The United Kingdom late yesterday offered to drop a deadline for Iraq to demonstrate full compliance with inspections from its draft U.N. Security Council resolution if council members agreed to a list of six disarmament “benchmarks.” Meanwhile, the Bush administration indicated today that it would agree to delay a vote on the draft resolution until next week (see GSN, March 12).
Even without a deadline, the resolution would still contain a threat of “serious consequences” if Iraqi President Saddam Hussein did not comply, according to the Associated Press.
“This is a trial balloon, if you like, to see whether this is a way out of our current difficulties ... to see if we can keep the council together,” said British U.N. Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock (Dafna Linzer, Associated Press/Yahoo.com, March 13).
The United Kingdom has proposed six disarmament tasks. They include:
* requiring Hussein to publicly acknowledge that Iraq has previously attempted to conceal weapons of mass destruction and that it will now fully comply with disarmament;
* making at least 30 Iraqi WMD scientists available for private interviews with inspectors outside of Iraq;
* surrendering all anthrax and anthrax-production capability or providing credible evidence for their previous destruction;
* destroying all prohibited al-Samoud 2 missiles and illegally imported SA-2 missile engines;
* fully accounting for unmanned aerial vehicles and remotely piloted vehicles; and
* surrendering all mobile chemical and biological laboratories (BBC News, March 13).
John Negroponte, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said yesterday that he “commended the proposal” to the council for consideration, but the United States would wait for council members’ reactions “before we embrace it in its entirety” (Linzer, Associated Press).
The United Kingdom has proposed the benchmarks in an attempt to further increase support within the Security Council for the draft resolution. The White House said today that U.S. President George W. Bush was willing to delay a vote on the new resolution if such a move would further help increase support.
“It may conclude tomorrow. It may continue into next week,” White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said. “The president is willing to go the extra mile for a diplomacy. There is a limit on how far he’s willing to do,” he said (Barry Schweid, Associated Press/Yahoo.com, March 13).
Some senior White House officials have said, however, that they doubted that the Security Council would approve any new resolution.
“I just think the whole thing is a fool’s chase. We’re not going to get a resolution,” a senior Bush administration official told the London Telegraph. “The French and the Russians will veto. It doesn’t matter what changes you make, the question is how long this is going to drag on, how much further political heat we’re going to take,” the official added (Toby Harnden, London Telegraph, March 13).
The United States appears to have the support of at least eight Security Council members, according to the Wall Street Journal (see GSN, Feb. 27). The latest indication of support came from Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who told Bush yesterday that, while it will be difficult politically, he is ready to support the resolution.
Eight votes, however, is still one less than needed for the resolution to be approved by the council. U.S. officials hope that even a simple majority will provide enough moral authority for the United States to proceed with military action even if the resolution is vetoed by France or Russia, the Journal reported (Wall Street Journal, March 13).
France, a permanent council member and a staunch opponent of war, indicated today that it does not support the new British proposals of disarmament tasks and a possible extended compliance deadline (see GSN, March 6).
The British proposals “do not respond to the questions the international community is asking,” French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said in a statement. “It’s not about giving a few more days to Iraq before resorting to force but about resolutely advancing through peaceful disarmament,” he added.
Weapons inspections inside Iraq are “producing results” and France supports all council members that want to “give Iraq a realistic delay for reaching effective disarmament,” de Villepin said (Associated Press/Yahoo.com, March 13).
The United States has criticized France’s public threat that it will veto a new resolution, saying such a stance will make peaceful disarmament less likely.
“Unfortunately, President [Jacques] Chirac has said that no matter what, they’re going to veto the resolution. I suppose that factor needs to be taken into account by all those who are proceeding here,” U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said. “But, frankly, saying that he’ll veto the resolution no matter what sends precisely the wrong signal to Baghdad, precisely the wrong signal for those who want peaceful disarmament,” Boucher added (Barry Schweid, Associated Press II/Yahoo.com, March 13).
Russia, which has threatened to veto earlier proposals, said today that it was still considering the British proposals and has not yet made a decision.
“We are not talking about the vote yet, we are still discussing proposals from different nations, and it is still unclear what resolution we are talking about,” Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said. “Until we have a draft resolution on the table, it’s premature to say how Russia will vote,” he said (Vladimir Isachenkov, Associated Press/Yahoo.com, March 13).
