U.S. Response:  Intelligence Center Could Help Intelligence Sharing

In an attempt to combat intelligence sharing gaps within U.S. security agencies, the White House will open a center this week to funnel important threat information to local law enforcement officials, the Boston Globe reported Friday (see GSN, Jan. 30).

The Bush administration plans to open the new intelligence clearinghouse at the CIA headquarters but some critics believe the CIA’s secretive methods will continue to confound cooperation with local law enforcement.

“There is still a gap between what the Department of Homeland Security needs and what CIA is obliged to give the department,” said a congressional official.

CIA officials are confident, however, that the new initiative will address information sharing problems.

The Terrorist Threat Integration Center will provide important information to “the appropriate first responders” who need it, according to John Brennan, who will run the new center (Bryan Bender, Boston Globe, April 25).

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Iraq:  U.S. Plans to Add WMD Searchers; Leading Iraqi Official in Custody

Concerned by the lack of WMD evidence uncovered so far in Iraq, the Bush administration plans to triple the number of searchers, bringing the total to 1,500 personnel dedicated to finding banned weapons, the New York Times reported yesterday (see GSN, April 25).

Currently, 500 military and scientific specialists are in Iraq, with 150 of them searching for weapons of mass destruction and the rest providing support.

“A fairly robust organization is going over there,” said a military official.  “It will also look for evidence of war crimes, terrorism connections, missing POWs — anything it can find that will help get to the weapons of mass destruction,” the official said (Steven Weisman, New York Times, April 27).

The additional personnel would allow the United States to broaden its search.

“We have about 1,000 sites that we knew about before this point,” said Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of all coalition forces in Iraq and the surrounding region.  “We’ll go through all of those.  The whole thrust of this is probably going to carry us through several thousand sites up in that country,” he said (Eric Schmitt, New York Times, April 28).

U.S. Searchers Frustrated by Limits

Some members of the U.S. WMD search teams say they are frustrated by a lack of resources and overly rigid search rules.  Originally four Mobile Exploitation Teams (METs) were assigned to hunt for weapons of mass destruction, but two of them have been reordered to investigate Iraqi war crimes and to collect documents of intelligence value, according to the Times.

MET members said they had not been told to expect more personnel and criticized the Sensitive Site Teams that are likely to receive the additional forces.  Those teams, intended to alert the METs to suspicious sites, have often provided inaccurate information because they are inadequately trained, according to weapons experts.

MET members also complained that they have been required to stick to the original Defense Department list of suspect sites and are not able to act upon tips from local Iraqi informants.

Furthermore, MET members said they lack air and ground transportation and communication equipment (Judith Miller, New York Times, April 28).

U.N. Inspectors Will Not Join WMD Hunt

While debate continues in the United Nations over whether U.N. inspectors should return to Iraq to help the WMD hunt, there is little interest in this prospect in the United States, according to the Times.  Even the State Department, which pushed for giving U.N. inspectors the opportunity to resume inspections last autumn, is not supporting their return now.

“Forget it,” said one official.  “On principle, we don’t want the United Nations running around Iraq,” the official added.

Ambiguous Evidence

Some U.S. officials are playing down the prospects of finding a “smoking gun” — usable weapons of mass destruction.  Instead, the most condemning evidence will probably be empty shells designed to carry chemical or biological weapons or laboratories that are capable of producing WMD precursor chemicals, according to administration officials and experts.

“People are realizing that Saddam Hussein may not have stored the weapons themselves, in part because when you put chemical or biological agents into weapons, they deteriorate very rapidly, said an administration official.  Therefore U.S. experts will probably need to make their case based on more ambiguous evidence that is subject to different interpretations.

“The evidence that we do find will be convincing to most experts, but not necessarily to those predisposed to doubt what we say,” said a U.S. official.

Said another official, “It may be that the Iraqis poured toxins into the ground, or scoured out their shells, or never filled their shells.  There may be weapons, and there may not be.”

“But it will be clear,” the official added, “that they were pursuing WMD actively” (Weisman, New York Times).

Senior Iraqi Official Captured

Gen. Hossam Mohammed Amin, the Iraqi official responsible for liaising with U.N. inspectors before the recent war, was captured by undisclosed forces at Ramadi and turned over to U.S. forces Saturday.

