White House, Senate Republicans Lash Out at Kennedy Over Iraqi War “Fraud” Comments

The White House and Senate Republicans yesterday criticized Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) for his recent comments alleging that the Bush administration chose to go war with Iraq for political gain, according to the Washington Post (see GSN, Sept. 19).

In an interview with the Associated Press last week, Kennedy called the war a “fraud,” saying the decision to invade Iraq was “made up in Texas” to aid Republicans politically.  Kennedy also said the White House could not account for billions of dollars being spent in Iraq, suggesting that some of the money is being provided to foreign leaders, “bribing them to send in troops.”

White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan yesterday said Kennedy’s “bribes” were, in fact, standard foreign aid.

“As any member of Congress knows or should know, foreign assistance to friends and allies has been a staple of America’s international policy for decades,” Buchan said.  “Reducing the discourse to this level is a real disservice to the American people,” she said.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner (R-Va.) yesterday also lashed out at Kennedy for his comments.

“Stop to think of the reaction of a young wife surrounded by small children, not knowing from day to day whether her husband will survive another day’s engagement in Afghanistan or Iraq,” Warner said.  “And they hear that this whole thing has been a fraud perpetrated upon this family and was made up in Texas.  I find that very painful,” he said.

Some Senate Democrats yesterday, such as Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) rose to Kennedy’s defense, according to the Post.  During a press conference, Daschle said it was “McCarthyesque” to criticize those who vocally oppose White House policies.

“It seems like anyone who comes to the floor to express concern or to express his views or her views on Iraq is now the subject of attack,” Daschle said.

Kennedy himself defended his remarks on the Senate floor yesterday.

“Many Americans share my views, and I regret that the president considers them uncivil and not in the national interest,” Kennedy said.  “The real action that was not in the American interest was the decision to go to war unilaterally, without the support of our allies and without a plan to win the peace,” he said (Dewar/Loeb, Washington Post, Sept. 24).

Back to top

Herd Mentality Led to Iraqi WMD Conclusions, Former Official Says

The conventional prewar assumption that Iraq held stocks of weapons of mass destruction was the product of a herd mentality in the intelligence and defense communities, according to a commentary this week by retired Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre.

Describing his experience with analyzing intelligence reports, Hamre said, “Once a general proposition was accepted as valid, it was usually repeated without question in subsequent analyses.”  Hamre, who served under former President Bill Clinton, is now president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. 

“As we saw recently, the entire intelligence community and the policy community — and I include myself here — were convinced we would find major stocks of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.  We have not,” he added.

Speaking of intelligence reports more generally, Hamre said that during his time in the Pentagon, his access to information was necessarily limited by aides, who might have weeded out alternative theories on intelligence issues before they reached him.

“Someone who works for you is deciding if you need to see it and when you need to see it.  This is not a bad thing.  This is just a fact of life,” he added.

Hamre said also that aides tailor presentations to fit the secretary and deputy secretary’s interests, which might have also sifted out alternative hypotheses on Iraq.

To free the Pentagon from the “group think” mentality, Hamre recommended several measures, including continuing the intelligence community’s “redundant analytic capabilities” that can offer competiting intelligence assessments, drawing more from open sources and nongovernment analysts, improving the understanding of how group dynamics can affect judgments, and continuing to ask hard questions (John Hamre, Aviation Week & Space Technology, Sept. 22).

Back to top

Iran Conducts Uranium Enrichment Experiments

Iran has begun uranium enrichment experiments, Iran’s top diplomat at the International Atomic Energy Agency announced in an interview published Monday (see GSN, Sept. 23).

“The factory at Natanz has been in operation at an experimental level for several weeks,” said Ali Akbar Salehi.

The announcement comes despite a recent resolution from the IAEA Board of Governors that called on Iran to stop enrichment activities (see GSN, Sept. 12).  The United States has alleged that Iran’s nuclear program is being used to develop nuclear weapons but Tehran insists that the effort is only to generate power for its burgeoning civilian population.

