Iraq I:  Tenet Likely to Survive Intelligence Controversy, Experts Say

By Mike Nartker
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — CIA Director George Tenet will probably keep his job despite recent calls by some in Congress for his resignation, intelligence experts told Global Security Newswire this week.  In a statement last week Tenet publicly took responsibility for allowing U.S. President George W. Bush to make the now-discredited claim that Iraq attempted to obtain uranium from Africa (see GSN, July 16).

Intelligence experts said Tenet’s record as a “team player” within the Bush administration is likely to play a major role in helping him remain as CIA director.  In addition, the White House could end up creating more problems for itself politically if it forced Tenet to resign, or if he were to do so on his own, they said.  Some experts said, however, that the Bush administration might call on Tenet to resign or dismiss him if the controversy over the administration’s handling of prewar U.S. intelligence on Iraq begins to have a major political impact on Bush himself.

Tenet’s Troubles

Tenet’s current difficulties can be traced back to late 2001, when Italy obtained documents that indicated Iraq had tried to purchase processed uranium, known as “yellowcake,” from Niger, according to Time.  When the United States received the information, it came to the attention of the vice president’s office, which dispatched Joseph Wilson, a former U.S. ambassador to Gabon, to Niger in February 2002 to investigate the claim (see GSN, July 7).

In a commentary published July 6 in the New York Times, Wilson described his trip to Niger, which included meetings with current and former Nigerien officials and people associated with the country’s uranium industry.  “It did not take long to conclude that it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place,” Wilson said.

Wilson said that when he returned to the United States in early March 2002, he “promptly” provided a detailed briefing on his findings to the CIA.  While the CIA cabled the White House with information that Nigerien officials had denied that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium, the information was attributed to an anonymous source, not Wilson, the Washington Post reported last month.

The African uranium claim came up again in September 2002 when it was included in a British dossier on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction (see GSN, Sept. 24, 2002).  While not specifically naming Niger, the dossier said, “there is intelligence that Iraq has sought the supply of significant quantities of uranium in Africa” (see related GSN story, today).

Iraq’s purported attempts to purchase uranium from Africa, including Niger, were also included in a U.S. national intelligence estimate prepared in October 2002, according to Tenet’s recent statement.  While the claim was not offered as evidence that Iraq was seeking to relaunch its nuclear weapons program, the NIE included three paragraphs describing reports that Iraq had attempted to procure uranium from Niger and two other African countries, Tenet said in his statement.  He also quoted the NIE as saying: “We cannot confirm whether Iraq succeeded in acquiring uranium ore and/or yellowcake from these sources.”

The White House, however, wanted to use the NIE’s Niger reference in a speech Bush was slated to give Oct. 7 in Cincinnati, Ohio, the Washington Post reported.  Tenet personally told White House officials, including deputy national security adviser Stephen Hadley, that the claim should not be included in that speech because it came from only one source, a senior official told the Post.  The reference was ultimately excluded from Bush’s Cincinnati speech (see GSN, Oct. 8, 2002).

In early December 2002, Iraq submitted a declaration of WMD-related information to U.N. weapons inspectors, as required by the U.N. Security Council (see GSN, Dec. 9, 2002).  On Dec. 19, the U.S. State Department issued a fact sheet listing a number of alleged omissions from the Iraqi declaration, which specifically raised the Niger claim.

“The declaration ignores efforts to procure uranium from Niger,” the State Department fact sheet says.  “Why is the Iraqi regime hiding their uranium procurement?” it says [emphasis included in original copy].

Soon after State released the fact sheet, the International Atomic Energy Agency requested that the United States provide evidence to support the claim that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium from Niger, according to a letter the agency sent last month to Representative Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee.

Meanwhile, in January the African uranium claim received its most significant endorsement when Bush included it in his State of the Union address in the now-infamous “16 words.”

“The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa,” Bush said in his address.

While apparently being significant enough for Bush to include it in his State of the Union address, the African uranium claim was not included in U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell’s February presentation to the U.N. Security Council on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction (see GSN, Feb. 6).

