Iraq:  ElBaradei Expresses Concern Over Nuclear Site Looting Reports

International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said yesterday that he was “extremely concerned” about reports of looting at Iraqi nuclear sites (see GSN, May 16).

“(There are) a lot of radioactive sources that people have been exposed to, and that obviously is a major worry for us,” ElBaradei said before giving a commencement speech at Tufts University.

There have been a number of media reports that agency seals at Iraqi nuclear sites have been tampered with and that radioactive sources have been stolen, ElBaradei said (see GSN, May 6).

“We do not know where they are, we do not know the impact on the civilian population, we do not know whether nuclear materials under safeguard have been looted,” ElBaradei said, adding that looted radioactive sources could also pose security concerns.

ElBaradei said that he has been writing to U.S. officials for months to obtain permission for IAEA inspectors to return to Iraq.  “I am getting frustrated that we haven’t heard their response yet,” he said.

ElBaradei also said yesterday that agency teams would be more qualified than U.S. troops to inspect Iraqi nuclear sites and search for radioactive materials. 

“We have the most field experience.  We know who to interview, what to do,” ElBaradei said.  “We would be much more efficient in completing that job,” he said (CNN.com, May 18).

The recent war in Iraq should serve as a warning to world of the need to strengthen international law, ElBaradei said.

“The war in Iraq is a wake-up call that we need to stick together ... and we need to move forward and build a better society," ElBaradei said.  “We need to continue to see and learn that we are best served by solving our problems through dialogue and interaction.  I don’t think that resorting to war every time we have a dispute is going to solve our problems,” he said (Robert O’Neill, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, May 18).

Tuwaitha Radiation Poisoning

Meanwhile, residents near the Tuwaitha nuclear research facility — believed to be the main site in Iraq’s former nuclear program — have made a number of illness complaints which doctors believe could be linked to radiation poisoning, according to CNN.

The Tuwaitha complex was looted near the end of the recent war in Iraq.  While some of the stolen items were discarded, other items were used by the looters.  For example, Amar Jorda said he became ill after drinking water that was stored in a plastic barrel stolen from the complex.

“My skin itches.  I can’t breathe well, and my nose bleeds at least four times a day,” Jorda said.

Jaafar Nasser, a senior physician at a nearby hospital, said he has seen six people within two days with symptoms similar to Jorda’s, including rashes, frequent nosebleeds, shortness of breath and vomiting.  “This is called acute radiation sickness,” Nasser said.

A “nuclear disablement team” from the U.S. Army’s V Corps will assess the Tuwaitha complex to review “the quantity and condition of the nuclear material stored there,” U.S. Central Command officials said Friday (Karl Penhaul, CNN.com, May 16).

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U.S. Response:  U.S. Company Developing New Radiation Sickness Treatment

The U.S. company Hollis-Eden Pharmaceuticals is developing a new drug that could help protect against radiation exposure from a nuclear blast or “dirty bomb” detonation, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, Feb. 3).

The drug, HE-2100, appears to offer significant protection against radiation sickness, which would kill many more people than a nuclear blast, military officials and experts said.  Radiation damages the body’s immune system, leading to fatalities from infections occurring one to six weeks after exposure, medical experts said.  HE-2100 strengthens the immune system, especially the infection-fighting abilities of bone marrow, which is most vulnerable to radiation, according to the Post.

HE-2100 appears to offer protection against radiation sickness when given before exposure, as well as a few hours after exposure or even later, according to the Post.  Currently, there are no treatments available for administration post-exposure, according to experts.

With its apparent ability to prevent radiation-caused infections in the time span following a nuclear blast, the drug can apparently “bring people over that hump in time, where, without it, they would die,” said David Grdina, a professor of radiation and cellular oncology at the University of Chicago.

More research still needs to be conducted on HE-2100 to prove its effectiveness and safety in humans, experts said.  Animal testing conducted with the drug has indicated that it will work in humans and not be toxic, radiation experts said.

U.S. military officials are enthusiastic about HE-2100, the Post reported.

“We want it on the fast track,” said Navy Adm. James Zimble, president of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md.  “We’ve been very encouraged by the very positive results” of animal testing, he said (John Mintz, Washington Post, May 19).

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Iraq:  WMD Hunt Could Take Years, Senior Pentagon Official Says

The hunt for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction could take years to complete, U.S. Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith told the House International Relations Committee yesterday (see GSN, May 15).

“I am confident that we will eventually be able to piece together a fairly complete account of Iraq’s WMD programs — but the process will take months and perhaps years,” Feith said.

Coalition forces have so far found no biological or chemical weapons in Iraq, Feith and Lt. Gen. Norman Schwartz, director of operations for the Pentagon’s joint staff, told the committee.  In addition, no definitive conclusions have been reached yet on two recovered Iraqi trailers suspected of being mobile biological weapons laboratories, they said.

