Russia Delays Iranian Nuclear Plant for “Technical Reasons”

Russian officials announced yesterday that the Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran will not begin operations until at least 2006, a year behind schedule (see GSN, Oct. 10).

Russia is helping Iran build the facility in the face of U.S. protests that Tehran is using civilian nuclear projects to mask a nuclear weapons program.

The beginning of operations was pushed back by a “technical decision,” according to Russia’s Atomic Energy Ministry. A Russian official said the decision was not based on politics or recent pressure from the International Atomic Energy Agency for Iran to allow intrusive inspections of its nuclear activities. The official also said that talks are progressing on a pact to ensure the return of spent nuclear fuel from the plant to Russia (Jack/Dempsey, Financial Times, Oct. 13).

“There is a huge amount of equipment that is needed. Equipment (that we thought) would work is not going to work,” said Nikolai Shingaryev, a senior spokesman for the Russian nuclear agency.

The Russian Foreign Ministry reiterated Moscow’s support for Iran’s nuclear development.

Russia will “continue cooperation with Iran because it does not run counter [to] the principles of the International Atomic Energy Agency,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said (BBC News, Oct. 13).

Meanwhile, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei will visit Tehran Thursday to discuss the agency’s Oct. 31 deadline for Iran to demonstrate greater transparency of its nuclear activities.

“As agreed with Iranian officials, the purpose of Dr. ElBaradei’s visit would be for Iran to provide the IAEA during that visit with all the remaining information required to clarify important questions that are still outstanding about Iran’s nuclear programs,” IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Oct. 14).

An IAEA team is currently in Iran conducting routine inspections, the Associated Press reported yesterday (Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Oct. 13).

Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran’s representative to the IAEA, dismissed the importance of the deadline and said that Tehran is cooperating with inspectors.

“The pace of cooperation has quickened since the recent Tehran talks (with an IAEA delegation earlier this month) and we are counting on it accelerating still further in the coming weeks now that we have drawn up a work plan,” Salehi said. “If the way we are working together is acceptable to both Iran and the agency, then logically one cannot declare that the cooperation has failed just because all concerns have not been addressed by the deadline,” he added.

Officials also sought to play down the discovery of enriched uranium on some nuclear equipment. Iran has said that the equipment was already contaminated when it was imported.

Salehi also said that inspectors would be given access to “all sites where the equipment was stored so that samples can be taken” (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Oct. 13).

An Iranian exile group, meanwhile, has accused Iran of hiding another nuclear facility. In the past, the National Council of Resistance of Iran has revealed previously unknown nuclear sites.

“We have information about another secret nuclear facility in Iran,” according to an NCRI official (Reuters/Jordan Times, Oct. 14).

The group accused Iran of hiding a centrifuge test facility near Isfahan in central Iran. NCRI officials also said that Iran could have nuclear weapons by 2005, Reuters reported (Louis Charbonneau, Reuters, Oct. 14).

Iran denied the allegations.

“We have certainly not” hidden any facilities, Salehi said (Hughes/Charbonneau, Reuters/Yahoo!News, Oct. 14).

The European Union yesterday urged Iran to accept the Additional Protocol to its IAEA safeguards agreement, which would allow more intrusive agency monitoring.

“We confirm our urgent invitation (to Tehran) to sign without any preconditions,” said Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, whose country currently holds the rotation EU presidency.

“The EU remains gravely concerned by Iran’s failure to cooperate fully with the IAEA,” said British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw (Agence France-Presse/EU Business, Oct. 13).

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Washington Prepared to Offer a Written Nonaggression Commitment to North Korea

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Friday the United States is prepared to offer North Korea a nonaggression pledge in writing during the next round of multiparty talks on the Northeast Asian nuclear crisis (see GSN, Oct. 9).

“We have some ideas with respect to security assurances which we will be presenting in due course,” Powell said. The deal would fall short of a full treaty, which Pyongyang has been demanding for months.

