The United Kingdom has proposed compromise language for the latest draft resolution on Iraq that would give Baghdad more time to comply with inspections, diplomats said yesterday (see GSN, March 4).
The main thrust of the British proposal is to provide about a week for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to comply once the resolution is adopted, diplomats said. The compromise language would permit a “last turn around for Iraq” and require Hussein to admit his country still possessed weapons of mass destruction, according to a diplomat. The British proposal would create a “space” between the adoption of the resolution and any military action against Iraq, according to Reuters.
It is still unknown whether the British proposal would be incorporated into the current U.S.-British draft resolution or be issued separately, diplomats said. They noted that the United States opposes any change to the current draft resolution (Reuters/MSNBC.com, March 6).
A U.S. official said yesterday, however, that British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell might “noodle around” with some of the language in the draft resolution. The United States is not averse to having a deadline for Iraqi compliance included in the text, the U.S. official said.
“We’re not there yet,” a second U.S. official said. “But there are always ideas,” the official added (CNN.com, March 6).
The main purpose of the British proposal is to help increase support for a new resolution on Iraq among the still-undecided nonpermanent members of the U.N. Security Council, according to the London Times.
“The theory that the U.S. has the nine votes, the Brits are not buying,” a Security Council diplomat said. “They are looking for a way out,” the diplomat added (London Times, March 6).
British Prime Minister Tony Blair told the House of Commons yesterday that he was confident that such support could be obtained. Blair’s confidence is based, in part, on reports from the undecided council members that they could be persuaded to support a resolution that allowed more time and set clear disarmament tests for Hussein, the London Guardian reported (London Guardian, March 6).
France, Russia Harden Opposition
Meanwhile, France and Russia reiterated yesterday their willingness to use their authority as permanent Security Council members to block any resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq.
After a meeting yesterday in Paris, the French, German and Russian foreign ministers issued a joint statement saying they would not “let a proposed resolution pass that would authorize the use of force.”
The joint statement called for inspections to be accelerated and for inspectors to create a detailed plan to allow the Security Council to evaluate the pace and scale of Iraqi disarmament.
Russia is making a principled stand through its opposition to war on Iraq, said Vladimir Lukin, deputy speaker of the lower house of the Russian Parliament.
“There is a principle here, a basic principle, that if someone tries to wage war on their own account, without other states, without an international mandate, it means all the world is confusion and a wild jungle,” Lukin said (John Tagliabue, New York Times, March 6).
Explicit Veto Threat
France’s threat to use its veto against a draft Iraq resolution is more than just a show, according to the Baltimore Sun. In a meeting yesterday in The Hague with Dutch Foreign Minister Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, French Ambassador to the Netherlands Anne Gazeau-Secret said explicitly that her country would use its veto, de Hoop Scheffer said.
“I consider it a moment I will always remember,” said de Hoop Scheffer. “The message was that, ‘Yes, France would use its veto.’ She used the word ‘veto.’ I still try not to imagine that it could really happen. It would be historical. It would do great damage to the trans-Atlantic relationship and, I think, will be a real marker in history,” he added.
Gazeau-Secret, along with German Ambassador to the Netherlands Edmund Duckwitz, did not ask de Hoop Scheffer during their meeting if the Netherlands would support their position, de Hoop Scheffer said. Instead, the French and German diplomats only appeared to want to make clear they “they were not bluffing,” he said.
“I said, ‘You apparently have given up on a common European position,’” de Hoop Scheffer said. “I asked, ‘Do you really think that by threatening with a veto you’ll reach your objective of getting the American administration to wait months before a vote on another resolution?’ They simply stated their position again,” he added (Todd Richissin, Baltimore Sun, March 6).
Blix Interview
Meeting with U.N. journalists yesterday, chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix said Iraq has improved its cooperation since he drafted the report he will offer tomorrow to the U.N. Security Council (see GSN, Feb. 28).
