USAF COUNTERPROLIFERATION CENTER

CPC OUTREACH JOURNAL

Maxwell AFB, Alabama

Issue No. 342, 25 May 2004

Articles & Other Documents:

Simulated Attack At Pentagon Tests Government State confirms N. Korea light-water reactor talk Response Capabilities Senate Approves $5.6 Billion for 10-Year 'Bioshield' Inside The Ring Project Biodefense Lab In U.S. Is Questioned Evidence Is Cited Linking Koreans to Libya Uranium The North Korean Uranium Challenge U.S. Announces It Intends To Move Tons Of Uranium From Baghdad Case Reveals Nuts And Bolts Of Nuclear Network, Homeland Security: DHS Needs a Strategy to Use Officials Say DOE's Laboratories for Research on Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Detection and Response Technologies. (GAO Report)

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 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 Jo Ann Eddy, CPC Outreach Editor, at (334) 953- 7538 or DSN 493-7538. To subscribe, change e-mail address, or unsubscribe to this journal or to request inclusion on the mailing list for CPC publications, please contact Mrs. Eddy. The following articles, papers or documents do not necessarily reflect official endorsement of the 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

GovExec.com May 19, 2004 Simulated Attack At Pentagon Tests Government Response Capabilities By Chris Strohm The government's ability to respond to another domestic terrorist attack was put to the test Wednesday when a simulated radiological "dirty bomb" went off at the Pentagon. The exercise, called Gallant Fox II, was staged to test the Pentagon Force Protection Agency's emergency response units in a real-world scenario. Meanwhile, in New York City, the federal commission investigating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks at the Pentagon and World Trade Center ended two days of hearings on emergency response Wednesday by concluding that agencies were plagued by poor communication and coordination. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge testified Wednesday before the commission. "Poor communications across agencies harmed situational awareness," the commission announced in a written statement following Wednesday's hearing. "Commanders had difficulty communicating with their units, and could not account comprehensively for units once they arrived at the World Trade Center. The response at the Pentagon, generally successful, was plagued with similar problems of self-dispatching and poor communications." PFPA Chief John Jester said Wednesday's drill at the Pentagon showed that agencies could effectively handle another domestic attack. "Here in the Pentagon, we think we're well prepared," he said. "I think overall the government is preparing and having exercises throughout the country. Everyone's working just like we are in trying to teach their personnel how to respond to various situations." The simulation consisted of a terrorist parking a car with a radiological bomb at a Pentagon parking lot. Sensors near the Pentagon alerted officials that a radiological device was in the area. The terrorist then approached a group of soldiers in training and blew himself up with a conventional bomb, killing some soldiers and injuring many others. The suicide attack was a diversionary tactic to prevent officials from reaching the car and diffusing the bomb. Pentagon police and fire crews from Arlington, Va., arrived on the scene and began to tend to the bomb victims while a PFPA hazardous materials crew began searching for the bomb. The crew found the explosive but was unable to diffuse it before it went off, sending a plume of radiological smoke into the air heading for a nearby Arlington community. The rest of the exercise consisted of simulated responses, including tending to victims, evacuations and closing of roadways. Jester said PFPA was created in May 2002 to replace the Defense Protective Services and provide the capability to respond to any emergency. The agency has 800 employees and is still hiring, he added. "After 9/11, it was decided that we needed to beef up that organization with more resources but also to have an organization that can deal with any kind of threat," he said. "The term 'force protection' within [Defense] is meant to have measures for all kinds of emergencies." Since then, PFPA has developed a public address and electronic messaging system to inform personnel at the Pentagon what to do during an emergency. The Pentagon was not evacuated Wednesday, but personnel were notified about the drill. "We're constantly training, constantly looking at our procedures, revising those procedures and trying to stay on top of what intelligence is around so that we're ready for any event that might occur," Jester said. "What we're trying to do is make people in [the Pentagon] more aware of what they should do," he added. "We have a system in the Pentagon to communicate to the employees ... We have a public address system which is very clear now throughout the entire building so we can get on one microphone and talk to the entire building, all 17 miles of hallway. At the same time, we have a computer emergency network system where we can put a message on our computer and then send it and it will hit all 20,000 computers in the building within a minute or so." Other federal, state and local agencies participated in the event, including the Environmental Protection Agency, FBI, Federal Aviation Administration, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Energy, and Homeland Security departments, U.S. Park Police, the American Red Cross, Washington, D.C., police and several fire and police departments from Virginia. Jester said a formal review of the drill would begin on Thursday to determine what lessons were learned. http://govexec.com/dailyfed/0504/051904c1.htm

