USAF COUNTERPROLIFERATION CENTER
CPC OUTREACH JOURNAL
Maxwell AFB, Alabama
Issue No. 446, 5 August 2005
Articles & Other Documents:
Talks On North Korea's Nuclear Program May Be On Europe Threatens To Punish Iran If Nuclear Work Verge Of Suspension Restarts Pentagon employees seek continued hold on anthrax Iran Tells Europe It's Devoted To Nuclear Efforts And vaccination program Talks Talks On N. Korea Arms May End Without Accord Greater coordination called for at biological labs BBC: U.K. Sold Nuke Material to Israel State Dept. Issues Global Terror Caution Offer By Europe Would Give Iran Nuclear Future Man Gets 3 Years For Sales Linked To Nuclear Arms
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 to 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 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
New York Times August 3, 2005 Talks On North Korea's Nuclear Program May Be On Verge Of Suspension By Chris Buckley, International Herald Tribune BEIJING, Aug. 2 - Six-nation talks aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear weapons programs may be suspended or even break off altogether if the participants cannot settle on a summary of principles for future disarmament talks, the chief American negotiator said Tuesday. "Whether we have a draft that everyone agrees on, whether we have a recess of some kind, I don't know yet," the negotiator, Christopher Hill, told reporters here after an eighth day of the talks, which include China, South Korea, Japan and Russia. "I think the issue is how one winds this up," he added. "That is, does it wind up with an agreement, does it wind up with parties saying, 'Well, we have to do some more substantial consultation in capitals,' or does it wind up in a flat- out disagreement." The negotiators considered the third draft of a proposed joint statement on North Korean nuclear disarmament on Tuesday, and the host country, China, then issued a fourth version for them to consider overnight, Mr. Hill said. "The Chinese side is really trying to push to resolution," Mr. Hill said. But some envoys showed growing frustration and uncertainty about the progress of the talks. The chief Japanese negotiator, Kenichiro Sasae, told reporters on Tuesday that the "basic points of disagreement have not been resolved." He said exchanges were "very tough, strong and serious." Mr. Hill said the countries were by no means sure of agreeing on even broad principles. "There are a lot of differences between the North Korean side on one hand and everyone else on the other hand," he said. The United States and North Korea appear to remain at loggerheads over Washington's insistence that Pyongyang end all its nuclear programs, including ostensibly civilian power generation projects, if it wants to receive economic aid and greater government contact. On Tuesday, the chief North Korean negotiator, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan, sought to play down differences between the two nations in his first public comments since the talks began. "Although North Korea and the United States have differing views, we hope we can reduce the differences as far as possible and achieve a result," the official New China News Agency quoted Mr. Kim as saying. He said North Korea would give up nuclear weapons, "if the U.S. abandons its nuclear threat against us and establishes mutual trust." Choe Sang-Hun contributed reporting from Seoul for this article. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/03/international/asia/03korea.html?
