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Someone living 11 miles away from the site 10,000 years from now would be less exposed to radiation than he would be on a normal plane flight from Las Vegas to New York.
—U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, defending the safety of the planned Yucca Mountain high-level nuclear waste repository.
By Greg Seigle
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — U.S. Navy cruisers being prepared to provide regional missile defenses are unlikely to fulfill Bush administration plans for them to eventually conduct midcourse intercepts of ballistic missiles headed toward the United States, a former Pentagon official told Global Security Newswire (see GSN, March 4)...Full Story 
U.S. forces discovered traces of anthrax and ricin, a toxin derived from the castor bean, in at least five out of the 60 laboratories examined in Afghanistan, U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Myers said yesterday (see GSN, March 25)...Full Story
The United States has promised to clean up abandoned World War II chemical weapons left behind on an island near the coast of Panama, Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso said yesterday (see GSN, March 1)...Full Story
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Bush administration officials and U.S. lawmakers are assessing risks and planning ways to distribute funds to secure the country’s water supplies, Greenwire reported today.
The U.S. Office of Homeland Security is devising a list of possible contaminants that terrorists could use to pollute U.S. drinking water supplies, said Janet Pawlukiewicz, director of the Environmental Protection Agency water protection task force (see GSN, March 18).
The security office has been in charge of U.S. efforts to “improve knowledge” of what to expect in the event of a terrorist attack on U.S. water systems, Pawlukiewicz said at a water security seminar last week in Washington.
The EPA also has created a report on the security of U.S. water systems, which has not been seen outside the U.S. government, said Diane Van DeHei, executive director of the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies.
Meanwhile on Capitol Hill, a House bill to amend the Safe Drinking Water Act would provide $170 million for water system vulnerability assessments and an EPA review of U.S. drinking water systems. U.S. congressional staff members have been meeting in conference committee to work out differences between bills, according to Greenwire.
Even though the Senate version of the bill did not include language on water system security, Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Jim Jeffords (I-Vt.) and Senator Bob Smith (R-N.H.) have said they would bring up the issue of water security during the conference committee’s negotiations.
Jeffords is the lead sponsor of a bill that would create a $60 million grant program for water systems to use new security technologies. Smith has written a bill that would provide an immediate $50 million for vulnerability assessments.
The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee last week approved the Water Quality Financial Act, which would allow states to consider anti-terrorism security measures when allocating federal infrastructure funding of wastewater systems.
So far, Congress has provided about $90 million for water security, according to Greenwire. The EPA would begin distributing grant applications to eligible utilities in the next few weeks, said EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman.
The EPA will only be able to provide technical and financial assistance to utilities for water security; the actual “bricks and mortar” are the responsibility of utilities and municipalities themselves, Pawlukiewicz said.
Security vs. Freedom
Utilities are concerned that information, such as vulnerability assessments, could be obtained by terrorists through the Freedom of Information Act, Greenwire reported.
Senator Bob Bennett (R-Utah) has sponsored a bill that would keep unreleased industry information shared with the government from being accessed by the public, within the FOIA guidelines. Representatives Tom Davis (R-Va.) and Jim Moran (D-Va.) have sponsored similar legislation in the House.
Utility managers are aware of the right-to-know debate, but they also have the attitude that they will not reveal information unless they are legally required to do so, said Ken Rubin, an Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies representative. If the public wants certain information released, then they would have to come and ask for it, he said.
“The minute you start talking about it, you create a security breach,” Rubin said (Darren Samuelsohn, Greenwire, March 25).
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The U.S. Energy and Defense departments have told two nuclear weapons laboratories to study possible designs for nuclear weapons that could destroy underground targets, the San Jose Mercury News reported today (see GSN, March 19).
Scientists at the Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos national laboratories will study ways to modify existing nuclear bombs rather than creating completely new bomb designs. The designs will probably focus on strengthening the bomb’s casing and interior supports while leaving nuclear explosives intact.
Lawrence Livermore scientists will study modifying the B83, a hydrogen bomb designed for the B-1 bomber, according to the Mercury News. The B83 is already designed to withstand significant impact before detonating, and scientists have studied its potential use for penetrating underground targets since the 1980s.
