U.S. lawmakers have criticized the testing schedule of U.S. missile defense projects, including the Ground-based Missile Defense program (U.S. Missile Defense Agency photo). Congress Chides U.S. Missile Defense Management By Elaine M. Grossman Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — U.S. lawmakers scolded the Missile Defense Agency for a number of management problems and trimmed its budget in a recently enacted fiscal 2009 appropriations bill (see GSN, Oct. 21)...Full Story

India Stops Suspicious North Korean Flight Indian officials quietly prevented a North Korean aircraft from flying to Iran in August, possibly stopping a WMD or missile shipment, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday (see GSN, March 4)...Full Story

U.S. to Play Down HEU, Proliferation Issues in North Korean Nuclear Verification Document Verifying suspected North Korean highly enriched uranium and proliferation activities is likely to be relegated to the appendix of a U.S.-drafted plan, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported Saturday (see GSN, Oct. 30)...Full Story

	Monday, November 3, 2008

U.K. Rejects Students for Allegedly Seeking WMD British counterterrorism officials have turned away as many as 100 international students in the last year on suspicion that they were seeking chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear-weapon ingredients and know-how in the nation’s laboratories, the London Guardian reported yesterday (see GSN, July 22). Under the Academic Technology Approval Scheme, a new system of background checks instituted in November 2007, the British intelligence agencies MI5 and MI6 prohibited applicants from studying in the United Kingdom with their authority “to stop the spread of knowledge and skills that could be used in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery,” according to a British Foreign Office spokesman. “There is empirical evidence of a problem with postgraduate students becoming weapons proliferators,” the official added.  Some of the students likely came from Iran, Pakistan and other “countries of concern,” the Guardian reported. MI5 previously said that al-Qaeda was seeking to enlist laboratory staffers who worked with lethal biological agents and other WMD materials. Michael Stephens, security chief for an organization of high-security British research facilities, said the group takes biological material protection “extremely seriously.” It remained uncertain how many potential weapon proliferators could be working in the United Kingdom, the Guardian reported.  Rihab Taha, a former Iraqi biological weapons scientist also known as “Dr. Germ,” studied plant toxins at East Anglia University in Norwich (see GSN, March 14, 2006). The new vetting system is working effectively, said a representative for Universities U.K., an organization of vice chancellors.  “It is important to protect the U.K. from people who may wish to use technology and materials here inappropriately,” the spokesman said. The vetting program would impact only a small fraction of students who apply for postgraduate studies, the Foreign Office said. In the United States, a proposed bill would prevent scientists born outside the country from working with deadly biological agents; British officials consider such a proposal unreasonable, the Guardian reported (Mark Townsend, London Guardian, Nov. 2). Back to top       U.S. Intel Chief Warns of Growing WMD Threat There is a growing potential for a WMD incident in coming decades, U.S. National Intelligence Director Michael McConnell said last week (see GSN, Feb. 6). McConnell addressed the threat as one component of an increasing danger of conflict through at least 2025, Agence France-Presse reported. Chances of “large casualty terrorist attacks using chemical, biological, or less likely, nuclear materials” are likely to rise in those years, McConnell said during an address Thursday in Nashville. “What I’m suggesting — there’s an increased potential for conflict,” he said.  “During the period of this assessment, out to 2025, the probability for conflict between nations and within nation-states will be greater.” China can be expected to become one of the top military powers by 2025, as well as a greater financial power and the No. 1 polluter, McConnell said.  India and Russia are also likely to promote themselves on the world stage, he said. “Strategic rivalries are most likely to revolve around trade, demographics, access to natural resources, investments and technological innovation,” he added.  “There will be a struggle to acquire technology advantage as the key enabler for dominance” (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Oct. 31). Back to top       Construction Wraps Up at National Lab Building Workers finished construction Thursday at one of three new buildings intended to replace existing sections of a national nuclear laboratory in Richland, Wash., the Tri-City Herald reported (see GSN, Oct. 6). At a ceremony marking the milestone, construction crews installed a steal beam on the roof of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s new Physical Sciences Facility.  The $224 million project remained within timetable and spending requirements as of Thursday, the Herald reported. The finished three-building, 200,000-square-foot complex would include equipment for pursuing new techniques to determine compliance with international chemical and nuclear weapons treaties, along with an outdoor track to test the ability of radiation sensors to spot concealed weapons materials (Annette Cary, Tri-City Herald, Oct. 31). Back to top

