CIA Director George Tenet spoke today at Georgetown (AFP photo/Joyce Naltchayan). Tenet Defends U.S. Intelligence on Iraq By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — Calling for patience in the Iraqi WMD hunt and rejecting the notion that the absence of WMD stockpiles in Iraq has been established, the U.S. central intelligence director today laid out a detailed defense of analysts’ assessments on Iraq before last year’s war (see GSN, Feb. 4)...Full Story

Top Pakistani Scientist Receives Pardon for Nuclear Transfers Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf today pardoned Abdul Qadeer Khan, the “father” of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program, for transferring nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea (see GSN, Feb. 4; Washington Post, Feb. 5)...Full Story

Rumsfeld Maintains Banned Iraqi Weapons Still Could Exist By David Ruppe Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld yesterday became the latest senior Bush administration official to dispute former U.S. chief Iraqi weapons inspector David Kay’s conclusion last month that Iraq possessed no weapons of mass destruction before the U.S.-led invasion last year (see GSN, Feb. 2)...Full Story

China Seeks to Join Missile Nonproliferation Regime By Mike Nartker Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — Talks are set to begin later this month that could lead to Chinese membership in the primary international effort to restrict missile proliferation, a senior Polish diplomat said here yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 30, 2003)...Full Story

	Thursday, February 5, 2004

Lawmakers Seek Revisions to U.S. Terrorism Alert System By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — Members of Congress from both parties yesterday called for major changes in the U.S. Homeland Security Department’s color-coded terrorist alert system, charging that alert-level changes come with needless economic costs and may aid terrorists bent on attacking the United States (see GSN, Sept. 15, 2003). At a House Select Committee on Homeland Security hearing on the Homeland Security Advisory System, senior Democrat Jim Turner (Texas) advocated abolishing the color-coded component of the alert system altogether.  “After thinking about possible changes that could be made to the system, and seeing how the general public is reacting over time to the warnings, my judgment is that this system should be eliminated,” Turner said. Committee Chairman Christopher Cox (R-Calif.) stopped short of such a recommendation but expressed wide-ranging concerns about the economic and social effects of the system, which has been in place since March 2002. Both representatives described public incomprehension of the color-coded system and argued for the distribution of more specific information. Faced with such criticisms, Deputy Homeland Security Secretary James Loy said the advisory system is “primarily intended for security professionals at all levels of government and the private sector” but is also meant to inform the public accurately about terrorist threats as a way of pre-empting potentially inaccurate or exaggerated leaks of such information. The system “has demonstrated its utility on several occasions,” Loy said in testimony, citing alerts he said have benefited both the general public and specific sectors. Turner questioned the usefulness of threat-level changes, saying that the general public should be constantly alert for the possibility of terrorism and that specific sectors are often not getting the information they need even when the threat level is raised. If the color-coded system were abolished, said Turner, the Homeland Security Department could simply hold a press conference whenever it had credible and specific information about a terrorist threat that had to be communicated to the public. “The system we have today,” Turner said, “was created quickly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. It was the government’s first attempt to establish a national system to alert our citizens and our economic sectors about homeland security threats. While the system may have initially served a useful purpose, it is not serving us well now.” “General threat information is continuous and ongoing. ... Issuing general alerts does not serve a useful purpose and may well be counterproductive,” he said. Cox pointed repeatedly to the costs and inconveniences incurred by governments, businesses and the public each time the threat level is increased. He cited constituents’ reports of canceled trips, as well as extraordinary expenses laid out by business and government. “Securing the homeland is expensive. Every national terrorist threat warning triggers a massive chain reaction throughout our society. Government officials at all levels, businesses of all sorts and sizes, as well as individual citizens, are left with the fundamental question, ‘What does code orange mean for me?’ The answer — in the absence of specific guidance as to the nature, potential targets and likely timing of the threat — has been a nationwide piling on of enhanced security measures, breaking state and local overtime budgets and redirecting their personnel from their other duties,” said Cox. “If we can avoid or diminish that effect,” the chairman added, “we should, and soon. It is after all a fundamental part of the terrorists’ strategy to destroy our economy and our way of life. We must not, through our well-meaning efforts, give them any help.” Turner, too, raised the possibility that the threat alert system could backfire, questioning “whether the alert system is helping the terrorists more than it is helping us” by “telling al-Qaeda when we are strengthening our defenses and then again when we are lowering our guard.” Loy said average citizens should respond to threat-level changes by practicing “awareness” and “preparedness” and by “recognizing they have a contribution to make” — as “sensors” that can provide information to the authorities. Pressed by the committee about the color-coded systems’ usefulness for the general public, though, he