The Los Alamos researchers will focus on the B61, which has already been modified to penetrate earth. Both the B61 and the B83 allow authorities to adjust their yields.
The United States has tested non-nuclear earth-penetrating weapons, but so far such weapons can only penetrate a few dozen feet, according to the San Jose Mercury News.
The studies, scheduled to begin next month, are expected to describe the advantages and disadvantages of each potential bomb design, allowing authorities to choose one of the laboratory’s designs if the United States decides to construct an earth-penetrating nuclear weapon.
The U.S. government has not yet decided whether it will build such weapons, said Lisa Cutler, spokeswoman for the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration.
Debating the New Designs
Proponents of earth-penetrating nuclear weapons say the bombs could reach and destroy targets — such as underground command bunkers or facilities with weapons of mass destruction — which conventional weapons cannot destroy (see GSN, March 15).
Energy officials have also said that assigning the two laboratories will help their scientists maintain their skills since the United States ended nuclear testing 10 years ago (see GSN, March 19).
Critics, however, have said that developing nuclear weapons to use in a limited manner to destroy underground targets blurs the line between nuclear and conventional weapons and increases the likelihood that nuclear weapons would be used (see GSN, March 11).
The Bush administration has said it prefers to modify existing designs rather than developing new nuclear weapons, but critics have said that significant modification is basically the same thing as new designs.
“If I take my Honda into the shop, and it comes out a Ferrari, that’s not a modification, it’s a new car,” said Marylia Kelley, who leads the Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment (Dan Stober, San Jose Mercury News, March 26).
Nuclear war will not break out in South Asia, but India is prepared for any contingency, Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee said yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 19).
“There is no possibility or threat of a nuclear war. India has already declared that it would not be the first to use nuclear weapons, and Pakistan has also expressed similar views. I do not see any threat of a nuclear war,” said Vajpayee (see GSN, March 19).
He added that India has no current plans to withdraw its troops from the border with Pakistan, where both sides have amassed their forces in the last few months. India will only consider dialogue with Pakistan “when a conducive atmosphere is created,” Vajpayee said (Press Trust of India/Times of India, March 25).
Musharraf Warns India
Vajpayee's comments followed a speech Saturday by Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf during Pakistan Day. Musharraf warned India against taking any aggressive action, saying, “If anyone tries to challenge (Pakistan’s) power, they would be taught a lesson that would be remembered for a long time.”
Musharraf said Pakistan is willing to resolve issues with India, including the two countries’ disagreement over the status of Kashmir. He said he plans to continue to reform Pakistan’s intelligence services and combat terrorism within and outside Pakistan.
“We must save Pakistan from terrorism and the menace of sectarianism, even if we have to pay a heavy price,” he said (see GSN, March 13).
Pakistan’s usual national day military parade was canceled because most of its troops are deployed on borders with India and Afghanistan (Brian MacQuarrie, Boston Globe, March 24).
Sizing Up
Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes yesterday said Musharraf’s statement to teach anyone who challenges Pakistan’s power was “childish,” and added that Musharraf lives in a “make-believe world.”
“Pakistan should not misconstrue our restraint in a wrong way,” Fernandes said. “They have tasted defeat at our hands several times. India is a powerful nation, and Pakistan stands nowhere near it. Musharraf should know Pakistan’s aukat (standing) and speak accordingly,” Fernandes said while speaking to troops on the India-Pakistan border (Press Trust of India/Times of India, March 26).
During a visit to Pyongyang next week, envoy Lim Dong-won will deliver a letter to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il from South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, South Korean officials said (see GSN, March 25).
The letter will urge North Korea to resolve issues over nuclear weapons and missile development and to reume dialogue with the United States, the officials said.
Lim, South Korean presidential adviser on security and unification issues, “will meet North Korean leader Kim. He will explain Seoul’s stance on inter-Korean and North Korea-U.S. issues and deliver President Kim’s letter,” a South Korean official said.
“He will emphasize that the security situation on the Korean Peninsula may face a crisis unless the outstanding matters are promptly settled,” the official said (Yonhap news agency/BBC Monitoring, March 26).
