U.S. Response:  WMD Attack Training Exercise Begins

A massive U.S. homeland security training exercise designed to simulate WMD attacks conducted by terrorists in Chicago and Seattle is to begin today (see GSN, April 22).

The exercise — which will cost $16 million and be code-named “Top Officials 2” (TOPOFF2) — will begin with the simulated detonation today of a “dirty bomb” in downtown Seattle, resulting in more than 100 casualties, according to the New York Post.  Later this week, people in Chicago will begin reporting to area hospitals complaining of flu-like symptoms, which officials will learn is the result of a simulated pneumonic plague attack, the Post reported.

The five-day, $16 million exercise is expected to involve more than 8,000 U.S., state and local officials, as well as Canadian officials.  The terrorist group behind the simulated attacks, Group for the Liberation of Orangeland and the Destruction of Others, is based on al-Qaeda, according to the Post.  Under the exercise scenario, FBI counterterrorism agents are expected to capture the GLODO agents responsible for the attacks by the end of the week.

“Our objective is to save lives,” Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said (Brian Blomquist, New York Post, May 12).

Officials and homeland security experts have said that recurrent training is one of the best ways to prepare for a future possible terrorist attack.

“Most important, I think, we’re practicing a lot more now,” said Randall Larsen, director of the ANSER Institute for Homeland Security.  “We should never be exchanging business cards on the day of a big event, and we were doing a lot of that on 9/11,” he said (Tom Weir, USA Today, May 11).

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U.S. Response I:  U.S. Senate Approves Expanded Surveillance Measures

The U.S. Senate yesterday voted 90-4 to approve legislation to expand the government’s ability to use secret surveillance techniques against suspects who are not thought to be members of known terrorist organizations, according to the New York Times (see GSN, April 9).

Under current law, U.S. officials must first establish a link between a suspect and a known terrorist group to obtain a secret warrant, the Times reported.

Yesterday’s vote was a result of a compromise between Senate Republicans, who wanted to make the 2001 Patriot Act permanent, and Senate Democrats who opposed such a measure.  Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch agreed to drop an amendment to the bill that would have repealed the sunset provisions in the Patriot Act, which would have caused the bill’s powers to expire in 2005 in exchange for Democrats abandoning some of their own amendments that Republicans opposed, according to the Times.

Hatch spokeswoman Margarita Tapia said the senator was satisfied with yesterday’s vote.

“Since a compromise was worked out, we decided not to offer” the amendment repealing the act's time restrictions, Tapia said.  “But that doesn’t change his position.  He continues to be opposed to the sunset provisions of the Patriot Act,” she said.

Civil liberties advocates said they were pleased that Hatch’s proposed amendment had been defeated.

“This is a major victory,” said Timothy Edgar, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union.  “Hatch wanted to intimidate the Democrats into not offering their amendments, and that ploy didn’t work because there is widespread concern that the government has already gone too far with the Patriot Act.  His salvo may have backfired,” Edgar said.

The bill will now go to the House of Representatives, the Times reported.  “We’ll wait to take a look at the Senate bill and see what we’re going to do,” a senior House Republican aide said (Eric Lichtblau, New York Times, May 9).

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U.S. Response II:  Pentagon to Unveil New Anti-WMD Force Protection Project

The U.S. Defense Department is expected to unveil Oct. 1 a new force and installation security project designed to defend against terrorist threats, including WMD threats, according to a department release yesterday.

The $1 billion project, named “Guardian,” will help improve security at 200 installations in the United States and abroad over the next five years, said Army Brig. Gen. Stephen Reeves, the Pentagon’s program executive officer for chemical and biological defense.

When implemented, Guardian will provide military sites and their populations with improved protection against “chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats,” Reeves said.

The Joint Staff is currently developing a list of installations to take part in the project, Reeves said.  Approximately 185 installations in the United States and 15 overseas are expected to be involved, he said, adding that Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz will make the final selections.

In the end, “we’ll provide the same levels of protection — and certainly have the same standards — for all of our installations around the world,” Reeves said (U.S. Defense Department release, May 8).

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International Response:  G-8 to Assess Progress on Preventing WMD Spread

By Jim Wurst
Global Security Newswire

GENEVA — How the world’s richest countries are progressing in preventing terrorists from getting materials for weapons of mass destruction will be one of the topics on the agenda when the heads of state of the Group of Eight industrialized states meet June 1-3 in Evian, France.

