International Response:  British U.N. Ambassador Praises U.N. Counterterrorism Progress

By Jim Wurst
Global Security Newswire

UNITED NATIONS — British U.N. Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock,  chairman of the Security Council’s Counterterrorism Committee, told the council on Friday that “counterterrorism has now gone global, with the U.N. at the center.”

In his last statement to the council as chairman of the committee, Greenstock said that as a result of its success, the committee could evolve into “a full-time, professional and global body of experts, working with the council.” He added, “The vigor of a central, catalytic body can make a huge difference to the maintenance of global law and order in this vital field.”

The committee was created by Resolution 1373, which was unanimously adopted in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States.  The resolution calls on states to deny safe havens for terrorists, strengthen national antiterrorism laws and work more closely on the regional and global level to combat terrorism.  The committee was established to assist states in fulfilling their obligations and in monitoring the implementation of the resolution.

“Collective effort will pay dividends because no country can prevent terrorism in isolation,” said Greenstock.  “Only governments working together can raise global counterterrorism capacity.  But they have to be organized,” he said.

He said that in 18 months, the committee had received 343 reports from states and had sent 243 detailed letters in response.  Only three states — Sao Tome and Principe, Swaziland and Vanuatu — have not filed any reports as required by Resolution 1373.

Greenstock, who has chaired the committee since its creation, is turning that responsibility over to Ambassador Inocencio Arias of Spain.

Speakers in the meeting said collective action has made a difference and called for greater cooperation within and among regional groups and professions, such as police and customs offices, in combating terrorism.  They also highlighted the need to respect human rights in combating terrorism, the need for greater cooperation to ensure that materials for use in weapons of mass destruction are safeguarded, and the need for more technical assistance to countries that are willing but unable to fulfill the mandates of the resolution.

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U.S. Response:  Bush Reasserts Pre-Emptive Doctrine in Face of Domestic, International Criticism

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Arguing the necessity for attacking Iraq, President George W. Bush last week continued to invoke his doctrine of using pre-emptive military force to prevent certain countries from accumulating weapons of mass destruction and possibly sharing them with terrorists.

The Bush administration has persistently pushed the policy despite recent international criticism that the policy is destabilizing and undermines the rule of law, as well as domestic concern that the administration is considering applying the doctrine beyond Iraq.

Bush restated the policy Thursday in a speech before families of U.S. Marines at Camp Lejeune, in North Carolina.

“By our actions, we serve a great and just cause.  We will remove weapons of mass destruction from the hands of mass murderers.  Free nations will not sit and wait, leaving enemies free to plot another September the 11th, this time perhaps with chemical or biological or nuclear terror,” he said.

Bush also argued the approach in a major address just prior to the war, saying, “The danger is clear:  using chemical, biological, or one day nuclear weapons, obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country or any other.

“The United States and other nations did nothing to deserve or invite this threat.  But we will do everything to defeat it,” he said.

Bush’s 2002 State of the Union address identified Iraq, Iran and North Korea as such states, and labeled them an “axis of evil.”  A senior administration official in May last year also identified Cuba, Libya and Syria as “other rogue states,” and alleged they also support terrorism and are developing weapons of mass destruction, though he did not directly threaten them (see related GSN story, today).

International Protest

A number of countries directly and indirectly criticized the U.S. approach at a meeting of the U.N. Disarmament Commission last week in New York.

“We stress the special importance of refraining from the threat or use of force against the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of any state,” Indonesian Ambassador Mochammad Hidayat said, speaking on behalf of the Nonaligned Movement.

Countries that appear to believe they could be targets of the doctrine levied the most direct criticism.  Cuba and North Korea, for instance, criticized the United States by name, with North Korea saying it fears a pending attack by the United States, calling the war on Iraq “arrogant and outrageous” behavior and the aim to remove Iraqi President Saddam Hussein “typical state terrorism.”