South Korean President Kim said he wants to restart negotiations that have been deadlocked for five months.
“The talks will be very broad, covering all security issues. We hope it will break the stalemate,” said a South Korean official at the presidential Blue House.
North Korea’s agreement to accept South Korea’s request for new negotiations could illustrate a separation of inter-Korean issues from U.S.-North Korean relations, said analysts.
“North Korea has traditionally taken the same approach towards Seoul and Washington because it saw them as one and the same enemy, but it seems to have realized that one is more friendly than the other,” said a European diplomat in Seoul (Andrew Ward, Financial Times, March 26).
Low Hopes
South Korea played down expectations for an improvement in relations.
“Expectations are running high for the visit due to stalled inter-Korean relations and tension lingering on the Korean peninsula, but we have to remain composed,” said Kim spokesman Park Sun-sook.
Lim’s visit probably would only lead to a resumption of inter-Korean negotiations or family reunions, and not to a new U.S.-North Korea dialogue, said Chon Hyun-joon of the Korean Institute for National Unification.
“There will be a breakthrough in frozen inter-Korean ties, but the North’s response depends on the gift to be offered by the South,” Chon said.
Moon Chung-in, of Seoul’s Yonsei University, said there could be a security emergency on the Korean Peninsula sometime in the next year (see GSN, March 20).
“Speculation about a security emergency in 2003 is coming from several quarters, and as if to back up the theory, there are some inauspicious signs,” Moon told the South Korean newspaper JoongAng Ilbo. “Ever since the terrorist attack on Sept. 11, the international situation has been dramatically different. The North’s brinkmanship tactics can be hazardous” (Agence-France Presse, March 26).
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U.S. forces discovered traces of anthrax and ricin, a toxin derived from the castor bean, in at least five out of the 60 laboratories examined in Afghanistan, U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Myers said yesterday (see GSN, March 25).
“The caveat to that is that there’s such minute amounts that the anthrax could be naturally occurring and the ricin could be there because of the castor bean,” Myers said. The Pentagon found “no conclusive proof of active agents,” he said.
Operators at an anthrax laboratory discovered over the weekend near Kandahar appear to have attempted to shut down the facility before leaving, Myers said, adding that the laboratory did not have the necessary equipment to produce biological weapons.
“There was a dryer. There was an autoclave,” Myers said. “Not all the equipment you would need was there, but there was some of the equipment. Looked like some of it had been tried to have been destroyed.”
The laboratories in which the traces were discovered might have been using the agents legally because both anthrax and ricin have “dual” — military and civilian — uses, according to United Press International. U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, however, said al-Qaeda’s history of attempting to obtain biological weapons makes the peaceful use of such agents unlikely.
“We have so much evidence in writing of the desire to develop capabilities, chemical and biological capabilities, that the fact that it’s dual-use is saying a pistol’s dual-use — it can shoot a target or it can shoot a person,” Rumsfeld said (Pamela Hess, United Press International, March 25).
U.S. postal officials are expected to release details today of plans for decontaminating the anthrax-tainted Brentwood Road mail-sorting facility in Washington, according to the Washington Post (see GSN, Feb. 15).
Officials cleaning Brentwood will model the project on the decontamination of the Hart Senate Office Building, in which crews successfully used chlorine dioxide gas to kill anthrax spores, the Post reported (see GSN, Feb. 7). The Brentwood cleanup operation, along with the decontamination of a postal facility in Trenton, N.J., is expected to cost $35 million, postal officials said.
“If there’s any message I want to give you, it is that we’re going to make sure we get it right, so that there is an effective treatment and (Brentwood) is effectively decontaminated,” said Thomas Day, U.S. Postal Service vice president for engineering. “We are absolutely committed to getting this done, but we need to get it done right.”
The Plan
To decontaminate the Brentwood facility, contractors will pump chlorine dioxide gas into the 17.5 million-cubic-foot building and keep the gas at a set concentration and humidity level for 12 hours, according to the Post.
