USAF COUNTERPROLIFERATION CENTER

CPC OUTREACH JOURNAL

Maxwell AFB, Alabama

Issue No. 408, 11 February 2005

Articles & Other Documents:

Up To 480 U.S. Nuclear Arms In Europe, Private Study U.S. Asking China To Increase Pressure On North Says Korea To End Its Nuclear Program Bush Request To Fund Nuclear Study Revives Debate Rice Urges Tighter Rein On Iran U.S. Military Says Update Of Iran War Plan Is Routine Radiation Antidote To Be Readily Available N.Korea Says It Has Nuclear Arms, Spurns Talks North Koreans Say They Hold Nuclear Arms N. Korea Declaration Draws World Concern In Pyongyang, Raising The Ante Authorities: Pakistani urged al-Qaida to get nukes Radioactive Cargo Is Lost, Then Found In Boston

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 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 February 9, 2005 Up To 480 U.S. Nuclear Arms In Europe, Private Study Says By Eric Schmitt WASHINGTON, Feb. 8 - The United States still keeps as many as 480 nuclear weapons at air bases across Europe, more than twice what independent military analysts previously estimated, according to a new study that says the weapons' presence is hurting efforts to curb nuclear proliferation worldwide. Military officials insisted that the size of the nuclear stockpile in Europe, while classified, was smaller than that. But they acknowledged that it still existed to deter terrorists or nations that could threaten America or its allies with unconventional weapons. The officials also say the stockpile's presence and its long-term fate have caused simmering tensions among senior NATO political and military officials. The report by the Natural Resources Defense Council, a private group here that advocates arms control and monitors nuclear trends, says short-range nuclear weapons are stored under American control and regulated by secret military agreements at eight bases in Germany, Britain, Italy, Belgium, Turkey and the Netherlands. The bombs are kept under tight security at sites reinforced against attack. American and allied air forces regularly rehearse nuclear bombing missions at training ranges in Europe in the case a war calls for striking nuclear, chemical or biological weapons sites or command posts in countries that threaten to use unconventional arms, the report states. Military officials confirmed that the training continued as part of prudent military contingency planning. The findings in the 102-page report, "U.S. Nuclear Weapons in Europe," come as NATO defense ministers, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, prepare to meet Wednesday and Thursday in Nice, France. An advance copy of the report was provided to The New York Times by the research council. One topic of discussion is likely to be nuclear proliferation, including Iran's nuclear program, Pentagon and NATO officials said. Capt. Curry W. Graham, a spokesman for the military's European Command, said the United States still maintained a sizable nuclear arsenal in Europe to support NATO's strategic deterrence mission to "maintain peace and stability in the region." Pentagon policy prohibits the disclosure of the amount or location of American nuclear weapons. But a senior military official in Europe said in response to the report's findings that the number of American nuclear weapons there was now "around 200," and had been "significantly reduced" in recent years. The author of the research council report, Hans M. Kristensen, a nuclear arms specialist and consultant for the organization, acknowledged that he did not have the most recent data but said his conclusions were based on recently declassified documents, commercial satellite imagery and other documents. He added that classified documents he obtained as recently as last year showed the nuclear stockpile to be roughly what his new study estimates. A former senior American officer in Europe said the report's accounting of weapons was "in the ballpark." And a NATO briefing in June 2004 showed the nuclear stockpile in Europe had not changed in more than a decade, suggesting any reductions had taken place quite recently. A study the council did in 1998 estimated the number of nuclear weapons in Europe at 150 to 200. The senior military official in Europe would not discuss which countries or targets the weapons could be used against, but military officials in the past have left open the possibility, however remote, of using nuclear arms against targets in so-called rogue nations, including Iran and Syria, if they threatened to use unconventional weapons. "Militarily, you can't rule out something like a biological threat, so this capability has not been taken off the table," the retired senior American officer said. There is no proposal to reduce the American nuclear arsenal in Europe, officials said, but the issue has caused strain among the alliance's political and military leaders. "Some allies and U.S. military see a lot of value in going to zero," the senior military official in Europe said. "That said, some allies and U.S. military see value in at least keeping some capability." Gen. James L. Jones, the head of the European Command and the top NATO commander, has privately told associates that he favors eliminating the American nuclear stockpile in Europe, but has met resistance from some NATO political leaders. The alliance's Nuclear Planning Group is to meet Feb. 17, but it is unclear if the issue will come up then. Spokesmen at the embassies of several European nations here declined to comment, citing their policy of not discussing American nuclear weapons on their soil. At the height of the cold war in the early 1970's, the United States had about 7,300 short-range nuclear weapons in Europe to be used as a last resort against a huge ground attack by the numerically superior Soviet military, the report said. Arms control agreements in the 1980's began to reduce that number, and after the collapse of the Soviet Union, President George H. W. Bush announced in September 1991 that the United States would withdraw all tactical ground-launched and naval nuclear weapons worldwide. About 1,400 air-delivered nuclear bombs were still left behind, the report says, but that number continued to dwindle over the next decade. The remaining weapons in Europe are B61 bombs, which can be dropped from fighter planes and are typically less powerful than long-range nuclear weapons fired from silos or submarines, the report said. The research council's report challenges the rationale for keeping short-range nuclear weapons in Europe when the United States has thousands of long-range missiles that could hit any target in a matter of minutes. Unlike the situation during the cold war, American aircraft are not kept on alert to deploy at a moment's notice. Still, with the United States straining to meet many of its conventional missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, the report asserts that eliminating weapons to be dropped by Air Force F-15's and F-16's could free up fighter-bombers for those missions. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/09/politics/09nukes.html

