International Response:  U.N. Counterterrorism Committee Lacks 17 Reports

The U.N. Security Council yesterday called on 17 remaining countries to submit reports on their counterterrorism measures as mandated last year in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks (see GSN, Oct. 7).

Martin Belinga-Eboutou of Cameroon, which holds the rotating presidency of the council, called on the remaining countries to join 174 member states in submitting the reports to the year-old counterterrorism committee (see GSN, April 16).

The committee “calls on the 17 member states which have not yet submitted a report to do so urgently,” Belinga-Eboutou said.

Six of the 17 countries — Chad, Dominica, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia and Swaziland — have not yet contacted the committee (U.N. release, Oct. 8).

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Iraq:  Baghdad Unlikely to Attack Without Provocation, Tenet Says

Barring U.S. military action, Iraq appears unlikely to launch an attack against the United States with weapons of mass destruction, CIA Director George Tenet said Monday in a letter accompanying declassified materials sent to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (see GSN, Oct. 8).

“Baghdad for now appears to be drawing a line short of conducting terrorist attacks with conventional or CBW (chemical and biological weapons) against the United States,” Tenet wrote in the letter to committee Chairman Bob Graham (D-Fla.).

The letter makes public a previously classified section of testimony given by an unnamed senior intelligence witness during an Oct. 2 closed hearing, in which the witness said that the likelihood of an unprovoked attack by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is “low.”

“My judgment would be that the probability of him initiating an attack — let me put a time frame on it — in the foreseeable future, given the conditions we understand now, the likelihood I think would be low,” the witness said in response to questioning by Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.).

If Hussein believed the United States planned to attack Iraq, however, he would probably be less constrained from launching attacks that might include chemical and biological weapons, Tenet wrote.

“Saddam might decide that the extreme step of assisting Islamist terrorists in conducting a WMD attack against the United States would be his last chance to exact vengeance by taking a large number of victims with him,” he wrote.

During the Oct. 2 closed hearing, Levin asked the witness to gauge the possibility that Iraq would use chemical or biological weapons in response to U.S. military action, according to the Tenet letter.  “Pretty high, in my view,” the witness answered.

The CIA has had “solid reporting” of senior level contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda over the past 10 years, Tenet wrote in the letter.  The contacts have discussed safe haven arrangements and reciprocal nonaggresssion, he wrote.  Since the war on terrorism began last year, there has been evidence that al-Qaeda members have been in Iraq, including Baghdad, he wrote.

“We have credible reporting that al-Qaeda leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire WMD capabilities,” Tenet wrote.  “The reporting also stated that Iraq has provided training to al-Qaeda members in the areas of poisons and gases and making conventional bombs” (New York Times, Oct. 8).

The comments and information in the letter do not damage the case that U.S. President George W. Bush made against Iraq in a speech Monday night, Tenet said in a statement released yesterday.

“There is no inconsistency between our view of Saddam’s growing threat and the view as expressed by the president in his speech,” Tenet said.  “Although we think the chances of Saddam initiating a WMD attack at this moment are low —in part because it would constitute an admission that he possesses WMD — there is no question that the likelihood of Saddam using WMD against the United States or our allies in the region for blackmail, deterrence, or otherwise grows as his arsenal continues to build” (Dana Priest, Washington Post, Oct. 9).

New Evidence

U.S. officials have said that Iraq has rebuilt several sites that were associated in the past with the country’s nuclear weapons program, possibly indicating increased efforts to develop a weapon, the Associated Press reported today.

New structures have been built at al-Furat centrifuge development center, the Nassr/Taji Steel Fabrication and Military Production Facility, al-Qa’im uranium ore refinery and the Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center, the AP reported.  All four sites were damaged during the 1991 Gulf War and U.S. and British airstrikes conducted in 1998.

A recently released CIA report said that Iraq has attempted several times to obtain aluminum tubes for use in a uranium-enrichment centrifuge, placing special importance on al-Furat, according to the AP (see GSN, Oct. 7).  The Nassr/Taji facility contains much of the precision manufacturing equipment that would be needed in a nuclear program, a U.S. defense official said (Matt Kelley, Associated Press/Yahoo.com, Oct. 9).

Inspection Rules

Meanwhile, in a letter sent yesterday to Iraqi presidential adviser Gen. Amir al-Saadi, U.N. weapons inspectors outlined the rules by which Iraq would be expected to abide during inspections (see GSN, Oct. 8).

