Iraq:  United States Enlists Former U.N. Inspectors to Aid in WMD Search

Diplomatic sources have said former senior U.N. inspector Charles Duelfer is currently in Baghdad heading the U.S. effort to find Iraqi stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, the Washington Times reported today (see GSN, April 17).

U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice chose Duelfer, a former State Department official, to head the search, according to the sources.  Neither State nor the United Nations would confirm Duelfer’s presence in Baghdad (Stewart Stogel, Washington Times, April 18).  From 1993 to 2000, Duelfer was deputy executive chairman of the U.N. Special Commission on Iraq, the inspection agency that preceded the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission that pulled out of Iraq just before the war began (GSN, April 18).

The United States has enlisted about 10 former U.N. inspectors to aid its efforts to find evidence of Iraqi WMD efforts, according to a U.S. Defense Department official.

The former inspectors have been “applying their experience and expertise to the effort,” the Pentagon official said, adding that some are currently in Iraq and other are preparing to travel there.  The official would not identify which inspectors are working for the United States, except to say that some are from the United States and some are possibly from the United Kingdom.

The former inspectors can provide the U.S. military, currently searching for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, with their expertise of Iraq programs, and can add extra legitimacy to the U.S. search, said Amy Smithson, director of the Chemical and Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Project at the Henry L. Stimson Center.

“This is a mammoth effort.  They need all the help they can get,” Smithson said.  “Not only are these people well familiar with the tricks that the Iraqi regime has used in the past, but they know the programs, they know the weapons, they know the individuals who were involved, and can really be a valuable asset,” she said (Will Dunham, Reuters, April 17).

Meanwhile, FBI agents in Baghdad have begun examining the records of Iraq’s intelligence services, Bush administration officials said yesterday.  Other U.S. officials have begun interviewing former Iraqi intelligence agents that worked for Iraq’s domestic and foreign intelligence agencies.

“FBI agents are now assisting in the review of documents obtained from Iraq in an effort to locate and extract any potentially valuable intelligence information,” FBI Director Robert Mueller said (Bryan Bender, Boston Globe, April 18).

U.S. special forces yesterday captured former Iraqi intelligence chief Barzan Ibrahim Hasan al-Tikriti during a raid in Baghdad, according to Reuters.  Barzan, a half-brother of ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, has “extensive knowledge of the regime’s inner working,” the U.S. military said (Reuters/Financial Times, April 17).

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday that U.S. forces were unlikely to find Iraqi WMD without assistance from Iraqis.

“I don’t think we’ll discover anything, myself,” Rumsfeld said.  “I think what will happen is we’ll discover people who will tell us where to go find it.  It is not like a treasure hunt where you just run around looking everywhere, hoping you find something,” he added (Associated Press/Jerusalem Post, April 18).

U.N. Role

In New York, several key U.N. Security Council members indicated yesterday that the United Nations must be given a broader role in the post-Hussein Iraq before they would agree to lift sanctions against Iraq, according to the Washington Post.

The debate within the Security Council on ending the sanctions, which the United States has called for, could delay any type of agreement on the issue until at least June 3, when the latest U.N. mandate allowing Iraqi oil exports expires, U.N. diplomats said.

Although U.S. President George W. Bush has called for an end to the sanctions, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said the sanctions could not be lifted until a number of U.N.-set conditions have been met, including a finding that Iraq is free of weapons of mass destruction.

“This decision cannot be automatic,” Ivanov said.  “For the Security Council to take this decision we need to be certain whether Iraq has weapons of mass destruction or not,” he added.

Russia and other Security Council members have insisted that U.N. inspectors make the final determination of Iraq’s WMD disarmament, the Post reported.  The Pentagon, however, has balked at the idea of involving the inspectors.

U.S. and British officials have said they will attempt to build momentum within the Security Council for a common approach toward Iraq with a series of “easily resolvable” issues.

