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Since December 2000 I was — and have remained — as susceptible to anthrax infection as any of you.
—Former U.S. military biologist Steven Hatfill, denying any involvement in the anthrax mail attacks and explaining that his vaccine protection from anthrax expired before the attacks.
By Mike Nartker
Global Security Newswire
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Steven Hatfill, the former U.S. Army biologist who has become the public focus of the FBI’s investigation into last fall’s anthrax attacks, said yesterday he is innocent of any involvement with the attacks (see GSN, Aug. 8)...Full Story 
The U.S Energy Department is planning to move tons of weapon-grade uranium and plutonium from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico to the Nevada Test Site for security reasons, the New York Times reported today (see GSN, Jan. 23)...Full Story
U.S. authorities have said that Jose Padilla, accused of having attempted to carry out a “dirty bomb” attack within the United States, is being held in an attempt to gain more information on al-Qaeda rather than in connection with any crime, Newsweek reported this week (see GSN, July 11)...Full Story
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By Geoff Earle
CongressDaily
WASHINGTON — Even though congressional leaders held out hope last month that they could quickly push legislation to create a homeland security department through the Senate in a matter of days, there are signs that action might be slow-going when Congress returns (see GSN, Aug. 1).
Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) told reporters before the August recess that the Senate should have stayed in town if necessary to complete the bill. Now, some Republican leadership aides warn that because the underlying legislation is complex — affecting tens of thousands of federal employees and numerous agencies — it could take considerable floor time, while at least one senior Democrat is working to slow passage.
When the Senate returns to session in early September, it will debate a motion to proceed to the homeland security bill. Appropriations Chairman Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) will control the debate time for opponents of the motion. Byrd has warned against rushing ahead without carefully considering the ramifications of creating a new department, and helped persuade Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) not to try to tackle the bill before the break. Governmental Affairs Chairman Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) and ranking member Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) will control the debate time for proponents.
If the motion to proceed passes, as is expected, the Senate will take up the bill Wednesday, Sept. 4. A number of amendments to modify the department’s jurisdiction could be offered, while heated fights over labor provisions that have drawn a presidential veto threat are anticipated.
“The homeland security bill should have passed the Senate before August,” said a Lott spokesman. “We hope the Senate Democratic leadership will help us pass a bipartisan homeland security bill immediately, and not let it get bogged down in legislative quicksand.” He continued, “Senator Lott believes the debate should not revolve around partisan turf fights, but will allow the president the flexibility to create a homeland security department that will help Americans feel safe.”
Even if the bill gets bogged down with amendments, Senate leaders hope to take up fiscal 2003 appropriations bills on a “dual track.” The Senate is scheduled to take up the fiscal 2003 Interior Appropriations bill Sept. 4, and leaders last month had worked to ready the fiscal 2003 Energy and Water spending bill as well.
With the Senate’s Oct. 5 target adjournment approaching, there is diminishing time for other legislation. Daschle has said he wants to take up pension reform legislation after homeland security. His spokeswoman said that welfare reform legislation remains on the list of priorities, as does legislation to increase the minimum wage while providing tax cuts for small businesses. Asked whether minimum wage could be combined with the pension bill, she said that is “always a possibility.”
By National Journal’s Technology Daily
Of the $40 billion in emergency appropriations provided to federal agencies by Congress shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, $14 billion remains unobligated, according to a White House Office of Management and Budget report released Friday.
As of June 30, $25.8 billion, or 66 percent, had been used, the office said. All funds must be used by Sept. 30, the end of fiscal 2002.
The Defense Department and the Transportation Security Agency are among the few agencies likely to fully obligate their available funds, the office said. Both agencies received additional funding in the fiscal 2002 supplemental appropriations bill signed last week (see GSN, Aug. 5). After adjusting for overstatements, 42 percent of nondefense funding was obligated by June 30, the report said.
The Bush administration is negotiating with other countries for more authority to search vessels in non-U.S. waters, the Associated Press reported Friday (see GSN, July 10).
The proposal, which has not yet been approved by the Pentagon, would expand a ship interdiction campaign originally designed to capture al-Qaeda members attempting to flee Afghanistan through international waters, the AP reported.
