The USS Maine, a Trident ballistic missile submarine, at sea. U.S. nuclear laboratories are considering replacing some nuclear warheads with more reliable versions that would be less likely to require nuclear testing (DOD Photo). DOE Official Seeks to Clarify Bush Nuclear Program By David Ruppe Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The U.S. Energy Department has no programs or plans for studying or developing new low-yield nuclear weapons capabilities, a senior official told Global Security Newswire this month, echoing complaints by other Bush administration officials that the department is being criticized inaccurately (see GSN, March 22). ..Full Story

Recent Intelligence Reports Indicate Iran Seeking Nuclear Weapons-Related Equipment Iran appears to be seeking to buy equipment needed to build and test nuclear weapons, such as high-speed switches and high-speed cameras, Reuters reported today (see GSN, July 13)...Full Story

North Korea Acknowledges That Nuclear Program Is Weapons-Related, Kelly Says While North Korea only states publicly that it seeks a “nuclear deterrent,” officials for the communist nation admitted at last month’s six-party talks that their nuclear focus is on weaponry, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly said yesterday (see GSN, July 15)...Full Story

United States Plans to Build Secure Biological Laboratories in Three Former Soviet States The U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency plans to build four Biosafety Level 2 and 3 laboratories in Georgia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to house and study dangerous pathogens, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, Dec. 8, 2003)...Full Story

	Friday, July 16, 2004

U.K. Prepares Largest-Ever Terrorism Drill More than 2,000 British emergency personnel plan to treat 400 “casualties” of a mock poison gas attack on Sunday in the United Kingdom’s largest-ever terrorism drill (see GSN, March 15). “Exercise Horizon” is set to be held in central England. Ambulance, fire and police personnel will coordinate efforts to decontaminate the volunteer victims in disinfecting showers and transport some to nearby hospitals, according to Agence France-Presse. “While Exercise Horizon is probably the largest civilian chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear exercise of its kind in the U.K. so far, what is being tested are not questions of scale but the coordination of resources and communication between the different organizations involved,” Helen Braithwaite, deputy director of the Regional Resilience Team, said in a prepared statement. “Training exercises are important as they ensure that we are prepared to respond to any kind of mass contamination incident, whether resulting from terrorist attack or an industrial accident,” she added. Braithwaite said the exercise was not organized in response to any specific threat (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, July 16). Back to top

U.K. Pledges to Fix Intelligence Flaws The British government yesterday promised to correct the flaws listed in the report released this week by high-level inquiry into British intelligence on prewar Iraq, according to the Associated Press (see GSN, July 14). The report, which details the findings of an inquiry conducted by former British civil servant Robin Butler, says that British intelligence suffered from poor human sources and inadequate resources in trying to learn more about Iraq’s alleged WMD efforts.  “Obviously there are implications in the Butler report which we will have to reflect on,” said a spokesman for British Prime Minister Tony Blair. “We should do everything we can to make sure that these mistakes will not be repeated,” the spokesman said. British officials have said that intelligence spending would be increased and that an additional 1,000 staff members would be recruited for British intelligence agencies (Ed Johnson, Associated Press, July 15). Meanwhile, the London Independent reported today that doubts over prewar Iraq’s alleged ability to produce chemical weapons were withheld from two postwar inquiries that examined the rationale for war. According to the Independent, the two inquiries were not told that some of intelligence upon which Blair based his claims of the threat posed by prewar Iraq had been discredited by the MI6 intelligence service. Three of the five sources for some of the claims made in the British government’s 2002 dossier on Iraqi WMD efforts were found by MI6 to be so questionable that their reports on chemical weapons production activities were withdrawn in July 2003.  One of the inquiries began the following month, but it was not told that the reports had been discredited, the Independent reported (Sengupta/Grice, London Independent, July 16). Back to top       EU Discusses Nonproliferation Position With Syria European Union envoy Annalisa Gianella met with Syrian Foreign Minister Faruq al-Shara yesterday to discuss the EU position on nonproliferation, which has hindered the finalization of an association agreement between the union and Syria, according to Agence France-Presse (see GSN, July 2). “The purpose of my visit is to explain to our friends, the Syrians, the security strategy and the strategy against proliferation of WMD which were adopted by EU countries last December,” Gianella said (see GSN, Dec. 30, 2003). “To be able to discuss together the security strategy allows us to better understand each other. I hope that it can be effective and fruitful in the perspective of the conclusion of the association agreement,” she added (Agence France-Presse/EUBusiness.com, July 15). Back to top

