#53 8 Mar 2001

USAF COUNTERPROLIFERATION CENTER CPC OUTREACH JOURNAL Air University Air War College Maxwell AFB, Alabama

Welcome to the CPC Outreach Journal. As part of USAF Counterproliferation Center’s mission to counter weapons of mass destruction through education and research, we’re providing our government and civilian community a source for timely counterproliferation information. This information includes articles, papers and other documents addressing issues pertinent to US military response options for dealing with nuclear, biological and chemical threats and attacks. It’s our hope this information resource will help enhance your counterproliferation issue awareness.

Established here at the Air War College in 1998, the USAF/CPC provides education and research to present and future leaders of the Air Force, as well as to members of other branches of the armed services and Department of Defense. Our purpose is to help those agencies better prepare to counter the threat from weapons of mass destruction. Please feel free to visit our web site at www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/awc-cps.htm for in-depth information and specific points of contact. Please direct any questions or comments on CPC Outreach Journal to Lt. Col. Michael W. Ritz, CPC Intelligence/Public Affairs or JoAnn Eddy, CPC Outreach Editor, at (334) 953- 7538 or DSN 493-7538.

The following articles, papers or documents do not necessarily reflect official endorsement of the United States Air Force, Department of Defense, or other US government agencies. Reproduction for private use or commercial gain is subject to original copyright restrictions. All rights are reserved

Washington Times March 6, 2001 Pg. C1 Cleanup Of Chemical Site Estimated At $50 Million By Derrill Holly, Associated Press The federal government has spent about $50 million investigating and cleaning up the former site of a chemical- weapons research facility in the Northwest neighborhood of Spring Valley, and the job is far from complete. Scott Saunders, a spokesman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' national headquarters, estimated the corps spent that much money during the past eight years cleaning up Spring Valley. The neighborhood once housed the American University Experimental Station. Forty-eight poisonous gases, including lewisite and mustard gas, were tested at the facility between 1917 and 1919. The first remnants of chemical weapons and mortar shells were discovered during a 1993 excavation project. Elevated levels of arsenic have been found at various locations, and the corps plans to meet with residents March 14 to discuss expanded soil sampling. The research facility has given way to a pricey neighborhood, with homes valued in the $1 million range. Among its 13,000 residents are diplomats, environmental lawyers, network-television journalists and influential politicians - a group that has helped focus attention on the former American University Experimental Station. In March 1999, the top 4 feet of soil was removed from the yard of the South Korean ambassador's home. In January of this year, a 200-square-foot area of the university's campus was similarly excavated. Residents are being urged to minimize exposure to the soil in their yards, wear gloves or masks when working in their yards and clean all vegetables they grow. The site is one of thousands of formerly utilized defense sites the corps is investigating, with at least two more located inside the District. "We're up to about 11,000 now and still counting," Mr. Saunders said. The 35-acre Diamond Ordnance Fuze Laboratories site in Northwest is now home to the University of the District of Columbia, and the embassies of Egypt and Austria. The U.S. State Department holds additional land there for future embassies. Another 169-acre site - the former Camp Simms in Southeast - served as the headquarters of the D.C. National Guard for 54 years prior to 1958. Corps records indicate a 3-inch mortar shell was unearthed in 1994 during subway construction. Several schools, a hospital, homes and apartments are currently located on the site. Additional proposed development includes more homes and a shopping center. Although the D.C. government does not conduct its own site testing, the D.C. Department of Health has been working closely with the Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency in Spring Valley and at Camp Simms. "If any people are there and there is development, we want to make sure conditions are safe," said Lynette Stokes, director of Environmental Health Services for the city. While detailed records of activities conducted at military installations exist, there are few federal employees available to pour through millions of pages of journal entries dating back more than a century. "The archival research has not been completed on maybe half the sites," Mr. Saunders said. While the corps has sometimes issued deed restrictions prohibiting residential use of surplus land, those covenants have over time been lost, rescinded or allowed to lapse - sometimes with tragic results. In 1983, two 8-year-old boys were killed as they played in the Tierrasanta neighborhood of San Diego. "They found an old mortar shell or some sort of explosive munition that went off on them," Mr. Saunders said. The boys' subdivision was built on the former testing ground and firing range of Camp Elliott Marine base, near what is now the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station-Miramar. Deed restrictions governing former defense sites are not always enforced, Mr. Saunders said.

USA Today March 6, 2001 Pg. 11 Missiles Not The Focus Of Bush's Korea Policy By Barbara Slavin, USA Today WASHINGTON -- In a significant shift from his predecessor's policy, President Bush plans to slow talks with North Korea on curbing its missile program and focus on reducing conventional forces on the Cold War's last battleground. Administration officials say the president will discuss the new emphasis with South Korean President Kim Dae Jung, who arrives here today and visits Bush on Wednesday. Administration officials say Bill Clinton appeared too eager to clinch a flawed deal with North Korea to secure a foreign policy legacy during his final weeks as president. In the end, Clinton gave up hopes of a deal and a historic visit to North Korea. Instead, he shifted to what proved to be an equally fruitless effort to achieve Israeli-Palestinian peace. Bush administration officials say conventional disarmament will produce a greater reduction in tensions on the Korean peninsula, where the United States still maintains 37,000 troops. Both Koreas are concerned that Bush's policy amounts to a tougher stance toward North Korea. A North Korean delegation in Washington last week to visit international financial institutions voiced such fears to State Department and National Security Council officials, U.S. sources say. "We are really afraid that the change in administration could undercut the peace process," Moon Chung In, an adviser to Kim Dae Jung, said last week at a conference sponsored by the conservative Heritage Foundation. Administration officials say they are not opposed to Kim's "sunshine policy" of providing aid to the North. But they say they have reservations about Clinton's approach: persuading North Korea to give up ballistic missile development and sales in return for launches of its satellites by other nations. That tradeoff was originally suggested by Russian President Vladimir Putin because it could undercut Bush's rationale for developing a national missile-defense system, which is opposed by Russia, China and most of Europe. Officials from the Clinton administration defend the missile talks as a sound way to stop the development and sales of medium- and long-range missiles by the world's largest proliferator of such weapons. "Had we had another month, there is a good chance we would have gotten to the end of the story," says Wendy Sherman, who oversaw Korea policy at the State Department. "I believe Secretary (of State Colin) Powell and (national security adviser Condoleezza) Rice understand the opportunity they have, and I hope they will seize it." Many Republicans see more value in reducing conventional forces. Nearly 2 million soldiers face each other across the Demilitarized Zone, which has separated North and South since the Korean War of 1950-53. Donald Gregg, a former U.S. ambassador to South Korea, says the United States and South Korea are like "two doctors with the same patient who have never compared diagnoses." He says Bush and Kim should develop "calibrated yardsticks to measure North Korean behavior." Among the yardsticks he suggests: removal of some North Korean artillery units that threaten the South Korean capital, Seoul. Others concerned about North Korea would like to see greater accountability in the way it distributes food pouring into the country since it admitted dire shortages in the mid-1990s. The United States has supplied 70% of the food aid. A study about to be published in the journal Population and Development Review estimates that 1 million of North Korea's 23 million people died of hunger from 1995 through 1998. Critics of the Clinton policy would also like to see changes in a 1994 accord under which North Korea froze its fledgling nuclear program in exchange for two nuclear reactors for civilian use. Henry Sokolski, director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, says weapons-grade plutonium could be extracted from the new reactors, which are incompatible with the North's antiquated power grid. In a letter to Bush last Friday, House International Relations Chairman Henry Hyde, R-Ill., urged the administration to review the accord and "avoid making any commitments . . . that would prejudice your ability to refine U.S. policy toward North Korea." South Korea has pledged to pay 75% of the reactors' $5 billion cost. The United States has been supplying North Korea 500,000 tons of heavy fuel oil annually. The current price: nearly $100 million. U.S. officials say one possibility is to use some of that money to upgrade North Korea's electrical grid.

