Iraq I:  U.S. Army Gave CBW Training to Iraqi Officers in 1960s

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army trained 19 Iraqi military officers in the United States in offensive and defensive chemical, biological and radiological warfare from 1957 to 1967, according to an official Army letter published in the late 1960s.

While the training was described as mostly defensive, it also included offensive instruction in such subjects as principles of using chemical, biological and radiological weapons, and calculating chemical munitions requirements, according to a Dec. 12, 1969, letter from then-Army Chief of Legislative Liaison Col. Raymond Reid to then-U.S. Representative Robert Kastenmeier (D-Wisc.).  The letter was published later that month in the Congressional Record.

Iraqi and other foreign officers received the free instruction through the Pentagon’s Military Assistance Program, according to the letter, at a time when the United States was seeking to counter Soviet power and influence around the world.  Iran, then a close U.S. ally, and up to three dozen other countries, mostly Western countries, also received such instruction from the early 1950s through 1969, the letter said.  The training was provided at the U.S. Army Chemical School at Fort McClellan, Ala., it said.

The instruction for Iraq was provided before U.S.-Iraqi diplomatic relations were severed at the time of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, and prior to Saddam Hussein taking power in Baghdad, first as vice president in 1968.

“It was obviously very thorough instruction we provided them,” said Raymond Zilinskas, director of the Chemical and Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Program at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, after seeing the letter recently.

The letter prompted criticism from Kastenmeier, a prominent critic of U.S. chemical warfare policy at the time.

“I am disturbed over some of the more specific implications of the facts provided me by the Army, and I question the overall utility of continuing to disseminate offensive expertise in these forms of warfare so widely,” he said on the House floor later that month.

Offensive Training

A small percentage of the training provided Iraq was devoted to offensive instruction, according to Reid’s letter.  Iraqi officers took two types of courses.

One was called Chemical Officer Orientation, which provided general military education training such as map reading, weapons familiarization and also “unconventional warfare” including “principles of CBR [chemical, biological and radiological weapons] employment,” “conducting CBR training,” “calculation of chemical munitions requirements,” intelligence organization and operations, and various CBR protective instruction.  Other course elements included “defense against biological attack,” “fundamentals of nuclear weapons effects,” and “CBR protective devices and equipment.”  Seven percent of the instruction was offensive in nature, according to the letter.

The other course, called Chemical Officer Career Associate, included “all categories of training,” with 4 percent of the course offered offensive instruction, the letter said.

Despite the small percentages, Reid’s letter noted a difficulty in differentiating offensive and defensive instruction.

“As you will note from the course descriptions, the emphasis is on defensive aspects.  However, it is not possible to separate offensive tactics from defense since some knowledge of the offense is necessary to prepare an adequate defense,” he wrote.

“In addition, there can be no absolute guarantee that defensive tactics will not have some utility in framing offensive tactics,” he wrote.

The instruction did not appear to teach participants how to manufacture such weapons, but rather, how to use them, manage them and defend against them.

“If they were trained by the U.S. military, it would be unlikely they got any training in development [or] production,” said Terence Taylor, president of the Washington office of the International Institute for Strategic Studies and a former U.N. arms inspector in Iraq.

The Training in Context

The principal objective for such programs at the time, said Jeffrey Bale, an analyst at the Monterey Institute, was to counter Soviet and allied influence and capabilities.

“During the Cold War, the United States government provided all sorts of training to military personnel … and I think the primary motivation at the time was to train these people to make them more effective to potentially resisting any kinds of Soviet military operations or subversive activity,” he said

U.S. military officials at the time believed that the Soviet Union had an advanced chemical weapons program and had been supplying Middle Eastern countries with defensive equipment.

The U.S. assistance, Bale said, followed “a typical alliance pattern dating back to antiquity,” of working with real or potentially unsavory regimes because it might offer help against a more serious threat.

Chemical and biological weapons at the time did not have the stigma for the military they have today, according to Harvard professor Matthew Meselson, co-director of the Harvard-Sussex Program on CBW Armament and Arms Limitation.

“We [the United States] were very open, we advertised it because we wanted public approval.  We needed funding.  It was advertised as being humane, less expensive.  The argument was you would lose fewer American lives if you fought a war because you would knock the enemy out right away,” he said.

