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We’re a bit rusty, but we could take it up quite easily and carry on.
—Wouter Basson, head of South Africa’s former biological weapon program, commenting on the availability of former South African scientists to continue their activities for unspecified clients.
By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Commerce Department announced new regulations yesterday that appear to both loosen and tighten controls on missile technology exports...Full Story 
As part of the “Amerithrax” investigation into last fall’s anthrax attacks, the FBI plans to administer several polygraph tests to employees at U.S. biological defense research centers, an FBI official said yesterday...Full Story
U.S. President George W. Bush plans to raise U.S. concerns that Russia is helping Iran’s nuclear weapons program when he meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin later this week, Reuters reported today...Full Story
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A suicide bombing similar to the attacks in Israel is “inevitable” in the United States, FBI Director Robert Mueller said yesterday.
“There will be another terrorist attack,” Mueller said during a closed session at a National Association of District Attorneys meeting. “We will not be able to stop it. It’s something we all live with.”
Mueller’s warning came a day after U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney said another terrorist attack on the United States is highly likely (see GSN, May 20).
Mueller’s statement is “consistent with the patterns we’ve seen overseas and consistent with the information we’ve been seeing over the past few weeks,” a Justice Department official said yesterday (Dan Eggen, Washington Post, May 21).
Al-Qaeda Not the Only Threat
Officials and members of Congress also said al-Qaeda is not the only organization posing a threat to the United States; other extremist groups could attack the country (see GSN, Nov. 26, 2001).
“Our enemy is not al-Qaeda alone,” said Senator Bob Graham (D-Fla.). “There are several international terrorist groups which have abilities, in some cases greater abilities, than al-Qaeda and a similar desire to attack the United States,” he said, listing Hezbollah and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad as two groups that could pose a threat.
Not Urgent or Specific
Despite the warnings, the Bush administration has not placed the country on a higher alert level. The United States remains on yellow alert — indicating a significant risk of terrorist attack (see GSN, May 1). The next level, orange, would indicate a high risk of attack.
The warnings from Cheney and Mueller do not stem from a major increase in threatening information, White House officials said.
“In response to what you heard over the weekend, I would say (the threats are) relatively nonspecific, and we are watching it extremely closely,” said Lt. Gen. Gregory Newbold, senior planning officer on the U.S. Joint Staff.
According to the Globe and Mail, the warnings from top U.S. officials this week are part of an attempt to deflect criticism from Democrats that the Bush administration did not warn Americans about a threat prior to the Sept. 11 attacks, White House officials said. Cheney and Mueller made their statements to give Americans better notice of threats and to protect the administration from criticism if another attack occurs, a senior administration official said (Doug Saunders, Globe and Mail, May 21).
A U.S. Justice Department report says that plans for a new system to monitor and track non-U.S. students within the United States would only result in a minimal improvement, the Atlanta-Journal Constitution reported today (see GSN, May 15).
The new program “will not solve the problems of the INS’ [U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service] tracking of foreign students,” says the report, released yesterday by the department’s inspector general.
Furthermore, the INS probably cannot implement the new system, called the Student Exchange Visitor Information System, by a January 2003 deadline, according to the report. Agency officials must first recertify 70,000 schools, most of which have not been inspected in years, according to the Journal-Constitution. The agency also must instruct schools on how to enter information on non-U.S. students into the new computerized system.
The Immigration and Naturalization Service has admitted that its prior student tracking system was flawed. For example, it granted student visas to allow two of the Sept. 11 hijackers to take flight lessons. Agency officials disagreed, however, that they would have difficulties with the new system.
“They’re saying they can’t believe that we’ll be able to do it,” said INS spokesman William Strassberger. “We maintain that we will, that we’re working toward that. It’s going to be a challenge, but we are confident we will do it” (Julia Malone, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, May 21).
