Iraq:  Former Nuclear Scientist Provides U.S. Officials With Equipment, Documents

A former Iraqi nuclear scientist has provided U.S. intelligence officials with documents on Iraq’s nuclear program and gas centrifuge components, Bush administration officials and a nonproliferation think tank said yesterday (see GSN, June 25).

Mahdi Obeidi, former head of Iraq’s uranium enrichment program, voluntarily gave the documents to U.S. officials in Baghdad and is now assisting in the U.S. search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, according to the Institute for Science and International Security, which advised Obeidi on his decision to surrender the materials (see GSN, May 5).

Obeidi gave U.S. officials several components of a gas centrifuge, along with design plans for the machines, said ISIS Assistant Director Corey Hinderstein.  Obeidi buried the materials in his backyard in 1991 under orders from former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s son Qusay, according to the Washington Post.

The design plans provided by Obeidi would have saved Iraq considerable time in relaunching its nuclear program if Hussein had given an order to do so, Hinderstein said.

“If the order was given, these documents and materials could be used to restart the program.  Obeidi did not receive that order,” Hinderstein said.  “They would not have to start from scratch,” Hinderstein said.  “Iraq would still have been years from making a weapon.  But they would have saved themselves time, on the order of years,” she said (Joby Warrick, Washington Post, June 26).

Former U.N. weapons inspector David Kay, now assisting the CIA with the search for evidence of Iraqi WMD efforts, said the case of Obeidi “begins to tell us how huge our job is.”

“Remember his material was buried in a barrel behind his house in a rose garden,” Kay said in an interview with CNN.  “There’s no way that that would have been discovered by normal international inspections.  I couldn’t have done it.  My successors couldn’t have done it,” Kay said (Bill Gertz, Washington Times, June 26).

The International Atomic Energy Agency said today that the materials provided by Obeidi were not “evidence of a smoking gun” proving Iraq had a nuclear weapons program prior to the recent war.

“The findings refer to material and documents of the pre-1991 Iraqi nuclear weapons program that have been well-known to the agency,” IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said.

“The recovery of these items does not change our assessment of Iraq’s capabilities in the area of centrifuge enrichment.  However, it does add greater detail to our understanding,” Gwozdecky said Caroline McDonald, CNN.com, June 26).

U.S. Army Lt. Gen. John Abizaid, slated to be the next head of the U.S. Central Command, said yesterday that he expects biological and chemical weapons, as well as a nuclear weapons program, to be discovered in Iraq.

“I’m confident we will show that there was deception,” Abizaid said at his Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing.  “And I am also confident that at some point it will lead us to actual weapons of mass destruction,” he said.

Abizaid said information provided by Iraqi sources, either voluntary or through interrogations with captured Iraq officials, would help the U.S. search.

“I believe that as we get on with the mission of continuing to look for weapons of mass destruction and piece together the evidence that is available within the country … by talking to various people that have come forward to give us information or people that we have detained that we’re asking for information, that we’ll piece together the story that tells us what happened to the weapons of mass destruction,” Abizaid said.

While praising the tactical- and operational-level intelligence provided to U.S. forces during the war, Abizaid said the U.S. strategic intelligence on weapons of mass destruction was “perplexingly incomplete.”

“It is perplexing to me, senator, that we have not found weapons of mass destruction, when the evidence was so pervasive that it would exist, “ Abizaid said.

Abizaid described for the committee meetings he had with his intelligence staff, in which he asked them if there were any doubts that weapons of mass destruction would be found.  “To a man and to a woman, they all said we would find it.  So the confidence of the intelligence professionals and my confidence in them was high, and actually it remains high,” he said.

Abizaid also said that, during the war, he believed Iraq was preparing to use biological or chemical weapons against U.S. troops, in part because of the quantities of Iraqi chemical defense equipment that was discovered.

“I surmise from them that they were certainly intending, somewhere in the campaign, to use weapons of mass destruction,” he said.

Committee Chairman John Warner (R-Va.) speculated that Iraq might not have had time to adequately prepare its chemical weapons for use.  Abizaid said, however, that if the rapid U.S. advance had disrupted such preparations, then chemical weapons likely would have been discovered at storage depots.  “But we’ve looked in the depots, and they’re not there,” Abizaid said.

Abizaid said U.S. forces had detected signs of activity at Iraqi depots prior to the war that were interpreted as signs of preparation of use.  “It may very well have been that they had received the order quite to the contrary, to get rid of them,” he said (Federal News Service transcript, June 25).

Suspect Iraqi Trailers

Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research has disputed CIA conclusions that two trailers discovered in Iraq were meant to be used as mobile biological facilities, U.S. officials said yesterday (see GSN, June 23).

In a classified June 2 memorandum, the bureau said it was too early to conclude that the trailers were evidence of a biological weapons program.  Bush administration officials said the State memorandum raised an argument that each of the two recovered trailers was only a component in what the CIA report said were two- or three-trailer systems needed to manufacture weapons.  The other trailers have not yet been found, according to the New York Times.  The State memorandum considered as credible that trailers might have been intended for use in refueling Iraqi ballistic missiles, an administration official said.

