International Response:  IMO Looks to New Shipping Security Codes

The U.N. International Maritime Organization plans to meet Monday to pass new security regulations pushed by the United States as necessary, but criticized by others as “draconian” and expensive.

Regulations from the International Ship and Port Security Code are expected to be made into law as amendments to the Safety of Life at Sea Convention, the Financial Times reported today (see GSN, Nov. 6).

The U.S. Container Security Initiative has provided much of the impetus behind the new code, which would designate responsibilities for gathering information and detecting threats to shipping and ports (see GSN, Nov. 27).  A range of security levels would prompt different sets of security procedures in ports and on vessels.  On board, some crew members would be responsible for controlling and monitoring ships.  The new proposals might be amended, but they are expected to be passed in some form, the Financial Times reported.

The cost of implementing the new regulations has not been discussed in the effort to craft the code, said David Whitehead of the British Ports Association.  Those figures are being assessed now, according to the Times, and European port officials have said that the burden should fall on governments.

The U.S. container initiative has already placed burdens on shipping and the cost of future controls is difficult to estimate, said Chris Koch of the World Shipping Council.  Implementing the regulations included in the U.S. initiative has been like “trying to drink out of a fire hose,” Koch said.

“European transport operators feel they are being railroaded into all sorts of draconian measures,” one international trade official said (Toby Shelley, Financial Times, Dec. 5).

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Iraq:  Baghdad Expected to Submit Full Declaration to United Nations

Iraq is expected to submit a full declaration of its weapons of mass destruction programs to the United Nations this weekend, as required by the new U.N. resolution (see GSN, Dec. 5).

“This is [Iraqi President] Saddam Hussein’s last chance to come clean,” said David Albright, head of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington (Scott Peterson, Christian Science Monitor, Dec. 6).

The Bush administration has compiled a team of analysts who will carefully examine the Iraqi declaration, which is expected to consume hundreds of pages in both Arabic and English.  While it might take several weeks to fully translate and examine the information, U.S. officials hope to find any important omissions and falsehoods more quickly than the United Nations might, according to the Los Angeles Times.

“There are men and women who have lived and breathed this stuff for years,” a U.S. official said.  “They can breeze through this thing and put Post-it notes on inaccuracies,” the official added.

There are several areas that officials hope the Iraqi declaration will address, including the fate of about 700 tons of raw materials for chemical weapons agents, details about Iraq’s VX production program, explanations for Iraq’s attempts to purchase nuclear weapon-related items, and proof that Iraq fully destroyed its biological weapons arsenal, according to the Times (Drogin/McManus, Los Angeles Times, Dec. 6).

While Iraqi officials have maintained that they no longer have any WMD programs, both the United States and the United Kingdom have alleged the opposite, according to the Christian Science Monitor.

“If Iraq sticks to their story that they have no WMD, I would interpret that they feel that war is inevitable — and so why give away anything?” Albright said.

Even if Iraq still possesses a fraction of the WMD arsenal it had before the 1991 Gulf War, before the United Nations destroyed nearly all of it, it could still pose a threat, some analysts said.

“We expect this declaration to account for this stuff, at least,” said Mark Sedwill, a British spokesman on the Middle East, who was attached to a 1997 U.N. team tasked with unraveling Iraq’s concealment mechanism.  “The declaration is going to be difficult to get right, since they say they have nothing.  Admitting they were lying will actually be compliance,” he added (Peterson, Christian Science Monitor).

Bush administration officials said yesterday that they have a “solid basis” for continuing their assertions that Iraq has maintained its WMD programs.  U.S. officials are currently withholding such information until Iraq submits its declaration, according to USA Today.  Once that has been done, U.S. officials plan to provide their information to the United Nations in an attempt to prove that Iraq is lying, USA Today reported (Nichols/McQuillan, USA Today, Dec. 6).

“President [George W.] Bush has said Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.  (British Prime Minister) Tony Blair has said Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.  (Secretary of Defense) Donald Rumsfeld has said Iraq has weapons of mass destruction,” White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said.  “Iraq says they don’t.  You can choose who you want to believe,” he added (Bill Nichols, USA Today, Dec. 6).

Iraqi Scientists

Meanwhile, the White House has increased pressure on U.N. inspectors to identify important Iraqi scientists and to remove them from Iraq to offer them asylum in exchange for information on Iraqi WMD efforts, said officials for the Bush administration and the United Nations.