According to the plan, U.S. troops would have the right to stop and board vessels not only international waters but also in the territorial waters of other countries in certain circumstances, the AP reported. For example, a ship could be stopped and searched when it is believed to be carrying terrorists or transporting weapons or other contraband used to finance terrorism, two of the officials said. The U.S. State Department has been negotiating with dozens of countries to obtain approval for the plan, two other officials said (Pauline Jelinek, Associated Press/Yahoo.com, Aug. 9).
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With the building threat of a U.S. attack on Iraq, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein told a British parliamentarian Thursday that he is ready to allow U.N. weapons inspectors to return.
After three years of pressure from the United Nations, the United Kingdom and the United States, Hussein made the offer to Member of Parliament George Galloway in a personal interview in a bunker at a secret location in or near Baghdad. Galloway said Hussein’s offer should remove any justification for attacking Iraq.
“Saddam said he would accept all the U.N. resolutions and these resolutions include unfettered access,” said Galloway, who nevertheless conceded that “unfettered’ was not a term Hussein mentioned. “He did not explicitly say that, but by accepting the resolutions you are accepting these words,” Galloway said.
A spokeswoman for the British Foreign Office, however, said yesterday, “This changes nothing. It tells us nothing new. Saddam knows what he has to do and this is comply with U.N. Security Council resolutions.”
Hussein’s offer may nevertheless divide the international community, according to the Guardian, since British policy is aimed returning weapons inspectors while U.S. policy leans in the direction of a complete regime change (Ewen MacAskill, London Guardian, Aug. 12).
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney told Iraqi opposition leaders Saturday that the Bush administration is determined to oust Hussein from power and replace him with a democratic government, the New York Times reported. Both Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld emphasized that the new Iraqi government would be democratic, suggesting that plans are in the works to depose not just Hussein, but Iraq’s entire ruling structure.
“The main message was that the U.S. is seriously committed to regime change in Iraq,” said al-Sharif Ali bin Hussein, one of the opposition leaders. “They support a democratic regime in Iraq. They would not support replacing one dictator with another,” he added.
Although the Bush administration has not announced a timetable for military intervention in Iraq, the Times reported that talks between Iraqi opposition leaders and the Bush administration seemed to indicate that such intervention is a foregone conclusion. The talks seemed to focus on conciliating opposition groups to garner their support for a U.S. military campaign in Iraq (Michael Gordon, New York Times, Aug. 11).
In a joint statement before the talks, the six groups — including the Iraqi National Congress, two Kurdish groups and an Islamic organization based in Tehran — declared their commitment to unity and an end to Hussein’s dictatorship (Peter Slevin, Washington Post, Aug. 11).
At a Pentagon news conference Friday, Rumsfeld noted that international economic sanctions, U.S. military air patrols and other measures against Iraq over the past decade have mostly failed to subdue the regime or prevent it from making nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction.
Containment “has not done the job in this sense,” Rumsfeld said. “It’s clearly worked for a while. It clearly has delayed things. It’s clearly made life more complicated for Saddam Hussein. But if by ‘work’ you mean, has it actually stopped them from WMD activity, no.”
Despite Rumsfeld’s remarks, some Republican congressional leaders have joined Democrats and members of the international community in questioning the justification for a U.S. military strike on Iraq. Privately, many senior U.S. military officers have sided with the State Department and intelligence officials who say that Hussein poses no immediate threat and that the United Stats should continue a containment policy instead of attacking Iraq.
Representative Dick Armey (R-Texas), the Republican House majority leader, warned Thursday that an unprovoked attack would violate U.S. tradition and international law and undermine world support for Bush’s plans for a regime change (Bradley Graham, Washington Post, Aug. 10).
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The U.S Energy Department is planning to move tons of weapon-grade uranium and plutonium from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico to the Nevada Test Site for security reasons, the New York Times reported today (see GSN, Jan. 23).
The move would be the first time the United States has transported weapon-grade materials from one site to another to reduce the risk of a potential terrorist attack, according to experts.
“It is the first time that it’s ever been moved for security reasons,” said Peter Stockton, former special assistant to Bill Richardson, energy secretary in the Clinton administration. “There are multiple tons of plutonium and high enriched uranium, certain other things down there you wouldn’t want a terrorist to get his hands on.”
