from their component parts — potentially allowing for retirement of thousands of reserve weapons now maintained as a “hedge” against technical failures or changes in the international security situation.  It would ensure that weapons designers, by creating new warheads, maintain U.S. nuclear know-how. Gronlund found fault in both areas, first dismissing the immediate need for new nuclear weapons.  She cited a report issued in late 2006 that found that plutonium cores in nuclear weapons could last decades longer than previously believed (see GSN, Nov. 30).  The non-nuclear parts of a weapon “have a reliability of 98 percent, with high confidence,” Gronlund said. The Energy Department says that under 2030 it would operate a “continuous design/deployment cycle” for nuclear weapons, one that Gronlund argues would last far beyond the next 23 years.  “That will not be lost on other countries,” she said.  “Numbers is not the whole story, I would say perhaps not even the biggest part of the story,” she said.  “What really matters is what we intend to do with our weapons, the role they play in our overall security policy.” Cartwright described nuclear warheads as part of a figurative tool kit of measures and technology the United States uses to counter threats ranging from enemy nations to terrorists. The United States maintains a “war fighting capability, which people believe is essential to maintain the ability to … fight a war with Russia in order to deter them,” or as a response or preventive measure against a biological or chemical weapons attack, Gronlund said. Other nations watch what the United States does and take action accordingly, said Gronlund and panelist Raymond Jeanloz, an astronomy and earth and planetary science professor at the University of California, Berkeley. U.S. officials argue that their nuclear plans would have no effect on proliferation, Jeanloz said.  They believe that rogue states and terrorists interested in nuclear weapons will “pursue their own interests” no matter what the United States does, while other nuclear powers already possess adequate deterrents. “The inference that there are no international repercussions is flawed,” Jeanloz said, “because these arguments ignore the vast number of nations around the world.” The United States could take a number of actions that could lead other nations to stand down to some degree themselves, Gronlund said.  “We can shape what happens,” she said. Washington could enact a “no-first-use” policy for its nuclear weapons and  take its missiles off “launch on warning” status in which they can be fired in a matter of minutes and could remove its missiles from Europe, she said. While she could not say if the United States would take these actions, Gronlund said the emerging debate over Complex 2030 leaves her “optimistic that we’ll have discussions that could lead to them happening.” Branstetter highlighted U.S. efforts to reduce the nuclear threat, but conceded that more can be done. “Let’s not forget that by 2012 or sooner the U.S. will have its smallest stockpile since the Eisenhower administration [and] the U.S. has removed hundreds of metric tons of highly enriched uranium — either from further use as fissile material in nuclear weapons, or from any military use whatsoever,” Branstetter said, also noting Washington’s advocacy for a multilateral treaty to ban the production of fissile material for weapons purposes (see GSN, Feb. 9). Branstetter said, though, she was “not prepared to defend” Washington’s efforts regarding the 13 steps toward nuclear disarmament agreed upon by nations at the 2000 review conference for the Nuclear Nonproliferation Conference.  That event occurred under the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration distanced itself from the decision at the 2005 conference (see GSN, May 31, 2005). The United States should pursue three “imperatives” relative to its atomic arsenal, Branstetter said:  maintain the nuclear deterrent capability, ethically pursue national security objectives, and significantly further reduce the international nuclear threat. The U.S. national laboratories have a role to play in restoring the nation’s battered international reputation, strengthening the relationships needed to promote security, Branstetter said.  One example could be conducting a technical re-evaluation of the value of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which Washington has refused to ratify. The defense science community could also advance nuclear physical security, forensics and attribution and other technologies that might someday allow nuclear powers to dismantle all their weapons in favor of “virtual” arsenals of component parts, she said. “What more ethical pursuit could be undertaken in the interest of future world peace and stability?” she said. Back to top

Congress to Consider Bill to Speed BioShield Program By Jon Fox Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — U.S. lawmakers have introduced legislation hoping to improve an effort to develop medical countermeasures for WMD attacks (see GSN, Jan. 16). The bill, introduced in the House this week, is an attempt to address the lagging pace of Project BioShield, a federal effort that has delivered little since it was launched nearly three years ago. Designed to create an incentive for private enterprise to develop biological countermeasures to unconventional weapons, BioShield dangles cash in front of biotech firms but gives no money until a product is delivered. Officials at the helm of the $5.6 million program have spent less than 25 percent of their budget, and late last year the Health and Human Services Department abandoned a $1 bullion contract with a California company to provide 75 million doses of an anthrax vaccine (see GSN, Dec. 20, 2006). President George W. Bush announced the BioShield program during his State of the Union address in 2004, indicating the initiative would counter threats such as the plague and Ebola.  To date, however, the program has done little to address these potential biological agents. BioShield’s limited progress has attracted the attention of representatives on the House Homeland Security Committee who have highlighted the program as a focus for oversight and hearings this year. “I’d just say I’m very concerned with some of the recent problems that have come to light with respect to the BioShield project,” Representative James Langevin (D-R.I.) said earlier this month.  “For example, we all recently heard about the cancellation of VaxGen’s contract for a next generation anthrax vaccine and, at the time, this was the only major procurement contract under BioShield.” Langevin, chairman of the homeland security subcommittee covering emerging threats, is a cosponsor of the new legislation. Under the current program, the Homeland Security Department first identifies and assesses threats and countermeasures.  Once that is completed, the Health and Human Services Department then selects firms to develop specific countermeasures. The recently introduced bill is designed to accelerate the threat-assessment process. To the extent possible, the Homeland Security Department will be required to clump possible countermeasures into groups that might be able to address more than one chemical, biological or radiological agent. “Rather than examining each threat individually, we should be looking for ways to properly group these threats together,” Langevin said this week.  “This legislation will promote a more strategic use of our nation’s resources when procuring medical countermeasures.” The bill would also require that homeland security assessments of the most high-risk agents be completed by the end of 2007. “Effective medical countermeasures for chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear agents are a critical part of our nation’s defense against terrorism, yet very few exist,” said Representative Mike McCaul (R-Texas), a member of the homeland security subcommittee for emerging threats. Back to top