In that report he writes, “Results in terms of disarmament have been very limited so far.” Blix told journalists yesterday, “Maybe I would not have written that sentence in light of what they have done subsequently,” a reference to the destruction of al-Samoud 2 missiles, the release of new documents, interviews with scientists and the digging up of R-400 shells, buried in 1991, that could contain biological weapons.
Blix may also present a preliminary report tomorrow on the “key remaining disarmament tasks,” as required by Security Council Resolution 1284. U.N. inspection officials have been working on an internal document creating 29 “clusters” of outstanding questions concerning Iraq’s various weapons programs, Blix said. “This would indicate what we plan to do and what we would expect the Iraqis to do rather precisely,” he said. He plans, according to the timeline in Resolution 1284, to submit his final report on the remaining tasks by March 27, weeks after the controversy over the U.S.-British-Spanish draft resolution is likely to come to a head.
Blix said disarmament was proceeding in varying degrees. The destruction of the al-Samoud 2 missiles, which began on Saturday, is “real disarmament,” with “weapons that can be used in war” being “destroyed in fairly large quantities.” He also welcomed an Iraqi initiative of digging up the R-400 gravity bombs to prove they are not hiding the weapons.
Blix said UNMOVIC has carried out seven “interviews completely on our terms,” meaning without minders or tape recorders. “We are not naive,” he added, referring to the impossibility of knowing whether rooms have been bugged or scientists have carried hidden tape recorders. Nevertheless, he said, inspectors have been getting “interesting results,” such as the names of people involved in the alleged destruction of chemical and biological weapons in 1991.
The claim by Iraq that it poured into the ground prohibited weapons after the Gulf War has become a focus of UNMOVIC’s work. Iraq admitted to having quantities of agents including anthrax and VX nerve gas, but claims it destroyed the weapons without international supervision.
“The big problem is that they claim they destroyed everything unilaterally in 1991,” said Blix. “It has been difficult to establish and get evidence of that contention.”
Blix said the destruction Iraq claims would be “actual disarmament, if it took place.” Iraqi officials say it is possible to test the soil in the area to verify their claims. While welcoming these efforts, Blix said U.N. “experts are somewhat skeptical” about proving the destruction took place and about measuring the quantities that might have been destroyed.
Blix said UNMOVIC and Iraqi authorities are working on ideas including closer examinations of facilities that could produce both civilian and military items and road checks around the country to seek mobile biological weapons laboratories the United States says exist.
Blix said Iraq’s cooperation is “clearly motivated by the threats around them. ... I hope it is not too late” (Jim Wurst, Global Security Newswire).
Powell Criticizes Iraqi Compliance
In a speech yesterday, Powell released new U.S. intelligence information that he said contradicted claims made by U.N. inspectors that Iraq has increased its compliance.
For example, while inspectors were overseeing the destruction of banned al-Samoud 2 missiles, U.S. intelligence had discovered that Iraq had begun to hide machinery that could “convert other kinds of engines” to power the same rockets, Powell said. While U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix said yesterday that Iraq had begun to allow inspectors to conduct private interviews with Iraqi scientists, Powell said Iraq had bugged the interview locations or the scientists themselves.
“The inspectors are very, very dedicated professionals,” Powell said during a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “These are terrific people,” he said, adding that any inadequacy of the inspections was not “any fault of theirs.”
The focus on various aspects of the inspection process, however, has distracted attention from the real issue — whether Iraq is complying fully with inspections and whether it has revealed all of its WMD efforts, Powell said.
“Has Saddam Hussein made a strategic, political decision to comply with the United Nations Security Council resolutions?” Powell asked. “That’s the question. There is no other question. Everything else is secondary or tertiary. That’s the issue,” he said (Weisman/Barringer, New York Times, March 6).
United States Boots Iraqi Diplomats
In New York, the United States has expelled two members of the Iraqi mission to the United Nations for conducting inappropriate activities.
Nazih Abdullatif Rahman and Yehia Naeem Suaoud have been asked to leave the United States by midnight tomorrow, according to Reuters.
