Disputes between IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei (above) and agency staffers could delay a report on Iran’s nuclear program (Behrouz Mehri/Getty Images). U.N. Nuclear Watchdog Could Delay Iran Nuclear Report The International Atomic Energy Agency could delay a highly anticipated report on Iran’s nuclear program because of disputes between technical staffers and agency head Mohamed ElBaradei, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Feb. 11). The report had been expected around Feb. 20, according to diplomats close to the agency.  ..Full Story

Campus Nuclear Reactors Remain Vulnerable, GAO Says U.S. congressional auditors have urged the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to boost security requirements for university-based nuclear research reactors to better protect the sites against terrorists, the New York Times reported today (see GSN, Aug. 23, 2005)...Full Story

Pakistani Nuclear Officials Abducted Masked men yesterday abducted two Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission officials in the country’s politically unstable northwest border region, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Feb. 7)...Full Story

	Tuesday, February 12, 2008

U.N. Nuclear Watchdog Could Delay Iran Nuclear Report The International Atomic Energy Agency could delay a highly anticipated report on Iran’s nuclear program because of disputes between technical staffers and agency head Mohamed ElBaradei, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Feb. 11). The report had been expected around Feb. 20, according to diplomats close to the agency.  However, consultations between ElBaradei and staff members are now expected to continue into next week. “There were disagreements between ElBaradei and his technical staff.  ElBaradei is pushing for one thing, while the people who went on a technical visit to Iran during January disagree,” said one Western diplomat. “It should now be published maybe one week later, so in the last week of February,” the diplomat added. Under a 2007 agency “work plan,” Tehran committed to resolving outstanding agency concerns about its past nuclear activities on a step-by-step basis.  The concerns — which included the discovery of weapon-grade uranium traces at a Tehran university building, Iran’s development of uranium-enriching centrifuges and its possible military use of nuclear equipment — are intended to clarify whether Iranian nuclear efforts are directed at weapons development. The work plan’s original deadline has lapsed, but ElBaradei last month agreed to give Iran a four-week extension. According to some observers, Iran has exploited ElBaradei’s desire to peacefully resolve the international standoff over Iran’s nuclear program. “I've heard that some of [ElBaradei’s] technical staff are not happy,” a second diplomat said.  “There’s a concern that most of the big issues are going to be declared as resolved when there’s still a feeling that they're anything but.” Some Western diplomats have expressed concern that Iran’s current nuclear activities have become less transparent — a point ElBaradei has acknowledged — as IAEA officials have sought to clarify the country’s nuclear history (Agence France-Presse I/Yahoo!News, Feb. 11). Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert today insisted that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. “The Iranians are moving forward with their plans to create a capacity for nonconventional weapons.  There is evidence that the plan of the Iranians is not that naive and innocent,” Olmert said after meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin. “This is a main challenge.  We can't afford to make one mistake on that issue,” he said (Agence France-Presse II/Google News, Feb. 12). Back to top       Campus Nuclear Reactors Remain Vulnerable, GAO Says U.S. congressional auditors have urged the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to boost security requirements for university-based nuclear research reactors to better protect the sites against terrorists, the New York Times reported today (see GSN, Aug. 23, 2005). Required safeguards for reactors on college campuses have undergone little revision since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, even as security measures at conventional nuclear power plants have been tightened significantly, says a report by the congressional Government Accountability Office. Campus reactors rarely operate under pressure that could cause a widespread dispersal of radioactive material long distances in an attack, according to the Times.  However, they are commonly located on university grounds where large populations could be affected by any dispersal.  Many research reactors also use highly enriched uranium that could be used in a nuclear weapon, the report says. University nuclear plants rarely incorporate fences, guard towers or other security measures installed at power reactors.  