The letter, written by Hans Blix, head of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, and Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, details the agreements made by U.N. inspectors and Iraqi officials during recent meetings in Vienna (see GSN, Oct. 2).

At the Vienna meetings, Iraq agreed to grant inspectors “immediate, unconditional and unrestricted access to sites,” including those that had been classified as sensitive during past inspections, according to Reuters.  Hussein’s eight presidential palaces would still be subjected to protections outlined in a 1998 U.N. Security Council memorandum (see GSN, Oct. 2).

According to the letter, UNMOVIC and the IAEA will have the right to determine the number of inspectors that will be used at each inspection site.  Iraq will be informed of new sites once inspectors arrive at a location and will safeguard aircraft in the no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq.  Iraq must also allow inspectors to interview anyone they wish, it must not interfere with any data transmissions and it must provide inspectors with accommodations and offices, including a northern office in Mosul and a southern office in Basra (Reuters/MSNBC, Oct. 9).

Iraq has already begun preparations to conceal equipment and documents related to its WMD program, U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency official John Yurechko said during a Pentagon briefing yesterday.

“We think they’re fairly accomplished masters,” said Yurechko, a specialist in what intelligence officials call “denial and deception” techniques.

Iraqi officials have become particularly proficient in adjusting to inspection methods by, for example, disabling surveillance cameras or conducting activities outside of camera range, Yurechko said.  Iraq has begun training “large numbers” of officials in concealment techniques and has developed “alert and warning” procedures to have maximum time to remove materials before inspectors arrive at a site, he said.

“They’re improving on a daily basis,” Yurechko said (Graham/Lynch, Washington Post, Oct. 9).

Security Council

In New York, the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council met for two hours yesterday to continue negotiations on a new U.N. resolution on Iraq, according to the Associated Press (see GSN, Oct. 4).  The 10 other members of the council, which are each elected to two-year terms, have yet to see a draft resolution, AP reported.

“We are making progress,” a U.S. official said after the meeting.

“There is no piece of paper being put down in the council at this moment and I would suggest to you there may not be for a few days yet,” said British Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock (Edith Lederer, Associated Press/Yahoo.com, Oct. 9).

For further information, see:

UNMOVIC

U.N. Resolution 687 (Sanctions Regime)

U.N. Resolution 1409 (“Smart Sanctions”)

U.S. State Department Fact Sheet on Iraqi Sanctions Revisions

IAEA Iraq Action Team

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U.S. Response:  Pentagon Kicks Off Broad Search for Anti-WMD Technologies

By Bryan Bender
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Defense Department this month kicked off a multimillion-dollar effort to develop new technologies capable of defeating WMD facilities, predicting the outcome of a chemical, biological or nuclear attack and otherwise beefing up WMD defense efforts through a combination of new weaponry and computer analysis tools, according to defense officials and documents (see GSN, Sept. 16).

The Defense Threat Reduction Agency has published a series of documents outlining a broad new response program to the threat of weapons of mass destruction and is seeking multiple companies and other technology developers to meet a variety of mission objectives.  The agency’s Technology Development Directorate is spearheading the multifaceted effort.

“The mission of the Technology Development Directorate is to reduce national defense and homeland security WMD threats by conducting innovative research and development supporting the nation’s WMD-related counterforce, consequence assessment and defeat technologies,” according to documents published Oct. 4 intended to begin a dialogue with industry participants.

The program will focus on weapons and targeting technologies to attack WMD stocks; hazard assessment technologies to determine collateral damage and other atmospheric and effects of chemical, biological radiological, nuclear and high explosive incidents or accidents; modeling and simulation technologies; and systems engineering expertise to integrate diverse and emerging technologies.

Weapons and Targeting Technologies

In the area of new weaponry, DTRA is seeking proposals that that can defeat WMD-related facilities.  These weapons could be of different types, according to program documents:

*         thermobaric weapons that cause significant blast energy to cause large-scale failures in WMD structures;

*         weapons exploded both above and below the ground causing airblast, penetration, fragmentation, cratering and ground shock;

*         corrosive and incendiary weapons that exploit nonexplosive techniques for destroying a target;

*         portable technologies to enable U.S. troops to render harmless chemical and biological weapons; and

*         new tools for special operations forces to accomplish such missions safely.

The agency is calling on contractors to “develop a full spectrum of tactical agent defeat capabilities that will provide the warfighter with the ability to destroy chemical and/or biological agents,” according to the project description.

