U.S. Response I:  Congress Approves Anti-Terrorism, Defense Funds

The U.S. Congress allocated more than $20 billion for anti-terrorism efforts and approved a significant increase in military spending over the last fiscal year yesterday.  The House approved the fiscal 2002 defense appropriations bill by a vote of 408-6, and the Senate followed with a vote of 94-2 (Robert Pear, New York Times, Dec. 21).

The bill provides $317.4 billion for the Defense Department in fiscal 2002—$19.2 billion more than in fiscal 2001, excluding emergency supplemental funding.  The bill includes:

*         $881 million for programs to combat terrorism and deal with weapons of mass destruction.  Programs slated to receive money under this provision include Cooperative Threat Reduction programs in the former Soviet Union (see GSN, Dec. 14) and efforts to combat chemical and biological weapons;

*         $7.8 billion for missile defense, including research, development and procurement—an increase of $2.5 billion over fiscal 2001.  The bill will fund all the requested amounts for the Ground-Based Midcourse Segment and the Pacific Test Bed.  It will add $82 million for fielding the PAC-3 theater missile defense system and $66 million for the Arrow missile program (see GSN, Nov. 12).  Congress also decided to restructure the Space Based Infrared System Low (SBIRS-Low) due to questions about its performance and projected cost increases (see GSN, Dec. 19);

*         $1.1 billion for chemical demilitarization;

*         $105.1 billion for operation and maintenance;

*         $60.9 billion for procurement; and

*         $49 billion for research and development, including $219 million for continued B-2 development (House Appropriations Committee release, Dec. 19).

$20 Billion Anti-Terrorism Supplemental

Congress also approved a $20 billion supplemental anti-terrorism measure attached to the appropriations bill.  The supplemental includes:

*         $8.3 billion for homeland defense, including:

o         $2.5 billion for public health and bioterrorism activities—$1 billion more than requested,

o         $226 million for nuclear nonproliferation programs, including $120 million for programs to secure nuclear materials in Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union (see GSN, Dec. 20),

o         $745 million for FBI counterterrorism efforts—$206 million above the request, and

o         A one-time expenditure of $500 million for Postal Service emergency costs to repair facilities destroyed in the recent terrorist attacks and guard against bioterrorism (see GSN, today);

*         $3.5 billion for the Defense Department for operational costs in the war against terrorism, Pentagon reconstruction and classified programs.  Congress provided $3.8 billion less than U.S. President George W. Bush had requested for the Defense Department in the emergency supplemental; and

*         $8.2 billion for recovery efforts in areas directly affected by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The $20 billion supplemental was the second half of the $40 billion supplemental Congress passed on Sept. 14 in response to the Sept. 11 attacks (House Appropriations Committee release, Dec. 19).

More Money for CDC

The Senate also decided yesterday to provide large increases for research at the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as part of a $123 billion appropriations bill for the departments of Labor, Education and Health and Human Services (Associated Press/New York Times, Dec. 20).  The House of Representatives approved the bill Wednesday (Library of Congress, Dec. 21).

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U.S. Response II:  Congress Provides No Assistance to Insurers

U.S. Congress adjourned yesterday without approving measures to provide future federal assistance for terrorism insurers.  Senators blocked the legislation when they were unable to agree whether to include tort reform in the bill.

Insurance industry representatives have said companies could pay the $50 billion to $70 billion for claims resulting from the Sept. 11 attacks, but the increased concern of future terrorist attacks has created uncertainty that makes calculating risks difficult, which in turn increases the difficulty for insurance companies to price policies.

Some lawmakers have expressed concern that insurance companies would drastically increase prices or limit terrorism insurance.  No company has yet said it would refuse to provide all terrorism insurance, but some companies have limited their coverage or raised prices.

Reinsurance companies, which insure insurance companies, have indicated they would not renew terrorism insurance policies at the end of 2001 when 70 percent of reinsurance policies expire.  That would force primary insurers to absorb all the risk, and several companies have said they would not provide terrorism insurance under those conditions. 

“Obviously we’re disappointed by the failure of the U.S. Senate to act and think it’s going to be very disruptive to the insurance marketplace … Individual companies have to assess their own risk portfolio, and they have made it clear to Congress that they have little appetite, if any, to cover acts of terrorism,” said Peter Lefkin of Fireman’s Fund Insurance, adding that his company was considering whether to provide its insurance coverage.

An absence of affordable terrorism insurance coverage could have serious repercussions in the economy, according to insurance industry representatives and some lawmakers.  “I’m deeply disappointed that the Senate failed to successfully address this critically important matter … This is too important a problem to leave to chance, and I worry about the impact of this on our economic foundation,” said Senator Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.).

The White House also expressed disappointment with the bill’s outcome.  “This will create an unfortunate and unnecessary burden on our economy at a time when we don’t need it,” said White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan (Jackie Spinner, Washington Post, Dec. 21).

Several experts said the effects on the economy would not be immediately obvious but could be serious.  “This won’t cause bank runs or panics in the street, but it will cause something much more insidious, an added cost and slowing down of the economy at the worst possible time,” said Treasury Undersecretary Peter Fisher (Labaton/Treaster, New York Times, Dec. 21).

An inability to buy terrorism insurance could hurt commercial property owners’ chances to obtain loans.  “No insurance means no loan, and no loan means no new construction,” said Steve Bartlett, president of the Financial Services Roundtable.

Railroad carriers that transport hazardous materials could also suffer, said Obie O’Bannon of the Association of American Railroads.  U.S. law prohibits rail carriers from refusing to transport shipments, so without insurance the companies would have to choose between breaking the law and accepting the risk of a terrorist attack, O’Bannon said.

The House of Representatives passed legislation last month to provide federal financial aid to insurers in case of large claims from terrorist attacks in the next couple years (see GSN, Nov. 30).  Terrorism insurance was typically part of most U.S. policies before Sept. 11 (Spinner, Washington Post, Dec. 21).

