U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates yesterday said the United States should encourage Iran to join talks on its disputed nuclear activities. Gates was a supporter of diplomatic engagement with Tehran prior to taking his current job (Alex Wong/Getty Images). U.S. Defense Chief Calls for Incentives, Pressure on Iran Defense Secretary Robert Gates yesterday called for a U.S. strategy incorporating pressure and incentives to persuade Iran to join negotiations over its disputed nuclear activities, the Washington Post reported (see GSN, May 14). "We need to figure out a way to develop some leverage … and then sit down and talk with them," Gates said.  "If there is going to be a discussion, then they need something, too. We can't go to a discussion and be completely the demander, with them not feeling that they need anything from us...Full Story

Indian Nuclear Deal Unlikely for Bush, Officials Say U.S. officials are growing increasingly skeptical that the United States and India can implement a bilateral civilian nuclear trade deal before time runs out on the Bush administration, the Wall Street Journal reported today (see GSN, May 13)...Full Story

Umatilla Destroys One-Third of Chemical Agent Stock One-third of the tonnage of chemical warfare agents stored at the Umatilla Chemical Depot in Oregon has been eliminated since disposal operations began in 2004, the U.S. Army announced Tuesday (see GSN, March 21)...Full Story

	Thursday, May 15, 2008

Weapons Information Found in Computer Left by Sister of Canadian Terrorism Suspect A laptop computer apparently abandoned by the sister of a Canadian terrorism suspect contained information on the biological toxin ricin, other potential weapons materials and establishment of an al-Qaeda base in Myanmar, the Globe and Mail reported today. Pakistan sent suspected al-Qaeda operative Abdullah Khadr to Canada in 2005.  His sister, Zaynab Khadr, voluntarily returned to Canada from Pakistan earlier that year. Canadian authorities say Zaynab Khadr left “two large metal containers” in Pakistan that in June 2005 were sent to Canada for inspection, according to court records. Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigators uncovered a hard drive containing “material dealing with bomb making, ricin, techniques of assassination, chemicals, poisons, silencers, etc.,” court records say. Also found were “some sort of military operational plan to infiltrate Burma and establish an al-Qaeda base … techniques to invade prisons, contract for immoral acts; administrative letters from (Osama bin Laden),” according to an August 2005 RCMP memo. No charges have been filed against Zaynab Khadr. “We don’t have any knowledge about the provenance of this material,” Nathan Whitling, an attorney representing the Khadr family, told the newspaper by e-mail.  “We note that no prosecution has resulted from any of this.” Abdullah Khadr reportedly told investigators that the hard drive had belonged to his father.  He said that he had asked his sister to put some of the jihadist information on the computer (Colin Freeze, Globe and Mail, May 15). Ahmed Said Khadr, father of Abdullah and Zaynab, was a friend of bin Laden and reportedly a financier for al-Qaeda.  He died during a 2003 shootout in Pakistan, Reuters reported. The Bush administration is seeking Abdullah Khadr’s extradition to the United States on charges that he provided al-Qaeda with rockets and other weapons and was involved in efforts to kill U.S. personnel in Afghanistan. Pakistan apparently received $500,000 from the United States for Abdullah Khadr’s capture in 2004, the Canadian Federal Court said this week. The United States has also detained his brother, Omar, at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.  He is the only Canadian citizen being held at the facility (Reuters/Yahoo!News, May 12). Back to top