The CIA, along with the Defense Intelligence Agency, made their conclusions on the trailers public in a report released late last month.  The CIA and DIA, however, did not consult with other agencies before releasing the report, officials said.

A CIA official said the agency did not need to consult with other agencies on the report because it and the DIA had the most experience with the trailers.

“We didn’t shop that paper around because we were the ones who were most knowledgeable about it,” the CIA official said.  “We were the ones who knew from a former Iraqi scientist what to expect, and we didn’t have to ask a handful of people in small agencies,” the official said (Douglas Jehl, New York Times, June 26).

British Intelligence

Alastair Campbell, communications director for British Prime Minister Tony Blair, said yesterday that the British government had made a mistake in including information from a graduate thesis found on the Internet in a report on Iraq’s weapons capability.

The inclusion of the material into a February report was “regrettable,” Campbell said before the British Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee.  He said, however, that the February report was not as important as one released in September on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction — a report that has come under criticism for allegedly containing exaggerated information.

The September report “was a serious, thorough piece of work setting out why it was so vital to tackle Saddam and WMD (weapons of mass destruction).  The second paper (in February) was not,” Campbell said (Jane Wardell, Associated Press/Philadelphia Inquirer, June 26).

Campbell yesterday denied allegations, made by BBC defense correspondent Andrew Gilligan, that he had inflated the September report by inserting a claim against the advice of the intelligence services, that Iraqi forces could deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes of receiving an order to do so (see GSN, May 29). 

“I simply say in relation to the BBC story it is a lie ... that is continually repeated, and until we get an apology for it I will keep making sure that parliament and people like yourselves know that it was a lie,” Campbell said.

The BBC issued a statement defending Gilligan and his intelligence sources.  “We do not feel the BBC has anything to apologize for,” it said (Wintour/White, London Guardian, June 26).

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International Response:  Australia Set to Host Nonproliferation Group

Australia will host an 11-nation nonproliferation summit next month, Reuters reported today (see GSN, June 12).

The two-day meeting Proliferation Security Initiative meeting is scheduled to begin July 9 and will include Australia, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain and the United States.  Australian officials said they hoped China would assist the group, which met previously in Madrid June 12.

During that session, the group focused on efforts to curb the North Korean proliferation of missiles and weapons technology.

“This is inevitably going to involve very substantial cooperation between key countries, and China is absolutely going to be one of the countries in time,” said Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer.

The bloc of nations will attempt to recruit other members to join the nonproliferation effort, Downer said (Reuters/MSNBC.com, June 26).

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Indian Response:  Lawmakers Consider Bunkers Beneath Parliament

India is considering building underground bunkers to protect members of parliament from a WMD attack, Agence France-Presse reported today (see GSN, May 23).

The Joint Parliamentary Committee held discussions yesterday with Indian military officials about building two bunkers beneath the parliament to shield lawmakers in the event of a nuclear, biological or chemical attack.  Key Indian government facilities were designated high-security areas after a Dec. 13, 2001, attack that left five attackers and 10 others dead at the parliament.

Security measures at the parliamentary complex are still under review, according to a report today in the Hindustan Times (Agence France-Presse, June 26).

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South Asia:  India Should Take Lead in Peace Process, Musharraf Says

By Mike Nartker
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said yesterday that India should take greater responsibility for easing tensions between the two nuclear rivals and for bringing peace to South Asia (see GSN, June 24).

The “onus” of peace in the region is on India because it is the larger country, Musharraf said during a speech at the Capitol Hilton hotel in Washington.  If a large country over-compromises on certain issues in the name of peace, it is seen as greatness; while if a smaller country were to do the same, it would be seen as a sign of weakness, Musharraf said, adding that Pakistan would also work for peace.

Musharraf praised recent progress in India-Pakistani relations, saying they are “at last showing some prospect of movement.”  He added that he welcomed a number of recent statements made by Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the role the United States has played in the region, both of which have helped to reduce tensions. 

Musharraf said he looked forward to a resumption of dialogue between India and Pakistan.  Pakistan hopes to be able to work with India on a basis of “sovereign equality,” he said, adding that Pakistan could not compromise on this point.  Musharraf also said that he and Pakistani Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali were ready to acknowledge Vajpayee as a “partner” in any peace process.

Musharraf reiterated his multiple-stage approach for an Indian-Pakistani peace process, which he said would have to begin with a resumption of dialogue.  “We don’t even play cricket,” he said.

India and Pakistan also would both have to accept that the disputed province of Kashmir is the main issue to be resolved for greater peace.  According to recent media reports, Musharraf has criticized Indian suggestions that Kashmir is only one of several issues the two countries need to resolve.

While saying that Pakistan does not “believe in violence as a means to peace,” Musharraf appeared to offer tacit support for Islamic militants in Kashmir — militants that India has called on Pakistan to do more to prevent the militants’ infiltration into Kashmir. 

“We know militancy is often a response to state repression and a refusal to countenance peaceful political movements of protests on behalf of rights that have been denied,” Musharraf said.

According to Indian media reports, U.S. President George W. Bush called on Musharraf during a meeting earlier this week at Camp David to do more to stop cross-border terrorism.

