The U.S. Strategic Command, led by Gen. Kevin Chilton, hopes to expand programs to extend the lifetime of U.S. nuclear weapons (Tim Sloan/Getty Images). Military’s RRW Alternative Is Warhead Life Extension By Elaine M. Grossman Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — Convinced the time has come for an alternative to building a controversial new nuclear warhead, a key U.S. military command is laying the groundwork for Plan B:  Dramatically extending the existing stockpile’s service life, Global Security Newswire has learned (see GSN, Aug. 5)...Full Story

NSG to Informally Ban Key Nuclear Sales to India International nuclear exporters agreed informally Saturday to refrain from selling uranium enrichment or plutonium reprocessing technology to India, despite lifting a ban on nuclear trade to the South Asian state, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, Sept. 11)...Full Story

IAEA Completes Libya Investigation By Greg Webb Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — Libya received an official “all clear” today from the U.N. agency investigating the nation’s past efforts to develop a nuclear-weapon capability, ending a proliferation story that U.S. officials hope will be read closely by Iran and North Korea (see GSN, Sept. 8)...Full Story

	Friday, September 12, 2008

Military’s RRW Alternative Is Warhead Life Extension By Elaine M. Grossman Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — Convinced the time has come for an alternative to building a controversial new nuclear warhead, a key U.S. military command is laying the groundwork for Plan B:  Dramatically extending the existing stockpile’s service life, Global Security Newswire has learned (see GSN, Aug. 5). Yet this approach might also prove contentious once the details are sorted out, critics are already asserting. Officials at U.S. Strategic Command, which is responsible for nuclear combat operations, say they now want to expand “life-extension programs” under way for aging weapons in the arsenal.  Under ongoing efforts, the Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration is infusing another 20 to 30 years into warheads already three to four decades old by refurbishing and replacing aging components. Strategic Command chief Gen. Kevin Chilton had previously been among the most vocal advocates of the Reliable Replacement Warhead, and his aides said this week he continues to support it.  Under the program, the Bush administration proposes to build a new series of new weapons aimed at offering increased safety against accidents, security against potential misuse, operational reliability, and maintainability to decrease annual costs. Chilton has argued, as recently as this past spring, that design studies for the new warhead should be fully funded as a hedge against a potential discovery that the aging arsenal would not function as expected.  Ongoing life-extension efforts might be insufficient to guarantee that the warheads would work, in the absence of explosive testing, in the future, according to past statements. “We need to get on with this,” Chilton said in February (see GSN, March 6).  However, political realities are setting in. His command’s about-face comes on the heels of congressional action to eliminate the Bush administration’s requested RRW funds for the second year in a row (see GSN, July 10).  Congress has demanded that the administration spell out how such a new weapon would figure into a comprehensive nuclear deterrence strategy before lawmakers would consider funding the program. Detractors have argued that a new warhead would send the wrong message at a time when the United States has led international efforts against known or suspected nuclear weapons programs in countries such as North Korea and Iran. ‘You Do The Best You Can’ Under Strategic Command’s new approach, some of the advanced technologies previously imagined for the Reliable Replacement Warhead might now be retrofitted into existing weapons as they undergo maintenance.  The intent would be to meet as many RRW objectives as possible — principally increased safety and security — without a wholesale replacement of the warhead. The fiscal 2010 budget request, which the Bush administration could hand off to the president-elect before the end of the year, is likely to include “an effort which just says, ‘Let’s look at [doing] as much as we can technologically, without actually doing ‘RRW work,’ which Congress didn’t want to approve,” a senior Strategic Command official said during an Aug. 21 interview. Current LEP efforts are aimed at extending the service lives of the Air Force’s B-61 bomb warhead and the W-76 warhead used on the Navy Trident D-5 missile.  These initiatives focus on overhauling or replacing corroded metal parts and other aging weapons components. The Energy Department’s semiautonomous nuclear weapons arm in June 2006 delivered its first refurbished B-61 bomb to the stockpile.  