Rice Expresses Confidence That Iraq, Al-Qaeda Were Connected

By Mike Nartker
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said yesterday that she “absolutely” believed that there was a link between former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Appearing on FOX News Sunday, Rice said Hussein’s regime helped to train al-Qaeda operatives in “chemical and perhaps biological warfare.”  Rice also noted the presence of the militant Islamic group Ansar al-Islam, suspected of being connected to al-Qaeda, in northern Iraq prior to the war.  In April, U.S. troops were reported to have found evidence of the group’s efforts to develop biological and chemical weapons after Ansar al-Islam bases in northern Iraq were captured (see GSN, April 2).

There has been increasing skepticism, however, of the alleged links between Iraq and al-Qaeda, which was one of the rationales offered by the Bush administration for the war.  In June, the head of the U.N. Security Council group monitoring sanctions against al-Qaeda and the Taliban said there was no evidence of links between Hussein’s regime and al-Qaeda, according to reports (see GSN, June 27).

“Nothing has come to our notice, reported to us … that would indicate links between al-Qaeda and Iraq.  That doesn’t mean to say it doesn’t exist, but as far as we are concerned, the answer is ‘no’,” Michael Chandler, chairman of the monitoring group, was quoted as saying.

Last month, National Journal reported that some former Bush administration officials also believed the alleged connections between Iraq and al-Qaeda were exaggerated (see GSN, Aug. 8).

“Saddam would have seen al-Qaeda as a threat, and al-Qaeda would have opposed Saddam as the kind of secular government they hated,” Greg Thielmann, former official in the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, was quoted as saying.

Rice warned yesterday that al-Qaeda might be trying to establish itself in post-Hussein Iraq.

“I think that the evidentiary basis here is not so strong, but we are getting pieces of evidence, certainly, that al-Qaeda is interested in Iraq and may be … trying to operate there,” she said.

Rice’s comments yesterday came in advance of a nationally televised address last night by U.S. President George W. Bush, who called on the U.S. Congress to approve an $87 billion funding request to cover the cost of military and reconstruction operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.  About two-thirds of the request would go toward covering the cost of military and intelligence operations in the two countries over the next year, he said.

In his address, Bush linked the war in Iraq to the overall U.S. war on terrorism.

“The terrorists thrive on the support of tyrants and the resentments of oppressed peoples.  When tyrants fall, and resentment gives way to hope, men and women in every culture reject the ideologies of terror, and turn to the pursuits of peace,” Bush said.  “Everywhere that freedom takes hold, terror will retreat,” he said.

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WMD Hunt Slowed by Uncooperative Iraqi Scientists Who Fear Prosecution, Officials Say

Bush administration and congressional officials have said the fear of possible prosecution among Iraqi scientists may be hindering U.S. efforts to search for evidence of Iraq’s suspected WMD programs, the Washington Post reported Saturday (see GSN, Sept. 5).

The publicized arrests of WMD scientists have resulted in reduced cooperation from Iraqi scientists who have knowledge of such programs, sources said.  Those scientists that have been arrested have provided no information on the alleged programs, possibly fearing prosecution for their involvement, officials said.  Those scientists not in U.S. custody are afraid to come forward for fear of being jailed and prosecuted, the Post reported.

Officials are unsure as to best way to handle Iraqi scientists, according to Representative Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), a member of the House intelligence committee who recently visited Baghdad.

“There is uncertainty about the best way” to deal with the Iraqis, Hoekstra said.  “Some (say) the role of prosecuting attorney would not be inappropriate, deciding who to negotiate a deal with so that we not let everyone get off scot-free,” he said.

Former U.N. weapons inspector David Kay, who is coordinating the Iraq Survey Group’s efforts to find Iraqi WMD programs, is expected to provide a report on the group’s progress later this month, a senior Bush administration official said.  The exact date and form of Kay’s report has not yet been determined (Walter Pincus, Washington Post, Sept. 6).

Poor Accounting May Have Resulted in “Unaccounted For” Stockpiles

Meanwhile, former U.N. weapons inspectors have said that unaccounted for Iraqi WMD stockpiles may be more the result of poor record keeping, rather than deliberate attempts to hide such weapons, according to the Associated Press.