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Washington Times May 20, 2004 State confirms N. Korea light-water reactor talk By Bill Gertz, The Washington Times The State Department yesterday confirmed that North Korea discussed another deal with the United States for a nuclear reactor program during closed-door talks in Beijing last week, as three lawmakers urged the Bush administration not to resurrect a reactor deal with Pyongyang. State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said North Korean negotiators "did raise the reactor issue, but it's not something that we entertained." He said the United States will not agree to provide North Korea reactors until it first agrees to abandon its nuclear arms programs. Mr. Ereli's comments were in response to a story in The Washington Times yesterday that said the U.S. negotiator told the North Koreans construction of a light-water reactor is possible if the communist country gives up its nuclear program and rejoins international nuclear control agreements. The story, citing anonymous U.S. officials, set off a debate within the U.S. government over whether its chief negotiator, Joseph DeTrani, had exceeded his instructions, which limited discussion of light-water reactors. Mr. Ereli said the U.S. goal in the six-party talks, which ended Friday, was to build a consensus for North Korea to agree to "complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement." "We're not prepared to provide inducements to North Korea for compliance with its international obligations," Mr. Ereli said. "Talking about one aspect of North Korea's nuclear program or another aspect of the nuclear program is not where we're at." The United States, Japan and South Korea agreed to provide North Korea with two light-water reactors as part of the 1994 Agreed Framework, in exchange for Pyongyang stopping all work on nuclear arms. That agreement collapsed after North Korea's disclosure in October 2002 that it had a covert uranium enrichment program that could be used to make nuclear weapons. A light-water nuclear reactor is supposed to be safer because it limits the possibility of using it for making weapons. On Capitol Hill, three members of Congress wrote yesterday to Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, urging the administration to withdraw any offer of a reactor to North Korea. "This idea should be taken off the table immediately," the lawmakers said. The letter was signed by Rep. Christopher Cox, California Republican; Rep. Henry J. Hyde, Illinois Republican, and Sen. Jon Kyl, Republican, who were commenting on The Times article. Mr. Cox is chairman of the Homeland Security Committee and Mr. Hyde is chairman of the International Relations Committee. "North Korea has a long and dangerous history of violating the international nonproliferation agreements it has signed," the letter stated. "We urge you to step up America's public diplomacy on this issue to ease any ambiguity in the U.S. position and to ensure that Kim Jong-il's negotiators fully comprehend that this aspect of the Agreed Framework will not be resurrected." According to Bush administration officials familiar with the talks, North Korean negotiator Ri Gun asked whether the light-water reactors would be supplied if North Korea addressed its "highly enriched uranium program" during a side meeting with Mr. DeTrani. The officials said Mr. DeTrani indicated to the North Koreans that reactor construction could be "one element" of a U.S. policy response. Mr. Gun's comment marked the first time since 2002 that the North Koreans acknowledged having the secret uranium enrichment program since the program was disclosed in October 2002, setting off the Northeast Asian nuclear crisis. Mr. DeTrani also told the North Koreans that before the reactor deal could be discussed, Pyongyang would have to rejoin the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and allow International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors to return to monitor North Korean nuclear activities. Mr. Ereli said yesterday that getting North Korea to rejoin the NPT and agree to additional international nuclear monitoring are "critical first steps." The Pyongyang government pulled out of the NPT in January 2003 and expelled IAEA inspectors in December 2002. Mr. Ereli declined to discuss the specific exchanges at the Beijing meetings, which included representatives of China, Japan, South Korea and Russia. The spokesman also stated that "as a matter of policy, that we do not see a future for the light-water reactor project." http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040519-111654-4049r.htm

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Los Angeles Times May 20, 2004 Senate Approves $5.6 Billion for 10-Year 'Bioshield' Project Bill to spur production of drugs to protect from terrorist attacks could made law within days. By Vicki Kemper, Times Staff Writer WASHINGTON — Repeatedly invoking the threat of terrorism, the Senate on Wednesday unanimously approved a $5.6-billion, 10-year initiative to encourage private industry to develop vaccines and drugs that would protect Americans from biological, chemical or nuclear attacks. If terrorists have access to anthrax, smallpox, botulism toxin, plague or Ebola virus, said Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), "there is no question they will use it. And they will use it in a place where people gather to go about their daily lives." The Senate vote came more than two years after anthrax-filled letters caused five fatalities, changed the way mail was inspected and delivered, and highlighted the nation's vulnerability to bioterrorist attacks. President Bush, who on Wednesday praised passage of the bill as "another important step in winning the war on terror," proposed Project Bioshield in his 2003 State of the Union address. The House passed a bill, 421-2, last summer, but the legislation stalled in the Senate over the technical concerns of a handful of lawmakers. To get around that impasse, Congress included funding for the initiative in this year's federal budget. That provision allows the government to spend up to $890 million on Project Bioshield this year and as much as $3.4 billion through 2008. House leaders now have agreed to accept the Senate's version of the legislation, and Bush could sign it into law within days. Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the government already was negotiating with several companies for the production and purchase of bioterrorism countermeasures. In March, the government opened bidding on contracts to buy as many as 75 million doses of an experimental anthrax vaccine. Fauci said that the government has stockpiled enough smallpox vaccine to treat everyone in the country and that significant progress has been made in developing four specific products: a modified smallpox vaccine, a licensed anthrax vaccine that could be administered in three doses rather than the current six, a botulism antitoxin and an Ebola vaccine. In a rare display of bipartisanship, Republican and Democratic senators praised Project Bioshield, saying it would speed the development of anti-bioterrorism drugs and vaccines by guaranteeing private pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies a government market for their products. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) called the bill, which he co-sponsored, "a major down payment in terms of health security for all Americans." The legislation also would give the government the authority to purchase and stockpile large quantities of vaccines and drugs, to be distributed to public health officials in areas after an attack by terrorists using the smallpox virus, anthrax powder or other biological agents. The government will work with private companies to develop anti-bioterrorism products, and then "guarantee you we'll buy it, even if we never use it," Fauci said. In the event of a public health emergency created by a bioterrorism attack, the legislation would suspend the Food and Drug Administration's normal drug-approval process. It would allow the secretary of Health and Human Services to order the distribution of drugs and vaccines even if they had not been fully approved and licensed by the FDA. But lawmakers of both parties also said the nation remained unprepared for a significant bioterrorism attack. "We are still not appropriately prepared against biologic agents," said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), describing them as dangerous substances that "you can't see, you can't touch, you can't smell, you can't hear." Kennedy cited recent reports by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, and the nonprofit Trust for America's Health on the failure of hospitals and public health agencies to prepare for bioterrorism attacks. "We still have a great ways to go," he said. The Senate's passage of Project Bioshield is good news to the biotech industry, because about 100 companies are believed to have anti-bioterrorism products in the research and development pipeline. Robert Marsella, a vice president for San Diego-based Hollis-Eden Pharmaceuticals, said Project Bioshield would spur its development of a drug to treat radiation sickness. "Our contractors are on hold right now, waiting to ramp up production," pending FDA approval, he said. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-bioshield20may20,1,4411942.story?coll=la-headlines- nation