defended the system mainly by citing its usefulness for governments and businesses that have specific responses coordinated to threat-alert colors. Loy said the homeland security secretary is aware of the economic effects caused by raising the threat level and has “a range of actions available to him” when threat information emerges. “There are instances,” said Loy, “when the volume and credibility of the intelligence reaches a level that the department believes it should notify the public of the increased risk and the actions professionals are taking in response to the threat.” As one example, he cited a threat-level increase during last year’s Iraq war, when authorities had information indicating al-Qaeda hoped to attack the United States. Loy also stressed that the system is still new, and he said it is getting better. “The development of specific, audience-tailored communications tools to address specific threats and provide measures to be taken in response to threats or vulnerabilities [has] enabled the department to implement the advisory system in a more practical and flexible manner,” he said. Back to top       Holiday Flight Cancellations Prevented Terrorist Attack, Ridge Says The U.S.-directed security crackdown on international air travel that began during the Christmas holidays probably prevented a terrorist attack, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge told reporters yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 3). On Dec. 21, the United States raised the national threat level from yellow to orange — from “elevated” to “high risk” — and 16 international flights were cancelled because of security concerns. At the time, U.S. officials said they were concerned that terrorists could use the planes to mount a chemical or biological weapons attack (see GSN, Dec. 29, 2003). Ridge said there was an unprecedented volume of intelligence data from separate sources that often mentioned the same flight numbers and destinations. “It was very unusual,” he said. “My gut tells me we did” avert an al-Qaeda terrorist attack, he added. Ridge said the flight cancellations caused increased tension between U.S. and British and French officials. European officials have said they doubt that any hijack attempt was prevented, but Ridge said there was a disagreement over the threat level. “Their assessment of some of the information was different from ours,” Ridge said. Ridge took responsibility for some “uncomfortable” moments between officials, citing a Dec. 20 decision he made to bypass French officials and communicate directly with Air France officials about U.S. security concerns over some Paris- New York flights. “I created the tension over the holidays,” Ridge said (John Mintz, Washington Post, Feb. 5). Back to top

Tenet Defends U.S. Intelligence on Iraq By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — Calling for patience in the Iraqi WMD hunt and rejecting the notion that the absence of WMD stockpiles in Iraq has been established, the U.S. central intelligence director today laid out a detailed defense of analysts’ assessments on Iraq before last year’s war (see GSN, Feb. 4). Speaking here at his alma mater, Georgetown University, George Tenet repeatedly criticized and contradicted former Iraq Survey Group head David Kay, who testified last week before Congress that intelligence analysts “were all wrong, probably,” in thinking Iraq had chemical and biological weapon stockpiles (see GSN, Jan. 29). “The search must continue, and it will be difficult,” Tenet said. “Despite some public statements,” Tenet said of Kay’s recent assertions, “We are nowhere near 85 percent finished. The men and women who work in that dangerous environment are adamant about that fact. Any call that I make today is necessarily provisional. Why?  Because we need more time and we need more data.” Tenet said current intelligence indicates that U.S. analysts “may have overestimated” Iraq’s nuclear weapon program, that Iraq “intended to develop biological weapons” and that Iraq “had the intent and capability to quickly convert civilian industry to chemical weapons production” even though the United States has “not yet found the weapons.” Tenet expressed dislike for speaking on policy matters and did not criticize or support President George W. Bush’s decision to go to war. He rejected charges that the Bush administration pressured analysts to exaggerate the Iraqi threat and disagreed with criticisms suggesting intelligence agencies are ultimately to blame for unmet expectations that WMD stockpiles would be found in Iraq. Tenet said analysts “never said there was an imminent threat” from now-captive former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein but “painted an objective assessment for our policy-makers of a brutal dictator who was continuing his efforts to deceive and build programs that might constantly surprise us and threaten our interests.” The Bush administration has defended the war by citing a wide array of intelligence indicating Iraqi WMD programs were a threat to U.S. and international security. Asked May 7 of last year whether Iraq constituted an “imminent threat,” Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer replied, “Absolutely.” “To understand a difficult topic like Iraq,” Tenet said today, “takes patience and care. Unfortunately, you rarely hear a patient, careful or thoughtful discussion of intelligence these days. But these times demand it, because the alternative ― politicized, haphazard evaluation without the benefit of time and facts ― may well result in an intelligence community that is damaged and a country that is more at risk.” Tenet Presents Point-by-Point Defense Tenet fiercely defended his analysts’ assessments, including a widely criticized October 2002 national intelligence estimate that experts ― notably at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, which last month published a much-discussed report on the matter (see GSN, Jan. 8) ― have cited as evidence of a sudden, possibly politically motivated shift in U.S. assessments on Iraq. Like Kay, Tenet sought to portray the