Many U.S. homeland security measures remain to be implemented, according to a recent GAO report, including the installation of radiation detectors at all U.S. ports (AFP photo/Robyn Beck). Homeland Security Still Working on Recommendations By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The U.S. Homeland Security Department (DHS) and its component agencies had as of last month implemented fewer than half of the most important recommendations made by the investigative arm of Congress, the latter said Friday in a report...Full Story

Los Alamos Officials Discover Classified Information Sent Over Unclassified E-Mail System Classified information at the U.S. Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico was sent on multiple occasions over an unclassified e-mail system, the Los Angeles Times reported today (see GSN, July 16)...Full Story

Sept. 11 Commission Finds Evidence That Al-Qaeda Operatives Moved Through Iran Before Attacks The U.S. commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks has found new evidence of contacts between Iran and al-Qaeda, but no evidence that Tehran was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks, Time reported Friday (see GSN, June 22)...Full Story

	Monday, July 19, 2004

Homeland Security Still Working on Recommendations By Joe Fiorill Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The U.S. Homeland Security Department (DHS) and its component agencies had as of last month implemented fewer than half of the most important recommendations made by the investigative arm of Congress, the latter said Friday in a report. The review came ahead of a hearing today at which the House Select Committee on Homeland Security is to take up the first authorization bill for the young department. The Government Accountability Office, which was known until July 7 as the General Accounting Office, described Homeland Security successes in endeavors such as bolstering security at a research center in the state of New York that houses dangerous pathogens. The office also listed dozens of actions yet to be completed, including the installation of radiation detectors at ports (see GSN, May 21) and improvements in protection of chemical facilities (see GSN, June 1). The top Democrat on the House committee, Jim Turner (Texas), commissioned the report. “We need to regain our sense of urgency and implement the remaining recommendations now to strengthen our borders and ports and make our communities safer from terrorist attack,” Turner said Friday in a statement. As of June 28, Homeland Security and the agencies it absorbed in March 2003 had implemented 40 of 104 “key recommendations” made since 1997. Homeland Security told the office it was addressing 63 of the 64 remaining recommendations, and the office said it closed the final recommendation in 2001 even though customs officials “did not fully address the intent of the recommendation.” “The recommendations discussed in this report,” GAO Homeland Security Managing Director Randall Yim wrote in introducing the report, “focus on homeland security issues that are key to DHS’s ability to effectively fulfill its homeland security mission. Therefore, we believe implementation of these recommendations will help reduce current vulnerabilities in areas such as passenger screening, border security and ports of entry.” “DHS’s efforts to address the key recommendations have generated positive results toward improved mission effectiveness,” Yim wrote. He added that Homeland Security described “specific actions taken … to implement 55 of the 63 remaining key recommendations” but also indicated “challenges related to 24 of these recommendations, such as funding and other resource constraints.” In a June 29 letter to Yim, Homeland Security Chief Financial Officer Andrew Maner described the totality of the office’s recommendations to the department as a “crushing workload.” Maner called it “important to remember that standing up a new department from a myriad of previous organizational configurations is challenging.” In particular, he said, “It is extremely difficult for current DHS personnel to assure implementation for recommendations associated with legacy departments.” Homeland Security’s Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Directorate had the worst record among department components, implementing none of the 12 recommendations that affected it. In particular, the researchers said the directorate is still working on a number of recommendations related to chemical security. Homeland Security said it faced no special barriers to development of a recommended national chemical security strategy, citing plans to produce the plan by year’s end as required under a related presidential directive. The Border and Transportation Security Directorate, which was the subject of most of the office’s recommendations, had carried out 27 of 60 recommendations. Among difficulties faced by the directorate were “funding and deployment support challenges” related to expansion of the use of radiation detectors at U.S. ports, the researchers said. The Science and Technology Directorate had implemented nine of 19 recommendations, with all the completed actions related to security at the Plum Island Animal Disease Center, off Long Island, N.Y. As a result, the research office said, “Unauthorized access to pathogens has been reduced, and security over the facility that houses these pathogens has been strengthened” (see GSN, July 16). Obstacles encountered at the disease center, according to the report, included a lack of access to an FBI database needed to perform employee background checks, as well as difficulties in establishing arrangements for cooperating with local police. Back to top       Sept. 11 Commission Finds Evidence That Al-Qaeda Operatives Moved Through Iran Before Attacks The U.S. commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks has found new evidence of contacts between Iran and al-Qaeda, but no evidence that Tehran was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks, Time reported Friday (see GSN, June 