U.S. Response:  House Passes $28.9 Billion Anti-Terrorism Bill

The U.S. House of Representatives yesterday passed a compromise bill to provide more funds for the war on terrorism and efforts to recover from the Sept. 11 attacks (see GSN, July 16; Alan Fram, Associated Press/Boston Globe, July 24).

The House passed the legislation, a $28.9 billion fiscal 2002 supplemental funding bill, by a 397-32 vote.  Analysts expected the Senate to act on the legislation today (CongressDaily, July 24).

Half of the funds in the bill would go to the war on terrorism, and the rest would fund a variety of programs including New York recovery efforts, federal aviation safety programs, local emergency agencies and aid for anti-terrorism allies, the Associated Press reported.  The money is to be spent in the remaining part of the federal fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.

“This bill is critical to winning the war on terrorism,” Representative Randy Cunningham (R-Calif.) said.

The House-Senate compromise on the legislation ended a four-month dispute over the bill’s size.  The White House in March requested a cap of $27.1 billion, but Senate legislation increased the funds to $31.5 billion.  The White House threatened to veto any bill that spent more than the House version (see GSN, June 5).

Legislators decided not to fight the president, according to the Associated Press.  They agreed to compromise as the fiscal year drew to an end and the Defense Department and Transportation Security Administration said they were having trouble acquiring sufficient funds (Fram, Associated Press/Boston Globe).

The compromise legislation includes:

*         $14.5 billion for defense and intelligence;

*         $6.7 billion for domestic security, including $3.85 billion for the Transportation Security Administration, $528 million for the Coast Guard (see GSN, July 2), $175 million for the FBI (see GSN, May 29), $151 million for first responders (see GSN, April 24), $33 million for animal and plant health inspections and $158 million for protecting nuclear weapons facilities;

*         $2.1 billion for foreign aid and diplomacy, including $200 million for Israel, $50 million for humanitarian aid to Palestinians, $35 million for Colombia, up to $134 million for Afghanistan, up to $12 million for Indonesia and $55 million in military aid for the Philippines;

*         $5.5 billion for New York, including $1.8 billion to rebuild transportation systems and $783 million for economic redevelopment.  Combined with previous funds, the bill fulfills Bush’s pledge to provide $20 billion to New York (Associated Press/Washington Post, July 24).

The bill also funds several projects that would benefit specific constituents and are unrelated to anti-terrorism efforts, according to the Associated Press.  For example, $10 million will help farmers involved in a water dispute with Mexico and $6 million will go to upgrade a U.S. Geological Survey center in South Dakota.  In addition, the bill includes $1 billion for Pell grants for low-income students, $205 million for Amtrak and $200 million for combating AIDS and other diseases outside the United States.  The bill also would restrict U.S. participation in the International Criminal Court.

The bill includes language that would allow Colombia to use U.S. aid to fight against certain “terrorist organizations,” expanding on current legislation that restricts U.S. funds to fighting against drugs.

Legislators included $3 billion in savings from government administrative costs, unused housing assistance and other programs to lower the bill’s total expenditures.  The bill would also allow the president to withhold $5 billion included in the provisions (Fram, Associated Press/Boston Globe).

Back to top

U.S. Response I:  Pentagon Eyes Assortment of Anti-WMD Weapons

By Bryan Bender
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Defense Department is pursuing an assortment of weapons concepts in hope of introducing a new arsenal that can safely and effectively neutralize research and storage facilities for weapons of mass destruction, according to military officials and defense experts.

Faced with the prospect that weapons of mass destruction might be used against U.S. troops or civilians, the Pentagon is pushing ahead with a new class of weapons that it hopes will provide a variety of options — both destructive and nondestructive — for attacking underground or otherwise heavily secured WMD sites.

The effort is part of the Bush administration’s national security strategy following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that calls for preventing WMD attacks sponsored by terrorists or states by using pre-emptive military strikes under certain conditions.  Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said earlier this week that the United States should not wait for a surprise attack before taking steps, including pre-emptive strikes, to reduce the threat from rogue states or terrorist groups with weapons of mass destruction (see GSN, July 23).