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New York Times February 9, 2005 U.S. Asking China To Increase Pressure On North Korea To End Its Nuclear Program By David E. Sanger and William J. Broad WASHINGTON, Feb. 8 - Driven by new evidence that North Korea may have begun selling nuclear materials around the world, President Bush sent an emissary last week to see President Hu Jintao of China and urge him to intensify diplomatic pressure on the North to give up its weapons program, according to senior American and Asian officials. The emissary, Michael Green, delivered a letter from Mr. Bush to Mr. Hu that, in the words of one American official, "was written to underscore the greatly heightened urgency" of the problem. According to Asian officials, the Chinese promised to send a delegation to Pyongyang later this month, but also advised Mr. Bush against making public pronouncements about the North Korean situation, the way he regularly talked about the threat posed by Iraq in the year leading up to the March 2003 invasion. Mr. Bush has never publicly mentioned the new information about suspect North Korean nuclear sales, which was reported by The New York Times last week. "The Chinese advised that we not demonstrate to the North how anxious everyone is about this," said one senior Asian diplomat who is deeply involved in the six-country negotiations over North Korea's nuclear program. "But the Chinese also seemed surprised by the quality of the scientific evidence," the diplomat added, that North Korea had produced several tons of a uranium compound that ended up in Libya. Until now, the Chinese, at least in public, had dismissed American charges that North Korea had a secret program to build weapons from uranium, based on technology it obtained from A. Q. Khan, the Pakistani nuclear scientist. In response to inquiries last week, the White House confirmed that Mr. Green, who is the senior director for Asia at the National Security Council, had traveled to Asia with William Tobey, a National Security Council official who deals with the spread of nuclear weapons. White House officials said the two men were visiting Beijing, Tokyo and Seoul "to advance the goals of peace and stability within Asia and the world." But they did not disclose the highly unusual meeting with Mr. Hu. Chinese leaders do not ordinarily see midlevel officials, but the two men arrived with American intelligence information about North Korea's two parallel nuclear weapons programs - one program that the North has boasted about, involving the manufacture of plutonium, and a second one that it has denied pursuing, involving uranium. The meeting was intended to underscore the urgency of the new intelligence data, the first evidence that North Korea had gone beyond building new weapons for its own small nuclear arsenal, and may have provided aid to other nations by selling a partly processed form of uranium that can be enriched into bomb fuel. While there is some dispute about when the uranium was sent to Libya, there is some evidence that the transaction took place as recently as early 2003. American and Asian intelligence officials say it is unclear whether North Korea knew that Libya was the ultimate destination for the chemical, called uranium hexafluoride. One senior official with access to the intelligence data said it was possible that the North Koreans only knew that it was transferring the fuel to members of Dr. Khan's network. "We don't know how much they produced, or if it was shipped elsewhere," the official said. "It's one of the questions we have to get answered." North Korea has not said whether it will rejoin the stalled negotiations, which also involve Russia, Japan and South Korea in addition to the United States and China. After a lengthy struggle within the Bush administration, the United States made a proposal in June that envisioned gradual economic aid and investment in North Korea in return for highly intrusive inspections and an agreement for complete dismantling of all of its nuclear facilities. The North Koreans have never responded to that proposal. Mr. Bush has often repeated his determination to find a diplomatic solution, in part because his military options are unpalatable: Officials do not know the locations of some of North Korea's nuclear installations, apparently including the site of the plant that is producing the uranium hexafluoride. Nor do they know where North Korea is storing plutonium "cores," perhaps enough for six to eight weapons, that have probably been manufactured within the past two years, according to the C.I.A. Still, the evidence of sales of raw fuel has energized some hard-line officials in the administration, and renewed internal debate about taking actions to cut off North Korea's money and trade, and to destabilize the government of Kim Jong Il. Mr. Bush's aides have determined that if the negotiations fail, they must end with China on the American side of the issue, not on the side of North Korea. "This is part of a strategy by the Bush administration to get China much more active on an issue that the administration has struggled with, and recognizes is now going on to the front burner," said Kurt Campbell, a former senior Pentagon official in the Clinton administration who worked on North Korean issues, and is now a senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The central piece of evidence that Mr. Green and Mr. Tobey took to Asia was a scientific analysis of the uranium found in Libya, which has now been identified with near certainty as having been produced in North Korea, intelligence officials say. Adding to the evidence, they told Asian officials, were traces of plutonium on the outside of casks found in Libya, which they said appeared to match plutonium from the North's main nuclear site, at Yongbyon. Two scientists who consult for federal intelligence agencies, but have not seen the evidence, said the mere presence of plutonium suggested a link to North Korea, because it leaves a distinctive "fingerprint." The United States, one of the scientists added, obtained a sample of North Korea's spent reactor fuel in 1992 from the International Atomic Energy Agency. Experts probably would have been able to compare the signature of the plutonium traces found in Libya with the sample in the possession of the United States. Moreover, they noted, for more than a decade the North Koreans have reprocessed spent fuel from nuclear reactors to recover plutonium. Such reprocessing, they noted, also produces uranium as a waste product often contaminated with traces of plutonium. Finally, the scientists said, the plutonium would contain mixtures of isotopes, or different forms of the element, that would reveal the type of reactor in which it was made. David E. Sanger reported from Washington for this article and William J. Broad from New York. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/09/politics/09prexy.html?

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Washington Post February 9, 2005 Pg. 9 Bush Request To Fund Nuclear Study Revives Debate Administration Wants to Research 'Bunker Buster,' but Critics Seek to Reassess U.S. Readiness By Walter Pincus, Washington Post Staff Writer The Bush administration is seeking $8.5 million to resume a study by the Energy and Defense departments on the feasibility of a nuclear "bunker buster" warhead, but the proposal is generating opposition in Congress and some leaders are pushing for a broader review of the nation's multibillion-dollar nuclear weapons programs. Rep. David L. Hobson (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee that handles the $6 billion- plus annual budget of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex, says he wants to raise fundamental questions this year about the size of the U.S. nuclear stockpile and why so many weapons remain on high levels of alert. "Why are we still preparing to fight the last war?" Hobson asked in a speech last week to the Arms Control Association. "The time has come for a thoughtful and open debate on the role of nuclear weapons in our country's national security strategy." The Ohio Republican, backed by a bipartisan group of House members, last year killed the nuclear bunker-buster study, a version of which was revived in the budget presented to Congress on Monday after Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld urged last month that the project be revived as a means to attack hardened deep-underground targets. Last year, Hobson moved $9 million that the administration sought to do research on "advanced concepts" for nuclear warheads and instead directed the funds be spent to study ways to improve the reliability and lifespan of existing warheads. Calling it research for a "reliable replacement warhead," Hobson planned that it would "challenge the workforce [of the national nuclear laboratories] while at the same time refurbishing some existing weapons in the stockpile without developing a new weapon that would require underground testing." "Until we have a real debate and develop a comprehensive plan for the U.S. nuclear stockpile and the DOE [Department of Energy] weapons complex, we are left arguing over isolated projects such as the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator," as the bunker buster is officially known, he said. In the president's budget released Monday, the Energy Department sought $4 million to continue its part of the bunker-buster study, which envisions using the warhead now in the B-83 nuclear bomb designed originally by the Livermore Nuclear Laboratory. Previously, a study was also underway at Los Alamos National Laboratory to see whether its B-61 tactical nuclear bomb could be used in a bunker buster. The Pentagon is seeking an additional $4.5 million next year to work on the hardened, earth-penetrating shell for the warhead, capable of digging into hard cement and even rock before exploding. With about $16.8 million already spent on the study in past years, the administration projected this week that it would need an additional $14 million to complete the study by 2007. Even then, work could not go forward on developing the bunker buster unless Congress gave specific approval. Hobson is studying the president's requests, a spokesman said yesterday, and had no immediate comment on the budget. Two Democratic House members, Reps. Edward J. Markey (Mass.) and Ellen Tauscher (Calif.), criticized the funds for the bunker-buster study when the budget was released Monday. "The Bush budget request for new nuclear weapons will face tough scrutiny by the Congress and I am hopeful that these requests will again be rejected," Markey said in a statement. Tauscher called the request "a waste of money on a weapon commanders in the field have not asked for, is of highly questionable utility, and may trigger a new global nuclear arms race." Hobson said he wants Congress to focus on other issues as well, including whether the United States can reduce the number of operational warheads beyond the cuts -- from about 6,000 to 1,700 or 2,200 -- called for in the Treaty of Moscow. "A more robust replacement warhead from a reliability standpoint will provide the stockpile hedge that is currently provided by retaining thousands of unnecessary warheads," Hobson said. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9148-2005Feb8.html

