Threat Assessment:  Terrorists Present ‘Clear and Present Danger,” CIA Director Says

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON ð– The United States faces a “clear and present danger posed by terrorists,” CIA Director George Tenet told Congress this morning, citing suspected al-Qaeda plots to attack with chemical and radiological weapons (see GSN, Feb. 10).

He also said the national security environment is “significantly more complex than that of a year ago,” pointing to Iraq’s suspected weapons of mass destruction, its possible links to terrorism and North Korea’s reported efforts to produce highly enriched uranium (see GSN, Feb. 3).

Tenet and another official said some of the intelligence community’s resources were being stretched thin.

Tenet identified two other national security challenges that he said add to the complexity of the U.S. security situation.  They are, he said, vast areas of the world such as the Afghan-Pakistani border “where extremist movements find shelter and can win the breathing space to grow” and issues of hunger, disease and displacement, “that produce large populations of disaffected youth who are prime recruits for our extremist foes.”

While “not occupying space on the front pages,” those challenges “demand a constant level of scrutiny,” he said.

Tenet indicated, however, that a suspected al-Qaeda plot to attack the United States was the most pressing security concern, saying the United States last week raised its terrorist threat level “because of threat reporting from multiple sources with strong al-Qaeda ties” (see GSN, Feb. 7).

“I can tell you that the threat from al-Qaeda remains, even though we have made important strides in the war against terrorism,” he said.

Tenet appeared along with FBI Director Robert Mueller, Defense Intelligence Agency Director Vice Admiral Lowell Jacoby, and a Assistant Secretary of State Carl Fordat an annual hearing on worldwide threats before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (see GSN, Feb. 7, 2002).

FBI Director Mueller also said potential al-Qaeda terrorism was the most pressing threat to the United States and said hundreds of Muslim extremists linked to al-Qaeda were in the United States and that identifying cells of those extremists is the bureau’s greatest concern.

Questions of Limited Resources

Critics have raised concern that a possible war against Iraq, for which the Bush administration is preparing forces, could divert resources from efforts to address the international terrorist threat.

Asked whether U.S. intelligence capabilities are being stretched thin in light of the many national security concerns facing the United States, Tenet said the intelligence community was having some difficulty covering areas where terrorists might find safe haven.

“It’s worth thinking about that very, very hard, and what the resource implications are,” he said.

Jacoby said the DIA’s resources were overextended, citing the need to provide information on the U.S. “global war on terrorism,” Iraq, North Korea, as well as emerging crises.

“Our sustained level of crisis and operational commitment is straining personnel, equipment, and resources, and reducing time for ‘sustaining’ activities such as training, education, data base maintenance, and longer-term research and analysis,” he said.

Senator Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) said suspected al-Qaeda threats, suspected Iraqi WMD development and support for terrorism, and suspected North Korean nuclear weapons development, “are all interrelated.”

“I think we make a dangerous assumption of trying to grade one over the other, they are all equally extremely important as regards to our vital national security,” he said.

Suspected Chemical, Radiological Plots

Tenet said the CIA suspects there are plots to attack the United States using chemical and radiological weapons and said al-Qaeda was developing and refining various new means of attack.

“The information we have points to plots aimed at targets on two fronts, in the United States and on the Arabian Peninsula.  It points to plots timed to occur as early as the end of the Hajj, which occurs late this week.  And it points to plots that could include the use of a radiological dispersion device as well as poisons and chemicals,” he said.

The intelligence on the suspected plots “is not idle chatter” on the part of terrorists and their associates, he said. 

“It is the most specific we have seen, and it is consistent with both our knowledge of al-Qaeda doctrine and our knowledge of plots this network, and particularly its senior leadership, has been working on for years,” he said.

“If given the choice, al Qaeda terrorists will choose attacks that achieve multiple objectives — striking prominent landmarks, inflicting mass casualties, causing economic disruption, rallying support through shows of strength,” he said.

