U.S. Response:  Researchers Improve Nonproliferation Technology

By Kerry Boyd

Global Security Newswire

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Devices designed at Sandia National Laboratories after the Cold War to prevent WMD proliferation in Russia can also play a counterterrorism role, laboratory officials told Global Security Newswire last week (see GSN, April 22).

Tools designed to protect and monitor WMD materials play an important role in preventing proliferation and preventing terrorists from acquiring such materials, said Larry Walker, Sandia’s manager of cooperative international programs. 

Physical Protection

U.S. laboratories have developed tools to protect WMD materials from theft, sabotage and unauthorized access (see GSN, Nov. 29, 2001).  Many physical protection systems are used extensively in Russia and by the International Atomic Energy Agency, Walker said.  The United States also has bilateral agreements with some other countries to provide physical protection assistance, and many tools could be applicable to other countries as well, he said (see GSN, March 20).

The United States is teaching Russian officials how to use several U.S.-designed systems, said C. Paul Robinson, director of Sandia National Laboratories, and Russia has some of its own systems.

U.S. laboratories have developed face recognition devices, retinal scanners and a hand scanner that looks at the hand’s bones — making it virtually impossible to disguise an unauthorized person.  Some of the devices are still undergoing tests, but some — like the hand scanner — are already used to protect nuclear materials and equipment, Robinson said.

Different devices together provide layered protection to decrease the risk that someone could inappropriately access the materials, he said.

Tracking Weapons of Mass Destruction Under Cooperative Agreements

The laboratories have also developed other devices that work best where parties are cooperating but may not trust each other, Walker said.  For example, under cooperative nonproliferation programs, the United States has access to the other country’s facilities and can install sensors to detect radiological or chemical properties.  U.S. laboratories have developed techniques to ensure the authenticity of data transferred to the United States from sensors in non-U.S. facilities, Walker said.

In some cooperative arrangements, each party can “tag” certain “high-value” items such as missiles and spent fuel, Walker said.  When inspectors return later, they can check the tags, which U.S. researchers designed, to ensure the items have remained in a designated place.  Similarly, the United States can install a seal on certain items to ensure others have not tampered with them.

Tools for Uncooperative Environments

U.S. laboratories have also developed tools to detect WMD activity in countries with which the United States has no cooperative agreement, said Walker.  Such tools include satellites that provide multispectral imaging with temperature and color.  Using such information, U.S. officials can determine if a nuclear reactor is on or off and detect smokestack emissions, he said.

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NPT:  Meeting Yields Dissension, Criticism of U.S. Policy

By Jim Wurst
Global Security Newswire

UNITED NATIONS — The issue of whether new U.S. nuclear weapons policies are the beginning of a period of “mutual cooperation,” as the United States has said, or a unilateralist threat to nonproliferation and disarmament, as the majority of non-nuclear countries has maintained, dominated the meeting of the parties to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which concluded Friday (see GSN, April 17).

Ambassador Norman Wulf of the United States told the concluding session of the meeting that “the momentum towards further nuclear reductions is continuing.”

A summary of the two-week meeting written by the chairman reflected the fact that the majority of states do not agree with this view.  “Concern and uncertainty was expressed about existing nuclear arsenals, new approaches to the future role of nuclear weapons, and possible development of new generations of nuclear weapons,” wrote Ambassador Henrik Salander of Sweden.

As the first of four annual meetings leading up to a review conference for the NPT in 2005, nothing substantive was expected from this meeting.  Salander took it up under his own authority to prepare the summary.  Before he released the report, he stressed that the paper would be “a factual summary … It is not a negotiating text.”  Delegations were free to comment, but “it will not be negotiated or amended,” he said.

“There was emphasis on multilateralism as a core principle in the area of disarmament and nonproliferation with a view to maintaining and strengthening universal norms and enlarging their scope.  Strong support was expressed for the enforcement of existing multilateral treaties,” Salander’s paper said.

Wulf took issue with the way the document referred to U.S. rejection of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, two conventions endorsed in the consensus final document of the NPT’s 2000 review conference (see GSN, April 5).  “Clearly some U.S. policies related to Article VI [on nuclear disarmament obligations] differ from the conclusions of the 2000 Final Document.  The administration, for example, has no plans to seek ratification of the CTBT but continues to observe the moratorium on nuclear explosive testing.  We ask that you not confuse media reports with U.S. policies,” he said.

