International Response:  U.N. Counterterrorism Group Enters Phase Three

By Jim Wurst

Global Security Newswire

UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. Security Council yesterday extended the mandate of its counterterrorism committee for six months as the committee enters the third phase of its work — evaluating the 143 country reports submitted so far on combating terrorism.

“The CTC will check the facts of the legislative picture, the administrative action taken and the way in which these tools are being used to prevent the territory of each state being abused by terrorists,” said U.K. Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock, the chair of the committee, during a council debate yesterday.

The committee has requested additional information from seven countries that have submitted reports, including North Korea.

“There may be further work to do,” Greenstock said.  “The CTC will preserve the potential for dialogue with all states, although this will vary in intensity according to the capacity developed by the state concerned.”

The Security Council called on the committee to explore ways to assist states in implementing the council’s counterterrorism resolution, 1373, and “to identify issues on which concerted international action would further the implementation of the letter and spirit of the resolution.”

The resolution, which was unanimously adopted two weeks after the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the United States, contains a long list of legally binding demands on member states to suppress and prevent terrorism.  The demands include assuring that terrorists do not abuse states’ immigration and financial laws, that terror suspects are not allowed safe haven and that there are adequate controls on conventional and mass destruction weapons.  The resolution set up the CTC to monitor implementation.

In general, each country report lists relevant pre-existing domestic laws and legislation passed after the adoption of 1373, as well as the international terrorism conventions to which the reporting country is party.  Political declarations are often included, with some countries identifying themselves as victims of terrorism, stressing the need for a definition of terrorism or making the distinction between terrorism and the fight for sovereignty.

Most of the countries that have found themselves on the front lines of the terrorism debate have filed with the committee.  These include the five permanent members of the council, Germany (where many of the Sept. 11 bombers lived), Saudi Arabia (the homeland of 14 of the 19 bombers and of suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden), Pakistan, Israel, Egypt, and the three countries the United States has called an “axis of evil” — Iran, Iraq and North Korea.

Greenstock told the council that the committee has received 143 reports and has reviewed and responded to 62 governments.  That leaves 46 states that have not submitted reports, as well as reports expected from some regional groups and non-U.N. members.  Greenstock in the past has described the states that have not submitted reports as “willing but less capable,” meaning they often lack domestic mechanisms to complete the complicated demands of the resolution, rather than deliberately ignoring the council.

“We understand that putting together a full report may be difficult for countries which have little experience of dealing with terrorism or for whom the preparation of such a report is a significant strain on their government machinery, but it is extremely important that all states are in dialogue with the CTC,” he told the council.

The three subcommittees of the CTC include council members and outside experts named to assist the committee on issues including international law and financial controls.  Since January, the subcommittees have been examining these reports.

In the first reaction to country reports, the committee sent letters in mid-March to seven states asking questions raised by their original reports.  The committee asked Bahrain, Canada, Dominican Republic, Gabon, Grenada, North Korea and Uruguay to respond by June 7.  The letters, from Greenstock to the president of the council, say the committee has “set out its preliminary comments” and “has been requested [governments] to provide a response.”  The specific requests are not published.  North Korea’s report lists the anti-terrorism treaties it has signed but, unlike many other reports, says nothing about domestic legislation.

The committee is nearing the point where it will have to make judgments about governments’ reports.  Ambassador James Cunningham of the United States said in this next phase, the CTC “will be addressing concerns about failures to implement 1373 or to comply with all of its provisions.”  According to Russian Ambassador Sergey Lavrov, “The CTC should not and will not serve as a repressive organ or move beyond its mandate.”

Lack of a definition of terrorism “has encouraged some to ignore international law, norms and values leading to grave violations of human rights,” said Syrian Ambassador Mikhail Wehbe.  By not differentiating between individual and state terrorism, he said, accusations of terrorism can be made “in a selective manner, covering some acts and setting other acts outside this definition.”

Signaling what is expected to be the biggest fight over the committee’s work, Wehbe said, “The international community must be more objective, more courageous in describing acts of destruction and killing perpetrated against the Palestinian people languishing under occupation, a people suffering the severest form of terrorism.”