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By Jim Wurst
Global Security Newswire
UNITED NATIONS — The former head of the humanitarian aid office in Iraq, Hans von Sponeck, said yesterday that the new “smart sanctions” regime for Iraq “will be a tiny step in the right direction, but not what is advertised. It will not lead to a fundamental change in the conditions under which Iraqis are living” (see GSN, May 16).
U.N. Security Council Resolution 1409, adopted unanimously May 14, instituted the first change in the sanctions regime against Iraq since 1996. Dubbed “smart sanctions,” supporters say the revised embargo guidelines will make it easier for civilian goods to enter the country, while maintaining tight restriction of military-related materials. Contracts for goods that have some kind of military application, especially for weapons of mass destruction, would have to be approved by a committee of the council, while all other imports not contained in a 300-page “goods review list” would not require approval.
Von Sponeck, who resigned as the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Iraq in 2000 in protest over the effect sanctions were having on Iraqi civilians, said the resolution “must be welcomed, but … it is a very small step toward improvements for the Iraqi people.”
The view of the United States and the United Kingdom “that this is a fundamental change is wrong,” he said. “It is politically very clever to argue like that, but it is not correct. You cannot say, ‘I divest myself of all that hurts the Iraqi civilian population from now onwards. If they continue to suffer, it is entirely the fault of the brutal dictator in Baghdad.’”
He said there is a need to overcome “two wrong conclusions that one can draw from the Iraq discussion.” It is wrong to say the devastation “facing the Iraqis is purely a function of sanctions … but in the reverse, it is also wrong to say that there is only one villain,” meaning President Saddam Hussein. “It is the lethal combination of those two things” that have caused the problems, he added.
Von Sponeck listed “three options for peace as an alternative to what is now on the drawing boards in the [U.S.] State Department and maybe more so in the Department of Defense.” According to von Sponeck, these “opportunities for dialogue” are: between Iraq and the United Nations; within Iraq between the minority Kurdish population and Baghdad; and within the Arab League. Von Sponeck said the Arab League summit in Beirut in late March “shows that there is a process of reconciliation between different Arab governments.”
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U.S. President George W. Bush plans to raise U.S. concerns that Russia is helping Iran’s nuclear weapons program when he meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin later this week, Reuters reported today.
“The president intends to talk a lot about the Russian-Iranian relationship,” U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said. “It’s been a problem for several years … We also want to talk about weapons of mass destruction, their control — controlling the materials so that biological, chemical, nuclear leakage doesn’t happen.”
“We’ve made a lot of progress with the Russians on the counterterrorism front,” Rice added. “We’re going to try and make progress on the nonproliferation front” (Steve Holland, Reuters, May 21).
Secret Assistance
Meanwhile, Russian officials told the Boston Globe that, despite claims that nuclear assistance to Iran is purely for civilian purposes, Russian scientists and officials are funneling weapon-related material and technology to the country (see GSN, May 17).
Russia, which is constructing a civilian nuclear reactor at Bushehr in Iran, has said its assistance to Iran is in compliance with international agreements and cannot be used to develop nuclear weapons (see GSN, April 5). Iran has denied seeking nuclear weapons capability, but the United States has said the country is pursuing weapons of mass destruction.
Contrary to Kremlin statements, the Russian Atomic Energy Ministry is directly helping Iran develop nuclear weapons and using the Bushehr project as a cover, U.S. and Russian officials said.
Russian officials and scientists are secretly transferring technology to Iran, and such transactions and other money laundering schemes have made a fortune for some officials, several Russian officials told the Globe.
“This is a super-Mafia,” said one scientist.
“I have no doubt that the building of an atomic reactor in Bushehr is a cover-up for Iran’s plans to build an atomic bomb,” said Alexei Yablokov, a senior adviser to former Russian President Boris Yeltsin and now the head of the Center for Russian Environmental Policy. “It is madness to build them reactors.”
“From the early 1990s, our concern was that this large project would serve as a cover for more sensitive technical interactions between Russians and Iranians,” said Robert Einhorn, former assistant secretary of state during the Clinton administration. “The concerns we had have materialized.”
