CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden said yesterday that he believes Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon option (Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images). CIA Chief Doubts Iran Assessment CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden yesterday questioned his own agency’s official assessment of Iran’s nuclear ambitions, saying that he believed Tehran has a nuclear weapon program (see GSN, March 27). Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Hayden first said, “We stand by the judgment” of the intelligence community that released a consensus assessment last year judging that Iran stopped the military component of its nuclear activities in 2003. However, when asked whether he personally believed Iran was developing nuclear weapons, he replied “Yes.” “You know, this is not court of law stuff … in terms of beyond all reasonable doubt,” he said.  “This is Mike Hayden looking at the body of evidence.”..Full Story

Israeli Leader Confirms Syrian Nuclear Target Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared for the first time last month that an Israeli attack against Syria in September was intended to destroy a nuclear facility being built with North Korea cooperation, Asahi Shimbun reported today (see GSN, Feb. 22)...Full Story

U.K. Examines Security at Disease Research Labs British authorities are conducting security reviews of roughly 800 disease research laboratories, including checks on the backgrounds of the thousands of scientists who work at the facilities, the London Daily Mail reported Saturday (see GSN, Jan. 25, 2007)...Full Story

	Monday, March 31, 2008

U.S. Schools Boost Antiterror Studies U.S. universities have greatly expanding their degree offerings in homeland security and disaster response programs since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Slate.com reported Friday (see GSN, May 1, 2007). More than 200 colleges have initiated homeland security degree programs and 144 have started emergency management courses with a terrorism component. Federal funding has spurred the growth, partly as a long-term effort to fill staffing gaps at the Homeland Security Department, where one-quarter of top positions were vacant last year, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which has one-third of its jobs empty, Slate reported (Jessica Portner, Slate.com, March 28). Back to top