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U.S. Response III:  Bush Freezes Pakistani Groups’ Assets

The United States yesterday asked its allies around the world to freeze the assets of two Pakistani groups, including a charity believed to have been used to help suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden obtain nuclear weapons, according to the New York Times.

One of the groups, Ummah Tameer-e-Nau, is run by two former Pakistani nuclear scientists who may have visited bin Laden earlier this year, the Times reported (see GSN, Dec. 12).

“It was the UTN that provided information about nuclear weapons to al-Qaeda,” said U.S. President George W. Bush.  The scientists, Sultan Bashiru-din Mehmood and Chaudry Abdul Majid, were detained and questioned in Pakistan, but investigators and the CIA determined they did not know enough about nuclear weapons to assist bin Laden.

UTN leader Mehmood, former director of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, left the commission “after criticizing the government of Pakistan’s movement toward signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty,” the Bush administration said in a fact sheet released yesterday.

Officials believe that UTN members met with bin Laden as well as other al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders to discuss development of weapons of mass destruction, according to a U.S. White House release (Sanger/Eichenwald, New York Times, Dec. 21).

A search of the UTN offices in Kabul, abandoned during the U.S. bombing, revealed large amounts of important data on nuclear weapons, including computer hard drives and notebooks, U.S. officials said.  The information found had far more detail than what was available on public sites on the Internet, they added (MSNBC.com, Dec. 21).

International Response

Senior Pakistani officials said Bush’s statement was tantamount to accusing Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf of lying in his statements that the UTN was involved only in relief work and had nothing to do with nuclear weapons, the New York Times reported.

“At the very least, you’d have to say it’s a huge embarrassment to Musharraf,” a Western diplomat said.

Diplomats said they were surprised that the dispute over the two nuclear scientists had led to such a public split between the United States and Pakistan.  In his order last week to release the detained scientists, Musharraf might have decided to send a signal that Pakistan was drawing “a line in the stand,” and would not be ordered around when it came to nuclear weapons issues, diplomats said (John Burns, New York Times, Dec. 21).

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Definition I:  Sept. 11 Case Tests Law

By David Ruppe

Global Security Newswire

Like most of the U.S. government, the U.S. Congress apparently never anticipated that a commercial aircraft loaded with fuel could be used as a weapon of mass destruction.

That could have implications for suspected Sept. 11 attack conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, whom the Justice Department indicted last week on six counts.

In their fourth count against Moussaoui, prosecutors charge that he and his al-Qaeda associates conspired to use “weapons of mass destruction,” namely, “airplanes intended for use as missiles, bombs, and similar devices.”

The hijackings and the subsequent attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon are believed to have killed about 3,000 people.  Some legal experts say, however, that the applicable federal statute, Title 18, Section 2332a(a), appears to preclude defining aircraft as weapons of mass destruction.

“When you turn an airplane that has how many thousand gallons of fuel into an inferno,” said Robert Kogod Goldman, an American University law professor, “it has the effect as though it were [a weapon of mass destruction], but ‘as though it were’ is not the same as ‘it is,’ as defined by the statutory requirements.”

Conventional Weapons

In part, the statute defines weapons of mass destruction traditionally, as nuclear, biological or chemical weapons (see related GSN story, today).

In addition, the statutory definition, passed in the wake of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, broadly includes conventional “destructive devices” that can be used to create mass destruction. The perpetrators in the 1993 bombing attempted to do so by placing explosives in the garage beneath one of the towers.

“Destructive device” is defined elsewhere in the title (see Section 921) as an explosive or incendiary device or poison gas—bombs, grenades, rockets, missiles, mines, guns with barrels more than one-half inch in diameter (though not shotguns) or any equipment that can be made into such explosive or gun-like weapons.

Under that definition, and particularly the final part, the commercial aircraft used on Sept. 11 would appear to qualify as weapons of mass destruction, since they were essentially made into missiles and incendiary devices by the way they were used by the hijackers.

Exclusionary Language

Section 921 also specifies, however, that “destructive devices” can only be items that were “designed or redesigned” for use as weapons, such that items “not likely to be used as a weapon” would not be included.

“If a weapon of mass destruction is defined as any device that can be used to kill large numbers of people, then you have a criminal provision that would essentially swallow a host of other criminal provisions,” said Jeffrey Turley, a professor at the George Washington University School of Law.

Obviously, commercial jets were not designed to be terrorist weapons, so the statute appears to preclude them as weapons of mass destruction, he said.

“The exclusionary language of ‘destructive device’ would seem to place an airplane outside of that definition,” said Turley. “If the government argues that an airplane is a destructive device under the meaning of the statute, it would manifestly change the language by Congress.”

Oklahoma City As Precedent?

Rental trucks were not designed as weapons either, but Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, defendants in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, were charged and convicted with conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction.

Law professor Steven Saltzburg, also at George Washington and serving on the American Bar Association’s Terrorism and Law Task Force, believes that precedent could support the prosecution in the Moussaoui case.

“The law language of this statute represents an expansive view of the term weapons of mass destruction,” he said. “It’s meant to capture anything that would result in the death of other people or the substantial injury to property.”

An important distinction from the Sept. 11 case, however, may be that McVeigh and Nichols designed and constructed a “truck bomb” by adding explosive components to the truck, in contrast to the Sept. 11 hijackers who used unmodified airliners.

An Expanded Meaning?

The prosecution might argue that the aircraft were “designed or redesigned” to be missiles by virtue of how they were used.  In other words, although they were not made to be incendiary devices, they were used as such, which made them such.

A prosecution source suggested that line of argument, telling Global Security Newswire the prosecutors believe the terrorists effectively redesigned the aircraft into weapons of mass destruction by selecting jets loaded with fuel, commandeering them, and using them as they did.