Consequence Assessment

While developing a series of new active measures to destroy or neutralize WMD threats, the agency is also looking for new technologies and software tools to assess the aftermath of a successful chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-explosive attack.

The agency is searching for solutions to problems associated with accurately characterizing and predicting the consequences of a WMD attack.  These include how gases are transported in the atmosphere; the physics of how weapons of mass destruction degrade, weaken or become less potent over time; the biological science whereby chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-explosive materials induce predictable symptoms that can lead to incapacitation or death; and sensors that help measure the dispersion of hazardous materials in the atmosphere, land or water.

This job falls to the agency’s Consequence Assessment branch, which is seeking to “develop methodologies and technologies necessary to empower the military and civilian authorities to assess a weapons of mass destruction event and react in a manner that reduces risks and saves lives,” according to the agency.

Other Efforts

The agency will round out its new push for anti-WMD capabilities by developing new simulation tools.

One major effort in this area will be the Hard, Deeply Buried Target Defeat Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration.  This technology demonstration is designed to provide the U.S. Strategic Command with a computer-based, fast-running analysis tool enabling weapons planners to compare and evaluate different attack options against geologically hardened targets.

For example, if military planners are ordered to attack an underground weapons complex — perhaps one hidden in a mountain — new analysis tools would be helpful to determine whether subjecting it to nuclear attack would be a more effective option than a conventional one.

“Evaluations provided by the new tool will include, but not be limited to, probability predictions of a total target defeat (defined as tunnel collapse), probability of functional defeat, the collateral effects produced by the attack, and methods/assessments of damage to the target,” according to the program documents.  “The fast running tool will incorporate, as part of its final product, more refined and higher fidelity evaluations of target response [than is] performed at … the U.S. national laboratories.”

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U.S. Testing:  Cold War-Era Tests Used Live Agents in United States, Reports Say

The U.S. Defense Department used live chemical and biological weapons agents during Cold War-era tests in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, say documents declassified for release to the U.S. Congress today (see GSN, Feb. 28).

The purpose of the tests, along with a series of exercises on naval vessels and sailors, was to examine how combat conditions would affect agents, according to the Washington Post.  Between 1962 and 1971, officials tested chemical agents such as sarin and VX in Alaska, Hawaii and Maryland, according to the documents.  Testers also used a mild biological agent during exercises in Florida, the documents say.

Although some mild agents were released into the atmosphere, none of the agents used during the tests were released into the general population, Pentagon officials said.

The Pentagon and the Veterans Affairs Department are trying to identify the 5,500 military personnel involved in the exercises because officials do not know whether the subjects knew the tests’ nature and potential impacts, the Post reported.  The personnel received whatever protection was available at the time, but that equipment was unsophisticated compared to what is available today, said William Winkenwerder, assistant defense secretary for health affairs.

“We are taking this action now because we do care about veterans and we do care about service members and their health and any potential ill health effects that might have resulted from their service to their country,” Winkenwerder said.

The United States should provide assistance to any veteran who was harmed by the tests, especially in light of plans for military action against Iraq to disarm it of weapons of mass destruction, said House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Christopher Smith (R-N.J.).

“At a time when our nation may be called upon to fight a war to protect Americans from chemical and biological terrorism, it is tragic to learn that four decades earlier, some of America’s soldiers and sailors were unwitting participants in tests using live chemical and biological toxins,” Smith said (Thom Shanker, New York Times, Oct. 9).

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United States:  NRC Approves Second Tritium Production Facility

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission last week approved a second energy plant — the Sequoyah Nuclear Power Plant near Chattanooga, Tenn. — for production of tritium, a component of nuclear bombs (see GSN, Sept. 25).

Up to 2,256 irradiated rods can be produced at the Sequoyah facility under the permit.  The rods would then be shipped to South Carolina where tritium would be extracted at the Energy Department’s Savannah River facility (see GSN, June 28).

Critics said the decision is hypocritical.

“We tell other countries not to use commercial reactors for weapons of mass destruction, so why are we?” asked Stephen Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (see GSN, Oct. 3, 2001).

The Tennessee Valley Authority runs both the Sequoyah facility and the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant near Spring City, Tenn., which the commission also recently approved for tritium production (see GSN, Jan. 29; Andy Drury, Chattanooga Times, Oct. 2).

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Smallpox:  United Kingdom Prepares Vaccination Plan

The United Kingdom is developing a smallpox vaccination plan that might involve inoculating a large portion of the population if the virus were to spread, the London Independent reported today (see GSN, Sept. 23).