According to Salander’s paper, “concern was expressed that the decision by the United States to withdraw from the ABM Treaty, and the development of missile defense systems, could lead to a new arms race, including in outer space, and negatively affect strategic stability and international security.”

“We are disappointed at the nature of the reference to the ABM Treaty,” Wulf said.  ”We think that many delegations now recognize that there is nothing destabilizing about the U.S. decision to withdraw from that treaty and that the momentum towards further nuclear reductions is continuing.  President Bush is determined to transform our relationship with Russia and to replace mutual assured destruction with mutual cooperation.  Success in missile defenses can indeed lead to reduced reliance on nuclear weapons, as can other measures.”

The United States was not the only critic of the paper.  Iraq and North Korea objected to references to their lack of compliance with NPT because of their nuclear programs.  Several states thought there should have been greater emphasis on the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.  Even the routine phrase “states parties stressed” was criticized; the United States and France felt Salander should have written, “some states parties.”

Nongovernmental experts attending the meeting were pointed in their criticism of the United States, and to a lesser extent, the other four nuclear powers that are parties to the treaty:  China, France, Russia and the United Kingdom.  According to Rebecca Johnson of the Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy, “the non-nuclear weapon states feel they have been cheated and lied to ... You can see a build up of frustration that is not being expressed.”

“There’s a lot of anger there and some point it’s going to burst,” said William Peden of Greenpeace International.  “The NPT regime will be lucky to survive beyond 2005.”  The nuclear weapon states “are still dragging their feet.”  While he welcomed the reductions in their stockpiles, he said ”these are reductions in weapons they were going to get rid of anyway … It’s a spring cleaning exercise.”

Johnson said the nuclear powers “are rolling back their commitments, and it’s not only the United States.  Other nuclear weapon states are also now trying to renegotiate obligations they undertook by consensus in 1995 and 2000.”

Much of the criticism has focused on the new U.S. Nuclear Posture Review that envisions more uses for nuclear weapons (see GSN, March 13).  Johnson said the review “clearly shows the intention to develop new nuclear weapons, more usable nuclear weapons … It is about holding all options open, maintaining the possibilities to maintain all capabilities.”  The nuclear weapon states made an obligation under the NPT to pursue “‘an unequivocal undertaking to achieve the elimination of their nuclear arsenals.’  If all options are open for new developments, then they are not abiding by that very central commitment,” Johnson said.

The consensus agreement from the 2000 review conference also called on all states to report on their fulfillment of their NPT obligations.  The United States and France resisted references during this meeting to reporting, even though they made reports to the meeting.  “Their refusal … is really a refusal to be accountable,” Johnson said.  “The point is not that [the nuclear weapon states] do not want to give information … The point is that they don’t want to be held to providing reports as a requirement, as an obligation, and therefore as an element of accountability that was agreed to in 2000 … They don’t want to set a precedent of providing information in the future,” she said.

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United States I:  White House Slashes Weapon Security Request

The White House reduced by almost 95 percent a recent U.S. Energy Department request to increase security funds for nuclear weapons and waste, the New York Times reported today (see GSN, April 22).

The Energy Department’s request — $380 million — was “a critical down payment to the safety and security of our nation and its people,” said Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham in a letter to Mitch Daniels, director of the Office of Management and Budget.

The funding request, aimed at improving the security of nuclear weapons, materials and waste under the Energy Department’s supervision, was included in a $27.1 billion emergency funding request, according to the Times.  Daniels, however, passed on only $26.4 million to Congress, which has yet to act on it.

The Energy Department wants:

*         $138.3 million to improve security for nuclear weapons and nuclear materials storage;

*         $100.8 million for security at nuclear weapons cleanup sites (see GSN, April 10);

*         $40 million for a National Center for Combating Terrorism (see GSN, Feb. 21);

*         $34.1 million to improve security at department research facilities;

*         $18 million for secure transportation of nuclear weapons;

*         $12.8 million to improve security at department headquarters and train protective forces;

*         $7.8 million for counterterrorism; and

*         $1.5 million for isotope production to be used in detecting explosives.