Stars and Stripes Omnimedia March 6, 2001 Anthrax Vaccine Maker Didn't Report Army Sergeant's Death, According To FDA By Dave Eberhart, Stars and Stripes Veterans Affairs Editor (Stars and Stripes Omnimedia is a privately owned news source and is in no way affiliated with the U.S. government.) The Pentagon's lone anthrax vaccine manufacturer failed to report a vaccine-related death that occurred in June 2000, according to an Oct. 26, 2000, Food and Drug Administration report of an inspection at the BioPort Corp. plant in Lansing, Mich. BioPort also failed to investigate or react to reports by the Pentagon's Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) of servicemembers becoming ill after receiving one or more shots in the DoD's Anthrax Vaccine Inoculation Program (AVIP), according to the report, a copy of which was obtained by The Stars and Stripes. The FDA said: "The military reported a death of an individual who had received Anthrax vaccine lot #FA V031. The individual was inoculated on 3/14/00 and died on 6/14/00. The cause of death is reported as Aplastic Anemia and Invasive Aspergillosis. The firm received information in a VAERS form but there is no documentation as to when that report was received by the firm [BioPort]." Blood Disorder Redmond Handy, president of the National Organization of Americans Battling Unnecessary Servicemember Endangerment (NO ABUSE), told The Stars and Stripes Feb. 5 that the servicemember involved was Sandra Larson, an Army sergeant whose sister, Nancy Rugo, testified before the House Government Reform Committee last year that Larson had died of an autoimmune blood disorder. She said Larson had blamed the anthrax vaccine for her illness. Rugo told lawmakers that Sandra Larson joined the Army in 1995 and was transferred to South Korea in 1998, where she began the 18-month vaccine program and received four of the six required shots from lot 17. In October 1999 she was transferred to Fort Riley, Kan., where she received the final two shots, from lot 44 in September of that year and from lot 31 in March 2000. "On April 7, 2000, just four weeks after being injected from her sixth shot, [Sandra Larson] was admitted into the hospital with a serious rare blood disease, aplastic anemia, which could be considered an autoimmune disease," Rugo testified. "On June 14, 2000, twelve weeks after receiving her sixth shot, she had deceased." "This was not a gradual case of aplastic anemia," Rugo said. "She went from a healthy woman just four weeks prior to having no bone marrow, platelets and an extremely low count of red and white blood cells. It was as if there was something in her that was killing her immune system, shutting her down." "The firm [BioPort] has not reported the death to FDA in a 15-day report. The firm has not conducted an investigation [of the death] as a result of this VAERS report," said the FDA report, which was prepared by inspectors Marsha W. Major, William D. Tingley and Paula A. Trost. 'No Documentation' And, the report said, "The firm does not trend data received relating to adverse events. Further, there is no documentation to show that the firm investigates adverse events [drug reactions] when received." Uninvestigated adverse events included "nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, double vision, dizziness, memory loss, shortness of breath, and blackouts," the inspectors reported. The FDA report identified three anthrax vaccine lots that failed initial sterility testing. One lot "was retested and failed the retest," the report said. The FDA characterized BioPort's investigations into the initial sterility test failures as incomplete and "not addressing corrective actions relating to [BioPort] personnel." The report cited a "lack of reconciliation of vials that are returned to the firm from customers" on the part of BioPort. In one instance, according to the report, BioPort was discovered to have changed its records on the number of anthrax vaccine vials returned by the military for destruction. BioPort spokeswoman Kim Brennan Root told The Stars and Stripes Feb. 6 that Larson's death "is being investigated by several organizations, including the FDA and the anthrax vaccine expert committee, a group of civilian physicians that reviews VAERS reports." The committee members are appointed by the FDA, Root said. Probe 'Not Complete' "What we'll do is an investigation based on that report" by the committee, Root said. "I'm not sure what that investigating will be. In my opinion, the investigation is not complete." Referring to the VAERS report of Larson's death, Root said: "That is the first VAERS report filed by the military implicating the vaccine that we know of." Root's response concerning the reported lack of a timely reaction to the Larson VAERS: "We received that report the day the FDA inspectors arrived [Oct. 6, 2000]." She said that BioPort has since put new software into play "to turn that data in a way that will be compliant with the way FDA wants us to do it." Robert C. Myers, BioPort's chief scientific officer, earlier had defended the vaccine and his company's manufacturing process, saying: "Now licensed for thirty years, with two million doses given in the last two and a half years alone, the vaccine is proven safe. In total, there have been 13 safety studies of many different types involving 366,000 patients and there is no pattern emerging that would call the vaccine's safety into question." "Anthrax vaccine is also purer than the diphtheria and tetanus vaccines we give our children and is safe or safer than these and other vaccines we give to our children and take ourselves as adults," he said. And a Pentagon spokesmen said: "Thirty years of experience with anthrax vaccine in the United States suggests that it has a side-effect profile similar to other commonly used vaccines. The Army is conducting a long-term, prospective study using a cohort of 600 soldiers at Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu. The intent is to identify side effects that may be associated with the anthrax vaccine. Thirteen human safety studies affirm the safety of anthrax vaccine." Production Quotas Dr. Meryl Nass, a longtime AVIP critic, told The Stars and Stripes Feb. 6: "I feel just as I did when I commented on the first inspection report I ever saw of BioPort in early '98: It looks as if the manufacturer was solely trying to meet production quotas, with no thought ever being paid to the fact that this product would be injected into human beings." "The amazing thing is that after three years of similar inspection reports, millions of taxpayer dollars and a multitude of experts, they remain so far off the mark," said Nass. "Where is the quality assurance? I sent a Canadian bio- defense expert a copy of a BioPort inspection report, and he said he couldn't sleep that night." FDA Warned BioPort of Mad Cow Bovine-derived materials have traditionally been used in the manufacture of vaccines. Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), the deadly "mad cow disease," was first reported in the United Kingdom in the 1980s. Animal-derived products used in vaccine production can include amino acids, glycerol, detergents, gelatin, enzymes and blood. To minimize the possibility of contamination, the FDA, in 1993 and again in 1996 recommended that manufacturers, including BioPort, not use materials derived from cattle that were born, raised or slaughtered in countries where BSE is known to exist. The FDA also alerted manufacturers to a U.S. Department of Agriculture list of countries producing potentially BSE-tainted beef. But despite such warnings, the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research last fall reported that BioPort was still using bovine-derived materials of unknown geographical origin.

Inside Missile Defense March 7, 2001 Pg. 1 Weldon: Time For U.S. To Call Russia's Bluff On Missile Defense Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA), who recently returned from a week-long trip to Russia, said it's "time for us to call their bluff" on the notion of working together on a missile defense program. Weldon told Inside Missile Defense that a recent Russian proposal for a European theater missile defense system is just "[Russian President Vladimir] Putin's way of trying to back America into a corner and drive a wedge between Europe and America." Weldon said the topic of missile defense came up in almost every meeting he attended during his Feb. 18-24 visit. In all, he had 41 meetings in a five-day period, with the bulk of the meetings occurring in Russia. Among the key meetings in Moscow was a two-and-one-half hour session with Russian Defense Chief of Staff Gen. Anatolye Kavashnin, the Russian equivalent of Army Gen. Hugh Shelton, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. Weldon doesn't believe that either side successfully convinced the other of its position, but "[Kavashnin] certainly knows that we're going to move ahead to protect America," he said. "I challenged him," said Weldon. "I said, 'look, I talked to [Secretary of Defense] Don[ald] Rumsfeld, and I talked to General [Ronald] Kadish before I came over here, and I asked them what should be my position.' And they said, 'we're still waiting for Russia's response.' "Wherever I went, I raised the issue of 'well, Russia, we're waiting for your response to our-open ended invitation to work together,'" said Weldon. The Russians only asked for further clarification and explanation of the U.S. offers, he said. Weldon also had meetings with members of the Russian legislative body, the Duma. "We had a lot of agreement in what I would call the issues facing the general population of Russia," he said. "And in the end, I said, 'let's come out and sign a document dealing with some of the concerns that you have, like restructuring the Paris debt for Russia, and helping you with environmental problems, but let's also put in there that the parliaments of the two countries want to work together on missile defense.' Interestingly enough, the Russians couldn't agree to that." Weldon believes the recent proposals made by the Russians to visiting NATO Secretary General Lord George Robertson amount to little more than hollow rhetoric. "I think we've got an opportunity here where the Russians are saying one thing to Europe but certainly singing a different tune that they don't know what to do," said Weldon. "I think a lot of what Putin is putting out to the Europeans is not so much substance. He's just trying to drive a wedge between the NATO allies and the U.S. and it's not going to work." Referring to the secretive and closely held proposal, Weldon said, "I think what it is . . . is the S-500 [surface-to-air missile]; what they're saying is that's what they want to work with Europe on. They haven't built it yet. When I met with the deputy minister of defense last summer, he said, 'Congressman, we've done all the mathematical calculations, we've done all the physics, we don't have any money to build or test it.' I'm convinced that that's what they're talking about. So it's a pipe dream. It's something that they haven't worked out yet," said Weldon. While Weldon doesn't think that Russia will be successful in dividing NATO allies, he does warn that the United States has to play the issue carefully. "We've got to be careful to make sure we don't get boxed in to make it appear as though we don't want to work with Europe, because we should be," said Weldon. "In fact, we're doing that with the MEADS program and we're doing it with the Arrow program," he added. "We shouldn't have this be portrayed as just protecting America," said Weldon. "I think that sends the wrong signal. We've got to be working together with our European friends, NATO countries. Even Ukraine wants to work with us on missile defense. I met with the Ukrainian Defense Minister for two hours; he wants to work with us on missile defense," he said. "So the opportunities are there." Weldon thinks that the next step in U.S./Russian relations on missile defense should be the reinstatement of high- level talks such as those that took place under the Bush administration in 1992. "They ought to be between our State Department and the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, our Defense Department and their Ministry of Defense, to be looking at the general parameters of missile defense and where we can work together and how we can lay down a plan of cooperation that involves not just Russia and the U.S. but also Europe," said Weldon. -- Jeff Bennett

Washington Post March 7, 2001 Pg. 20 Bush To Pick Up Clinton Talks On N. Korean Missiles By Steven Mufson, Washington Post Staff Writer The Bush administration intends to pick up where the Clinton administration left off in negotiations with North Korea over its missile programs, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said yesterday. Powell spoke on the eve of a visit to the White House by South Korean President Kim Dae Jung, who is seeking President Bush's support for his "sunshine policy" of trying to open the isolated regime in North Korea. In the last days of the Clinton administration, the United States had been close to completing a deal to normalize relations with North Korea and provide substantial economic aid in return for a permanent end to North Korea's missile development and proliferation programs. "We do plan to engage with North Korea to pick up where President Clinton and his administration left off," Powell said at a news conference. "Some promising elements were left on the table, and we'll be examining those elements." He also praised South Korea's Kim, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his overture to Pyongyang, and said the United States would coordinate policy with him before engaging North Korea. "And so we are not avoiding North Korea; quite the contrary," Powell said. "We think we have a lot to offer that regime, if they will act in ways that we think are constructive -- ways that reduce the threat of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and missiles, and ways that help open their society and give transparency into their society." Some notes of caution, however, were injected by another senior administration official who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity. "We're all for what Kim Dae Jung is trying to do by trying to open up the regime and engage the regime," the senior official said, "but you have to have a very clear-eyed view of what [North Korean leader] Kim Jong Il is trying to do . . . because it's a failed regime that is trying to stabilize itself." The official also responded sharply to a Feb. 22 threat by North Korea's foreign ministry to restart long-range missile tests if the United States did not continue negotiations on normalizing relations and supplying aid. "We sent a very strong message to North Korea that if the intention was to get our attention, it did -- but in the wrong direction," the official said. Noting that the new administration is still "taking stock" of the situation, the official said that North Korea remains a "bazaar for missile sales to just about everybody else we're worried about" and that any agreement on missiles would require extensive verification procedures. "You cannot rely on Kim Jong Il's word to verify what would be an extremely important agreement," the official said. Still, the official added, the United States is likely to continue to supply food aid to North Korea, despite concerns that much of it is diverted to leading party members and the military. And the official said that the Bush administration was "not just looking to walk away from" a 1994 nuclear agreement known as the Agreed Framework, but rather would look at whether to restructure it. Under that accord, North Korea stopped work on a nuclear reactor in return for $5 billion of U.S., South Korean and Japanese assistance in building newer, safer nuclear power plants. While the Bush administration has hailed South Korea's importance as an ally in Asia, the approach to North Korea is just one of several issues that threaten to strain relations between the two allies. South Korea's Kim also is skeptical about the need for a U.S. missile defense system. Separately, some members of Congress are also pressing Kim to buy American military equipment, especially F-15 fighter jets. House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) and Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.), who represent the state where McDonnell Douglas makes F-15s, both traveled to South Korea recently. Sen. Jean Carnahan (D-Mo.) pressed Bush's nominee for deputy secretary of defense, Paul D. Wolfowitz, at his confirmation hearing on whether the administration would support the sale. In fiscal 2000, South Korea budgeted $4.45 billion for military modernization, a $1 billion increase from the year before. Chyung Dai-Chul, a leading member of the South Korean assembly's defense committee, said in a recent interview that South Korea is also considering Russian and European fighter jets. He said South Korea also plans to buy offensive helicopters, such as the U.S.-made Apache. Wolfowitz said the administration would stress the advantages of using compatible equipment because of the close U.S.-South Korea alliance. Chyung said South Korea was concerned about price, restrictions on technology transfers and the danger of being too dependent on the United States.

