U.S. President George W. Bush (left) and Russian President Vladimir Putin chat today in Heiligendamm, Germany at the G-8 summit (Alexander Nemenov/Getty Images). Putin Offers Missile Defense Proposal for Europe Russian President Vladimir Putin today offered several conditions that could help eliminate his strong opposition to U.S. plans to install missile defenses in Europe, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, June 5). Putin has repeatedly made his displeasure known with the U.S. proposal to deploy 10 missile interceptors in Poland and a radar base in the Czech Republic.  He recently said Russia might aim some nuclear missiles at Europe should Washington follow through with the plan...Full Story

Nuclear Warhead Dismantlement Well Ahead of Schedule, U.S. Energy Department Says The United States over the last eight months has dismantled 50 percent more nuclear warheads then it took apart in the preceding year, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, May 4, 2006)...Full Story

CDC Takes Congressional Heat on TB Case Elaine Povich CongressDaily WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Labor-Health and Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) yesterday blasted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other health officials for bungled procedures and not moving quickly enough to stop a victim of drug-resistant tuberculosis from leaving, and then re-entering, the United States (see GSN, June 6)...Full Story

	Thursday, June 7, 2007

New York City Plans High-Tech WMD Detectors New York City plans to deploy a variety of high-technology tools to detect radiological weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, the city’s top police official said yesterday (see GSN, April 2). “There is no environment across the nation that compares to New York City,” Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said in a Manhattan speech.  “We have the highest number of critical assets in the smallest amount of physical space." “Technology must match the actual problems we face,” he said. Kelly said he expected police officers to be able to carry radiation detectors in cars, on bicycles, or even in backpacks for “patrolling large venues like Yankee Stadium or the United Nations.” In addition, he urged the aerospace industry to develop airships that could carry WMD detectors, although he acknowledged “it's not easy to send blimps into the airspace over New York” (Tom Hays, Associated Press/International Herald Tribune, June 7). Back to top

