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Would you be willing to touch with your bare hands, much less lick with your tongue, an envelope containing two billion spores of the universe’s most dangerous bacterium? The question answers itself.
—David Tell, opinion editor of the Weekly Standard, criticizing those who suggest that the perpetrator of last fall’s U.S. anthrax attacks are highly sophisticated because investigators reportedly found no evidence, such as fingerprints or saliva, on the anthrax-laden envelopes.
By Greg Seigle
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — In the last three fiscal years, only 23 of 56 U.S. states and other jurisdictions have received federal funds from a Justice Department program to supply biological, chemical and radiological response equipment for emergency officials, Global Security Newswire learned yesterday (see GSN, April 9)...Full Story 
The United States expressed satisfaction while Russia and some other countries expressed concern when the organization responsible for implementing the Chemical Weapons Convention dismissed its leader Monday (see GSN, April 23)...Full Story
By Greg Seigle
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — U.S. nonproliferation efforts in Russia must continue without delay or the threats could increase if terrorists obtain and use any nuclear, biological and chemical weapons from Russian stockpiles, members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a former defense secretary said yesterday...Full Story
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By Greg Seigle
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — In the last three fiscal years, only 23 of 56 U.S. states and other jurisdictions have received federal funds from a Justice Department program to supply biological, chemical and radiological response equipment for emergency officials, Global Security Newswire learned yesterday (see GSN, April 9).
Only $68 million of the $145 million budgeted for the last two fiscal years and none of the $122 million set aside for fiscal 2002 has been disbursed, leaving $199 million in federal coffers, officials said.
The funds are intended to help 50 states and five U.S. territories — Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa and the North Mariana Islands — plus the District of Columbia prepare for any future terrorist attacks employing weapons of mass destruction, officials said.
Justice officials said they expect to begin issuing the remaining $77 million of the fiscal 2000 and 2001 funds in coming months, and possibly to begin sending out portions of this fiscal year’s $122 million within the calendar year.
“Some [jurisdictions] are likely to receive [this year’s funds] in future fiscal years because of the amount of time it has taken” for them to complete their plans and applications, said Glenda Kendrick, spokeswoman for the department’s Office of Justice Programs.
An Onerous Process?
While neither Justice nor any single state or jurisdiction appears solely to blame for the delay, department officials acknowledged that their grant application process is laborious and say the intended recipients have been slow to complete paperwork.
“There were states that didn’t apply for the 1999 money until 2000, 2001 or even 2002,” Kendrick said, referring to the three-year WMD equipment program the department started in 1999 and, after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, continued for this year. For fiscal 2003 the program is being shifted to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“It was a very complex process that we asked them to do,” Kendrick continued. “Some states would say too complex.”
“It can be a lengthy process,” David Hess, another department spokesperson, said, adding that the final state completed its application recently. “It requires some pretty intensive and comprehensive collection of information.”
As of Oct. 17, when Attorney General John Ashcroft wrote to governors asking them to complete grant applications by Dec. 15 with assurances that Justice would be quick to approve them, only Utah, which was preparing for the 2002 Winter Olympics, had met all the federal requirements and received its full funding, officials said.
In order to receive the federal funds, states and jurisdictions must first assess their WMD threats, an evaluation endorsed by their governor — or, in the case of the District of Columbia, the mayor — then submit equipment requirements to Justice officials for review. Once approval is given states and jurisdictions must then fill out the “complex” Justice grant application forms, department officials said.
Besides the 23 states that have received fiscal 2000 and 2001 funds, the other 27 have already filed their applications with Justice, with only two awaiting department approval, according to Hess. Payments to those 27 have been delayed mainly because they only recently filed their applications, he said.
The funds are expected to pay for such protective gear as gas masks and suits, communications equipment and biological, chemical and radiological detection and decontamination devices, they said.
Specifically forbidden are purchases of vehicles and trailers, everyday computer equipment or firearms and ammunition, according to a Justice “application kit” obtained by GSN.
Because the department’s “state domestic preparedness equipment program” is geared to equip first responders — firefighters, police, ambulance crews, doctors etc. — Justice urges that states funnel the money to the local level, the application document says.