“The two attaches were engaged in activities outside the scope of their official functions. Federal law enforcement authorities deemed the activities to be harmful to our national security,” the U.S. State Department said in a statement.
Iraq’s U.N. Ambassador Mohammed al-Douri defended the two men, saying they were only security guards.
“They (U.S. officials) are always talking about their activities being in contradiction of their diplomatic duties, but they are inside the mission all of the time and how do they have the time to do this?” al-Douri said (Reuters, March 6).
The United States has also asked about 60 countries to expel select Iraqi residents who could be possible agents preparing to attack U.S. interests, officials said. The United States has identified about 300 Iraqi people, some working as diplomats in Iraqi embassies, in 60 countries that it wants expelled, U.S. officials said. They added that the countries are expected to comply with the U.S. request (George Gedda, Associated Press/Yahoo.com, March 6).
United Nations
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan yesterday denied recent media reports that the United Nations had begun developing plans for administering a post-Hussein Iraq, saying the United Nations has “no mandate to make these plans.”
“There is no U.N. plan for managing or administering Iraq,” Annan said. “There is some preliminary thinking but there is no plan and no document,” he said.
What the United Nations has been doing is preparing to help deal with the humanitarian situation likely to arise after an attack on Iraq, Annan said. “We have been doing lots of good work and contingency planning for the humanitarian aspects and obviously some preliminary thinking on what would happen if there were to be war and the other aspects of post-conflict Iraq,” he said (U.N. release, March 5).
To help prepare for a possible humanitarian crisis following a war with Iraq, the Bush administration is preparing to ask the Security Council to transfer control of Iraq’s purchases of food and supplies from Baghdad to the United Nations.
White House military and civilian agencies have begun to arrange deliveries of food and medicine to Iraq under the assumption that existing networks could be disrupted during war, according to the Washington Post. To prevent delays of such deliveries, U.S. and British officials want the United Nations to take control of the spending of Iraq’s oil revenue, the Post reported.
The proposed resolution transferring spending authority to the United Nations is being designed to include “absolutely nothing controversial,” a U.S. official said. The resolution would cover financial arrangements, increase the number of border crossings for humanitarian shipments and modify U.N. monitoring (Peter Slevin, Washington Post, March 6).
Inspections
U.N. inspectors traveled to al-Taji today to continue supervising the destruction of al-Samoud 2 missiles, an Iraqi official said (see related GSN story, today; Reuters, March 6).
Yesterday, inspectors visited at least eight suspect Iraqi sites, according to an International Atomic Energy Agency press release.
Chemical experts from the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission inspected two plants at al-Qa Qaa complex.
UNMOVIC biological inspectors traveled to the Bashair Trading Company in Baghdad to assess the site’s involvement in Iraq obtaining mobile biological laboratories. They also inspected the Samarra East Airfield.
Inspectors based in Mosul traveled to Salahaddin University in Irbil. Inspectors also went to the Mosul Gas Electric Company.
IAEA inspectors visited two sites in central Baghdad — a state-owned trading company and the computer center of a state-owned bank. IAEA inspectors also conducted a radiation survey in an area southeast of Baghdad (IAEA release, March 5).
For further information, see:
UNMOVIC
IAEA Iraq Action Team
U.N. Resolution 1441
A federal rule implementing changes to the U.S. Commerce Control List on dual-use goods and technologies took effect yesterday (see GSN, March 6, 2002).
The changes revise list entries controlled for national security reasons in several categories as determined by the Wassenaar List of Dual-Use Goods and Technologies (see GSN, Dec. 30, 2002). The affected categories of goods and technologies include materials processing, electronics, computers, telecommunications and sensors and lasers.
The changes to the list were necessary to implement changes to the Wassenaar List that were finalized in May 2002 (Federal Register, March 5).