U.S. to Play Down HEU, Proliferation Issues in North Korean Nuclear Verification Document Verifying suspected North Korean highly enriched uranium and proliferation activities is likely to be relegated to the appendix of a U.S.-drafted plan, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported Saturday (see GSN, Oct. 30). Approval of the protocol for verifying the scope of Pyongyang’s nuclear work is likely to be the next step in the ongoing program to eliminate the Stalinist state’s atomic sector and weapons.  The six nations involved in the process — China, Japan, Russia, the United States and both Koreas — have not yet agreed on a date for resuming talks. The main text of the agreement is considered more binding than the annex, sources said.  Pushing the HEU and proliferation issues to the appendix opens the door for them to be left out of the next set of negotiations, they said. The document would focus on establishing site visits, sample collection and other measures to obtain a picture of Pyongyang’s known plutonium program, which is believed to have produced material for several bombs.  However, it might also restrict the number of records to verify that work, sources told the newspaper. While the Bush administration has sought a written agreement, the Kim regime so far has only offered a verbal pledge on collection of samples related to its plutonium operations. Washington might have accepted the concessions in order to illustrate the progress being made in the denuclearization process, experts said (Yomiuri Shimbun, Nov. 1). A meeting between a senior U.S. State Department official and North Korean representatives is scheduled for this week in New York, Agence France-Presse reported. Sung Kim, the agency’s top official on Korea, “will meet with the group on the margins” of an event planned by the nongovernmental National Committee on American Foreign Policy, according to the State Department. “Details of the meeting have not yet been finalized,” according to a State Department statement. Ri Gun, who leads the North American Affairs office at the North Korean Foreign Ministry, is set to lead the delegation that is scheduled to arrive Friday in New York (Agence France-Presse I/Spacewar.com, Oct. 31). Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, top U.S. envoy to the six-nation talks, is also expected to attend a closed meeting this week in New York with North Korean officials, former Defense Secretary William Perry and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, United Press International reported. Afterward the National Committee is set Friday to release a proposal that Kissinger and Perry join talks with North Korea, according to the Korea Times. The proposal would also press for full and verifiable denuclearization in North Korea, for which the nation would receive a security guarantee and other benefits from the United States (United Press International, Nov. 1). South Korea has indicated that any protocol must include nuclear inspections in its neighbor, sources told the Yonhap News Agency. Pyongyang would see additional steel shipments from Seoul only after signing off on the verification plan.  South Korea had agreed to ship a total of 3,000 tons of steel — part of the 1 million tons of heavy fuel oil and related energy assistance promised to North Korea under the deal — by the end of November. “The government is contemplating ways to ship 3,000 tons of steel pipe promised to North Korea as part of the six-party deal after a verification protocol is formally adopted in the soon to be held nuclear talks,” one source said (Yonhap News Agency, Nov. 1). The South Korean Foreign Ministry said Saturday that Washington has approached Australia, New Zealand and the European Union about providing energy assistance to North Korea, AFP reported. They would collectively take up the 200,000 tons of oil or related material that was supposed to have been provided by Japan.  Tokyo has refused to provide any assistance until it feels that the regime has adequately addressed the status of all Japanese citizens abducted in the 1970s and 1980s. “Once agreed, the relevant parties would share energy assistance valued at some $100 million,” South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan told the Korea Times.  “We don’t know yet how much and in what way each party will contribute.” The matter is set to be raised at the next round of talks, Yu said. North Korea to date has received roughly half of the promised energy aid, AFP reported (Agence France-Presse II/Spacewar.com, Nov. 1). The nuclear issue is likely to be passed from the Bush administration to the next U.S. president, analysts told AFP, but neither of the major candidates, Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.), would make a significant change to the existing policy, the observers predicted. “There will be continuity, although the U.S. will need time to get new personnel in place," said analyst Daniel Pinkston of the International Crisis Group.  “If North Korea believes it will get a better deal from a Democratic administration, that is not the case at all.  There is a strong consensus" on policy. “Whoever wins, there might be progress in implementing the second phase of nuclear disablement," said Koh Yu-hwan of Dongguk University in Seoul.  “The third stage is a quite difficult process as it includes negotiations on the establishment of a peace accord between North Korea and the U.S." The second and current phase of denuclearization, under a 2007 agreement, calls for disabling key facilities at North Korea’s plutonium-producing Yongbyon nuclear complex.  It would be followed by the third and final phase, fully dismantling all nuclear sites and weapons. “Despite its earlier nuclear deal with U.S., the North still wants to drag its feet.  It is a matter of survival," said Sungkyunkwan University politics professor Kim Il-young.  “If it reaches a final deal or agrees to give up nuclear weapons, that will inevitably make its regime unstable." While arguing that Obama would be more aggressive in pursuing the issue, Kim said Pyongyang’s unwillingness to give up its arsenal would be a major sticking point.  Talks could go on for years, Pinkston said. The status of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il’s health “will also affect negotiations as it will cause internal uncertainty in North Korea,” Kim said. Pyongyang has denied all reports that the leader suffered a stroke in August. "It is not sure whether Kim is in control or not.  But it is true that the situation is abnormal, amplifying ambiguity,” Kim said (Agence France-Presse III/Spacewar.com, Oct. 31). Back to top       Strike on Iran Debated in Washington U.S. lawmakers, think tanks and independent experts of various political backgrounds are weighing the need for military strikes on Iranian nuclear sites as well as new diplomatic alternatives aimed halting disputed elements of the country’s atomic program, according to a New York Times commentary today (see GSN, Oct. 31). The United States suspects that Iran’s atomic efforts are geared toward weapons development, but Tehran insists that its nuclear work is strictly aimed at civilian energy development. The incoming presidential administration “might have little time and fewer options to deal with this threat,” warns a report by the Bipartisan Policy Center. The analysis examines measures such as a blockade that would prevent Iran from receiving gasoline, but adds that “a military strike is a feasible option and must remain a last resort.” Use of military force “is an element of any true option,” although it should only be employed within a wider strategy, Ashton Carter, a high-level Defense Department official under former President Bill Clinton, wrote in a report for the bipartisan Center for a New American Security. At a September meeting organized by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, unofficial representatives for Senators John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) agreed that U.S. strategy should emphasize halting Iranian efforts to acquire nuclear weaponry rather than assuming Iran will become a nuclear power. “John McCain won’t wait until after the fact,” said Max Boot, a columnist speaking for the Republican presidential contender. Richard Danzig, speaking for Democratic candidate Obama, called a strike on Iran a “terrible” option, but added that “it may be that in some terrible world we will have to come to grips with such a terrible choice.” Dennis Ross, Obama’s senior Middle East adviser, said the military option was emphasized before the 2003 invasion of Iraq.  Since that time, diplomacy’s failure to slow Iran’s nuclear progress has forced policy-makers to assume a more balanced perspective, he said. “I want to concentrate the mind and make people understand, ‘Look, this is serious and you don’t want to be left with only those two choices,’” military action or deterring a nuclear-armed Iran, said Ross, who worked as a Middle East negotiator under the George H.W. Bush and Clinton administrations (Carol Giacomo, New York Times, Nov. 3). In Israel, officials and experts are debating the option of an independent strike on Iran, the Los Angeles Times reported (see GSN, Oct. 27). Some Israeli officials believe that other nations would prefer the country to strike if it could effectively destroy Iranian nuclear facilities.  