The agency expects to complete work on all the B-61 Mod 7 and Mod 11 versions undergoing this limited life-extension effort before the end of fiscal 2009, according to NNSA spokesman John Broehm. Following deployed-warhead reductions in 2012, the United States would have roughly 420 B-61 Mod 7s and 35 B-61 Mod 11s, according to data compiled last year by Robert Norris of the Natural Resources Defense Council and Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists.  An estimated 2,000 W-76 warheads would undergo life extension, Kristensen also reported last year. Agency officials plan to complete the first limited overhaul of a W-76 warhead by January.  That program is to wrap up in 2022, when the entire W-76 stockpile has been refurbished. Strategic Command officials now hope to add RRW-like improvements to the menu of future LEP changes to these warheads. “You do the best you can with the weapon systems that you’ve already got fielded,” said the command official.  “And so you try to go back and retrofit those instead of building a fresher weapon.” The official, who requested anonymity because of sensitivities surrounding the discussion of U.S. nuclear weapons policy, offered an analogy drawn from everyday life. “It would be like adding a stereo to your car,” he said.  “OK, I can’t buy a new car so I’ll go buy me a stereo and put it in my car.” Similarly, “in many cases, now you can go update the avionics or the electronics that are in the weapons,” the official said.  “We had thought we were going to do this in an RRW program.  So if we won’t do it in that, then we’ll do as much as possible [on] the LEP side of the house.” As it stands, the existing LEP effort involves some amount of modernizing old parts, the official explained.  Under the revised approach, “when I do this enhancement or depot modification and maintenance, I’d [also] like to enhance security and reliability,” the official said. However, the NNSA spokesman said his organization is already doing everything possible to update nuclear warheads that undergo life extension, short of building a new weapon. “With every LEP that we do, we are always enhancing the safety and security of the weapons,” Broehm told GSN this week.  “We just won’t be able to do it [in life extension] on the scale that we were hoping to with an RRW.” Under the emerging Strategic Command concept, the lines typically drawn between congressionally mandated life extension for existing warheads and a congressionally prohibited warhead-replacement program might become more blurry, nuclear arms expert Jeffrey Lewis said last week.  As the LEP effort evolves into something more ambitious, it might trigger alarms as to whether the refurbishments entail so much change as to effectively create the very sort of “new” nuclear weapon Congress has sought to block. Reliable Replacement Warhead advocates in the administration “keep pushing that envelope just a little bit more,” said Lewis, who directs the Nuclear Strategy and Nonproliferation Initiative at the New America Foundation.  “And they’re going to keep getting their hands slapped.” Putting More Warheads Into Life Extension Strategic Command officials are also seeking life-extension programs for additional warheads in the arsenal, ones that would have simply been replaced by the Reliable Replacement Warhead if it had it gone forward. The prior “strategy was to not do LEP [for some warheads] because we were assuming we would do RRW instead,” the command official said.  “So, absent RRW, then we’ll continue to do maintenance on the existing weapon stockpile.” The official would not specify which additional warheads would immediately follow the B-61 and W-76 in life extension, saying those judgments would be left to NNSA scientists and policy officials. However, in the Air Force, next up would likely be the Minuteman 3 ICBM’s W-78 warhead, a senior service official said in an interview Wednesday.  Significant life-extension design work for the W-78, though, would not begin until around 2020, the official said. “All of them will eventually be done,” the Strategic Command official said last month, referring to the entire nuclear arsenal.  Under the 2002 Moscow Treaty, the United States is moving to a deployed stockpile of no more than 2,200 warheads by December 2012.  Schedules and cost estimates for the overhaul concept are in the works, officials said. Even without the new warhead on the drawing boards, “the intent is going to be the same,” explained the senior official.  “It’s just not going to be accomplished to the same degree that it would have been with RRW, if I go down a pure LEP path.” The NNSA spokesman said his agency still has not given up on the idea that the Reliable Replacement Warhead remains necessary and should go forward during a new U.S. administration. “I would still argue for RRW,” Broehm said.  “It would allow us to make the enhancements to a much greater degree.” ‘Little Chemistry Experiments’ Chilton has depicted the nuclear arsenal as nearing the edge of a precipice, in which U.S. officials could discover that one or more types of aging warheads have ceased to function as expected. Nuclear warheads “sitting on the shelf” are “actually little chemistry experiments that are cooking away,” the general told a Capitol Hill breakfast audience in July.  With the gradual degradation, “I sense there’s a cliff out there someplace, and I don’t know how close I am to the edge of that cliff,” he said (see GSN, July 22). Others have voiced more confidence in the ability of an LEP effort to forestall indefinitely any serious nuclear weapons degradation. “I don’t agree with the generally stated assumption that confidence and the reliability of our existing nuclear weapons will inevitably decline with time as the weapons age,” physicist and former weapons designer Richard Garwin said in March 2007 congressional testimony.  He said the science-based Stockpile Stewardship Program — an NNSA initiative that encompasses the life-extension program — has resulted in greater confidence in the viability of weapons cores, or “pits,” over time. So, too, “with the passage of time and the improvement in computing tools, I believe that confidence in the reliability of the existing legacy weapons will increase rather than diminish,” Garwin told lawmakers last year. Chilton’s command now envisions a life-extension effort for the entire arsenal simply “because they didn’t get to do Plan A,” said nuclear arms analyst Lewis, referring to the RRW program.  From the start, though, life extension “probably ought to have been Plan A,” he said. Strategic Command is expected to convey to the Energy Department’s nuclear weapons branch in the coming weeks its ideas for expanded life extension, according to the official interviewed last month. For its part, at least one of the national laboratories involved in both the RRW and LEP efforts has said it would remain agnostic. “We will pursue the course of action decided by the administration, Congress and the DOD,” the Los Alamos National Laboratory is cited as saying in a Congressional Research Service report issued last year.  “If they wish to pursue LEPs, then we’re fully committed to that path and will provide our best advice and service.” Back to top       NSG to Informally Ban Key Nuclear Sales to India International nuclear exporters agreed informally Saturday to refrain from selling uranium enrichment or plutonium reprocessing technology to India, despite lifting a ban on nuclear trade to the South Asian state, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, Sept. 11). The private understanding enabled critics among the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group to join a consensus to exempt India from the group’s trade guidelines, which bar key nuclear sales to nations that have not joined the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and do not allow international oversight of all their nuclear activities. “In the discussions about how to handle enrichment and reprocessing, it was made clear that nobody had any plans to transfer such technologies to India in the foreseeable future," a senior U.S. official told the Post. Furthermore, the group planned to formally ban such trade to non-NPT nations in the future, the official said (Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, Sept. 12). The NSG decision was the latest in a series of moves triggered by the announcement of a tentative U.S.-Indian nuclear trade deal in 2005.  Since then, lawmakers in Washington have exempted India from most U.S. nuclear nonproliferation provisions and New Delhi has reached an agreement to allow international inspectors to monitor the nation’s civilian nuclear activities. For U.S. firms to begin sales, the U.S. Congress must issue a final approval, but it might run into time restraints as its term is scheduled to expire this month.  Still, Senate leaders have promised to act quickly. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee intends to “act promptly to review the agreement in a hearing, as soon as next week,” panel Chairman Joseph Biden (D-Del.) said yesterday. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman (D-Calif.) “wants to study” the issue and the materials submitted yesterday by the White House, said spokeswoman Lynne Weil (Agence France-Presse/Spacewar.com, Sept. 11). Meanwhile, India has started to negotiate with U.S. firms to buy nuclear technology and materials, the Associated Press reported yesterday. The “government is taking steps to realize commercial cooperation with foreign partners in this field,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna.  