Iran did not identify the United States directly, according to a U.N. summary of the speech, but instead criticized the “unilateral” policies of “one powerful state,” which it said would undermine nonproliferation efforts such as multilateral agreements.

“Despite achievements in disarmament, the emergence of unilateralism had reversed the hopes such achievements had encouraged.  Setbacks began when one nuclear-weapon state questioned many previous undertakings and issued a new doctrine on the first use of nuclear weapons and pre-emptive attacks,” the U.N. summary said, describing Iran’s statement.

The Russian representative called the attack on Iraq a political mistake and said the unilateral use of military force in contravention of the U.N. Charter and in violation of the principle of international law could undermine the system of international security and encourage individual countries to possess weapons of mass destruction, according to a U.N. summary.

Leaders from France and Germany also have criticized the approach, arguing for nonmilitary strategies for dealing with proliferant states.

“I can’t and don’t want to imagine that we are facing a series of disarmament wars.  Rather we should be making sure that the instruments for peaceful solutions, above all the U.N., are developed further,” German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said in a March 23 interview.

Domestic Criticism of the Doctrine

Recent criticism of the doctrine in the United States has come from Democratic presidential candidates Senator John Kerry (Mass.) and New Hampshire Governor Howard Dean, as well as Senator Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.).

“I believe the Bush administration’s blustering unilateralism is wrong, and even dangerous, for our country.  In practice, it has meant alienating our long-time friends and allies, alarming potential foes and spreading anti-Americanism around the world,” Kerry said in a January speech.

Kerry drew fire from U.S. conservatives last week after calling for “a regime change in the United States,” while criticizing the administration for going to war without explicit U.N. Security Council approval.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) recently called for a congressional review of the doctrine after the conflict with Iraq is ended.

The doctrine has lately received significant Republican support by such leaders as Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and House International Relations Committee Chairman Henry Hyde (R-Ill.).

“We’re talking about a concept of eliminating threats, threats that we know are real, that are increasing over time, that apply throughout the world,” said Frist, Bush’s reputed top advocate on the Hill, in a recent interview with the BBC.

However, while Bush and others in the administration have frequently evoked the Bush Doctrine, suggesting it might guide U.S. policy, some conservatives have argued that applying the doctrine to justify using force beyond Iraq might be impractical.

“Yes, they have a broad doctrine. … Whether or not and how far one would carry this doctrine to other examples is unclear,” according to Henry Sokolski, a former nonproliferation official with the first Bush administration.

He said it is unlikely preventive force would be used on North Korea, which the administration believes to have nuclear weapons.

“I don’t think at the end of the day you are going to see more fighting than you have already seen.  I think that has to do with both the logic and logistics of what they’re up against.  When a country gets as far along [in developing nuclear weapons] as Iran and North Korea have, your choices are much, much less.  The reason we went into Iraq is because we could,” he said.

Sokolski said administration officials might be divided over applying the doctrine to North Korea, saying, “there are just as many [administration] speeches where they have said this case is different, we are not going to use military force in this case, and they have said it explicitly, at the level of [national security adviser] Condoleezza Rice, in print and on TV.”

Secretary of State Colin Powell also has disputed the notion the administration is aiming to apply the doctrine to North Korea.

“I think it’s a bit of an overstatement to say that now this one’s pocketed, on to the next place,” he said, as reported in a recent New York Times article.

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, considered a leading advocate of the doctrine, said yesterday the Bush administration would like to bring change to a number of other countries, but said military action would not necessarily be the primary tool in future cases.

“We’d like to see change in a lot of places, but it’s going to come about by different means in different places,” he said on NBC’s Meet the Press.

“The circumstances in North Korea are very, very different from the circumstances in Iraq.  In even Iran, which is a next-door neighbor, the circumstances are different,” Wolfowitz said.

To sustain international cooperation for U.S. efforts to combat terrorists, “it’s important ... that we make it clear that the military is not the only instrument — it isn’t even necessarily the main instrument,” he said.

