Threat Assessment:  Security Officials Anticipate Summer Attack

U.S. intelligence agencies have gathered information in recent weeks indicating that terrorists might try to attack the United States this summer, CNN.com reported yesterday.  Officials have stepped up security for the Fourth of July festivities tomorrow (see GSN, June 20).

There is no specific information about what targets al-Qaeda operatives might try to attack, and U.S. officials said they have no evidence that an attack is planned during the Independence Day holiday.  There are, however, “a lot of indications that something is up,” an intelligence official said.  The level of “chatter” by people suspected of having ties to terrorist groups has been high, similar to last summer before the Sept. 11 attacks.

Part of that increase, however, might just be a result of official and media reports about increased security for the holiday, one official said (CNN.com, July 2).

Detainees from Afghanistan being held at the U.S. base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, made references to July Fourth last month, and the FBI asked its field offices to monitor holiday activities in response.  Despite concern about attacks, the White House said the country remains on “yellow” alert — the middle of five alert levels.

Extra Security

This year’s national holiday will feature the highest level of security ever for U.S. independence festivities, especially in Washington, USA Today reported today.  Fences with guarded checkpoints will surround the National Mall for the first time.  People will have to pass by police with handheld metal detectors.  Federal agents will guard the fireworks, and thousands of police will be on duty.

Boston and New York will monitor areas for low-level radiation.  Dallas authorities will scan anyone passing into its downtown celebration site with metal detectors and will conduct random bag checks.  The U.S. military plans to run air patrols over New York, Washington and 10 other major cities (Sharpe/Johnson, USA Today, July 3).

National authorities have asked law enforcement across the country to be on alert (CNN).

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U.S. Response:  Commercial Satellites to Enhance WMD Detection

By Bryan Bender
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — New U.S. plans to substantially increase its reliance on commercial satellites will help to verify arms control treaties and to uncover illegal or other suspect weapons development programs, government officials, industry experts and private analysts told Global Security Newswire this week.  The move will make publicly available more timely, precise and affordable pictures of the Earth than ever before, they predicted.

Greater access to high-resolution space imagery would assist international arms inspectors, strengthen diplomatic efforts to pressure would-be proliferators and treaty violators, and otherwise improve the ability of governments, international bodies, independent analysts and nongovernmental organizations to examine WMD-related activities around the globe.

CIA Director George Tenet last month directed the U.S. intelligence community to utilize U.S. commercial space imagery “to the greatest extent possible” and reserve government-owned spy satellites for the most specialized and sensitive of missions.  The intelligence chief called on the community to take “all possible steps to remove any remaining institutional obstacles” to using commercial imagery.

The directive is expected to boost the commercial remote sensing industry, which has struggled to find a stable customer base.  As a result, it has not realized its potential for advancing global transparency in the decade since increasingly high-resolution space images have become available to the public.

“My goal in establishing this policy is to stimulate, as quickly as possible, and maintain, for the foreseeable future, a robust U.S. commercial space imagery industry,” Tenet told the Pentagon’s National Imagery and Mapping Agency in the June 7 directive, a copy of which was obtained by GSN.

NIMA Director James Clapper said in an interview with Space News this week that he intends to process this imagery “as quickly as the data collected by U.S. national security satellites.”

Greater Availability of Space Imagery

Companies such as Space Imaging and DigitalGlobe today operate satellites that take images capable of detecting objects smaller than one meter square — not as precise as government-owned satellites with resolutions measured in inches, but nevertheless highly revealing.  When customers request an image be taken of a particular location, at a cost of thousands of dollars, under most circumstances the image is then placed in the company’s archives for sale.  Archived images cost substantially less; in the case of Space Imaging’s IKONOS satellite, about $350 each, a recent reduction from $500, according to company officials.

“Our hope is there will be more imagery in the archive and that will enable them to sell imagery at a lower cost,” said John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org, an arms control group frequently uses commercial space imagery to conduct independent analysis of suspected nuclear and missile facilities.

According to Corey Hinderstein, a remote sensing expert at the Institute for Science and International Security, “the purchase of an image out of the archive is a set amount while tasking the satellite is more expensive.  If governments are buying more images and they are showing up in the archives then it may be easier for other governments and nongovernmental organizations to buy the images.”

“At a minimum, the fact that the government is keeping these firms viable would be useful and beneficial for anyone who would want to use imagery for broader public policy purposes,” added John Baker, a space policy analyst at the RAND Corporation.

Increased Global Transparency

Government and private experts envision a variety of benefits to the arms control and disarmament communities.  Commercial imagery could be used more frequently by on-site inspectors such as the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, which is now seeking to return to Iraq (see related GSN story, today), or the International Atomic Energy Agency.