There are great risks in such action, including Tehran’s repeated warning that it would respond forcefully. “They will be very happy if we do their dirty work for them," said Efraim Inbar, head of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies in Israel.  "The world is moving into 'What can we do about it?' mode.  There is a strong instinct here to do it on our own." Emily Landau of the Israel-based Institute for National Security Studies added:  “I don't know which direction this is going to go in Israel." "Pressure is rising" within Israel for military action, but it might "move in the direction of more and more people in Israel concluding that a nuclear Iran is not something we can stop," Landau said. "Time is running very, very short right now," said Ephraim Asculai, a former high-level Israeli nuclear official now at the Institute for National Security Studies (Khalil/Richter, Los Angeles Times, Nov. 2). Back to top       Gates Nuclear Speech Fails to Sway Opponents U.S. Democratic lawmakers reacted coolly to Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ call last week for support to build a new nuclear warhead, Congressional Quarterly reported (see GSN, Oct. 29). “While we have a long-term goal of abolishing nuclear weapons once and for all, given the world in which we live, we have to be realistic about that proposition,” Gates said in a speech at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.  “The program would reinvigorate and rebuild our infrastructure and expertise, and it could potentially allow us to reduce aging stockpiles by balancing the risk between a smaller number of warheads and an industrial complex that could produce new weapons if the need arose.” Lawmakers for the last two years have rejected Bush administration efforts to fund the new weapon, the Reliable Replacement Warhead; many Democrats said Gates’ speech had not changed their skepticism, although they said they were keeping open minds. “I oppose RRW because after a number of classified briefings, I have come to the conclusion that it is essentially the production of a new nuclear weapon,” said Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.).  “My views are not inviolate, but we know that the Bush administration’s goal was to reopen the nuclear door.” “If we are going to maintain a smaller level of weapons as we work toward their elimination, and we have the opportunity to make them safer and more secure without testing, that is a proposal worth exploring,” added Representative Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.), who chairs the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee (Josh Rogin, Congressional Quarterly, Oct. 30). Meanwhile, two RRW critics panned Gates’ speech as “the opposite of visionary.” Ivan Oelrich and Hans Kristensen, both of the Federation of American Scientists, questioned Gates’ rationale for keeping thousands of nuclear weapons in the U.S. stockpile. “Just as we don’t respond to roadside bombs with our own roadside bombs, nor would we respond to chemical attack with chemical weapons or biological attack with biological weapons.  We might respond to nuclear attack with nuclear weapons but we should not allow this to be an unstated assumption,” they said on the FAS Strategic Security Blog. They also criticized the argument that U.S. nuclear weapons are aging and therefore need to be modernized. “With a budget of billions of dollars, we can’t duplicate parts that we could make twenty years ago?” they said, arguing that current stockpile designs would perform as needed into the future (Federation of American Scientists release, Oct. 30). Back to top       Russia, Libya Sign Nuclear Trade Deal, Tripoli Says Libya said it signed a nuclear trade deal with Russia on Saturday that could allow the North African state to receive energy development assistance, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, July 31). "A cooperation agreement was signed in the area of the peaceful use of civilian nuclear, particularly in the design and construction of reactors and the supply of nuclear fuel," said Libyan Foreign Minister Abdelrahman Chalgham, who visited Moscow with Libyan leader Col. Muammar Qadhafi. Chalgham added that the agreement could allow Tripoli to receive assistance in managing nuclear waste and using radioactive material for medical applications. However, Russian government representative Dmitry Peskov denied that any deal had been reached. Qadhafi said his meetings with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin — expected to address energy issues and conventional weapons sales —  might help promote “geopolitical equilibrium” (Agence France-Presse/Google News, Nov. 1). Back to top