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Washington Times May 21, 2004 Pg. 6 Inside The Ring By Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough Early warning John A. Shaw, the deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, warned months ago that 's hidden weapons of mass destruction may be intermingled with its huge stocks of conventional arms. Mr. Shaw wrote an Oct. 28 letter to Gen. John Abizaid, commander of the U.S. Central Command, asking for the command's help in tracking down companies and individuals who violated U.S. law and the international arms embargo by shipping arms to Saddam Hussein's regime. Mr. Shaw stated in the letter that he had information showing "there is a high probability of [weapons of mass destruction] munitions being intermingled everywhere in Iraq with conventional weapons." That scenario played this month when two chemical munitions — one containing the blister agent mustard and one containing the nerve agent sarin — were found by U.S. forces in Iraq. The improvised bomb found Saturday was a 155 mm artillery shell that insurgents apparently did not know was filled with two chemicals that make sarin when the round is fired. The shell partially exploded and a small quantity of sarin was released, slightly injuring two U.S. soldiers. Syrian weapons Syria's rogue status has been elevated again. Its long history of occupying Lebanon and supporting terror groups has been augmented by new misdeeds: facilitating the movement of foreign terrorists from its soil to Iraq to kill Americans and Iraqis. It now faces new U.S. economic sanctions. We thought it would be a good time to disclose how the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) assesses Syria's arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. It's contained in a secret DIA report disclosed for the first time in "Rumsfeld's War: The Untold Story of America's Anti-Terrorist Commander," a new book by Rowan Scarborough, a reporter for The Washington Times and one of this column's writers. The DIA states: "Currently those countries that have a delivery capability for both chemical and biological agents include Russia, Iraq, China and North Korea. has a chemical weapons capability and probably a limited biological agent delivery means; Libya, Egypt, India, Taiwan, , South Korea and Syria have chemical weapons capabilities. ... Moreover, Libya, Syria and probably can produce biological agents on a limited scale and presumably have some means of delivery even if not by military systems." http://www.washtimes.com/national/inring.htm

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Baltimore Sun May 21, 2004 Biodefense Lab In U.S. Is Questioned By Scott Shane, Sun National Staff Three veteran biological arms control experts have published a statement questioning research plans for a Department of Homeland Security biodefense lab at Fort Detrick, saying it may undermine the international ban on biological weapons. The commentary, posted this week on the Web site of the journal Politics and the Life Sciences, expresses concern that the government's aggressive biodefense efforts could backfire by prompting other nations to step up research on bioweapons. At the heart of the problem is the fact that there is often little difference between defensive and offensive bioweapons research. The commentary was written by James F. Leonard, who led the U.S. delegation that negotiated the Biological Weapons Convention in 1972; Richard O. Spertzel, a former official of the Army's biodefense center at Fort Detrick and chief United Nations bioweapons inspector in Iraq; and Milton Leitenberg, an expert on arms control at the University of Maryland. Their critique was sparked by plans for Homeland Security's National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center (NBACC) as described in a presentation by Lt. Col. George W. Korch Jr., deputy head of the center, that was posted on the Web. Established last year, the center is operating out of temporary offices at Fort Detrick until its $200 million high-security laboratory can be built. The plans Korch outlined for the NBACC include genetically engineering viruses and bacteria to make them deadlier to devise vaccines and drugs to defeat them. The center will also test ways of making pathogens into an aerosol that can be inhaled, the most likely form of bioterror attack. The critics note that the Biological Weapons Convention outlaws not only the production and stockpiling of bioweapons, but their "development" as well. They say the plans outlined by Korch may constitute such prohibited weapons development and "certainly will be interpreted that way" by other nations. "The rapidity of elaboration of American biodefense programs, their ambition and administrative aggressiveness, and the degree to which they push against the prohibitions of the Biological Weapons Convention, are startling," the critics say. A spokesman for Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment. In the past the department has said that the NBACC will be devoted exclusively to defensive research but that a robust defense requires a detailed understanding of all possible threats. Leonard, 84, a retired diplomat, said he fears that other countries will see U.S. research as a challenge. "In French labs, German labs, Russian labs, Egyptian labs, scientists will say, 'Look at what the United States is doing; we have to at least keep up,'" he said. http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.bio21may21,1,4342816.story

