Iran has begun testing a high-speed uranium enrichment centrifuge model at its Natanz nuclear facility (Majid Saeedi/Getty Images). Iran Tests Advanced Centrifuges Testing is under way of the advanced P-2 centrifuge at Iran’s Natanz enrichment facility, possibly opening a faster route for Tehran to enrich enough uranium that could be used in a nuclear weapon, diplomats said yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 24)...Full Story

North Korea to Receive Additional U.S. Fuel Despite delays in carrying out its denuclearization pledges, North Korea is expected to receive a second shipment of U.S. fuel oil in coming days, Agence France-Presse reported today (see GSN, Feb. 5)...Full Story

Lawmakers Accuse U.S. Nonproliferation Program of Supporting Iranian Nuclear Ambitions U.S. lawmakers have charged the Energy Department with funding Russian institutions that have provided nuclear technology to Iran, the New York Times reported today (see GSN, Jan. 24)...Full Story

	Thursday, February 7, 2008

Former Translator Faces Prison Over Iraq Documents A former U.S. translator in Iraq could serve up to 10 years in prison for taking classified documents that indicated suspected WMD storage sites and identified terrorists being sought by the Army, the New York Sun reported yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 25). Noureddine Malki was a contractor for the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division in Iraq in 2003 and 2004.  While there, he gained access to documents such as a mission analysis report containing information “so critical that you do not want the information to get into the hands of anyone without the need to know,” airborne Lt. Col. Michele Bredenkamp said Tuesday during a federal court hearing in New York City. Malki brought documents home with him in 2005 to his apartment in Brooklyn.  The final disposition of the information remains unknown, the Sun reported. Prosecutors said in one court document that the government could “establish that the defendant had an opportunity to provide stolen classified information to anticoalition forces.” Malki is believed to have received $11,500 in bribes from Sunni tribal leaders in Iraq and to have made calls to telephone numbers linked to insurgents. He is scheduled to be sentenced this spring after pleading guilty to unauthorized possession of national defense information.  While his defense attorney hopes to see him freed with time served, prosecutors are pressing a decade-long prison term. Any Army reports held by Malki “were obtained or kept unknowingly,” defense attorney Mildred Whalen said in a court filing. “I never had bad intentions whatsoever,” Malki, a native of Morocco who gained U.S. citizenship in 2000, told the Sun last year. Coalition forces have found no indications that Iraq was operating WMD programs at the time of the 2003 invasion (Joseph Goldstein, New York Sun, Feb. 6). Back to top