Several weapons projects now underway range from the development of new technologies — such as a deep-penetrating warhead that would dispense a hard or sticky foam — to modifying existing weapons such as ICBMs to either destroy WMD targets or render them inaccessible, according to defense officials and industry experts.

These so-called “agent-defeat” weapons, combined with new sensors that can help to positively identify weapons of mass destruction from long distances, would provide U.S. military planners with an offensive capability against the WMD threat short of nuclear weapons.

“The notion of specialized weapons for disabling extremely destructive munitions has emerged as a discipline in and of itself in the Pentagon,” said Loren Thompson, chief operating officer of the Lexington Institute, a defense policy think tank.  Thompson, a consultant for the office of the secretary of defense, cited three reasons for pursuing these new weapons.

“First, there is growing concern about weapons of mass destruction given their proliferation,” he said.  “Secondly, the diversity of those weapons, in terms of kill mechanisms and characteristics, has expanded” to include nuclear, biological, chemical and radiological weapons.  “Thirdly, in the past, the Soviets had hard-to-destroy but easy-to-find WMD places, while others had hard-to-find and easy-to-destroy facilities.  Now we are dealing with both.  Many of the enemies that worry us most are putting their weapons of mass destruction in hard to find, hard to destroy places.”

Iraq is a case study.  As U.S. military planners develop war plans for a possible assault to overthrow the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, they are being stymied by the prospect that the Iraqi leader will resort to using weapons of mass destruction against U.S. troops in the region or a neighboring country (see GSN, July 18).

According to a recent Defense Department study, the Pentagon needs new weapons that can “attack rogue biological and chemical production and delivery targets.”  These weapons are needed to neutralize storage facilities as well as to destroy WMD agents distributed over a wide area, according to the study on defense research, released earlier this month by the Pentagon’s Defense Science Board, a senior advisory panel.

Novel Weapons

The Pentagon’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency, which is leading many of the development efforts, is eyeing several novel technologies to help meet the new and extremely difficult agent-defeat mission.

Many of these concepts are nonexplosive in nature due to the inherent challenge in attacking adversaries’ WMD facilities:  preventing deadly biological toxins or chemical agents from being dispersed into the atmosphere, risking civilian casualties or contaminating areas where U.S. troops may need to operate.

“In some cases you may not want to have an explosion because the explosion may have the unwanted effect of spreading the material around the countryside, not only having negative collateral damage effects, but also complicating the situation when our ground troops go in,” DTRA Director Stephen Younger said in an interview with reporters on July 17.

DTRA is currently working on a penetrating warhead that would release a hard or sticky foam designed to neutralize rather than blow up a WMD facility.  Two kinds of foam are under consideration:  a hard foam that would block access to the target and a sticky foam that would temporarily disable the facility so U.S. troops could attack.  The foams could be dispensed from a penetrating warhead or from ground forces.  Toxic agents in the foam could also be used to destroy the targeted chemical or biological agent.

Another proposal that defense officials are seeking to fund calls for an agent-defeat warhead that can provide a “high temperature incendiary kinetic energy penetrator warhead to destroy biological and chemical manufacturing and storage facilities,” the Pentagon said in a March press release.

“It’s not as simple as blowing it up,” Younger said.

Modifying Current Weapons

The Pentagon is also considering modifications to current weapons to help meet the agent-defeat mission.

A primary candidate is the Trident D-5 submarine-launched ballistic missile.  Currently designed to carry up to 10 nuclear warheads, Defense Department scientists are considering a conventional model that could strike hardened or underground bunkers, including WMD storage sites.

“The strategic submarine’s nuclear-only arsenal … limits its ability to deter non-nuclear threats,” according to Navy Cmdr. Ken Perry, commanding officer of the USS Pennsylvania, a Trident submarine.  “We are not going to launch a strategic nuclear missile in response to a tactical terrorist strike, and the terrorists know it,” he wrote in the June issue of the U.S. Naval Institute’s Proceedings.