CIA Chief Doubts Iran Assessment CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden yesterday questioned his own agency’s official assessment of Iran’s nuclear ambitions, saying that he believed Tehran has a nuclear weapon program (see GSN, March 27). Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Hayden first said, “We stand by the judgment” of the intelligence community that released a consensus assessment last year judging that Iran stopped the military component of its nuclear activities in 2003. However, when asked whether he personally believed Iran was developing nuclear weapons, he replied “Yes.” “You know, this is not court of law stuff … in terms of beyond all reasonable doubt,” he said.  “This is Mike Hayden looking at the body of evidence.” He cited Iran’s behavior as suggestive of a nuclear weapon intention rather than any specific evidence. “Why would the Iranians be willing to pay the international tariff they appear willing to pay for what they're doing now if they did not have, at a minimum … the desire to keep the option open to, to develop a nuclear weapon,” he said.  “It's very difficult for us to judge intent, and so we have to work back from actions.” NBC host Tim Russert asked if the same kind of thinking had led to the erroneous assessment of Iraq’s WMD capabilities prior to the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. “I can hear a lot of listeners, viewers asking, ‘Well, then why did Saddam Hussein not cooperate more fully if he, in fact, did not have weapons of mass destruction?’ Sometimes, people behave in strange ways that we don't understand,” he said. “I understand,” Hayden replied.  “But, but, again, you've asked me for an assessment, you've asked me — and I can only work from the facts that I see” (“Meet the Press” transcript, March 30). Hayden’s remarks followed those of other top Bush administration officials who have recently questioned the intelligence assessment, the Los Angeles Times reported. Vice President Dick Cheney last week said Iran was “heavily involved in trying to develop nuclear weapons enrichment, the enrichment of uranium to weapon-grade levels” (see GSN, March 25). U.S. National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell said last month that he “probably would change a few things” in the report (see GSN, Feb. 6; Greg Miller, Los Angeles Times, March 31). President George W. Bush earlier this month said Iranian officials have “declared they want to have a nuclear weapon to destroy people — some in the Middle East” (see GSN, March 21).  His spokesman later acknowledged that Bush had misspoken (Greg Webb, Global Security Newswire, March 31). Meanwhile, U.S. officials have asked for details on a Swiss energy contract with Iran that could trigger U.S. sanctions against Switzerland, the Associated Press reported yesterday. The U.S. Iran Sanctions Act penalizes nations and companies that conduct certain types of deals with Iran. Washington requested a copy of the recent contract on March 17, the same day the deal was signed.  The contract, between Swiss energy trading firm EGL and the National Iranian Gas Export Co., was reported worth $28 billion to $42 billion over 25 years, AP reported (Balz Bruppacher, Associated Press/Washington Post, March 30). Back to top       Israeli Leader Confirms Syrian Nuclear Target Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared for the first time last month that an Israeli attack against Syria in September was intended to destroy a nuclear facility being built with North Korea cooperation, Asahi Shimbun reported today (see GSN, Feb. 22). The nature of the desert target has been debated in the media, but Israeli officials had remained mum, confirming only that they had conducted the attack (see GSN, Jan. 17). Olmert, however, provided the additional information during a Feb. 27 visit in Tokyo with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, according to Asahi. “While we cannot confirm the facts, the fact that such an assertion was made at an official occasion such as a summit meeting is significant, making it highly credible,” said one Japanese Foreign Ministry official (Nanae Kurashige, Asahi Shimbun, March 31). North Korean officials have consistently denied the accusation that they have proliferated nuclear technology (Xinhua, March 28). Back to top       Expert Renews Call for Nuclear Terror Prevention A prominent nuclear terror analyst yesterday reaffirmed his warning that there is a better than 50 percent chance that terrorists will explode a nuclear weapon in the next 10 years (see GSN, April 4, 2005). In a Washington Times commentary, Harvard University specialist Graham Allison urged U.S. voters to consider these risks and a set of recommendations he offered when they cast their votes in November. “Citizens must press their elected officials to adopt a clear agenda for action and then hold them accountable for following through,” he wrote. At the top of his recommendations, Allison urged nuclear-armed nations to improve security over their arsenals and their weapon-usable materials. He also urged the United States to negotiate directly with Iran to prevent the Islamic nation from advancing its uranium enrichment program.  No more domestic uranium enrichment or plutonium separation facilities should be built, Allison said, and Washington should be willing to offer security assurances to Iran as an incentive to Iran’s leadership. These steps should be started as quickly as possible, he said. “Faced with the possibility of an American Hiroshima, many Americans are paralyzed by a combination of denial and fatalism.  Either it hasn't happened, so maybe it's not going to happen; or, if it is going to happen, there's nothing we can do to stop it,” he wrote.  “Both propositions are wrong” (Graham Allison, Washington Times, March 30). Back to top       Tensions Rise Between North, South Korea North Korea yesterday said that any hint of a threat from its southern neighbor would produce a massive response against South Korea, the New York Times reported (see GSN, March 28). “Everything will be in ashes, not just a sea of fire, if our advanced pre-emptive strike once begins,” a military affairs commentator said. Pyongyang was responding to South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff head Kim Tae-young, who said that Seoul would attack North Korean nuclear weapons installations if it appeared an atomic attack was imminent. The new South Korean government under President Lee Myung-bak has taken a harder line on North Korea than its predecessor, pledging last week to cut back financial aid unless the Stalinist state gives up its atomic activities. Over the last few days,  North Korea has fired off several short-range missiles and threatened to slow the pace of work under a 2007 denuclearization deal. Kim’s statement was not meant to suggest a pre-emptive attack was looming, the South Korean Defense Ministry said (Choe Sang-Hun, New York Times, March 31). The ministry is trying “to ensure the public would not worry about” Pyongyang’s recent rhetoric and moves, a South Korean military official told the Associated Press, without elaborating (Associated Press/New York Times, March 30). News reports indicated that South Korean military aircraft have responded on 10 occasions in recent weeks to North Korean fighter jets approaching the border between the two nations, Agence France-Presse reported today. The flights have occurred since Lee’s inauguration on Feb. 25, the Chosun Ilbo reported. “It is very unusual for North Korean jet fighters to fly southward so intensively in such a short period of time as one month,” the newspaper said (Agence France-Presse I/Spacewar.com, March 31). The rhetoric between Pyongyang and Seoul is not beneficial to six-nation efforts to close down North Korea’s nuclear programs, a U.S. official said today. “Is it directly related to the six-party talks, to the six-party process?  No.  But is it helpful?  I certainly don't think so,” State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey said (Agence France-Presse II/Spacewar.com, March 31). Meanwhile, a U.S. expert said North Korea would need between six and 18 months to resume operations at its Yongbyon nuclear complex should it pull out of the six-party talks disarmament deal, the Korea Times reported yesterday.  Pyongyang has been disabling three key facilities, including its sole operating nuclear reactor, under the agreement. “North Korea will have only limited capacity for plutonium production if the country decides to break out of the six-party agreement and restart nuclear operations,” said Siegfried Hecker, former head of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.  Hecker was part of a team that visited the complex last month. Once the startup period was over, Pyongyang could each year produce enough plutonium for one nuclear weapon, he told U.S. lawmakers. It is unlikely that North Korea could save two reactors that were never completed.  “Hence, the D.P.R.K. will not be able to ramp up plutonium production over the next five to 10 years,” according to Hecker. The focus in the negotiations should be on ensuring that Pyongyang does not produce more plutonium or ship nuclear material or technology to other nations, he said. “The current situation puts is within reach of stopping plutonium production for the foreseeable future,” according to Hecker. “Whereas the U.S. should continue to press for a complete and correct declaration [of North Korea’s nuclear programs, required under the 2007 deal], it is more important to stop additional production than it is to substantiate whether the current inventory is 30 or 50 kilograms and to find out to exactly what level they developed uranium enrichment,” Hecker said (Kim Yon-se, Korea Times, March 30). Back to top       Egypt Moves Forward With Nuclear Plans Egypt sought to consolidate its place as the leader among Arab nations seeking nuclear energy capabilities by signing a deal last week with Russia, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, March 25). The agreement apparently allows Russia to bid for the construction contract for Egypt’s first nuclear reactor, a $1.5 billion to $1.8 billion plant to be built on the Mediterranean coast. However, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said the deal resulted from “difficult” negotiations, indicating that all details of the agreement are not yet known. “Western countries can be intrigued and a little concerned, even if nothing has (yet) been concluded on a commercial level,” said Antoine Basbous, head of the Arab World Observatory in Paris. A dozen Arab nations have indicated their interest in nuclear energy in order to meet growing power demands.  Along with Egypt, the nations include Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Jordan, Libya, Algeria and Morocco, AFP reported. This interest comes amid continuing concerns regarding the intent of Iran’s nuclear program (see related GSN story, today). “It’s Iran’s wish to accelerate its dubious program that has pushed Arab countries to throw themselves into the race for nuclear power,” Basbous said. International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said last month that “all the Arab countries’ nuclear activities will be under agency safeguards systems, so I don’t see why anybody should be concerned.” Egypt joined the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in 1981 and has backed efforts to make the Middle East free of nuclear weapons.  It has been critical of Israel’s presumed nuclear weapons activities. Cairo, though, has refused to sign the Additional Protocol to its IAEA safeguards agreement, which would allow for heightened checks of Egyptian nuclear sites.  The government claims that signing the protocol would force it to rely too heavily on other nations for nuclear power requirements (Alain Navarro, Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, March 27). Back to top

