U.S. Response:  Democrats Fault Bush’s Homeland Security Plan

By Bryan Bender
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Two leading Democrats yesterday criticized the Bush administration for having a “bad case of the slows” and “foot dragging” in shoring up homeland defenses, calling for dramatic increases in federal aid to state and local governments considered severely underprepared to address terrorist threats and minimize the damage of a successful attack.

In separate speeches here, Senator John Edwards (D-N.C.) and Representative David Obey (D-Wis.) criticized the White House for what they consider a serious lack of attention to the pressing needs of homeland security.  They reserved some of their strongest criticism for the new Homeland Security Department, an amalgam of 22 agencies set to open its doors Jan. 24, that the two said was just another government reorganization that will contribute little to enhancing security.

The remarks by Edwards, an Intelligence Committee member, and Obey, ranking minority member of the Appropriations Committee, mark the start of what analysts predict will be considerable debate on how to defend the United States from terrorists with chemical, biological and nuclear ambitions.

The lawmakers also advocated a variety of other steps to improve national preparedness for a terrorist attack, including improving security measures at nuclear and chemical facilities across the country, in part by federalizing security forces; establishing a homeland intelligence agency; beefing up the National Guard; strengthening border and port security; modernizing public emergency warning systems; and expanding efforts to secure weapons of mass destruction and related materials at their source.

“Instead of engaging in an open-minded analysis and discussion about what resources our front-line defenders need to perform their tasks, we have instead seen our attention diverted to a tedious debate over the structure of our bureaucracy,” Obey said at the National Press Club.

He stressed that of the 133 agencies that had previously had some responsibility for homeland security, the Homeland Security Department reorganization included all or part of only 22 of them.  The CIA and FBI are not included.  “At best, the new agency title is a misnomer, and at worst, it could actually hamper our homeland protection efforts,” Obey said.

Edwards, who is considering a run for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination, similarly attacked the new department as more of a political achievement than a substantial achievement for U.S. security.

“A new agency and new office space won’t help us infiltrate terrorist organizations right now in our country,” he said at the Brookings Institution.  “It won’t stop terrorists or their weapons from getting through the holes in our borders or our ports.  It won’t provide equipment and training for police to protect bridges and tunnels, or cause companies to protect vulnerable chemical plants.  It won’t help police officers, firemen, and EMTs [emergency medical technicians] on the front lines to coordinate their response in the event of an attack.”

According to Obey, “the White House political office diverted the country’s attention from the real homeland security issue, which is ‘What are we doing to protect the homeland, what resources are we providing?’ and instead focused on a discussion about the reorganization of the boxes.”

First Responders Left Wanting

Both pointed to a lack of federal support for state and local first responders in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.  Local officials have recently become more vocal in their criticism of Washington’s failure to put its money where its mouth is (see GSN, Nov. 25).

Following the attacks, Bush pledged $3.6 billion in federal grants to help local governments train and equip emergency response personnel, but only about $500 million has been allocated so far, Obey said, attributing the administration’s “rigid opposition” to penny-pinching.

“The essential question of what do our defenders need and when do they need it, has not been addressed,” he said.  “The point is simply that more than a year ago the Congress could have provided the money needed for interoperable communications equipment, protective suits that would allow first responders to enter a chemical or biological attack area, detection devices, and training on how to respond to potential attacks.”

“We wouldn’t send our soldiers into battle without the best equipment in the world,” Edwards said.  “Yet on the front lines of domestic defense, this administration is cutting aid to cops, states are laying them off, and they’re not getting training and equipment they need.”

He added, “If, God forbid, there is another attack, the 170,000 employees of the new department won’t be the ones who come to the rescue.  It will be the firefighters and police.” 

Tom Ridge, nominated by President George W. Bush to head the new department, met with city officials from across the country here yesterday and pledged to do more to ensure the promised grants are distributed.

“Governor Ridge and the president say they will push this for us,” said John DeStefano, president of the National league of Cities and mayor of New Haven, Conn.  “But it needs to happen.  It has been too long,” he said.

According to Obey, significantly more money will ultimately be needed.  “It is my belief that if we added another $8 billion to $10 billion, we could plug most of the holes in homeland security,” he said.

