U.S State Department Warns of Possible WMD-Related Attacks

The U.S. State Department issued a “worldwide caution” bulletin Wednesday to warn of possible al-Qaeda attacks in coming weeks that might involve biological or chemical agents, according to the Washington Post (see GSN, Sept. 11).

“We are seeing increasing indications that al-Qaeda is preparing to strike U.S. interests abroad,” the bulletin said.  “We expect al-Qaeda will strive for new attacks that will be more devastating than the Sept. 11 attack, possibly involving nonconventional weapons such as chemical or biological agents,” it said.

The alert was based on new intelligence that suggests terrorists might conduct an attack, possibly with chemical weapons, in western Europe, U.S. officials said.  The intelligence was received through the interrogation of a captured al-Qaeda operative or from intercepted al-Qaeda communications, they said (John Mintz, Washington Post, Sept. 12).

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Congress Considering Ways to Replace Members After Possible Catastrophe

By Paul Olend and Mark Wegner

Congress Daily

WASHINGTON — On the steps of a U.S. House office building facing the Capitol, members of a working group on congressional continuity announced plans yesterday to introduce a proposed constitutional amendment that would outline policy on how the government would function in the wake of a terrorist attack (see GSN, June 4).

Members of the group, including Representives Brian Baird (D-Wash.), Martin Frost (D-Texas), Christopher Cox (R-Calif.), and Jim Langevin (D-R.I.), spoke somberly about the possibility of congressional incapacitation and called on Congress to move discussions forward on the subject.     

The amendment, which will follow a yet-to-be-drafted resolution to open the floor to debate on the topic, would provide guidelines for congressional succession.  Baird, who plans to introduce the proposed amendment by the end of the year, said it would provide for interim congressional appointments, which would remain in place until special elections could take place.  The appointments would be predetermined from a slate of congressional nominees.     

The group cited evidence from a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing earlier this week, in which officials said it could take up to two months to re-elect lawmakers and replenish the three branches of government following a terrorist attack — a problem Baird said could be resolved by legislation allowing preappointed leadership.      

Although two years have passed since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Baird said Congress still refuses to acknowledge the importance of updating government continuity legislation, and communication gaps and poor emergency measures following the attacks are evidence that “worst-case-scenario” policies should be revised.

Baird said if the resolution to formally discuss the amendment is rejected by House leadership, the group will pursue a discharge petition.

A spokesman for House Speaker Hastert said yesterday that Hastert favors an approach taken in legislation by Rules Chairman Dreier and Judiciary Chairman Sensenbrenner that would call on states to hold expedited special elections in case of a catastrophe.  He opposes a proposal that would suspend the direct election of any House member seated in Congress.

“The speaker doesn’t like the idea of getting away from the direct election of members,” Hastert’s spokesman said.

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British Intelligence Chiefs Warned That Iraq War Could Increase Terrorist WMD Threat

Shortly before Operation Iraqi Freedom, British intelligence chiefs had prepared a secret assessment warning that terrorist groups would be more likely to acquire weapons of mass destruction if then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s regime were overthrown, according to a British parliamentary report released yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 11).

In a Feb. 10 assessment, the British Joint Intelligence Committee said there was no intelligence that Iraq had provided weapons of mass destruction to al-Qaeda. 

“Any collapse of the Iraqi regime would increase the risk of chemical and biological warfare technology or agents finding their way into the hands of terrorists,” the assessment said (Adams/Alden, Financial Times, Sept. 11).

British Prime Minister Tony Blair had told the Joint Intelligence Committee that “there was obviously a danger that in attacking Iraq you ended up provoking the very thing you were trying to avoid,” according to yesterday’s report.  He also told the committee, however, that he believed the risk of Iraq providing weapons of mass destruction to terrorists would have increased if Hussein had been allowed to remain in power.

“This is my judgment and it remains my judgment,” Blair was quoted as saying by yesterday’s report, “and I suppose time will tell whether it’s true or it’s not true.”

Yesterday’s report was issued by the House of Commons Intelligence and Security Committee, which has been conducting an inquiry into whether Blair’s office had exaggerated prewar intelligence on Iraq used in a September 2002 dossier, according to the Washington Post.  While the committee determined that the dossier had not been inflated, it did criticize the inclusion of a claim that the Iraqi military could have launched WMD attacks within 45 minutes of receiving an order to do so, the Post reported.

The 45-minute claim, “an arresting detail” that had been mentioned four times in the dossier, had referred only to “battlefield chemical and biological munitions and their movement on the battlefield, not to any other form of chemical or biological attack,” the report said.  This “should have been highlighted in the dossier,” it said.