Nuclear Warhead Dismantlement Well Ahead of Schedule, U.S. Energy Department Says The United States over the last eight months has dismantled 50 percent more nuclear warheads then it took apart in the preceding year, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, May 4, 2006). Thomas D’Agostino, head of the Energy Department’s nuclear weapons program, said his goal had been to increase the pace of dismantlement by 50 percent in this fiscal year.  The department met that mark “about four months early,” he said. “It’s good news from a global nuclear safety standpoint,” he said.  “There will be fewer nuclear weapons in the world.” D’Agostino said he expects the nuclear of warheads taken apart by the end of fiscal 2007 to double the number dismantled last year.  The actual number of warheads involved, however, remains classified. The National Nuclear Security Administration, a semiautonomous arm of the Energy Department, is believed to be dismantling thousands of warheads. The United States is believed to have roughly 6,000 deployed nuclear warheads with a significant reserve stockpile bringing the total to the neighborhood of 10,000 nuclear weapons. The United States is required by a 2002 pact with Russia to reduce the number of deployed weapons to no more than 2,200 in 2012. A NNSA statement to be released today reads:  “As a result of the increased dismantlements and reductions, today’s stockpile is one-quarter of its size than at the end of the Cold War,” according to AP. The United States will have disassembled all of it excess Cold War-era weapons by 2023, nine years ahead of the original target date, D’Agostino said.  Dismantling a weapon can taken between hours and months, depending on the design (Josef Herbert, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, June 7) Back to top       House Panel Cuts Bush Nuclear Funding Request The House Appropriations Committee yesterday approved legislation cutting $632 million from the White House nuclear weapons budget request for fiscal 2008, including all funding for development of a new nuclear warhead, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, May 24). The Reliable Replacement Warhead program could undermine international nuclear nonproliferation efforts, lawmakers on the Democrat-led panel said.  They said the administration must produce a strategy on its future nuclear weapons requirements before moving forward with the warhead (Andrew Taylor, Associated Press/Centre Daily Times, June 6). Appropriators also designated $120 million for the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, the U.S. program to convert nuclear waste into fuel that could be used at nuclear power reactors.  The Bush administration had sought $405 million, Congressional Quarterly reported. The energy and water appropriations bill as it stands would hurt the U.S. national laboratories, which have budgets linked to the nuclear weapons program, said Representative Tom Udall (D-N.M.).  The legislation should allow the laboratories to compete for funding shifted from the weapons sector into energy research and science, he said. “This is going to have an impact on these laboratories,” two of which are based in New Mexico, Udall said.  “When this bill passes today, there will be headlines about job losses” (Jeff Tollefson, Congressional Quarterly, June 6). Back to top       Indian Political Parties Protest Nuclear Deal As progress on a nuclear trade agreement between the United States and India inches forward, domestic Indian opposition to nonproliferation provisions included in the pending deal has intensified, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, June 4). A group of six major regional political parties from the north and south of India signed a statement opposing the agreement, suggesting it gives away India’s “nuclear crown jewels,” according to AP. The Bush administration has pushed vigorously for the agreement which could deepen a strategic alliance with India.  Under the pending deal, India would be allowed to engage in nuclear trade for the first time in decades, relaxing rules that have prohibited nations outside the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty from doing so. India developed nuclear weapons outside the treaty, testing nuclear devices in 1974 and 1998. In the midst of U.S.-Indian negotiations over what is called a “123 Agreement” codifying the terms of the proposed nuclear trade, Wednesday’s statement could be a sign opposition voices in India are becoming more strident, AP reported. Deal opponents have argued that it could hamper India’s military nuclear program and have objected to provisions that would cut off nuclear trade if India were to resume nuclear testing as well as the possibility that the agreement could limit India’s ability to reprocess used nuclear fuel. “India in the first decade of the 21st century is economically, politically and technologically stronger than it has ever been,” the parties’ statement says.  “Yet, instead of using its newly secure leverage and negotiating from a position of strength, the (government) is today on the verge of surrendering India’s nuclear crown jewels and strategic independence to the United States.” The statement’s parties, the majority of which are part of the Hindu-nationalist opposition, are unable to actually block the deal but represent more criticism to be weathered by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh (Omer Farooq, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, June 6). Back to top       Bush Calls for North Korea to Begin Denuclearization U.S. President George W. Bush yesterday called on North Korea to meet its commitment under a February agreement to begin dismantling its nuclear weapons complex, Reuters reported (see GSN, June 6). “We expect the North Koreans to honor agreements,” Bush said while meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Germany at the annual summit of the Group of Eight nations. North Korea missed the April deadline to shut down its Yongbyon nuclear reactor and to allow international inspectors back into the country.  Pyongyang has refused to take any action on the deal until it receives $25 million once frozen at Banco Delta Asia in Macau. “There is a limit to our patience,” Abe told Bush, according to Japanese officials. The leaders agreed that a “strong message” to North Korea is needed from the G-8 nations, Abe said. “With strong international cooperation, North Korea has fewer and fewer escape routes, and solving the problem will be its only way out,” he said before meeting with Bush.  “If North Korea ignores the problem, we should take a severe attitude” (Reuters/New York Times, June 6). Back to top       Israel Wants Iranian Nuclear Solution This Year Israel could be running out of patience waiting for a peaceful resolution to the Iranian nuclear crisis, a senior official said yesterday (see GSN, June 5). Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz met yesterday in Washington with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to discuss strategies to curtail Iran’s efforts to build a major uranium enrichment facility that could produce material for nuclear power plants or nuclear weapons. “Iran continues a military nuclear program,” Mofaz said.  “I believe diplomatic efforts should bear results until the end of 2007.” The comment could suggest that Israel would consider a military strike against Iranian nuclear installations, the Associated Press reported. The United States, for its part, would continue to seek a negotiated resolution, said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack. “Look, we believe that the diplomatic pathway is the right pathway to try to resolve this,” he said at a State Department briefing.  “There are existing options, in the absence of doing nothing, that are out there.  Nobody wants to see those come about.” McCormack did not confirm that Mofaz had suggested any type of deadline for diplomacy. “I’m not sure about the timeline, but yeah, he did talk about Iran, he did talk about their level of concern about the progress that they are making,” he said (Anne Gearan, Associated Press/International Herald Tribune, June 7). Back to top       Workers Exposed to Plutonium at Nevada Test Site Three contract employees were exposed in plutonium in April at the Nevada Test Site, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported yesterday (see GSN, Dec. 23, 2005). The April 30 incident is under investigation by the National Nuclear Security Administration, said agency spokesman Kevin Rohrer. The three were among eight employees of National Securities Technologies who were assigned to fill pipes once used to collect samples from underground nuclear weapons test blasts.  Their monitors detected radioactivity above standard levels at the surface of a 1964 explosion. Rohrer said all eight workers wore respirators and other protective equipment. “Their initial readings detected elevated amounts of radiation when they opened the piping.  They took some swipes and surveyed the swipes and also had air monitors,” he told the newspaper. “As they were doing all of the above, they recognized the rad levels were higher than anticipated,” Rohrer added.  “They issued a ‘stop work’ order and put the pipe in a safe configuration.” Three of the eight workers tested positive for plutonium exposure, which probably occurred as they disconnected the pipe cap or removed their equipment.  “The exposures are relatively low, but they’re high enough that it concerns us,” Rohrer said. Radiation workers under regulatory standards can be exposed to 5,000 millirem annually.  The exposures in this case were far less than that amount, according to officials (Keith Rogers, Las Vegas Review-Journal, June 6). Back to top

