U.S. Response:  States Sacrifice to Pay Homeland Security Costs

State and local security officials are struggling to find ways to pay for homeland security initiatives, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, March 26).

California Governor Gray Davis, already facing a $30 billion deficit, was forced to spend an additional $100,000 a week beginning last month when he ordered 50 National Guardsmen to Los Angeles International Airport to reinforce security there after federal officials elevated the national threat level (see GSN, March 18).

“Things had to be done for safety,” said Bill Fujioka, Los Angeles’ chief administrative officer.  “But we don’t have too many options left,” he added.

State governments wary to skimp on homeland security funding are facing cutbacks in other departments.

“These responsibilities are unprecedented, and it’s an extra cost burden when none of us can absorb it,” said Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee.  “If you put extra personnel on bridges, you’re taking money from public schools or telling scholarship students they can’t go to college or taking medicine from elderly people.  We’re beyond the point of inconveniencing people.  We’re close to hurting them,” he added (Russakoff/Sanchez, Washington Post, April 1).

In a $75 billion supplemental defense budget request made last week, the Bush administration has requested an additional $4 billion for homeland security.  The proposal includes $1.1 billion for federal border and transportation security, $2 billion for the Office of Domestic Preparedness, $1.5 billion in grants for state and local equipment, training, and exercises, $450 million in grants to states to enhance critical infrastructure security, and $50 million for protection of major metropolitan areas.

A Democratic congressional effort to add $6.4 billion for homeland security to the supplemental budget bill was rejected today in the House Appropriations Committee (David Ruppe, Global Security Newswire, April 1).

However much is finally appropriated, determining how to allocate it to different states remains contentious, the Post reported.

New York Governor George Pataki and New York Senators Hilary Clinton (D) and Charles Schumer (D) have said they want a distribution system that takes into account the relative threat to each state.

“Any other formula defies logic and makes a mockery of the country’s counterterrorism efforts,” New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said yesterday.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, Congress used the USA Patriot Act to put a formula in place to distribute homeland security funding.  Some small states say they need help because their standing security forces are relatively small and border states are appealing for assistance from Washington.  The protection of U.S. borders is a federal responsibility, according to the Post (Russakoff/Sanchez, Washington Post).

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Iraq:  U.S. Reportedly Kills At Least Eight Civilians At Checkpoints; More

U.S.-British planes and missiles today hit Baghdad targets including one of President Saddam Hussein’s palaces, Iraq’s Olympic headquarters and a facility believed to be an air force officers’ club, the Associated Press reported.  Today’s explosions have been among the strongest since the war began (Hamza Hendawi, Associated Press/Yahoo.com, April 1).

Meanwhile U.S. President George W. Bush yesterday told the Iraqi people, in remarks interpreted and broadcast over the radio in Iraq, that U.S.-British forces will “end the reign of your oppressors” and “will not relent until your country is free.”

Speaking in Philadelphia, Bush said 20 years of life in a “nightmare world” have filled Iraqis with “fear and distrust” but that the United States and the United Kingdom will topple Hussein and bring “food and medicine and a better life” to Iraqis (Allen/Von Drehle, Washington Post, April 1).

Arab Countries Plan U.N. Vote

Following a meeting yesterday between U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and representatives of Arab countries, Arab League representative Yahya Mahmassani said the Arabs “underlined the situation is a question of occupation and invasion and there is a government recognized by the U.N. still operating in Baghdad.”

CNN reported that Arab countries are planning to seek a U.N. General Assembly resolution condemning the U.S.-led military operation and calling for the withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq (Berke/Foley, CNN.com, March 31).

ElBaradei Says IAEA “Sole Body” That Can Verify Iraqi Nuclear Disarmament

Following reports that the United States was seeking to set up its own nuclear weapons inspection process in Iraq, International Atomic Energy Agency head Mohamed ElBaradei said today that the IAEA alone is responsible for such inspections.

“The IAEA is the sole body with legal authority to verify Iraq’s nuclear disarmament,” ElBaradei said.  “The world has learned over three decades that only through impartial international inspections can credibility be generated.  Iraq is no exception to that requirement,” he said (Agence France-Presse, April 1).

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U.S. Response:  Official Defends Chemical, Biological Defense Budget Request

The U.S. Defense Department has requested $1.1 billion for chemical and biological defense equipment in the fiscal 2004 budget, National Defense reported this month (see GSN, Feb. 21).

That money is sufficient to meet the Pentagon’s needs, according to Anna Johnson-Winegar, deputy assistant to the secretary of defense for chemical and biological defense.

“There is a need to quell the panic and provide some sense of assurance to the masses,” Johnson-Winegar said.

More than $145 million, or 13 percent of the request, is slated for medical research on new vaccines, National Defense reported (see GSN, Jan. 30).