Wall Street Journal Europe March 7, 2001 Good Vibrations? Like Churchill's observation about Russia, the alleged nuclear tests under Novaya Zemlya are a riddle wrapped inside an enigma. Novaya Zemlya is a 500-mile-long, crescent-shaped Arctic island that has moved to the center of disputes over the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Analysts are studying the tremors from that remote region to determine if the Russians are violating the treaty or if they have found a way to test their weapons using extremely low yields, which is permitted. This is the problem with most arms-control agreements -- they are either unverifiable or unnecessary. The test-ban treaty, signed by U.S. President Bill Clinton but rejected by the Senate in October 1999, is both. The U.S. is abiding by the treaty, even though it has not been ratified, and has not held any full-scale nuclear tests since 1992. The U.S. has conducted a number of extremely low-yield tests -- which weapons experts call "subcritical" -- which are allowed. These tests offer little, if any, benefit. As a result, the quality and reliability of America's atomic arsenal can no longer be fully assessed. The Russians, who adopted the treaty with great fanfare last year, say they are abiding by it. In October, the Ministry for Atomic Energy said that Russia conducted two permissible "subcritical" nuclear tests deep underneath the rock and ice of Novaya Zemlya. Intelligence experts are now scrutinizing the seismic data to determine if those tests really were "subcritical" or treaty-violating full-scale tests. Yet virtually everything about those tests is uncertain. U.S. intelligence-gathering satellites reveal a tremendous amount of activity in Novaya Zemlya -- large numbers of planes and trucks are moving about in the dead of winter. That seems suspiciously like the ground crew for a nuclear test, but there are other plausible explanations. The Russians like to train their military pilots during the long polar night, when around-the-clock darkness, high winds and extreme cold offer a perfect worst-case learning environment. Even the presence of radioactive materials doesn't tell us much. The Russians have exploded more than 100 bombs in Novaya Zemlya since 1955. It is hard to measure additional fissile material against such a radioactive background. It is even harder to know what is happening underground. The geology of the Earth's crust near Novaya Zemlya is among the least understood in the world. It is covered with an average of eight feet of ice, making satellite imaging of the deep-rock formations very difficult. Few Western submarines have surveyed the sunless depths near Novaya Zemlya. Add to that the Gakkel Ridge, which is home to several underwater volcanoes and, because it is the meeting point of two tectonic plates, the source of numerous earthquakes. All of this uncertainty -- from suspicious activity on the surface to strange readings from the substratum -- can create "false positives." In August 1997, the CIA told the White House that the Russians may be testing high-yield nuclear devices at Novaya Zemlya, according to a recent New York Times report. Now experts believe that undersea earthquakes, near the Russian test site, caused the tremors. This uncertainty is sometimes cited by test-ban treaty supporters, who would argue that the accord's inspection regime would lift the cloak of government secrecy. Perhaps. But arms-control inspections have failed in Iraq and they yielded little during the Soviet era. (See the nearby article on possible Russian cheating on the ABM Treaty.) And, at the very point that governments become transparent enough to make arms control treaties verifiable, they often become unnecessary. Does anyone seek an arms-control agreement between nuclear powers like France and Britain or between the EU and the U.S.? The test-ban treaty is a political symbol with little substance. Then-President Clinton hoped to make the Senate's rejection of the test-ban treaty into a campaign issue. The Russians also saw the public-relations value of the treaty. When the Duma adopted it last year, it supporters made no secret of their motivation. They wanted to win plaudits from the world press and hand Russian President Vladimir Putin a diplomatic victory. This kind of political maneuvering is a sure sign that neither side takes the treaty very seriously. The solution doesn't lie deep beneath the Arctic ice but deep in space. President Bush's global missile defense can provide a greater measure of security than a roomful of scientists studying a seismic chart and asking: What's shaking?

Inside Missile Defense March 7, 2001 Pg. 1 Army SMDC Considering Low-Cost Cruise Missile Defense System The Army's Space and Missile Defense Command is "very interested" in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's work on the Low-cost Cruise Missile Defense Program and has budgeted money this year to take a closer look at the system, according to Lt. Col. Edward Gjermundsen of DARPA's special projects office. "We've been working very closely with [the Army] over this past year," said Gjermundsen. "They've actually budgeted money this year to take a look at the program and they're going to make some decisions as to whether to pursue this, and how they might pursue it if they do," he added. Gjermundsen is DARPA's program manager for the LCCMD system. In addition to the Army's interest in the program, DARPA also provided funds to the Air Force Research Laboratory's "CHOP shop," or Countermeasures Hands-on Program, said Gjermundsen. "Their job is to emulate what a Third-World nation can do, and to see how effective they can do countermeasures," he noted. The AFRL program is a one-year effort, and DARPA expects a demonstration by next year. The LCCMD program began in 1996, with the goal of designing, developing, demonstrating, and transitioning affordable seekers for an interceptor system to defeat low-cost and less sophisticated threats. Motivation for the program stems from the ever-increasing risk of asymmetric threats, says Gjermundsen. "Third World or rogue nations pose a threat of low-cost air vehicles, from cheap cruise missiles to unmanned aerial vehicles," Gjermundsen said. "It is a threat that can emerge very rapidly, and there are a number of ways a country can acquire such a threat. They can manufacture indigenously, import from other countries, or convert existing assets." Gjermundsen says the LCCMD program is unique from a design perspective because DARPA is not addressing the highly sophisticated threats that other programs must deal with. "We're not designing for the most stressing threat," he said. "We already have systems in inventory that handle stressing threats. What we want to do is design for the low-cost threat that can be procured in large numbers, and we want to preclude a situation that if we are attacked by a large number of low-cost air vehicles, our only option is to throw our sophisticated interceptors at them. So we want to come up with a more equitable cost-exchange ratio," he added. Gjermundsen proposed the German V-1 rocket as an example of the type of threat that LCCMD is aimed at: one that proliferates rapidly and can be used effectively. During World War II, Germany manufactured some 30,000 cruise missiles and fired 20,000 of them. The system concept involves an interceptor fired from a ground launch platform. Guidance is initially provided from airborne fire control radar and airborne surveillance radar. When the interceptor approaches the target at close range, within about 10 kilometers, it then activates and relies on an on-board seeker to acquire and destroy the target. DARPA settled on the Radar Missile Interceptor as the platform for delivery and, since 1998, the program has been focused on developing an effective and cost-efficient seeker. "The real problem that we've given our contractors is that you're to produce this seeker to go after a particular class of threats, and we gave them a definition of the threats and all the technical parameters associated with those threats; we gave them a volume of space to search, based upon what we thought the capabilities of the fire control and surveillance radars were, and told them to do that at as low a cost as possible," said Gjermundsen. Three seeker designs were selected for closer consideration in 1999. They include laser radar (LADAR), a noise radar seeker, and a microelectromechanical switched electronically steered array seeker (MEMS ESA). "Right now [the MEMS ESA seeker] appears to be the most attractive system from our understanding of the Army's requirements," said Gjermundsen. "The Army has told us they're looking for an all-weather system. Radar performs better in weather than either I[nfra] R[ed] or LADAR." Electronically scanned arrays are normally very expensive, but new MEMS technology has given DARPA a low-cost option in this area. Currently, the program is working out problems with the phase shifter element of the MEMS ESA seeker. The phase shifter component has either nine or 12 switches onboard, and those switches are seizing up from charge build-ups after a certain number of cycles. Gjermundsen says the agency is close to resolution on that issue. "There are problems with the reliability of these phase shifters, and for the past year we've been working hard to solve that problem," he said. "The good news for my program is my reliability requirement isn't as stressing as the requirements in other programs." The phase shifter only gets activated for about 15 to 30 seconds during the final seeker phase of an encounter. Therefore, Gjermundsen indicates that it would probably work properly in a tactical situation, but the testing phase of the program has proven to be a problem. "At this point we are very close to solving the problems . . . .We think we're on the verge of declaring victory and moving on," said Gjermundsen. The LADAR seeker has recently been modified to incorporate an eye-safe beam. In December, DARPA conducted a laboratory demonstration and "completed that program," according to Gjermundsen. "We have provided the final report to the Army and this is going to be one of their options should they decide to pursue the Low-cost Cruise Missile Defense Program." Finally, the noise radar seeker is continuing to evolve. "This is a very novel seeker from the standpoint of the way traditional radars work," said Gjermundsen. The basic concept of the noise radar is straightforward. A signal is transmitted and modulated with random noise. A copy is made of the transmission, and then when the return signal comes in, the two signals are correlated. "What makes it difficult is that in order to get the performance you require for a seeker system, you have to clock this very quickly," said Gjermundsen. Recent advances in high-speed, low-power processing now make this a feasible option for a seeker. "Our plan is to do field testing of this seeker this year," said Gjermundsen. "Right now the seeker is built, it's gone through laboratory testing," he added. In April, the system will be taken to the Naval Air Warfare Center, Weapons Division, China Lake, CA, to look at tactical targets. This phase of ground testing will last about three months, according to Gjermundsen, and pending the results, a flight test against tactical targets may be conducted aboard a Navy P-3 aircraft. In addition to its application with the LCCMD program, the noise radar seeker offers other potentially valuable applications, including distinguishing ballistic missiles from decoys. "We're working with the Johns Hopkins University, the applied physics lab, to look at the application of the noise radar to the ballistic missile problem," said Gjermundsen. The noise radar presents a practical way to use wide- bandwidth radar by producing high range resolution. For example, the noise radar can discern individual pellets in a shotgun blast. "One of the other applications we are studying is the potential to use this for aim point selection," said Gjermundsen, "or ballistic missile discrimination." Gjermundsen said the results so far have looked very promising. That study effort is scheduled to end next month, and DARPA will decide whether to pursue it further. -- Jeff Bennett

Wednesday March 7, 10:54 PM India tests surface-to-air Akash missile: report

NEW DELHI, March 7 (AFP) - India successfully tested for a third time in little over a week its multi-target surface-to-air missile "Akash", the Press Trust of India reported Wednesday.