“One doesn’t generally think of a plane as a weapon,” said Goldman. “On the other hand, I think it would be not a stretch for a good prosecutor to say, “you take an airplane filled with fuel and you direct that thing…” and it becomes one.

Still, that might appeal to Moussaoui’s jury, it may be a tough argument to make before a federal judge, who might grant a motion to dismiss the count, experts said.

“When it comes to defining a criminal act, the courts view that as the sole function of Congress and tend to hold the line in efforts to expand meanings beyond the most incremental,” said Turley. “This is an area where the government is not given a great deal of deference by the courts.”

Allowing an expanded definition of the phrase weapons of mass destruction, said Turley, could make it “unmanageable and ambiguous … then you have a criminal provision that would essentially swallow a host of other provisions.”

He believes the statute could be improved, by defining weapons of mass destruction not in terms of items, but rather in terms of the intent of the perpetrator.

“The weapon itself is a poor basis to define the crime.  The crime should be defined as to the intent of the actor, not the relatively arbitrary [weapon] selection of the actor.”

As for Moussaoui, he is charged with five other serious crimes, including conspiracy to commit international terrorism, which also could bring the death penalty.

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Definition II:  Criteria for WMD Open to Change, Analysts Say

By Greg Seigle

Global Security Newswire

Widely held definitions for weapons of mass destruction are subject to change in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks and the recent indictments against a suspected al-Qaeda terrorist, a variety of national security analysts have told Global Security Newswire.

The use of hijacked, fuel-laden commercial airliners to crash into prominent buildings packed with people—a tactic that killed about 3,000 people and prodded U.S. federal prosecutors to charge the lone suspect in custody, Zacarias Moussaoui, with “conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction”—has sparked a debate among U.S. analysts about what constitutes a weapon of mass destruction.

Until now the commonly accepted definition of weapons of mass destruction has included nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, plus missiles that could deliver them.  Today, however, this long-held definition is swelling or shrinking, depending on whom you ask.

While no one disputes that both nuclear and biological armaments are the most lethal weapons on earth, recent interviews by GSN reveal considerable disagreement over whether chemical agents or radiological bombs—or the use of other high profile devices or tactics—should be defined as true weapons of mass destruction.

“We ought to be broadening the category so to include not only weapons of mass destruction but also weapons of mass disruption,” said Dan Goure, a senior fellow at the Lexington Institute.

“While insidious and horrific as they are, chemical or radiological weapons do not meet the definition,” countered retired British Col. Terry Taylor, president of the U.S. branch of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

“The classic definition has always been troublesome,” added Taylor, who from 1992 to 1997 served as the chief weapons inspector for the U.N. Special Commission scouring Iraq for nuclear, biological or chemical evidence.  “Including [other criteria] is all right as long as people remember that nuclear and biological are much worse.

“Many analysts feel chemical weapons do not meet this definition because they will not cause as many casualties,” Taylor continued. “In my view, weapons of mass destruction involves tens of thousands of deaths and a very wide scale of destruction of cities.”

Should Chemical Weapons Count?

Chemical agents, several analysts argued, are not genuine weapons of mass destruction because they are difficult to disperse over large areas, thereby making them less likely to cause mass casualties. As terrifying as chemical attacks may be, they do not fall under a true definition of weapons of mass destruction, they said.

Analysts cite the 1995 Sarin gas attacks in the Tokyo subway by the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo, which was intended wipe out thousands of people but instead killed 12 and wounded about 500, as an example of how difficult it is to use chemicals as weapons of mass destruction.

“You’d have to work pretty hard to use chemical weapons to create a lot of casualties,” said Gordon Oehler, former CIA deputy director for nonproliferation who is now a senior fellow at the Potomac Institute and an executive with Science Application International Corporation.

“It seems to me that it will be a fear factor and an economic factor,” he added. “Fear in that it will create widespread panic and economic in the fact it disrupts business and no one wants to return” to the site of the attack.

“If you’re looking at it from a body count perspective, chemical weapons do not qualify,” said Patrick Garrett, a defense analyst with GlobalSecurity.org. “Chemical weapons are very easy to defend against [with gas masks and chemical protection suits]. But it’s much more difficult to defend against biological or nuclear weapons.”

“Bioweapons and nukes are in a class unto themselves, chemical weapons don’t even come close,” said Tara O’Toole, director of the Johns Hopkins University Center for Civilian Biodefense Strategies. “You cannot deploy enough chemical weapons, even a powerful nerve gas to kill tens of thousands of people. It is just very impractical. They are not weapons of mass lethality or mass destruction—bioweapons are.”

Other analysts, however, say that the threats posed by chemical weapons should not be dismissed. They note that the Sarin gas used in the Tokyo subway attack was not very pure, therefore not as lethal as it could have been. Now, in the wake of extremely pure, weapon-grade anthrax being mailed in the United States, the use of purified chemical such as Sarin or VX nerve gas should not be ruled out, they said.

“I would classify them as weapons of mass destruction because they can still kill a lot of people,” said Cheryl Loeb, a research analyst with the Monterey Institute of International Studies.

Loeb said chemicals have been considered mass-casualty weapons since 1899, the first meeting of international experts that ultimately lead to the 1925 Geneva Convention—and to the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention—that outlaws their use.

“Anything that causes indiscriminate loss of life is a weapon of mass destruction,” said David Phillips, who as a relief worker twice visited Halabja, the Kurdish village in northern Iraq that was gassed by Iraqi troops in 1988.

“The immediate impact caused several thousand deaths,” said Phillips, now the deputy director for the Council on Foreign Relations’ Center for Preventive Action. “The ongoing toll can be measured in terms of cancer, impotence and other medical side effects that are ongoing today.

“Those are just the physical effects, that doesn’t include the psychological impact—the fear, the loss of a sense of security,” he added.