Some diplomats at IAEA headquarters in Vienna said the enrichment announcement could be a sign that Iran has no intention of meeting an Oct. 31 deadline to prove that its nuclear program is not geared toward weapons development.

“This was expected to happen.  It was not desired.  It is not the best answer to what we have requested,” a Western diplomat said (Siavosh Ghazi, Agence France-Presse/Jordan Times, Sept. 24).

Salehi also said that Iran is still open to signing the Additional Protocol to its IAEA safeguards agreement, which would allow more intrusive monitoring of its nuclear activities.

“We have decided to fulfull our obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and not beyond that,” he said.  “It doesn’t mean that we are rejecting the Additional Protocol or are not prepared to talk on that,” Salehi added (Ali Akbar Dareini, Associated Press/Washington Post, Sept. 24).

Suggesting Iranian interest in the protocol, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Mohsen Aminzadeh said earlier this week that Iran can only benefit from signing the protocol.

“If we wanted to build a nuclear bomb, then transparency wouldn’t be in our interests, but if we don’t want to build a nuclear bomb, which is the case, then signing the protocol and preserving our civil nuclear capacity is in our interests,” Aminzadeh said (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Sept. 24).

Back to top

Early Retirement of Russian Nuclear Scientists Could Ease Proliferation Concerns, Paper Recommends

By Mike Nartker
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — International funding for the early retirement of Russian nuclear weapons scientists could help efforts to reduce the size of Russia’s nuclear complex, according to an academic paper released today.

The paper suggests that as many 10,000 Russian nuclear weapons experts could be persuaded to retire early in exchange for receiving additional annual pensions as small as $500.

The proposal was made by Jean Pierre Contzen, professor at the Instituto Superior Tecnico in Lisbon and Maurizio Martellini of the University of Insubria and LNCV in Como, Italy.  Martellini participates in an international consortium of 20 research groups focused on helping implement the Group of Eight’s $20 billion effort to secure WMD materials and promote nonproliferation measures in the former Soviet Union.  The consortium, called Strengthening the Global Partnership, is administered by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

The Russian Atomic Energy Ministry has decided to cut 35,000 nuclear weapons workers by 2010, according to the report.  To aid the downsizing effort, several U.S.-Russian and multilateral programs are working to provide civilian jobs for scientists and technicians, the report says, but it says the success of these programs has been “very limited.”

To help accelerate the downsizing process, the report proposes creating an early secure retirement buyout program for Russian nuclear weapons scientists.  About 20 percent of Russian nuclear weapons workers are over 50 years old and 5 percent are over 60 years old, the report says, noting that the retirement age in Russia is 55.  Many Russian nuclear weapons workers are continuing to work beyond retirement, however, because pensions are too low, according to the report.  For example, the average pension in the closed Russian city of Sarov in 2001 was about $37 per month, less than one-fifth of the wage the laboratory’s active employees.

According to the report, if a system were established to provide adequate pensions for Russian nuclear weapons personnel, then about 10,000 workers could be persuaded to retire by 2010.  The report also says that such a system “would be by far the cheapest way to address the problem of excess nuclear scientists and workers.”  It notes that the director of one Russian nuclear weapons facility has said that he could persuade 2000 workers of retirement age to retire early if provided an additional pension bonus of $500 annually per person for 10 years. 

“An early secure retirement buyout program over 10 years for 10,000 workers might cost only $50 million, rather than the $100 million needed only to start 10,000 new civilian jobs in the territories of the RNCs [Russian nuclear cities],” the report says.

An early retirement program would have to include several provisions to ensure that nonproliferation objectives are met.  For example, workers who choose to accept early requirement may need to give up their security clearances and access to Russian nuclear weapons facilities to ensure that they do not return to work, the report says.  It also proposes that those who accept early retirement also be required to live within the restricted area of the closed cities so that they do no become private consultants for rogue states or terrorists groups seeking to obtain nuclear weapons.

