U.S Undersecretary of State John Bolton (shown in a February photo) defended U.S. nonproliferation policies in testimony to the U.S. House International Relations Committee yesterday (AFP photo/Yoshikazu Tsuno). Pakistani Leader Did Not OK Nuclear Proliferation, U.S. Official Says; No Sanctions to Be Imposed By David Ruppe Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — Pakistani government officials undoubtedly were involved in recently disclosed nuclear weapons technology transfers to Iran, Libya and North Korea, and the most senior officials knew it was occurring, a senior U.S. official said yesterday (see GSN, March 19). However, the United States does not believe that Pakistani leaders, including President Pervez Musharraf, were complicit in the proliferation and so no U.S. sanctions have been imposed, said Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton in testimony before the House International Relations Committee...Full Story

WMD Hunters in Iraq Looking for Evidence of Iraqi “Intent,” Duelfer Says By Mike Nartker Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The Iraq Survey Group, which has so far found no WMD stockpiles in Iraq, has begun to focus on the “intent” of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s regime to pursue weapons of mass destruction, chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq Charles Duelfer told lawmakers yesterday (see GSN, March 30)...Full Story

House Democrats Criticize U.S. North Korea Policy; Experts Weigh in on Chances of a Deal With Kim Regime By Marina Malenic Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — House Democrats yesterday questioned U.S. policy on North Korea, challenging Undersecretary of State John Bolton on the effectiveness of the Bush administration’s tough stance on Pyongyang’s nuclear programs since the collapse of the Clinton-era Agreed Framework with the communist nation (see GSN, March 29)...Full Story

	Wednesday, March 31, 2004

WMD Hunters in Iraq Looking for Evidence of Iraqi “Intent,” Duelfer Says By Mike Nartker Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The Iraq Survey Group, which has so far found no WMD stockpiles in Iraq, has begun to focus on the “intent” of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s regime to pursue weapons of mass destruction, chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq Charles Duelfer told lawmakers yesterday (see GSN, March 30). In declassified testimony from a closed Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Duelfer said that it is “critically important” to learn the intent of Hussein’s regime in order to place various discovered WMD-related research, development and production activities into context. In its efforts, the Iraq Survey Group is examining such issues as what was ordered by Hussein and other senior officials, potential plans for a “breakout” WMD capability and the possible development of WMD technologies for Iraq’s missile and unmanned aerial vehicle efforts, he said. “At this stage, ISG is focusing on developing an integrated picture of regime programs and intentions. We are putting data together in a comprehensive way that, hopefully, will allow us to describe the overall WMD program of the regime,” Duelfer said. Duelfer warned that he could not say how long the investigation would last. “The difficult environment we work in, and the complexity of the issue, make certainty in our advancement impossible to predict,” he said. One of the largest challenges is the “extreme reluctance” on the part of Iraqi managers, scientists and engineers to discuss their activities, Duelfer said. He attributed such reluctance to fears of arrest by coalition forces or retribution by former regime officials. The Iraq Survey has also yet to identify “the most critical people in any programmatic effort,” he said. Last year, then-chief U.S. weapons inspector David Kay also told lawmakers of the difficulties in obtaining information from Iraqi sources. “The environment in Iraq remains far from permissive for our activities, with many Iraqis that we talk to reporting threats and overt acts of intimidation,” he told lawmakers in early October. In addition to a lack of information from Iraqi sources, the Iraq Survey Group is also having difficulties in using the millions of documents so far recovered, Duelfer said yesterday. Documents are often too “mixed up” to be adequately examined and the group only has the linguistic capabilities to examine a “tiny fraction of the whole,” he said. “Imagine yourself being asked to determine the secret, behind the scenes intentions of our own government with respect to its most secret weapons programs after talking to a few hundred folks who may or may not have been intimately involved, with only a small fraction of documents available, and with a leadership that is not broken and willing to discuss its inner secrets.  