Threatened Force

Sokolski said that by continuing to invoke the doctrine without specifying future targets, the administration may be hoping to discourage countries from pursuing weapons of mass destruction and aligning with terrorists, while not necessarily obligating a U.S. attack.

“They want people who are supporting terrorism and who are building weapons of mass destruction that are hostile to think twice about whether or not that is a smart security move,” he said.

Joseph Cirincione, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, however, contends that policy will only drive declared rogue countries and others to accelerate their efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction.

“The idea is that now North Korea and Iran have a greater interest in acquiring nuclear weapons to deter us, as do other countries, so that they can then implement their national security objectives independent of the United States,” he said.

“That includes not just rogue nations, but allies, such as Japan or Brazil,” Cirincione said, adding that Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has said he wants to reconsider his country’s position relative to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

North Korea, in a statement yesterday reported in the Washington Post, said it needs a “tremendous military deterrent force” to prevent what it believes is an eventual U.S. attack (see related GSN story, today).

Wolfowitz Sunday argued the potential for U.S. intervention could have the opposite effect on global proliferation.

“A lot of countries, including Syria, will eventually get the message from this [the Iraq conflict] that it’s much better to come to terms peacefully with the international community, to not acquire these weapons of mass destruction, to not use terrorism as an instrument of national policy, and to take care of your own people,” he said.

U.S. Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton echoed Wolfowitz’s statements over the weekend.

“We are hoping that the elimination of the dictatorial regime of [Iraqi President] Saddam Hussein and the elimination of all of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction would be important lessons to other countries in the region, particularly Syria, Libya and Iran, that the cost of their pursuit of weapons of mass destruction is potentially quite high,” Bolton said in an interview with U.S.-funded Radio Sawa, according to United Press International.

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Iraq:  U.S. Forces Capture Presidential Palace in Baghdad

U.S. troops expanded their control of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad today, capturing one of President Saddam Hussein’s palaces and firing on another, according to the Los Angeles Times (see GSN, April 4).

“Saddam Hussein says he owns Baghdad,” said Col. David Perkins, commander of the 2nd Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division.  “Wrong.  We own Baghdad,” he said.

The raid is the second conducted in three days, according to the Times.  Such raids will continue daily until Baghdad is sectioned into safe areas controlled by U.S. and British troops, U.S. military forces said.

A number of high-ranking officials from the ruling Baath Party have tried to escape the city, according to intelligence reports.  Hussein is steadily losing control of Baghdad and his regime is likely to collapse soon, the reports said.

“Regime collapse is a matter of days, not weeks,” one report said (Los Angeles Times, April 7).

U.S. troops yesterday captured the center of the Iraqi city of Karbala, south of Baghdad, according to the Associated Press (Hamza Hendawi, Associated Press/Yahoo.com, April 7).

The U.S. Air Force has recently transported about 700 Iraqi National Congress opposition fighters, along with INC leader Ahmed Chalabi, into the southern city of Nasiriya, according to the U.S. military and INC.

“It was the mistake of the coalition forces not to integrate the Iraqi forces from the beginning,” said INC spokesman Feisal Chalabi.  “You cannot have Iraqi liberation without Iraqis, so this is a great day for us,” he added.

The opposition fighters will be called the 1st Battalion Free Iraqi Forces and will serve under U.S. command, according to an INC statement.

U.S. General Peter Pace denied that the opposition group will gain an advantage in post-Hussein politics by being on the ground.

“I’m comfortable that once we free Iraq and give it to the people in Iraq, that they will be able to decide for themselves who should be their leaders and who should not,” Pace said (Marcella Bombardieri, Boston Globe, April 7).

British forces fighting in Basra today began a major assault to capture the old portion of the city, which still has lingering pockets of resistance, according to the Associated Press (see related GSN story, today).  Yesterday, British forces advanced into the center of Basra.  British officials said they had established a base at a former college within the city, but did not yet control all of Basra (Tini Tran, Associated Press/Yahoo.com, April 7).