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New York Times Evidence Is Cited Linking Koreans to Libya Uranium By DAVID E. SANGERand WILLIAM J. BROAD Published: May 23, 2004 ASHINGTON, May 22 — International inspectors have discovered evidence that North Korea secretly provided Libya with nearly two tons of uranium in early 2001, which if confirmed would be the first known case in which the North Korean government has sold a key ingredient for manufacturing atomic weapons to another country, according to American officials and European diplomats familiar with the intelligence. A giant cask of uranium hexafluoride was turned over to the United States by the Libyans earlier this year as part of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi's agreement to give up his nuclear program, and the Americans identified Pakistan as the likely source. But in recent weeks the International Atomic Energy Agency has found strong evidence that the uranium came from North Korea, basing its conclusion on interviews of members of the secret nuclear supplier network set up by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the former head of Pakistan's main nuclear laboratory. Two years ago, the United States charged that North Korea was working to build its own uranium-based nuclear weapons, which would require the same raw materials. The uranium shipped to Libya could not be used as nuclear fuel unless it was enriched in centrifuges, which the Libyans were constructing as part of a $100 million program to purchase equipment from the Khan network. If enriched, the fuel Libya obtained could produce a single nuclear weapon, experts say. But the Libyan discovery suggests that North Korea may be capable of producing far larger quantities, especially because the country maintains huge mines that the Federation of American Scientists has described as "four million tons of exploitable high-quality uranium." At a moment when the Bush administration is focused on Iraq, the fresh intelligence on North Korea poses another challenge to the United States. The classified evidence — many details of which are still sketchy — has touched off a race among the world's intelligence services to explore whether North Korea has made similar clandestine sales to other nations or perhaps even to terror groups seeking atomic weapons. "The North Koreans have been selling missiles for years to many countries," one senior Bush administration official said recently, referring to the country's well-known sales to Iran, Syria, Egypt, Pakistan and other nations. "Now, we have to look at their trading network in a very different context, to see if something much worse was happening as well." Iran has bought centrifuges from the Khan network, investigators believe, but it has denied it is seeking a nuclear weapon. Last year Bush administration officials were warning that North Korea could make good on its threats to provide nuclear materials or weapons. But until just a few weeks ago, American officials said they had no evidence that the country was selling much beyond the missiles and missile technology that have long been among its chief exports. Now, only weeks after Vice President Dick Cheney declared that "time is not on our side" in the North Korean nuclear crisis, the International Atomic Energy Agency's discovery suggests that North Korea has done just what many experts have warned: It has turned into a supplier of nuclear technology. While reluctant to discuss the details, American officials describe the discovery of the North Korean connection as an intelligence success that came indirectly from Libya's decision to dismantle its nuclear program, and the ensuing drive to break up Dr. Khan's network. President Bush has said several times that Libya made its decision after it witnessed the American invasion of Iraq, an argument the Libyans reject. The sources the agency has developed into the Khan network are considered reliable, a European diplomat familiar with the intelligence said, but the experience of false and deliberately misleading reports about Iraq's weapons programs has made both the international agency and the United States more cautious. The agency hopes to confirm the finding with the North Koreans, but since I.A.E.A. inspectors were evicted on Dec. 31, 2002, there has been virtually no contact with the North Korean government. At the same time, the emerging story of the North Korean sales also reveals another intelligence lapse: Though American satellites monitor North Korea more carefully than almost any nation, intelligence officials apparently failed to detect the uranium shipments. As recently as March, when the Bush administration invited reporters to a secure Y-12 nuclear facility in Tennessee to view the nuclear hardware turned over by Libya, a senior administration official said that Libya's uranium had likely come from Pakistan. American officials say they are now backing away from that statement, while they seek to verify the new evidence. As the I.A.E.A. continues its investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Energy Department and the State Department's intelligence unit are engaged in what one official called "two or three separate reviews" of the American assessment of the size of North Korea's nuclear arsenal. Their main focus is North Korea's plutonium program, which was restarted after international atomic inspectors were thrown out of the country 17 months ago. Since then, according to North Korea, it has turned into bomb fuel all of the nuclear fuel rods that the international agency had under its supervision. If that boast turns out to be correct, nuclear experts estimate that plutonium fuel could be used to produce six to eight nuclear weapons. Within the Bush administration there is a heated debate about how far North Korea has progressed. The State Department intelligence agency, which is typically more cautious, says it is unconvinced that North Korea has produced those weapons, while the C.I.A. and D.I.A. are more convinced that the processing of the fuel is probably complete and that the plutonium has been converted into weapons. Of equal interest to American intelligence officials is a second, uranium-based nuclear program that they believe North Korea built with Dr. Khan's help, but which American intelligence has never located. A crucial element of that program, officials say, could be the equipment to turn raw uranium into uranium hexafluoride. International atomic inspectors suspect that the Libyan shipment of uranium hexafluoride may have come from such a facility, though it is possible it was processed elsewhere, European diplomats and American officials say. The two leading suspect sites appear to be in North Korea and in Pakistan, which has produced the material for its own nuclear program. The European diplomat said the I.A.E.A.'s evidence emerged during investigations of Dr. Khan's network, not during talks with the Libyans. In fact, the atomic agency is investigating whether the Libyans knew that North Korea was the original source of the uranium it obtained on a black market that American officials have said included many middlemen. "The North Koreans are actively involved in the network," said the European diplomat. "We want to talk to them," he said, adding that right now "our relationship is zero." The European diplomat declined to reveal the identity of the sources in the Khan network who disclosed the North Korean connection. If the work to convert the raw uranium into uranium hexafluoride turns out to have been done in North Korea, he added, that would throw new light on the nation's secretive efforts to enrich uranium for nuclear arms. "That's a big thing," the diplomat said. "It means they have a capability they have been hiding from us." It would also mean that the United States unknowingly has been holding North Korean-made uranium since January, when it flew it out of Libya in a secret flight to the United States. In a report the next month, I.A.E.A. described that uranium, saying it amounted to 1.7 metric tons (or 1.87 American tons) of uranium hexafluoride, a standard raw material for feeding centrifuges. When heated, this substance turns into a gas that is ideal for processing to recover uranium's rare U-235 isotope, which easily splits in two to produce bursts of atomic energy. Making uranium hexafluoride is considered one of the key challenges in developing nuclear arms. The report said agency inspectors found that the uranium had been slightly enriched in the rare U-235 isotope to a level of about 1 percent, which is just above the usual concentration of 0.7 percent found in natural uranium ore. Bomb fuel is typically about 90 percent U-235. Libya, the agency added in its February report, "has not yet confirmed the origin" of the imported uranium. Private nuclear experts said the 1.7 metric tons of uranium was an ideal quantity for checking to see if thousands of centrifuges, linked up in what is known as a cascade, could successfully process the uranium hexafluoride to concentrate the U-235 isotope. In that sense, they added, Libya's possession of the material was vital to the success of its clandestine nuclear effort. Dr. Thomas B. Cochran, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington, a private group that tracks nuclear arms, said that Libyan centrifuges in theory could have processed the 1.7 metric tons to make enough fuel for one small atom bomb. In March, the Bush administration held a lavish media event at Oak Ridge, Tenn., at which it displayed Libyan centrifuges and a large uranium cylinder representative of the recovered one. More than a dozen guards protected the material with high-powered rifles. The cask itself was not put on display. In recent months, intelligence agencies in Europe and in the United States have picked up indications that North Korea has nuclear ties not only to Libya but also to Iran, which has embarked on a sprawling nuclear effort that Iran claims is peaceful but was also secretly aided for many years by Dr. Khan and his atomic black market. Officials said no evidence had been found of North Korea aiding Iran with equipment or raw material but rather signs that scientists were lending nuclear expertise. "North Korean experts have been monitored at Iranian nuclear sites," said a senior arms control expert familiar with the intelligence reports. David E. Sanger reported from Washington for this article and William J. Broad from New York. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/23/international/asia/23NUKE.html?th