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Washington Times February 10, 2005 Pg. 1 Rice Urges Tighter Rein On Iran Europe pressed to get tough on nukes By Nicholas Kralev, The Washington Times BRUSSELS — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice yesterday urged European allies to get tough with Iran and to make it clear that Tehran faces possible U.N. sanctions if it does not stop making nuclear fuel. "The international community has got to be certain to speak with one very tough voice to the Iranians that it is not going to be acceptable for Iran to build a nuclear weapon under cover of civilian nuclear power," Miss Rice said in an interview with Fox News prior to attending a meeting of NATO ministers in Brussels. Her admonishment illustrated a continuing disagreement with leading European allies despite the overall tone of Miss Rice's overseas debut as the nation's top diplomat, which was billed as a "fence-mending" visit to repair ties that were strained over Iraq. In Washington, President Bush delivered an equally tough message to Iran yesterday. "The Iranians just need to know that the free world is working together to send a very clear message: Don't develop a nuclear weapon," Mr. Bush said during a meeting with Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski. The comments came as Britain, Germany and France held a third round of talks with Iran in Geneva about a deal that would provide economic benefits and security guarantees if Iran abandons efforts to enrich uranium — a fuel for both atomic bombs and nuclear-power plants. "The Iranians need to hear that, if they are unwilling to take the deal, really, that the Europeans are giving them, if they are unwilling to live with the verification measures ..., then the Security Council referral looms," Miss Rice said "I don't know that anyone has said that as clearly as they should to the Iranians," she said. During a press conference at the NATO headquarters in Brussels later in the day, Miss Rice said, "I believe that a diplomatic solution is in our grasp, if we can have unity of purpose, unity of message with the Iranians, and if the Iranians understand that the international community is quite serious about it living up to its obligations." Aides traveling with Miss Rice said the message about Security Council referral, which could lead to sanctions, has not been given to Iran because the Europeans are divided over the wisdom of such action. "Some of them support referral, and some don't," a senior State Department official said. Referral to the Security Council would require approval by the 35-member Board of Governors of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency, where Europe's support is essential. Britain has moved closer to the U.S. position, but Germany and France say the negotiations have a better chance of reaching a deal without the threat of U.N. action. Iran issued an ultimatum of its own yesterday, with President Mohammed Khatami warning of "massive" consequences if it was treated unfairly over its nuclear program. "We give our guarantee that we will not produce nuclear weapons because we're against them and do not believe they are a source of power," Mr. Khatami told foreign ambassadors in Tehran. "But we will not give up peaceful nuclear technology." Iran has suspended its program to enrich uranium while it continues to negotiate with the Europeans, but Mr. Khatami reiterated Iran's position that the action was temporary. He also issued an apparent threat to the United States. "Those who have been thumping the drums of war and have launched psychological warfare against Iran must know that the Iranian people will not allow the aggressors to put one foot on Iranian soil," he said. "But if this ever arrives, the aggressors will be burned in ... the storm of the people's anger." Miss Rice said the Bush administration has not "set any timetables" for resolving the dispute because "the Iranians know what they need to do." In his State of the Union speech last week, Mr. Bush delivered what sounded like an ultimatum to Iran's Islamic government. "Today, Iran remains the world's primary state sponsor of terror — pursuing nuclear weapons while depriving its people of the freedom they seek and deserve. ... The Iranian regime must give up its uranium-enrichment program and any plutonium reprocessing and end its support for terror," he said. "And, to the Iranian people, I say tonight: As you stand for your own liberty, America stands with you." Miss Rice completes her weeklong tour of Europe and the Middle East today with a visit to Luxembourg, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union for the first six months of the year. This article is based in part on wire-service reports. http://www.washtimes.com/world/20050209-113150-3924r.htm

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Washington Post February 10, 2005 Pg. 18 U.S. Military Says Update Of Iran War Plan Is Routine By Ann Scott Tyson, Washington Post Staff Writer The U.S. military is updating its war plan for Iran, a senior officer said yesterday, but he called the planning routine and said pressure on Tehran to curb a nuclear weapons program remains a diplomatic rather than military effort. "We are in that process, that normal process, of updating our war plans," said Lt. Gen. Lance Smith, deputy commander of the U.S. Central Command, which is responsible for U.S. forces across the Middle East, Central Asia and parts of North Africa. "We try to keep them current, particularly if . . . our region is active," he said in response to reporters' questions at a Pentagon news conference. Smith indicated the Iran contingency planning grew out of a broad, long-range effort to freshen routine plans for countries in the region and was not the product of a specific or urgent request. "I haven't been called into any late-night meetings at, you know, 8 o'clock at night, saying, 'Holy cow, we got to sit down and go plan for Iran,' " he said. "I'm not spending any of my time worrying about the nuclear proliferation in Iran," he said, adding that at this stage diplomatic efforts by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are "adequate for our needs." Smith's comments came after a week in which the Bush administration repeatedly warned Iran to give up what Washington contends is an effort to gain nuclear weapons. Earlier yesterday, Rice told reporters in Brussels that the United States and its European allies have made their nonproliferation demands clear but have set "no deadline" for action by Tehran. "The Iranians know what they need to do. They shouldn't be permitted, under cover of civilian nuclear power . . . to try to build a nuclear weapon," she said. At the White House, President Bush emphasized that the United States and Europe will "speak with one voice" in pressuring Iran. "The Iranians just need to know that the free world is working together to send a very clear message: . . . Don't develop a nuclear weapon," he said yesterday at an Oval Office appearance with Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski. Bush said he was "pleased" with the responses European leaders gave Rice in discussions on Iran. Day to day, Smith said, the U.S. military is focused less on the long-range threat of a nuclear Iran than on Tehran's immediate efforts to gain political influence in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the cross-border flow of fighters from Iran that feed Iraq's insurgency. Iran backed certain Iraqi candidates for the new National Assembly to try to gain sway over a future Iraqi government, he said. Tehran is also lending some support for the radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, whose militia staged two bloody uprisings against the U.S.-led occupation in several Iraqi cities last year, he said. "We have always been concerned about Iran's intentions in Iraq, and we have also had some difficulty following them," he said. A man sought by the United States as a top leader of the Iraq insurgency, former Iraqi vice president Izzat Ibrahim Douri, could be traveling back and forth to Iraq from Iran or from Syria, Smith said. Douri is No. 6 on the U.S. most-wanted list of former Iraqi leaders. Smith also said he thinks fighters tied to the Lebanese Shiite political group Hezbollah, whose military wing is funded by Iran, have been apprehended in Iraq. He could not confirm reports this week in the Arab news media that cited Iraq's interior minister as saying 18 members of Hezbollah had been detained in Iraq on terrorism charges. "I personally do not believe that Hezbollah has suddenly become a bigger threat than al Qaeda or former regime elements" in Iraq, he said. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12140-2005Feb9.html