Feith’s testimony could be an attempt by Bush administration officials to play down the significance of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, according to analysts.

“Day by day, the administration is trying to lower the expectation of what they will find, as opposed to before the war, when they were trying to raise expectations day by day,” said Jon Wolfsthal, a weapons expert for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (Bill Nichols, USA Today, May 16).

Sanctions

Meanwhile, the United States yesterday provided experts from U.N. Security Council members with a revised resolution to immediately remove U.N. sanctions against Iraq, according to the Associated Press.  The experts are scheduled to meet again today.

The revised resolution includes more than 25 changes to address concerns of various council members, said Richard Grenell, spokesman for U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte.  “We think we’ve moved significantly,” Grenell said.

Two of the five permanent council members — France and Russia — have called for only a suspension of sanctions, and not a full removal, because previous Security Council resolutions call for U.N. inspectors to verify that Iraq no longer possesses weapons of mass destruction before the sanctions can end, AP reported. 

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell yesterday appeared to indicate that the United States might support such a move, according to AP.  While the United States prefers the full lifting of the sanctions, “we will look at the idea of initially suspending sanctions,” he said during a press conference in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Following Powell’s comments, both the U.S. Mission to the United Nations and the White House issued statements saying the U.S. position was to quickly end the sanctions (Edith Lederer, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, May 16).

“With the regime gone, there is no reason to do anything other than lift the sanctions, so that the Iraqi people can become fully integrated into the global economy,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.  “We believe the sanctions should be lifted as soon as possible, and we intend to pursue a vote at the Security Council as early as next week,” he said (Nicholas Kralev, Washington Times, May 16).

Later yesterday, Powell said the United States wanted to end the sanctions.

“We are going for lifting the sanctions,” Powell said during a flight from Sofia to Germany.  “We want to get 15-0 in the Security Council.  I think a lift is achievable,” he said (Lederer, Associated Press).

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder today supported a full lifting of sanctions against Iraq, saying the sanctions “make no sense” (Associated Press/New York Times, May 16).

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U.S. Response:  House Committee Rejects Two Threat Reduction Provisions

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — A House of Representatives committee yesterday rejected legislation that would allow the Defense Department to conduct nuclear threat reduction activities outside the former Soviet Union.

It is the second year in a row that the House Armed Services Committee excluded the measure from the annual defense authorization bill, even though the Bush administration supports the provision.  Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) led the opposition.

The entire $400 billion defense bill was approved by the committee yesterday.

The Senate version of the bill, approved last week by the Armed Services Committee, does contain the provision, probably leaving final resolution of the issue to a House-Senate conference (see GSN, May 9).  Last year’s conference, faced with the same disagreement, did not approve the measure.

Congress also rebuffed the Bush administration last month when it did not provide the requested authority in its supplemental defense funding bill to support the U.S.-led war in Iraq (see GSN, April 15).

The money is sought by the administration for use in securing nuclear weapon-grade materials believed to be located at reactors and research facilities in numerous countries around the world.  Last fall, the U.S. government, lacking the authorized funds, was forced to use privately donated money in an operation to remove 100 pounds of highly enriched uranium from a reactor in Yugoslavia (see GSN, Aug. 23, 2002).

Hunter has repeatedly criticized the Pentagon’s Cooperative Threat Reduction program for alleged waste and expanding missions.

“Department of Defense funding for CTR should remain focused on the former Soviet Union, where 99 percent of the world’s potentially loose weapons of mass destruction are stored.  The Energy and State Departments should address problems elsewhere, as those institutions are better suited to traditional foreign aid,” Hunter wrote in a March 16 commentary in USA Today.

Representative Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), vice chairman of the committee, has introduced a separate bill this year that would authorize Energy Department nonproliferation funds for securing weapon-grade materials outside the former Soviet Union (see GSN, April 9).

Last year, Weldon — who was not present during the vote on the measure yesterday — reportedly joined Hunter in leading opposition to the authorization of threat reduction funds for that purpose.

At a markup of the bill yesterday, Hunter also led opposition to an amendment that would have restored $29 million to the bill as requested by the Pentagon for its program for supporting the destruction of Russian chemical weapons.

In addition, the House defense bill, unlike the Senate version, lacks a Bush administration-sought provision for a waiver authorizing funding for Russian chemical weapons destruction in 2004 by the Russian chemical weapons demilitarization program at Shchuchye.  The waiver would allow the destruction to continue in the event that Russia does not meet six conditions required in another U.S. law (see GSN, Jan. 15).

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Iraq:  Scientists Continue to Deny Iraq Developed Banned Weapons

Both captured Iraqi WMD scientists and those who are still not in coalition custody are still denying that there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, saying such weapons were destroyed years ago, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, May 14).