A D-5 missile, officials said, could also be used without any explosive warhead in the hopes that the sheer kinetic energy of the impact would render a WMD facility useless, at least temporarily until the rubble can be removed.

The Pentagon has requested $30 million for next year to begin studying this D-5 concept, but many questions remain about the efficacy of using an ICBM in a conventional role, including how to prevent other nuclear powers from mistaking a launch for a nuclear attack.

Nuclear Option?

Meanwhile, defense officials believe that conventional warheads may not be enough to eliminate a WMD facility in some instances and are pursuing a classified project that is looking at the possibility of developing a nuclear penetrator for such purposes (see GSN, March 26).

DTRA needs to “understand the theoretical limits to conventional attack of deep and buried targets,” according to agency documents.

One proposal is to modify the B-61 nuclear warhead.  “The B-61 warhead is the only nuclear weapon at this time configured for any kind of penetration before it explodes,” according to Clark Murdock, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former Air Force war planner.

However, fierce opposition to developing such a weapon exists among critics who say it would lower the threshold for nuclear warfare.

Identifying WMD Sites

As the Pentagon pursues a variety of agent-defeat weapons, experts acknowledge that improved intelligence on suspected WMD sites is critical. 

“Targets in structures or underground are extremely difficult to detect and identify using standoff sensors,” says the recent Defense Science Board report, which calls for new investments in airborne and ground-based sensors to improve surveillance of potential WMD sites.

One such effort already underway is an advanced concept technology demonstration seeking to develop an expendable unmanned aerial vehicle that can covertly deliver off-board sensors and provide tactical surveillance, battle damage assessment and other monitoring of weapons of mass destruction sites (see GSN, March 6).

Back to top

Iraq:  Annan Suspends Talks, Cites Iraqi Disinterest

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan told members of the U.N. Security Council yesterday that he plans no further talks with Iraq until it indicates some willingness to allow weapons inspectors to return (see GSN, July 12).  Annan added, however, that a line of communication with Iraq should remain open, according to some council diplomats (Reuters/Washington Post, July 24).

Pessimism Grows in EU

Meanwhile, members of the European Union have become pessimistic that diplomats will be able to reach a deal with Iraq and eliminate the need for U.S. military action, the Financial Times reported yesterday.  EU members want Iraq to readmit U.N inspectors without preconditions and to abide by U.N. Security Council resolutions, a senior EU official said.

The sense of disillusionment grew after a meeting Monday between Belgian and Iraqi Foreign Ministers Louis Michel and Naji Sabri.

“The outcome of the meeting was very disappointing,” a senior EU diplomat said.  “There was no flexibility on the side of Iraq even though Mr. Michel warned Mr. Sabri it was already past five minutes to midnight,” referring to U.S. plans for military action against Iraq.

The United States is expected to conduct a military campaign against Iraq and to attempt to overthrow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, according to the Times.  Several senior EU diplomats, however, have questioned the U.S. policy of regime change in Iraq (see GSN, July 11).

“Regime change for change’s sake.  Then what?” a French official asked.

Michel told Sabri that the European Union firmly supports U.N. attempts to find a diplomatic solution to the weapons inspectors issue, according to diplomats.

“Iraq knows full well our reservations about any U.S. attack on its country,” a senior EU official said.  “But if Iraq thought it could split the Europeans from the U.N., it was mistaken” (Judy Dempsey, Financial Times, July 23).

For further information, see:

UNMOVIC

U.N. Resolution 687 (Sanctions Regime)

U.N. Resolution 1409 (“Smart Sanctions”)

U.S. State Department Fact Sheet on Iraqi Sanctions Revisions

Back to top

U.S. Response II:  Senators Seek to Identify Weapon-Related Firms

Legislation drafted by the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee would require the CIA to investigate which non-U.S. companies raising funds in U.S. markets are also suspected of being involved in WMD proliferation, Bloomberg.com reported yesterday (see GSN, July 22).