assessment of Iraqi capabilities over the past decade as a continuous process, not one marked by a sharp shift in 2002. U.S. intelligence, Tenet said, was influenced by Hussein’s history of deception and of using weapons of mass destruction, by the inability of the United Nations and of Hussein to account for all Iraq’s WMD programs and by intelligence gathered after U.N. inspectors left Iraq in 1998 that suggested Baghdad was reviving WMD programs. Tenet detailed prewar and postwar U.S. intelligence on Iraqi missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles and nuclear, chemical and biological weapon programs. For each area, he offered a “provisional bottom line” based on information available so far. Tenet called prewar intelligence on Iraq’s missiles “generally on target,” saying, “Since the war, we have found an aggressive Iraqi missile program concealed from the international community.” In particular, he mentioned “plans and advanced design work” for missiles with ranges of up to 1,000 kilometers and “secret negotiations with North Korea to obtain some of its most dangerous missile technology.” With respect to unmanned aerial vehicles, which prewar intelligence indicated Iraq could ultimately use for a WMD attack on a neighbor or even the United States, Tenet said, “We detected development of prohibited and undeclared unmanned aerial vehicles, but the jury is still out on whether Iraq intended to use its newer, smaller unmanned aerial vehicle to deliver biological weapons.” The October 2002 national intelligence estimate, Tenet said, indicated Hussein “wanted nuclear weapons” but “probably would have been unable to make one until 2007 to 2009.” He said analysts never expected to find a uranium enrichment program in Iraq and are still arguing over whether aluminum tubes found in Iraq could have been intended for enrichment. “My provisional bottom line today: Saddam did not have a nuclear weapon; he still wanted one; and Iraq intended to reconstitute a nuclear program at some point; but we have not yet found clear evidence that the dual-use items Iraq sought were for nuclear reconstitution. We do not yet know if any reconstitution efforts had begun, but we may have overestimated the progress Saddam was making,” Tenet said today. With respect to the national intelligence estimate’s charge that Hussein had biological weapon stockpiles and active biological weapon programs, Tenet said more time is needed to determine the accuracy of the estimate. He said Kay’s group has found “a network of laboratories and safe houses, controlled by Iraqi intelligence and security services, that contained equipment for chemical and biological research, and a prison laboratory complex possibly used in human testing for biological weapons agents that were not declared to the United Nations.” “It also appears that Iraq had the infrastructure and the talent to resume production, but we have yet to find that it actually did so, nor have we found weapons,” Tenet said. Commenting on controversy that has surrounded repeated Bush administration claims that trailers found in Iraq were mobile biological weapon laboratories, Tenet said, “There is no consensus within our intelligence community today over whether the trailers were for that use or if they were used for the production of hydrogen. Everyone agrees that they are not ideally configured for either process, but could be made to work in either mode.” The assertion directly contradicts testimony by Kay, who said last week, “I think the consensus opinion is that when you look at those two trailers, while they had capabilities in many areas, their actual intended use was not for the production of biological weapons.” “We need more time,” Tenet said, to determine whether Iraq had chemical weapons. He said U.S. intelligence before the war indicating “with high confidence” that Iraq had chemical weapon stocks has not been borne out by any weapon finds. He added, though, that Hussein “had the intent and capability to quickly convert civilian industry to chemical weapons production.” “Finding things in Iraq is always very tough,” Tenet said in summing up his “provisional” assessment of what has been found in the country. “My new special adviser, [Kay replacement] Charlie Duelfer, will soon be in Iraq to join Maj. Keith Dayton, commander of the Iraqi Survey Group, to continue our effort to learn the truth, and when the truth emerges, we will report it to the American people, no matter what,” Tenet said. CIA Chief Responds to Manipulation Charges “No one told us what to say or how to say it,” Tenet said of accusations that the Bush administration pressured intelligence analysts to provide justification for a war. The CIA chief was categorical when asked by a student about alleged administration attempts to circumvent standard intelligence input, including by the creation of the Defense Department-based Office of Special Plans. “I am the director of central intelligence. The president of the United States sees me six days a week ― every day. I tell him what the American intelligence community believes. … I can tell you with certainty that the president of the United States gets his intelligence from one person and one community ― me ― and he has told me firmly and directly that he’s wanted it straight and he’s wanted it honest, and he’s never wanted the facts shaded,” he said. Tenet said the decision to go to war lay with policy-makers but that the intelligence it was based on was sound. “This is a policy decision. … How long do you let material breach, deception and denial go on before you’re risked with the kind of surprise that I can never fully and 100 percent predict? This is the question we were faced with,” he said. Director Rejects “Blanket” Criticisms of Human Intelligence Efforts Although most of his speech focused on Iraq, Tenet also took time to rebut a flurry of recent charges, including by Kay, that U.S. intelligence has been ill-served in recent years by a lack of attention to traditional human intelligence. “To be sure, we had difficulty penetrating the Iraqi regime with human sources,” he