A prominent 1968 book by investigative reporter Seymour Hersh said the Army had sponsored a publicity campaign arguing biological and chemical weapons were a humane and effective deterrent.

“The Hiroshima argument I understand.  Why would one ever train anyone else in offensive CW, BW use?  That is bizarre,” said Tim Trevan, a former spokesman for the U.N. Special Commission on Iraq.

“It is not a humane way of killing people … I can’t imagine a humane way of dying with chemical weapons” or from “using biological weapons under any circumstance,” he said.

All training was first approved, Reid’s letter said, by the U.S. ambassador and the chief military representative in the requesting country, as well as by the senior military commander responsible for the geographic region in which the country was located, the Army, and the assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs in coordination with the State Department.

Approval from the latter, Reid wrote, was intended to ensure that “training is conducted within the overall foreign policy objectives of the United States.”

More Iraqi officers were among those receiving the training than any other Middle Eastern nationality during that period.  Of 36 Middle Eastern officers who attended the training, 19 were from Iraq.  One Israeli received instruction during the period, according to the letter.

The 36 participating countries requested the training and were not solicited by the United States, according to Reid’s letter.

Lessons Not Learned Well

Iraq’s use of chemical weapons suggests it probably applied its U.S. instruction poorly if at all, experts said.

“The tactics they developed during the Iran-Iraq war [were] something that didn’t exist during the first few years of the war,” Zilinskas said. 

In the early years, they used chemical weapons “indiscriminately,” he said.

“After about four years, they started to use them more reliably.  It seemed to me they developed that pretty much as they went along,” he said. 

“They seemed to be on a pretty steep learning curve on the tactical use of chemical weapons,” said Jonathan Tucker, a visiting senior fellow at the United States Institute of Peace. 

“They used some on their troops by mistake.  It doesn’t appear that they learned very much from the training they’d received,” he said.

Tucker noted, for instance, an Iraqi mistake in which forces fired mustard gas onto an Iranian position on a hill, “and as the gas was heavier than air, it floated down into the trenches where the Iraqi forces were based.”

Iraqi forces eventually used multiple chemical agents, including mustard, tabun and sarin, to cause more than 20,000 Iranian casualties during the war and used mustard and other agents in 1988 to kill an estimated 5,000 Iraqi Kurds at Halabja, according to a British government report published last year.

Chemical and Biological Warfare Cancelled

Kastenmeier, in his comments in 1969, expressed concern that the Army’s acknowledgement of the offensive components of the programs would “seem to weaken existing deterrents against the use of CBW [chemical and biological weapons]” and undermine new policies enunciated by then-President Richard Nixon restricting chemical and biological weapons use by U.S. forces.

There was underway at that time a major U.S. policy shift against using chemical and biological weapons in combat that would eventually lead to the United States signing the Biological Weapons Convention in 1972.

Only a few weeks before Reid sent his letter, Nixon issued a statement on Nov. 25 saying the United States opposed first use of lethal chemical weapons and incapacitating chemicals and announcing that he would ask the Senate’s approval to ratify the Geneva Protocol of 1925 prohibiting the first use of chemical and biological weapons.  Nixon also then signed the Biological Weapons Convention and vowed to renounce the use of lethal biological agents and weapons, and all other methods of biological warfare, and confine biological research to defensive measures.

“Mankind already carries in its own hands too many of the seeds of its own destruction.  By the examples we set today, we hope to contribute to an atmosphere of peace and understanding between nations and among men,” Nixon said in a much-quoted passage from the statement.

It is not clear when Army training of foreign nationals in offensive chemical, biological and radiological warfare was discontinued.  A spokesman for the Pentagon’s military assistance agency said the agency had no records on hand dating back to the time of the program.

The Army Chemical School, where the training was provided in the 1960s, continues today, providing U.S. soldiers and a detachment of foreign nationals defensive training at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo.

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U.S. Response:  Bush Expected to Expand Nonproliferation Programs

By Bryan Bender
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — As U.S. President George W. Bush prepares to deliver his annual State of the Union address to Congress tonight, sources say the White House this week plans to outline an expanded program for limiting the spread of nuclear technology and other weapons of mass destruction in the coming year.

The redoubled commitment — details of which were not available prior to Bush’s speech — comes as a growing chorus of arms control experts are calling for a much more aggressive U.S. effort to secure nuclear, biological and chemical weapons in the former Soviet Union and elsewhere.