All such requests were denied, the Times reported.  Daniels did pass on to Congress Energy’s request for $19.4 million for responding to incidents involving nuclear weapons and $7 million to conduct an assessment of energy infrastructure security.

Congress, which has been more willing to increase funding for nuclear security, might give the department more money than the White House requested, according to the Times.

“If they say we need money to secure nuclear warheads, apolitically, you think we’d agree to do that,” said a congressional aide familiar with Abraham’s letter to Daniels.

The Energy Department’s funding requests are worth providing to improve security for stored nuclear weapons and materials and for security at nuclear weapons cleanup sites, said David Sirota, spokesman for the Democratic minority on the House Appropriations Committee.

“Should we give Enron executives the $250 million tax break President Bush proposed or should we use that money to secure our country against a nuclear attack using our own nuclear materials?” Sirota asked (Matthew Wald, New York Times, April 23).

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North Korea:  Russia Considering Nuclear Plant Near Korean Border

A Russian Nuclear Energy Ministry official said today the ministry might build a nuclear power plant near the North Korean border, Agence France-Presse reported.  A North Korean official asked Russia for a plant last month (see GSN, March 29).

Building a plant on Russian territory near the border would prevent installing “advanced nuclear technology on the territory of a foreign country” and would allow Russia’s far eastern territory to benefit from the facility, the official said, according to RIA Novosti news agency.

Officials might decide on the plant when the Russian presidential envoy to the Far East regions visits North Korea later this month (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo.com, April 23).

Meanwhile, Russia will closely study North Korea’s proposal to build a nuclear plant in the country, Far East envoy Konstantin Pulikovskiy told ITAR-Tass.

“There has been such a proposal from Pyongyang.  North Korea hopes the power plant will provide electricity to North Korea and to Russia’s Far Eastern regions,” he said (ITAR-Tass/BBC Monitoring, April 22).

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U.S. Testing:  Explosive Tests Are Not on Agenda, Official Says

By Kerry Boyd
Global Security Newswire

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The United States has no plans to resume nuclear weapons testing, a top stockpile maintenance official told Global Security Newswire Friday (see GSN, March 29).

Bush administration plans to consider producing new or modified nuclear weapons have led to an “unfortunate inference” that the United States will want to conduct actual tests of those weapons, said C. Paul Robinson, director of Sandia National Laboratories here (see GSN, Oct. 9, 2001).

“That is absolutely not the case,” he said.

Sandia has no plans and is making no preparations related to restarting nuclear weapons testing, Robinson said (see GSN, March 22).  Rather, the Bush administration has asked the laboratories to report on how much time would be required to begin testing if a problem to the nuclear weapons stockpile is detected and testing becomes necessary, he said.  Such planning is simply a prudent case of “contingency thinking” Robinson said.

While the United States has maintained its nuclear weapons well through its stockpile stewardship program, Robinson said, the U.S. ability to restart nuclear testing has degraded.  Fewer scientists have experience conducting tests, and the United States must maintain some testing readiness, he said (see GSN, March 19).

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United States II:  State Troopers Practice Blocking Plutonium Shipments

South Carolina state troopers practiced blocking a plutonium shipment yesterday after Governor Jim Hodges ordered the exercise in preparation for a potential showdown with the U.S. Energy Department next month (see GSN, April 22).

The department plans to ship plutonium from the Rocky Flats former nuclear weapons plan in Colorado to its Savannah River site in South Carolina as soon as May 15 to convert the former weapon material into fuel for commercial nuclear reactors.  Hodges has said he opposes the move without specific assurances that the material will not remain permanently in the state.

Hodges has pledged to block the shipments and ordered three dozen state troopers and transport police officers yesterday to prepare.  Patrol cars blocked a four-lane road near the Savannah River site, and officers said the drill was successful.  They forced a borrowed 18-wheel tractor-trailer to turn around, but said opposing Energy trucks and armed federal officers might be more difficult.

“I think they’ll turn around,” Hodges said.  “We’ll take whatever steps are necessary to keep the plutonium out of here.”

The Energy Department expressed disappointment with the drill.

“Fortunately other South Carolina leaders are spending their time today working with the department toward finalizing our plutonium disposition program,” the department said (Page Ivey, Associated Press, April 23).

Law on Side of Energy Department

Despite Hodges’ efforts, the law is on the side of the Energy Department, said Eldon Wedlock, a constitutional law professor at the University of South Carolina Law School.