“I think the president put it about as well as anybody can, which is what we expect and what we think Musharraf needs to commit to — and we think he has committed to — is a hundred percent effort at trying to stop cross-border incidents.  I’ll leave it at that,” The Hindu quoted a senior Bush administration official as saying.

Musharraf yesterday rejected a suggestion put forth by a member of the audience at his address in Washington that the Line of Control dividing Kashmir be made a permanent border.  “The two countries have fought three wars on the Line of Control — now how can LoC, a dispute, can be a solution of the issue?” the Business Recorder reported.

Proliferation Concerns

In his address yesterday, Musharraf once again denied allegations that Pakistan has sent nuclear technology to North Korea in exchange for ballistic missile technology, saying such allegations were the “story of the past” and a “closed chapter” (see GSN, April 2).  He pledged that Pakistan would never proliferate nuclear or missile technologies and that it would not receive such technologies from other countries.

Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program is self-sufficient, Musharraf said.  “Our scientists are capable enough,” he added.

U.S. Aid to Pakistan

Musharraf also denied yesterday that a proposed U.S. five-year, $3 billion economic and security assistance package was linked to proliferation concerns.  Bush announced the aid proposal Tuesday during a joint conference with Musharraf following their Camp David meeting.

A senior Bush administration official said Tuesday, however, that Pakistan would have to cooperate with the United States in several areas, including ensuring against future proliferation, to receive the proposed aid.

“I’m not calling those ‘conditions,’ but let’s be realistic, three years down the road, if things are going badly in those areas, it’s not going to happen.  We’re not going to request it, Congress won’t appropriate it.  And that is a bargain that the Pakistanis are entering into with their eyes wide open,” the senior administration official said.

In announcing the assistance proposal, Bush said that defense aid would not include the sale of new F-16 fighters to Pakistan — long a sticking point in U.S.-Pakistani relations.  The senior administration official said, however, that Pakistan is expected to request upgrades and repairs for their existing fleet of an estimated 32 F-16s — a request the United States is “perfectly willing to consider.”

“But, frankly, there is just too much other stuff that Pakistan needs right now for us to go into the business of new F-16s,” the official said.

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Iran:  U.S.-EU Statement Says Iran Must Accept Further Inspections

The United States and the European Union released a joint nonproliferation statement yesterday that expressed “serious concern” over Iran’s nuclear development and pushing Tehran to agree to more intrusive inspections (see GSN, June 25).

“We are troubled by the information in the IAEA’s [International Atomic Energy Agency’s] report detailing Iran’s failures to meet its safeguards obligations, and we fully support ongoing investigation by the IAEA to answer the unresolved questions and concerns identified in that report,” the joint statement said.

The United States has alleged that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, a charge that Tehran denies.  The statement said Iran must sign the Additional Protocol to its IAEA safeguards agreement, granting intrusive inspections of nuclear activities, without “conditions.”

While singling out Iran and North Korea, the statement primarily addresses broader nonproliferation goals.

“We pledge to use all means available to avert WMD proliferation and the calamities that would follow,” the statement says.

Echoing recent initiatives to crack down on international WMD shipments (see related GSN story, today), the statement adds, “We will strengthen identification, control and interdiction of illegal shipments, including national criminal sanctions against those who contribute to illicit procurement efforts (White House release, June 25).

U.S. officials were enthusiastic about the statement, which did not direct any specific threats or deadlines to Iran (Judy Dempsey, Financial Times, June 25).

“I don’t want to oversell this, but we have something we can work with,” said an administration official.  “It was the first time they used the word ‘interdiction,’” the official added (Michael Dobbs, Washington Post, June 26).

U.S. President George W. Bush, however, was more pointed in his comments.

“Iran must comply.  I mean, the free world expects Iran to comply.  Just leave it at that,” Bush said.  The president also specifically supported the Additional Protocol as a sign of Iranian cooperation.

“If they don’t [comply], we’ll deal with that when they don’t,” Bush said.

Iranian officials criticized the U.S. effort.

“The U.S. approach to Iran is one of threats and seeking concessions, in other words forcing Iran to accept its unlawful demands,” said Iranian Defense Minister Rear Adm. Ali Shamkhani.  “The reason why the U.S. is pressuring the IAEA … is to escape from its claims on the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that it has not found,” he added (Joseph Curl, Washington Times, June 26).

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Russia:  Moscow Seeks Increased British Aid for Submarine Disposal Efforts

Russian Deputy Atomic Energy Minister Sergei Antipov has said that Russia is seeking increased British aid for a joint program to dispose of Russian nuclear submarines, Interfax reported Tuesday (see GSN, May 22).

The Russian Atomic Energy Ministry hopes to reach an agreement with the United Kingdom in the near future on expanded cooperation in Russian submarine disposal efforts, including increased equipment and financial support, Antipov said.  The United Kingdom is aiding Russia’s submarine disposal efforts through the Group of Eight’s Global Partnership program, which seeks to fund nonproliferation projects, primarily in Russia (see GSN, June 6; Interfax, June 24 in FBIS-SOV, June 24).

