U.S. Response:  Senate Passes Anti-Terrorism Package

The U.S. Senate Saturday passed a $318 billion defense bill that includes a $20 billion package for homeland defense.  The vote followed intense debate over a Democratic proposal to add $15 billion to the Bush administration’s request (see GSN, Dec. 6) for a homeland defense package in response to the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

Bush had threatened to veto any spending over $20 billion, and Republican senators Friday gained 50 votes in a procedure to derail the defense bill—nine more votes than necessary (see GSN, Dec. 7).  Democrats eventually agreed to a plan within Bush’s limits that shifted $6 billion from programs the president wanted to programs to enhance homeland security and aid recovery in New York and Washington.  The package also included $8.5 billion to combat bioterrorism and enhance other homeland defense programs, which was $4.1 billion more than Bush requested.

Congress already had approved $40 billion in defense funds three days after the Sept. 11 attacks, and Bush said he would consider approving more funds early next year.

“We have ensured the funding necessary to recover from the Sept. 11 attacks and to protect and defend our homeland,” Bush said after the Senate passed the bill.

Some Democrats remained critical of the funding levels, however.  “We do not seem to be able to pull together in this town for America even in this time when the people of the United States are united,” said Senator Robert Byrd (D-W.V.) (Alan Fram, Associated Press/Yahoo.com, Dec. 9).

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Iraq:  German Engineer Sent Weapons Equipment

A German mechanical engineer who allegedly facilitated illegal arms sales to Iraq has been jailed since October, according to Der Spiegel, the Agence France-Presse reported Saturday.  Prosecutors told Der Spiegel that the suspect may have already sent equipment through Jordan to Baghdad in violation of U.N. sanctions.  Officials believe that the shipped equipment included a drill to make cannon tubes which could be used to fire nuclear, biological or chemical weapons (Agence France-Presse, Dec. 8).

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South Korea:  WMD Warfare Defense Unit Planned

South Korea plans to create a new biological and chemical warfare defense command next year, officials said today.

The existing Army Chemical, Biological and Radiological Defense Command is to be reorganized, reinforced, and placed under the direct control of the Defense Ministry.  The reinforcement will consist of 200 extra personnel and a new force trained to combat terrorists using chemical or biological weapons, said Col. Chang Sang-geun, head of the ministry’s division for biological, chemical and radiological warfare.

“The new command will maintain close cooperation with police, the government and civilian organizations to thwart possible terrorist attacks ahead of the 2002 World Cup soccer finals,” Chang said (Hwang Jang-jin, Korea Herald, Dec. 10).

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U.S.-Russia I:  Senate Restores Nunn-Lugar Funding

By Kerry Boyd

Global Security Newswire

The U.S. Senate added $46 million to funding for the Cooperative Threat Reduction program this weekend, overriding a cut made by the Appropriations Committee and restoring the program to the funding level requested by the Bush administration.  The program provides assistance to dismantle and secure former Soviet facilities and weapons of mass destruction.

In an amendment offered by Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), the Senate restored the funding as part of the fiscal 2002 Defense Appropriations Act.  The appropriations bill will now go to a House-Senate conference.  The House of Representatives approved its version of the bill Nov. 28.

Restoring the funds was “clearly the right thing to do,” said Steve LaMontagne of the Council for a Livable World Education Fund.  “It’s an important program for responding to the threats posed by terrorists acquiring weapons of mass destruction, and it’s a step back in the right direction.  Hopefully these programs will be expanded and refined and better funded in 2003.”

If approved by Congress and the president, the $46 million amendment would bring the total funding for the program in fiscal 2002 to $403 million, less than the $443 million budget for fiscal 2001, according to LaMontagne, who added the measure was unlikely to face serious opposition in the House-Senate conference.

The Senate Appropriations Committee had originally recommended a $46 million reduction from the program due to “important delays which have led to large unobligated balances,” according to the Appropriations Committee report.  “Total unobligated balances available to the Cooperative Threat Reduction program exceed $700,000,000,” the report said.