More than $440 million would be spent on detection and avoidance technologies, such as the Joint Bio Standoff Detector System, which tracks and analyzes clouds of released biological agents, and the Joint Biological Point Detection System, which can detect agents from 20 meters.  The Pentagon also plans to continue low-rate procurement of the Joint Chemical Agent Detector, a lightweight emerging technology to warn personnel of nearby chemical or biological weapons.

Twelve percent of the request, $127 million, is slated for individual chemical protection equipment.  The Pentagon also plans to support congressional appropriations for programs at the new Homeland Security Department, according to Johnson-Winegar.  In 2003, $420 million of the defense budget went to chemical and biological homeland security efforts, she said.

“While it is important to respond to the war fighter, it is also important to spin off appropriate technologies for civilian use,” Johnson-Winegar added (Elizabeth Book, National Defense, April 2003).

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Iran:  Tehran’s Nuclear Program on Par With North Korea’s, Bolton Says

The United States now views Iran’s burgeoning nuclear program as a threat equal to that of North Korea’s, U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton said yesterday (see GSN, March 14).

“In the aftermath of Iraq, dealing with the Iranian nuclear weapons program will be of equal importance as dealing with the North Korean nuclear weapons program,” Bolton said in a speech before the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in Washington.

“The estimate we have of how close the Iranians are to production of nuclear weapons grows closer each day,” Bolton said.

A team of International Atomic Energy Agency Inspectors found a number of uranium-enrichment centrifuges during a visit to Iran last month that could be put to use to develop weapons materials, Bolton said (see GSN, March 11).  “The IAEA was stunned by the sophistication of the Iranian effort,” he said.

Bolton also warned that Libya was attempting “to obtain facilities critical for a complete nuclear fuel cycle,” which would enable it to produce weapon-grade materials (see GSN, Sept. 6, 2002).

During the conference, U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice criticized the IAEA’s handling of Iran’s nuclear program, saying there is a need to improve international nonproliferation efforts.

“Once we have a better atmosphere after Iraq, one of the things we’re going to have to look at is how the world gets itself better organized to deal with issues concerning weapons of mass destruction,” Rice said (Tim Johnson, Knight Ridder/San Jose Mercury News, April 1).

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North Korea I:  U.S. Sanctions Pakistani Company Over Nuclear Aid

The United States has imposed sanctions on the A.Q. Khan Nuclear Research Institute, a major Pakistani nuclear research facility, for providing nuclear assistance to North Korea in apparent exchange for Nodong ballistic missiles, Bush administration officials said yesterday (see GSN, March 31).

The institute has been charged with “material contribution to the efforts of a foreign country, person or entity of proliferation concern, to use, acquire, design, develop and or secure weapons of mass destruction,” according to a statement released by the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad.  The statement did not identify the country that had been aided.

The United States decided to levy the sanctions because Pakistan provided North Korea with uranium-enrichment technologies, and received North Korean-built missiles in return, according to the New York Times.  The institute, and not Pakistan itself, was sanctioned in order to avoid embarrassing Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the Times reported.

“We couldn’t ignore this, given the enormous damage it did to our effort to keep North Korea from expanding its arsenal,” said a senior Bush administration official.  “But there was a lot of pressure not to embarrass Musharraf,” who may have been unaware of the exchange, the official said, adding that the move “comes at a moment when people aren’t going to pay a lot of attention” (David Sanger, New York Times, April 1).

Pakistan today denied that it had provided nuclear assistance to any country.

“This is absolutely baseless.  We ask America to come up with whatever evidence they have to prove what they are saying,” Pakistani Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said.  “We have neither imported and/or exported nuclear technology to anyone,” Ahmed said (CNN.com, April 1).

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North Korea II:  Iraq Conflict Could Push North Korean Nuclear Aspirations

The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq could push North Korea to build a nuclear weapon, according to a senior Russian official, Reuters reported today (see GSN, March 31).

“The Iraq situation, unfortunately, is prompting the North Koreans to strengthen their defenses,” Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov said.

He said that while the Iraq conflict pushes Pyongyang toward nuclear weapons, Washington’s refusal to engage North Korea in direct negotiations “hugely increases that danger.”

Losyukov called for U.S.-North Korean talks.

“No contacts can replace direct dialogue between North Korea and the United States.  There is a defined set of questions that only these two sides can solve,” he added (Reuters, Apr. 1).

U.S. and British officials are scheduled to meet today in Washington to discuss their approach toward Pyongyang, the London Independent reported today.

The United Kingdom will not back military action, according to the Independent.  The countries are likely to seek a U.N. statement that urges North Korea to reconsider its withdrawal from the Nonproliferation Treaty.