The Atomic Energy Ministry is hungry for cash, according to the Globe. It pays little attention to Kremlin policy, submits to almost no oversight and does not report how it spends its money, the Globe reported.
“We are quite convinced that dangerous tech transfers are still taking place. There may be some willful criminality in the Atomic Energy Ministry, and some agencies that are getting away with exports on their own,” a senior U.S. official in Moscow said.
The Atomic Energy Ministry seems to care little about whether it helps Iran become a nuclear weapons power, according to the Globe.
“So what?” said the Russian scientist. “The Iranians will acquire these weapons. Pakistan has them. Israel has them. Other countries have them. So what if Iran has them?”
What Could Happen?
Russia has said Iran could not use the reactor at Bushehr — scheduled for completion in early 2005 — to produce nuclear weapons, but other analysts said the facility would provide the necessary materials.
Any nuclear reactor produces enough uranium and plutonium in spent nuclear fuel for creating a nuclear explosive at low cost, Yablokov said.
“In three months, 30 people with a college education could do it,” he said. “There is no distinction between civilian and military nuclear programs; that is why handing nuclear technology to such unstable countries as Iran is a suicidal step.”
The Bushehr reactor could produce weapon-grade plutonium with the right knowledge, said Maxim Shingarkin, a former Russian officer involved with strategic weapons.
Iran’s knowledge of nuclear materials has been enhanced by student exchanges and information transfers between Russia and Iran, Yablokov said.
Why Russia Is Building Bushehr
Russia continues to say its assistance to Iran is not dangerous — similar to the light-reactor reactor the United States is building in North Korea through an international consortium (see GSN, May 13). The project also provides needed money for Russia. It employs more than 1,000 Russian specialists who might be otherwise jobless, and it provides contracts for Russian machine-building companies.
International Atomic Energy Agency rules also require countries with nuclear know-how to assist nonnuclear states in building power plants and to safeguard the spent fuel so it cannot be used for weapons, according to the Globe. Russia and Iran have promised to comply with the IAEA requirements (Kornblut/Filipov, Boston Globe, May 19). Both countries have signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (U.N. release, Jan. 31, 2000).
An increased threat of terrorist attack, recently cited by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, should prompt a longer delay in planned shipments of plutonium to a U.S. Energy Department site in South Carolina, Governor Jim Hodges said yesterday (see GSN, May 10).
Hodges said he is concerned about the safety of plutonium shipments moving across the United States in light of the new warnings (see GSN, May 20). The Energy Department, however, criticized Hodges’ for voicing his concerns to the media first, rather than discussing the issue with the department.
“We would have thought that if Governor Hodges were seriously concerned about potential terrorist threats, he would have made sure to communicate his concern directly to the secretary and been less eager to communicate it to the press,” said Energy spokesman Joe Davis. “The only credible risk to public safety from these shipments comes from Governor Hodges’ recent threats of roadblocks and armed confrontation at the border” (Associated Press, May 20).
North Korean officials arrived in South Korea Sunday to study the feasibility of opening an air link to the North’s site where an international consortium is building a nuclear power plant (see GSN, May 6).
The officials, who are visiting nuclear power plants and airports, will return to North Korea May 24. Their visit follows an earlier one by technicians late last year, but comes as North-South talks have reached a stalemate, according to Reuters.
There is no regular travel link between North and South Korea. If officials agree to establish one, it would serve only to fly personnel and equipment from South Korea to the site where the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization is building two nuclear reactors (Reuters/PlanetArk, May 21).
Cooperation
Meanwhile, South Korean analysts yesterday predicted that North Korea will continue negotiating with KEDO to gain leverage with the United States and solve North Korea’s energy crisis, according to the Korea Herald.
Last month, North Korean and KEDO officials negotiated to create a protocol regarding compensation for damages in case of a nuclear accident.
