USAF COUNTERPROLIFERATION CENTER

CPC OUTREACH JOURNAL

Maxwell AFB, Alabama

Issue No. 338, 6 May 2004

Articles & Other Documents:

What If? Europe Simulates Qaeda Nuclear Hit North Korea Offers US Pledge On Weapon Inside North Korea: Leaders Open To Ending Nuclear North Korea Builds Up Missiles Crisis An Al Qaeda 'Chemist' And The Quest For Ricin Some in U.S. think Syria has atomic centrifuges - sources Hoarder of Arms Gets 11 Years N. Korea May Have A Missile That Can Hit Guam US And Russia Nukes: Still On Cold War, Hair-Trigger Alert

Welcome to the CPC Outreach Journal. As part of USAF Counterproliferation Center’s mission to counter weapons of mass destruction through education and research, we’re providing our government and civilian community a source for timely counterproliferation information. This information includes articles, papers and other documents addressing issues pertinent to US military response options for dealing with nuclear, biological and chemical threats and attacks. It’s our hope this information resource will help enhance your counterproliferation issue awareness. Established in 1998, the USAF/CPC provides education and research to present and future leaders of the Air Force, as well as to members of other branches of the armed services and Department of Defense. Our purpose is to help those agencies better prepare to counter the threat from weapons of mass destruction. Please feel free to visit our web site at www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/awc-cps.htm for in-depth information and specific points of contact. Please direct any questions or comments on CPC Outreach Journal Jo Ann Eddy, CPC Outreach Editor, at (334) 953- 7538 or DSN 493-7538. To subscribe, change e-mail address, or unsubscribe to this journal or to request inclusion on the mailing list for CPC publications, please contact Mrs. Eddy. The following articles, papers or documents do not necessarily reflect official endorsement of the Air Force, Department of Defense, or other US government agencies. Reproduction for private use or commercial gain is subject to original copyright restrictions. All rights are reserved

International Herald Tribune May 5, 2004 What If? Europe Simulates Qaeda Nuclear Hit By , Reuters BRUSSELS - European officials have conducted a simulation showing how Al Qaeda could kill 40,000 people and plunge the continent into chaos if a crude nuclear device were detonated outside NATO headquarters in Brussels. "We are in a race between cooperation and catastrophe," said the former U.S. senator Sam Nunn, who helped organize the exercise, named Black Dawn. "To win this race, we have to achieve cooperation on a scale we've never seen or attempted before." Nunn spoke to reporters Tuesday, a day after the closed-door war games, which were attended by top officials including the European Union's security chief, Javier Solana, and his new counterterrorism coordinator, Gijs de Vries. In the first part of the scenario, European officials were asked how they would respond to intelligence that Al Qaeda had obtained enough highly enriched uranium to build a nuclear bomb. In the second, they were confronted with computer projections and video displays illustrating the impact of terrorists exploding the device at NATO's headquarters on the outskirts of Brussels, immediately killing 40,000 people, overwhelming hospitals with hundreds of thousands of injured, spreading panic through Europe and plunging the world economy into turmoil. "Once you are in this phase, there are no good options," said Michele Flournoy, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who helped prepare the exercise. More than 50 people from 15 countries and a dozen international organizations attended the exercise, mostly EU ambassadors but also civilian and military officials from that North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the International Atomic Energy Agency, Interpol and other bodies. Nunn appealed to the Europeans to step up funding for increased protection at sites where weapons-grade uranium and plutonium are stored - particularly in former Soviet states. He said that preventing Al Qaeda from getting its hands on such material was the best chance of stopping it from building a bomb. "It's well within Al Qaeda's operational capabilities to recruit the technical expertise needed to build a crude nuclear devise," he said. "The hard part is getting the nuclear material, but we do not make it nearly hard enough." Nunn, a Democrat from Georgia and former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, helped push through a $10-billion program in 1991 to destroy and safeguard weapons of mass destruction in Russia and other former Soviet republics. But he said at least 60 percent of sites still must be secured. He said European leaders should make good on pledges made two years ago as part of a $20 billion commitment by the Group of 8 of industrialized nations to provide more funding for that program over 10 years. They should also push President George W. Bush and the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, to do more when the G-8 group of world leaders meets next month in Georgia, he said. "It's too easy for the G-8 to have a photo opportunity, to have a nice set of dinners, to have press conferences, make a bunch of pledges, go home and everybody forgets about it," Nunn said. "That must not happen." Solana and the NATO secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, convened the exercise to show the extent of the danger. "The threat of catastrophic terrorism is not confined to the United States or Russia or the Middle East," Solana said. "The new terrorist movements seem willing to use unlimited violence and cause massive casualties." Nunn urged increased protection for weapons-grade uranium kept at research sites, which are often poorly guarded university facilities; accelerated destruction of tactical nuclear weapons by both the United States and Russia; enhanced international intelligence sharing; and more help to find new jobs for poorly paid Russian nuclear scientists. http://www.iht.com/articles/518392.html