In northern Iraq, fighters with the military Islamic group Ansar al-Islam have begun surrendering to Kurdish fighters allied with U.S forces, according to the Los Angeles Times.  More than 300 soldiers from the group, suspected by the United States of being linked to al-Qaeda, have agreed to surrender, according to Kurdish officials (Los Angeles Times).

Annan Requests U.N. Security Council Meeting

Meanwhile, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan has requested a U.N. Security Council meeting today to discuss the situation in Iraq, according to the Associated Press.  The request came after Annan met with each of the 191 U.N. members last week to discuss the humanitarian situation in Iraq and a future U.N. role in the country’s reconstruction (Edith Lederer, Associated Press/Yahoo.com, April 7).

Rice Travels to Moscow

U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice traveled to Moscow yesterday to have a “frank exchange of views” with Russian officials over the status of the U.S.-Russian relationship.  Rice was expected to meet with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, and other officials to discuss U.S.-Russian relations, which have been damaged, in part, by allegations of Russian military sales to Iraq, according to the Financial Times.

“These are turbulent times for the relationship,” a White House official said yesterday (Harding/Behr, Financial Times, April 7).

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Libya:  U.S. Official Says Libya Pursues Weapons of Mass Destruction

Libya intensified development of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons after the United Nations suspended sanctions against Tripoli in 1999, a top U.S. official said this weekend (see GSN, April 1).

Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi extradited two suspects in the bombing of a Pan Am jetliner in 1999 and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan responded by recommending removal of sanctions.

“Our evidence is very convincing that since the Security Council suspended sanctions because of Pan Am 103, that the government of Libya has substantially increased it efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction,” U.S. Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton said.  Specifically, Bolton said, “Libya’s procurement activities and a lot of its activities in the nuclear program have been increased.”

U.S. oil companies are currently prohibited from doing business in Libya.

“We are hoping that the elimination of the dictatorial regime of [Iraqi President] Saddam Hussein and the elimination of all of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction would be important lessons to other countries in the region, particularly Syria, Libya and Iran, that the cost of their pursuit of weapons of mass destruction is potentially quite high,” Bolton said (Eli Lake, United Press International, April 6).

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North Korea:  Pyongyang Cites Need for Deterrent Force

Backing away from earlier demands for a nonaggression pact with the United States, North Korea yesterday asserted the need for a “tremendous military deterrent force powerful enough to decisively beat back an attack supported by ultra-modern weapons.”

A Foreign Ministry statement said, “Neither international public opinion nor the U.N. charter could prevent the U.S. from mounting an attack on Iraq.  This suggests that even the signing of a nonaggression treaty with the U.S. would not help avert a war.”

The statement also condemned a planned Wednesday meeting of the U.N. Security Council to discuss Pyongyang’s withdrawal from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

The statement referred to Security Council actions as a “prelude to war” and said North Korea would not recognize any resolution passed by the Security Council.

“The U.S. is seriously mistaken if it thinks that the D.P.R.K. will accept the demand for disarming while watching one of three countries the U.S. listed as part of an ‘axis of evil’ already subject to the barbarous military attack,” the spokesman said (Korean Central News Agency, April 7).

North Korea, meanwhile, has cut off contact with Seoul regarding Cabinet-level meetings scheduled for this week.

“We can say that the talks will not be held as scheduled,” said a South Korean Unification Ministry spokesman.  “We are not sure whether North Korea wants to cancel them or postpone them.  So we may know more about that after contacting the North Korean side,” he added.

This week’s discussions were to focus on the nuclear crisis.  North Korea cancelled talks last month on economic and maritime issues, Agence France-Presse reported (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo.com, April 7).

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South Asia:  India, Pakistan, Label Each Other “Fit Case” For Pre-Emptive Strike

Comparing each other to Iraq, South Asian rivals India and Pakistan have each said the other is a “fit case” for a pre-emptive strike, according to reports.