Iraqi Drone
Meanwhile, U.N. officials conceded yesterday that they had made a mistake when they said Iraq had not disclosed a recently discovered drone.
In a report provided to Security Council members last week, the drone was described as having a wingspan of 24.5 feet and as being previously undeclared. U.N. officials said, however, that Iraq had declared the drone and had described its wingspan as about 13 feet, not the actual 24.5, which led to some confusion among those who prepared the U.N. report.
The error was corrected in a letter sent Feb. 18 to inspectors, said Iraqi Air Force Gen. Ibrahim Hussein. “When a man is to prepare a lot of documents or to write a lot of things, it is quite natural that he makes some kind of typing mistakes," Hussein said (Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Washington Post, March 13).
FBI Investigates Fake Iraqi Nuclear Information
The FBI has begun an investigation into a set of fraudulent documents that purported to show that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium from Niger, according to the Washington Post (see GSN, March 10). Officials are trying to determine if the phony documents were intended to influence U.S. policy or were meant to be part of a disinformation campaign conducted by a foreign intelligence service, the Post reported.
“It’s something we’re just beginning to look at,” a senior law enforcement official said yesterday. “We’re looking at it from a preliminary stage as to what it’s all about,” the official said (Priest/Schmidt, Washington Post, March 13).
Inspections
U.N. inspectors visited at least one suspect Iraqi site today, according to Reuters. They traveled to al-Taji to supervise the destruction of al-Samoud 2 missiles (Reuters, March 13).
Yesterday, inspectors visited at least six suspect Iraqi sites, according to a U.N. press release. Biological experts from the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission visited al-Baghdadyia Co. for Juice Industry and the Iraqi Dairy and Ice Cold Products Company. UNMOVIC chemical inspectors visited the That al-Suwavi Co.
International Atomic Energy Agency experts visited two sites in connection with the use of radioisotopes — the Saddam Center for Cancer and Medical Genetics Research and the Saddam Neurosciences Center in Baghdad (U.N. release, March 12).
For further information, see:
UNMOVIC
IAEA Iraq Action Team
U.N. Resolution 1441
Experts from the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency have conducted hundreds of inspections in Iraq since resuming the post-Gulf War inspection regime Nov. 27, 2002. About 100 inspectors are now based in the country at two facilities in Baghdad and Mosul. The following chart summarizes some of the inspectors’ recently reported activities.
| Date | Site | Activity | | March 13 | Al-Taji | UNMOVIC missile inspectors supervised the destruction of al-Samoud 2 missiles (see GSN, March 13). | | March 12 | Al-Baghdadyia Co. for Juice Industry | See GSN, March 13. | | Iraqi Dairy and Ice Cold Products Company | | That al-Suwavi Co. | | Saddam Center for Cancer and Medical Genetics Research | IAEA inspectors visited the sites in connection with their use of radioisotopes (see GSN, March 13). | | Saddam Neurosciences Center in Baghdad | | Al-Taji | UNMOVIC missile inspectors supervised the destruction of al-Samoud 2 missiles (see GSN, March 12). | | March 11 | Taji Technical Battalion | UNMOVIC missile inspectors supervised the destruction of al-Samoud 2 missiles (see GSN, March 12). | | Waziriyah plant | UNMOVIC missile inspectors inventoried destroyed al-Samoud 2 missile components (see GSN, March 12). | | Kerbala for Canning Foods Co. Ltd in Kerbala | See GSN, March 12. | | State Company for Battery Manufacturing-owned factory in Baghdad | | Second State Company for Battery Manufacturing-owned factory in Baghdad | | State Company for Battery Manufacturing plant west of Baghdad | | Mosul branch of the Mesopotamia Seed Company | | Ur General Establishment, near Nasiriyah | | March 10 | Nehrawan branch of the Mesopotamia State Company for Seed Handling | See GSN, March 11. | | State Establishment for Mechanical Industries in Iskandariyah | | Hiteen State Company | | Al-Tuwaitha | IAEA inspectors reviewed the status of radioactive waste stored at the site and conducted a radiation survey (see GSN, March 11). | | Al-Taji | Inspectors observed the destruction of prohibited al-Samoud 2 missiles (see GSN, March 10). | | Al-Aziziyah Airfield and Firing Range | Inspectors searched for additional R-400 bombs (see GSN, March 10). | | Nahrawan leather-dyeing factory | See GSN, March 10. | | March 9 | Arabic Gulf Company in Mosul | IAEA release, March 11. | | Al-Taji | Inspectors observed the destruction of prohibited al-Samoud 2 