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New York Times May 24, 2004 News Analysis The North Korean Uranium Challenge By David E. Sanger WASHINGTON, May 23 - The discovery that North Korea may have supplied uranium to Libya poses an immediate challenge to the White House: while President Bush is preoccupied on the other side of the world, an economically desperate nation may be engaging in exactly the kind of nuclear proliferation that the president says he went to war in Iraq to halt. Yet to listen to many in the White House, concern about North Korea's nuclear program brings little of the urgency that surrounded the decision 14 months ago to oust Saddam Hussein. When Mr. Bush has been asked about North Korea in recent months, he has emphasized his patience. He does not refer to the intelligence estimates that North Korea has at least two nuclear weapons, or to the debate within the American intelligence community about whether North Korea has spent the past 18 months building more. Instead, he lauds the progress he says the United States has made in organizing China, Russia, Japan and South Korea to negotiate as one with the North Koreans - though those talks have resulted in no progress so far in ending either of North Korea's two major nuclear programs. Just last week, the Pentagon even announced it was removing a brigade of troops that had been securing South Korea's border with the North, and sending it to provide additional forces for the Iraqi occupation. With international inspectors recently reporting that North Korea may have shipped uranium, already processed into a gas that can be fed into centrifuges for enrichment into bomb fuel, the White House has been silent. On Sunday, a White House spokesman declined to talk about the reports, other than to issue a statement at the president's ranch in Texas that the news proves the need for "the United States policy for North Korea to disarm in a complete, verifiable and irreversible fashion." "I admit there appears to be more than a little irony here," said one senior administration official, when asked how what he thought Mr. Bush might have said in public if Saddam Hussein - instead of Kim Jong Il, the North Korean leader - had been suspected of shipping raw material for nuclear weapons to a country like Libya. "But Iraq was a different problem, in a different place, and we had viable military options," he continued. In North Korea, he said, Mr. Bush has virtually none. Indeed, the problems and the threats are different, even though Mr. Hussein's Iraq was lumped with North Korea as part of the "axis of evil" that President Bush cited in 2002. Even hawks within the administration - a group led by Vice President Dick Cheney, who said on a trip to Asia last month that "time is not necessarily on our side" - see no major risk that North Korea will lash out at its neighbors or the United States. The country is broke; American military officials say it can barely afford the jet fuel to give its fighter pilots time to train. Iraq, too, was in desperate economic straits, but it at least had oil revenue, skimmed from the United Nations oil-for-food program, and active trade. North Korea is literally starving; millions have died of malnutrition. But the same poverty that makes North Korea less of a military threat makes it a potent proliferation threat. For years, the North's main export has been missiles. It has sold them to Pakistan, Egypt, Iran, Syria, Libya and others, often sending its engineers abroad to fabricate custom designs. The reports of likely uranium sales to Libya have created the chilling possibility that the North has now found a new and profitable product - and that Libya may not have been the only customer. "Many predicted that sooner or later we would have to worry about the North Koreans not only as users but as exporters of nuclear technology," said Daniel Poneman, a former national security official and co-author of "Going Critical" (Brookings Institution Press, 2004), a new book about the first North Korean nuclear crisis in the mid-1990's. It was this fear that Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage expressed to Congress last year, when he warned that North Korea would not have to develop complete nuclear arms to become a serious threat; it could sell ingredients. In short, if the North's sales to Libya are confirmed, the nightmare that Mr. Bush discussed so often last year - the sale of "the world's worst weapons to the world's most dangerous dictators" - may be happening at the other end of the axis. Iraq, it turns out, had little or nothing to sell. Mr. Bush has addressed the issue chiefly through an agreement among a growing number of nations to intercept suspected shipments of illegal weapons, nuclear parts or chemical precursors. The United States, Germany and Italy stopped a shipment of nuclear equipment to Libya last year, apparently convincing Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi to give up his nuclear program. Beyond the interception strategy, there is a widespread sense in Washington that neither the Bush administration nor North Korea has much incentive to confront the nuclear issue this year. Mr. Bush, notes Don Oberdorfer, the author of "The Two Koreas: A Contemporary History" (Basic Books, 2002), is not "prepared to do anything about North Korea because he is overcommitted in Iraq and has a great loathing of dealing with the North Koreans directly." The result, Mr. Oberdorfer argues, is that the United States is not "making the kind of preliminary compromises that would be necessary to get a negotiation going." Administration officials disagree, saying that North Korea should not be rewarded for cheating on its past nuclear agreements and must begin dismantling weapons before it sees any economic benefits. So far this has been a prescription for stalemate. But many in the administration agree that Mr. Kim has his own reasons for not seeking a deal this year: the North Korean leader is presumed to be rooting for Mr. Bush's defeat in November, in hopes he will face a more willing negotiating partner in John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic nominee. The risk is that by the time the two countries re-engage, North Korea could have six or eight more weapons, according to the most dire estimates in the C.I.A. and the Defense Intelligence Agency, a view that more cautious intelligence analysts say is based more on conjecture about the North's engineering skills than any real intelligence. Such a number could let the North keep one or two for its own use, and have more to sell, in whole or parts, which is a very different position. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/24/politics/24asse.html