Simply put, some analysts believe chemicals could still wipe out thousands of people if an agent is purified and released in the confines of large groups of people, such as a crowded sports stadium or a skyscraper. 

“The potential is certainly there,” said Joseph Cirincione, director of nonproliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “We have to look at the consequences—not just the physical characteristics of the physical device, but the damage it is capable of doing.”

Radiological Weapons

Fewer analysts believe radiological weapons—a conventional explosive that releases deadly doses of radiation—should count as weapons of mass destruction (see GSN, Dec. 11).

“I don’t buy it,” Oehler, the former CIA official, said of radiological weapons being included in the definition.

“They don’t pose a lot of danger, but cause a lot of terror,” said health physicist John Poston, a professor of nuclear engineering at Texas A&M University. “The health hazard is almost zero … The risk of someone getting cancer [without being exposed to a radiological weapon] is one in three. About one person out of every seven or eight I think is going to die from cancer.”

The radiation would be contained “within the [limited] range of the explosive device,” added Taylor, the former UNSCOM inspector. “The area of effect would still be quite limited, unlike chemicals, which could [at least] spread with the wind.”

Others, however, said that radiological weapons possess the potential to create tremendous death tolls.

There is a rare grade of a radiological weapon that some governments planned to make and experimented with that are “extremely dangerous,” according to David Albright, president for the Institute for Science and International Security. “They used a certain type of radioactive material that doesn’t last a long time. You spread it out over an area and you can contaminate many square kilometers. And if people wander in there, they’re probably going to get enough radiation to get very sick or die. Those are very dangerous in the hands of terrorists but are very hard to make.”

One senior nuclear engineer from Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico raised his eyebrows when it was suggested that radiological bombs might not count as true weapons of mass destruction.

“There is one isotope, one I can’t name, that could make radiological bombs very lethal, almost as deadly as nuclear bombs,” said the nuclear engineer, who asked to remain anonymous.

“Even a crude radiological bomb could take out the whole Capitol complex—I’d call that a weapon of mass destruction,” said U.S. Representative Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), a leading lawmaker on national security issues privy to classified information.

Variety of WMD Scenarios

The indictments against Moussaoui and 23 other co-conspirators—including Osama bin Laden and the 19 hijackers who died Sept. 11—employ a vaguely worded U.S. law (see related GSN story, today) intended to cover any attacks that kill large amounts of people by using unconventional means, according to U.S. officials.

Under the wording of the law, it is possible that a whole variety of devices could be considered mass casualty weapons—and lead U.S. federal prosecutors to charge an individual, terrorist group or nation with using weapons of mass destruction, analysts said.

Possible scenarios envisioned by analysts include conventional munitions used to topple bridges or buildings full of people; hand grenades or other explosives used to crack open nuclear reactors; or the opening or rupturing of loaded hazardous material trucks in densely populated areas.

The Sept. 11 attacks themselves—in which terrorists essentially used the hijacked airliners as guided cruise missiles—has stirred some controversy over whether fuel-laden aircraft that slam into buildings brimming with people should be categorized as weapons of mass destruction, as the U.S. Justice Department alleges in its recent indictments.

“It certainly is intellectually appropriate to describe [the aircraft attacks] as weapons of mass destruction,” said Baker Spring, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation. “When terrorists are going after innocent civilians and slaughtering them, it does put things in a different category… It falls outside the category of a common crime.

“As unusual an approach as [the attacks were], militarily we categorize it as a fuel-air weapon,” Spring continued. “A powerful fuel-air weapon is at the very high end of conventional armament capabilities, and somebody could argue that it is at the very low end of a weapons of mass destruction.”

“I think there’s a difference here between the instrument and intention,” said Phillips, the Council on Foreign Relations analyst. “There’s a realignment of terminology that allows us to emphasize the intent behind the act with the instrument that causes harm.”

“The intent is mass but the weapon is conventional, and we ought to be counting that in,” remarked Goure of the Lexington Institute. “Rather than rooting things out we need to read more things in.”

Redefinition Should Be Deferred

While many analysts believe the criteria for weapons of mass destruction should be expanded or decreased, most agree that the early stages of the war on terrorism is not an ideal time to be tinkering with the classification.

“In the present climate, I don’t think it will help to rule out chemicals,” said Taylor. “I think it’s all right to let it remain for now.”

“I don’t see anything wrong with the definition,” said Oehler. “[But] what about that bomb at the World Trade Center in ’93? Had that been placed in a more strategic position it might have brought the building down and been much worse. Does that make it a weapon of mass destruction?”

In short, analysts believe the most grave threats to humankind comes from nuclear and biological weapons, both of which can kill tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands or perhaps even millions of people. The other weapons—particularly chemical and radiological weapons—are left open to debate.

“Anything that could kill thousands of people within several square kilometers—that’s anybody’s definition of [weapons of mass destruction],” said Cirincione, echoing the comments of most analysts.

What’s the Point?

A small, but vocal, minority of analysts does not understand all the fuss over the definition of weapons of mass destruction.

“It’s a pointless debate,” said Anthony Cordesman, a senior fellow for strategic assessment for the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“The fact is that any system that kills thousands of people [in a singular attack] is a weapon of mass destruction,” he continued. “I think we need to avoid getting into almost medieval, scholarly debates on theories which in practice make no difference at all.”

Cordesman went on to borrow a well-known quote from Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell, who in a 1970s ruling on pornography cited a definition Cordesman likened to that of weapons of mass destruction: “I don’t know what it is, but I know it when I see it.”

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Iraq I:  Defector Documents WMD Facilities; Sanctions Negotiated

An Iraqi defector who calls himself Abu Mohammad said he had documents and other information about the exact location of secret chemical and biological weapons plants in Iraq, according to a report today by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.  Mohammad, who said he was a chemical engineer who worked for almost a decade in Iraqi military plants, applied for residency in Australia.