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Washington Times February 10, 2005 Pg. 6 Radiation Antidote To Be Readily Available By Jennifer Harper, The Washington Times A simple vitamin pill soon may be part of the American military arsenal. The Defense Department has joined forces with Humanetics, a Minneapolis-based nutritional-supplement manufacturer, to refine an over-the-counter, anti-radiation pill that may be ready by year's end, one source said Tuesday. Described as a "radioprotective drug," the mystery pill is meant to be a practical, cheap antidote for millions in the event of nuclear attack. "The chances of military or civilian personnel being exposed to dirty bombs or improvised nuclear devices have risen dramatically," said Mark H. Whitnall, director of the Radiation Casualty Management Team at the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute in Bethesda. In the past, radiation victims have been treated with substances that bind to radioactive materials so they can pass safely out of the body — "potassium iodide, Prussian blue, calcium DTPA and zinc DTPA," Mr. Whitnall said. "Humanetics has a portfolio of four nutritional supplements which have shown beneficial effects on the immune system, and in some cases, have shown promise as anti-radiation drugs in preclinical research," he said. "These drugs can also be developed as injectable prescription drugs. Because of their proven low toxicity, low cost and stability at environmental temperatures, these agents are attractive as candidates for stockpiling for military or civilian use," Mr. Whitnall said. "Two of these compounds are already available for sale as dietary supplements." He did not identify the compounds. Eager entrepreneurs already offer so-called anti-radiation preparations. Nuke Protect and Rad Block are marketed right alongside the bee pollen and super-vitamins familiar to fans of alternative medicine. Nuke Protect consists primarily of potassium iodide, recommended by the Department of Homeland Security, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other federal agencies as a "blocking agent" to protect the human thyroid gland, which rapidly absorbs ionized radiation. Nuke Protect also contains selenium yeast, spice extracts and "wild Pacific kelp," according to Smart Bomb, an online herbs and supplements seller. This is not a new phenomenon. Various researchers have touted dark-green vegetables, bone meal, pectin, sunflower seeds and vitamins C and B-6 as anti-radiation "protective foods and supplements" since the 1970s. "There are different types of radiation depending on whether it's a nuclear bomb, power-plant accident, a dirty bomb," said Troy Jones, president of North Carolina-based Nuke Pills, which distributes three FDA-approved potassium iodide supplements. "But I am not aware of any supplement which could counter all the effects. But more power to the new research. America needs to address these things," Mr. Jones said, adding that his sales remain brisk. "But if this is a dietary supplement rather than a drug and the FDA is not involved here, I am not comfortable. Is the preparation safe for the public? That's my main consideration," he said. http://www.washtimes.com/national/20050210-123420-4417r.htm

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World - Reuters N.Korea Says It Has Nuclear Arms, Spurns Talks Thu Feb 10,10:59 AM ET By Jack Kim and Jon Herskovitz SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea (news - web sites) declared Thursday for the first time it possessed nuclear weapons and pulled out indefinitely from six-party talks on its atomic ambitions, saying it needed a defense against a hostile United States. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) played down the dramatic announcement, saying the United States had assumed since the mid-1990s that North Korea could make nuclear weapons. But she said North Korea would only deepen its own isolation, and forego international security guarantees if it pulled out of six-party talks on its nuclear program. Britain said it deplored the North's announcement, which comes as some of the world's largest military powers have been trying to coax the reclusive communist government to return to the stalled disarmament talks. "We ... have manufactured nukes to cope with the Bush administration's evermore undisguised policy to isolate and stifle the DPRK," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency. DPRK is short for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. "Nuclear weapons will remain (a) nuclear deterrent for self-defense under any circumstances," the ministry said. The statement marks the first time the North has publicly said it has nuclear weapons and is Pyongyang's first response to resuming six-party talks since President Bush (news - web sites) said in his inauguration speech on Jan. 20 that he was committed to ending tyranny. While Bush did not specify countries in his address last month, Rice has singled out North Korea as one of six tyrannical regimes. CHALLENGE FOR BUSH The statement also poses a challenge to Bush, who has long backed a diplomatic solution to the crisis but now faces two nations he once named as part of an "axis of evil" being openly defiant about their nuclear programs -- North Korea and Iran. He went to war with Iraq (news - web sites), the third nation in his declared axis. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) said Thursday he believed North Korea could be brought back to the negotiating table, while Russia's Foreign Ministry said it regretted the North's declaration of intent to build up its nuclear arsenal and halt its participation in the six-way dialogue. Neighboring South Korea (news - web sites) and Japan responded swiftly to the North's move to raise the stakes in a crisis that has engulfed North Asia for more than two years, urging it to abandon its nuclear programs. "We express our grave concern over North Korea's comment on its possessing nuclear weapons and we make it clear again that we won't tolerate North's nuclear weapons," a South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman said. China said it hoped the six-party talks would resume, noting that Beijing had persistently sought denuclearization along with peace and stability on the Korean peninsula. Speaking in Luxembourg, Rice said the United States had no intention of attacking or invading North Korea and said she hoped the talks, which also involve South Korea, China, Japan and Russia, would resume soon. "The fact of the matter is that the world has given them a way out and they should take that way out," she said. Nuclear proliferation experts said North Korea has likely produced enough plutonium for a small number of weapons but no one can say for certain if the North has the ability to assemble and deliver a nuclear bomb. "Most people in the field assume that North Korea can deliver a simple, implosion weapon by missile with a range that could hit Tokyo," said Gary Samore, the Director of Studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Britain. Earlier this week, U.S. officials said an envoy sent by Bush to China had delivered a message to China's leaders about information suggesting that Libya had obtained uranium hexafluoride from North Korea and made the case that this underscored the need to restart six-party talks. This processed uranium can be fed into nuclear centrifuges and enriched into bomb fuel. Three rounds of six-way talks have been held since August 2003 aimed at trying to coax Pyongyang back to the table. BRINKMANSHIP However, the Pyongyang Foreign Ministry tirade, announcing the indefinite suspension of talks, referred directly to what it called Washington's hostile policy as the North's reason for boosting its defenses. "The Bush administration termed the DPRK, its dialogue partner, an outpost of tyranny," the ministry said, adding that the U.S. aim was to stifle the North and achieve regime change. "This deprived the DPRK of any justification to participate in the six-party talks," it said. The latest crisis over the North's nuclear ambitions erupted in October 2002 when the United States said North Korea had acknowledged it had a secret program based on highly enriched uranium as well as a plutonium scheme that it had put on hold. Pyongyang later denied having a uranium project. North Korea may be trying to raise the stakes while U.S. attention is focused on Iran's nuclear programs to obtain better terms in its own negotiations, analysts said. "I believe North Korea hardened its stance because the Bush administration has eased its stance," said Noriyuki Suzuki, chief analyst at the Tokyo-based Radiopress news agency, which specializes in monitoring events in North Korea. "North Korea is trying to win more concessions from the United States by hardening its stance," he said. "But I think this approach will have the opposite effect to what was intended," Suzuki said. A senior South Korean security official hinted that the North may be using brinkmanship to try to gain the upper hand. "North Korea is using its typical harsh rhetoric, but it still makes it clear that this is not the end of the talks," the official said. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=586&ncid=586&e=6&u=/nm/20050210/wl_nm/korea_north_tal ks_dc