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New York Times May 22, 2004 U.S. Announces It Intends To Move Tons Of Uranium From Baghdad By James Glanz VIENNA, May 21 — The United States has informed an international agency that oversees nuclear materials that it intends to move hundreds of tons of uranium from a sealed repository south of Baghdad to a more secure place outside Iraq, Western diplomats close to the agency say. But the organization, the International Atomic Energy Agency, has taken the position that the uranium is Iraqi property and that the agency cannot give permission to remove it, a diplomat said. The diplomat said that the United States was unlikely to be deterred by that position and that American officials had contacted the agency on the matter this year, before the Iraq insurgency flared last month. "I think that if the stuff had not gone up in intensity," the diplomat said, "they would already have moved on this." An official with the American-led Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad confirmed that moving the uranium was under consideration. "The story I've heard is that no decision has been made as yet," the official said. "That was some months ago. When it was discussed, the view was that it was just too expensive to ship. I doubt that anything has changed." The official added that keeping the material in storage, even amid the instability in Iraq, could be safer than trying to move it. Nuclear experts outside the government said that if the material was moved, it would probably be airlifted and placed in a repository in the United States. A spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration at the Energy Department, Anson Franklin, declined to comment directly on any possible operation involving the Iraqi uranium. "We do not discuss potential future or ongoing operations," Mr. Franklin said. The repository, at Tuwaitha, a centerpiece of Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons program until it was largely shut down after the first Persian Gulf war in 1991, holds more than 500 tons of uranium, none of it enriched enough to be used directly in a nuclear weapon. The repository was an object of widespread looting by villagers after the American-led invasion last year. The villagers were for the most part apparently interested in using the barrels that hold the uranium for activities like cooking and storing water. They simply dumped out the uranium sludge and took the barrels. Although most of the barrels and all but a small amount of the uranium were recovered, the episode was an embarrassment to the United States and left traces of radioactive contamination throughout the village. Nuclear experts had mixed reactions to the possibility of moving the uranium. The president of the Institute for Science and International Security, David Albright, said officials had long privately discussed plans to take the uranium out of Iraq. "I would say it's a wise thing to do," Mr. Albright said. "The idea of theft isn't crazy." But Tom Clements, a senior adviser with the Greenpeace International nuclear campaign, said he believed that continuing problems with radioactive contamination in the village should be dealt with before any uranium was moved. "We don't think that the United States has properly followed up on the radioactive contamination," Mr. Clements said. Besides, he said, referring to occupation troops at Tuwaitha, "I would be concerned that they would be pulling some of the protective force off the site in order to deal with the problems in the rest of the country." "I wonder if that's the motivation for moving it," Mr. Clements said. Of the uranium, 500 tons is naturally occurring ore or yellowcake, a slightly processed concentrate that cannot be directly used in a bomb. Some 1.8 tons is classified as low-enriched uranium, a more potent form but still not sufficient for a weapon. Still, said Thomas B. Cochran, director of the nuclear program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, the low- enriched version could be useful to a nation with nuclear ambitions. "A country like Iran," Mr. Cochran said, "could convert that into weapons-grade material with a lot fewer centrifuges than would be required with natural uranium." The centrifuges are used to purify the material. Because uranium takes billions of years to decay, it emits fairly small amounts of radiation. But it can still create health problems, and some villagers have complained of nausea and unexplained rashes. Whatever its actual health risks, the uranium could sow terror over wide areas if dispersed by a conventional explosive. Such a "dirty bomb" remains a prime concern for counterterrorism experts in the United States and abroad. Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency visited Tuwaitha in June after the looting reports. The team determined that at least 20 pounds of the uranium was unaccounted for, but decided that it had probably not fallen into the wrong hands. "A few grams of natural uranium compounds could have remained in each of the approximately 200 emptied containers when upended by the looters," the agency wrote in its inspection report. A second diplomatic official expressed puzzlement as to why the United States was considering moving the material, after the material has been presumably secured and resealed. Except for the incident immediately after the invasion, the official said, "this stuff has been there, secure, quiet, not a problem to anyone, since 1991." Tuwaitha also contains dozens of other radioactive materials that cannot be used to make nuclear weaponry but that emit much stronger and more dangerous radiation than uranium. The officials said it was unclear whether the United States planned to move that material, too. Because of the intense radiation, the potential dangers of transporting that material are higher, said Daniel Hersch, former director of the Stevenson Program on Nuclear Policy at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who is president of the Committee to Bridge the Gap, a nuclear policy organization in California. "There, you have more problems," Mr. Hersch said. "But again, the situation in Iraq is so unstable that that material might benefit from transport to more secure locations." http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/22/politics/22NUKE.html