Some of the suspect stockpiles may be the result of poor accounting after Iraq destroyed biological and chemical weapons years ago, according to former U.N. inspectors.  Some of the unaccounted for weapons may be the results of miscounts, while others may have originated from exaggerated arms production reports intended to appease Iraqi leaders, AP reported.

“Under that sort of regime, you don’t admit you got it wrong,” said former U.N. chemical weapons inspector Ron Manley.

Former U.N. inspector Scott Ritter agreed that Iraqi reports on WMD production quantities were inflated.

“There was so much pressure put on scientists to produce world-class systems, they would exaggerate their reports back to authorities,” Ritter said.  Once inspectors actually visited sites and spoke with scientists, “you suddenly realized they weren’t as good as they said they were,” he said (Charles Hanley, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Sept. 7).

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China Holds North Korean WMD Expert

Chinese authorities have detained North Korean biological weapons expert Ri Chae Woo after he attempted to enter the Australian Consulate in Guangzhou to seek political asylum, an anti-North Korean activist said Saturday (see GSN, June 5).

Ri, who has evidence of North Korean human experiments, was planning to testify in the United States about Pyongyang’s biological and chemical weapons programs, said German activist Norbert Vollertsen.  Ri had worked at the Chiha-ri Chemical Corp. in the North Korean city of Anbyon until June, when he and his family fled to China, Vollertsen said.

An Australian Foreign Affairs Department spokeswoman said Canberra was unaware of the incident.

“We have no knowledge of the reported incident.  We checked with our consul general there, who has no knowledge of it either,” the spokeswoman said (Reuters, Sept. 7).

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Supergun Smuggling Trial Begins in Germany

An Iraqi-born businessman went on trial today in Germany over allegations of having violating German export control laws to help Iraq develop a “supergun” that would have been able to fire WMD shells, according to the Associated Press (see GSN, Jan. 31).  Sahib Abd al-Amir al-Haddad could face up to 15 years in prison if convicted for his alleged role as the middleman in the transfer of drills to Iraq in 1999 that could have been used to construct the al-Fao cannon (Associated Press, Sept. 8).

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IAEA Board Begins Meeting; U.S. Drops Effort to Report Iranian Nuclear Program to U.N.

Concluding that it has inadequate international support, the United States has apparently abandoned efforts to have the International Atomic Energy Agency report that Iran is not complying with its nuclear safeguards agreement, diplomats said Friday.

Instead, the United States now plans to submit a less strongly worded resolution on Iran’s nuclear program during an agency Board of Governors’ meeting that began today, according to the Associated Press.  The U.S. resolution would call on Iran to provide unrestricted access to its nuclear program, said a senior diplomat.  The resolution could also set a deadline for Iran to fully comply and warn that if does not, then it will be declared in noncompliance, which could result in the issue being reported to the U.N. Security Council, a second diplomat said (George Jahn, Associated Press/Tuscaloosa News, Sept. 5).

The chances that the IAEA board would approve a resolution that left out Security Council involvement are “better than 50-50,” a Western diplomat said (Louis Charbonneau, Reuters/Yahoo!News, Sept. 5).

ElBaradei Opens Meeting

In a statement to the board today, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei set the tone in Vienna by saying Tehran must step up cooperation with the agency in the weeks ahead.

The meeting agenda for the two-day talks is varied, but the focus is expected to be squarely on Iran.

ElBaradei called on Tehran, “in the coming weeks, to show proactive and accelerated cooperation and to demonstrate full transparency by providing the agency with a complete and accurate declaration of all its nuclear activities.”  He urged Iran to take specific measures related to points raised in a report on Iran he submitted late last month to the board (see GSN, Sept. 4).

Iran has claimed that highly enriched uranium particles the IAEA found at the country’s Natanz centrifuge facility represented contamination that came from the country providing the equipment in question.  Numerous reports have indicated the provider was Pakistan.

This morning, ElBaradei said Iran should “provide a complete list of all imported equipment and components stated to have been contaminated with high enriched uranium particles, and — importantly — identify the origin and date of receipt of the equipment, including information about where it has been used or stored in Iran.”

He added that Iran should “resolve questions regarding the conclusion of agency experts that process testing of gas centrifuges must have been conducted in order for Iran to develop its enrichment technology to its current extent.”

Earlier this year, IAEA experts deemed centrifuge technology they observed in Iran to be impossible to develop without conducting tests using nuclear material.  Iran has said it introduced no such material into centrifuges before that time.