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By Greg Seigle
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — U.S. nonproliferation efforts in Russia must continue without delay or the threats could increase if terrorists obtain and use any nuclear, biological and chemical weapons from Russian stockpiles, members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a former defense secretary said yesterday.
Because terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda are aggressively trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction, the United States and European allies should do everything they can to seal and protect Russian weapons of mass destruction that have been left loosely guarded, senators and former Defense Secretary William Cohen said during a hearing a committee hearing.
Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, it has become imperative that U.S. officials intensify efforts to reduce the Russian WMD materials terrorists could get hold of and use, according to Cohen, a former Republican senator who served as defense secretary during the Clinton administration.
Terrorists “know that the fastest route to acquiring them is not to develop them indigenously, and not necessarily to link up in some kind of a partnership with countries, but basically either buy them or steal them,” Cohen said, alluding to nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.
“It’s a fairly frightening prospect when you think about the levels of security, or lack thereof, in the former Soviet Union, when these materials might be easily obtained by al-Qaeda or by other terrorist groups,” Cohen said.
“The fact is, as long as those piles of nuclear materials are out there and as long as al-Qaeda and other groups are seeking to get their hands on it, we are all in danger.”
Committee Chairman Joseph Biden (D-Del.) said Russia still possesses 1,000 metric tons of excess highly enriched uranium, enough to produce 20,000 nuclear bombs, as well as 160 tons of excess weapons-grade plutonium and 40,000 tons of declared chemical weapons.
According to a recent Carnegie Endowment for International Peace study that surveyed 120,000 scientists and skilled personnel in Russia’s nuclear complex, 58 percent of respondents said they are forced to moonlight at second jobs, and 14 percent have indicated the desire to work abroad.
“If we spend $200 million on cooperative threat reduction, it’s not like [the Russians] have 200 million bucks to go spend on anything else. We’re talking about an incredibly, incredibly limited budget” in Moscow, Biden said.
“One day our country is really excited about the fact we might get attacked and the al-Qaeda might appropriate some of these weapons and kill a lot of Americans right here in the United States,” Biden continued. “Then other days we’re quibbling as to whether we ought to give the Russians $5 million to put a fence around a chemical weapons plant.”
The possibility of any of Russia’s massive WMD stockpiles falling into the wrong hands is “95 percent of the problem,” Biden added. “It’s not in laboratories in the depths of Iraq or Iran right now.”
Efforts to prevent weapons of mass destruction from falling into the hands of rogue nations and terrorist groups are cheaper and more effective than responses after transfer, according to Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), who with former Senator Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) created the 1991 Cooperative Threat Reduction programs that thus far have destroyed 500 Russian air-launched cruise missiles, 400 ICBMs, 300 submarine-launched ballistic missiles, 200 nuclear test tunnels, and 100 long-range bombers.
Unfortunately, complete Russian accountability and transportation in the chemical and biological arena has been lacking, Lugar said.
“This has resulted in the administration’s request for a waiver for a certification requirement that Russia is committed to arms control goals,” he continued. “This has led to a freeze on new dismantlements and nonproliferation projects in Russia. It is a dangerous situation. I am hopeful that Congress will quickly respond by granting this waiver on the supplemental appropriations bill. But we must also be clear with Russia that full transparency and accountability must be forthcoming with respect to former Soviet stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.”
“The clock is ticking,” Cohen said. “It is one minute before midnight … We don’t have a lot of time in which to reduce the nature of the threat that is out there. And every moment that we hesitate, every moment that we fail to do whatever we can to reduce the amount of nuclear materials, chemical, biological, in existence, we come closer to that kind of Armageddon that we all want to avoid.”
[EDITOR'S NOTE: Richard Lugar is a board member and Sam Nunn is co-chairman and chief executive officer of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, the sole sponsor of Global Security Newswire, which is published independently by National Journal Group.]
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan will begin a new round of talks with Iraqi officials May 1 in New York, U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said yesterday (see GSN, April 19).
Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri will lead the Iraqi delegation at the talks, which will span three days, Eckhard said. Hans Blix, executive chairman of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, and Mohammed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, will attend the meetings with Annan.