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U.S. Response:  More Details Emerge on Discovered Warheads

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Warheads found on a ship stopped by the U.S. Coast Guard in February were conventional warheads to be used on sea-based air defense missiles, U.S. defense contractor Raytheon confirmed recently (see GSN, April 12).

The warheads were conventional, blast-fragmentation warheads shipped from Germany for use in Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles produced by Raytheon, according to Sara Hammond, a media relations manager at Raytheon Missile Systems in Tuscon, Ariz.

The U.S. and German navies use Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles to defend ships from cruise missile attacks.

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Iraq:  Rumsfeld Says Inspections Inadequate

While U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld yesterday questioned the effectiveness of the U.N. inspection regime in Iraq, a State Department official said the United States has full confidence in the top U.N. inspector (see GSN, April 15).

Rumsfeld expressed doubt that U.N. inspections in Iraq would be able to prove the country has abandoned attempts to develop chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.  Previous inspectors who searched for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq after the Gulf War were able to find little except when they received information from defectors, Rumsfeld said.  Inspections ended when Iraq banned them in 1998 (Walter Pincus, Washington Post, April 16).

Any inspection regime that could absolutely prove Iraqi compliance with U.N. resolutions demanding the country dismantle its weapons of mass destruction programs would have to be “enormously intrusive” — more so than any previous inspections, Rumsfeld said.

“I just can’t quite picture how intrusive something would have to be that it could offset the ease with which [Iraq has] previously been able to deny and deceive,” he said, adding that Iraq has probably become more skilled in deception during the years without inspections.

In 1998, Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, the current deputy defense secretary, signed an open letter to then-President Bill Clinton saying it is nearly impossible to sufficiently inspect Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs, the Associated Press reported.  The letter, which said the United States must “eliminate the possibility” that Iraq could use such weapons, advocated military action, according to the AP (Robert Burns, Associated Press/Yahoo.com, April 16).

Blix Fix

Also yesterday, U.S. State Department deputy spokesman Philip Reeker said Hans Blix, the head of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, “has our full confidence.”  UNMOVIC is responsible for conducting inspections in Iraq.

Blix “stressed that his mandate is to conduct a thorough, no-holds-barred inspection of Iraq’s compliance with its obligations under U.N. Security Council Resolution 687,” Reeker said (U.S. State Department transcript, April 15).

Reeker’s statement followed a Washington Post report yesterday that Wolfowitz had asked the CIA to assess Blix’s performance as the former director of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Rumsfeld said Wolfowitz’s request was not an “investigation” and was similar to information requests that occur on a daily basis to “look into this, amplify on that” (Pincus, Washington Post).

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan is concerned about the Post’s report, said U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard.

“If it happened the way the article described, I think it would be an attempt at intimidating an international civil servant, and that, of course, would be unacceptable,” Eckhard said (Burns, Associated Press).

Blix Responds

In response to skepticism about the effectiveness of U.N. inspections, Blix told the Washington Post yesterday that UNMOVIC will place the “burden of proof” on Iraq to show it is not developing weapons of mass destruction.  Iraq must “open all doors” to inspectors and cooperate “in all respects,” or Blix will recommend continuing economic sanctions, he said.

Blix also said Iraq will not be allowed to veto the nationalities of inspectors.  “Excluding U.S. participation is out the question,” he said.

There will be several changes from previous U.N. inspections, Blix said.  Rather than relying on funds from individual countries, UNMOVIC will be funded with a surcharge on Iraqi oil sales to provide more independence.  Inspectors will also have the right to examine Iraqi military bases and facilities rather than being confined to potential weapons production plants, Blix said.

Blix said he would accept and use intelligence information offered by countries but would not allow inspectors to provide intelligence to countries — a charge leveled against previous inspectors.

No inspections could be foolproof, however, Blix said.  Most likely a “residual uncertainty” would remain after any inspections, he said.

Meetings Postponed

Meanwhile, Iraq has suggested new dates for meetings between U.N. and Iraqi officials (see GSN, April 12), Eckhard said yesterday after Iraq postponed meetings scheduled for this month (Pincus, Washington Post).

“Postponement of meetings is another clear example of the [Iraqi] regime’s unwillingness to comply with its obligations to the U.N. Security Council,” Reeker said yesterday (U.S. State Department transcript).