Mohammad’s profile, as described by ABC and Agence France-Presse, is very similar to the description of a defector called Adnan Ihsan Saeed al-Haideri in yesterday’s New York Times, but the exact relationship between the two is unclear (see GSN, Dec. 20).

Mohammad told ABC he can pinpoint hidden weapons sites.  “New factories are built in place of old factories that [were] bombed” and in another places, he said (Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Dec. 21).

Mohammad produced diagrams of 150 secret military projects that showed the locations of sites Iraq used to produce weapons and missiles, according to Agence France-Presse.  Richard Butler, former head of the U.N. weapons inspections team in Iraq, said he had seen the documents and thought the Mohammad’s account was credible.

The information supports claims that Iraq is continuing to produce weapons of mass destruction, Butler said.  “Reports like that of this guy and other defectors suggests to us quite strongly that they’re back in business … In the three years without inspection I’ve seen reports that [Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has] recalled his nuclear weapons design team, and Lord knows what he’s been able to acquire on the black market,” Butler said.

Mohammad said his work as a contractor to the Iraqi military included sealing secret facilities to prevent chemical and biological agents from leaking, Agence France-Presse reported.  He was arrested early this year and tortured for six months before bribing guards and escaping Iraq, he said (Agence France-Presse, Dec. 21).

Russia and U.S. Discuss Sanctions

Meanwhile, Russian diplomats said yesterday they were working to preserve Russian interests during the final day of U.S.-Russia discussions to design a new sanction regime for Iraq, according to Agence France-Presse.

“It is important that we reach an agreement under which Russian exports to Iraq do not suffer … The most important thing is that we and [the] United States agree to expand the list of goods that can be delivered to Iraq through a fast-track system that does not require U.N. approval,” said a Russian official.

Russia and the United States were working on a 500-page list of goods to include in a fast-track program, the official said.

The discussions followed an agreement last month in the U.N. Security Council to extend sanctions against Iraq for six months and then revise the sanctions (see GSN, Nov. 30).  Russia originally opposed the plan but then reached an agreement with the United States.  Russia has said it was concerned that barriers on exports to Iraq could hurt Russian economic interests (Agence France-Presse/Jordan Times, Dec. 21).

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Iraq II:  U.S. House Says Absence of Inspectors Poses “Mounting Threat”

The U.S. House of Representatives yesterday criticized Iraq for refusing to allow U.N. weapons inspectors into the country and urged the United Nations to press for unrestricted inspections.

Representatives in the House passed a resolution, 392-12 with seven voting present and 23 not voting, saying that Iraq has violated its international obligations and that the absence of inspections poses a “mounting threat” to the United States and its allies (U.S. State Department release, Dec. 20).  The resolution also called on the United Nations to reject any agreement that does not provide inspectors with “immediate, unconditional and unrestricted access to any and all areas, facilities, equipment, records and means of transportation.”

“Since 1998, [Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s] ability to reconstitute his nuclear weapons program, his biological weapons program, his chemical weapons program and his long-range missile program has not been constrained by international inspectors.  There is every reason to believe that Saddam has taken advantage of the absence of inspectors to revive these weapons programs,” said House International Relations Committee Chairman Henry Hyde (R-Ill.).  During inspections from 1991 to 1998, Hussein used all possible means to prevent weapons inspectors from learning “the truth about the history of weapons programs,” Hyde said.

U.N. Security Council resolutions require Iraq to allow inspectors complete access to sites suspected of housing weapons of mass destruction materials (U.S. House International Relations Committee release, Dec. 19).

The House vote followed a report in yesterday’s New York Times concerning new evidence from an Iraqi defector indicating Hussein has continued to develop weapons of mass destruction (see GSN, Dec. 20).

Kofi Annan Warns Against Attacking Iraq

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan Wednesday called on Iraq to comply with U.N. resolutions, noting the country had made no moves to allow U.N. inspectors to return.  “Iraq has to understand that it has to begin responding to Security Council resolutions,” Annan said, adding, “I don’t see any signal that inspectors are about to go back to Iraq, but we also live in a world where unpredictable things happen.”

Annan also said that expanding the war on terrorism to Iraq would only increase tensions in the Middle East.  “I have not seen any evidence linking Iraq to what happened on the 11^th of September, … but of course any attempt to do that can exacerbate the situation and raise tensions in a region that is already under strain because of the Israeli and Palestinian conflict,” he said (Reuters/New York Times, Dec. 20).

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Anthrax I:  Former Scientist Was Questioned Soon After Sept. 11

A former chemist was questioned soon after the Sept. 11 attacks about possible anthrax threats he had made, Knight-Ridder reported today, but he is no longer considered a suspect in the anthrax incidents.

On Sept. 18, FBI agents questioned a Milwaukee chemist who had been fired twice from his position at the Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio, according to Knight-Ridder (see GSN, Dec. 17).  The Battelle facility is one of several U.S. laboratories that worked with the same strain of anthrax used in the attacks (Knight-Ridder, Dec. 21).

The FBI said that the chemist, whom the Miami Herald named today as Michael Failey, is no longer under suspicion, according to the Herald.

“We have developed no information that he ever had access to anthrax while he was at Battelle, and there was no anthrax in his home,” one official said (David Kidwell, Miami Herald, Dec. 21).

The chemist came under suspicion after telling law enforcement he was working on a device to disseminate anthrax, Knight-Ridder reported.  The man told police he was “currently involved in a project in the basement of his home that involved the development of ‘simunitions’ that will facilitate the dissemination of anthrax,” according to court papers.

The chemist had been fired twice from the Battelle Institute, according to personnel records.  Before he was fired for the second time, Institute representatives searched his basement.  They found chemicals that could have been used to make “lethal chemical agents,” said FBI agent Parker Shipley, adding that possession of the chemicals was not illegal, Knight-Ridder reported.