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New York Times August 3, 2005 Europe Threatens To Punish Iran If Nuclear Work Restarts By Elaine Sciolino PARIS, Aug. 2 - France, Britain and Germany formally warned Iran on Tuesday that they would end their two-year negotiations over the country's nuclear program and pursue punitive action if Iran carried out its threat to resume sensitive nuclear work. But underscoring their determination to keep the talks going, the Europeans also asked Iran to wait until they presented it with a package of incentives before breaking its freeze on uranium conversion and enrichment activities. "Were Iran to resume currently suspended activities, our negotiations would be brought to an end, and we would have no other option but to pursue other courses of action," the foreign ministers of the three countries said in a letter to Hassan Rowhani, the head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council. "We therefore call upon Iran not to resume suspended activities or take other unilateral steps." The letter, which is backed by the 25-nation European Union, comes as the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations nuclear monitoring agency, has agreed to Iran's request to install surveillance cameras at its nuclear facility in Isfahan to enable Iran to resume its uranium enrichment activities under international safeguards. Once the cameras are functioning, which will take about a week, Iran could resume activities and legally still be in compliance with its obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, two senior I.A.E.A. officials said. But if it did so, Iran would be breaking its voluntary agreement with the Europeans to indefinitely suspend such activities as long as negotiations continued. In Iran on Tuesday, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hamid Reza Asefi, rejected the Europeans' warning, vowing that his country would never abandon its "legitimate rights" to peaceful nuclear technology under international law. "The time for threats and intimidation is over," Mr. Asefi was quoted by the official Iranian news agency IRNA as saying. But one of the senior I.A.E.A. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity under agency rules, said that agency inspectors had visited the Isfahan site Tuesday and that Iran had not yet broken protective seals and started the machines working again. The verbal battle is the latest - and potentially most serious - contest between Iran and the three European countries acting under the umbrella of the European Union. If Iran carries out its threat to resume nuclear work, the Europeans, with the prodding of the Bush administration, will have no choice but to seek to have Iran punished in some way by the United Nations Security Council, even if only with a resolution of concern or disapproval. Unless Iran is in clear violation of its international obligations, it will be difficult to persuade the Security Council to impose punitive economic measures. The Bush administration is convinced that Iran has a secret nuclear weapons facility and is moving forward to make bombs. The Europeans also believe that Iran wants nuclear weapons, but is determined to at least stall the process through negotiations. Indeed, in their letter today, the Europeans also informed Iran that they intended to call a special session of the Vienna-based I.A.E.A. "in the next few days" to decide what to do next about Iran's nuclear activities. The Iranian threat may be part of a larger strategy to keep its options open as its new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, takes over on Wednesday, officials involved in the negotiations said. Iran may be trying to wrest more concessions from the Europeans in exchange for continuing the suspension of uranium conversion and enrichment activities, as laid out in an agreement with the Europeans last November. Or Iran may be gambling that it can restart its activities under 24-hour international inspection in order to split the international community and avoid any punishment. In Paris, France's foreign minister, Philippe Douste-Blazy, told reporters that the Iranian threat might spark "a major international crisis." Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, a former foreign minister of France, told Europe 1 radio that the issue would be sent to the Security Council "if Iran doesn't back off." The Europeans are putting the final touches on detailed, step-by-step proposals that include economic, security, political and technological incentives for Iran, which will be presented as early as this weekend. But officials say that the proposal does not allow Iran to resume the uranium-related activities that it believes it is entitled to under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The treaty allows signers to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. At the conversion plant in Isfahan, uranium ore known as yellowcake is turned into UF6, or uranium hexafluoride gas, which can later be fed into centrifuges to be enriched. Enriched uranium can be used for peaceful energy purposes or in a bomb-making program. Iran insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful energy purposes, a position that Mr. Asefi, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, reiterated. He also told the IRNA news agency that the work "will be under the supervision of the U.N. nuclear agency." A bomb exploded Tuesday morning on the 10th floor of a commercial building in northern Tehran, where British Petroleum, British Airways and DaimlerChrysler have offices. There were no injuries, and there was no evidence to link the explosion to the current standoff between Iran and the European countries. Nazila Fathi contributed reporting for this article from Tehran. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/03/international/middleeast/03iran.html
