An IAEA official yesterday demonstrated nuclear safeguards equipment that could be installed soon in North Korea (Samuel Kubani/Getty Images). Next Round of North Korea Nuclear Talks Expected Next Week The next round of six-nation talks on North Korea’s nuclear program is expected to begin July 18, the Yonhap News Agency reported (see GSN, July 9). A source said host country China has notified the other participating countries — Japan, Russia, the United States, and North and South Korea — of plans for two days of meetings that could stretch into a third day. The session would apparently follow Pyongyang’s announcement that it had halted operations at its Yongbyon nuclear facility, which could come this week, Yonhap reported...Full Story

Cruise Missile Defense Viable, Lockheed Says By Seamus Kraft Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The United States faces a genuine but defensible threat from sea–launched cruise missiles fitted with chemical or biological warheads, a Lockheed Martin Corp. executive said yesterday (see GSN, March 22)...Full Story

Iran Denies Nuclear Slowdown; West Seeks Answers An Iranian lawmaker denied that the nation has slowed the installation of centrifuges at its main uranium enrichment facility, but Western officials and analysts confirmed the development and offered a number of possible explanations, news agencies reported today (see GSN, July 9)...Full Story

	Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Colorado National Guard Team Conducts WMD Drill The National Guard Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Team in Colorado yesterday conducted a response to a mock WMD attack in Denver, the Rocky Mountain News reported (see GSN, June 4). “This is our training for the Democratic National Convention” being planned for Denver next year, said Lt. Col. Mark Riccardi.  The 22-member team was called to the Pepsi Center for a suspected biochemical incident that had killed several people and forced a panicked evacuation.  Two members in full hazardous materials gear slowly entered the arena to collect air samples and search out mannequin “victims.” “There’s no high action sequence here – this is really meticulous work,” said Specialist Ben Crane. Three days of drills are also expected to include Civil Support Teams from Wyoming, Utah and Arizona.  A total of 55 teams are being established in all U.S. states and territories and the District of Columbia to provide assistance to civilian authorities during a WMD incident. The Colorado team regularly conducts drills to prepare for a real attack, but working in such a large public venue was unusual. “Anywhere that you can have a large number of people in a small space — that’s a potential terrorist threat,” said Capt. Michael Odgers.  “The people who are facilitating this exercise planned this exercise months in advance, prior to the (Democratic National Convention) being awarded to Denver” (Kari Craig, Rocky Mountain News, July 10). Meanwhile, an article on a 2006 exercise on Prince Edward Island in Canada noted several problems in the response to a fake “dirty bomb” attack, The Sault Star in Ontario  reported (see GSN, July 3). Among the glitches were inoperative cellular telephones, supply shortages and inadequate personnel to conduct crowd control. “The exercise highlighted a number of problems that will need to be addressed in the future,” the technical journal article stated. While authorities in major Canadian cities receive sophisticated tools for WMD response, that technology is not available throughout the country, said Inspector John Bureaux, head of explosives disposal and technology for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. “There should be more equipment that’s issued across the country,” he said. Antiterrorism drill are intended to uncover problems that can then be fixed, said Health Canada radiation detection chief Jack Cornett.  “Certainly in my mind, we’re an order of magnitude better than we were five or six years ago,” he said (The Sault Star, July 9). Back to top