For further information, see:
Wassenaar Arrangement Web site
Participating States
Pentagon Executive Summary
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, 2002. About 100 inspectors are now based in the country at two facilities in Baghdad and Mosul. The following chart summarizes some of the inspectors’ recently reported activities.
| Date | Site | Activity | | March 6 | Al-Taji | UNMOVIC missile inspectors supervised the destruction of al-Samoud 2 missiles (see GSN, March 6) | | March 5 | Al-Qa Qaa | UNMOVIC chemical inspectors inspected two plants at the site (see GSN, March 6). | | Bashair Trading Company | UNMOVIC biological inspectors worked to assess the site’s role in Iraq obtaining mobile biological laboratories (see GSN, March 6). | | Samarra East Airfield | See GSN, March 6. | | Salahaddin University in Irbil | | Mosul Gas Electric Company | | State-owned trading company in central Baghdad | | Computer center of a state-owned bank in central Baghdad | | Area southeast of Baghdad | IAEA inspectors conducted a radiation survey (see GSN, March 6). | | Al-Taji | UNMOVIC missile inspectors supervised the destruction of al-Samoud 2 missiles (see GSN, March 5). | | Al-Mutasim | See GSN, March 5. | | Al-Aziziyah Airfield and Firing Range | | March 4 | Al-Taji | UNMOVIC missile inspectors supervised the destruction of al-Samoud 2 missiles and missile engines (see GSN, March 5). | | Al-Mutasim | UNMOVIC missile inspectors observed the destruction of a second casting chamber for al-Samoud 2 components (see GSN, March 5). | | Ibn Fernas Center in northern Baghdad | See GSN, March 5. | | Al-Basil Nawaran | | North Oil Company-owned oilfield in the northern city of Kirkuk | Inspectors conducted an aerial inspection (see GSN, March 5). | | Northern Region Customs | See GSN, March 5. | | March 3 | Al-Muthanna | UNMOVIC chemical inspectors observed the destruction of 14 empty 155 mm artillery shells, 10 of which had once been filled with mustard gas agent (see GSN, March 4). | | Mesopotamia State Company for Seeds in Baghdad | See GSN, March 4. | | Biology Department at the College of Science at Mosul University | | Al-Taji | UNMOVIC missile inspectors supervised the destruction of six al-Samoud 2 missiles (see GSN, March 4). | | Al-Mutasim | UNMOVIC missile inspectors completed the destruction of a casting chamber and began the destruction of a second casting chamber (see GSN, March 4). | | Al-Furat State Company | See GSN, March 4. | | Anti-aircraft missile component storage facility outside of Baghdad | | Construction agency related to spray irrigation systems | | Area north of Baghdad, near the town of Tarmya | IAEA inspectors conducted a radiation survey (see GSN, March 4). | | Chemical and explosives plant | See GSN, March 3. | | Rocket factory | | Al-Aziziya | | State-owned trading company in the Sadoon district of Baghdad | IAEA release, March 3. | | Private trading company in the Mansoor district of Baghdad | | National Chemical Plastics Industries plant in Baghdad | | March 2 | Al-Taji | UNMOVIC missile inspectors supervised the destruction of six al-Samoud 2 missiles (IAEA release, March 2). | | Al-Mutasim | UNMOVIC missile inspectors supervised the destruction of a casting chamber (IAEA release, March 2). | | Al-Aziziyah Airfield and Firing Range | UNMOVIC biological inspectors took samples from R-400 bombs at the site reported to have been filled with biological agents (IAEA release, March 2). | | Fallujah 2 | IAEA release, March 2. | | SA-2 missile support facility near Kadhimiya, Baghdad | | Private trading company in central Baghdad | | Area north of Baghdad | IAEA inspectors conducted a radiation survey (IAEA release, March 2). | | Feb. 21-28 | See GSN, Feb. 28. | |
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By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration today told Congress it would like a repeal a 9-year-old ban on research and development of low-yield nuclear weapons, provoking tough criticism from House Democrats.
The Pentagon included the request in its fiscal 2004 defense budget request. Within the request is a provision to repeal a 1994 law banning research and development of nuclear weapons with yields below five kilotons.