The Project on Government Oversight, an activist group, has obtained several Energy documents outlining the planned move, according to the Times. In one document, the director of the Los Alamos facility wrote that the laboratory supports the move as “the best overall decision to meet the post-Sept. 11 challenges for the long-term security of nuclear activities.”
The organization also released a draft of an Energy news release that said an environmental impact statement on the move had been completed and that the Nevada Test Site was the new preferred storage location. An Energy official said that while the department had not finished the study, “the department is heading in that direction” (Matthew Wald, New York Times, Aug. 12).
U.S. defense contractor TRW has begun design work to decommission U.S. Peacekeeper intercontinental ballistic missiles and transfer the warheads to the older Minuteman 3 ICBM arsenal, Aerospace Daily reported Tuesday (see GSN, Aug. 2).
The transfer is part of a plan to replace the Minuteman 3’s multiple warheads, or MIRVs, with single warheads from Peacekeepers. Officials are decommissioning the Peacekeepers to help reduce the U.S. strategic nuclear arsenal to below 2,200 warheads, as called for under U.S.-Russian Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (see GSN, Aug. 5).
TRW is currently in the “early phases” of the warhead transfer, according to Andy Cianciotto, TRW vice president and chief engineer for ballistic missiles. The U.S. Air Force is expected to conduct a critical design review for the software in September of next year, he said. Officials plan to evaluate the hardware in 2004 and conduct flight tests of the single-warhead Minuteman 3 in June and August 2005, according to Aerospace Daily. The Air Force expects to receive the first “de-MIRVed” Minuteman 3 by August 2005.
TRW is also heading up a program to improve missile command and control by improving the receivers used by ICBM forces to communicate with the National Command Authority, according to Aerospace Daily.
“Its purpose [is] to provide secure, high fidelity, jam resistant and survivable communications links between the National Command Authority and the strategic nuclear forces,” Cianciotto said (Sharon Weinberger, Aerospace Daily, Aug. 6).
For further information, see:
U.S.-Russia Nuclear Reduction Treaty Text (U.S. State Department)
U.S. State Department Fact Sheet on Moscow Treaty
Carnegie Endowment World Missile Chart
Russia plans to retain one division of rail-based SS-24 intercontinental ballistic missiles, Col. General Nikolai Solovtsov, chief of the Strategic Missile Forces, said Friday (see GSN, March 5). Had the START II Treaty entered into force, Russia would have been required to dismantle both its land- and rail-based SS-24s, but Russia declared the treaty obsolete following the U.S. withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (see GSN, June 14).
The SS-24 unit will consist of up to five trains, each equipped with three missiles that carry 10 warheads each, Solovtsov said (Moscow Times, Aug. 12).
For further information, see:
START II Text and Associated Documents (U.S. Defense Department)
The U.S. Defense Department expects to complete a program to retire and relocate several B-1 bombers by Oct. 1, 2003, Aviation Week & Space Technology reported this week (see GSN, April 5).
Under the program, 33 bombers are scheduled to be retired or moved to reduce costs, Aviation Week reported. Officials also plan to reduce the number of operational B-1 air bases from five to two. Air Force planners have estimated that the program — designed to ensure that the bombers remaining in active service are those that are the most operational — will save $1.4 billion over the next five years, according to Aviation Week.
Officials plan to place eight of the retired B-1s on display at various Air Force bases, Aviation Week reported. The remaining 24 are to be sent to the Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Center at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona, considered the service’s “boneyard.” Officials plan to place 10 B-1s at Davis-Monthan in storage and to use the others to provide spare parts for the 60 bombers still in service, Air Combat Command officials said (Aviation Week & Space Technology, Aug. 12).
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By Mike Nartker
Global Security Newswire
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Steven Hatfill, the former U.S. Army biologist who has become the public focus of the FBI’s investigation into last fall’s anthrax attacks, said yesterday he is innocent of any involvement with the attacks (see GSN, Aug. 8).
“I am a loyal American and I love my country. I had nothing to do with the anthrax letters, and it is terribly wrong for anyone to contend or think otherwise,” Hatfill said in his first public statement on the subject. He spoke outside the office of his civil attorney Victor Glasberg.