U.S. Defense Chief Calls for Incentives, Pressure on Iran Defense Secretary Robert Gates yesterday called for a U.S. strategy incorporating pressure and incentives to persuade Iran to join negotiations over its disputed nuclear activities, the Washington Post reported (see GSN, May 14). "We need to figure out a way to develop some leverage … and then sit down and talk with them," Gates said.  "If there is going to be a discussion, then they need something, too. We can't go to a discussion and be completely the demander, with them not feeling that they need anything from us. "My personal view would be we ought to look for ways outside of government to open up the channels and get more of a flow of people back and forth," Gates told the Academy of American Diplomacy, an organization for former diplomats. Gates said a “fair number” of Iranians travel periodically to the United States.  "We ought to increase the flow the other way … of Americans" traveling to Iran, he said. “That may be the one opening that creates some space," he said.  The Bush administration has maintained that it would only negotiate with Iran if it first halts its uranium enrichment program. Prior to becoming defense secretary in 2006, Gates had been a public advocate of engagement with Tehran.  History will decide if there was a chance to connect with the Iranian leadership under former President Mohammad Khatami, who lost his position in 2005, Gates said (Karen DeYoung, Washington Post, May 15). U.S. President George W. Bush today compared calls to negotiate with Iran to the appeasement of Nazi Germany before World War II, Reuters reported. "Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along.  We have heard this foolish delusion before," Bush said in an address to Israel’s parliament. "As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared:  ‘Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.’  We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history," he said. "America stands with you in firmly opposing Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions,” he added.  "Permitting the world's leading sponsor of terror to possess the world's deadliest weapon would be an unforgivable betrayal of future generations.  For the sake of peace, the world must not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.” Bush spoke on the second day of a trip marking Israel’s 60th anniversary (Matt Spetalnick, Reuters, May 15). Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said yesterday that Israel would soon disappear, the Associated Press reported. "The Zionist (Israeli) regime is dying," said Ahmadinejad during a speech in northern Iran.  "The criminals assume that by holding celebrations … they can save the sinister Zionist regime from death and annihilation." Ahmadinejad regularly lashes out at Israel.  In 2005 he said the nation would be “wiped off the map.”  He has also said the Holocaust is a “myth.” "These are the words of a man who denies the Holocaust happened and is producing nuclear weapons while threatening Israel with extinction," Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Arye Mekel said.  "The international community has to take care of this problem to ensure that Iran never has nuclear weapons" (Ali Akbar Dareini, Associated Press /Google News, May 14). Meanwhile, the International Atomic Energy Agency has concluded three days of discussions with officials in Tehran over Iran’s nuclear program, Iran’s Islamic Republic News Agency reported today. Neither side disclosed details of the third round of talks in recent weeks between Iran and the U.N. nuclear watchdog in recent weeks, but IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei is expected to discuss their outcome this month in a report to the agency’s governing council (Islamic Republic News Agency, May 15). Elsewhere, a top U.S. intelligence official described the political backlash that followed a 2007 intelligence assessment that Iran had halted nuclear weapons development five years ago, the Los Angeles Times reported today. Key indications that Iran had discontinued the program came to light last summer, requiring late revisions to the National Intelligence Estimate that was set to conclude that Iran was still actively pursuing nuclear weapons, U.S. Deputy National Intelligence Director Thomas Fingar told the Times over a series of interviews. "This was a WMD issue in the country adjacent to Iraq," Fingar said, referring erroneous indications of Iraqi weapons programs that contributed to the U.S.-led invasion of that country.  "We wanted to get this right." The resulting report concludes “with high confidence” that Iran stopped its warhead design program in 2003.  However, it notes that Iran continues its uranium enrichment program, which can produce a key nuclear weapon ingredient.  Iran maintains it is only enriching uranium to produce nuclear power plant fuel. Still, the assessment’s release late last year undermined the case for tough action against Iran being put forward at the time the Bush administration, including a strong third round of U.N. Security Council sanctions and threats of military action.  The Security Council eventually approved a relatively mild set of penalties. Critics including John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, accused Fingar of conspiring with State Department elements to thwart the administration’s strategy on Iran. "They wanted to forestall any possible military action by the Bush administration against Iran's nuclear program," Bolton said. When Fingar was asked if he foresaw the report’s political implications, he said:  "I don't think I thought about it very much.  Maybe I should have." Fingar said the assessment focuses on the halted warhead program because it was the intelligence community’s newest significant finding at the time.  He said critics were upset that the report challenged their assumptions about Iran’s nuclear efforts. "The unhappiness with the finding — namely that the evil Iranians might be susceptible to diplomacy — adroitly turned into an ad hominem assault," Fingar said.  "Why do we have an intelligence community if all you want are cheerleaders?" (Greg Miller, Los Angeles Times, May 15). Back to top       Indian Nuclear Deal Unlikely for Bush, Officials Say U.S. officials are growing increasingly skeptical that the United States and India can implement a bilateral civilian nuclear trade deal before time runs out on the Bush administration, the Wall Street Journal reported today (see GSN, May 13). The agreement to make U.S. nuclear fuel and technology available to India has been held up for months by backers of the ruling government in New Delhi.  They have threatened to force early elections if the administration moves to implement the pact. According to U.S. State Department officials, Indian lawmakers must break the impasse and approve the agreement by next month in order for Congress to pass the deal before President George W. Bush’s term in office ends in January. India, however, might want to table the agreement until Bush’s successor takes office, U.S. officials suggested.  Such a strategy could represent a foreign policy defeat for the Bush administration. "It is not unusual as one approaches the end of an administration for foreign nations to look at proposed agreements and see a much larger benefit to concluding it under the incoming" administration, said one U.S. official who handles proliferation matters. India might conclude that working with another country might provide a more beneficial energy deal, some security experts said.  Indian-Iranian discussions last month were one indication that New Delhi might be keeping its energy options open (Solomon/Wonacott, Wall Street Journal, May 15). Back to top       Y-12 Plant Resumes W-76 Warhead Upgrades The Y-12 nuclear weapons facility in Tennessee has resumed production of parts for W-76 nuclear warheads, the Knoxville News Sentinel reported today (see GSN, Sept. 4, 2007). “Current production issues at Y-12 associated with the W-76 Life Extension Program have been resolved,” U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration spokesman Steven Wyatt said in an e-mail, referring to classified technical obstacles that delayed work for several months. The refurbishing program aims to extend the life of the warheads, which fit onto Trident submarine-launched ballistic missiles.  The program is set to meet its first milestone “late this year,” Wyatt said.  The original deadline was June 2007. Wyatt called the program “a long-term, multiyear effort,” but added that its relevance could be affected by the fate of the contested Reliable Replacement Warhead program as well as other polices addressing the size of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. The RRW program is meant to produce new warheads that could replace Cold War-era weapons.  The first to be produced would be a submarine-launched warhead. “Fielding an RRW would mean that even fewer of the W-76s would need to be refurbished because we would no longer need to keep extra weapons as a hedge against possible future technical problems,” Wyatt said (Frank Munger, Knoxville News Sentinel, May 14). Back to top       Russian President Promises Funding for Missile Force Recently inaugurated Russian President Dmitry Medvedev today promised that his nation’s military would receive sufficient funding for its nuclear missile arsenal, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, May 9). “Clearly our task in the coming years is to do everything to ensure that the strategic rocket forces receive all the necessary funding to accord with the current threat level, with the situation on today’s planet,” he said during a visit to the nuclear installation at Ivanovo. “In recent times there has been notable progress and our task is not to skimp on defense, to find the funding and carry out exercises,” Medvedev added, according to RIA Novosti and Interfax. His trip to Ivanovo included inspection of Topol-M missiles (Agence France-Presse/Spacewar.com, May 15). Back to top       Jordan Vows to be Nuclear “Model” Jordanian Prime Minister Nader Dahabi yesterday pledged that his nation would pursue civilian nuclear energy capabilities in full compliance with international standards to act as a “model” for other nations, Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported (see GSN, Sept. 20, 2007). “Jordan, a longstanding member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a signatory of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty [which] ratified as early as 1998 an Additional Protocol, will pursue the nuclear option in full compliance with relevant international treaties and legal obligations and conventions,” Dahabi said. Speaking at the start of a two-day Global Nuclear Energy Partnership meeting in Amman, Dahabi said Jordan must acquire civilian nuclear capabilities because it lacks indigenous power sources and a large water supply. The U.S. Energy Department and the recently established Jordanian Nuclear Energy Authority organized the conference of the 25-nation group (Deutsche Presse-Agentur/Monsters and Critics, May 14). Back to top