Federal government actions almost always have priority over states unless a court is involved, Wedlock said.

“The Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution establishes that the Constitution and the laws of the United States are the supreme law of the land,” he said.

State police will probably defer to federal forces when the shipments arrive in South Carolina, Wedlock said, because the police swear oaths to both the federal and state constitutions.

State authorities have won disagreements over nuclear waste before, however, said Hodges’ spokeswoman Cortney Owings.  Idaho Governor Cecil Andrus set up roadblocks in the late 1980s and prevented a shipment of fuel rods until the Energy Department agreed to a 30-year temporary storage contract.   Andrus and Hodges have spoken by telephone several times, Owings said (Associated Press, April 23).

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U.S-Russia:  Negotiators Meet to Prepare Arms Reduction Agreement

U.S. and Russian arms negotiators met in Moscow today to work on completing a strategic arms reduction agreement to be signed by U.S. and Russian Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin during their May summit (see GSN, April 17).

“The relationship between the United States and Russia has fundamentally changed, and I think that the summit will reflect that change in relationship regardless of what documents we have to sign,” said John Bolton, U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control.  “Nonetheless, we are working as hard as we can to show as much of that progress in the agreement form as we can” (Angela Charlton, Associated Press/Yahoo.com, April 23).

Bolton and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Georgy Mamedov met to complete an agreement for both the United States and Russia to reduce their strategic offensive nuclear weapons stockpile to between 1,700 and 2,200 warheads by 2012, said the Russian Foreign Ministry. The two sides also are expected to work out an agreement on new strategic relations between the United States and Russia, according to Agence France-Presse.

Russian Foreign Minister Ivan Ivanov is scheduled to meet with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell in Washington May 3 to review progress on the agreement (Agence France-Presse, April 23).

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Anthrax I:  Florida Discovered Intentional Attack, Ties to Mail, Report Says

By Mike Nartker
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — No letter was ever found that could be directly linked to the first anthrax infections in last year’s attacks, but those infections provided the first links between anthrax and the mail, a Florida Health Department official said yesterday (see GSN, Oct. 10, 2001).

Florida Health Department epidemiologist Marc Traeger outlined how the department investigated the first two intentional anthrax cases in the United States as he presented a report — written by Florida Health official Steven Wiersma — at an Atlanta conference of the U.S. Epidemic Intelligence Service, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The investigation, which started as an exploration into a bizarre outbreak of a little-seen disease, progressed into a criminal investigation of the first intentional anthrax biological weapons attack in the United States and provided the first connection between the attacks and the mail, according to the report.

The initial case for the Florida investigation — which would later be revealed as the beginning of an anthrax outbreak in four states and Washington that would kill five people — was Robert Stevens, a 63-year old male who worked for American Media Inc. in Palm Beach County, Fla., according to the report.  Stevens became ill on Sept. 30, 2001, with an unexplained disease that included symptoms of fever, vomiting and an altered mental state.

Stevens entered the hospital on Oct. 2.  Doctors discovered he had an increased white blood cell count, and a chest X-ray showed increased perhiliar density — an enlargement in the dense area of the chest between the lungs.  Tests conducted on a sample of Steven’s spinal fluid indicated the presence of long, rod-shaped bacteria, which confirmed he had contracted anthrax.

Once doctors determined Stevens had contracted anthrax, they attempted to discover whether he had contracted it naturally or through an intentional exposure, where he had probably contracted the disease and whether others were at risk, the report said.  In an attempt to find a source for the infection, state health officials investigated AMI, recreation and travel destinations that Stevens had recently visited, as well as retail businesses that he had recently patronized.

The Florida Health Department investigated area hospital intensive care units and contacted medical examiners in an attempt to discover other unexplained deaths that were consistent with anthrax.  The investigation into hospital emergency rooms, intensive care units and medical examiners was later expanded into neighboring counties.  The Florida Health Department conducted a statewide veterinary investigation to determine whether there were anthrax-infected animals.  The epidemiological investigation also was expanded into North Carolina, where Stevens was known to have traveled before contracting the disease, the report said.