A Homeland Intelligence Agency?

One of Edwards’ primary recommendations for improving homeland security is the establishment of a dedicated homeland intelligence agency.  He contends that the FBI is not up to the job (see GSN, Dec. 17).

“The FBI has tried to reform for years, but the bureaucratic resistance is tremendous,” he said.  “Today we don’t have the luxury to turn the FBI into something that it isn’t meant to be.  We need to create what we need,” he said.

The solution, he said, is a separate homeland intelligence agency, which “should be uncovering terrorist threats before they cause harm.”  He said to ensure that information about immediate threats gets to the local level, high-level security clearances should be given to at least one top officer in police departments across the country so they can receive classified information.

Edwards first proposed the intelligence agency two months ago, but said that initial administration support for the proposal has since waned.  “That’s a huge mistake.  Congress and the administration should get to work on the new agency in January.”

Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Security

Erecting better defense against the threat of weapons of mass destruction is another area where the Bush administration has failed to live up to its rhetoric, according to Edwards.

Starting with global stockpiles of these weapons and materials, he called for greater attention to be paid to nonproliferation efforts.  “This is a problem much bigger than Iraq,” he said.  “We must do more to support the many disarmament programs already in place to dismantle weapons and prevent access to weapons-grade materials in Russia and the former Soviet states; we must commit the maximum resources necessary to support cooperative threat reduction initiatives like Nunn-Lugar,” Edwards said.

He also called for a federal security force to guard domestic nuclear plants, such as those now defending U.S. airports.  “Given the terrible cost of an attack on a nuclear plant or a theft from one, we need a federal security force for nuclear facilities, carefully trained and regularly tested through emergency simulations,” he said (see GSN, July 30).

Meanwhile, Edwards said greater pressure must be exerted on chemical companies to improve physical security at their facilities (see GSN, Nov. 26).  “The Bush administration was actually moving towards a common-sense solution that would set minimum standards for safety at chemical plants.  But dangerously true to form, after lobbying by the chemical industry, the administration abandoned that approach,” he said.

He also sees a greater role for the National Guard, which would play a pivotal role in responding to a catastrophic attack.  “We ought to expand the portion of the National Guard focused on domestic defense,” he said, proposing that men and women over the cutoff age of 35 be allowed to join a civilian division dedicated to domestic security.

On the biological front, Edwards said much more work needed to be done at the federal level.  “We need a national system to ensure sufficient production and rapid distribution of existing treatments and preventive measures.  We must do more, especially to develop vaccines and drugs to counter emerging biological threats.”

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Threat Assessment:  U.N. Panel Warns Al-Qaeda Could Acquire Dirty Bomb

By Steve Hirsch
Global Security Newswire

A U.N. Security Council panel this week expressed concern about the potential for al-Qaeda to manufacture a “dirty bomb,” adding that it is aware of reports the terrorist group is interested in chemical weapons.

The panel, established to track the implementation of such anti-terrorism measures as asset freezing, a travel ban and an arms embargo, said in a report released Tuesday that it “remains highly preoccupied by the potential for al-Qaeda to manufacture some kind of ‘dirty bomb.’”

The report noted the recent seizure by Tanzanian police of 110 kilograms of suspected raw uranium, although it emphasized that no connection between the seizure and al-Qaeda had been established (see GSN, Nov. 19).

Nevertheless, the report said, “the possibility cannot be excluded of these illegal movements of raw uranium reaching al-Qaeda or its associates in East Africa.”

In addition, the group said it was aware of press and other reports that al-Qaeda is interested in chemical weapons and said it hopes to devote some time to the issue in the future.

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Iraq I:  Blix, ElBaradei Brief Security Council; U.S. Declares “Material Breach”

The heads of the agencies investigating Iraq’s programs for weapons of mass destruction, Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, told the U.N. Security Council this morning that their preliminary assessment of Iraq’s declaration is that it falls short of a full disclosure of its weapons programs.  The United States called the declaration “a deception” and “another material breach.”  Other permanent members of the council were also critical of the declaration but stopped short of calling it a material breach — a finding that could lead to a war against Iraq.