ElBaradei added that Iran should provide complete information on any uranium conversion experiments it has conducted, should sign the Additional Protocol to its IAEA safeguards agreement and, in the meantime, grant the agency access to “all sites and locations that the agency deems necessary to visit” (Joe Fiorill, Global Security Newswire, Sept. 8).

Iran, Russia to Discuss Bushehr Spent Fuel Arrangement Later This Month

Meanwhile, Russian Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev has said that Russian and Iranian officials would meet in Vienna later this month to discuss the return of spent nuclear fuel from the Bushehr nuclear plant in Iran to Russia, ITAR-Tass reported today (see GSN, Aug. 6).

The drafting and signing of an agreement on the return of spent fuel from the Bushehr plant, which Russia is currently constructing, “is a purely technical matter,” Rumyantsev said.  Both countries agree that such an agreement is necessary, and the only issue left to resolve is how the spent fuel will be returned, he said.  “We should decide what changes should be made and in what contracts,” Rumyantsev said (Veronika Romanenkova, ITAR-Tass, Sept. 8).

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Former U.S. Envoy Calls for Direct Talks With North Korea

By David McGlinchey
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — A former top U.S. State Department expert on North Korea — who resigned just before August talks on the nuclear crisis — today called for direct meetings between Washington and Pyongyang (see GSN, Sept. 2).

U.S. President George W. Bush has insisted that the United States will only meet North Korea in multilateral negotiations.  Last month’s Beijing talks included the United States, North Korea, China, Russia, South Korea and Japan, but produced no substantive results.

Days before the Aug. 27 meeting began, Jack Pritchard resigned as the U.S. special envoy for negotiations with North Korea.  He had recently been criticized by conservative lawmakers for not delivering a hawkish message in his dealing with Pyongyang.  At a Brookings Institution panel discussion today, Pritchard said the attempt to resolve the Korean nuclear crisis with multilateral talks alone “is ludicrous, it cannot happen.”

“The prospect for success, unless the format is altered, is grim,” he said.

Pritchard said that before the six nations come together to put their stamp on a diplomatic solution, contentious issues must be addressed in direct negotiations.

“Does that mean that we will resolve the problem bilaterally?  No … but we will lay the groundwork,” he said.  Pritchard referred to the current negotiations as “drive-by meetings.”

He also called for the Bush administration to appoint a full-time envoy to handle negotiations and coordinate diplomacy with regional allies.

At the same panel discussion, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Richard Holbrooke said the nuclear crisis is unlikely to deteriorate into an armed conflict, even though negotiations are not progressing smoothly.

“The chances of a war on the Korean Peninsula are minimal to nil,” Holbrooke said.  He said that North Korea understands it would most likely be defeated if it launched an attack into South Korea.  The U.S. military, meanwhile, is too heavily committed in Iraq to support an attack against Pyongyang, according to Holbrooke.

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Washington Consults With Allies on Security Assurance for North Korea

The United States will discuss with its allies how to address North Korea’s security concerns and persuade the reclusive nation to abandon its nuclear weapons program, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 5).

“Right now, the first challenge before us is to get North Korea to say clearly that they are prepared to give up entirely their nuclear weapons program in a verifiable manner,” Powell said on the ABC television program This Week.  “And we know what they want from us — the only thing they have asked for from us, the United States, is some sort of security assurance,” he added.

Powell said that the current U.S. policy was not focused on overthrowing North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.

“We will have to make a judgment with our allies, over the next few weeks, before the next meeting, as to what kind of security assurance would be satisfactory for all of us to provide to the North Koreans,” Powell said (Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Sept. 7).

South Korean Foreign Minister Yoon Young-kwan said that he expects Washington to “actively” address North Korea’s concerns.  Yoon recently met with U.S. leaders in Washington.

“I was told (at talks with U.S. President George W. Bush on Thursday) that the United States was actively considering and preparing to address the issue of North Korea’s security concerns,” Yoon said.  “I think that the United States may come up with its proposal at the next round of six-nation talks,” he added (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Sept. 8).

A top Russian diplomat is scheduled to visit Pyongyang this week to discuss the nuclear crisis with North Korean leader Kim.  Konstantin Pulikovski is slated to arrive tomorrow for a four-day visit (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Sept. 8).