Hatfill said he has never worked with anthrax and that his research expertise has centered on viral diseases such as Ebola. Saying that he understands that his background at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md., makes him a “person of interest” to the FBI, Hatfill reiterated that he is cooperating with the bureau’s “Amerithrax” investigation.
Hatfill even voluntarily agreed to an initial FBI search of his Frederick, Md., apartment to detect the presence of anthrax, he said (see GSN, June 26). The request had “surprised” him because the last time that he had received a booster shot of anthrax vaccine was in 1999, he added.
“Since December 2000 I was — and have remained — as susceptible to anthrax infection as any of you,” Hatfill said. “So I was surprised at the notion that I might have brought anthrax to my home, and would even have been amused were it not for the fact that the matter was so serious.”
Hatfill and Glasberg criticized the FBI for going too far in its investigation. They accused the bureau of allowing its searches to become “media events” and of leaking information to reporters (see GSN, Aug. 2).
“I ... object to an investigation characterized, as this one has been, by outrageous official statements and calculated leaks to the media leading to a feeding frenzy operating to my great prejudice,” Hatfill said.
One example of such leaks, according to Glasberg, was a recent announcement by ABC News that it had obtained a copy of a bioterrorism-related manuscript on which Hatfill had been working. ABC News could not have obtained the manuscript from any source other than the FBI, which had seized Hatfill’s computer where it had been stored, Glasberg said.
Glasberg is preparing to file a formal complaint with the U.S. Justice Department concerning the leaks, he said.
“I think ‘no comment’ is better than innuendo, and I don’t think they should speculate,” Glasberg said.
For their part, media writers have chosen to focus too much on events from Hatfill’s past, which are irrelevant to the FBI’s investigation, Hatfill said.
“I especially object to having my character assassinated by reference to events from my past which bear no relationship to the question of who the anthrax killer is,” he said.
Recent media analyses have examined Hatfill’s activities in southern Africa in the late 1970s and 1980s and have questioned claims he made on a resume concerning his education and military background. Glasberg refused to answer any questions concerning Hatfill’s past.
“No more than any of you, I do not claim to have lived a perfect life. Like yourselves, there are things I would do or say differently than I did 10, 20 or more years ago,” Hatfill said. “Anyone’s life and work [can be] picked apart for every wrinkle, failed memory or inconsistency. Mine can. So can yours. Does any of that get us the anthrax killer?”
During his statement, Hatfill singled out Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, a biologist at State University of New York who has often publicized her views on the anthrax investigation. Although Rosenberg has never specifically named Hatfill, she has developed a profile of the person who she believes is responsible for the attacks, and the profile is similar to Hatfill’s. It has also been reported that she discussed Hatfill’s potential involvement in the attacks with FBI agents and Senate staff members in June.
“I don’t know Dr. Rosenberg. I have never met her ... To my knowledge she is ignorant of my work and background except in the broadest of terms,” Hatfill said. “I am at a loss to explain her reported hostility and accusations. I don’t know this woman at all.”
Hatfill said that while he understands the need to make sure he had no involvement in the anthrax attacks, that does not give the FBI and the media the right to ruin his reputation. Since coming under investigation, Hatfill has been dismissed from a position at Science Applications International Corp. and has been put on paid administrative leave from a position at Louisiana State University, where he had planned to teach bioterrorism response classes to emergency personnel (see GSN, Aug. 5).
“If I am a ‘subject of interest,’ I also am a human being. I have a life,” Hatfill said. “I acknowledge the right of the authorities and the press to satisfy themselves whether I am the anthrax mailer. This does not, however, give them the right to smear me and gratuitously to make a wasteland of my life in the process.”
Investigators believe that some of the letters used in last year’s anthrax attacks might have been mailed from a Princeton, N.J., mailbox that has been taken for further testing, the Wall Street Journal reported today (see related GSN story, today).
The mailbox, located in Princeton’s commercial district, tested positive for anthrax spores last week, the Journal reported. The positive result was the first time that initial tests from “hundreds” of mailboxes indicated that anthrax might be present, officials said.
“We know there can be false positives, so we are being very careful about this,” an FBI investigator said.
