U.S. Homeland Security Department officials examine security measures at the Port of Los Angeles/Long Beach last year (DHS photo). U.S. Nuclear Detection Official Doubts Threat by Sea By Jon Fox Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The United States currently conducts radiation scans on 90 percent of sea cargo containers entering U.S. ports and that number is expected to hit 98 percent by the end of the year, but the U.S. official in charge of radiation detection yesterday said terrorists would be unlikely to deliver a nuclear weapon by a slow boat (see GSN, May 16)...Full Story

U.S., Allies Protest IAEA Comments on Iran Four Western nations complained today to the top U.N. nuclear official that he was damaging their efforts to resolve the Iranian nuclear crisis, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, May 24)...Full Story

U.S. ICBM Reduction Starts Next Month Beginning next month, the U.S. Air Force will begin to remove 50 ICBMs from deployment, Inside the Air Force reported today (see GSN, Oct. 30, 2006)...Full Story

	Friday, May 25, 2007

National Guard Drills WMD Units During a training event simulating the release of chemical or biological weapons in Massachusetts earlier this month, National Guard teams deployed robots to assess the “hot zone” near the epicenter of the simulated attack (see GSN, May 23). The exercise, involving National Guard Civil Support Teams from across New England, took place between May 4 and 11 in Truro, Mass., according to a Massachusetts National Guard press release. The guard units, responding to a simulated event in a suburban area, worked in concert with each other and civilian first responders.  In each state, the National Guard maintains a 22-member, full-time team which helps civilian agencies plan for and react to WMD-type events. One survey team, comprised of members from both the Massachusetts Civil Support Team and Massachusetts State Police drove into affected areas to assess simulated victims and also used remote robots. The robots can perform the same reconnaissance tasks as human surveyors “only slower and clumsier, but also at zero risk,” said Stephen Sicard, a state trooper involved in the exercise, according to the release. During the multiday exercise guard units spelled each other, offering relief in the long-duration simulation.  “We train so that, when we respond to a live situation, the transition goes smoothly and there is minimal disruption to the incident commander’s objectives and timelines,” said Lt. Col. Michael Young, commander of the a Civil Support Team from Vermont (National Guard release, May 25.) Back to top