Amin had been head of Iraq’s National Monitoring Directorate, which kept track of Iraq’s weapons and facilitated the movement of U.N. inspectors.  Amin was No. 49 on the U.S. list of 55 most-wanted Iraqi officials (Reuters, April 27).

In recent months Amin had given frequent news conferences to deny that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, and he reportedly repeated that denial yesterday (Kelly/Porubcansky, Los Angeles Times, April 28).

Another Suspicious Find Discounted

A dozen 55-gallon drums found Friday in Iraq initially tested positive for the nerve agent cyclosarin and possibly for mustard gas, but more precise follow-up testing indicated no chemical weapons agents, according to reports.

The drums were found by U.S. special forces at Baiji, 115 miles north of Baghdad.  Initial tests conducted by units of the U.S. 4th Infantry Division used Army M-8 test paper, which is designed to provide more false positive results than false negative ones, said division chemical officer Lt. Col. Valentine Novikov.

A subsequent test with an AP-2C detector, considered more accurate, also “came up positive for a nerve agent,” Novikov said (Guy Taylor, Washington Times, April 28).

However, further testing by Mobile Exploitation Team Bravo contradicted the earlier results.

“Our tests showed no positive hits at all,” said team leader Capt. Ryan Cutchin (Miller, New York Times).

Former Iraqi Scientist Lied

Nissar Hindawi, a senior Iraqi biological weapons scientist in the 1980s, told the New York Times that he and other scientists were compelled to lie to U.N. inspectors following the 1991 Gulf War.

Responsible for briefing U.N. inspectors in the early 1990s, Hindawi said his reports “were all lies.”

Hindawi worked on Iraqi programs to produce anthrax and botulinum toxin until 1989 when he was dismissed after he complained to then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein that the program was riddled with corruption.  During his tenure Iraq “produced huge quantities” of both toxins, he said.

Later, “there were orders to destroy it,” Hindawi said.  “They destroyed some — whether all or not, I can’t say,” he added.

He said Iraq never made dried anthrax, a form much more useful for weapons purposes, because he chose not to.  He thought he had figured out how to do it, but “I kept the method secret,” adding, “History would have cursed me.”

Following the Gulf War, Hindawi was intermittently under suspicion or jailed by Iraqi authorities for seeking to contact Western officials and he is now under the protective custody of Iraqi opposition leader Ahmed Chalabai (Judith Miller, New York Times, April 27).

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NPT:  Nuclear Nonproliferation Meeting Opens With Gloomy Assessment

By Jim Wurst
Global Security Newswire

GENEVA — The 2003 meeting of the parties to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) opened today with numerous gloomy assessments by delegations about the state of disarmament and nonproliferation, but with disagreements over responsibility for the situation (see GSN, April 23, 2002).

New Zealand’s minister of disarmament, Marian Hobbs, said today, “The past year has been an inauspicious one for the NPT in general and for the issue of nuclear disarmament in particular.”

Hobbs was speaking on behalf of the New Agenda Coalition of Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa, and Sweden, an ad hoc group working to persuade the nuclear powers to embark on a series of steps leading to nuclear disarmament.

“Trends have been dismal,” she added.  “Deeply unsettling events in the Middle East and in Asia surely must serve as a spur to our efforts to fully implement the NPT regime and to underscore emphatically the significance for global stability of compliance with international obligations as well as the universality of the treaty.”

Two of those trends are the withdrawal of North Korea from the NPT, which became final this month (see GSN, April 10), and the invasion of Iraq, an NPT state, which was undertaken in part because of charges that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons (see related GSN story, today).

The chairman of the meeting, Hungarian Ambassador Laszlo Molnar, opened the proceedings saying that, with the unanimous support of the parties, the nameplate of North Korea “would be held in custody” by him for the duration of the meeting — in other words, the issue would be taken off the table.

He said a debate over the country’s status would “serve as a detriment” to the work of the NPT.  Molnar later told Global Security Newswire that the meeting was “heading for a procedural quagmire” over how to deal with North Korea’s withdrawal and that he took the “unprecedented step” of taking the nameplate in custody “so as not to prejudice the outcome of the ongoing negotiations” over North Korea’s nuclear program. 

Most countries called on North Korea to reverse its decision and submit its nuclear facilities to international inspections.  Speaking for the New Agenda, Hobbs said the group “supports dialogue over confrontation.  We hope for an early, peaceful resolution of the situation, leading to [North Korea’s] return to full compliance with the treaty’s terms.” 