The discovery that several suspect Russian and Chinese firms are probably raising funds in U.S. equity markets has prompted the committee to amend the CIA’s fiscal 2003 budget to require the agency to prepare a classified annual report on the topic, according to Bloomberg.

In a congressional audit, U.S. General Accounting Office investigators talked to officials at the FBI, Federal Reserve, Commerce Department, Defense Intelligence Agency and the Securities and Exchange Commission.  The agencies compared lists of Chinese and other foreign firms involved in U.S. capital markets with lists of companies believed to be involved in WMD proliferation, according to Bloomberg.  The agencies found several matches — “more than a handful” — said Richard D’Amato, co-chairman of the U.S.-China Commission.

“American investors could be unwittingly assisting proliferators who are selling goods, technology and information useful in the development of weapons of mass destruction to rogue states such as Iran and North Korea,” said Senator Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.), who ordered the audit.

The committee legislation would require the CIA to release an annual list of suspect companies attempting to raise funds in the United States, regardless of whether their suspected sales of WMD-related technology violated international agreements, Bloomberg reported.  The full Senate still must vote on the legislation, and the House Intelligence Committee’s version of the CIA budget contains no similar provision.  A conference committee will probably include the requirement in final legislation, an analyst said.

The amendment might help draw attention to some non-U.S. companies that are involved in WMD proliferation but otherwise might have gone unnoticed, said Gary Milhollin, director of Wisconsin Project.

“The legislation could produce some surprises,” Milhollin said.  “There may be some well-known companies that are doing bad things that otherwise would escape public scrutiny.”

A China analyst said, however, that he doubts the effectiveness of the amendment.

“I think the committee is barking up the wrong tree,” said Nicholas Lardy, a China specialist at the Brookings Institution.  “I doubt there is an intersection between those Chinese firms that are raising funds in the international capital markets and those that are proliferating weapons of mass destruction” (Tony Capaccio, Bloomberg.com, July 23).

Back to top

U.S. Response III:  Troops Test for WMD Agents in Afghanistan

For the first time in a military conflict, U.S. troops in Afghanistan are routinely monitoring the air for biological and chemical agents, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, June 24).

Teams from the U.S. Army 310th Chemical Unit — established in 1996 to address concerns about biological weapons threats — are working in Bagram and Kandahar to check air samples for lethal agents.

Technicians are conducting preliminary tests in field laboratories, but suspected agents often must be sent to laboratories in the United States to obtain definitive results, Capt. Brandt Schoenback said.  They conduct most of the field tests at night because biological agents might not endure sun and heat, Sgt. Connie Parker said.

The United States has developed abilities to detect biological and chemical weapons since the 1991 Gulf War, according to the AP.

“We realized we had a problem during Desert Storm,” Parker said.  “Biological weapons were a big threat in Desert Storm, but we had no capability for detecting them.”

The United States relied on its allies to test for biological weapons during the war, and a Czech anti-chemical unit was the only team to detect trace amounts of gas, according to the AP (see GSN, April 30).

“Now we can test for all sorts of agents,” Schoenback said.

U.S. troops have found no evidence that biological weapons exist in Afghanistan, but they have found indications that al-Qaeda has been interested in obtaining them, Defense Threat Reduction Agency Director Stephen Younger said last week (see GSN, April 19).

U.S. forces detained a man July 10 in Hesarak, Afghanistan, on suspicion that he was smuggling biological weapons (see GSN, July 19).  Preliminary tests indicated that he might have possessed the toxin ricin, but more extensive tests in the United States indicated no biological or chemical agents, the AP reported (Regan Morris, Associated Press/Yahoo.com, July 24).

For further information, see:

CDC List of Bioterrorism Agents

CDC List of Chemical Agents

DTRA Chem-Bio Defense

Back to top

U.S.-Russia:  Former U.S. Officials Urge Treaty Ratification

By Kerry Boyd and Mike Nartker
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Several former U.S. officials voiced support yesterday for the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, but they recommended further implementation measures.  The officials testified before Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the third of a series of hearings on the treaty (see GSN, July 9 and July 18).