The talks, which were originally scheduled for April 18-19 (see GSN, April 12), will follow earlier meetings on March 7 (see GSN, March 8).
“The objective is for Iraq to come into full compliance with Security Council resolutions which specifically — and probably first and foremost, as far as these talks are concerned — means allowing U.N. inspectors to go back to Iraq to finish the verification of disarmament in terms of weapons of mass destruction,” Eckhard said (U.N. release, April 23).
Iraqi U.N. Ambassador Mohammed al-Douri said Iraq wants to resolve “all pending issues with the United Nations,” including pending Security Council resolutions, no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq and “the threat of Americans against Iraq” (see GSN, April 15).
“There are a lot of issues, so we will hope that all these issues will be resolved — at least (that) we have a common understanding with the secretary general and with the United Nations,” he said (Associated Press/MSNBC, April 24).
Iraq-Russia Meetings
Meanwhile, Sabri plans to visit Moscow April 28 for meetings with Russian officials, Dmitry Rogozin, chairman of the Duma’s committee for international affairs, said yesterday.
One subject for the discussions will be returning U.N. weapons inspectors to Iraq, Rogozin said.
“Russia is searching for variants of coming close to a solution to the Iraqi problem and preventing a military action on the territory of this country,” he said.
Returning inspectors to Iraq is important, Rogozin said, adding that “inspectors should represent Russia, the U.S., the European Union and the U.N.” (Natalia Gudzenko, ITAR-Tass, April 23).
During the meetings with Russian officials, however, Iraq plans to reject proposals to change sanctions and the U.N. oil-for-food program, Moujir al-Douri, Iraqi ambassador to Russia, said yesterday (see GSN, April 3). Iraq plans to launch a campaign to oppose U.S. efforts to revise sanctions, an Iraqi Foreign Affairs Ministry official said (Agence France-Presse, April 23).
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U.S arms control negotiators left Moscow yesterday, cutting short a meeting with Russian negotiators intended to advance work on an agreement for reducing strategic offensive arms (see GSN, April 23).
The U.S. Embassy gave no reason for the early departure of the U.S. delegation, which was led by Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton. The Russian Foreign Ministry said only the talks were schedule to last for two days (Associated Press/New York Times, April 24).
Russian sources said they believed the talks had gone well, according to Reuters.
“They managed to discuss the entire range of issues in one day instead of two,” the Russian news agency Interfax quoted sources as saying.
The two-day meeting was intended to be the last to finish work on an agreement to be signed by U.S. and Russian Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin during a summit in Moscow next month (Reuters/New York Times, April 24).
North Korea will meet April 30 with international officials to discuss issues related to the construction of two nuclear reactors in the country, a South Korean official said Monday (see GSN, April 4).
“The negotiations will touch on overall pending issues, ranging from the setup of a communications network in the reactor construction site in the North’s city of Sinpo to the replacement of the workforce and training of North Korean nuclear experts,” the official said.
Early next month North Korea and the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization will start the first round of talks to create a “protocol on the reparation of nuclear accidents,” the official said.
The KEDO executive board was expected to meet yesterday and today in New York to prepare for the talks (Seoul Yonhap, April 22 in FBIS-EAS, April 23).
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U.S. Army officials have discovered a second accidental anthrax release at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md., the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, April 23).
The new release involved a strain of anthrax used to research vaccines and is not capable of infecting people with the disease, said USAMRIID spokesman Charles Dasey. The first release, detected on April 8, involved a strain that has not yet been identified, but is known not to be the benign strain, he said.
The two lapses of biological agent security at USAMRIID are “highly embarrassing” and indicate a lack of leadership at the facility, said Martin Hugh-Jones, a former USAMRIID scientist who is now an anthrax researcher at Louisiana State University.
“It looks like somebody made a mess, they tried to clean it up, they didn’t tell anyone and they left,” Hugh-Jones said.
Such an assessment of USAMRIID is too critical, said Tara O’Toole, director of the Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Civilian Biodefense Strategies. Only four tests out of 1,000 have come back positive, she said.
“That actually speaks to the excellence of their efforts,” O’Toole said.