U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice raised the issue during a meeting with U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix Monday, according to the New York Times.  Talks on how to handle Iraqi scientists are still ongoing, and the message to Blix was that the United States wants him to “make it a priority” to use that authority in the new U.N. resolution, a U.S. official said.

The Bush administration has offered to create a type of “witness protection program” for Iraqi scientists who choose to defect, which would allow for a more aggressive approach in interviewing them, the Times reported.

“The United States is concerned with the safety, welfare and nonintimidation of people who may wish to cooperate” with inspectors, a senior Bush administration official said.  “We take this issue seriously and we hope the international community would also attach the same importance to the issue,” the official added.

According to arrangements under discussion, U.N. inspectors could identify key Iraqi scientists who would then be removed from the country, possibly with their families.  U.S. officials would then debrief the Iraqi scientists, give any useful information back to U.N. inspectors and then work to resettle the Iraqi scientists in a country that would take them, according to the Times.  While any scientist who wanted to return to Iraq would be free to do so, such action would carry a high risk, U.S. and U.N. officials said.

There is still a large amount of debate over the scope of a scientist protection program, the Times reported.  Some U.S. officials have called for inspectors to aggressively identify Iraqi scientists and demand they leave the country for interviews, in some cases even without the scientists’ consent.  Blix, along with many U.S. State Department and U.N. officials, however, have argued that the United Nations cannot resort to kidnapping Iraqi scientists, officials said.

“That’s where the problem is,” said a Bush administration official sympathetic to Blix’s concerns.  “Taking someone against their will is contrary to the whole United Nations concept.  You’d fracture the U.N. consensus,” the official added (Patrick Tyler, New York Times, Dec. 6).

New War Cost Estimates

In a worst-case scenario, the cost of a war with Iraq could reach almost $2 trillion — about 10 times higher than the costs under the worst-case scenario presented by the Bush administration, according to a report released yesterday by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

In the report, entitled War With Iraq:  Costs, Consequences and Alternatives, researchers estimated that a U.S. war with Iraq could cost $99 billion to $1.9 trillion over the next 10 years.  Several postwar costs have largely been left out of the Bush administration’s estimates, according to the report.  Those costs include $75 billion to $500 billion for long-term occupation and peacekeeping in Iraq, up to $105 billion for Iraqi reconstruction efforts and at least $10 billion in humanitarian aid.

The report also found that a war could result in anywhere from a $17 billion positive impact on the U.S. economy to a loss of almost $400 billion, including a recession triggered by disruption of the international oil market.

“The economic ripples of a war with Iraq are likely to spread beyond the direct budgetary costs, with the prospect of raising the cost of imported petroleum, slowing productivity growth and possibly triggering a recession,” wrote William Nordhaus of Yale University, a report author.  “The dangers of tipping into a recession are real,” he added (American Academy of Arts and Sciences release, Dec. 3).

It is still too soon, however, to begin a discussion on cost estimates for military action against Iraq, the White House said.

“War is the last resort,” White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.  “We’re hoping for a peaceful solution,” he added (Associated Press/USA Today, Dec. 6).

For further information, see:

UNMOVIC

IAEA Iraq Action Team

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Iran:  Russia Decreasing Nuclear Aid, Sharon Says

Russia has been decreasing the amount of nuclear assistance that it provides to Iran, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said yesterday (see GSN, Nov. 20).  The drop in aid has become a concern in Iran, Ha’aretz reported today.

Private Russian companies have sold Iranians civilian goods that can also be used to help make chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, according to Ha’aretz.  A key remaining Israeli concern is the transfer of missile technologies, which is often unmonitored by Russian authorities, Ha’aretz reported (see GSN, Oct. 23).

Even though Russia’s nuclear assistance to Iran is decreasing, “there is much leakage from Europe, through commercial and other ties,” Sharon said (Aluf Benn, Ha’aretz, Dec. 6).

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Russia I:  Security-Focused Culture Would Protect Fissile Materials, Report Says

By Mike Nartker
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Instead of using only technical measures to improve the security of Russian fissile materials, officials should focus on the personnel and workplace culture at nuclear sites, says a report released last month by the University of Georgia’s Center for International Trade and Security (see GSN, Nov. 15).

The report, The Human Factor and Security Culture:  Challenges to Safeguarding Fissile Materials in Russia, explores several cultural factors at Russian nuclear sites that might pose security concerns, including corruption, inadequate infrastructure, shortcomings of various personnel, and underdeveloped standards and guidelines.