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New York Times February 11, 2005 Pg. 1 North Koreans Say They Hold Nuclear Arms By James Brooke and David E. Sanger TOKYO, Feb. 10 - North Korea declared publicly on Thursday for the first time that it possessed nuclear weapons and would refuse to return to disarmament talks. That left China, the United States and its allies to debate whether diplomacy could still persuade the North Koreans to give up the nuclear option. American officials played down the importance of the declaration, while acknowledging that they were surprised by the announcement; they and Asian officials had believed North Korea was about to return to the negotiating table after a hiatus of eight months. The officials said American intelligence agencies had for years worked on the assumption that the North probably possessed nuclear weapons. Just last week, two White House officials traveled to Asia with assessments that North Korea's arsenal had probably enlarged and with evidence that the country had probably sold partly processed nuclear fuel on the black market. In Washington, intelligence officials were scanning satellite imagery for any evidence that North Korea might be preparing a nuclear test, but so far have seen none, officials said. Five months ago, senior Bush administration officials warned that they suspected that North Korea might be preparing a test ahead of the American presidential election; the activity they had detected slowed soon after Washington's disclosure, and China, Russia, Britain and the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, all called on North Korea to re-engage with the negotiations. In Luxembourg on Thursday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, winding up a tour of Europe and the Middle East, called the North Korean announcement "an unfortunate move, most especially probably for the people of North Korea, because it only deepens the North Korean isolation from the rest of the international community." But the administration's message seemed mixed. While Ms. Rice and the White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, said the United States would simply follow the same course of trying to lure the North back into talks, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld gave public voice to the administration's growing concern. "One has to worry about weapons of that power in the hands of leadership of that nature," he said in Nice, France. "I don't think that anyone would characterize the leadership in that country as being restrained." Several current and former administration officials, declining to speak for attribution, said the announcement would be very likely to bolster some arguments in the administration that Washington should press to cut off North Korea's remaining trade and financial flows, in hopes of squeezing the country and perhaps destabilizing the government of President Kim Jong Il. Vice President Dick Cheney "has always argued that 'time is not on our side,' " said one former senior official who argued for deepened engagement with North Korea. "Kim's just made life easier for the hard-liners." In Beijing - where the negotiations have taken place and the Chinese leadership has used the talks to enter a new diplomatic role in the world - the government gently urged North Korea late Thursday night to come back to the table. But the Chinese said nothing, at least in public, about the North's claim to have nuclear weapons, a stance that underlined China's diplomatic predicament. Chinese leaders have tried for years to find middle ground between the United States and North Korea, not wanting a nuclear neighbor, but also not wanting the North Korean government to collapse, sending out a flood of refugees. They have consistently urged the rest of the world, especially the United States, to show more patience with North Korea. They had also contended that it was unclear that North Korea had developed nuclear weapons, despite American intelligence that it had. The Japanese prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, told reporters in Tokyo, "We will have to continue to persuade North Korea that it is to their benefit to scrap nuclear weapons." In its statement, North Korea specifically attacked Japan for "toeing the U.S. line." Tokyo has been struggling with mounting popular pressure for economic sanctions against the North. On Tuesday, Mr. Koizumi personally received a petition calling for sanctions, signed by five million people. In the past, North Korea has publicly boasted that it possesses an unspecified "deterrent force" and, on the sidelines of six-nation negotiations, warned American officials that it had nuclear capability. But it had stopped short of a formal announcement that its nuclear fuel had been placed into weapons, perhaps because retaining ambiguity on the point helped China. The announcement from North Korea was clear, however. It said it had "manufactured nukes for self-defense to cope with the Bush administration's undisguised policy to isolate and stifle" it, and that it would "bolster its nuclear weapons arsenal." The statement said North Korea had decided to suspend participation in disarmament talks because it had concluded that the Bush administration would pursue the "brazen-faced, double-dealing tactics" of both dialogue and "regime change." It was unclear, Asian and American officials said, whether North Korea was definitively slamming the door to talks or merely trying to raise its price for returning to them. "The question is how they came to the calculation to make their nuclear declaration now, and to pre-empt the Chinese effort to get them back in the talks," said Charles Pritchard, who was a central figure in the Bush administration's negotiations with the North until he left in a disagreement over how the administration was pursuing its strategy. "It runs the risk of alienating the Chinese." He speculated that the administration's recent efforts to show Asian nations evidence that the North had sold nuclear material to Libya - raising the possibility it could be involved in nuclear exports to other countries as well - "may have led them to the conclusion these would be uncomfortable talks." In June, facing a stalemate in the talks that involve the United States, North and South Korea, China, Russia and Japan, the Bush administration published its first serious proposal to the North. The deal promised gradual investment in the country in return for an agreement for complete disarmament - involving both of the country's suspected nuclear weapons programs - and highly intrusive inspections. The North has yet to respond. Two groups of members of the American Congress who visited Pyongyang, the capital, last month said North Korean officials had hinted at an imminent return to the negotiating table. Some indicated the North was listening last week for signals in Mr. Bush's State of the Union address, in which the president avoided the confrontational rhetoric branding North Korea as member of an "axis of evil," the words he used in his 2002 address. This time, in his only reference to the North, he merely said he was "working with governments in Asia to convince North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions." But in Thursday's statement, North Korea zeroed in on Ms. Rice's testimony last month in her Senate confirmation hearings, in which she lumped North Korea together with five other dictatorships, calling them "outposts of tyranny." North Korea's statement said, "The true intention of the second-term Bush administration is not only to further its policy to isolate and stifle the D.P.R.K. pursued by the first-term office, but to escalate it." North Korea's formal name is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. South Korea's foreign minister was landing in Washington just as the announcement was made, and is scheduled to see Ms. Rice and Vice President Cheney next week. Seoul has pursued an accommodating policy toward North Korea, encouraging greater investment there even as the United States has talked of tightening the economic screws if the North refused to disarm. "We once again urge North Korea to rejoin the six-party talks without conditions so that it can discuss whatever differences it has with the United States and other participants," the South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman, Lee Kyu Hyung, was quoted by The Associated Press as saying. "We express our strong concern with the North Korean statement that it has nuclear weapons, and we again declare our stance that we will never tolerate North Korea possessing nuclear weapons." In Luxembourg, Ms. Rice said that because the United States has long suspected that the North had the capacity to make nuclear weapons, its statement did not really change the security status quo in East Asia. "We are confident that the United States, with our alliance with the Republic of Korea - the South Koreans - with our deterrent capability on the Korean peninsula, that of course the United States and its allies can deal with any potential threat from North Korea," she said. "And North Korea, I think, understands that." Though Ms. Rice labeled the possession of nuclear weapons by both North Korea and Iran as "unacceptable," her comment about North Korea seemed aimed at reassuring Americans and perhaps Europeans at the end of her weeklong trip in Europe and in the Middle East that the dangers were not imminent. James Brooke reported from Tokyo for this article, and David E. Sanger from Washington. Keith Bradsher contributed reporting from Beijing, and Steven R.Weisman from Luxembourg. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/11/international/asia/11korea.html