Democrats expressed concern the administration’s request would harm U.S. credibility internationally on arms control and nonproliferation issues.
“This ban has been a pillar of arms control for the past decade. I consider it completely irresponsible of us to be asking for this now considering the fact that we are attempting to disarm other people around the world,” said Representative Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.) in a hearing yesterday of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces.
“I think it has great potential to harm what little credibility this administration has left on arms control,” she said.
National Security Justification Offered
The text suggested the repeal is needed in part for national security reasons, to be able respond to challenges in international security, and to train young scientists.
An Energy Department official advocated the repeal today at the House hearing.
“I do support repealing the legislation,” said Everet Beckner, deputy administrator for defense programs of the National Nuclear Security Administration.
“The reason for that is primarily one of it’s causing us to stop some analyses from occurring, which is a natural extension of work that you would do at higher yields,” he said.
Tauscher asked whether research prevented by the ban has ever harmed the national security of the United States.
Beckner said, “I think to date it has not. But looking to the future I’m not certain.”
Under questioning, Beckner also said the U.S. national laboratories lately were having “great success” in making new hires from universities.
Anti-WMD Weapons
The Pentagon may seek the option of using the low-yield warheads, experts said, for striking deeply buried and hardened underground bunkers, and also possibly for striking enemy chemical and biological weapons sites, with the idea the extreme heat from the blast would destroy the dangerous properties of those weapons.
Critics have charged the blast from the weapons would be harmful to any nearby populations, would be questionably effective and would break the taboo of using nuclear weapons.
Beckner said further research is required to know whether the weapons might work as hoped against chemical and biological agents.
“We know that we have to understand much better in the future how you destroy chemical and biological agents, as opposed to disbursing them. … As we study the problem more fully, we realize how difficult it is, specifically to kill biological agents,” he said.
Possible International Implications
The requested repeal comes as the Bush administration is preparing for a possible war on Iraq in part because of Baghdad’s pursuit of nuclear weapons in violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The administration is also handling a crisis with North Korea, which withdrew from the treaty in January.
The United States is one of five countries allowed to possess nuclear weapons by the treaty, but those five agreed to make good faith efforts toward total nuclear disarmament over time.
Tauscher asked Beckner, “What do you think the ramifications would be if we repealed this ban to our credibility in the world that we are actually committed to arms control, to removing weapons systems not increasing systems, and that we are not kind of talking out of both sides of our mouths [when the United States] is attempting to prevent other people from getting nuclear weapons?”
Beckner said his job as a scientist was not to address such questions, but rather is to “assess the threat to the country and propose solutions.”
Representative Heather Wilson (R-N.M.), who released a controversial report last month urging the repeal, said she thought it was “an illusion to think that we would be safer if we don’t let people think about, explore things that we might find frightening, because they would never be able to come back to us with options” (see GSN, Feb. 14).
Ten Democratic senators recently sent a letter to Bush saying his administration’s nuclear policy “threatens the very foundation” of international arms control and the 33-year-old nuclear proliferation treaty, the Washington Times reported yesterday (see GSN, March 5).
By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate began yesterday to consider approving the U.S.-Russian Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, and legislators were continuing debate today as Democrats were expected to propose numerous conditions or declarations to add to the resolution of ratification (see GSN, Feb. 5).
The treaty requires that each country remove several thousand strategic nuclear warheads from their delivery platforms by 2012, but has been widely criticized for not doing more.
“None of the proposed amendments are expected to be passed,” said John Isaacs, president of the Council for a Livable World, as voting is expected to follow party lines and Democrats do not have a majority.
The treaty itself, though, should be approved overwhelmingly, he said, clearing the way for ratification by President George W. Bush. Two-thirds of senators present are required to approve a treaty before a president can ratify it.
“A Turning Point”
Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the agreement last May in Moscow, hailing it as a major arms control breakthrough (see GSN, May 24, 2002).