In inspecting an alleged suspected weapons of mass destruction facility, a satellite image from the previous few days would be useful to determine any recent activities, such as the removal of equipment.  “There is no better way of finding your way around if you have an image of the facility,” Pike said. 

Moreover, the process of disseminating commercial images does not suffer from the same thorny issues of classification as those taken by a government satellite and then provided to an international body such as UNMOVIC or the IAEA. “This is precisely the kind of imagery they would be interested in using because it doesn’t have classification,” Pike said. 

As a result, a country such as Iraq could no longer accuse the United Nations of complicity with national intelligence agencies for its reliance on their spy photos.  “It eliminates an area of contention on both sides,” said Hinderstein. “The inspecting agency can get timely and accurate information when and where they need it, but not from national systems.”

Increased use of commercial imagery will build upon what a recent RAND report calls a “growing interest of nongovernmental organizations and multinational agencies in taking advantage of these data to address specific international problems.”  This includes, for example, enabling nongovernmental experts to “use commercial satellite imagery to detect and identify, despite highly restricted external access, suspicious facilities that could be part of a nuclear weapon program” or to “understand what transpired at the nuclear test sites at which India and Pakistan conducted a series of nuclear detonations in 1998.”

Pike calls this “looking over other people’s shoulders.”  By looking through the archived images of a commercial imagery company, he said, one can get a sense of what governments are interested in.  “A lot of agencies out there in the United States and other governments know where a lot of these [suspect facilities] are located much more than we do,” he said.  “So one strategy has been to look for places that they have a lot of imagery of.  If someone like the U.S. government with a lot of money is interested in a particular site, maybe we should be, too.”  A recent example of this, he said, is a large amount of imagery taken by the IKONOS satellite of a particular location in Iran.  “Very early on, someone bought a lot of Space Imaging photos of secret cities in Russia,” he said.

“It will be known if the United States goes out and looks at a site like a South Asian nuclear reactor,” added Baker.  Mark Brender, executive director of government affairs for Space Imaging, acknowledges that the growing archive can hint at where the government is looking. “You can map people’s fears,” he said.

Public Diplomacy

Commercial imagery could also be critical to the success of public diplomatic efforts to force action against arms control violations or illegal developments.  It can be used for “illustrative purposes and public diplomacy to highlight something at a controversial Iraqi or Iranian location, for example,” Baker pointed out.

“Commercial imagery is a way for a country that doesn’t want to show its national capability to show images to others,” added Hinderstein, noting that commercial imagery was used in negotiations with North Korea to suspend its nuclear program.

Despite the U.S. plan to become the commercial remote sensing industry’s biggest customer, experts acknowledge that several unknowns remain that could diminish the trickle-down effect.

The United States could exercise its right to classify certain commercial images under the guise of national security or pay to have a certain image kept out of the archive, restricting access of images of the most sensitive sites by keeping them out of public reach.

With only special and highly expensive exceptions, however, industry officials say the images will eventually be put in the archive.  For example, the United States last year temporarily purchased exclusive rights to IKONOS images of Afghanistan and Pakistan.  Except for U.S. bases, all of those images, 470,000 square kilometers, are now available for public purchase.

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Iraq:  Talks Resume Tomorrow on Returning U.N. Inspectors

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan traveled to Vienna yesterday where he is scheduled to begin talks with Iraqi officials tomorrow, U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said.  Annan has been focusing on returning U.N. weapons inspectors to Iraq, he said (Xinhua News Agency, July 3).

Iraqi U.N. Ambassador Mohammad al-Douri promised before heading to Vienna Monday that some progress will come out of the talks, which will mark the third time Annan has met with Iraqi officials since early March, according to the Associated Press.  Annan has called on Iraq to come to a “concrete understanding” on returning inspectors to Iraq (see GSN, July 2).

Al-Douri, however, said Iraq wants to discuss a larger agenda, particularly focusing on lifting sanctions against Iraq and U.S. threats to overthrow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

“Certainly there will be some concrete results,” al-Douri said.  “But hopefully we can continue our dialogue to finalize all our issues” (Edith Lederer, Associated Press/Ha’aretz, July 3).

For further information, see:

UNMOVIC

U.N. Resolution 687 (Sanctions Regime)

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

U.N. Office of the Iraq Program

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U.S. Response:  Accelerate Nuclear Terrorism Response, Official Says

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Currently the U.S. Department of Energy’s nuclear terrorism response teams can respond to a potential incident within four hours, but they need to act even more quickly, a senior department official said last week.

“It could take longer than you would like for a Nuclear Emergency Search Team to respond,” John Gordon, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, said at a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee.  Gordon testified June 26, two days before he was named to head the White House Office for Combating Terrorism.

“Our NEST teams would respond within four hours, and our home teams would respond within two.  That still may not be close enough,” he said.