For further information, see:

Tenet’s prepared testimony

Mueller’s prepared testimony

Jacoby’s prepared testimony

Ford’s prepared testimony

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U.S. Response:  Residents Should Stockpile Supplies, Officials Say

U.S. families should prepare a three-day stockpile of food and water, along with other supplies, to have on hand in the event of a terrorist attack involving weapons of mass destruction, U.S. officials said yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 10).

In addition to having quantities of food set aside, families should also choose a room in their house where they will gather in the event of a WMD attack, and have available duct tape and plastic sheeting needed to seal it, officials said.  They also recommended that families have a stockpile of emergency items, including scissors, blankets, radios and spare batteries.

“We see information on citizen preparedness as prudent planning,” said Homeland Security Department spokesman Gordon Johndroe.  “It’s appropriate for citizens to be informed about how to respond to a terrorist attack, much as people have prepared for years to be ready for tornadoes, hurricanes or floods,” he said.

Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, U.S. officials have often been criticized for issuing vague terrorism threat alerts without providing the public with information on what steps to take to protect themselves, according to Washington Post.  The new intelligence information indicating that U.S. residents could be targeted with weapons of mass destruction has made it more difficult to balance the need to alert people to the threat without causing undue panic, terrorism experts said.

“While police departments and local governments have a menu of steps they take in reaction to the higher threat alerts, private citizens don’t, and there’s not a hell of a lot an ordinary citizen can do,” said Brian Jenkins, a Rand Corp. counterterrorism specialist.  “That creates consternation, maybe even an atmosphere of terror that terrorists want to create.  And so that leads the government now to try to offer advice to people,” he added.

U.S. officials have begun to study the public preparedness campaign Israel launched before the Gulf War, when families there were given supplies to protect themselves from possible Iraqi chemical weapons attacks, said Randall Larsen, director of the Anser Institute for Homeland Security.

“The Israelis learned one main task is psychologically preparing the population,” Larsen said.  “Americans need to be prepared the way the Israelis are.  The most important message we could send to terrorists after the next attack is get up and go to work the next morning,” he added.

U.S. officials have taken a number of actions to help increase homeland security since elevating the terrorism alert level Friday to “orange,” indicating a high risk of attack, according to the Post.  Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge held a conference call with 66 corporate executives in charge of U.S. energy facilities urging them to increase security.  Owners of large buildings have also been advised to secure air-intake equipment to prevent possible chemical attacks, the Post reported. 

“The announcement on Friday was a signal to private industry and to state and local officials that more actions need to be taken,” Johndroe said (John Mintz, Washington Post, Feb. 11).

New York Police on the Lookout

Meanwhile, New York police are investigating a possible terrorist plot involving individuals armed with “conventional or improvised weapons,” according to the New York Post.

An alert issued by the New York Police Department’s counterterrorism unit warns law enforcement officials to be aware of “unusual conditions and activities” that might occur before an attack.  Police should be prepared for the “release of toxic substances in populated and contained environments,” the alert said.

New York subway riders are concerned about a possible underground attack, the Post reported.

“Just keep your eyes open and your fingers crossed,” said Andrew Washington, a 28-year-old bank teller from Manhattan.  “That’s all we can do,” he added (Celona/Lisi, New York Post, Feb. 11).

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U.S. Response:  Bush Budget Targets WMD Threat, But Shortfalls Remain

By Bryan Bender
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Bush administration officials have described the White House’s fiscal 2004 budget request as placing a high premium on defending the United States from major terrorist attacks and preparing federal and state authorities to respond effectively to the growing threat of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons (see GSN, Feb. 3).

The budget plan calls for new spending in a variety of areas — including thwarting terrorists seeking to acquire weapons of mass destruction, preparing the public health system to better deal with a WMD attack and expanding the worldwide dragnet for operatives of the al-Qaeda terror network.

Lawmakers and nongovernmental experts, however, contend that while Bush’s $2.23 trillion budget proposal makes significant investments in defending against catastrophic terrorism, many of the White House’s other budget priorities — paramount among them additional income tax cuts — are draining federal resources away from unmet security needs.