How much would you really understand?” Duelfer said. The shift of focus to investigating prewar Iraq’s intentions appears to be more of an effort to fulfill a “political objective,” than technical or nonproliferation goals, Arms Control Association Executive Director Daryl Kimball told Global Security Newswire today. “It should not be surprising to anyone” that Hussein sought biological and chemical weapons, Kimball said, adding that there is more value in investigating issues such as what happened after the collapse of Iraqi’s WMD efforts following Operation Desert Fox in 1998, the failure to find WMD stockpiles and the effectiveness of U.N. weapons inspections. Heritage Foundation senior policy analyst Jack Spencer countered that Duelfer’s shift to investigating intent is “extraordinarily important” when considered with the fact that Hussein was willing to forgo tens of billions of dollars in oil revenue and even risk war to avoid complying with U.N. inspections. The issue of intent, when combined with Iraq’s apparent dual-use facilities, also becomes important if Hussein had planned to relaunch his WMD efforts once U.N. sanctions were ultimately lifted, Spencer told GSN today. Findings In his testimony yesterday, Duelfer outlined the various findings made by the Iraq Survey Group since Kay presented his interim report in October (see GSN, Oct. 3, 2003). Duelfer noted, though, that his testimony was intended to provide a “status report” of his efforts as head of the Iraq Survey Group and was not intended as “a preliminary assessment of findings.” With regard to Iraq’s alleged prewar nuclear program, Duelfer said that Hussein’s regime had an “interest” in preserving and expanding its nuclear weapons knowledge. As an example, he cited a high-speed rail gun program that was overseen by two scientists associated with Iraq’s pre-1991 nuclear program. While the program’s “ostensible purpose” was to develop an air defense weapon, Duelfer said, the projectile speeds sought were also capable of being used in nuclear weapons research. He also said that the scientists’ laboratory contained documents describing “diagnostic techniques” important for nuclear weapons research. The Iraq Survey Group also discovered new information related to Iraq’s dual-use facilities and research suitable for quickly developing biological and chemical weapons, Duelfer said, adding that prewar Iraq had plans to improve its existing dual-use facilities and to construct new sites. The Iraq Survey Group is examining Iraq’s intentions behind civilian biological and chemical research conducted with dual-use materials, Duelfer said. He also outlined for lawmakers yesterday information found related to Iraq’s efforts to develop ballistic missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles. According to Duelfer, Hussein’s regime had flight tested missiles and UAVs that “easily exceeded” the U.N.-capped range of 150 kilometers. Iraq was also working to develop technology capable of extending the range of one type of ballistic missile beyond 150 kilometers with changes to airframes and fuels, and was developing UAVs using inertial navigation systems and navigation using Global Positioning Systems, he said. To fund and obtain materials for its WMD-related efforts, prewar Iraq used “a complex and well-developed procurement system hidden by an effective denial and deception strategy,” Duelfer said. The “primary” funding source for such a procurement system was oil smuggling through neighboring countries and “kickback payments” made on contracts established through the U.N. Oil-for-Food program, he said. Iraq was able to obtain “several billion dollars” between 1999 and 2003 through such activities, Duelfer said. Public Versus Private Versions The declassified version of Duelfer’s testimony came under fire yesterday by Senator Carl Levin (Mich.), the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee. In a press statement, Levin alleged that the public version of Duelfer’s testimony included information that suggested prewar Iraq had an active WMD program, while leaving out information included in the classified version that indicated otherwise. “Mr. Duelfer’s statement raises the same issues of selective use of information in public statements of the CIA that have been such a problem for the credibility of the intelligence community’s prewar estimates related to Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction,” Levin said, calling on the CIA to declassify “to the extent possible” the whole of Duelfer’s report. In response, a CIA spokeswoman told GSN today that Duelfer said that the classified and unclassified versions of his report “mirror” each other and are consistent with “the protection of intelligence sources, methods and other classified information.” Duelfer has also said that he did not “make assessments or draw conclusions” in either version of his report, the CIA spokeswoman said. Back to top

Pakistani Leader Did Not OK Nuclear Proliferation, U.S. Official Says; No Sanctions to Be Imposed By David Ruppe Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — Pakistani government officials undoubtedly were involved in recently disclosed nuclear weapons technology transfers to Iran, Libya and North Korea, and the most senior officials knew it was occurring, a senior U.S. official said yesterday (see GSN, March 19). However, the United States does not believe that Pakistani leaders, including President Pervez Musharraf, were complicit in the proliferation and so no U.S. sanctions have been imposed, said Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton in testimony before the House International Relations Committee. Former Pakistani nuclear weapons laboratory director Abdul Qadeer Khan confessed in February to coordinating the transfers. “I don’t have any doubt that there were officials in the employ of the government of Pakistan — perhaps at Khan Research Laboratories, perhaps in the military — who participated in Khan’s network and probably enriched themselves just as Khan himself did,” Bolton said. “The issue is the