The USAMRIID facility is being decontaminated for a second time in an attempt to rid the building of both the spores found in the second release and another attempt to eliminate all the spores from the first spill, according to the Post. Follow-up testing yesterday indicated that some spores had survived the first decontamination attempt.
The facility “probably ought to institute a policy of routine sampling for pathogenic organisms in noncontaminent areas,” said USAMRIID commander Col. Edward Eitzen (Weiss/Snyder, Washington Post, April 24).
The working theory behind the FBI’s “Amerithrax” investigation into who is responsible for last fall’s anthrax attacks — that a U.S. biological scientist with connections to the government is the culprit — is misguided, said political commentator David Tell in this week’s issue of the Weekly Standard (see GSN, April 9).
“Two weeks ago, numerous published reports suggested that the FBI has recently lost a fair bit of confidence in the focus of its investigation. The universe of potential suspects, ‘law enforcement sources’ now say, actually numbers in the ‘thousands,’” Tell said. “Nevertheless, the government continues to expect that the one guilty man among those thousands will turn out to be an American biological researcher of some kind.”
Tell criticized the theories of Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, a State University of New York microbiologist, who has said the FBI knows who is responsible for the attacks, but refuses to move against them for fears that he or she could reveal information embarrassing to the government (see GSN, March 4). The media also has wrongly used Rosenberg’s theories to indicate the identity of the FBI’s potential suspect, Tell said (see GSN, Feb. 25).
“Except that the poor man turns out to be a former Ohio laboratory technician who has never done bacteriological research of any kind — and whose unfortunate history of alcoholism has lately reduced him to working in a Milwaukee-area bowling alley,” he said. “Which bowling alley has no known ties to the CIA’s Directorate of Operations.”
“Barbara Hatch Rosenberg’s theory is crackpot,” Tell said.
Technical Qualities
It is still unknown whether the anthrax used in the attacks is the same as that produced in U.S. weapons laboratories, as some have claimed, according to Tell.
To create anthrax spores that would disseminate better, U.S. weapons scientists were reported to have coated the spores with silica, which kept them from sticking together. Iraqi and former-Soviet Union weapons scientists used an additive called bentonite. Scientific analysis of the spores used in the attack found no evidence of aluminum, a sign of bentonite, but did find traces of silica, Tell said. This has led some, such as Rosenberg, to assume the spores used in the attack came from a U.S. biological weapons laboratory, he said.
Silica, however, is nothing more than sand, one of the most common substances on Earth, Tell said. “Bentonite” is only a term for clays derived from volcanic ash, all of which are silica compounds and do not necessarily contain aluminum, he said.
“In other words: Trace amounts of silica in an anthrax powder are consistent with the presence of bentonite,” said Tell. “And the absence of aluminum from that powder is not enough to exculpate any foreign germ-warfare factory thought to have used bentonite in the past.”
There has also been an increase in the amount of known information as to the dispersal patterns of anthrax spores once airborne, according to Tell. It is now known that lethal amounts of spores will spread over a wide area regardless of whether they have been coated with a chemical to keep them from sticking together, he said.
“So whoever was responsible for last fall’s bioterrorism wouldn’t have needed to add silica to his anthrax powder at all,” Tell said.
Silica can, however, be used in a process to manufacture anthrax, which Iraq is believed to have done, Tell said. U.N. weapons inspectors have found that Iraq used a spray-drying technique that involves silica instead of milling anthrax into a fine dust, he said.
Genetic Information
It also has not been decisively shown that the strain of anthrax used in the attacks is the U.S. “Ames” strain, as reports have said, according to Tell (see GSN, Feb. 27). The term “strain” is a generic term with no set meaning — any set of microbes with genetic similarities can be called a strain, he said.
“How closely related they must be — at what level of analysis should a set of microbes be subdivided into ‘strains’ — is a subjective judgment,” Tell said. “Is your second cousin ‘family’ or merely distant kin?”
While experts have been able to match the DNA taken from the anthrax spores that caused the first casualty of the attacks — American Media Inc. employee Robert Stevens — and match it to the known genome of the Ames strain, there is still a large margin of error, Tell said (see GSN, April 23). Because anthrax bacteria mutate so slowly, different anthrax strains have been identified through differences in a tiny number out of more than 5 million DNA nucleotides, (see GSN, April 10). This means that most anthrax strains cannot be distinguished from one another outside the current margin of error for DNA sampling, which is one wrong nucleotide in every 100,000 examined, he said.