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GovExec.com DAILY BRIEFING August 2, 2005 Pentagon employees seek continued hold on anthrax vaccination program By David Francis, Global Security Newswire Six Defense Department employees have asked a U.S. appeals court not to lift an injunction blocking mandatory anthrax vaccinations because the vaccine used in the program has never been formally found safe or approved for use against inhalation anthrax. In a brief filed July 29 in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, lawyers for the employees asked the court to dismiss a Pentagon appeal seeking to have the injunction lifted. The challenge to the vaccination program - over fears of possible side effects - by the six anonymous military and civilian personnel led to a District Court ruling stopping the program in October 2004. The Pentagon, in a brief filed with the court last month, said Food and Drug Administration documentation on BioPort's Anthrax Vaccine Adsorbed [AVA] proves the vaccine is safe and effective in combating all forms of anthrax. The plaintiffs' lawyers have disputed this claim. They have argued that FDA's scientific records show the vaccine to be ineffective in combating inhalation anthrax, the form military personnel would be most likely to face in the field. The lawyers have also pointed to an agency advisory panel that found the vaccine to be effective only against anthrax contracted through the skin. The agency accepted the panel's view in 1985, but changed its position in 2003 by issuing a final order declaring the vaccine effective against inhalation anthrax. However, a federal judge found that the agency did not follow procedures in making that determination, vacated the order, and demanded that FDA officials open the rule for public comments, the brief says. "Against this undisputed factual background, the government's claim that FDA has consistently considered AVA to include inhalation anthrax is nothing less than ludicrous. At no time did the appropriate FDA officials or experts ever make such a claim. Moreover, until finally forced to do so by the District Court's decision, FDA has carefully avoided making any official pronouncement concerning the AVA's status," plaintiffs argued in the brief. The attorneys have accused the Food and Drug Administration of ignoring this scientific record on the vaccine by issuing the 2003 final rule. "In short, there is ample undisputed, factual support for the District Court's opinion that AVA was not considered to be licensed for inhalation anthrax by FDA, DOD, or anyone else until it became politically expedient, as opposed to scientifically validated, to do so," the brief says. As the vaccine has never been proven safe, the Pentagon is forbidden by military law from requiring troops to take it, the plaintiffs attorney's have argued. Under U.S. Code Title 10, the military cannot force personnel to take unapproved or investigational new drugs without giving them the option to refuse the drug. "The District Court granted plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment and enjoined the use of AVA [Anthrax Vaccine Adsorbed] for the simple reason that the vaccine was an investigational new drug or a drug unapproved for its applied/intended use, and that defendant DOD's [Defense Department] involuntary program violated" military law, the brief states. "The undisputed facts show that the only human test of the vaccine did not provide sufficient evidence to support the vaccine's use as a prophylaxis against inhalation anthrax." Finally, the plaintiffs' brief counters the government's argument that because only six employees challenged the program, the District Court acted improperly by issuing an injunction covering the entire military. The brief says that because the vaccination program was based upon the incorrect safety determination by the Food and Drug Administration and because a mandatory vaccination program affects all military personnel, the District Court acted correctly in stopping the program across all armed services. The plaintiffs' brief adds that the full injunction saves the government from facing a rash of lawsuits from personnel who claim injury after taking the vaccine. "Without a military-wide injunction, this Circuit [Court] and DOD would face an unmanageable tsunami of litigation. The government complains that any judicial intervention will unduly disrupt military affairs. But the government slyly overlooks the fact that a flood of litigation would be far more disruptive to the military than simply providing informed consent" for the vaccine, the brief says. The government has 15 days to respond to the brief, said plaintiffs' attorney John Michels. If the court agrees to