Argentina took a harder line, calling on the committee to condemn North Korea’s action. 

U.S. Ambassador John Wolf said the dangers to the NPT come from “irresponsible” parties to the treaty, meaning, for the most part, North Korea and Iran (see GSN, April 11).

“Iran provides perhaps the most fundamental challenge ever faced by the NPT,” he said.  Under the guise of a civilian nuclear program, Wolf said, “Iran has been conducting an alarming, clandestine program to acquire sensitive nuclear capabilities that we believe make sense only as part of a nuclear weapons program.” 

Wolf said the NPT “is dangerously out of balance.  Disarmament continues,” while nonproliferation is weakened.  “It is not credible to argue that we are not on a steady downward path towards the goals of [nuclear disarmament]. Yet, the path for nuclear proliferation is spiraling upward,” said Wolf.  “The NPT’s core purpose is preventing the spread of nuclear weapons. While the treaty has been largely successful in this respect, irresponsible NPT parties are taking action that pose fundamental challenges to the treaty,” Wolf added.

“The time for business as usual is over.  The time for resolute action is here,” he said.  “We must choose to strengthen our political commitment to the NPT and build stronger barriers against those who try to violate the treaty’s fundamental obligations.” 

Wolf made only a passing reference to Iraq, grouping it with North Korea and Iran as countries developing nuclear weapons under the cover of peaceful nuclear programs.  Iraq was represented by diplomats accredited to the United Nations under the government of Saddam Hussein.  Nawfal Basri, a second secretary from the mission attending today’s meeting, told GSN that there have been no challenges to the credentials of any members of the delegation.

Hobbs referred to Security Council debates over Iraq in her comments, saying that “the recent international debate” over weapons of mass destruction “underlined international concerns about the legitimacy, possession and possible use of such weapons.  These statements should provide further impetus to international efforts to de-legitimize all nuclear weapons and to hasten international efforts towards nuclear disarmament.” 

“The real guarantee against the use of any weapons of mass destruction anywhere, including nuclear weapons, is their complete elimination and the assurance that they will never be used or produced again,” Hobbs said.

South Africa also sought to broaden the nuclear debate beyond Iraq.  Pretoria’s representative, Peter Goosen, said during the council debate that “strong statements … were repeatedly made about the threat that is posed by weapons of mass destruction, about the need to eliminate this threat, about the need to destroy these weapons by many of the members of the international community and about the legitimacy of their possession.”  He added, “It is our belief that given this now universal condemnation of the possession, proliferation and possible use of weapons of mass destruction, we should move even more decisively to implement” nuclear disarmament by all states.

This is the annual preparatory committee meeting leading up to the treaty’s 2005 review conference.  Molnar told participants, “Only if we avoid the temptation of complacency or pessimism, and focus our efforts on what united and now what divides us, can we expect to continue to build on the progress achieved by our predecessors.  Our work must ensure that the NPT and the larger nonproliferation regime remain vital and robust as a pillar of international security.”

This preparatory meeting concludes May 9.

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North Korea I:  China Opposes Security Council Action

By David McGlinchey
Global Security Newswire

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — China does not intend to support any U.N. Security Council action against North Korea over its alleged nuclear weapons development, a Chinese military adviser said here Friday (see GSN, April 25).

“There is no need for the Security Council to take action on this,” said Dingli Shen, a consultant to China’s Defense Ministry and a professor at Fudan University in Shanghai.

Shen spoke here at an international security conference, hosted by the U.S. Energy Department’s Sandia National Laboratories.

The United States held talks last week with diplomats from China and Pyongyang over the nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula.  At the start of those talks, a North Korean official reportedly told U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly that Pyongyang has nuclear weapons and is prepared to test or export them.

Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control Stephen Rademaker said last week that if Pyongyang foiled the talks, the North Korean issue should be forwarded to the U.N. Security Council.  He also suggested that Beijing might support Security Council action (see GSN, April 24).

Shen said that within the council there could be “a certain amount of discussion [but] no action is needed.”

Throughout the six-month crisis, Washington has pushed for multilateral talks but has also refused to rule out using military force against North Korea.  Shen dismissed the possibility of military action.

“It will not come to a military conflict,” he said.