Even if the anthrax strain used in the attack were found to be the Ames strain, that information alone would not tie it to a U.S laboratory, according to Tell. The Ames strain occurs naturally and can be found in dead animals and the soil both in the United States and abroad, he said.
Many foreign research facilities also have worked with the Ames anthrax strain, Tell said. While Rosenberg has only identified a British government laboratory and a Canadian military laboratory as having stockpiles of the Ames strain, it also known that French and Russian scientists, among possible others, have worked with the Ames strain in their research, he said.
Iraqi scientists as well are known to have attempted to obtain samples of various anthrax strains, including the Ames strain, Tell said. Two Iraqi scientists were turned down in their attempt to obtain Ames strain from the British Porton Down facility, but they were able to purchase anthrax-ready bacterial growth medium from a British commercial supplier, he said. They also were known to be successful in obtaining nine other strains from the Institute Pasteur and a U.S. company, as well as two variants of the Vollum anthrax strain, according to Tell.
Letters
The FBI has concluded that a native English speaker wrote the letters sent along with the anthrax during last fall’s attacks, Tell said (see GSN, April 18). The FBI, however, did not explain why the letters were written in block text with the first letter of every noun being slightly larger, he said. This could mean that whoever wrote the letters was more familiar with a language that does not use upper and lower cases, such as Arabic. They also might have spent time in Germany, the only country where every noun is capitalized, and where Sept. 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta and other al-Qaeda terrorists lived for a time, Tell said.
The FBI has also determined that the lack of physical evidence, such as fingerprints or saliva, on the letters and the envelopes could mean that the person who sent them had expertise in covering up evidence, according to Tell.
“Actually, though, all [the perpetrator] exhibited was a bare minimum of human brain function and an animal instinct for self preservation,” he said. “Ask yourself: Would you be willing to touch with your bare hands, much less lick with your tongue, an envelope containing two billion spores of the universe’s most dangerous bacterium? The question answers itself.”
The FBI also has agreed with Rosenberg’s theory that because two of the letters warned the recipients to begin taking penicillin, it implies that the person was a U.S. scientist who wanted to prevent his fellow Americans from becoming sick, according to Tell. Nobody familiar with anthrax and its treatment, however, would prescribe penicillin for an anthrax infection, he said.
Rosenberg also has not been able to come up with a credible motive for the attacks, Tell said. She has speculated that the person responsible wanted to see an increase in defense spending that the attacks would be likely to cause, which would not be a goal of anti-U.S. terrorists. The Sept. 11 hijackers, however, also must have known that their attack would have caused a massive U.S. military buildup, Tell said.
“Perhaps Mohamed Atta, too, was a rogue, right-wing subcontractor for the CIA? Rosenberg’s logic is elusive,” Tell said.
Who Is It???
The FBI cannot make the definitive case that the person responsible for last fall’s anthrax attack is a U.S scientist with some connection to the U.S. defensive biological weapons program, Tell said.
“The possibility is far from foreclosed that the anthrax bioterrorist was just who he said he was,” said Tell. “A Muslim, impliedly from overseas, who thought the events of ‘09-11-01’ were something to be celebrated — and who would have been doubly pleased to see ‘you die now’” (David Tell, Weekly Standard, April 29).
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The United States expressed satisfaction while Russia and some other countries expressed concern when the organization responsible for implementing the Chemical Weapons Convention dismissed its leader Monday (see GSN, April 23).
Forty-eight countries voted against Brazilian Jose Bustani and 43 abstained from a vote on a U.S.-led resolution to oust him as director general of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. Seven, including Russia, China, Cuba, Mexico and Iran, supported Bustani (Peter Ford, Christian Science Monitor, April 24).
Australian Deputy Director General John Gee will serve as the acting OPCW leader until the member states approve a replacement (Associated Press/New York Times, April 24).
U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said yesterday the United States is pleased with the outcome of the vote.