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Iraq:  U.S. State Department Expert Says He Felt Pressure to Modify Intelligence Reports

A U.S. State Department biological and chemical weapons expert testified before two congressional committees in closed sessions last week that he had been pressured to tailor his analyses on Iraq and other issues to fit White House views, several congressional officials said yesterday (see GSN, June 23).

During a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing last week, Christian Westermann indicated that he had felt pressure from Undersecretary of State John Bolton that originated in a dispute the two had over Bolton’s assertions last year that Cuba possessed a biological weapons program (see GSN, March 13).  Westermann said those allegations were not backed by sufficient intelligence.  Bush administration officials said Westermann has yet to make similar specific complaints about the handling of Iraq-related intelligence.

Westermann, the first member of the U.S. intelligence community to make such a claim to members of Congress, told legislators last week that while he felt pressured, he did not rewrite any of his intelligence reports, according to the New York Times.

Both Westermann and Bolton refused to comment on the issue, the Times reported.

“We don’t comment on closed hearings, but I can tell you that the secretary and deputy secretary have full confidence in John Bolton,” State spokesman Richard Boucher said (Risen/Jehl, New York Times, June 25).

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday that he believed U.S. prewar intelligence on Iraqi WMD efforts was correct and that the United States would find such weapons or conclusive proof of WMD programs.

“We’re still early in the process, and the task before us is sizable and complex," Rumsfeld said, “but we do know this:  Before the war, there was no debate about whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction programs.”

Senator Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) yesterday harshly criticized the Bush administration’s handling of prewar intelligence.

“There is an abundance of clear and unmistakable evidence that the administration sought to portray Iraq as a direct and deadly threat to the American people,” Byrd said.  “There is a great difference,” however, “between the hand-picked intelligence that was presented by the administration to Congress and the American people when compared against what we have actually discovered in Iraq,” Byrd said (Walter Pincus, Washington Post, June 25).

British Intelligence Review

Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said yesterday that a British dossier that alleged that the Iraqi military could deploy biological weapons within 45 minutes of receiving an order to do so was revised several times to “present the best case” against former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein (see GSN, June 9).

The dossier, which began development last September, underwent presentational changes before its release, including the addition of a foreword by British Prime Minister Tony Blair making allegations about Iraq’s weapons capabilities, Straw said before the British Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Select Committee.

“It went back and forth several times ... it is an iterative process where various drafts are shared and documents go through all sorts of drafting,” Straw said.  “I make comments, officials make comments,” he said.

Straw said it was “nonsense,” however, to suggest that the entirety of the British case Iraq was based on the 45-minute claim.

“Neither the prime minister nor I have ever used the word ‘immediate’ or ‘imminent’ in relation to the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.  What we talked about in the dossier was a ‘current and serious threat,’ which is very different,” Straw said.

“We didn’t use the phrase immediate or imminent because it means ... as it were, about to happen today or tomorrow.  We didn’t use that because frankly the evidence didn’t justify it,” he said (Paul Waugh, London Independent, June 25).

U.S. Military Officials Criticize New York Times Reporter’s Role

Some U.S. military officials have said that New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who was embedded with the Mobile Eplotiation Team Alpha unit, played an unusual role in the unit’s operation, according to the Washington Post (see GSN, May 27).

Miller acted as a go-between for the unit — which was involved with the search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction — and Ahmed Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress, a number of military officers said.  In one instance, Miller allegedly accompanied Army officers to Chalabi’s headquarters, where they took custody of Hussein’s son-in-law, and even sat in on the son-in-law’s initial debriefing, they said.

The unit, however, had not been tasked to interrogate captured Iraqi officials, leading it to become a “Judith Miller team,” as one officer described it.

Members of the unit were not trained in conducting intelligence-related interviews, military officers critical of the unit’s actions said.  Interrogations specialists said the first hours of such interrogations are often crucial, and several Army and Pentagon officials were angered that unit officers debriefed Hussein’s son-in-law Jamal Sultan Tikriti.

“This was totally out of their lane, getting involved with human intelligence,” said a military officer.  “This woman came in with a plan,” the officer said of Miller.  “She was leading them. … She ended up almost hijacking the mission,” the officer said.

In addition, Miller wrote a letter in April objecting to an Army commander’s order to withdraw the unit, the Post reported.  She said such a move would be a “waste” of time and that she would unfavorably report on it in the Times.  After Miller discussed the issue with a two-star Army general, the order was dropped, according to the Post.

Times Assistant Managing Editor Andrew Rosenthal, however, denied that Miller had any undue influence over the unit’s actions, calling such a suggestion “an idiotic proposition.”

“She didn’t bring MET Alpha anywhere. … It’s a baseless accusation," Rosenthal said.  “She doesn’t direct MET Alpha, she’s a civilian.  Judith Miller is a reporter.  She’s not a member of the U.S. armed forces.  She was covering a unit, like hundreds of other reporters for the New York Times, Washington Post and others.  She went where they went to the degree that they would allow,” he said (Howard Kurtz, Washington Post, June 25).