U.K. Examines Security at Disease Research Labs British authorities are conducting security reviews of roughly 800 disease research laboratories, including checks on the backgrounds of the thousands of scientists who work at the facilities, the London Daily Mail reported Saturday (see GSN, Jan. 25, 2007). The domestic intelligence agency MI5 and antiterrorist police are gathering information on scientists’ families, acquaintances and political stances.  The wider review involves extended examinations and drop-in inspections of sites that contain biological agents that could be used in acts of terrorism. “They are looking at very different things at the moment in terms of vetting the staff, looking at physical security and how easy it is to break into premises and the wider security issues,” Paul Logan, a biological agents official at the British Health and Safety Executive, told lawmakers last week. The agency has provided licenses to eight organizations that research deadly, highly contagious diseases for which there are no cures.  Another 340 groups have received licenses to work with dangerous but curable diseases. In total there are between 750 and 800 laboratories at hospitals, universities and other locations that handle deadly disease agents. Concern about security at British biological laboratories has increased in the wake of the 2001 anthrax attacks in the United States and a plot to spread ricin in London, the Daily Mail reported (see GSN, today and April 14, 2005; Jason Lewis, London Daily Mail, March 29). Back to top       FBI Narrows Anthrax File to U.S. Scientists The FBI has focused its investigation into the 2001 anthrax mail attacks on about four suspects, no less than three of whom are scientists connected to the U.S. Army’s biological research facility at Fort Detrick, Md., FoxNews.com reported Friday (see GSN, Oct. 3, 2007). Samples of powdered anthrax collected from letters mailed to Senators Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) were compared to anthrax produced at Fort Detrick. An e-mail exchange by some of the facility’s scientists indicated the samples matched the site’s material almost identically, according to Fox (Herridge/McCaleb, FoxNews.com, March 28). Back to top

