U.S. Response I:  House Approves Funds to Combat Bioterrorism

The U.S. House of Representatives yesterday approved legislation 418-2 to spend more than $2.5 billion to fight biological terrorism (see GSN, Dec. 11).

The bill includes:

*         More than $1 billion for states and health care facilities to improve their response capabilities and train personnel;

*         $450 million for upgrades to facilities at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (see GSN, Dec. 12);

*         $1 billion for expansion of vaccine and medicine stockpiles;

*         $100 million to develop an emergency response plan for drinking water contamination;

*         A requirement that laboratories register in a national database if they possess one of the 36 most deadly biological agents (Associated Press/SunSpot.net, Dec. 13);

*         A provision to supply state and local health authorities with stockpiles of potassium iodide, a drug used to decrease the negative effects of radiation exposure (see GSN, Dec. 11);

*         Expansion of Energy Department programs to research rapid detection of bioterrorism agents;

*         Government authority to stop food deliveries suspected of contamination; and

*         A requirement for food processors and distributors to keep records of the source and distribution of food.

The bill does not include:

*         Liability protection for vaccine producers, although it allows the White House to negotiate liability protection with individual companies.  The Biotechnology Industry Organization has said liability protection would encourage companies to pursue vaccine research and production;

*         Assurances that the U.S. government would pay for cleanup costs if for-profit hospitals suffer contamination from a terrorist attack.  Some legislators had argued that for-profit hospitals should buy insurance like other for-profit businesses; and

*         A waiver from antitrust laws for pharmaceutical companies that wanted to work together to produce vaccines and medicine to counter potential bioterrorism agents.

The U.S. Senate has been working on a similar bill that would cost $3.2 billion, but action on the bill in the Senate has been stalled.  There are some similarities between the two bills. Both bills allow President George W. Bush to negotiate liability protection for vaccine makers. Differences remain, however, such as a Senate provision to waive antitrust laws to allow pharmaceutical companies to cooperate.  If the Senate passes its version, the House and Senate would have to reach a compromise (Jill Carroll, Wall Street Journal, Dec. 13).

The funds from both the Senate and House bills would come from the $20 billion in anti-terrorism spending that Congress has agreed to spend (Associated Press, Dec. 13).

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U.S. Response II:  House-Senate Conference Authorizes $343.3 Billion for Defense

U.S. House and Senate leaders yesterday authorized $343.3 billion for defense spending in fiscal 2002, matching President George W. Bush’s request.  The House-Senate conference on the defense authorization bill allotted $15 billion for homeland defense, including programs to defend against terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile attack.  The House and Senate are both expected to vote on the conference bill “any day now,” according to a House Armed Services Committee spokesman today.

The committee authorized $7 billion for programs in the Defense and Energy departments to combat terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.  The bill also included up to $8.3 billion for developing missile defenses and allowed the president flexibility to use $1.3 billion of those resources for anti-terrorism efforts.

“This conference report provides the largest single-year increase to defense spending since the early 1980s,” said House Armed Services Committee Chairman Bob Stump (R-Ariz.) yesterday (Stump statement, Dec. 12).

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United States:  B-1 Bomber Crashes in Indian Ocean

A U.S. Air Force B-1 bomber crashed into the Indian Ocean yesterday en route to attack targets in Afghanistan, according to Defense Department officials.  All four crew members were successfully rescued.

The B-1 went out of control and crashed 60 miles north of the Diego Garcia island base soon after takeoff, according to the Washington Post.  “There were multiple aircraft system malfunctions which made it impossible to fly the aircraft,” said pilot Capt. William Steele.  The crew attempted for 15 minutes to return the plane to Diego Garcia before deciding to eject, Steele said.

The crew bailed out of the plane at 15,000 feet and was rescued by the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Russell two hours later, the Post reported.  The B-1 is the first manned, fixed-wing aircraft lost during the war in Afghanistan (Steve Vogel, Washington Post, Dec. 13).

Enemy fire did not cause the malfunctions on the plane, Steele said.  He added that the crew suffered only minor injuries when they ejected.  “I will say that going through an ejection like that is about the most violent thing I’ve ever felt,” Steele said.  “We’re all pretty bruised up and have some cuts, but overall we’re doing very well” (Federal News Service transcript, Dec. 12).