North Korea has reportedly called for a new round of six-party talks in December to defuse the nuclear standoff. The first round of talks involved South Korea, China, Japan and Russia, but North Korea has repeatedly said that it wants a nonaggression guarantee from Washington.

“The North Koreans made pretty clear they wanted this (the security assurances),” a Bush administration official said. “They didn’t talk that much about economic assistance. This is the one thing they asked for,” the official added (CNN.com, Oct. 14).

China today welcomed the U.S. announcement.

“China is happy to see the flexible and positive attitude taken by the United States,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said. “We hope the relevant parties can further demonstrate their sincerity and flexibility to contribute to the continuity of the six-party talks and promote a peaceful solution to the nuclear question through dialogue,” she added (Agence France-Presse, Oct. 14).

South Korean diplomats, meanwhile, will try to persuade North Korean officials to restart the six-party talks during bilateral meetings beginning today in Pyongyang. South Korean Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun said he will push the issue during the four-day talks.

“I will tell North Korea that from various perspectives, a second round of six-party talks must be held as soon as possible,” Jeong said (Jun Kwanwoo, Agence France-Presse, Oct. 14).

Intelligence officials, meanwhile, said that North Korea might have produced one or two nuclear weapons in recent months, the New York Times reported today.

“When you add up the evidence, we have every reason to believe they’ve made two new weapons,” a senior Asian official said. The weapons would be in addition to the two nuclear bombs that the CIA believes Pyongyang developed a decade ago. White House officials also said that it is possible North Korea was telling the truth about reprocessing 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods into weapon-grade plutonium (David Sanger, New York Times, Oct. 14).

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Israel Develops Submarine-Launched Cruise Missiles, Officials Say

Senior U.S. and Israeli officials have said that Israel has modified U.S. submarine-launched cruise missiles to carry nuclear weapons, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday. A former senior Israeli Defense Ministry official, however, denied the report yesterday.

Two senior Bush administration officials described the cruise missile modification effort and an Israeli official confirmed it, according to the Times. The U.S. officials said they were disclosing the modification to warn Israel’s enemies — a warning that comes as tensions increase in the Middle East over Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program (see related GSN story, today).

Israel has designed nuclear warheads for U.S.-provided Harpoon cruise missiles, which are conventionally armed antiship weapons, U.S. officials said. The Harpoon can be launched from a submarine and is equipped with a guidance system that allows it to fly just above sea level, the Times reported.

To fit a nuclear weapon on a Harpoon, Israeli engineers would have had to reduce the warhead’s size and alter the missile’s guidance system to attack land targets, said Robert Norris, a nuclear historian at the Natural Resources Defense Council. He added that both modifications would be relatively simple to accomplish for a country with a sophisticated nuclear weapons program, such as Israel is believed to have developed. Israel has never formally acknowledged possessing nuclear weapons.

“They have been at it for more than 30 years, so this is something within the realm of capability for Israel’s scientists and engineers,” Norris said, adding that Israel may also have been able to extend the Harpoon’s 80-mile range (Douglas Franz, Los Angeles Times, Oct. 12).

Former Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Efraim Sneh yesterday, however, dismissed the Times report, saying such Harpoon modifications were impossible.

“Anyone with even the slightest understanding of missiles knows that the Harpoon can never be used to carry nuclear warheads,” Sneh said (Associated Press/Chicago Tribune, Oct. 13).

The Washington Times reported yesterday that the Harpoon modification report, along with separate reports of Israel developing plans to pre-emptively attack Iranian nuclear facilities, may have been the work of the Israeli Mossad intelligence service.

Israeli newspapers reported that the stories were initiated by the Mossad as part of an effort to maintain international pressure on Iran’s nuclear program, according to the Times.

“Heading off Iran’s attempt to attain nuclear capability is one of the Mossad’s main missions,” analyst Aluf Benn wrote in Ha’aretz yesterday, “And the foreign media is one of the most important instruments utilized in this effort” (Abrahm Rabinovich, Washington Times, Oct. 13).