said, but “I want to be very clear about something. A blanket indictment of our human intelligence around the world is dead wrong. We have spent the last seven years rebuilding our clandestine service. As director of central intelligence, this has been my highest priority.” Tenet also weighed in on charges that U.S. intelligence failed to accurately assess the extent of illicit programs acknowledged recently by Iran and Libya. He called Libya in particular “an intelligence success,” saying “only” U.S. and British intelligence agencies knew what the country was developing because the agencies “had penetrated Libya’s foreign supplier network.” “It was only when we convinced them [Libyan officials] that we knew Libya’s nuclear program was a weapons program that they showed us their weapons design. As should be clear to you, intelligence was the key that opened the door to Libya’s clandestine programs,” Tenet said. Tenet welcomed reviews of prewar intelligence, listing questions intelligence agencies must ask themselves in the wake of the Iraq war: “Did the history of our work, Saddam’s deception and denial, his lack of compliance with the international community and all that we know about this regime cause us to minimize or ignore alternative scenarios? Did the fact that we missed how close Saddam came to acquiring a nuclear weapon in the early 1990s cause us to overestimate his nuclear or other programs in 2002? Did we carefully consider the absence of information flowing from a repressive and intimidating regime, and would it have made any difference in our bottom-line judgments? Did we clearly tell policy-makers what we knew, what we didn’t know, what was not clear, and identify the gaps in our knowledge?” Back to top       Rumsfeld Maintains Banned Iraqi Weapons Still Could Exist By David Ruppe Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld yesterday became the latest senior Bush administration official to dispute former U.S. chief Iraqi weapons inspector David Kay’s conclusion last month that Iraq possessed no weapons of mass destruction before the U.S.-led invasion last year (see GSN, Feb. 2). Testifying in consecutive House and Senate armed services committee hearings, Rumsfeld called Kay’s assessment a “hypothesis” and said, “it’s too early to come to final conclusions given the work still to be done.” Prior to the war, President George W. Bush and other top administration officials used the allegation that Iraq possessed and was developing weapons of mass destruction to justify initiating military action. The absence of WMD discoveries in Iraq after the war has spurred criticism from Democrats in Congress and on the presidential campaign trail. Rumsfeld’s testimony yesterday was followed by an often heated debate with Democrats over whether he and other administration officials twisted evidence to make a case for the invasion. Rumsfeld Lists Other “Theories” Kay, who recently resigned his post overseeing the WMD hunt in Iraq, testified to Congress last week that he believed that Iraq possessed no chemical or biological weapons or any active WMD programs (see GSN, Jan. 29, 2004). He said the Iraq Survey Group had conducted 85 percent of the investigation, which included site inspections, document reviews, and interviews with key Iraqi officials and scientists (see GSN, Jan. 26, 2004). Today, CIA Director George Tenet disputed Kay’s assertion in a speech at Georgetown University, where he defended U.S. intelligence on prewar Iraqi WMD capabilities (see related GSN story, today). “Despite some public statements, we are nowhere near 85 percent finished. The men and women who work in that dangerous environment are adamant about that fact. Any call that I make today is necessarily provisional. Why?  Because we need more time and we need more data,” he said. Yesterday, Rumsfeld offered several other explanations for the discrepancy between prewar estimates and the investigation’s results so far, including that weapons were transferred to other countries, that they remain hidden in Iraq, or that they were quickly destroyed before U.S. forces could find them. “We’ll learn more about those various theories in the weeks and months ahead as the Iraqi Survey Group finishes its work,” he said, holding out the possibility banned Iraqi weapons will turn up in the future. “If you think about it, it took us 10 months to find former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. And unlike Saddam Hussein, such objects — chemical or biological weapons — once buried can stay buried,” he said. Democrats Disagree At the Senate hearing, Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) disputed Rumsfeld’s contention. “The U.S. Iraqi weapons inspector, David Kay, made it clear in the recent days that his exhaustive postwar inspections leave little doubt that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction at the time the war began,” he said. “His conclusion is a devastating refutation of the Bush administration’s case for war in Iraq and, I think, seriously undermines our credibility in the world,” he said. At the House hearing, Representative Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.) accused Rumsfeld of spinning estimates of Iraqi WMD capabilities to justify the war. “The doctrine of pre-emptive war that the president and you all used to invade Iraq in March really depended on an accurate assessment of the nation’s real and imminent threat [to the United States]. And of course we now know that there was no nuclear capability, and there’s no WMD,” she said. Other administration officials also have challenged Kay’s conclusion. White House press secretary Scott McClellan last week said the Bush administration would reserve judgment on the quality of U.S. prewar intelligence until the Iraq Survey Group completed its search (see GSN, Jan. 27, 2004). U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell as reported in the Washington Post said Iraqi WMD capabilities were still an “open question” (see GSN, Jan. 26, 2004). Senate Democrats asserted that Bush administration officials, including Rumsfeld, had overstated the certainty of U.S. intelligence on Iraq’s WMD capabilities and pressured the intelligence community to express greater confidence in their estimates.  “Key policy-makers made crystal clear the results they wanted from the intelligence community,” Kennedy said. He faulted Rumsfeld for telling the committee prior to a 2002 congressional vote on possible U.S. action that “we know” Iraq has chemical weapons, despite a Defense Intelligence Agency report that concluded there was no reliable information on whether Iraq had or was producing them. Rumsfeld suggested he misspoke in that instance. “I’m asked a lot of questions. I use a lot of words, and I’m sure, from time to time, I say something that, in retrospect, I wish I hadn’t,” he said. Kennedy responded that Rumsfeld’s testimony that day expressed such a level of certainty five times. Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.) read a table from a recent Carnegie Endowment for International Peace report that showed how a key October 2002 intelligence estimate dropped qualifying language that had appeared in earlier reports. Rumsfeld said Tenet has indicated repeatedly “that there are … threads of the intelligence that are consistent and provide continuity over a sustained period of time.” Back to top       NATO Readies New WMD Response Team The Czech Republic has agreed to oversee the training of a NATO unit created in December to respond to WMD incidents, the Washington Times reported today. The Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense Battalion will consist of teams from 13 nations and is expected to become operational this summer, officials said. “Possible operational scenarios include [the] threat or real use of (weapons of mass destruction) against military or civil objectives, industry accidents of great scale [and] outflows of dangerous materials caused by natural catastrophes,” said Petr Pavel, the Czech Republic’s deputy commander of joint forces. Officials said the battalion would be able to send mobile laboratories into contaminated areas, operate a medical facility that will stock vaccines, and decontaminate personnel and equipment. The United States plans to participate in the battalion and is scheduled to contribute a biology lab, a team to collect air and ground samples, and a decontamination team, Czech officials said. Capable of operating independently, the new battalion would also be available to work with NATO’s new rapid response force (see GSN, Nov. 20, 2003; Bruce Konviser, Washington Times, Feb. 5). Back to top

Top Pakistani Scientist Receives Pardon for Nuclear Transfers Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf today pardoned Abdul Qadeer Khan, the “father” of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program, for transferring nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea (see GSN, Feb. 4; Washington Post, Feb. 5). The Pakistani Cabinet earlier today had recommended the pardon for Khan, according to the Associated Press (Matthew Pennington, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Feb. 5). In a televised address yesterday, Khan publicly confessed to the nuclear transfers, saying he had conducted such activities without authorization. “My dear brothers and sisters … I have chosen to appear before you to offer my deepest regrets and unqualified apologies to a traumatized nation. … There was never ever any kind of authorization for these activities by the government,” Khan said. “I take full responsibility for my actions and seek your pardon,” he said (Washington Post, Feb. 5). Khan also said that his subordinates who were involved were acting on his orders. “I wish to place on record that those of my subordinates who have accepted their role in the affair were acting in good faith like me, on my instructions,” Khan said. U.S. officials, though, said they did not necessarily accept Khan’s claim that he and his accomplices were the only ones involved in the transfers. “We’re not accepting or rejecting, we’re just digesting all of this,” a U.S. State Department official said. In Pakistan, politicians and analysts said that Khan might be trying to take full responsibility in an effort to protect others. “He was just one of the cogs in the machine,” said Ayesha Siddiqa-Agha, a Pakistani defense and strategic analyst. “He was a very important player, but he was not the only player,” Siddiqa-Agha said (Watson/Zaidi, Los Angeles Times, Feb. 5). Khan agreed to the public confession in exchange for assurances that he would not be prosecuted for the transfers, which investigators have determined netted him millions of dollars, according to a Cabinet member and an individual outside of the government involved in the arrangement. According to a friend of Khan’s, several weeks ago the scientist provided his daughter, who lives in the United Kingdom, with evidence that the military knew of the transfers and told her to make it public if he were to be prosecuted. The head of the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, Lt. Gen. Ehsan ul-Haq, and Lt. Gen. Khalid Kidwai, head of the Strategic Planning and Development Cell, however, confronted Khan last week with evidence that he made money both from his transfers to other countries and from improper deals with suppliers to Pakistan’s own nuclear program, a senior Pakistani official said. They threatened to make that information public if Khan did not confess, which he did Friday after discussing his options with his lawyer, a former law minister, the official said (Washington Post).   “We don’t know what kind of deal was struck, and we may not know for a while,” a Bush administration official said. “With Pakistan, sometimes you never know,” the official said (David Rohde, New York Times, Feb. 5). Alleged Pakistan-Iraq Deal Meanwhile, the news of the involvement by Khan and possibly other Pakistani nuclear scientists in nuclear transfers has led to an increased interest in a suspected attempt by Iraq prior to the 1991 Gulf War to purchase nuclear weapons designs, according to the Washington Post. An offer by Khan to sell the designs was described in a 1990 memo by the Iraqi Mukhabarat intelligence service, the Post reported. According to a U.N.