There will be no one inside the facility during the decontamination operation. Instead, engineers will operate Brentwood machinery remotely so every part is exposed to the gas. There is no risk of a spark from machines igniting the gas, and the gas has been shown to be harmless to the machines, said Dennis Baca, Postal Service manager for environmental management policy.
After the gas has been in the building at the needed concentration and humidity levels, which engineers will monitor and maintain, it will be sucked outside the facility and made harmless by passing through scrubbers before being released into the outside air, the Post reported. Hazardous material teams will then enter the building to collect more than 3,000 test strips for determining whether any anthrax spores remain.
Washington health officials have said the decontamination plan is still in an “embryonic” stage and that there are many details that sill need to be worked out, including how to make sure that no chlorine dioxide gas leaks from the building. Any such leak would likely dissipate into the air and only cause burning eyes and a runny nose, according to experts (Steve Twomey, Washington Post, March 26).
Koplan Defends CDC
Meanwhile, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Jeffrey Koplan yesterday defended the way his agency handled the onset of last fall’s anthrax attacks (see GSN, Feb. 22).
At the start of the outbreak, government officials were criticized for poor communication with physicians and the public. Federal officials, such as Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, were attacked for giving out information some believed would have been better coming from medical professionals, according to the New York Times.
Today, “we’re all agreed that it’s worthwhile early on to have a public health professional talking to the press,” about bioterrorism issues, said Koplan, who announced his resignation from the CDC last month.
Koplan also disputed rumors that he threatened to resign as CDC director at the beginning of the anthrax attacks unless the CDC was allowed to talk publicly.
“That is absolutely untrue,” Koplan said, adding that to have quit “in the midst of the anthrax attack would have been both unprofessional, unpatriotic and inappropriate.”
Some critics have complained that the CDC is not used to the harsh and brutal tone of politics in Washington, the Times reported. The agency should be above such issues, Koplan said.
“What’s most important in an investigation of an outbreak like this is not the rough and tumble of Washington politics but the rough and tumble of dealing with a dangerous infectious agent when loose in the field, and that is were we apply our attention,” Koplan said. “That is the wrestling match I prefer for us to get into, not Washington politics. Let those up there dwell with that” (Lawrence Altman, New York Times, March 26).
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The United States has promised to clean up abandoned World War II chemical weapons left behind on an island near the coast of Panama, Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso said yesterday (see GSN, March 1).
Moscoso said U.S. President George W. Bush pledged to clean up the U.S. weapons on San Jose Island in a meeting during a summit of Central American leaders in El Salvador on Sunday. Bush also said the United States will train Panamanians to carry out the decontamination effort, she said (Xinhuanet.com, March 25).
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China yesterday successfully launched its third unmanned spacecraft into orbit, according to the state-run China Daily newspaper (see GSN, March 19).
The Long March II F booster rocket, launched at the Jiuquan launch center, carried the Shenzhou III spacecraft into orbit. The spacecraft consists of an orbital module, reentry module, propulsion section and access section, China Daily reported. The craft will continue in orbit for several months after it separates from the reentry module, according to China Daily.
Chinese President Jiang Zemin, who attended the launch, said the booster rocket and spacecraft represent China’s scientific and technological achievements. The successful launch illustrates China’s spirit of continually striving to be stronger, Jiang said.
Officials have planned scientific and technological experiments for the mission, China Daily reported. China has conducted two previous successful launches, one 14 months ago and one in 1999 (Zhao Huanxin, China Daily, March 26).
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By Greg Seigle
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — U.S. Navy cruisers being prepared to provide regional missile defenses are unlikely to fulfill Bush administration plans for them to eventually conduct midcourse intercepts of ballistic missiles headed toward the United States, a former Pentagon official told Global Security Newswire (see GSN, March 4).
The Aegis cruisers spearheading the developmental Navy Sea-Based Midcourse Defense program are ill suited for the national missile defense role because their radars are not powerful enough and their interceptor missiles are too slow and lack maneuverability, according to Philip Coyle, who until last year served as the Defense Department’s director of operational testing and evaluation.
The cruisers would need so many expensive modifications to adequately conduct midcourse intercepts of intercontinental ballistic missiles the Navy might have to build new ships to handle such a responsibility, Coyle said.