The treaty’s existence affirms that resolve in the face of harsh criticism toward U.S. foreign policy can pay off “handsomely,” said Kenneth Adelman, former director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, in his prepared testimony.

“This treaty may be the last strategic arms accord, the culmination of 30 years of this arms control process,” Adelman said.  “It will dramatically reduce strategic nuclear weapons and increase stability.”

The Senate should vote to approve the treaty without significant amendments, former Senator Sam Nunn said in prepared testimony, adding that it “points us in the right direction.”  He expressed full support for the treaty but emphasized that the United States and Russia must follow up with concrete actions.

“If it is not followed with other substantive actions,” Nunn said regarding the treaty, “it will become irrelevant at best — counterproductive at worse.”

Nunn outlined several steps that U.S. and Russian officials should take to ensure that the treaty becomes a foundation for a new and improved relationship rather than a treaty that was “signed because it was quick and easy” and that failed to reflect any “deep commitment to thinking anew.”

Reducing Weapons

Both countries should begin taking steps to reduce operationally deployed weapons, Nunn said.

“The U.S. Department of Defense should develop and make public at the earliest possible date its own plans for reducing our ‘operationally deployed’ forces under this treaty, and I urge Russia to do the same,” Nunn said.

Retired Air Force Gen. Eugene Habiger, former head of the U.S. Strategic Command, echoed the suggestion in his prepared testimony.  U.S. officials should begin moving more strategic weapons off alert status, he said, beginning with four Ohio-class Trident submarines, all 50 Peacekeeper ICBMs and other strategic forces the United States plans to reduce under the treaty (see GSN, April 8 and June 3).

“If the premise of the treaty is correct — that we have embarked with the Russians on a new strategic relationship — then we should be prepared to demonstrate ‘good faith’ by standing these forces down immediately, and not making that contingent on Russian action in advance,” Habiger said.  “At the same time, the Russians should understand that the warm climate in our relations could quickly turn cold if a standdown on the U.S. side is not matched by a standdown on the Russian side.”

Reviewing Nuclear Postures

In addition, the two countries should change their nuclear postures, which have not altered since the Cold War despite significant changes in the U.S.-Russian relationship, Nunn said.  Thousands of U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons remain on high alert and are ready to launch within minutes, creating the potential for misunderstandings and mistakes that could be disastrous.

“The next step our two nations must take is to ease our fingers away from the nuclear trigger.  It’s too easy for a trigger finger to slip, too easy to think you see the other person’s trigger finger begin to squeeze,” Nunn said.

Russia and the United States should remove as many weapons as possible from hair-trigger alert, possibly beginning by ordering an immediate stand-down of the weapons that are slated to be reduced, Nunn suggested.  The two countries should also cooperate to improve Russia’s early warning capabilities, he said.

Both the United States and Russia should agree to destroy, rather than merely store in reserve, the nuclear warheads slated to be reduced under the treaty, Habiger said (see GSN, July 10).  The offered rationale for their storage — a potential worsening of U.S.-Russian relations — is “anachronistic,” he said.

“We have more than enough warheads in our active reserve to guard against all contingencies,” Habiger said.

Verifiability

Nunn and Habiger both suggested that the United States propose comprehensive transparency measures and work to make the treaty’s provisions verifiable.

“I believe that even the best-written treaties and agreements cannot accomplish their purpose unless they’re matched with transparency,” Habiger said.  “Trust is not a static thing.  It has to be built by many actions and can be destroyed by one.  It must be extended gradually, but can be withdrawn instantly.  In the end, trust must be fulfilled by transparency, which shows the trust is well placed.”

U.S. and Russian officials should allow each other to see where nuclear weapons are actually destroyed, according to Habiger.  He recommended that Russian officials should be allowed to visit the U.S. Pantex dismantlement site in exchange for reciprocal U.S. inspections, adding that the sensitivity of such sites has been “vastly overstated” (see GSN, May 2).