The news agency quoted Indian defence officials as saying that the missile weighing 650 kilograms (1,430 pounds) was fired from a mobile launcher on Tuesday from a test range in the eastern state of Orissa.

Akash has a range of 25 kilometres (15.5 miles), can deliver 55 kilograms (121 pounds) of explosives and has the capacity to strike several targets simultaneously.

The first test launch of the missile was conducted eight days ago on February 27 and then followed up on Friday.

Akash is one of the missiles being developed by the Indian defence establishment under its indigenous Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP), launched in 1983.

India has already inducted the short range surface-to-surface Prithvi missile with a range of 150 kilometres to 250 kilometres (93 to 155 miles) into service.

The Prithvi is capable of carrying a one-tonne nuclear or conventional warhead.

Jane’s Defence Weekly March 7, 2001 Iraq Repairs WMD Production Sites By Rüdiger Moniac, JDW Correspondent, Bonn and Andrew Koch, JDW Bureau Chief, Washington DC Iraq has reconstructed a significant number of production sites for its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in recent months and made considerable progress in those programmes, the German Federal Intelligence Agency (BND) reported late last month. BND officials noted, for example, that the number of Iraqi projects for producing chemical weapon (CW) precursors has increased significantly over the past two years. Baghdad has been able to clandestinely import that production equipment. The German estimates match those in a US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) report released late last month that says "Iraq appears to be installing or repairing dual-use equipment at CW-related facilities". Moreover, the CIA said that "Iraq may have hidden an additional 6,000 CW munitions", as well as "a small, covert force of Scud-type missiles". Iraq has been making progress in its ballistic missile programmes (Jane's Defence Weekly 30 August 2000), the BND said, adding that Baghdad has fabricated its own ammonium perchlorate, a key ingredient in the production of solid missile fuel. Iraq obtained the technology for the Al-Mamoun plant through a front company in India and by shipping it via Malaysia and Dubai, the BND explained. The Indian company is on the German Ministry of Economics' list of prohibited businesses due to suspected involvement in weapons proliferation. Based on these trends, the BND said that Iraq could develop an operational 3,000km-range missile as early as 2005. Again, the CIA report suggests agreement, noting that Iraq's "solid-propellant missile development programme may now be receiving a higher priority and development of the [solid-fuelled] Ababil-100 short-range ballistic missile and possibly longer range systems may be moving ahead rapidly". Iraq is also working on a second missile, the liquid-fuelled Al Samoud short-range ballistic missile, and is trying to add increased guidance capability to that missile, the BND said. The CIA added that work on the Al Samoud "is maturing" and "a low-level operational capability could be achieved in the near term". Despite the intelligence estimates, a former inspector from the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) in Iraq, Tim McCarthy, said: "It would be very unlikely" that Iraq could build a 3,000km-range missile by mid-decade. He noted that although Iraq has been able to produce solid-fuel propellant in small batches at the Al-Mamoun facility 40km south of Baghdad for some time, the Iraqi regime was having trouble building or acquiring larger mixing bowls to increase the production size. Such efforts would be key if Iraq were to upgrade to a large and more powerful motor diameter. McCarthy, now of the Monterey Institute of International Studies, said Iraq had tried to build an ammonium perchlorate pilot production plant in the past. BND officials also estimate that Iraq could develop a nuclear weapon within three to five years and said that Baghdad has increased its attempts to procure materials and technology for biological weapons. The Bush administration has been considering relaxing sanctions on Iraq to permit the sale of more commercial goods in an attempt to strengthen flagging international support for sanctions that are aimed at containing Baghdad's WMD aspirations. US Secretary of State Colin Powell said last week that the USA was considering how to modify the sanctions regime to focus more tightly on stopping WMD technology and military-related items.

New York Times March 8, 2001 Pg. 1 Bush Tells Seoul Talks With North Won't Resume Now By David E. Sanger WASHINGTON, March 7 — President Bush told President Kim Dae Jung of South Korea today that he would not resume missile talks with North Korea anytime soon, putting aside the Clinton administration's two-year campaign for a deal and the eventual normalization of relations with the reclusive Communist state. Mr. Bush's comments, while couched in reassuring statements about the American alliance with South Korea, came as a clear rebuff to President Kim. Awarded last year's Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to open dialogue across one of the most heavily armed borders on earth, the South Korean leader has told American officials that he believes there is only a narrow window of opportunity to seize on North Korea's recent willingness to emerge from its diplomatic seclusion. Just days before President Kim arrived, one of his top advisers said in an interview that "timing is critical" and expressed concern that North Korea might retreat to its hard-line positions if it concluded that the new administration in Washington was not willing to pick up where Mr. Clinton — who was planning a last-minute trip to North Korea — left off. Today Mr. Bush made it clear that he had little intention of following Mr. Clinton's path, at least not now. In a brief exchange with reporters after meeting Mr. Kim in the Oval Office, Mr. Bush said: "We're not certain as to whether or not they're keeping all terms of all agreements." But the United States has only one agreement with North Korea — the 1994 accord that froze North Korea's plutonium processing at a suspected nuclear weapons plant. And at a briefing this afternoon two senior administration officials, asked about the president's statement, said there was no evidence that North Korea is violating its terms. Later, a White House spokesman said that Mr. Bush was referring to his concern about whether the North would comply with future accords, even though he did not use the future tense. "That's how the president speaks," the official said. Mr. Bush had said, "When you make an agreement with a country that is secretive, how are you aware as to whether or not they are keeping the terms of the agreement?" The White House insisted that today's meeting was cordial, and said that Mr. Bush embraced Mr. Kim's "vision of peace on the Korean Peninsula." But they also distanced Mr. Bush from the details of that vision, including Mr. Kim's statements, outside the meeting today, that he plans to sign a peace "declaration" with North Korea if its leader, Kim Jong Il, visits Seoul this spring. American officials said that President Kim Dae Jung made no specific references to those plans today. But he did promise, during the brief encounter with reporters, that "we will consult with the United States every step of the way." Nonetheless, Mr. Kim, sitting next to Mr. Bush in the Oval Office, offered a tepid assessment of his conversation with the American president. "The greatest outcome today has to be that, through a frank and honest exchange of views on the situation on the Korean Peninsula, we have increased the mutual understanding," Mr. Kim said, using a phrase often used in diplomacy to skim past substantive disagreement. He added later that President Bush, who has visited Asia only once, a trip to China a quarter-century ago, "was very frank and honest in sharing with me his perceptions about the nature of North Korea and the North Korean leader." In another sign of Washington's new, harder line toward North Korea, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell appeared to back away from his statements on Tuesday that he hoped to "pick up where President Clinton and his administration left off." His comments seemed at odds with those of a senior administration official who had invited a group of reporters to the White House that same day to stress that a complete review of North Korea policy was under way. Today General Powell stepped out of the Oval Office meeting to tell reporters that North Korea was "a threat" and "we have to not be naïve about the nature of this threat, but at the same time realize that changes are taking place." "There are suggestions that there are imminent negotiations about to take place" between the United States and North Korea, General Powell added. "That is not the case." That is a political blow to Mr. Kim, who has hoped to leverage his status as a Nobel laureate and his long history as South Korea's most prominent dissident voice during a series of military governments to negotiate a broad peace on the Korean peninsula. But he knows that he has little time. Mr. Kim has less than two years left in office, not long to put together all the moving parts of a deal: An agreement to stop North Korea's missile and nuclear programs, a pullback from the Demilitarized Zone, and full commercial interactions between the two Koreas. Even as Mr. Kim's international stature has grown, his influence in Seoul is ebbing. After presiding over South Korea's revival from the Asian economic crisis, he has seen country's economy once again decline. Opposition leaders, including his predecessor, Kim Young Sam, have charged him with naïveté in dealing with the North. Mr. Bush's new administration is struggling to bridge differences within the Republican Party over how to deal with the North Korean threat. Conservatives in the party have long been critical of the 1994 "Agreed Framework," struck by the Clinton administration after a confrontation over nuclear inspections. Under the agreement, North Korea froze its nuclear-processing operations, and international inspectors regularly monitor compliance. But conservatives and other critics say that the West essentially gave in to blackmail, offering to build two nuclear power plants for the North and supply it with fuel oil until construction is completed. Mr. Bush's aides have said they will respect the deal, but some want to reopen it, in hopes of replacing the two plants with coal-fired generators that would not create more nuclear waste. The 1994 agreement did nothing to restrict the North's production or sale of missiles, and it has become a major provider of missile technology to other states described as sponsors of terrorism by the State Department. So after a lengthy review of North Korean policy, the Clinton administration opened talks on limiting missile research, production and sales. It was close to reaching such an accord in December, but ran out of time — in part because of the long election recount here, and in part because of North Korean intransigence on allowing regular verification that all missile work and research has stopped. Mr. Kim, meanwhile, has been pursuing a North-South agreement, mindful that he cannot get too far ahead of his American ally. But his philosophy differs sharply from Mr. Bush's. He believes that the major problem with North Korea is that it is an insecure regime, and that he must change the atmosphere of confrontation. "I think Kim is correct that the window is narrow," Senator Joseph R. Biden of Delaware, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said this evening. "I don't know whether what's on the other side of the window is worth it, but we sure should go and look."