“When I made my presentation to the United Nations and we really went through every single thing we knew about all of the various issues with respect to weapons of mass destruction, we did not believe that it was appropriate to use that example anymore,” Powell said last week during a press conference in Pretoria, South Africa.  “It was not standing the test of time.  And so I didn’t use it, and we haven’t used it since.”

Also in February, the United States responded to the IAEA’s request for evidence to support the claim that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium from Niger.  According to the agency’s letter to Waxman, it only took about 10 days to determine that an alleged contract between Iraq and Niger for the delivery of uranium could not have been honored.  The agency then examined the veracity of the documents, finding a number of flaws, such as incorrect references to the date of the Nigerien constitution, the incorrect name of the Nigerien foreign minister at the time the alleged documents were signed and the use of obsolete letterhead and the incorrect symbol of the Nigerien presidency.

According to a State Department letter sent to Waxman earlier this month, the department told the IAEA when it provided the alleged Nigerien documents that the reports of Iraq’s attempts to purchase uranium there could not be confirmed and that the department had questions regarding specific claims (see GSN, July 9).

The first major blow was dealt to the African uranium claim in March when IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei publicly announced that the documents purporting to show Iraq’s attempt to purchase uranium from Niger were forgeries (see GSN, March 10).

“Based on thorough analysis, the IAEA has concluded, with the concurrence of outside experts, that these documents are in fact not authentic,” ElBaradei told the Security Council March 7, according to a U.N. press release.

Newsweek reported yesterday that the FBI is conducting an investigation into the forged Nigerien documents (see GSN, March 13).  Sources told the magazine that the bureau’s Counterintelligence Division has decided to investigate the issue after prompting by Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), whose earlier request three months ago was denied.

The African uranium claim came crashing down earlier this month when the White House publicly acknowledged that it should not have been included in Bush’s State of the Union address (see GSN, July 8).

“After the speech, information was learned about the forged documents,” White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said during a July 9 press conference in Pretoria, referring to the Nigerien documents.  “With the advantage of hindsight, it’s known now what was not known by the White House prior to the speech.  This information should not have risen to the level of a presidential speech,” he said.

Two days later, Tenet issued his statement taking responsibility for the CIA’s approval of Bush’s address (see GSN, July 14).

“First, CIA approved the president’s State of the Union address before it was delivered.  Second, I am responsible for the approval process in my agency.  And third, the president had every reason to believe that the text presented to him was sound,” Tenet said.  “These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the president,” he said.

Tenet told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence yesterday that his staff did not bring the uranium statement to his attention before Bush gave the speech, the Washington Post reported.  Tenet told the committee during a closed hearing that he had taken responsibility for the speech because a CIA official had approved it after meetings with the White House, congressional and Bush administration sources told the Post.

“Members were stunned because he said he basically wasn’t aware of the sentence until recently,” the Post quoted a Democratic senator as saying.

Senator Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) said today that Tenet also told the Senate intelligence committee that a White House official had insisted that the African uranium claim be included in the State of the Union address.

“He (Tenet) certainly told us who the person was who was insistent on putting this language in which the CIA knew to be incredible, this language about the uranium shipment from Africa,” the Associated Press quoted Durbin as saying on ABC’s Good Morning America. 

“And there was this negotiation between the White House and the CIA about just how far you could go and be close to the truth, and unfortunately those 16 words were included in the most important speech the president delivers in any given year,” Durbin said.

Tenet’s Future

Soon after Tenet released his statement, Bush and other senior White House officials expressed support for both him and the CIA.

“President Bush has confidence in Director Tenet, and President Bush has confidence in the CIA,” White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said Saturday.

“George Tenet is an enormously talented public servant, and the intelligence community does a darn good job,” Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Sunday on ABC’S This Week.  “There it is, end of story,” he said.

Yesterday though, two contenders for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination — Senator Joseph Lieberman (Conn.) and former Vermont Governor Howard Dean — publicly called for Tenet to resign.

“The reason the director should step aside is that he is now part of the shifting of the blame,” Dean told the Associated Press.

Lieberman was even stronger in his criticism of Tenet, saying he would have little confidence in Tenet if Lieberman were president.