Unspent balances—funds allocated in the previous year that had not been spent—are in the nature of programs that involve contracting overseas, said Jon Wolfsthal of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.  The United States employs contractors abroad and pays them after their work is completed, so unspent balances do not necessarily indicate a lack of activity, he said, adding that the committee’s cuts in the program were “irresponsible,” given the threat of terrorism.

$226 Million Added for DOE Nonproliferation Programs in Russia

The Senate also included $226 million for Energy Department nonproliferation programs in Russia in its $20 billion emergency supplemental bill attached to the defense appropriations bill (see related GSN story, today). 

The funds were approved after the Senate rejected a proposal by Senator Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) to add $286 million for Energy nonproliferation programs in Russia to the defense appropriations bill.

The Cooperative Threat Reduction program has so far helped separate 5,700 Russian nuclear warheads from missiles; dismantled many warheads and safely stored the fissile material; collected and stored over 30,000 tactical nuclear weapons and provided peaceful employment for thousands of Russian nuclear scientists (see GSN, Nov. 19), Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) said in a Washington Post editorial yesterday.  Lugar suggested the United States should expand the Nunn-Lugar program to other countries where possible.

The program could also play a key role in implementing potential agreements between Russia and the United States to reduce their nuclear stockpiles (see GSN, Nov. 14), so Congress and the White House should actually expand the program in anticipation of its future role, LaMontagne said.

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U.S.-Russia II:  Nuclear Reductions Near Codification

A U.S.-Russian agreement on reducing nuclear weapons is “just about done,” U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said yesterday en route to Moscow for meetings today with Russian President Vladimir Putin (see GSN, Nov. 28).

“All we have to do is hear a number from them and then talk through the verification and other issues,” Powell said, referring to Russia’s announced intention to indicate the number of nuclear weapons that it plans to reduce.

In November, U.S. President George W. Bush announced that the United States would reduce to between 1,700 and 2,200 deployed strategic warheads in the next 10 years (see GSN, Nov. 14).  At that time, Bush expressed reluctance to codify the announced reductions, but said, “if we need to write it down on a piece of paper, I’ll be glad to do that.”

Yesterday, a senior U.S. State Department official said, “we’re willing to do this in written form,” but added, “not necessarily a treaty.”

The agreement would probably include measures established in the first and second Strategic Arms Reduction treaties, administration officials said.  “What we don’t want to lose is the verification and notifications and other provisions of START I and some of the provisions of START II,” Powell said yesterday.  “What we will be discussing is how to bring these features forward and to codify them, formalize them [in] a document in a way that both sides find satisfactory” (Alan Sipress, Washington Post, Dec. 10).

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Smuggling:  Uranium in Bust Not Weapon-Grade

The uranium seized during the arrest of six Russian would-be smugglers was not weapon-grade, officials said Saturday (see GSN, Dec. 7).

“As far as we know, it is not weapons-grade, not highly enriched uranium,” said Russian Atomic Ministry spokesman Yuri Bespalko.  The uranium is only “tablets of nuclear fuel not more than 4 percent enriched,” Bespalko said.  “It is not dangerous for humans.”  Uranium must be 80 percent enriched before it can be used in a nuclear weapon, according to the Wall Street Journal.

There was “no evidence” that a terrorist group was trying to buy the uranium, said Interior Ministry spokesman Oleg Yelnikov.   He said that the attempted sale, for a price of $30,000, was amateurish.  “If this had been the sale of material for nuclear weapons… it would have cost hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars,” Yelnikov said (Jeanne Whalen, Wall Street Journal, Dec. 10).

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Pakistan:  Suspicion Falls on Two Scientists

Suleiman Asad and Mohammed Ali Mukhtar, two Pakistani scientists with experience working at secret nuclear facilities, have emerged as the latest focus in investigations into the possibility that Pakistani scientists assisted al-Qaeda or the Taliban in developing weapons of mass destruction capability, according to yesterday’s New York Times. 