Missile Defense Deal Approaching, Czech PM Says Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek has provided further indication that his government is prepared in coming weeks to sign a deal to host a U.S. missile defense radar system, Reuters reported today (see GSN, March 25). “I have information that hopefully the last problems have been removed in the main agreement,” he said during an interview with the Hospodarske Noviny daily. Topolanek said that while some “conditionals” remain, an announcement on the deal could come this week during a NATO summit in Romania.  The pact could be signed sometime in the next few weeks, possibly during a May 5 security conference in Prague, he said. Work continues on a second agreement regarding the status of U.S. soldiers who would staff the base, Topolanek said (Jan Lopatka, Reuters/Yahoo!News, March 31). Russia has strongly opposed the U.S. plan for missile defenses in Europe, which also calls for installation of 10 missile interceptors in Poland.  Senior U.S. officials in recent weeks have sought to address Moscow’s concerns, most recently during midlevel talks in Washington. Russian officials still hope their U.S. counterparts would consider using an existing radar in Azerbaijan rather than installing the new site in the Czech Republic, Agence France-Presse reported. “But I do believe we’re coming to a place where the two sides can agree that we’ve worked and possibly even allayed their concerns about what that site might be,” U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told the Washington Times. Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates earlier this month traveled to Moscow to discuss confidence-building measures intended to address Russian concerns about the missile shield.  The proposals include giving Russian officials some level of access to the sites and keeping the installations nonoperational until there is proof of an Iranian missile threat. “They still went to kick the tires a little bit and understand a little bit better home some of these measures might work, but I do think we’ve made a lot of progress in allaying their concerns,” Rice said.  “They’re undoubtedly not going to agree that the [European] site is a good idea.  They think there should be an alternative.  We think the site is critical” (Agence France-Presse I, March 28). Meanwhile, NATO said Thursday it expected to establish a theater missile defense system by 2010, Interfax reported.  The system would augment the U.S. elements and provide defense against short- and medium-range missiles (see GSN, Jan. 18). The NATO shield would have some level of combat ability by 2010 and be fully activated by 2015, according to the alliance’s Moscow Information Office (Interfax, March 27). NATO on Friday also publicly offered details of its proposal intended to bring Russia back into the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty, AFP reported. Russia in December said it would not participate in the pact, which limits deployment of troops and heavy military equipment in Europe.  Moscow has been frustrated by lack of movement by NATO states on ratifying an updated version of the treaty, though some observers have seen the move as a response to the U.S. missile shield plan. NATO nations have said that Russia must follow through on its agreement to remove troops from the former Soviet states of Georgia and Moldova before they ratify the conventional forces pact. The offer, first made in fall 2007, is “a package of parallel actions, which, taken together, address all of the concerns Russia has raised with regard to CFE and related issues,” NATO said.  It calls on NATO nations to make progress on treaty ratification as Russia addresses “outstanding issues” regarding troops in Georgia and Moldova .  The deal is likely to be discussed at this week’s NATO summit in Romania (Agence France-Presse II/Spacewar.com, March 28). Back to top       Missile Defenses Fully Deployed Around Tokyo The Japanese military on Saturday deployed the last of four Patriot Advanced Capability 3 systems around Tokyo, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Jan. 30). The air-defense system was set up northeast of the capital city at a base in the Ibaraki prefecture, according to Jiji Press.  Japan, with support from the United States, has been boosting its missile defense capabilities since North Korea launched a missile over the island nation in 1998.  A total of 11 PAC-3 systems are set to be deployed around the country by March 2011. The report of the latest deployment followed launches of several short-range North Korean missiles last week (see GSN, March 28).  The Japanese Defense Ministry played down the latest missile firings, saying it saw no indication that “there is an emergency significantly affecting the country’s national security.” There are also concerns in Japan about China’s aid and missile capabilities, AFP reported (Agence France-Presse/Spacewar.com, March 29). Back to top

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