Threat Assessment:  Nuclear Power Plants at Low Risk, NRC Says

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has determined that the risk of a terrorist attack against a U.S. nuclear power plant is low, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, July 30).

Commission officials believe that the threat of terrorists attacking a nuclear plant using a hijacked aircraft “remains acceptably low,” said Samuel Collins, director of the organization’s Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulations.  There have been “no specific credible threats against any NRC-licensed facility since Sept. 11,” he said.

Securing the airspace over nuclear plants and other sensitive sites is the method that the commission prefers to protect against an attack, Collins said in response to a petition by a watchdog group for security upgrades.

“The commission believes that the nation’s efforts associated with protecting against terrorist attacks by air should be directed toward enhancing security at airports and on airplanes,” Collins said.

Commission officials have discussed securing the airspace above nuclear power plants with the Defense Department and the Federal Aviation Administration, Collins said.  Currently, the FAA’s warning for pilots not to circle or loiter above sensitive sites remains in effect, he said (John Heilprin, Associated Press/Yahoo.com, Aug. 15).

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U.S. Response:  Bush Demands Flexibility in Homeland Security Bill

By Tom Shoop

Government Executive

In a speech at Mount Rushmore in South Dakota yesterday, U.S. President George W. Bush renewed his push for a new Homeland Security Department unencumbered by detailed civil service rules and regulations, especially in the areas of pay and hiring (see GSN, Aug. 12).

The president attacked the homeland security bill being debated by the Senate, saying the bill leaves the administration with its “hands tied.”

“The way the bill is structured now, it takes too long to hire good people,” Bush said.  “There’s too many bureaucratic rules.  The bill micromanages the capacity of the executive branch to do the business on behalf of the American people.  I need the capacity, this department needs the — it’s not just me, it’s future presidents need the capacity to be able to pay people according to their contributions and hold people to account for their performance, both good and bad.  If somebody does a good job, we want to be able to provide bonuses.”

The president also pushed for the flexibility to reorganize homeland security agencies (see GSN, July 23).

“I need the authority to have Customs and the [Immigration and Naturalization Service] and the Border Patrol work in concert so that there’s no gaps in the defense of our borders.  I don’t have that authority under the Senate bill,” Bush said.

In an appearance at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines on Wednesday, Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), the leading proponent of the Senate’s homeland bill, expressed dismay about Bush’s attacks on the legislation, saying the two sides were in agreement on 90 percent of the issues at stake (see GSN, July 18).

“I don’t understand the tactic that President Bush is following,” Lieberman said.

When the Senate returns to session in early September, it will debate a motion to proceed to the homeland security bill.  Senator Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) will control the debate time for opponents of the motion (see GSN, Aug. 1).  Byrd has warned against rushing ahead without carefully considering the ramifications of creating a new department, and he helped persuade Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) not to try to tackle the bill before the Senate’s August recess.

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Russian Response:  Defenders Thwart Mock Nuclear Plant Terrorists

Russian military, emergency and security personnel have completed a two-week anti-terrorism training exercise at a nuclear power plant, officials of the Rosenergoatom national nuclear power agency said yesterday (see GSN, Aug. 8).

The exercise was meant to train personnel to prevent attacks against nuclear plants and to develop better coordination between Rosenergoatom and other Russian agencies, officials said (Associated Press/Moscow Times, Aug. 16).  It took place at the Kalinin nuclear plant near Udomlya in the Tver region.  The exercise scenario involved a group of terrorists that scouted out and advanced on the facility.

“We must be in a permanent state of combat readiness,” said Russian Deputy Atomic Energy Minister Anatoliy Kotelnikov.  “Our system of measures for protecting nuclear facilities exists, and is sufficiently reliable” (ITAR-Tass, Aug. 14 in FBIS-SOV, Aug. 14).

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Iraq:  “Moral Case For Regime Change,” Rice Says

There is a “very powerful moral case” for removing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from power, U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said yesterday (see GSN, Aug. 15).

“This is an evil man who, left to his own devices, will wreak havoc again on his own population, his neighbors and, if he gets weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them, on all of us,” Rice said in an interview with the BBC.  “There is a very powerful moral case for regime change.  We certainly do not have the luxury of doing nothing.”

U.S. President George W. Bush has not yet decided on the best method for overthrowing Hussein, Rice said.  The process might include direct U.S. military action against Iraq or U.S. support for opposition groups, she added.