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London Financial Times May 4, 2004 Pg. 1 North Korea Offers US Pledge On Weapons By Victor Mallet North Korea, one of the world's most secretive and isolated nations, has offered an olive branch to the US by vowing not to sell nuclear materials to al-Qaeda, calling for Washington's friendship and saying it does not want to suffer the fate of Iraq. Top members of the communist regime have spelt out proposals for solving the crisis over their nuclear weapons programmes in an unusually frank series of interviews with Selig Harrison, the US-based Korean expert. Their statements suggest a reasoned view of international affairs in sharp contrast to the simplistic, bellicose and anti-American rhetoric used by junior officials and relayed by the North Korean news agency. In Mr Harrison's first-hand report, published in today's FT, North Korean leaders condemn al-Qaeda and reject accusations that they would be willing to distribute nuclear technology. Kim Yong-nam, deputy to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, said in a two-hour interview: "We're entitled to sell missiles to earn foreign exchange. But in regard to nuclear material our policy . ..is that we would never allow such transfers to al-Qaeda or anyone else. Never." Paik Nam-soon, foreign minister, denounced al-Qaeda and other terrorists and said George W. Bush, US president, was using the to turn Americans against North Korea. But he said: "The truth is that we want and need your friendship." Mr Kim rejected the notion that North Korea would never give up nuclear weapons, saying Pyongyang sought only to deter a US attack. "We don't want to suffer the fate of Iraq," he said. http://search.ft.com/search/article.html?id=040504000896&query=North+Korea+Offers+US+Pledge+On+Weapons &vsc_appId=totalSearch&state=Form