At the talks, British Foreign Office minister Bill Rammell will meet Assistant U.S. Secretary of State James Kelly and Undersecretary of State John Bolton (Andrew Grice, London Independent, Apr. 1).

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Iran:  Tehran’s Nuclear Program on Par With North Korea’s, Bolton Says

The United States now views Iran’s burgeoning nuclear program as a threat equal to that of North Korea’s, U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton said yesterday (see GSN, March 14).

“In the aftermath of Iraq, dealing with the Iranian nuclear weapons program will be of equal importance as dealing with the North Korean nuclear weapons program,” Bolton said in a speech before the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in Washington.

“The estimate we have of how close the Iranians are to production of nuclear weapons grows closer each day,” Bolton said.

A team of International Atomic Energy Agency Inspectors found a number of uranium-enrichment centrifuges during a visit to Iran last month that could be put to use to develop weapons materials, Bolton said (see GSN, March 11).  “The IAEA was stunned by the sophistication of the Iranian effort,” he said.

Bolton also warned that Libya was attempting “to obtain facilities critical for a complete nuclear fuel cycle,” which would enable it to produce weapon-grade materials (see GSN, Sept. 6, 2002).

During the conference, U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice criticized the IAEA’s handling of Iran’s nuclear program, saying there is a need to improve international nonproliferation efforts.

“Once we have a better atmosphere after Iraq, one of the things we’re going to have to look at is how the world gets itself better organized to deal with issues concerning weapons of mass destruction,” Rice said (Tim Johnson, Knight Ridder/San Jose Mercury News, April 1).

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Smallpox:  House Rejects White House Vaccine Compensation Plan

By David McGlinchey
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House of Representatives yesterday voted down a Republican effort, pushed by the White House, to provide compensation for health workers and first responders sickened or killed by the smallpox vaccine (see GSN, Mar. 31).

House Republicans said the bill, sponsored by Representative Richard Burr (R-N.C.), was needed to defend the United States from a terrorist attack using the smallpox virus.

Under special rules the bill needed a two-thirds majority, but failed to get support from even half the House, losing 206-184.

Democratic representatives and several unions said the bill fell short of what is needed to reassure volunteers and to encourage them to take part in the national immunization program.  The program has been stalled by emergency workers’ concerns about the potentially dangerous vaccine and the lack of compensation for volunteers who suffer from side effects.

The Republican bill would have limited lifetime compensation to $262,100 per person.  Representatives Lois Capps (D-Calif.) and Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) are backing a bill that does not contain a lifetime limit for lost wages but limits annual compensation to $75,000.

Waxman said yesterday’s vote leads him to believe that his bill would pass the House.

First responders “have told us that they want confidence before they are going roll up their sleeves and take this vaccine … [the Republican] bill does not give them the confidence and that is why we stand in opposition to this bill,” said Capps, who is also a registered nurse.

Many health officials expected 500,000 health workers to have received the vaccine by this point in the program, but fewer than 26,000 volunteers have turned out, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“We do not need tens of thousands of Americans to respond, we need hundreds of thousands, if not millions … the legislation before us today, which was requested by the administration, provides incentive for such individuals to roll up their sleeves and get a shot,” House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Billy Tauzin (R-La.) said.

On the House floor, Democrats voiced their opposition to a lack of funding for the bill, the cap on the compensation for lost wages, and a Republican effort to pass the bill under a suspension of House rules.  The suspension of the rules did not allow for amendments.

“I can’t understand why they did this under suspension of the rules,” Waxman told Global Security Newswire.  Representatives had been negotiating the issue before the vote, and Waxman said he hoped the two sides would begin to work again on a compromise version of the bill.

“They were either unwilling or unable to move off a position that has now been rejected,” he said.

Democrats said the compensation issue should have been resolved by now, and yesterday’s vote only pushed it back further.

“We are told that the administration sent this bill over here as an emergency.  Yet I think they know that this bill is likely to be defeated because of the way it is being dealt with.  If it is an emergency, ought we not to work together so that we can pass a bill?” asked Representative Ted Strickland (D-Ohio).

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North Korea:  Pyongyang Tests Third Cruise Missile This Year

North Korea has tested a short-range cruise missile, the third such test conducted since late February, a Japanese Defense Ministry official said today (see GSN, March 10).

The test occurred at 10:15 a.m. Japanese time, with the missile landing in the Yellow Sea off North Korea’s western coast, a Japanese Defense Ministry official said.  “Considering the direction of the missile fired, it was no threat to our country,” the Japanese official said.

U.S. officials today confirmed the launch of what one described as “an antiship missile,” adding that the launch was cause for little concern.  They noted, however, that North Korea had provided advance notice of the two earlier tests this year, but did not warn of today’s launch (Teruaki Ueno, Reuters, April 1).