Pakistan is a “fit case” for a U.S. pre-emptive strike, as was the case with Iraq, because it also possesses weapons of mass destruction, provides a safe haven for terrorists and lacks democracy, Indian Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha said in an interview published yesterday.

Sinha said that he would not oppose a U.S. attack on Pakistan, but it was up to Washington to make such a decision. 

“We can’t go to someone and ask them to attack another country,” Sinha said.  “We will keep pointing out the activities of Pakistan and in them the role of the army, the drug business centered in Pakistan … and how people in [the Pakistan-controlled zone of Kashmir] are repressed and trampled on,” he added.

Adding to the tension between the two countries, Indian Defense Minister Georges Fernandes said yesterday that India was planning to test its Agni 3 long-range, nuclear-capable ballistic missile before the end of the year (see related GSN story, today; The Advertiser, April 7).

Pakistani officials today responded in kind to Sinha’s comments.

“India is a fit case for a pre-emptive strike,” Pakistani Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said.  “If India thinks, and could do so, then we also have the right to go for a pre-emptive strike,” he said.

India also possesses weapons of mass destruction, Ahmed said.  He added that if India were to take action against Pakistan “it would be eliminated from the globe” (Islamic Republic News Agency, April 7).

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U.S.-Russia:  Putin Will Push for Arms Treaty Ratification

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Saturday he would encourage lawmakers to ratify the U.S.-Russian Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, a move the lower house of Parliament has been putting off because of the U.S.-led war in Iraq (see GSN, April 4).

The lower house, or State Duma, has indefinitely postponed a discussion on the treaty.

Despite differences with Washington’s invasion of Iraq, “the Russian Federation is interested in seeing this document ratified,” Putin told reporters.

“We will work with deputies of the Federal Assembly (both houses of Parliament) and hope for ratification,” he said (Russia Journal, April 6).

Dmitry Rogozin, the chief lawmaker on the Duma foreign policy commission, said there is “no question of tabling a discussion in coming sessions while fighting is continuing near Baghdad.”

A vote under the current conditions would “endanger” the treaty, he said.

“We cannot put the fate of the treaty at risk,” according to Rogozin.  “When the appropriate moment for ratification comes, we will present it to the Duma,” he added (Agence Presse-France, April 7).

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U.S.-Russia II:  No Strategic Arms Control Until Top Leadership Changes, Commentator Says

U.S.-Russian arms control verification methods will probably not make significant progress at least until Washington and Moscow are under new leadership, according to a arms control specialist writing in Arms Control Today.

The period following the pending ratification of the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty “is likely to become the time of missed opportunity,” according to Nikolai Sokov, a senior research associate for nonproliferation studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.  “Hopefully, however, it is only a prelude to a much more robust arms control process, perhaps when a new generation of Russian and U.S. leaders enters the scene,” he added.

The treaty, also known as the Moscow Treaty, calls for warheads to be mothballed but not destroyed.  The United States would be able to secretly reload up to 2,400 nuclear warheads onto ballistic missiles and bombers if bilateral relations between Washington and Moscow turn sour, Sokov said.

Russia lacks the resources to match that rearmament, and Moscow would prefer a tougher verification mechanism to keep tabs on the larger U.S. arsenal, according to Sokov.

“Moscow will be strictly limited in the number of weapons it can deploy.  And this number, furthermore, is likely to be below the 1,700-2,200 missiles allowed by SORT:  Russia’s announced plan (and its initial SORT negotiating proposal) is 1,500 warheads.  That means that, if it comes to a showdown in the future, Russia could face a U.S. nuclear force that is more than three times its size,” the commentary says.

The United States, however, has little incentive to provide a thorough verification mechanism.  The Cooperative Threat Reduction program, under which the United States assists Russia’s disarmament efforts, provides a built-in monitoring system, the commentary says.

“Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), one of the architects of the CTR program, cited the transparency benefits of CTR as one reason for blocking Democratic efforts to add verification measures to SORT,” Sokov wrote.

Aging Russian Missiles

Russia has tentatively planned to keep about 50 SS-18 ICBMs active until the “middle of the next decade,” according to the commentary.

The shelf life of these missiles, and of other Russian systems, might be overestimated and could lead to a Russian nuclear arsenal with fewer than 1,000 deployed warheads.  Moscow might turn to a heavy reliance on multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles to “keep the arsenal at a ‘decent’ level,” according to Sokov (Nikolai Sokov, Arms Control Today, April 2003).

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U.S. Response:  Liability Protection Needed for Project Bioshield, Industry Representatives Say

By Mike Nartker
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — U.S. biotechnology industry representatives called on Congress Friday to include liability-limiting provisions in the proposed “Project Bioshield” legislation, which seeks to prompt development of new biological terrorism countermeasures (see GSN, March 24).

The legislation would provide $6 billion over 10 years to create a market for new vaccines and treatments against biological agents to spur private industry research and development.  The bill would also allow the government, during national emergencies, to release new treatments prior to Food and Drug Administration approval.

Liability protection needs to be addressed for private industry to become more interested in developing new biological countermeasures, however, Frank Rapoport, a lawyer for the pharmaceutical company Aventis Pasteur, told the House Government Reform Committee.  He said liability concerns were a “major obstacle” in National Institutes of Health efforts to find a company to develop a new anthrax vaccine.

“The issue of the potential liability for any entity that provides, or performs research and development related to, biodefense countermeasures absolutely must be addressed in order to stimulate private sector interest in entering into agreements for such countermeasures,” Rapoport said in his prepared opening statement.

There are previous instances where companies developing vaccines received liability protection, such as that offered by the Homeland Security Act to smallpox vaccine manufacturers, Avant Immunotherapeutics President Una Ryan said.

“I believe I speak for most, if not all, of my colleagues in the industry when I say that unless we are protected from this risk to a fair and reasonable degree, we will not be able to participate in this national effort,” Ryan said in her prepared opening statement.

U.S. biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies also have other concerns with Project Bioshield, in addition to the lack of liability protection, according to Ryan and Rapoport.  For example, private industry needs to be assured that the market the U.S. government is seeking to create is adequate to meet the high costs of researching, developing and producing biological countermeasures, Ryan said.

“Biotech companies will want to see a federal program of sufficient size to convince them that our effort can be funded throughout the life cycle, and that the risk we endure and success we achieve will be fairly compensated,” she said.

Without a guarantee of a long-term U.S. government market, it will be difficult for companies to interest outside funding sources, Rapoport said.

“Private industry simply must be assured that the government market will be in place for some reasonable period of time before it commits the massive resources necessary … to meet the demands of the newly created market,” Rapoport said.  “Without such assurance, it will be all but impossible to generate interest from investors or lenders to allow for purely speculative (and truly enormous) capital expenditures,” he added.

Washington needs to guarantee long-term sources of research and development funding, Ryan said, saying that the development of new countermeasures can take up to 10 years.  There also needs to be “careful coordination” among the U.S. agencies that will be involved in biological defense research, including the Defense Department and NIH, she said. 

Of special concern is the new Homeland Security Department, which will oversee the procurement of new biological countermeasures, Ryan said.  “This is a daunting task for a well-established organization, not to mention a brand-new department,” she said.

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Iraq:  U.S. Troops Discover Signs of Chemical Weapons at Several Sites

U.S. forces in Iraq over the weekend discovered several possible chemical weapons sites, and some soldiers were decontaminated after they suffered symptoms suggesting they had been exposed to chemical weapons, according to reports (see GSN, April 4).