The report also said, however, that British intelligence services were justified in continuing to support the disputed claim that Iraq had sought to obtain uranium from Niger — a claim the United States has determined to be false, according to the Post (see GSN, Aug. 11).  “We have questioned the Secret Intelligence Service about the basis of its judgment and conclude that it is reasonable,” the report said (Glenn Frankel, Washington Post, Sept. 12).

In addition, the committee also criticized in its report British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon, saying it was “disturbed” that Hoon did not reveal during testimony that ministry staff had expressed concerns about the dossier, according to CNN.com.

Committee Chairwoman Ann Taylor said that while Hoon did not lie, he had been “potentially misleading” in his testimony.

“He did not tell us lies,” Taylor said.  “It was potentially misleading, events overtook it. ... We got the information in the end.  It is speculative (to ask) what might have happened,” she said.

The Defense Ministry “could have been more helpful,” Hoon said.  “I regret any misunderstanding,” he said (CNN.com, Sept. 11).

Bush Administration Officials Shift in Justification for War

Meanwhile, since the end of major combat operations in Iraq, senior White House officials, including President George W. Bush himself, have moved away from citing Iraqi WMD programs as a major justification for war, according to the Washington Post.

In a speech Sunday, Bush barely mentioned Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.  Instead, he linked Iraq to the war on terrorism, calling it the site of the last stand by the “enemies of freedom.”

Another senior administration official who has apparently altered is arguments is Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, who leading up to war stressed the issue of Iraqi WMD efforts, according to the Post.  More recently, however, Wolfowitz has instead chosen to focus on the evils of Hussein’s regime and the new opportunity to turn Iraq into an example for the rest of the Middle East.

In an interview with the Post last week, Wolfowitz denied that the White House has altered its justification for going to war with Iraq.  He said that he and other administration officials “had been clear from the beginning” that, in addition to weapons of mass destruction, war with Iraq would provide a chance to liberate the country and to create a model of democracy for the region.

“I was often criticized for talking too much about what Iraq could become when it was liberated, and I believed it has to become,” Wolfowitz said.  “We have to win (this war), and when we win it, I believe it will advance American interests,” he said.

Some critics in Congress of the war, however, have indicated that the White House shift in focus away from weapons of mass destruction is meant to hide the fact that evidence of such weapons has yet to be found, the Post reported.

“I don’t think (Wolfowitz and other administration officials) are being forthright,” said Senator Lincoln Chafee (R-R.I.), the sole Republican senator to vote against the war.  “They are using whatever argument is most marketable at any given time,” he said (Michael Dobbs, Washington Post, Sept. 12).

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Bush Administration Considering Imposing Sanctions Against Syria

Bush administration officials have said that the White House is considering imposing sanctions against Syria for providing weapons to Iraq, Newsday reported today (see GSN, Aug. 12).

All relevant U.S. agencies, except the State Department, support sanctions against Syria, Bush administration officials said, adding that Secretary of State Colin Powell is unlikely to block the measure.  In the past several years, people close to Syrian President Bashar Asad, and possibly members of his family, have shipped weapons to Iraq that may have included WMD components, the officials said. 

The House International Relations Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing next week on the Syria Accountability Act, which would make it easier for the president to impose sanctions on Syria, including a total ban on trade. 

U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton, who was ordered to refrain from making strong WMD allegations against Syria in July, is scheduled to testify (see GSN, July 16).

The White House is also considering imposing separate sanctions under the USA PATRIOT Act, according to Newsday (Timothy Phelps, Newsday, Sept. 12).

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Officials Plan International WMD Cargo Interdiction Exercise for Tomorrow

By Mike Nartker
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — A group of 11 nations, including the United States, is scheduled to conduct tomorrow the first in a series of interdiction training exercises held as part of a U.S.-led effort to block shipments of WMD-related cargo (see GSN, Sept. 5).

As part of the Proliferation Security Initiative, Australia, France, Japan and the United States are scheduled to hold a two-day naval interdiction exercise this weekend in the Coral Sea off the northeastern coast of Australia, a senior U.S. State Department official said Tuesday.  The “Pacific Protector” exercise will also include liaison officers from the other seven countries that are involved in the initiative — Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom, the State Department official said.

A series of 10 interdiction exercises have been scheduled to occur through early next year, the official said, adding that the exercises will involve air, land and sea interdiction and will occur at various international locations.  All 11 initiative members are expected to take part in the next two planned exercises, the official said.