Next Round of North Korea Nuclear Talks Expected Next Week The next round of six-nation talks on North Korea’s nuclear program is expected to begin July 18, the Yonhap News Agency reported (see GSN, July 9). A source said host country China has notified the other participating countries — Japan, Russia, the United States, and North and South Korea — of plans for two days of meetings that could stretch into a third day. The session would apparently follow Pyongyang’s announcement that it had halted operations at its Yongbyon nuclear facility, which could come this week, Yonhap reported. The shutdown would follow the arrival of a South Korean shipment of more than 6,000 tons of fuel oil.  It would be the first step toward meeting North Korea’s pledge in February to dismantle its nuclear weapons program in exchange for energy assistance and related aid (Yonhap News Agency, July 10). There was no confirmation from China on the dates for the resumed negotiations, the Associated Press reported. “We hope that we can hold the meeting of the heads of the delegations at the middle of this month but it still needs the consent of every party,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang. However, an Interfax report indicated that China was looking to schedule the talks on July 18 and 19, and an anonymous South Korean Foreign Ministry official said that negotiators “are converging in that direction.” The International Atomic Energy Agency would send inspectors to North Korea to monitor the shutdown process.  It received an official invitation today from Pyongyang, and said in a press release the team should leave in the next several days. “This is the beginning of a process.  It’s going to be a long and complex process, but I welcome the return of the (North) to the verification process and I look forward to working with them as the verification process evolves,” IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said yesterday in Vienna (Jae-Soon Chang, Associated Press/Washington Post, July 10). “Shutting down the facilities according to our experts will not take much time — probably a few days,” ElBaradei said.  “But then we have to have other equipment in place to ensure we are able to monitor the (shutdown), so these activities are going to happen in the next couple weeks” (Heinrich/Strohecker, Reuters/Washington Post, July 9). The Bush administration wants to see talks resume only after the plutonium-producing reactor is closed, Agence France-Presse reported. “I think ideally what everybody would like to see is an envoys’ level meeting build on some already increased momentum,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said yesterday. Momentum would be produced by “a shutdown and sealing of the Yongbyon (reactor), having the IAEA in there and full strength, performing their full mission that they have set out for,” he said. It has been nearly five years since IAEA inspectors were ejected from North Korea, which has since tested a nuclear weapon and is believed to hold several more (Agence France-Presse/ChannelNewsAsia.com, July 10). Back to top       Iran Denies Nuclear Slowdown; West Seeks Answers An Iranian lawmaker denied that the nation has slowed the installation of centrifuges at its main uranium enrichment facility, but Western officials and analysts confirmed the development and offered a number of possible explanations, news agencies reported today (see GSN, July 9). International Atomic Energy Agency head Mohamed ElBaradei yesterday described a “marked slowdown” to the growth of Iran’s enrichment site at Natanz.  He based his assessment on recent visits to the site by agency inspectors. However, Hamid-Reza Haji-Babaei, spokesman for the Iranian parliament’s foreign policy and national security commission, said the nation has not eased the pace of centrifuge installation, Deutsche Press-Agentur reported.  The most recent IAEA report circulated last month indicated that Iran has installed more than 1,600 centrifuges (Deutsche Press-Agentur/Jurnalo.com, July 10). Still, U.S. and European officials agreed with ElBaradei’s view and suggested that Iran might be dealing with unexpected technical difficulties. “They've committed down a road to expand as quickly as possible,” said one senior European official. “But Iran won't be the first to discover that it does happen to be rocket science, and development has its peaks and troughs.” One private analyst speculated that Tehran could be shifting its priorities. “Iran may be trying to learn how to operate centrifuges better, so they produce more enriched uranium instead of trying to add more centrifuges,” said David Albright, head of the Institute for Science and International Security. A U.S. official played down the importance of the quantity of working centrifuges at Natanz. “As Iran still appears to be working to master centrifuge technology, it is not the numbers of centrifuges that matter.  What matters is that all centrifuge activity be suspended immediately, as the U.N. Security Council has required,” said State Department spokesman Jim Kelman. A second analyst suggested that Iran has deliberately slowed its activities to encourage diplomatic efforts to resolve the nuclear crisis. “We've been getting a lot of signals from Iran that they want to talk," said Joseph Cirincione of the Center for American Progress.  "Pay less attention to the rantings of [President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad and pay more attention to the comments of [lead nuclear envoy Ali] Larijani. All of Larijani's body language and statements indicate that they want to make a deal. There have been more signals over the past couple of months than in the past year. They also want to talk to us about Iraq” (Robin Wright, Washington Post, July 10). Back to top       U.S. Air Force Base in Germany Might Be Nuke-Free Nuclear weapons might no longer be deployed at the largest U.S. Air Force base in Germany, the Federation of American Scientists said yesterday (see GSN, May 9, 2005). The Air Force removed its base at Ramstein, Germany, from a list of nuclear weapons sites to be inspected.  That list is can be found on a Pentagon report issued in January.  A 2005 version of this document indicated that Ramstein at the time was still receiving nuclear weapons inspections. The U.S. base at Spangdahlem, Germany, is the only other site in Europe that has been removed from the 2007 list after undergoing inspection in 2005.  No nuclear weapons are stored at the base, which has a nuclear command and control mission. The United States is believed to have roughly 350 nuclear weapons in Europe, down from the Cold War height of 7,300 in 1971 (Hans Kristensen, Federation of American Scientists, July 9). Back to top