Administration officials told Global Security Newswire yesterday Bush would dramatically increase spending for Energy Department nuclear nonproliferation programs in his fiscal 2004 budget request, to be submitted to Congress next week.  Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham is expected to detail the White House request following the president’s address, which is expected to only refer to administration plans.

“Abraham’s remarks … will highlight the administration’s expanded and accelerated commitment to nuclear nonproliferation efforts,” an Energy Department official told GSN.  The fiscal 2004 budget request “will be a substantial increase from last year’s request,” the official said. 

Abraham is expected to unveil the budget plans tomorrow to a select group of nonproliferation experts at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, according to knowledgeable sources.

In his fiscal 2003 budget, Bush proposed a little over $1 billion for nuclear nonproliferation programs managed by Energy.  In the previous year, funding for such programs totaled $750 million (see GSN, Jan. 10, 2002). 

Both the Energy Department and the Pentagon fund nonproliferation programs in the former Soviet Union.  It is unclear how much additional spending will be requested for Pentagon programs.

Matching Rhetoric with Reality

A new commitment would follow recent complaints by nonproliferation experts over what they see as a lack of sufficient commitment in Washington to what Bush himself as described as the “highest priority,” keeping weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of terrorists.

This is especially true, the experts said, with war clouds looming in Iraq over its refusal to forgo its alleged WMD programs.  While the extent of Iraqi weapons remains unknown, the nuclear, biological and chemical weapons legacy of the Soviet Union and its successor states has largely been documented.

“I don’t believe we have matched our rhetoric with funding levels,” Karl Inderfurth, former assistant secretary of state for South Asia, said in an interview.  “We are hoping he [Bush] will make reference [in the State of the Union] to doing more about WMD around the world, but also that he will make reference to a further commitment to increase budgetary resources for this.”

“It continues to be our view that while the United States has focused on Iraq’s potential for WMD and the fear they could be used against us or sold to groups or states that wish us ill, the fact is we know where [former Soviet] materials are and have a government in Russia that is willing to help us,” added Inderfurth, who is also a senior advisor to the Nuclear Threat Reduction Campaign.  “We ought to be doing more in that regard. We don’t need [chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans] Blix to do an inspection of Russia.”

The NTRC is urging Bush to take more dramatic steps to secure former Soviet arsenals.  “NTRC remains hopeful that that the president will also acknowledge that our first line of defense in homeland security must be making sure that the world’s most dangerous people do not acquire the world’s most dangerous materials — nuclear, biological and chemical weapons,” the group said in statement Monday.

Lugar Seeks to “Expand and Globalize” Effort

Other officials say the lack of sufficient commitment is the result of both White House and congressional inaction.

“Contrary to the media-inspired illusion that foreign policy is determined by a series of decisions and responses to crises, most of the recent failures of U.S. foreign policy have far more to do with our inattention and parsimony between crises,” Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) wrote in the Washington Post yesterday.

“For example, in 2002, amid speculation about terrorists acquiring weapons of mass destruction, inaction by Congress effectively suspended for seven months new U.S. initiatives to secure Russia’s immense stockpiles of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons,” Lugar wrote.  “Congressional conditions have also delayed for years a U.S.-Russian project to eliminate a dangerous proliferation threat:  1.9 million chemical weapons housed at a rickety and vulnerable facility in Russia,” he wrote.

Lugar said one of five “campaigns” he will lead as chairman of the foreign relations panel will be to “expand and globalize the Nunn-Lugar program,” as the overall threat reduction effort in the former Soviet Union, sponsored in 1991 by Lugar and former Senator Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), is called.

“Since 1991 the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program has worked effectively to safeguard and destroy the immense stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in the former Soviet Union,” according to Lugar.  “We need to redouble these efforts and expand the process to all nations where cooperation can be secured.”

Inderfurth said funding increases in nonproliferation programs should at least match the overall increase — as much as 6.5 percent — expected in Bush’s 2004 defense budget request. 

“We are hoping there will be a comparable increase for Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction programs, as opposed to flatlining at $1 billion,” he added. 