They contend that the administration’s budget makes significant strides in reducing the threat of a WMD attack, but that those efforts still do not match the enormity of the problem. 

“We are doing everything in our power to protect the people and to prevent that day from ever happening,” Bush said when he unveiled his budget proposal Feb. 3 at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md.  “We know that our enemies have been working to acquire weapons of mass destruction.  That is a fact,” he said.

“We have every reason to believe that terrorists and outlaw regimes would turn these weapons on the United States,” he added.  “If their ambitions were ever realized, they would set out to inflict catastrophic harm on the United States, with many times the casualties of September the 11^th,” Bush said.

Biological Preparations

Combined with the specter of a possible war with Iraq to disarm President Saddam Hussein’s regime of its suspected chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs, the Bush administration is focusing renewed attention on the possibility that a successful WMD attack could be mounted inside U.S. borders.  The most worrisome scenario is a biological attack with the potential to inflict thousands if not millions of casualties.

To address this threat, one key new effort proposed in the new budget is called Project BioShield.  The effort includes $6 billion over the next few years “to quickly make available safer, and more effective vaccines and treatments against agents like smallpox, anthrax, botulinum toxin, ebola, and plague,” Bush told NIH scientists last week (see GSN, Jan. 30).

“Under Project BioShield, the government will have the spending authority to purchase these vaccines in huge amounts, sufficient to meet any emergency that may come,” Bush added.  “We’ll have better and safer smallpox vaccine, antibodies to treat botox, sophisticated devices that can confirm a case of anthrax infection almost instantly.  We will ensure that promising medicines are available for use in an emergency,” he said.

The Health and Human Services Department, headed by Secretary Tommy Thompson, is taking a more active role following the 2001 anthrax attacks to help the nation defend against a variety of bioterrorist threats.  In fiscal 2004, Thompson is asking Congress for $3.6 billion to counter bioterrorism.

While that figure does not reflect the millions in additional spending allocated immediately after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks — for security improvements and laboratory construction — “the budget significantly expands the research funding needed to develop vaccines and medicines that will make these biologic agents much less effective as weapons,” according to department budget documents.

“In addition to the substantial increase for this research, the administration will propose legislation that enables the National Institutes of Health to start and complete this work more quickly and efficiently,” the documents state.  “HHS will work closely with the Department of Homeland Security to ensure that its pharmaceutical stockpiles include proper amounts of effective drugs, vaccines, and other biologics,” said the documents.

Homeland Security Department

The main line of defense for the United States in the face of catastrophic terrorism is the newly established Homeland Security Department.  The agency, headed by Tom Ridge, is seeking $36.2 billion in the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, reflecting a 7.4 percent increase in domestic security spending.

The department — which includes the Customs Service, Immigration and Naturalization Service, Secret Service and Coast Guard, among other agencies — plans to allocate $829 million for “information analysis and infrastructure protection,” including a newly announced intelligence division that will serve as a clearing house for domestic and foreign intelligence related to homeland security (see GSN, Jan. 30).

Other programs, however, would suffer, according to some observers.  For example, spending for the Border Patrol would decrease by 1.5 percent to $18.1 billion.

“It’s largely flat,” said Steven Kosiak of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments of the Bush budget request.  The overall homeland security budget “raises concerns about whether there will have to be a trade-off between domestic security and other government priorities,” he said.

In some of the harshest criticism, Senator Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said the budget reflects the “quirky notion of the White House that you can improve homeland security without spending the dollars.  It makes no sense.”

Representative John Spratt (D-N.C.) agreed more money is needed for homeland security.  “The increase in homeland security, as I understand it, is about $4 billion.  It comes on top of a net homeland security provision of about $34 billion.  “It’s relatively small in the face of the magnitude of the problem,” he said.

“People who sat through more of the briefings than I have will tell you that there are all kinds of urgent unmet homeland security needs out there that they don’t talk about in public because they don’t want to invite attention to them.  So there are lots of vulnerabilities we have.  The question is, which ones get addressed?” Spratt asked.