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International Response:  Future Reactors Should Self-Guard Nuclear Materials, IAEA Official Says

By Mike Nartker
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Future nuclear reactors should incorporate built-in measures and external controls to make diversion of nuclear materials more difficult, an International Atomic Energy Agency representative said yesterday.

The IAEA’s Thomas Shea called for “common sense approaches to make proliferation harder to achieve.” Shea, part of the IAEA’s Safeguards Department, is the lead author of a paper presented yesterday to the 10^th International Conference on Nuclear Engineering in Arlington, Va.

“Proliferation resistance could strengthen and extend the IAEA safeguards system … and strengthen the security of nuclear material and nuclear installations,” he said.

According to Shea, there are two categories of proliferation resistance measures — intrinsic and extrinsic.  Intrinsic measures reduce the availability of weapon-grade nuclear material through system design features, nuclear material qualities and barriers to accessing materials.  Extrinsic measures include nuclear material control and accounting systems, physical protection of weapon-grade material and international safeguards, such as IAEA measures and the U.S.-North Korean 1994 Agreed Framework.

Proliferation resistance measures include:

*         Nuclear energy systems designed to use fuel where weapon-grade material cannot be easily removed, such as a pebble-bed reactor;

*         Systems that do not use highly enriched uranium;

*         Systems that produce the lowest possible amounts of plutonium-239;

*         Combinations of nuclear energy systems in which spent fuel from one can be used as fuel for another; and

*         Improved enrichment and reprocessing abilities to prevent stockpiling of weapon-grade material.

Shea also advocated an “all-in, all-out” arrangement for helping non-nuclear weapon states build a nuclear power infrastructure.  Through such an arrangement, an assisting country would provide all fresh nuclear fuel to the reactor and remove all spent fuel.

Multinational energy parks could also be built to provide nuclear power, Shea said.  Such parks would increase transparency and heavily restrict access of individual states to weapon-grade material, he said.

In general, it is better to design systems to avoid a problem than to build control equipment, Shea said in his paper.  It is also better to use automated, rather than human-operated, control systems, he said.

“So, too, for proliferation resistance:  intrinsic barriers are best and should be emphasized in future nuclear energy systems,” Shea said.

Incentives, Not Mandates

The IAEA has proposed an incentive-based approach as a way to increase support for proliferation resistance measures, Shea said.  There are “too many sacred cows wandering the streets, so to speak,” to lead to the creation of a mandated agreement, he said.

Incorporating proliferation resistance measures into future nuclear energy systems would increase public confidence in nuclear power, aid export- and import-licensing and financial arrangements, promote assured nuclear fuel supply and waste management and reduce the cost and intrusiveness of inspections, according to Shea.

“Incentives should encourage designers to incorporate proliferation resistance features into future nuclear energy systems, encourage buyers to select such systems, regulators to give preference to such systems and investors to finance such systems,” Shea said.

Proliferation resistance measures would also help maintain the credibility and viability of the IAEA safeguard system, Shea said.  If nuclear energy use continues to increase, the size and cost of IAEA safeguards will also increase, which could make it difficult to maintain them, he said.

Currently, the annual IAEA safeguards budget, which includes 250 inspectors, is $100 million, according to Shea.  If nuclear use were to increase 10 times, the IAEA would be unlikely to sustain the necessary safeguard budget of $1 billion per year and 2,500 inspectors, he said.

If a nuclear energy system were to use proliferation resistance measures, however, it could require less frequent and less intrusive inspections than a system without such features, Shea said.  This in turn could reduce the cost of IAEA inspections, he said.

It is necessary to keep IAEA inspection costs per nuclear facility as low as possible while still retaining their credibility, Shea said.

“IAEA safeguards credibility is essential for the confidence necessary for nuclear commerce to proceed,” he said.

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United States I:  Pentagon Will Not Remove Warheads in Fiscal 2003

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — While the Bush administration last fall announced plans for reducing thousands of operational strategic warheads by 2012, it will not begin doing so at least until fiscal 2004, according to a Pentagon spokesman.

The administration is requesting no new money from Congress for removing warheads from weapon systems, Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Michael Humm said in a recent statement.

“There is no money budgeted in the president’s fiscal year 2003 budget to begin downloading warheads, and taking them off operationally deployed status,” he said.

