U.S. Response:  Exports, Meet National Security

By William New

National Journal

WASHINGTON — With concern about national security creeping toward Cold War levels, the exporting activities of some of the most innovative and lucrative U.S. industries are coming under increased scrutiny (see GSN, Oct. 28).

“What we’re now seeing in the wake of Sept. 11 is that we have to be concerned not only about nation-states, but also about terrorist groups,” according to Kenneth Juster, Commerce Department undersecretary for the Bureau of Industry and Security, formerly called the Bureau of Export Administration.  BIS has oversight, with participation from other agencies, of controls on dual-use products.

Most interested parties agree that U.S. system for controlling exports of dual-use products needs updating.  The 1979 Export Administration Act, which requires licenses and imposes penalties, expired in 1994.  The government is currently operating under emergency powers established by presidential executive order, but the issue of how to proceed has been a stubborn problem.

In recent weeks, just as efforts to overhaul export controls appeared to be gaining steam, several Republicans on the House of Representatives explicitly tied fears of a buildup of weapons of mass destruction in nations such as Iraq and North Korea to the export of U.S. dual-use technologies.  Last week, the General Accounting Office published a report that highlights weaknesses in multilateral export control regimes.  It cited flaws that impede the regimes’ ability to prevent proliferation of nuclear, chemical, biological, and conventional weapons.

Another issue complicating the export 0control process is the need to control not just the technologies, but also the knowledge necessary to make and use them.  Transfers of technological know-how involving sensitive technologies to non-U.S. citizens are called “deemed exports.”  The system for controlling them is in sore need of reform, according to officials.

“License conditions for deemed exports are a mess,” said James Jochum, BIS assistant secretary, in a mid-October speech.  Commerce has floated a new set of conditions for deemed exports, and it is now working its way through the interagency review process.  Separately, the GAO published a report in September that found that deemed export controls contain vulnerabilities that could help China and other countries of concern.

China is the most frequently listed destination on export license applications — it appeared on 1,108 of the 11,001 export applications filed in fiscal 2002, according to a Commerce spokesman.  Commerce officials are negotiating with China to conduct spot checks to confirm that U.S. exports are used as they are licensed to be (see GSN, Oct. 31).

Some in the private sector are complaining that security efforts are slowing the approval process for China-bound exports.

“Since 9/11, all of the progress that was made with increased trade with China is being scrutinized,” said William Kroll, president and CEO of New Jersey-based Matheson Tri-Gas, which manufactures gases, chemicals, and equipment for high-tech industries.  “In my mind, they’re really putting the brakes on.”

According to Juster, Commerce is “not making licensing decisions on the basis of any preconceived notions, and we are not driven by any particular ideology,” he said in an interview with National Journal.  “We want to assist industry whenever we think it makes sense, and argue their case as persuasively and effectively as we can.  But we cannot simply lobby blindly for industry.”

Kroll said the U.S. government already puts companies at a disadvantage against international competitors, especially European companies, by unilaterally placing U.S. exports under greater scrutiny than those of other countries.  U.S. diplomatic efforts to get competing countries to increase control efforts and put their companies on the same footing as U.S. firms are not working, he said.

Juster said BIS advanced a proposal to expand the multilateral Australia Group, an international forum on chemical and biological materials, to control items that might be used by smaller scale chemical and biological weapons programs of interest to terrorists.  BIS also worked to make preventing terrorism an objective of the multilateral export control system known as the Wassenaar Arrangement.  The agreement is a voluntary arrangement that critics such as Representative Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) call ineffective.

BIS is taking other steps to improve export security, such as an initiative to stop illegal transshipment of goods in the Middle East and Asia and to strengthen enforcement practices.  The agency is also targeting the major shipping centers and the largest multimodal transportation companies.  The top 40 companies, such as FedEx and UPS, handle about 80 percent of the world’s commerce, a Commerce official said.  U.S. President George W. Bush has proposed an increase in the BIS budget from $68.9 million in fiscal 2002 to $100.2 million in fiscal 2003, the Commerce spokesman said.

Dan Hoydysh, co-chairman of the Computer Coalition for Responsible Exports, said it is in U.S. national security interests to promote the high-tech industry.

“We think having a healthy and vibrant computer industry that dominates the world in terms of technology is absolutely essential to maintaining military superiority,” because the industry creates innovative technologies that are then put to use in military power, he said.

There are three versions of the House bill to overhaul the Export Administration Act; the International Relations and Armed Services committees last year heavily amended the Senate’s bill.  This fall, intensive negotiations between the White House and House leadership came close to producing an agreement.  Key Republican Armed Services members, however, led by Weldon and Representative Duncan Hunter of California, complained in letters to House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) that they had been left out of the negotiations, throwing a political wrench into the process.