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Los Angeles Times May 24, 2004 Pg. 1 Case Reveals Nuts And Bolts Of Nuclear Network, Officials Say By Josh Meyer, Times Staff Writer ROCKVILLE, Md. — As they race to dismantle a global black market in nuclear weapons components, U.S. authorities are focusing on an unusual case: an Orthodox Jew from Israel accused of trying to sell nuclear weapons parts to a business associate in Islamic Pakistan. Asher Karni, 50, currently a resident of , was arrested at Denver's international airport as he arrived with his wife and daughter for a New Year's ski vacation. Friends and family have been pressing for his release, describing him as a hard-working electronics salesman just trying to earn a living. However, federal authorities contend that Karni is something more: a veteran player in an underground network of traffickers in parts, technology and know-how for the clandestine nuclear weapons programs of foreign governments. The Karni case offers a rare glimpse into what authorities say is an international bazaar teeming with entrepreneurs, transporters, scientists, manufacturers, government agents, organized-crime syndicates and, perhaps, terrorists. Authorities say the case also provides a classic illustration of how illicit nuclear traffickers operate — readily skirting export bans, disguising the real use for products, using middlemen to buy from legitimate manufacturers and routing shipments through several countries. Such traffickers have flourished amid little effective response by the United States, its allies or the U.N. watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, despite repeated warnings, authorities say. "There are Iranian networks, Chinese networks, Middle East networks, sophisticated networks buying technology and parts all over the world," said a senior official at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, who cited sensitive investigations in demanding anonymity. "They're operating in the United States every day. Some of them are family businesses, where fathers pass it on to their sons." One such network came to light several months ago when top Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan admitted selling nuclear weapons programs to Iran, Libya and North Korea for tens of millions of dollars. Authorities have kept Karni in custody since his arrest, arguing that he is a flight risk and a threat to national security. He has been charged with violating the federal Export Control Act and other laws aimed at curbing nuclear proliferation. Ensconced in the county jail in a Washington suburb, he faces a maximum sentence of 10 years. Karni is accused of orchestrating a deal to send as many as 200 electrical components that can be used for medical or nuclear weapons purposes to a Pakistani businessman named Humayun Khan. Karni and Humayun Khan have denied knowingly breaking any U.S. laws, and both say they have no ties to Abdul Qadeer Khan or his network. Some U.S. officials believe the ultimate destination of the electrical components would have been the Pakistani government, which is also suspected of complicity in Abdul Qadeer Khan's network. Federal agents plan to go to Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, as part of their probe. The components, called triggered spark gaps, are sophisticated electrical switches that have nonmilitary uses, including breaking up kidney stones. But because they emit intense and rapid-fire electrical charges, they are also ideal as nuclear detonators, prompting the U.S. government to restrict their export. In court documents filed in Karni's case in Washington, authorities say Humayun Khan, in Islamabad, placed an order with Karni for 200 of the switches last summer, at $447 apiece, and that Khan has links to Pakistan's military and a militant Islamic political group. "The charges are extraordinarily serious. The allegations couldn't be more grave," said Rep. Christopher Cox (R- Newport Beach), chairman of the House Select Committee on Homeland Security. "This is another piece in the global puzzle of suppliers and buyers, middlemen and [front companies] all over the planet," said Cox, who said he was not commenting on Karni's innocence or guilt. "The problem was hardly created on Sept. 11. But the stark reality of it and the unspeakable consequences of it have now gripped policymakers." Pakistani officials insisted in interviews with The Times that the government was not involved in any effort to buy U.S. products prohibited for export to their country, a ban prompted in part by Pakistan's nuclear weapons program. 1975 Deal With Ex-Nazi But The Times has confirmed that Humayun Khan's family import-export business, Pakland Corp., was a purchasing agent for that nuclear program as far back as 1975. At the time, Pakland was negotiating at least one deal for suspected nuclear weapons material with Alfred Hempel, a German industrialist, former Nazi and central figure in the then already-burgeoning global nuclear bazaar. Hempel, who died in 1989, did as much to spread nuclear weapons in his day as did Abdul Qadeer Khan, perhaps more, said Gary Milhollin, founder of the Washington-based Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control. During the 1970s and '80s, Hempel used cargo planes, bribes and a secret network of operatives to supply countries in South Asia, Africa, South America and the Middle East with nuclear weapons materials. Like Abdul Qadeer Khan, he made millions and, despite years of scrutiny by nuclear proliferation watchdogs, escaped any serious consequences. The Homeland Security Department official said investigators planned to aggressively pursue any connections between the Karni case and what may remain of Hempel's network. Humayun Khan, the official said, appears to have been involved in illegal deals going back at least several years. Channing Phillips, spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Washington, said he could not comment because the investigation was in its preliminary stages. "There are still a lot of unanswered questions," he said. "We're trying to follow the trail, if you will." Karni and his lawyers have declined to comment on the case. But authorities say he has already provided them with a rare window into the nuclear underworld, without even knowing it. Over the years, Karni has built up a global list of intermediaries and clients as a salesman of sophisticated military and aviation electronics equipment, most recently through his company, Top-Cape Technology in Cape Town, South Africa. In a stroke of good fortune, federal agents were able to get an inside view of one of those business deals. Authorities launched their investigation in July, after an anonymous South African tipster said Karni had been using front companies, straw buyers and misleading shipping documents to sell restricted U.S. products to Pakistan and India. The tipster said Karni was in the process of buying as many as 400 of the switches for Humayun Khan. Updates From Tipster Agents with the U.S. departments of Commerce and Homeland Security monitored the deal with updates from the tipster, including Karni's e-mail correspondence and shipping information for the switches. Karni first tried to buy the switches directly from Perkin- Elmer Optoelectronics of Salem, Mass., according to an affidavit filed by Special Agent James R. Brigham of the Commerce Department's Office of Export Enforcement. The affidavit and other court documents lay out the alleged criminal conspiracy to evade U.S. export control laws, including e-mails between Karni and Khan. A PerkinElmer official told Karni he needed to submit required U.S. certificates detailing what the switches would be used for, and promising not to send them to blacklisted countries