The nation is seeking “state-of-the-art nuclear technologies and facilities” and has “already commenced a preliminary dialogue with U.S. companies in this regard,” he said (Gavin Rabinowitz, Associated Press/Google News, Sept. 11). Back to top       IAEA Completes Libya Investigation By Greg Webb Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — Libya received an official “all clear” today from the U.N. agency investigating the nation’s past efforts to develop a nuclear-weapon capability, ending a proliferation story that U.S. officials hope will be read closely by Iran and North Korea (see GSN, Sept. 8). In a report circulated to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s 35-nation governing board, agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei declared that his review is complete and that Tripoli does not pose a nuclear threat. The IAEA investigation began after Libya publicly renounced all WMD activities in 2003 and invited the agency to verify the dismantlement of its nuclear programs.  Those efforts included the purchase of key nuclear equipment and designs from an international nuclear smuggling network led by former Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan (see GSN, Aug. 11). Today, ElBaradei reported “that the issues that had been reported to the Board of Governors are no longer outstanding at this stage.”  Future agency activities in Libya would be “a routine matter” of regularly confirming the absence of undeclared nuclear activities, he added. In an apparent nudge to Iran, ElBaradei praised Libya for cooperating fully with IAEA inspectors. “Libya has also provided the agency unrestricted and prompt access, beyond that required under its safeguards agreement and Additional Protocol, to those locations, information and individuals deemed necessary by the agency to fulfill its verification requirements,” his report says. The report reveals that Khan first met with Libyan officials in 1984, substantially earlier than previously known, said proliferation expert David Albright, head of the Institute for Science and International Security. “It shows that Khan was very determined to proliferate and his best customer was Libya,” he said.  “It reinforces the idea that he was a crook and a spy to begin with.” Detailed Chronology Reported ElBaradei’s report offered the most comprehensive public account to date of Libya’s past nuclear ambitions.  Some highlights include: —Libya first became interested in uranium enrichment in the early 1980s, meeting with Khan in 1984, but decided at the time that it did not have the resources to pursue the project.  Officials nevertheless maintained occasional contact with Khan’s network for the next decade. —The Qadhafi government finally struck a deal with Khan in 1995 for Libya to purchase enrichment centrifuges, the first of which was tested in 2000.  Libya planned to purchase 10,000 advanced centrifuges, although it only succeeded in installing and testing smaller numbers of less-sophisticated machines.  Libyan officials have said that uranium was never introduced into the centrifuges. —Libya also had interest in separating plutonium and received “substantial design information” for a plant that could annually produce about 10 kilograms of plutonium, more than enough for a nuclear weapon. —The Khan network supplied Libya with nuclear-weapon design information in late 2001 or early 2002, but Tripoli apparently never acted on those documents.   “Libya does not have the necessary capabilities to design or manufacture nuclear weapons components,” ElBaradei’s report says.  “Nor did the agency find any indications of work related to nuclear weapons development.” Electronic Dissemination ElBaradei expressed concern in the report that modern communications could create additional proliferation risks. “Much of the sensitive information coming from the [Khan] network existed in electronic form, enabling easier use and dissemination.  This includes information that relates to uranium centrifuge enrichment and, more disturbing, information that relates to nuclear-weapon design,” he said.  “Clearly, this is a matter of serious concern to the agency.” Back to top       North Korean Nuclear Reversal, Leader’s Reported Health Trouble Worry U.N. Secretary General North Korea’s recent seeming reversal of its denuclearization process and reports of leader Kim Jong Il’s health crisis are a cause for serious concern, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 11). Pyongyang agreed last year to dismantle its nuclear sector in exchange for economic, diplomatic and security benefits from China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States.  Apparently frustrated by the delay in receiving one of those rewards — removal from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism — North Korea last month halted disablement activities at its Yongbyon nuclear complex and subsequently removed some equipment from storage in a possible step toward resuming operations. Reports this week indicated that Kim had suffered a stroke, raising concerns about the state of the nuclear negotiations and who would take control of the regime’s atomic arsenal should the leader die or be permanently incapacitated. Ban said he had not been able to independently verify Kim’s health status but that he was “closely following the situation,” the Associated Press reported. “I only hope that any situation happening in the D.P.R.K. should not affect negatively what has been going on in terms of [the] denuclearization process … of the Korean Peninsula as agreed by the six parties,” said Ban, former South Korean foreign minister. “I’m also concerned deeply by D.P.R.K.’s decision to go back to reassembling the nuclear facilities.  