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Washington Post N. Korea Declaration Draws World Concern Nuclear Arms Assertion Spurs Calls to Revive Talks By Anthony Faiola and Philip P. Pan Washington Post Foreign Service Friday, February 11, 2005; Page A01 TOKYO, Feb. 10 -- North Korea declared Thursday that it had produced nuclear weapons to defend itself from the United States and that it had suspended participation in multinational talks to halt its arms program. The announcement provoked the Bush administration and its partners negotiating with North Korea to call for the resumption of six-party talks toward a peaceful resolution of the nuclear issue in the communist country. While U.S. government analysts have said for some time that North Korea has the ability to produce nuclear armaments, it is uncertain whether the Pyongyang government possesses such weapons or the ability to adapt them as warheads for its missile systems. North Korea has used progressively more specific language, in public and in private, to describe the development of a "nuclear deterrent" since it expelled U.N. weapons inspectors in a feud with the United States in late 2002 and withdrew from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty the following January. But on Thursday, a statement by the government of the reclusive North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, contained the most explicit wording yet. "In response to the Bush administration's increasingly hostile policy toward North Korea, we . . . have manufactured nuclear weapons for self-defense," said the statement, issued through the official Korean Central News Agency. North Korea is now the eighth country with currently declared nuclear weapons. The others are the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia, all signatories of the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty, and India and Pakistan, which have not signed the treaty. Israel is considered by analysts to have nuclear weapons, but has not acknowledged possessing them. South Africa built a bomb in the 1970s but later renounced its nuclear program. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, returning to the United States after a trip to Europe, called for a resumption of the six-party talks, which also include China, Japan, Russia and South Korea. "The North Koreans have been told by the president of the United States that the United States has no intention of attacking or invading North Korea," Rice said at a news conference in Luxembourg. The White House played down the significance of the North Korean statement. "It's rhetoric we've heard before," press secretary Scott McClellan told reporters traveling with President Bush in North Carolina. "We remain committed to the six-party talks. We remain committed to a peaceful diplomatic resolution to the nuclear issue with regards to North Korea." U.S. officials informed Asian allies last week that North Korea had reprocessed 8,000 spent fuel rods into weapons- grade plutonium and appeared to have exported nuclear material to Libya. U.S. officials have estimated that North Korea has produced enough nuclear material for six to eight devices. Intelligence officials also have said that North Korea would have the capacity to produce up to six additional nuclear weapons yearly with a program in place to produce highly enriched uranium. The North Korean statement harshly criticized the Bush administration, saying U.S. statements calling for diplomacy were the "far-fetched logic of gangsters." "The true intention of the second-term Bush administration is not only to further its policy to isolate and stifle the DPRK . . . but to escalate it," the statement said, using the initials of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. It called U.S. statements "a bid to mislead the world public opinion." Analysts said the North Korean statement represented an open rebuke of China, the North's closest ally, principal trading partner and primary source of food and fuel shipments. China has publicly opposed the development of nuclear arms in North Korea, and President Hu Jintao is reported to have warned Kim in private letters not to build such weapons. China has also repeatedly urged the world to be patient with the North, taking the lead in promoting the six-nation talks and a diplomatic solution. For two years, North Korea played along with its economic and political patron, participating in three rounds of talks in Beijing and refraining from declaring itself a nuclear power. By defying China now, analysts say, North Korea appears to be betting that the Chinese leadership has little choice but to tolerate its escalating nuclear brinkmanship with the United States. Asian diplomats had hoped for a resumption of the six-party talks, which were suspended last year after North Korea appeared to be awaiting the outcome of the U.S. presidential election. Bush, who has referred to North Korea as part of an "axis of evil," refrained from such rhetoric during his State of the Union address last week, emphasizing the need for international cooperation to solve the crisis. But the North Korean statement objected to Rice's use of the term "outpost of tyranny" during her Senate confirmation hearings last month, saying "the official political stance of the U.S. contained no word showing any willingness to coexist." Analysts had considered a nuclear declaration by the North to be a bargaining chip it had withheld in the multilateral talks. Now that the Bush administration is in its second term, the statement indicates that the secretive government no longer has anything to lose, the analysts said. "They are using this to try to force the U.S. to deal with them now as a nuclear-possessing country, and to escalate their demands," said Pyong Jin Il, a Tokyo-based North Korea expert and editor of the Korea Report. "They are going to try to force the U.S. to deal with it on an equal stand as China, Russia, India and Pakistan. They are asking the U.S. and the rest of the world to negotiate with them as a nuclear power." Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, meeting with NATO ministers in Nice, in the south of France, said there was call for concern "if you believe them that they have weapons." "Given they're a dictatorial regime and the repression of their own people, one has to worry about weapons of that power in the hands of leadership of that nature," Rumsfeld said. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said at the same meeting that North Korea's withdrawal from the six-party talks "would be unsuitable." South Korea said that the North's decision to stay away from talks was "seriously regrettable." Foreign Ministry spokesman Lee Kyu Hyung said, "We again declare our stance that we will never tolerate North Korea possessing nuclear weapons." In Beijing, the government's initial reaction to the North Korean declaration was cautious. "We have taken note of the relevant report, and are monitoring the development of the situation," Kong Quan, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, said in a statement. "We consistently advocate the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, and safeguarding peace and stability on the peninsula. We hope the six-party talks will continue." Officials in Tokyo, as in Washington, have been looking to China to pressure the North. China provides as much as 80 percent of North Korea's energy and has on occasion cut off oil supplies to force it into submission. The standoff with North Korea began after what U.S. officials have said was the North's private admission in October 2002 of operating a uranium enrichment program, a violation of its agreement with the Clinton administration to abandon nuclear weapons programs. This touched off a tense two years in which North Korea, denying that it had an enrichment program, expelled weapons inspectors and announced the reprocessing of its spent plutonium rods. Analysts say that the Pyongyang government, which is seeking billions of dollars in energy, economic aid and loans in return for giving up its nuclear ambitions, may be calculating that the current mood will move the Bush administration toward something it has been loath to do: giving in to the demands of other parties in the talks, chiefly China and South Korea, to pursue a softer line with North Korea. "The North Koreans are saying they will 'indefinitely postpone,' not cancel, the six-party talks, and that's a key difference," said Hajime Izumi, an expert on North Korea at Japan's University of Shizuoka. "They're not walking away, they're just looking for a way to find a position of strength." Pan reported from Beijing. Staff writers Josh White in Nice and Robin Wright in Luxembourg, special correspondent Akiko Yamamoto in Tokyo and researcher Robert Thomason in Washington contributed to this report. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15421-2005Feb10.html

