U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice today expressed disappointment in Iran’s refusal to address nuclear compromise proposals in talks Saturday (Chung Sung-jun/Getty Images) Iran, World Powers Stay Deadlocked The United States, European Union and five other world powers failed to break a years-old nuclear stalemate with Iran Saturday as the Islamic state continued its refusal to halt a key nuclear activity that could support nuclear weapons development, the New York Times reported (see GSN, July 18). EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, the five permanent U.N. Security Council members and Germany urged Iran to accept a “freeze-for-freeze” proposal.  Under the arrangement, Tehran would not expand its uranium enrichment program, the world powers would suspend efforts to impose new economic penalties on the Middle Eastern state and the sides would arrange to negotiate a permanent halt to Iran’s uranium enrichment program in exchange for political and diplomatic incentives...Full Story

No Need for U.S. Nukes In Europe, Observers Say By Chris Schneidmiller Global Security Newswire BARCELONA, Spain — The United States has kept hundreds of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe long after the need for the bombs evaporated, observers argued Saturday (see GSN, June 19). “These are proliferation-prone relics of a bygone era of great power confrontation,” European Parliament member Ana Maria Gomes of Portugal said during a panel discussion on European nuclear weapons policy at the Euroscience Open Forum 2008 conference...Full Story

India Briefs IAEA, Prepares for Confidence Vote Indian officials briefed international diplomats Friday in Vienna in an effort to re-open nuclear supply lines to New Delhi that have been closed since the nation developed nuclear weapons over 30 years, Reuters reported Saturday (see GSN, July 17)...Full Story

	Monday, July 21, 2008

Scientific Skills Can Be Used For and Against Terrorism, Former Top British Official Says By Chris Schneidmiller Global Security Newswire BARCELONA, Spain — Science can be an important tool in the fight against terrorism, but it must also be viewed as a potential complement to the arsenal of the extremists themselves, a former high-level British official said Saturday (see GSN, Feb. 22, 2006). The major acts of terrorism of this decade — including the Sept. 11 attacks and bombings in London and Madrid — involved conventional means that did not require scientific expertise.  That does not exclude the possibility of more sophisticated strikes, possibly involving weapons of mass destruction, according to Richard Mottram, a career British civil servant who served as permanent secretary for intelligence, security and resilience from 2005 to 2007. “We should worry about low-probability, high-consequence actions that are plausible,” Mottram said during a press briefing at the 2008 Euroscience Open Forum here.  “The fact that a low-probability incident hasn’t happened yet doesn’t tell you anything about its likelihood of it happening in the future.” Talking to reporters and in a keynote address to the conference, Mottram addressed what he called the “awkward fact” of the involvement in terrorism of highly educated people in certain fields.  “People find this very difficult to understand.  But when you look at the sociology of terrorists, a lot of them are scientists, engineers and doctors,” Mottram said.  “This may because these are elite professionals, and terrorists disproportionately tend to be drawn from the well-educated rather than the disadvantaged and dispossessed.” The Aum Shinrikyo organization in Japan had a wealth of human resources and made determined efforts to recruit graduate-level biological, chemical, physics and engineering students, Mottram said.  The doomsday cult would become infamous worldwide for killing 19 people and injuring thousands in two separate attacks involving the nerve agent sarin, most famously the 1995 strike on the Tokyo subway system.  Ayman al-Zawahiri, a top al-Qaeda operative linked to the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, is a physician with an interest in developing biological and chemical weapons.  A Malaysian businessman with a U.S.-supplied chemistry degree has also reportedly sought to produce anthrax or other biological weapons on behalf of the terrorist group. Mottram said. Expertise does not lead directly to success when it comes to unconventional weapons, he noted.  Aum Shinrikyo failed in its attempts at biological terrorism using anthrax and botulinum toxin and its sarin stockpile would have been enough to kill 4.2 million people had it been fully deployed.  There is no indication that al-Qaeda has been able to weaponize a biological agent. While it is obvious why terrorist organizations would want to employ trained professionals with expertise that could be turned against their enemies, it is less clear why people in those sectors would want to become terrorists, Mottram said.  “It could be something in the certainties of science that attracts people who also have certainties in their political ideologies,” he said.  “I don’t know.” There is a significant risk in nations such as the United Kingdom for recruitment of university students by extremist groups, Mottram said.  