“Unlike the current president, I would not continue to have confidence in my CIA director, and would ask him to resign,” Lieberman told AP.  “This president ought to hold someone accountable for causing him to say something that was not true,” he added.

Tenet’s reputation as one of the better CIA directors in recent history and as a “team player” within the Bush administration could go a long way, however, in helping him to keep his job, according to experts. 

If Tenet were to be removed from his CIA position after taking personal responsibility for the statement, some career CIA officials would likely retaliate with even more embarrassing revelations if they felt the White House had treated him “dirty,” said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org.

“Tenet’s been a stand-up guy.  He’s kept the secrets and carried the water,” Pike said.

The White House also risks portraying Tenet as a “scapegoat” if it engineers his resignation, which could cause political difficulties, said Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy.

While Tenet was appointed to his position by former President Bill Clinton, and therefore not seen as a Bush loyalist, he does have a strong team player reputation, said Charles Pena, director of Defense Policy Studies at the CATO Institute.  Even so, the impact of the intelligence-handling controversy on Bush’s personal approval rating could determine Tenet’s status, with his position in danger if the rating dips below 60 percent, Pena said.

If there were “any one guy to hang out to dry on this one,” it would be Tenet, Pena said.

Pike said, however, that previous administrations — such as those of former Presidents John Kennedy and Richard Nixon — had experienced difficulties in blaming controversies on the CIA.

“Nixon tried to blame Watergate on the CIA.  Look where it got him,” Pike said.  “Kennedy tried to blame Bay of Pigs on the CIA.  Look where it got him,” he said.

In fact, the lessons of Watergate may not be lost on some senior Bush administration officials, such as Vice President Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld, who served in the Ford administration during the aftermath of that scandal, Pike said.

“They got some adults over there who’ll take a hand to this and make it go away,” Pike said.  “They all saw Nixon self-destruct and don’t want to go there,” he said.

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Iraq II:  U.S., British Intelligence Agencies Did Not Share Africa Uranium Information, Officials Say

U.S. and British intelligence agencies did not fully share information with each other on claims that Iraq attempted to obtain uranium from Africa, resulting in differing conclusions, British officials said yesterday (see related GSN story, today).

British officials said the CIA had attempted last year to persuade the British government to drop the African uranium claim from a September report on Iraq’s WMD programs.  In a letter to a parliamentary committee conducting an inquiry into the United Kingdom’s decision to go to war with Iraq, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the CIA request was denied because of “reliable intelligence which we had not shared with the U.S.” and because the CIA had made the request “unsupported by explanation.”

While British officials will not provide further detail about the additional evidence they say supports the Africa uranium claim, they have said they have multiple sources, including at least one foreign intelligence agency, that said its information could not be shared with other countries, according to the Washington Post.

Straw also said the CIA did not inform British officials about a visit to Niger by Joseph Wilson, a former U.S ambassador to Gabon, who found there was no evidence to support a claim that Iraq had sought to purchase uranium there.

“I want to make clear that neither I nor, to the best of my knowledge, any U.K. officials were aware of Ambassador Wilson’s visit until reference first appeared in the press” last month, Straw said in his letter.  “In response to our questions, the U.S. authorities have confirmed that Ambassador Wilson’s report was not shared with the U.K.,” he said.

British officials have said they have now seen a summary of Wilson’s report on his visit to Niger, adding that they view it as inconclusive.

“We can see why it wasn’t passed on to us because it doesn’t point in one direction,” an official said, adding that the summary confirmed that an Iraqi trade delegation had visited Niger in 1999, but no trade agreements were reached.  “Uranium is Niger’s top export; it’s unlikely the Iraqis were looking for livestock, which is their second export,” the official said (Glenn Frankel, Washington Post, July 17).

Meanwhile, the International Atomic Energy Agency has criticized the United Kingdom for failing to hand over its additional evidence supporting claims that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium from Africa.

“Despite requests, the British government has provided no such evidence,” said a Western diplomat close to the IAEA.  “Senior officials at the agency think it is involved in an information blackout,” the diplomat said (Andrew Buncombe, London Independent, July 17).