The United States has asked Pakistani authorities to question Asad and Mukhtar, according to Pakistani reports.  The two scientists were unavailable for questioning, Pakistani officials said, because they were working on a research project in Myanmar and were not expected to return in the near future.  A spokesman said Pakistan’s Atomic Energy Commission did not want to interrupt the scientists’ work.  Other reports said that Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf had asked Myanmar to provide temporary asylum to the two scientists after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States (see GSN, Nov. 26).

In the last several weeks, Pakistani authorities have questioned several scientists, including two nuclear scientists—Sultan Bashiru-din Mehmood and Chaudry Abdul Majid—concerning their contacts with al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders (see GSN, Dec. 6).  None of the scientists had experience producing actual nuclear weapons, said U.S. officials.  Without such knowledge, they were not likely to have been useful to potential terrorists.  “If [al-Qaeda] had been handed the plans for a nuclear bomb, the worst they could have done is use them as kindling to start a fire,” said a U.S. official.

One of the two scientists, however, said during interrogation that he knew a Pakistani who had close contact with the Taliban, and U.S. officials thought the man was a weapons expert who was assisting the Taliban, said a U.S. official  (David Sanger, New York Times, Dec. 9).

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China: Nuclear Weapon Development Continues

China has been conducting nuclear weapon-related tests in recent months at its Lop Nur nuclear test site, according to U.S. intelligence agencies, the Washington Times reported Friday.  The tests are part of China’s effort to develop warheads for new ballistic missiles based on land and on submarines (see GSN, Nov.13), according to the Times.

The most recent test, in November, produced no detectable nuclear yield or blast, according to officials.  China conducted three additional tests in June and July, according to classified intelligence reports in July (Gertz/Scarborough, Washington Times, Dec. 7).

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North Korea:  U.S. Should Get Tough, Experts Say

The United States needs to take a tougher approach with North Korea in regard to nuclear inspections, wrote Henry Sokolski and Victor Gilinsky in today’s National Review Online.

North Korea’s recent decision to allow inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency to visit a nuclear research facility is a minor effort at best, according to Sokolski, the director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, and Gilinsky, an energy consultant and former U.S. nuclear regulatory commissioner.

“Never mind that the facility is so benign and minor it does not require international nuclear inspections—or that Pyongyang is allowing it only to be ‘visited’ rather than examined,” they said.

Sokolski and Gilinsky praised U.S. President George W. Bush for cracking down on the North on the issue of nuclear inspections.  This is especially vital now, because the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) is preparing to start construction on two nuclear power plants in North Korea, they said.

The North cannot get the essential nuclear equipment, however, until the IAEA can make sure North Korea is no longer attempting to build nuclear weapons.  The inspection process is expected to take at least three years after full access is allowed to North Korea’s nuclear sites, according to the IAEA.  “In other words, North Korea needs to open up to IAEA inspectors now to comply with the 1994 [nuclear power plant] deal,” the authors said. 

North Korea “will come into full compliance” with the IAEA when a “substantial portion” of the reactor deal is finished—the point the project is now expected to reach in three years.  North Korea argues with this definition, saying instead that “substantial portion” is defined only as when they have to talk about inspections.  “That doesn’t sound like the response of someone with nothing to hide,” Sokolski and Gilinsky wrote.

North Korea’s refusal to comply with IAEA inspections also brings it into violation of the deal it signed with KEDO, which stated that all parties to the reactors’ construction must abide the inspection requirements in the 1994 deal.  “KEDO’s way around this has been simply to ignore the requirement,” Sokolski and Gilinsky wrote, “and hope nobody notices.”

“All this suggests the need for a tougher approach to securing North Korea’s compliance with its Nonproliferation Treaty requirements,” wrote Sokolski and Gilinsky.  “What’s needed—and what President Bush is now calling for—is far more than what Pyongyang is offering” (Sokolski/Gilinsky, National Review, Dec. 10).

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BWC: Review Conference Collapses

The Fifth Review Conference of the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention ended Friday (see GSN, Dec. 7) with no agreements after the United States moved to end future talks on a verification protocol to the treaty.