DOE Official Seeks to Clarify Bush Nuclear Program By David Ruppe Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The U.S. Energy Department has no programs or plans for studying or developing new low-yield nuclear weapons capabilities, a senior official told Global Security Newswire this month, echoing complaints by other Bush administration officials that the department is being criticized inaccurately (see GSN, March 22). Officials in numerous forums have insisted this year that a misconception has spread that the controversial work is occurring, possibly resulting from poorly phrased comments by administration officials, poor analysis by nongovernmental experts, and inaccurate reporting by the news media. John Harvey, director of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Office of Policy Planning, at the Energy Department, reiterated in the interview that there are no formal programs under way exploring low-yield nuclear weapons concepts or plans for programs. “We have no studies under way, … with regard to modified weapons [or] with regard to a new low-yield mini-nukes,” he said. The issue however is not cut and dry. Harvey said that scientists at the national nuclear laboratories could be thinking about low-yield concepts, that two nuclear initiatives — one proposed by the Air Force and a self-directed effort at the Los Alamos National Laboratory — could lead to low-yield work, and that the government could at any time initiate basic low-yield nuclear weapons research. “We don’t rule it out. It could happen in the future.  I’ll let you know when it does,” he said. What Is Under Way The prospect of new low-yield work has been controversial both here and abroad, because critics say it suggests that the United States is developing less-destructive nuclear weapons capabilities that the United States could be more likely to use. Such developments, critics say, would undermine efforts to discourage global nuclear weapons proliferation. Harvey said there are four nuclear weapons studies under way or under consideration: *         A current study of options for a new or modified high-yield weapon called the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (see GSN, March 10); *         An NNSA-Air Force study just beginning on modifying a cruise missile nuclear weapon to improve its safety, security and control; *         An Air Force request for the National Nuclear Security Administration to study using nuclear weapons to destroy chemical and biological agents in storage (see GSN, Aug. 11, 2003); and *         An initiative under way at Los Alamos to explore replacing some existing warheads with longer-lasting ones that would be less likely to require nuclear testing. The latter two projects, Harvey said, could someday lead to low-yield nuclear weapons work.  “Now the agent-defeat [weapon study] could conceivably be either for low or high-yield. We don’t know yet.  We haven’t looked at it yet. We don’t know what the requirement is,” he said. The Air Force has requested NNSA support for the study, he said, but the agency has “not agreed yet because we need to further clarify what their intent is.”  “We will have to establish what the yield should be, and what the characteristics should be, if it’s feasible to employ a nuclear weapon to destroy stocks of chemical or biological agents,” he said.  The replacement warhead study underway, Harvey said, has not been formally requested by the Energy Department, but could someday lead to new low- or high-yield weapons to replace existing arms. However, it is now not focused on low-yield questions but on “reliability and replacement work.” Harvey said other unrequested low-yield “thinking” or studies could be under way at all at the national laboratories, but that he was personally unaware of such work. “We ask our laboratories to think creatively about nuclear weapons and concepts and all this in part to make sure that we’re at the forefront and to understand what the possibilities are because we don’t want to be fooled by other nations’ activities. …  We don’t ask them to request permission for everything that they think about,” he said. Harvey said the laboratories keep the agency apprised of their work, and NNSA spokesman Bryan Wilkes said the department was conducting no low-yield work at all. “I can clarify for you right now, as a spokesman for the administrator, that the answer to that is ‘no,’ right now,” he said, noting that NNSA Administrator Linton Brooks speaks weekly with the lab directors on a conference call. “If they [the laboratories] are, then they’re doing it kind of secretly,” he said sarcastically, adding, “We just want the record to be clear.”  Misunderstanding Asserted Harvey said there is a widely shared impression that the Energy Department does have low-yield nuclear weapon development plans or programs. “There’s a lot of confusion. When you see the New York Times and the Washington Post say we’re spending $9 million next year to do development of low-yield nuclear weapons, I’m sorry, that conveys an impression, which is simply incorrect. And they don’t print retractions on this, no matter how much we ask them,” he said. The Washington Post, for instance, last month reported Senate authorization “for further research on two new nuclear weapons: a low-yield ‘mini-nuke’ and a high-yield ‘bunker buster’ to destroy deep underground facilities.” Global Security Newswire in April reported low-yield work was “begun this fiscal year” (see GSN, April 29). The presumption has been that such work has or would occur with money requested by the administration for “Advanced Concepts” nuclear weapons research and development through the department. The administration requested $9 million this year for this fiscal 2005 (see GSN, June 28). One roadblock to future work on low-yield nuclear weapons was cleared last year at the administration’s request, when Congress partially repealed a 10-year-old research and development ban that had been sponsored by Representatives John Spratt (D-S.C.) and Elizabeth Furse (D-Ore.) (see GSN, Nov. 7, 2003). “I think [some in the arms control] community and some in Congress have made the mistake of assuming that the repeal of the Spratt-Furse ban meant that they were definitely going to be doing something with low-yield weapons. And I don’t think that they ever really said that,” said analyst Kathy Crandall of the Union of Concerned Scientists. Arms Control Association Executive Director Daryl Kimball said the blame lies with the administration.  “The extent [to which] there has been some confusion about what low-yield concepts they are doing is because they have not been specific in their budget requests and public statements,” he said. Told of Harvey’s program descriptions in the interview, he called them “the most specific they have gotten about what their objectives are that I have heard.” Apparent Interest Bush administration interest in lower-yield weapons capabilities has been expressed in various ways. Excerpts of the administration’s 2002 Nuclear Posture Review argued for the utility of developing lower yield earth-penetrating weapons, which if deeply penetrated “would achieve the same damage while producing less fallout (by a factor of 10 to 20) than would the much larger yield surface burst.” A 1999 planning document prepared by the deputy undersecretary of defense for science and technology noted plans to prepare a tunnel test bed for 2001 to “demonstrate the effectiveness of nuclear weapons capabilities in defeating deep structures using precise, low-yield attacks by HE [high explosive] simulation.” A report by the Pentagon’s Defense Science Board in March argued that nuclear weapons with low yields could be useful for striking deeply buried and hardened bunkers and destroying chemical and biological agent stores while also minimizing collateral damage (see GSN, April 29). The Bush administration’s successful effort to repeal the 1993 Spratt-Furse ban on research and development that could lead to the production of a low-yield nuclear weapon also has been seen to signal interest in exploring such capabilities.  NNSA Administrator Brooks last December sent a letter to the laboratories urging they “take advantage” of the ban’s repeal, which provoked bipartisan congressional criticism and a public concession from Brooks that the letter was “poorly written” (see GSN, March 22). Brooks then and has since insisted publicly that the United States is conducting no research and development for low-yield nuclear weapons, and has no immediate plans to do so. Brooks said the repeal was sought because the restrictions had a “chilling effect” on exploring new nuclear concepts (see GSN, May 12). The public record shows that U.S. officials would like to study low-yield concepts, said Hans Kristensen, an analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council. He suspects that denials of plans and programs are crafted to be technically accurate but misleading about those intentions to avoid criticism at least until after this year’s political season. “They’re just playing games with the public. It’s like launching a missile and [saying] it’s not a missile attack until it hits the ground. It’s lawyer talk,” he said. “We know [the military has] done that kind of stuff before, like in 1993 when they held off on presenting a request to build the [high-yield] B-61-11 [warhead] until Congress changed to build a better political climate,” he said. NNSA spokesman Wilkes said U.S. officials are not playing a “cutesy game of wink wink, we’ll I’ve got something on my desk but … I’ll look at that, you know, next year.”  