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Russia Sentences Two Aspiring Plutonium Salesmen

A Russian court today sentenced two men to prison for attempting to sell what they claimed was weapon-grade plutonium stolen from a closed Russian nuclear site (see GSN, Sept. 23).

Sergei Denisenko and Valeriy Blinov were sentenced to six and seven years in prison respectively after completing a deal to supply plutonium from a secure facility in the closed city of Sarov. Denisenko was charged with fraud and abuse of official powers while Blinov was charged with unlawful possession of a weapon. The two men had not actually stolen any plutonium.

Denisenko and Blinov posed as military officials and used old Russian military identification to convince a third man that they had the stolen plutonium. The hopeful client, Boris Markin, reportedly wanted to sell the plutonium elsewhere.

Authorities learned several months ago that Denisenko and Blinov were looking for a buyer and Federal Security Service agents began an extensive monitoring operation. During that effort they determined that no plutonium had been stolen, according to RIA News Agency. Officials arrested all three men after Markin made an initial $50,000 payment (RIA News Agency/BBC Monitoring, Oct. 14).

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Bush Administration Rift Over North Korea Is Slowing U.S. Strategy, Officials Say

Senior Bush administration officials have been sharply divided over how to deal with the North Korean nuclear crisis, the Washington Post reported Sunday (see GSN, Oct. 9).

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has reportedly supported talks with Pyongyang in an effort to resolve the nuclear standoff on the Korean Peninsula, but Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney have dismissed negotiations and are instead seeking to isolate and undermine the North Korean regime, according to the Post.

National security adviser Condoleezza Rice has not always kept abreast of the rift, but reportedly favors the Rumsfeld and Cheney approach, the Post reported.

Before U.S.-Chinese-North Korean talks in April, State Department officials drew up a plan that would have allowed U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly to speak directly with the North Koreans. Kelly briefed members of the Rumsfeld-Cheney faction on the plan, and within four hours Rice had forbidden any direct talks with Pyongyang, the Post reported.

North Korea abandoned the meetings after hearing about the U.S. policy reversal, and Washington was compelled to allow direct talks for the August six-nation talks, according to the Post (Kessler/Slevin, Washington Post, Oct. 12).

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Kyrgyzstan Ratifies Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

Kyrgyzstan ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Oct. 2, according to the CTBT Organization (see GSN, Sept. 26). The country is home to an auxiliary seismic station; part of a 337-station international system intended to monitor compliance with the treaty. To date, 169 countries have signed the CTBT and 106 have ratified it, including 32 of the 44 nations whose ratifications are necessary for the treaty to enter into force (CTBT Organization release, Oct. 13).

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British Defense Ministry Releases List of Nuclear Weapons Accidents

The British Defense Ministry has released a list of 20 accidents involving nuclear weapons that occurred from 1960 to 1981, the London Guardian reported yesterday.

According to the list, two accidents involved trucks carrying nuclear weapons that overturned and two involved cars crashing into convoys that were transporting nuclear weapons, the Guardian reported. The list also describes four occasions when nuclear weapons either fell or we dropped, and four occasions where other munitions struck nuclear warheads. No incidents have been reported since 1981, according to the Guardian.

The Defense Ministry said that none of the reported accidents caused radiation leaks. “There has never been an occurrence involving a British nuclear weapon which represented a threat to public safety or to the safety of service personnel,” the ministry said.

Frank Barnaby, a nuclear physicist who worked at a British nuclear weapons plant in the 1950s, said the designs of early British nuclear weapons were unsafe and primitive and that the Defense Ministry was “lucky” to have avoided serious accidents, including detonation.

“The fact is that the early bombs were not safe until the safety features in the more modern weapons were installed. They were not safe (enough) to be subjected to severe shock,” Barnaby said (Rob Evans, London Guardian, Oct. 13).

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Russian Looks to Modernize Air Force Nuclear Delivery Vehicles

Russia’s plan to modernize its armed forces appears to be based, in part, on the desire to keep the Russian air force as part of the country’s nuclear triad, Aviation Week & Space Technology reported yesterday (see GSN, Oct. 10).