“The lack of nuclear security in Russia ... has more to do with the practices of personnel than with the presence or absence of technology,” the report says.  “The dismal conditions under which nuclear personnel toil, combined with pervasive lax attitudes towards nuclear security, mean that nuclear material in Russia is at much greater risk of diversion than in other nations.  Thus, efforts to enhance nuclear security through new gadgetry alone will fall short,” it adds.

There have been several examples of personnel at Russian nuclear sites misusing security equipment, according to the report.  For instance, a 2001 U.S. General Accounting Office study found several cases where security gates were left open and unattended, guards failed to check identification of personnel entering sensitive areas, and security equipment was uninstalled or inoperable.

Russian nuclear sites often lack the infrastructure needed to support security system upgrades, according to the report.  For example, power outages at nuclear sites occur often, which can deactivate security equipment.  Site security systems also often suffer from a lack of necessary training and funds for repairs.  Almost 30 percent of managers at Russian nuclear sites reported that security equipment was “sometimes” broken, while less than half said they had personnel on site capable of repairing inoperative systems, according to the report.

While many nuclear security experts believe that nuclear sites are most vulnerable to attack or theft by an insider, Russian nuclear personnel still do not fully grasp the threat of such an attack, according to the report.  Studies have shown that many Russian top- and mid-level nuclear site managers see the threat of an attack by an insider as no greater than an attack by a terrorist group, the report says.

Russian Cultural Effects

Overall sociological and economic conditions in Russia also have affected security culture at nuclear sites, the report says.  Because personnel are often underpaid, nuclear materials have been stolen and diverted in several cases.  Rising levels of drug and alcohol use among site personnel also has security implications, the report says.

“The requirements for drug and alcohol tests among nuclear personnel are often ignored, so there is no way of knowing how many people working at nuclear sites are actually intoxicated on the job,” the report says.

The reduced prestige of the Russian nuclear sector further helps to undermine the security culture, according to the report.  During the Soviet era, many top scientists went to work in the civilian and military nuclear sectors out of patriotism — a motivation that has severely waned after the fall of the Soviet Union, the report says.  Now, qualified personnel often choose instead to pursue higher paying jobs in the private sector, it adds.

A lack of security regulations for fissile materials, when combined with a workplace culture that values compliance with superiors over compliance with established rules, also poses a security threat, the report says.  Much of Russia’s fissile material regulatory system is underdeveloped, according to the report, with few national accountability standards and site-level security procedures.

“Some Russian experts characterize the volumes of U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and DOE [U.S. Energy Department] security regulations as excessive, but admit that the dearth of adequate normative and regulatory guidelines that is the norm in Russia is a real problem,” the report says.

What guidelines do exist are often unclear and contain too many generalities, according to the report.  Such vagueness enforces the idea that security is a low priority and gives individuals more freedom to choose courses of action, the report says.  It also frustrates cooperation among agencies because each defines the same guidelines and procedures in different ways, it says.

Recommendations

The center outlined several recommendations for improving Russian nuclear security culture.  Any such improvement efforts must not, however, be undertaken solely by Western countries, the report says.  Western standards and guidelines cannot be imposed onto Russia unaltered, it says

Russia should work to promote a commitment to strong security, starting from the top down, the center recommended.  Senior Russian officials should use their positions to increase public support for strengthening security arrangements, according to the report.  Officials also need to emphasize security when they allocate resources, promoting quality control and additional training, it says.

The Russian Atomic Energy Ministry needs to end a Cold War-era policy of placing military and intelligence officials in important positions in material protection, control and accounting programs, the center recommended.  “Most of these people barely understand the technical side of the nuclear sector, especially its technologies and production processes,” the report says.

Moscow also needs to improve its nuclear security regulations and guidelines to make them clearer and easier to use, the report says, noting serious flaws in the Soviet-style of creating instructions.  The new guidelines should be solution-based instead of process-based, laying out step-by-step solutions to various scenarios in clear language.  New instructions should also be computer-based, and manuals should be tailored for various personnel with different levels of training and experience at different sites, according to the report.

Nuclear site personnel recruitment and training practices also need to be improved, the report says.  Reliability tests should be conducted often, including before students enter educational institutions to begin the necessary training for work in the nuclear sector, it says.  Selective tests, including psychological and drug testing, should also be conducted frequently.

One key area is a need to change how Russian nuclear site personnel perceive the level of threat to fissile materials, according to the report.  Concrete examples should be used to illustrate to workers that the threat of an insider-aided attack is higher than an attack conducted by an outside terrorist group, it says.