Spratt, the senior Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said much of the shortfall is at the local level, where first responders would be on the front line of any mass casualty attack.

“If you go to the mayors, they’ll tell you they have yet to see the first cent for first responders, even in our large cities, which are likely to be vulnerable to a terrorist attack again,” he said in a Feb. 3 press briefing.  “So $4 billion, I don’t think we’ll have any trouble at all supporting that on our side.  We’ll probably try to plus it up a bit on our side,” Spratt said.

Securing Nuclear Materials

The Bush administration in recent weeks has also highlighted plans for the Energy Department to increase it efforts to stem the proliferation of WMD materials and expertise in the former Soviet Union by securing them at their source.

The department’s budget request calls for $1.3 billion to be spent on nuclear nonproliferation programs in Russia and neighboring countries, a 30 percent increase over fiscal 2003 (see GSN, Jan. 29).

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said the additional funding — what he described as the largest such investment to date — would help dispose of additional nuclear material in Russia, secure research facilities that contain radioactive materials, improve techniques to detect the smuggling of nuclear materials and new efforts to consolidate dangerous materials, among a variety of other priorities.

However, many believe the so-called Cooperative Threat Reduction program and related efforts to secure former Soviet materials are not moving quickly enough.

“The rate at which progress has been made is not enough to secure the materials in a short amount of time,” said Clifford Singer, director of the Arms Control, Disarmament and International Security program at the University of Illinois at Urbana.

The new budget does reflect that the administration is “headed in the right direction,” he added, “particularly the safeguarding of nuclear facilities” both in the former Soviet Union and in the United States. 

“You just can’t expect to be finished in three years no matter how much money you throw at it,” Singer cautioned.  “We’re talking about decades,” he said.

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Iraq:  France, Germany, Russia Call for Peaceful Solution

France, Germany and Russia yesterday issued a joint declaration calling for a peaceful solution to the Iraqi crisis and proposing a “substantial” increase to the number of U.N. inspectors in Iraq (see GSN, Feb. 10).

“There is still an alternative to war.  The use of force can only be considered as a last resort,” the declaration says.  “Russia, Germany and France are determined to ensure that everything possible is done to disarm Iraq peacefully,” it adds.

Noting that inspections have already produced some positive results, the three countries called for the continuation of inspections and “a substantial reinforcement of their human and technical capacities.”

Although France, Germany and Russia appear to have rejected the U.S. position of a possible attack on Iraq, they still called on Baghdad to “fully accept its responsibilities.”

“For the inspections to be completed, it is up to Iraq to actively cooperate with the IAEA  [International Atomic Energy Agency] and the UNMOVIC [U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission],” the declaration says (Russian Foreign Ministry release, Feb. 11).

Chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix said yesterday that increasing the number of inspectors operating within Iraq would not resolve the main problem of whether Iraqi President Saddam Hussein would fully cooperate with his disarmament responsibilities.

“The principal problem is not the number of inspectors but rather the active cooperation of the Iraqi side, as we have said many times,” Blix said (Mark Turner, Financial Times, Feb. 11).

The United Kingdom, long the staunchest U.S. ally on Washington’s calls for military action, was dismissive of yesterday’s proposal.

“If he [Hussein] maintains his refusal to cooperate, how will higher numbers help?  Lethal viruses can be produced in an area the size of the average living room,” British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said in a prepared speech to the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London.  “In the absence of Iraqi cooperation, even a thousandfold increase in UNMOVIC capabilities will not allow us to establish with any degree of confidence that Iraq has disarmed,” Straw added (Associated Press/MSNBC.com, Feb. 10).

NATO

In another sign of the divide between the United States and some of its European allies, NATO delayed the opening of a meeting held today in Brussels that was intended to resolve the dispute over the alliance’s plans to provided military aid to Turkey, according to the New York Times.  Belgium, France and Germany had blocked a U.S.-led move by NATO to begin planning for the defense of Turkey in the event of a war with Iraq. 

“There’s so much informal consultation going on it was felt we didn’t need the meeting,” a NATO official said, adding that there would probably be a formal session later today.

