Iraq I:  United States Focuses WMD Search on Three-Dozen Sites

U.S. officials have said that U.S. troops in Iraq will focus their search for suspected stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction to about three-dozen priority sites, the Sydney Morning Herald reported today (see GSN, April 14).

The priority sites are scattered throughout Iraq and were chosen from a list of more than 1000 suspect sites, the Herald reported.  The U.S. Army’s 75th Intelligence Exploration Unit, which consists of intelligence officers and scientific experts, is conducting the search, which is expected to take a least a month even with the reduced list of sites (Sydney Morning Herald, April 15).

“To do the first 40 sites, you’re probably talking at least a month and maybe longer, maybe six weeks,” said former U.N nuclear weapons inspector David Kay (George Edmonson, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, April 15).

If ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had been able to maintain WMD stockpiles, U.S. troops should be able to find evidence of them within several weeks, according to weapons experts.

“That’s a time frame that’s reasonable,” said Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.  “By then they should be able to go to the remaining sites they are interested in and should have gotten some serious information from former Iraqi officials and scientists,” he said.

One way the search could be accelerated would be through the use of international inspectors, who would also lend the search more credibility, experts said.  The United States, however, has balked at that idea.

“The Pentagon doesn’t want anyone else involved.  They are mad at (chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans) Blix and (International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed) ElBaradei,” said former U.N. inspector David Albright.  “It’s one thing to be mad at them, but it’s another to delay us knowing that we have weapons of mass destruction under control in Iraq,” he said (Guynn/Pugh, Knight Ridder News Service, April 15).

However, a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command today did not rule out the future involvement of international inspectors.

“Right now our searches are done under military control, and it’s not appropriate to add anyone to that equation,” said Central Command spokesman Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks.  “But when things are found, I think we certainly would intend to keep that as open as possible.  And that’s the way we intend to approach it,” he said (Federal News Service transcript, April 12).

Suspicious Laboratory Equipment Cleared

Meanwhile, U.S. troops yesterday discovered 11 buried containers of laboratory equipment and materials that they thought could be mobile chemical or biological weapons facilities, but additional examination today showed that the materials were for propellants and conventional munitions, CNN reported today (CNN, April 15).

The laboratories were discovered inside 20-by-20-foot containers that could have been attached to trucks or railroad cars, according to the New York Post.  The laboratories could have been used for civilian purposes, or possibly to develop biological and chemical weapons, said Brig. Gen. Ben Freakley (Lathem/Geller, New York Post, April 15).

Australian Aid

Australia plans to send a team of 12 weapons experts to Iraq by next week to aid the WMD hunt, Australian Defense Minister Robert Hill said today.

“The prime minister mentioned last week that the Australian government is prepared to provide a component to a coalition-sponsored group of specialists that will continue that task for some time,” Hill said.  The team will head to Iraq to “make a contribution on Australia’s behalf to ensuring that full benefit is taken in terms of avoiding a threat from weapons of mass destruction in the future,” he said (Sydney Morning Herald II, April 15).

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said he believed Iraq hid its WMD stockpiles outside of Baghdad.

“I think it’s likely that a lot of this material has, over the last few months, been buried, and has been buried out of Baghdad,” Downer said.  “And to find where this material has been buried … we will have to get people to tell us.  It won’t be possible just to, you know, send the army around and try to find these particular sites,” he added (Radio Australia/BBC Worldwide Monitoring, April 15).

Iraqi Scientists

According to experts, the two senior Iraqi scientists who have recently surrendered — Jaffar Jaffar and Lt. Gen. Amir Saadi — are highly knowledgeable.

Jaffar, an Iraqi nuclear scientist, and Saadi, a chemical scientist, “know between the two of them, everything about the country’s nuclear, biological, chemical and missile programs,” Albright said, adding that Jaffar “is the best scientist Iraq ever produced.”

U.S. intelligence officials have confirmed Albright’s assessment of Jaffar, but have said he has not provided much useful information during questioning.  If Jaffar were to cooperate, however, “he could tell us the whereabouts” of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, along with the identities of the countries and groups that provided Iraq with related materials and information, an officials aid.