Talks Not a Failure

The North Korean nuclear weapons claim may have caused the first round of talks to end on a sour note, but the negotiations were not a failure, according to Shen.

“That depends on the definition.  Nobody would expect a breakthrough in the first meeting so it was not a failure,” he told Global Security Newswire.

Shen was asked what comes next for Washington and Pyongyang.

“We hope they continue to talk, [we want] continued talks between the D.P.R.K. and the U.S.,” he said.

Clay Moltz, director of the Nonproliferation Program at the Monterey Institute’s Center for Nonproliferation Studies, cautiously agreed.

“It’s not a failure, but it certainly wasn’t a success,” Moltz said.  He suggested that neither North Korea nor the United States put their best foot forward in the talks.  Kelly was the top U.S. official in Pyongyang last October when the United States leveled the nuclear accusations against Pyongyang.  The two sides have not had an official diplomatic meeting since (see GSN, Oct. 17, 2002).

“North Korea obviously sent a less than high-level official.  The U.S. sent a guy who had some baggage in North Korea’s eyes,” Moltz said, suggesting that Washington send Secretary of State Colin Powell to the next meeting.  Powell has often adopted a more moderate position than other Bush administration officials.

Officials need to “rethink the team that attends, on both sides,” Moltz said, but he cautioned that “any negotiation with North Korea is bound to be prolonged.”

Nuclear Claim Doubted

Several officials, including Moltz, doubted that North Korea would make the world aware of its nuclear weapons stockpile in such an understated manner.

Moltz suggested that Pyongyang was trying to intimidate the United States to begin talks but he said the North Korean rhetoric could moderate if talks continue.

“They might have been trying to look as big and bad as possible … some of this may have been trash talk,” he said.

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North Korea II:  New Proposal From Pyongyang on Table

News coverage of North Korea’s nuclear weapon claim last week left unreported a new North Korean proposal to the United States, the Los Angeles Times reported today (see GSN, April 25).

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly told Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda that Pyongyang had put forward a “bold, new proposal” to resolve the nuclear standoff on the Korean Peninsula.

Kelly was more optimistic after the most recent talks than he was after contentious negotiations in October, which featured U.S. allegations of nuclear weapons development and marked the beginning of a freeze on diplomatic contact between the two countries.

The proposal is believed to be a modification of previous demands that Washington guarantee North Korea’s safety in return for a freeze in nuclear development.

“North Korea is desperate to have talks.  They are not asking for economic assistance at the moment — it is security assurances,” according to Moon Chung-in, a North Korea expert at Yonsei University in Seoul (Barbara Demick, Los Angeles Times, April 27).

A North Korean spokesman alluded to the proposal in a statement Saturday.

“As the DPRK set out a new proposal for the settlement of the nuclear issue, proceeding from its stand to avert a war on the Korean Peninsula and achieve lasting peace and stability, it will follow the U.S. future attitude toward it,” the spokesman said (Korean Central News Agency, April 26).

The United States is considering future talks, according to State Department spokesman Richard Boucher.

Last week, China was pushing for further talks but the United States planned to “analyze everything that happened and was said, and then we would decide back here on whether there should be further talks,” he said.  “One or more of the parties may be interested in further talks.  At this point, we have not decided yet,” he added (State Department release, April 25).

China was reportedly embarrassed by North Korea’s nuclear announcement and U.S. officials are hoping that will translate into more help in pressuring Pyongyang to dismantle nuclear facilities.

Not Sharing Information?

During a March 31 meeting at the United Nations, North Korea reportedly told State Department officials that it was reprocessing spent fuel rods.  That information did not become public until last week, and State Department officials apparently did not share it with other U.S. officials in an effort to keep the proposed talks on track, the Washington Post reported yesterday.

“I think heads will roll over this,” a Bush administration official said.  “North Korea for the first time ever officially communicated to the U.S. government that they were reprocessing.  That that information was not shared is very disturbing,” he added.

The dispute over information sharing underscores a deeper rift in the administration over U.S. policy on North Korea, the Post reported (Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, April 27).

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the Beijing meetings “have not moved the ball forward.”

The State Department, however, was less quick to judge.

“We have made it clear again and again that the intention of going to Beijing was, first of all, not to negotiate, not to try to move the ball forward in that sense, but to say what we had to say, hear what we expected to hear and see the Chinese participate,” Boucher said (Michael Lev, Chicago Tribune, April 27).