Such an approach could begin with a resolution setting out a list of principles that would govern a new Iraqi government, according to the Post.  After reaching an agreement on these simpler issues, the council would then move on to more controversial ones, such as the role of U.N. inspectors and the ending of sanctions.

Even with the current dispute over the sanctions, there is more agreement within the Security Council now than in March, when the United States and the United Kingdom attempted to obtain a resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq, U.N. diplomats said.  The change in mood is based, in part, on the attempts by some countries that opposed the war to rebuild their relationships with the United States, the Post reported.

“The public relations aspects look rather different this time,” a Security Council diplomat said.  “I don’t think they can hold the Iraqi economy hostage.  But they are not just going to hand it all over to the coalition,” the diplomat said (Lynch/McCartney, Washington Post, April 18).

Chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix has said U.N. inspectors could return to Iraq within “about two weeks” if ordered to do so by the United Nations.

“We are ready to go in whenever the Security Council so decides,” Blix said.  The inspectors “are still on our contracts, they are home in their countries, and it would take about two weeks to get them back to Baghdad,” he said.

The United States will need the U.N. inspectors to legitimize their efforts to find Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, which they have not yet accomplished, Blix said.

“So far they have not found any,” Blix said.  “I think at some stage they would like to have some credible international verification of what they find,” he added (Reuters, April 18).

If U.N. inspectors do resume their work in Iraq, they must be allowed to operate independently, Blix said.

“We’re not dogs on a leash,” Blix said.  “We have a mandate from the Security Council, and credibility requires that we have independent judgment,” he said (Associated Press II/Jerusalem Post, April 18).

Some Arab experts have raised the idea that the United States could attempt to plant evidence of Iraqi WMD efforts during its search, increasing the need for involvement by U.N. inspectors.

“What will stop the United States from bringing chemical weapons from outside Iraq and moving them into the country to prove their longstanding claims?” said Imad Jadd, international relations specialist at the al-Ahram Center for Studies, based in Egypt.  “They can do it because they are the authority now that is conducting the search,” Jadd said (Cilina Nasser, Al-Jazeera, April 18).

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North Korea:  Spent-Fuel Reprocessing Underway, Pyongyang Announces

North Korea announced today that it is “successfully reprocessing 8,000 spent fuel rods” to extract plutonium that could be used for nuclear weapons, the New York Times reported (see GSN, April 17).

The state-run Korean Central News Agency made the announcement, though U.S. and South Korean officials have said this week there is no evidence reprocessing has begun.  U.S. officials did not comment on today’s development, according to the Times.

The news broke as U.S., South Korean and Japanese officials met in Washington to discuss a negotiating strategy for next week’s talks with China and North Korea (Don Kirk, New York Times, April 18).

China recently promised to take an active role in the talks, a position that persuaded Washington to agree to the meetings, Reuters reported today.

Chinese officials told their U.S. counterparts that “we’re very serious about this and we will be a substantive partner,” according to a senior U.S. official.

U.S. President George W. Bush was concerned that China would get U.S. and North Korean diplomats in the same room, convene the meeting and then leave.

“If they (Chinese) got up and left the room and never came back, that would be a problem,” the official added.

Washington characterized the meetings, scheduled to take place next week, as an exchange of ideas.

“There are not going to be any substantive discussions until this conference expands to include at least South Korea and Japan,” the senior official said.  Washington is also concerned that Pyongyang will try to use the negotiations to arrange a bilateral meeting with the United States.

“If the North Koreans are coming thinking the only subject to discuss is how to move this to be a smaller conference, from three to two [participants], then it’ll be a real short meeting,” according to the official.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said the meeting will be “an opportunity to lower tensions … And I hope the North Koreans approach this meeting in that sphere” (Carol Giacomo, Reuters, April 18).

China’s ambassador to South Korea, however, said that the difference in opinion lies between the United States and North Korea.

“I don’t think China plans to mediate,” Ambassador Li Bin said yesterday.  “Although China can play a constructive role, it is the two parties involved that should solve the problem.  How much the problem could be resolved is up to how the two parties work,” Li added (Jae-suk Yoo, Associated Press/Sacramento Bee, April 18).