In the Oct. 8 letter, eight Armed Services Committee Republicans called for debate on the Export Administration Act bill to be postponed until next year to allow for more time to consider new threats facing the nation since Sept. 11.  “The U.S. needs a new EAA,” they wrote, “but we also need an export control regime that reflects a post-9/11 world in which terrorists and rogue states are relentlessly pursuing the dual-use technologies and materials necessary to build weapons of mass destruction, and developing ways to attack Americans and our interests abroad.”

The Sept. 26 letter criticized the changes made by the Senate and by the House International Relations Committee as diminishing the role of the defense secretary.

“The Senate bill is fraught with bureaucratic and technical changes that will lead to the decontrol of scores of high technology items,” the letter said.  It also charged that the bill would weaken standards for determining a product’s availability and whether it is mass-marketed.  The committee members argued that the bill would also allow foreign countries to ignore U.S. export enforcement mechanisms and said it “places our nation’s security in the hands of the Commerce Department.”

The letter said that Iraq’s ability to develop weapons of mass destruction grew out of its acquisition of European and American technologies.  “Now we’re paying the price for all that technology” that got out, Weldon said in an interview.  Weldon said the solution is to focus on companies with bad records and those that sell the most sensitive technologies.

Bill Reinsch, Juster’s predecessor in the Clinton administration and now president of the National Foreign Trade Council, said Weldon’s argument is to “build higher fences around a smaller number” of companies and focus on the “bad guys.”  The problem, Reinsch said, is that beyond fissile material and stealth technology, nobody agrees on what should be controlled.

For many in the high-tech industry, the primary concern is the continued use of a congressionally mandated measurement of computing power for controlling computer exports.  They say the measurement is outdated and cumbersome (see GSN, Aug. 6).

“There is a tremendous misunderstanding and mysticism about computing power,” said a computer industry source who stressed that it is impossible to control fast-changing computer technologies.  “American dominance in the computer field is really an entrepreneurial one, not a technological one.  Anyone, any country with a moderate degree of sophistication, can make a computer,” he added.  “Computers are increasingly interchangeable boxes.  It’s the solutions that matter.”

Bush made a campaign pledge to open the way to changing the computing-power measurement, which is known as MTOPS, or millions of theoretical operations per second.  The administration is divided on what the next computer control metric should be.  Commerce is discouraging use of another performance-based standard like MTOPS.

In January, Bush more than doubled the MTOPS threshold above which computers need a license for export to countries deemed risky, such as China, India and Russia.  Commercial computers for which licenses are sought have not yet caught up with that power level.  But industry is catching up with the separate control level set for microprocessors, and the administration is in the “fact-gathering” stage of considering to raise it, officials said.

A provision in the Senate-passed bill to update and renew the Export Administration Act, which the administration supports, would allow MTOPS to be replaced.  Despite new efforts this fall to dislodge the bill, however, it appears to have run aground again in the House.

For Kroll, industry is facing “sort of a perfect storm” — stronger security efforts, diminished stock values, and less political clout because of its declining fortunes.  That leaves their products vulnerable to maneuvering by those seeking political gain from sounding the security alarm, he said.

“Quite frankly, both government and industry have responsibilities,” said Juster, who has State Department and private sector legal experience.  “If you’re involved in exporting sensitive technology ... you always have the responsibility to make sure that the technology is not misused and cannot be used in ways that threaten U.S. national security.  I think that the events of Sept. 11 have brought this concern into focus.”

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Iraq:  Seeking Political Support, Bush Asserts Baghdad Link With Al-Qaeda

U.S. President George W. Bush Saturday alleged that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has connections to al-Qaeda, calling Hussein a “dangerous man” and saying there have been known contacts between Hussein and terrorist organizations (see GSN, Sept. 26).

“We know the implications of him [Hussein] having a nuclear weapon,” Bush said during a political campaign stop in Blountville, Tenn.  “We know he’s had contacts with terrorists’ networks like al-Qaeda.”

Hussein “would like nothing more than to use an al-Qaeda-type network, if not al-Qaeda itself, to be the advanced army to utilize his training and his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction on his most hated enemy, the American people,” Bush said during a speech in Marietta, Ga. (Edith Lederer, Associated Press, Nov. 3).

U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton said Friday that Iraq has allowed al-Qaeda to operate within its borders.

“In terms of support for terrorism, we have established that Iraq has permitted al-Qaeda to operate within its territory,” Bolton said (Washington Times, Nov. 2).

Several European officials and experts, however, have said the evidence is lacking.

“We have found no evidence of links between Iraq and al-Qaeda,” said Jean-Louis Bruguiere, a French judge who has spent 20 years investigating Middle Eastern terrorism.  “And we are working on 50 cases involving al-Qaeda or radical Islamic cells.  I think if there were such links, we would have found them.  But we have found no serious connections whatsoever.”