One component of the global antiterrorism strategy should be to understand why people become radicalized and then striving to prevent that, he said. Even scientists working well within the scientific establishment face the risk that their work could be put to bad purposes, Mottram said (see GSN, June 14, 2005).  Research into genetic engineering has shown how pathogens can be made more lethal or be reproduced synthetically, he said.  Safeguards at facilities that work with live disease material are another issue, according to Mottram, who highlighted the accidental 2007 release of foot-and-mouth disease from a British facility (see GSN, June 25). “Inadequately regulated scientific activity and the unconstrained dissemination of scientific knowledge may significantly enhance the terrorist threat,” Mottram said.  “So we can’t have an open society with open science in the rather traditional way without running into some very, very serious risks.” The scientific and security communities must consider several issues, including the extent to which potentially dangerous research should be disseminated, whether there is need for a code of ethics and self-regulation among researchers, and whether certain biodefense activities risk violating the terms of the Biological Weapons Convention. The value of science in antiterrorism efforts is undeniable but could be a double-edged sword if governments use the technology to intrude in major ways into the lives of their citizens, Mottram said. He offered several examples of the benefits:  sensor technology and data-mining capabilities can aid in the collection of intelligence that could interrupt a terrorist plot; scientists and engineers could produce materials resistant to explosions in order to strengthen infrastructure that might become a target; social scientists can offer insight into how individuals become radicalized in hopes of staving off the process. “There are very sophisticated capabilities being developed to monitor, identify and respond to various forms of attack, whether nuclear or biological, and they are all quite clearly very, very important,” Mottram said. However, “there is the risk that scientific and technological solutions, particularly around the use of sensors and the application of information systems, could actually undermine the very free society that we’re all working to try to protect,” he added. Mottram referred to James Martin’s book The Meaning of the 21st Century, which postulated the widespread deployment of security sensors for counterterrorism and other purposes.  In such a world, 95 percent of a nation’s citizens might receive automatic security clearances that would leave them essentially free from adverse government scrutiny.  Mottram said he feared what would happen to the remaining 5 percent, roughly 3 million people in the United Kingdom. “I, for one, am not keen on the concept of either so-called necessary or unnecessary harassment by officials,” he said in his prepared statement for the conference. Risk Assessment To prevent an outcome that makes life worse for blameless individuals, there must be a proportionate assessment of the risks to a nation and their solutions, Mottram said. Terrorism is not alone among national security threats or more general dangers to the well-being of a country and its people, he said.  Nor are unconventional weapons the sure tactic of the future — the use of conventional weapons in terrorism has proven effective of achieving the goal of “revenge, renown and reaction” and is sure to continue. Terrorists have not yet proven capable of conducting a large-scale attack involving a biological, chemical, nuclear or radiological weapon.  The interest, though, remains and a major incident — or even a series of limited strikes — could be devastating symbolically or in terms of lives lost and damage done, according to Mottram. The Sept. 11 attacks focused international counterterrorism attention on al-Qaeda, but extremism is not inherently anti-Western, he said.  Consideration of the international terrorism threat would likely be considerably different had Aum Shinrikyo fulfilled its goal of killing thousands or more people using biological or chemical agents. The main threat might not even be an organization, but rather one disturbed individual with the ability to create a lethal unconventional weapon.  Policy-makers should also not assume that a nuclear-armed nation would not supply terrorists with a nuclear weapon for fear of being discovered; the potential for a strategic miscalculation is always there, Mottram said. “If you’re thinking about low-probability, high-consequence risks, it’s not at all clear that they will come from an organization such as al-Qaeda and so you shouldn’t focus too much on al-Qaeda as though it were the only issue,” Mottram said. Pandemic flu is likely to be a far greater threat to human life than an act of bioterrorism, he said.  Between 400,000 and 700,000 people could die in the United Kingdom alone during an outbreak. In the numbers game, the number of U.S. motorcycle deaths in 2003 nearly equated the total numbers of people killed in terrorist incidents in North America between 1968 and 2007. The policy emphasis must be on real dangers rather than perceived threats, Mottram said.  He acknowledged that he did not have all the answers for ensuring that outcome, but indicated that a realistic strategy would encompass anything from better security of nuclear materials to focused rather than broad-ranging intelligence efforts. “I don’t have any magical solution to these problems.  You have to balance this.  Blanket solutions are not going to work,” Mottram said.  “We need to open up a much a deeper debate about risk and … science and scientists have an important contribution to make in thinking about relative risk.” Back to top