There are about 90 B-1s in service, according to a U.S. Air Force data sheet (see GSN, Dec. 7).  The bomber, first designed for nuclear missions, can reach heights of 30,000 feet and travel faster than 900 miles per hour.  The B-1 carries about 80 500-pound conventional bombs but can be fitted for nuclear weapons. Each plane costs more than $200 million, according to the New York Times (David Stout, New York Times, Dec. 13).

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United Kingdom:  Submarines Will Get New Reactor Cores

The United Kingdom and Rolls-Royce signed a contract worth more than $550 million to provide new reactor cores for British nuclear submarines, the London Press Association reported Monday.

Under the contract, Rolls-Royce will conduct extensive testing on the reactor cores, which are to power submarines for their entire 25-year lifespans.  The cores will be installed in Trident submarines—which are equipped with nuclear-armed ballistic missiles—during their first refit, according to the Press Association.  New Astute-class submarines, equipped with conventional weapons, will also be built with the new cores.

“This new reactor core is a considerable technical achievement by [British] scientists in the [Ministry of Defense] and in Rolls-Royce Naval Marine,” said Defense Ministry official Lewis Moonie.  “This will add new flexibility to the operating and maintenance cycles of both our attack and strategic missile submarines” (Joe Quinn, London Press Association, Dec. 10, in FBIS-WEU, Dec. 10).

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North Korea:  Lift Economic Sanctions, Expert Says

The United States should lift economic sanctions against North Korea, said Daniel Pinkston of the Monterey Institute of International Studies, according to today’s Korea Times.  Current agreements between the two countries are insufficient to truly improve relations, and the two countries should increase exchanges, particularly through economic engagement, he said, adding that such interaction could help North Korea improve economically and support the Agreed Framework, which the countries signed in 1994.

North Korea could open its economy, refurbish its power grid and take steps to increase cooperation against terrorism in order to improve cooperation, Pinkston said.

North Korea agreed in 1994 to freeze its nuclear program in exchange for a U.S. program to build two light-water nuclear reactors in North Korea.  The agreement was significant, but none of the parties involved—including South Korea and Japan—seem satisfied with it, Pinkston said.  Countries needed to plan beyond the agreement and ensure that completion of the agreement would credibly bind the United States and North Korea in a way that would guarantee mutual cooperation in the future. 

“The danger is that the U.S. and the North will be unable to credibly signal the willingness to cooperate.  Even if one side fails to do this, the other side will defect based upon its perception of the other’s preference,” Pinkston said (Korea Times, Dec. 13).

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Anthrax I:  Ridge Points to Domestic Terrorist in Mailings

By David Ruppe

Global Security Newswire

U.S. authorities continue to suspect a domestic source of the deadly anthrax mailings since Sept. 11, U.S. Office of Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge said yesterday.

“I think initially there were some of us, and I plead guilty to this, who thought it was more than a mere coincidence shortly after Sept. 11 and was thinking more in terms of foreign sources,” Ridge said during an interview on “PBS’s NewsHour With Jim Lehrer.”

“But I think a lot of the information and a lot of the things they've been able to detect from the investigation and follow-up leads they're looking more inward to a domestic source,” he said.

Ridge’s comments come amid a public debate over whether information released by the government so far indicates the person or persons may have been connected to a U.S. government laboratory.

A prominent proponent of that view, Barbara Hatch Rosenberg of New York State University, has argued all available information is consistent with the idea.

Other experts have criticized Rosenberg’s conclusions, asserting a foreign power, probably Iraq, was ultimately behind the attacks. Richard Spertzel, former head of the U.N. biological arms inspectors in Iraq, has argued the attacks required some sort of government support for the production of the sophisticated anthrax powder (see GSN, Dec. 6).

Rosenberg, who claims government sources for some of her information, continues to assert her conclusions.

In new analysis, released Monday, she lists 15 laboratories she writes are reported in open literature to have obtained the Ames strain found in the letters, which she says may have originated from Fort Detrick in Maryland. Click here to see analysis.

“Of these, probably only about four in the U.S. might possibly have the capability for weaponizing anthrax,” she writes, citing military and contractor laboratories: Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases (Ft. Detrick, Md.); Dugway Proving Ground (Utah); Naval Research Medical Center and associated military labs (Maryland); and Battelle Memorial Institute (Ohio; plus laboratories in many other locations).

Critics say the Ames strains stored at various labs could have been transferred to others in the United States and abroad, ultimately ending up in the hands of the perpetrator.