missiles (see GSN, March 10). | | Al-Qa Qaa storage site | Inspectors verified the tagging of al-Samoud 2 warheads and inspected the facility’s solid propellant production plant (see GSN, March 10). | | Al-Fatah Factory of the Karama State Company | Inspectors destroyed mechanical parts of guidance and control assemblies for al-Samoud 2 missiles (see GSN, March 10). | | Al-Aziziyah Airfield and Firing Range | UNMOVIC biological experts supervised the transfer of excavated R-400 bombs to a more secure section of the site (see GSN, March 10). | | Tadmur Company for Tanning and Leather Industry | See GSN, March 10. | | Undisclosed areas northwest of the northern city of Kirkuk. | | General Systems Company in central Baghdad | | Jurf al-Naddaf complex, south of Baghdad | IAEA inspectors conducted a radiation survey at buildings within the complex (see GSN, March 10). | | March 8 | Taji Technical Battalion | Inspectors supervised the destruction of al-Samoud 2 missiles (U.N. release, March 8). | | Al-Samoud Factory | U.N. release, March 8. | | Al-Qa Qaa | UNMOVIC missile inspectors verified the emptying and tagging of warheads for al-Samoud 2 missiles (U.N. release, March 8). | | Al-Aziziyah Airfield and Firing Range | UNMOVIC biological inspectors supervised the excavation of R-400 bombs (U.N. release, March 8). | | Al-Qa-Qaa sulfuric acid plant | U.N. release, March 8. | | Yellow Corn Workshop/al-Haydaria | | Military factory currently under construction south of Baghdad | | High explosives-related sites south of Baghdad | | Sahal al-Din Company | | Area northwest of Baghdad | IAEA inspectors conducted a radiation survey (U.N. release, March 8). | | March 7 | Maintenance department of the Mosul railway station | U.N. release, March 7. | | Branch of the Mesopotamia State Company for Seed Handling | | Al-Aziziyah Airfield and Firing Range | UNMOVIC biological inspectors took samples from the remainders of containers used to transport biological agents (U.N. release, March 7). | | March 2-March 6 | See GSN, March 7. | |
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North Korea is closer to producing highly enriched uranium than has previously been reported, a senior U.S. official testified yesterday (see GSN, March 12).
“The enriched uranium issue, some have assumed, is somewhere off in the fog of the distant future. It is not, Mr. Chairman. It is only probably a matter of months and not years behind the plutonium,” Assistant U.S. Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs James Kelly told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“It’s essential that North Korea not reprocess its spent fuel into plutonium. That could produce significant plutonium within some six months. But the highly-enriched uranium alternate capability is not so far behind,” he said.
Kelly also defended the Bush administration’s refusal to engage in bilateral negotiations before North Korea abandons its nuclear efforts. Some senators questioned the White House stance.
Senator Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) said North Korea has rejected multilateral talks and “we need to now find some common ground here that would let us step back from this pending crisis.”
“I am mystified, along with many other people why we are taking a position contrary to those of our allies in the region who are far more at risk than we are immediately, when they have urged us to move in a direct talk basis,” Dodd said.
Kelly said, however, that Pyongyang must be convinced that a multilateral solution is in its best interest.
“The other side of their demand for bilateral negotiations is demand that the outcome of these be something that is verified only by the United States. The International Atomic Energy Agency is not supposed to be a part of that. That’s just an unacceptable development for us. The IAEA has to be involved in the nuclear weapons issues around the globe,” he said.
Kelly also noted that the United States has left open the possibility of holding direct negotiations with North Korea, but the conditions are stringent.
“Of course, for full engagement, North Korea will need to change its behavior on human rights, address the issues underlying its appearance on the State Department’s list of states sponsoring terrorism, eliminate its illegal weapons of mass destruction programs, cease the proliferation of missiles and missile-related technology, and adopt a less provocative conventional force disposition,” Kelly said.
He told the committee the White House is intensively addressing the situation and that he is in daily communication with Secretary of State Colin Powell to discuss the crisis.
North Korea, however, seems intent on reprocessing spent nuclear fuel, Kelly said, calling that action “a very serious measure.”