More Chlorine Attacks in Iraq Suspected Sunni insurgents in Iraq yesterday exploded a car containing chlorine gas cylinders, the second such attack in two days and the third this year, the Los Angeles Times reported (see GSN, Feb. 21). Yesterday’s blast on a road to the Baghdad airport killed two people and injured scores more, many of whom were suffering respiratory symptoms. Tuesday’s blast, previously described as the explosion of a tanker truck, involved a truck holding two chlorine tanks, according to the Times (Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times, Feb. 22). That explosion, north of Baghdad, killed six and 60 more than people remain under medical care, the Associated Press reported (Brian Murphy, Associated Press/ABC News, Feb. 22). U.S. military officials reported that a third chlorine-related attack was conducted Jan. 28 when a suicide bomber drove a dump truck into a military base near Ramadi.  The blast killed 16, but none of the deaths have been attributed to a chlorine tank the truck carried, according to officials (Daragahi, Los Angeles Times). While the attacks have proven lethal, the attempt to kill with chlorine appears to have been ineffective.  The explosions have burned the gas rather than disperse it, the New York Times reported today (Cave/Fadam, New York Times, Feb. 22). Exploding gas canisters is primitive technique, said chemists interviewed by the Los Angeles Times.  Most of the gas would be burned off and the remaining material, which is heavier than air, would not spread very far, they said. Still, the attacks demonstrate that insurgents are adapting their tactics in Iraq to continue to find ways to foster panic. The types of explosions used so far “would launch a cloud of gas that is colored and highly corrosive and would lead to panic and more injuries,” said Stephen Bradforth, a chemistry professor at the University of Southern California.  “It’s the chemical equivalent of a nail bomb” (Daragahi, Los Angeles Times). More chlorine attacks could follow if this week’s are perceived as successful, said U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Christopher Garver. “If there is a particular success, we’ll see copycats,” he said (Murphy, Associated Press). Back to top

Russia Issues Nuclear Warning to Eastern Europe, U.S. Two top Russian officials have warned that a nuclear war could begin if the United States continues its plan to deploy missile defense systems in Eastern Europe (see GSN, Feb. 13). The United States has outlined plans to deploy 10 missile interceptors in Poland and a tracking radar in the Czech Republic.  Leaders in those nations are currently discussing whether to allow the U.S. facilities. Russian leaders have protested the plan, saying that the interceptors could be used against Russian missiles, even though U.S. officials have said the defenses would be intended to defeat Iranian missiles. “I think everybody understands that with a growing Iranian missile threat, which is quite pronounced, that there need to be ways to deal with that problem,” U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday.   The 10 interceptors would not “diminish Russia’s deterrent of thousands of warheads,” she added. Using unusually aggressive language, Russian President Vladimir Putin last week protested U.S. foreign policy, including the planned European missile defense deployments.  Putin said the move would lead to “an inevitable arms race” (see GSN, Feb. 13). Using more inflammatory rhetoric, two top Russian officials warned that deploying the interceptors could lead to nuclear war. “If the governments of Poland, the Czech Republic and other countries make this decision, … the strategic missile forces will be able to have those facilities as targets,” said Strategic Rocket Forces commander Gen. Nikolai Solovtsov (Thom Shanker, New York Times I, Feb. 22). Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov added on. “Since protection from the first strike would be guaranteed, as American strategists apparently expect, another temptation arises to be the first to launch a strike, aware that a chance has emerged to go unpunished,” he said in an interview published yesterday (Vladimir Isachenkov, Associated Press/London Guardian, Feb. 21). Polish and Czech leaders said tough Russian talk could backfire. “It is clearly an attempt to intimidate,” said Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski. “The Czechs will now think the shield is even more necessary,” said Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg. “We have quite an experience with Russians,” Schwarzenberg added.  “You have to make clear to them you won’t succumb to blackmail.  Once you give in to blackmail, there’s no going back.” Other European officials also criticized the Russian statements. “The days of talk of targeting NATO territory or vice versa are long past us,” said NATO spokesman James Appathurai.  “This kind of extreme language is out of date” (Andrew Kramer, New York Times II, Feb. 21). Also this week, Solovtsov reinforced another Russian general’s threat to withdraw from the bilateral Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty in response to the U.S. missile defense plans. Chief of the Russian General Staff Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky said last week that Russia was too limited by the treaty, under which the United States and the Soviet Union, followed by Russia, destroyed an entire class of medium-range nuclear weapons (see GSN, Feb. 16). “If a political decision is taken to quit the treaty, the Strategic Missile Forces are ready to carry out this task,” Solovtsov said Monday. “It is not difficult for us to restart production of the medium- and short-range missiles because we have preserved all technologies,” he added.  “It could be done quickly if the need arises” (RIA Novosti, Feb. 19).   Back to top

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