The Baltimore Sun, however, citing “U.S. sources” reported Wednesday the mailed anthrax was genetically identical to a type used at Dugway (see GSN, Dec. 12).

Senate Majority Leader Thomas Daschle (D-N.D.), whose office received one of the anthrax letters, said last week the perpetrator was probably someone with a military background (see GSN, Dec. 10).

Ridge said hundreds of FBI, state and local law enforcement personnel continue to pursue some leads, in what he called a “very sophisticated and complex investigation.”

He added, “I feel pretty confident that we'll get the individual or individuals.” 

Click here to read Ridge interview.

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Anthrax II:  U.S. Army Can Account for All Spores

The U.S. Army said yesterday it could account for all anthrax made at the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, after the Baltimore Sun had reported that researchers have produced weaponized anthrax there over the last decade (see GSN, Dec. 12).  Meanwhile, federal health officials are looking into using anthrax vaccine as a post-exposure treatment, according to reports.

Army officials acknowledged that small amounts of anthrax were made at Dugway for testing purposes, according to the Los Angeles Times.  Officials added the Army could account for all the material produced.

“There is a rigorous tracking and inventory program to follow the production, receipt and destruction of all select agents,” an Army statement said.  “The facility is well protected with robust physical and personnel security systems.”

The Sun reported that live anthrax in a paste was regularly mailed from Dugway to the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick in Maryland to be sterilized and then shipped back.  Those shipments met “strict federal regulations governing transfer of hazardous materials” and none of the paste was lost, the statement said.

“Anthrax in paste form cannot be the source of contamination for the anthrax letters mailed after Sept. 11, and Dugway has never shipped any dry anthrax by commercial carrier,” the statement said.

The Army did not comment on whether the spores used in the recent anthrax incidents were similar to those produced at Dugway, the Times reported.  One biological weapons scientist said, however, that based on the available evidence, many people might have made the anthrax used in the letters.

“I remain open about whether anything’s been proven about where this stuff comes from,” said C.J. Peters, a former Army biological defense researcher who heads the Center for Biodefense at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston (Garvey/Zitner, Los Angeles Times, Dec. 13).

The New York Times reported that, according to government records, Dugway has had samples of the Ames strain of anthrax since 1992.  William Patrick, a former scientist for the U.S. biological weapons program, said in 1999 that he had explained to researchers at Dugway the previous year how to turn wet anthrax into a powder, according to transcripts. The process was not as sophisticated as that used in the former U.S. offensive weapons program, but it did work, Patrick told U.S. military officials.

“We made about a pound of material in little less than a day,” Patrick said.  “It’s a good product.”

Researchers at Dugway “never produced more than a few grams” of anthrax powder in a year, said Dugway spokesman Paula Nicholson (Broad/Miller, New York Times, Dec. 13).

Even though the United States is permitted by the Biological Weapons Convention to make small amounts of biological warfare agents for defensive purposes, experts said they were stunned that the United States was producing such a deadly agent.  “It comes as a bit of a shock,” said Jonathan Tucker, director of the Monterey Institute of International Studies’ Chemical and Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Program (Weiss/Warrick, Washington Post, Dec. 13).

Vaccine Examined as Treatment Option

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has acquired 220,000 doses of anthrax vaccine from the U.S. military and federal permission to begin research on using the vaccine to inoculate people at high risk, such as postal workers, or as a post-exposure treatment option, CDC officials said yesterday.

Researchers estimate that anthrax spores can last inside the body for 60 days, which could lead those who stop treatment early to later develop anthrax, according to the Washington Post.  CDC officials think the anthrax vaccine could be used on people who have early failures with antibiotics or who stop taking them prematurely.  “If we have any evidence of failure,” such as new symptoms of anthrax disease, “the vaccine is available as a contingency,” said CDC anthrax researcher Bradley Perkins.

Federal health officials could inoculate between 36,000 and 73,000 people, depending on whether the vaccine is used to prevent the disease or as a later treatment, the Post reported.  About 32,000 people have been placed on anthrax antibiotics, according to the Post.

“One of our biggest concerns is people who don’t take the full course [of antibiotics],” said CDC Director Jeffrey Koplan.  “They really need to take all of those antibiotics that were available to them, because that’s what kills those lingering spores when they turn into bacteria” (Ceci Connolly, Washington Post, Dec. 13).