It has been widely criticized, however, by Republicans and Democrats for not requiring the destruction of any nuclear warheads or delivery systems, and otherwise leaving many potential threats in place. The treaty requires each country to remove all but a maximum of 2,200 strategic nuclear warheads from their delivery platforms — submarines, bombers and missiles — by the end of 2012.
The treaty establishes no timetable for implementation, includes no mechanisms for verification of compliance, and does not address potentially thousands of tactical nuclear weapons possessed by the two countries, critics say.
A senior Russian military official at a press conference earlier this month restated Russia’s satisfaction with the treaty because of the lack of requirements.
“We have sort of received a certain blank check in terms of keeping our strategic arms,” said Russia’s First Deputy Chief of the Armed Forces General Staff Yuri Baluyevsky, adding it would allow Russia to retain the strategic warheads “up to 10 or more years.”
Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.), a declared presidential candidate, published a Boston Globe commentary yesterday calling the agreement “full of holes.”
Senator Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), according to Isaacs, is considering offering a declaration urging Bush to negotiate a new treaty with Russia that would take effect when START I expires in 2007 and would require deep, verifiable and irreversible cuts in both countries’ stockpiles of strategic and nonstrategic nuclear warheads.
Most senators appear convinced, however, that while the treaty requires relatively little from either side compared to previous strategic arms control treaties, it nevertheless should be approved because it represents some progress in the U.S.-Russian arms reduction relationship.
“The Moscow Treaty represents a turning point” in U.S. strategic relations, said Senator Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.).
Russia insisted on the treaty after the United States declared it would withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which hampered U.S. missile defense plans (see GSN, June 13, 2002).
“I think all Republicans will vote against every provision [Democrats attempt to add], as will [Senator Joseph] Biden (D-Del.) and probably a few other votes,” said Isaacs. Because Senate Republicans have a majority, Isaacs expected Democrats to lose every vote to add conditions or declarations.
Threats Remain
Critics also fault the treaty for leaving potentially thousands of U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons on high alert.
Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) is expected to offer a declaration encouraging Bush to lower the alert status of deployed U.S. nuclear forces.
Nuclear strategy expert Bruce Blair, president of the Center for Defense Information said last week U.S. and Russian forces continue to target each other with thousands of nuclear weapons.
“The vast bulk of our strategic missiles still remain aimed at Russia, with thousands of them ready to fire within a couple of minutes,” he told a conference cosponsored by his organization.
Blair said the United States remains poised to strike “about 2,000 targets in Russia” and continues to probe Russian forces for holes through which the United States could strike.
He said Russia continues to maintain a force of nuclear weapons “on hair-trigger, aimed at the United States.”
Some critics have charged that the Moscow Treaty may actually decrease U.S. security, since the United States and Russia have both renounced the never-ratified START II. That treaty would have required eliminating all land-based, multiple warhead missiles, which U.S. officials historically said were a serious security concern.
The “president claims that his Moscow Treaty ‘will liquidate the legacy of the Cold War’ by eliminating thousands of nuclear arms left over from a bygone era when the United States and Russia faced each other across the nuclear divide. In reality, it does no such thing,” wrote Kerry.
“The treaty does not reduce the actual number of nuclear forces — it leaves these weapons and their lethal materials stockpiled across Russia in constant danger of falling to terrorists or rogue nations intent on doing great harm to the United States,” he wrote.
U.S. officials denied reports yesterday that President George W. Bush has resigned himself to the inevitability of a nuclear-armed North Korea, as reports emerged that some backchannel negotiations with North Korea are underway (see GSN, March 5).
“The position of the United States, along with our allies in the region, is just the opposite, that it is important to make certain that there is a denuclearized Korean Peninsula,” White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said yesterday.
Meanwhile, U.S. lawmakers and experts attacked the White House for not taking a more active role in dealing with Pyongyang.
“The White House continues to sit back and watch, playing down the threat and apparently playing for time, but time is not on our side,” said Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo.com, March. 6).
Several former Clinton administration officials said the White House must become more active in the situation.