President George W. Bush formally announced last November U.S. plans to reduce “operationally deployed” nuclear weapons to between 1,700 and 2,200 by 2012 (see GSN, Nov. 14, 2001).  Those plans included the interim step of cutting to 3,800 warheads by the end of 2007, from current levels estimated at 6,000-8,000.

“Both of these goals can be done without beginning the downloading in fiscal year 2003,” said Humm.

Scheduled Reductions to Continue

To meet the goal of 3,800 by 2007, the administration’s Nuclear Posture Review indicated it would continue dismantlement plans first scheduled by the Clinton administration.

That includes deactivating MX/Peacekeeper missiles beginning Oct. 1, converting B-1 bombers to a solely conventional role and reducing the number of Trident ballistic missile submarines by four, from 18 to 14, by fiscal 2007, converting them to conventional cruise missile carriers.  The Bush administration requested $1 billion in its fiscal 2003 budget to begin that latter conversion (see GSN, February 22).

Those changes should reduce the number of operationally deployed warheads by about 1,300, according to the review.

The remaining reductions are planned by downloading warheads from Minuteman III ICBMs, B-52 bombers, and B-2 bombers, according to the Nuclear Posture Review, which was announced by the Pentagon in January and partially leaked last month.

Also counting toward the reductions, warheads on strategic submarines in overhaul will not be counted as operationally deployed “because those submarines are unavailable for alert patrols," the review said.

Beyond those, "no additional strategic delivery platforms are scheduled to be eliminated from strategic service," it said.

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United States II:  Abraham to Begin Shipping Plutonium to South Carolina

U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham yesterday notified South Carolina Governor Jim Hodges that he is ready to begin plutonium shipments to the Energy Department Savannah River site (see GSN, April 12).

It is “essential” that plutonium shipments begin around May 15 in order for the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant in Colorado to meet a 2006 deadline for closure, Abraham said in a letter to Hodges.

“The department intends to begin shipping plutonium from Rocky Flats to Savannah River no sooner than 30 days from today,” Abraham said yesterday.

By giving the required 30-day notice, Abraham has signaled his intent to conduct the plutonium shipments, despite Hodges’s opposition, said Energy Department officials.

Hodges has said he would intercept any plutonium shipments unless he receives a federal court-enforceable agreement that the plutonium would not stay within South Carolina.  He has also said he would use state police — or even lay in the road himself — to block shipments, according to the Associated Press (Josef Hebert, Associated Press/Yahoo.com, April 15).

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United Kingdom:  Officials Pull Nuclear Bomb Recipe From Public Record

The British Defense Ministry recalled documents with detailed information on constructing the first British nuclear bomb from the Public Record Office yesterday, British officials said today.  The Daily Telegraph reported yesterday that the documents, which could serve as a guide to building nuclear bombs, were available to the public (see GSN, April 15).

The documents will be available on a limited basis to “anybody with intent,” but officials are reviewing the issue, a Defense spokesman said.

“We are reviewing whether in this case an appropriate balance was struck between openness and safeguards,” said the spokesman.  The government released the files to the public seven years ago, the Defense Ministry said (Associated Press/Yahoo.com, April 16).

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U.S. Response:  Researchers Propose Monitoring Over-the-Counter Drugs

Researchers have proposed a system to monitor over-the-counter medicine sales to detect a large-scale biological attack and provide authorities with an early warning.

Scientists currently monitor sales of prescription antibiotics to detect unusual disease outbreaks, but in today’s issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University researchers suggest creating a system to monitor over-the-counter medicine sales as well.

An early sign of a large-scale anthrax attack could be a sudden increase in flu medicine, since the first anthrax symptoms are similar to the flu (see GSN, April 12).  Monitoring such sales could alert authorities, but any system would have to include ways to distinguish between anthrax and a flu outbreak or other common disease.

If authorities could catch anthrax in its early stages and treat patients with antibiotics, they could greatly improve chances for survival.

There is already a precedent for detecting an outbreak by watching over-the-counter drug sales, said Gregory Gray, an epidemiologist at the University of Iowa.  In the early 1990s, pharmacists in Milwaukee detected an outbreak of an intestinal parasite by noticing a jump in anti-diarrheal medicines, he said.