hear the appeal, a date would be set for oral arguments, Michels said. The vaccine has been available to military personnel since May under a voluntary program, after the Food and Drug Administration approved its emergency use. Those wishing to receive the vaccine must be briefed on the risks and benefits of the treatment by their commanders and acknowledge receiving the brochure explaining these risks. The vaccine is available to troops deployed in Central Command theaters, such as Iraq and Afghanistan, and in South Korea. As of July 7, half of military and civilian personnel offered anthrax vaccinations under the voluntary program have refused the vaccine, according to Military Vaccine Agency figures. FDA Commissioner Lester Crawford recently extended the voluntary program until 2006. http://govexec.com/dailyfed/0805/080205gsn1.htm
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New York Times August 4, 2005 Iran Tells Europe It's Devoted To Nuclear Efforts And Talks By Nazila Fathi TEHRAN, Aug. 3 - The leader of Iran's team negotiating with Europe over its nuclear program sent a letter on Wednesday to the foreign ministers of the three nations involved in the talks, saying that Iran was determined to resume its nuclear activities but that it also wanted to continue the negotiations. The Iranian negotiator, Hassan Rowhani, was responding to a letter sent Tuesday by the foreign ministers, from Britain, France and Germany, warning that talks would end if Iran resumed nuclear activities. Iran said Sunday that it was going to resume work at a uranium conversion facility in Isfahan and that it was tired of waiting for a proposal from the European nations about possible economic, security, political and technological incentives in return for Iran's commitment to halt its nuclear program. European diplomats said this week that they were waiting to present their proposal until the new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, 48, took office. At a ceremony on Wednesday, he received the approval of Iran's supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and other nonelected senior religious leaders. His inauguration is set for Saturday. Senior officials have said Iran's nuclear policy will not change after Mr. Ahmadinejad takes office because it is determined at senior levels and by the supreme leader. The United States contends that Iran intends to produce nuclear weapons. Iran says that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. The letter sent Wednesday said that Iran's suspension of its enrichment program had been voluntary, and the work it was planning to resume was just a "minor step." Mohammad Saeedi, a senior official at Iran's Atomic Organization, told ISNA news agency that Iran was conducting intensive negotiations with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations nuclear monitoring agency, to install surveillance equipment so that Iran could remove the agency's seals at the site in Isfahan. The United Nations said Monday that the process could take a week to 10 days. "Iran has told the agency that it would prepare all necessary facilities for the agency so that it can open the site in time," Mr. Saeedi said. Mr. Ahmadinejad has been cautious in his comments since his election on how he would change Iran's foreign and nuclear policy. At the ceremony on Wednesday, he made no direct reference to Iran's nuclear program but said that "depriving nations of science and technology is a symbol of injustice." "The Islamic Iran wants all countries to have peace and stability," he said. "Justice should be the criteria in international relations. Therefore any global threat, such as weapons of mass destruction and chemical weapons, should be dismantled." http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/04/international/middleeast/04iran.html?
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Washington Post August 4, 2005 Pg. 14 Talks On N. Korea Arms May End Without Accord By Edward Cody, Washington Post Foreign Service BEIJING, Aug. 3 -- Diplomats sought Wednesday to break a stalemate between the United States and North Korea that has bogged down six-party negotiations on North Korean disarmament and threatened to leave the talks stalled once again. The standoff involved some of the same issues that have held up progress over two years of on-and-off negotiations, officials said. The negotiations have dramatized the difficulty of persuading North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program despite what was described as an improved atmosphere in the current talks. The negotiations began in August 2003; this fourth round resumed July 26 after a 13-month lull. Christopher Hill, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs and head of the U.S. delegation, said diplomats from the six nations involved have concluded that this round should draw to a close soon even though nine days of arduous wrangling have produced no agreement. "Certainly, one does get the sense that we're getting to the endpoint here," Hill said Wednesday evening. Hill appeared to acknowledge for the first time that this round might conclude without any forward movement. Such an outcome could strengthen the hand of officials in the Bush administration who contend that the talks are not helpful and that the United States instead should seek sanctions against North Korea in the U.N. Security Council. But China, as sponsor of the process, continued to press for agreement on an accord -- now in its fourth draft -- that would list a set of "agreed principles" to form the basis for further negotiations and demonstrate that the talks are worth pursuing. The Chinese government, through its official New China News Agency, announced that more talks would be held Thursday. Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing telephoned Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for what was believed to be a report on the talks, combined with an attempt to cajole concessions from the Bush administration, the agency reported. The terms of their conversation were not revealed. Hill said that from the U.S. point of view, the key question now is whether North Korea will accept the accord proposed by China, which he said the United States and other nations "are essentially comfortable with." In that spirit, senior Chinese Foreign Ministry officials were urging North Korea's chief delegate, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Gye Gwan, to join in endorsing the agreement, diplomats said. Hill, briefing reporters after an evening of negotiations, portrayed the stalemate essentially as a standoff between North Korea on one side and the five other nations -- China, Russia, South Korea, the United States and Japan -- on the other. There was no comment from North Korean diplomats. The head of the South Korean delegation, Deputy Foreign Minister Song Min Soon, also described the problem in those terms, telling South Korean reporters that the other countries voiced approval of China's suggestion and were awaiting a response from Pyongyang. Kim, the North Korean delegation leader, has also raised the issue of South Korea's security treaty with the United States, saying it implies U.S. nuclear protection and should be altered if the talks are to produce a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula. In his first public comments, Kim told reporters Tuesday that North Korea wanted to negotiate in good faith but demanded that the United States first remove atomic weapons and other threats against the North. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/03/AR2005080300579.html
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GovExec.com DAILY BRIEFING August 4, 2005 Greater coordination called for at biological labs From Global Security Newswire The Energy Department's inspector general this week urged greater coordination between five planned infectious disease laboratories to avoid duplicating their work and to ensure security needs are met, the Albuquerque Journal reported Wednesday. In a review released Tuesday, Inspector General Gregory Friedman said coordination efforts have faded and must be restarted. "More needs to be done," said Friedman, to coordinate laboratory work and integrate the facilities with other federal agencies. "Bio labs could be tempting targets" for terrorists, said Jay Coghlan, director of Nuclear Watch of New Mexico. "You would think there would be a national effort to coordinate security and make them more secure." None of the Level-3 biological safety laboratories are open yet. They will be the first Energy Department laboratories capable of dealing with live biological agents, according to the Journal. The facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico was completed in 2003 at a cost of $4.1 million. Scheduled to open the spring 2004, lawsuits and an environmental review have delayed operations for more than two years. The laboratory is expected to open in 2006, according to the DOE review. "This is a very long list of [researchers] who are interested in using the facility, and they are very eager for the facility to come online as quickly as possible, said Los Alamos acting Deputy Director for Biological Sciences Nathan Schwade. http://govexec.com/dailyfed/0805/080505gsn1.htm
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BBC: U.K. Sold Nuke Material to Israel Britain Secretly Sold Key Ingredient for Nuclear Program to Israel, BBC Reports AP Associated Press LONDON Aug 4, 2005 — Britain secretly sold Israel a key ingredient for its nuclear program in the 1950s, according to official documents uncovered by the British Broadcasting Corp. The BBC's Newsnight program, broadcast late Wednesday, said government papers held at the National Archive show Britain shipped 20 tons of heavy water to Israel in 1959. The program said the water was vital for the production of plutonium at Israel's secret Dimona nuclear reactor in the Negev desert. Newsnight said British officials did not impose any conditions on the sale, such as stipulating the heavy water could be used only for peaceful purposes. The BBC report said the United States had refused to supply heavy water to Israel without such safeguards. Robert McNamara, who became President Kennedy's defense secretary in 1961, told the BBC that Britain didn't inform the Americans it had sold heavy water to Israel. "The fact that Israel was trying to develop a nuclear bomb should not have come as any surprise … . But that Britain should have supplied it with heavy water was indeed a surprise to me," he said. In one of the documents, a British Foreign Office