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London Financial Times May 4, 2004 Pg. 9 Inside North Korea: Leaders Open To Ending Nuclear Crisis In unusually frank talks, high-ranking officials offered an olive branch to the US, promising never to sell nuclear materials to al-Qaeda and calling for US friendship, writes Selig Harrison, recently in Pyongyang The combination of a shadowy nuclear weapons programme and a Communist leadership obsessed with secrecy has made North Korea a byword for crisis. North Korean leaders rarely talk in depth with visitors, but when they do the result is much-needed new perspective on one of the most pressing security issues confronting the world today. Based on four days of intensive conversations with senior officials in Pyongyang, it is clear that North Korea is eager to resolve the nuclear weapons crisis - but only by concluding a step-by-step denuclearisation agreement linked with progress towards the normalisation of ties with the US. Economic pressures, intensified by bold, market-based reforms, make such a deal critical for the stability of Kim Jong-il's regime. But he will not accept the Bush administration's demand for the "complete, verifiable, irreversible dismantling" (CVID) of his nuclear weapons programme all at once, without knowing what he will get in return. This is the assessment that emerges from interviews in Pyongyang with Kim Yong-nam, number two to Kim Jong- il; Paik Nam-soon, foreign minister; Kim Gye-gwan, vice-foreign minister; Gen Ri Chan-bok, spokesman for the Korean People's Army; and others. At the start of my two hours with Kim Yong-nam, president of the Supreme People's Assembly, whom I had met four times before, he said he had just come from watching a CNN programme about Bob Woodward's new book, Plan of Attack. "It seems Mr (George W.) Bush is being kept very busy with Iraq," he said. "We don't think he is at all serious about resolving the nuclear issue with us in a fair way, since we obviously can't accept 'CVID first'. My feeling is he is delaying resolution of the nuclear issue due to Iraq and the presidential election. "But time is not on his side," he added. "We are going to use this time 100 per cent effectively to strengthen our nuclear deterrent both quantitatively and qualitatively. Why doesn't he accept our proposal to dismantle our programme completely and verifiably through simultaneous steps by both sides?" In step one, explained Kim Gye-gwan, North Korea would freeze its plutonium programme in exchange for multilateral energy aid, an end to US economic sanctions and the removal of North Korea from the US list of terrorist states, which would open the way for World Bank and Asian Development Bank aid. "This would be the starting point toward complete dismantlement," Kim Gye-gwan said, "if the United States becomes our friend." Pressed for details, he declared a freeze meant that "we would not enlarge the stockpile. The amount frozen would depend on what the US is prepared to do." Thus, if the payoff in energy aid was big enough, inspectors would be granted the access necessary to confirm how much plutonium had been reprocessed; the plutonium could then be placed under controls and further reprocessing could be prohibited. Initially, Kim Gye-gwan said the freeze would only ban reprocessing and would not cover the operation of nuclear reactors for civil power generation. Later he indicated that this demand was negotiable. North Korea has proposed that negotiations on the freeze start immediately, during the meeting of a six-nation working group in Beijing on May 12, but Kim Gye-gwan said the US wanted the agenda restricted to CVID. Kim Yong-nam has dismissed suggestions that North Korea - or a unified Korea - would refuse to give up nuclear weapons capabilities because neighbouring Russia and China are both nuclear powers and Japan might yet become one. "No," he said. "We want a nuclear-free Korean peninsula, and we have no intention of getting engaged in a nuclear arms race with neighbouring nations. "The only reason we are developing nuclear weapons is to deter an American pre-emptive attack. After all, we have been singled out as the target for such an attack and we are the justification for the development of a new generation of US nuclear weapons. We don't want to suffer the fate of Iraq." Gen Ri Chan-bok said: "We don't mind the possession of nuclear weapons by Russia and China, because they're not a threat to us. Although Japan is not friendly, I don't know whether Japan is developing nuclear weapons or not, but in any case, our nuclear deterrent is not against Japan or anyone else, just against the United States." On April 13, Richard Cheney, US vice-president, gave a speech in Shanghai branding North Korea a proliferator of nuclear and missile technology. Mr Cheney warned specifically that Pyongyang might sell nuclear material to al- Qaeda. These allegations evoked categorical denials. "We make a clear distinction between missiles and nuclear material," declared Kim Yong-nam. "We're entitled to sell missiles to earn foreign exchange. But in regard to nuclear material our policy past, present and future is that we would never allow such transfers to al-Qaeda or anyone else. Never." Paik Nam-soon, the foreign minister, said: "Let me make clear that we denounce al-Qaeda, we oppose all forms of terrorism and we will never transfer our nuclear material to others. Our nuclear programme is solely for our self- defence. We denounce al-Qaeda for the barbaric attack of 9/11, which was a terrible tragedy and inflicted a great shock to America. Bush is using that shock to turn the American people against us, but the truth is that we want and need your friendship." The biggest change in North Korea since my last visit three years ago is the social ferment resulting from economic reforms initiated by Kim Jong-il in mid-2002. North Korea is slowly moving toward a mixed economy. The showcase of this change is the Tong-Il market in central Pyongyang, where about 2,200 vendors sell everything from farm produce to television sets. Twenty similar indoor markets are now under construction throughout Pyongyang and more are planned. Some of the food sold in these markets comes from rural co-operatives that are now permitted to sell any surplus they produce over the government procurement quota, and some is grown in private plots. But much of the food and some of the consumer goods are imported from neighboring Manchuria by a network of officially-sanctioned Korean and Chinese middlemen. State-owned factories no longer receive subsidies to cover their losses and are encouraged to find their own markets for their products, trade with each other and keep and reinvest any profits. The jury is still out on the economic impact of price and wage reforms that have rewarded farmers with higher prices and given higher wages to groups critical to the regime's power - notably miners, some industrial workers and the armed forces. Politically, the higher prices for farmers have stabilised Kim Jong-il's support in the countryside. In the more populous urban areas, however, the wages of white collar workers have not been increased enough to keep pace with inflation, including government bureaucrats. Many resident diplomats and aid officials say that unless North Korea can attract large-scale foreign aid to rebuild its infrastructure, especially its electricity, water and transport systems, its economic problems will remain serious. The economic potential of the reforms will not be realised and their net social and political effects could be destabilising. Kim Jong-il needs a nuclear deal with the US in order to open up an influx of aid, trade and investment. At the same time, hardliners will go along with such a deal only if it includes significant aid commitments, and if it removes the threat of a US pre-emptive strike, which has led to the escalation of the North Korea nuclear effort during the past two years. Could the US and its allies ever be sure that a closed society such as North Korea lives up to a denuclearisation agreement? I told my interlocutors that no US president would give Pyongyang the binding security guarantee that it had sought in the nuclear negotiations. The Pentagon would insist that the US retained the option of a retaliatory second strike in the event that North Korea should attack South Korea, Japan or the US. Surprisingly, one of my North Korean interlocutors said Pyongyang might reconsider its demand for a security guarantee if a new administration proved less hostile than the current one. The presence of US diplomats and businessmen in Pyongyang after the normalisation of the US-North Korea relationship might be a better guarantee against a pre-emptive strike, he said, than a paper security assurance. But the window of opportunity for a nuclear deal could quickly close when - or if - Pyongyang conducts another long-range missile test or a nuclear test. Asked how long North Korea could wait before conducting such tests, Kim Yong-nam replied: "There is no deadline in the negotiations. We're patient. But if the United States doesn't alter its position, we can't foresee what will happen and we'll have to decide about testing when the time comes." Despite insistent probing, it was not possible to penetrate the mysteries still surrounding Pyongyang's nuclear effort: has it mastered the miniaturisation techniques necessary to equip missiles with nuclear warheads? Does it possess nuclear bombs deliverable from aircraft, and if so, how many? Or is it still at the stage of experimenting with nuclear "devices" that are not yet militarily operational? In short, is there more bluff than reality to the North Korea nuclear alarm? During his recent visit to North Korea, Siegfried S. Hecker, former director of the Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory, saw evidence that North Korean scientists knew how to reprocess plutonium, but he did not see evidence that they knew how to implode a plutonium-based nuclear weapon. Calculated ambiguity greeted questions about the nature of the "nuclear deterrent" Pyongyang says it possesses. "That's a confidential military issue," said Kim Gye-gwan. "But remember that the bomb dropped by the US at Nagasaki was made after four months of preparation. It's now a half century later, and we have more up-to-date technologies, so you can come to your own conclusions on this matter." Paik Nam-soon said: "I don't think mere devices and the possession of nuclear material constitute a genuine deterrent. When we say deterrent, we mean a capability that can deter an attack." Gen Ri Chan-bok's reply about testing suggested that there might indeed be an element of bluff in what North Korea says. At first, he replied: "When we can't develop without a test, we'll test." But then he added: "Even without a test, we can develop, complete and manufacture nuclear weapons." Selig Harrison, director of the Asia programme at the Center for International Policy in Washington, has had high- level access to North Korean leaders since 1972, when he became the first American to visit Pyongyang after the Korean war and first US journalist to interview the late Kim Il-sung. His second meeting with Kim in 1994 set the stage for the nuclear freeze agreement that was negotiated a week later by then-US president Jimmy Carter; it was the breakdown of this agreement in December 2002 that led to the current nuclear crisis. This was Mr Harrison's eighth visit to North Korea. He is author of Korean Endgame: a Strategy for Reunification and US Disengagement (Princeton University Press). http://search.ft.com/search/article.html?id=040504000882&query=Inside+North+Korea%3A+Leaders+Open+To+E nding+Nuclear+Crisis&vsc_appId=totalSearch&state=Form