“We have no assurances they are not going to reprocess. They’ve been working on nuclear weapons for 20 years, and there’s not the slightest sign that they have any interest in stopping,” he added (David McGlinchey, Global Security Newswire, March 12).
Spy Flights To Resume
The Pentagon announced that reconnaissance flights will resume near North Korea after Pyongyang’s air force intercepted a U.S. aircraft and tried to force it to land earlier this month. Air-traffic surveillance planes and Aegis-radar ships will be positioned nearby to warn of any approaching North Korean aircraft, CNN.com reported (Barbara Starr, CNN.com, March 12).
If a North Korean plane is approaching, it is not clear what action the U.S. forces would take.
“You could just fly east,” said a senior defense official.
“One thing is sure, you wouldn’t be giving a pilot the authority to fire away at will,” said another source (Doug Struck, Washington Post, March 13).
By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — U.S. Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) and former Senator Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) yesterday urged the Bush administration to make the risk of terrorist nuclear weapons acquisition its top foreign policy concern, saying increased high-level attention and more funding are needed. Lugar and Nunn spoke at a press conference releasing a Harvard University report on steps to keep nuclear weapons out of terrorist hands.
“We are calling for an acceleration and reprioritization of U.S. threat reduction programs to ensure that the most urgent threats are addressed first,” said Lugar, who with Nunn in the early 1990s authored a law that created the Pentagon’s Cooperative Threat Reduction, or “Nunn-Lugar,” program. That effort provides aid to secure and eliminate weapons of mass destruction and their core materials in the former Soviet Union. The Energy Department also conducts similar programs to secure former Soviet nuclear materials.
“At some point we’ve got to take this seriously as a nation,” Lugar said.
Lugar and Nunn called on President George W. Bush to designate one person responsible for developing and coordinating a national strategy to prevent nuclear proliferation and urged that it become the administration’s top foreign policy priority (see GSN, Feb. 12).
“Sam Nunn and I at every iteration of Nunn-Lugar called for one person, one administration person, or barring that the National Security Council head, to take up this problem in a comprehensive way on the basis that it is the most important foreign security problem. That has yet to occur, whether it was the Clinton administration or the Bush administration,” Lugar said.
“I think this report underlines that the president has to offer that leadership, and really he has got to get somebody, if he is not going to take it on personally, to be the chief honcho over this,” Lugar said. The Harvard report, Controlling Nuclear Warheads and Materials: A Report Card and Action Plan, was commissioned by the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a private foundation headed by Nunn.
Caution on War With Iraq
Addressing the current Iraqi crisis, the senators did not directly criticize the administration’s focus on disarming Iraq, including a possible war.
Nunn warned, however, that starting a war against Iraq without Russian and other support through a U.N. Security Council resolution, as the Bush administration has threatened, could damage international cooperation on securing nuclear materials globally.
“It takes a global effort to basically address all of these problems. You’ve got to get cooperation from Russia, otherwise your biggest stockpile of this material is not going to be properly secured,” he said.
“Whatever we do in the various battles has to fit into an overall strategy. What we do in Iraq, what we do in North Korea, has an effect on our cooperation, not only in this arena but in dealing with terrorism in general,” Nunn said.
Lugar echoed Nunn’s comments, saying, “The total threat here has got to be the bottom line of our foreign policy.”
To prevent nuclear proliferation, Bush needs to apply the same extraordinary attention as he currently devotes to Iraq, said Matthew Bunn, a report author and a senior research associate at Harvard’s Project on Managing the Atom.
More Attention Needed
According to a “scorecard” published by the Pentagon, the Nunn-Lugar program has helped deactivate more than 6,000 nuclear warheads, as well as hundreds of ICBMs, silos, launchers, bombers and other equipment, and helped improve security at facilities and storage sites.
The scorecard says, however, that after 10 years the program has completed less than half of its goals. Furthermore, it has made little headway in getting Russia to account for and fully secure its tens of tons of weapon-grade plutonium and hundreds of tons of highly enriched uranium.
The Harvard report argues that the scope and pace of the program has been insufficient for addressing the nuclear proliferation problem.
“Across a very wide range of potential metrics, much less than half of the job has been accomplished,” said Bunn.