The Arms Control Association’s Kimball said critics are losing sight of the big picture by focusing on the prospect of low-yield nuclear weapons activities. The concern should be about development of any new nuclear weapons or capabilities. “I don’t care whether it is low-yield or high-yield. … The issue is whether the United States needs to, wants to, or is wise to develop new nuclear weapons capabilities for whatever purpose,” he said. Back to top       Recent Intelligence Reports Indicate Iran Seeking Nuclear Weapons-Related Equipment Iran appears to be seeking to buy equipment needed to build and test nuclear weapons, such as high-speed switches and high-speed cameras, Reuters reported today (see GSN, July 13). “They appear to be working on the planning for a high-speed nuclear implosion device,” a Western diplomat said. Iran has also been experimenting with a “high explosive that would be appropriate for the core of a nuclear weapon,” the diplomat added. There is evidence that Iran is seeking the equipment needed to develop “breakout capability,” which would allow Tehran to quickly develop nuclear weapons if it were to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, a senior European diplomat said. A senior U.S. official said that Iran’s recent procurement efforts have been known for some time. “This is an ongoing procurement process. I fully believe that they’re still at it, but I can’t say that there is some new list that they’re out buying right now,” the official said. Iran yesterday, though, denied the allegations made in the recent intelligence reports. “It is not true at all,” Iranian President Mohammad Khatami said. “If they’re aiming to force Iran to abandon its right to use peaceful nuclear technology, then I should say that we will never abandon our right,” Khatami added (Louis Charbonneau, Reuters, July 16). Back to top       North Korea Acknowledges That Nuclear Program Is Weapons-Related, Kelly Says While North Korea only states publicly that it seeks a “nuclear deterrent,” officials for the communist nation admitted at last month’s six-party talks that their nuclear focus is on weaponry, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly said yesterday (see GSN, July 15). “While they said they wanted to maintain a civil nuclear program, they also acknowledged that most of their nuclear programs are weapons-related,” Kelly told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during testimony on continuing efforts to persuade North Korea to eliminate its nuclear program. The North Korean delegation said the 5-megawatt reactor at Yongbyon was a nuclear weapons facility, Kelly said. Kelly discussed proposals offered by U.S. and North Korean negotiators during the June meetings in Beijing, but said “it is clear we are still far from agreement” (see GSN, June 24). He maintained that the United States still seeks “complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement of the D.P.R.K.’s nuclear programs — nothing less.” “We cannot accept another partial solution that does not deal with the entirety of the problem, allowing North Korea to threaten others continually with a revival of its nuclear program,” Kelly said. Kelly said that while he remains optimistic about the negotiations, “I personally could not say at this point that the D.P.R.K. has indeed made the strategic calculation to give up its nuclear weapons in return for real peace and prosperity through trade, aid and economic development. In fact, North Korea could be developing more weapons while the talks continue, Kelly said. “We don’t know the details, but it’s quite possible that North Korea is proceeding along, developing additional fissionable material and possibly additional nuclear weapons,” he said (Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, July 16). Even if North Korea were to eliminate its nuclear programs, further work would be needed to normalize relations with the United States, Kelly said. “It also needs to change its behavior on human rights, address the issues underlying its appearance on the U.S. list of states sponsoring terrorism, eliminate its illegal weapons of mass destruction programs, put an end to proliferation of missiles and missile-related technology, and adopt a less provocative conventional force disposition,” he said (U.S. State Department release, July 15). Back to top       Los Alamos Halts Classified Research The U.S. Los Alamos National Laboratory has halted classified research while an inventory is conducted of sensitive data, the laboratory announced yesterday (see GSN, July 14). The inventory is expected to take several days to complete, Los Alamos spokesman Kevin Roark said. The move was prompted by the disappearance last week of two data storage devices. During the inventory, Los Alamos employees will also undergo refresher training on laboratory procedures and policies on handling sensitive data storage devices such as floppy disks and CD-ROMs, according to the New York Times (Kenneth Chang, New York Times, July 16).  Meanwhile, the Sandia National Laboratory announced yesterday that it too was searching for a missing floppy disk that was marked classified. The disk was discovered missing during a recent inventory of removable memory storage devices. Although the disk was classified, it does not contain “weapons data or information that could damage national security,” according to a laboratory release. Laboratory Director C. Paul Robinson promised better controls in the future. “As others are doing, we are taking strong measures to improve the tracking of all our electronic materials. I am heartened by the fact that when this item couldn’t be found during our recent wall-to-wall inventory, the staff immediately took action to report it,” he said (Sandia National Laboratory release, July 15). In a statement released yesterday, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said that Deputy Energy Secretary Kyle McSlarrow and National Nuclear Security Administration chief Linton Brooks would lead the inquiry into the recent security lapses at Los Alamos. Abraham also said that last week’s incident “indicates widespread disregard of security procedures by laboratory employees.” “This is absolutely unacceptable,” Abraham added (Rebecca Trounson, Los Angeles Times, July 16). Back to top       IAEA Asks London for Intelligence on Prewar Iraq’s Alleged Efforts to Obtain African Uranium The International Atomic Energy Agency yesterday called on the British government to turn over any information indicating prewar Iraq’s efforts to obtain uranium from Africa, according to the London Independent (see GSN, July 14). Last year, the agency determined that documents purporting to show an Iraqi-Niger uranium agreement were fraudulent. The British government has stood by the Africa uranium claim, though, saying it had other sources supporting the assessment. The inquiry released this week regarding British intelligence on Iraq’s WMD programs discussed accusations that former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein sought uranium from Niger and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, according to the Independent. The U.N. nuclear watchdog has not been informed of the additional British intelligence on the claim, said agency spokesman Mark Gwozdecky. U.N. resolutions require member governments to submit information on illegal Iraqi weapons programs to the agency. “We did not see any indication of any violation, but we remain open to reopening the investigation if the information is made available to us,” Gwozdecky said (Anne Penketh, London Independent, July 16). Back to top       Suspected Pakistani Nuclear Smugglers Receive Extended Detentions A Pakistani court has added three months to the detention of four men accused of being involved in the international nuclear network headed by top Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, an attorney for the four men said today (see GSN, June 22). The four men are Mohammad Farooq, former director at the Khan Research Laboratories; Nazeer Ahmad, former director general at the facility; and Brig. Sajawal Khan and Maj. Islamul Haq, two former army officers who worked at the laboratory, according to defense lawyer Akram Chaudhry. A review board consisting of Pakistani Supreme Court judges decided on Wednesday to extend the four men’s detentions, which would have expired yesterday (Munir Ahmad, Associated Press, July 16). Back to top