“The fear has always been that the inspectors would be able to pick up on the design engineering of the warheads.  My official response to that is:  ‘So what?’” Habiger said.  “The Russians don’t need our warhead information.”

Adelman, however, said the Moscow Treaty’s lack of formal verification procedures should cause little concern (see GSN, July 9).  One reason is that START I Treaty verification measures are scheduled to remain in effect until 2009, he said.  Additionally, the lack of verification measures in the Moscow Treaty will allow U.S. intelligence agencies to focus on more important missions such as tracking terrorists, he added.

The United States also is able to make judgments on Russian compliance with the treaty even with a lack of verification measures, Adelman said.  During the Cold War-era, the United States knew that the former Soviet Union had violated the Biological Weapons Convention, he added.

“We reached this conclusion when the U.S.S.R. was a closed society,” Adelman said.  “It is far easier to monitor treaty compliance in a fairly open society, as Russia has become.”

Tactical Weapons

Nunn and Habiger urged the United States and Russia to find ways to ensure accurate accounting and safeguards for tactical nuclear weapons, which, Nunn said, arms control treaties have never covered (see GSN, May 29).

Citing Russia’s estimated arsenal of 12,000-18,000 tactical warheads, Habiger said he supports formation of a treaty to eliminate tactical nuclear weapons (see GSN, May 29).  Such weapons pose an attractive target to terrorists attempting to acquire weapons of mass destruction, he said.

Safeguards

The United States should continue to provide assistance to safeguard and destroy Russian weapons of mass destruction through the Nunn-Lugar cooperative threat reduction programs, Nunn said.  He expressed concern that the Bush administration put some of that work on hold when it decided not to certify Russian compliance with certain arms control treaties — a requirement for Nunn-Lugar assistance.  Nunn urged Congress to grant the president the authority to wave the requirement (see GSN, May 9).

In an attempt to prevent terrorists from acquiring weapons of mass destruction, the United States and Russia must launch a “Global Coalition Against Catastrophic Terrorism,” Nunn said.

“Terrorists and certain states are racing to acquire weapons of mass destruction, and we ought to be racing together to stop them,” Nunn said.

“There is only thing in the world that can destroy the United States of America today — and that is Russian nuclear warheads,” Habiger told the committee.  “That is why this treaty and all these follow-on steps ... are so essential to our security.  I want the children of tomorrow to know about nuclear missiles on alert, huge stockpiles of warheads, poorly guarded weapons materials and unknown numbers of tactical nuclear weapons.  But I want them to read about it in the history books, not the newspapers.”

[EDITOR'S NOTE:  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.]

For further information, see:

U.S.-Russia Nuclear Reduction Treaty Text (U.S. State Department)

U.S. State Department Fact Sheet on Moscow Treaty

U.S. Defense Department CTR Site

Bush Announces Moscow Treaty

START I Text and Associated Documents (U.S. Defense Department)

Back to top

Russia:  Air Force to Acquire New Tu-160 Strategic Bombers

According to the Russian newspaper Nezavisimoe Voennoe Obozrenie, the Russian Air Force plans to increase its arsenal of Tu-160 Blackjack strategic bombers, Defense and Security reported today (see GSN, July 9).

Russian Air Force Col. Gen. Vladimir Mikhaliov made the announcement during a visit in March to the Kazan Aircraft Production Association, which is currently building three Tu-160s.  Builders will probably complete the first of the three by the beginning of next year, the Obozrenie reported.  Once the three bombers are completed, Russia will have 18 Tu-160s, which are expected to remain in service until 2030.

The increase in Tu-160s is not to be seen as an attempt to increase Russia’s nuclear warfare capability, according to the Obozrenie.  Instead, planners envision the bombers as increasing the Russian Air Force’s ability to attack remote targets with precision-guided weapons, the Obozrenie reported.