Anthrax Mail Suspect Makes Bail A U.S. magistrate released accused anthrax mail hoaxer Marc Keyser on bail Friday after ordering the 66-year-old to keep a record of everything he mails, the Sacramento (Calif.) Bee reported (see GSN, Oct. 31). Prosecutors had sought to keep the Sacramento resident in custody pending his next hearing on Nov. 19.  However, Judge Kimberly Mueller set bail at $25,000 and Keyser’s sister and brother-in-law signed the bond, according to the Bee. Keyser is suspected of mailing about 120 packages, mostly to major media outlets, each containing a compact disc bearing the title “Anthrax:  Shock and Awe Terror” — perhaps a book title — as well as a sugar packet labeled “Anthrax sample.”  Investigators pinpointed the suspect because he included his name, phone number and Web site on many of the packages.  Formally, Keyser has been charged with three counts of mailing hoax anthrax packages, one to the Atlantic magazine in Washington, D.C., one to the Charlotte Observer in North Carolina and one to the district office of a California congressman. The mailings were apparently an effort to promote awareness of bioterror threats in the United States, said his appointed attorney, Assistant Federal Defender Rachelle Barbour. “He wanted to make society aware of how vulnerable we are,” she told Mueller during Friday’s bail hearing. Assistant U.S. Attorney Benjamin Wagner, however, cast doubt on that assertion. “I don’t believe his motive is altruistic at all,” he said.  “He wants to draw attention to himself to generate traffic on his Web site so he can sell his book.” Wagner expressed concern that the alleged mailings would continue, reporting that Keyser had prepared more letters during the four hours between an initial FBI questioning Wednesday and his arrest. Barbour said Keyser’s actions during that period demonstrated that he was not a flight risk. “If he wanted to flee, that would have been the time to flee,” she told the judge (Denny Walsh, Sacramento Bee, Nov. 1). Back to top

India Stops Suspicious North Korean Flight Indian officials quietly prevented a North Korean aircraft from flying to Iran in August, possibly stopping a WMD or missile shipment, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday (see GSN, March 4). The decision to deny Indian airspace to a North Korean cargo aircraft was coordinated through the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative, according to officials familiar with the incident.  The program aims to stop WMD smuggling, although most publicized exercises have involved seaborne cargo. The Aug. 7 incident involved an airplane, operated by North Korea’s state airline, which had stopped in Myanmar and had requested to fly through Indian airspace to Iran, a Western official said. The official did not identify the suspected cargo, but offered, “North Korea has been supplying missiles to Iran and Syria for some time.” After initially granting the airspace permission, Indian officials reversed course and the flight was not completed, the Journal reported (Wall Street Journal, Nov. 1). Back to top

Congress Chides U.S. Missile Defense Management By Elaine M. Grossman Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — U.S. lawmakers scolded the Missile Defense Agency for a number of management problems and trimmed its budget in a recently enacted fiscal 2009 appropriations bill (see GSN, Oct. 21). The appropriations bill criticized several aspects of missile defense operations, including funding priorities in the MDA budget request, flight-test delays and cancellations, and the availability of target missiles for use in testing. Overall, Congress gave $9.02 billion to the Defense Department’s missile defense arm for the new fiscal year, a figure that largely satisfied agency advocates. “The reduction was only $320.6 million out of a $9.3 billion request,” MDA spokesman Rick Lehner told Global Security Newswire last week.  While some missile defense projects saw their annual budgets decreased, “the programs all were funded [at some level] … so we were pleased,” he said. However, others characterized the level of funding as excessive. “It’s too much money for missile defense,” said John Isaacs, executive director of the Council for a Livable World.  He said that despite billions of dollars in annual funding, long-range defense systems that receive the bulk of MDA money have not yet proven technically feasible at intercepting a complex attack.  Such attacks could include decoys or other countermeasures aimed at confusing missile defense sensors. The Republican presidential nominee, Senator John McCain (Ariz.), “strongly supports the development and deployment of theater and national missile defenses,” according to his campaign Web site.  His Democratic counterpart, Senator Barack Obama (Ill.), has been more critical, charging last year that President George W. Bush’s administration “has in the past exaggerated missile defense capabilities and rushed deployments for political purposes.” In an unusual move, congressional leaders in late September combined the new defense appropriations bill — which contains the missile defense provisions — with other 2009 funding legislation and attached them to a 2008 “continuing resolution.”  The measure allows for government spending from Oct. 1 of this year through March 6, 2009.  Congress would have to act again to keep a host of defense, homeland security and other government programs running after that.  