Iran, World Powers Stay Deadlocked The United States, European Union and five other world powers failed to break a years-old nuclear stalemate with Iran Saturday as the Islamic state continued its refusal to halt a key nuclear activity that could support nuclear weapons development, the New York Times reported (see GSN, July 18). EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, the five permanent U.N. Security Council members and Germany urged Iran to accept a “freeze-for-freeze” proposal.  Under the arrangement, Tehran would not expand its uranium enrichment program, the world powers would suspend efforts to impose new economic penalties on the Middle Eastern state and the sides would arrange to negotiate a permanent halt to Iran’s uranium enrichment program in exchange for political and diplomatic incentives. However, Iranian nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili persistently avoided addressing the proposed freeze, according to the Times. “We still didn’t get the answer we were looking for,” Solana said after the talks in Geneva, adding that the freeze offer would expire in two weeks if Iran does not accept it. Still, Jalili praised the talks as a “very beautiful endeavor” and said they could lead to an outcome “beautiful to behold.” Despite the world powers’ shared backing of the freeze proposal, the side remained divided on other issues; China, Germany and Russia want to commit more time to the negotiating process while the United States wants to push for more sanctions after a two-week period.  In addition, France and the United Kingdom called for a more specific definition of what nuclear activities Iran would freeze under their proposal (Elaine Sciolino, New York Times, July 20). U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who was briefed on the talks by U.S. nuclear negotiator William Burns, today excoriated the “meandering” nature of Jalili’s input and threatened to push for new sanctions if Iran continues its “stalling tactics,” the Associated Press reported. “We expected to hear an answer from the Iranians but, as has been the case so many times with the Iranians, what came through was not serious," Rice told journalists.  "It's time for the Iranians to give a serious answer." "They can't go and stall and make small talk about culture, they have to make a decision," Rice said.  "People are tired of the Iranians and their stalling tactics." "We will see what Iran does in two weeks, but I think the diplomatic process now has a new kind of energy to it," she said.  "If they do not decide to suspend then we will be in a situation where we have to return to the Security Council." She added:  "From time to time, it is important to invigorate the diplomacy. … The fact that we went may have been a bit surprising to the Iranians, and they didn't react in a way that gave anyone any confidence. "I think we've done enough to demonstrate that the United States is serious and to assure our partners that we're serious," she said (Matthew Lee, Associated Press/Google News, July 21). Rice noted that “imminent action” on new sanctions is unlikely because August is a slow month for the U.N. body, but the Security Council members could begin formulating new penalties soon, Agence France-Presse reported (Agence France-Presse/Google News, July 21). According to Ray Takeyh, an Iran analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations, Iran might see in advantage in further holding off a compromise if Tehran believes Washington will offer new compromises, the Los Angeles Times reported. "They got Burns there this week, but in another three weeks, they may have Rice, and after that [U.S. Vice President Dick] Cheney," he said, adding that U.S. “red lines” are “purple, they're mauve, they're anything but red.” However, he suggested that Iran could eventually accept the “freeze-for-freeze” deal if Tehran decides the Bush administration would offer more compromises than the next U.S. president. Iranian political expert Saeed Leylaz said Tehran is most interested in staving off military strikes. "The main, main issue for Tehran is the security guarantee, and that is lacking," he said.  "Iranian and American problems are security problems, not diplomatic ones" (Richter/Daragahi, Los Angeles Times, July 20). In Jerusalem, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown , AFP reported. Iran now has a clear choice to make: suspend its nuclear program and accept our offer of negotiations or face growing isolation and the collective response not of just one nation but of all nations round the world," Brown said.  "Just as we have led the work on three mandatory sanctions resolutions of the U.N., the U.K. will continue to lead — with the United States and our European Union partners — in our determination to prevent an Iranian nuclear weapons program." Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that Israel “highly appreciates” the British leader’s "determination” … (on the) issue of terrorism and Iranian nuclear armament, adding that “the most serious threat for stability in the Middle East and the global peace is rooted in … Tehran.” According to a Brown spokesman, the United Kingdom could endorse “extended sanctions in some form on [Iran’s] oil and gas sector."  Other sources suggested the penalties could attempt to cut off replacement parts for Iran’s indigenous oil refining capability. "Our focus at the moment is on strengthening the sanctions regime to keep up the pressure on Iran," the spokesman said (Agence France-Presse II/Google News, July 21). Russian President Dmitry Medvedev called on Iran Friday to provide full transparency to the International Atomic Energy Agency, RIA Novosti reported. He urged Tehran to “fully cooperate with the IAEA to clarify all the remaining issues concerning the Iranian nuclear program,” according to a Kremlin statement (RIA Novosti/Nerve, July 18). Back to top       No Need for U.S. Nukes In Europe, Observers Say By Chris Schneidmiller Global Security Newswire BARCELONA, Spain — The United States has kept hundreds of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe long after the need for the bombs evaporated, observers argued Saturday (see GSN, June 19). “These are proliferation-prone relics of a bygone era of great power confrontation,” European Parliament member Ana Maria Gomes of Portugal said during a panel discussion on European nuclear weapons policy at the Euroscience Open Forum 2008 conference. Until last month, the Defense Department was believed to have roughly 350 gravity bombs at U.S. or national bases in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey and the United Kingdom.  The Federation of American Scientists reported in June that all weapons had been removed from the British Royal Air Force base at Lakenheath, leaving 150-240 on the continent (see GSN, June 26). Those are the remnants of an arsenal of thousands of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons deployed in Europe during the Cold War to stave off a potential invasion by the Soviet Union, said nuclear arms control expert Steve Fetter.  The first Bush administration in 1991 agreed to withdraw the large majority of the artillery shells, warheads and land mines; Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in turn pulled his side’s tactical nuclear weapons from Eastern Europe. President Bill Clinton in 1993, two years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, chose not to complete the withdrawal of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons from Europe, said Fetter, who was working for the administration at that time. “When we asked whether this might not be wise, others argued that our European allies were against it and that it would undermine NATO and weaken our security relationships,” according to Fetter, dean of the University of Maryland School of Public Policy.  “No plausible scenario was offered in which U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe might be useful for the defense of Europe, much less necessary for the defense of Europe.  The only [argument] offered was the vague need to guard against an uncertain future.  And, of course, there was also the symbolism attached to these nuclear weapons.” There was no hard look at what security gains might be achieved through pulling the U.S. weapons out of Europe, Fetter said. The major obstacle now to complete removal of those bombs is Turkey, said physicist James Acton, a lecturer at the War Studies Department at King’s College London. “As a matter of principle the idea of withdrawing nuclear weapons from Europe is something that an awful lot of people agree with,” he said.  “The question is to what extent does the withdrawal of nuclear weapons from Turkey make Turkey more likely to want to acquire nuclear weapons itself” as a hedge against Iran’s nuclear ambitions. There would have to be extensive discussions to assure leaders in Ankara that NATO’s defense commitment would persist once the nuclear weapons had been pulled, he said. “It’s really a very insecure time for the U.S.-Turk alliance.  Anything that gives the Turks the impression that this alliance is eroding would not be a good idea,” said panelist Bruno Tertrais, a researcher at the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris. Present and Future Nuclear Arsenals The bombs left in Europe are one example of the way in which the U.S. nuclear posture has remained static since the Cold War, Fetter argued.  While the total arsenal itself is smaller, now estimated at about 5,400 warheads, thousands of missiles remain on “hair-trigger alert” for quick use against Russia, he said. “There’s no discernible logic or strategic analysis underlying this strategic posture beyond simple inertia,” Fetter said. Gomes, a Socialist lawmaker, lamented what she characterized as the failure by the official nuclear powers to meet their obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to move toward disarmament.  