Blix, the head of U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, said, “There has been relatively little given in the declaration by way of evidence concerning their programs of weapons of mass destruction.” 

International Atomic Energy Agency chief ElBaradei, who is in charge of uncovering Iraq’s nuclear activities, said, “We still need much more cooperation from Iraq in terms of substance, in terms of evidence to exonerate themselves that they are clean from weapons of mass destruction.”

Speaking to reporters after the council briefing, Blix said, “There were a lot of open questions … and these have not been answered by evidence in the new declaration.  The absence of evidence means one can not have confidence that there do not remain weapons of mass destruction.”  He added, “An opportunity was missed in the declaration to give a lot of evidence, they can still provide it, but it would have better if it had been in the declaration.”

The United States was the only government to declare that Iraq is in “material breach” of Resolution 1441, the November resolution demanding a full disclosure of its weapons program.  U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte said, “We were deeply disappointed that Iraq has again defied the council’s demands and chosen deception and concealment over full disclosure.”  He added, “These are material omissions that in our view constitute another material breach.  It is up to Iraq to prove there is some other explanation besides the obvious one, that this declaration is just one more act of deception.”

The declaration “clearly shows that Iraq has spurned its last opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations,” said Negroponte.  “It seeks to deceive when it says that Iraq has no ongoing weapons of mass destruction programs,” he said.

Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock of the United Kingdom called the declaration “inadequate.”  He said, “The declaration was an opportunity to deal with these questions, that it has not done so, we find deeply disappointing … That amounts to a rejection by Iraq of the opportunity that Resolution 1441 afforded … therefore there is fuller work to do.”

Greenstock repeatedly declined to use the term “material breach,” instead referring to the series of paragraphs on 1441 that refer to possible further council actions if Iraq is found to have made false statements or omissions in the declaration.  Ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere of France also refused to use the term, saying, “It is for the Security Council to make such judgment in according with Resolution 1441.”

De La Sabliere said the inspectors’ preliminary assessment “is very similar to ours … Despite its volume, the Iraqi declaration proves only a few new elements, the consistency of some elements can be questioned.  Therefore the declaration does not clearly answer and resolve pending questions.”

Russian Ambassador Sergey Lavrov said, “It is not up to individual members [of the council] to make this judgment [on material breach].  It is up to the Security Council to make this judgment on the basis of reports from UNMOVIC and IAEA.  And of course the work of the inspectors is at a very early stage.”

Lavrov added, “We have been hearing allegations that Iraq does continue its WMD programs [but] we never saw any evidence that this is the case.  We don’t know if this is true or not and we want this to be verified by professionals … To say that we know but we won’t tell you is not persuasive.”

Iraqi Deputy Ambassador Abdul Munim al-Kadhe repeated his government’s position that “Iraq’s declaration is complete and comprehensive and included all that is required of Iraq.”  He called the accusations by United States and United Kingdom “baseless … If they have any evidence, let them present this evidence.”  He added, “Iraq is not in material breach as [Negroponte] said, this is the interpretation of the U.S. and does not represent the interpretation of the whole international community.”

The council’s president for December, Colombian Ambassador Alfonso Valdivieso, read a statement on behalf of the council that said the council was “looking forward” to meeting again in early 2003 “after all members of the council finish their own analytical work on the Iraqi declaration and to hold more regular briefing” from the inspectors.  He added, “There was no decision, it was simply a preliminary assessment.”

The council will meet again within the first 10 days of January.  The inspectors are scheduled to give a more comprehensive assessment, not only of the declaration, but also of their own investigations on Jan. 27 (Jim Wurst, Global Security Newswire, Dec. 19).

Prior to today’s meeting, Syria, one of the 10 nonpermanent Security Council members, returned the edited version of the declaration that it received, according to United Press International.

“This is an unacceptable discrimination, either we take a full copy or we don’t take anything,” said Syrian Deputy Ambassador Fayssal Mekdad.  “We protested the original handling over of the report to selected countries.  Syria as a member of the council has the right to receive the report in full,” he added.