“All of this is intended to sharpen the operational skills of the countries involved to facilitate interdictions when the possibility for an interdiction arises,” the official said.

Representatives from initiative members are also scheduled to meet in London Oct. 9-10 to discuss several issues, including levels of support and participation and reaction to a statement of interdiction principles agreed upon during a meeting held in Paris last week, the official said.  The official added, however, that the initiative should be seen more as a counterprolfieration measure and less as an organization.

“We’ll be successful to the extent that it is operational in conducting interdictions, not to the extent that … it meets and issues communiques,” the official said.

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Iran Receives IAEA Deadline, Walks Out in Protest

By Joe Fiorill
Global Security Newswire

VIENNA — The International Atomic Energy Agency’s Board of Governors today passed a resolution setting a deadline for increased Iranian cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog, but only after the Iranian delegation stormed out of the meeting, expressing fears of a U.S. invasion of Iran and threatening to suspend cooperation with international nuclear inspectors.

Amid widespread concerns about possible covert nuclear weapons development in Iran, the U.S.-backed resolution sets a deadline of Oct. 31 for Iran to provide the board with extensive new information on its nuclear activities and “unrestricted access to locations the agency deems necessary” in Iran.

The resolution calls on Iran to “remedy all failures identified by the agency and cooperate fully with the agency to ensure verification of compliance with Iran’s safeguards agreement” and specifically demands detailed information on Iran’s uranium enrichment activities.

U.S. envoy Kenneth Brill told reporters the measure “gives full backing to the agency’s efforts to get to the bottom of the Iran nuclear issue.”

The board is scheduled to meet next in November, but could meet earlier if needed, to hear a new report on Iran from IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei.  The body could send the matter to the U.N. Security Council if it finds Iran in noncompliance with its nuclear safeguards commitments.  Brill called the board’s obligation to do so “quite clear.”

In a statement read to the closed meeting just before the walkout and provided to reporters without further comment, Iranian envoy Ali Akbar Salehi said the resolution’s passage would “kill an otherwise constructive process” and that Iran would find itself with “no choice but to have a deep review of our existing level and extent of engagement with the agency vis-a-vis this resolution.”

Asked about the threat, ElBaradei said, “They will get over that.  They will see that it is in their interest to cooperate with us in the next few weeks.”

He added that Iran’s intention to “review” its relationship with the agency is understandable, given the events of the day.

“I hope … they will come to the right conclusion, in my view, which is to enhance cooperation with the agency,” he said.

One nonproliferation expert said the Iranian delegation was angry right now, but that Iranian plans would be better judged in the days and weeks ahead.

“Salehi and others in the more moderate faction in Iran have been sending signals for long time saying if you make this [resolution] too sharp against Iran, it inflames the [Iranian] hardliners who didn’t want to cooperate in the first place,” said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security.

If Iran reduces its level of cooperation with the IAEA, then “that indicates that they have something they wish to hide,” said U.S. delegate Brill.

According to a U.S. statement presented at the end of today’s meeting, the resolution “conveys an unequivocal message that when legitimate questions are raised, the international community will not be satisfied or deflected by policies of delay, denial and deception.”

Another expert, Jon Wolfsthal of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, praised the U.S. approach in Vienna.

“The U.S. is doing this about right.  It’s using the diplomatic tools at its disposal.  It’s using its allies to pressure Iran.  Iran is trying to push back, but it’s unclear whether it will get support,” he said.

Iran Voices Fear of U.S. Invasion Plan

Salehi accused the United States of using the resolution to pursue a “fast pass to the Security Council.”  The IAEA, Salehi said, is making progress in Iran and wishes to continue along the path it is now on, but the United States is bent on sending the matter to the Security Council and, ultimately, confronting Iran militarily.

“Every state can draw up and perceive threats, real or imaginary, as they wish.  They may also build up hoopla around such perceptions and elevate them to the level of highest international priority, as they can.  They can spin the facts, deceive and lie, as they want.  They are even able to wield massive power to crush the conceived culprit, as they do,” Salehi said.

“It is no secret,” he continued, “that the current U.S. administration, or at least its influential circle, entertains the idea of invasion of yet another territory, as they aim to reshape and re-engineer the entire Middle East region.”

ElBaradei appeared to contradict Salehi’s claim that the resolution puts the board at odds with the agency, saying instead that the resolution sends a “very powerful message of support for the agency’s work” and a “very powerful message to Iran that they need to cooperate.”

“We are in fact providing a service right now in Iran,” ElBaradei added, by helping the country to demonstrate that it is acting transparently and that its nuclear programs are for peaceful purposes.