The European Parliament is limited to asking questions or making statements on nuclear weapons issues, she said, acknowledging that France and the United Kingdom would quickly shut down any attempt to assert more authority regarding their arsenals. “No one pretends that Tehran or Pyongyang would have given up their decades-old plans to acquire nuclear weapons if the authorized nuclear weapons states had done more these last eight years to give up their nukes,” Gomes said.  “But one truth remains:  It is extremely difficult to stop the nuclear proliferators as long as the P-5, including [France and the United Kingdom], continue to avidly renew and improve their own arsenals, therefore reneging on the promises made in the 2000 NPT review conference and undermining the grand bargain underpinning the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.” Other panelists said, more positively, that recent pro-disarmament commentaries by former high-level U.S. and British officials have put the issue, at least as a topic of discussion, back on the table (see GSN, Feb. 26 and June 30).  They offered different levels of optimism on whether the next U.S. president would undertake significant reductions to the nation’s nuclear arsenal that might include withdrawal of the Europe-based weapons. “Both of the candidates have made very promising statements regarding nuclear weapons policies.  They both endorsed deep reductions in the number of U.S. nuclear weapons,” Fetter said.  “So I’m very optimistic.” Either man is likely to make moves that would reflect well on the United States ahead of the next review conference for the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, he said.  Fetter argued, though, that Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) might be more likely — or at least more able — to implement such a reduction than Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.).  A president seen as strong on national security has a better chance of being able to take decisive action; Democrats are perceived as being weaker on defense or concerned by that reputation, he said. Tertrais questioned whether the United States has the industrial capability to carry out a large-scale dismantlement of nuclear weapons. “There will be dismantlement bottlenecks,” he said.  “If the next administration wants to make a difference in terms of numbers it will have to increase very significantly its dismantlement capabilities.  By what margin I don’t know.” Europeans should be asking themselves how they can help the United States ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty — moving it a step closer to entry into force — and press forward with a pact to prohibit production of fissile material for weapons purposes, according to Tertrais. The price for congressional ratification of either treaty might be too high for whoever takes over the White House in January, Fetter said.  Two-thirds of the Senate must approve U.S. entry into any treaty. Instead, Fetter argued, the president should focus on matters he has more authority to control, such as the size of the nuclear arsenal and procedures for its operations.  More work also needs to be done globally to phase out weapon-usable highly enriched uranium from use in civilian nuclear facilities, to ensure that a technologically sophisticated organization does not acquire and use the material in a weapon, he added. “Highly enriched uranium is just one of those materials that give me the willies,” he said. Independent Analysis Independent analysis has proven at times to be key in changing U.S. nuclear policy, Fetter said.  He used the former proposal for the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator as one example.  The Bush administration wanted a weapon that could destroy hardened, underground facilities that might contain weapons of mass destruction.  Some lawmakers were left with the impression that such a weapon would burrow deep into the earth, causing little damage on the surface upon exploding; others believed the weapon would have a low yield that would prevent significant numbers of deaths.  Congress in 2003 requested a study from the National Academy of Sciences, which reported that the warhead would not reach beyond a few meters into the earth.  The academy committee, of which Fetter was a member, found that the weapon could kill anywhere from 100,000 to more than 1 million if detonated near a city.  The nuclear bunker buster proposal ultimately died in the face of opposition on Capitol Hill (see GSN, May 9, 2005) Acton discussed a case that he said would have benefited from a higher degree of outside scrutiny.  The British government in December 2006 issued a white paper on a replacement for the nation’s four nuclear-armed Vanguard-class submarines, which were due to begin going out of service no later than 2022.  Given that it would take 17 years to design, build and begin operations of a new vessel, the government said, a decision was needed in 2007 to ensure that there was no break in the policy of keeping one submarine deployed at all times. Parliament in early 2007 approved plans to begin designing the next class of British nuclear-armed submarines. The government rejected claims by four prominent physicists that the service lives of the submarines could be stretched past the accepted five-year extensions.  