A diplomatic source in Beijing warned that China would most likely avoid getting too deeply involved in the talks.

“China’s role is likely to be significant, but it doesn’t want to get directly involved in the brawl,” he added.

Another Western diplomat believes that China will try to keep the two parties at the table long enough for a breakthrough to be reached.

“There’s a deep sense of mistrust between the parties which could preclude a settlement,” said the diplomat.  “If the Chinese can keep them at the table long enough, it might break the stalemate,” the diplomat added.

The diplomat dismissed some Chinese assertions that it was only bringing the two rivals together.

“The possibility of a war on the Korean Peninsula has become too real for the Chinese to ignore,” he added.

Fearing a U.S. military strike against North Korea, Chinese defense officials have asked President Hu Jintao to increase military assistance to Pyongyang, United Press International reported today.

“Senior Chinese military officials are very concerned about losing the North Korean buffer zone,” said one Asian diplomat, adding  “After the war in Iraq, there are fears of a pre-emptive U.S. military strike on North Korea” (Christian Wade, United Press International, April 18).

South Korea’s ambassador to the United States, Han Sung-joo, said today that any deal that comes from these talks will be more detailed than the 1994 Agreed Framework.

“This is going to be an arduous, long process.  It’s not going to be a cakewalk,” Han said (Jae-suk Yoo, Associated Press/Sacramento Bee).

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South Asia:  Pakistan Has Not Stopped Militants Despite U.S. Pleas, Official Says

The United States has failed to persuade Pakistan to stop militants from attacking Indian-controlled sections of Kashmir — a potential flashpoint between the two nuclear-armed rivals, a senior U.S. State Department official said yesterday (see GSN, April 17).

“The United States for some time has urged the Pakistani government to stop cross-border terrorism across the line of control,” said Richard Haass, the State Department’s director for policy planning.  “I will be honest:  We have not succeeded,” he said.

Although Pakistan pledged last year to prevent militants from crossing into Kashmir from its side of the border, India has claimed that Pakistan continues to support cross-border terrorism, according to Reuters.

“We are at times disappointed and frustrated with that reality,” Haass said.  “It will continue to be a major diplomatic priority for the United States, something that continues, that we talk about,” he added (Reuters/Times of India, April 18).

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage is expected to visit India and Pakistan early next month to help defuse tensions between the two countries (C. Raja Mohan, The Hindu, April 17).

Meanwhile, Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee is set address a public rally in Kashmir today, the first time in 16 years that an Indian prime minister has made a public address in the disputed region, according to the London Times.

Security has been tightened at the summer capital of Srinagar in preparation for Vajpayee’s speech, which is expected to focus on economic issues in the region.  As many as 20,000 people are expected to attend the address (Ian Mackinnon, London Times, April 18).

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Kyrgyzstan:  Russia to Assist in Ending Uranium Production

Russia plans to help the former Soviet state of Kyrgyzstan close its uranium-production facilities and empty its remaining uranium stockpiles, Agence France-Presse reported today.  Russia’s assistance will include preparing technical data and funding for the project, which is expected to cost up to $9 million, Russian Atomic Energy Ministry officials said (Agence France-Presse, April 18).

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U.S. Response:  Health Plans Search for Bioterror Symptoms

By Marilyn Werber Serafini

National Journal

WASHINGTON — In matters of homeland security, experts on all sides have long been saying that more cooperation is needed among various levels of government and the private sector in preventing and coping with terrorist attacks (see GSN, April 15).

It now looks as if a pilot program of teamwork between the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and some private health plans is bearing fruit.

The CDC and a handful of health plans are about a year into a collaborative project whose aim is earlier and better detection of potential bioterrorism attacks-spotting disease outbreaks before emergency rooms are suddenly flooded with victims.  In essence, the streams of data coming into health insurance plans-phone calls to nurse-help lines and doctors’ diagnoses, for example-are sifted by computer programs to look for disease and symptom patterns sorted by ZIP code.  Such a system may already be proving valuable in tracking early signs of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, as the dreaded and sometimes-deadly illness begins creeping into the United States.