Providing the full declaration to the five permanent council members while giving nonpermanent members access to only an edited version violated Security Council procedures, Mekdad said.

“The decision that was made was not legal,” he said.  “It was against the procedures of the council.  All 15 members of the council have ratified the [Nuclear] Nonproliferation Treaty.  All of them should be dealt with in the same way,” Mekdad added (William Reilly, United Press International, Dec. 19).

Syria’s U.N. Ambassador Mikhail Wehbe said he would not participate in the Security Council discussion of the declaration.

“I have no judgment [to make] because I will not share in this judgment since we did not receive the whole text.  So how can we judge the report if it is not complete?” Wehbe said (Jim Wurst, Global Security Newswire).

Some IAEA officials are angry that copies of the declaration have been distributed at all, according to the London Guardian.

“It was a very dumb idea,” an agency official said.  “They (the Americans) wanted to get their hands on something, forgetting they also had obligations on nonproliferation,” the official added (Ian Traynor, London Guardian, Dec. 19).

U.S. Plans

The United States has set the last week of January as the deadline for deciding whether to conduct military action against Iraq, officials said yesterday (see GSN, Dec. 18).

The Blix and ElBaradei council briefing scheduled for Jan. 27 is within the late January-early February timeframe that the U.S. Defense Department has said would be the best time to attack Iraq, according to the Washington Post.

By waiting to make a case for military action until the end of next month, the United States should be able to demonstrate its commitment to a multilateral approach to disarming Iraq, administration officials said.  The extra month should also give the United States enough time to build an irrefutable case for an attack that Security Council members would be unable to ignore, they said.

Senior White House officials have decided that the best way to maintain international support against Iraq is to allow the inspections to continue, officials said (Bradley Graham, Washington Post, Dec. 19).

France Might Join Attack

Meanwhile, even though France was often at odds with the United States during negotiations over a U.N. resolution on Iraq, French officials now believe that the Iraqi WMD declaration fails to meet Security Council demands.  They suggested that France might choose to support U.N.-mandated military action against Iraq.

The flaws in the declaration amount to outright deception and have increased the chances that France would participate in a U.S.-led attack, sources said yesterday.  “It is not accurate, not full, not comprehensive,” a French source said of the declaration.

After examining the declaration for two weeks, analysts still have several serious unanswered questions related to Iraq’s WMD programs, with the possible exception of its nuclear efforts, French policymakers and experts said. 

“Discrepancies apparently exist in most categories of Iraq’s suspected arsenal of prohibited weapons,” a French diplomat in a European capital said.

For example, the declaration contains no information concerning research into biological toxins, French sources said.  With regard to chemical weapons, Baghdad also has failed to account for imports of precursor chemicals that have been large enough to suggest continued weapon development since 1998, they said.

“The amounts listed in their declaration does not tally with our information based on intelligence reporting about Iraqi foreign orders and bills of lading,” an expert said.

The information Iraq has offered on its ballistic missile programs has raised concerns that it has worked to improve its missiles so that they can be quickly converted to achieve longer ranges than those allowed under U.N. regulations, French sources said.  Iraq is apparently conducting missile engineering programs with what an expert called “ambiguous characteristics” similar to efforts to improve the ranges of short-range ballistic missiles, according to the International Herald-Tribune.

Iraq also has failed to provide enough information on dual-use programs, French sources said.  The declaration fails to answer several questions that have been unresolved since the last U.N. inspections in 1998, an expert said.

“This is a compendium of issues that are out there, in U.N. documents describing suspected weapons programs that Baghdad needs to account for, which Iraq just chose to ignore” in its declaration, a European specialist said.

The large number of flaws in the declaration indicates that Iraq is seeking to mislead the Security Council, which could result in an accusation that Iraq is in “material breach” of U.N. resolutions, French officials said.  In short, the declaration “doesn’t answer the question that the Security Council put forward in its resolution” calling for evidence of Iraq’s disarmament, according to some familiar with French policymakers’ thinking (Joseph Fitchett, International Herald Tribune, Dec. 19).