The two scientists amount to “a very good catch,” said Khidhir Hamza, head of Iraq’s nuclear weapons program until he defected in 1994 (Dana Priest, Washington Post, April 15).

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U.S. Response I:  Congress Passes Wartime Bill; No Approval for Extra Threat Reduction Activities

The U.S. Congress passed a $78.5 billion supplemental wartime spending bill over the weekend (see GSN, April 11).

House and Senate conferees negotiated the bill overnight Friday and the House passed the bill Saturday morning.  The Senate had voted in advance to accept the final outcome.

The bill provides $62.4 billion for military operations in Iraq and antiterrorism operations around the world, Government Executive reported.  U.S. President George W. Bush wanted $60 billion of that money in a fund that he could direct.  Congress put $15.7 billion at Bush’s discretion, and directed Bush to explain how the money would be spent five days in advance (GovExec.com, April 14).

The supplemental bill dropped a Senate provision that would have allowed Bush to spend up to $50 million in Cooperative Threat Reduction program funds for efforts outside the former Soviet Union (see GSN, April 2).  Lawmakers instead allocated $15 million to expand nonproliferation efforts outside that region.

Energy Department nonproliferation programs will receive $148 million in the bill, including $84 million to deploy radiation detectors and $17 million to secure radioactive materials (Council for a Livable World release, April 15).

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Iraq II:  U.S. Declares End to Major Combat, Starts Withdrawing Some Forces

In a sign that the war in Iraq is drawing to a close, the U.S. Defense Department yesterday ordered home two of the five aircraft carrier battle groups deployed in the region and reduced the number of airstrikes, officials said (see GSN, April 14).

Even though some “smaller, but sharp fights” are still expected, “I would anticipate that the major combat operations are over,” said Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, vice director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The USS Kitty Hawk will now head back to its home base at Yokosuka, Japan, and the USS Constellation will head back to its home port in San Diego, along with their respective battle groups, officials said.  The number of airstrikes conducted yesterday dropped to below 200, McChrystal said.  In addition, the planned deployment of the U.S. Army’s 1st Cavalry Division has been delayed, officials said.

The United Kingdom, which has about 42,000 troops in Iraq, also said yesterday that it would soon start sending some of its soldiers home (Tom Bowman, Baltimore Sun, April 15). 

The reduced combat operations would also free up U.S. troops to search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, McChrystal said (see related GSN story, today).

“As combat operations begin to slow down … we will have more forces available, and we’ll have a more secure environment in which we can get to these locations more easily,” he said (Robert Schlesinger, Boston Globe, April 15).

Iraqi Gen. Mohammed Jarawi, who led Iraq’s western Anbar sector command and 16,000 Iraqi soldiers, has surrendered today to U.S. forces, Agence France-Presse reported.

“I am ready to help. Thank you for liberating Iraq and making it stable,” Jarawi told U.S. Col. Curtis Potts after signing the surrender agreement.  “I hope we have a very good friendship with the United States,” Jarawi said (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo.com, April 15).

Iraqi Opposition Leaders Meet

A U.S. sponsored meeting of Iraqi opposition figures to plan a new government ended today with a promise to meet again in 10 days, according to the New York Times.

At the meeting, which was held at the Tallil air base near the Iraqi city of Nasiriyah, White House envoy Zalmay Khalilzad said the United States had “no interest, absolutely no interest in ruling Iraq.”

The meeting’s participants included Kurdish, Sunni Muslim and Shiite Muslim figures from both inside Iraq and from those who have been in exile.  U.S. officials invited the groups, who were then allowed to select their own representatives for the meeting.

“It’s critical that the world understand that this is only the fledgling first meeting of what will hopefully be a much larger series of meetings across Iraq,” said U.S. Central Command spokesman Jim Wilkinson (New York Times, April 15).

A national meeting, which could occur within weeks, is being planned to determine the interim Iraqi government, according to a senior U.S. official.

A large number of Iraqis, however, have said they would boycott today’s scheduled meeting and that they opposed U.S. plans to place retired Gen. Jay Garner in charge of an interim government.

“Iraq needs an Iraqi interim government.  Anything other than this tramples the rights of the Iraqi people and will be a return to the era of colonization,” said Abdul Aziz Hakim, a leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a Shiite group (Nicole Winfield, Associated Press/Yahoo.com, April 15).