“The president hasn’t decided how he wants to do it or how he intends to make the case for particular methods,” Rice said.

“The case for regime change is very strong,” she said.  “This is a regime that we know has twice tried and come closer than we thought at the time to acquiring nuclear weapons.  He has used chemical weapons against his own people and against his neighbors, he has invaded his neighbors, he has killed thousands of his own people.  He shoots at our planes, our airplanes, in the no-fly zones where we are trying to enforce U.N. security resolutions” (Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, Aug. 16).

Republicans Speak Out Against Attack

Meanwhile, several Republican lawmakers and former U.S. officials have begun to publicly criticize the administration’s plans to attack Iraq, the New York Times reported today.

“For those of us who don’t see an invasion as an article of faith but as simply a policy option, there is a feeling that you need to give great consideration to what comes after, and that unless you’re prepared to follow it through, then you shouldn’t begin it,” one senior administration official involved in foreign policy said yesterday.

Lawrence Eagleburger, secretary of state under U.S. President George H. W. Bush, said yesterday that unless Hussein “has his hand on a trigger that is for a weapon of mass destruction, and our intelligence is clear, I don’t know why we have to do it now, when all our allies are opposed to it.”

In comments last week, House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) also said that international support for an attack is lacking (see GSN, Aug. 9).

In an opinion piece published Monday in the Washington Post, former National Security Adviser and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger laid out a detailed argument on the international complications of any U.S. military action against Iraq, according to the New York Times.

U.S. policy “will be judged by how the aftermath of the military operation is handled politically,” Kissinger wrote.  “Military intervention should be attempted only if we are willing to sustain such an effort for however long it is needed.”

In an opinion piece published in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft said he opposes any U.S. military action against Iraq at this time, citing concerns that such a move might jeopardize the war on terrorism.

Richard Perle, a former Reagan administration official who has advocated a U.S. attack on Iraq, criticized Scowcroft’s comments yesterday, calling them “naive.”

“I think Brent just got it wrong,” Perle said.  “The failure to take on Saddam after what the president said would produce such a collapse of confidence in the president that it would set back the war on terrorism” (Purdum/Tyler, New York Times, Aug. 16).

United Kingdom Divided

In the United Kingdom, House of Commons Leader Robin Cook is expected to criticize any British involvement in a U.S. attack with Iraq when British Prime Minister Tony Blair calls his Cabinet for a discussion on the issue, the London Times reported today (see GSN, July 25).

Cook agrees that Hussein poses a threat to international security, according to the Times.  He believes, however, that any U.S.-led attack could damage the Middle East peace process and lead to a wider conflict, the Times reported.

Menzies Campbell, foreign affairs spokesman for the British Liberal Democrat party, attacked Rice’s comments that there was a “moral case” for the removal of Hussein.

“In international affairs it is not enough to claim a moral authority in cases where the United Nations has been involved,” Campbell said.

“There will be no world order if the most powerful states are entitled to remove other governments at will,” he said.  “There is no doctrine of international law which justifies regime change” (Philip Webster, London Times, Aug. 16).

Israel Urges Attack

In Israel, officials have begun to urge the United States not to delay its plans to attack Iraq, an aide to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said today.

Israeli intelligence officials have collected evidence that shows Iraq has begun accelerating development of biological and chemical weapons, said Sharon aide Ranaan Gissin (see GSN, Aug. 9).  Israel also has evidence that Hussein has ordered the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission to accelerate its work, he said.

“Any postponement of an attack on Iraq at this stage will serve no purpose,” Gissin said.  “It will only give him (Saddam) more of an opportunity to accelerate his program of weapons of mass destruction” (Associated Press/Jerusalem Post, Aug. 16).

Sharon, however, has said that Israel would support any U.S. action and would respect the Bush administration’s decisions on the methods and timetable, according to Ha’aretz.

Sharon has also informed the United States that Israel intended to respond to any Iraqi attack.  While the United States prevented Israel from responding to Iraqi attacks during the Gulf War, Sharon said he had a clear understanding with the United States on Israel’s right to respond during a future conflict (see GSN, Aug. 15).

Any Israeli response to an Iraqi attack, however, would be coordinated with the United States and would not be an automatic one, Sharon said before the Israeli Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee earlier this week.

“If we are talking about a single missile that falls in the middle of the Arava [Desert], far from the major population centers, or into the sea, it is hard to believe that we will respond,” said a senior Israeli government source.