CDC Takes Congressional Heat on TB Case Elaine Povich CongressDaily WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Labor-Health and Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) yesterday blasted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other health officials for bungled procedures and not moving quickly enough to stop a victim of drug-resistant tuberculosis from leaving, and then re-entering, the United States (see GSN, June 6). Harkin told CDC Director Julie Gerberding he is feeling "uneasy" about her agency's actions from May 18, when it learned of the victim's TB status, until May 22, when it finally took some action to find him abroad. "Either there was confusion or running around in circles at the CDC," he said. But Gerberding said her agency erred on the side of "giving the patient the benefit of the doubt," trusting that he would follow medical advice and not travel.  "We obviously made a mistake," she said. However, the TB victim, Atlanta attorney Andrew Speaker, told the panel by telephone from his isolation room in Denver that he had never been told he was contagious to his family, his co-workers or anyone around him, and had met with physicians, including county officials and CDC officers May 10. So he decided to fly to Europe on May 12 for his wedding and honeymoon, while physicians determined what course of treatment would be best for him. "No one told me I was a threat to anyone," Speaker said.  "Everyone knew I was going [to Europe].  I didn't go running off or hide from people — that's a lie." Speaker said physicians had told him it would take 30 days to determine a course of treatment, and he made arrangements to check into National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver, which specializes in TB treatment, when he returned.  He then left the country, figuring it was better to go to be with his fiance rather than "sit around the office and go to [try cases in] court." Once the CDC did determine that Speaker had an extremely drug-resistant form of the disease, he was already in Europe.  Gerberding said they tried to find him by checking airline records and making calls to family, but were unsuccessful for days.  They finally located him in Italy May 22 and told him he had a virulent form of the disease.  They told him not to fly home on a commercial airliner because he was a threat to fellow passengers and tried to arrange a CDC airplane for him. A day later, CDC officials ruled out using their own aircraft because of the potential danger to pilots.  Speaker testified it would have cost him $140,000 to pay for an air ambulance. Still under the impression that he could not infect anyone, as he had initially been told by physicians, Speaker came into the United States through Canada.  Though he had by then been flagged as a biological threat, Customs and Border Protection agents at the border in upstate New York failed to stop him. Under questioning from the panel, CBP Deputy Commissioner Deborah Spero admitted her agency's mistake. "It was a failure of an inspector to follow orders," she said, and noted the agency is reviewing procedures.  "There is no criticism from outside that can be harsher than the criticism we have brought on ourselves," she said. Back to top       U.S. Officials Deflect Criticism Over Security Lapses in Allowing TB Patient to Re-Enter Country By Basil Talbott CongressDaily WASHINGTON — U.S. Homeland Security Department officials yesterday detailed steps the agency was taking in the wake of allowing a drug-resistant tuberculosis patient back into the United States despite his being flagged as a biological risk (see GSN, June 6). The officials placed most of the blame on a single U.S. border agent who let the infected U.S. citizen across the Canadian border into New York, but angry House Homeland Security Committee members insisted the system still is not fixed. “We dodged a bullet,” said Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.).  “When are we going to stop dodging bullets and start protecting Americans?” Much of the interrogation was sparked by the early assertion in testimony by Jeffrey Runge, Homeland Security’s chief medical officer, that “the single point of failure” in its system was the border agent’s decision to let Atlanta attorney Andrew Speaker re-enter the country despite instructions to stop him. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner W. Ralph Basham agreed with Runge. “I can’t offer a defense for the officer in the field,” he said.  “There was no excuse for allowing that individual back in the country.  It was a clear and absolute disregard of instructions.” Led by Thompson, several panel members insisted the blame should be spread more broadly, and the nation’s system for keeping out potentially infected persons needs a thorough overhaul.  By the end of the hearing, both Runge and Basham agreed that more improvements were needed. “There was a meltdown here,” said Representative Jane Harman (D-Calif.), objecting to what she called the Homeland Security officials’ “blame game.”  But Representative Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo.) disagreed, saying that “There were about 10 places to stop this guy and every one failed.”  Runge said the agency is working to quickly raise the level of involvement of Homeland Security, CBP and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (see related GSN story, today). Speaker’s case was noted first only at Homeland Security and CDC offices in Atlanta.  From now on, such cases will immediately be referred to the national offices of these agencies, he said.  Another problem is the four-hour delay in putting Speaker’s name on the no-fly list after it was discovered he had flown to Europe, Runge said. Speaker was the first case of deliberately placing a nonterrorist on the no-fly list.  Lawyers took two hours to determine whether it would be legal to place a contaminated American on that list, Runge said.  Homeland Security officials are also looking at other measures to make sure that there is sufficient backup to a border guard’s decision to admit a person who has been identified on a target list. Back to top       Smallpox Vaccine Order Could Boost Bioshield This week’s U.S. order of 20 million doses of a new smallpox vaccine could provide a much-needed boost to the troubled Project Bioshield program, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, June 5). The $5.6 billion program is intended to fund production of new countermeasures against WMD agents.  Since its inception in 2004, it has faced schedule breakdowns and a host of other problems, including cancellation of the flagship $877.5 million project to develop a new anthrax vaccine (see GSN, April 19). The Health and Human Services Department has sought fixes for the problems.  It detailed its priorities under a new program plan and has plans to assign contracts for development of a new anthrax vaccine and a radiation sickness treatment, the Post reported (see GSN, March 8). “We’re applying all the lessons that we have learned in the … history of Project Bioshield, the lessons from VaxGen,” the company once tagged to produce the anthrax vaccine, said Carol Linden, acting chief of the department’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (see GSN, April 27). One fix made to Bioshield will be tested for the first time under the smallpox vaccine contract with Danish firm Bavarian Nordic.  The company under 2006 legislation is eligible to receive up to $150 million in interim funding while it readies the vaccine.  Previously, companies could only receive payment upon delivery of the drug, leaving them to fund the expensive development process. “We see it as a partnership,” said Bavarian Nordic chief scientific officer Paul Chaplin, whose firm ultimately could receive $1.6 billion for 80 million doses of the new vaccine.  “In a partnership there has to be an investment on both sides for it to be a success” (Renae Merle, Washington Post, June 7). Back to top