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United States:  Mega Non-Nuclear Bomb Prompts Usage Concerns, Official Says

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON ð– The prospect of using the U.S. military’s most massive conventional bomb has produced concerns within the Air Force about whether it might be considered a weapon of mass destruction and that its usage may prompt international condemnation, a senior military official said yesterday.

The bomb, a 21,000-pound explosive called the Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB), was revealed by the military in March, just before the war on Iraq and was reportedly moved into the region just prior to the war.

“I don’t know how you look at something like the MOAB.  This is a huge bomb with a lot of explosives, so at what point do we define that as a large weapon of mass destruction or not?” said Air Force Brig. Gen. Robert Smolen, who directs the Air Force’s Nuclear and Counterproliferation Directorate.

His agency is assigned to ensure the safety, reliability and operational effectiveness of the Air Force’s nuclear weapons stockpile and identify, evaluate and analyze new technologies for countering a wide range of threats, including massive conventional weapons.

A Question Regarding the Nuclear Posture Goal

Smolen spoke Tuesday about the implications of the Bush administration’s nuclear weapons strategy for the Air Force at a breakfast hosted by the National Defense University Foundation. 

The administration’s Nuclear Posture Review, announced in January 2002, said the Pentagon intended to refashion its offensive strategic capabilities to emphasize both nuclear and non-nuclear capabilities, saying the development of high-yield conventional munitions could serve as a partial alternative to nuclear weapons. 

“The addition of non-nuclear strike forces — including conventional strike and information operations — means that the U.S. will be less dependent than it has been in the past on nuclear forces to provide its offensive deterrent capability,” said Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in an introduction to the review.

That document said such non-nuclear capabilities would enable the United States to reduce risks as it complies with the 2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty requirements for reducing the number of deployed strategic nuclear weapons by 2012.

Smolen said there has been a “big philosophical discussion” underway examining implications of defining and using high-explosive conventional weaponry such as the MOAB.

“Depending on how we define it, our definition will become public and will become evident, and we’ll also at that point have other nations that might say those weapons that the Americans have fit that category [of weapons of mass destruction].  And, therefore, we’re faced with trying to defend a use of a weapon of mass destruction if, in fact, we care to categorize it in a certain way,” he said. 

Smolen said difficulties persist on determining “what makes them different than a low-yield nuclear weapon.”

“I think there’s a real concern on everybody’s part that you call it a conventional weapon.  But in terms of effects its probably only in name only,” said Frank Eversole, executive director of the foundation.

Research on Low-Yield Nuclear Weapons Advocated

Smolen said research on low-yield nuclear weapons and the higher-yield Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator is needed for exploring capabilities that may be needed in the future.

The MOAB is said to produce a blast comparable to a very small nuclear weapon, but it is dwarfed by the smallest of nuclear weapons, which falls in the one- to five-kiloton range. 

The MOAB may offer other advantages over using tactical nuclear weapons in the realm of international acceptability.  The Bush administration has encountered congressional resistance to eliminating a 10-year moratorium on the development and production of low-yield nuclear weapons.  In 1995, the United States and four other nuclear weapons states reconfirmed their commitment not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states.

“U.S. nuclear forces, alone are unsuited to most of the contingencies for which the United States prepares,” the Nuclear Posture Review said. 

“The United States and allied interests may not require nuclear strikes,” it said, explaining a need for a “‘new mix’ of nuclear, non-nuclear, and defensive capabilities.”

Smolen said, though, the MOAB would be insufficient for destroying some potential targets.

There are “some targets that simply cannot be held at risk with anything that we have conventional right now.  So we will always need the tactical strategic nuclear weapon,” he said.

“In the nuclear area, you’re talking about a minimum of kilotons, which is a very, very substantial amount of explosives.  You’re not very close to that on the conventional side for the most part,” he said.

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U.S. Response:  Congressional Negotiators Moving Forward on Defense Bill

CongressDaily

Staff-level negotiations are well under way in an attempt by the House and Senate Armed Services committees to resolve the differences between their competing versions of the fiscal 2004 defense authorization bill by the August recess, according to aides to both panels (see GSN, May 23).

The Senate named its conferees on June 4, but the House is not expected to appoint its negotiators until the week of July 7, a House Armed Services Committee spokesman said yesterday.

The spokesman suggested that more progress was needed on several “big issues,” such as the Pentagon’s proposed revamping of its civil service system, before House and Senate lawmakers would meet in a formal session.

Optimistic House committee members want to hold a closed-door conference markup with their Senate counterparts on July 16, with a report submitted to both chambers by July 18.  If everything goes according to this timetable, floor action on a final defense bill would occur the week of July 21.

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Iraq:  IAEA Team Accounts for Most of Missing Tuwaitha Material, ElBaradei Says

An International Atomic Energy Agency team investigating reports of looted radioactive materials from the Tuwaitha complex, the main site in Iraq’s former nuclear program, has accounted for most of the missing material, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said yesterday (see GSN, June 20).

“The initial report is that most of the material is accounted for, but I still have to wait for the final report," ElBaradei said.

The IAEA team is expected to report their findings to the agency’s Vienna headquarters next week, ElBaradei said.

