New Zealand:  Auckland Man Building Cruise Missile Inside Garage

By David McGlinchey
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Missile experts yesterday said a New Zealand man’s efforts to illustrate the dangers of low-cost cruise missiles were at best “unhelpful” and at worst in possible violation of an international nonproliferation agreement.

In May 2002, Auckland-based Internet technology journalist Bruce Simpson wrote an article claiming that an effective cruise missile could be built using readily available and inexpensive materials.  He received extensive feedback, some from doubters who said he underestimated the difficulty of such a project.

Simpson decided to prove the skeptics wrong by building a cruise missile in his garage for less than $5,000.  He is publishing his work on a Web site and says the project is progressing well.

The missile is on budget and only six weeks away from testing, although Simpson will need cooperation and clearance from the New Zealand Air Force before a test flight, he said.

Simpson is attempting to build a missile that can travel at least 100 miles, carry a payload of 22 pounds and be launched from the bed of a pickup truck.  The components, including the Global Positioning System and the missile’s fiberglass body, were bought from commercial retailers.  The parts that came from outside New Zealand were shipped and passed through customs without incident or question.

The system may seem tailor-made for terrorists, but that is the point Simpson said he is trying to make.  He said that if he can build a missile, a determined and well-financed terrorist organization could build it better.

“My big concern right now is that if someone doesn’t demonstrate the capabilities of a low-cost cruise missile in a benign manner, then the first demonstration may be performed by a terrorist,” Simpson said in response to written questions from Global Security Newswire.

He said the government must raise awareness of potential threats so the public can be alert for suspicious activity.

“The price of freedom is vigilance, and without the practical proof that it could be done, who would have believed that your new neighbor could be building a ‘terror weapon’ in their garage,” Simpson wrote on his Web site.

Helping Terrorists

Simpson’s claim that he is not helping terrorists is “very dubious,” according to Richard Speier, a former U.S. Defense Department official who was involved in creating the Missile Technology Control Regime, a system of internationally agreed controls on missile technology transfers.

“He’s doing a lot of research and development for them. On the other hand maybe he’ll point out some loopholes that can be closed, but it would be better if he wasn’t doing it in the public domain,” Speier said.

Some New Zealand government officials are also uneasy with Simpson’s work.  The New Zealand Herald reported yesterday that a government official was concerned the missile could violate the MTCR.

Although his Internet postings provide a detailed explanation of the progressing missile, Simpson said the project is most likely not in violation of the missile technology restrictions, which New Zealand adheres to.

“Virtually all the information I’m publishing is already available on the net or elsewhere in the public domain.  One could ask whether any number of encyclopedias or reference books violate the MTCR by publishing diagrams of missiles, the recipe for gunpowder and other similar information,” Simpson told GSN.

Unless the missile was exported or officials decided Simpson wanted to arm it with chemical or biological weapons, the MTCR would not apply, according to Speier.  He was nevertheless unhappy with the project, however, calling the detailed Internet postings “most unhelpful.”

“This is something to be concerned about it … it is very much of a biological delivery threat.  Cruise missiles are the best way to deliver BW [biological weapons], much more efficient than ballistic missile.  It is a very, very dangerous system,” Speier said.

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Moldova:  United States Sanctions Three Moldovan Entities for Aiding Iran

By Mike Nartker
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The United States has imposed economic sanctions on three Moldovan entities for knowingly aiding Iran’s ballistic missile program, a U.S. State Department official told Global Security Newswire today (see GSN, Nov. 15, 2002).

The sanctions, which took effect May 9, prohibit Moldovan companies Cuanta S.A. and Computer & Communicatii SRL, as well as Moldovan citizen Mikhail Pavlovich Vladov, from importing items from the United States that are controlled by the Missile Technology Control Regime and the U.S. Arms Export Control Act for two years, according to a notice published today in the Federal Register. 

The Moldovan entities were sanctioned under the U.S. missile sanctions law, the State Department official said.  Under the missile sanctions law, the entities were found to have knowingly transferred MTCR Category 1 items to Iran that Tehran could use in its missile program, the official said.  MTCR Category 1 items include complete missiles — or component systems that can be used to assemble missiles — capable of carrying a 500-kilogram payload farther than 300 kilometers, such as Iran’s Shahab 1 missile, the State official said. 

The three entities had previously been sanctioned in May 2002 under the Iran Nonproliferation Act for the same transactions with Iran that resulted in today’s announced sanctions, the State official said (see GSN, May 10, 2002).  Under the Iran Nonproliferation Act, sanctions can be imposed against companies for transferring items controlled by a multilateral export control regime, the official said. 

In addition, the United States has also imposed sanctions on an Iranian company, the Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group, which prohibits it from conducting business with the United States for two years, according to a notice published today in the Federal Register.  The United States last week announced sanctions against Shahid Hemmat for missile-related transfers involving the state-owned Chinese company North China Industries Corporation (see GSN, May 23).

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China:  Beijing Denies U.S. Missile Export Charges

China criticized Friday the U.S. decision to impose sanctions on the state-owned North China Industries Corporation (Norinco) for allegedly aiding Iran’s ballistic missile efforts (see GSN, May 24).

The sanctions, which took effect May 9, prohibit Norinco from entering into contracts with the United States or importing goods into the country for two years.  In addition, the U.S. State Department has also suspended all defense-related export licenses for the company.

“The United States is imposing its national policies on others, and the implementation of sanctions is entirely unreasonable,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

In its statement, the ministry said that Chinese missile-related export controls were being effectively enforced and denied that Norinco had aided the Iranian missile program (see GSN, Sept. 3, 2002).

“The Chinese government has consistently carried out measures to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them, and opposes any method used by any organization to engage in their spread,” the ministry said.  “The related Norinco company has not supplied any assistance to the relevant project in Iran,” it said (John Pomfret, Washington Post, May 24).

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