In September Shipley determined there was probable cause to believe the chemist had “weapons of mass destruction” at his house, “including devices, equipment or substances which could have been used to manufacture, contain or employ a nuclear, chemical or biological weapon or agent,” according to Knight-Ridder.

FBI agents later decided the man was drunk when he made the statements about an anthrax project in his basement.  They did, however, search his home and seized a computer and other materials, according to Knight-Ridder.  The chemist is not a prime suspect in the anthrax attacks, authorities said.

Shipley’s charges were “trumped up,” the chemist said, according to Knight-Ridder.  “This is complete nonsense,” he said during an interview with Knight-Ridder yesterday.  “I have never been a researcher of anthrax.  I’ve never had access to anthrax.  I didn’t even know it was a bacteria until I saw it on TV,” he said.  “All I did was mention the word, that’s it.  And I’ve got the FBI in here searching my house and taking my computer.”

The chemist said, “I’m really angry at the agent,” according to Knight-Ridder.  “That’s not what I meant and he knows it.  I don’t even remember how the word anthrax came up, but it wasn’t like that” (Knight-Ridder, Dec. 21).

Officials’ Response

Officials yesterday said there was no basis for an ABC report that said the former Battelle chemist was still under investigation.  A person familiar with Battelle’s contract with the government said ABC’s claim that the Institute worked with dry, powdered anthrax was also incorrect, the Baltimore Sun reported (Scott Shane, Baltimore Sun, Dec. 21). The ABC report yesterday said federal authorities had told ABC they were “now” investigating the former scientist (ABC News, Dec. 20).

Greed May be Motive

Meanwhile, the FBI is examining the possibility that financial gain might have been the motive for the anthrax attacks, according to government officials.  Investigators have carried out numerous interviews at two or more laboratories to determine whether potential profit from the sale of anthrax medicines or cleanup efforts might have motivated whoever is responsible, the officials said.

If financial gain was the motive, there would be a long list of possible suspects and scenarios—spanning from pharmaceutical companies to firms that specialized in decontamination, said Richard Ebright, a microbiologist at Rutgers University’s Wakeman Institute.  “There are numerous mid-Atlantic regional links to all of these possibilities,” Ebright said.  “Doesn’t narrow the field much, does it?”

The “greed” motive might explain why FBI agents have not investigated the two foreign laboratories known to have received samples of the Ames strain, the Washington Post reported.

Representatives from the Defense Research Establishment Suffield in Canada and Britain’s Defense Science and Technology Laboratories at Porton Down said the FBI had not contacted them regarding their anthrax samples.  “Porton Down has received no request from the FBI for information on its security arrangements, but if we were contacted, we would cooperate fully,” said Porton Down spokeswoman Sue Ellison.

Investigators are still looking into a wide range of motives, including revenge and attempts to implicate Iraq in the attack, according to the Post.  Authorities said they believed the person responsible for the attacks may have some scientific knowledge, but did not necessarily produce the anthrax spores.  The spores might have been stolen, officials said (Schmidt/Warrick, Washington Post, Dec. 21).

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Anthrax II:  First Workers Receive Vaccine Treatments

U.S. Capitol staff members yesterday received the first round of anthrax post-exposure vaccine treatments, according to the Associated Press.  Meanwhile, the debate over who should receive the vaccine raged on, according to reports (see GSN, Dec. 20).

Doctors yesterday inoculated 48 Capitol workers with the anthrax vaccine, the AP reported.  Those inoculated will receive three injections at two-week intervals, and must still take antibiotics until after the third injection.  Doctors will monitor the health of the vaccine recipients for up to two years, according to the AP.

An aide to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) said he opted for the inoculation because military doctors who were advising Capitol Hill workers said they would have chosen inoculation had they been exposed (Lauran Neergaard, Associated Press/Atlanta-Journal Constitution, Dec. 21).

During the informational session before the inoculations, some Capitol staffers learned that their exposure to anthrax was greater than previously thought, according to the Washington Post. 

“They said it was larger than the event in Russia,” said a congressional aide.  The comment refered to a 1979 accidental release of anthrax in Sverdlosk, Russia that killed at least 79 people.

When freelance photographer Lana Lawrence met with Greg Martin, chief of infectious diseases at the National Naval Medical Center, she discovered that her risk of exposure had been much higher than she previously thought.  “He said, ‘I have no doubt you inhaled spores,’” Lawrence said.  “I don’t think they have been very forthcoming.”

Who Should be Inoculated?

Washington, D.C. Health Department Director Ivan Walks and other municipal officials said they continued to advise against receiving the vaccine because of its potential health risks.

“If the world’s best scientists can’t figure it out, how is the public supposed to figure it out?” Walks asked.  “What they’re doing now is inappropriate.  We don’t make other vaccines available where there is no recommendation or no indication and say, ‘If you want it, come get it.’”

American Postal Workers Union spokeswoman Sally Davidow said her “jaw dropped” after hearing conflicting reports as to who should be inoculated.  “It kind of reinforces that there is still tremendous uncertainty in the medical community about everything,” Davidow said.

William Smith, president of the New York Metro Area Postal Workers Union, said he was encouraging the 2,500 postal workers in Manhattan to not receive the vaccine.  “They’re trying to fool the workers into taking this vaccine instead of cleaning our buildings and protecting our lives and safety” (Connolly/Goldstein, Washington Post, Dec. 21).

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Jeffrey Koplan yesterday said he was still refusing to issue advice as to who should take the vaccine as a post-exposure treatment.

“We fully understand that it’s frustrating for those who’ve been exposed and the people who take care of them that the government can’t make a strong recommendation about who should receive vaccine,” Koplan said.  “We have inadequate science upon which to base such a strong directive recommendation.”

“Is it satisfying to us?  No,” Koplan said.  “Do we know we get criticized for not being definitive and clear and issuing hard guidelines?  Sure.  But we’ve got to try to do the best public health that we’re capable of doing.”