“While the president and senior officials of his administration, including Secretary of Energy [Spencer] Abraham, have worked hard to accelerate these efforts, that rate remains painfully slow — slower than it needs to be to have a good chance of winning the race to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists,” he said.
The report provides a list of steps terrorists would probably follow to acquire, prepare and detonate a nuclear weapon or fissile material. It also describes how threat reduction programs and law enforcement and emergency teams could intervene to prevent catastrophe by acting at certain “chokepoints.”
Ideally, Bunn said, threat reduction activities could prevent terrorists from acquiring the material in the first place.
“The actual theft of a nuclear weapon or nuclear material [is] the hardest thing for the terrorists to do, the easiest thing for us to block,” he said.
The report says al-Qaeda terrorists have been trying to obtain bomb-making materials for 10 years and said Russian officials believe terrorists have reconnoitered Russian nuclear weapons four times since 2001, twice at storage sites and twice on transport trains.
It says that by last October, only 37 percent of potentially vulnerable weapon-grade fissile material in Russia was protected by security upgrades.
Plan Needed Report Said
The report provides a new analysis of the consequences of a hypothetical 10-kiloton terrorist nuclear weapon detonated mid-day in Manhattan, projecting that such a weapon would kill 500,000 people immediately, wound hundreds of thousands of additional victims and cause more than $1 trillion in direct economic costs.
“These facts lead immediately to an inescapable conclusion: The United States and its partners must do everything in their power to ensure that every nuclear weapon, and ever kilogram of HEU [highly enriched uranium] and plutonium, wherever it may be in the world, is secure and accounted for, to stringent standards,” the report says.
[EDITOR'S NOTE: The Nuclear Threat Initiative is the sole sponsor of Global Security Newswire, which is published independently by National Journal Group, Inc.]
Iran is not seeking to develop nuclear weapons, but the United States wants to prevent Iran from having even a nuclear energy program, Iran’s top nuclear energy official said in an interview published yesterday in Le Monde (see GSN, March 12).
Gholamreza Aghazadeh said Iran could benefit from producing nuclear energy but that U.S. efforts are compromising the country’s prospects. He said Iran would be willing to enter into further commitments renouncing the pursuit of nuclear weapons if Western sanctions against it were lifted.
The International Atomic Energy Agency is reviewing Iran’s nuclear capabilities amid U.S. concerns that Iran is using nuclear energy as a cover for development of nuclear weapons, notably at a facility in Natanz that Aghazadeh acknowledged has uranium enrichment capabilities. Time reported this week that IAEA inspectors recently found Iran’s nuclear program to be more advanced than was previously thought.
Aghazadeh told Le Monde that because “Iran is a signatory of all the treaties forbidding these weapons,” the country “does not even have the intention” of seeking nuclear weapons. “It was at the invitation of our government that the International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors came to Iran, in late February — a gesture that shows that we are acting transparently,” Aghazadeh said (see GSN, Feb. 21).
Aghazadeh said Iran’s production of enriched uranium, “under IAEA supervision, is at 5 percent. To make weapons of mass destruction, we would need more than 90 percent enriched uranium. That would necessitate other technologies that Iran does not have and is not seeking to obtain. And anyway, it is impossible to make nuclear weapons without anyone finding out.”
Rejecting U.S. suggestions that Iran is violating its IAEA commitments, Aghazadeh said, “The Americans are against the very principle of a civilian nuclear program in Iran. Since they cannot say so, they try to sow doubts about our intentions. But our interlocutor in this matter is the IAEA, which helps countries to obtain nuclear technology and makes sure they do not abuse it. The IAEA is up to date on all our activities; we have opened our doors to the inspectors, who are even today in our nuclear energy plant in Natanz.”
Asked why Iran did not at first reveal the existence of the Natanz site and an apparent heavy water production site in Arak, Aghazadeh said that “nothing in the NPT (Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty) requires us to do so.”
“All the IAEA asks of us is to inform it 180 days before uranium is brought into the factory. We have not yet reached that point, and yet I myself informed the agency well before Natanz was being talked about. Within the agency, I made declarations about the fuel site and announced the establishment of a 6,000-megawatt nuclear plant. I even invited [IAEA chief] Mr. [Mohamed] ElBaradei to come to Iran in September 2002, even though nothing required me to do so,” Aghazadeh said.