Some of the sites have installed reinforced doors and other barriers to ward off truck bombs, but unarmed campus police would probably be the first emergency responders to reach the sites in an attack, the auditors said. A terrorist attack on a university research reactor could have “significant consequences” and a “high socio-economic impact,” according to experts from the Idaho National Laboratory.  However, the GAO report says the Nuclear Regulatory Commission dismissed and misrepresented the vulnerability assessments of the experts from Idaho, along with those of the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico and the U.S. Homeland Security Department. The auditors noted questions “about whether NRC’s assessment reflects the full range of security risks and potential consequences of an attack on a research reactor.”  The commission is likely to have underestimated the vulnerability of campus reactors, the report warns, suggesting that current regulations “may need immediate strengthening.” However, the nuclear commission’s executive director said the GAO report “lacks a sound technical basis.”  Luis Reyes argued in a written rebuttal that the congressional auditors did not make a compelling case that terrorists have the “highly sophisticated methods and skills” the report claims they possess. The auditing agency “failed to acknowledge key scientific facts,” he added, without elaborating. Representative Christopher Shays (R-Conn.), the lawmaker who requested the audit, said the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is “making assumptions and wishing the threats go away.  It’s very disconcerting to me” (Matthew Wald, New York Times, Feb. 12). Back to top       Pakistani Nuclear Officials Abducted Masked men yesterday abducted two Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission officials in the country’s politically unstable northwest border region, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Feb. 7). “They were technicians from the PAEC, they were whisked away early Monday morning,” said local police chief Akbar Nasir. The assailants forced the two officials and their driver into a vehicle in the town of Sheikh Badin, Nasir said.  The town is located in Pakistan’s Dera Ismail Khan district, a stronghold for tribal militants in the region. “We don’t know if the abductors were militants or members of some criminal gang,” Nasir said.  “A search is under way, we are contacting local people. … We are all trying but so far we have no clues” (Agence France-Presse/Spacewar.com, Feb. 12). Back to top       Indian Nuclear Deal Critics Seek One-Year Delay Critics of a tentative U.S.-Indian nuclear trade agreement plan to delay the pact until a new U.S. president takes office in January 2009, a key political leader said yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 6). “We would like the government of India to initiate a comprehensive talk with the new administrative dispensation that would come to power in the United States after the coming presidential elections,” said Prakash Karat, head of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). The deal would enable India to purchase U.S. nuclear technology and materials in exchange for placing the nation’s civilian nuclear activities under international supervision. Four communist parties in India have criticized the agreement for allowing U.S. interference into Indian affairs.  The pact would begin an era of “nuclear blackmail,” Karat said. The four parties are key supporters of the government’s ruling coalition and have threatened to withdraw their support and force early elections if Prime Minister Manmohan Singh advances the deal (The Hindu, Feb. 12). U.S. officials have warned that waiting for a new president could end the deal permanently. “If this agreement is not processed in the present (U.S.) Congress, it is unlikely that this deal will be offered again to India,” U.S. Ambassador to India David Mulford said Saturday (Agence France-Presse/Spacewar.com, Feb. 12). Back to top       U.S. Expert to Check on Korean Nuclear Disablement U.S. nuclear expert Siegfried Hecker said he plans to use a trip beginning today to North Korea to determine the status of disablement of three key nuclear facilities in the Stalinist state, Kyodo News reported (see GSN, Feb. 11). Pyongyang agreed to disable its sole operating nuclear reactor and two other plants under a 2007 deal intended to ultimately close down its atomic sector.  The disablement project is nearing completion, but has been slowed by technical obstacles and reportedly North Korea’s discontent over the rewards it has received to date from the other six-party talks states (see GSN, Feb. 1). “Hopefully, I will check out the status of the disablement” of nuclear facilities at Yongbyon, Hecker, former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, said today before leaving Beijing. He said he also hoped to discuss “the future of the nuclear workers there.” Hecker is visiting North Korea as part of a team that includes a former State Department official and a Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff member, sources said.  