official cautioned against informing the United States of the sale. "On the whole I would prefer NOT to mention this to the Americans," Foreign Office official Donald Cape wrote in an official paper at the time, the BBC said. Israeli Vice Premier Shimon Peres, who was director general of Israel's defense ministry from 1953 -58 and was instrumental in building Israel's nuclear reactor in Dimona, refused to comment on the report Thursday. There was no immediate comment from Britain's Foreign Office. The Israeli nuclear reactor at Dimona in the Negev desert is one of the most sensitive sites in Israel. Israel maintains a policy of deliberate ambiguity about its nuclear program, neither confirming nor denying that it has nuclear weapons. It has said that the Dimona reactor is used only for peaceful purposes. In 1986 former technician Mordechai Vanunu gave information and pictures of the Dimona facility to London's Sunday Times. On the basis of his revelations, experts concluded that Israel has the world's sixth-largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, consisting of hundreds of warheads. Vanunu was freed in April after spending 18 years in prison for espionage and treason for divulging that information. Because it has resisted international pressure to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Israel does not formally have to declare itself as a weapons state or agree to any curbs on its nuclear activities. In 1995, Peres declared, "Give me peace, and we will give up the atom. If we achieve regional peace, I think we can make the Middle East free of any nuclear threat." Newsnight said it had found no evidence that ministers in the government of then Prime Minister Harold Macmillan were aware of the sale and believed the decision was taken by civil servants, mainly in the Foreign Office and the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority. The documents reveal the heavy water was transported from a British port in Israeli ships in two consignments, half in June 1959 and half a year later. http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1007335
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WashingtonPost.com State Dept. Issues Global Terror Caution The Associated Press Thursday, August 4, 2005; 5:56 PM WASHINGTON -- Americans in the Middle East and North Africa were warned Thursday they may be targets of terrorists using biological weapons as well as conventional arms. Seaborne vessels traveling in the southern Red Sea are among the possible targets, the State Department said in alerting Americans to ongoing security concerns. Also, the department said it was concerned extremists may be planning to carry out attacks against Westerners and oil workers on the Arabian Peninsula. Americans considering seaborne travel near the Horn of Africa in the southern Red Sea should exercise extreme caution, the department said. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/04/AR2005080401479_pf.html
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New York Times August 5, 2005 Pg. 1 Offer By Europe Would Give Iran Nuclear Future By Steven R. Weisman WASHINGTON, Aug. 4 - In a first test of the new leadership in Iran, European negotiators have prepared a sweeping proposal that raises the possibility of Iran acquiring nuclear reactors and fuel, and of achieving a full political and economic relationship with the West, if it ends nuclear activities suspected to be part of a weapons program, Western diplomats said Thursday. The European offer, drafted with the tacit approval of the Bush administration, is to be transmitted by the end of this weekend as the latest step in a European-American effort to get Iran to abandon its suspected nuclear arms ambitions. That effort has run into repeated difficulties, most recently over Iran's announced intention to resume uranium conversion and enrichment in defiance of European warnings. Western diplomats who have read the European offer or who know its contents said that it presented a full spectrum of relationships for Iran with the West, from technology sharing to trade preferences to security guarantees, if the Tehran government cooperates on nuclear matters, and also on improving human rights and combating terrorism. They said it was much more detailed and specific than the more general offers floated by the Europeans earlier this year, but they did not describe the offer in full. Since it seeks a pledge by Iran to end the uranium conversion and enrichment activities that Iran insists are its prerogative under international accords governing nuclear technology, there is considerable doubt that Iran will accept it, at least right away. Iran suspended its nuclear work during the negotiations. A senior Iranian official, reached by telephone on Thursday, said when told about the contents of the proposal that it seemed to fall far short of what Iran wanted. "If the proposal asks Iran to continue its suspension indefinitely, let alone renouncing these activities, I think it will be dead on arrival," said the senior official, whose job involves him directly in these matters but who would not be identified by name because he had not seen the document. "I don't think it's prudent for the Europeans to make this presentation, because it shows that they have not moved their position