The administration has already pledged a total of $1 billion a year during the next 10 years for Nunn-Lugar programs — running the gamut of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons — as part of the Group of Eight’s $20 billion plan to dramatically expand threat reduction programs over the next decade in Russia and other former Soviet states.

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Iraq II:  United States Prepares to Present Intelligence Information

Washington is preparing to release some of its intelligence information on Iraq’s purported caches of weapons of mass destruction, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, Jan. 27). 

The move comes less than 24 hours after U.N. weapons inspectors told the U.N. Security Council they need more time to fully investigate U.S. and British allegations that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein has been developing illicit weapons of mass destruction.

In a bid to increase support for possible military action against Iraq, U.S. President George W. Bush and his senior advisers have decided to declassify some of the information and release it to the public, perhaps as soon as next week, officials said.

The information will show what Iraq is “doing, what they’re not doing, how they’re deceiving,” a senior U.S. State Department official said.

“We will lay out the case that we can, and we will leave it to others to judge,” the official said.  “When you listen to it, it should be disturbing to those people who listen objectively.  To those who have made up their minds and want to duck their heads in the sand, it will pass right over them,” the official added.

The Bush administration believes the intelligence demonstrates that senior Iraqi officials and military officers ordered the movement and concealment of WMD stockpiles or knew of the plans, sources said.  The concealment operations have occurred days, or even hours, before U.N. weapons inspectors arrive at a site, officials said. 

Inspectors have detected similar signs of concealment and the United States has verified their claims, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said yesterday.

“The inspectors have also told us that they have evidence that Iraq has moved or hidden items at sites just prior to inspection visits. That’s what the inspectors say, not what Americans say, not what American intelligence says,” Powell said.  “Well, we certainly corroborate all of that, but this is information from the inspectors,” he added (Bob Woodward, Washington Post, Jan. 28).

The White House is also preparing to release new information directly linking Hussein with al-Qaeda, a senior official said yesterday.

Powell will present new, “convincing” evidence of connections between Hussein and the terrorist organization after Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair meet at Camp David Friday, the official said.   U.S information shows that al-Qaeda leaders have been traveling “in and out of Iraq” since the overthrow of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, the official said. 

In his State of the Union address tonight, Bush would cite “developing information” obtained from captured al-Qaeda operatives to highlight connections between Hussein and al-Qaeda, which pose “a very grave threat,” White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said yesterday.

There have been contacts between “senior Iraqi officials and members of the al-Qaeda organization going back for quite a long time,” Fleischer said.  “We know, too, that several of the detainees, particularly some of the high-level detainees, have said that Iraq provided some training to al-Qaeda in chemical weapons development,” he added (Joseph Curl, Washington Times, Jan. 28).     

Iraq Says It Is Cooperating

Meanwhile, Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri said yesterday his country has provided inspectors with “super cooperation” and that Iraq has done “everything possible” to head off a war with the United States.

In remarks before yesterday’s Security Council briefing, Sabri said inspectors have so far visited about 500 sites without any resistance from the Iraqi government.  “How were those things done without Iraqi cooperation?” he said.

Iraq has also encouraged its scientists and technicians to agree to private interviews with inspectors, but it could not force them to do so, Sabri said. Scientists invited by inspectors to submit to such meetings have all declined the U.N. invitation.

“I think you care very much in the United States and in Europe for personal freedom, personal liberties,” Sabri said.  “Are those scientists not covered by this concept?  You ask us to force them to accept unattended interviews.  We have encouraged them but we cannot force them,” he added (Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Washington Post, Jan. 28).

Iraq has denied that it did not provide full and accurate information on its WMD efforts in the declaration it submitted to the Security Council last month, according to the Associated Press.

In a letter to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan released yesterday, Sabri said the declaration answered all outstanding questions concerning Iraqi WMD programs.

“The full and complete declaration given by Iraq ... and the effective and genuine cooperation of Iraqi agencies with the inspection teams ... show that Iraq is acting in good faith and is firmly resolved to fulfill its obligations under the Security Council resolutions, despite all the difficulties, arbitrariness and bias involved therein,” Sabri said in the letter dated Jan. 24 (Priscilla Cheung, Associated Press/Yahoo.com, Jan. 28).

The decision of whether to go to war rests solely in the hands of the Untied States, Sabri told reporters.