While investigators examined Stevens’ death, a second AMI employee, 73-year old Ernesto Blanco, contracted the disease, according to the report (see GSN, Feb. 25).  Blanco first exhibited signs of a respiratory illness on Sept. 28 and checked into the hospital on Oct. 1.  According to the report, doctors discovered a more moderate form of the disease with no sign of mediastinal lymphadenopathy — enlargement of the lymph nodes between the lungs, which probably had caused the increased perhiliar density in Stevens’ chest X-ray.

Bring in the Feds

On Oct. 7, investigators discovered the presence of anthrax spores in AMI headquarters through spores found on a computer keyboard used by Stevens and through a nasal swab taken from Blanco, according to the report.  From this evidence, Florida health officials determined that the source of both men’s anthrax infections was the AMI building and that the disease had been spread through an intentional release.

Once that determination was made, the FBI took a leadership role in the now-criminal investigation, the report said.  Authorities closed and secured AMI headquarters and took numerous swabs and air and vacuum samples to discover the prevalence and pervasiveness of anthrax spores.  The CDC National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and the CDC National Center for Environmental Health were also consulted, according to the report.  A Florida environmental team assisted federal health officials in processing samples taken from the AMI building, but they were unable to go inside.

Also on Oct. 7, federal and state health officials began intervention planning to determine the extent and level of anthrax exposure, the report said.  The potential exposed group was defined as anyone who had spent longer than an hour in the AMI building in the last 60 days.  Officials then distributed a questionnaire and conducted nasal swabs and blood tests on those in the exposed group to assess the level of exposure.

Several other suspect cases; including two other AMI employees and several non-AMI workers were also hospitalized, according to the report, but preliminary testing ruled out anthrax in their cases.

AMI Results

On Oct. 10, investigators received the results of tests conducted on the AMI building and employees.  Out of 1,051 nasal cultures taken, only one returned positive.  About 75 percent of the environmental cultures taken from the AMI mailroom — 10 out of 14 — also came back positive for anthrax.

The positive nasal culture was taken from a 36-year-old female AMI employee, who showed no symptoms of anthrax infection, according to the report (see GSN, Oct. 11).  The woman handled AMI mail and opened a letter that contained powder around Sept. 25, the report said.  Cultures from the woman’s office also came back positive for anthrax. 

On Sept. 19, Stevens had been observed viewing a suspicious letter that contained a fine white powder and a Star of David, the report said.

Authorities made the connection between the AMI infections and exposures and the mail through Stevens and the AMI female employee’s handling of suspicious mail, as well as Blanco’s position as an AMI mail distributor, according to the report.  Initial evidence suggested there could have been multiple suspicious letters that caused the anthrax infections, the report said.

Mail Becomes Focus

Once officials made the connection between the AMI infections and exposures and suspicious letters, the investigation began to focus on the postal service and express mail, according to the report (see GSN, Oct. 25, 2001).  Further anthrax exposures and deaths in New York, Washington, New Jersey and Connecticut would later confirm the link between anthrax and the mail.  Officials provided post-exposure protocol to postal workers, who handled mail, and waste handlers, who might have come into contact with disposed suspicious letters.

The environmental testing of the AMI building determined that positive anthrax tests in the environment did not pose a direct risk and that it was not possible to quantify the level of risk of anthrax through such tests, the report said.  Environmental testing also helped to rule out waste management staff and housekeeping workers as risk groups for anthrax exposure.

The investigation did discover two issues that were later revealed to be specific to the Florida anthrax infections, according to the report.  No letter was ever found that could be directly linked to the infections, unlike the anthrax-tainted letters sent to media organizations in New York and to congressional members in Washington.  One reason for this could have been that there were multiple letters involved, the report said.

There also were no cases of Palm Beach county postal workers being infected, unlike anthrax infections and deaths in Washington and New Jersey.  This could have been because the powdered anthrax used in the Florida attacks had different physical properties and a different quantity than the powder used in later attacks, the report said (see GSN, Oct. 25, 2001).

The report also speculated that no postal workers were infected during the Florida anthrax outbreak because the powder was sent in a different type of letter — with different packaging than the one used in the later attacks — and because of different environmental conditions.

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Anthrax II:  No Further Release at USAMRIID, Spokesman Says

Extensive testing conducted last weekend found no further contamination after an accidental anthrax release last week at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md., a USAMRIID spokesman said yesterday (see GSN, April 22).