Umatilla Destroys One-Third of Chemical Agent Stock One-third of the tonnage of chemical warfare agents stored at the Umatilla Chemical Depot in Oregon has been eliminated since disposal operations began in 2004, the U.S. Army announced Tuesday (see GSN, March 21). The Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility as of last week had also destroyed 86 percent of all munitions once held at the depot.  “Most important is that this milestone was achieved safely and while protecting the environment,” Doug Hamrick, project general manager for disposal contractor Washington Defense Group, said in a press release.  “Our work force is dedicated to maintaining that standard as we work to complete our mission.” All weapons are set to be destroyed before the warfare agents, as 60 percent of the chemical stockpile at Umatilla is mustard blister agent stored in bulk containers. The disposal facility in July 2007 completed destruction of 1,014 tons of sarin and the roughly 155,500 munitions that had contained the nerve agent. Workers are about midway through the VX nerve agent incineration campaign.  To date they have eliminated 237 tons of VX contained in more than 34,500 munitions and 156 aircraft spray tanks.  Left to be destroyed are 8-inch artillery projectiles and land mines. Disposal of VX weapons is scheduled for completion early next year, according to the press release.  Following a preparation period, the disposal facility would begin incineration of mustard agent in late 2009 (U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency release, May 13). The facility halted disposal operations yesterday when part of the incinerator area became filled with smoke, the Tri-City, Wash., Herald reported.  Blocked pipes appeared to have caused the problem, which a depot spokesman said posed no threat to area residents or the environment. Officials were expected to determine today when work could resume (Franny White, Tri-City Herald, May 14). Back to top       Texas Man Faces Chemical Weapons Charge A 38-year-old Texas man faces a chemical weapons charge after being arrested Monday in Oklahoma for allegedly attempting to sell a container of cyanide to an FBI informant, the Associated Press reported. In conversations recorded by federal investigators, Jeffrey Don Detrixhe said he would sell a 25-gallon drum of the lethal agent for $10,000, a thermal imaging device and an AK-47 assault rifle, according to an FBI affidavit. The court record states that Detrixhe suggested hydrochloric acid could be used to convert the cyanide briquettes into gas. "I could kill a city with that … euthanize a whole village," he said in the recorded exchange, the affidavit says. An FBI official said that authorities seized some cyanide from Detrixhe’s home, but he declined to provide the specific amount. Detrixhe was charged with possession or transfer of a chemical weapon.  He turned down a preliminary appearance yesterday in federal district court and a judge ordered his extradition to Texas (Associated Press/Google News, May 14). Back to top       World Cup Could Face CW Threat, South Africa Says South Africa is vulnerable to an attack employing common industrial chemicals or biological agents when it hosts the soccer World Cup in 2010, Business Day reported (see GSN, May 29, 2007). Significant amounts of the world’s Cold War-era chemical weapons have been eliminated since the enactment of the Chemical Weapons Convention (see related GSN story, today); therefore they pose a smaller threat than common substances such as chlorine, said Philip Coleman, head of Protechnik, a branch of the South African state-owned defense firm Armscor.  “Where we see a greater threat is from toxic industrial chemicals” easily obtained throughout the country, Coleman said.   Protechnik and the South African military are developing plans for dealing with a possible chemical strike during the tournament, including deployment of detection equipment in stadiums and other gathering points, Coleman added (Wilson Johwa, Business Day, May 14). Back to top