22). The Sept. 11 commission found evidence indicating that between eight and 10 of the hijackers involved in the attacks passed through Iran from October 2000 to February 2001, a senior U.S. official said. The commission also found that Iran allowed al-Qaeda operatives to enter and leave the country via the Afghan border beginning in October 2000, according to sources. In a report set to be released this week, though, the commission does not offer evidence indicating that Iranian leaders were aware of planning for the Sept. 11 attacks, Time reported (Zagorin and Klein, Time, July 16). Acting CIA Director John McLaughlin said yesterday that there was evidence of Iran allowing al-Qaeda operatives to enter and leave the country, but no evidence of an “official connection” between Tehran and the Sept. 11 attacks (USA Today, July 19). Iran yesterday denied that some of the Sept. 11 hijackers may have crossed through the country with the government’s knowledge. “We have very long borders and it is impossible to totally control them. It is normal that several people could pass our borders illegally without being found by us,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said. “Similarly, more people may cross the border between Mexico and the U.S.,” he added (Xinhua News Agency, July 18). Back to top       Acting CIA Chief Opposes Creation of a National Director of Intelligence to Oversee Agencies By Mike Nartker Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — Acting CIA Director John McLaughlin yesterday reiterated his opposition to the creation of a national director of intelligence — an intelligence reform proposal expected to be included in a report set to be released later this week by the U.S. commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks (see GSN, July 15). While a “good argument” could be made for the creation of an intelligence “czar” to oversee the entire U.S. intelligence community, such a proposal “doesn’t relate particularly to the world I live in,” McLaughlin said on Fox News Sunday. He also said that the new position would needlessly create “an additional layer of bureaucracy.” Instead, McLaughlin said that he believed the director of the Central Intelligence Agency was already empowered to act as a national director of intelligence under the National Security Act of 1947. That legislation established the CIA as the “primary civilian intelligence-gathering organization in the government,” according a U.S. State Department fact sheet. “I think, with some modest changes in the way the CIA is set up, the director of Central Intelligence could carry out that function well and appropriately,” McLaughlin said. Calls for creating a national director of intelligence have increased as the CIA has come under criticism for errors made in preventing the Sept. 11 attacks and in prewar intelligence on Iraq. Following the release earlier this month of a highly critical report by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on the flaws in intelligence on Iraq’s alleged WMD efforts, a group of U.S. senators introduced legislation that would establish a national director of intelligence that would be separate from the CIA and would have full authority over the entire intelligence community. The Sept. 11 commission is also expected to call for establishing the intelligence czar, according to the New York Times. The Times also reported today that members of the commission plan to make a number of public appearances both on Capitol Hill and outside of Washington over the next several months to push for intelligence reform. On Friday, Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.), the presumptive Democratic nominee for the 2004 presidential election, included the creation of Cabinet-level director of national intelligence among several intelligence reform proposals. “As president, I will move quickly to ensure that our intelligence services are operating at the highest possible level.  Intelligence services play an absolutely essential role in identifying potential terrorists and terrorist threats so we can act before it is too late,” Kerry said in a statement. Kerry also proposed new measures to improve coordination among the various U.S. intelligence agencies, such as through the creation of “issue-oriented task forces.” In addition, he also said that he would seek to improve clandestine intelligence-gathering capabilities and that he would improve domestic intelligence capabilities within the FBI. Back to top       British Exercise Uncovers Gaps in Attack Response The United Kingdom must develop teams of emergency personnel able to respond quickly to terrorist attacks, one fire official said yesterday following a training exercise involving a mock poison gas attack (see GSN, July 16). More than 2,000 first responders participated in the exercise depicting a chemical gas attack on an art gallery in Birmingham, according to the London Guardian. Police and fire crews arrived within 12 minutes of the report, only to find some of the 400 volunteer “victims” attempting to flee the area. “We have learned from real incidents that people involved are frightened and confused, their first reaction is to get away from the scene, but with poison gas that means they contaminate the area and other people, so we wanted to simulate that and practice how to respond to it,” said Chief Inspector Surjeet Manku of the West Midlands police. It took two hours to cordon off the area so that fire personnel in chemical suits could begin decontaminating the victims, according to the Guardian. Some people were still waiting to be cleansed more than four hours after the attack. The delay would be discussed during debriefing sessions to follow the exercise, said Frank Sheehan, West Midlands chief fire officer. While the United Kingdom has 80 decontamination “tunnels” capable of cleaning up to 400 people an hour, the country needs more rapid response units to deal with potential attacks, said Phil Causer, chief coordinator for the West Midlands fire service (Sandra Laville, The Guardian, July 19). Back to top