Azeezaly Jaffer, U.S. Postal Service vice president for public affairs, said he was frustrated over the lack of direction from the CDC.  “It would be a lot clearer and more beneficial if the federal authorities would make a recommendation about who should or should not be taking the vaccine, rather than leaving the burden on individuals who know little or nothing about it,” Jaffer said (David Rosenbaum, New York Times, Dec. 21).

Anthrax Widespread at Brentwood

The Brentwood Road postal facility in Washington is probably more contaminated with anthrax than previously believed, officials said yesterday.

Anthrax from contaminated letters that passed through the facility was detected near the work areas of four employees who contracted inhalational anthrax and in sections of the facility where no one became ill, said a CDC report released yesterday. 

CDC scientists think that when two tainted letters went through mail sorting machines, equipment pressed down on the letters, which caused spores to be released into the air, said CDC official Rosemary Sokas.

The spores were then likely spread further throughout the plant by postal workers using blowers to clean equipment, the CDC said.  Officials added that the spores could become airborne again when employees walked past.

The CDC reached their conclusion after positive results in samples taken by wiping surfaces with wet gauze pads and vacuuming surfaces, the Washington Post reported.  The results of the tests showed no anthrax contamination in Brentwood’s offices or public lobby area, the CDC said.

Many postal workers, however, distrust the CDC, Jaffer said.  “These are the same guys that told us when the Daschle letter went through that it was perfectly okay to go into Brentwood,” he said (Justin Blum, Washington Post, Dec. 21).

Israeli Vaccine Efforts

Israel has developed an anthrax vaccine and can produce enough to inoculate the entire population within a few months, the Associated Press reported today.

The new Israeli vaccine can be administered with one injection, instead of multiple shots needed for the U.S. version, according to an Israeli media report.  Also unlike the U.S. version, the Israeli vaccine does not have side effects, the report said.

Israeli officials did not confirm or deny the report.  “Israel has been preparing itself and its civilians against many types of threats which our intelligence agencies have warned of,” said Ido Edri, a spokesman for the Israeli Health Ministry (Yoav Appel, Associated Press/Jerusalem Post, Dec. 21).

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Anthrax III:  Chronology of Outbreak and Investigation

Sept. 18:  Two anthrax-tainted letters are postmarked from Trenton, N.J., to NBC Nightly News and the New York Post.

Oct. 3:  First anthrax case discovered.  Robert Stevens, a photo editor with American Media Inc., is diagnosed with the disease and placed on a respirator.

Oct. 5:  Stevens dies from inhalation anthrax.  He is the first U.S. anthrax death since 1976 (see GSN, Oct. 5).

Oct. 8:  Ernesto Blanco, a mailroom worker at AMI, tests positive for anthrax exposure, but shows no signs of infection (see GSN, Oct 9).

Oct. 9:  Anthrax-tainted letters are postmarked from Trenton, N.J., to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.).

Oct. 10:  A third AMI employee tests positive for anthrax exposure (see GSN, Oct. 11).

Oct. 12:  An NBC employee tests positive for anthrax exposure after a skin biopsy.  The letter to NBC news anchor Tom Brokaw is tested (see GSN, Oct. 12).

Oct. 13:  Five more AMI employees test positive for anthrax exposure.

The NBC letter tests positive for anthrax.

Oct. 14:  A police officer and two laboratory technicians who handled the NBC letter test positive for anthrax exposure (see GSN, Oct. 15).

Oct. 15:  The Daschle letter is opened and tests positive for anthrax. 

The 7-month-old son of an ABC employee tests positive for cutaneous, or skin, anthrax. 

Blanco is diagnosed with inhalation anthrax (see GSN, Oct. 16).

Oct. 16:  Senate offices are closed.  Investigators link the Daschle letter to the one mailed to NBC through similarities in the handwriting on the envelopes and the postmarks.

Oct. 17:  The House of Representatives is shut down after 28 people test positive for anthrax exposure. 

In the Senate, staffers in Daschle’s and Senator Russell Feingold’s (D-Wis.) office, as well as Capitol Police officers, are among the exposed (see GSN, Oct. 18).

Oct. 18:  An assistant to CBS News anchor Dan Rather and a postal worker in New Jersey develop cutaneous anthrax (see GSN, Oct. 19).

Oct. 19:  A New York Post employee and a second New Jersey postal worker develop cutaneous anthrax (see GSN, Oct. 22).

Oct. 21:  Thomas Morris, a Washington postal worker, dies from inhalation anthrax.

Oct. 22:  A second Washington postal worker, Joseph Curseen, dies from inhalation anthrax (see GSN, Oct. 23).

Oct. 23:  Officials confirm three more postal workers have contracted inhalation anthrax: two in Washington and one in New Jersey. 

In Florida, Blanco recovers (see GSN, Oct. 25).

Oct. 25:  A U.S. State Department mailroom worker is hospitalized with inhalation anthrax (see GSN, Oct. 26). 

Oct. 26:  The Supreme Court shuts down for anthrax testing.

Oct. 29:  Kathy Nguyen, a New York City hospital worker, tests positive for inhalation anthrax. 

In New Jersey, a woman who handles mail for a private firm tests positive for skin anthrax.

Investigators find small amounts of anthrax spores at the Supreme Court (see GSN, Oct. 30).

Oct. 30:  Trace amounts of anthrax are found at the mailroom of the U.S Department of Agriculture.

A medical expert says that anthrax spores are “probably all over” the State Department’s headquarters.

Oct. 31:  Nguyen dies from inhalational anthrax (see GSN, Oct. 31).

Nov. 12:  The number of senators’ offices tainted with anthrax increases to 11.  All are in the Hart Senate Office Building, where the Daschle letter was opened.