North Korea Tests Short-Range Missiles North Korea today conducted another test of short-range missiles, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, May 25). “We are trying to confirm how many were fired and what type of missiles they are,” said a South Korean Defense Ministry official. Two intelligence officials told the Yonhap News Agency that at least one missile had been fired from the western coast.  One of those officials put the count at two, apparently as part of “routine drills” by Pyongyang, Yonhap reported. The missiles landed in North Korean territorial waters.  They were believed to be land-to-ship or ship-to-ship weapons with a flight range topping out at 62 miles. The United States, one of the nations trying to curtail North Korea’s nuclear program through the six-party talks (see GSN, June 6), criticized the missile flights. “This kind of activity is not constructive,” said National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe (Bo-Mi Lim, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, June 7). Back to top

Putin Offers Missile Defense Proposal for Europe Russian President Vladimir Putin today offered several conditions that could help eliminate his strong opposition to U.S. plans to install missile defenses in Europe, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, June 5). Putin has repeatedly made his displeasure known with the U.S. proposal to deploy 10 missile interceptors in Poland and a radar base in the Czech Republic.  He recently said Russia might aim some nuclear missiles at Europe should Washington follow through with the plan. However, Putin said today that would not occur if Washington shifted the radar site to the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan.  Based there, the system would cover the entire continent, he said. The proposal is “interesting,” said national security adviser Stephen Hadley.  “Let’s let our experts have a look at it,” Other requirements for lifting Russian opposition to the plan, Putin said, were:  considering Moscow’s concerns, allowing “equal access” to the system by all sides and ensuring the system is developed transparently. “Then we will have no problems,” Putin said. Prior to meeting with Putin today during the Group of Eight summit in Germany, U.S. President George W. Bush said the two leaders would further discuss the matter when they gather again next month at Kennebunkport, Maine (Associated Press I/New York Times, June 7). Bush, before the meeting, had also played down the threat posed by the U.S. proposal to Russia, AP reported. U.S. officials have argued that a handful of missile interceptors pose no threat to Russia’s massive arsenal of nuclear-tipped missiles.  The program is instead aimed at nations such as Iran and North Korea, they say. “A missile defense system cannot stop multilaunch regimes. … The fact is you can’t stop two, three, four, five missiles,” Bush said during the Group of Eight summit in Germany. “Russia is not a threat.  They’re not a military threat.  They’re not something that we ought to be hyperventilating about,” he added (Jennifer Loven, Associated Press II/Yahoo!News, June 7). A European missile shield would ultimately have to protect the full roster of NATO allies, Polish President Lech Kaczynski said yesterday. “NATO should provide equal security to all its members,” he said, according to Agence France-Presse. The U.S. shield would leave Bulgaria, Greece, Romania and Turkey partially or fully uncovered.  NATO is in the early stages of considering development of a theater missile defense system for protection of deployed troops.  It could be used to cover those sectors left vulnerable by the U.S. plan, AFP reported. Poland plans “pretty soon” to inform the United States whether it will house the missile interceptors, Kaczynski said (Agence France-Presse, June 6).   Back to top

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