They must commit to their agreement among the six-party talks for the early realization of the denuclearization process,” he added. The nations in the six-party talks should seek further negotiations to “facilitate this ongoing process,” Ban said (Edith Lederer, Associated Press I, Sept. 11). The latest updates indicate that Kim is experiencing occasional spasms following a stroke but that he is recovering and remains in control of his government, AP reported (Jae-Soon Chang, Associated Press II/Yahoo!News, Sept. 12). Observers said Kim’s health troubles and the upcoming U.S. presidential election both pose obstacles to progress in the diplomatic effort, the Yonhap News Agency reported today. “We are already drawing up countermeasures against a variety of scenarios,” said one high-level South Korean envoy.  “The issue of (Kim’s health) is a grave concern that is certain to have a significant impact on the six-way talks.” With Kim lacking a chosen successor, the North Korean military is likely to gain power should he remain ill for an extended period, the official said.  Military officials in Pyongyang are reported to have opposed the nuclear deal. Kim might also have retreated from view ahead of an announcement that North Korea would renew its nuclear efforts, according to some experts. “There is a possibility that he is now in strategic seclusion to draw international attention before taking some unexpected action, either positive or negative,” said Kim Yong-hyun, a North Korean studies professor at Dongguk University in Seoul (Lee Chi-dong, Yonhap News Agency, Sept. 11). Back to top       Iran Denies Shipping Firm Aided Nuclear Work Iran yesterday denied that its national maritime shipping firm has assisted the country’s nuclear program, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Sept. 11). The United States this week imposed sanctions on the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines and 18 affiliates for allegedly providing logistics support to Iranian defense programs and later denying involvement.  The Treasury Department intends to freeze any U.S.-based assets held by the firm and is prohibiting commerce between U.S. citizens and the shipping company. Washington has expressed concern that Iran could tap specific nuclear capabilities it is developing to support a suspected nuclear weapons drive, but Tehran insists its efforts are aimed exclusively at power production. “This U.S. claim is like other allegations that independent countries are being accused of, without providing any evidence," the shipping firm said in a statement. "Documents issued by the Islamic republic shipping company are completely substantiated and the company does not issue falsified and forged papers as the U.S. government claims," the company continued, adding that it was a "private stock company with thousands of shareholders that carries out its economic activities completely according to international rules and regulations" (Agence France-Presse/Google News, Sept. 11) Meanwhile, U.S. Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin yesterday said the United States should not interfere if Israel decides to attack Iranian nuclear sites, the Los Angeles Times reported. A nuclear-armed Iran would be “extremely dangerous to everyone on this globe," the Alaska governor told ABC News. “We cannot second-guess the steps that Israel has to take to defend itself," Palin said (Michael Finnegan, Los Angeles Times, Sept. 12). Back to top       Russian Bombers Pose Little Threat, U.S. Navy Says The Russian nuclear-capable bombers conducting exercises in Venezuela this week pose little threat to the United States, but the Navy’s Fourth Fleet is monitoring the aircraft, the fleet’s commander said yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 11). "In my mind if the Russians flew those aircraft down to this region because of a threat from the U.S., then I think they wasted gas," Rear Adm. Joseph Kernan told the Associated Press.  "It does make us take a second look because it's something new flying in here. … We're always going to be careful about who's out there and what could potentially be a threat." The bombers are not armed with nuclear or conventional weaponry, the Russian air force said yesterday (Alexandra Olson, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Sept. 11).  