extent to which, if at all, the top levels of the government of Pakistan were involved in his activities,” he added. “Based on the information we have now, we believe that the proliferation activities that Mr. Khan confessed to recently — his activities in Libya, in Iran and North Korea, and perhaps elsewhere — were activities that he was carrying on without the approval of the top levels of the government of Pakistan. That is the position that President Musharraf has taken, and we have no evidence to the contrary,” he said. Bolton said Musharraf may have been aware of the proliferation, but that it was not possible for the government to act until this year because of Khan’s status as a national icon and the Pakistani “internal political dynamic.” He cited recent attempts to assassinate the president. Questions of Complicity Since Musharraf pardoned Khan the day after the scientist’s confession, the Bush administration has been criticized for not faulting or sanctioning the Pakistani government. “One has to say it strains credulity to believe that the … Pakistani government was not aware in detail,” said Victor Gilinsky, commissioner of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission during the Ford and Carter administrations, who testified on a panel following Bolton. Committee Democrats yesterday grilled Bolton on the administration’s approach. It should seem to even the “most casual of observers that you cannot use the military transport planes of Pakistan to deliver that kind of materiel and program to North Korea and others without the implicit support of the army of Pakistan,” said the committee’s ranking Democrat, Gary Ackerman (N.Y.). He noted that Musharraf headed the Pakistani army while suspected transfers were occurring. Musharraf was the army’s chief and Pakistan’s chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee when he took control of the government following a military coup in October 1999. Bolton argued that Khan’s use of Pakistani military aircraft for proliferation did not necessarily indicate that senior officials were involved. “The understanding we have is that Khan Research Laboratories had extraordinary autonomy and quite likely could use military aircraft for purposes that others in the military would not necessarily know the purpose of because of [compartmentalization] of the information,” he said. Representative William Delahunt (D-Mass.) cited a recent New York Times account of a Central Intelligence Agency report that a clandestine proliferation relationship between Pakistan and North Korea began in the early 1990s and accelerated between 1998 and 2002. Bolton suggested the newspaper account was inaccurate, and refused to comment further, noting the report is classified. Representative Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) cited reports that a ship containing nuclear industrial equipment seized last year en route to Libya reportedly contained uranium centrifuges built from a Pakistani design and originated with Khan associates in Malaysia (See GSN, Feb. 19). “Yet you make the statement that no high-level officials knew of this transfer or Mr. Khan’s profits of over $100 million from Libya possibly alone,” she said. A New Republic article published last week says Khan has a daughter who possesses information implicating high-level Pakistani officials in the proliferation, McCollum noted. Bolton refused to discuss the article in public. Bolton said the United States is seeking information on how the proliferation took place by investigating the Khan network and soliciting information from the Pakistani government. He said U.S. officials have concluded that speaking directly to Khan is unnecessary “because we are satisfied for now that the government of Pakistan is complying with the commitments they’ve made to us” to assist in the U.S. investigation of the scientist’s network. Bush Policies Criticized Ackerman criticized the administration for announcing this month it would designate Pakistan a “major non-NATO ally” to the United States, which could give the country better access to U.S. military technology and training (see GSN, March 18). “Instead of getting to the bottom of A.Q. Khan’s nefarious enterprise, the president proposes to make it easier for Pakistan to acquire sensitive U.S. technology?” Ackerman said. “This double standard with regard to Pakistan makes a mockery of our nonproliferation efforts around the world,” he said. Bolton said the special status “was based on other factors.” Ackerman also questioned why the Bush administration has not so far sanctioned Pakistan under two proliferation sanctions laws, saying the administration is “giving them a pass on proliferating nuclear technology.” “It is clear to me, and I think it should be clear to anyone else, that Pakistan sold nuclear technology and probably nuclear weapons designs to terrorist states, even those in the evil axis,” he said, referring to President George W. Bush’s categorization of Iran, Iraq and North Korea as an “axis of evil.” “If we had information about complicity of top levels of the government of Pakistan, we would act on it. At this point, there’s no such information,” Bolton said. Ackerman acknowledged that Pakistan has supported U.S. efforts to fight international terrorists associated with al-Qaeda, as well as the political difficulties Musharraf faces within his country. He said, though, that the administration has already provided Pakistan with $2 billion in aid in