Two Iraqi scientists — Dagher Mahmoud, a former Iraqi deputy minister, and Alaa al-Sayeed, who was involved with Iraq’s VX program — met twice last week with U.S. intelligence officials and once with British intelligence officials, according to AP.  At all three meetings Mahmoud and al-Sayeed denied that Iraq had recently been trying to develop weapons of mass destruction.

“They asked who was working on these activities — which companies were involved, what did we have before 1991, what did we do afterward,” Mahmoud said of the interrogations by U.S. intelligence officials.  “We told them that for many years no one has been working on these matters.  They asked if there were more documents that we didn’t submit to the U.N., but we told them nothing more was kept,” he said.

U.S. officials have previously said that Iraqi scientists could be lying about their country’s WMD efforts to protect themselves.  Al-Sayeed denied such allegations, however, saying that not only were Iraqi scientists motivated to cooperate, but that they also told the former U.S. civilian administrator in Iraq that they were willing to do so.

Mahmoud said that he and nine others from the Iraqi Military-Industrial Complex met last week with U.S. officials involved in Iraq’s reconstruction after sending several letters to retired Gen. Jay Garner, who was replaced this week as the U.S. civil administrator for Iraq.  “We sent a letter to Mr. Jay Garner saying that we want to talk and want to know what they plan to do with us,” al-Sayeed said.

John Kincannon, a spokesman with the Office of Reconstruction, refused to comment on what he called “private mail.”

“But I’d suggest that, if we’re meeting with him, we’re obviously aware of his concerns,” Kincannon said (Dafna Linzer, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, May 14).

Sanctions

Meanwhile, the United States plans to call for a vote next week on a U.N. resolution to lift sanctions against Iraq, officials said yesterday.

The United States is willing to consider amendments in the text of the resolution, U.S. officials said, adding that they were optimistic that negotiations would end in the next few days.

“We think we should be able to get the support to pass the resolution with amendments to the text,” an official said.

The United States might be moving closer to the French position on the sanctions — a temporary suspension, U.N. diplomats said.  A potential sticking point may be the length of the suspension, they said.

The United States is confident that it will obtain enough support within the Security Council despite the veto ability held by Russia and France, which both opposed the recent war in Iraq, U.S. officials said.  U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell met yesterday with Russian President Vladimir Putin in an attempt to gain Russian support, according to the Washington Times.

Powell said yesterday that the United States and Russia still have “outstanding issues” to settle on the resolution, which Russia has opposed.  Russia has said U.N. inspectors must first return to Iraq to verify it no longer possesses weapons of mass destruction before sanctions could be lifted (Nicholas Kralev, Washington Times, May 15).

Putin said yesterday that, despite the conflicts over Iraq, the United States and Russia have been able to maintain “the basic foundation” of their relationship.

“We have had a lot of arguments but we have successfully overcome our differences and succeeded in maintaining the basic foundation of our bilateral relationship,” Putin said (Straits Times, May 15).

U.S. diplomats have said they expect Russia to abstain from the vote on the resolution, which would also give the United States and Great Britain wide latitude to run Iraq and use its considerable oil revenue for at least a year (Barbara Slavin, USA Today, May 15).

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Iraq:  Experts Reasonably Certain That Second Trailer Is a Mobile Weapons Facility

There is a “reasonable degree of certainty” that a second recovered Iraqi trailer is in fact a mobile biological laboratory, a U.S. Army general said yesterday (see GSN, May 13).

Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the 101st Airborne Division, said he had been told by an expert that the trailer — recovered in Northern Iraq last week — was probably a mobile biological facility, as originally suspected.

“The expert I talked to this morning said that he had a reasonable degree of certainty that this is in fact a mobile biological agent production trailer,” Petraeus said during a press briefing in the Iraqi city of Mosul.

He said the layout of the second trailer was “nearly identical” to that of a suspected mobile biological laboratory that had been previously discovered.  The newly found trailer has a “5,000 PSI compressor, 2,000-liter reactor vessel, small feed tank, 3,000-liter water tank and a water chiller,” Petraeus said.

The second trailer also had a consecutive serial number from the first trailer, he said. 

The second trailer appeared to be incomplete when it was recovered, with several welds not finished and shipping plugs still in place, Petraeus said.  In addition, several pieces of equipment from the second trailer appeared to have been looted, he said.

Petraeus also said yesterday that Iraq might have destroyed its chemical weapons stockpiles prior to the war.

“There’s no question that there were chemical weapons years ago,” Petraeus said.  I just don’t know whether it was all destroyed years ago,” he said (U.S. Defense Department release, May 13).