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Smallpox:  Reports Differ on Smallpox Outbreak Predictions

A smallpox outbreak today would spread as quickly as outbreaks that occurred in previous centuries when populations were not vaccinated, scientists reported today in Nature.  The disease would spread quickly even in regions such as North America and Europe where about half the people are inoculated, according to a study based on historical smallpox outbreaks.

A person that contracted smallpox could spread the disease to between four and 12 other people, said the study, which was conducted by Raymond Gani and Steve Leach of the Center for Applied Microbiology and Research in the United Kingdom.

Gani and Leach presented a darker outlook compared to another recent epidemiological model from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Nature reported.

Click here to see the CDC model.

Unlike the Gani and Leach study, the CDC study took response rates into account, but it ignored the natural immunity, developed through exposure, that protected past populations before smallpox was eradicated, according to Leach (Tom Clarke, Nature, Dec. 13).

The Gani and Leach study indicated the infection rate would decline as authorities implemented measures to fight the outbreak, but many people would die first.

“Although our estimate for smallpox represents a relatively modest transmission rate by comparison with some other infectious diseases, such as measles and chickenpox, significant epidemics could result,” the report said, “particularly if there were delays in detecting the first cases or in setting up effective public health interventions” (John von Radowitz, Press Association, Dec. 13).

The recent CDC study said a smallpox victim would infect about three other people until authorities administered vaccinations and other countermeasures, the Chicago Tribune reported.  The CDC estimated an outbreak of 100 people exposed to the virus in a city of 403,000 residents would lead to 4,200 smallpox cases and take a year to control.  Authorities would have to quarantine at least one quarter of infected people and vaccinate more than nine million people, the CDC said (see GSN, Nov. 30).

Meanwhile, some experts said using computer models to predict disease outbreaks provided insufficient information for forming public policy.  “They’re very speculative, at best … Because they’re based on historical events, many things that influence the spread of an epidemic today can’t be measured,” said Joseph Barbera of the George Washington University Institute for Crisis and Disease Management.

“These include the air flow in buildings, and hand-washing and other hygiene improvements, a more informed public and a public health system that theoretically could alert the population and tell them how to protect themselves” (Gorner/Kotulak, Chicago Tribune, Dec. 13).

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OPCW:  New Working Group to be Established

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is forming a working group to draft recommendations on ways to contribute to the worldwide anti-terrorism effort, the OPCW said yesterday.

The OPCW Executive Council decided to form the working group during its 27^th session in early December, according to an OPCW statement.  In the wake of recent U.N. anti-terrorism resolutions, the Council highlighted the need for universal adherence to the Chemical Weapons Convention, the complete destruction of known chemical weapons stockpiles and the effective monitoring of legitimate chemical production.

The OPCW will have to “adapt to the new type and level of threat of the use of chemical weapons by sub-national terrorist groups, rather than by states or groups of states,” said OPCW Director General Jose Bustani.  “The OPCW needs to rethink past practices and attitudes,” Bustani said.  “What may have been sufficient only a few months ago is not adequate in the present circumstances” (OPCW release, Dec. 12).

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ABM Treaty I:  Bush Announces Withdrawal

U.S. President George W. Bush announced this morning that the United States would withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in six months (see GSN, Dec. 12). 

“Today I have given formal notice to Russia, in accordance with the treaty, that the United States of America is withdrawing from this almost 30-year-old treaty,” Bush said.

Bush said U.S.-Russian relations would not be harmed.  “[Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin and I have also agreed that my decision to withdraw from the treaty will not in any way undermine our new relationship or Russian security,” Bush said (MSNBC, Dec. 13).

Russian Response

As of this morning there was no official response from the Putin administration, but other Russian officials yesterday criticized the then-planned withdrawal announcement.

“I can explain it only by two things: either it is absolute deafness or urgent internal demands, a desire to convince the public of the United States that President Bush is faithful to his election promises,” said Vladimir Lukin, vice speaker of the Russian Duma.  “I don’t know why [Bush] does it.  He is popular even without it.

Many Russia analysts believe the Bush move undermines domestic political support for Putin, according to the New York Times.  Putin has moved toward a cooperative relationship with the United States, despite a lack of public support, the analysts said (Michael Wines, New York Times, Dec. 13).