Once the three new Tu-160s are complete, the aircraft association plans to refit the 15 existing bombers to carry long-range cruise missiles armed with conventional warheads, according to the Obozrenie.  Officials said they plan to equip the bombers with new electronics systems that would enable them to carry the KH-555 cruise missile and possibly the KH-101 super-long-range missile, which is currently being developed (see GSN, May 20; S. Sokut, Nezavisimoe Voennoe Obozrenie/Defense and Security, July 24).

Back to top

Iran-Russia:  Russia Prepares to Take Bushehr Waste

Russian Mining and Chemical Complex officials in Zheleznogorsk, Krasnoyarsk, have been preparing to receive spent nuclear fuel from the Bushehr nuclear power plant, which Russia is constructing in Iran, Nuclear Waste News reported July 11 (see GSN, July 15).

The Russian facility, which plans to take the spent fuel after it has cooled for three years in Iran, will probably store the waste for several more years before reprocessing it, the News reported.  Once engineers have vitrified the waste, Russia plans to return it to Iran for final disposal, Zheleznogorsk chief engineer Yuri Revenko said.  The International Atomic Energy Agency is expected to monitor the entire operation, Russian Deputy Atomic Energy Minister Valeriy Lebedev said.

Russian officials also have conducted an exercise in which they simulated a transportation accident involving special units of the Russian Emergencies Ministry, Minatom nuclear experts and employees of the complex and the Krasnoyarsk railway, the News reported.

Some Russian environmentalists have criticized the arrangement, according to the News.  For example, Greenpeace coordinator Ivan Blokov has charged that Russia does not have the capability to import and store spent fuel from another country (Judith Perera, Nuclear Waste News, July 11).

Back to top

CWC:  U.S. Official Optimistic About New OPCW Director

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The next director general of the organization that implements the Chemical Weapons Convention will probably be an improvement over his predecessor, a senior U.S. State Department official said yesterday (see GSN, July 17).  Following the April ouster of Jose Bustani, Argentina’s Rogelio Pfirter is expected to be formally approved tomorrow to head the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (see GSN, April 23).

In addition to supporting Pfirter, permanent U.S. representative to the OPCW Donald Mahley also said he expects the OPCW will soon need additional funds to support an expected “significant increase in its areas of responsibilities.”  He urged the agency to change how it conducts inspections.

“I think [Pfirter] is both well aware of his responsibilities and well aware of a number of concerns that a great number of states parties have expressed in the management operations of the former director general, and the United States has faith that he will not repeat some of those same mistakes,” Mahley told Global Security Newswire.

He also qualified his predictions about any changes.

“As far as what’s going to happen in the OPCW, the answer to that, I think, is yet to be seen.”

His comments came amid recent criticism from Bustani that member states, encouraged by the United States, are making changes that will reduce inspections of facilities in wealthy states such as the United States.

Views Expressed

Pfirter has already informed member states of his views on how the organization should be managed and is expected to receive overwhelming support when his nomination is considered tomorrow by all OPCW parties.  He earlier gained unanimous approval of the organization’s Executive Council.

Treaty parties have taken his comments to mean “he intends to run a transparent and consultative regime, in which he will do those things that are his responsibility to do, but will do them in careful consultation with states parties, who are, after all, the stakeholders in the organization,” said Mahley.

Unfair Changes Alleged

Former Director General Bustani has continued to criticize activity at the organization through interviews in the Brazilian press, most recently in an article published this week by BBC Brazil.

In it, he charged the OPCW with changing its policies to favor wealthy states that contribute most to the organization, namely the United States.  As a result, Bustani said, countries with vast chemical industries would be targeted less, while those in the Southern hemisphere would be targeted more.

Bustani’s allegations, experts said, probably target proposals to increase the focus of inspections on certain types of chemical facilities prevalent in the developing world, so-called Schedule 3 facilities and “discrete organic chemical” (DOC) facilities — those that could, but do not, manufacture chemical weapon precursors.

In General, Schedule 1 chemicals are closest to those used in chemical weapons; Schedule 2s are highly toxic but less useful, Schedule 3s, by far the largest subset, are less toxic but could be precursors.  DOCs are unscheduled chemicals that aren’t considered precursors. 