“You’d need a missile that’s about twice as fast as the one they’ve got,” Coyle said, referring to the Standard Missile 3, or SM-3, that is being readied for use in the theater defense system. “You’d need a different kill vehicle, the lightweight kill vehicle … and you’d need a radar with more power and range.”
Missiles that are twice as fast as the SM-3 — which travels about three kilometers per second, much more slowly than ICBMs that fly at seven kilometers per second — would “have to be physically bigger, fatter and taller, so they won’t fit in an existing launch tube on a Navy cruiser,” Coyle continued.
“So before you’re through with a new missile, a new launch system and a new radar, you probably need some new ships.”
Capt. Mac Grant, program manager of the Navy anti-missile system, declined telephone interview requests from GSN but he did accept written questions.
“The short answer is the SM-3 for [sea-based missile defense] is sufficient to do the job if the ship can launch the SM-3 guided missile soon enough to be targeted at the predicted intercept point at the same time as the ballistic missile target,” Grant wrote, providing a hand-written diagram that shows a successful intercept where the interceptor is fired from a point underneath the trajectory of the incoming ICBM.
Missile defense analysts who agreed with Coyle’s assertions also acknowledged Grant’s contention that the speed of SM-3 will suffice if the cruisers can get in the right position and have enough time to fire at an ICBM.
The slow speed of the SM-3 is “not a show stopper,” according to Ted Postol, a longtime critic of missile defenses who is a professor of science, technology and national security policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The main concern about the Navy interceptor missile, however, is its kill vehicle, known as the lightweight exoatmospheric projectile, Postol and other analysts said (see GSN, Jan. 25). The infrared seeker on the kill vehicle is not fast or strong enough to pick up the signals of a warhead released from an incoming ICBM, they said.
“It’s not going to be able to determine decoys from warheads,” Postol said. “It’s going to have a difficult time acquiring the target … and putting the kill vehicle in the right position where it has a chance of acquiring and closing in on the warhead.”
“It’s just not going to be able to react quickly enough,” said David Wright, a senior member of the Union of Concerned Scientists who has also criticized efforts to build midcourse intercept missile defenses (see GSN, March 15). “It’s just not likely to work” against ICBM warheads.
Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institute said that the SM-3 could be used “as a very last resort” if the Navy knows the ICBM launch point and has about 15 minutes of warning. In most cases, however, “that kind of speed is not sufficient to pull off the maneuverability you would need for a terminal intercept.”
Another serious obstacle the Navy cruisers must overcome in order to handle the national missile defense role is building stronger and more reliable radars, the analysts said. The current Aegis radars were designed to track aircraft and slower, shorter-range missiles than ICBMs, and they do not have enough range, they said.
“The Aegis radar is not up to the job” of tracking fast-moving ICBMs fired at great distances from the cruisers, Postol said. “It would probably need a radar similar to but different from the one being used by THAAD,” the Army’s Theater High-Altitude Air Defense system radar.
Coyle and the analysts noted that the radars could work for boost-phase intercepts, a role the Bush administration is considering, because an ICBM in its boost phases emits a large signal (see GSN, March 11). The current radar, however, is ill suited for tracking missiles and warheads at the midcourse of their trajectory, they said.
Grant, the Navy program manager, acknowledged that the Navy and its contractors are exploring a new radar system.
Prior studies “have highlighted the performance improvement gained from a more powerful radar system,” Grant wrote.
“In 1999 we contracted with Lockheed Martin and Raytheon to undertake the development of solid state radar prototypes. As the block developments of the sea-based midcourse element of the [ballistic missile defensive system] become more defined we will have more information on how Aegis cruisers may be modernized to improve the performance of the weapon system,” he wrote.
“For a technology development program it’s moving pretty fast,” William Martel, a professor at the Naval War College in Rhode Island, said in reference to the new radar. “You can always go faster by pouring money into technology, but there’s always a certain gestation time, particularly for high-end technology.”
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Canada is “seriously investigating” a proposal to give lapel-pin radiation detectors to customs agents to increase their ability to detect terrorists smuggling radioactive materials over the U.S.-Canada border, Revenue Minister Elinor Caplan said yesterday (see GSN, March 18).