British Prime Minister Tony Blair yesterday defended the claim that Iraq had sought to obtain uranium from Niger, saying the British intelligence justifying the claim was not based on documents later found to be forgeries by the IAEA.

“It may just be worth pointing out to the House and also to the public, it’s not as if this link between Niger and Iraq was some invention of the CIA or Britain.  We know (that) in the 1980s that Iraq purchased from Niger over 270 tons of uranium, and therefore it is not beyond the bounds of possibility,” Blair said before the House of Commons.  “Let’s at least put it like this, that they went back to Niger again,” he said (Xinhua News Agency, July 17).

Blair is scheduled to arrive in the United States today to meet with U.S. President George W. Bush and make a rare address before a joint session of Congress.

While Blair is not expected to discuss the intelligence-handling controversy in his address to Congress, it is expected to have an effect on his meeting with Bush, the Boston Globe reported.

The issue “is going to overshadow this meeting, and it’s going to be a much tenser meeting than previous summits,” said Nile Gardiner, a foreign policy adviser to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.  “This is going to be a much more combative meeting than previous ones between Blair and Bush,” Gardiner said (Anne Kornblut, Boston Globe, July 17).

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Iraq III:  Niger Documents Were Poorly Forged, Newspaper Reports

The now-discredited documents used by the United Kingdom and the United States to prove that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger had mistakes that were easily detectable, Italian newspaper La Repubblica reported yesterday after gaining access to the letters and documents.

According to the newspaper, for instance, a letter dated Oct. 10, 2000, which was supposed to be the draft of the protocol of the agreement between Niger and Iraq, was signed by Nigerien Foreign Minister Allele Habibou, who had left the position in 1989.

In addition, a letter referring to supposed agreements made between Niger and Iraq on June 29, 2000, was signed and dated July 1999.  The text of a letter dated July 27, 2000, had many spelling mistakes and the logo of Niger’s national symbol was obviously fake, according to the newspaper.

There are two theories on who forged the letters and documents, according to La Repubblica:  low-level diplomats from the embassy of Niger in Rome, which is the theory that CIA supports, or Italian intelligence services that sold the letters to an African diplomat in 2001.  The diplomat then passed the letters to British authorities.

The newspaper also reported on the possible link between the forged documents and a robbery that occurred in Niger’s embassy in Rome on a night between Dec. 29, 2000, and Jan. 1, 2001.  According to the newspaper, the embassy was found on Jan. 2 to have been vandalized, with paper strewn about and drawers turned upside down.  Despite creating the mess, the intruders stole only a steel clock and three small perfume bottles.

The theory, according to La Repubblica, is that the break-in was staged to cover the removal of material needed to forge the documents (Bonini/D’avanzo, La Repubblica, July 16, GSN translation).

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United States:  U.S. Legislators Offer Mixed Signals on Bush Nuclear Program

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Members of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate yesterday advanced differing positions on Bush administration efforts to develop new nuclear weapons, with the House moving to maintain current limits on development and a Senate panel approving funding requests for new nuclear weapons.

The House, in its action, voted to uphold decade-old restrictions on the advanced development and production of low-yield nuclear weapons, co-authored by Representative John Spratt (D-S.C.). The restrictions ban the United States from adding new low-yield weapons to its nuclear arsenal by prohibiting all but basic research and development activities.

Yesterday’s vote reaffirmed an earlier House vote to partially repeal the ban by allowing research activities.  Some congressional staffers last week said they feared House Republicans would seek a total repeal in a House-Senate conference on the fiscal 2004 defense authorization bill (see GSN, July 9).  A Senate version of the bill, meanwhile, would effectively eliminate restrictions on all research and development, but would require further congressional authorization before “testing, acquisition or deployment.”

In a statement today, Spratt said the restrictions in the 1990s helped the United States persuade other countries to give up nuclear weapons and to permanently extend the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in 1995.

“I would not like to see us backtrack on these achievements, and I hope that the House’s position will prevail in conference with the Senate,” he said.

The fate of that and other contentious Bush administration nuclear weapons proposals remains unresolved, however, with various pieces of major legislation this year differing in their House and Senate versions (see GSN, July 16).