“Iran is acting legally,” Aghazadeh told Le Monde. “And anyway, what other country gives details in newspapers about its nuclear activities? Does France do so? Are the Americans ready to lay out all their nuclear plans?” (Afsane Bassir Pour, Le Monde, March 12, GSN translation).
An Iranian opposition group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, revealed the existence of the Natanz nuclear facility in August (see GSN, Dec. 13, 2002). In an interview published today in the Washington Post, Iranian U.N. Ambassador Javad Zarif said the Iranian government did not at first disclose its activities at the facility because of concerns that U.S. pressure could lead foreign suppliers of nuclear components to drop out of the project. He added, though, that Iran told the IAEA in June about the activities, a claim that could not be confirmed yesterday by an IAEA spokesman cited by the Post.
Following a visit last month during which ElBaradei found 160 gas centrifuges for enriching uranium at the Natanz plant and amid reports that the number is set to grow rapidly, ElBaradei urged Iran to sign an Additional Protocol to its IAEA safeguards agreement that would give inspectors greater latitude (Colum Lynch, Washington Post, March 13). Aghazadeh said Iran has “nothing against” signing the protocol, under certain conditions. “The Westerners have imposed sanctions on us,” he said. “We are therefore waiting for the lifting of these sanctions before signing,” he said.
Asked about Russian offers to provide Iran with enriched uranium, Aghazadeh said Iran “needs another 6,000 megawatts of electricity. Who will give us enriched uranium? We asked the Europeans to help us, but they refuse. That is why we are asking that the sanctions be lifted. Then we would be ready to sign the Additional Protocol” (Pour, Le Monde).
Zarif told the Post that Iran will seek to aggressively expand its nuclear energy program because of fears the United States could persuade suppliers such as Russia, China and Ukraine to stop shipping nuclear components to Iran.
“You don’t expect Iran to sit still,” Zarif said. “We don’t have any confidence that two years down the road, the pressure by the United States may or may not work on our suppliers. We have to create a source of self-sufficiency, which will include a fuel cycle program.”
“If the United States did not follow this policy of simply trying to deny Iran access to nuclear technology for any purpose, I don’t think you would have had all these scenarios that we are confronting. Unless the United States changes its behavior, we will see more of the same,” Zarif said.
“The United States,” he added, “does not believe in the IAEA. ... The United States wants Iran not to have nuclear power, period” (Lynch, Washington Post).
For further information, see:
NPT Text
States Parties to the NPT (U.N.)
U.N. Background on NPT
South Africa’s nuclear disarmament — which has lately been cited as a model for what could happen in Iraq (see GSN, Feb. 24) — succeeded in ridding the country of nuclear weapons but the country was not open with the public about the history of the program, the Los Angeles Times reported today.
“As an exercise in transparency, it is best spelled M-U-D,” said Renfrew Christie, dean of research at the University of the Western Cape. Authorities imprisoned Christie for more than seven years for spying on the nuclear program on behalf of the African National Congress.
Prior to leaving power, South Africa’s apartheid government announced in 1993 that it had operated an extensive nuclear weapons program until 1991, when South Africa signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Then-President F.W. de Klerk announced that South Africa had assembled six nuclear weapons, but had dismantled them, along with nuclear weapons facilities.
“The documentation was never made available,” Christie said. “There’s never been a public accounting. It was essentially a secret operation. It’s not the way anyone should want Iraq to go about it,” he said.
Government officials, however, said there is little to do now.
“There was a feeling that you could not leave the new black government with the bomb or much information about it,” said Leslie Gumbi, director for disarmament and nonproliferation at South Africa’s Department of Foreign Affairs.
The apartheid-era South African government destroyed 12,000 nuclear documents, according to Garth Shelton, an associate professor of international relations at the University of Witwatersrand.
“It’s not to say that the new government does not want to give out information,” Gumbi said. “But when it comes down to it, we’re left with almost nothing,” he added (Nita Lelyveld, Los Angeles Times, March 13).
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By Mike Nartker
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — Researchers at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia are testing a process that utilizes spinach in the production of anthrax vaccine, Alexander Karasev, a lead researcher on the study, told Global Security Newswire today.
The process involves genetically engineering the tobacco mosaic virus, a plant virus, to produce anthrax protective antigen, a component of anthrax toxin that is used as a vaccine against the disease. The modified virus is then implanted into spinach plants, where it replicates to produce significant quantities of the antigen, Karasev said. The antigen is then extracted from the spinach and purified using traditional vaccine-production methods, he said.