The plan — announced by Britain’s chief medical officer, Liam Donaldson — calls for precautionary vaccinations of vital emergency health workers and for those workers to “search and contain” the virus in the event of an outbreak.

“A proper counterplan to a smallpox attack would involve having a group of essential workers who were immune to the disease through vaccination,” Donaldson said.

Donaldson called a mass vaccination a “last resort,” saying there is no new risk of a smallpox attack.  He added, however, that the United Kingdom should nonetheless be prepared for numerous outbreaks of the disease.

“We should have in place enough vaccine to vaccinate on a mass population basis if necessary,” he said.  In April British officials decided to buy enough smallpox vaccine to inoculate 20 million people (see GSN, April 15; Pippa Crerar, Independent, Oct. 9).

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Russia:  Officials Hope to Extend Destruction Deadline Incrementally

Although reports have indicated opposition to Russia’s request to extend its chemical weapons destruction deadline by five years, officials hope to at least push the deadline back in smaller increments, a Russian disarmament official said Sunday (see GSN, Sept. 24).

Members of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which oversees the Chemical Weapons Convention, are considering Russia’s proposal to extend the 2007 deadline to 2012 at a conference this week at The Hague, said Sergei Kiriyenko, chairman of the Russian state commission on chemical disarmament.

“The most likely outcome of a discussion of Russia’s proposal will be an intermediate solution,” Kiriyenko said Sunday.  “At best, the period for the program implementation will be extended stage-by-stage — at first for one year, then for another one, until the program is completed” (Roza Magasumova, ITAR-Tass, Oct. 6 in FBIS-SOV, Oct. 6).

Russia might consider withdrawing entirely from the treaty if its proposal is rejected, Gen. Nikolai Bezborodov, deputy head of the Russian state commission on chemical disarmament, said Monday (see GSN, Oct. 8; Sergei Blagov, Environment News Service, Oct. 8).

A lack of promised international aid has hindered progress on destruction activities, said Zinoviy Pak, general director of the Russian Munitions Agency and a member of the Russian delegation to the OPCW conference (see GSN, Oct. 1).

“We have never abandoned our commitments to destroy our chemical weapons arsenals,” Pak said, “but we have always said that for financial reasons we will not be able to do this on time and without help from Western countries.”

The total cost of Russia’s chemical disarmament program has been estimated at $5 billion to $6 billion, and the country has received only one-third of that amount, Pak said.  Officials plan to begin destroying 400 metric tons of chemical weapons at the Gorny disposal plant as early as April 2003, according to Izvestiya (see GSN, Aug. 22).  Six other disposal plants are still in various stages of preparation and are not ready for use (Izvestiya/BBC Monitoring, Oct. 8).

Forgotten Weapons

Meanwhile, besides Russia’s arsenal of 40,000 metric tons of chemical weapons stored at seven sites, there are also hundreds of caches of old chemical weapons buried throughout the former Soviet Union that could leak and pose risks, according to Lev Fyodorov, head of the Union for Chemical Safety.

While the treaty oversees Russia’s post-World War II chemical weapons, agents produced between 1915 and 1946 remain unaccounted for, Fyodorov said.  As many as 120,000 metric tons of chemical weapons agents might be “lost and forgotten,” he said.

If those estimates are accurate, it is more than the U.S. and Russian chemical weapons arsenals combined, according to Environmental News Service.  Russian chemical disarmament officials, however, have said that the actual number of buried chemical weapons is much smaller.  The burial sites and unexploded chemical bombs could nonetheless pose some contamination risks, the officials said (Blagov, Environment News Service).

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Russia:  Missile Interceptor Gets Service Life Extension

Russia has extended the service life of a 20-year-old missile interceptor by three years, ITAR-Tass reported Monday (see GSN, Oct. 4).  An Oct. 2 test launch in Kazakhstan proved that the long-range interceptor remains reliable, allowing Russian space forces to keep it in use (ITAR-Tass, Oct. 2).

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Taiwan:  United States to Share Missile Warning Data

The United States plans to give Taiwan access to satellite information that could provide an additional seven minutes warning of incoming Chinese missiles, Agence France-Presse reported yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 10).

U.S. officials plan to conditionally share information from a missile-launch-detecting satellite system called the Defense Support Program to increase the effectiveness of Taiwanese Patriot missile systems, according to AFP.  The Taiwanese military plans to establish ground stations in the next five years to link with the satellite system (Agence France-Presse/Taipei Times, Oct. 8).

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