The CDC awarded a grant of $1.2 million about a year ago to Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, a large health plan that serves New England, to begin collecting and analyzing information about certain respiratory and gastrointestinal symptoms that might mark the beginning of a bioterrorism attack.  Soon, a handful of other large health plans will begin feeding their patient information to Harvard Pilgrim, which will act as the data-processing hub.  New participants will include United Healthcare, HealthPartners in Minnesota, and Kaiser Permanente in Colorado.

Even before this project began, many state-level public health agencies were upgrading their tracking techniques to monitor emergency-room visits and sales of over-the-counter drugs such as anti-diarrhea medicine.  The hope is that conducting surveillance through health plans will be quicker than tracking emergency room visits.  “A lot of people are looking at emergency rooms and hospitals, but perhaps the nurse call-in lines and primary-care physicians may be a day or two ahead in the epidemic,” said Blake Caldwell, a CDC contractor who is the senior consulting epidemiologist for this pilot project, called the National Bioterrorism Syndromic Surveillance Demonstration Program.

Karen Ignagni, president of the American Association of Health Plans, which worked with the CDC to set up the project, has been considering such collaborations since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.  “As we began to talk about this issue with medical directors, it became clear that we had a unique set of skills and a unique set of competencies that could provide a real public health benefit,” she said.

Members often report symptoms to their health plan first, Ignagni said-sometimes more than a week before they might go to an emergency room.

The symptoms of most communicable diseases that could indicate a coming epidemic begin slowly and quietly, she explained; they are not major life-interrupting events, such as heart attacks, that can collapse a patient in short order.  Some of the symptoms associated with the most-feared potential biological weapons, such as smallpox and anthrax, may resemble the flu for days before more-telling signs set in.

“When you first start having symptoms, they’re not serious enough to drive to the emergency room,” Ignagni said.  “But you have symptoms, and you feel strange and you don’t understand why they’re occurring, so you want to talk to somebody.”  More often than heading for the emergency room, people visit their doctor or seek advice from the nurse call-in lines that many insurance plans make available to their members as a kind of first-line triage.

Early evidence shows that the project is working to spot spikes in the rates of natural disease in Massachusetts, said Richard Platt, principal investigator, and professor of the Ambulatory Care and Prevention Department at Harvard Pilgrim.  According to Platt, Harvard Pilgrim has already anticipated increases in hospitalizations for respiratory infection.  During this winter’s flu season, he said, his system was able to predict an upswing in respiratory infections about two weeks before hospital admissions started to rise.

The idea behind the CDC/Harvard Pilgrim demonstration is to collect information in a variety of ways and then merge it all to reveal trends.  A participating doctor’s practice, for example, installs sophisticated computer technology that essentially scans the diagnoses that doctors assign to the patients they see in any given day, looking for symptoms associated with commonly suspected bioterrorism agents.

With more doctors keeping patient information electronically, such reporting and collecting should be able to grow quickly, according to Ignagni.  Currently, only those physicians who store patient medical records electronically can participate.  However, Caldwell said she hopes that the program will soon expand to include physicians who file insurance claims electronically.

Here’s how the system works: At the end of each day, the computer at the doctor’s office, clinic, or nurse call-in line automatically checks the day’s records for specified symptoms.  The findings from each office are transmitted-without any names or identifying information-to Harvard Pilgrim, which combines all the data.  Harvard Pilgrim sorts the final data by ZIP code and compares it to epidemiological norms for the region and the time of year.

Caldwell noted that health plans and patients should not be concerned about confidentiality.  The health plans initially report only the number of people in a particular ZIP code with either respiratory or gastrointestinal trouble.  If a worrisome number of people within a particular ZIP code report similar symptoms, Harvard Pilgrim and public health officials can go back to the health plan and ask for more information.  The health plan can then look at the individual patient records in question and determine if there is a reasonable explanation for the illness, or whether the patients can be linked in some alarming way.