U.S. House Panel Holds Back Missile Defense Money The U.S. House Armed Services Committee yesterday cut more than $370 million from the Bush administration’s fiscal 2009 budget request for development of missile defense installations in Europe, Reuters reported. The Defense Department had sought more than $710 million to begin deployment of 10 missile interceptors in Poland and an early warning radar in the Czech Republic.  The Senate Armed Services Committee supported the full amount in its version of the defense authorization bill for the budget year beginning Oct. 1.  However, House lawmakers held back $233 million in research and development funding and $140 million for construction at least until deals with both European nations can be finalized. In a letter to the ranking members of the House committee, Defense Secretary Robert Gates argued that providing the entire funding request would help push Prague and Warsaw to sign agreements on hosting the missile shield sites. Full funding would also send “a strong message to Iran that the United States and NATO are serious about developing effective missile defenses, and to Russia that there is bipartisan support for going forward with or without Moscow’s cooperation,” Gates said in his April 30 message. Bush administration officials have identified Iran as the primary threat requiring missile defenses in Europe.  Russia has objected strenuously to the plan, characterizing it as a security threat. Committee members also voted against authorizing $5 million for a study on the “feasibility and advisability” of developing space-based missile defenses, Reuters reported.  Their Senate counterparts approved the independent study. Two prior reviews have determined that such weapons would be “impractical, technically challenging and extremely expensive,” said committee member Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.). The House committee’s version of the defense bill authorizes a total of $10.2 billion for missile defense.  That is $212.6 million more than allocated for this year but $719 million below the Bush administration’s current request.  Actual funding would be provided through appropriations legislation. Senate and House lawmakers will eventually have to merge the competing versions of the authorization bill (Jim Wolf, Reuters/Yahoo!News, May 14). The Czech Foreign Ministry yesterday provided details of its radar base agreement with the United States, the Xinhua News Agency reported. Under the still-unsigned deal, Prague would maintain sovereignty over the base area and over all buildings and other fixed objects at the installation.  The United States would own the radar system itself and other mobile objects. During regular operations, roughly 100 U.S. military personnel and about 20 civilians would be posted at the site. The Czech Republic would have to sign off on any visits to the base by personnel from a third country (Xinhua News Agency, May 14). Back to top

Medical Patients Set Off Border Radiation Sensors Patients who receive medical treatment involving radiation might expect to set off detectors intended to halt passage of nuclear or radiological weapons materials between Canada and the United States, the Sherbrooke, Quebec, Record reported today (see GSN, Aug. 16, 2006). A freelance photographer for the newspaper was stopped two days after receiving a heart exam that involved a minute amount of technetium 99m. “After first checking my passport in his booth, the immigration officer asked if I had participated in any medical procedures lately,” said Gordon Alexander.  He was released 30 minutes later after inspectors checked his car again with another device. Radiation sensors held on the belts of border security personnel are not able to distinguish weapons material from radiation that might be picked up during a nuclear scan or treatment for cancer, said Eric Turcotte, head of the Molecular Imaging Center in Sherbrooke. “Most of the time, people are pleasantly surprised that we have technology so sophisticated that it can pick up on small amounts of radiation,” said Ted Woo, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection. If an alarm goes off, border personnel generally check if the driver has undergone medical treatment and then use a second, more-precise detector to ensure they are not carrying a dangerous substance. Patients can also ask their doctors for a letter explaining the situation if they anticipate crossing the U.S.-Canadian border shortly after receiving radiation or chemotherapy treatment, Turcotte said. “If they cross the border right after the test, they will get stopped,” he said.  “On the U.S. side they are very sensitive.  It’s inconvenient, but it’s a question of security” (Rita Legault, Sherbrooke Record, May 15). Back to top

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