“The ball is in their court,” Sabri said. “We have done everything possible to let this country and the whole region avoid the danger and the threat of war and destruction by the warmongers of Washington,” he added (Chandrasekaran, Washington Post).

Security Council Members’ Reactions

Yesterday’s briefing by chief U.N. weapons inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei did little to change any minds on the Security Council on the need to disarm Iraq by force or to give the inspectors more time. Speaking with reporters after their closed-door consultations yesterday, council diplomats emphasized the parts of the reports that supported their positions.

U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte said after the council was briefed, “Iraq is back to business as usual.  The danger is that the council may return to business as usual as well.”

British Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock called the reports “a catalogue of unresolved questions.”

“It’s not a matter of time, it’s a matter of attitude.  The attitude we are getting from the Iraqis at the moment is just not sufficient for the eradication of the programs that we know about,” Greenstock added.

Those council members who have argued for more time continued to press that case.  French Ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sabliere said, “We need now more active cooperation from Iraq and we need more time. ... It could be several weeks, it could be a few months.” As long as inspections are “producing results,” he said, “they should go on.”

Russian Ambassador Sergei Lavrov said, “The main conclusion, which we heard, is that all these new finds, documents and physical evidence do not change the basic assumption under which [the inspectors] are working — that they don’t have any evidence that Iraq has resumed its weapons of mass destruction program nor can they assert that all of these programs are stopped.”  He added that Iraq “is trying to cooperate actively and should be encouraged.”

Deputy Ambassador Zhang Yishan of China said that while “there are some doubts to be cleared ... this process needs to continue, and more time is needed for the inspectors.”  He added, “Since we have started this process and there is no clear reason to stop it, we should continue.”

France, Russia and China, as well as the United States and United Kingdom, all have veto power on the council.

Ambassador Gunter Pleuger of Germany said, “We have just sharpened the tool of inspections, never before have the inspectors been so powerful. ... [it] should be used to the full, and we should give the inspectors a realistic opportunity to achieve their goals in a peaceful manner.”  Germany will be president of the council in February and Pleuger has already said he wants another update from inspectors on Feb. 14.

The United States has lately cited South Africa’s elimination of its nuclear weapons program in the last days of apartheid as an exemplary case of disarmament.  South African Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo said yesterday, “Rather than use South Africa as an example, please note that with ... absolute voluntary cooperation, it still took two years for inspectors to be satisfied that South Africa really did not have weapons of mass destruction. In this case, who knows how long it will take.”

“What will convince me that Iraq is not cooperating would be when [Blix and ElBaradei come to the council] and say ‘we are giving up, Iraq is not cooperating,’” Kumalo added.  “They didn't say that” (Jim Wurst, GSN, Jan. 28).

Inspections

U.N. inspectors yesterday visited at least nine Iraq sites, according to a U.N. press release.

One group traveled via helicopter to the Az Zubayr Naval Complex.  Missile experts from the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) observed a static test of an al-Samoud missile engine at the al-Rafah Liquid Engine Test Facility.  UNMOVIC chemical inspectors also examined sheets of metal alloy at the al-Majd Center in Amiriyah, the U.N. release said.

IAEA inspectors yesterday conducted a radiation survey in the Taji area.  Agency inspectors also visited the al-Kindi Research and Development Company, near the northern city of Mosul and the North Refinery Company, near the city of Baji (U.N. release, Jan. 27).

Inspectors also declined to interview an Iraqi scientist after he requested some of his friends be present, the Iraqi Foreign Ministry said.

U.N. inspectors “asked to interview an Iraqi specialist and the National Monitoring Directorate informed him and encouraged him to go through with the interview,” a Foreign Ministry statement said.  “He agreed but he demanded that his personal friends attend the interview as witnesses, but (the U.N. inspection team) declined to conduct the interview after its representatives tried to convince him to do it on his own,” the statement said.

A U.N. spokesman did not comment on the incident. (Nadim Ladki, Reuters/Boston Globe, Jan. 28).

For further information, see:

UNMOVIC

IAEA Iraq Action Team

U.N. Resolution 1441

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Iraq IV:  Summary of Inspections

Experts from the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency have conducted hundreds of inspections in Iraq since resuming the post-Gulf War inspection regime Nov. 27.  More than 100 inspectors are now based in the country at two facilities in Baghdad and Mosul.  The following chart summarizes some of the inspectors’ reported activities.