Presumably the fiscal 2009 program budgets set by the existing appropriations bill would remain largely the same, but any new legislation could open the door to possible alterations. In the bill passed in September, lawmakers said the agency had shifted money into its more exotic, long-term technology development efforts, partially at the expense of fully funding missile defense systems being deployed today. “In order to execute a balanced program, the Missile Defense Agency must continue to field the near-term missile defense programs, primarily Ground-Based Missile Defense, Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense, and Theater High-Altitude Area Defense programs,” the appropriations report states.  “Funding for fielding these programs, however, is sacrificed each year to pay for the development of futuristic missile defense programs.” The bill sought to remedy the problem by shifting $120 million into the three near-term efforts, financed by reductions to the longer-term Multiple Kill Vehicle, Airborne Laser and Space Test Bed programs.  It directed the agency to report to Congress by Dec. 1 on how it would specifically allocate the additional funds. Lawmakers also called on the agency to set as its “highest priority” providing additional Standard Missile 3 and THAAD interceptors to combatant commanders and to “budget accordingly” in its fiscal 2010 funding request.  Lehner noted that one of the reductions in futuristic efforts that the appropriations bill made — a $70 million cut in the $354.5 million budget request for the Multiple Kill Vehicle — could slow progress that Congress in the past has emphasized as important.  The Multiple Kill Vehicle is envisioned as a single-launch intercept system that could destroy incoming clusters of warheads and decoys, a potentially useful tool against adversaries that might seek to overwhelm the U.S. defense architecture. Given that such a scenario has been “one of Congress’ main concerns,” Lehner said his agency would strive to offer “better arguments” for the Multiple Kill Vehicle in the fiscal 2010 request.  That document is expected for delivery to Capitol Hill early next year. The appropriations bill also rapped the Missile Defense Agency — one of the Pentagon’s largest research and development accounts — for having “established a pattern of cost, schedule and performance problems.” With several tests having been delayed or canceled each year from 2006 to 2008, “it is not unreasonable to assume that some of the tests planned for fiscal year 2009 will likely slip into subsequent fiscal years,” legislators complained in the report.  “MDA’s fiscal year 2009 test schedule reflects 13 flight tests with 77 percent of these tests scheduled for the third and fourth quarters.” The bill directs the agency to report to the congressional defense committees by Jan. 15, 2009, on its test schedule and whether any shortfalls exist that could contribute to further delays. Postponed and canceled intercept flight tests of the currently fielded system, the Ground-based Midcourse Defense, have proved particularly worrisome on Capitol Hill.  No such intercept tests were carried out in fiscal 2008, with one scheduled for July scrapped because of faulty test equipment (see GSN, Aug. 8). “We’d like to get to two [GMD intercept tests] a year,” said Lehner, noting that the objective has faced “extenuating circumstances,” such as unexpected delays in developing technology or problems with test gear.  “We conduct so few tests that we have to get the maximum amount of data … from each test that we do conduct.” When Bush withdrew from the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty in December 2001, the Missile Defense Agency said a legal barrier had been removed that would allow more GMD flight tests, Isaacs noted.  However, he said, MDA officials have not been able to achieve a more ambitious test schedule. “They said we could test much more now,” Isaacs said.  “Well, now they’ve tested less.” In a related issue, lawmakers also cited problems in producing affordable and reliable mock warheads that the agency needs as targets for testing its defense systems (see GSN, Sept. 30). “The Missile Defense Agency has renewed its focus and commitment to the target program and must continue this momentum in order to achieve optimal production and deliveries,” according to the appropriations report. To help facilitate that effort, the bill added $32 million for a “flexible family of targets to initiate an inventory buildup of critical, long-lead hardware items,” and consolidated all target funding into a single program line. Isaacs said he welcomed growing congressional interest in MDA oversight issues.  Leading up to the final conference report, both House and Senate defense appropriators “raised serious questions about management of the Missile Defense Agency,” he told GSN last week. Lehner said his agency remained untroubled by the bill’s provisions.  “There was really nothing in there that we disliked,” he said.  The Missile Defense Agency typically has “more oversight than any program in the Department of Defense,” he said, calling the level of monitoring “proper.”  MDA leaders frequently brief Capitol Hill staffs, the Government Accountability Office and various review commissions, Lehner noted. “We are striving to ensure we provide the information Congress needs to meet its oversight responsibility,” Lehner subsequently added by e-mail.  “And we want to do better.” The fiscal 2009 defense authorization conference bill, also concluded in late September, contained a number of missile defense reporting requirements.  Among them was a provision that prohibits the expenditure of funds for the deployment of missile defense installations in Europe, until host-nation agreements are ratified (see GSN, Oct. 31). The appropriations bill funded the overall European missile defense effort at $467.2 million for the fiscal year.  A portion of that budget dedicated to long-lead procurement may go forward without limitation, according to the authorization bill. An interceptor site is to be built in Poland and a midcourse radar element is to be established in the Czech Republic.  U.S. officials have said the system would help protect the United States and Europe against a potential missile threat from Iran, though Russian leaders have argued that the proposed deployments threaten their nation (see GSN, Oct. 23). The authorization bill also requires a report by the Pentagon’s test director, certifying through flight demonstrations that the European system has “a high probability of working in an operationally effective manner and the ability to accomplish the mission,” before deployment funds can be released. Isaacs termed the legislative conditions on the European missile defense system “real progress,” saying technology performance must be held to a high standard before being funded. Lehner was unconcerned, though, that the MDA reporting requirement would pose a challenging hurdle for his agency to meet. “It’s not a matter of proving anything,” he said.  Lehner noted that the proposed long-range interceptors slated for Poland use the same design as the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system deployed in California and Alaska, minus one stage of its three-stage rocket motor.  “It’s [just] a matter of demonstrating that two-stage rocket,” he said. Lehner said upcoming tests of the European-based system would include a booster demonstration next summer or fall, and a first intercept test in fiscal 2010 or 2011.  The defense agency aims to deploy the system between 2011 and 2013, he said (see related GSN story, today). Both presidential candidates have offered measured support for the European missile deployment plan.  Obama said the United States should “deploy missile defenses that would protect us and our allies … but only when the system works.”  For his part, McCain has said such missile defenses could safeguard “American forces and American allies” from “outlaw states like Iran.” The authorization bill also echoed the appropriators’ concerns about lending greater priority to near-term missile defense programs, staying on schedule for flight tests and adequately funding missile-target programs. Other missile defense-related reports required by the fiscal 2009 defense authorization bill include: — A review by the defense secretary of overall ballistic missile defense policy and strategy, due Jan. 31, 2010; — An independent study on boost-phase missile defense concepts and systems, to include the Airborne Laser and Kinetic Energy Interceptor, by the National Academy of Sciences, due 90 days after the bill’s enactment; — A separate review by the Pentagon’s test director of the Airborne Laser’s performance in testing, due Jan. 15, 2010; and a related certification by the defense secretary that the system has proven through demonstrations to be “operationally effective, suitable, survivable and affordable” before funds can be expended for a second ABL aircraft that would carry the weapon; and — A defense secretary report to the House and Senate armed services committees on the deployment of an AN/TPY-2 X-band radar to a classified location — which outside experts speculate could be Israel — before $89 million could be spent on the project. Back to top       U.S. Has “Plan B” for European Missile Defense Sites The United States has a fall-back plan for its European missile defense project should either Poland or the Czech Republic choose not to house key installations, the head of the U.S .Missile Defense Agency said Friday (see GSN, Oct. 31). The Bush administration wants to deploy 10 missile interceptors in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic.  It says the sites are needed to defend against a potential missile threat from Iran. “We always have to have a plan B,” according to Lt. Gen. Henry Obering.  “Poland and the Czech Republic are the optimum locations, but there are other choices.” He did not discuss specific alternatives, Agence France-Presse reported. Obering called on Prague to move ahead quickly with approval of its part of the plan.  The Czech government has signed off on two treaties, which are now being considered in parliament.  Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek has said lawmakers should hold off on a final decision until the next U.S. president takes office in January. Obering last week also expressed concern about the rate of progress in Warsaw. “Most of the intelligence community believes that the Iranians are going to have a capability to threaten certainly all of Europe,” he said.  “In fact, that’s something they believe could happen shortly, within the year. “And they can threaten the United States in the next five to six years,” Obering added.  “So there is an urgency to getting this schedule on.” Washington hopes to deploy the full European missile defenses between 2011 and 2013.  The sites would complement existing radar installations in Greenland and the United Kingdom, as well as missile interceptors in the United States. Obering is scheduled to leave his post in three weeks, AFP reported.  He is set to be replaced by Army Maj. Gen. Patrick O’Reilly (see GSN, March 19; Agence France-Presse, Oct. 31). Back to top       U.S. Navy Missile Defense Test Shoots One-For-Two The U.S. Navy destroyed one mock enemy ballistic missile and missed another in an interceptor test on Saturday (see GSN, June 6). In the exercise, dubbed “Fleet Exercise Pacific Blitz,” two Aegis-equipped destroyers each fired a Standard Missile 3 interceptor targeting a separate missile, according to a Navy press release. The USS Paul Hamilton targeted one of the targets fired from the Pacific Missile Range Facility at Barking Sands on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, resulting in a successful interception.  The USS Hopper successfully detected, monitored and fired at the second target, but the interceptor missed the fake weapon. Data collected from the exercise is expected to help improve the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense system, which has conducted 16 successful interceptions out of 19 attempts. “The successful engagement of ballistic missile targets from ships at sea is extraordinary,” Vice Adm. Samuel Locklear, commander of the San Diego-based Third Fleet, said in a statement.  “Pacific Blitz highlights the successful transition from developmental test flights to operational fleet execution and demonstrates the viability of the Maritime BMD Concept of Operations” (U.S. Navy release, Nov. 1). Locklear said the exercise marked the first SM-3 intercept test overseen by the Navy and not the Missile Defense Agency, the Associated Press reported (Associated Press I/Google News, Nov. 2). Meanwhile, the Japanese destroyer JDS Chokai is set to target a separating ballistic missile off of Hawaii this month, AP reported (see GSN, Sept. 23). The JDS Kongo conducted a successful interception against a target in December 2007, making Japan the first U.S. partner nation to use a ship-based weapon to destroy a medium-range missile target.  The test was performed against a nonseparating target, eliminating the need for the interceptor to identify its warhead and booster rocket (see GSN, Dec. 18, 2007). The United States has already shot down separating targets (Associated Press II/International Herald Tribune, Nov. 1). The Chokai is the second of four Japanese destroyer ships expected to be outfitted with Aegis missile defense gear, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency reported (U.S. Missile Defense Agency release, Oct. 30). Back to top       Raytheon Nets $442M for Multiple Kill Vehicle The U.S. Defense Department said Friday it had awarded defense contractor Raytheon a three-year contract worth up to $442 million to produce and test a weapon to destroy clouds of enemy missile warheads and decoys, Reuters reported (see GSN, Sept. 19). The effort is aimed at developing a U.S. capability to simultaneously destroy a number of incoming weapons that could include decoys as well as actual ballistic missiles (see related GSN story, today).  The project is expected to be finished by December 2011, the Pentagon said (Andrea Shalal-Esa, Reuters, Oct. 31). Back to top

Train With Radioactive Cargo Stopped at Serb Border Serbian authorities last week blocked a train carrying radioactive material from passing through a checkpoint at the nation’s border with Bulgaria, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Sept. 28, 2007). “Serbian Customs found radioactivity 3,000 times over permitted levels inside one of the carriages of the train and 300 times on the (outer) surface of the carriage," according to the Serbian customs agency. The train ultimately was forced to return to Bulgaria.  A statement from the customs agency did not provide additional details regarding the origin or nature of the detected material (Agence France-Presse/Spacewar.com, Nov. 3). 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.