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Orbital Wins Contract to Develop Advanced Earth Penetrator Test Rocket

The U.S. defense contractor Orbital Sciences Corp. announced last week that it has received a U.S. Air Force contract to develop a suborbital rocket for use in testing an advanced earth penetrator.

The contract, worth up to $7.5 million, covers the design and procurement of long-lead hardware in support of the Air Force’s Missile Technology Demonstration-3B program, according to a company press release.  The MTD-3B program uses Global Position System information to provide guidance and velocity information for high-speed earth penetration tests.  The contract also includes options for rocket fabrication, test and launch.  The rocket is scheduled to be tested in 2006  (Orbital Sciences release, Sept. 4).

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Lockheed Martin Announces New Ship-Based Missile Tracking Antenna System

The U.S. defense contractor Lockheed Martin announced last week the development of a new antenna system that can be installed on ships to track ballistic missiles, according to Navy News Week (see GSN, Aug. 9).

The S-Band Mobile Array Telemetry (SMART) antenna system has a range of 1,100 nautical miles and can track eight independent targets, Navy News Week reported.  The system could be used to track tests of the Trident 2 ballistic missile (Navy News Week, Sept. 8).

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GAO Says Chemical Disposal Program Is in “Turmoil,” Lacks Leadership

By David McGlinchey
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army’s chemical demilitarization program is in “turmoil” because of poor leadership and management, government auditors announced in a report released Friday (see GSN, Sept. 5).

Under its Chemical Weapons Convention obligations, the United States was supposed to destroy 45 percent of its chemical weapons stockpile by April 2004, but Pentagon officials last week said they would ask officials from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to extend that deadline to December 2007.

The General Accounting Office blames chemical disposal delays on “longstanding leadership, organizational, and strategic planning issues. … The program lacks stable leadership at the upper management levels.”

The GAO calls on the Pentagon to develop a comprehensive strategy to meet the disposal deadlines.

“Articulate the program’s mission, identify the long-term goals and objectives, delineate the roles and responsibilities of all DOD and Army offices, and establish near-term performance measures,” the GAO report says.

In a written response, the Army agreed with the auditors’ major recommendations.

The report says that a lack of overall strategy had led to widespread failure across the demilitarization program, including safety concerns, environmental problems, public anxiety and budget shortfalls.  The preliminary estimates for the total cost of the program have been raised by $1.2 billion, according to the report.

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British Authorities Conduct Simulated Chemical Attack on Subway

British authorities yesterday conducted a simulated chemical weapons attack on the London Underground subway system, according to the Associated Press (see GSN, Sept. 5).

In the exercise, a subway train stopped in a tunnel as it approached the Bank station as if a chemical weapon attack had occurred onboard, AP reported.  Police cadets, acting as passengers, were evacuated and treated aboveground by emergency workers using new decontamination equipment.

The exercise was not conducted in response to any specific terrorist threat, the British Transportation Department said.

“Most people realize that we live in extremely difficult times.  We’ve got to prepare against all sorts of eventualities,” Transport Secretary Alistair Darling said (Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Sept. 7).

Darling also said that plans have been created to evacuate London in the event of a terrorist attack involving weapons of mass destruction.

“We are looking at various scenarios,” Darling said.  “Evacuation would be a last resort, but we are in a position where we have to look at what to do in event of an attack,” he said (Michael Paterson, London Telegraph, Sept. 8).

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North Korea May Be Ready to Show Long-Range Missile

The South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo reported today that North Korea has developed a new long-range ballistic missile, according to the Associated Press (see GSN, Aug. 6).

The new missile, which has not yet been deployed, has a range of 1,850 miles to 2,470 miles, the newspaper quoted a South Korean official as saying.  If correct, the missile would be more powerful than North Korea’s Taepodong 1 missile, AP reported (Soo-jeong Lee, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Sept. 8).

Defense analysts have said that North Korea is trying to develop a more-advanced version of the Taepodong, according to Reuters.  The Chosun Ilbo reported, however, that the new long-range missile was different from the Taepodong 2.

The new missile may be displayed during a North Korean military parade scheduled to occur tomorrow to mark the 55th anniversary of the founding of the country, according to Reuters.

“We still don’t have information on how different this missile is or what may happen at the parade tomorrow,” a South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman said (Martin Nesirky, Reuters/Yahoo!News, Sept. 8).

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