IISS Surprised at Lack of Success in WMD Hunt

Meanwhile, an expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a British think tank that issued a report last year describing Iraq’s WMD programs, has said he was surprised by the lack of discovered Iraqi chemical weapons (see GSN, Oct. 17, 2002).

Gary Samore, an IISS expert who helped prepare the institute’s report, acknowledged that no chemical weapons or chemical delivery systems have been found in Iraq and said that they probably would not be found in large numbers, contrary to the institute’s report.

“The absence of chemical weapons was a big surprise,” Samore said.

Samore also said that the search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction was still continuing and that some important discoveries had been found.  “They have found equipment and material which would have allowed Iraq to revive its programs,” he said.

The institute is neither “nervous nor embarrassed” about its Iraq report, said Director John Chipman.  He added that the report had been cautious in its analysis (Paul Reynolds, BBC News, May 13).

War Still Justified, British Official Says

The discovery of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction is not needed to justify the recent war, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said today.  When asked if the failure to find such weapons was important, Straw replied, “It’s not crucially important” (Johannesburg Independent Online, May 14).

Sanctions

Meanwhile in Moscow, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell met today with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov to try to gain Russia’s support for a U.N. Security Council resolution to end U.N. sanctions against Iraq (see GSN, May 12).

Powell is expected to meet again with Ivanov later today before meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to Agence France-Presse.  The meetings are expected to include discussions on a U.S.-British-Spanish U.N. resolution to lift U.N. sanctions on Iraq.  Russia has opposed such a move, however, saying U.N. inspectors first needed to return to Iraq to verify that it no longer possesses weapons of mass destruction.

Ivanov today did not comment on his meeting with Powell, but did say that the future of U.S.-Russian relations “belongs to cooperation.”

“Our common interest in the search for answers to global challenges brings us closer together.  No one can fight new threats alone,” Ivanov said.  “We are for a constructive and nonconfrontational dialogue,” he said (Henry Meyer, Agence France-Presse, May 14).

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Iraq:  U.S. Troops Find Second Suspect Mobile Biological Laboratory

U.S. troops last week found a second suspected mobile biological laboratory outside the Iraqi city of Mosul, U.S. Defense Department officials said yesterday (see GSN, May 12).

The recovered trailer — found either Friday night or Saturday morning — is similar to one captured last month that is also suspected of being a mobile biological facility, two officials said (see GSN, May 8).  It is unknown if the two trailers are connected, but they appear to have similar components, the officials said.  They noted that U.S. experts are examining the second trailer in Mosul before shipping it to the Baghdad airport, where the first recovered trailer is being stored (Matt Kelley, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, May 12).

A White House official yesterday said Iraq had developed a “just-in-time delivery of WMD” capability prior to the war, citing the existence of the suspected mobile biological weapons laboratories.

Ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had developed the capability “to produce banned items just before the time you may need them,” the official said (Harding/Turner, Financial Times, May 13).

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Threat Assessment:  U.S. War Game Sees Enemy Forces Use WMD

A recently concluded U.S. military war game found that enemy forces would strike early in a conflict and would use weapons of mass destruction to counter an overwhelming U.S. conventional force, Defense News reported yesterday.

The exercise, Unified Quest 2003, was held April 27-May 1 and was the first major war game conducted since the end of the war in Iraq.  The exercise scenarios, which were set in 2015, had U.S. forces facing a nuclear-armed Middle Eastern nation and a militant group threatening an allied Southeast Asian government.  In each scenario, enemy forces (Red) attacked pre-emptively and used weapons of mass destruction against U.S. forces (Blue) and civilian populations, according to Defense News.

For example, in the Southeast Asian scenario, Red insurgent forces detonated a propane tanker in New York harbor in response to U.S. and Australian promises to aid the Southeast Asian nation, Defense News reported.  Red forces also released ricin in their capital city, causing both military and civilian casualties and helping to sap civilian support for Blue forces.

In each of three different versions of the Middle East scenario, Red forces used nuclear weapons when defeat became imminent, according to Defense News.  One scenario saw Red forces detonate a nuclear weapon near a U.S. stronghold in the country while a second Red team placed a nuclear weapon in its country’s oilfields to force international support.  A third Red force smuggled a nuclear weapon into a neighboring U.S. ally to force it to end its support of the United States.  Once that country complied, the Red team tried a similar tactic by shipping the weapon to Paris, where it was captured by French authorities.

The exercise saw only one Red team attempt to use a nuclear weapon to cause large numbers of casualties, according to Defense News.

“There may be an apocalyptic leader out there who wants to kill a lot of Blue in a last-gasp measure.  But that’s not what we did, and I don’t subscribe to that notion,” said retired Army officer Richard Hart Sinnreich, who commanded one of the Red forces during the exercise.  “What we did was use weapons of mass destruction materially to improve our position,” he said (Frank Tiboni, Defense News, May 12).

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