If there is reason to fear an outbreak, the local public health agency then has the right to ask for the identities of the affected patients.

So far, about once a month, Harvard Pilgrim has notified public health officials about spikes in respiratory or gastrointestinal symptoms.  In the end, none of those spikes has turned out to be related to bioterrorism.

The beauty of the effort is that collecting and sorting the information is mostly automatic, Platt said.  “There’s no active human involvement in this.  The computer program runs every night and extracts the information that’s needed ... It’s not asking any of the clinical providers to collect any additional information or to record additional information or to take steps to notify anybody.  This information is collected in the course of routine health care delivery,” he said.  “This is important, because we need a system that is sustainable.”

This month, United Healthcare will join the project, gathering information from its nurse call-in line, called Optum.  Bob Harmon, vice president and national medical director of Optum, said he’s sure his system can help.  He cited a study of a 1993 outbreak in Wisconsin of cryptosporidium, a waterborne parasite that comes from animal waste.  That outbreak sent 4,400 people to the hospital, killed 50, and sickened hundreds of thousands in Milwaukee.  At the time, patients began contacting nurse call-in lines several days before the emergency rooms started to report victims.

“This was the kind of thing that led to this particular project, realizing that this could be valuable for a bioterrorism event, and also for a public health outbreak,” Harmon said.

Optum is the largest company offering nurse telephone triage in the United States; it serves more than 23 million people through six call centers.

About 400 nurses are on hand to talk to health plan members about symptoms and concerns.  Of course, not all 23 million members call the nurse line for help.  According to Harmon, up to 10 percent place a call in any given year.  But that’s more than enough calls to detect a problem, said Reed Tuckson, the senior vice president for consumer health and medical care advancement at United Healthcare.  “If there were to be an increasing incidence of disease that was occurring, we are in a position ... from people’s use of our service, to be able to detect some of that,” Tuckson said.

To be sure, this isn’t the only surveillance effort under way.  The CDC is still encouraging local authorities to monitor emergency room visits and sales of over-the-counter medications, for example.  “The theory now at CDC is to let a thousand flowers bloom,” Ignagni said.

“Encourage a variety of systems to develop so that they can have the best of those systems, and see what they want to keep over time and what they want to discard over time.”

But Ignagni believes that private health plans can provide one of the earliest warning signs in detecting a possible biological attack.  Indeed, as the pilot project begins its second year, AAHP is asking for a larger federal grant, and more health plans want to participate.  Kaiser Permanente in California is ready to go, and Caldwell is asking CDC for the funding to get Golden State participants in the system.  Several other large health insurers, including Aetna, are considering participating in the project.

Caldwell cautions that this is still a localized demonstration project.

But, she said, “I’d like to think that this will grow tremendously.  We just have to prove that the system works.”

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Syria:  Damascus Says No to Weapons Inspectors

Damascus announced yesterday that it will not allow weapons inspectors into Syria, but it plans to push for a broad plan that would eliminate weapons of mass destruction from the Middle East (see GSN, April 17).

Speaking in Cairo, Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa said Syria would not allow inspectors, but he did not clarify if he was negating earlier official statements that Syria would only allow inspectors if they were deployed to countries across the Middle East, including Israel.

“Syria won’t allow any inspection.  It will only participate with its (Arab) brothers and all of the states of the world in turning the Middle East into an area free of weapons of mass destruction,” al-Sharaa said.

Recent U.S. allegations of Syrian chemical weapons development were made at Israel’s behest, al-Sharaa said.

Al-Sharaa also welcomed the prospect of a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, “because we believe dialogue between the two countries is important” (Reuters/Washington Post, April 18).

Pushing its plan for a WMD-free Middle East, Syria introduced a draft resolution Wednesday to the U.N. Security Council.  Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher said Cairo would support the effort (United Press International, April 17).