the past two years and is requesting $700 million for fiscal 2005, which “clearly already demonstrates our great support.” Committee Chairman Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) said the administration should be credited for “persuading the leaders of Pakistan to take active measures to interrupt the proliferation of nuclear materials and assistance that has metastasized unchecked from that country for many years.” Back to top       House Democrats Criticize U.S. North Korea Policy; Experts Weigh in on Chances of a Deal With Kim Regime By Marina Malenic Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — House Democrats yesterday questioned U.S. policy on North Korea, challenging Undersecretary of State John Bolton on the effectiveness of the Bush administration’s tough stance on Pyongyang’s nuclear programs since the collapse of the Clinton-era Agreed Framework with the communist nation (see GSN, March 29). In written testimony submitted to the House International Relations Committee, Bolton said the United States “will not provide inducements or reward the North Koreans to come back into compliance with their international obligations.” He added that the United States “will not follow the mistaken path of the 1994 Agreed Framework,” a deal under which North Korea pledged to freeze its nuclear programs in exchange for a U.S.-led consortium providing two new nuclear power reactors. Initiating an extended exchange with Bolton, Representative Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) asked the undersecretary “by what barometer can we say that we are better off vis-a-vis North Korea today than we were three years ago?”  “While there were obvious flaws with the policy of the prior administration, whereas the North Koreans were cheating on the Agreed Framework, it certainly, I think, can be said that the current success of this administration’s policy, if it can be argued it is no worse, it’s certainly been no better in achieving its results,” Schiff said. When the Bush administration took office, Bolton said, “North Korea was violating the Agreed Framework, was actively engaged in a production scope procurement effort to acquire the capability to do uranium enrichment, to be used in nuclear weapons, and the United States and others were supplying resources to the North Korean regime that, in effect, were propping that regime up.” Schiff then asked Bolton if he believed “we’re better off now that North Korea has reprocessed the spent fuel?” “It’s not clear at all,” Bolton replied, “when North Korea began reprocessing the plutonium. But the plutonium is only one side of the North Korean nuclear weapons effort.” He added that a suspected uranium enrichment program “provides a completely separate route that simply continuing to keep the Agreed Framework in place, as many argued, would have permitted the North Koreans to continue to advance toward nuclear weapons through that route.” The standoff with Pyongyang is unlikely to be resolved during North Korean leader Kim Jong Il’s tenure, said nonproliferation expert Victor Gilinsky in additional testimony. The United States could use other means to bring about a gradual lessening of tensions, he said. “I don’t think this is going to be resolved with the current regime,” Gilinsky said. “What we need to do is wait them out and hem them in as best we can and use other ways to soften them up and have the juices of capitalism maybe corrode their spirit,” he added. Joseph Cirincione, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the committee he thought a deal with North Korea was possible. “I think we can do a deal with North Korea. I think we can buy them out for a fraction of what we’re spending on some other defense programs,” Cirincione said. “Let’s make a deal that they can’t refuse,” he added. Back to top       U.S. Readies Sanctions on Firms Trading With Iran The United States announced yesterday that it plans to impose sanctions on companies suspected of supplying weapons technology to Iran, the Financial Times reported (see GSN, March 30). Undersecretary of State John Bolton told the U.S. Congress that sanctions would be applied on 13 companies under the Iran Nonproliferation Act. “Companies around the world have a choice: trade in WMD materials with proliferators, or trade with the United States, but not both,” Bolton said (Guy Dinmore, Financial Times, March 31). Bolton said investigations by the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency have not ended Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. “The recent discovery of Iran’s development and testing of uranium enrichment centrifuges of an advanced design is a clear indicator that Iran continues its quest for nuclear weapons,” Bolton said. Iran is attempting to mislead the world with a “massive denial and deception program,” he added (Bill Gertz, Washington Times, March 31). Back to top       South Korea Seeks Details on Pyongyang’s Freeze Offer North Korea must shut down all nuclear projects if it wants to receive aid and other concessions, South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon said today (see GSN, March 29). “The North should clarify its position on what it means exactly when it talks about a freeze and the extent of such a freeze,” Ban said after returning to Seoul from a visit to Beijing. He added that returning to the 1994 Agreed Framework, under which Pyongyang pledged to freeze its plutonium-based nuclear activities in exchange for