U.S. Nuclear Detection Official Doubts Threat by Sea By Jon Fox Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The United States currently conducts radiation scans on 90 percent of sea cargo containers entering U.S. ports and that number is expected to hit 98 percent by the end of the year, but the U.S. official in charge of radiation detection yesterday said terrorists would be unlikely to deliver a nuclear weapon by a slow boat (see GSN, May 16). “Everyone wants to know how we’re doing on scanning their containers.  I personally don’t think the threat is coming through this mechanism,” Domestic Nuclear Detection Office head Vayl Oxford said during a breakfast presentation held by the National Defense University Foundation yesterday. “Giving up a nuclear device putting it in a container and letting it float around the world for a couple of weeks is probably folly.  But it’s a great metric. Everybody loves to count containers,” Oxford said. Oxford’s division at the Homeland Security Department — just two years old — has been pushing for Congress to fund a more than $1 billion program to deploy next-generation radiation detectors at commercial ports, and department Secretary Michael Chertoff has touted the percent of containers scanned in any speech about the nuclear terror threat (see GSN, Oct. 3, 2006). Progress has been remarkable in beefing up radiation scanning of the millions of containers entering the United States every year — only 20 to 40 percent were screened two years ago — but an improvised nuclear device entering the country that way is not Oxford’s foremost concern. The focus, both within his division and in the media, has been “port centric,” he says, but the detection office is beginning to turn more attention to problems at what he calls “non-port of entry venues.” Across the expansive northern U.S. border with Canada 91 percent of incoming trucks are currently scanned for radiation, but this is at major, well-trafficked ports of entry.  Geographically less than half, just 40 percent, is monitored (see GSN, May 8) “The northern border is where we really have a problem because there are literally hundreds of small little locations, sometimes they’re manned sometimes they’re not,” Oxford said. In an effort of move away from an exclusively port focused drive, the office plans to develop what Oxford called a “multi-layered approach.” Across the northern border, “I think what you’ll see is the emergence of mobile systems that will allow us to search the location as necessary as opposed to a lot of fixed locations,” he said. The border patrol officials that monitor the largely unattended northern and southern borders often patrol in small teams and currently have no capability to detect radioactive material similar to the systems deployed at high-traffic crossing points (see GSN, March 26). “They cannot use the same kind of systems we use at land and sea ports,” Oxford said, noting that the smaller crossing points “offer vulnerabilities and opportunities for terrorists.” The Domestic Nuclear Detection Office has also begun to address issues associated with smaller maritime vessels and general aviation aircraft, more than 400 of which enter the United States from foreign countries on any given day. “We need new solutions and we need new concepts,” he said. Oxford said that by the end of the year all Coast Guard boarding teams will be equipped with some sort of radiation detection equipment.  His office is also currently engaged in examining key ports around the country looking for “choke points” that could enable officials to scan vessels before they enter the heart of the port. Analysts are also doing calculations to determine the variance in infrastructure damage and casualties if a 10 kiloton weapon were to go off in the center of a port versus one mile or 10 miles away. “One mile in the case of a 10 KT weapon means a lot,” he said. In terms of a threat from general aviation aircraft, Oxford said his office is working with the Transportation Security Administration and Customs and Border Protection to prescreen planes before they enter U.S. airspace.  A more complete announcement on the plan is expected this summer. Currently, planes land and then clear customs, a problem that must be addressed, Oxford said.  One nightmare scenario envisioned by some government officials involves a last minute diversion over Manhattan by a plane carrying a nuclear device.  “You file a flight plan from somewhere in the Middle East or in Europe for Teeterboro, (N.J.) and then in the last 45 seconds divert directly over Manhattan and detonate,” he said.  “The ability to have a weapon aboard an airplane and never land, never clear customs is something that we have to come up with a new response to.” Back to top       U.S., Allies Protest IAEA Comments on Iran Four Western nations complained today to the top U.N. nuclear official that he was damaging their efforts to resolve the Iranian nuclear crisis, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, May 24). Ambassadors from France, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States met today with International Atomic Energy Agency head Mohamed ElBaradei to protest his comments last week suggesting that the world may need to concede that Iran is capable of enriching its own uranium (see GSN, May 15). “From a proliferation perspective, the fact of the matter is that one of the purposes of suspension — keeping them from getting the knowledge — has been overtaken by events,” he told the New York Times.  “The focus now should be to stop them from going to industrial-scale production, to allow us to do a full-court-press inspection and to be sure they remain inside the [Nuclear Nonproliferation] Treaty.” The United States and West European powers have indicated that they would not accept any enrichment activities in Iran, fearing that the equipment could be used to produce material for nuclear weapons. Today’s meeting in Vienna ran for “quite a long time,” said a diplomat, as the ambassadors pressed ElBaradei to back a U.N. Security Council demand that Iran freeze its nuclear activities. “It’s fair to expect a senior U.N. official to support U.N. Security Council resolutions,” said another diplomat. Other officials, however, said ElBaradei should be free to speak his mind.  