The small devices beep to indicate the presence of radioactive material and so might help agents find nuclear bombs or radioactive weapons.
The devices would be part of a five-year program to increase detection devices and scanners at Canadian points of entry. Canadian officials are also expected this week to announce an order for 10 sophisticated X-ray machines to examine containers crossing the border.
Meanwhile, U.S. and Canadian customs inspectors yesterday began assignments on each other’s territory in an effort to improve security and information exchange (see GSN, Jan. 18). Canadian customs agents went to ports in Seattle and Newark, New Jersey, and U.S. officers began working in Canada in Halifax, Montreal and Vancouver (Campbell Clark, Globe and Mail, March 26).
U.S. inspectors will have the authority to check ship manifests at the Canadian ports and ask Canadian officials there to check any suspicious goods. Canadian officials at U.S. ports will have the same authority.
“It’s just a more efficient, smarter way of managing the border,” said Roy Jamieson of the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency in Halifax. “They’ll be exchanging information back and forth about goods that are coming into our respective countries.”
“We get access to their databases, they get access to ours,” Caplan said yesterday. “It’s a reciprocal and shared program to increase security as well as see that goods move more smoothly across our border.”
The program is not completely new. Canada and the United States have had an agreement for years that allowed U.S. inspectors at the Newark port to ask their counterparts to examine certain items. The difference is that the agents will now actually be stationed on each other’s territory (Canadian Press/Saskatoon Star Phoenix, March 26).
The customs agents exchange program should last “as long as there’s a continuing threat from terrorism, and that looks like for the foreseeable future,” U.S. Customs Commissioner Robert Bonner said yesterday.
Bonner added that it may be the program should be expanded to other countries that trade with each other (Jeff Hutcheson, CTV Television, March 25).
It would be better to store nuclear waste at an underground repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada than to allow it to remain at several aboveground temporary storage sites throughout the country, said U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham in an opinion piece in today’s Washington Post (see GSN, March 21).
Scientists have conducted extensive studies to ensure that Yucca Mountain is a safe and suitable place for a waste repository, Abraham said. The research, which has lasted 24 years at a cost of $4 billion, has involved mapping the mountain’s geologic structure and collecting more than 18,000 rock and water samples plus 75,000 feet of core samples.
Based on the research, scientists have concluded that Yucca Mountain would be a safe location for the waste repository, Abraham said, adding that the repository would be able to meet U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standards for 10,000 years.
“Here’s what this means,” Abraham said. “Someone living 11 miles away from the site 10,000 years from now would be less exposed to radiation than he would be on a normal plane flight from Las Vegas to New York.”
Experts have based the decision that Yucca Mountain is safe on several worst-case scenarios, including earthquakes, the possibility of volcanic activity and the effects of water corrosion on the casks that would store the nuclear waste, Abraham said (see GSN, March 13).
“We even analyzed what would happen during the next ice age when Nevada’s climate changed and rainfall increased dramatically,” he said. “Yucca Mountain would still meet EPA standards.”
The Yucca Mountain project is important to both national and homeland security, Abraham said. Spent nuclear fuel taken from nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and submarines must be disposed of for those ships to function, he said, adding that a nuclear waste repository would also help U.S.-Russian nonproliferation efforts. More than 161 million people live near temporary spent-fuel storage sites.
“We believe that today these sites are safe, but prudence demands we consolidate this waste from widely dispersed aboveground sites into a deep underground location that can be better protected,” he said.
Abraham said that lacking scientific evidence, critics of Yucca Mountain have resorted to scare tactics to raise opposition to the plan, such as the fear of a transportation accident or terrorist attack on spent-fuel shipments (see GSN, March 14). The United States has transported nuclear waste for more than 30 years with no harmful accidents or releases of radiation, he said.
“So far as terrorists are concerned, why wouldn’t they first attack stationary, aboveground facilities that lie in known locations near heavily populated cities, rather than wait 10 years until the material is being moved — in secret — in secure containers surrounded by heavily armed guards?” Abraham asked (Spencer Abraham, Washington Post, March 26).
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