Iran Tests Advanced Centrifuges Testing is under way of the advanced P-2 centrifuge at Iran’s Natanz enrichment facility, possibly opening a faster route for Tehran to enrich enough uranium that could be used in a nuclear weapon, diplomats said yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 24). Technicians at the site have begun mechanical tests of the new centrifuge model, which is designed to be faster and more durable than its predecessor built in the 1970s, the P-1, Reuters reported.  “The Iranians have begun to run in the advanced model.  It's not yet known what stage the testing has reached or exactly how many there are, although it appears to be several dozen,” said a Western diplomat with intelligence access. A high-level diplomat familiar with the International Atomic Energy Agency’s findings on Iran confirmed that P-2 testing had begun.  The new centrifuges, already in use in the West, can enrich uranium two to three times faster than the older model, the diplomat said. By November 2007, Iran had 3,000 P-1 centrifuges installed at Natanz, but they have run at only about 10-percent capacity due to technical setbacks.  Iranian officials decided not to install more of the older centrifuges, instead opting to invest their resources in the new model, diplomats and analysts indicated. “On the positive side, (shifting advanced centrifuge activity) to the pilot plant at Natanz would bring the program under more international scrutiny (through IAEA inspections),” said physicist David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security. “On balance, though, I believe this is a disturbing development.  Iran appears to have made progress in secret on the P-2 and may now be close to enriching uranium with it,” the former U.N. weapons inspector said. Iran says its nuclear program is intended purely for peaceful purposes.  While Western nations have warned of the threat posed by the nuclear effort, a December U.S. intelligence assessment concluded that Iran halted its weapons program in 2003. Western diplomats have indicated that Tehran cannot free itself from international suspicions regarding its nuclear intentions unless it suspends uranium enrichment activities and signs the Additional Protocol, which would permit IAEA inspectors to conduct short-notice audits of its nuclear facilities. Iran has indicated it could increase its cooperation if international sanctions are lifted, raising questions over what steps each side should take to help resolve the nuclear standoff (Mark Heinrich, Reuters, Feb. 6). Back to top       North Korea to Receive Additional U.S. Fuel Despite delays in carrying out its denuclearization pledges, North Korea is expected to receive a second shipment of U.S. fuel oil in coming days, Agence France-Presse reported today (see GSN, Feb. 5). “We have another shipment which we are beginning to get going on this week,” U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said during a congressional hearing yesterday. China, South Korea, Russia and the United States have each shipped 50,000 metric tons of oil to North Korea as part of the continuing process to shutter its nuclear work.  North Korea, in turn, has halted operations at its Yongbyon nuclear complex and begun disabling three key facilities at the site.  However, work there has slowed, Hill said. “There is a perception among the North Koreans that they have moved faster on disablement than we have on fuel oil,” he said (Agence France-Presse I/Channelnewsasia.com, Feb. 7). Hill said, though, that “most of the agreed disablement tasks at the three core facilities have been completed,” AFP reported.  The plants include North Korea’s sole operating nuclear reactor, which is believed to have produced the plutonium used in an October 2006 nuclear test blast (Agence France-Presse II/Spacewar.com, Feb. 6). The denuclearization process has been hindered by Pyongyang’s failure to submit a full declaration of its atomic activities.  Regime leaders are “reluctant to acknowledge their activities in certain areas because they have denied that in the past,” according to Hill. “They are worried that we would take some of the acknowledgements and start peeling away and will continue to ask more and more questions,” he said. It would be up to President George W. Bush to decide how long the United States will wait for an adequate declaration, Hill said.  Washington rejected a list provided in November as insufficiently comprehensive, AFP reported. “We intend to ensure that Pyongyang lives up to the word of submitting to the Chinese chair [of the six-nation negotiations on North Korea’s nuclear program] as soon as possible a declaration that is in fact complete and correct,” Hill said (AFP I, Feb. 7). Washington hopes to receive a full account of North Korean production of separated plutonium, which could be used in nuclear weapons, Reuters reported.  Hill said the Bush administration also wants details of the standing of Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons efforts, uranium enrichment activities and nuclear cooperation with other nations. “We need to know what went on there in the past,” he said.  Hill declined to discuss during the open hearing U.S. suspicions of North Korean involvement in a suspected Syrian nuclear program (see GSN, Feb. 5). The administration is ready to consider establishing normal diplomatic relations with North Korea once the nation carries out “full denuclearization,” Hill said (Mohammed/Eckert, Reuters/Washington Post, Feb. 6). Russia hopes to see additional six-party negotiations, which also include China, Japan, the United States and both Koreas, RIA Novosti reported yesterday. “The situation is still not very promising, as the Americans are rigidly sticking to their position — they will not make compromise steps towards North Korea until there is full disclosure,” said Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov. “We know that the Americans have very strict demands on North Korea.  And since problems have arisen, they must be brought forward to be considered by all participants,” he added (RIA Novosti, Feb. 6). Back to top       Lawmakers Accuse U.S. Nonproliferation Program of Supporting Iranian Nuclear Ambitions U.S. lawmakers have charged the Energy Department with funding Russian institutions that have provided nuclear technology to Iran, the New York Times reported today (see GSN, Jan. 24). The allegation says that a U.S. program intended to employ former Soviet WMD scientists in peaceful pursuits has supported Russian efforts to build a nuclear power reactor in Iran.  U.S. officials have long opposed Moscow’s support for the project, but grudgingly accepted the arrangement after Iran promised to return the plant’s spent fuel to Russia. “We’ve got U.S. money providing assistance to help develop a reactor that we’re busy denouncing,” House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.) told the Times.  Dingell is scheduled to chair a hearing on the matter today. The Energy Department program in question, Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention, was created in 1994 to try to dissuade WMD scientists from selling their services to rogue nations. In a statement yesterday, the department rebutted Dingell’s charges and defended the program. “We are confident that none of the projects cited by the House committee, or any of the department’s scientist engagement projects with Russia, support nuclear work in Iran,” the statement said.  “We take all measures necessary to ensure that neither money nor technology falls into the hands of countries of concern.” “What we’re doing is very important to engage these scientists as part of a nonproliferation goal,” added a department official (Matthew Wald, New York Times, Feb. 7). Back to top       Pakistan Dismisses U.S. Nuclear Security Concerns Pakistan yesterday brushed off U.S. warnings that there are vulnerabilities in its nuclear security structure, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Feb. 6). Political instability in Pakistan has “not seriously threatened the military’s control of the nuclear arsenal, but vulnerabilities exist,” the U.S. intelligence community said in an annual threat assessment released Tuesday. Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammed Sadiq said the U.S. concerns are unfounded. “Pakistan's nuclear assets are safe.  There should be no cause for concern over hypothetical scenarios which have zero probability,” Sadiq said in a weekly news briefing (Agence France-Presse/Spacewar.com, Feb. 6). Meanwhile, the Pakistani Embassy in Washington has said Islamabad would not give former top nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan over for questioning by an outside country, Asian News International reported yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 31). Asia expert Selig Harrison said in a Washington Post commentary that the Pakistani nuclear proliferator could answer U.S. questions regarding North Korea’s suspected uranium enrichment capabilities.   Embassy spokesman Akram Shaheedi responded in a letter to the newspaper that Pakistan conducted a full investigation of the Khan network and disclosed its findings to the International Atomic Energy Agency. “It is unfair and offensive to malign Pakistan's leadership on such a sensitive issue as nuclear proliferation.  This analysis was built on hearsay rather than substance and the facts,” Shaheedi said (Asian News International/Daily India, Feb. 6). Back to top