Umatilla Chemical Depot Destroys Last Sarin Weapons The Umatilla Chemical Depot in Oregon on Sunday finished disposal of its stockpile of weapons containing the nerve agent sarin, the U.S. Army reported (see GSN, July 5). The Army began its disposal campaign at Umatilla in September 2004 and has destroyed more than 155,000 munitions and 1,000 tons of the chemical agent.  The incineration project junked 155 mm artillery projectiles, M55 rockets, 8-inch projectiles, bulk chemical containers, and 500- and 750-pound bombs. After a five-month changeover period, the depot is scheduled to begin destroying VX nerve agent weapons.  The facility is subsequently set to burn its stock of mustard agent (U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency release, July 8). Back to top       Israeli Cabinet Cuts Funds for Civilian Gas Masks Budget cuts mean that fewer than half of Israeli citizens will be able to have their gas masks renewed in 2007, The Jerusalem Post reported (see GSN, March 20). The Israeli Cabinet sliced from its defense budget $26 million intended to provide all of its citizens with new gas masks by the end of the year.  Should war break out, Israel plans to quickly buy more masks from domestic and U.S. sources. “This situation could be interpreted as neglect,” said one defense official.  “If war breaks out and nonconventional weapons are used, then we could find ourselves in a major crisis.”  Israel presently has enough new gas masks for 1.5 million adults and 500,000 children, less than half its population (Yaakov Katz, The Jerusalem Post, July 9). Back to top

Cruise Missile Defense Viable, Lockheed Says By Seamus Kraft Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The United States faces a genuine but defensible threat from sea–launched cruise missiles fitted with chemical or biological warheads, a Lockheed Martin Corp. executive said yesterday (see GSN, March 22). “We could protect Washington to Boston for several billion dollars and have the system operational in 14 months,” said David Kier, cruise missile defense project manager at the major U.S. defense contractor. Cruise missiles that could threaten the United States generally have ranges below 1,500 miles — far less than strategic ballistic missile systems — but are smaller, cheaper to manufacture or purchase and easier to transport covertly.  Given their size, and the fact that they fly only feet above the ground, detecting and destroying them could pose a technical challenge.  Kier said, though, that it could be done. “All of the required technologies exist — from detection, to tracking and interception,” Kier told congressional staffers at an American Foreign Policy Council luncheon. The U.S. Missile Defense Agency contracted Lockheed Martin to develop those systems.  The centerpiece of this effort was the High Altitude Airship, a self–sustaining balloon prototype that was developed to float 12 miles in the air and to carry “look–down radar.”  It was designed to provide cruise missile tracking within a 500 mile radius (see GSN, March 26, 2004). “You need a ‘look–down’ radar system to get a cruise missile because it travels 50–100 feet off the deck,” Kier said.  “We are frustrated that there’s no momentum at the MDA.” “It just requires a will to do it.  This is an all or nothing thing,” he added. The airship contract was initially set at $148 million.  However, the Missile Defense Agency sought to slash funding from the program in this fiscal year — a decision overturned in Congress — and made no funding request for fiscal 2008, Reuters reported. The agency had not responded to a request for comment today by deadline. Congressional Research Service defense analyst Christopher Bolkcom, told Reuters that Lockheed’s estimate of the program’s effectiveness was “optimistic.”  U.S. leaders, he said, most likely did “the mental calculus that it’s too expensive, too hard, on the one hand, and the threat is not big enough to justify it, on the other,” he said. Jeff Keuter, president of the George C. Marshall Institute in Washington, at yesterday’s event addressed the potential for a terrorist attack involving a cruise missile. “There’s not enough recognition of proliferation trends, particularly with cruise missiles,” he said.  “There are hundreds if not thousands of these things in unfriendly hands, from China to North Korea to Iran — all known proliferators.” In a May report, Keuter argued that cruise missiles are both easy to acquire and ideal instruments for chemical or biological terrorism. “The flat flight path of a cruise missile is much more efficient for disseminating a chemical or biological agent than a ballistic missile,” he wrote. Kier and Keuter agreed yesterday that the greatest cruise missile threat came from container ships.  The missiles and launch platforms, they said, could fit inside a shipping container and be launched with little warning off the U.S. coastline.  “At best we only have 11 minutes in 200 miles to take down a container-launched cruise missile,” Kier said.  “That’s why we need a constant ‘look–down’ radar integrated with Patriot missile interceptors on shore.” Kier saved his greatest frustrations for the Pentagon. “This is a real threat, folks.  And they eliminated the program budget.  Are we moving as fast as we’d like or as we need to?  Hell no.” Back to top       Japan, U.S. Conduct Joint Missile Defense Drill Japanese and U.S. forces on Friday tested their ability to track targets and to quickly relay information during a joint ballistic missile defense drill, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, July 5). The drill occurred “at sea and in air around Japan,” according to a Japanese Defense Ministry official.  It involved early warning aircraft and four destroyers — three U.S. warships and one from Japan — carrying Aegis radar systems. The drill’s participants “calculated and shared the information needed to track a hostile missile from its launch along its intended path” and relayed the tracking information to the office of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe within “about one minute,” the U.S. Navy said. Another regional missile defense drill is planned for November (Associated Press/International Herald Tribune, July 10). Back to top