Nov. 17:  The anthrax-tainted Leahy letter is discovered (see GSN, Nov. 19).

Nov. 20:  A sample taken from the bag holding the unopened Leahy letter tests positive for at least 23,000 anthrax spores, officials say (see GSN, Nov. 20).

Nov. 21:  Ottilie Lundgren, of Oxford, Conn., dies from inhalation anthrax.  Investigators see no connection between her and victims in New York, Washington and Florida (see GSN, Nov. 21) (South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Dec. 7).

Nov. 27:  U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials decide to use chlorine dioxide gas to decontaminate the Hart Senate Office Building (see GSN, Nov. 28).

Nov. 29:  The FBI identifies anti-abortion militant Clayton Lee Waagner as the main suspect in a wave of anthrax hoax letters sent earlier in November to reproductive health clinics (see GSN, Nov. 30).

Dec. 2:  The New York Times reports that Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, a microbiologist at New York State University, has released a paper hypothesizing a connection between the anthrax culprits and an official U.S. laboratory (see GSN, Dec. 3).

Dec. 3:  Officials warn that thousands of letters may have been cross-contaminated with anthrax. 

Experts say that the anthrax used in the attacks was produced recently (see GSN, Dec. 4).

Dec. 5:  Waagner is captured at a Kinko’s copy store outside of Cincinnati, Ohio.

After intensive planning and preparations, the Leahy letter is opened and examined for possible clues (see GSN, Dec. 6).

Dec. 8:  Senator Daschle says he believes someone formerly in the U.S. military mailed him the anthrax-tainted letter (see GSN, Dec. 10).

Dec. 12:  The Baltimore Sun reports that the anthrax spores used in the attacks match those produced in small amounts over the past decade by the U.S. Army at the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah (see GSN, Dec. 12).

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announces it will begin investigating the use of the anthrax vaccine as a post-exposure treatment option (see GSN, Dec. 13).

Traces of anthrax continue to linger at the Hart Building, even after fumigation efforts (see GSN, Dec. 17).

Dec. 16:  The Washington Post reports that the anthrax spores mailed to Daschle and Leahy are identical to those produced at the Dugway Proving Ground (see GSN, Dec. 17).

Dec. 17:  The White House says that a domestic source is probably responsible for the anthrax attacks.

Representative Edward Markey (D-Mass.) says he has documents that show the Energy Department’s Los Alamos National Laboratory illegally received samples of live, virulent anthrax (see GSN, Dec. 18).

Dec. 18:  Federal health officials say they will make the anthrax vaccine available as a post-exposure treatment option for workers at high risk, such as Capitol staff members and postal workers (see GSN, Dec. 19).

Dec. 20:  Federal health officials vaccinate 48 U.S. Capitol workers in the first round of using the anthrax vaccine as a post-exposure treatment. (see GSN, Dec. 21).

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Since the first case was announced in Florida (see GSN, Oct. 5), 18 people have been diagnosed with anthrax infections, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC counts a confirmed case as one in which symptoms match those of anthrax and laboratory testing isolates anthrax bacteria from infected tissue, or one in which evidence of anthrax bacteria is supported by at least two other laboratory tests (CDC release, Nov. 21).

	Deaths (From inhalation anthrax)	Inhalation Anthrax Infections	Skin Anthrax Infections
Connecticut *         Ottilie Lundgren, Inhaled, Died Nov. 21	1	0	0
Florida *   Bob Stevens, Inhaled, American Media Inc. building, Died Oct. 5 *   Ernesto Blanco, Inhaled, American Media Inc. building	1	1	0
New Jersey *   Unnamed woman, Inhaled, Hamilton mail center *   Unnamed woman, Inhaled, Hamilton mail center *   Patrick O’Donnell, Skin, Hamilton mail center *   Teresa Heller, Skin, West Trenton post office *   Non-postal worker, Skin, Trenton	0	2	3
New York *   Kathy Nguyen, Inhaled, Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital, Died Oct. 31 *   Erin O’Connor, Skin, NBC *   7-month-old boy, Skin, ABC *   Claire Fletcher, Skin, CBS *   Editor, Skin, New York Post	1	0	4
Washington *   Thomas L. Morris Jr., Inhaled, Brentwood mail center, Died Oct. 21 *   Joseph Curseen Jr., Inhaled, Brentwood mail center, Died Oct. 22 *   Leroy Richmond, Inhaled, Brentwood mail center *   Unnamed man, Inhaled, Brentwood mail center *   Unnamed worker, Inhaled, U.S. State Department mail center	2	3	0
Total	5	6	7

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U.S. Plans:  Navy System May Be Resurrected

The now-canceled U.S. Navy Area Theater Missile Defense Plan (see GSN, Dec. 20) may be reintroduced as a new program after the navy and the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization conduct studies on alternatives, Aerospace Daily reported yesterday.

The navy and BMDO are planning to conduct their own studies on alternatives to the missile defense plan, sources said.  They plan to conduct their research with an eye to “resuscitating some sort of the sea-based battlefield defense,” said David Steigman, a naval analyst with the Teal Group in Fairfax, Va.

“Navy Area is dead,” said a source familiar with the program.  That does not mean, however, that a new program will not be launched using many of the same components, such as the Aegis radar system and Standard missile, according to Aerospace Daily.

The new studies probably will look for ways to upgrade the Standard missile, the navy’s only shipboard sea-to-air missile, Steigman said.

“Every navy program for missile defense relies on some sort of Standard option,” he said.  “There is a possibility that the studies will look at other missiles, but the overwhelming likelihood is that time constraints and fiscal constraints will make that impossible.”

The navy and BMDO studies likely will take up to 10 months, Steigman said.  There is a high motivation to start the program up again due to expectations that the U.S. Defense Department budget will be tightly controlled in upcoming years, he added (Sharon Weinberger, Aerospace Daily/Council for a Livable World, Dec. 20).

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