This month, the Russian Defense Ministry released a paper entitled “Modern Tasks for Development of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.” The paper reveals plans to maintain a fleet of 80 long-range strategic bombers capable of carrying a total of 500 nuclear-armed cruise missiles, according to Aviation Week.

The Russian Air Force is working to modernize its cruise missile arsenal, Aviation Week reported (see GSN, May 20, 2002). The Raduga design bureau is currently at work on the Kh-101/Kh-102 set of cruise missiles and the Kh-555 missile. The Kh-102 is believed to be capable of carrying a nuclear weapon, while the other two cruise missiles carry conventional warheads (Barrie/Komarov, Aviation Week & Space Technology, Oct. 13).

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U.S. Army Contractor Abandons Plans to Treat Chemical Weapons Byproduct in Ohio

A U.S. Army contractor has ended plans to process a byproduct of neutralized chemical weapons at a Dayton, Ohio, waste treatment facility, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, Oct. 10).

Parsons Engineering, the contractor in charge of neutralizing the U.S. stockpile of VX nerve agent at Newport, Ind., announced yesterday that Dayton firm Perma-Fix has been “eliminated as an alternative” for disposing of hydrolysate, a neutralization byproduct. Perma-Fix had planned to treat the hydrolysate and then dump the residues into Dayton’s wastewater treatment facilities.

Local officials, however, were demanding more information on the process and insisted that the company resolve previous quality control problems. 

“This stop work order ends our efforts to treat these materials in Dayton,” said Perma-Fix Chief Executive Officer Louis Centofanti.

Representative Mike Turner (R-Ohio) has been protesting the effort for months, and he said that a planned congressional hearing in Dayton would still be held Oct. 22.

The hearing will be held “to give the Dayton community the opportunity to enter into the public record the issues they have faced throughout this process,” Turner said (Associated Press, Oct. 14).

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Draft Russian Budget Does Not Fully Fund Chemical Weapons Disposal, Lawmaker Charges

The draft Russian 2004 budget only allocates about half of the funding needed for chemical weapons disposal efforts, a Russian lawmaker said today (see GSN, Sept. 19).

The draft budget only provides about $180 million for chemical weapons disposal work, while more than $385 million is needed, said Viktor Ozerov, chairman of the Federation Council defense and security committee. He warned that the lack of funding might prevent Russia from reaching its goal of disposing of 20 percent of its chemical weapons stockpile by 2007 (Associated Press, Oct. 14).

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Cape Verde, Kyrgyzstan Join Chemical Weapons Convention

Kyrgyzstan and Cape Verde submitted their instruments of accession to the Chemical Weapons Convention Sept. 29 and Oct. 10 respectively (see GSN, June 3).

Kyrgyzstan’s accession takes effect Oct. 29 and Cape Verde’s Nov. 9. At that point, 157 nations will be party to the Chemical Weapons Convention.

Cape Verde is the 38th African state to join the treaty and with Kyrgyzstan’s accession all seven Central Asian nations will be member states (OPCW release, Oct. 14).

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Pakistan Tests Third Ballistic Missile This Month

Pakistan today successfully tested a nuclear-capable Shaheen 1 ballistic missile, according to the Associated Press (see GSN, Oct. 8).

The missile, also known as the Hatf 4, has a range of 435 miles, AP reported. Pakistan this month has also conducted tests of another Shaheen 1 and a short-range Ghaznavi missile, also known as the Hatf 3. 

The Pakistani military said the purpose of the tests is to validate missile designs.

“While the successful flight tests are a reflection of Pakistan’s technical prowess in the field of missile technology ... they also reflect Pakistan’s resolve and determination to continue to consolidate its minimum deterrence needs and national security,” the army said in a statement (Munir Ahmad, Associated Press/News!Yahoo, Oct. 14).

Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri yesterday suggested that his country might conduct further missile tests, but denied that the tests were intended to intimidate Pakistan’s South Asian rival India.