Benoit d’Aboville, the French ambassador to NATO, defended his country’ actions by saying there was no need to prepare for war when diplomatic solutions were still being pursued (Bernstein/Smith, New York Times, Feb. 11).

“It would be wrong to assume that the U.N. process and the inspections process are at the end of the road,” d’Aboville said.  “We assume that there is still space for diplomacy and we should use this space, and we don’t see any reason NATO should enforce a policy not in line with what we are trying to achieve,” he added.

U.S. President George W. Bush said he was “disappointed” at the action.

“I am disappointed that France would block NATO from helping a country like Turkey prepare,” Bush said.  “I think it affects the alliance in a negative way,” he added (Smith/Bernstein, New York Times, Feb. 11).

The actions of Belgium, France and Germany will have little impact on the preparations by the United States and its allies for a possible conflict with Iraq, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said.

“The planning’s going to go forward outside of NATO if necessary,” Rumsfeld said.  “In the event that the three stand out at the end, my guess is that the other 16 nations of NATO would form a coalition to provide that kind of assistance,” he added (London Times, Feb. 11).

Several other NATO members also criticized the Belgian-French-German move, saying it could disrupt the solidarity of the alliance.

“This is a matter of solidarity with a member country,” said Karel Kovanda, the Czech ambassador to NATO.  “Once you realize what Iraq might do in Turkey, you realize that Turkey has a reason to be worried.  And not to take Turkey’s worries very seriously raises important questions about the fundamental purpose of the alliance,” Kovanda added.

The United States might come out on top, and in an even stronger position, from this dispute with its European allies, according to some experts.

“If they futilely attempt to stop the United States from doing this and the United States is able to do it anyway, what does that say:  that the United States is too powerful for them to stop,” said Robert Kagan, the Brussels-based author of Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order (Smith/Bernstein, New York Times).

U-2 Flights

Hussein yesterday suggested that for inspectors to fly U-2 reconnaissance aircraft over Iraq, the United States and the United Kingdom should end their patrols in the no-fly zones covering sections of northern and southern Iraq.  Iraq, however, did not attach any conditions to its permission for the U-2 flights to occur, U.N. officials said.

“If the two countries are engaged in daily combat, how can we allow the U-2 aircraft to fly in our airspace to photograph our air defenses and provide information on them with the aim of destroying them?” Hussein said (David Usborne, London Independent, Feb. 11).

Inspections

U.N inspectors today have visited at least one suspect Iraqi site, according to the Associated Press.  Inspectors visited the 17th of Nissan factory in Baghdad, which produces components for the al-Samoud ballistic missile, according to the Iraqi Information Ministry (Associated Press/MSNBC.com, Feb. 10).

For further information, see:

UNMOVIC

IAEA Iraq Action Team

U.N. Resolution 1441

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Iraq II:  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
Feb. 11	17th of Nissan factory in Baghdad	See GSN, Feb. 11.
Feb. 8	Al-Rasheed Water Project in Baghdad	See GSN, Feb. 10.
	Al-Mutassim Training Institute in northwestern Baghdad
	Djerf al-Naddaf facility
	Mosul Technical Institute
	Baghdad area	IAEA inspectors conducted a motorized radiation survey (see GSN, Feb. 10).
	Baghdad	IAEA inspectors deployed two mobile air-sampling units at two locations (see GSN, Feb. 10).
Feb. 7	Al-Wathba Water Project in Baghdad	IAEA release, Feb. 7.
	Suwaira Stores Plant Protection Division
	Technical Institute
	Combined agricultural and ammunition storage site near al-Kut
	Al-Waziriyah
	Munitions store	IAEA release, Feb. 8.
	Samarra Drug Industry	UNMOVIC biological inspectors conducted an aerial inspection of the site (IAEA release, Feb. 7).
	Salah Ad Din State Company	UNMOVIC biological inspectors conducted an aerial inspection of the site (IAEA release, Feb. 7).
Jan. 31-Feb. 6	See GSN, Feb. 7.