However, as important technical details were withheld from any external study, it is impossible to know who is correct or whether other issues — such as sustaining employment or the submarine-production skills base — influenced the decision, Acton said. “I think in an open democratic society that attempts to make big decisions about big issues like nuclear weapons, that is deeply unsatisfying,” he said.  “Having some sort of peer review brought to bear on these decisions involving classification would help us untangle this debate and treat these issues more openly and honestly.” Acton and Tertrais both said they did not see any problem with forming in the United Kingdom or France an independent analysis organization similar to the U.S. National Academy or the JASON group.  They said, though, that there have been no calls for such a group in either of their nations. Back to top       India Briefs IAEA, Prepares for Confidence Vote Indian officials briefed international diplomats Friday in Vienna in an effort to re-open nuclear supply lines to New Delhi that have been closed since the nation developed nuclear weapons over 30 years, Reuters reported Saturday (see GSN, July 17). The briefing by Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon sought to describe a draft agreement the nation has reached with the International Atomic Energy Agency to allow inspectors to monitor India’s civilian nuclear activities.  Menon spoke to members of the agency’s 35-nation governing board as well as representatives of the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group, which sets international nuclear trade rules. “Technical questions were posed by a number of countries and Menon addressed them all,” said a diplomat who attended the briefing.  “He stressed that this was a standard safeguards agreement under the IAEA statute.” The meeting was held on the third anniversary of the announcement a U.S.-Indian nuclear trade deal that has triggered New Delhi’s effort to receive an exemption from U.S. and international rules barring key nuclear sales to nations outside the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty regime. The United States exempted India from U.S. laws in late 2006 and the NSG nations have been waiting for a completed IAEA inspections agreement before they consider altering their rules. The IAEA board is scheduled to convene Aug. 1 to discuss approving the agency inspections agreement (Mark Heinrich, Reuters, July 18). As the international process advanced, Indian officials have been working hard to gain domestic approval as well, the Associated Press reported. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh faces a parliamentary vote of confidence tomorrow, and news agencies have predicted a very close decision.  Singh needs to win 272 votes in the nation’s lower house to keep his government intact. The Hindustan Times has estimated that Singh currently has 270 votes in support with seven undecided or abstaining.  The Times of India has polled 268 votes in support of Singh with just four undecided. Should Singh lose the vote, a new government would take power, one which would probably not pursue the nuclear deal, AP reported (Gavin Rabinowitz, Associated Press/Google News, July 21). Seeking to persuade lawmakers to oppose the deal, three Indian nuclear scientists criticized the nuclear deal in a letter Friday, Agence France-Presse reported. “Once the deal is in place, it is clear that India’s commercial interactions with the U.S., as well as with any other countries, will be firmly controlled from Washington,” says the letter by former Atomic Energy Commission Chairman P.K. Iyengar, former Atomic Energy Regulation Board head A. Gopalakrishnan, and former Bhabha Atomic Research Board chief A.N. Prasad. “The deal could have other serious repercussions, including a potential weakening of India’s nuclear deterrent and an ability to protect and promote indigenous research and development efforts in nuclear technology,” the letter adds (Agence France-Presse/Google News, July 18). Back to top       Pakistani Court Bars Khan From Media A Pakistani court today upheld the four-year-old confinement of former top Pakistani nuclear scientist and proliferator Abdul Qadeer Khan, limiting his contacts to close friends and relatives and prohibiting him from discussing the government’s role in dispersing nuclear knowledge, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, July 16). Sardar Mohammed Aslam, the presiding judge of the Islamabad High Court, ruled that Khan "will not convey, transmit, relay any comment or give interview to any channel, news reporter, print or electronic media, in any manner whatsoever in respect of issue of proliferation." Khan was placed under house arrest in 2004, after he had confessed to spreading nuclear technology and expertise to Libya, Iran and North Korea.  The judge ruled that the all of Khan’s contacts must receive a security clearance and cannot discuss his role in the proliferation activities (Sadaqat Jan, Associated Press I/Google News, July 21). However, the court permitted Khan to travel within the country to meet with relatives and to receive medical care from a physician that he chooses (Associated Press/Google News, July 21). Lawyers for the government said the gag order is necessary to prevent the international community from imposing economic penalties on Pakistan.  