“We’re pleased that the member states have decided to seek new leadership for the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons,” he said. “This is the first step in reviving this very important organization that is responsible for implementing the global ban on chemical weapons.”
The United States will work with other countries to quickly select a new director, Boucher said, adding that the United States prefers a Latin American candidate.
The management problems under Bustani were “an exception rather than the rule in terms of the kind of people … who run these international organizations,” Boucher said, adding, “I am confident that we will get a highly qualified individual to run this very important organization” (State Department transcript, April 23).
State Department Official Responds
Meanwhile, a senior State Department official responded to several of Bustani’s charges in an interview published today in O Globo Online.
The official said Bustani’s accusation that the United States was behind his removal because it disliked the former director general’s attempts to bring Iraq into the OPCW is a “big lie.” According to the official, the principal reason for removing Bustani was his poor administration of the organization, which was leading the OPCW to “financial impotence.”
“If he were to continue in his position, it would have meant the death of the organization, and that is why we took the drastic step of calling for a change in leadership,” the U.S. official said.
The problem with Bustani’s policy on Iraq was that he allegedly wanted to substitute the U.N. inspection regime with OPCW teams, something which the official said would have allowed Iraq room to maneuver and avoid inspections of its sites suspected of containing chemical weapons.
The official also refuted claims made by Bustani supporters that the OPCW under him destroyed millions of chemical weapons, saying the merit belongs to the United States and not the OPCW (Deborah Berlinck, O Globo Online, April 24, GSN translation).
Russian Disapproval
Russia today criticized the decision to dismiss Bustani and defended his work as director.
“Russia spoke out against replacing Bustani and considers that he did a great deal toward solving issues of prohibiting and destroying chemical weapons,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said in a statement released today.
“Thanks to Bustani’s actions, the OPCW transformed itself into an independent and authoritative international organ that became one of the most important mechanisms of control over weapons and disarmament,” Yakovenko said (Associated Press/New York Times).
Abstainers’ Concern
Some OPCW delegates expressed concern that the U.S. ability to lead dismissal efforts could endanger international cooperation.
“Multilateralism is based on the independence of international organizations and their leaders,” said Anne Gazeau-Secret, the French ambassador to the Netherlands. France abstained in the vote on Bustani.
If more governments attempt to dismiss U.N. officials they dislike, “a chain reaction risks leading to the destruction of the multilateral system,” she said.
“This is grave as a matter of principle,” said an official from a country that abstained. “If one delegation threatens blackmail, saying it will not pay its contributions unless the director general goes … Where does that leave us?” (Ford, Christian Science Monitor).
Russia is willing to help France dispose of its chemical weapons, Zinovy Pak, general director of the Russian Munitions Agency said Monday (see GSN, April 12).
“So far Russia has only received assistance to its chemical disarmament efforts within the framework of international cooperation,” Pak said. “In this case we are prepared to study the possibility of providing assistance in the form of scientific and technical information and know-how on issues of interest to the French side.”
A French delegation visited a Russian chemical weapons disposal facility under construction in the Kurgan region, according to ITAR-Tass (see GSN, April 3). French and Russian experts also discussed possible areas of cooperation disposing of chemical weapons (Anatoly Yurkin, ITAR-Tass, April 22).
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By Kerry Boyd
Global Security Newswire
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — China last week criticized the U.S. decision to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, saying the move could jeopardize the stability of the international arms control system. Liu Jieyi, deputy director general of the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s Department of Arms Control and Disarmament, spoke Friday at an international arms control conference here (see GSN, Dec. 14, 2001).
China does not feel that its security is threatened by the U.S. decision, Liu told Global Security Newswire, but China’s somewhat muted response to the U.S. withdrawal does not indicate approval.
Cooperation Is Necessary
In a speech to the Sandia National Laboratories Twelfth Annual International Arms Control Conference, Liu emphasized that international cooperation is important to preserving security and promoting arms control and disarmament.
Countries should not abrogate arms control treaties, Liu said. An international arms control and nuclear disarmament regime have been established as a comprehensive system centered on the United Nations, and undermining that system serves the interests of no country, he said.