“We have a team there right now — they will come back some time next week,” ElBaradei said.  “So next week I will be in a better position to give a report on the status of the nuclear material,” he added (Reuters, June 22).

WMD Search

Meanwhile, U.S. troops Saturday raided an abandoned community hall in Baghdad and recovered documents that may contain information about Iraq’s WMD efforts, according to the Associated Press.

Acting on an intelligence tip, U.S. troops early Saturday morning raided the hall, located in Baghdad’s Azamiyah district, according to the AP.  Inside, they found two large rooms that housed cryptograph machines, secure transmission devices and binders of documents.  Some of the documents, which were marked with the seal of the Mukhabarat secret intelligence service, included manifests for the delivery of communications equipment to the Iraqi nuclear agency, AP reported.  The documents have been given to senior intelligence analysts for review.

“It’s potentially significant,” said Capt. Ryan McWilliams, a battalion intelligence officer from the 1st Armored Division who examined the recovered documents at his unit’s headquarters (Jim Krane, Associated Press/Washington Times, June 22).

Some analysts have said that two trailers recovered in Iraq by coalition forces were not intended for use as mobile biological facilities, as the United States has claimed, but may have been intended to produce hydrogen for weather balloons.

A veteran intelligence official has said he believes the trailers were intended to produce hydrogen for weather balloons routinely used by Iraqi field artillery batteries.  The trailers were not equipped with sterilization equipment, such as autoclaves, that would be needed to produce biological agents, the official said. 

The trailers also were equipped with canvas tarpaulins on the sides that appeared to be designed to be lifted to allow excess heat to escape during hydrogen production, the official said.  The tarps would allow too much dust and other contaminants to enter the trailer if it was meant to produce biological agents, the official said.

“We didn’t find what we expected to find,” the official said (Greg Miller, Los Angeles Times, June 21).

Blix Speculates on Iraqi Rationales for Noncooperation

In an interview last week with the Arms Control Association in Washington, retiring chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix speculated on the possible reasons why Iraq refused to fully cooperate with U.N. inspections prior to the war.

One possible reason is that Iraq saw a value to maintaining a type of ambiguity as to whether they possessed biological weapons, Blix said.

“Maybe they did not mind that people say, ‘Well maybe they have something’ — a deliberate ambiguity,” Blix said.  “It’s possible — the mystique of maybe having some biological weapons, maybe they’re playing around.  That is one possibility,” he said.

Blix could not explain, however, why Iraq would have sought to maintain such an ambiguity at the risk of war.

“Now, why should such a mystique — why should they pursue that until they are occupied?  That seems a little peculiar,” Blix said.  “Maybe by the force of its own logic or by miscalculation, brinksmanship,” he said.

Another possible factor could have been Iraqi pride, Blix said.  He noted that Iraqi officials were “legalistic” about complying only with the letter of U.N. disarmament resolutions and would not provide more cooperation than absolutely required.

“There must have been a strong element of pride, and that was why when I came here from the very outset, I said we are in Iraq for effective and correct inspections.  We are not there for the purpose of humiliating them, harassing them, or provoking them,” Blix said.

Blix also said that his consideration of Iraqi national pride might have been a factor in the improved relations the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) had with Iraqi officials than its predecessor, the U.N. Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM).

“There were many other elements too that we differed from UNSCOM, but this was one and I still think that pride might have been an element and, while we had lots of frictions and difficulties with them, in any case, we had I think a less difficult relation than UNSCOM had,” Blix said.  “We had, in particular, never any denial of access, and we had a good deal of cooperation when it came to setting up the infrastructure.  So did UNSCOM have cooperation, but they of course had many denials of access,” he added (Arms Control Association release, June 23). 

U.S. Intelligence Review

U.S. senators agreed to a compromise Friday on the scope of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s review of the Bush administration’s handling of prewar U.S. intelligence on Iraq, according to the New York Times.

Under the compromise, Senate Republicans agreed to allow the committee to conduct a review of the intelligence, while Democrats agree not to label the procedure an “investigation.” 

In a joint statement released Friday, committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) and top-ranked Democrat John Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) announced a “joint commitment” to conduct a “thorough review” of intelligence.  Neither senator used the word “investigation” to describe the procedure.  The wording of the statement was carefully drafted by both senators, congressional aides said (James Risen, New York Times, June 21).

The committee is currently reviewing the “thousands and thousands of pages” of classified documents provided by the CIA, Rockefeller said on Fox News Sunday.  The review could last “for the next, I would assume, couple of months,” he said. 

So far, the Senate Intelligence Committee has held one hearing on the issue, with an additional three hearings planned, Agence France-Presse reported (Agence France-Presse, June 22).

Both Roberts and Rockefeller yesterday criticized Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) for saying that U.S. President George W. Bush misled the United States into going to war with Iraq.

“The senator is running for president,” Rockefeller said.  “And I think that Pat Roberts and I make a distinction between people who are running for president and therefore need to capture attention, and what we on the Intelligence Committee have to do, which is to get the facts and to get the intelligence, the counterintelligence and then try and decide,” he said.

Meanwhile, former Vermont Governor Howard Dean, who is also seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, offered his own criticism yesterday of the White House’s handling of Iraq-related intelligence.