“We cannot wait this out,” said former Defense Secretary William Perry. “In a few months, the North Koreans will have five or six nuclear bombs. That fundamentally changes the situation,” he added.
On Capitol Hill, Senator Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) said the White House must turn its attention toward Pyongyang.
“I am increasingly alarmed that this administration’s military and diplomatic fixation on waging war with Iraq is serving to overshadow and possibly eclipse the mounting crisis in North Korea,” Byrd said (Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post, March 6).
Fleischer said the White House remains firm in its determination not to hold direct talks with North Korea until Pyongyang abandons its nuclear aspirations.
The White House has focused on the “importance of working together in a multilateral fashion with China and Russia and Japan and South Korea. After all, they have a stake in this too,” he said (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo.com).
Backchannels Open
Nuclear experts from North Korea and the United States, however, did meet Feb. 13 in Berlin to discuss the nuclear crisis, according to the Financial Times.
Joel Wit, a senior fellow from the Center for Strategic and International Studies and another U.S. expert met with North Korean officials, according to the newspaper. The North Koreans reportedly asked for details on what kind of inspections the United States was seeking to verify that Pyongyang dismantled its nuclear program (Financial Times/BBC Monitoring, March 6).
In addition, Ra Jong-yil, a senior South Korean security adviser, met with a top North Korean official in Beijing last month, Seoul revealed today.
“What is confirmed is that Senior Adviser Ra met with someone from the North. However, the contact was nothing official and it didn’t have any agenda,” said presidential spokeswoman Song Kyoung-hee.
The meeting was intended to open “a dialogue channel,” she said (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo.com).
Top U.S. and Russian officials are set to sign an agreement next week on U.S. financial assistance that is needed to shut down three Russian plutonium-producing reactors (see GSN, Feb. 11).
U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham and Russian Atomic Energy Minster Alexander Rumyantsev will formalize the agreement in Vienna, ITAR-Tass reported.
An agreement had been reached several years ago but the parties did not sign it because Russia had to find an alternate energy source to replace the reactors, according to Linton Brooks, acting head of the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration.
A decision to build a facility for plutonium disposal is expected in the next year, ITAR-Tass reported.
“The problem is regularly in a negotiation process,” Rumyantsev said.
“The next round of the talks will be held in the nearest week or two. Under an accord of 2000, foreign participants, first of all the United States and the European Union, must finance the project. As concerns the ground where it could be built, this is most likely Siberia or the Urals — one of our so-called closed cities, because we shall be able to ensure there the most reliable safeguarding of nuclear activities,” Rumyantsev said (ITAR-Tass, March 5).
Russian military experts today completed a set of inspections of several U.S. strategic nuclear facilities (see GSN, Feb. 27). The inspections, conducted under the auspices of START, examined arms and equipment at facilities located in the Western United States, a Russian Defense Ministry spokesman said (Vladislav Kuznetsov, ITAR-Tass, March 6).
For further information, see:
START I Text and Associated Documents (U.S. Defense Department)
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In an effort to breath new life into its stalled smallpox immunization campaign, the Bush administration yesterday proposed a limited compensation plan for health workers and emergency personnel who are sickened by the vaccine (see GSN, Feb. 28).
“This removes the concern that a lot of people had, and we would expect that the numbers of people that would be vaccinated would increase,” said Jerome Hauer, acting assistant secretary of health and human services for public health preparedness. “This would provide them the level of comfort they need in the very small likelihood of an adverse event,” he added.
Only 12,404 health workers nationwide have been immunized so far in the program that once anticipated vaccinating 500,000, the Washington Post reported today.
Modeled after an existing law enforcement compensation program, the smallpox plan would pay $262,100 to medical workers or their families if the individual is permanently disabled or killed by the vaccine. The plan is also designed to pay lost wages to hospital workers who become sick, although those benefits would only kick in after five days of missed work and would be capped at $50,000.