One diplomat cautioned that a situation was arising that was reminiscent of the period before the Iraq War, when the United States bitterly complained about ElBaradei’s refusal to support U.S. claims about Iraq’s nuclear capabilities. ElBaradei “feels very strongly about principles and about speaking his conscience, and he has been talking at all levels for the longest time” about pragmatic solution to the Iranian nuclear crisis, the diplomat said. “It's like Iraq all over again. As their policy becomes more unsustainable and unrealistic, they lash out at the watchdog rather than bringing their policy to conform with reality,” another diplomat added. ElBaradei issued a tough report on Iran Wednesday, highlighting numerous concerns about Iran’s nuclear transparency and confirming that Tehran has recently continued to install more enrichment centrifuges rather than heed the Security Council’s call for a suspension (see GSN, May 23). Council powers plan to meet within days to discuss the possibility of adding additional sanctions against Iran to those already approved. Iran has shown no signs of relenting. “Iran's nuclear technology is being developed each day and will reach the farthest possible limit,” Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said today (Michael Adler, Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, May 25). Despite IAEA complaints about Iran’s cooperation, ElBaradei acknowledged in his report that his inspectors have been able to review a substantial portion of Iran’s nuclear activities. Two inspectors today visited the nation’s uranium conversion facility at Isfahan and had plans to inspect the centrifuge site at Natanz, said Mohammad Saeedi, deputy head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization (Nasser Karimi, Associated Press/CNN.com, May 25). Bushehr Status Meanwhile, a Russian official raised doubts that Moscow would ever complete a nuclear power reactor it has nearly finished building in Iran (see GSN, May 17). A lingering financial dispute needed to be resolved before Russia would finish the project or provide fuel for the reactor, said a source in Russia’s nuclear power agency. The Russian-Iranian contract called for Tehran to pay $25 million a month, but Iran has delivered only $20 million this year, the source said. “It seems that the Iranians have lost interest in the project,” the source said.  “There are no concrete steps [in financing] on their part.” "The project has become unprofitable for us," the source added. Still, if Iran were to resume payments, Russia would continue the project. “We will continue working under the contract as long as we receive financing ... and we will supply fuel six month prior to the physical launch, as stipulated in the contract,” the source said (RIA Novosti, May 25). Back to top       U.S. ICBM Reduction Starts Next Month Beginning next month, the U.S. Air Force will begin to remove 50 ICBMs from deployment, Inside the Air Force reported today (see GSN, Oct. 30, 2006). The reduction was suggested in the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review and represents a shift away from what it called a “one size fits all” idea of nuclear deterrence.  A smaller fleet would be more tailored to specific threats, including nonstate terrorist groups, according to the military plan. Speaking at a National Defense University Foundation sponsored event Wednesday, Gen. Kevin Chilton, head of the Air Force Space Command, said that once the reduction is complete the U.S. will have a total of 450 Minuteman 3 missiles deployed at three missile bases. The reduction at the bases in North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming is expected to take less than a year, he said. The missile removal would facilitate a 12-year extension of a Minuteman 3 test program in which a handful of missiles are test-fired each year over the Pacific Ocean to ensure their continued viability (see GSN, Feb. 8). “A key part of deterrence is to be able to show that you can have confidence that if the decision is ever taken, the system’s going to work,” Chilton said (Inside the Air Force, May 25). Back to top       Labor Strife Strains Pantex Security The Energy Department is dispatching its top security official to a nuclear weapons assembly and disassembly plant in Texas where a six-week strike by guards has raised concerns over the site’s security, the Los Angeles Times reported yesterday (see GSN, May 16). Entering its sixth week, the strike by the 524 guards at the facility near Amarillo has left the normally heavily guarded plant with just 210 replacement guards. To help maintain security, the Energy Department has shifted assets from other plants, reassigning bomb couriers and other specially trained personnel to the sprawling facility where complete thermonuclear bombs and components are stored. Managers at the plant have also eliminated vacation and training exercises to cope with the lower level of staff, the Times reported. Despite a complement of guards less than half of what is generally fielded, William Desmond, chief of nuclear security with the National Nuclear Security Administration told the paper that he is “convinced that the Pantex site is secure.” In the face of concerns from outside critics, however, the Energy Department’s primary security official, Glenn Podansky is scheduled to visit the site next week to produce his own assessment. The head of the National Council of Security Police told the Times that the strike has “absolutely” affected security at the plant.  Supervisors are consistently pulling 14-hour shifts and are unfamiliar with the normal procedures at Pantex, Mike Stumbo said. The government watchdog group Project on Government Oversight sent a letter to the Energy Secretary last week calling for the plant to be shuttered.  The situation is “untenable,” Danielle Brian, the executive director of the group, wrote (Ralph Vartabedian/Los Angeles Times, May 24) Back to top