With only an hour left to go before the three-week conference came to an end, the United States introduced a proposal to the conference's final declaration that called for an end to the Ad Hoc Group, a committee of nations that had been working on a 210-page protocol outlining enforcement measures for the convention (see GSN, Nov. 27).  “The conference takes note of the work of the Ad Hoc Group and decides that the Ad Hoc Group and its mandate are hereby terminated,” the U.S. proposal read (Associated Press/New York Times, Dec. 9).

Following the U.S. motion, the chairman decided to suspend the conference and adjourn until November rather than bring the declaration up for a vote in its current state.

The United States had appeared Thursday to be accepting of vague wording in the final declaration that would have allowed the Ad Hoc Group's mandate to continue, according to the Financial Times (Frances Williams, Financial Times, Dec. 9).  Other states had reportedly presumed that, absent a measure terminating the Ad Hoc Group, it would continue to meet and discuss a mandatory inspections regime, which the United States opposes (UN Wire, Dec. 7).

Delegates React

The final U.S proposal shocked and angered many conference delegates, according to the Financial Times.  “The U.S. was willing to let the conference fail,” said Oliver Meier of the Verification Research, Training and Information Center.  “While U.S. citizens are dying from biological weapons, even the most modest proposals to strengthen the bioweapons ban were not acceptable to Washington” (Williams, Financial Times).

“We had a kind of agreement with the United States ... to be informed of their proposals, and that one took us totally by surprise, and that was totally different from what the [European Union] wants,” said Jean Lint, head of the EU delegation.  “So for us, this was totally unacceptable,” Lint said (Emma Kirby, BBC Online, Dec. 7).

“They treated us like dirt,” said another EU delegate.  “They are liars.  In decades of multilateral negotiations, we've never experienced this kind of insulting behavior” (Sunshine Project release, Dec. 7).

The European Union said in a statement that it remains committed to “multilateral” negotiations and that the Ad Hoc Group's 1994 mandate remains “completely valid” (Richard Waddington, Reuters/Yahoo! News, Dec. 7).

U.S. Answers Critics

The Bush administration believes the enforcement and verification protocol being designed by the Ad Hoc Group would do little to stop rogue nations, such as Iraq, from obtaining biological weapons, according to a U.S. State Department official.  “If the conference had continued, there was a danger that continued negotiations would have undermined our concerted efforts to strengthen the convention,” the official said.

U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton agreed that creating a meaningful way to strengthen the convention is the most important thing.  “We believe compliance is essential for any arms control regime to be meaningful,” Bolton said.  He added that while the Bush administration is “disappointed” that an agreement could not be reached, it was better than “trying to paper over substantive disagreements with artful drafting.”

“I wish we could have continued talking, but it was obvious that we would not reach an agreement,” Bolton said.  “A cooling-off period will be a good thing” (Allen/Mufson, Washington Post, Dec. 8).

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Al-Qaeda:  Anthrax Found in Al-Qaeda Home

Samples of substances found in the Kabul home of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri tested positive for anthrax spores, according to U.S. intelligence officials, Newsweek reported yesterday.  The samples were to be retested.

U.S. operatives in Afghanistan have also discovered evidence indicating that one or more Russian scientists were helping al-Qaeda develop anthrax, and that the terrorist network might have stockpiled anthrax spores.  U.S. bombing raids destroyed most of any stockpiles, intelligence sources said.  The sources did not know how much anthrax was removed from Afghanistan, if any, they said.

The Kabul office of Pakistani scientist Sultan Bashiru-din Mehmood (see GSN, Nov. 28) also contained documents indicating an interest in anthrax (Newsweek, Dec. 9).

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Anthrax:  U.S. Military May Have Ties to Incidents

Those responsible for the recent U.S. anthrax incidents may have some connection to the U.S. military and may even be members, according to reports (see GSN, Dec. 4).