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U.S. Response II:  Senate Committee Approves Nonproliferation Fellowships for Non-U.S. Students

By Mike Nartker
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee has authorized $2 million for the State Department to create a scholarship program for non-U.S. students seeking to obtain nonproliferation training, a spokesman for committee Chairman Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) told Global Security Newswire yesterday (see GSN, April 11).

The program, outlined in the State Authorization Bill for fiscal 2004, would provide scholarships for students seeking training in several nonproliferation issues, such as diplomacy, arms control, export controls or threat reduction assistance, said Lugar spokesman Nick Weber.  The students could use the scholarships to receive such training at a U.S. university or academic institution, such as the Monterey Institute of International Studies, he said.

“To win the war against terrorism, the United States must assign U.S. economic and diplomatic capabilities the same strategic priority that we assign to military capabilities,” Lugar said during a markup hearing held on the $9.3 billion legislation early this month.

The bill, unanimously approved by the committee last week, only provides funds for the creation of the scholarship program, leaving State to determine how to run the program, according to Weber.  For example, the department would determine the prerequisite level of knowledge and skill sets for scholarship applicants, Weber said.  The department also could determine whether students from countries of concern are eligible for the program.  In May of last year, U.S President George W. Bush signed a border security law that would prohibit students from countries on State’s terrorist-sponsor list from traveling to the United States without prior clearance by the secretary of state and attorney general (see GSN, May 15, 2002). 

The full Senate will consider the authorization bill when it returns from its Easter recess in two weeks, Weber said, adding that there was no “organized disagreement” to the scholarship program was in committee.

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North Korea:  Pyongyang’s Neighbors Happy With New Statement

Japanese officials yesterday applauded an apparent shift in North Korea’s hard line stance against multilateral negotiations to defuse the Korean nuclear crisis (see GSN, April 14).

“It’s a favorable move,” said Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda.  “It shows (North Korea) has become somewhat flexible toward solving the problem,” Fukuda said.

North Korea recently announced it “will not stick to any particular dialogue format” if the United States makes “a bold switch in its Korea policy.”

U.S. Ambassador to Japan Howard Baker said he was encouraged by North Korea’s recent announcement but said more details were needed.

“Maybe in a few days we’ll understand better what that means,” he said (Junko Takahashi, Japan Times, April 15).

South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun said Pyongyang’s statement indicated an effort to resolve the crisis.

“The government considers this as an indication that the D.P.R.K. will accept multilateral talks on resolving its nuclear issue,” Roh’s office said yesterday (China Daily, April 15).

China also commended North Korea’s statement.

“We appreciate the position of the D.P.R.K. in solving this issue through dialogue,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said (Agence-France Presse, April 15).

Russia said it is prepared to take part in multilateral discussions that could bring the United States and North Korea to the negotiating table.

“Of course, we can only welcome this statement” from North Korea, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov said.

Russia is “prepared to take part in multilateral discussions, which should based on the experience and ideas of both the North Korean and U.S. sides,” he said (News24.com, April 14).

Losyukov, the key Russian diplomat addressing the nuclear crisis, said that Moscow wants to take part in the negotiations because “any conflict on the Korean Peninsula does not suit us at all” (Associated Press, April 15).

Potential Talks Victory For Bush

North Korea’s decision to seek talks, instead of intensifying its nuclear efforts, is a victory for U.S. President George W. Bush, according to supporters of U.S. foreign policy.

“The U.S.’ spectacular military success in Iraq is likely to have made the North Korean government think twice before engaging in further provocation,” according to Dominique Dwor-Frecaut, an analyst at Barclays Capital (Andrew Ward, Financial Times, April 15).

Other experts warned, however, that the crisis is not yet over.

“There is still a wide difference in the stated positions between Washington and Pyongyang,” said Scott Snyder, the South Korean representative for the Asia Foundation (Daniel Cooney, Associated Press/Yahoo.com, April 14).

Even selecting the participants in multilateral talks could prove difficult.  Seoul has pushed for talks involving North and South Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russia.  The United States has said it wants to take part in discussions with North and South Korea, France, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and the European Union at the table.