United States Works to Redirect Iraqi WMD Scientists The United States has begun work to redirect Iraqi scientists with WMD expertise to civilian efforts, in part to help prevent their knowledge from spreading to rogue states or terrorists, the Boston Globe reported Friday (see GSN, June 17). The United States has helped to fund the Iraqi International Center for Science and Industry, which employees about 60 scientists, according to the Globe. Through a U.S. State Department program, former Iraqi WMD scientists are receiving assistance to gain jobs as consultants to Iraqi governmental ministries and are expected to receive aid to re-establish laboratories and to conduct other research projects, according to the Globe. Some Iraqi scientists have said they have been approached by militants in Iraq and by Iran for assistance, the Globe reported. “Iran, Syria, or al-Qaeda would have high interest in these scientists,” said former U.N. weapons inspector David Albright. The State Department hopes to involve up to 500 former Iraqi weapons scientists on reconstruction projects, according to the Globe. It has received $2 million for the effort. The United States designated another $37 million from Iraq oil sales for other nonproliferation projects in the country (Farah Stockman, Boston Globe, July 16).  Back to top       Bhutto Says She Rejected Pakistan WMD Swap with N.K. Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto said she rejected suggestions to swap her country’s nuclear technology for North Korean long-range missile parts, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, April 15). The proposal came in 1988 from Pakistani military officials during Bhutto’s first term in office. Bhutto said she instead chose to pay North Korea for the missile components, according to the Asahi newspaper (Associated Press/Yahoo!News, July 18). Back to top       Bush, Blair Should Have Known Prewar Iraq Intelligence Did Not Show WMD Threat, Kay Says U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair should have known before Operation Iraqi Freedom that prewar intelligence on Iraq’s alleged WMD efforts was not strong enough to justify war, former chief U.S. weapons inspector David Kay said yesterday (see GSN, July 16). In an interview with the British ITV network, Kay said the two leaders “should have been able to tell before the war that the evidence did not exist for drawing the conclusion that Iraq presented a clear, present and imminent threat on the basis of existing weapons of mass destruction.” Kay said that recent U.S. and British reports on prewar intelligence are “a scathing indictment” of the two countries’ information-gathering efforts leading to the invasion. He also alleged that U.S. and British intelligence analysts were pressured to reach certain conclusions regarding prewar Iraq’s alleged WMD efforts. “Anything that showed Iraq didn’t have weapons of mass destruction had a much higher gate to pass, because if it were true, all of U.S. policy towards Iraq would have fallen asunder,” he said (Beth Gardiner, Associated Press/Boston Globe, July 19). Back to top