Gordon was referring to the department’s semisecret Nuclear Emergency Search Teams trained to seek and disarm a terrorist nuclear weapon covertly placed in the United States, and various other teams that monitor, address and analyze possible releases of radioactive material.  The Energy Department has seven types of teams that respond to nuclear or radiological incidents, including teams that monitor the atmosphere for radioactivity and a radiological assistance program that works with state and local authorities, he said.

Gordon said the department, which is restructuring the teams by putting more equipment in the field “so it’s much closer to the users,” is also creating two additional regional bases from which to operate.

Seeking Expanded Capability

In a supplemental appropriations request provided to Congress earlier this year, the department requested an additional $19.4 million over the $90 million it already received for nuclear response programs in fiscal 2002.

The request included a proposal for making a newly created Capital Response Team in Washington — which includes a NEST group — permanent, to add to two response teams already established in Las Vegas and Albuquerque, N.M.  It also included a plan to possibly purchase a Detection Tracking System, which is being tested to determine whether it can use a web of sensors to track the movement of nuclear material through a city.  The department is also seeking to fund an emergency alert system to enable federal teams to alert local first responders to nuclear incidents.

Both houses passed different versions of the bill, including $182 million for Energy “weapons activities,” without specifying how much might go for nuclear incident response.  A House-Senate conference committee is now reconciling differences in the bill (see GSN, May 24).

Gordon stressed that the teams, which have been around for decades, are in place and ready.

“NNSA is prepared to respond immediately anywhere in the world to discrete and specific nuclear radiological incidents and emergencies.  People and equipment are trained, they’re standing alert and they’re ready to respond now,” he said.

NNSA is also working with Customs Service officials to develop tools for more quickly detecting and analyzing information about possible radiological materials smuggled into the country, Gordon said.

Command Change Will Not Hurt Capability

According to a Bush administration proposal sent to Congress last month, the Energy Department teams will probably be incorporated into a new homeland security department, Gordon said.  No problems are anticipated with that change of command, he said.

The teams are composed of 70 full-time responders plus 900 responders on call, most of whose day-to-day jobs are with the department’s nuclear weapons Stockpile Stewardship Program, Gordon said.  NEST groups include technical experts with nuclear weapons design, engineering and safety knowledge gained from working at the national laboratories.  Team members will continue to work at their regular jobs within the Energy Department until activated, according to Gordon.

Since Sept. 11, Gordon said, the Energy Department’s Nuclear Assessment Program has investigated approximately 70 incidents involving “communicated nuclear threats, reports of illicit trafficking of nuclear materials” and conducted “special analysis reports for law enforcement and intelligence components.”

Since 1978, the program has assessed the credibility of more than 60 nuclear extortion threats, 25 nuclear reactor threats, 20 non-nuclear extortion threats, and 650 cases involving reported or attempted illicit sale of nuclear materials, he said.

“Our teams would deploy under the overall direction of the lead federal agency and we do not anticipate that the DOE/NNSA capabilities or response to a nuclear radiological accident or incident would be compromised in any way by this transfer of operational control for specific domestic responses,” Gordon said.

In a separate panel during the hearing, however, Donald Cobb, associate director for threat reduction at Los Alamos National Laboratory, suggested a smooth transition is not certain.

“It has to be clear, when NEST is under the authority of the new department of homeland security, under what conditions it remains under the authority” of the Energy Department.

Under a heightened threat condition, he said, “we need to understand whether we are reporting to the DOE or whether we are reporting to the department of homeland security.”  Roles and responsibilities remain to be worked out, Cobb said, and officials must still “clarify under what conditions these various responsibilities will occur between the departments.”

“Then we need to jointly do exercises and drills and practices so we can understand how this actually plays together and when these assets are needed and they’re called upon,” he said.

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North Korea:  United States Withdraws Offer to Send Delegate

The Bush administration Monday withdrew a proposal to send a U.S. envoy to North Korea, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said yesterday (see GSN, June 14).

The withdrawal was a response to North Korea’s failure to reply to an offer that the United States had made June 25, Boucher said.  After North Korea requested that the United States suggest a date for a visit, U.S. officials had proposed a July 10 arrival date.  To be able to make travel arrangements, the United States had asked for a “timely response,” Boucher said.

On Monday, he added, the State Department “also informed the North Koreans that the violent naval conflict in the Yellow Sea had created an unacceptable atmosphere in which to conduct the talks” (U.S. State Department release, July 2).  A North Korean ship reportedly crossed the “northern limit line” of the demilitarized zone Saturday and fired on South Korean ships, killing four sailors.  The United States considers the attack “an armed provocation,” Boucher said (see GSN, July 2).

Despite the naval conflict and the U.S. decision to withdraw the visit proposal, Boucher indicated that the Bush administration, which has held no high-level talks with North Korea since coming to office, plans to continue attempts to resume dialogue.  The United States will “consider rescheduling at some point in the future,” depending on how events play out, he said.