“Given Russia’s recent experiences with terrorism and the widely publicized cases of military personnel essentially supplying potential terrorists with weaponry and special equipment in exchange for money — an egregious example of an insider job — getting the point across to nuclear managers may not be such a daunting task after all,” the report says.

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Russia II:  U.S. Levies $40,000 Fine for Illegal Computer Exports

The U.S. company Jet Info Systems International has agreed to pay a $40,000 fine to settle charges that it illegally re-exported computers from Germany to a Russian nuclear research facility, acting U.S. Assistant Commerce Secretary Lisa Prager announced Wednesday (see GSN, Nov. 5). 

The Commerce Department’s Bureau Industry and Security has alleged that, on two separate occasions in 1996, Jet Info shipped computers from Germany to the Federal Nuclear Center of the Russian Research Institute of Experimental Physics without authorization.  Although the computers were produced abroad, they were subject to U.S. export controls because they incorporated technology that originated in the United States, the department said in a press release.

Commerce also imposed a two-year denial of export privileges on Jet Info, which will be suspended provided the company commits no further violations during that period, the department said.

A Russian national who authorized one of the two shipments has been fined $20,000 and denied export privileges for five years (U.S. Commerce Department release, Dec. 4).

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United States:  Nuclear Facility Must Improve Safety

A U.S. nuclear oversight board last month criticized criticality safety violations at the Energy Department’s Y-12 nuclear weapon facility in Oak Ridge, Tenn., warning that safety conditions at the aging complex “may soon be in a deficient condition,” Energy Daily reported today (see GSN, March 28).

Safety lapses could lead to an accidental chain reaction and release of radiation at the facility, which manages and maintains nuclear materials, evaluates the integrity of the U.S. nuclear stockpile and disposes of retired nuclear weapons, according to the Daily.

Building 9212 at the facility is of particular concern because of its age and a history of safety problems, according to a Nov. 13 letter from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board to Everet Beckner, the deputy administrator for defense programs at the National Nuclear Security Administration.

Criticality safeguards — measures to ensure that fissile materials remain stable enough to prevent a chain reaction — are “regressing” at the Y-12 plant, the board said, instructing the nuclear administration to submit a letter within 60 days to explain how the facility’s safety would be improved.

“The recent criticality safety violations in Building 9212 have again given the board cause for concern, and point to a general neglect of criticality controls in the storage and handling of fissile material at Y-12,” the board said.  “The most recent criticality safety violations were self-identified by the contractor, but the recurring nature of these violations clearly indicates that the contractor’s corrective actions to date are inadequate,” it added.

The board recommended conducting safety reviews and standardizing nuclear handling programs and procedures to ensure that workers understand safety requirements at the plant (George Lobsenz, Energy Daily, Dec. 6).

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Russia III:  Washington, Moscow Negotiate U.S. Design for MOX Plant

The United States and Russia have reportedly begun “active” discussions to enable Russia to dispose of weapon-grade plutonium using a replica of a U.S. mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel plant, Nuclear Fuel reported last week (see GSN, May 16).

Originally, Russian officials had planned to use a German MOX plant, but earlier this year Germany refused to support exporting the plant, according to Nuclear Fuel.  The United States and Russia are now negotiating using a replica of a plant that U.S. company Duke Cogema Stone & Webster is building at the U.S. Energy Department’s Savannah River Site (see GSN, June 21).

Currently, there are few alternatives to using the DCS design, a U.S. official indicated.

“Right now, the betting is on this horse,” the official said, adding,  “Right now, it’s the only horse in the race.”

Russia has asked several “detailed questions” and is waiting to review the U.S. answers, the official said, adding that a decision might come by the end of the year.  The DCS design would probably have to be “Russianized,” the official said.  That process, however, would probably be done through a partnership of DCS and Russian designers and not by Russia alone, the official said.

Using the DCS design would counteract an important incentive for Russia, which is an expectation that funds for the plutonium disposition program would help support Russian research on fuel-cycle ventures, according to experts.  The advantage of using the DCS design, however, is that it helps to reduce cost and schedule overruns, the U.S. official said.

“That whole idea of ‘Let’s keep a whole lot of R&D going’ runs counter to keeping the lid on costs and schedules,” the official said.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Congress has criticized the pace of the Russian plutonium disposition program as a whole, according to Nuclear Fuel.  In a conference report on the recently passed fiscal 2003 defense authorization act, lawmakers indicated that they are frustrated with “the slow pace of the Russian program” and called for “transparent and verifiable steps to enable the United States to have the necessary assurances that the schedule for the disposition of plutonium will be achieved.”