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United States:  Patriot Intercepts Iraqi Missile

A Patriot missile defense system today intercepted an Iraqi missile fired toward Kuwait, ITAR-Tass reported (see GSN, March 31).  It was the 19th missile Iraq has fired into Kuwait since the war began, according to ITAR-Tass (ITAR-Tass, April 1).

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European Plans:  Missile Defense Plans Progressing

European defense officials are moving forward to plan a joint, continental ballistic missile defense system, Aviation Week & Space Technology reported yesterday (see GSN, Dec. 20, 2002).

France is pushing the effort and the United Kingdom is involved also, supplementing its agreement this year to allow the United States to upgrade a U.S. radar facility on British soil (see GSN, Jan. 29).  This month France initiated an early warning satellite demonstration program that could cost up to $80 million and is expected to be launched around 2006.  The satellite system is considered a first step to developing a more sophisticated, operational early warning system.

France is also seeking to work with other European nations to develop a medium-range ground radar system, Aviation Week reported.

Last year, NATO approved an investigation of a potential system to defend Europe against missile attack, according to Aviation Week (see GSN, Nov. 26, 2002).

European countries are also investigating a variety of medium-range and extended missile defense systems and interceptors.  France and Italy are developing the SAMP-T/Aster Block 2, which would protect against older, less technologically advanced missiles.  Germany and Italy are involved with Washington in developing the Medium Extended Air Defense System.

Many European missile defense efforts, however, are still in early stages, according to officials.

“First we have to define the menace we want to defend against, then we can determine the system we want to use,” said Michael Petre, a senior French defense procurement official (Taverna/Nativi, Aviation Week & Space Technology, March 31).

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Disarmament Commission:  U.N. Conference Hears Warning Against Lack of Action

By Jim Wurst
Global Security Newswire

UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. Disarmament Commission began its annual session yesterday with a warning from Undersecretary General for Disarmament Jayantha Dhanapala against a “creeping retreat from nuclear disarmament.”

While noting some progress in nuclear disarmament, such as the U.S.-Russian Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, Dhanapala said, “The actual record in achieving the verified dismantlement and destruction of nuclear weapons inspires little confidence.”  That record, according to Dhanapala, includes a lack of transparency in weapons programs, the development of new nuclear weapons and new targeting strategies and “aggressive counterproliferation purposes [that] further undermines” nuclear disarmament “while creating new incentives for clandestine programs.”  He also called actions by North Korea, India and Pakistan “challenges to global nonproliferation norms.”

The commission is a deliberative body of the General Assembly that establishes guidelines, or “disarmament norms,” as commission Chairman Mario Maiolini of Italy and others call them.  It differs from the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva in that the Geneva conference is empowered to negotiate legally binding treaties, such as the Chemical Weapons Convention, while the commission’s guidelines serve only as voluntary recommendations (see GSN, Feb. 18).

The commission has produced guidelines on the transfer of conventional arms and on the creation of nuclear weapon-free zones.  The last guidelines agreed to by the commission were in 1999.

Agenda items this year are “ways and means to achieve nuclear disarmament” and “practical confidence-building measures in the field of conventional arms.”   The commission is working from lengthy documents on both issues that could serve as the core for future agreements. 

“The commission makes its greatest contributions in the realm of ideas,” Dhanapala said.  “It serves as a seedbed from which global disarmament norms may ultimately emerge.” 

Maiolini said the commission meets “amid a troubled international environment and persisting concerns over the future of multilateral disarmament efforts.”  He called on delegates to work toward “a renewal or rebirth of the forces that bind nations together in a common destiny.”

The war in Iraq is not on the commission’s agenda, but a key justification of the United States for invading  — eliminating Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction — came under criticism, as did the U.S. and allied attitudes toward nuclear weapons. 

Indonesian Deputy Ambassador Mochammad Hidayat, speaking on behalf of the Nonaligned Movement, said the movement “expresses its strong concern at the growing resort to unilateralism and unilaterally imposed prescriptions [in] addressing disarmament and international security issues.”  He added, “We reiterate our deep concern over the slow pace of progress towards nuclear disarmament,” citing NATO’s strategic doctrine that sets out “rationales for the use of nuclear weapons” and the U.S. Nuclear Posture Review that envisions the development of new nuclear weapons and the use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states.

Speaking for the European Union, Greek Ambassador Adamantios Vasilakis said, “The EU reaffirms its commitment to legally binding instruments on arms reduction with provisions ensuring irreversibility, verification and transparency.”  He said the EU wants to see progress in nuclear disarmament based on the framework of the 2000 Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference final document, including the entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, negotiations on a ban on weapons grade fissile materials and the strengthening of safeguards on nuclear facilities.

The commission concludes April 17.  Click here for more on yesterday’s opening session.

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