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Iran:  Uranium Mining, Reprocessing, Could Lead to Nuclear Weapons

By David McGlinchey
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Iran’s announcement yesterday that it plans to develop its own source of nuclear material — and then intends to reprocess the spent fuel — paves the way for a nuclear weapons program, according to U.S. officials and nuclear analysts (see GSN, Feb. 10).

The effort described by officials could give Iran the ability to enrich uranium to weapon-grade levels or to produce plutonium, an element created during the operation of nuclear reactors.

“Iran’s ambitious and costly pursuit of a complete nuclear fuel cycle only makes sense if it’s in support of a nuclear weapons program,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said yesterday.

An Iranian program to produce fresh fuel and enrich uranium “would give them the option to make weapon-grade uranium,” Frank von Hippel chairman of the Federation of American Scientists and a Princeton University professor, told Global Security Newswire today.

The Associated Press yesterday quoted Gholamreza Aghazadeh, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, as saying that Tehran hopes “to process the spent fuel and provide fuel for plants inside the country soon.”

Iran’s state-run Islamic Republic News Agency today reported that a facility in the central city of Isfahan would process the uranium into “yellow cake,” the final stage before nuclear fuel pellets are produced.  Despite scheduled development assistance from China, that factory was built with domestic resources, according to an IRNA report.

“Reaching the production phase of the factory producing the ‘Yellow Cake’ … that produces the main substance needed in manufacturing nuclear fuel, is in itself a great scientific achievement of eventful significance,” said Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran’s representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Officials repeated yesterday’s assertion that Iran is producing the uranium only for energy purposes.

“The Islamic Republic’s policy is clear:  We want the nuclear know-how, but we are not interested in the proliferation of arms,” Aghazadeh said.

Mohamed ElBaradei, the U.N. atomic agency’s director general, has pushed his visit to Iran up a few days, to Feb. 22, and plans to meet with Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, according to a report today from Agence France-Presse.  IAEA officials said, however, that they were not surprised by yesterday’s announcement.  An agency official visited Iran’s uranium mine in 1992, according to IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming.

“We have been aware of this mine and the intentions of Iran to exploit it,” Fleming said.

Russian Nuclear Cooperation

While Moscow has agreed to supply nuclear fuel for the light-water reactor it is building for Iran at Bushehr, Tehran’s plans to develop its own uranium source will circumvent its obligation to return Bushehr’s spent fuel to Russia, Boucher said (see GSN, Dec. 16, 2002).

“It puts a goodly part of the nuclear fuel cycle outside of the control of whoever’s providing the reactor and the fuel.  The agreement as we understood it … had been that Russia would provide the fuel and take it back after it was used in the reactor,” Boucher said.

A planned Iranian-built nuclear reactor might be a heavy-water facility, from which plutonium can be produced more easily, according to von Hippel. 

“The situation is far from clear, but certainly ought to supply the [United States] with new arguments to persuade Russia to end its nuclear cooperation with Iran,” von Hippel said.

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North Korea:  China Rejects U.S. Appeal for Help on North Korea

Beijing today rebuffed U.S. requests that it be more involved in negotiations to resolve the Korean nuclear crisis, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Feb. 10).

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said the issue should be settled between Pyongyang and Washington.

“We believe the two parties are best able to solve the issue peacefully,” Zhang said.  “Although it touches upon regional security and nuclear proliferation, the key to resolving this issue is the resumption of dialogue between the U.S. and North Korea,” she added.

Qiyue would not say if her statement was a rejection of U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell’s Sunday appeal for more Chinese involvement in the nuclear standoff (Associated Press/Times of India, Feb. 11).

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Russia:  Moscow Agrees to End Plutonium Production

Moscow has approved a plan that would halt production of weapon-grade plutonium at three facilities by the end of 2006, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, Jan. 30).

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov authorized the closing of two nuclear reactors in Siberia by the end of 2005 and another by the end of 2006.  A 1997 agreement with the United States to end plutonium production has been delayed by disagreements over Washington’s financial commitment to the effort, AP reported.