U.S. Government Food Security Efforts Slip Some U.S. measures taken to secure its food supply after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks have dropped back down to prior levels, Newsweek reported today (see GSN, June 27). Spurred by the attacks, Congress addressed the threat of a food-borne terrorist assault by passing the Bioterrorism Act of 2002 and authorizing 600 new U.S. food import inspectors.  However, those inspectors are no longer on the job.  Tainted pet food, seafood and toothpaste have entered the country from China — the pet food ingredient that was killing animals was not identified for weeks, even though the law was intended to prevent or detect such incidents. “The progress we made after 2001 was short-lived,” said Caroline Smith DeWaal of the Center for Science in the Public Interest.  “The intent of the person adding melamine to the what gluten was not as nefarious as that of a terrorist, but the effect could have been just as bad if a more toxic agent had been used,” she added. A terrorist assault on the U.S. food supply would be difficult to carry out but could have catastrophic effects, according to food safety experts.  Even if government efforts have waned, private food producers have stepped in to fill the gaps, Newsweek reported.  That includes boosting security for food storage, transportation or other vulnerable systems. “Individual companies have done a lot of work behind the scenes to be sure their products are safe and secure,” said Allen Matthys of the Grocery Manufacturers Association. The most damaging attack would involve large-batch products such as pasta sauce, in which thousands of gallons could be contaminated at once, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.  Other prime targets could include milk, liquid eggs, ground meat, or products with strong odors or flavors that could mask poisons (Sharon Begley, Newsweek, July 16). Back to top       Pentagon Slashes 13 Projects From Top-Priority List The U.S. Defense Department has cut 13 weapons projects from its list of programs considered to be of the “highest national defense urgency,” lowering the number of programs on that list to seven, Inside the Army reported yesterday. (see GSN, June 26) The June 22 cuts to the Pentagon’s list of “DX”-rated projects followed a nine-month review determining which projects were most essential to current military needs. All projects on the DX list share equal priority over projects with a “DO” rating, which marks programs deemed to be “critical to national defense,” and unrated or commercial programs. “I have substantially reduced the DX list to ensure it contains only those few programs that are currently of the highest national defense urgency and for which only a DX rating will meet compressed milestone schedules,” Defense Undersecretary Kenneth Krieg stated in a June 23 memo. Projects on the revised DX list include the Trident submarine-launched ICBM (see GSN, April 10), the Space-Based Infrared System High for tracking missiles (see GSN, Nov. 9, 2006), and various programs grouped under the Integrated Ballistic Missile Defense System. Projects cut from the list included the B1-B and B-2 bomber programs, the Minuteman 3 missile, the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Modernization program and several cruise missile programs (Jason Sherman, Inside the Army, July 9). Back to top

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