The Carnegie Mellon study focuses on large-scale attacks in urban areas rather than limited attacks, like the anthrax mailed in letters last fall, said Stephen Feinberg of the university’s statistics department (Randolph Schmid, Associated Press/Yahoo.com, April 16).

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India:  Space Agency Tests Rockets

India has successfully tested an improved solid-fuel rocket motor for the third stage of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, which could be used for small satellite flights, Space & Missile reported Thursday.

In addition, engineers recently test-fired a liquid oxygen-liquid hydrogen cryogenic upper stage engine for 720 seconds in its fifth test.  The previous test in February was for 200 seconds (see GSN, Feb. 14) (Space & Missile, April 11).

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U.S. Plans:  Cruise Missile Defenses Deserve Consideration, Expert Says

The United States should seriously consider deploying a system to defend the continental United States from a sea-launched cruise missile attack — potentially one conducted by terrorists using WMD-armed missiles — said Michael O’Hanlon, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, in the spring issue of the National Interest (see GSN, March 12).

“Cruise missiles are small and inexpensive enough that it may not be beyond the means of terrorists to acquire them,” O’Hanlon said.  “Reconfiguring a standard cruise missile to carry a primitive nuclear warhead, likely to weigh half a ton or more, is probably beyond the abilities of terrorists, but outfitting a cruise missile with a dispensing mechanism for distributing chemical or biological agents or radiological materials may be feasible.”

Therefore, “a defense against ship-launched cruise missile is desirable and achievable, but difficult and expensive,” O’Hanlon said.

The cost of a U.S. cruise missile defense system would represent a “modest investment” when compared with the costs of a U.S. ballistic missile defense system, O’Hanlon said.

Radars and Interceptors

The first stage of a U.S. cruise missile defense system would use U.S. Navy and Coast Guard ships to intercept suspicious foreign ships sailing close enough to U.S. coasts to conduct an attack, according to O’Hanlon.  A ship that is secretly equipped to launch an attack, however, could possibly evade U.S. patrols, so physical defenses are also needed, O’Hanlon said.

The next stage would consist of radar stations and missile interceptor bases, said O’Hanlon.  Ground-level radars would have difficulty detecting incoming cruise missiles at the low altitudes at which they fly, so airborne radars would be needed.  Such systems, installed on aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles or balloon aerostats several thousand feet above the ground, could detect incoming missiles at farther ranges than ground stations, and fewer radars would be necessary to cover the entire U.S. coastline, according to O’Hanlon.

Radar systems could cost up to $10 billion, assuming 100 radars at $100 million each, O’Hanlon said.  Those costs could be reduced to less than $4 billion through the use of unmanned aerial vehicles, such as the Global Hawk, he added.  Operating costs for radar systems could range between $300 million and $1 billion, depending on the type of aircraft and radar used, O’Hanlon said.

To shoot down cruise missiles, the United States would need to deploy 1,000 interceptors dispersed among 100 coastal bases.  O’Hanlon estimated the cost of that deployment to fall between $5 billion and $10 billion.

A total U.S. cruise missile defense system could cost up to $20 billion to deploy, O’Hanlon said, and an equal amount to operate the system over a 20-year timeframe (Michael O’Hanlon, National Interest, Spring 2002).

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Russia:  Moscow Shield Obsolete, Former General Says

The Soviet-era missile defense system installed around Moscow has become obsolete and can no longer adequately defend against attack, a former Russian space forces general said yesterday (see GSN, April 11).

Retired Lt.-Gen. Anatoly Sokolov said the A-135 missile defense system should be dismantled, according to the Interfax-Military News Agency.

“It makes no sense to maintain a dying system, as the existing anti-missile defense is unable to provide efficient protection of the area, let alone the entire country,” Sokolov said.

The former Soviet Union first deployed the A-35 missile defense system around Moscow in 1974.  The system consisted of a radar network and more than 60 missile interceptors.  The current A-135 version, which has been enhanced to include both medium- and long-range missile interceptors, was put into operation in 1994.

The United States had a similar missile defense system during the 1970s to protect intercontinental ballistic missile fields in North Dakota, but later dismantled it (Associated Press/Army Times, April 15).

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