Washington Post March 8, 2001 Pg. 1 Bush Casts A Shadow On Korea Missile Talks By Steven Mufson, Washington Post Staff Writer President Bush yesterday cast doubt on the future of talks to end North Korea's missile program, saying he was concerned about how to verify such an agreement and putting himself somewhat at odds with visiting South Korean President Kim Dae Jung. Bush said he supported Kim's effort to ease tensions with North Korea, but said any deal to restrict its missiles must come with some means of verifying the terms of such a pact. "Part of the problem in dealing with North Korea, there's not very much transparency," Bush said in a joint news conference with Kim. He added that "we're not certain as to whether or not they're keeping all terms of all agreements." The Bush-Kim meeting was an awkward start to a relationship the Bush administration has described as important to U.S. interests and regional security in northeast Asia. It also underscored the administration's leery view of a country Bush often calls a "rogue state" and whose long-range missile program has been one rationale for a national missile defense system, which the Bush administration strongly supports. Kim, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who came seeking support for his increasingly unpopular "sunshine policy" of engaging communist North Korea, described his talks with Bush as "a frank and honest exchange of views" that had "increased the mutual understanding," phrases often used to describe meetings where the two sides disagree. A senior administration official, however, called the meetings "very positive." And Bush praised Kim for "leadership" and "his vision," and called him a "realist." Kim had encouraged the Clinton administration in its pursuit of an agreement that would have sent U.S. economic aid to isolated, famine-stricken North Korea in exchange for a commitment to stop development of long-range missiles and halt exports of missiles to other nations, such as Iran and Pakistan. The South Korean president saw the negotiations as contributing to an easing of tensions on the heavily armed and divided Korean peninsula. Bush's remarks also showed some of the new administration's difficulty in finding a common voice on foreign policy. The president's comments about talks with North Korea struck a markedly more cautious tone than comments Tuesday by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who said the administration intended "to pick up where President Clinton and his administration left off," and examine "some promising elements [that] were left on the table." Analysts saw the series of remarks as a sign of differences, or at least a failure of coordination. "It did not seem as coordinated as one would wish," said Larry Wortzel, director of Asia studies at the Heritage Foundation. Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.), the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said, "I still don't know if this is good cop, bad cop or confusion or what." Yesterday, Powell seemed to change emphasis, saying, "There was some suggestion that imminent negotiations are about to begin—that is not the case." He added, "in due course, when our review is finished, we'll determine at what pace and when we will engage with the North Koreans." Opponents of missile defense were dismayed by Bush's comments. "It is disappointing and self-defeating for President Bush not to pursue the possibility of verifiable agreement to freeze North Korea's missile program, which would be a lot more efficient than a high-priced missile defense system," said Darryl Kimball, executive director of the Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Dangers. Biden said he was disappointed Bush didn't signal that he is "willing to talk and negotiate if certain things happen, as opposed to emphasizing that these guys are bad guys, period." During the presidential campaign, Bush stressed the importance of cultivating ties with U.S. allies, and South Korea has been a key ally in the half century since the Korean War. There are still 37,000 U.S. troops stationed there, substantial U.S. investments, and a significant trade relationship. The Bush administration wanted to clarify key issues. In a recent meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Kim endorsed language about missile defense and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty adopted at the Okinawa summit of the Group of Eight leading nations. That language is at odds, however, with Bush administration policy and the South Korean foreign ministry later scrambled to back away from the statement. Kim said yesterday that he "regretted the misunderstanding." Missile defense would do little to protect South Korea, whose capital, Seoul, is within easy artillery range of North Korea, and Kim is not a missile defense supporter. But the South Korean president yesterday signed a communique» with Bush that included language the United States is trying to extract from all missile defense critics. In language similar to that endorsed by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the Bush-Kim communique» said, "new types of threats, including from weapons of mass destruction and missiles as a means of delivery, have emerged that require new approaches to deterrence and defense. The two leaders shared the view that countering these threats requires a broad strategy involving a variety of measures, including active nonproliferation diplomacy, defensive systems, and other pertinent measures." Discussion of North Korea dominated about half of the meeting yesterday between Bush and Kim, a senior administration official said. Vice President Cheney, Powell, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and White House spokesman Ari Fleischer attended. Powell and senior State Department officials met with Kim separately earlier. At the news conference, Kim said, "President Bush was very frank and honest in sharing with me his perceptions about the nature of North Korea and the North Korean leader, and this is very important for me to take back home and to consider."

Defense Daily March 8, 2001 Pg. 4 NATO Secretary General Reports EU View Shifting On Missile Defense By Kerry Gildea The European leadership has stopped questioning whether the United States will build a national missile defense (NMD) and is starting to discuss how one will be built with allied participation, George Robertson, secretary general of NATO and former British minister of defence, said yesterday. This shift in thinking, however, "is not a resounding endorsement for building NMD," he said at a seminar on Capitol Hill sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute and Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.). But, the fact that the Bush administration is moving to make missile defense more inclusive to its allies addresses Europeans’ concerns, he added. "I am very confident that, instead of seeing a trans-Atlantic row over missile defense, we will see serious consultation on how a broader missile defense system will come into effect," Robertson said. And, Robertson agreed that it makes sense to take a fresh look at the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty and any other arms control issues that would impede missile defense. Visiting with government officials in Moscow two weeks ago, Robertson said he viewed the Russian proposal for missile defense, but added the "details at the moment are still pretty sketchy." Part of the Russian tactic on missile defense, may be to drive a wedge between the United States and NATO countries, he noted. Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), chair of the Senate Government Affairs subcommittee on security and proliferation, reported last month that the tide seemed to be changing on European leaders’ resistance to missile defense (Defense Daily, Feb. 16). Cochran noted that Robertson recently said the Europeans now have to accept that the Americans really intend to go ahead with NMD and discussion is needed inside NATO on the specifics. Thompson, who has been hosting a series of talks on missile defense recently, said NATO has been the most successful alliance of its time, but the United States and Europe each have to understand that global security and threats are changing. A broader view of security must come into play as the European Union considers NMD, and also as the United States reviews the European proposal for a new European rapid response force, Thompson said. Both of those issues have been received with "a lukewarm response on their respective sides of the Atlantic," he added. Robertson stressed the proposed new European security force outside of NATO would allow Europeans to take a more active role in their defense, which the United States has been promoting for years. The new European security force "can never take the place of NATO and doesn’t want to," he said.

Inside The Pentagon March 8, 2001 Pg. 2 New Panel To Review U.S. Nuclear Command And Control System The Defense Department announced March 6 that a newly created panel will review the U.S. nuclear command and control system. The federal advisory committee will make recommendations to the defense secretary regarding "policies, responsibilities, functions, management structures and capabilities" to meet national and department policy and guidance, according to a notice published in the Federal Register. The effort, called the End-to-End Review of the U.S. Nuclear Command and Control System, is intended to ensure that the system as a whole is appropriate to meet established policy and requirements and whether any changes are required, according to a Pentagon spokesman. The review was initiated last year by then-Defense Secretary William Cohen, and after being briefed recently, Donald Rumsfeld, the new defense secretary, gave it the go-ahead, he said. The committee will hold its first meeting on April 5, he added, noting that most of its meetings and any reports will be classified. Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft, founder and president of The Forum for International Policy, has been appointed to chair the six-person committee. Other members include retired Air Force Gen. Michael Carns; John Crawford, former vice president of Sandia National Laboratories; William Crowell, who served as deputy director of the National Security Agency from 1994 to 1997 and is president and chief executive officer of Cylink Inc., a Santa Clara, CA-based company that facilitates secure e-business; assistant secretary of defense for command, control, communications and intelligence Arthur Money; and an unnamed Energy Department official. The committee will examine the responsibilities of nine federal agencies in ensuring the effectiveness of the nuclear command and control system, including DOD, National Security Council, State Department, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Office of Management and Budget, White House military office, Energy Department, Central Intelligence Agency and the FBI. The review is also intended to "identify opportunities to enhance system effectiveness and efficiency, identify emerging issues for consideration or action, and will recommend cost-effective changes to the system where warranted," the Federal Register notice states. -- Catherine MacRae