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Washington Post February 11, 2005 Pg. 21 Analysis In Pyongyang, Raising The Ante N. Korea's Goal May Be Acceptance of Its Nuclear Programs By Glenn Kessler and Anthony Faiola, Washington Post Staff Writers By heightening the stakes in a two-year standoff, North Korea has signaled it has little interest in giving up its nuclear programs for relatively minor upfront concessions from the Bush administration -- and appears to be gambling that the United States and its allies will ultimately accept the idea of a nuclear North Korea. At each step of the way in the crisis, the government in Pyongyang has carefully crossed once-unthinkable thresholds, with little apparent consequence. North Korea's announcement yesterday that it has nuclear weapons and is withdrawing from negotiations on its nuclear programs has once again upped the ante. But it appears unlikely it will jar the United States and its allies to take any dramatic actions, analysts and officials said. Indeed, the North Korean statement is less about nuclear bombs -- nations generally announce they have joined the nuclear club by conducting a successful test -- than a calculated diplomatic gambit designed to gain a new edge in the debate over its nuclear ambitions. Regional resistance to any military strike has mounted in the past year -- and to many in the region, the idea of a nuclear North Korea, analysts say, is simply not as shocking as it once was. This has limited Washington's leverage, and Pyongyang appears to be trying to prod Washington to significantly sweeten its offer. North Korea has sought billions of dollars in energy, economic aid and loans in exchange for giving up its nuclear ambitions. The United States has insisted that it will give North Korea no rewards until it fully discloses its nuclear programs and allows independent verification of its report within three months -- and then has only hinted at what might follow. Although the United States has been joined in the talks by four of North Korea's neighbors, unity among the five nations has been fitful. China and South Korea in particular have complained that the Bush administration has not shown enough flexibility. Just last week, the administration dispatched two key officials to Asia to bolster its position by displaying what it asserted was new intelligence showing nuclear dealings between North Korea and Libya. But China, host of the six-party talks that also include Russia and Japan, appears eager to avoid economic sanctions or other measures that could lead to the collapse of North Korea, something that could spill millions of refugees across the Chinese border. In South Korea, the ruling party faces a tough election in April and is discussing a possible presidential summit in Pyongyang in an effort to bolster its electoral prospects. In the United States, North Korea's statement appears certain to reopen debate within the administration, which throughout Bush's first term was bitterly divided over North Korea policy. As recently as Wednesday, U.S. officials had confidently told members of Congress that the talks, which last took place in June, would restart in early March. Some key advocates of a low-key diplomatic approach had been convinced they had the upper hand in the internal debate. "This will make our job easier," said an administration official who favors a tougher approach. "North Korea is supporting the hard-liners' well-earned derision of this whole process." But analysts said the United States has a dwindling set of options. There is little sentiment within the administration for making concessions to North Korea. If the talks do not resume, the administration could face a tough struggle to get the issue before the U.N. Security Council, where China holds a veto. In the past week, the administration has concentrated its focus on Iran's nuclear programs, which it also wants to bring before the Security Council. "There aren't good options here," said Charles L. Pritchard, a Brookings Institution fellow who until August 2003 was a special envoy for the North Korea talks. "They still have Iran on their hands, and I don't think they can take North Korea on in a confrontational manner." In recent weeks, North Korea had sent signals that it was carefully watching Bush administration statements for a "change in tone." President Bush, who three years ago called North Korea part of an "axis of evil," was muted in his statement about North Korea in last week's State of the Union address. But Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in her confirmation hearings, labeled North Korea one of six "outposts of tyranny" -- a remark that Pyongyang repeatedly cited yesterday. Some administration officials noted that, in declaring it would indefinitely suspend participation in the talks, North Korea also said it still has the "ultimate goal" of a denuclearized Korean peninsula and would "solve the issues through dialogue and negotiations." They said it is a hopeful sign that North Korea intends to return to the talks. But other analysts said that language may have been aimed at China and South Korea, giving them one more reason to sidestep a confrontation. The Bush administration first tried to persuade China in July 2003 to allow the issue go to the Security Council, but the Chinese insisted that the six-party negotiating track must first run its course. "There has been a conscious strategy of having slight ambiguity about where they are going," said Robert J. Einhorn, a former assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation who is now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "What the North Koreans are trying to do is give proponents of diplomacy a sign that not all is lost." An Asian diplomat who has discussed North Korea with the Chinese said Beijing might step up diplomatic pressure on Pyongyang to return to the talks but would resist taking tougher actions. Because North Korea has not conducted a nuclear test, the diplomat said, China can continue to maintain that it is not sure if the North has succeeded in building an atomic bomb. So far, brinkmanship has worked well for the North Koreans. To date, its various incendiary declarations leading up to yesterday's announcement have done little to hurt it. North Korea has kicked out international weapons inspectors, withdrawn from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, publicly claimed to have reprocessed spent fuel rods into plutonium and, in 2003, privately threatened toU.S. diplomats that it might test a nuclear device. Every time a red line appears to have been drawn, North Korea has crossed it without penalty. In fact, it has enjoyed the opposite reaction. Its economic ties have flourished with both China and South Korea, and even the European Union has opened in Pyongyang an extension of its Seoul-based chamber of commerce. Recent visitors to the North Korean capital talk of more cars in the streets and improvement projects underway for North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's 63rd birthday next week. North Korean officials may have concluded that under the current negotiating path there was little chance of a deal that would ensure the government's survival, said John Green, director of the Asia practice at Eurasia Group, a consulting firm. "It was hard to imagine the Bush administration accepting anything short of regime change," he said. Faiola reported from Tokyo. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15207-2005Feb10.html