“We fired two, we may fire some more as well,” Kasuri said. “But it is not tit-for-tat.  We have our own timetable. They tested theirs a few months ago, we didn’t respond. So why should there be a response from them [now]?” he added (Associated Press/Taiwan News, Oct. 14).

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Russia to Complete Development of Iskander-E Missile This Year

Russia plans to complete the development of the SS-26 Iskander-E ballistic missile this year, Middle East Newsline reported today (see GSN, Sept. 22).

The solid-fuel missile has a range of 280 kilometers and is designed to defeat U.S. missile defense systems, MENL reported. It has been marketed to Syria and Iran, the news service reported.

“This year we expect the completion of the state testing of the Iskander high-precision missile system, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexei Moskovsky said (Middle East Newsline, Oct. 14).

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Five Japanese Charged With Aiding North Korea’s Missile Program

Japanese authorities have arrested five executives at a used car dealership in southern Japan for allegedly exporting a trailer to North Korea that could have been converted to become a missile launcher, the Associated Press reported yesterday.

The five executives have been charged with conspiring to violate Japanese export control law, which carries a penalty of up to five years in prison, police said. The five smuggled the trailer into North Korea by discounting its value, making it subject to less intrusive customs inspections, a local police spokesman said (Associated Press/CNN.com, Oct. 13).

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Army Claims Perfect Missile Interception Record in Iraq War, but Delays Releasing Analysis

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army has formally concluded that it successfully shot down every Iraqi ballistic missile it tried to intercept during combat this year, but officials have decided to delay releasing the information used to reach that conclusion.

Lieutenant General Joseph Cosumano, who heads the Army Space and Missile Defense Command, told reporters for the first time last week that the Army’s analysis showed that its Patriot missile interceptors were successful against all nine Iraqi missiles they engaged.

“The data shows that it hit them nine for nine. That has not yet been released,” he said.

“In almost all cases, there is scientific data that shows [the intercepts]. You can almost see the breakup” of the Iraqi missiles, he said.

Cosumano said, however, that a public briefing on the assessment and its results would not yet be made, saying the decision on when that would occur has been turned over to the U.S. Central Command, which separately is investigating three friendly fire incidents involving Patriot batteries during the conflict (see GSN, July 29).

One Army official told Global Security Newswire that the assessment’s release could be expected in “weeks rather than days.”

Since the war, various Army officials have said the Patriot perfectly defended U.S. forces in the region because it successfully “engaged” nine Iraqi missiles, meaning it attacked the Iraqi missiles and none of the target missiles caused any damage.

Senior officials including Cosumano, however, also cautioned that conclusions about the Patriot’s record of actually intercepting Iraq missiles mid-air would need to wait till the release of an after-action assessment of radar and other information conducted by the Army and the U.S. Central Command (see GSN, Aug. 6).

Sparking controversy following the 1991 Gulf War, senior U.S. officials cited high Patriot success rates during that war, but later analyses suggested that far fewer Patriots actually intercepted their targets or killed the warheads.

“We took the lessons learned from Desert Storm [and] put the data recording capabilities in those weapons systems,” said Brig. Gen. John Urias, deputy commanding general for acquisition of the Army Space and Missile Defense Command.

Cosumano reiterated previous statements that not all of the Patriot recorders were operating during the nine intercepts, but said other data including from radar on Navy Aegis ships had been used in the assessment.

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Pentagon Urges Europe to Increase Missile Defense Funding

Senior U.S. Defense Department officials met with European officials in Rome earlier this month in an effort to persuade European countries to increase their missile defense funding, Defense News reported yesterday (see GSN, July 15).

During the meeting, Air Force Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish, head of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, said European countries had to develop a more consistent plan for missile defense spending. 

“Up until last year, we had an ABM Treaty preventing the kind of work we are trying to do now,” Kadish said, referring to the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty from which the United States withdrew last year (see GSN, June 13, 2002). “Then we had a debate about whether to do it ourselves. I think we have done very well in a year,” he said.