To attract the confidence of Russian nuclear weapons workers, funding for an early retirement program should be independently managed, according to the report.  It proposes that a fund of $50 million over the next 10 years be created to provide additional pension bonuses.  Such a fund could be managed by either the G-8 partnership or the U.S.-Russian International Science and Technology Center (see GSN, July 2).

Several nonproliferation experts told Global Security Newswire today that while an early retirement program would be helpful in reducing the number of Russian nuclear workers, it would not fully solve the problem.  Kenneth Luongo, executive director of the Russian American Nuclear Security Advisory Council, said that while some workers are at, or near, retirement age, new workers are also being employed at the closed cities who would not be affected by an early retirement program.

Luongo also said that there would be implementation concerns in any early retirement program, including determining eligibility and ensuring that retired workers were either not being re-employed or being hired by other countries or terrorists groups.  In addition, a multilateral funding mechanism might also hinder implementation, he said. 

It is also still unclear as to Russia’s position on any type of early retirement program for its nuclear weapons workers, Luongo said.

Back to top

Abraham Thanks Senate for Maintaining Nuclear Weapons Funding

U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham Monday praised the U.S. Senate for preserving the full Bush administration request for funding nuclear weapons research in the fiscal 2004 energy and water appropriations bill (see GSN, Sept. 17).

In a letter to Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), Abraham lauded Domenici’s efforts against a Democratic amendment to the bill that that would have eliminated funds for research into low-yield and earth-penetrating nuclear weapons and would also have prevented other nuclear weapons activities.  The Senate last week approved the bill with the Bush administration’s funding request intact.

“Your committee and the Senate have twice overcome challenges from those who do not understand the importance of acting to maintain an effective nuclear deterrent,” Abraham wrote.

Abraham also called on Domenici to work to maintain the nuclear weapons research funding in the final version of the bill when its goes into conference with the House of Representatives.  In his letter, Abraham criticized the House for failing to include the full White House weapons research-funding request in its version of the bill.

“The House version of the appropriations act precludes us from even investigating options for modest transformation of the stockpile and increases the risk we will be unable to respond to unforeseen technical problems.  It thus represents a risk that the United States simply cannot afford to take,” Abraham wrote (U.S. Energy Department release, Sept. 22).

Back to top

Senior Chinese Official Readies for Visit to North Korea

The second highest ranking official in China’s Communist Party is scheduled to visit North Korea this week to discuss the nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula (see GSN, Sept. 23).

Wu Bangguo, chief of China’s parliament, would be the highest ranking Chinese official to visit Pyongyang in recent years, Agence France-Presse reported.

“I think he will go tomorrow or Friday,” a Chinese Foreign Ministry official said today.

Wu’s visit is an indication of China’s determination to peacefully settle the standoff between North Korea and the United States, AFP reported (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, Sept. 24).

U.S. President George W. Bush, meanwhile, yesterday praised Beijing’s involvement in the North Korean crisis.

“U.S.-China relations are full of energy, and this is important for both sides,” Bush told visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing at the White House (Willy Wo-Lap Lam, CNN.com, Sept. 24).

Back to top

NNSA to Appoint Official to Oversee Sandia Security Improvements

The U.S. Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration will appoint a senior official to oversee security improvements at the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, NNSA Administrator Linton Brooks announced yesterday (see GSN, July 2).

Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Thomas Neary, who has experience with the U.S. nuclear arsenal, has agreed to take the temporary position, which will expire in six months, Brooks said.  Neary will oversee efforts by the NNSA’s Sandia Site Office and the facility itself to implement new Energy recommendations, according to a NNSA press release.  Neary will also help improve security oversight conducted by the Sandia Site Office.

“The best way to achieve our objective in a timely fashion is to bring in a topflight manager whose sole responsibility is to make sure this important job is done well and completely,” Brooks said (NNSA release, Sept. 23).