Instructions for Negotiation

With the voice vote yesterday, the House instructed its conferees to insist on maintaining the language the House has already passed during the House-Senate 2004 defense authorization bill conference.

While the instructions are not binding, experts say it would be unlikely that they would be disregarded by the senior House conferees, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter (R-Ind.) and senior committee Democrat  Ike Skelton (Mo.).

Hunter yesterday said he would not urge opposition to the motion to instruct, but the outcome of the conference remains uncertain.

“The House approach is better than the Senate’s because it’s a clear statement of U.S. policy against development of tactical nukes, and contains a stronger guarantee that the Congress will be an equal partner in any decision to move beyond research,” Spratt said.

“We authorized research but retained the prohibition on development activities that could lead to the production of a destabilizing and unnecessary new low-yield nuclear weapon,” said Skelton.

Question Persists on Funding

Meanwhile, key House and the Senate appropriations committees appear to differ over funding the mini-nuke and other Bush administration nuclear weapons priorities its fiscal 2004 Energy Department appropriations request.

The Senate Appropriations Committee today approved in full the administration’s funding request for work on low-yield weapons in 2004 ($6 million), research on a modified nuclear weapon intended for earth penetration ($15 million) and activities to reduce the preparation time for resuming nuclear testing ($25 million).

The House Appropriations Committee this week, however, voted not to fund nearly all those programs, saying in a report the administration needed to provide better justifications for the requests.

Debate Over Implications

In a markup session yesterday, the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development debated the potential implications of lifting the ban on research and development of low-yield nuclear weapons.

Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) charged, “This bill launches a new generation of nuclear weapons … that will make this nation less safe in the future, not more safe.”

Subcommittee chairman Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) disagreed, and said the funding would ease restrictions on the freedom of U.S. nuclear scientists.

“If you vote for this you will not be voting for a new generation of nuclear weapons.  That I can assure you,” he said.

“We’re talking about whether or not we’re going to let our scientists have new ideas and new thoughts or whether we’re going to try from the outside to put some kind of parameters around their thinking,” he said.

Feinstein said the administration’s Nuclear Posture Review indicated a goal to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons.

“The fact of the matter is the administration has decided to take concrete steps for creating new classes of nuclear weapons and the wheels are beginning to grind to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons,” she said.

“The administration seems to be moving toward a military posture where nuclear weapons are just like other weapons,” she said.

A formal White House policy statement on the defense authorization bill said eliminating research and development restrictions was needed to address new threats.

“Maintaining the prohibition on development will hinder the ability of our scientists and engineers to explore technical options to deter national security threats of the 21st century,” it says.

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North Korea:  China Says North Korea Open to Multilateral Talks

Chinese officials have told the United States that North Korea is willing to agree to multilateral talks to resolve the nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, July 16).

Beijing said, however, that the United States must agree to three-nation talks, excluding South Korea and Japan.  U.S. officials said, however, they would continue to push for the inclusion of Seoul and Tokyo.

“We think five is the right formula and will keep pressing for that,” said one senior State Department official (Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, July 17), but Undersecretary of State John Bolton told Japanese reporters, “If there is a way to start at three and go to five, we are open to suggestions on it” (Japan Times, July 17).

China now appears to be bringing its substantial influence to bear in an effort to force talks on the nuclear standoff.

“China is moving.  They are working on it,” said a South Korea official.  “If North Korea rejects dialogue now, China will be unhappy,” he said (Kessler, Washington Post).

Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing reportedly told U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell of the possible breakthrough during a telephone call Tuesday (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, July 17).

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said the process should move forward relatively soon.

“So the diplomatic track is alive and well and I expect to see some developments along that track in the very near future,” he said (Harry Murphy, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, July 16).

Troops Fire Across DMZ

Meanwhile, Seoul said North Korean soldiers opened fire on a South Korean position yesterday.  South Korean soldiers returned fire a minute later, according to the officials.

“Everything that they have done on the DMZ over the course of the past few years has been done with a particular purpose,” said Korea expert Scott Snyder of the Asia Foundation.  “The North Koreans have continued to look for ways to remind the United States that it is out there and that they can do damage as a way of trying to draw attention,” he added (Eckert/Jung-hwa, Reuters, July 17).