“We were misled,” Dean said on NBC’s Meet the Press.  “The question is, did the president do that on purpose or was he misled by his own intelligence people?” he added (Audrey Hudson, Washington Times, June 23).

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Libya:  Tripoli “Aggressively Pursuing” Weapons of Mass Destruction, Bolton Says

U.S Undersecretary of State John Bolton said Friday that Libya has been “aggressively pursuing” weapons of mass destruction since the suspension of U.N. sanctions against the country (see GSN, April 7).

“Since the sanctions were lifted, Libya has been able to exploit the normalization of the economy to be more aggressive in pursuing weapons of mass destruction,” Bolton said in London.  “For example, Libyan agents are trying to acquire dual-use technology.  That in itself is very worrying,” he said.

The United States has begun to investigate whether Libya has attempted to recruit Iraqi scientists who worked in former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s WMD programs, according to the London Independent.  The United Nations suspended sanctions against Libya after the country cooperated in the extradition of two men charged in the 1988 bombing of an airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland (Kim Sengupta, London Independent, June 21).

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Iraq:  Bush Unfazed By Criticism, Believes WMD Search Has Just Begun

Senior Bush administration officials have said U.S. President George W. Bush is unconcerned with criticism over the lack of success so far in the search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction because he believes the search has just begun, USA Today reported today (see GSN, June 19).

Although coalition forces have so far come up empty-handed, there are still a large number of leads that still need to be examined, officials said.  For example, only 157 of the 578 suspect sites in Iraq have been inspected, according to USA Today.  In addition, out of 255 senior Iraqi officials who may have knowledge of Iraq’s WMD efforts, only 69 have been captured.  Only seven out of 3,152 lower-level officials are in custody.  These lower-level officials have often been more helpful than higher-ranking ones, an official said.

Despite the lack of success so far, senior Bush administration officials said they were confident weapons of mass destruction would be found.  Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein “had a decade of experience at misleading the world,” White House spokesman Dan Bartlett said (Judy Keen, USA Today, June 20).

Kenneth Pollack, research director at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, has also argued that coalition forces will eventually find Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

“Where are Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction?  It’s a good question, and unfortunately we don’t yet have a good answer,” Pollack said in a commentary published today in the New York Times.  “In any event, the mystery will be solved in good time; the search for Iraq’s nonconventional weapons program has only just begun,” he said.

The fact that coalition forces have so far been unable to find banned weapons at suspect sites is “not very significant,” Pollack said, because U.S. intelligence agencies have never claimed to know exactly where the alleged weapons of mass destruction were stored.  It is also possible that such weapons, as well as precursor materials and even WMD facilities, could be hidden in places “we never would have thought to look,” Pollack said.

Pollack also discounted the idea that if Iraq had in fact possessed weapons of mass destruction, then they would have been used during the recent war.  There are a number of possible reasons why biological and chemical weapons were not used against coalition forces, including poor Iraqi preparedness, the death or severe wounding of Hussein during the start of the war and the rapid coalition advance on Baghdad, Pollack said.

The discovery of two trailers by U.S. troops that the United States has claimed were mobile biological facilities could help explain why coalition forces have so far found no WMD-filled munitions in Iraq, Pollack said (see GSN, June 16).  Instead of keeping large stockpiles of such munitions, Iraq may have decided to only maintain a WMD production capability, he said, adding that this was “the most likely scenario.”

“Chemical and biological warfare munitions, especially the crude varieties that Iraq developed during the Iran-Iraq War, are dangerous to store and handle and they deteriorate quickly.  But they can be manufactured and put in warheads relatively rapidly — meaning that there is little reason to have thousands of filled rounds sitting around where they might be found by international inspectors,” Pollack said.

“It would have been logical for Iraq to retain only some means of production, which could be hidden with relative ease and then used to churn out the munitions whenever Saddam Hussein gave the word,” he said (Kenneth Pollack, New York Times, June 20).

Tuwaitha

Meanwhile, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Wednesday denied that looting at the al-Tuwaitha complex, the main site in Iraq’s former nuclear program, resulted in the loss of large amounts of radioactive materials that had been housed at the site (see GSN, June 9).

“I was told this morning that all of the material that had been accounted for prior to this attack had been accounted for, and that there were some amounts that had been spilled on the ground and need to be cleaned up, but that the vast majority of what was there is still there and accounted for,” Gen. Peter Pace told the House Armed Services Committee.

U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz also told the committee that almost all radioactive material stored at the complex had been recovered.

“I think most of the material has been recovered, but there was, I think, one canister that is missing, and that’s the cause of some concern,” Wolfowitz said.

The International Atomic Energy Agency dispatched a team earlier this month to the complex to determine the extent of looting there.  Pace said the agency team was “very satisfied with the support they are getting from coalition forces” (Federal News Service transcript, June 18).

Former British Cabinet Official Alleges Secret Bush-Blair Plot

Former British International Development Secretary Claire Short said Tuesday that senior British government and intelligence officials had told her that British Prime Minister Tony Blair had made a secret pact with Bush last summer to invade Iraq by March (see GSN, June 18).