European experts have said they have not yet seen any U.S. evidence of connections between Iraq and al-Qaeda, nor have they been able to independently prove such connections.  There is little reason to believe there could be any connection because Hussein represents the type of secular Arab leader that suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden has said he opposes, they said.

Talk of an Iraq-al-Qaeda connection is “nonsense,” a high-ranking German intelligence source said.  “Not even the Americans believe it anymore.”

“I have seen no link to al-Qaeda.  No one has demonstrated it to me,” said Baltasar Garzon, a Spanish magistrate who is prosecuting suspected al-Qaeda operatives in Madrid for the alleged involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks.  “And therefore we have to be very careful not to confuse the citizens.  One thing is that you don’t like the Iraqi regime, that Saddam Hussein is a dictator.  But there are many terrible dictators.  That’s not a reason to start a war with all the consequences it could have for millions of innocents.”

While there have been some signs that al-Qaeda operatives traveled through Iraq en route to other countries prior to the Sept. 11 attacks, there is much stronger evidence of al-Qaeda’s presence in other countries, including Pakistan, Syria, Yemen and Iran, according to European investigators.  Since the war in Afghanistan that overthrew the Taliban regime, Iran in particular has become a base for al-Qaeda operatives, according to French investigators.

Saudi Arabia, which is publicly a U.S. ally, has nonetheless been heavily involved in funding al-Qaeda and in the organization’s recruitment efforts, European investigators said (see GSN, Oct. 18).

“If connections to a country are going to be the rationale, the Americans would have to bomb Saudi Arabia,” a Spanish official said (Sebastian Rotella, Los Angeles Times, Nov. 4).

Saudi Arabia Refuses Use of Bases

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia will not allow bases on its soil to be used during an attack on Iraq, nor will it grant the United States flyover rights, even if the United Nations approves military action, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said yesterday.

“We will cooperate with the Security Council, but as to entering the conflict or using the facilities as part of the conflict, that is something else,” he said.

Chapter 7 of the U.N. charter says that U.N. members must implement any measure immediately according to international law, according to the Los Angeles Times.

“Our policy is that if the United Nations takes a decision on Chapter 7, it is obligatory on all signatories to cooperate — but that is not to the extent of using facilities in the country or the military forces of the country,” al-Faisal said.

While the U.S. Defense Department has said it could conduct an attack on Iraq without the use of Saudi bases and airspace, Pentagon planners have said it will be more difficult to do so.

“We can live without Saudi bases, but it obviously makes it tougher,” a U.S. military official said.  “If they don’t at least give us flyover rights, it’s going to be a lot more complex moving supplies and people over there.”

Some Pentagon officials have said the Saudi position is merely diplomatic posturing.  While every Middle Eastern country has publicly rejected the idea of a U.S.-led attack on Iraq, several, including Saudi Arabia, have allowed the United States to conduct military preparations on their territory, according to the Times.

“When push comes to shove, some arrangement will be worked out with Saudi Arabia,” said Owen Cote, a military analyst at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Esther Schrader, Los Angeles Times, Nov. 4).

Kuwait Allows Use of Its Bases              

Saudi neighbor Kuwait has said the United States would be allowed to use its military bases in the event of a U.N.-sanctioned attack on Iraq, Reuters reported today (see GSN, Sept. 27).  The Kuwaiti military, however, will not take part in a military campaign against Iraq, Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah said today.

“If a (U.N. Security Council) resolution is issued, the bases will be used, but not the Kuwaiti military,” al-Sabah said (Reuters, Nov. 4).

U.N. Debate

At the United Nations, there will probably be no vote on a U.S. draft resolution on Iraq until later this week because of the time needed to revise the draft and to have the U.N. Security Council make comments, U.S. officials said (see GSN, Nov. 1).

Security Council negotiations last week were “productive” in developing a resolution that would satisfy French and Russian concerns, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said.  “Talks are continuing along,” he said Saturday (Lederer, Associated Press).

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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North Korea:  Weapons Program Is Negotiable, Pyongyang Says

Pyongyang has offered to negotiate its nuclear weapons program with the United States, saying in a series of statements released last week through the North Korean mission to the United Nations that it is open to ending the program (see GSN, Nov. 1).

“Everything will be negotiable,” including an end to North Korea’s uranium-enrichment program, Pyongyang said, also offering to open the country’s uranium facilities to international inspections.

North Korea also said, however, that it would retain its enrichment program until the United States agrees to begin discussions.  North Korean officials added that if the United States continues to refuse to talk, they would welcome the efforts of an intermediary such as former U.S. President Jimmy Carter.

“Everything will be negotiable,” Pyongyang said in one of the statements issued through Ambassador Han Song Ryol of the mission at the United Nations.  “Our government will resolve all U.S. security concerns through the talks, if your government has a will to end its hostile policy.”

