CPC Outreach Journal #452
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USAF COUNTERPROLIFERATION CENTER CPC OUTREACH JOURNAL Maxwell AFB, Alabama Issue No. 452, 1 September 2005 Articles & Other Documents: U.S.-Russian Efforts To Protect Arsenal Gain Steam Stay Or Go, Army Store Of Lethal VX Frays Nerves Fear Of Occupation Sustains Pyongyang's Nuclear Arms Iran Seeks Talks With U.N. Energy Agency Quest The Decision Makers: Defense Department Nuclear Nonproliferation: Better Management Controls Needed for Some DOE Projects in Russia and Other Countries. (GAO Report) U.S. To Aid Ukraine In Countering Bioweapons North Korea Delays Resuming Talks On Ending Nuclear Programs Chirac Warns Iran Of Penalty If It Continues Nuclear In Brazil, An A-Bomb Question Work Report Links 6 Nations To Biological Arms Efforts Adherence to and Compliance With Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments (State Department Report) U.S. No Longer Insists That Cuba Is Creating Offensive Ukraine: $2 Million From U.S. To Destroy Weapons Bioweapons Chinese Activist Warns Of Nuclear War Katrina's Lesson In Readiness 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 Los Angeles Times August 27, 2005 U.S.-Russian Efforts To Protect Arsenal Gain Steam Sen. Lugar hails a deal on inspections as key to helping keep Moscow's nuclear weapons out of terrorists' reach. By David Holley, Times Staff Writer MOSCOW — Joint U.S.-Russian efforts to boost security against potential terrorist attacks on Russian storage sites for nuclear warheads have accelerated in recent months, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said here Friday. Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) credited the stepped-up pace of activity to a new commitment by Russian President Vladimir V. Putin after a February summit with President Bush in Bratislava, Slovakia. "We've had an agreement for inspections at the warhead storage sites that has broken the logjam of misunderstanding there," Lugar said at a news conference. "This is an important breakthrough." Under the 1991 Nunn-Lugar Act, which established the Cooperative Threat Reduction program, the United States has spent billions of dollars to help dismantle nuclear warheads, ballistic missiles, bombers, submarines and other weapons in former Soviet states. But joint efforts to prevent terrorists from raiding Russian storage facilities and obtaining nuclear weapons largely have faltered. The U.S. sought to monitor how its funds would be used to upgrade security, something Russia had been unwilling to allow, Lugar said at the news conference and in a subsequent interview. In June, however, Russia presented the United States with a list of 25 to 30 nuclear warhead storage sites and said that three U.S. inspections would be allowed at each, Lugar said. "Terrorists have become tougher," Lugar said. "This is a Russian-American response to toughen the targets too. We're not asleep either." Lugar said that until the February summit, "things were … certainly not going very fast in this area." "I think that President Bush and President Putin, taking a look at the war on terror — and this is the point we're making anecdotally about how terrorists sometimes are becoming more proficient in their craft — I think the two presidents recognized we needed to upgrade so we were more proficient in our protection," Lugar said. "The Russians in the past had placed severe limitations upon inspection of the storage sites, so this was an important breakthrough," he added. "The Russians in essence are saying, 'Your privileges to inspect are not unlimited, but at least you have three opportunities.' " Lugar is in Russia with Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) to visit several sites associated with the program. They are scheduled to visit a nuclear warhead storage facility in Saratov, 450 miles south of Moscow, and a site near Perm, about 725 miles east of the Russian capital, where mobile SS-24 and SS-25 intercontinental ballistic missiles that once threatened the United States are being destroyed. On previous visits, Lugar said, he has run into situations where Americans were denied access to U.S.-funded activities. "There might be a commander who is just uncooperative, who wasn't really eager to see Americans around there," Lugar said. "So we had to argue diplomatically that, after all, this was cooperative, we were providing contractors and various other support, so we felt that for the American taxpayers we ought to take a look. This was not always agreed to in the old days or more recent days." Lugar recalled visiting a Russian warhead storage facility about five years ago. "Literally we saw the warheads sort of like coffins, lying side by side, with labels at the top indicating … when the warhead was constructed, what kind of servicing, how long it might have efficacy," he said. Lugar said he believed it was important for the momentum of the program to continue the work, citing as an example U.S. help in construction of a plant in the Siberian town of Shchuchye to destroy chemical weapons. "We believe it's in our best interests to continue to work with the Russians and other countries to fund the Shchuchye project, which I understand will finally be completed in about 2008, because there's still 40,000 metric tons of nerve gas or other dangerous chemical weapons out there that Russia has pledged to destroy but physically found it's unable to do so by itself," he said. On Friday, Lugar and Obama visited a Moscow-area agricultural laboratory where Soviet-era research included finding ways to counter a possible U.S. biological weapons attack. "This is a biological facility dealing with agricultural situations, and there are dangerous pathogens. They're scattered over many rooms, many floors, many buildings," Lugar said. "So the idea, which the Russians fully support and are enthusiastic about, is that we rebuild a certain section or fortify these rooms so they will contain in a fairly small area the pathogens, and thus secure the place." http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-usrussia27aug27,1,2172238.story (Return to Articles and Documents List) Chicago Tribune August 27, 2005 Stay Or Go, Army Store Of Lethal VX Frays Nerves By Tim Jones, Tribune national correspondent NEWPORT, Ind. -- Like the house guest who never leaves, VX nerve agent, one of the last and deadliest vestiges of the Cold War, sits in thick steel storage tubes amid western Indiana's vast green fields of corn and soybeans. Maybe the more than 1,200 tons of dangerous chemical weapons material will be moved out of this pastoral setting, as the Army has been trying to do for years. And maybe it won't. According to analyst George Delgado, who testified this week before the federal Base Closure and Realignment Commission, it could be as late as 2012 before all the VX is destroyed or neutralized. The long-running drama over what to do with the viscous chemical last produced in 1968 faces not only scientific and environmental obstacles but political resistance in New Jersey, where officials have vowed to block any plans to truck a watery, neutralized form of the nerve agent to their state for disposal in the Delaware River. Even if officials here figure out how to safely neutralize the chemical, there are no guarantees the material will leave Indiana. "I'm probably not going to see that stuff moved out of here, not in my lifetime," predicted Tim Wilson, the 48-year- old president of the Vermillion County Board of Commissioners who has monitored the Army's efforts to destroy the nerve agent. "I think they're going to have a hard time transporting it out," Wilson said. Practically nothing about the planned disposal of the VX nerve agent, stored about 30 miles north of Terre Haute near the village of Newport, has been easy. The chemical stockpiled at the 8,000-acre Newport Chemical Agent Disposal Facility was supposed to be gone years ago, as dictated by a 1990 disarmament agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union. But since then there have been huge fights over how to safely dispose of the cooking oil-type material. Incineration was proposed and later dropped because of environmental concerns. Disposal plan VX, which the Army began producing in 1961, was designed for launch on rockets or to drop on large numbers of troops.