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) said Saturday that he believes it probably was someone formerly in the military who sent him a tainted letter.  Daschle said no one could say conclusively that a domestic source is responsible, but “as we look at all the possibilities, that one has the greatest degree of credibility right now” (Agence France-Presse, Dec. 9).

Scientists who worked on the U.S. biological warfare program at Fort Detrick in Maryland said they were surprised that the FBI has not done more to question them.

“That is really, really, surprising,” said I. Michael Greenberger, former head of counterterrorism at the U.S. Justice Department.  “That just takes my breath away.  This is supposed to be a no-stones-unturned investigation,” Greenberger said. “My first instinct would be to go to these guys and ask them what it’s like to make stuff like this.  Plus, they’re potential suspects, because of their experience.”

The remaining former scientists, of whom only two dozen are still living, have been waiting for the FBI to contact them about what they know or about any possible connection to the incidents, according to the Baltimore Sun.  “I’ve got the education to do it.  I live alone.  I’ve got two baths, so I could use one as a lab,” said 84-year-old James Smith, a researcher at Fort Detrick from 1943 to 1971.  “I want to be examined as a potential terrorist.”

Several scientists said the anthrax used in the incidents has no connection to the strains used for research as part of the former offensive biological warfare program in the United States (see GSN, Dec. 4).  At the time of the program, U.S. researchers used a type of anthrax called the Vollum strain.  Genetic tests have shown that the strain in the current incidents is the Ames strain, which is similar to Vollum but not identical, according to the Sun.

The anthrax culprit, however, could have learned more about making an anthrax weapon from the research conducted by the former bioweapon scientists.  Bill Walter, a former Fort Detrick scientist, said that in 1970 he spent months reading and organizing more than 6,000 papers on biological warfare research written during the 27 years of the U.S. program.

Those papers were later sent to other military facilities, Walter said.  He added that he was afraid that routine declassification might have made some of them available to whoever is behind the anthrax incidents.  “A lot of us are shook up by this declassification thing,” Walter said.  “It would give the terrorists a cookbook” (Scott Shane, Baltimore Sun, Dec. 9).

Campus Labs Examined

The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston is scheduled to be the first U.S. university laboratory inspected by the Health and Human Services Department Office of the Inspector General, the Christian Science Monitor reported today.  The inspection, planned for tomorrow, is part of a Congressional effort to examine the security of U.S. research facilities (see GSN, Nov. 27).

The UTMB is scheduled to begin construction in January of a new “level 4” laboratory—the highest biosafety designation.  It will be the first U.S. university laboratory with that level of biosafety, which allows researchers to handle the most dangerous microbes.

Only a rough estimate can be made of the number of facilities that handle anthrax samples because no inventory is kept, according to the Monitor.  About 250 laboratories are registered with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to work with “select agents,” such as Ebola, smallpox and anthrax.  Of those, it is estimated that up to 30 work with anthrax, according to the Monitor.

In order to remedy disparities between research facilities in the way they handle microbes, the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) has asked Congress to consider new safety and security measures.  The new measures would include a better tracking system, a better communications network and increased staffing, among others.  “For years and years and years, the nation did not see the need to spend money on these labs, until recently,” said APHL Executive Director Scott Becker (Kris Axtman, Christian Science Monitor, Dec. 10).

Copiers Could Conceal Clues

Since the note inside the anthrax-tainted letter sent to Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) appears to be a photocopied version of the one sent to Sen. Daschle, it may be easier to determine who mailed it, according to FBI sources.

A photocopier can leave behind a “fingerprint,” made up of the tiny scratches and bits of dirt on the copier’s glass and lens, the New York Post reported.  The FBI plans to investigate the Leahy letter for this kind of fingerprint, which could help narrow down what copier the sender used.  The information would allow investigators to focus on businesses and libraries near the homes of potential suspects, according to the Post.

Copy-making stores such as Kinko’s have become increasingly interesting due to terrorist customers, according to the Post.  The newspaper reported that several of the hijackers involved in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks made airplane reservations at a Florida Kinko’s.  Anti-abortion militant Clayton Lee Waagner, believed to be responsible for hundreds of anthrax hoax letters mailed to reproductive health clinics, was recently arrested (see GSN, Dec. 6) outside of a Kinko’s in Ohio (Brad Hunter, New York Post, Dec. 10).