Inspections

Meanwhile, London has begun providing U.N. inspectors with intelligence to aid in their search for evidence of Iraqi WMD programs, a British official said yesterday.  The United Kingdom has established a channel with the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission and is “passing information, and this is something that I think you can expect to continue,” the official said.  London also has information for the IAEA, the official added.

“It’s no good just us knowing,” the official said.  “We know firstly that for inspections to be effective they need this sort of information, and secondly, if our information is to be credible to others it needs to be tested out by inspectors,” the official added (Edith Lederer, Associated Press, Dec. 19).

Inspectors traveled to four sites today, according to the Associated Press.  They were delayed in entering a building at the al-Fao military industrial facility, AP reported.  The Arab satellite television network al-Jazeera reported that inspectors were denied access for about 30 minutes because they had not given advance notification, but another witness said the delay lasted for about five minutes while officials looked for keys for the building.

Inspectors visited the al-Hareth site in the Taji area, about 20 miles north of Baghdad.  Iraq has claimed the site is a food warehouse, but the United States has alleged it is a biological weapons site (Nadia Abou El-Magd, Associated Press/Yahoo.com, Dec. 19).  They also traveled to a pesticide and insecticide plant at al-Tariq Company at Fallujah, 60 miles west of Baghdad, and the bin Firnas engineering firm, 15 miles north of Baghdad, which has employed personnel previously involved in Iraq’s nuclear weapons efforts (Kamal Taha, Agence France-Presse, Dec. 19).

Yesterday, an UNMOVIC biological team visited the Mosul Bakery Yeast Factory in northern Iraq, according to an IAEA press release.  Missile inspectors visited the former Taji Project 144 site, where ballistic missile components are stored, and a 3.5-kilometer-area on both sides of the al-Saklawiya river, where gyroscope components were formerly destroyed.

An IAEA team visited three sites in the Baghdad area yesterday — the Saidiya Specialized Institute for Engineering Industries, a hydraulics factory and the Daura Industrial Engine Factory, according to the agency (International Atomic Energy Agency release, Dec 18).

For further information, see:

UNMOVIC

IAEA Iraq Action Team

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Iraq II:  Summary of Inspections

Inspectors from the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency have now visited dozens of sites in the round of post-Gulf War inspections that resumed Nov. 27 after a four-year lapse.  The following chart summarizes some of their reported activities.