Bustani said changes were being made through alterations of the OPCW budget for 2003.  Prior to his dismissal, Bustani had drafted a budget that was not passed. The organization has been operating under a caretaker administration since Bustani was removed.

OPCW spokesman Peter Kaiser characterized Bustani’s assertion — that budgetary changes could impact where inspections are conducted — as “entirely inaccurate.”

“You can’t target particular facilities on the basis of the budget anyways,” Kaiser said.

Even if a greater proportion of Schedule 3 and DOC facilities were inspected, he said, the mathematical formula, or algorithm, developed during Bustani’s administration to ensure geographic proportionality of random inspections remains in use, he said.

The algorithm takes into account geography, a risk assessment, size of facility, and other factors weighted differently for emphasis.

Kaiser also said, though, there is a debate over whether a new algorithm should be adopted.

“There are a number of different algorithms that are in discussion, or have been in discussion.  And under his administration, they tried to work out one that ensured equitable geographic treatment.  And that’s one that is still being pursued,” he said.

New Budget, Changes May Be Considered

A new, substantively different budget has been prepared and will be considered by the Executive Council at its next meeting in September, according to Mahley.

The current proposal calls for “a real increase in the baseline budget, which I think all of the states parties are going to be prepared to support,” he said.  “But it’s an increase, which is carefully tailored to actual requirements that are going to come up, as opposed to something that is an aggrandizement that will suit the ego of the organization.”

Bustani, during his tenure, had the organization spend money on projects for which it was not approved, according to Mahley, prompting the United States and other countries to withhold dues.

“Certainly, the method of budgetary accounting and the method of budgetary operations under the previous regime were very seriously flawed, leading us into the kind of financial crisis we’ve had this year,” he said.

Mahley said he believes treaty parties should reconsider how sites for random inspection are selected.

“I think that there is a question that needs to be reviewed in terms of the algorithm for random selection of Schedule 3 inspections,” he said.

Many DOCs are in the developing world, said Daniel Feakes, a researcher with the Harvard-Sussex Program on Chemical and Biological Warfare Armament and Arms Limitation.

“The argument runs that such facilities do not pose a big risk to the CWC and that the OPCW’s resources would be better directed at Schedule 3 and DOC sites which, theoretically pose more of a proliferation risk,” Feakes said.

Feakes said he did not think there was a deliberate effort underway to shift inspections away from the developed world.

Bustani himself, he said, “is on record as calling for widening the geographic spread of inspections when he was director general and also called for a larger proportion of the 4,000 or so DOC sites to be inspected, many of which would be in the developing world.

Back to top

South Korea:  Lockheed Martin Wins Aegis Contract

South Korea has awarded U.S. defense contractor Lockheed Martin a deal worth more than $1 billion to supply Aegis radar systems for the South Korean navy, military officials said today (see GSN, March 19).

South Korea chose Lockheed Martin over Dutch competitor Thales, according to Agence France-Presse.  It is the second time South Korea has awarded a military contract to a U.S. company instead of a European one.

“Tests showed Aegis outperformed Thales.  The U.S. company has also met our requirements such as price and a U.S. government guarantee on interceptor missiles,” a South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman said.  The contract includes guarantees for the South Korean purchase of missile interceptors that the United States is currently developing, according to the spokesman.

“The Pentagon has promised to complete the development of a new series of SM-II Block 4 missiles by 2005,” he said (see GSN, April 3).

South Korea is expected to build three naval destroyers to equip with Aegis radar, which can track and engage more than 100 aerial targets.  One of the three destroyers is already under construction and is scheduled to be operational by 2008, Agence France-Presse reported.  The Aegis system is expected to provide increased capabilities to defend against North Korean ballistic missiles, South Korean navy officials said (see GSN, May 3).

“Aegis will help our navy boost its strength,” one navy official said (Agence France-Presse, July 24).

Back to top