Salehi also accused the United States of seeking to deny Iran its right to nuclear power.  He said Washington seeks a perpetual series of new obligations for Iran, so that the country can never “enjoy its inalienable right to peaceful nuclear activity without hindrance and impediment.”

The United States, Salehi said, seeks to impose “full and complete deprivation of Iran from pursuing its peaceful program. … The U.S. intention behind this saga is nothing but to make this deprivation final and eternal.”

The United States said in its statement this evening, however, “there is no right to nuclear energy for ‘putatively peaceful’ or ‘presumably peaceful’ purposes.  The whole NPT [Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty] framework makes clear the right involves the use of nuclear material only for verifiably peaceful purposes and thus in conjunction with effective safeguards.”

Consensus Passage Sought in Vain

Today’s measure was adopted without a vote, but technically did not enjoy consensus.  Asked what such passage signifies, IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said, “No country stood up and said, ‘We want this to be a vote.’ … It doesn’t necessarily mean that all countries agree with it.”

Debate on the resolution boiled down to a single word earlier today, with a large majority on the board supporting the measure in principle but cautious about language some said could amount to an ultimatum.

According to Western diplomats, the last debate that delayed passage of the text today hinged on the presence of the word “definitive” in the final words of the resolution.  Through the language in question, which remains in the text passed today, the board asked ElBaradei to report in November or earlier on Iran’s implementation of the resolution, “enabling the board to draw definitive conclusions.”

Two diplomats said the United States alone was opposing the removal of the word “definitive” from the sentence, with nearly all other countries on the 35-member board willing to delete the word in the interest of near-consensus — total consensus being impossible owing to Iran’s unconditional rejection of the measure.

In related action, the Nonaligned Movement proposed numerous amendments to the resolution in a search for consensus, but the proposals were turned down by the resolution’s sponsors, according to Malaysian envoy Hussein Haniff, speaking for the Nonaligned Movement.  The movement did succeed in attaching a statement to the final resolution — not part of the resolution itself — expressing its reservations on certain points.

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North Korea Suspends Plutonium Reprocessing, Offers No Explanation

U.S. officials yesterday confirmed reports that North Korea has stopped activity at its nuclear reprocessing facility, but were at a loss to explain why or for how long the suspension would last (see GSN, Sept. 11).

“There’s not much going on” at North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear site, said one U.S. official.  Others could only speculate that perhaps Pyongyang was making a conciliatory gesture to encourage continuing diplomatic discussions, had run into technical difficulties, or had finished reprocessing the 8,000 spent fuel rods that were removed from international seal late last year (see GSN, Dec. 30, 2002).

“I’m not sure what to make of it.  There’s a lot we don’t know about North Korea,” said a U.S. official.  “Maybe they’ve stopped (reprocessing).  Maybe they’ve finished.  Maybe they never got very far and decided to wait.  Maybe there were technical problems. … Anyone who tells you they know is lying,” the official added.

Another U.S. official disclosed that there have been no recent reports of detecting krypton gas emissions from North Korea (see GSN, July 14).  The gas is a byproduct of reprocessing, a procedure that separates plutonium — which can be used for nuclear weapons — from a nuclear reactor’s spent fuel (Carol Giacomo, Reuters/Planet Ark, Sept. 12).

Experts have estimated that if Yongbyon’s reprocessing facility were running at full capacity, it could produce one bomb’s worth of plutonium per month.  The 8,000 spent fuel rods are estimated to contain enough plutonium for five to six nuclear weapons.

North Korean officials have declared that they have finished reprocessing all the spent fuel rods, but U.S. officials have expressed skepticism (see GSN, July 15; Associated Press/USA Today, Sept. 12).

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South Asia:  Pakistan Criticizes Increasing India-Israel Ties

Pakistan has criticized the growing ties between India and Israel, which are set to include the sale of Israeli airborne radar systems and possibly missile defense systems to India, Arabic News reported today (see GSN, Sept. 12).

“India and Israel are trying to change the strategic balance in the region by pouring in a wide range of sophisticated weapons and strategic defense system[s],” Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri said (Arabic News, Sept. 12).

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Colorado Community Wins Effort to Keep Chemical Destruction in its Backyard

The U.S. Army has advanced its chemical weapons destruction plans for its Pueblo, Colo., facility, where the Army intends to eliminate mustard gas stocks using a chemical neutralization process, the Pueblo Chieftain reported today (see GSN, July 9).