Date	Site	Activity
Dec. 19	Al-Fao military industrial facility	See GSN, Dec. 19.
	Al-Hareth at Taji
	Al-Tariq Company pesticide and insecticide plant
	Bin Firnas engineering firm
Dec. 18	Mosul Bakery Yeast Factory
	Former Taji Project 144 site
	A 3.5-kilometer area on both sides of the al-Saklawiya River
	Saidiya Specialized Institute for Engineering Industries, in the Baghdad area
	A hydraulics factory in the Baghdad area
	Daura Industrial Engine Factory, in the Baghdad area
	Baghdad water facility	See GSN, Dec. 18.
	Missile launch pad north of Baghdad
	Paint factory in south
	Biology department of a university in the northern city of Mosul
	Engineering Industries Institute
	Al-Fida Company at Dora, just south of Baghdad
	Saddam Dam, near the northern city of Mosul
	Al-Nassr Company for Mechanical Industries at the Taji area, north of Baghdad
	Directorate for Military Works and Clothing Stores depot
Dec. 17	Previously declared biological sites near the northern city of Mosul	See GSN, Dec. 18.
	Oxidizer Production plant
	Al-Almeen factory
	Falluja 2 site
	Iraqi Plant facility
	Several medical and biotechnology laboratories at Baghdad University	See GSN, Dec. 17.
	Unspecified site in the northern city of Mosul
	Pharmaceutical factory in the northern city of Mosul
	Radwan, 10 miles west of Baghdad
	Dijla, northeast of Baghdad
	Al-Sawari company at Taji, on the northern outskirts of Baghdad
Dec. 16	Saad General Company	See GSN, Dec. 17.
	Taji Fiberglass production plant, part of the Thaat al-Sawary plant
	Amariyah Serum and Vaccine Institute, west of Baghdad at Abu Ghraib	UNMOVIC inspectors conducted an inventory of the site and took samples (IAEA release, Dec. 16).
	Al-Nassir al-Atheen State Company	UNMOVIC inspectors conducted a rebaselining inspection and inspected all buildings and dual-use equipment (IAEA release, Dec. 16).
	Iskanderya Foundry, part of al-Hatten	IAEA inspectors took environmental samples, inspected machine tools and conducted a radiological survey (IAEA release, Dec. 16).
	Iskanderya State Enterprises for Mechanical Industries	IAEA inspectors took environmental samples, inspected machine tools and conducted a radiological survey (IAEA release, Dec. 16).
	Mussayib Army Munitions Depot	IAEA inspectors monitored production of small rockets (IAEA release, Dec. 16).
	Al-Motaseem factory
	Al-Hatten Establishment’s testing range
	Al-Qaqaa company	See the Dec. 15 entry below.
	Al-Hatteen	See the Dec. 12 entry below.
	Electronics and heavy machinery factory in Baghdad
	Biological and Technical Institute at Baghdad Univeristy
	Small boat factory 20 miles north of Baghdad
Dec. 15	Al-Fatah State Company	See Baghdad Iraqi Satellite Television, Dec. 15, in FBIS-NES, Dec. 16.
	Theo al-Fekar factory	UNMOVIC inspectors visited the site, which produces missile components.
	Al-Mutassem Solid Rocket Plant	UNMOVIC inspectors visited the site, which conducts the final assembly of the Ababil and al-Feta’h ballistic missiles.
	Al-Qaqaa company	UNMOVIC inspectors updated information about select facilities, including a sulfuric acid plant and an explosives production plant.
	Amariyah Serum and Vaccine Institute, west of Baghdad at Abu Ghraib	See the Dec. 10 entry below.
	Al-Maarik	IAEA inspectors worked to review the site’s activities since 1998 and to review the use of dual-purpose items.
	Sites near al-Maarik	IAEA inspectors worked to review the site’s activities since 1998 and to review the use of dual-purpose items.
	Badr	IAEA inspectors worked to review the site’s activities since 1998 and to review the use of dual-purpose items.
	Ramadi Glass and Ceramic Company
	Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center, located south of Baghdad	IAEA inspectors took water and silt samples for radiological analysis.
Dec. 14	Al-Quds State Company	IAEA inspectors asked experts about the nature of the company’s work and inspected several buildings at the site (Baghdad Republic of Iraq Television, Dec. 14, in FBIS-NES, Dec. 16).
	Al-Mahawil Warehouse	IAEA inspectors determined the nature of some materials at the site subject to monitoring (Baghdad Republic of Iraq Television, Dec. 14, in FBIS-NES, Dec. 16).
	Al-Nasr State Company	IAEA inspectors evaluated seals on several of the site’s buildings (Baghdad Republic of Iraq Television, Dec. 14, in FBIS-NES, Dec. 16).
	Dhu-al-Faqqar factory, part of al-Rashid State Company	IAEA inspectors examined machines at the site (Baghdad Republic of Iraq Television, Dec. 14, in FBIS-NES, Dec. 16).
	Al-Tahaddi State Company	IAEA inspectors conducted a radiation survey (Baghdad Republic of Iraq Television, Dec. 14, in FBIS-NES, Dec. 16).
	Samarra	IAEA inspectors examined remote monitoring systems (Baghdad Republic of Iraq Television, Dec. 14, in FBIS-NES, Dec. 16).
	Al-Qayyarah
	Al-Mishraq
	Al-Kindi, in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul	IAEA inspectors examined the remnants of a remote monitoring system damaged during the 1998 U.S.-British air campaign (Baghdad Republic of Iraq Television, Dec. 14, in FBIS-NES, Dec. 16).
	Center for the Control of Communicable Diseases in Baghdad	UNMOVIC inspectors reviewed seals that had been placed on locked areas.
	Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center
	Al-Samood factory	See the Dec. 10 entry below.
	Al-Fat’h facility, west of Baghdad
	Sulphiric acid plant at the al-Qaqaa company	UNMOVIC inspectors verified equipment and materials at the site.
	The main storage areas of the al-Qaqaa company	UNMOVIC inspectors verified equipment and materials at the site.
	Shaheed
	Al-Hatteen	See the Dec. 12 entry below.
	Iskanderiya
	Daura heavy engineering facility	IAEA inspectors reviewed the use of dual-use machine tools.
Dec. 13	Al-Mussaib Pesticide Store
	Three Major Iraq Surface Water Drainage Basins of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers	IAEA inspectors performed hydrological sampling.
	Baghdad area	IAEA inspectors conducted a wide-area gamma survey.
	Bin al-Haitham missile center in the northern Baghdad suburb of Kadhimiya	UNMOVIC inspectors visited the facility, which was built in 1982 to help develop the short-range al-Sumoud ballistic missile, according to a report by the International Institute of Strategic Studies (see GSN, Dec. 13).
	Center for the Control of Communicable Diseases in Baghdad	The UNMOVIC team that visited the center — which the Iraqi Health Ministry operates — had to summon top Iraqi and U.N. monitoring officials to gain access to several rooms (see GSN, Dec. 13).
Nov. 27- Dec. 12	See GSN, Dec. 13.