Partial Blockade Considered

The United States is also considering blockading some North Korean sea traffic  to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, materials or technologies, the London Telegraph reported.

The approach has been nicknamed “Cuban Lite,” for its similarities to the 1963 Cuban missile crisis.

U.S. forces would perform routine interdiction of ships suspected of carrying nuclear materials.

“It wouldn’t be a total blockade.  International shipping would not necessarily be blocked from going in to North Korea, but the passage of North Korean shipping would be contingent on what we knew was being carried.  We have the ability to track anything in or out of North Korean waters,” said a senior Pentagon adviser.  “The virtue in an interdiction strategy is that it would not be formally imposed … there would not be a big set-piece confrontation with the North Koreans.  Instead the U.S. would use its intelligence net and only movie in when it needs to,” he added.

A U.S. official suggested that the domestic U.S. policy divide is not as sharp as is commonly thought.  More militant U.S. factions do not want a war now and more pacifist factions understand that North Korea is sending confusing signals (Julian Coman, London Telegraph, April 27).

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North Korea III:  Seoul Urges End to Nuclear Confrontation

During Cabinet-level meetings in Pyongyang today, South Korean diplomats urged North Korea to drop its nuclear weapons ambitions, a South Korean spokesman said (see GSN, April 25).

“We again urged the D.P.R.K. to honor the South-North joint declaration on denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula signed in 1992,” said Shin Eon-sang, the South Korean spokesman.  “At the 45-minute session, we called on the D.P.R.K. to find a peaceful solution to the nuclear issue in a prompt manner, as Pyongyang has started a multilateral dialogue with related countries,” he added (Xinhua News Service, April 28).

North Korea, however, has told Seoul to keep out of its disagreement with the United States, CNN.com reported.

“The Northern side reiterated that the nuclear issue is a matter between the North and the United States,” said a South Korean statement.  “But they said they wanted to resolve the matter peacefully,” the statement added (CNN.com, April 28).

North Korean officials also refused to clarify reports that Pyongyang has claimed possession of nuclear weapons (News24.com, April 28).

North Korean, British Officials to Meet

British officials are scheduled to meet with North Korean diplomats in London this week, according to CNN.com.

“In our view it’s important to remain engaged with North Korea.  We want to use every opportunity to put our concerns across and urge them to comply with their international obligations,” a British spokeswoman said.

British Foreign Office Minister Bill Rammel is expected to meet with North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choe Su Hon.  Diplomatic relations between the two countries are “under review,” according to the spokeswoman (CNN.com, April 26).

German Shipment Seized

German authorities have detained the director of a German company suspected of supplying aluminum tubes to North Korea for its nuclear development program, Singapore’s Straits Times reported today.

German authorities said the shipment — containing 22 tons of aluminum tubes — was sent to China’s Shenyang Aircraft Corporation but was actually headed to North Korea.

The shipment left Hamburg, Germany, on a French container ship April 3 and was seized nine days later as it was about to enter the Suez Canal.

The shipment was unloaded in Egypt (Singapore Straits Times, April 28).

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Anthrax:  Canadian Officials Waiting for Test Results

Canadian authorities are searching for traces of anthrax in samples from a ship held in quarantine off the coast of Nova Scotia, the Globe and Mail reported Saturday (see GSN, April 25).

Results are expected late today or tomorrow, according to Tracey Taweel, a Health Canada spokeswoman.

A team of six investigators, dressed in protective suits, spent five hours taking swabs from the living quarters on the Wadi al-Arab.  The team also interviewed the 30 members of the crew.

“It’s just what we expected.  Everyone is in extremely good health,” Taweel said.

The ship was quarantined and placed under 1000-meter exclusion zone after it was discovered that the death of the ship’s chief officer might have been caused by anthrax.

“We’re in a bit of a holding pattern at this point,” she said.  “We just have to wait until we hear back from the lab about the results,” she added (Globe and Mail, April 26).

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CWC:  U.S., Iran Trade Accusations at Treaty Review Conference Opening

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

THE HAGUE — U.S. and Iranian officials traded sharp criticisms here today at the opening of the first review conference of the Chemical Weapons Convention.

The treaty, which bans the possession and manufacture of chemical weapons, was opened for signature in 1993 and now has 151 members.  The treaty entered into force in 1997 and review conferences are scheduled for about every five years.