United States Plans to Build Secure Biological Laboratories in Three Former Soviet States The U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency plans to build four Biosafety Level 2 and 3 laboratories in Georgia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to house and study dangerous pathogens, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, Dec. 8, 2003). Yesterday, the U.S engineering firm CUH2A announced that it had won a contract to design the four facilities, AP reported. The Pentagon agency plans to spend $24 million to design and $100 million to build the four laboratories, said spokesman Cindy McGovern. Two of the laboratories would be located in Kazakhstan — one in Almaty to focus on human pathogens and the other in Otar to research animal pathogens, according to the Associated Press. Laboratories to study and house both human and animal pathogens would be located in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi and the Uzbek capital of Tashkent. “We’re going to collect all of these dangerous pathogens in these countries in a single repository where they can now track who gets access to these things and who doesn’t,” said Kenneth Drake, project director at CUH2A. The effort is also aimed “to keep scientists gainfully employed, working on something for the good of their country rather than something evil,” he added.  The four facilities are set to be built by September 2007 and would go into operation the following year, according to McGovern (Linda Johnson, Associated Press/Newsday.com, July 15). Back to top       U.S. Homeland Security Department Augments Security at Plum Island Biological Facility The U.S. Homeland Security Department has assigned two agents from the Federal Protective Service to strengthen private security patrols at the Plum Island Animal Disease Center off the coast of Long Island in New York, Newsday reported last week (see GSN, Oct. 21, 2003). The agents, who began working on a part-time basis about a month ago, have the authority to make arrests and receive specialized terrorist threat information, according to Newsday (Bill Bleyer, Newsday, July 7). Back to top