However, “the North sees no reason for Japan and Russia to join the multilateral talks because it wants to discuss the abolition of the armistice pact and the signing of a nonaggression pact with the United States during the forum,” said a senior South Korean Foreign Ministry official (Shin Yong-bae, Korea Herald, April 15).

Seoul presented a plan to Washington yesterday to end the nuclear crisis, according to PBS’s NewsHour.

Details of the plan were not clear, but it might involve North Korea freezing its nuclear efforts in return for aid and improved relations, NewsHour reported.

South Korean Foreign Minister Yoon Young-kwan and U.S. Ambassador Thomas Hubbard are also holding discussions on possible diplomatic contacts with Pyongyang.

North Korea might resist inspections of its nuclear facilities, however, and has recently said that allowing U.N. inspections would be like “taking off our pants” (Online NewsHour, April 14).

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U.S.-Russia:  HEU Deal Eliminates Equivalent of 7,000 Warheads

By Mike Nartker
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The U.S.-Russian “Megatons to Megawatts” program has so far eliminated about 175 metric tons of Russian highly enriched uranium — the equivalent of 7,000 nuclear warheads, the U.S. Enrichment Corporation announced Sunday (see GSN, Oct. 4, 2002).

Under the program, USEC purchases uranium taken from Russian nuclear warheads for later use as fuel for nuclear power plants.  On average, one in 10 U.S. homes and businesses receive electricity generated from fuel purchased through the program, the USEC release said.  To date, USEC and its Russian partner Techsnabexport (TENEX) have completed more than one-third of the 20-year agreement to eliminate the equivalent of 20,000 nuclear warheads.

“We are extremely proud of the ongoing success of the Megatons to Megawatts program,” USEC President and Chief Executive Officer William Timbers said in a press statement.  “Over the past nine years, USEC and TENEX have been continuously engaged in establishing and maintaining a strong, flexible and cooperative working relationship.  The Megatons to Megawatts program has significantly enhanced world security by steadily reducing stockpiles of nuclear bomb-grade materials, while creating a clean, valuable resource — nuclear fuel,” he said.

Nonproliferation experts have praised the Megatons to Megawatts program for its role in reducing nuclear weapon stockpiles.

The program is “one of the few demonstrable successes, so far, in nuclear weapon disposition,” Nuclear Control Institute President Edwin Lyman told Global Security Newswire today.  “There is little doubt that the goals of the program are worthwhile,” he added.

There have been some concerns, however, with how the program has been implemented, Lyman said.  For example, there has been too much emphasis placed on making the program profitable for USEC, which has led to negotiation problems with the program’s Russian agents, he said.  Last year, USEC and Russia were engaged in a pricing dispute that led to a halt in Russian uranium shipments (see GSN, May 10, 2002).  The dispute was ultimately resolved after the two parties agreed to implement a market-based pricing mechanism for the uranium shipments (see GSN, June 20, 2002).

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CTBT:  Philippines Signs CTBTO Facility Agreement

The Philippines yesterday signed an agreement with the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, allowing treaty officials to work on nuclear-test detection facilities in the country.

Treaty verification plans call for the Philippines to host two auxiliary seismic stations in Mindanao and Luzon as well as a radionuclide air-sampling station at Quezon City, according to an organization release.

The facilities are part of the International Monitoring System, which consists of more than 300 worldwide stations designed to detect nuclear explosions.

The organization has now signed facility agreements with 25 countries that host treaty verification equipment (CTBTO release, April 14).

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U.S. Response:  Officials Working to Create Animal Disease Surveillance Systems

U.S. officials are working to create national, state and local disease surveillance systems to detect suspicious outbreaks of animal diseases that could indicate a biological weapons attack or agricultural terrorism, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, Feb. 3).

For example, suspiciously high numbers of cases of bovine anthrax, or an outbreak of anthrax in a region of the country where the disease is rare, could be indications of bioterrorism, said Radford Davis, assistant director of Iowa State University’s Center for Food Security and Public Health.

“Or a cat diagnosed with plague in Florida and the cat never left Florida.  That’s news because plague is limited to the Southwest,” Davis said.