“North Korea aims to convey to the United States that it is doing its due share to implement the Agreed Framework by cooperating in the KEDO project,” said Suh Choo-suk, a research fellow at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses.
“Though the North’s cooperative gestures will not narrow the fundamental differences between Washington and Pyongyang on the issues of the power plant construction, North Korea may think it can at least gain the upper hand in its talks with the United States,” Suh said.
North Korea’s desperate need for energy will also push the country to cooperate with KEDO, Yun Duk-min of the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security said.
“It is in Pyongyang’s interest to expedite the construction of the power plants, though the construction will take at least five more years,” Yun said (Seo Hyun-jin, Korea Herald, May 21).
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As part of the “Amerithrax” investigation into last fall’s anthrax attacks, the FBI plans to administer several polygraph tests to employees at U.S. biological defense research centers, an FBI official said yesterday.
Investigators plan to administer tests to workers at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md., and the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. The FBI has already administered polygraphs to a few scientists who might have had access to anthrax, including about 10 USAMRIID researchers, according to the Baltimore Sun. The new round of tests, however, would be administered to 200 current and former employees of the two Army research facilities, the FBI official said.
There are 80 USAMRIID employees who have had access to anthrax during the last few years, according to Fort Detrick sources. While fewer Dugway researchers have had access to anthrax, Dugway has produced small amounts of weapon-grade anthrax that is similar to the powder used in the attacks, the Sun reported (see GSN, Jan. 2).
The new round of polygraph testing could mean the FBI has run out of leads in its investigation and that the bureau is expanding its scope in an attempt to trip up whoever is responsible, said experts.
“It looks to me like desperation,” said one USAMRIID scientist. “The trail has kind of gone cold.”
The FBI also might be expanding polygraph testing because investigators believe there might be a suspect or suspects at the two facilities and do not want to broadcast their suspicions, according to the Sun.
“Maybe they really have one or two specific people and they’re covering it with a large number of polygraphs,” said Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, a biologist at the State University of New York who has carefully followed the FBI’s investigation (see GSN, April 24).
Some USAMRIID employees, however, feel the FBI and the media have singled them out and that more polygraph tests will not reveal any new information, a Fort Detrick employee said.
“I think there’s going to be resentment,” the USAMRIID worker said. “People feel we’re getting beaten up already” (Scott Shane, Baltimore Sun, May 21).
New Policies
There will soon be a new program to help clarify procedures for handling, shipping and storing biological weapons agents at USAMRIID, said Maj. Gen. Lester Martinez-Lopez, the facility’s commander. The new rules should help increase the public’s confidence in the facility, he said. Last month, an accidental release of anthrax was discovered within USAMRIID (see GSN, April 26).
“We have good systems, but we’re going to make them even safer,” Martinez-Lopez said. “The safety and surety of USAMRIID is of overreaching concern” (Associated Press/New York Times, May 21).
World Bank Scare
Meanwhile, more than 1,000 World Bank employees in Washington were sent home yesterday after a batch of mail tested positive for anthrax in a preliminary check, the Washington Post reported (see GSN, May 20). A second, more sophisticated test later contradicted the first, according to the Post.
In the first reported anthrax scare for the bank, 1,200 people in the bank’s Africa and training divisions were told to work from home for most of this week as a precautionary measure, according to bank spokeswoman Caroline Anstey. Investigators will conduct more tests in West Virginia, and results are expected by Thursday, she said (Petula Dvorak, Washington Post, May 21).
“We’re taking every precaution,” Anstey said (Reuters, May 21).
Several South African scientists who worked for the former apartheid regime’s biological weapons program have had difficulties finding civilian scientific work, increasing concerns that they might sell their expertise to rogue states or terrorist groups, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday (see GSN, April 12).
Unemployed scientists from former biological weapons programs pose a large potential threat, said Amy Sands of the Monterey Institute of International Studies in March during testimony before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“Some may be enticed by [high] salaries and other inducements to work for foreign governments, subnational groups and criminals to develop biological weapons,” she said.