Date	Site	Activity
Jan. 27	Az Zubayr Naval Complex	See GSN, Jan. 28.
	Al-Rafah Liquid Engine Test Facility	UNMOVIC missile inspectors observed a static test of an al-Samoud missile engine (see GSN, Jan. 28).
	Al-Majd Center in Amiriyah	UNMOVIC chemical inspectors used a metal analyzer to examine sheets of alloy (see GSN, Jan. 28).
	Taji area	IAEA inspectors conducted a motorized radiation survey (see GSN, Jan. 28).
	Al-Kindi Research and Development Company, near the northern city of Mosul	See GSN, Jan. 28.
	North Refinery Company, near the city of Baji
	Al-Amiriya medicine stores	See GSN, Jan. 27.
	Al-Samoud missile factory in Taji
	Baghdad area	IAEA inspectors conducted a nuclear survey (see GSN, Jan. 27).
Jan. 26	National Project to Control and Combat the Cattle Plague in Baghdad	IAEA release, Jan. 26.
	Chest and Respiratory Diseases Institute in Baghdad
	Al-Basil Center, Nahrawan, in Baghdad
	Karama State Company’s Khadhimiya Plant	UNMOVIC missile inspectors held technical discussions with the leaders of the al-Samoud missile project (IAEA release, Jan. 26).
	Hittin State Establishment	IAEA release, Jan. 26.
	Al-Kut Military Hospital
	Baiji underground refinery located between Baghdad and the northern city of Mosul
	Um al-Maarik industrial machining and foundry facility, south of Baghdad
	Salman Pak area	IAEA inspectors conducted a motorized radiation survey (IAEA release, Jan. 26).
	College of Science at the University of Mosul	IAEA release, Jan. 26
	College of Education at the University of Mosul
	College of Engineering at the University of Mosul
Jan. 25	Al-Mamoun	UNMOVIC missile inspectors met with officials of the al-Rasheed State Company at the site (IAEA release, Jan. 25).
	Sumaykah surface-to-surface missile support facility	IAEA release, Jan. 25.
	College of Veterinary Medicine at Quadisiyah University
	College of Education at Quadisiyah University
	Al-Qa Qaa	UNMOVIC chemical inspectors conducted a rebaseline inspection at the site (IAEA release, Jan. 25).
	Storage area of the North Oil Company	IAEA release, Jan. 25.
	College of Education at Tikrit University in Tikrit
	College of Engineering at Tikrit University in Tikrit
	Vicinity of Baghdad	IAEA inspectors conducted a motorized radiation survey (IAEA release, Jan. 25).
Jan. 24	Mamoun Factory	IAEA release, Jan. 24.
	Al-Basil Center in the Jadriyah complex in Baghdad	UNMOVIC chemical Inspectors assessed the site’s current activities (IAEA release, Jan. 24).
	Al-Qa Qaa	See GSN, Jan. 24.
Jan. 17-23	See GSN, Jan. 24.

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United States I:  Audit Finds Incomplete Safety Studies at U.S. Warhead Plant

A U.S. Energy Department audit has found that the deparment failed to complete a number of safety studies at the Pantex Plant in Texas, where U.S. nuclear warheads are assembled and dismantled, Morris News Service reported today (see GSN, Aug. 1, 2002).

“The studies were overdue because required safety initiatives had not been fully implemented and safety basis documents, integral to the Nuclear Explosive Safety process, had not been completed,” according to the audit, completed this month by the Energy Department’s Office of Inspector General.

The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration, responsible for the U.S. nuclear warhead stockpile, is required to conduct safety studies every five years, but some stockpiled weapons may wait up to 16 years for an inspection.  The tardy studies could delay some weapons work and potentially threaten plant safety, the news service reported.

However, a top plant official said the studies were only one component of a multilayered process, and NNSA officials defended Pantex’s safety record.

“The safety record at Pantex has been exemplary; our strategy is reducing the safety risks even further,” said Anthony Lane, NNSA associate administrator for management and administration, in a November memo.  “Safety improvements are, and always will be, a major goal,” he added (Jim McBride, Morris News Service/Augusta Chronicle, Jan. 28).