-translated version of the memo, obtained by the Institute for Science and International Security and detailed in a report released yesterday, a man identified as Malik relayed to Iraqi officials an offer from Khan to aid in producing enriched uranium and nuclear weapons. ISIS President David Albright said the Iraqis were suspicious of the offer, but decided to seek samples from the man known as Malik. Those samples, however, were never delivered and the Gulf War essentially ended Iraq’s nuclear program (Joby Warrick, Washington Post, Feb. 5). Back to top       Malaysian Authorities Investigate Domestic Firm for Nuclear Smuggling Malaysian authorities are investigating whether a company there supplied uranium enrichment centrifuge components to Libya, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, Feb. 3). The company, Scomi Precision Engineering Sdn. Bhd., also known as SCOPE, produced centrifuge components that were intercepted en route to Libya in October, national police chief Mohamed Bakri Omar said today. In a statement, Bakri said U.S. and British intelligence had informed Malaysia in November about a transaction involving SCOPE and a businessman based in United Arab Emirates who brokered a deal “supplying certain centrifuge components from Malaysia for Libya’s uranium enrichment program.” Wooden boxes marked with SCOPE’s name and containing centrifuge components were found on a ship seized in Italy in October heading for Libya, Bakri said. A company spokeswoman said today, though, that there had been no obligation to inform the government of export beyond routine customs procedures. SCOPE’s largest shareholder is Kamaluddin Abdullah, the son of Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, AP reported (Rohan Sullivan, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Feb. 5). An official in the prime minister’s office, though, denied any government involvement. “Malaysia was an unwitting participant in all this,” the official said (Raymond Bonner, New York Times, Feb. 5). Back to top       Expert Calls Energy Department Nonproliferation Plans “Status Quo” The U.S. Energy Department’s fiscal 2005 budget proposal for the most part maintains current funding levels for U.S. nuclear nonproliferation efforts, according to an analysis by the Russian American Nuclear Security Advisory Council released yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 3). “This is a status quo budget,” said RANSAC Executive Director Kenneth Luongo in a statement. “It funds essential security programs but it is not aggressive in attacking the real and mounting global nuclear threat,” he added (RANSAC release, Feb. 4) Among other items, the analysis highlights a $45 million request for “International Nuclear and Radiological Cleanout” programs, an effort to secure weapon-usable materials from around the globe. The effort includes programs to transfer Soviet-supplied research reactor fuel from poorly secured reactors back to Russia. The analysis reports that Energy Department officials said the budget would support fuel removal activities at a dozen vulnerable reactors this year “in countries like Egypt, Libya and Vietnam.” The cleanout effort also encompasses existing programs to convert research reactors to use low-enriched uranium fuels and to secure materials that could be used for radiological weapons (RANSAC release II, Feb. 4) Back to top

U.S. Senate Begins to Open Buildings Closed by Ricin U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) yesterday announced plans to begin reopening three Senate office buildings today that have been closed following the discovery of ricin inside one earlier this week (see GSN, Feb. 4). The Russell Senate Office Building is scheduled to reopen at noon today, according to the Washington Post. Next will be the Hart Senate Office Building, which is set to reopen tomorrow morning. The Dirksen Senate Office Building, where the powdered ricin was found inside Frist’s office suite, is scheduled to reopen Monday morning. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conducted a number of tests on the ricin found in Frist’s office suite and confirmed that it was the toxin, but could not determine its potency or purity, U.S. health officials said. Further tests are still being conducted, such as one to determine if the material could be toxic to humans, the officials said. Investigators went through the Senate office buildings yesterday, gathering mail to be shipped to FBI laboratories in an effort to identify the letter or package that might have carried the ricin that was discovered on a mail-sorting machine. Police have said, though, that they are not certain that the ricin arrived by mail. “There is no smoking letter or anything of that type that ties this all together, Capitol Police Chief Terrance Gainer said. Frist, though, said he regarded the incident as an act of biological terrorism. “This did come through the mail,” Frist said, noting that the material was found in the cutting tray of the letter-opening machine in his office mailroom. “I regard this as a terrorist attack on my life,” he said. Possible White House Connection Gainer also said yesterday that “no direct link” has been established between the ricin found Monday and that contained in a letter addressed to the White House that was intercepted in November (Morello/Hsu, Washington Post, Feb. 5). As for the White House letter, the U.S. Secret Service acknowledged yesterday that it had waited for six days before informing the FBI about its discovery, and said it had implemented new procedures to prevent such delays in the future. Bush administration officials said the delay did not threaten public health or the FBI’s investigation into the incident. