U.S. Response I:  Senate Passes Defense Bill, Rejects Bush Nuclear Agenda

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — In a modest blow to the Bush administration, the U.S. Senate yesterday passed a major defense spending bill without several nuclear weapons policy measures the administration had sought.  In a concession to President George W. Bush, however, the Senate approved the president’s full request for missile defense, but recommended that part of it be used to fight terrorism (see GSN, June 27).

The Senate version of National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2003 differs from the House version, which largely adopted the administration request (see GSN, May 10).  Notably, the Senate refused to authorize researching an earth-penetrating nuclear warhead, developing a nuclear warhead for missile defense or shortening the time needed to prepare for a nuclear test.

“Overall, we did pretty well.  It was not a perfect day, but a pretty good day,” according to John Isaacs, president of the Council for a Livable World, an arms control organization in Washington.

Administration Nuclear Policy Issues

The Senate did not vote to authorize $15.5 million, requested by the administration and approved by the House, for research on a new earth-penetrating nuclear weapon, intended for destroying deep and hardened targets (see GSN, March 19).

The Senate also did not match the House in allowing funds for the Energy Department to reduce the time it needs to prepare the Nevada Test Site for nuclear test, should the United States decide to end its 10-year testing moratorium (see GSN, March 22).

The House provision would reduce the time from 24 to 32 months down to 12 months, as recommended by the administration and suggested in its Nuclear Posture Review.  That change would bring the United States a step closer to resuming testing, a move critics say would force the United States to withdraw from the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, thereby undermining the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which is aimed at totally eliminating nuclear weapons.

The Senate also approved an amendment offered by Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) to prohibit developing or using nuclear warheads in the missile defense system.

It was reported earlier this year that the administration had asked an independent review panel to evaluate use of nuclear-tipped interceptors in the ground-launched, midcourse interceptor program, which critics argue would be easily stymied by decoys and other countermeasures (see GSN, April 11).

The House Armed Services Committee had recommended research into the concept.

Another potential Feinstein amendment that would have barred deploying missile defense systems before testing was not considered.

The Senate bill also includes language offered by Senator Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) requiring classified and unclassified reports to Congress on the results of each flight test of the ground-based midcourse system (see GSN, March 18).

The bill also contains a provision requiring traditional Pentagon and congressional oversight of missile defense programs, which the Missile Defense Agency had said it would remove (see GSN, Feb. 19).

Missile Defense Funds Restored, But Veto Threat Remains

The $393.4 billion Senate bill restored $814.3 million cut by the Senate Armed Services Committee from the administration’s missile defense request with Levin’s approval.

The administration had threatened a veto if the money was not restored.  As part of a deal to gain Democratic support, the Senate also passed a Levin amendment urging the administration to prioritize the restored funds for terrorism.

The move did not appear to satisfy administration officials, and could prompt a veto if sustained in the House-Senate conference committee.

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told a congressional committee yesterday the language would “severely delay” aspects of the programs.  Pentagon officials would recommend a veto if the “burdensome statutory restrictions” survived the conference, Associated Press reported.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s reception was more hesitant.

“There was language and then there was language and then there was a colloquy and a discussion.  And until one gets out the Ouija board and analyzes all that, we won’t know how we feel about it, and therefore we won’t know exactly how we would like to give guidance to the conferees when they get together to try to untangle it,” he said.

Another Veto Question

The bill includes a noncontroversial amendment by Senator Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) to expand Energy Department nonproliferation programs for disposing of fissile materials in the former Soviet Union, and to provide $15 million for a program to address the radiological weapons threat.

Another important issue not related to nuclear weapons that will have to be decided in committee is the question of funding the Army’s Crusader self-propelled howitzer.

Rumsfeld has said he would urge Bush to veto the bill if it includes money for the program.  The House approved money for it, but the Senate voted to authorize the $475.6 million the administration originally requested for the program instead for developing an unspecified future Army combat system.

“My understanding is that the Crusader is out of the bill in the Senate,” Rumsfeld told reporters in the Capitol yesterday. “So, then, they’ll go to conference, and we’ll worry those things through.”

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International Response:  G-8 Agrees to $20 Billion Nonproliferation Effort

The Group of Eight countries formally agreed yesterday to a plan to provide $20 billion during the next 10 years for WMD nonproliferation programs in the former Soviet Union (see GSN, June 27).

The priorities of the new effort — dubbed Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction — include scrapping chemical weapons, dismantling decommissioned nuclear submarines, disposing of fissile material and employing former weapons scientists, according to a G-8 statement (G-8 release, June 27).

“The Global Partnership will initiate new bilateral and multilateral projects and enhance existing ones,” the U.S. government said.  While the focus will be on projects in Russia, other states, including former Soviet states, could receive assistance. 

Countries outside the G-8 are also invited to participate in the partnership (White House fact sheet, June 27).  Each donor country would set up its own projects in Russia, a senior Bush administration official said (James Gerstenzang, Los Angeles Times, June 28).