Newport VX Disposal Facility Begins Tests The U.S. Army Newport Chemical Depot facility set up to dispose of VX nerve agent has begun six days of testing to prepare for the expected start of operations in September, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, June 22). Workers at the Indiana depot are using water rather than chemicals to test the full neutralization process. The six-day test began Monday and ends tomorrow, AP reported. The test is one of the last steps in the approval process for VX neutralization. Representatives from the Army, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Indiana Department of Environmental Management have been observing the dry run, said Col. Jesse Barber, a project manager for the Army Chemical Materials Agency. “There have been a few minor comments coming back — things we can do to make our process better — but there have been no showstoppers,” Barber said. Neutralization of the 1,269 tons of VX is expected to take 2 1/2 years (Rick Callahan, Associated Press/Newsday.com, July 15). Back to top

Six U.S. Destroyers to Monitor Missile Launches Radar and computer signal processing systems on six U.S. Aegis-class destroyers are being modified to allow the ships to track potential North Korean missile launches, Bloomberg news reported yesterday (see GSN, July 8). The destroyers will begin rotating one-ship patrols of the Sea of Japan in September. Information collected by the ships’ systems would be relayed to missile interceptors on the ships in the event of the launch of a medium or long-range missile, Bloomberg reported. “Having them way up forward means you can track the target longer and the more information you have the better if you have to take a shot,” said Chris Myers, vice president of sea-based missile defense programs for contractor Lockheed Martin. Even with the ship modifications, the United States “will be in no position to knock those missiles down even after `initial defensive operations,’” said arms-control advocate John Isaacs, president of the Council for a Livable World (Tony Capaccio, Bloomberg, July 15).   Back to top

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