In an interview with the New York Times, Han said Pyongyang has been “stunned” over the constant refusal of the United States to begin discussions on the nuclear issue.

In North Korea, “the interpretation is that the U.S. is preparing for a war,” Han said.   “There must be a continuing dialogue.  If both sides sit together, the matter can be resolved peacefully and quickly” (Philip Shenon, New York Times, Nov. 3).

U.S. Refusal

The Bush administration yesterday rejected North Korea’s offer to begin discussions on its nuclear weapons program, saying such talks could not begin until the program is ended.

“North Korea knows what it needs to do,” said White House press secretary Ari Fleischer.  “It needs to dismantle its nuclear program and honor its treaty obligations.”

The United States plans to continue to pressure North Korea to end its nuclear weapons program through U.S. allies in the region, Fleischer said (see GSN, Oct. 22).

“We continue to talk to our allies about the approach to take, so North Korea will proceed to honor their word,” he said.  “North Korea in 1994 entered into a quid pro quo, and it’s inappropriate for North Korea to say that we will walk away from our quid and ask for more quo.  They entered into an agreement, they should abide by the agreement, and that’s why we’re working in concert with our allies,” Fleischer said (Philip Shenon, New York Times, Nov. 4).

European Union Halts KEDO Funding

Meanwhile, the European Union has decided to withhold its 2003 funding to the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, which oversees the 1994 Agreed Framework, following North Korea’s admission of its nuclear weapons program, EU sources said Friday (see GSN, Oct. 31).

EU officials decided to reconsider providing the almost $20 million to KEDO “to say that we are not happy with you (North Korea) if you do not do something” to address concerns, an EU source said.

The EU Parliament is expected to conduct another round of discussions on the 2003 budget this month and could decide to release the funding, according to the Kyodo News.  The funding might be released to KEDO if North Korea has given up its nuclear weapons program and agrees to abide by international nonproliferation agreements, the EU sources said (Shogo Kawakita, Kyodo News, Nov. 1).

For further information, see:

Agreed Framework Text

KEDO

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Smallpox:  U.S. Licenses Stockpiled Smallpox Vaccine

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration licensed a diluted version of the 30-year-old U.S. smallpox vaccine late last month, paving the way for broad immunizations.

“The license will allow the vaccine to be distributed and administered in a more efficient manner,” said John Modlin, a Dartmouth University professor who chairs the government advisory panel on immunizations.  

Administering an unlicensed vaccine is difficult process that requires monitoring, education and consent, according to Modlin.  “The only legal way to administer an unlicensed vaccine would be under Investigational New Drug regulations,” he said.

Defense personnel will probably receive the first 1.7 million doses of the vaccine, according to Jerome Hauer, biological defense chief at the Health and Human Services Department.  Emergency responders are in line to receive some of the remaining 13.7 million doses, which could also be used to respond to an attack (see GSN, Oct. 17).

The vaccine was licensed when it was produced in the 1970s but bifurcated needles and a liquid additive called a diluent required supplemental approval.  Food and Drug Administration officials made the licensing decision Oct. 25 but waited until Friday to announce it (Ceci Connolly, Washington Post, Nov. 2).

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Anthrax:  FBI Attempts to Recreate Spores Used in Attacks

U.S. investigators and scientists have been working for months to recreate the anthrax spores used in last year’s attacks, FBI Director Robert Mueller said Friday (see GSN, Oct. 29).

“We’re replicating the way or ways it might be manufactured, but it is not an easy task,” Mueller said.  “We are going into new territory in some areas.”

Personnel from several U.S. agencies are conducting the experiments at the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, sources said (see GSN, May 21).  FBI officials refused to say whether investigators are using live anthrax bacteria in the research project and whether scientists are producing spores from scratch.

The FBI might be trying to determine how difficult it would have been to produce the spores used in last year’s attacks, according to some experts.

“They’d probably want to look at several methods of doing it — try to make it several different ways to reproduce the end result,” said David Franz, head of the Chemical and Biological Defense Division of the Southern Research Institute and former commander of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md.  “It doesn’t seem like an unreasonable idea” (Eggen/Gugliotta, Washington Post, Nov. 2).

Simple Spores

Two scientists with knowledge of the FBI’s “Amerithrax” investigation believe it would have been relatively easy to manufacture the anthrax spores used in last fall’s attacks with only tabletop equipment costing a few thousand dollars, the Baltimore Sun reported yesterday (see GSN, Oct. 28).

While experts initially believed that the spores were treated with an additive such as silica to help them disperse more easily, many now believe that no additive was used and that the spores were made through a relatively simple process, the scientists said.

“There’s really nothing all that special about it,” one of the scientists said.  “There are many ways to do it.”