“Three extremely senior people in the Whitehall system said to me very clearly and specifically that the target date was mid-February,” Short said yesterday before the British Parliament’s foreign affairs committee, which is investigating Blair’s decision to go to war with Iraq.

Blair told Bush that “we will be with you” without setting conditions, Short said.

Blair’s office denied Short’s allegations, saying Blair had worked as hard as possible to obtain support within the U.N. Security Council for a second resolution on Iraq that might have avoided war (Patrick Wintour, London Guardian, June 18).

Bush Misled U.S. Public, Senator Says

U.S. Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.), a leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, has accused Bush of “misleading every one of us” when he led the United States into war with Iraq, according to the London Independent.

Bush justified the need for war on at least two pieces of false information — that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium from Niger and that Iraq had drones capable of launching biological attacks, Kerry said.  Bush also broke a promise to seek international support for military action, he said.

“He misled every one of us,” Kerry said.  “That’s one reason why I’m running to be president of the United States,” he said.

While it is too early to fully determine if the war was justified, a congressional investigation into the prewar U.S. intelligence on Iraq is needed, Kerry said.

“I will not let him off the hook throughout this campaign with respect to America’s credibility and credibility to me, because if he lied, he lied to me personally,” Kerry said (Rupert Cornwell, London Independent, June 20).

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South Africa:  Basson Likely to File Lawsuit for Military Reinstatement

By Mike Nartker
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Wouter Basson, the former head of apartheid-era South Africa’s “Project Coast” biological and chemical weapons program, appears set to file a lawsuit seeking reinstatement in the South African military, a researcher at the University of Cape Town told Global Security Newswire Wednesday (see GSN, June 9).

Basson, who has been dubbed “Dr. Death” by the media for his involvement in Project Coast, was discharged from the South African National Defense Force, along with more than 20 other senior officials, during a 1992 purge, according to the book Secrets and Lies: Wouter Basson and South Africa’s Chemical and Biological Warfare Program.

In October 1999, Basson became a defendant in what would become one of the longest and most expensive trials in South Africa’s history on 46 charges stemming from his involvement in Project Coast, including charges of murder and attempted murder.  Last year, Basson was found not guilty on all counts (see GSN, April 11, 2002).  While prosecutors sought a retrial, the South African Supreme Court of Appeal earlier this month refused their request.

Soon after the prosecutors’ request for a retrial was rejected, Basson began making public statements indicating his desire to be reinstated into the military, according to South African media reports.  He is currently employed as a cardiologist at a private Cape Town hospital.

In an interview last week with South Africa’s e tv network, Basson strongly indicated that he would file a lawsuit seeking reinstatement, according to Chandre Gould, a researcher with the Center for Conflict Resolution at the University of Cape Town.

During the interview, according to Gould, Basson said he had affidavits from former military commanders that said he would have been promoted to the position of military surgeon general if he had not been discharged.  Basson also said that if he had remained in the military, by now he would have been its highest-ranking officer, and therefore would be eligible for the position of head of the defense force.  Gould argued against this, however, saying the head of the Army was usually chosen to be the overall commander of the military.

When asked by the interviewer why he did not gracefully retire, Basson replied that he had “unfinished business,” Gould said.

Basson was quoted by News24 earlier this month as saying he would accept a military posting “anywhere, as long as I can achieve my seniority.”  Basson was also quoted as saying that he had likely “outgrown” the military medical service, where he previously served.

The South African National Defense Force did not reply to requests for comment on Basson’s possible reinstatement.

Gould said she suspected that Basson was attempting to seek financial compensation from the defense force on the basis that his 1992 discharge was unfair.  She added that she did not believe the military was likely to either reinstate Basson or pay him because of concerns that the more than 60 other people who were dismissed at the same time would file similar claims.

Psychological motivations could also be behind Basson’s desire for reinstatement, said Jeffrey Bale, a senior research associate at the Monterey Institute of International Studies Center for Nonproliferation Studies.  Basson probably views reinstatement as an opportunity for vindication after his criminal trial, as well as a sign that his career and reputation is fully restored, Bale said.

“I’m convinced that the psychological symbolism of it is more important to him … since he will then be in a position to laugh at the expense [of] his former adversaries,” Bale said.

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International Response:  European Union Calls on Iran, North Korea to Abide by Obligations

The European Union today called on Iran and North Korea to abide by their international obligations regarding their nuclear programs (see GSN, June 16).

In a draft statement, the EU called on North Korea “to visibly, verifiably and irreversibly dismantle its nuclear programs” and to fully comply with international nonproliferation treaties. 

The statement, set to be presented to EU leaders later today, also said that Iran must be “fully transparent … in all its nuclear activities” and urged Tehran to sign an Additional Protocol to its International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards agreement “so as to restore much-need confidence.”

“We keep on saying to Iran that they have to sign the Additional Protocol and to comply with the IAEA,” EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said (Agence France-Presse, June 20).

In addition, the statement describes weapons of mass destruction as “the single-most important threat to peace and security,” adding that “the most frightening scenario” is one of terrorists obtaining such weapons (Stephen Castle, London Independent, June 20).

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