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Korea Herald May 5, 2004 North Korea Builds Up Missiles Pyongyang is constructing new sites for ballistic missiles: report By Joo Sang-min North Korea is reported to be building two underground launching sites aimed at deploying an intermediate-range ballistic missile with a target distance of up to 4,000 kilometers following successful development last year. The missile is capable of reaching U.S. military bases in Guam or possibly Hawaii, the new report said. "Two missile stations in Yangduk in western Pyeongan Province and in Heocheon in northeastern Hamgyeong are under construction with 70 to 80 percent completed," the Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported, citing an unidentified South Korean official. The source said a U.S. spy satellite has detected about 10 new ballistic missiles and mobile launching pads at these bases. But the South Korean military avoided commenting on the report. "We can't confirm nor deny the report, as similar stories have already been covered by the media," said Defense Ministry spokesman Brig. Gen. Nam Dai-yeon in a news briefing. United States Forces Korea also refused to comment on the report, saying, "We do not discuss (these) operational issues." The USFK spokesperson did not elaborate on this comment. The new system is clearly set apart from the North's mainstay lineup of Scud and Rodong missiles that can fly much shorter distances. The missiles are reportedly 12 meters long and 1.5 meters wide, which are smaller than the already deployed missiles, but it can travel farther and is technically enhanced as it could be launched from a vehicle. The North has about 500 Scud missiles with ranges of 300 kilometers to 500 kilometers and keeps most of its short and medium-range missiles. Also in its stockpiles is a huge amount of tanks in some 11,000 underground facilities. The communist regime also possesses the Rodong-1 missile, which has a range of 1,300 kilometers (810 miles) and is capable of reaching most parts of Japan. In August 1998, Pyongyang stunned the world by test-firing its Daepodong-1 intermediate-range ballistic missile that soared over Japan's main island and into the Pacific Ocean. It has a range of up to 2,200 kilometers, but has yet to be deployed for a launch. The North is also known to be developing a Daepodong-2 missile that can reach as far as Alaska with a maximum range of 6,000 kilometers, according to Defense Ministry data. But the ministry did not disclose how many missiles the North has recently deployed and where they are located. Analysts said the North's reinforcement of missiles, regardless of the credibility of the report, may help the United States accelerate its move to establish a missile defense system in Northeast Asia. "Pyongyang sees their missile development as their sovereign rights, but it could also justify the United States and Japan's move to establish the missile-defense system, further irking China," Baek Seung-joo, a North Korea expert at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, told The Korea Herald. South Korea's 650,000-member military is facing off 1.1 million-member North Korean army. About 37,000 U.S. troops remain in South Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended in an armistice, but not a peace treaty. North Korea and the United States have been locked in a standoff over the North's development of nuclear weapons. The North recently accused Washington of preparing a preemptive attack against it when the United States announced it would withdraw its troops by October from the heavily fortified inter-Korean border. The U.S. military in South Korea will deploy two more Patriot antimissile batteries and establish an air defense brigade in Korea this fall to effectively deter the North's missile attacks. A first working group meeting will be held in Beijing May 12 under the six-nation talks that have been struggling to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue since the fall of 2002. http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2004/05/05/200405050029.asp