U.S. officials want to discuss several issues with North Korea, including missile sales and nuclear inspections, Boucher said (see GSN, June 25; Vernon Loeb, Washington Post, July 3).  According to the New York Times, the Bush administration had offered to send Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs James Kelly (James Dao, New York Times, July 3).

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U.S.-Russia:  Ivanov Urges U.S. Ratification of Moscow Treaty

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov yesterday encouraged the U.S. Senate to work quickly to ratify the U.S.-Russian Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty signed in Moscow in May.  Ivanov said he would also urge the Russian parliament to quickly ratify the treaty (see GSN, June 21).

“I think that with the signing of this agreement and its ratification, we will have the opportunity to raise Russian-U.S. strategic relations to a new level,” Ivanov said during a meeting with a delegation of visiting U.S. senators to Moscow.

The U.S. Senate will not delay in its consideration of the treaty, Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) said.

“Let me assure you there won’t be any procrastination in the Senate,” Lott told Ivanov (Judith Ingram, Associated Press/Nando Times, July 3).

For further information, see:

Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty Text

Bush Announces Treaty

U.S. State Department Fact Sheet on Arms Reduction Treaty

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U.S. Response:  Gerberding Prepares to Head CDC

The White House has chosen Julie Gerberding to direct the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Baltimore Sun reported today (see GSN, April 2).

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson is expected to announce the appointment today, according to the Sun.  Many public health groups encouraged the Bush administration to appoint Gerberding, who played a key role in the response to last fall’s anthrax attacks and has been the agency’s acting deputy director for science and public health, the Sun reported.  In the spring she became part of a group of four health officials who have led the CDC since former Director Jeffrey Koplan stepped down (see GSN, Feb. 22).

“She was fantastic under fire in the fall,” said Thomas Inglesby, deputy director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Studies (Susan Baer, Baltimore Sun, July 3).

For further information, see:

CDC Frequently Asked Questions on Anthrax

FBI Amerithrax Investigation

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

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Japan:  U.S. Issues False Alarm on Missile Threat

The United States issued a false alarm to Japan Sunday saying that a Chinese missile might fall into waters near the Japanese island of Okinawa.  The mistake has added to calls within Japan to bolster Japanese intelligence capabilities rather than relying on U.S. information.

Thirty minutes before the final match of the soccer World Cup co-hosted by Japan, the United States told Japanese officials that China had launched a missile that might be heading near Okinawa.  U.S. officials withdrew the warning 90 minutes later, officials said, according to the New York Times.

The false alarm added to Japanese mistrust of U.S. warnings following a U.S. message to Japan last November that a South Korean missile might land near the island of Kyushu (see GSN, Nov. 6, 2001).  The missile fell outside Japanese waters.  Conversely, in 1998 the United States failed to alert Japan that a North Korean ballistic missile was flying over its main island.

“Frankly, we don’t want to be swung back and forth by false alarms,” a Japanese defense official said.

Japan does not currently have technology to detect missile launches, but it has drawn up plans to launch four spy satellites in the next few years, according to Reuters (see GSN, May 23).  Defense experts have said the satellites would lack the sophistication necessary to provide better information than the United States.

Japan is also studying the feasibility of cooperating with the United States to develop a theater missile defense system to destroy incoming missiles (see GSN, July 1; Reuters/New York Times, July 3).

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U.S. Plans:  Ground-Based Midcourse System Faces Rigorous Testing

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency plans to continue its vigorous flight-test schedule for the Ground-based Midcourse Defense program while examining options for a sea-based system, Defense Daily reported yesterday (see GSN, July 1).

The agency plans to conduct one GMD program flight test per quarter, with the goal of having four or five conducted “by this time next year,” agency Director Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish said last week, adding that the next flight tests will be conducted in mid-August (see GSN, June 26).  The agency also plans to conduct two tests of the GMD command and control systems in the fall, he said.

Agency officials have also scheduled a sled test for the Sea-based Midcourse Defense system, Kadish said (see GSN, June 19).  The next of a series of flight intercept test for the SMD system is scheduled for the fall, he added.

The agency is re-evaluating all missile defense development plans, which includes examining options for strengthening the SMD system, Kadish said last month.  Officials are considering increasing development of sea-based efforts, he said, but he did not provide details, according to Defense Daily.

“We have the potential to move some programs sooner,” Kadish said.  “I don’t know when.”

Agency officials are also examining the use of radar systems that were previously restricted by the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, Kadish said.  A crucial step will be the use of the Aegis radar system in a GMD flight test planned for later this summer, he said (Kerry Gildea, Defense Daily, July 2).

For further information, see:

MDA Basics of Missile Defense

MDA Midcourse Defense Segment

U.S. Missile Defense 2002 Budget

Sea-based Midcourse

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