Delegation members are looking at whether North Korea might receive support from the U.S. Cooperative Threat Reduction program, which has primarily assisted in the securing and elimination of weapons of mass destruction in former Soviet states (Kyodo News, Feb. 12). Back to top       Battle Set at U.N. Over Weapons Treaties The United States is expected to press for a fissile materials cutoff treaty this week at the United Nations, while China and Russia plan to push for a competing pact that would ban a space arms race, the Washington Times reported (see GSN, Jan. 31). The diplomatic jousting would occur in the U.N. Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, a forum that has been unable to agree on an agenda for a decade. The fissile materials ban would prohibit the production of plutonium and highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons. “We believe it is in everybody’s interests to reduce the availability of fissile materials on the streets — (first) for producing bombs, which is a disarmament measure, and (second) preventing terrorists from getting hold of it, (which is) a nonproliferation measure,” said Christina Rocca, top U.S. envoy to the conference. A Sino-Russian space arms race proposal, expected to be submitted today, is an effort to pre-empt the U.S. move on the fissile material treaty, according to State Department officials. U.S. officials believe that the 1967 Outer Space Treaty — which prohibits deployment of weapons of mass destruction in Earth’s orbit or on the Moon — provides the security sought through the Chinese-Russian plan.  However, the Bush administration is “prepared to look at new transparency and confidence-building measures,” one official said. “We put our FMCT draft forward in May 2006 and have been pushing it all along, before there was any talk of a treaty on outer space,” according to another official.  “This is just another attempt to block the FMCT.” Foreign diplomats and experts have offered an opposing take — that Washington might hope to curtail consideration of the space treaty by pushing the fissile material pact. France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States — four of the five official nuclear powers — say they have halted fissile material production.  The fifth nation, China, has made no such claim. Opposition to such a treaty is expected from China, India, Iran, Israel, Pakistan and Syria, all of which are known or suspected to operate nuclear programs, the Times reported (Kralev/Zarocostas, Washington Times, Feb. 11). Back to top       NNSA Expects Funding Boost for Radiation Detectors U.S. officials expect Congress to add funds to the Bush administration’s request for a program that installs radiation detectors at international seaports, Lloyd’s List reported yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 25). The Second Line of Defense program has completed installation or begun to deploy detectors at 20 major ports and has placed hundreds more at international border crossings, said William Tobey, deputy administrator of the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration. The Bush administration this month requested $212.6 million to fund those activities in fiscal 2009, an amount that Congress is expected to boost, Tobey said at meeting of the U.N. Conference on Disarmament in Geneva. Current year funding is at $266.8 million, he said (Lloyd’s List, Feb. 11). Back to top       U.S. Intercepts Russian Strategic Bombers The U.S. Navy scrambled fighter jets Saturday to intercept two Russian Tu-95 strategic bombers approaching a U.S. aircraft carrier in the western Pacific Ocean, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Jan. 29). One bomber twice flew about 2,000 feet over the USS Nimitz while the other circled about 58 miles away, according to a U.S. military official. The bombers were in a group of four Tu-95 aircraft that had flown the previous night from the Ukrainka Air Base.  Two of the aircraft aimed south toward the Japanese coast, where one encroached on Japanese airspace by flying over an uninhabited island south of Tokyo, according to Japanese officials. U.S. officials followed the movements of the aircraft and the Nimitz dispatched four F/A-18 Hornet fighters when two of the bombers came within about 500 miles of the carrier and the guided missile cruiser USS Princeton. The U.S. jets intercepted the Russian planes roughly 50 miles south of the Nimitz.  No fewer than two of the fighters escorted one bomber as it flew over the aircraft carrier and one or two jets trailed the second bomber as it circled from a distance.  No verbal communication took place between U.S. personnel and the Russian pilots, the U.S. official said. The U.S. Defense Department is not aware of any diplomatic protests that the United States has filed over the incident.  Such bomber exercises have not spurred diplomatic grievances in the past because they took place routinely during the Cold War. The incident was the first in which Russian bombers have buzzed or approached a U.S. aircraft carrier since 2004, AP reported (Lolita Baldor, Associated Press/Google News, Feb. 11). Russia said today it had provided advance notice of the flights to the affected nations, its bombers remained over international waters and they did not enter any country’s airspace, Reuters reported. “We are surprised by all the clamor this has raised,” RIA Novosti quoted Russian air force spokesman Alexander Drobyshevsky as saying (Reuters/International Herald Tribune, Feb. 12). Back to top