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Iran:  Moscow, Tehran Could Sign Spent Fuel Agreement By End of Month

Tehran and Moscow could sign an agreement by the end of the month on the return of spent nuclear fuel from the Bushehr nuclear plant in Iran to Russia, Russian Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev said yesterday (see GSN, July 3).

Environmental experts have completed their examination of the agreement, which has cleared the way for Russia and Iran to sign, Rumyantsev said.  “For a long time the Iranian side has had no objections to the signing,” he said (Daily Star, July 17).

Russia will supply the first 11 deliveries of 500 kilograms each of fuel for the Bushehr reactor to Iran via cargo jet after the agreement is signed, Rumyantsev said.  The first fuel shipments would likely be loaded into the reactor in mid-2004, he said (Xinhua News Agency, July 17).

Iranian Defense Strategy Does Not Include Nuclear Weapons, Khatami Says

Meanwhile, Iranian President Mohammad Khatami has said that Iran’s defense strategy does not include nuclear weapons (see GSN, July 16).

“I frankly say that there is absolutely no place in Iran’s defense strategy to acquire nuclear arms,” Khatami said.  “We are, in fact, asking the world and the region to get rid of such weapons,” he said.

Instead, Iran is seeking nuclear technology for peaceful uses, Khatami said, denying that its civilian nuclear program was a cover for military activities.

“Acquiring nuclear technology does not mean having nuclear arms,” Khatami said.  “What Iran has obtained through its own capabilities ... is an introduction to peaceful nuclear technology,” he said (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, July 16). 

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CTBT:  Algeria Ratifies Treaty

Algeria ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty July 11, bringing the total number of treaty ratifiers to 103, according to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization (see GSN, June 25).

Algeria is one of the 44 nations that must ratify the treaty before it can enter into force.  Of those 44 nations, 32 have ratified the treaty (CTBT Organization release, July 17).

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U.S. Response:  House Votes For Project Bioshield

The U.S. House of Representatives approved legislation yesterday to enact the Project Bioshield Act of 2003, a federal program to develop medicines that would defend the nation from a bioterrorist attack (see GSN, July 1).

“The wolves of terrorism are still on the lurk,” said House Majority Leader Tom Delay (R-Texas).

The House voted 421-2 to establish Project Bioshield, which would provide $5.6 billion over the next decade to push research into normally unprofitable drugs.  The plan would guarantee pharmaceutical companies a buyer for drugs that can be used to counter terrorism.

Supporters of the plan said it will prove worthwhile if there is an attack with dangerous biological agents.

“Essentially, the product has no value if you don’t need it, but infinite value if you do,” said Gillian Woollett, an official with BIO, the biotechnology trade organization (Sheryl Stolberg, New York Times, July 17).

Yesterday’s legislation established the framework for the plan, but the House Appropriations Committee must still address the issue.  Because bipartisan support for the legislation is so overwhelming, the committee is expected to approve the full $5.6 billion over the next ten years, according to an spokeswoman for Representative Billy Tauzin (R-La.), the sponsor of yesterday’s bill and the chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce.  The money will be appropriated all at once, but officials will be forced to spend it over the full decade, according to the spokeswoman.

Officials will be able to spend $3.4 billion over the next five years (David McGlinchey, Global Security Newswire, July 17).

Two Republican representatives, Jeff Flake of Arizona and Ron Paul of Texas, voted against the bill, while U.S. President George W. Bush applauded the move.

“This legislation will help spur the development and availability of next-generation countermeasures against biological, chemical, nuclear and radiological weapons,” Bush said.

Meanwhile, the plan has stalled in the Senate while lawmakers argue over whether to allocate funding for the program in one lump sum or annually.

“I urge the Senate to act on this very important legislation,” Bush said (Vicki Kemper, Los Angeles Times, July 17).

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Smallpox:  Officials Want Renewed Immunization Effort

The U.S. smallpox immunization program has essentially ground to a halt, but U.S. officials and public health experts are pushing for a resumption in vaccinations, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, July 15).