They are expected to return to Russia on Monday, RIA Novosti reported (RIA Novosti, Sept. 11). The U.S. State Department yesterday reaffirmed that Washington is keeping an eye on the aircraft, Agence France-Presse reported. "It is something that we will watch very closely, as we have with the movements of other military assets for the stated purpose of this joint exercise," spokesman Sean McCormack told journalists. "These are Cold War-era assets and I will leave it to the Russians to describe their capabilities and how they might be equipped," he added (Agence France-Presse/Google News, Sept. 11). Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin suggested the bomber drill was a response to the deployment of U.S. Navy vessels in the Black Sea, AP reported.  The United States has said the ships are delivering humanitarian aid to Georgia following its military conflict with Russia last month. "God forbid from engaging in any kind of controversy in the American continent; this is considered the 'holiest of the holy,'" Putin told Western academics at his estate by the Black Sea.  "And they drive ships with weapons to a place just [six miles] from where we're at?  Is this normal?  Is this an equitable move?" (Olson, Associated Press). Back to top

Lab Errors in 2006 Sparked Fears of Anthrax Attack Laboratory errors at two Idaho hospitals on one day in 2006 led analysts to believe a single anthrax strain had infected two people from different parts of the state, triggering fears that a biological attack was unfolding, the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy reported yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 28, 2006). Follow-up analysis later proved that cells taken from the patients’ wounds had been contaminated by a benign sample of the strain then in use at both hospitals to evaluate bioterror agent detection capabilities, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in an article published in today’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. The Idaho Laboratories Bureau received one anthrax-contaminated cell culture drawn from a man’s infected hand on July 18, 2006, the same day that a Utah laboratory reported matching anthrax in a cell sample another Idaho hospital had taken from a second man’s dog bite. "The two reports resulted briefly in alerts to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and precautionary treatment of one of the patients for anthrax,” the CDC report states. “Because two possible anthrax cases had been reported on the same day, the possibility of a bioterrorist act was considered briefly,” but further tests indicated the anthrax strain was benign and made the possibility of an unfolding attack “seem less likely,” the report states. An investigation could not determine how either cell culture had been contaminated by the anthrax strain, although cells from the first man’s hand had been placed in a cabinet very recently used to store the anthrax. "This report underscores the need to use good laboratory practices to minimize cross-contamination of specimens during set up and analysis, not only when dealing with proficiency samples, but also during daily operation with patient specimens," the report states (Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy release, Sept. 11). Back to top       U.S. Team Developing Lettuce-Grown Vaccine A research team at the University of Central Florida is developing a pill-based vaccine cultivated inside lettuce plant cells that could eventually be used to protect users against plague and other potential biowarfare agents, the Orlando Sentinel reported yesterday (see GSN, March 13, 2003). If the federally funded treatment proves as successful in human trials as it has in studies using mice, it could lead to a new generation of vaccines that are less expensive, can be more quickly produced and cause fewer side effects than their existing counterparts. “What we have developed is a totally new platform; it's a revolutionary approach,” said molecular biologist Henry Daniell. “What we're seeing here is that the oral vaccine can be very effective,” he said.  “It's also a very cheap way to create a vaccine — by altering plant cells and creating a pill.  If you have to vaccinate millions of people in a bioattack, it's much easier to hand them a pill than to give out shots.” Scientists elsewhere are experimenting with vaccines based on the same idea,  drawing select genetic bacterial or viral material and cultivating it inside potatoes, lettuce or other foodstuffs. However, Harvard University microbiologist Darren Higgins warned it is difficult to select the right genetic components for such a vaccine to be both safe and effective. Daniell expressed optimism that such obstacles can be overcome, noting he and his colleagues have developed successful countermeasures against malaria and cholera in addition to their most recent research into a plague vaccine. “I am confident this platform will be validated and someday, people will have the opportunity to get cheap and effective