Officials have known that four of the anthrax-tainted letters were sent from central New Jersey and processed by the Hamilton Township postal facility (see GSN, Feb. 8). The location of the mailbox used to send the letters is important because it gives investigators a place that they can use to link potential suspects, according to the Journal.
The investigation has been complicated, however, because there are several research facilities in central New Jersey whose employees might have produced something such as anthrax, FBI agents said yesterday (Gary Fields, Wall Street Journal, Aug. 12).
For further information, see:
CDC Frequently Asked Questions on Anthrax
FBI Amerithrax Investigation
GSN Anthrax Attack Chronology (Dec. 12, 2001)
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The U.S. military has ordered 270,000 chemical weapons detectors, CNET News.com reported Friday (see GSN, July 17).
The detectors, which are called Joint Chemical Agent Detector ChemSentry and made by BAE Systems, cost $2,000 each and can detect chemical agents including sarin and VX. Each detector is smaller than a laptop computer. Wind River Systems, the software manufacturer for the devices, also expects to sell them to civilian customers such as fire departments, a spokesman said (Stephen Shankland, CNET News.com/New York Times, Aug. 9).
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Program technicians for the Airborne Laser — a component of the developing U.S. missile defense system — plan to continue test-flying the modified Boeing 747 designed to house the laser, program officials said Wednesday (see GSN, July 19).
The aircraft, which will be equipped with the laser later, has successfully completed four test flights since July 18, according to Defense Daily. Developers have been conducting the flights to evaluate the airplane’s performance and other checks to evaluate the functionality of its systems.
The airplane flew to Boeing facilities Friday to be painted, a program official said, and it is scheduled to fly to Edwards Air Force Base in California for ground tests once painting is finished. Technicians at the base plan to install the airplane’s tracking systems and the laser system, according to Defense Daily.
Officials expect future flights for the 747 to test how its systems detect and track missile launches, Defense Daily reported. Developers will not test-fire the laser to shoot down a target until at least the end of 2004, according to Defense Daily.
The Defense Department is also examining other possible options — including different platforms — for laser systems in the future, said Air Force Col. Ellen Pawlikowski, Airborne Laser program director at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico. For example, aircraft such as the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter might be used to carry laser systems, she said (Kerry Gildea, Defense Daily, Aug. 8).
For further information, see:
MDA Basics of Missile Defense
MDA Missile Defense System
MDA Boost Defense Segment
Airborne Laser Fact Sheet
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U.S. authorities have said that Jose Padilla, accused of having attempted to carry out a “dirty bomb” attack within the United States, is being held in an attempt to gain more information on al-Qaeda rather than in connection with any crime, Newsweek reported this week (see GSN, July 11).
“If this guy thinks he might be there for 20 years with no recourse, he might just say, ‘OK, let’s talk,’” a Bush administration official said.
Sources have said that some high-level officials doubted Padilla’s involvement in a plot to detonate a radiological weapon within the United States, according to Newsweek. The White House, however, paid little attention to those doubts, officials said.
Most of the evidence against Padilla, also known as Abdullah al-Muhajir, came from Abu Zubaydah, a captured senior al-Qaeda official. Zubaydah told U.S. authorities about a U.S.-born recruit with whom he had discussed the dirty bomb plot.
Zubaydah’s information seemed to be confirmed when U.S. troops found photographs of Padilla in an al-Qaeda safe house and computers indicating that someone, possibly Padilla, had searched the Internet for U.S. laboratories and hospitals where radioactive materials might be obtained, according Newsweek. That evidence, however, has not been sufficient for the Justice Department to bring charges against Padilla, Newsweek reported.
Officials now say that any dirty bomb plot probably never progressed beyond talk. If Padilla had accomplices within the United States, they have not been found, FBI officials said. The idea of a dirty bomb plot was “blown out of proportion,” a U.S. intelligence official said (Michael Isikoff, Newsweek, Aug. 19).
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2002 by National Journal Group, Inc. The material in this section is produced independently for NTI by the National Journal Group, Inc. Any reproduction or retransmission, in whole or in part, is a violation of federal law and is strictly prohibited without the consent of the National Journal Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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