from that of two years ago." A European official said: "Our proposal pulls together a whole range of different ideas intended to forge a framework for an arrangement between Iran and the rest of the world. There are lots of political, economic and security elements, but the biggest piece is the offer of cooperation on a civilian nuclear program for Iran. We've never said that Iran cannot have one." Bush administration officials say they cannot comment on the contents of the proposal, except to say that they approved of it. But the administration maintains that it cannot establish a normal relationship with Iran unless it changes its conduct, not simply in the nuclear sphere but in what the United States and the Europeans say is support of terrorism, particularly against Israel, and its interference in Iraq. Details of the package were disclosed by diplomats who insisted they not be identified even by country because the package is supposed to be secret and its terms have not yet been formally presented to Iran. The proposal would bar Iran from operating a "closed" nuclear fuel cycle, in which it would effectively control every aspect of fuel production and disposal. Instead, according to the diplomats who have seen it, the proposal suggests that Iran be allowed to acquire fuel and then transfer the used fuel to another country for disposal, precluding Iran from using it for weapons. More specifically, Iran would be obliged to continue its current suspension of the conversion of raw uranium into a gas that can be enriched for use as fuel with the use of centrifuges that international inspectors have found in Iran in several places. The International Atomic Energy Agency, which has said that it is investigating Iran's failure to disclose many elements of its program, would continue to play its inspection role to ensure compliance with the agreement. While taking a hard line on uranium conversion and enrichment, the diplomats said, the proposal contains a face- saving provision for Iran conceding its right to certain activities it is being asked to give up. The wording, according to one diplomat, says that nothing in an agreement with Iran affects "the inalienable rights of all the parties to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes." In some respects, Iran is not likely to be surprised by the basic outlines of the European proposal. France, Germany and Britain - the partners along with the European Union in the negotiations - have held firm to this broad position of barring uranium conversion and enrichment under pressure from Washington. The view shared in Europe and Washington is that while Iran may have the right to enrich uranium as a signatory to the Nonproliferation Treaty, which governs peaceful nuclear technology in nearly all countries with civilian nuclear programs, Iran has forfeited that right because it has been found over the years to be engaging in clandestine activities. Iran's anger that it is being asked to give up activities allowed to other countries is at the heart of its repeated announcement that, like it or not, it will resume such work when it chooses. Indeed, Iran announced last week that it was renouncing its pledge of last year to suspend these uranium activities. On the other hand, the Tehran government has not unilaterally resumed uranium conversion or enrichment. Instead, it has called on the International Atomic Energy Agency to go to its facilities and break the inspectors' seals on equipment that would be used for these activities, and also to install monitors and sensors for the purpose of observing them. Iran's announcement was made in the days leading up to the inauguration Saturday of the new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who until recently was the mayor of Tehran. It is widely believed in the West that Iran decided to invite the inspectors before Mr. Ahmadinejad took office in order not to taint him with the move or force him to make one of his first decisions in defiance of the wishes of the Europeans. Several diplomats said that it was shrewd of Iran, in political terms, to invite the International Atomic Energy Agency to its nuclear facilities to break the seals and install monitors and sensors. That way, these diplomats said, Iran can claim to be showing the world that, while it is proceeding with uranium processing, not a single gram of fuel will go to a weapons program. The international agency, meanwhile, has been taking its time before installing the sensors and monitors, to give the Europeans time to refine their proposal. The Europeans have rushed the proposal to meet a deadline of this week and have begun hinting that if Iran rejects it outright, or forces the seals to be broken, some countries may call for the agency's board to meet next week to address the matter. That Iranian tactic, said several Western diplomats, seems clearly intended to woo wavering board members of the agency - notably Russia, China and several other countries with similar enrichment programs - that it is acting in good faith and doing what other countries are allowed to do. They expressed concern about getting enough votes on the board to refer the matter to the United Nations Security Council for possible sanctions. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/05/politics/05iran.html?