Czech Republic Pushes Missile Defense Deal Schedule The Czech Republic hopes to seal a deal to host a U.S. missile defense radar base in the next few months, the International Herald Tribune reported Sunday (see GSN, Jan. 30). “We will be ready to end the negotiations by spring,” said Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg.  “Talks are going well.  It seems we could get support from our Parliament.  I am confident the talks can be wrapped up very soon.” Czech leaders want an agreement in place before the next U.S. president is elected in November.  They worry that the new administration might be slow to pursue negotiations on the radar base or could simply eliminate plans for a European missile shield. The government also hopes to head off increases in public opposition to the site, which would house several radars roughly 50 miles from Prague. The Bush administration also wants to deploy 10 missile interceptors in Poland.  After initially appearing cool to the plan, the new administration under Prime Minister Donald Tusk seems to be moving toward agreement with Washington (see GSN, Jan. 23).  Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski said the United States appears ready to meet Warsaw’s demands for air-defense upgrades and security assurances as a prerequisite for housing the interceptors. Doubts remain among some NATO nations regarding the need for the U.S. system and for a related NATO missile shield that could cost billions of dollars, the Herald Tribune reported.  However, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said resistance is declining. “While the U.S. project goes on, NATO should also set its missile defense programs on track so that interoperability and complementarity of the systems can be achieved,” Sikorski said.  “We could not like either of them two to become hostage to the other.  Similar levels of security for all allies can be guaranteed only if the two are properly integrated.” De Hoop Scheffer said he could not “intellectually understand” Russia’s opposition to a limited number of missile interceptors, given the size of its arsenal (see GSN, Feb. 11). However, “more needs to be done to reassure Russia that the missile-defense project does not threaten her,” Sikorski said (Judy Dempsey, International Herald Tribune, Feb. 11). Back to top       U.S. Delays THAAD Interceptor Purchases The U.S. Missile Defense Agency has postponed plans to purchase missiles and fire units for the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system due to lack of funding, Inside the Army reported yesterday (see GSN, Oct. 29, 2007). “We deferred six months the missiles for THAAD fire units one and two, and we deferred fire units three and four for funding reasons,” said Dave Altwegg, the agency’s deputy operations director.  “We did not have enough money in the budget.” The U.S. Defense Department has requested $9.3 billion for the Missile Defense Agency in fiscal 2009, a small drop from $9.5 billion for this fiscal year.  The agency had originally planned to resume THAAD acquisitions in fiscal 2009 after the system successfully destroyed a mock enemy missile outside the atmosphere last October.  THAAD is the first missile defense system being developed to hit missiles of every range both within the earth’s atmosphere and in outer space. In a test of the THAAD system scheduled for this spring, officials plan to intercept a separating target in the earth’s atmosphere.  In another test tentatively planned for late 2008, two THAAD interceptors would simultaneously destroy two different types of targets. Altwegg said that tight funding levels are likely to prevent the U.S. Army from assuming its planned control of THAAD, the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system or other missile shield elements in the near future. “We are looking at that very closely and the Army has been named the lead service (on GMD),” he said.  “What hasn’t been decided is when and under what circumstances and what would comprise the system that was transferred to the Army.” Meanwhile, the Army hopes to finish upgrading all of its Patriot Advanced Capability missile defenses to PAC-3 status under its $2.3-billion “Pure Fleet” program. The service would maintain 15 PAC-3 units after the planned addition of two new firing batteries, said Army budget chief Gen. David Melcher.  The program budget would also fund the purchase of 108 new PAC-3 interceptor missiles (Marina Malenic, Inside the Army, Feb. 11). Back to top

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