The confusion over the possible addition of silica could have occurred because X-ray studies of the spores used in the attacks detected evidence of the chemical element silicon, a component of silica, said Matthew Meselson, a Harvard University biologist.  Other studies have shown, however, that silicon exists naturally in anthrax, Meselson said.

The powder in the tainted letters was almost pure anthrax, with about 1 trillion spores per gram.  Such a high level of purity was believed to be another indication of the anthrax’s sophistication, according to the Baltimore Sun.

The purity level can be reached, however, through relatively simple production methods such as repeatedly processing the mixture in a centrifuge and removing nonspore materials, said one of the two scientists with knowledge of the FBI’s investigation.

While the anthrax produced in the former U.S. biological weapons program had a much lower purity level, that was because the methods used were meant for large-scale production, the scientist said.  The program could have produced a mixture with a higher purity level on a smaller scale, the scientist said (Scott Shane, Baltimore Sun, Nov. 3).

FBI Director Unsatisfied With Progress

Mueller also said Friday that he is not satisfied with the current status of the FBI’s inquiry into last year’s anthrax attacks, but investigators are making progress.

“Am I satisfied?  No, because we don’t have the person or persons responsible identified, and charges being brought against them,” Mueller said.  “Are we making progress?  Yes.  And we continue to make progress.  We continue to have a number of individuals that we are looking at” (Reuters/Los Angeles Times, Nov. 2).

For further information, see:

FBI Amerithrax Investigation

GSN Anthrax Attack Chronology (Dec. 12, 2001)

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U.S. Response:  States Need Better Plans for Biological Attack

Most U.S. states are not prepared to handle government medicine and vaccines stockpiled for potential biological weapons attacks, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, Oct. 30).

The deadline for states to report their preparations for biological attack passed yesterday, but most do not have sufficient hospital beds, medical isolation areas or comprehensive plans to deal with vaccine stockpiles (see GSN, April 19).

“Our biggest concern is we will get to a location and a state or a city will not be ready,” said Jerome Hauer, assistant secretary for public health preparedness at the Department of Health and Humans Services.

States must have detailed plans for vaccinating their entire populations by Dec. 1, but that may prove difficult.  To date, only 20 of the 62 states, cities and territories receiving U.S. funding to prepare for a biological attack have submitted plans (see GSN, Sept. 23; Laura Meckler, Associated Press/Philadelphia Inquirer, Nov. 2).

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United States:  U.S. Military Studying Nonlethal Chemicals

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military has initiated a plan to research and develop so-called nonlethal chemical agents for a wide range of possible civilian and military purposes, according to a Pentagon document obtained by Global Security Newswire.

Arms control experts say the plan could run afoul of the international Chemical Weapons Convention, to which the United States is a party (see GSN, Oct. 30).

The plan calls for demonstrating the feasibility of a “safe, reliable” chemical immobilizing agent or agents for nonlethal applications in appropriate military missions and law enforcement situations, according to the document, Chemical Immobilizing Agents for Non-lethal Applications, a solicitation for corporate bids to perform the research.

If proven effective and safe, such “incapacitating” agents might be used for a wide range of missions, including peacekeeping, embassy protection, and counterterrorism.

The agents might also be used for common law enforcement purposes ranging from “hostage and barricade situations” to close proximity encounters such as “bar fights and stopped motorists,” the document says.

A first phase of the program for initial research was contracted for in 2000 and has been completed.  The military has not commented on when or if the second of three planned phases might begin.

The program is a concern to some arms control experts, who say it could lead to violations of the Chemical Weapons Convention and more generally undermine the treaty and other international norms.

“I do see as very destabilizing the development of new nonlethal weapons, whether they’re riot control agents or not, being done by the military, for military purposes,” Mark Wheelis, a microbiologist at the University of California at Davis. 

It could “seriously erode the norm against military use of chemicals as weapons,” he said.

Research Contracted

Russian authorities used such an agent last month to incapacitate Chechen hostage-takers and rescue more than 600 hostages.  While knocking out the Chechens, the fentanyl-based agent also killed 118 hostages, authorities said (see related GSN story, today).

Without success so far, the U.S. military and Justice Department for years have sought to develop chemical incapacitants considered sufficiently potent and safe. 

During the 1960s, the U.S. military put a substantial amount of money into developing a delirium-causing agent called BZ.  By the mid-1960s, the U.S. Army had stockpiled and stored in military depots cluster munitions for delivering BZ. 

Those munitions were dismantled and the BZ destroyed according to U.S. government declarations and, according to a 1997 Army history, there were at that time no temporarily incapacitating munitions in the arsenal.  The history cited the inability to find an agent that would satisfy “practical and political concerns.”