After receiving a request from a local group, the Army has agreed to conduct more of the destruction process in Pueblo instead of shipping potentially hazardous materials to other facilities.

Pueblo County Commissioner John Klomp last night released a letter announcing the decision from Michael Parker, program manager for the Army’s Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives program.

To neutralize mustard gas, the Army plans first to remove the agent from artillery shells and mix it with large amounts of water and caustics.  This produces thiodiglycol, a less hazardous substance than the mustard agent.  In a second stage, the thiodiglycol is treated by introducing microorganisms into the solution that break it down further into a sludge that can be introduced into existing water treatment facilities.

The Army had originally considered shipping the thiodiglycol solution out of Pueblo, but community leaders complained about the shipping risks and asked the Army to conduct the second stage locally.  Keeping that process is expected to create 40 additional jobs and bring in $80 million more to Pueblo.

Parker’s letter said the Army still plans to destroy the artillery shells’ propellants and storage pallets at another plant (John Norton, Pueblo Chieftain, Sept. 12).

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Alabama Senator, State Officials Call for Improved Air Monitoring at Anniston Incinerator

U.S. Senator Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), Alabama officials and community activists have all called for improved monitoring of the air surrounding a chemical weapons incinerator at the Anniston Army Depot, the Birmingham News reported today (see GSN, Sept. 11).

Shelby has cosponsored a Senate resolution asking the secretary of the army to develop and initiate a program to upgrade air monitoring systems at all U.S. chemical weapons disposal sites.  In a statement, Shelby said the Army “should established a new standard for agent monitoring” by examining the use of more modern, real-time systems.

Members of the Alabama Environmental Management Commission have said they also plan to request a demonstration of new air monitoring technology.

“This community deserves the best technology, and with the best technology, whatever that is, comes a higher level of trust and comfort,” said Pete Conroy, director of Jacksonville State University’s Environment Policy and Information Center.

The depot currently lacks alarms installed around its perimeter, and air monitors inside the incinerator complex experience false alarms and long verification delays, according to the News.  The Army has installed within the incinerator stack a single monitor that continuously tests for sarin.  There are also monitors that test for basic air pollutants, but do not test for hazardous materials that are produced through chemical weapons incineration, such as PCBs and dioxins, the News reported. 

The incinerator will only test once for hazardous air during operations, and then the monitors will be disconnected, according to the News.  Alabama will assume, based on models and a successful test, that the incinerator is not releasing harmful chemicals because there is no reliable method to continuously monitor air, said Stephen Cobb, overseer of the program for the Alabama Environmental Management Department.

“That is a very small amount of material that you’re looking for,” Cobb said.  “In some cases you’re almost looking at the molecular level,” he said.

The equipment proposed by supporters of increased monitoring could continuously test for chemicals such as PCBs and dioxins, though not with the same sensitivity as the current system, according to the News.

“That’s one reason Westinghouse Anniston is fighting this so hard,” said Chemical Weapons Working Group Executive Director Craig Williams, referring to the contractor that operates the incinerator.  “They don’t want a multispectrum, real-time monitoring capability that can give you a reliable and consistent emissions reading capacity over the life of the plant,” Williams said (Katherine Bouma, Birmingham News, Sept. 11).

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New North Korean Missile Could Have Better Accuracy, U.S. Official Says

North Korea is developing a new long-range ballistic missile that has improved accuracy over its older designs, a U.S. official said yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 11).

The new missile is believed to be based on a Soviet-era SS-N-6 sea-launched ballistic missile that North Korea is suspected of having acquired sometime between 1992 and 1998, the official said.  Pyongyang then added technology to modify the missile, giving it the capability to be launched from land and improved accuracy, the official said.

Based on the missile’s description, it “increases the probability that North Korea could achieve the capability of launching nuclear weapons against the continental U.S.,” said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org.  Because the North Korean missile is reportedly based on Soviet-era technology, Pyongyang could deploy it “without having to farm out the testing to their buddies in Pakistan and Iran” or “blow up a lot of hardware,” he said.

“They’re going with something tried and true rather than trying to invent it themselves.  They basically let (former Soviet leader Nikita) Khrushchev pay for all the exploding rockets 40 years ago,” Pike said.

There is no indication that Russia was formally involved in the missile transfer or that Moscow has had any involvement in North Korea’s missile efforts “in at least the last five years,” the U.S. official said.

“We’ve had hints of this for several years, but it’s only within the last year that                   we’ve been able to confirm that this did exist and it’s derived from Russian                   technology,” the official said (Sonni Efron, Los Angeles Times, Sept. 12).

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