Back to top

New Zealand to Build Nuclear Test Monitoring Station

New Zealand announced today that it would build a nuclear test monitoring facility in Fiji, according to Agence France-Presse (see GSN, April 15).

New Zealand Health Minister Annette King has signed a contract with the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization to build the station, AFP reported.  The facility will become part of a global network of 321 stations to monitor treaty compliance (Agence France-Presse, Sept. 24).

In addition, New Zealand Foreign Minister Phil Goff today criticized the failure of full nuclear disarmament worldwide, citing concerns of North Korea, Israel and Iran possibly possessing nuclear weapons.

“The only guarantee against the use of nuclear weapons is their total elimination and the assurance that they will never be produced again,” Goff said at the U.N. General Assembly in New York.

New Zealand is the only country that prohibits nuclear weapons and nuclear-powered vessels from entering its territory (Associated Press, Sept. 24).

Back to top

Russia to Create New ICBM Unit in December

Russia plans to deploy in late December a new regiment armed with Topol-M ICBMs, ITAR-Tass reported Monday (see GSN, Dec. 18, 2002).

The Russian military is working to arm a missile division based at Tatishchevo in the Saratov region with the silo-launched version of the Topol-M, according to ITAR-Tass.  The unit will be the fourth to be armed with the missile (ITAR-Tass, Sept. 22 in FBIS-SOV, Sept. 22).

Back to top

South Korean Military Lacks Vaccines Against WMD Agents

The South Korean Defense Ministry has disclosed that it does not have its own vaccines to inoculate its soldiers against a North Korean chemical or biological attack, Yonhap News Agency reported Monday (see GSN, July 23).

In a report prepared for lawmaker Lee Kyeong-jae, the ministry concluded that North Korea has 13 types of biological and chemical weapons at its disposal.  The South Korean Army has contingency plans to draw on the nation’s civilian smallpox vaccine stocks.

The South Korean military is also developing chemical and biological detection systems, Yonhap reported (Yonhap, Sept. 22 in FBIS-EAS, Sept. 22).

Back to top

China Conducts Anti-Terrorism Exercise With Chemical Weapons Scenario

China has conducted a large-scale anti-terrorism training exercise in its Inner Mongolia province in the northern section of the country, Agence France-Presse reported today (see GSN, Sept. 8).  More than 2,000 law enforcement officers took part in the exercise, which included a scenario involving terrorists attempting to conduct a chemical weapons attack (Reuters, Sept. 24).

Back to top

GAO Releases Critical Missile Defense Report

The U.S. General Accounting Office today released a report criticizing the Defense Department for planning to field the national missile defense system with immature and untested technology (see GSN, Sept. 23).

U.S. President George W. Bush wants to field a national missile defense system, based in Alaska and California, by September 2004.

The report said that Bush’s plan is “dependent on 10 critical technologies,” and the Missile Defense Agency “has accepted higher cost and schedule risks by beginning integration … before these technologies have matured.”

The report singled out the missile defense system’s radar as “the least mature.”

In a response to the report, the Pentagon said that it is attempting to test the radar before the missile system is fielded.

“MDA is considering the addition of an integrated flight test prior to September 30, 2004, that would prove-out the upgrades that are underway to the Cobra Dane radar at Shemya, Alaska.  However, the lead time for adding radar tests with dedicated targets is considerable,” the Pentagon response said (General Accounting Office report, Sept. 24).

Senator Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii), who requested the report, said the agency must test the radar before it is deployed.  Akaka said that tracking a foreign missile test with U.S. radar equipment will not prove the technology in an intercept situation.

“MDA hopes that it will get advance notice of a foreign missile test — presumably by North Korea or Russia — and then has time to turn on its hopefully installed software.  Even that type of test will not demonstrate Cobra Dane’s capability under stressful, operational conditions.  Relying on North Korea or Russian missile development to test our defense is a new approach to operational testing,” Akaka said (Akaka release, Sept. 23).

Back to top