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Los Angeles Times August 5, 2005 Man Gets 3 Years For Sales Linked To Nuclear Arms Federal judge sentences Asher Karni, a South African, for illegally transferring high-tech U.S. products to Indian and Pakistani firms. By Josh Meyer, Times Staff Writer WASHINGTON — A federal judge sentenced black market trader Asher Karni to three years in prison Thursday, saying he wanted to warn others that the illegal sale of U.S. high-tech products could help foreign governments or terrorists obtain nuclear weapons. After hearing Karni apologize for selling blacklisted U.S. electronic components to companies in Pakistan and India, U.S. District Judge Richard M. Urbina told the former Israeli army major that no amount of contrition could make up for the potential threat posed by his actions. "I want you to know how serious I think your conduct was," Urbina told Karni, emphasizing that he was sentencing him to a prison term longer than that requested by his defense lawyers to send a message to the public. Citing Karni's extensive cooperation in an ongoing nuclear trafficking investigation, lawyers for the South Africa- based businessman had sought a 19-month sentence. That would have freed Karni immediately because he has been in federal custody since his arrest Jan. 1, 2004, at Denver International Airport. Urbina shaved six years off the maximum term Karni could have received under complex federal sentencing guidelines, saying he was doing so because of Karni's cooperation. But the judge said he was deeply troubled by Karni's central role in a conspiracy to sell U.S. high-tech components to firms in Pakistan and India that Washington believes are part of those countries' nuclear-weapons and missile programs. Assistant U.S. Atty. Jay I. Bratt told the judge that Karni sold blacklisted products to entities in Pakistan and India on at least 17 occasions, a much larger number than authorities had previously disclosed. Bratt, a veteran prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's Office transnational/major crimes section, described the Karni case as perhaps the most serious threat to national security that he has encountered. Urbina said he was most alarmed by Karni's admitted use in 2003 of a web of intermediaries to buy 200 precision electrical switches, known as triggered spark gaps, from a Massachusetts firm and then ship them to a business associate in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. At the time, Urbina said, Karni and the associate, Humayun Khan, knew that the U.S. government prohibited the sale of the components to Pakistan because of their potential use in detonating nuclear warheads. The two men went to great lengths to camouflage the end user, the judge said. But two Commerce Department agents had received a tip from an informant in South Africa and were monitoring the shipment. They disabled the first shipment of 66 spark gaps before Karni received them and forwarded them to Khan, and later used Karni's cooperation to obtain a grand jury indictment of the Islamabad arms merchant, who had close ties to the Pakistani military. Khan, who is no relation to Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, who operated a global network that smuggled nuclear technology, has denied wrongdoing in interviews with the Los Angeles Times. U.S. authorities would not say Thursday whether they had requested his extradition from Pakistan. Pakistani officials also have had no comment on the case, except to deny trying to illegally purchase U.S. technology for their nuclear weapons program. Bratt said in court Thursday that the U.S. government still did not know for whom Khan was purchasing the spark gaps or where the disabled components were. But Bratt told the judge that the buyer was either the government of Pakistan and its nuclear program, another country that Pakistan was secretly helping with its nuclear program or a Pakistani political organization that supported "jihadist elements" or other rogue groups. "The choices for the true recipient of the triggered spark gaps are not comforting," Bratt said. He also told Urbina that, based on wiretapped conversations with several of his employees, Karni appeared to have tried to continue his trafficking operations even while in federal custody after his arrest. Urbina, like Bratt, stopped short of specifically identifying the Islamabad government as the end user of the components Karni sent to Pakistan. But he said unnamed foreign governments and terrorists "have become incredibly creative in finding ways to wreak death and destruction. These are incredibly malevolent people who wish to be armed with very bad things," such as nuclear weapons. In the courtroom for Karni's sentencing were the two Commerce Department agents who have been investigating him and his alleged co-conspirators for the last two years. The agents, James Brigham and David Poole, said they could not comment on the case or on their continuing investigation, for which they have tried to travel to Pakistan to conduct interviews. They and others have been unable to do so, authorities have confirmed, in part because the departments of Commerce and Homeland Security have failed to gain adequate support from within the Bush administration to pressure Pakistan into letting them in the country. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-nuke5aug05,1,5067309.story?coll=la-headlines-world
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