such as Pakistan or use them in nuclear-related applications. Karni told Khan he wouldn't submit such paperwork. "Dear Asher, I know it is difficult but thats [sic] why we came to know each other," Khan replied. "Please help to re- negotiate this from any other source, we can give you an end user information as it is genuinely medical requirement." Karni then contacted Zeki Bilmen, head of Giza Technologies of Secaucus, N.J. On Aug. 6, Giza ordered 200 of the switches from PerkinElmer for $89,400, submitting certificates saying they would be used in a Soweto, South Africa, hospital. Authorities contacted Per- kin-Elmer officials, who told them a typical hospital order was for five or six switches. In response, the U.S. agents asked them to discreetly disable the first batch of 66 switches and send them on. The original tipster told authorities that Karni might list a lithography company at Khan's address as the end user, not Khan's firm, Pakland PME, and later provided Federal Express tracking numbers showing a circuitous route through , in the . Traffickers frequently ship restricted U.S. items to Dubai, Malta and other unrestricted trade zones worldwide and then re-export them to third countries to hide the origin or destination and avoid laws aimed at curbing nuclear proliferation, authorities say. Karni did just as the tipster predicted, and agents tracked the package at every step. Giza, which had certified to PerkinElmer that the switches were for hospital use, sent them to Karni's Cape Town office by declaring them "electrical splices and couplings for switchings," which don't require an export license, Brigham's affidavit says. Providing such false or misleading information is a violation of federal law, he noted. Karni then labeled them electrical parts and sent them to Dubai and on to Islamabad, where, in late October, someone identifying himself as an employee of the AJKMC Lithography Aid Society signed for the spark gaps. Authorities suspect the letters stand for All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference, a political party that controls the Pakistani-ruled part of the disputed Kashmir region and allegedly has terrorist affiliations. On Dec. 11, South African police raided Karni's offices at U.S. authorities' request. Karni admitted sending the spark gaps, court papers say. Less than a month later, in one of the many mysteries of the case, he came to the U.S., where he was arrested. Bilmen, of Giza Technologies, has not been charged. His lawyer, Robert C. Herbst, said Giza employees "were a victim of Asher Karni as much as anyone else was." In court records, authorities said Karni often sent air freight to Pakistan and that he either completed or discussed other suspicious deals. In one, Karni bought for Khan a type of sophisticated oscilloscope often used in nuclear weapons and military programs, also through Giza. In another, he exchanged e-mail with a man identified as an Indian contact trying to buy several kinds of high-tech material for two Indian rocket factories. Soon after his arrest, Karni and his case were transferred to Washington. He was eventually moved from federal custody to the county jail. "This case represents one of the most serious types of export violations imaginable," one prosecutor argued in a court filing. "Karni has exported goods that are capable of detonating nuclear weapons to a person he knows has ties to the Pakistani military. "Although Pakistan's current leadership has vowed to curb the spread of this technology, that region of the world remains volatile, and Islamic militants in the area have made no secret of their desire to obtain nuclear weapons," the filing says. "The threat that Karni's conduct posed was real." Karni insists that he didn't know the spark gaps could be used as detonators in nuclear weapons, according to Rabbi Herzel Kranz of the Hebrew Sheltering Home in Silver Spring, Md., who says he keeps in frequent contact with Karni. A federal judge has approved bail for Karni if he were to stay at the home and wear an electronic monitoring bracelet, but authorities have kept him in custody on alleged immigration violations. In an interview, Kranz said a friend told him about Karni's "distressed situation." He said he went to his aid believing he was innocent, perhaps an unwitting victim of some kind of conspiracy. "Why would a religious Jew send nuclear weapons parts to a country that hates Israel as much as Pakistan?" Kranz asked. "He has no idea what he's gotten himself into. But he's really grabbed a tiger by the tail here." Kranz said everything about Karni seemed to contradict the profile of a black-market trafficker: Karni was born in Hungary but grew up in Israel, where he was orphaned at a young age, Kranz said. He displayed prowess in the Talmud, or Hebrew scholarship. He spent 15 years in the Israeli army, becoming a major while obtaining a bachelor's degree in chemistry and an MBA. Karni moved his young family to South Africa in behalf of an Orthodox Jewish organization and decided to stay. Destination of Material Privately, senior U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the case said a critical question is where the spark gaps were headed, particularly because Humayun Khan — Karni's alleged collaborator — apparently is a supplier to the Pakistani military. In e-mail exchanges, Humayun Khan had no comment on a February 1975 letter obtained by The Times, in which a man named M. Akram Khan of Pakland Corp. in Karachi tells Switzerland-based firm Adero Chemie that it must act quickly to beat out a competing Australian firm for a large shipment of material used to run nuclear reactors that make plutonium. But he confirmed that M. Akram Khan was his late father and that he spent 11 years working with him at the family business, Pakland Corp., before starting Pakland PME in 1994. Khan didn't respond to questions about his father's apparent role as a purchasing agent for the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission or whether he took over any of those business relationships upon his father's death. But he insisted that he had done nothing wrong, and said someone else used his e-mail address to send incriminating e-mails to Karni. He added, "The obvious is not what it seems." Milhollin, who provided the letter to The Times, first exposed Hempel's activities more than 15 years ago, sounding repeated alarms before congressional committees. Milhollin, whose organization maintains a database that tracks suspected nuclear proliferators, which is used by dozens of governments, warned in 1989 that U.S. officials needed to stop the nuclear black market before it was too late. "Otherwise, the strategic map of the world is being redrawn without anyone really understanding the consequences," Milhollin wrote. "That these sales are still happening — after a decade of U.S. efforts to stop them — shows how U.S. diplomacy has failed." Fifteen years later, it appears little has changed. A senior Energy Department official said the latest intelligence showed that nuclear black market activity had continued to flourish. "Demand hasn't diminished. In fact, it's increased," the official said. "Where there's demand, there are people willing and able to supply it." http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-fg-nukes24may24,1,1345501.story?coll=la-home-nation

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Homeland Security: DHS Needs a Strategy to Use DOE's Laboratories for Research on Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Detection and Response Technologies. GAO-04-653, May 24. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-653 Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d04653high.pdf

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