If Iraq targets Israeli cities for missile strikes, however, “we cannot sit with folded hands,” Sharon told the committee.

Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres yesterday played down the idea that Israel would respond in kind if attacked by Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (see GSN, Aug. 1).

“I wouldn’t commit myself.  I don’t think I can give you a response,” Peres said.  “Israel will be very careful and reluctant to go out of the conventional domain of weaponry” (Aluf Benn, Ha’aretz, Aug. 16).

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

IAEA Iraq Action Team

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U.S. Testing:  Nuclear Testing Will Probably Resume, Pentagon Adviser Says

The United States probably will need to resume full-scale nuclear testing to evaluate the results of subcritical tests on the aging U.S. nuclear arsenal, a Defense Department nuclear weapons adviser said Wednesday (see GSN, March 22).

“I believe over time we will need to verify some of the calculations that have been done,” said Dale Klein, assistant to the defense secretary for nuclear and chemical and biological defense programs.

Tests conducted on materials used in nuclear warheads indicate that they become corroded as they age, Klein said.

“It could be five years, it could be 10 years” before the United States would need to resume full-scale testing, he said.

The Stockpile Stewardship Program works to maintain the reliability of the U.S. nuclear arsenal through subcritical testing, said Bryan Wilkes, a spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration (see GSN, June 4).  “However, there are no guarantees,” he added.  “And it is only prudent to continue to hedge the possibility that we may in the future uncover a safety or reliability problem ... critical to the U.S. nuclear deterrent that could not be fixed without nuclear testing.”

Opponents of nuclear weapons have said that calls to resume full-scale nuclear testing are a prelude to the development of new nuclear weapons (see GSN, Aug. 7).  Resuming full-scale testing could also set off a worldwide nuclear arms race, they said (see GSN, March 28).

“It will be an international disaster,” said Jacqueline Cabasso, executive director of Western States Legal Foundation, a nuclear disarmament advocacy group.  “It will represent the final shedding of any semblance of any international law constraints on U.S. military power projection.”

“It will be a slap in the face to most of the other countries in the world who have stuck with their obligation under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty not to acquire nuclear weapons,” Cabasso said.  “If the United States resumes full-scale testing, other nuclear weapons states are going to resume full-scale nuclear testing and possibly new countries” (Keith Rodgers, Las Vegas Review-Journal, Aug. 15).

For further information, see:

NPT Text

NPT Parties

U.N. Background on NPT

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U.S. Response:  NIAID Plans to Develop 10 Research Centers

The U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, plans to work with research institutions to develop 10 regional research centers that would focus on bioterrorism, institute officials said last week (see GSN, July 16).

The centers — the first four of which officials plan to select by May — would conduct research, train new biological defense scientists and be prepared to provide assistance in the event of a biological weapons attack, Science magazine reported.  The centers would be “beehives of activity,” program director Rona Hirschberg said.

U.S. research institutions have until Jan. 15 to apply to take part in the program, Science reported.  Each center involved in the program would receive between $4 million and $6 million per year.  Those institutions chosen to take part in the program would probably also receive additional funding outside the program because of their special status, researchers said (Science, Aug. 16).

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Anthrax:  FBI Searches Homes of 15 People

The FBI has searched the homes of roughly 15 people in the course of its “Amerithrax” investigation into last fall’s anthrax attacks, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday (see GSN, Aug. 15).  Former U.S. Army biologist Steven Hatfill, however, is the only person whose identity has become public, a senior law enforcement official said.  The FBI has said that no arrests in the case are imminent (Regalado/Fields, Wall Street Journal, Aug. 14).

For further information, see:

GSN Anthrax Attack Chronology (Dec. 12, 2001)

FBI Amerithrax Investigation

CDC Frequently Asked Questions About Anthrax

Journal of the American Medical Association Background on Anthrax

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United States:  Army to Ship Umatilla Wastewater Off Site

The U.S. Army will probably have to ship wastewater from the chemical weapons incinerator at the Oregon Umatilla Chemical Depot to Washington state for disposal, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, July 30).

The depot’s own treatment systems — called the Brine Reduction Area — are ineffective and its four 40,000-gallon storage tanks would be insufficient, Army spokesman Greg Mahal said.  The Army underestimated the amount of water needed and the toxic metals that would be produced in the incinerator, he said.