aid, was not possible. “[The North’s offer] must be something more than the 1994 deal in Geneva,” Ban said. “All nuclear-related facilities must be frozen,” he added. Ban met in Beijing this week with his Chinese counterpart, Li Zhaoxing, who had just returned from a meeting in Pyongyang with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and other officials. Ban said Li told him the North expressed its intention to take part in working groups before the next six-nation nuclear talks (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, March 31). Meanwhile, the United States again said North Korea must dismantle all its nuclear programs, including those it claims are for peaceful purposes, Kyodo News reported. Undersecretary of State John Bolton, in written testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives International Relations Committee, said the dismantlement must include a facility at Yongbyon that the North says is for peaceful purposes. The United States believes the plant’s nuclear reactor can produce weapon-grade plutonium and is central to North Korea’s alleged nuclear weapons efforts, the News said. “The idea that the Yongbyon facility serves any peaceful purpose is untenable,” Bolton said. “The amount of electricity it could produce is minimal, and it is questionable that North Korea even has the necessary infrastructure in place by which to distribute it,” he added (Kyodo News, March 30). Back to top

Pine Bluff Chemical Weapons Burning Delayed to July The U.S. Army’s Pine Bluff Arsenal in Arkansas will not begin incinerating its stockpiles of chemical weapons until July, three months later than originally planned, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, March 9). The delay was caused by the need to provide workers with more training and to test some equipment, officials said. “The overarching theme is that we didn’t want to start before we were ready,” project manager Randy Long said (Associated Press, March 31). Back to top       Chechen Leader Is Bluffing With Chemical Weapons Threat, Expert Says Chechen militant leader Shamil Basayev was bluffing in his recent threats to conduct chemical weapons attacks against Russia, an expert said yesterday on the Russian radio station Ekho Moskvy (see GSN, March 30).  Chechen militants do not have the financial means to bribe Russian officials to obtain chemical weapons nor do they have the expertise to produce them, said Union for Chemical Safety President Lev Fedorov “Do you think a Chechen will climb over the fence to steal an unknown bomb from an unknown storage place? Do you think he wants to kill himself?  Getting chemical weapons out of storage requires money. The sum must be very good, a very attractive sum, so that the head of the facility, the head of the storage place and a small-rank officer, all three of them, can get what they want and take what they want out of the storage place. The Chechens don’t have this kind of money. This is impossible,” Fedorov said (Ekho Moskvy/BBC Monitoring, March 30). Back to top

Disrepair of Alaskan Air Base Threatens to Disrupt U.S. Missile Defense Deployment The Allen Army Airfield in Alaska, which the Missile Defense Agency hopes to use to transport ground-based missile interceptors to Fort Greely, has been declared unfit for heavy-cargo aircraft, MDA and Air Force officials said this week (see GSN, March 26). The agency plans to begin deploying missile interceptors at Fort Greely by the end of September, according to Inside Missile Defense. The Air Force determined in fiscal 2003, though, that the runways at Allen Army Airfield, which is 12 miles from Fort Greely, were in poor condition and could not handle the weight of aircraft laden with heavy cargo, Defense Department Comptroller Dov Zakheim told Congress earlier this month. To repair the airfield, the Pentagon has asked Congress for permission to transfer $33 million from the Army’s budget to the Missile Defense Agency, Inside Missile Defense reported. In the event that Allen Army Airfield is not available, the agency plans to use Eileson Air Force Base and transport the interceptors 120 miles by truck to Fort Greely, an agency spokesman said (Thomas Duffy, Inside Missile Defense, March 31). Back to top       SBIRS-High Suffers More Delays The $8.6 billion Space-Based Infrared System High is experiencing additional scheduling delays, with officials now aiming for a July delivery of the first highly elliptical orbit payload (HEO-1) component, Defense Daily reported today (see GSN, March 16). A July delivery would represent an 18-month delay from earlier schedules. Officials still have not set a new date for delivery of the satellite components, scheduled for October 2006 according to an earlier plan (Amy Butler, Defense Daily, March 31). Back to top       Navy Pursuing International Missile Defense Support The U.S. Navy is seeking international agreements that could lead to greater cooperation on missile defense, Aerospace Daily reported today (see GSN, March 29). The United States, Italy and six other countries are preparing to sign a memorandum of understanding that will lead to more specific discussions on cooperation on maritime missile defense, said Rino Pivirotto, acting executive director of the Navy International Programs Office. Pivirotto said the memorandum “helps us expedite” the process on possible agreements (Marc Selinger, Aerospace Daily, March 31).   Back to top

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