The Sept. 11 attacks showed that security threats are increasing in unpredictability and are more diversified than in the past, Liu said. Terrorism and international crime have replaced interstate conflict as the primary source of instability. In such an environment, international cooperation is the only way to achieve peace and security, he said, adding that no country can achieve absolute security alone.
Therefore, countries should adhere to international law to decrease uncertainty, Liu said, adding that cooperation is the only way to prevent WMD proliferation. No country should resort to force, he said. Using military force will not solve problems and can actually be counterproductive, he said, adding that China has no intention to threaten any country.
Nuclear Disarmament
Although China and the United States disagree over the ABM Treaty, they are not far apart on other arms control issues, Liu said. For example, he said that China’s nuclear export controls are comprehensive.
Liu said China is working to tighten missile and missile technology export controls — the subject of U.S. concern and China-U.S. discussions (see GSN, April 17). China also supports negotiations for a fissile material cutoff treaty, he said (see GSN, April 5).
“The role of nuclear weapons should be less, not more,” he said.
Liu repeated China’s policy of promoting nuclear disarmament (see GSN, April 10). Efforts to prevent WMD proliferation will be ineffective unless countries continue to pursue nuclear disarmament, he said.
Countries should also take steps to prevent the weaponization of outer space, he said, including agreeing to international legal instruments (see GSN, April 2).
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U.S. intelligence officials are taking seriously a statement from a top al-Qaeda operative that the terrorist organization has the knowledge to build a radiological bomb and wants to detonate one in the United States, a U.S. official said yesterday (see GSN, April 23).
Abu Zubaydah, who intelligence officials believe has been the chief of operations for alleged terrorist Osama bin Laden, told interrogators that al-Qaeda has been aggressively trying to obtain materials for a dirty bomb — a conventional explosive laced with radioactive material — to use in the United States.
Officials are uncertain of Zubaydah’s credibility, but intelligence agents are searching for evidence to support his statement, according to the Chicago Tribune.
“We’re taking this very seriously. It doesn’t take much skill to make one of those things,” said the U.S. official.
“The United States remains a nation that is at war,” said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer yesterday. “On the one hand, we have been very fortunate that there has been a real lull, that there have been no incidents taking place in the United States … but no one should be under any illusions. We have an enemy that is trying to hit us and strike us,” he said, according to the Tribune.
Credibility Question
Authorities, however, have said they are not convinced Zubaydah is telling the truth.
“He has a reputation for being much less than truthful,” the U.S. official said. “You can launch a terrorist attack just by claiming something and causing panic. This kind of disinformation may be what he’s trying to do” (Michael Kilian, Chicago Tribune, April 24).
“He’s talking, but the issue is sorting out what’s true and what’s not, what is reality and what is mere boasting,” said a U.S. official, according to the Associated Press.
Al-Qaeda training manuals that U.S. agents discovered in Afghanistan instructed operatives to spread false information or say nothing to interrogators.
Officials also found Zubaydah’s notebook when Pakistani and U.S. forces captured him in Pakistan last month. The notebook includes information that could suggest more terrorist attacks are being planned, but officials lack some critical information, a defense official said.
“Are these his ideas, his plans, his musings?” the official said (John Lumpkin, Associated Press/Yahoo.com, April 24).
Radiological Materials Might Be Easy to Acquire
Several sources of radiological material might be open to terrorists, the Tribune reported.
“Nuclear weapons and weapon-usable materials tend to be focused in military applications under tight government oversight,” said Los Alamos National Laboratory Director Donald Cobb. “Radiological sources are more widespread and have fewer controls” (see GSN, April 10).
Security at U.S. nuclear laboratories, including Los Alamos, is inadequate, and laboratories cannot account for all missing radioactive material, said Peter Stockton of the Project on Government Oversight (see GSN, Oct. 5, 2001).
Cobb, however, said the laboratories are secure (Kilian, Chicago Tribune).
A subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee yesterday voted overwhelmingly to approve Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the site of a long-term nuclear waste repository (see GSN, April 19).
The Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee voted 24-2 in support of a resolution to override Nevada Governor Kenny Guinn’s veto of the site. Only two Democrats voted against the resolution. The vote indicated wide support in Congress for the proposed repository, said subcommittee Chairman Joe Barton (R-Texas).