Researchers Developing “T-Ray” Biosensors British and Spanish researchers are studying the potential to use a particular type of radiation for detecting biological weapons agents or explosives, the University of Bath announced this week (see GSN, Nov. 21, 2007). Anthrax and other disease agents are strong absorbers of “T-rays,” electromagnetic waves with a wavelength 500 times longer than light visible to the human eye.  Physicists have found they can guide T-rays along special “metamaterial.” “If T-rays are tightly confined on surfaces in contact with such molecules then the detection sensitivity is greatly increased,” the university said in a press release (University of Bath release, Feb. 3). Back to top

Iranian Rocket Test Draws Russian Concern Iran’s test launch of a space rocket increases concerns that Tehran could develop a nuclear weapon, a high-level Russian official said yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 4). The rocket, which Iran said it tested Monday as part of its space program, resembled the country’s Shahab 3 missile, according to Agence France-Presse.  The Shahab would be able to reach Israeli sites and U.S. bases in the Middle East within 800 to 1,000 miles. “Any movement on creating a weapon of such potential of course worries others too, and in addition, raises suspicions concerning Iran over its possible desire to create a nuclear weapon,” said Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov. “A long-range rocket is one of the components of such a weapon complex.  Of course it provokes concern,” he said, according to Interfax and RIA Novosti. The official’s comments represented a break from past Russian statements, which have frequently challenged assertions by the United States and other Western powers that Iran threatens international security and could be seeking nuclear weapon capability, AFP reported. Iran has demonstrated it can build a missile able to fly as far as 2,485 miles, said retired Russian strategic missile forces head Gen. Victor Yesin. “I wouldn’t be surprised if such missiles appear in Iran in the coming years,” Yesin said (Agence France-Presse/Middle East Times, Feb. 6). Back to top

India Might Consider U.S. Missile Defense Purchase Recent Indian military purchases could foretell the nation’s willingness to buy U.S. missile defense technology, a major defense contractor said yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 8). “I would not be surprised if over the next couple of months we begin to have some exploratory discussions with various members of the government and with Indian industry,” said Richard Kirkland, Lockheed Martin’s top official for South Asia. India has pursued some missile defense programs through indigenous technology, but an aircraft deal last week with Lockheed could open more sales opportunities, said one U.S. official. “This kind of puts us in a new environment,” said Deputy Assistant Secretary of State James Clad.  “With this sale, India is telling us it’s ready to buy top-quality U.S. equipment on its merits.” Indian officials have previously met with Lockheed representatives for technical talks on the Patriot Advanced Capability 3 missile defense system, Reuters reported (Jim Wolf, Reuters, Feb. 6). Back to top

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