“Our goal at this point should be to meet (President Bush’s) plan and to vaccinate the number of people originally targeted in the health care community of between 400,000 and 500,000,” said William Winkenwerder, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs.  “I would certainly be more comfortable if we had that number of civilians prepared to respond,” he added.

Some public health experts have said that the end of the Iraq war has undermined the immunization drive.

“People are now back in dumb-and-happy mode,” said Tara O’Toole, director of the Center for Civilian Biodefense Strategies at Johns Hopkins University.  She said the nation no longer has the sense of urgency that it had “when we were going into Iraq, and the possibility of a smallpox attack was seen as much more plausible.”

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last year said it would take more than 1 million immunized health workers to operate enough stations to vaccinate the country within 10 days, but Yale University professor Edward Kaplan has said that the United States has a long way to go to reach that goal.

“If you believe it’s a serious threat — and plenty of credible folks do believe it is a threat — then it makes sense to be ready to push the button,” Kaplan said.  “We are not in a position to respond rapidly if we have to,” he added (Ceci Connolly, Washington Post, July 17).

As of July 4, less than 38,000 civilian health care workers had received the vaccination (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention release, July 4).

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Anthrax:  Bacterium Toxin Can Disable Immune System, Scientists Say

Researchers have discovered how anthrax is able to evade the human immune system — a finding that could lead to the development of better treatments against the disease, BBC News reported today (see GSN, July 10).

Scientists have learned that “lethal factor,” one of three toxins produced by the anthrax bacterium, is able to disable dendritic cells, which help stimulate the body’s immune system, according to BBC News.  When these cells are disabled, the body is unable to stimulate the immune response, allowing infection to spread within the body, said Bali Pulendran of Emory University.

“Our ultimate goal is to apply this novel finding to develop better anthrax treatments and to shape future research into controlling immune responses more appropriately,” Pulendran said (BBC News, July 17).

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Singapore Response:  Country Establishes Chemical Incident Response Unit

Singapore has established a unit to respond to a chemical weapons attack, Agence France-Presse reported today (see GSN, May 14, 2002).

The Singapore Civil Defense Force Special Rescue Company now has 109 men who have undergone 10 weeks of training in special medical and rescue skills, according to AFP.  The company also has six vehicles equipped with chemical agent detectors and decontamination equipment.

“So far, we have not dealt with a real situation, but we are prepared,” said company commander Abdul Jalil Montel said.  “There are new threats like people using chemical and biological agents to strike terror.  Post-Sept. 11, 2001, made it necessary to acquire new capabilities to respond to these challenges,” Montel said (Agence France-Presse, July 17).

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Nuclear Waste:  Senate and House Disagree on Yucca Mountain Funding

A U.S. Senate Appropriations subcommittee yesterday approved a fiscal 2004 energy and water appropriations bill that contains significantly less funding than its House counterpart for a project to construct a long-term nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, according to Energy Daily (see GSN, July 9).

The Senate version of the bill, approved by the Energy and Water Development Subcommittee, contains $425 million for the Yucca Mountain project — $166 million less than the Energy Department’s fiscal 2004 request and $32 million less than this year’s funding for the project, Energy Daily reported.  In comparison, the House version of the bill contains $765 million for the project, which is $174 million more than the Energy Department’s request and $308 million more than this year’s funding.

The lower funding in the Senate bill was apparently engineered by Senator Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the subcommittee’s top Democrat and an ardent opponent of the Yucca Mountain project, according to Energy Daily.  Reid criticized the House version of the bill Tuesday, saying its allocation for the Yucca Mountain project was “outrageous” and “insulting to Nevadans and all Americans.”

“It is downright hypocritical for the House Republican leadership to talk about fiscal restraint and then pass a Yucca Mountain budget that large,” Reid said.

Subcommittee Chairman Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) said the differences in funding for the Yucca Mountain project in the House and Senate bills will be a “point of contention” when the two houses work on a final version.

“Funding for this project will be a major point of contention in the conference with the House,” Domenici said (George Lobsenz, Energy Daily, July 17).

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