Former South African biological weapons scientists, who worked for the apartheid-era “Project Coast” program, are among those most vulnerable for recruitment, Sands said.
Looking for “Stuff to Kill the Blacks ...”
Daan Goosen, a former Project Coast scientist, agreed that other countries might recruit former South African biological weapons scientists, according to the Journal. Goosen is a former managing director of Roodeplaat Research Laboratories, a biological research company set up by the apartheid government to act as front for Project Coast.
Goosen said that ever since his role in Project Coast became well known, he has had several requests for “stuff to kill the blacks.” At the beginning of this year, a group of whites from Zimbabwe visited him and asked if he had any biological or chemical weapons that could be used to kill Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe, the Journal reported.
“I told them no. Full stop. There was nothing that I had to give them,” Goosen said. “Fortunately, no one asked for the recipes.”
Goosen said a Chinese firm also requested his help in developing animal vaccines. Creating vaccines is a process not much different from creating biological weapons, he said.
There are several cases of former South African biological weapons scientists being approached by other nations, according to Chandre Gould of South Africa’s Center for Conflict Resolution. In 1993, two Syrian military officials interested in biological weapons visited several former Project Coast scientists, Gould said. Although the South African scientists were interested in assisting the Syrians, the meeting produced no results, she said.
“The point is that these scientists were accessible,” Gould said. “Not much has changed. Whether they will do anything depends on their financial situation, if they are gainfully employed and how they feel about their past.”
Waiting for a Telephone Call ...
Many of the scientists who worked for the Project Coast program have said that Western governments have ignored their situation, in part because their work was often focused on developing biological weapons against blacks, according to the Journal.
Through tactics such as lacing lipstick and chocolate with anthrax and bottles of beer with botulinum toxin, Project Coast scientists worked to develop biological weapons to use against anti-apartheid activists, the Journal reported. The program also examined ways to render South Africa’s black population sterile, according to the Journal.
A decade ago, U.S. and British officials were concerned enough about the activities of Project Coast that they demanded that it be closed and that its head, Wouter Basson, be closely monitored, according to the Journal. The program shut down in 1993 during the transition to majority rule, the Journal reported.
“It was our assessment that Basson was a one-stop shop for anyone interested in how to put a (bioweapons) program together,” said a senior U.S. diplomat who was involved in the negotiations to close Project Coast.
In 1997, Basson stood trial for several criminal charges, including drug dealing and murder, which stemmed from his involvement in Project Coast, the Journal reported. After the longest trial in South African history, Basson was found not guilty last month on all counts (see GSN, April 11).
After his trial, Basson said that while he would return to his private medical practice, he would also decide what to do with his biological and chemical weapons expertise.
“I am not sure how much those are in demand,” he said. “I’ll have to wait and see how many phone me to ask.”
Basson also said that South African scientists who took part in Project Coast could still make contributions to the fields of biological and chemical warfare.
“We’re a bit rusty, but we could take it up quite easily and carry on,” he said (Robert Block, Wall Street Journal, May 20).
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By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Commerce Department announced new regulations yesterday that appear to both loosen and tighten controls on missile technology exports.
The changes are intended to make U.S. regulations conform with revised restrictions agreed to at the September 2001 plenary meeting of the Missile Technology Control Regime.
The MTCR, which first took effect in January 1993, is a voluntary regime through which 33 state parties agree to adopt similar regulations for preventing exports of items key for developing missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles capable of delivering chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
Some Controls Made “More Specific”
The regulation changes, according to a Commerce notification in the Federal Register, “clarify what shapes and sizes are usable for rocket nozzles and reentry vehicle nose tips.” Those that are not allowable would require a Commerce Department license for export and re-export.
More specifically, the language establishes two criteria that must be met to require a Commerce license where previously there was just one: a ceiling on graphite density of 1.72 grams per cubic centimeter and a floor on particle size of 100 micrometers or less — for use on certain rocket nozzles and reentry vehicle nose tips.