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Hamas:  Bombs had “Traces of Hazardous Materials”

Two recent suicide bombings launched by the terrorist group Hamas in Israel may have involved crude chemical weapons, Israeli officials said yesterday.

A suicide bomb used in an attack in Haifa yesterday might have contained chemicals, Israeli police said.  Bomber Nimir Abu Sayfien planned to detonate two bombs at a bus stop, according to police.  The first was a small bomb strapped to Sayfien’s chest, which he was to detonate.  The second, larger, bomb was timed to explode after rescue workers arrived on the scene.  It was this second bomb that Israeli police believed to have contained chemicals, according to the London Times.

Only Sayfien was killed in the attack but eleven others were lightly injured, according to the Times.  Police shot Sayfien as he attempted to crawl over to the second bomb to trigger it after the first one detonated.  Sayfien’s failure was “truly one of the biggest miracles we have witnessed in this terrorist war,” said a policeman at the scene (McGrory/Walker, London Times, Dec. 10).

A suicide bombing last week in Jerusalem also appears to have involved a crude chemical weapon, the Israeli Health Ministry said yesterday. 

“Traces of a variety of chemical compounds” were found in the bomb’s remains, said Health Ministry Director General Boaz Lev.  “Whether this was deliberate or not, we don’t know,” Lev said.  “A variety of materials can be used.  Your imagination can lead you to anything you want and unfortunately [the bombers] have an imagination.”

The bomb appeared to be dipped in a pesticide, according to an Israeli official.  “Since 1994 we have known of a couple of incidents in which amounts of pesticides were found in the bombs,” said a police spokesman, who added that it was only “a few cases.”

Because chemical residue was found in the Jerusalem bombing, hazardous material teams are to be sent to the sites of all future bomb explosions to check for chemicals, according to an Israeli security source (Reuters/Yahoo.com, Dec. 9).

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ABM Treaty: Disagreement Remains, Powell Says

While the United States and Russia have made progress toward an agreement to reduce nuclear weapons (see related GSN story, today), little progress has been achieved in the U.S.-Russian dispute over the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, according to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell (see GSN, Nov. 29).

“There is still this disagreement with respect to our missile defense programs,” Powell told reporters en route to Moscow for a meeting today with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Increasingly the ABM Treaty constrains what the president feels we must do in order to get our missile defense systems.  We haven’t found yet a way to get through that by their accepting the testing we have to do,” Powell said (Alan Sipress, Washington Post, Dec. 10).

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Uranium Enrichment:  Urenco Seeks U.S. Plant

Urenco, a European company that supplies enriched uranium, hopes to obtain U.S. regulatory approval to build a new uranium enrichment plant in the United States, the Financial Times reported today.

Urenco, along with its partners Duke Power and Excelon, plan to apply next month for regulatory approval for construction.  New partners may be added as Urenco seeks more funding, said Urenco Chief Executive Klaus Messer.

Currently the only producer of enriched uranium in the United States is the U.S. Enrichment Corp., a government-created corporation, according to the Times.  USEC is the sole U.S. company in the U.S.-Russian HEU deal, which seeks to aid Russian nuclear disarmament through the purchase of nuclear power plant fuel made from Russian nuclear weapons materials (see GSN, Nov. 30).  Earlier this year, USEC filed an anti-dumping and countervailing duty suit against Urenco and the French company Cogema-Eurodif, the Times reported.

Excelon Chairman Corbin McNeill and Duke Executive Vice President Michael Tuckman last month wrote to U.S. President George W. Bush asking him to “reconsider [USEC’s] current monopoly status.”  McNeill and Tuckman wrote they wanted to build a new U.S. enrichment plant because the country “simply must have more than a single source of supply for enriched uranium” (Nancy Dunne, Financial Times, Dec. 10).

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