The lawmakers also called, however, for the Energy Department “to conduct research on more speculative, long-term options” for the Russian plutonium disposition plan (Daniel Horner, Nuclear Fuel, Nov. 25).

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United Kingdom:  Costs Rise for British Nuclear Docks

The expense of maintaining the British nuclear submarine fleet are expected to rise dramatically, in part due to rapidly inflating costs for specialized, earthquake-resistant docks used to refit submarines, London’s Guardian reported today (see GSN, Aug. 13).

One reason that costs are almost doubling is a British decision to refit the HMS Vanguard — a Trident missile submarine — by last February “to ensure the effectiveness of the UK’s nuclear deterrent,” according to a report released today from the British national audit office.  Meeting nuclear safety standards has also increased the costs of the docks under construction in Devonport, the report said.

The company contracted to build the docks — DML Services, largely owned by U.S. oil company Halliburton — originally promised to do the work for $907 million.  The estimated final cost has now reached $1.4 billion and it is “uncertain” how much higher it might go, auditors said.

The docks are “probably the largest nuclear construction project in Europe in recent times,” the report says.

The auditors also criticized the government’s selection of DML, which had “no experience of managing a major construction project that was subject to civil nuclear safety standards,” according to the report.

The company will pay $68 million of the overrun costs, and the rest fall on the government’s shoulders, the Guardian reported.

Nevertheless, refitting the Vanguard on time was a “major achievement,” the report said.

“To maintain at least one (Trident missile) submarine at sea, all four submarines must begin their refit on time, as there is very little ‘slack’ over the next eight years,” the report said.

“Crucially the refit of the HMS Vanguard went ahead, and our nuclear deterrent was not compromised,” said the British Defense Procurement Minister, William Bach (Richard Norton-Taylor, The Guardian, Dec. 6).

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U.S. Response:  CDC Issues New Laboratory Guidelines

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new guidelines yesterday to increase security at laboratories that handle dangerous biological pathogens (see GSN, Dec. 4).

The recommendations — which call on laboratories to limit access to sensitive areas, to keep pathogens secure and to monitor areas where they are stored — are meant to aid facilities in developing soon-to-be required security plans, the Associated Press reported.  Previous information on such plans was a “fairly scampy” two pages, said Steve Ostroff, deputy director of the CDC National Center for Infectious Diseases.

The CDC is expected to require all laboratories to develop a biological security plan when it publishes new regulations next week to help improve security of dangerous pathogens.  The regulations also are expected to order tighter security at laboratories that handle “select agents,” which consist of more than 40 of the most dangerous pathogens such as anthrax and Ebola, AP reported.  The regulations will require personnel who work with select agents to undergo background checks, and they will require every facility that possesses a select agent to register with federal regulators and submit to inspections, according to AP.  Previously, only laboratories that transferred or received samples of select agents were required to register (Laura Meckler, Associated Press/Baltimore Sun, Dec. 6).

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United States:  Incineration Study Scope Was Limited, Chief Analyst Says

A recently reported U.S. study that advocates burning stockpiled U.S. chemical weapons as soon as possible did not consider proposed new incineration methods that, according to critics, are potentially less safe, Alabama’s Birmingham News reported yesterday (see GSN, Dec. 5).

“Unfortunately, we had a very specific statement of task that was negotiated with the sponsor, which was the Army,” said Charles Kolb, chairman of the committee that produced the report for the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.  “That restricted us to commenting on things that actually happened (at older incinerators).  We were restricted from commenting on planned operations (in Anniston),” he added, referring to the Anniston Army Depot in Alabama.

Critics have said the study ignored the U.S. Army’s proposal to hasten incineration of rockets containing sarin gas at the depot, according to the News.  In defense of the committee, however, the study did not look into other incineration issues because it had not been tasked to do so, Kolb said.  The report recommends that engineers thoroughly test any change in method, according to the News.

The Army is seeking to alter its permit from the Alabama Department of Environmental Management to allow a new method for faster disposal of the sarin-filled rockets, according to the News.  The new approach — burning munitions and poison gas together instead of separating them first — could increase the rate of rocket disposal from one every hour to 34 per hour.  Critics, including Governor Don Siegelman, have opposed the method, saying it has not been tested sufficiently, according to the News.

The National Academy of Sciences plans to release separate report examining the new approach in late spring, an academy official said.

“It violates no laws of physics.  Those furnaces are more than hot enough and it stays in there long enough,” Kolb said of the proposed new method.  “But you still have to prove you can do it safely,” he added (Mary Orndorff, Birmingham News, Dec. 5).

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