Then the military, through a program dating back to the 1970s called Advanced Riot Control Device, conducted research on variants derivative of fentanyl — sufentanil and carfentanil — but found they could cause a halt in respiration in humans.  Subsequent research involved mixing or chasing it with an antidote naloxone to reduce the danger of respiratory failure.

The U.S. Army in May 2000 awarded a contract for the first phase of the plan described in the solicitation to the Michigan company Optimetrics.

Developing a safe chemical incapacitant is “a very, very difficult problem,” said Parker Ferguson, the primary researcher on contract.

“I think the event in Russia is fairly indicative of the problems that one would face in trying to do that,” he said.

Theodore Stanley, an anesthesiology expert at the University of Utah Medical School, said U.S. authorities have hesitated to develop chemical incapacitants in part because they can be controversial to use.

“Think about this, if you knew your government was conducting research and spending a significant amount of money so they could put something in the atmosphere and anesthetize an entire state or city in a minute, you might be upset with that,” he said.

He said, though, that that risk could be outweighed by the benefits.

“If you could do that safely, and you saved that for very special cases, something like this [the Russian crisis], you had that capacity, you were trained and you could handle this, people would pat you on the back and say you saved the day,” he said.

Indication of Scope

Ferguson declined to comment directly on the new research, citing a need to maintain confidentiality.  The Pentagon’s solicitation did provide some indication of the scope of the study and its goals.

If the technology is proven, potential military uses might include “meeting U.S. and NATO objectives in peacekeeping missions; crowd control; embassy protection; rescue missions; and counter-terrorism,” it said.

Potential law enforcement uses by domestic agencies, the solicitation also said, include: hostage and barricade situations; crowd control; close proximity encounters such as, domestic disturbances, bar fights and stopped motorists; halting fleeing felons; and prison riots.

The research would analyze “recent breakthroughs in the pharmacological classes such as anesthetics/analgesics, tranquilizers, hypnotics and neuromuscular blockers.”

“Recent pharmaceutical developments suggest that new approaches to safer chemical immobilizers with improved performance characteristics may be available,” it said.

Concerns Regarding the CWC

Arms control experts say regardless of how safe agents can be made, development and use of such agents by the military could run afoul of the international Chemical Weapons Convention, depending on their intended uses.

Fundamentally, the treaty prohibits using any chemical agents for warfare, while allowing for unspecified law enforcement use, and for riot control situations if the agent has only temporary side effects.

“The convention doesn’t ban chemicals, it bans purposes under which those chemicals are applied,” said Jean Pascal Zanders, project leader on chemical and biological warfare for the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. 

Experts see the administration’s plan potentially in conflict with the treaty with respect to such military purposes such as peacekeeping, counterterrorism, search and rescue and crowd control.

Wheelis contends the U.S. military has not publicly made the case that using chemical incapacitants for such activities would be legal.

“Not only do you have to show that this is not a means of warfare, you also have to demonstrate that this is law enforcement,” he said.  “My view is the Pentagon has to demonstrate proactively that this is legal.”

Using chemicals under such circumstances, he said, might be allowable if they were specifically authorized as law enforcement activity either by the country where they were used or by the U.N. Security Council.

Potential Conflicts

Two of the potential uses that might pose problems with respect to the treaty are peacekeeping and counterterrorism, said professor Matthew Meselson, co-director of the Harvard Sussex Program on Chemical and Biological Warfare Armament and Arms Limitation noting the treaty expressly forbids chemical weapons use for warfare.

“You could imagine them in various flavors, some of which sound fine and some of which don’t,” he said. 

“In peacekeeping, if it is against an organized armed unit, that definitely would be warfare,” he said.

It is too soon to tell whether the program violates the treaty, Zanders said.  He added, though, another part of the document could point to a potential treaty breach.

The document said the Pentagon’s Joint Nonlethal Weapons Directorate found the technology falls under its broad core mission area of “incapacitating personnel” and could be used for “clearing of facilities” and “area denial.”

“These are some of the core purposes of using chemicals in military warfare,” he said.

There is little publicly available information explaining how the U.S. military views the constraints of the treaty on the use of chemical incapacitants.  A slideshow summarizing a Navy assessment presented in April 2001, however, suggested the Navy considers such agents allowable if incapacitation is temporary, for riot control in military operations other than war, and if it discriminates between civilians and combatants.

The slideshow, presented by a Marine Corps attorney-advisor, suggested chemicals might also be used “defensively,” such as against rioting prisoners, in situations where civilians are used as shields, for search and rescue, and for “rear areas security.”

The Pentagon solicitation itself tacitly acknowledged use of the technologies could pose a challenge to the requirements of the convention.

The second phase of the program requires research to “determine implications of the Chemical Warfare Convention (CWC) for proposed scenarios of use” of the chosen material and “select optimum scenario(s) of use.”