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Miami Herald Posted on Thu, Feb. 10, 2005 Authorities: Pakistani urged al-Qaida to get nukes WASHINGTON - A wealthy Pakistani businessman who's being held at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, prison camp for suspected terrorist ties urged al-Qaida operatives to acquire nuclear weapons for use against U.S. troops and said he knew where to get them, according to American investigators. The allegation, contained in documents filed recently in U.S. District Court in Washington, also identifies Saifullah Paracha, 57, who has an import business in New York, as a participant in a plot to smuggle explosives into the United States and to help al-Qaida hide "large amounts of money." There are few details about the smuggling plot and little additional information about what the businessman, a permanent U.S. resident who's been held 19 months without charges, may have known about how to obtain nuclear weapons. Paracha, during a review tribunal of his case in November at the U.S. naval base in Cuba, vigorously denied any ties to al-Qaida and scoffed at the nuclear allegation. "Is a nuclear weapon something I could buy off the shelf? Can you buy it from Tony Blair?" he told a panel of military officers, referring to the British prime minister. Top American officials have warned that al-Qaida has sought nuclear materials and that a network of Pakistani scientists sold nuclear technology and expertise to Libya, Iran and North Korea. Paracha, who's fluent in English, has split his time between the United States and Pakistan for more than 30 years. Two brothers are American citizens, his lawyer said. Paracha operates a TV production company along with International Merchandise, which imports clothing in New York. The saga of his arrest and detention for two years reveals that he was a high-interest target of U.S. investigators. His son Uzair, 25, was arrested in New York in 2003 and faces trial March 21 on charges of trying to help an al-Qaida agent get into the United States and deal with immigration officials. At the time, Attorney General John Ashcroft said the case demonstrated al-Qaida's determination to penetrate U.S. borders two years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Investigators charged that father and son met with top al-Qaida leaders in Pakistan, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a mastermind of those attacks who was later captured. Three months after his son's arrest, Paracha took a commercial flight from Pakistan to Thailand in July 2003 to meet with Kmart buyers. He was turned over to U.S. forces, who took him to Bagram air base in Afghanistan, where he was interrogated for more than a year, then shipped to Guantanamo last September. The International Committee of the Red Cross told his wife, Farhat, that he was being held in Guantanamo as an enemy combatant, but the Defense Department refused to acknowledge it until his lawyer, Gaillard Hunt, filed a petition on Paracha's behalf in U.S. court. Paracha is one of the most recent of 74 Guantanamo detainees who've filed petitions challenging their captivity. Two judges have issued opposing rulings on their rights, and a federal appeals court will decide whether judges can examine the merits of each case. Hunt said Thursday that Paracha was "a businessman getting ready to meet Kmart buyers, the farthest thing from an enemy combatant." The lawyer noted the difference in the way father and son are being treated: "They have held Saifullah for 17 months. Why didn't they indict him if they have evidence?" In court papers, Hunt said any discussion of nuclear weapons by Paracha was general, "something many people have done over the past 60 years in our more anxious moments." A Justice Department spokesman wouldn't discuss the Parachas' cases or why father and son are being treated differently. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in New York, Herbert Hadad, said prosecutors were ready to go to trial in the Uzair Paracha case. The nuclear reference about Saifullah Paracha was one of 11 allegations from an unclassified summary of evidence that was used against him during a tribunal to review his status, a process that all 500-plus detainees in Guantanamo went through last year. In a single passage, investigators told the tribunal that Paracha "recommended to an al Qaida operative that nuclear weapons should be used against U.S. troops and suggested where these weapons might be obtained." Other allegations: Paracha met twice with Osama bin Laden and held "large amounts" of money for al-Qaida and discussed ways of getting chemicals and explosives into countries allied with the United States. Paracha told the tribunal he met with bin Laden in 1999 to discuss a TV project on the Quran, and that the other meeting was with a business delegation that visited Afghanistan in 2000. He said his extensive business and charitable work might have brought him into contact with al-Qaida supporters. "Sir, how could anybody know who al Qaida is?" he told the officers on the tribunal panel. "I believe in the Quran: that killing one innocent person is equal to killing all humanity." Paracha's family has said he's pro-American. They released an e-mail from a business partner, Charles Anteby, who's Jewish: "We had friendly talks on religion ... he spoke very highly of America." The Defense Department determined that Paracha, like the vast majority of detainees, was properly held as an enemy combatant who fought for or supported al-Qaida or the hard-line Taliban regime in Afghanistan, which harbored bin Laden. Its decision was based on classified information that officials didn't disclose to Paracha. When Paracha, who has a heart condition, told the panel he wanted nothing to do with violence and couldn't be classified a combatant, one officer said the designation had a broader reach. "You could be in Thailand, holding $20 million for the purchase of weapons, and this could be more damaging than if you were just one person holding a rifle," the tribunal member told him. The Defense Department withholds the names of tribunal members. (Davies covers Washington for The Miami Herald.) http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/10869273.htm

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Los Angeles Times February 11, 2005 Radioactive Cargo Is Lost, Then Found In Boston By Associated Press WASHINGTON — A Halliburton Co. shipment of radioactive material that arrived in New York in October was lost en route to Texas and was not found until Wednesday, when it turned up in Boston. The material — two sources of the element americium, used in oil well exploration — was found intact at a freight facility after a search by federal authorities. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it had not been informed of the missing shipment until Tuesday. Depending on the material, government rules require notification either immediately or within 30 days. NRC and Halliburton officials said Thursday that the public was never in danger. The americium was being shipped from Russia to Houston, Halliburton said in a report filed with the NRC. On Thursday, the company blamed the shipper — Greeneville, Tenn.-based Forward Air — for losing track of the material and failing to tell Halliburton. A spokesman for Forward Air did not return calls. "The focus through today was on trying to find the material," NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said. "We're going to be pressing them on why the notification was not more timely." Halliburton spokeswoman Wendy Hall said the shipping company improperly labeled the material and sent it to the wrong location. She said Halliburton contacted the shipper "multiple times" about the package and was told repeatedly that it was en route to Houston. Hall said the shipping company acknowledged Tuesday that it could not find the shipment. Halliburton immediately notified the NRC, she said, and a review of surveillance tapes enabled authorities to locate the shipment in Boston. Hall said the material was encased in a double-walled stainless steel cylinder that was locked in a steel container. "All of this was found intact, and we have no information that leads us to believe that the public or environment were in danger," Hall said. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-halliburton11feb11,1,7795690.story

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