Inside The Pentagon March 8, 2001 Pg. 1 CDC Set To Begin Wide-Reaching Anthrax Vaccine Studies This Month A key component of a multifaceted anthrax vaccine research project coordinated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is set to begin later this month, the results of which could lead to a better understanding of the vaccine's capabilities and changes in the way it is administered to service members. Under a CDC contract, researchers at Battelle Memorial Institute, Columbus, OH, are gearing up to begin a seven- month challenge study using rhesus monkeys, which will be given Food and Drug Administration-approved vaccine and exposed to anthrax, according to Nina Marano, coordinator of CDC's Anthrax Vaccine Research Program. The vaccine, called Anthrax Vaccine Adsorbed (AVA), is the same given by the Defense Department to troops to protect them from inhaled anthrax. Battelle also will conduct a 30-month follow-on study, and Emory University in Atlanta is signed up to do related vaccine research with rhesus monkeys, although the latter effort will not involve challenge studies, Marano said in an interview late last month. The start date for Battelle is March 25, "pending final approval by [the] CDC Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee," according to Marano. CDC is less certain about the start date for the Emory University project, but expects it to begin "by the end of April at the latest." The purpose of these efforts is to "demonstrate that modified AVA vaccine regimens produce an immunologic response similar to the human immune response and provide clinical protection (i.e., survival) against aerosolized challenge with [anthrax] spores," among other things, states a Jan. 22 CDC fact sheet obtained by Inside the Pentagon. The Battelle and Emory studies are just two elements of the congressionally mandated Anthrax Vaccine Research Program, established in June 2000 at CDC's National Center for Infectious Diseases. (CDC is a Department of Health and Human Services agency.) In addition to the rhesus monkey studies, the Anthrax Vaccine Research Program has let contracts with other research institutions to conduct a human clinical trial to study the possibility of immunizing vaccine recipients using fewer doses than presently recommended by the Food and Drug Administration. CDC will solicit 1,300 volunteers to participate in the human clinical trial, Marano said. As spelled out in policies endorsed by the Defense Department's Anthrax Vaccine Immunization Program, service members are required to receive a primary series of five shots within one year, and another six months later, before they are considered fully immunized under FDA guidelines. Annual boosters are required after the primary shot series. The National Center for Infectious Diseases' human clinical trial also will look into changing the route of administration by injecting the vaccine into muscle, as opposed to just under the skin, as typically done today, and the different reactions men and women have to the vaccine. Another CDC element, the National Immunization Program, is reviewing safety issues related to the anthrax vaccine and the system used to report adverse events. The National Center for Infectious Diseases and the National Immunization Program are seeking $23 million in funding for fiscal year 2002 as a Health and Human Services appropriation, Marano said. The Defense Department has agreed to give CDC 8,900 doses of FDA-approved anthrax vaccine at no cost from its dwindling stockpile to conduct the anthrax-related research, Marano said. "It's enough for what we need," she added. Then-Defense Secretary William Cohen kicked off the mandatory anthrax vaccine program for all service members in 1998. But a supply shortage has forced the Pentagon to scale it back dramatically. In July 2000, DOD said it would reserve its available supply for those deployed for an extended time in certain high-risk regions (ITP, July 13, 2000, p2). All other DOD personnel will resume taking shots once quality control problems have been resolved at BioPort, the sole supplier of the vaccine, according to the revised policy. Based in Lansing, MI, BioPort is awaiting FDA approval to resume production for the military at its renovated manufacturing plant. Such approval, though, means addressing problems cited in an October 2000 FDA plant inspection, which uncovered design problems with the facility's filling suite and raised concerns about employee practices in ensuring the sterility of vaccines. Another inspection in November 1999 found that the manufacturing process for AVA was not validated (ITP, Nov. 16, 2000, p3; Dec. 16, 1999, p1). FDA is not expected to give the go-ahead for new vaccine production until the second quarter of this year at the earliest, according to company officials. In the meantime, the anthrax vaccination effort continues to come under fire from a legion of critics, which includes lawmakers and a number of service members, some of whom have put their careers on the line to protest the mandatory program. Magnet for criticism Critics attack the vaccine program on several fronts. The primary charge is that there is not enough evidence to back DOD's claim that the anthrax vaccine is safe and effective. A similar concern is raised about the way the vaccine is administered to troops. (The vaccine has been licensed by FDA since 1970.) Citing studies by the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine and DOD's inspector general, as well as testimony by General Accounting Office officials, some have raised questions about the amount of scientific research available to justify the Pentagon's sweeping vaccination effort (ITP, April 13, 2000, p1). And based on anecdotal evidence and congressional testimony, they say the number of vaccine recipients who have experienced adverse systemic reactions is increasing, while the reporting system for adverse events may not reflect the damage done to service members. The vaccine program has hurt Pentagon recruiting and retention, they add. In an internal legal memorandum, two Air Force Reserve judge advocates general have argued that the vaccine program is inconsistent with federal law. The memo says the vaccine is used in a manner inconsistent with its original license and should be considered an investigational new drug under FDA regulations (ITP, April 20, 2000, p1). Such concerns prompted a bipartisan group of lawmakers last year to demand the suspension of the mandatory program. Leading the charge were House Government Reform Committee Chairman Dan Burton (R-IN), House Government Reform national security subcommittee Chairman Christopher Shays (R-CT), then-House International Relations Committee Chairman Benjamin Gilman (R-NY) and Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), ranking minority member of the House Judiciary Committee (ITP, June 1, 2000, p1). "I respectfully cannot agree to such a request," wrote Charles Cragin, then-principal deputy assistant defense secretary for reserve affairs, in a May 16, 2000, response. Cragin is now the acting under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness. "To suspend the program would place thousands of [service members] in a vulnerable position where they would go to work every day in areas of the world where potential adversaries possess the ability to deliver deadly weaponized, aerosolized anthrax at any moment," Cragin said. Anthrax Vaccine Adsorbed has been "validated" by CDC and the National Institutes of Health, he added. "The FDA has continuously stated that the vaccine is approved and has been since 1970, as such, [it] is not an investigational drug." The anthrax vaccine effort has been attacked by some groups using misinformation, Cragin added. "When you administer over 1.7 million doses of vaccine to over 440,000 people, some will get sick, for some reason, inevitably, at some point in time," he wrote. "Although opponents to the inoculation program would have you believe otherwise, most of these illnesses are not related to anthrax vaccine." Military and civilian hospitals, he continued, have found many of the illnesses are "due to other causes." Of all those who have taken the vaccine, only 31 have required hospitalization, Cragin wrote. "Of these 31, only six have been determined to, more probably than not, have illnesses which have resulted from anthrax vaccination. . . . These personnel have been granted waivers to not receive future vaccinations. These determinations were made by an independent panel of experts convened by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services." In addition to arguing that the vaccine is both safe and effective, DOD officials also say that Anthrax Vaccine Adsorbed is one of the more thoroughly studied vaccines in recent history. However, several studies, including ones conducted by the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, went unpublished for years. As part of its efforts to address concerns about the anthrax vaccine, the Pentagon's Anthrax Vaccine Immunization Program office in 1999 began an effort to get the USAMRIID studies and others published (ITP, Aug. 3, 2000, p1). Other studies on the vaccine include an ongoing review of the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System by the so- called Anthrax Vaccine Expert Committee, a group of civilian doctors organized by Health and Human Services, and a long-term initiative, organized by DOD and the Department of Veterans Affairs, that will follow the health reports of 100,000 people over a 20-year period. Pilot testing for the latter study, which will look at a number of health issues in addition to those related to the anthrax vaccine, began this year under the aegis of the assistant defense secretary for health affairs office. Research to date indicates that the rate of major disease among the military population taking the vaccine is no higher than the rates for the general population, according to military officials. Getting ready for kickoff The impending Anthrax Vaccine Research Program tests using rhesus monkeys -- the one coordinated by CDC's National Center for Infectious Diseases -- will garner more information about the anthrax vaccine than rhesus monkey tests previously performed at USAMRIID, according to Marano. Rhesus monkeys are small -- about 20 pounds -- and in previous tests were given "human-size doses" of the anthrax vaccine, leading to an "enormous antibody response," Marano told ITP in a July 2000 interview. "Because of their size, it would have been better if they were given a dose that corresponds to their body weight," she said. "We want to know what happens when they are given the right dose for their body weight. . . . It will give us a better model for evaluating the vaccine." The purpose of the seven-month study involving rhesus monkeys is to "establish what that dose is that could be comparable with the human dose," Marano said during last month's interview. The information provided by such a study will be of great interest to FDA officials, she added. This study, along with others conducted by the Anthrax Vaccine Research Program, could inform a future decision to cut back on the number of doses considered necessary to achieve immunity from inhalational anthrax. "What we want to do is reduce the number of doses" required for human vaccine recipients, Marano said. "We don't think it takes that many doses to protect people," she added, referring to the FDA-approved shot regimen for humans: six doses over 18 months followed by annual boosters thereafter. A critical first step in reaching such a conclusion is finding out whether past studies involved "overimmunizing the monkeys with that human dose," Marano said. "It could very well be that the human dose may be totally appropriate for a monkey, but that's the purpose of the first study. We're going to give progressively diluted vaccine to the monkeys, and see how the monkeys that get the diluted vaccine compare to those who get the full vaccine dose -- from a blood work standpoint and a survival standpoint." Past studies involving rhesus monkeys "have constituted two doses, given four weeks apart, and then these animals were challenged two years later," she said. "That's a long time. They're challenged, and they have very high survival rates." The survival rates raise questions about the FDA-approved shot regimen. This schedule "reflects the feeling that people have to maintain very high antibody titers in order to be protected. Now that doesn't compare to the monkeys because what you see is their antibody titers before challenge two years later is almost nondetectable. That does not compare to what we're saying we have to do in humans," she said. The researchers will examine whether something other than high antibody levels produced by the vaccine protects against anthrax exposure. It could be that protection is achieved because of the body's ability "to have memory of the vaccine," Marano said. "In other words, people get a couple of priming doses, but then they can go a long time without the vaccine. But if they get exposed, God forbid, they will respond [because] their bodies will know how to appropriately respond. That's what we see in monkeys." In addition to looking into changing the recommended number of anthrax vaccine doses and the route of administration, better understanding "correlates of protection for inhalational anthrax" is a key part of the Anthrax Vaccine Research Program effort, Marano said. In other words, she added, this part of the program will look into "what it is about the anthrax vaccine that actually protects against the threat." Researchers will ask if it's high antibody levels or something more complex taking place at the cellular level that offers protection against anthrax. "We also want to more fully characterize the immune response to protective antigen," Marano told ITP in the July 2000 interview. The anthrax vaccine contains small amounts of protective antigen (PA), which theoretically stimulates the body to produce antibodies that can protect against the PA, thereby providing a protection against anthrax infection, she said. The study will test that theory. "All we know for sure is that when vaccinated, the body gets high antibody levels," Marano said at the time. "What we want to know is whether the protective antigen is producing the immune response. Or are other factors contributing to the immune response?" The bottom line is the research could lead to a better understanding of the efficacy of the vaccine and how it works, Marano told ITP last month. Further, the research will be useful in validating the use of tests like the ELISA (enzyme linked immunoabsorbent assay) and TNA (toxin neutralization assay) as correlates of protection, according to the Jan. 22 CDC fact sheet. Both are "primary assays CDC will be using to measure the antibody response" to the anthrax vaccine, Marano said. ELISA measures antibody titers and concentration and TNA evaluates the ability of a person's immune system "to neutralize lethal toxin, the primary toxin produced by bacillus anthracis," she explained. Gaining a better understanding of how Anthrax Vaccine Adsorbed works will also lead to the "development of new strategies for predicting clinical protection against inhalational disease in humans following vaccination with current and newly developed anthrax vaccines," the fact sheet states. The United States is likely between five and 10 years away from developing a recombinant anthrax vaccine, one made using genetic engineering, Marano said. Recombinant vaccines are considered more effective and less likely to cause adverse reactions than those manufactured using traditional methods. Fewer doses may be needed to achieve immunity against anthrax using the recombinant vaccine than with Anthrax Vaccine Adsorbed. Knowledge gained from the CDC-funded Anthrax Vaccine Research Program studies can be applied to any new anthrax vaccines in the works, as well as any vaccines being developed to fight bacterial diseases, she added. Funding for the program, according to Marano, "is not only money well spent for the current generation of people having to be vaccinated; it's money well spent because everything we learn with this vaccine can be applied to the new, recombinant vaccine. "And we're hoping at the very least that we will never have to use animals again for anthrax protective efficacy research," she said. "I think we're going to learn what we need to learn from these studies." Headed for trial To conduct non-human primate studies and a human clinical trial, CDC's Anthrax Vaccine Research Program signed contracts and interagency agreements with seven institutions: Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, DC; the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD; Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX; the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN; as well as USAMRIID, Emory University and Battelle. The Anthrax Vaccine Research Program will "coordinate the studies, perform serologic assays to support the primary trial end points, and will collate, enter and analyze all the data produced" by the various efforts, the fact sheet says. Ohio State University in Columbus, OH, and the Centre for Applied Microbiology and Research in the United Kingdom, which makes the British anthrax vaccine, are subcontractors working for Battelle and will conduct in- vitro studies with samples from the rhesus monkey tests. In addition to providing advice to CDC on setting up lab tests, USAMRIID will obtain serum for the ELISA assay, according to Marano. "You need a large amount of reference serum from people already vaccinated. USAMRIID is helping us obtain those volunteers," she said. Furthermore, "the National Institutes of Health will help us to produce recombinant PA that is also needed to go into these laboratory tests." Walter Reed, Emory University, Baylor and the Mayo Clinic are performance sites for the human clinical trial. The Defense Department's Anthrax Vaccine Immunization Program will make staggered shipments of anthrax vaccine to each site. Marano expects to sign up 1,300 civilian volunteers for the trial, which is designed to answer questions about changing the route of administration by injecting the vaccine into muscle, instead of just under the skin. In addition, the trial effort will study eliminating shots required by the FDA at two weeks and 12 weeks, and giving service members boosters every other year instead of annually, according to the fact sheet. The human clinical trial could begin May 1, Marano said, pending approval of trial protocols by FDA, CDC and local ethics committees set up by the institutions conducting the study. Marano expects to submit the protocols by mid-March. If enrollment for the trial begins in May, the Anthrax Vaccine Research Program could have data to submit to the FDA in September 2002, she said. The local ethics committees, called Institutional Review Boards, are comprised of physicians, statisticians, health educators and bioethicists. They will review the protocols in detail "to make sure that what we're proposing to do takes into account the protection of human subjects," Marano said. Also, "they want to make sure the participants are fully informed . . . and that we are providing enough financial incentive to cover their costs to travel to the sites." The enrollment period could last as long as nine months, she said, and participants are expected to remain in the program for 43 months. How much they get paid will vary from site to site, but some could receive $50 a visit for 20 visits. Program officials expect to recruit members of the first-responder community -- firefighters and police officers, for example -- for the human clinical trial. "We wouldn't take exclusively from this group, but we think those people might be more motivated to take the vaccine," Marano said. In addition, volunteers will be solicited by mail and radio announcements, she said. Participants will receive a medical examination. Pregnant women are not allowed to participate. The Anthrax Vaccine Research Program is "very interested" in studying the differences between how men and women react to the vaccine, according to Marano. Women have a higher rate of short-term adverse reactions to the vaccine. Up to 30 percent of women have nodule development in the arm where the shot was administered, and they experience more pain and redness than men. "The study will look at some of these differences," she said. "What we expect to find is when you go to the intramuscular route [of administration], all those short-term side effects will go away. We think that almost all those short-term reactions are related to the fact that it's being given subcutaneously." Whether study officials will be able to enroll the required number of participants is unclear, Marano said. However, "I think there's a lot of interest . . . [from] people who feel they need to be protected," particularly in the first- responder community, she added. "It's the only way right now for a civilian to get anthrax vaccine," Marano said. "A number of investigators [at CDC] are planning to enroll. I'm planning to enroll. Mayo did a survey of their personnel and asked, 'If we did this, would you be interested to join up?' There was a 40 percent 'yes' response rate." DOD's Anthrax Vaccine Immunization Program office receives a number of calls from civilians asking where they can get vaccinated. Those calls will be directed to the research sites, Marano said. -- Keith J. Costa