“We are going to override the governor’s veto in the House, and I have every reason to believe the veto is going to be overridden in the Senate,” he said.
Representative Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.), a staunch Yucca Mountain opponent, attended the vote, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal (see GSN, April 18).
“I thought it was important for a representative from Nevada to stand up and be counted,” she said. “I wanted each one of them, when they voted against the state, to look me in the face.”
Nevada, however, will have to accept that Yucca Mountain is the best site for the waste repository, Barton said.
“I’ve got nothing but respect for all the (Nevada) delegation, but like it or not, (Yucca Mountain) is a good site to store that stuff,” he said. “At some point most people accept reality.”
The full committee is expected to vote on the override resolution tomorrow, according to the Review-Journal. The resolution will then probably go before the full House of Representatives next week. The Senate is expected to vote on the issue by midsummer (see GSN, March 29). A majority vote in both houses of Congress is needed to overturn Guinn’s veto (Steve Tetreault, Las Vegas Review-Journal, April 24).
Officials Examine Waste Shipment Issues
Meanwhile, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has begun to re-examine plans to ship nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain along routes that would pass through major cities, the Washington Times reported today (see GSN, Feb. 22). Preliminary plans and routes for shipping spent-fuel to Yucca Mountain were created before the Sept. 11 attacks, NRC officials said.
“We are doing a top-to-bottom review of all of our security requirements, which includes a review of transportation cask vulnerabilities to terrorism,” said NRC spokeswoman Sue Gagner. “The whole top-to-bottom review we are doing is a result of the Sept. 11 attack.”
Nuclear waste shipments to Yucca Mountain are scheduled to begin in 2010 and continue until at least 2034, according to a U.S. Energy Department environmental impact statement. There would be about 175 shipments annually — 45 shipments by truck and 130 by rail (Tom Ramstack, Washington Times, April 24).
Governor Guinn is expected to testify tomorrow before a combined hearing of two House subcommittees examining nuclear waste shipment issues, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Guinn is expected to tell the lawmakers that the Yucca Mountain project should be halted because the Energy Department has not conducted enough studies on the potential accidents of waste shipments and the likelihood of terrorist attacks, the Review-Journal reported.
Nevada transportation consultant James Ballard, who is scheduled to testify at the hearing, plans to tell the representatives that they should insist on a “robust and inclusive” analysis of shipment risks before continuing with Yucca Mountain.
“Transportation terrorism is a very real threat,” Ballard said in an advance copy of his prepared testimony. “There must be adequate consideration given to the risk posed by massive numbers of radioactive waste shipments” (Steve Tetreault, Las Vegas Review-Journal, April 24).
No Civil Disobedience (Yet) From Guinn
Guinn has no plans to conduct a civil disobedience campaign to block nuclear waste shipments from entering Nevada en route to Yucca Mountain, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. South Carolina Governor Jim Hodges has vowed to lay across a highway to prevent plutonium shipments to a site in his state (see GSN, April 23).
“We aren’t close to that point,” said Greg Bortolin, Guinn’s press secretary. “Yucca Mountain would not open until 2010 or 2012 at the earliest, and he won’t be governor then.”
The Guinn administration is hesitant to comment on its strategies for stopping the Yucca Mountain project for fear that such comments might be used against the state, according to the Review-Journal. People have proposed, however, sending the Nevada National Guard to Yucca Mountain to prevent the Energy Department from working, said Bob Loux, director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects.
Nevada still must exhaust its legal options to defeat the Yucca Mountain plan before considering civil disobedience measures, Bortolin said (see GSN, April 12). Even if Congress votes to override Guinn’s veto, Nevada still has several lawsuits pending against the project, he said, adding that the Energy Department has yet to receive an NRC license for the repository.
Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman commended Governor Hodges for his actions, and vowed himself to arrest any truck driver carrying nuclear waste through his city (see GSN, March 14).
“He is my kind of guy,” Goodman said, referring to Hodges. “If he wants me to come there to help, I will. If a truck comes through here, they have me to contend with” (Ed Vogel, Las Vegas Review-Journal, April 23).
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