U.S. troops found suspect chemicals at two sites — an agricultural warehouse containing 55-gallon chemical drums and a military compound that troops began searching Saturday, according to Knight Ridder.  Testing conducted at the warehouse came back positive for the presence of G-Series nerve agents, such as sarin and tabun.  More than a dozen soldiers who guarded the military compound Saturday night suffered symptoms consistent with very low exposure to nerve agent, Knight Ridder reported.  While preliminary tests came back negative, further testing indicated the presence of sarin (Tom Lasseter, Knight Ridder/Philadelphia Inquirer, April 6).

MSNBC has reported that U.S. Marine units discovered cyanide and mustard gas agents in water taken from the Euphrates River, according to USA Today.  Water testing conducted near Nasiriya found “large concentrations” of the agents.  MSNBC reported that Marine commanders believed Iraq deliberately attempted to poison U.S. and British troops (USA Today, April 7).

Marines yesterday also excavated two missiles from a suspicious pit near the town of Aziziyah, about 50 miles southeast of Baghdad, according to Knight Ridder.  They were taken to the pit by villagers who said the Iraqi military had recently buried something there and then covered it with cement and dirt.  The missiles were marked with a chemical symbol, but it still unknown what, if anything, they contained, Knight Ridder reported (Knight Ridder/Philadelphia Inquirer, April 7).

Coalition Prepared to Respond

Meanwhile, coalition forces are maintaining aircraft on standby to immediately react if Iraqi WMD attack systems are detected, U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, deputy chief of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Friday.  Any coalition units, including special forces and reconnaissance drones, can prompt the airstrikes, he said.

The approach is called “time-sensitive targeting,” McChrystal said.  “That’s a series of aircraft in the air, and every time a sensor of any kind … identifies one, those aircraft are there for the express purpose of attacking that immediately,” he said (Ron Laurenzo, Defense Week, April 7).

Threat Lowered

U.S. Marines in Iraq were ordered to remove their chemical protective gear today, in an indication that the U.S. military believes the threat of Iraqi chemical weapons attacks has been reduced, according to Reuters.  The order applies to the entire 1st Marine Division, which consists of about 20,000 soldiers, officers said.

“Whatever intelligence they have is telling us the threat level has been reduced,” Marine Lt. Peter Rummler said (Reuters/Ha’aretz, April 7).

“Chemical Ali” Reported Dead

Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as “Chemical Ali” for ordering a 1998 chemical weapons attack on Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq, was killed Saturday by a coalition airstrike on his home in Basra, a British officer said today.

Al-Majid’s body was found along with that of his bodyguard and the head of the Iraqi intelligence service in Basra, said Maj. Andrew Jackson of the 3rd Battalion Parachute Regiment.  The discovery of al-Majid’s body was one reason for the British advance into Basra, because of the belief that resistance there would collapse with the death of the leadership, Jackson said (see related GSN story, today). 

“The regime is finished.  It is over, and liberation is here,” said Group Capt. Al Lockwood, spokesman for British forces in the Persian Gulf region.  “The leadership is now gone in southern Iraq,” he added (Tini Tran, Associated Press/Yahoo.com, April 7).

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India:  New Delhi Planning Agni 3 Long-Range Missile Test

India said yesterday it hopes to test its Agni 3 long-range, nuclear-capable ballistic missile this year (see GSN, Feb. 6).

“The test firing of Agni 3 is overdue and we feel the need for that long-range missile as part of our policy of deterrence,” Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes was quoted as saying by the Press Trust of India.

The Agni 3 is believed to have a 2,100-mile range, according to the Federation of American Scientists.  Fernandes also said yesterday the Agni 1 and 2 missiles, both nuclear-capable, are in production and ready for deployment in India’s military (see GSN, Jan. 9).

The Brahmos supersonic cruise missile, with a range of about 185 miles, is also ready for deployment, Fernandes said (see GSN, Jan. 21).

“(The) supersonic cruise missile Brahmos is something exclusive.  Nobody else has this missile today,” Fernandes said.  “We are ready now (for deployment).  All tests are complete,” he said (Neelesh Misra, Associated Press/Yahoo.com, April 6).

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