Survival, Volume 43, Issue 1, pp. 93-106: Abstract. Biological terrorism and public health CF Chyba Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University, USA A biological terrorist attack probably would first be detected by doctors or other health-care workers. The speed of a response would then depend on their rapid recognition and communication that certain illnesses appeared out of the ordinary. For this reason, preparing for biological terrorism has more in common with confronting the threat of emerging infectious diseases than with preparing for chemical or nuclear attacks. Defence against bioterrorism, like protection against emerging diseases, must therefore rely on improved national and international public-health surveillance. Too often, thinking about bioterrorism has mimicked thinking about chemical terrorism, a confusion that leads to an emphasis on the wrong approaches in preparing to meet the threat…. http://www3.oup.co.uk/surviv/current/430093.sgm.abs.html

Retired Officer Magazine March 2001 Pg. 58 Battling An Unseen Enemy The U.S. Army Chemical Corps prepares our troops to identify and respond to silent killers. By Kris Ann Hegle Air Force 2nd Lt. Mike Plumb’s heart races as he enters the "hot zone" — a sealed training bay deep inside the E.F. Bullene Chemical Defense Training Facility (CDTF) at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo. He’s trained for a week to prepare for this moment, and now, clad head-to-toe in protective gear, he watches anxiously as two nerve-agent handlers enter the bay. The handlers barely look human. They wear protective masks, and heavy rubber robes, like oversized ponchos, cover their protective gear. One of them slowly reaches into a small plastic toolbox and takes out a syringe containing one of the two deadliest nerve agents in the world — gb, also known as sarin, or VX. The handler carefully applies several drops of liquid nerve agent to the fender of a humvee. Working in pairs, the trainees have to determine which nerve agent has just been released. Plumb and his partner move in close to identify the nerve agent, but they both move cautiously, knowing that coming in contact with even a tiny amount of the substance can result in a fast, excruciating death. They’ve seen chilling photos that show how nerve agents affect the body and know the symptoms of exposure — eye pain, constriction of the pupils, headache, paralysis, convulsions, tightening in the chest, respiratory failure, and, finally, death. Plumb removes a piece of chemical detection paper from a pocket-size kit and gingerly skims the paper across the surface of the liquid on the humvee fender. Within seconds the strip changes color, helping successfully identify the agent: It’s sarin, the same deadly nerve agent used by members of a Japanese religious cult during a terrorist attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995, which killed 12 people and left thousands of others ill. The need for training Training soldiers to identify and protect themselves against chemical weapons is nothing new. More than 17,000 U.S. soldiers who participated in Operation Desert Storm had completed training at the CDTF, and some say the United States’ preparation for and ability to fight in a chemically contaminated environment deterred Iraq from using its chemical and biological weapons. But Iraq isn’t the only nation with chemical or biological weapon capabilities. Despite various treaties that ban their use, at least 25 countries still have programs to develop and produce chemical or biological weapons. Such weapons are appealing because they don’t require a great deal of skill or money to produce, yet they’re capable of causing thousands of casualties. In recent years, it’s become easier to obtain the knowledge needed to build a chemical or biological weapon — "recipes" can be found in some books and on the Internet. While some ingredients needed to produce a chemical or biological weapon are difficult to obtain, others are not. Defense analysts also are concerned about security measures used to safeguard existing chemical and biological weapons. Since the disintegration of the former Soviet Union, some weapons may have become easier to obtain, due to gaps in border control and the proliferation of organized crime. Domestic terrorism is another serious threat. In 1999, the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California announced that in North America there were 107 reported incidents of terrorism involving a chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear material — 104 of them in the United States. The majority of these were hoaxes. In comparison, Asia had 21 threats and Europe just 15 during the same period. In recent years, the federal government has substantially increased funding to fight terrorism, and many new programs have been launched (see "Countering Terrorism," below). Several of these programs depend on support and training provided by the U.S. Army Chemical Corps. Expanding mission The corps was born out of necessity in World War I when German troops began to use chlorine, phosgene, and mustard gas in combat. Over the years, the corps’ mission has changed and expanded. Today, the corps trains students to effectively deter and respond to any use of nuclear, biological, or chemical (NBC) weapons directed against U.S. interests. In 1999, the Base Realignment and Closure Commission closed Fort McClellan, Ala., where the corps was located, and that base’s CDTF was transferred to the Department of Justice. The facility now trains a limited number of paramedics, police officers, firefighters, and other civilian personnel who likely would be the first to respond to a terrorist attack. Meanwhile, the corps relocated to Fort Leonard Wood, where a new $27 million CDTF was built. Fort Leonard Wood is now home to the only known military-operated CDTF in the world. Each year at the CDTF, the corps trains more than 5,000 military members from all branches of service as well as soldiers from foreign nations. Many of the U.S. service personnel trained at the CDTF aren’t members of the corps, and Plumb is no exception. He’s undergoing chemical defense training so he can serve as the readiness officer for his flight unit at Los Angeles Air Force Base in El Segundo, Calif. After he returns to his unit, Plumb will, like most of the trainees in his group, instruct others how to protect themselves from an NBC attack. Other students will use their training differently. In 1996 and 1997, chemical officers and NCOs in Bosnia identified and restricted access to toxic chemicals and other hazardous materials that posed a threat to soldiers and civilians after several industrial chemical plants in the region were damaged or destroyed by warring factions. The hot zone The landscape outside the CDTF features the peaceful, rolling Ozark Mountains. Once you enter the state-of-the-art training facility, however, you’ve stepped into another world. As Plumb and the other trainees enter the building through multiple locked doors, they feel the air rushing in around them — air drawn in by the building’s negative pressure. This safeguard ensures the air within the facility will flow from an agent-free environment through the toxic training area. The air is constantly monitored and passes through numerous filters before being released. The building is made out of reinforced concrete, and the nerve agents used during training are stored in a special vault designed to withstand natural disasters, such as earthquakes and tornadoes. In addition, numerous safeguards and multiple power sources are in place. Just inside the building is a control room filled with security monitors. Here, personnel keep watch over the grounds and all the rooms within the facility, including the bays where chemical defense training takes place. A safety-control nco videotapes and monitors each training session and maintains a three-pronged communication system (radio, intercom, and telephone) with the training rooms at all times. If this NCO sees a safety violation during training, he or she contacts the instructors immediately. Final exam Prior to entering the hot zone, students complete about a week of preparatory activities designed to hone their concentration and develop their ability to perform complex tasks while wearing the bulky protective gear. No more than 12 students are allowed in a training bay at one time. Plumb and the other students gather in the lobby as joint service instructors Master Sgt. Douglas Wheeler, USAF, and Staff Sgt. Mary Soublet, USA, bark out orders. Wheeler and Soublet appear self-assured and confident. The trainees, on the other hand, look tense. Trainees wear masks to protect their eyes and lungs from chemical agents. The masks contain voice transmitters and drinking tubes that allow trainees to drink without removing their masks. A hood protects each trainee’s head, face, and neck and is strapped to a battle dress overgarment (BDO). The BDO is lined with charcoal to absorb chemicals, and drawstrings at the wrists and ankles seal any openings. Gloves and boots made of chemical-resistant rubber protect trainees’ hands and feet. "Heat is our biggest problem," says Soublet. "The BDO alone raises your body temperature 10 degrees. Students not only have to deal with their fear, they have to deal with the fatigue caused by heat stress." Tension builds as the class lines up in the lobby. From there, they move into a narrow hallway and then into a room where their protective masks are checked and rechecked. Plumb takes his place, and a clear acrylic plastic pod is lowered over his upper body. A nontoxic but strong-smelling substance is sprayed inside the pod; if he smells the substance and reacts, the seal on his mask isn’t airtight. Plumb inhales repeatedly but doesn’t smell anything. Next, Plumb’s mask is checked once more as he goes through a series of normal motions: turning his head from side to side and up and down and reading aloud from a book. These activities affect how tightly the mask fits, because they cause the face and jaw to move. The seal on Plumb’s mask, and those of the rest of the trainees, remains airtight. From here, the class moves into a sealed training bay where students will detect, identify, and decontaminate toxic chemical agents. The students enter the small training bay and gather around a metal table. Two toxic-nerve-agent handlers enter the room and carefully apply several drops of VX at different locations on the table. All nerve agents start out as liquids and then vaporize. Plumb and his partner must identify the nerve agent in its liquid and vapor forms. Cautiously, Plumb reaches into his pocket-size detection kit and takes out a piece of treated paper (called M8 paper) — not an easy task while wearing heavy rubber gloves. Moving slowly, he skims the surface of the liquid, wetting a small portion of the M8 paper. If the liquid contains a toxic agent, the paper will react and change color. Plumb holds the paper at arm’s length, and he and his partner watch as the M8 paper quickly changes color. His partner takes out a color-coded chart and compares it with the M8 paper. The paper has turned green, which indicates the substance is VX. After completing the exercise, Plumb drops the M8 paper into a bucket filled with decontaminant that will neutralize the nerve agent. Next, Plumb and his partner use an M256 detection kit to check for vapor hazards. This kit contains a small sheet of cardboard studded with a series of porous, transparent bubbles. Within each bubble is a small pill filled with a liquid solution that will react to chemical vapors. Plumb gently smashes one of the bubbles to release the liquid solution. Again, he and his partner detect the nerve agent VX. Before moving on, one trainee is chosen to clean the table using a highly corrosive decontaminant called