In a prepared statement to the conference, Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control Stephen Rademaker said the United States believes “over a dozen” countries currently have or are actively seeking chemical weapons, and he identified five of them, including Iran and Sudan — both parties to the treaty — and nontreaty members Libya, North Korea and Syria (see GSN, April 11).

The Bush administration has previously pinpointed the five countries in other forums as well, but the statement at the opening of the conference, which is intended to review the treaty for possible changes, has generated some controversy.

“We owe it to you in this room to be candid about what [U.S.] concerns are,” he said.

“The United States believes it is dangerous to acquiesce quietly in violations of the fundamental obligations arising under this convention,” he said.

Rademaker said the United States was “most troubled by the activities of Iran, which we believe continues to seek chemicals, production technology, training and expertise from abroad.” 

He said the United States believes Iran has stockpiled blister, blood, and choking agents and has some nerve agents.

He said North Korea is believed to have the capability to produce bulk quantities of nerve, blister, choking and blood agent and has a variety of means to deliver the weapons.

Iranian Criticisms

An Iranian delegate called the U.S. charge against his country “baseless” and said the public accusation could undermine the cooperative environment of the conference.

“These kinds of comments and allegations by a state party against another state party would definitely put the expected constructive and cooperative atmosphere of the 1st review conference in jeopardy,” he said.

He said “one could conclude” the accusation was an attempt at “weakening this successful treaty.”

The official accused the United States of transferring “huge amounts of scheduled chemicals” to Israel, not a treaty party, and said Washington was partially responsible for 100,000 Iranian chemical weapons victims during the Iran-Iraq war.

“The U.S. and some other industrial countries which equipped and helped Saddam’s regime have to be blamed for it,” he said in a printed copy of the speech.

Intelligence Information

Rademaker was asked at a subsequent press conference why the United States had not requested a challenge inspection permitted by the treaty to try to ascertain evidence of alleged chemical weapons activities.

He said challenge inspections could prove ineffective against countries determined to hide illicit weapons, citing in particular U.N. efforts to uncover alleged Iraqi weapons and Germany’s post-World War I evasion of its disarmament requirements.

“The United States supports the inspection and declaration provisions of the CWC, but we have no illusions about the effectiveness of such measures against determined cheaters,” Rademaker said in his prepared statement.

He said U.S. intelligence agencies had developed the information, and added, “We’re quite confident in our information.”

“The information we have is quite disturbing,” he said.

Some critics of the U.S. statement faulted it for naming only some of the countries Washington believes to possess or seek chemical weapons.

Rademaker’s speech was “pretty hard-hitting, but of course it didn’t include Israel and Egypt,” said Trevor Findlay, director of the nongovernmental organization Verification, Research, Training and Information Center.

Rademaker said his focus was on identifying those countries suspected of having chemical weapons and relationships to terrorists.

“The greatest risk of all is from those countries that have weapons of mass destruction and support international terrorism,” he said during the press conference.

In his speech, he also faulted more than half of the treaty parties for not yet indicating that they are adopting national legislation to implement the treaty.  He urged all parties to report on their implementing measures by October, when the next regular meeting of parties is scheduled, and said the United States would assist any states that needed help establishing such measures.

For further information, see:

CWC Text

OPCW Main Page

CWC States Parties

Pentagon Executive Summary of CWC

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Russia:  Moscow Destroys 400 Tons of Mustard Gas

Russia has completed the destruction of 400 tons of mustard gas, a Russian official said Saturday (see GSN, April 23).

“We have nothing to hide,” said Sergei Kiriyenko, head of the commission for disposing chemical weapons in Russia’s Volga region.

Officials in Volga are scheduled to destroy 1,200 tons of chemical weapons by 2005.

“With the amount destroyed thus far, one could have annihilated a medium-sized European city,” Kiriyenko said (Deutsche Presse-Agentur/Pakistan Dawn, April 27).

The destruction meets an international deadline to destroy 1 percent of the Russian chemical weapons stockpile by the end of April, he added.

Kiriyenko, who is also President Vladimir Putin’s representative in the Volga district, said the destruction “shows that our country is firmly fulfilling its obligations and testifies to the fact that Russian scientists can create technology not just on the world standard, but surpassing it” (Associated Press/Moscow Times, April 28).

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