Further testing in an office and hallway near where the release occurred did reveal two more anthrax spores, said USAMRIID spokesman Chuck Dasey.  Those areas are being decontaminated with a bleach solution and will be reopened when they are safe, he said.

Workers who conducted swab tests of 800 locations within the facility found traces of another strain of anthrax, one that cannot infect humans and is instead used in creating anthrax vaccine, Dasey said (Scott Shane, Baltimore Sun, April 23).

Hoaxes in Louisiana

More than 100 threatening letters recently sent to homes, businesses and government offices in Lafayette, La., appear to be hoaxes, said the head of the FBI office in Lafayette (see GSN, March 27).  Many of the letters arrived Friday and some contained white powder that later tested negative for anthrax or other chemical agents, the Louisiana state police said (Associated Press/New York Times, April 23).

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CWC:  Bustani Loses Vote and Job

By David Ruppe

Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The United States yesterday won the dismissal of the Brazilian official in charge of implementing the Chemical Weapons Convention, in a vote at a special session of treaty parties in The Hague (see GSN, April 22).

A heavy majority of the parties approved a U.S.-offered resolution to remove Jose Bustani, director general of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, from the job he has held since 1997.  The vote went decisively in the U.S. favor:  48 members, or 87 percent, voted in favor of Bustani’s removal, while seven voted in opposition.  Another 43 members abstained.

A senior U.S. State Department official denied charges made in the Brazilian press that the United States had paid the debts of some members to the organization in exchange for their votes.  The senior official said no money was provided to other members.

“There were reports in the Brazilian press, but there was absolutely nothing to it.  We have not put forward any money to pay anybody else’s arrears or given them any kind of financial assistance to pay their own bills,” the official said.

U.S. officials did urge countries to at least pay enough to restore their voting ability, the official said.  “But we didn’t pay them ourselves.”

Members more than two years in arrears were ineligible to vote, according to the rules of the conference, and at the vote yesterday, the United States needed to muster the support of at least two-thirds of members present and voting to oust Bustani.

Brazilian Press Reports

The Brazilian daily Folha de Sao Paulo reported today that several countries that had never participated in the OPCW’s meetings attended the special session and voted yesterday, including the tiny Pacific island state of Kiribati.

The Folha also reported that the Federated States of Micronesia, another small Pacific island state and former U.S. trust territory, sent an official letter to the OPCW informing that its delegation would not be able to attend but giving its proxy vote to the United States.  OPCW rules barred the move, however (GSN translation, April 23).

According to O Estado de Sao Paulo, several hours before the vote, Gabon paid its arrears in cash, giving it the right to vote (GSN translation, April 23).

The vote to dismiss Bustani, and his subsequent announcement he would leave, put an end to a three-month public dispute between the arms control director and the U.S. State Department, where each side traded accusations.  The department accused Bustani of mismanagement and inappropriate activities, including proposing Iraq submit to OPCW inspections as an alternative to U.N. inspections.  Bustani has suggested Washington is motivated by a desire to avoid rigorous inspections in the United States.

The United States, the OPCW’s largest donor, and other major donors have withheld funding from the organization in protest of Bustani’s leadership.

Bustani Reacts to His Dismissal

In several interviews with the Brazilian press yesterday following his dismissal, Bustani said the future of the organization is uncertain given that its credibility has been shaken and warned that the heads of international organizations will from now on have to take care not to offend the United States, undermining their independence.

“The United States has enormous firepower,” Bustani told the Correio Braziliense, the Brazilian capital’s daily.  “But I am relieved that I did not cede to their pressures until the end.”  Bustani said the last two months of his life have been “hell” and that his family had been “threatened.”

Calling the vote against him a “summary dismissal,” Bustani said there were no formal charges, no investigation and no judgment.  “No one objected to the legality of the conference,” he said, even though the issue required some kind of judgment.  “It was a lynching,” Bustani said.

Columnist Blasts U.S. Move

Bustani’s dismissal drew some criticism of the United States in the international press.  George Monbiot, a columnist for the British newspaper the Guardian, wrote that Bustani’s removal demonstrates President George W. Bush’s “contempt for [international] cooperation.”

He cited as other examples:  the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in Vienna for the first time failing to attend a recent meeting on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and a Washington Post report the Pentagon told the Central Intelligence Agency to investigate Hans Blix, the chief U.N. weapons inspector, in the hope of undermining his credibility (see GSN, April 16).