Oregon environmental regulators have agreed to allow the Army to ship wastewater generated in test burns at the incinerator to a facility in Kent, Wash., said Don Barclay, Army project manager for Umatilla (Associated Press, Aug. 15).

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Directed-Energy Weapons:  Possible U.S. Use Against Iraq Could Threaten International Regimes

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Defense Department might use high-power microwave (HPM) technology, now under development, in an attack on Iraq, bypassing the traditional Pentagon approval process for using new technologies, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said earlier this month.

“You never know,” he said at a press briefing Aug. 9, adding that there is already precedent for deploying weapons still under development.

Some human rights and international legal experts have expressed concern that the weapons might cause unnecessary human suffering or destroy civilian infrastructure, which is prohibited by an international arms control agreement.  The United States has faced international criticism in recent months for what some critics perceive as a U.S. pullback from multilateral arms control agreements.

A 1977 protocol to the Geneva Conventions on the laws of war prohibits weapons that cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering and that are indiscriminate in their effects.  It requires countries to assess the legality of a new weapon in light of the protocol and other international conventions.  While the United States has not signed the protocol, it has indicated that it recognizes those principles as customary law and legally binding.

Safety Concerns

High-power microwave systems are designed to produce high-density bursts of energy capable of damaging or destroying nearby electronics, including those in vehicles, weapons and air defense and communications systems.  HPM weapons could provide U.S. forces with a unique advantage, enabling them to swiftly knock out Iraqi command and control systems and possibly prevent Iraqi leaders from communicating effectively with their forces, military analysts have said.

Analysts have expressed concern though that the weapons might, in addition to destroying military targets, destroy nearby hospital equipment, heart pacemakers, and possibly systems in airborne civilian aircraft causing them to crash.  According to a story in Aviation Week & Space Technology last month citing an unidentified official, the Israeli military has largely put off development of such weapons — except for possible use in missile defense — out of concern they would be mired in internal, Israeli legal reviews over the prospect of unanticipated collateral damage.

William Arkin, a senior adviser on military matters to Human Rights Watch, has argued for a rigorous legal, political and humanitarian evaluation of HPM weapons before they are deployed.

“Like blinding lasers, like anti-personnel land mines, like cluster bombs, there are weapons out there which are on the edge of whether or not they cause unnecessary suffering or are indiscriminate or fail to comply with our obligations under international humanitarian law,” he told Government Executive magazine earlier this year.

The U.S. military has indicated that it envisions high-power microwave and other directed-energy weapons to be a humane option for warfare.

“We will strike deep in the enemy’s territory at the speed of light, with little or no collateral damage or loss of life, crippling his ability to wage aggression,” the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Directed Energy Directorate Web site says, prominently describing its “vision of the future.”

“The dangers to people are less from laser, microwave or EMP [electromagnetic pulse] attacks than from conventional attacks,” a 1992 U.S. Army infantry field manual says.  “Their terminal effects are less violent and destructive than those of conventional kinetic or chemical energy munitions.”

A similar Army manual advises U.S. forces about side effects of prolonged exposure to high-power microwaves, saying soldiers might experience symptoms of pain, erratic heartbeat, fatigue, weakness or dizziness, nose bleeds, headaches and disorientation.  HPM weapons, however, tend to require only rapid, not prolonged, bursts of energy to destroy electronics.

Assessing an Army war simulation involving HPM weapons, a 2000 report by the RAND think tank advises the military to develop clear policy on how the weapons would be used.

“HPM [weapons] would certainly have damaged civilian infrastructure in the [simulated] city.  Such use may be construed as violating international law and could cause adverse public opinion.  The U.S. government needs to develop clear and comprehensive policy on the use of such weapons,” the report says.

U.S. Requirements

According to Defense Department regulations, the Pentagon’s general counsel is required to review new weapons to determine whether they are consistent with U.S. and international laws and treaties before putting them into the field.

“Before microwave weapons are incorporated into the operational community, the Air Force general counsel must first review the weapon system and make a recommendation, which includes considerations of the medical and biological effects as those relate to the ‘pain and suffering’ that the weapon system may inflict,” Air Force Colonel Eileen Walling wrote in a February 2000 paper.

“If approved after a rigorous review, the Air Force lawyers and program managers must prepare for a review that will be conducted at the Department of Defense,” she wrote.  The process is time consuming and can last more than nine months “but it assures that programs are thoroughly investigated before the program is formally initiated,” she added.