At its June 2002 summit in Kananaskis, Canada, the G-8 agreed to establish a Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction and on six principles to prevent terrorists from getting weapons of mass destruction (see GSN, June 28, 2002).  Zacharie Gross, the desk officer for nuclear disarmament issues in the French Foreign Ministry, said yesterday that in the year since the Global Partnership was launched, there has been “a common realization that this is a threat to all of us.”

Before this, Gross told Global Security Newswire, it was mostly “a small number of countries, in this case nuclear weapons states,” such the United States and France, that were working with Russia.  But after Kananaskis, more countries, with different views on nuclear weapons and nuclear power, are getting involved.  The Global Partnership has created “a level playing field for all interested actors to work efficiently,” Gross said.

The Global Partnership specified Russia as the initial focus of its work.  “Among our priority concerns are the destruction of chemical weapons, the dismantlement of decommissioned nuclear submarines, the disposition of fissile materials and the employment of former weapons scientists,” the Kananaskis statement said.

In announcing the partnership, the G-8 also pledged to raise $20 billion to support its projects over the next 10 years.  Gross said $18 billion has been pledged, with more than $1 billion on hand for use this year.  Countries outside of the G-8, such as Norway and Switzerland, have contributed funds, he added.

Gross said the work could expand beyond Russia. Ukraine has expressed interest “in benefiting from this program,” Gross said, and the G-8 could pursue this in the second half of this year.  He said he had no information concerning what types of projects Ukraine might have in mind.

In the year since the agreement was reached, Gross said, there have been both negative and positive trends.  One development is “a trend of growing awareness,” he said.  “Kananaskis was an important moment for the international community, world leaders and opinion makers ... to realize that this is an issue for the whole world, not only for some regions.”

On the other hand, “You have worrying trends of proliferation,” Gross said, citing the situation in North Korea and “concerns and preoccupations about what is going on in Iran.”  The United States, the United Kingdom and France have said elements of Iran’s nuclear program are more consistent with a drive for nuclear weapons than with nuclear power generation.

The war in Iraq, undertaken with the express purpose of ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, was divisive within the G-8 but is not having “any sort of concrete effects” on the Kananaskis agreement, Gross said.  “We see it [the Kananaskis principles] as an alternative to coercion; it is acting preventively,” he said.  “It also complements the normative approach of international agreements and multilateral treaties.  You need to have all the tools available and use them as efficiently as possible.  The cooperative approach is obviously one of the most welcomed and promising.”

The six principles “to prevent terrorists, or those that harbor them, from gaining access to weapons or materials of mass destruction” are strengthening multilateral treaties in these fields; developing measures “to account for and secure” such materials; developing measures to protect “facilities which house such items”; developing international cooperation to “deter and interdict ... illicit trafficking in such items”; maintaining effective export controls on materials that might be useful for producing weapons of mass destruction; and adopting measures to “manage and dispose” of stocks of nuclear chemical materials that are no longer needed, “based on the recognition that the threat of terrorist acquisition is reduced as the overall quantity of such items is reduced.”

While many of the points covered in the principles are not new, presenting them “as a coherent package is new,” Gross said.  “We have been pursuing outreach activities to get a maximum number of countries to subscribe to these principles,” he said.

French Foreign Ministry officials last week briefed diplomats attending the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty meeting here on the Kananaskis principles.

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U.S. Response:  New Regulations Require Background Checks for Hazardous Material Drivers

By Mike Nartker
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — U.S. commercial driver’s license holders who want to be authorized to transport hazardous materials will have to undergo federal background checks under interim Transportation Department rules in yesterday’s Federal Register (see GSN, March 26).

Comments are due July 7.

Under the rules, effective immediately, states will be barred from issuing commercial driver’s licenses with a hazardous materials endorsement until the Transportation Security Administration conducts a background records check on the applicant.  The TSA will examine several factors to determine if an applicant poses a security risk, such as residency status and past criminal record.  Illegal aliens or applicants convicted of certain violent felonies within the past seven years will have their applications denied.  The new requirements will apply to the 3.5 million commercial drivers that transport hazardous material cargo, according to a TSA press release. 

Applicants will be able to appeal denials to ensure that the database information is correct.  In addition, applicants found to have committed a disqualifying criminal offense can seek to obtain a waiver if they prove they have been rehabilitated.

The new rules also require states to renew hazardous material endorsements, including background checks, every five years.  States were previously allowed to determine when, if at all, hazardous materials endorsements needed to be renewed.  States will have a Nov. 3 deadline to begin compliance with the new rules, designed to meet provisions of the USA Patriot Act.

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