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Russia:  Moscow Death Toll Rises as Chechen Threatens More Attacks

The civilian death toll from the Moscow theater siege rose to 120 as a woman died of acute cardiac insufficiency, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, Nov. 1).  Only two of the dead were killed by their captors, with the remaining 118 victims succumbing to the effects of the anesthetic chemical pumped into the theater by Russian authorities.

Four children are among the 148 freed hostages who remain hospitalized as of Monday (Interfax/Associated Press, Nov. 4).

Russian authorities freed hundreds of hostages and killed 50 Chechen extremists when they retook the theater Oct. 26, but experts have said that the Russians also caused civilian fatalities with “a huge overdose” of fentanyl, the London Independent reported.  The fentanyl was pumped through the theater’s ventilation system to incapacitate the Chechens.

Meanwhile, a Chechen military leader has claimed responsibility for the raid and announced that more devastating attacks will follow.

“The next time those who come won’t make any demands, won’t take any hostages,” Shamil Basayev said.  The main goal will be to destroy the enemy and exact maximum damage” (Fred Weir, Independent, Nov. 3).

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U.S. Plans:  Officials, Analysts Disagree on Patriot Missile

The U.S. military does not plan to use the Patriot missile system as a primary defense in the event of war with Iraq because the system is unreliable, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday.  Military officials, however, said that the Patriot is improved and has destroyed Scud missile targets in tests (see GSN, Oct. 15).

The Pentagon is focusing on finding Iraqi Scud missiles before they are launched and destroying them on the ground, analysts said.  Defense officials acknowledged that the Patriot Advance Capability 2 — which is currently in use — has limited worth, and the new model is having trouble in development (see GSN, Sept. 19; Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times, Nov. 2).

An official from the Missile Defense Agency said, however, that the Patriot has been successful against Scuds since the 1991 Gulf War.

“Since Desert Storm, the Missile Defense Agency has researched, developed and turned over to the Army more than 300 Patriot PAC-2 Guidance Enhanced Missiles, which have destroyed Scud missile targets in tests,” the official said.

The Army reportedly has 38 of the latest Patriot missiles, known as PAC-3, and Army officials said that it is ready to use (see GSN, Oct. 31).

“We have an operational capacity in PAC-3,” Army Secretary Thomas White said Thursday.

The U.S. Army has made “fairly remarkable” progress in addressing the ballistic missile threat as a whole, according to Army Space and Missile Defense Command chief, Lt. Gen. Joseph Cosumano (Ann Roosevelt, Defense Week, Nov. 4).

Other Pentagon officials have also defended the Patriot system.

“It’s been tested pretty rigorously, we’ve been at it a long time, and we’re ready to declare it’s a useful military system,” said U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish, head of the Missile Defense Agency (see GSN, Nov. 1).

Israel, which codevelops the Arrow missile defense system with the United States, has expressed skepticism of the Patriot’s reliability.  Some private analysts also said they are less confident.

“The military is hopeful for what Patriot could do, but they clearly don’t intend to rely on it solely,” Brookings Institution scholar James Lindsay said.  The Patriot “is going to play only a supporting role” and the missile defense program as a whole “has been long on promises and short on products,” he said (Richter, Los Angeles Times).

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First Committee:  Committee Debates the Future of Multilateralism

By Jim Wurst
Global Security Newswire

UNITED NATIONS — The pursuit of multilateral disarmament — especially nuclear disarmament — in a unipolar world was the focus of much debate at the latest session of the U.N. General Assembly’s Disarmament and International Security Committee, which ended Friday (see GSN, Oct. 8).

The stronger the language on multilateralism in general — or on specific proposals for disarmament — the less likely a resolution was to achieve consensus or even major support.  In some cases, the United States or other Western nuclear powers opposed drafts that endorsed policies they do not want to pursue; at other times, India or Pakistan objected to favorable references to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty , to which neither is a party.  When enough of these elements were in any resolution, the negative votes and abstentions could be significant.

The committee spent seven days debating and voting on more than 50 resolutions on nuclear, chemical and biological weapons disarmament, small arms, the Register of Conventional Weapons, missiles and the work of the Conference on Disarmament.  As usual, nuclear disarmament dominated the debate.

The New Agenda Coalition, a grouping of seven countries — Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, Sweden, New Zealand and South Africa — that since 1997 has been promoting multilateral disarmament measures aiming for a nuclear weapon-free world, wrote a resolution that expressed concern over a lack of progress on disarmament since the 2000 NPT Review Conference and over “emerging approaches to the broader role of nuclear weapons as part of security strategies” that “could lead to the development of new types, and rationalizations for the use, of nuclear weapons.” 

The coalition said “a nuclear weapon-free world will ultimately require the underpinning of a universal and multilaterally negotiated legally binding instrument or a framework encompassing a mutually reinforcing set of instruments.”  The vote was 118-7 — France, India, Israel, Monaco, Pakistan, the United Kingdom and the United States were opposed — with 38 abstentions. China voted for the resolution, and Russia and most NATO states and U.S. allies abstained.