Los Alamos Officials Discover Classified Information Sent Over Unclassified E-Mail System Classified information at the U.S. Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico was sent on multiple occasions over an unclassified e-mail system, the Los Angeles Times reported today (see GSN, July 16). The laboratory refused to comment on specific details about the e-mails, including their content, according to the Times. “Without discussing specifics, all matters or incidents associated with unclassified e-mails and classified information have been properly reported to NNSA (the National Nuclear Security Administration) and have been properly mitigated to prevent significant risks to national security,” said Los Alamos Public Affairs Director James Fallin. Energy Department officials arrived at the laboratory Sunday to examine security concerns, including reports that 19 electronic storage devices containing classified information are missing (Ralph Vartabedian, Los Angeles Times, July 19). On Friday, Los Alamos Director Peter Nanos suspended all activities at the laboratory due to a number of recent security- and safety-related concerns. For example, a Los Alamos intern last week damaged the retina of her left eye performing an experiment with a laser, according to Agence France-Presse. Fallin said that there was little risk of the intern permanently damaging her eyesight. Despite the work suspension, all Los Alamos employees were expected to report to the facility today for safety and security training, AFP reported (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, July 18). Meanwhile, a classified floppy disk reported missing late last month from the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico was found Friday, according to the Associated Press. “The disk was always under the control of individuals authorized to possess it,” Sandia Vice President of Integrated Security and Chief Security Officer Ron Detry said (Associated Press/Newsday, July 16). Back to top       South Asian Tensions Are Easing, Armitage Says By Mike Nartker Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — Tensions between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan seem to be decreasing as a peace dialogue continues that the two countries hope will ultimately resolve their dispute over the Kashmir region, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said last week (see GSN, July 13). In interviews Thursday with Pakistani media in Islamabad, Armitage said that India and Pakistan are conducting their dialogue, initiated early this year, in a “more relaxed” atmosphere. “I think that now that there is a process under way, there is some confidence being developed, and I think that confidence if it continues to be developed will eventually lead to a situation where the two sides can discuss the very important and the core issues,” Armitage said. As part of the dialogue, the Indian and Pakistani foreign secretaries met late last month in New Delhi and agreed to develop a formal system of advance notification for missile tests. The proposal had been one of several risk-reduction measures agreed to earlier in June during expert-level talks held between India and Pakistan. During the foreign secretaries’ meeting in New Delhi, the two countries also agreed to several measures intended to help improve overall relations, such as an increase in embassy staff levels. Last week, India and Pakistan announced plans to hold several meetings between late July and mid-August in New Delhi and Islamabad on issues such as economic cooperation, terrorism and drug trafficking. In addition, the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan are expected to meet by the end of August.    Since the foreign secretaries’ meeting on June 28, though, there have been several incidents that have threatened to re-raise tensions between India and Pakistan. For example, Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf has reportedly announced plans to conduct an “extremely important” missile test by the end of summer — a test some experts have speculated may involve a nuclear-capable missile.  While missile tests can be “provocative,” India and Pakistan must improve relations to the point where this is no longer the case, Armitage said. In addition, India announced this month plans to increase defense spending in fiscal 2005 by almost 30 percent to $16.8 billion, with some of the increase reportedly set to go toward the creation of Agni ballistic missile units. In response, Pakistan said that India’s proposed defense spending increase was a “cause for concern” and may “wittingly or unwittingly accelerate the arms race” between the two countries. Armitage refused to comment Thursday on the Indian budgetary announcement. He did say, though, that he “found no hostile intent” during a recent trip to India. Armitage also said during his interviews in Islamabad that while the United States is a “friend of both sides,” there are no plans for Washington to act as a mediator between India and Pakistan in their dispute over Kashmir. “Sometimes we are able to carry a message or two, but we’re not going to get in the middle of this. This is a problem that exists between Pakistan and India, and those two parties have to resolve them,” he said. In testimony last week before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, though, experts said the United States needs to be more actively involved in India and Pakistan’s peace efforts. “The United States needs to be actively, strategically and discreetly involved in helping India and Pakistan move their peace process forward,” said Teresita Schaffer, director of the South Asia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “I remain convinced that a serious and sophisticated U.S. diplomatic effort will be very important to the success of this enterprise,” she said. During the Senate hearing Wednesday, experts also criticized the United States for placing too much emphasis on a direct relationship with Musharraf and ignoring other Pakistani political institutions. Armitage Thursday, though, discounted such concerns. “We value very highly President Musharraf. We find him a man of his word, and a man who has a vision for Pakistan. But, our relationship, we believe, is larger than any one person,” Armitage said. Back to top       North Korea Meetings Possible for August The next round of working group talks on the North Korea nuclear standoff would be held “no earlier than in the second half of August,” a diplomatic source told ITAR-Tass today (see GSN, July 16). Talks planned for this month were delayed “for a number of reasons,” the source said. “The new round of talks won’t be an easy one despite a progress reached at the June meeting of the group of six,” the source said. “The range of issues to be discussed at the third round is connected with the freezing of the nuclear program, and is rather thorny,” he said. Russian Ambassador Alexander Alexeyev said “the working group could concentrate on coordinating a list of facilities to be frozen.” First on the list would be those “connected with the nuclear arms program,” Alexeyev said. China, which sets the dates for the working group meetings and full six-party talks, has not fixed a date for the next negotiations, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman told ITAR-Tass (Valery Agarkov, ITAR-Tass, July 19). Meanwhile, Undersecretary of State John Bolton arrived in South Korea today for four days of talks on North Korea’s nuclear program (United Press International/Washington Times, July 19). Back to top