vaccines,” he said. Results from his team’s plague vaccine study were published in the August edition of Infection and Immunity (Robyn Shelton, Orlando Sentinel/Santa Barbara News-Press, Sept. 11). Back to top       U.S. Awards $65M Botulism Treatment Contract The U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has agreed to give a California-based medical research firm $65 million over six years to develop countermeasures for a deadly bacteria-produced poison that could be tapped for a biological weapon, the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy reported yesterday (see GSN, July 30). Botulinium toxin, which attacks the nervous system, is produced by bacteria most commonly found in contaminated food and infected wounds.  However, counterterrorism experts have identified Clostridium botulinum as a likely tool for a biological attack. Xoma Ltd. could pursue a deal to supply botulinium antitoxin to the Strategic National Stockpile if its first experimental treatment passes efficacy and safety tests slated to start next year, the company said in a statement Tuesday. Xoma was among the first firms to do work for Project Bioshield, the U.S. effort to develop and acquire countermeasures for biological and other WMD agents (Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy release, Sept. 11). Back to top

U.S. Trying to Surround Russia, Lavrov Says The United States is trying to surround Russia with missile defense installations, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov claimed yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 10). Lavrov spoke during a trip to Poland, which has agreed to host 10 U.S. missile interceptors, Agence France-Presse reported.  The Bush administration also plans to install an early warning radar in the Czech Republic. Washington, though, wants “not only a third, but also a fourth and fifth region in which to station (missile shield elements) and not just close to Russia’s European borders,” Lavrov said. Leaders in Moscow have argued that the U.S. missile defense sites in Europe would be deployed with Russia in mind, while the Bush administration has said they are meant to provide defenses against nations such as Iran. “A simple military analysis proves that a U.S. base in Europe for global antimissile defense has no other, and for many years will have no other, target but Russian missiles,” Lavrov stated in a commentary in the Polish Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper.  “All objective experts understand that Iran’s missiles pose no threat to Europe and even less to the U.S.” Should Democratic Senator Barack Obama (Ill.) become the next U.S. president, the system would absolutely not go forward with the missile defense installations if they turned out to be directed at Russia, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said in attempting to reassure Lavrov. “In talks with me, Senator Obama made the realization of our (missile shield) agreement conditional on whether he will be certain that the system is not aimed against Russia,” Sikorski said during a joint press conference with Lavrov. “In a minimilitary briefing given before yesterday to Senator [and Republican presidential candidate John] McCain (Ariz.) in which I participated, I can say that what the candidate was told about the purpose of the (missile shield) system has nothing to do with Russia,” Sikorski added. “So we hope that Russian fears over this agreement will dissipate with time,” he said (Agence France-Presse I/Gulf Times, Sept. 12). Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin yesterday repeated his nation’s threat to aim missiles at Poland and the Czech Republic once the missile shield sites are in place, Reuters reported. “Our targeting of these countries will happen as soon as these missiles are brought," Putin said.  “Please do not instigate an arms race in Europe.  It is not needed.  What should we do?  Sit pretty while they deploy missiles?" (Janet McBride, Reuters/Washington Post, Sept. 12). Meanwhile, Romanian Defense Minister Teodor Melescanu said yesterday his nation would support development of a NATO missile defense system in Europe, AFP reported (see GSN, April 3). “NATO should plan for ... a missile shield to protect all European Union countries, including Bulgaria, Greece and Romania,” Melescanu said after meeting with Greek defense chief Evangelos Meimarakis in Athens. “We have discussed that (Romania) can also cooperate in such a project in the future," he said, according to a Greek Defense Ministry statement.  “In our opinion it would be best for European Union countries to have their own protection system as regards ... the possibility of problems created by third states.” Melescanu said afterward that Romania had no intention of becoming involved in the U.S. missile defense program for Europe (Agence France-Presse II/Spacewar.com, Sept. 11). Back to top

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