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) said yesterday, though, that the Bush administration did the country a “disservice” by not immediately announcing the incident (Dan Eggen, Washington Post, Feb. 5). Investigators are now working to determine if the Senate ricin incident is connected to the White House letter and a similar ricin-containing letter, addressed to the Transportation Department, found at a South Carolina mail-handling facility in October, according to the Associated Press. Both the Transportation Department and the White House letters were signed “Fallen Angel” and warned that further ricin incidents would occur if new trucking regulations were not scrapped. The U.S. trucking industry has been working with federal officials in the investigation into the two letters, with the American Trucking Association sending out bulletins to members urging them to watch for people engaged in suspicious activity (Associated Press/CNN.com, Feb. 5). The new regulations, which regulate how long truck drivers can stay on the road, have come under fire from some truckers, according to the New York Times. “This guy must be a kook, but at least folks are going to listen to what he’s saying,” said driver Joe Thompson. “The feds are killing us with their bureaucracy,” he said (Andrew Jacobs, New York Times, Feb. 5). Investigators and experts believe that the ricin used in the various incidents originated within the United States and was not the work of foreign terrorists, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. “It does not bear the mark of an international terrorist attack,” a Homeland Security Department official said yesterday. “This is a criminal issue.  It is not a weapon of mass destruction,” the official said. Randall Larsen, founder of the consulting firm Homeland Security Associates, described the incidents as “the equivalent of mailing rat poison to somebody.” “This fits in the category of kook rather than terrorist,” he said (Borenstein/Chatterjee, Philadelphia Inquirer, Feb. 5). Back to top

China Seeks to Join Missile Nonproliferation Regime By Mike Nartker Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — Talks are set to begin later this month that could lead to Chinese membership in the primary international effort to restrict missile proliferation, a senior Polish diplomat said here yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 30, 2003). China is seeking to join the Missile Technology Control Regime, a 33-nation group that agrees to implement similar export controls on missile technology, said Polish diplomat Mariusz Handzlik, who chaired the MTCR from 2002 to 2003. The first of at least three planned rounds of talks on China joining the regime is scheduled to be held Feb. 15 in Paris, Handzlik said in a speech at the Washington office of the University of Georgia’s Center for International Trade and Security. During the first round of talks, MTCR officials will compare the regime’s control list with the one developed by China for its own national export control system, Handzlik said, adding that Beijing has said its control list is more restrictive than the MTCR’s (see GSN, Dec. 3). A second round of talks will discuss export control regulatory systems, Handzlik said, and future talks will focus on political issues, such as Chinese nonproliferation policy and the possibility of Beijing joining the Hague Code of Conduct Against Ballistic Missile Proliferation. The code, launched last year and now with more than 100 members, calls on subscribers to exercise “maximum possible restraint” in developing and deploying ballistic missiles and to avoid aiding the missile programs of any countries that might be developing weapons of mass destruction (see GSN, July 2, 2003). Despite the planned talks, Handzlik warned yesterday that China’s MTCR membership would not be immediate. “It takes time,” he said. He said the decision to consider China’s membership came after two visits to Beijing last year. There were public indications late last month of China’s interest in formally joining the regime when Chinese President Hu Jintao traveled to Paris to meet with French President Jacques Chirac. In a joint statement released after the meeting, France announced that it supported China joining the regime “at the earliest possible date” (see GSN, Jan. 28). A U.S. State Department official today, however, characterized this month’s talks as “technical” discussions between Chinese and MTCR officials. The official told Global Security Newswire that the meeting does not have a “membership focus.” Over the last few months, China has undertaken several measures to strengthen its ability to prevent the unauthorized spread of weapons of mass destruction and related goods and technologies. The state-run Xinhua News Agency reported last month that China has filed a formal application to join another multilateral export control regime — the Nuclear Suppliers Group, a 40-member organization that establishes export control regulations for nuclear trade (see GSN, Jan. 27). In late December, China also issued new export control regulations that included a “catch-all” provision, which requires exporting firms to apply for a license if items to be transferred could pose a proliferation risk, even if the items are not listed on national export control lists (see GSN, Dec. 29, 2003). Handzlik said that all MTCR members need to implement such provisions in their national export control systems. Also in December, China issued a detailed eight-page white paper outlining its national nonproliferation policies, including the progress made in developing a national export control system. The paper said that China had developed an export licensing system, end-use certification requirements and national export control lists that were “generally the same” as those of multilateral regimes such as the MTCR. In addition, China also noted in its white paper its commitment to enforcing its export control laws and to punishing violators. “The Chinese government attaches great importance to the investigation and handling of cases of law violation relating to nonproliferation,” the white paper said. The issue of enforcement, though, has long been a concern (see GSN, Dec. 4, 2003). In 2003, the United States sanctioned a number of Chinese companies, in some instances multiple times, for alleged illegal exports of WMD- and