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Russia:  Italy Expands Aid to Weapons Destruction Effort

Russia and Italy yesterday signed an additional protocol to their agreement on the destruction of Russia’s chemical weapons stockpiles (see GSN, Jan. 14).  Under the new protocol, Italy will assist in the construction of a gas pipeline to provide energy to a chemical weapons disposal facility near the Russian city of Shchuchye that is currently under construction (ITAR-Tass, April 18).

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U.S. Plans:  Pentagon Cancels Three More Intercept Tests

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Defense Department has cancelled three additional national missile defense flight-intercept tests, including one that experts say would have been the “dress rehearsal” for the Bush administration’s planned fielding of part of the system in the autumn of 2004 (see GSN, Jan. 7).

Now, only two flight-intercept tests remain between the most recent, failed test in December and the limited deployment some 20 months later (see GSN, Dec. 11, 2002).  So far this year, the Missile Defense Agency has announced the cancellation of six planned intercept tests, four of which were originally scheduled to occur before the system is declared as fielded. 

“The Missile Defense Agency has a lot riding on the next two flight intercept tests.  It won’t be easy to successfully conduct two complex tests involving new hardware and software, and perhaps with new objects in the target cluster as well,” said former Pentagon testing director Philip Coyle.

Explaining the change, an agency spokesman cited “program data needs” and a busy schedule preparing for the deployment.

The tests have been politically charged, with Pentagon officials citing the test record of five successful intercepts in eight attempts as proof that a limited system is ready field as a test-bed, and critics questioning whether tests have been simplified or cancelled to ensure a successful record.

Recent Cancellations

The cancellations were reflected in the Pentagon’s recently released 2004 budget request documents, which included a schedule of planned “Integrated Flight Tests,” or IFTs, of its Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, which is being developed to destroy long-range enemy warheads in space.

The schedule shows that IFT-16 — which would have been the 11th intercept test and which officials earlier this year said was scheduled to occur just prior to the system’s deployment — is no longer planned.

Pentagon officials announced in January that three predeployment intercept tests (IFT-11, -12, -13) were cancelled, with the latter one replaced by two nonintercept flights (IFT-13A and IFT-13B) to test two prospective replacements to an unsatisfactory missile booster (see GSN, Feb. 10).

The remaining two predeployment intercept tests are IFT-14 and IFT-15, which will involve one or both of the two possible follow-on boosters, according to the agency.

“IFT-16 was to have been the dress rehearsal for deployment,” said Coyle, the former assistant secretary of defense in charge of testing during most of the Clinton administration.

It’s “the big one before the deployed test bed,” said Matt Martin, an analyst with the Center for Nonproliferation and Arms Control.

Scheduling and “Program Data Needs” Cited

Missile Defense Agency spokesman Richard Lehner said in an email that IFT-16’s cancellation, and a plan to focus on an already scheduled nonintercept flight test of the system’s radar around that time, “better meets the program data needs during the summer/fall FY 04 when we are simultaneously installing interceptors at Fort Greely and VAFB [Vandenberg Air Force Base] and doing system integration check-out and testing.”

The agency is renaming the nonintercept test, which was called Radar Characterization Flight 2, IFT-16A, Lehner said.

Lehner’s comments, Martin said, suggest the deployment goal of October 2004, set officially by President George W. Bush in December, might be interfering with the system’s testing program.

“I can certainly imagine that they are having trouble trying to deploy and test at the same time and I think that in itself points out the weakness of the plan.  [The plan] says you’ve got to test, because they have only succeeded in the most basic tasks at this time.  Now they’re saying you can’t test because we have this political mandate to deploy,” he said.

Martin added the cancellation might, intentionally or not, support the deployment objective by eliminating the risk of a test failure just prior to the deployment and presidential elections.

“IFT-16 was planned in the fall of 2004, which happily, coincidentally is right in the middle of the election season,” he said.

Lehner appeared to dismiss the significance of IFT-16 as a test run, saying the system’s capabilities already have been validated in previous testing, and would be further tested with a new booster or boosters in IFT-14 and IFT-15.