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Iran:  Front Companies Support Weapons Program, Sources Say

U.S. officials and an Iranian opposition group have said that Iran has used several front companies to acquire materials and assistance to build nuclear facilities secretly, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, Dec. 16).

Through the use of such companies over the past five years, Iran has been able to appear to abide by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty while still obtaining materials and equipment needed to produce weapon-grade materials from foreign sources, U.S. officials and other experts said.

“The problem is that Iran is not cheating,” said Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center.  “They haven’t broken any rules, and they won’t until they have weapons,” he added.

Funding for two recently disclosed nuclear facilities currently under construction — an apparent uranium enrichment site near the city of Natanz and an apparent heavy water production plant near Arak — does not appear in the official Iranian budget, the opposition group National Council of Resistance of Iran said.  Instead, the country’s main policymaking body, Supreme National Security Council, provided funds directly, the resistance group said.

Iran has used front companies to further hide the construction and purposes of the two facilities, according to the group.  The company Kala Electric has obtained the materials and equipment used for the Natanz site, the group said, adding that Kala Electric officials visited India and China several times last year.  A second front company, Mesbah Energy Co., has conducted similar work to aid the Arak facility, the group said.

Iran has attempted to hide the true purposes of the Natanz and Arak facilities through secrecy and misinformation, said Alireza Jafarzadeh, the U.S. representative of the National Council of Resistance of Iran.  The Natanz facility has been officially described as a desert-eradication project, and provincial authorities have been instructed to withhold the location of the Arak facility, he said.

The existence of the two facilities could be an indication that Iran has built other hidden nuclear sites, said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security.  For example, the Natanz site appears to be too large for a first attempt to build a uranium enrichment plant, suggesting that engineers might have already built a smaller pilot facility, he said.  The Arak heavy water production plant, meanwhile, would only be needed if Iran had a reactor that uses heavy water, which has not yet been detected, Albright said.

“At this point, we have more questions than answers,” he said (Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, Dec. 19).

For further information, see:

NPT Text

States Parties to the NPT (U.N.)

U.N. Background on NPT

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North Korea:  China Denies Weapons Program Assistance

China today denied reports that it sold North Korea large quantities of the chemical tributyl phosphate, which can be used to extract weapon-grade nuclear materials from spent fuel.  The Washington Times had reported the allegation earlier this week, citing U.S. intelligence sources (see GSN, Dec. 17).

“The report is not worthy of comment at all,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said of the Times account, adding that it is “groundless” (Agence France-Presse, Dec. 19).

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U.S.-Russia:  Duma Committees Discuss Moscow Treaty Ratification

The Russian Duma’s defense and international affairs committees met Tuesday to discuss the ratification of the U.S.-Russian Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry (see GSN, Dec. 12).  The committees agreed to a procedure aimed to aid cooperation between the executive and legislative branches of the Russian government to accelerate the treaty ratification process, the ministry said in a press release.

Members of the two committees supported ratifying the treaty as soon as early next year, the ministry said (see GSN, Dec. 16; Russian Fore