It remained uncertain whether Khan would appeal the verdict (Jan, AP I). Back to top       U.S. Tapped “Hardliner” for North Korean Talks The United States sent a “hardline” official to a meeting earlier this month to discuss terms for verifying North Korea’s denuclearization, raising the likelihood that the Stalinist state’s disarmament might be stalled, the Yonhap News Agency reported today (see GSN, July 18). The appearance by Patricia McNerney, principal deputy assistant secretary of state, signaled that Washington is determined to conduct snap inspections of North Korean nuclear sites, a concession that Pyongyang has not made, diplomatic sources in Seoul said. Because no talks have been arranged to address the verification terms, Washington might delay North Korea’s removal from the U.S. terror watchdog  list and Pyongyang could slow the disablement of its Yongbyon plutonium processing facility (Yonhap News Agency, July 21). U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she would stress the importance of verification during informal talks with her North Korean counterpart planned for Wednesday, Reuters reported. "I believe there will be a very strong message that the obligations need to be met and that the verification protocol really needs to be completed and that it has to be a verification protocol that can give us confidence that we are able to verify the accuracy of the North Korean declaration," she said (Jon Herskovitz, Reuters, July 21). "I wouldn't put too much weight on this meeting," she added, according to the Associated Press.  "I would not call it either historic, or monumental, or even consequential. … It's just in the consultation category" (Matthew Lee, Associated Press/Google News, July 20). According to Kim Sung-han, an international relations expert at Korea University, the Bush administration is unlikely to target possible undeclared North Korean nuclear activities during the remainder of its term “[It] is just aiming at disabling the plutonium program completely,” he said (Herskovitz, Reuters). Back to top       B-52 Crashes Near Guam, Six Crew on Board A U.S. B-52 strategic bomber crashed in the Pacific Ocean off the island of Guam today, prompting a major aerial and surface-level rescue effort that recovered two of the flight’s six passengers as of this morning, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, July 15). The plane from Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, intended as part of an ongoing bomber presence in the region, was destroyed on its way to a parade marking the anniversary of Guam’s U.S. military seizure in World War II.  Navy, Coast Guard and local fire personnel were summoned to respond to the accident, which took place at 9:45 a.m. about 30 miles from the island’s Apra Harbor. A board of military officers will examine the incident, Air Force officials said. The crash followed the Feb. 26 crash of a B-2 strategic bomber at the same base. Both crew members safely ejected from that aircraft (Jaymes Song, Associated Press/Google News, July 21). Back to top

U.S. Preparing Newport Depot for Closure The U.S. Army has been carrying out dismantlement and decontamination activities at the Newport Chemical Depot in Indiana in preparation for the site’s closure later this year, the Tribune-Star reported (see GSN, May 28). The facility is expected to close after it finishes sending off shipments of VX hydrolysate in September, and efforts to dismantle the facility could continue until 2011 (Deb Kelly, Tribune-Star, July 20). Back to top

U.S. Conducts Missile-Tracking Exercise The United States successfully tracked a simulated enemy ballistic missile Friday and relayed its course to a Ground-based Midcourse Defense firing system in Colorado, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency said (see GSN, July 16). The agency said it tracked the long-range target, which incorporated evasive signaling, with the Upgraded Early Warning Radar at Beale Air Force Base in California, sea-based X-band radar, a mobile AN/TPY-2 X-band radar in Alaska and an Aegis-equipped missile defense cruiser with SPY-1 radar. The tracking devices also sent information on the target to the Command, Control, Battle Management and Communications system as well as the U.S. Navy Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, where analysts calculated the course a Standard Missile 3 interceptor could follow to hit the simulated weapon. Personnel within the U.S. Northern Command, U.S. Pacific Command, U.S. Strategic Command and other participating groups plan to review data from the exercise — the most rigorous test so far of U.S. missile defense control systems — over the next few weeks (U.S. Missile Defense Agency release, July 18). Back to top

Texas, N.M. Teams Conduct “Dirty Bomb” Drill The Texas Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Team responded to a simulated radiological “dirty bomb” attack Thursday in a field at Carlsbad, N.M., the Carlsbad Current-Argus reported (see GSN, March 26). Fire crews arrived first at the scene of a smoldering vehicle where the bomb had been detonated in the drill’s scenario.  The National Guard unit, accompanied by some members of the New Mexico WMD-CST, took radiation measurements and attempted to control mock bystanders when secondary weapon detonated (Kyle Marksteiner, Carlsbad Current-Argus, July 18).   Back to top

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