missile-related items. In addition, the CIA warned late last year that the “proliferation behavior of some Chinese companies remains of great concern.” The State Department official today refused to specify whether the United States would support China’s membership in the MTCR. According to the official, all MTCR members must agree on admitting a new country, and members tend to examine a country’s nonproliferation “credentials” when making their decisions. Such credentials would be a “driving factor” behind the U.S. decision to admit a new member as well, the State Department official said. Some experts today said that China’s record of poor enforcement caused them to offer only tentative support for Beijing joining the MTCR. “China has played ‘gotcha’ on this for more than two decades. Maybe the new head of state is really turning things around, but we need to avoid letting our hopes obscure our experiences,” said Richard Speier, a former U.S. Defense Department official who helped to negotiate the MTCR. Wade Boese of the Arms Control Association warned that the regime should not admit countries “that do not have the intention or capacity to strictly abide by the regime’s terms.” “The critical issue for MTCR is that all of its current and future members not take actions that undercut the regime’s purpose,” he said. If China can work to prevent illegal missile-related transfers by its companies, though, then it “could make an important contribution to the regime,” CSIS International Security Program Senior Adviser Robert Einhorn said. Even if the planned talks do not result in China formally joining the MTCR, Boese said, they might still have some benefit. “What is important is that these consultations help improve China’s export controls and curtail Chinese proliferation activities,” he said. “Traditional Suppliers” During his speech yesterday, Handzlik described his efforts over the last year as MTCR chairman to reach out to other countries and to increase the regime’s membership.  For example, Handzlik said he visited Israel and India, which he characterized as “traditional suppliers,” along with China. According to Handzlik, Israel enjoys a “special relationship” with the MTCR because it adheres to the regime’s guidelines and control list even though it is not formally a member. Such adherence on both the government and industry levels has made Israel’s formal membership in the MTCR less important, he said. “We are very happy we have a country in the Middle East” that adheres to the regime, Handzlik said. As for India, Handzlik said there was a “willingness” on New Delhi’s part to work closely with the missile regime. He also said India has expressed an interest in cooperating with some MTCR members in space activities, and that he hoped increased cooperation between India and the MTCR could lead to greater stability in South Asia and between India and China. Countries of Concern Handzlik also said that he has opened diplomatic channels with several countries of proliferation concern, including Libya, North Korea and Pakistan. During a visit to Pyongyang in 2002, Handzlik said, North Korean officials made it “very clear” that they would continue to abide by a self-imposed moratorium on ballistic missile tests, but would continue to export missile technologies. North Korea’s willingness to remain a missile exporter was made clear last week when Nigeria announced that Pyongyang had offered ballistic missile technology. According to reports, though, Nigeria has decided to rebuff North Korea’s offer, citing the threat of U.S. sanctions (see GSN, Feb. 4). Handzlik also praised the recent decision by Libya to disclose and dismantle its WMD programs and to destroy all of its missiles that violate MTCR parameters, which are those capable of traveling more than 300 kilometers while carrying payloads greater than 500 kilograms (see GSN, Jan. 28). He said the first sign that Libya intended to change its WMD and missile policies came when it agreed to be in the first round of subscribers to the Hague Code of Conduct (see GSN, Nov. 26, 2002). Libya plans to cooperate with the MTCR and would like to ultimately join the regime, Handzlik said. He added that if the dismantlement effort is handled well, it could have a positive effect on other Middle Eastern countries, especially Syria. In his remarks, Handzlik noted his failed efforts to reach out to Damascus, saying Syria refused his visit. “Syria was like a black hole,” he said. Handzlik also said that Pakistan welcomed his visit, but continued to express concern that the MTCR is an exclusive regime. He said that Pakistan believes India’s first-strike capabilities have benefited from “leaks” by regime members, and that Islamabad wants to see the regime treat both it and New Delhi equally. Other Countries In his speech yesterday, Handzlik said that several other countries not traditionally seen as suppliers or as proliferation concerns are also seeking increased ties with the MTCR, specifying Belarus, Kazakhstan and Malaysia. Belarus has agreed to increased cooperation with the regime, such as participating in seminars and workshops, he said. Kazakhstan has expressed a “very strong” interest in joining the MTCR, in part because of perceived benefits for its space activities, Handzlik said. One concern, though, is that Kazakhstan does not yet belong to all international nonproliferation agreements, namely the Biological Weapons Convention, as the MTCR requires, Handzlik said. He also said that Malaysia sees a benefit to its space activities by joining the MTCR. In addition, Handzlik said he expected a number of Central and East European countries that joined the European Union and NATO to become MTCR members by the middle of the year. The issue of expanding the MTCR’s membership was “actively considered” during a regime plenary meeting held in September 2003 in Buenos Aires. A U.S. State Department official told Global Security Newswire at the time that the United States supports the “deliberate, prudent expansion” of the MTCR. Back to top

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