“My assessment is negative, but not from the strategic point of view, rather from a psychological point of view of relations between the two countries,” Lukin said.  “It is a bad sign for us.  It is a bad sign for our leadership.  It is a bad sign for our public opinion which started to shift gradually towards trusting [the United States] more” (NTV/BBC Monitoring/European Internet Network, Dec 12).

Russia will probably “preserve and develop its heavy strategic rockets which will be loaded with multiple warheads, something that had been banned by START II,” said Duma Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Dmitry Rogozin, referring to the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty—not formally in force—which would prohibit the United States and Russia from deploying multiple-warhead, land-based nuclear missiles.

“Russia’s hands are now untied concerning START I and START II,” Rogozin said (Agence France-Presse, Dec. 13).

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ABM Treaty II:  Experts Say Congress Cannot Block Bush Withdrawal

By David Ruppe

Global Security Newswire

Congress has little ability to block President Bush’s withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, arms control experts said today (see related GSN story, today).

Legislators could, however, constrain funding for missile defense tests and construction that might violate the treaty, and a prominent Democratic senator has said he might introduce legislation next year to do that.

“There’s some legal dispute, but the prevailing view is Congress cannot block withdrawal from the treaty,” said John Isaacs of the Council for a Livable World.

Legal precedent suggests legislators would be unable to block the withdrawal, John Rhinelander, a former legal advisor to the U.S. Strategic Arms Limitation Talks delegation that negotiated the ABM Treaty, said this morning.

Rhinelander noted that congressional Republicans successfully took former President Jimmy Carter to court after his 1979 announcement that the United States would unilaterally abrogate the 1955 Mutual Defense Treaty between the United States and Taiwan.  The case was thrown out by the Supreme Court without a ruling, however, based on a technicality involving the standing of Republican Senator Barry Goldwater, Rhinelander said.

“Congress has no role in the Constitution in this, they have a role at the beginning,” Rhinelander said.  The president must get the advice and consent of the U.S. Senate to ratify a treaty, but “the president alone can withdraw and the federal courts will not get into it,” he said.

“There is no doubt in my mind, as much as I disapprove of what the president is doing, the president has the absolute power under the Constitution to decide.”

A law passed even over a president’s veto saying the United States does not withdraw from the treaty “would be ineffective,” he said.

Have the Withdrawal Criteria Been Met?

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden (D-Del.), however, said yesterday that Congress may have some legal recourse, arguing the administration may not have met the treaty’s terms for withdrawal.

The treaty says a party may pull out six months after notification if it decides that “extraordinary events related to the subject matter of this treaty have jeopardized its supreme interests.”

“I would argue, as a lawyer and as someone who teaches constitutional law and separation of powers, that there is the potential legal argument that the president has not stated anything that meets the criteria,” said Biden.

Blocking Funds

Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said yesterday he might introduce legislation early next year to deny future funding for missile defense activities that are prohibited by the treaty today, but would be allowed once the U.S. withdrawal takes effect, the Los Angeles Times reported today. His measure would deny funding for any such activity until Congress voted to approve it.

Levin introduced similar language, added by the Senate Armed Services Committee in September to a defense spending bill, that would have given Congress the right to approve ad hoc funds for testing that might violate the treaty. Levin agreed to have the language rescinded after Sept. 11.

No Recent Precedent

No country has withdrawn from a major arms control treaty at least since World War II, said Rhinelander.  Germany’s withdrawal from the Treaty of Versailles “was the most important one” during that era, but Rhinelander noted that treaty was imposed on the country.

In 1993, North Korea announced it would pull out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, but, facing massive international pressure, ultimately did not do so.

“This is the first time, with any kind of arms control pact,” Rhinelander said, though he said the United States, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, terminated many other treaties, such as agreements restricting trade of tea and cotton.

Bush administration officials have called the ABM Treaty a “Cold War relic,” constraining defenses against potential ballistic missile threats from states like North Korea, Iran and Iraq.

The defenses, they have contended, would not harm Russia’s nuclear deterrence capability.

Is the Treaty in Force Anyway?

University of Virginia national security law scholar Robert Turner questioned whether the ABM Treaty was even in force today.

Turner said the 1997 Memorandum of Understanding—which redefined the treaty’s parties to include Belarus, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Russia—superseded the original treaty.  The memorandum has never been approved by the U.S. Senate, however, so it has not entered into force.

The president’s decision to give six months’ notice, therefore, was technically unnecessary but politically wise, Turner said.

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