“The GMD system’s capability has already been demonstrated for initial operations in previous and ongoing intercept tests, ground tests, modeling and simulation and numerous exercises,” he said.

The budget documents also show tests IFT-19 and IFT-20 also have been scrubbed.  They would have occurred after the scheduled deployment.

Lehner said, “It is likely the test objectives from those flights will be consolidated into earlier tests.” 

Tougher Testing Ahead

Martin charged the intercept-testing regime so far has lacked realistic complexity.

“They haven’t done anything really to stress the system yet.  All they’ve really proven right now is the hit-to-kill ability  … that’s certainly impressive, but they aren’t doing anything to move forward,” he said.

He said two of the eight completed tests were repeats of previously failed tests and the most recently failed test “as I understand it had nothing that added any complexity to the system.”

Lehner wrote that “In order to develop more operationally realistic tests” after 2004, officials are considering redesigning some tests to try intercepting two enemy decoy warheads aimed at a single target or two targets.

They also are considering launching targets from the air, rather than the ground, so the system could be tested against targets from a “more realistic direction,” he said.

“The test program is and will be flexible over time and will be adjusted from time to time to take advantage of new and/or improved technology and also to make efficient use of expensive and/or scarce resources for each and every test, as well as construct the tests to take advantage of new capabilities demonstrated or projected by potential adversaries,” he said.

Missile Defense Testing Schedule

IFT	Date	Purpose
10	1st Quarter, 2003	Intercept, Failed (see GSN, Dec. 11, 2002)
11	Canceled	Intercept
12	Canceled	Intercept
13a	3rd Quarter, 2003	Booster Verification
13b	4th Quarter, 2003
14	1st Quarter, 2004	Intercept
15	3rd Quarter, 2004	Intercept
16	Canceled	Intercept
17	2nd Quarter, 2005	Intercept
18	4th Quarter, 2005	Intercept
19	Canceled	Intercept
20	Canceled	Intercept
21	2nd Quarter, 2006	Intercept
22	4th Quarter, 2006	Intercept
23	2nd Quarter, 2007	Intercept
Source:  U.S. Defense Department release, February 2003.

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Disarmament Commission:  Three-Week Session Fails to Reach Consensus

By Jim Wurst
Global Security Newswire

UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. Disarmament Commission concluded its annual session yesterday without reaching consensus on either of the items on its agenda (see GSN, April 1).

The items this year were “ways and means to achieve nuclear disarmament” and “practical confidence-building measures in the field of conventional arms.”  The commission began as it started — with two working papers drafted by the commission’s chairmen that contained long lists of initiatives but did not enjoy any consensus.  The rapporteur of the commission, Mehiedine al-Kadiri, said the failure to reach consensus “owes more to the complexity of the issues and not to the political will of states.”

The commission works only by consensus.

Both items were in their third years on the agenda.  According to the commission’s rules, an item is dropped after three years.  Toward the end of the year, the commission will meet to discuss which items to place on its 2004 agenda.

The commission is a deliberative body of the General Assembly that establishes guidelines, or “disarmament norms,” as the commission’s chairman, Italian Ambassador Mario Maiolini, 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 nuclear disarmament working paper lists a number of “general principles,” including “the ultimate objective of the efforts of states in the disarmament process is general and complete disarmament under effective international control,” “the importance of full and effective implementation by all states parties” to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, “all appropriate measures consistent with international law aimed at preventing terrorists from acquiring nuclear weapons,” and the “urgency” of resuming substantive work at the Conference on Disarmament.

The working paper on conventional arms details ways to strengthen and broaden existing confidence-building measures, such as the U.N. Register on Conventional Arms, and encourages the creation of new confidence-building measures on the regional and bilateral levels.  “The ultimate goals of CBMs in the field of conventional arms are to strengthen international peace and security, to improve relations among states, to promote the social, economic and cultural well being of their peoples, and to contribute to the prevention of war,” the paper says.

In the past, 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.

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