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Japan:  Reprocessing Plant Is Short by 25 Bombs-Worth of Plutonium

A Japanese nuclear fuel reprocessing plant cannot account for a quantity of plutonium sufficient to make 25 nuclear weapons, Agence France-Presse reported today.

The Tokaimura reprocessing plant, about 100 kilometers north of Tokyo, is estimated to have extracted 6,890 kilograms of plutonium from spent nuclear fuel since 1977, but a recent record check could not account for 206 kilograms.  Five to eight kilograms of plutonium are needed to produce a nuclear weapon, AFP reported.

Officials have notified the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Japanese Atomic Energy Commission.

Japanese officials attributed the shortfall mostly to miscalculations.

Much of the plutonium most likely dissolved in wastewater and some of decayed into other elements, said an official at the Japanese education and science ministry’s nuclear safeguard office.

The ministry said the plutonium was not illegally taken from the plant.

“In other cases, plutonium may have been stuck to fuel tubes or mixed with wastewater being processed to be solidified in glass and disposed of,” the official said.  There could also be “errors in the estimate of plutonium extracted in the process,” according to the official (Shigemi Sato, Agence France-Presse, Jan. 28).

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United States II:  Defense Experts Criticize Trident Submarine Conversion Program

Several defense experts have criticized the U.S. Navy’s plan to convert four Trident ballistic missile submarines, the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot reported today (see GSN, Jan. 27).

Retired Rear Adm. Eugene Carroll, vice president emeritus of the Center for Defense Information, criticized the high cost of equipping the converted submarines with Tomahawk cruise missiles — about $750,000 each.

“You go bankrupt before you win,” Carroll said.

The Tomahawk’s long range negates the need for firing them close to shore, which would be a mission for a submarine, said Carlton Meyer, editor of g2mil, an online military magazine. Launching missiles could also give away the submarine’s stealth ability — one of its main assets, he added.

Navy Capt. Bill Toti, assistant chief of staff for warfare requirements for the commander of the submarine forces, defended the Tomahawk’s price tag.  “That’s a lot for a missile, until you get a $50 million plane shot down,” he said (Matthew Jones, Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, Jan. 28).

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North Korea:  Seoul’s Envoy Hopes To Meet With Kim Jong Il

A South Korean envoy in Pyongyang for talks on North Korea’s resumption of its nuclear arms program hoped to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il today, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Jan. 27).

Leading an eight-member delegation, South Korean presidential envoy Lim Dong-won, who has met with top North Korean officials since arriving yesterday, brought a letter from South Korean President Kim Dae-jung to his counterpart in an effort to defuse tensions over a three-month nuclear crisis.

Officials said that any meeting between North Korea’s leader and the South Korean envoy would probably take place this afternoon (Agence France-Presse, Jan. 28).

North Korea had previously indicated it would only hold talks with the United States, from which Pyongyang has demanded a nonaggression treaty.

Former U.S. president Bill Clinton said Monday Washington should agree to the pact “because we’d never attack them unless they did something that violated that pact anyway.”

Interviewed by Reuters during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Clinton said the United States must reach an agreement with North Korea before Pyongyang sells a nuclear weapon.

“North Korea has greater capacity to produce atomic weapons than Iraq does, and less capacity to feed itself than Iraq does.  So for the North Koreans, their ‘cash crops,’ if you will, are missiles and bombs,” Clinton said.

“So I think it is urgent that before they, out of economic necessity, get more irresponsible, we do what we can with the South Koreans, the Japanese, the Chinese and the Russians to make a big deal with them, a verifiable deal to end all nuclear programs and their long-range missile sales,” he said.

Clinton added that a “comprehensive agreement” should be struck because North Korea “can make big bombs, and do it well” (Mark Trevelyan, Reuters, Jan. 27).

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South Asia:  U.S.-Indian Military Exercises Worry Pakistan

In a sign of thawing military relations, U.S. and Indian fighter aircraft will take part in joint exercises later this year or in early 2004, the Washington Post reported today.

Pakistani officials said the planned exercises could help Indian defense forces better defend against aircraft-launched Pakistani nuclear weapons, the Post said.

“We would not be happy at all” if the joint exercises take place, Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri said yesterday in Washington. 

“I don’t think it is politically advisable at all for the military and the United States government to do anything which would further complicate matters for the government of Pakistan,” he said, adding that he planned discuss the situation with U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld when they met today (Thomas Ricks, Washington Post, Jan. 28).