To accelerate cooperation, Kadish called on European countries to enter into bilateral cooperation agreements with the United States. He cited as an example a U.S.-British agreement to allow the United States to improve a missile-tracking radar based in the United Kingdom (see GSN, Feb. 6).

European officials, however, have balked at further cooperation, saying the United States has yet to develop a clear plan for the development of a missile defense system, according to Defense Week.

“Democratically elected governments need to explain to their people where the money is going,” a European official said (Kington/Ratnam, Defense Week, Oct. 13).

Meanwhile, Romania has denied reports that it was holding talks with the United States over the deployment of U.S. missile defense systems there, according to Agence-France Presse (see GSN, Oct. 10).

The German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported last week that the United States was seeking to deploy missile defense system in Eastern Europe to prevent a possible Iranian attack. The German newspaper quoted a U.S. State Department official as saying that Romania and Bulgaria could be “the first choices” for such deployment.

Senior Romanian officials, however, have denied that any such talks with the United States have occurred, AFP reported.

“There haven’t been such discussions, negotiations or requests from Washington,” Romanian Foreign Minister Mircea Geoana said (Agence France-Presse/IranMania.com, Oct. 10).

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Lockheed Martin Receives Sea-Based Missile Defense Contract

U.S. defense contractor Lockheed Martin announced Friday that it received a U.S. Navy contract worth more than $800 million for the continued development of a sea-based missile defense system (see GSN, Aug. 21).

Under the $812.5 million contract, Lockheed Martin will be responsible for the continued development and integration of the Aegis weapons systems upgrades, Vertical Launching System upgrades, command and control upgrades and other aspects of the sea-based missile defense program, the company said in a press release. The work is scheduled to be completed by 2006.

“The U.S. Navy and the Missile Defense Agency have set clear expectations for success of the sea-based missile defense program,” said Fred Moosally, president of Lockheed Martin’s Maritime Systems and Sensors unit. “The Lockheed Martin team understands that our customers are counting on us to deliver, and we will,” he said (Lockheed Martin release, Oct. 10).

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NRC Requests Facilities to Verify Amounts of Nuclear Material

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced last week a new effort to update a national database of certain types of nuclear material (see GSN, Sept. 9).

Last week, the NRC issued a bulletin requesting about 1,100 facilities to verify by Jan. 6 the amount of certain types of nuclear material that has been loaned to them, according to a commission press release. The nuclear materials covered by the request include natural uranium, uranium 235, uranium 233 and plutonium. The information will be used to update the Nuclear Materials Management and Safeguards System, the NRC release said. 

The NRC issued its request in response to a 2001 report by the Energy Department’s Office of the Inspector General. That report found that Energy could not fully account for government-owned nuclear materials loaned to domestic facilities based on information contained in the NMSS database (U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission release, Oct. 10).

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Republicans Discuss Reclassifying High-Level Nuclear Waste

Republicans on the U.S. congressional conference committee working on new energy legislation are discussing a draft proposal to allow the U.S. Energy Department to ease disposal requirements for certain high-level nuclear wastes, Energy Daily reported today (see GSN, July 8).

The proposed bill, sought by the department, would revise sections of the Nuclear Policy Act that state that all radioactive waste created by the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel must be classified as high-level waste. The act also says that all high-level waste must be disposed of in a deep geologic repository, such as the one under construction at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

The proposal would ease disposal requirements for some high-level wastes if radioactivity levels of certain long-lived isotopes were at or below 5 percent of the level when the waste was first put into underground storage tanks, Energy Daily reported. The proposal would also require that any high-level waste reclassified as low-level waste by the department must be disposed of in a solid form with radioactivity levels at or below those set for Class C low-level waste, which is the highest level of contamination.

Sections of the proposal concerning oversight by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission are written in brackets, indicating that such oversight is still open for debate, Energy Daily reported. It is still unknown as to who developed the proposal or whether Republican conference committee members would accept it (George Lobsenz, Energy Daily, Oct. 14).

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