The G-8 will create a senior-level group to coordinate members’ activities by monitoring progress and discussing priorities (White House fact sheet).  The G-8 members adopted guidelines “that will form the basis for the negotiation of specific agreements for new projects … to ensure effective and efficient project development, coordination and implementation,” the G-8 statement said. 

According to the G-8 agreement, bilateral and multilateral projects should include “auditing and transparency measures” and should “be implemented in an environmentally sound manner,” provide for high safety levels and include clear milestones with the option to cut funding if milestones are not met (G-8 statement).

Funding

The United States — the driving force behind the agreement — plans to provide $10 billion of the $20 billion over the next 10 years, according to the White House statement (see GSN, May 20).

All the donor countries have several options for financing nonproliferation programs, including swapping Russian debt (see GSN, April 18) for nonproliferation projects (White House fact sheet).

There is no way to guarantee that other countries will raise the remaining $10 billion, U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said.  She added, however, “we’re confident, given the spirit around this global partnership, that the commitments are going to reach into that area.”

The new partnership will bring Europe and Japan much more into nonproliferation and counterterrorism projects that have been mostly a U.S. effort so far (see GSN, May 3), another senior administration official said (Gerstenzang, Los Angeles Times).

U.S. Role

European leaders originally resisted the U.S.-sponsored partnership proposal because of the cost and concerns about financial accountability in Russia, according to the Wall Street Journal.  U.S. President George W. Bush, however, secured Russian President Vladimir Putin’s support for the plan during a private meeting.

Putin agreed to provide European countries with the same monitoring power and protections the United States has for its nonproliferation programs, including full access to Russian sites, audit rights and exemption from taxes and contractor liability, the Journal reported.  With that agreement, the other G-8 countries — Italy, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan and Canada — signed on to Bush’s plan (Jeanne Cummings, Wall Street Journal, June 28).

The United States already has several nonproliferation and threat reduction programs in the former Soviet Union, and the new partnership will enhance some of those, according to the White House.  Those programs include: “reducing strategic missiles, bombers, silos and submarines, ending weapons-grade plutonium production, reducing excess weapons-grade plutonium, upgrading storage and transport security for nuclear warheads, upgrading storage security for fissile material, reducing nuclear weapons infrastructure, destroying chemical weapons, eliminating chemical weapons production capability, securing biological pathogens, providing peaceful employment for former weapons scientists, enhancing export controls and border security and improving safety of civil nuclear reactors” (White House fact sheet).

Principles to Deny Terrorists Access to WMD

The G-8 also established six principles to “prevent terrorists or those that harbor them from acquiring or developing” weapons of mass destruction.  Those principles are:

*         Strengthen multilateral treaties and other instruments to prevent WMD proliferation and strengthen the institutions established to implement such agreements;

*         Develop and maintain measures that ensure that the production, use, storage and transport of WMD materials is safe and secure and provide such assistance to countries lacking the ability to secure such materials;

*         Ensure that WMD storage facilities are physically secure and provide assistance to states where facilities lack protection;

*         Implement border controls, law enforcement efforts and international cooperation to detect and interdict attempts to smuggle WMD materials and items and provide assistance to countries that lack appropriate resources;

*         Maintain export controls over items that could be used to develop weapons of mass destruction and missiles; and

*         Work to manage and dispose of fissile materials stocks that are no longer required for defense purposes, destroy all chemical weapons and “minimize” stockpiles of dangerous biological agents (G-8 statement).

For further information, see:

G-8 Summit site

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U.S. Response II:  House Passes Defense Appropriations Bill

The U.S. House of Representatives yesterday voted 413-18 to pass the fiscal 2003 defense appropriations bill (see related GSN story, today). The House version of the bill would allocate $355 billion for military spending, including $7.4 billion to develop a national missile defense system (Jim Abrams, Associated Press/Yahoo.com, June 27). 

The vote on the bill was the largest in support of military spending in recent years, said Appropriations Defense Subcommittee Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.).  The vote illustrated that even those who previously opposed high levels of defense spending now believed that the military should be a top priority, he said.

“The vote today is a reflection of the public’s strong support for the military,” Lewis said (Carl Hulse, New York Times, June 28).

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U.S. Response III:  New Department to Manage Nuclear Response Programs

The U.S. Energy Department supports plans to move its emergency response teams and nuclear detection programs to the proposed homeland security department, National Nuclear Security Administrator John Gordon Wednesday told the House Armed Services Committee.

The department’s Nuclear Emergency Support Team, Domestic Emergency Support Team, Accident Response Group and Atmospheric Release Advisory Capability would be transferred to the homeland security department.  Nonproliferation and verification programs would also be transferred, including the Chemical and Biological National Security Program and programs to monitor nuclear smuggling (see GSN, June 27). 

“These programs are a natural fit for the department of homeland security, whose primary mission is the critical task of protecting the United States from catastrophic terrorism,” Gordon said.

Some Energy research programs related to weapons detection systems and WMD attack response would also be moved.  Gordon added that he supports the idea of locating the new department’s main research facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and to create satellite research centers at other national laboratories, Environment and Energy Daily reported.