Veterinarians will play an important role in the planned surveillance systems, officials said.  The U.S. Agriculture Department has requested an additional $47 million this to year to enhance a network to respond to biological terrorism and an additional $23 million for the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, which trains veterinarians to respond to foreign animal disease outbreaks.

“The sooner we can detect a foreign animal disease, quarantine it and shut down the movement of livestock, the sooner we will be able to contain it,” said Bobby Acord, administrator of the inspection service (Michael Rubinkam, Associated Press/Yahoo.com, April 15).

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Syria:  U.S. Officials Warn Damascus to End Weapons Efforts or Risk Sanctions

In a series of coordinated statements, senior White House officials yesterday warned Syria against continuing its suspected chemical weapons efforts, or else run the risk of diplomatic and economic sanctions (see GSN, April 14).

“Syria needs to seriously ponder the implications of their actions,” White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said.  “They need to examine their ties to terrorists, their harboring of terrorists, their harboring of Iraqi leaders, and their development of weapons of mass destruction,” he added (Ron Hutcheson, Miami Herald, April 15).

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell suggested yesterday that the United States could use sanctions to pressure Syria into abandoning its weapons efforts and support for terrorism.

“We will examine possible measures of a diplomatic, economic or other nature as we move forward,” Powell said.  “We’ll see how things unfold,” he said (Barry Schweid, Associated Press/Yahoo.com, April 15).

The United States first accused Syria of developing chemical weapons about 10 years ago, but the White House believes that such efforts have been enlarged and that now is the time to press the issue, according to the Washington Post.  Damascus is believed to have first obtained small amounts of chemical weapons from Egypt in 1973, and is now believed to have accumulated VX and sarin stockpiles, according to experts.  The CIA has noted over the last 10 years that Syria has obtained chemical technology from Russia and Eastern European nations, attempted to obtain materials from China and has frequently conducted tests with chemical munitions, according to a new report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (see GSN, April 11).

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday that “we have seen the chemical weapons tests in Syria over the past 12, 15 months.”  There is nothing new in that allegation, however, because Syria has conducted such tests for “more than a decade,” said Anthony Cordesman, who prepared the CSIS report.

The United States could impose a number of different economic and diplomatic sanctions against Syria, as alluded to in Powell’s comments yesterday, according to officials.  While Syria has been subject to U.S. sanctions for more than 10 years already, new restrictions could be imposed under the U.S. Patriot Act on almost every U.S-Syrian financial transaction, the Post reported.  The United States could also alter the status of its relations with Syria, currently the only one of the six U.S.-designated, terrorism-sponsoring countries that enjoys full diplomatic relations, officials said.

Senior Bush administration officials said there are no plans, however, to use military force against Syria.  “We’re trying to scare them for the moment” in the hope that “Syria will change its behavior,” one official said.

Syria denied the U.S. allegations that it possesses weapons of mass destruction.

“There are biological, chemical and nuclear weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East region,” Syrian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Bouthaina Shaaban said.  “They are in Israel, not in Syria,” she added (Karen DeYoung, Washington Post, April 15). 

Mohsen Bilal, Syria’s ambassador to Spain, called the U.S. allegations an “insult” and “blackmail.”

“It’s an insult to my country, an insult to a country that is a member of the U.N. Security Council and an insult to a peaceful country that is struggling and working for a lasting peace in the Middle East,” Bilal said.  “They are blackmailing our country,” he said (Reuters/MSNBC.com, April 15).

Meanwhile, Turkey yesterday cautioned against making Syria the next target of military action, saying the Middle East “is worn out enough” after the war in Iraq.

“In our opinion, no one should allow new conflicts or new tensions in the region.  No one should permit new developments that would further disturb the region,” Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gal said.  “Now Iraq, then Syria then Iran. … These are, of course, very disturbing.  There is a need to demonstrate that these are not true.  The region is worn out enough,” Gal said (Suzan Fraser, Associated Press/Washington Post, April 15).

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Israel:  United States Pulling Patriots Out

The United States is withdrawing Patriot missile defense batteries from Israel, the Washington Times reported today (see GSN, March 4).  U.S. defense officials yesterday said Iraqi missiles no longer pose a threat to Israel, according to the Times (Washington Times, April 15).

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