Anthrax Mail Attack Investigation Continues Investigators have traveled to three continents and conducted thousands of interviews in their search for those responsible for the 2001 anthrax mail attacks that killed five people, the Washington Post reported yesterday (see GSN, July 14). About 30 FBI agents and 13 postal investigators remain assigned to the “Amerithrax”case. Over 33 months, they have conducted more than 5,280 interviews and issued 4,480 grand jury subpoenas, according to the Post. “We are going through and doing what we have to do to bring it to a resolution,” said Michael Mason, head of the FBI Washington field office. “We are working on this as actively as we did Day One,” he added. The U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick in Maryland remains a focus of the investigation. The laboratory could be the source of the anthrax, and former Fort Detrick scientist Steven Hatfill is still considered a “person of interest” in the investigation, sources told the Post. Investigators this year asked laboratory personnel about access to “hot suites” where work is done on anthrax and other biological agents, and whether they ever noticed employees doing unauthorized research on anthrax. Scientists with no connection to Fort Detrick are also being looked at in the investigation, sources said Work continues to trace the origin of the anthrax, but testing could take months and does not promise strong results, sources said (Allan Lengel, Washington Post, July 18). Back to top

Anniston Set to Finish Chemical Arms Disposal by 2010 All chemical weapons stored at the U.S. Army chemical weapons depot in Anniston, Ala., should be destroyed on schedule by 2010, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, June 23). The depot’s present stockpile consists of 4.1 million pounds of sarin, VX and blister agent, the AP said. Disposal of sarin-filled rockets should finish this year, to be followed by work on VX munitions in 2006 and then the blister agents, according to the AP. The United States and Russia are not expected to meet 2007 or 2012 Chemical Weapons Convention deadlines to eliminate their full chemical weapons stores, according to a U.S. General Accounting Office estimate (Associated Press/Tuscaloosa News, July 19). Back to top       Russia Destroys More Than 70 Metric Tons of Lewisite Russia has destroyed more than 70 metric tons of lewisite at a chemical weapons disposal plant located near the town of Gorny in the Saratov region, ITAR-Tass reported Saturday (see GSN, June 1).   The Gorny facility halted operations last week for planned repairs, according to ITAR-Tass. Plant technicians are working to develop means of disposing of reaction masses created during the recycling process, which are now kept in temporary storage facilities. One proposed option has been to destroy the masses at a facility constructed with German aid, ITAR-Tass reported (ITAR-Tass I, July 17). In addition, a chemical weapons disposal facility being built near the city of Kambarka is set to become operational by the end of next year, according to ITAR-Tass. The plant would allow the 6,300 metric tons of lewisite in storage in Kambarka to be destroyed without transporting the material to other regions, ITAR-Tass reported (ITAR-Tass II, July 17). Back to top

U.S., Sri Lanka to Discuss “MegaPorts” Program U.S. Energy Department officials plan to soon travel to the Sri Lankan capital of Colombo to discuss Sri Lanka’s participation in the “MegaPorts” program, which seeks to reduce illicit trafficking of radioactive materials, the U.S. Embassy in Colombo said Friday (see GSN, June 30).  Greece and the Netherlands already participate in the effort to prescreen cargo at seaports for weapons of mass destruction and nuclear and radioactive material (Agence France-Presse, July 16).   Back to top

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