A Japanese-Australian draft on nuclear disarmament was opposed by the NAC countries and others that felt the resolution misrepresented and watered down commitments the nuclear states made at the 2000 NPT review conference.  The United States opposed it because of a favorable reference to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and India followed suit because of references to the NPT.  The vote was 136-2 with 13 abstentions.

The only resolution on nuclear disarmament to be adopted by consensus was one sponsored by the United States and Russia welcoming their bilateral nuclear agreement, the Strategic Offensive Reduction Treaty.  Even here, though, some countries that joined the consensus expressed serious reservations about the resolution.  The NAC welcomed the treaty but added, “Reductions in deployment and operational status cannot substitute for irreversible cuts in, and the total elimination of, nuclear weapons.”

The traditional nonaligned movement draft on nuclear disarmament was adopted by a vote of 91-49 with 19 abstentions.  Although it did not include some language that the Western nuclear powers and their allies have found objectionable in the past, it still featured a call for more action that the West appeared ready to accept, such as pledging not to be the first to use nuclear weapons, dealerting nuclear weapons, minimizing the role of nuclear weapons in strategic doctrine and negotiating further cuts in tactical nuclear weapons.

This issue of tactical, or “substrategic,” arms was the subject of an NAC resolution calling on the United States and Russia “to formalize their presidential nuclear initiatives [of 1991 and 1992] into legal instruments and to initiate negotiations on further effectively verifiable reductions of their nonstrategic nuclear weapons.”  The vote was 115-3 with 38 abstentions.  The United States, the United Kingdom and France voted against the text, saying that “the approach it outlines to dealing with nonstrategic nuclear weapons is unrealistic and impractical, and would have virtually no prospect of success.”  Russia abstained.

Similarly, a resolution on missiles, written by Iran, passed 90-2, with the United States and Israel opposed and 57 abstentions.  The draft welcomed a recent U.N. study on missiles and called for more study on ways to control the proliferation of these weapons.  The European Union and other European states abstained, saying they favored the voluntary International Code of Conduct against Ballistic Missile Proliferation as “the most concrete initiative” and the one that “offers the best chances of leading to tangible results.”

There were two drafts dealing with multilateralism in general.  One by the nonaligned movement drew 11 negative votes and 44 abstentions, with 100 positive votes.  The other, by committee Chairman Matia Mulumba Semakul Kiwanuka, went through three revisions after being criticized for placing multilateral efforts above other negotiating forms and for an alleged lack of transparency in the writing of the text.  Kiwanuka withdrew the draft when it became clear consensus would not be found.

The nonaligned draft “reaffirms multilateralism as the core principle in negotiations in the area of disarmament and nonproliferation,” “underlines the importance of preserving the existing agreements on arms regulation and disarmament, which constitute an expression of the results of the international cooperation” and asks countries to “consult and cooperate among themselves in resolving their concerns with regard to cases of noncompliance as well as on their implementation ... and refrain from resorting or threatening to resort to unilateral actions or directing unverified noncompliance accusations against one another.”  The draft was an indirect criticism of the United States over its plans for a possible attack against Iraq and noncompliance with its disarmament obligations.

A U.S. draft on compliance with arms control agreements was adopted by consensus.  Indirectly targeting Iraq and North Korea, the text called on states “to give serious consideration to the implications that noncompliance by states parties with any provisions of agreements in the fields of arms limitation and disarmament and nonproliferation have for international security and stability” and “to support efforts aimed at the resolution of compliance questions by means consistent with such agreements and international law, with a view to encouraging strict observance by all states parties of the provisions of arms limitation and disarmament and nonproliferation agreements and maintaining or restoring the integrity of such agreements.”  Although they joined the consensus, countries including Brazil, Egypt and New Zealand complained the text weakened commitments to multilateral disarmament because of language that had been left out from previous years.

A draft on preventing terrorists from acquiring weapons of mass destruction, sponsored by India, also achieved consensus.  The draft “urges all member states to undertake and strengthen national measures, as appropriate, to prevent terrorists from acquiring weapons of mass destruction, their means of delivery and materials and technologies related to their manufacture, and invites them to inform the secretary general, on a voluntary basis, of the measures taken in this regard.”

An Iraqi text on depleted uranium was the only draft before the committee that was defeated.  The vote was 35-59 with 56 abstentions.  Opponents, including the United States and the European Union, said the draft stated as facts the health and environmental damage caused by these weapons, which were used by the United States in Iraq and Yugoslavia, but that the evidence shows the use of these weapons to imply no such effects.

For further information, see:

NPT Text

States Parties to the NPT (U.N.)

U.N. Background on NPT

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