“We appreciate they recognize it’s a problem, but there’s a long way to go from what we’re looking for,” said Chris Donnellan, associate director of government affairs for the American Nurses Association. Donnellan took particular exception to the caps on compensation and the administration’s refusal to pay the first five days of lost wages, according to the Post.
Other union officials agreed that the proposal was a positive first step, but said it was not enough.
“President Bush refused to listen to patients, physicians, nurses and health workers when he launched the smallpox program,” said Rob McGarrah, coordinator for workers’ compensation at the AFL-CIO. “Now, more than two months later, with the program in shambles, the administration has finally taken a step in the right direction,” he added (Ceci Connolly, Washington Post, March 6).
Local union officials supported some aspects of the plan, but said it should be federally funded and should not divert resources from other public health needs.
The provisions on lost wages and medical compensation are “totally inadequate. It should be full compensation, and it should start immediately,” said Charles Idelson, spokesman for the California Nurses Association.
The plan must be approved and funded by Congress, the Los Angeles Times reported (Vicki Kemper, Los Angeles Times, March 6).
The compensation could cost $20 million to $30 million, according to an administration official.
Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) plans to sponsor the legislation. Representative Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) has proposed a more liberal compensation plan in the House of Representatives.
Health officials renewed their call to medical workers last night.
“A smallpox release is possible and we therefore must prepare by offering vaccine to those most likely to respond,” Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said (Connolly, Washington Post).
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Despite knowing that it could be helping Iraq acquire chemical weapons capabilities, the United Kingdom gave insurance guarantees in 1995 to help build an Iraqi chemical plant, the London Guardian reported today.
The Fallujah 2 chemical plant was featured in U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell’s presentation to the U.N. Security Council last month (see GSN, Feb. 6).
While senior British officials wrote at the time that there was a “strong possibility” that the plant would be used to produce mustard gas, ministers still approved insurance guarantees for the British company Uhde, according to documents.
The plant cost more than 14 million pounds and the United Kingdom paid more than 300,000 pounds when the 1991 Gulf War interrupted payments.
Then-British trade minister Paul Channon concealed the arrangement from the United States and the British public, the Guardian reported. The United States was pushing for export controls related to chemical weapons production at the time, according to the Guardian.
Channon overrode objections and wrote, “A ban would do our other trade prospects in Iraq no good.”
Channon declined to comment to the Guardian.
A spokesman for Uhde’s German parent company said, “This was a normal plant for the production of chlorine and caustic soda. It could not produce other products” (Leigh/Hooper, London Guardian, March 6).
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Two U.S. companies, Boeing and Hughes Electronics, agreed yesterday to pay $32 million in fines to settle U.S. State Department charges that they illegally transferred sensitive space technologies to China that could have aided Beijing’s long-range missile development (see GSN, Jan. 3).
Under the settlement, the two companies will pay $20 million over the next seven years and allocate an additional $8 million to develop internal export control processes, according to the Washington Post. They have also agreed to hire an outside special compliance officer.
State had charged that Hughes Electronics, which Boeing purchased in 2000, had illegally provided China with detailed rocketry briefings to aid Beijing in determining the causes of two failed space launches in 1995 and 1996 (see GSN, Jan. 2). The U.S. companies had argued that their actions were governed at the time by Commerce Department regulations, which gave them more leeway in working with Chinese officials. In the settlement, however, Boeing and Hughes Electronics admitted they were at fault — a key element, according to a State official.
In a joint statement, Boeing and Hughes Electronics acknowledged the “nature and seriousness of the offenses charged by the Department of State, including the harm such offenses could cause to the security and foreign policy interests of the United States” (Renae Merle, Washington Post, March 6).
U.S. Representatives Christopher Cox (R-Calif.) and Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), who headed a 1998 congressional committee that investigated the information transfers to China, praised the settlement today.
“This steep fine and sobering result is another reminder that effectively preventing weapons proliferation requires vigilant enforcement of export controls on military technology,” Cox and Dicks said in a joint statement (Jeff Gerth, New York Times, March 6).
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