Indian Threats

Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes, meanwhile, said that Pakistan would be “erased from the world map” if it uses nuclear weapons to strike India (see GSN, Jan. 8).

“We have been saying all through that the person who heads Pakistan today, who is also the whole and sole in-charge of that country, has been talking about using dangerous weapons, including the nukes.  Well I would reply by saying that if Pakistan has decided that it wants to get itself destroyed and erased from the world map, then it may take this step of madness, but if wants to survive then it would not do so,” Fernandes said.

Fernandes’ comments were “absolutely absurd,” said Pakistan’s Foreign Office spokesman, Aziz Ahmed Khan (The Hindu, Jan. 28).

Analysts played down the defense minister’s statement.

“Mr. Fernandes was simply stating India’s doctrine of massive retaliation albeit in rather populist language,” said Raja Mohan, an Indian analyst.  “It is hoped that over time both countries will learn to speak in much more guarded terms about their nuclear arsenals,” Mohan added (Edward Luce, Financial Times, Jan. 27).

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Anthrax:  Divers Search Pond in Maryland Forest

Divers yesterday searched a pond in a section of forest near Frederick, Md., as part of the FBI’s investigation into the autumn 2001 anthrax attacks, according to the Washington Post (see GSN, Jan. 27).

The pond is located near the former home of Steven Hatfill, a former U.S. Army biologist, who has been the public focus of the FBI’s investigation. The second sweep of the region in three months was “just a continuation of our investigation on the anthrax case,” bureau spokeswoman Debra Weierman said (Washington Post, Jan. 28).

The area, which contains eight ponds, is located about two miles south of another group of ponds the FBI searched last month, according to the Associated Press.

Area resident Gregory Maddox said FBI officials told him that area roadblocks would be up for about a week. 

“I kind of support what they’re doing,” Maddox said.  “I believe whatever it is they’re doing benefits the entire United States, therefore, I don’t ask them a lot of dumb questions,” he added (David Dishneau, Associated Press/Edmonton Sun, Jan. 28).

For further information, see:

CDC Frequently Asked Questions About Anthrax

FBI Amerithrax Investigation

Journal of the American Medical Association Background on Anthrax

GSN Anthrax Attack Chronology (Dec. 12, 2001)

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Iran:  U.S., Israeli Intelligence Expect Shahab 4 Missile Test Soon

U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies expect the first test launch of Iran’s Shahab 4 medium-range missile soon, according to Ephraim Kam, deputy director of Israel’s Jaffe Center for Strategic Studies (see GSN, Oct. 18, 2002).

“Iran has obtained from North Korea the missile engine for the Taepodong 1” rocket, Kam told reporters, adding that the missile test comes three years after Iran obtained the engine and a year after it was first tested (see GSN, Dec. 9, 2002; Middle East Newsline, Jan. 28).

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U.S. Plans:  Pentagon Awards X-Band Radar Contract to Boeing

The U.S. Defense Department has awarded Boeing a $747.5 million contract to develop a sea-based X-Band Radar, the Pentagon announced yesterday (see GSN, July 19, 2002).

The floating radar will be part of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense program, according to Pentagon plans.

Defense officials want a test version of the radar completed by the fourth quarter of fiscal 2005.

Raytheon Electronic Systems, a Massachusetts subcontractor, will be mainly responsible for completing the order (Defense Department release, Jan. 27).

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Jordan:  Officials Say United States Will Supply Patriot System

The United States will send a Patriot missile defense system to Jordan in the event of a conflict with Iraq, the Financial Times reported today (see GSN, Jan. 21).

U.S. troops would accompany and operate the Patriot system, according to a U.S. official.

Meanwhile in Israel, the U.S. embassy said yesterday the Pentagon would withdraw three Patriot batteries from Israel after joint military exercises end there in early February (see GSN, Jan. 21).

“A number of Patriot missiles missed their targets in 1991 and caused significant damage in Israeli urban areas,” said Mouin Rabbani, a Middle East analyst in Jordan.  “It would therefore technically make sense to locate them in the relatively unpopulated deserts of eastern Jordan instead,” he added.

U.S. officials would not confirm the report (Nicolas Pelham, Financial Times, Jan. 28).

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