DS2. Smoke rises eerily from the table as the DS2 mixes with the nerve agent and destroys it. The trainees’ next exercise takes place in a large training bay that simulates field conditions and houses an armored personnel carrier, the frame of a helicopter, and other equipment normally found on a battlefield. Again, Plumb and his partner must find the toxic nerve agent and identify it. Using M8 paper, they test some liquid on the nose of the helicopter and determine that it’s the deadly nerve agent sarin. Then, they move on to test an ominous-looking puddle of liquid on the armored personnel carrier. This time, the M8 paper doesn’t react at all. This liquid, as it turns out, is nothing but water. The instructors call the trainees together, and they assemble around a mannequin dressed in camouflage clothing and sprawled across the top of several wooden crates. The mannequin simulates a victim of the deadly effects of the nerve agent. Plumb and the others take turns treating this hypothetical casualty by injecting the mannequin with a nerve-agent antidote. By the end of the training exercises, Plumb and the other trainees appear more self-assured. "You’re definitely much more aware of your senses when you’re in the chamber," Plumb says. "When you first walk in there, you’re sort of strolling. Then, you start concentrating on the task, rather than being nervous about your own safety." The students go through a multistep decontamination process. Before they leave the facility (as they do at several intervals during the training), their eyes are checked for miosis, a constriction of the pupil that is one of the first symptoms of nerve-agent exposure. "We use the real stuff so our students can gain confidence," explains Army Lt. Col. James E. Smith, director of the CDTF who has spent 19 years in the service, 16 of them in the corps. "You don’t want your first exposure to nerve agents to be in combat. You’ve got to have confidence in yourself, your procedures, and your equipment." Confidence in the protective equipment used by U.S. servicemembers was called into question in February 2000 after a Department of Defense (DoD) inspector general’s report revealed manufacturer defects in certain BDO production lots. Although some BDOs from a defective lot were discovered at the CDTF at Fort Leonard Wood, no defects were found. Still, the suits were removed from the active inventory. Currently, BDOs and other protective gear worn by chemical specialists vary by service. However, the services recently adopted a universal uniform — suit, boots, and gloves — for use by chemical defenders service-wide. Unlike the current bdos, the new chemical protection suit is lighter and washable and can be integrated with a standard duty uniform. Future of the corps Despite military downsizing and cost-cutting, the U.S. Army Chemical Corps is more visible now than at any time in its previous 83 years. The corps has taken a proactive role in training chemical defenders and developing protective equipment and detection systems, and more countermeasures are in the works (see "High-Tech Battlefield Training," above). Applying lessons learned in the Gulf War, U.S. military units will have standoff-detection capabilities that can identify chemically and biologically contaminated areas and provide early warning to personnel so they can take defensive protective measures. In addition, DoD is developing a number of new vaccines to counter toxic biological agents. Civilians also are benefiting from the corps’ proactive role in training and preparing Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Teams that will respond if there is an nbc threat or an attack on American soil. Members from all 27 support teams will receive training at Fort Leonard Wood. Although the corps’ duties have expanded, its mission remains the same. From the past to the present to the future, the U.S. Army Chemical Corps will continue to protect soldiers and civilians from any NBC threat. High-Tech Battlefield Training Nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) defense training at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., stretches beyond the confines of the E.F. Bullene Chemical Defense Training Facility building. Some chemical specialists, who hail from units with different missions in every branch of the service, also learn to take their training to the battlefield. Simulated, nontoxic biological agents are used during outdoor training exercises, where NBC specialists learn how to operate one of two vehicle detection systems — the Fox or the Biological Integrated Detection System (BIDS). The Fox, used in Operation Desert Storm, is a six-wheeled light armored vehicle capable of moving at high speeds and detecting and identifying chemical agents while on the move. In a combat situation, the Fox could be deployed in conjunction with early entry of U.S. troops. If chemical agents were detected, personnel inside the Fox could retrieve and retain samples and mark contaminated areas without leaving the vehicle. An overpressure system protects the crew inside the Fox from any chemical warfare agents outside. This allows the crew to perform their tasks inside the vehicle in reduced protective chemical gear. Although the Fox doesn’t detect biological agents, it does protect its crew from biological hazards. The vehicle also has the ability to mark known areas as well as collect samples, which can be analyzed later. Like the Fox, the BIDS contains an overpressure system that protects its crew and allows them to perform their tasks without having to don protective gear. Unlike the Fox, which can detect chemical warfare agents while on the move, the BIDS must remain stationary to detect biological warfare agents. This humvee-mounted mobile lab is a point detector, meaning that in combat, individual BIDS systems would be deployed throughout an area of operations to create a sensor array network. The network could then detect, presumptively identify, and give troops advance warning of a biological attack. Fashion Plates All the training in the world won’t amount to much if soldiers are incapacitated. Thus, wearing the proper protective gear — from head to toe — is critical to soldiers’ training at the E.F. Bullene Chemical Defense Training Facility at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo. 1. A hood protects the head, face,and neck and attaches to the mask, which seals and covers the face. A series of filters purifies air, while a drinking tube allows a soldier to drink without removing the mask. A voice transmitter allows clear communication. 2. The charcoal-lined battle dress overgarment, which comes in woodland and desert camouflage, absorbs chemical agents and seals at the wrists and ankles with drawstrings. 3. Chemical-resistant rubber gloves and overshoes protect hands and feet. The overshoes are worn over tennis shoes in training and over standard-issue boots during combat. The services recently adopted a universal uniform that is lighter and washable and can be integrated with a standard duty uniform. Countering Terrorism In 1995, a nerve-gas attack by the religious cult Aum Shinri Kyo in the Tokyo subway killed 12 passengers and left more than a thousand others injured. In 1997, police in Washington, D.C., quarantined a city block after a petri dish labeled anthrax arrived in the mail at B’nai B’rith, a national Jewish organization. (The incident was a hoax.) In 1999 James Kenneth Gluck was arrested after he threatened to poison two Colorado judges with ricin, a toxic biological agent. The raw materials for making ricin were later seized from his home in Tampa, Fla. These and other incidents have caught the attention of U.S. military leaders and local law enforcement officers. They’ve also captured the attention of politicians, who have dramatically increased federal funding to counter terrorism. In May 1998, President Clinton directed the Department of Defense (DoD) to form 10 teams to support state and local authorities in the event of an incident involving a weapon of mass destruction. Even before the first teams began training, Congress ordered the creation of 17 additional teams. These Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Civil Support Teams consist of 22 full-time Army or Air National Guard members. The teams will deploy and assist first responders (local and state law enforcement officers, FBI agents, and emergency medical technicians) in incidents involving nuclear, biological, chemical, or radiological agents. When WMD teams deploy, they automatically will fall under the Incident Command System, a chain of command developed by first responders to minimize confusion at an incident site. Once a team arrives on the scene, it will help local officials by providing the tools, training, and expertise needed to assess the situation and advise them on how to respond and request additional support. The first 10 teams, which are located in each Federal Emergency Management Agency region, have completed training and are in the final stages of earning DoD certification. The remaining 17 will complete training by mid- 2001 and will be based in states around the country. Although these 17 teams will operate under their state’s National Guard, they can cross state lines when requested and can be on-site anywhere within their region of responsibility within four hours. Each team is equipped with civilian vehicles, detection and decontamination equipment, medical supplies, and protective gear. The teams also are equipped with a mobile lab and a state-of-the-art command suite that can handle communications for the entire operation.

Inside The Pentagon March 8, 2001 Pg. 11 Bush Gives Rumsfeld Helm On Russian Energy Alternatives Study President Bush this week assigned Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to study how Russia can replace three plutonium production reactors with alternative sources of energy that do not pose a proliferation risk. In a March 5 White House memorandum, Bush delegated the congressionally mandated task to Rumsfeld. Lawmakers called for the report in the fiscal year 2001 Defense Authorization Act. Rumsfeld, in turn, cannot delegate the task to a Defense Department official "lower than the assistant secretary level," according to the memo. The three plutonium production reactors -- located in two cities, Seversk and Zelenogorsk -- are the only ones still operating among 13 employed in the Soviet Union's vast nuclear weapons complex. The reactors "still produce over a ton of weapon-grade plutonium each year -- enough for 200 Nagasaki bombs," according to a "public interest report" published online late last year by the Washington, DC-based Federation of American Scientists. Nonproliferation policy experts Frank von Hippel and Matthew Bunn wrote the report. The authors worked at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy during the Clinton administration. The plutonium-producing reactors are still operational because they serve as the only real heat source during the long Siberian winter for one-quarter of a million people, the FAS report notes. Lawmakers directed the president to study alternative energy sources for the cities of Seversk and Zelenogorsk. The study also must include: * "An assessment of the costs of building fossil fuel plants in Russia to replace the existing plutonium production reactors; and * "An identification of funding sources, other than Cooperative Threat Reduction funds, that could possibly be used for the construction of such plants in the event that the option to use fossil fuel energy is chosen as part of a plan to shut down Russia's nuclear plutonium production reactors." The law prohibits the use of fiscal year 2001 CTR funds to build a fossil fuel energy plant to service communities that depend on power provided by the three plutonium-producing reactors. -- Keith J. Costa