In cases when splitting programs would be inappropriate or when programs could not be transferred, Energy and the new department would run the programs jointly, Gordon said (Suzanne Struglinski, Environment and Energy Daily, June 27).

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U.S. Response:  Gas Masks Begin to Arrive at U.S. Capitol

The first of a shipment of 20,000 gas masks arrived at the U.S. Capitol yesterday (see GSN, June 26).  The masks are meant to allow members of Congress, staff and tourists to evacuate the Capitol complex in case of a chemical or biological weapons attack.

Hour-long training sessions are to begin next week to instruct congressional employees on how to use the new masks, Capitol Police Chief Terrance Gainer said.

The masks can block anthrax spores or toxic fumes for two minutes to an hour, depending on the temperature in the room and the rate a person is breathing, Gainer said.  The masks are ineffective, however, against radiological agents, he said.

The masks will be stored in each congressional office and at each entrance to the Capitol and congressional office buildings, according to the Associated Press.  Capitol police officers will be trained to quickly give instructions on how to put on the masks, which will only be distributed in the event of an alert (Leslie Miller, Associated Press/Philadelphia Inquirer, June 27).

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Threat Assessment:  Mossad Assesses Middle Eastern WMD Capabilities

The Israeli intelligence service believes that Iran, Iraq, Syria and Libya are all interested in acquiring weapons of mass destruction and have already found limited success in some cases, said Ephraim Halevy, director of the Mossad, yesterday during a meeting in Brussels of the NATO North Atlantic Council (see GSN, April 19).

Iran

Mossad believes Iran is increasing its efforts to develop long-range missiles that are more advanced than its current Shahab 3, which has a range of 3,000 kilometers, Halevy said (see GSN, June 6).  Iran is attempting to develop “missiles with longer ranges, which could reach Europe and in the future, even North America,” he said (see GSN, May 8).

Halevy also said that Iran is developing “weapon-grade nuclear capabilities,” but did not provide details (see GSN, June 25).  Iran’s attempts to develop nuclear weapons combined with attempts to develop advanced ballistic missiles “should be a subject of constant attention of everyone of us in this hall,” he said.

Iran’s observance of the Chemical Weapons Convention is only a cover for the development of dual-use systems that could quickly be converted to produce weapons, Halevy said.  Iran is also conducting research into biological weapons, he added (see GSN, June 13).

Iraq

It must be assumed that Iraq has attempted to develop nuclear weapons ever since U.N. weapons inspectors left the country in 1998, Halevy said (see GSN, June 20).

“As you know, on the eve of the Gulf War, Iraq was on the verge of obtaining nuclear capability,” Halevy said.  “They were months away from producing fissile material.”

Mossad has some evidence that Iraq is also attempting to develop biological and chemical weapons, as well as the missiles needed to deliver them, Halevy said (see GSN, June 10).

“We have partial evidence that they have renewed their production of VX and possibly anthrax,” he said.  “As to delivery systems, we have sufficient evidence to affirm that they are sparing no effort to preserve their residuary capabilities and to augment them with new ones.”

Syria and Libya

Israel has been monitoring Syria’s efforts to acquire North Korean Scud-type ballistic missiles and to manufacture such missiles, Halevy said.  Most of Syria’s missiles are armed with conventional warheads, but “the Syrians also have B and C [biological and chemical] capabilities with relevance to surface-to-surface missiles.”

Syria has been able to produce sarin nerve agent and is examining production of VX nerve agent, Halevy said.

He urged the council members to carefully monitor Libya, which is developing long-range ballistic missiles with North Korean assistance.

“Libya has often been mentioned as a country striving to achieve nuclear capability,” Halevy added (Amir Oren, Ha’aretz, June 27).

For further information, see:

UNMOVIC

U.N. Resolution 687 (Sanctions Regime)

CWC Text

OPCW

States Parties

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U.S. Response:  25,000 Gas Masks Headed to U.S. Capitol

Capitol Police have ordered 25,000 gas masks to store around the U.S. Capitol to protect members of Congress, congressional staff and tourists against a chemical or biological attack, the Associated Press reported today.

The police expect to announce the order today, a congressional official said.  The masks, known as quick masks, are not the same as full gas masks but are hoods that filter chemical and biological agents through a fitted mouthpiece, according to the AP.

The House floor has had gas masks available for years, but the big change in the new purchase is that masks will now be available to tourists and staff in addition to lawmakers.

“They (the police) were basically just trying to include tourists,” the congressional official said.  “They’re not going to have only 535 masks.”

The purchase of masks is not a response to any specific threat, the official said.  “The reason we’re doing it is because the Capitol was targeted for a bioterrorist attack, the anthrax attack,” the official said (see GSN, March 7).

Other Capitol Security Measures

Since Sept. 11, Capitol authorities have implemented several new security measures.  Before the attacks, tourists were allowed to walk freely around much of the Capitol building, but visitors now can take only guided tours.  Cement barriers and metal posts have been set up around the Capitol, and the Capitol Police force has added 700 officers (Leslie Miller, Associated Press/New York Times, June 26).

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