“We are trying to use the nature of [the] virus replication cycle for our own benefits,” Karasev said.
Karasev said he and his research team are trying to promote the use of plants as an alternative vaccine-production method because it is cheaper and safer than the current method, which involves extracting the antigen from a nonpathogenic version of the anthrax bacterium itself. The modified tobacco mosaic virus poses no direct risks to humans or animals because it is only pathogenic in plants, he said.
University researchers are planning animal tests of the extracted antigen, which will likely involve testing on guinea pigs, mice and rabbits, Karasev said. He expects the tests to be completed this year. The U.S. Navy has expressed interest in this new vaccine-production method and will likely also participate in the animal testing, he said. If the extracted antigen is deemed both safe and effective, the next step “ideally” would be to format spinach itself as a delivery method, Karasev said.
For all those who dislike spinach, Karasev said his research team was also testing the process in other leafy vegetables and that some progress has been made using lettuce. Still, “our workhorse is spinach,” he said.
For further information, see:
CDC Frequently Asked Questions About Anthrax
Journal of the American Medical Association Background on Anthrax
In an effort to refute U.S. charges that it is conducting biological weapons research, Cuba recently invited science journalists to visit Havana’s Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, Public Radio International’s The World reported yesterday (see GSN, June 6, 2002).
U.S. Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton last year charged Cuba with having “at least a limited offensive biological warfare research and development effort” (see GSN, May 7, 2002).
During the recent visit of journalists, however, Cuban officials denied the charge again.
“It would be nonsense on our side to produce biological weapons,” said Cuban researcher Sergio Pastrana. “What for? Will we attack Miami? That’s nonsense, nonsense. ... If we can produce vaccines and people are going to pay the same amount and even more, why produce biological weapons? We can do the vaccines, we’re very good at that. Why lose time producing bioweapons and having this type of hassle within your country? It’s absurd, makes no sense,” he said.
The latest Cuban tour followed an earlier one in October, when Bruce Blair from the Center for Defense Information in Washington led a delegation to Havana. Blair said Cuba allowed him to select the facilities he wanted to visit and, after consulting with U.S. officials, Blair chose nine facilities and his team of security, tropical disease and other experts was granted access to all of them. They were able to “look into every nook and cranny,” Blair said, adding, “Our impressions clearly were that the United States at least doesn’t really have a very good idea of what’s going on first of all, that we’re operating pretty much in the dark about many of these facilities, which struck us as doing legitimate research and production of pharmaceuticals.”
Former U.N. Iraqi weapons inspector Terence Taylor from the International Institute for Strategic Studies said Cuba’s biotechnology industry is international in character. “It does have a commercial aspect to it, it does have an academic aspect. It’s probably one of the healthiest industries in Cuba,” he said. “But that doesn’t help you determine whether or not the Cubans have a biological weapons program. I don’t think any of us could express anything like a complete opinion on that issue one way or the other.”
Taylor said any biotechnology is at risk of being abused and that the issue is to learn how to live with that risk and make biotech companies accountable.
A Bolton aide said Bolton stands by his earlier comments on Cuba, saying credible intelligence information indicates that Cuba is at least researching biological weapons (Carol Hills, The World, March 12; Note: Readers may need to download free software to access this audio link).
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Iraq yesterday destroyed three prohibited al-Samoud 2 missiles, bringing the total number of destroyed missiles to date to 58 (see GSN, March 12). The missiles were banned after a panel of international experts determined they could fly beyond the U.N.-mandated range of 150 kilometers (U.N. release, March 12).
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The U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command has awarded U.S. defense contractor Lockheed Martin $100 million to accelerate the production of the Patriot Advanced Capability 3 Missile, the company announced yesterday (see GSN, Dec. 4, 2002). Lockheed Martin will produce an additional 12 PAC-3 missiles in fiscal 2003, in addition to the 88 missiles and related hardware the company was set to produce in fiscal 2003 under a contract awarded late last year (Lockheed Martin release, March 12).
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2002 by National Journal Group, Inc. The material in this section is produced independently for NTI by National Journal Group, Inc. Any reproduction or retransmission, in whole or in part, is a violation of federal law and is strictly prohibited without the consent of the National Journal Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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