Also, the British-born chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, outspoken on global warming and against fossil fuel use, was fired last week under U.S. pressure.

Monbiot wrote about a meeting he called “illegal” between the U.S. ambassador to the OPCW and U.S. members of the organization’s staff.

The ambassador, Monbiot said, explained that if the replacement is “like Bustani we will say ‘screw the organization.’  We’ll dismantle our (chemical) weapons independently and monitor them ourselves.”

The ambassador also warned the participants, “if any of this gets out of this room, I’ll kill the person responsible,” Monbiot wrote.

Another State Department official today told GSN the United States strongly supports the convention and “will work closely with other concerned member states to restore the organization to a sound financial footing and to overcome the other difficulties that it has faced in recent years.”

Changes Ahead?

OPCW spokesman Peter Kaiser said the introduction of a new director general should not impact the choices of country sites for inspections.

“I don’t think you are going to see any fundamental shift in the way the actual choice of inspections is undertaken, because that should be based upon an entirely impartial, mathematical [procedure], really an algorithm,” he said.

Particular sites are selected for inspection not based upon the country, he said, but rather on a risk assessment of facilities using a “risk assessment algorithm.”

Inspections will inevitably provoke some controversy, he said, but member states are hoping they can be better managed through better communication between the OPCW secretariat and member states.

“I think that was what was raised yesterday evening when a lot of states parties were explaining the way they voted, that they wanted to see the organization go along the path of cooperation and dialogue, so these kinds of crises don’t occur again,” he said.

(Note:  UN Wire Staff Writer Scott Hartmann contributed to this report.)

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U.S. Plans:  Army Awards Contract for Alaska Test Bed

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has awarded Fluor Alaska Inc. with the first construction contract to build facilities for a missile defense test bed in Alaska, Defense Week reported yesterday (see GSN, March 5).

According to the $250 million, three-year contract, Fluor will build facilities at Fort Greely and Eareckson Air Force Station in Alaska.  Construction is scheduled to begin in June.

The company’s responsibilities include constructing roads, security fences, communication equipment buildings, utility buildings, a missile assembly building, an exoatmospheric kill vehicle assembly building and an interceptor storage building, according to Defense Week.  Defense contractor Boeing will remain responsible for constructing missile silos and installing missiles.

The missile defense test bed in Alaska will have battle-management and communication links to other missile defense sites and at least five interceptors, said Air Force Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish, director of the Missile Defense Agency.

The MDA plans to launch test interceptors from the site and hopes to base a small operational anti-missile force there in 2004, Defense Week reported.

“We’re on schedule and less than 900 days away from our target date of September [2004] for that capability to be in place and to use it for ground integration testing,” Kadish said (Ann Roosevelt, Defense Week, April 22).

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Radiological Weapons:  Al-Qaeda Developing a Dirty Bomb, Former Leader Says

A top al-Qaeda member in U.S. custody told investigators that the organization is close to building a dirty bomb and might try to smuggle one into the United States, U.S. officials said last night (see GSN, April 11).

Abu Zubaydah, who was captured in Pakistan last month (see GSN, March 4), said al-Qaeda had aggressively sought materials and knowledge to build a conventional explosive wrapped with radioactive material (Philip Shenon, New York Times, April 23).  Al-Qaeda members know how to construct such a device, he said, although he did not say al-Qaeda has built any dirty bombs.

Zubaydah’s statements confirm U.S. suspicions that al-Qaeda is interested in obtaining weapons of mass destruction and do not suggest al-Qaeda has any previously unknown capabilities, said a U.S. official (John Lumpkin, Associated Press/Nando Times, April 23).

Officials believe Zubaydah was Osama bin Laden’s operations chief and are taking his information seriously, one official said.

“Dirty bombs aren’t that hard to make, unfortunately,” said another official.

Officials, however, are still skeptical of Zubaydah’s statements.  He could be lying to receive more lenient treatment or to create panic, officials said.

“This could be just bragging,” said an official.  “It’s impossible for us to know the truth at this point.”

Officials confirmed Zubaydah’s statements after CBS News and NBC News reported that he said al-Qaeda had been attempting to build a dirty bomb (Shenon, New York Times).

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