How the Weapons Might Be Used

Some national security experts have said they see no fundamental legal problems with using HPM weapons.

“On first blush, I don’t think this is an inhumane form of conflict, though it could have, as all weaponry does, inhumane consequences,” said John Holum, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security during the Clinton administration.

Questions about collateral damage, Holum said, “are part of the broader difficulty of conducting a war where your principal adversary is hidden among the general population, making it very difficult to distinguish between targets.”

“You may be talking about a weapon here that is sort of the ultimate [for] saving people, that is, putting weapons systems out of operation while not killing the people,” said professor John Moore, who directs the Center for National Security Law at the University of Virginia.

The United States used a more passive form of electromagnetic warfare during the Kosovo conflict, when aircraft dropped special carbon fibers over a radio broadcast station, effectively shutting it down.  That operation generated national and international criticism because it attacked a civilian target.

Moore said there should be no problem with developing and using such weapons, depending on how they are used.  There is no international prohibition on developing HPM weapons, just as there is no international ban on producing nuclear weapons, he said.

“The only question with respect to any weapons system, whether it’s a rock, a knife, or a standard carbine, [is] how it’s used, so it would depend specifically on how it’s used and whether it’s used in a way that generates collateral damage that is excessive in relation to the military effectiveness of the weapon,” he said.

That question is usually addressed through extensive testing.  For example, a different sort of electromagnetic weapon unveiled by the Marines last year for use in controlling crowds without killing them was tested extensively on goats and people to measure its safety.

When used briefly, the weapon causes a burning sensation on the skin but no long-term damage, a Marine official told the Marine Corps Times last year.  Prolonged use could cause permanent damage or death, the Times suggested, reporting that the period of time defining prolonged use is classified.

Accelerated Deployment

Rumsfeld said high power microwave technologies are in very early stages of development, but he suggested officials might field them nevertheless.

“The unmanned aerial vehicles that were used in Afghanistan, were not, had not reached their full development.  They had not been authorized for use.  They were still in a development stage and experimental, and yet you use them,” he said.

Pentagon spokesman Marine Lt. Col. Dave Lapan said Rumsfeld was probably referring to the Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle, which is still under development but has seen action in Afghanistan.  The United States also used a fighter jet reconnaissance pod still under development during the conflict over Kosovo, Lapan said.

Legal reviews to make sure weapons conform to U.S. and international law might be hastened in situations where they are pulled out of development and put into the field, Lapan said.

“There would still be that process, [but] now it might be speeded up.  And ultimately, if the secretary felt this was something the commander needed, he’s got to weigh all of the risks and benefits.  The general counsel’s inputs are just that — inputs,” Lapan said.

Weapons Possibly Ready

Like the Russian, Chinese and other militaries, the U.S. military has been pursuing HPM weapons technologies for decades, analysts have said.

HPM weapons could be deployed in variety of ways, including by unmanned aerial vehicle, land vehicle, bomb or missile, according to military experts.  The Pentagon has been working on a loading a system on an unmanned aerial vehicle that could remain airborne for extended periods and stealthily focus the energy on numerous targets.

Another concept that developers have explored is deploying an HPM weapon on a cruise missile.  Defense Systems Daily reported in June 1999 that Los Alamos National Laboratory had developed an HPM weapon that could be deployed by laser-guided bomb or cruise missile.

GlobalSecurity.org director John Pike, who has extensively catalogued U.S. and foreign weapons capabilities, said the United States has had at least since the early 1980s a “highly classified” cruise missile-launched electromagnetic pulse weapon — which would cause an effect similar to an HPM but would not focus the energy in one specific direction.

Energy from HPM weapons can be directed at a particular area, but technical challenges remain on projecting high power levels over longer distances to a target, according to experts.

“Increasing the power levels, while simultaneously reducing the size of these microwave systems, will be extremely challenging and technically difficult,” Walling wrote in 2000.

Analysts also have noted difficulties in modulating power levels over distances so that a person close and in front of an HPM emission might suffer strong effects while a person moderately far away would be unfazed.

Walling concluded, however, that “several high-power microwave technologies have matured to the point where they are now ready for the transition from engineering and manufacturing development to deployment as operational weapons.”

The technology “is ready for the transition to active weapons in the U.S. military,” she wrote.

For further information, see:

Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions

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