The reactors currently provide heat and electricity for their surrounding communities, so the United States has agreed to contribute to the construction of replacement power facilities, according to AP (Associated Press/Newsday, Feb. 11).

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China:  Beijing Tests Missile With Multiple Warheads, Report Says

China has conducted a successful test of a Dongfeng 21 medium-range missile that was equipped with multiple warheads, Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun reported Saturday (see GSN, Sept. 25, 2002).

The Yomiuri Shimbun reported that the missile, which is believed to have been equipped with multiple-warhead technology, was launched in December (Hiroyuki Sugiyama, Yomiuri Shimbun, Feb. 8).

China denied conducting the tests or developing a missile to counter U.S. missile defenses.

“Concerning this question, there is nothing to confirm,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue.  “The reported allegations that some national defense construction of China’s is oriented against a certain weapons system is utterly groundless,” she added (AFX News, Feb. 11).

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Anthrax:  U.S. Media Outlets, Embassy, Receive Potential Hoaxes

Employees at two U.S. media outlets in New York, ABC News and the Manhattan offices of ESPN, have received potential anthrax hoax letters, according to reports today (see GSN, Oct. 18, 2002).

An ABC News employee is currently undergoing treatment after opening an envelope that contained a suspicious white powder, according to sources.  “It has not been confirmed it was anything definite,” an ABC staff member said yesterday (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo.com, Feb. 11).

An ESPN marketing executive received a threatening letter containing a white powder yesterday, according to the New York Post.  The handwritten letter, which criticized an ESPN advertisement and was mailed from New York, contained a note saying, “Just dance,” police said (Larry Celona, New York Post, Feb. 11).  

The executive was taken to Roosevelt Hospital, but displayed no symptoms of illness, police said.  Samples recovered from the letter have been sent to the New York municipal health department for further analysis, according to the New York Daily News.  Sources said, however, that the letter appeared to be a hoax (New York Daily News, Feb. 11).

U.S. Embassy Scare

Meanwhile, an official at the U.S. Embassy in Brunei opened what was later revealed to be an anthrax hoax letter, officials said today.  Chief of Mission Robert Pons discovered Sunday an envelope marked “Anthrax” and containing a white powder inside a second envelope, according to Agence France-Presse.  The powder was later determined to be harmless.

Whoever sent the hoax “made it clear that he wanted us to believe the white powder contained anthrax,” said U.S. Ambassador Gene Christy, according to the Borneo Bulletin (Agence France-Presse/The Straits Times, Feb. 11).

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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Food Safety:  Agriculture Terrorism Simulation Set For Today

U.S. officials and lawmakers are set to take part today in a simulation of a terrorist attack on the nation’s food supply, USA Today reported (see GSN, Sept. 9, 2002).

The simulation, named Silent Prairie, is scheduled to take place at the National Defense University in Washington.  Surgeon General Richard Carmona, Agriculture Department officials, FBI representatives, Federal Emergency Management Agency officials and 18 members of Congress are scheduled to attend the simulation.

The exercise will simulate the outbreak and spread of foot-and-mouth disease and the national response and consequences, USA Today reported.

“Foot-and-mouth disease is by far our biggest threat and worry,” said Maj. Gen. Gregory Gardner, Kansas adjutant general and director of emergency management, at a National Governors Association meeting last week.

An outbreak “would not be a local event,” said Thomas McGinn, assistant state veterinarian with the North Carolina Department of Agriculture.  The constant transportation of animals across state borders makes any disease a national issue, he said.

“Any kind of foreign animal disease, if it took only five days to detect, would be all over the country,” McGinn added.

RAND analysts have determined that no U.S. city has a food supply on hand to last more than seven days and “thousands of food processing plants have minimal biosecurity,” said Paul Williams, a veterinarian with Georgia’s Emergency Management Agency.

State budget shortfalls make this problem particularly tough to counter, McGinn said.

“Dollars needed for this area of homeland defense have yet to come forward,” he said (see GSN, Feb. 4; Anita Manning, USA Today, Feb. 11).

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