The practical effect, said Gregory De Santis, a consultant in international technology transfer issues, is that “they’ve created a loosening of controls by allowing people to buy even denser materials.”
Allowing exports of higher-density graphite with larger particle size can improve a long-range missile’s accuracy, he said.
De Santis said, however, that he would not characterize the MTCR-driven change overall as a loosening of export restrictions but rather as making the regulations “more specific.”
“It does catch the really important strategic materials but opens the door for people to buy either higher density or smaller particle size,” he said.
Other Controls Tightened
The revisions also expand the scope of items that are controlled “but will have a minimal effect on the number of license applications” submitted to Commerce, the notification said.
They lower the threshold for the maximum thrust for “lightweight turbojet and turbofan engines” usable in missiles, from 1,000 newtons to 400 newtons — equivalent to about 90 pounds of thrust — allowable for export by U.S. companies without a Commerce Department license.
“It’s definitely a tightening of controls,” De Santis said.
The change will effectively restrict engines for small target drones, which could be used to deliver about 50 kilograms of chemical or biological weapons, he said.
“What they’ve caught are low-powered gas turbojets,” De Santis said.
Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Education Project and a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for nonproliferation, said he believes such changes will have minor impact on missile technology proliferation as countries like North Korea, China and Russia continue to export their technology.
"I don't know how much good all of this stuff is. It can't hurt,” he said.
Pakistan has completed an intermediate-range Shaheen-III ballistic missile and plans to test the nuclear-capable missile soon, the Pakistani newspaper Nawa-i-Waqt reported today (see GSN, Feb. 19). Officials had planned to test the missile on May 18 but postponed the test, according to Nawa-i-Waqt. The solid-fuel Shaheen-III has a range of more than 2,500 kilometers and can carry a 1,000-kilogram payload (Rawalpindi Nawa-i-Waqt/BBC Monitoring, May 21).
North Korean ballistic missile units took part in the military’s winter exercise, which ended last month, the Seoul Yonhap news agency reported Saturday (see GSN, May 3).
“I understand that the North Korean army included 500-kilometer range Scud missile battalions and 1,300-kilometer range Nodong missile units in the winter exercise,” said a South Korean official.
The missile units involved in the exercise were small, but the fact that North Korea has expanded its training to the battalion level shows an increase in its missile operating capacity, the South Korean official said. The missile units took part in exercises to improve missile control and operations, according to Seoul Yonhap (Kim Kwi-kun, Seoul Yonhap, May 18, in FBIS-NES, May 18).
Russia Unafraid
Meanwhile, Russia is not as concerned as Western governments over the status of North Korea’s missile and nuclear programs, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov said yesterday.
“There are certain fears in the West about North Koreans trading missile technologies,” Losyukov said. “These matters do not arouse any great concerns here” (Interfax/BBC Monitoring, May 20).
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A senior U.S. Air Force official has said recent restructuring of the Space-Based Infrared System-High (SBIRS-High) program — satellites planned as missile defense system components — will allow U.S. officials greater oversight, Defense Daily reported yesterday (see GSN, May 3).
Budget woes had endangered the program earlier this year, but Defense acquisition chief Pete Aldridge gave the go-ahead this month to allow continued funding.
“We will be actively engaged in moving forward in a way that eliminates surprises,” said Air Force Undersecretary Peter Teets. “The government was quite surprised by the status of SBIRS. That was a problem that surfaced in an untimely way. We want more involvement, more engagement.”
The Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center has worked with Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman — two defense contractors involved in the SBIRS-High program — to restructure the program, better assessing system development and reducing problems now instead of waiting for the system to go into production, Teets said.
Program officials have removed a clause in the SBRIS-High contract with Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman that held the contractors responsible for total system performance, Teets said. Now program officials have that responsibility. The two defense contractors have also increased the amount of resources put into the SBRIS-High program, he said (Kerry Gildea, Defense Daily, May 20).
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