Researchers Develop Airline Cabin Biosensors Purdue University researchers have developed a technology to pinpoint the location of pathogens in airliners, according to university release issued Tuesday (see GSN, March 26). “The goal is to be able to track the source if a person released a biological agent, such as anthrax, or inadvertently released a pathogen such as pandemic flu by sneezing, for example,” said Qingyan Chen, a professor of mechanical engineering. Chen’s team created a system of sensors that monitor airflow, temperature and other factors inside an airliner cabin.  The sensors feed data to a mathematical model that identify the seat where the release originated, the researchers said. “This is difficult to do, in part because an airline cabin is a pretty large area,” Chen said.  “The procedure now requires several days of computing time to complete the track, meaning the method could be used only after a contamination occurs.” The group’s goal, however, is to speed the computation process to provide warning to pilots in real time (Purdue University release, May 22). Back to top

North Korea Tests Short-Range Missiles North Korea flight-tested several short-range missiles today, possibly in response to South Korea’s recent deployment of a missile-tracking warship, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, July 5, 2006). The tests involved Silkworm cruise missiles or miniaturized Scud ballistic missiles.  None of those missiles has a range exceeding 125 miles, according to AP. The tests were confirmed by the South Korea Joint Chiefs of Staff. “The short-range missile launches are believed to be part of a routine exercise that North Korea has conducted annually on the east and the west coasts in the past,” said a statement from the chiefs (Jae-Soon Chang, Associated Press/Houston Chronicle, May 25). The United States reacted calmly. “It's something that they have done on several occasions,” said U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill.  “It's obviously not going to contribute to their own security. We would prefer that they spend their time on how to denuclearize and figure out how to join the rest of international community” (Kyodo News/Yahoo!News, May 25). Back to top

U.S. Military Confident of Missile Interceptors U.S. interceptors are today capable of shooting down long-range North Korean ballistic missiles, according to top officials at the U.S. missile defense base in Alaska (see GSN, June 26, 2006). The assessment came as the United States was preparing to conduct only the second test of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system in its current configuration.  The first test successfully destroyed a target warhead (see GSN, Sept. 5, 2006). The new test was postponed yesterday and could be conducted today. “We are equipped to defend against threats from North Korea and will be capable of the defending the entire nation from a Middle East threat later this year,” said Col. Thom Besch, director of Missile Defense Agency activities at Fort Greely, Alaska. His confidence has not been shared by many missile defense critics or by neutral analysts, the Associated Press reported. The U.S. Government Accountability Office has issued a number of reports warning of inadequate testing of U.S. missile defenses (see GSN, June 2, 2006). To date, the United States has deployed 15 missile interceptors at Fort Greely and two at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California (Jeannette Lee, Associated Press, May 25). Back to top       Officials Cite Progress in Polish Missile Talks After a second round of talks over deploying elements of a U.S. missile defense system in Poland, negotiators emerged optimistic that an agreement could be struck in coming months, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, May 14). U.S. Assistant Secretary of State John Rood called the talks held Thursday in Warsaw “very constructive and fruitful.” “This meeting today brings optimism to us because many of our observations and reflections are shared and were responded to by our American partners,” said Witold Waszczykowski, Poland’s deputy foreign minister (Vanessa Gera, Associated Press I/Forbes, May 25). A third round of talks is scheduled for late June in Washington. U.S. plans to deploy interceptor missiles in Poland and a powerful radar base Czech Republic has rankled Russia and strained bilateral relations with the United States. Meanwhile, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev spoke yesterday on Moscow radio to suggest that Washington’s stated reasoning for the shield — to protect against Middle Eastern threats — was dubious. “Moreover, it is being done somehow insinuatingly, without discussion.  Apparently it’s an attempt to use the superpower status to scare and pressure everyone to the left and to the right.” Washington’s plans, he said, could spark an arms race with Russia and other nations (Associated Press II/International Herald Tribune, May 24)   Back to top

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