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Washington Post May 5, 2004 Pg. 1 An Al Qaeda 'Chemist' And The Quest For Ricin By Joby Warrick, Washington Post Foreign Service LYON, -- Menad Benchellali, thin and bearded, was known among his Arab friends as "the chemist" because of the special skills he learned at al Qaeda training camps in . When he returned to his native France in 2001, according to investigators, he set up a laboratory in his parents' spare bedroom and began to manufacture ricin, one of the deadliest known substances. Working at night with windows open to dissipate fumes from the process, he blended ingredients in a coffee decanter and spooned the doughy mixture onto newspapers to dry. The final product was a white power that Benchellali stored in small glass flasks and old jars of Nivea skin cream -- to be used, as he later told police, "in the event I became involved in the jihad." Today, exactly how many jars of ricin the 29-year-old Benchellali may have produced -- and their whereabouts -- is an urgent question for European governments facing a wave of terrorist attacks and threats. Last year, investigators say, similar containers turned up in Britain, in the possession of North Africans who were allegedly planning an attack. At least one other jar is known to be missing, and French investigators suspect that still others exist. The story of Benchellali's laboratory offers a glimpse into a secret world of suspected terrorists and their quest for biological and chemical weapons. According to European investigators, a string of incidents in recent months points to a particular interest in ricin, the highly lethal toxin that comes from castor beans. Other powerful poisons that also are relatively easy to obtain and use -- botulinum toxin and industrial chemicals such as potassium cyanide and osmium tetroxide -- have also been sought by suspected terrorists. In April, police in Jordan foiled what government officials said was a plot to use chemical bombs and poison gas in a series of attacks on embassies and government buildings in Amman, the capital. So far, no poison attacks by al Qaeda-related groups have been carried out, and many experts say they believe that terrorist groups still haven't mastered the skills needed to make an effective weapon. But they clearly are trying. Lacking facilities for making advanced chemical or biological arms, investigators say these groups are seeking toxins that can be easily bought, stolen or manufactured in an ordinary kitchen using common ingredients. Al Qaeda's interest in biological and chemical arms is well documented, although the group's ability to produce such weapons is believed to have been crippled by the loss of its sanctuary in Afghanistan. Invading U.S. forces in 2001 discovered and destroyed two production centers that were preparing to manufacture cyanide and the botulinum and salmonella toxins, and possibly anthrax. Since then, investigators believe al Qaeda has become more diffuse, transforming itself into a loose-knit collection of underground cells. They say that Benchellali, who has been in prison in France since December 2002, may be one of hundreds of specially trained graduates of al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan who have shared their skills with a new generation of recruits. "Biological and chemical weapons are more important than ever to al Qaeda, but the new emphasis is on the simple and the practical," said Roland Jacquard, a French terrorism expert and author of a forthcoming book, "The Third Generation of al Qaeda," which describes the evolution in tactics. "This is the kind of terrorism that interested Benchellali's group. If they had been allowed to continue, they probably would have succeeded." In the past 21/2 years, ricin-making equipment or traces of the toxin have been discovered during police raids on al Qaeda-affiliated cells in Britain, France, Spain, Russia, Georgia and Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq. In each case, police also found manuals or papers containing detailed instructions for making and using ricin. CIA Director George J. Tenet, in testimony in March before the U.S. commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, cited the manuals in warning of a "heightened risk of poison attacks" in the near future. "Extremists have widely disseminated instructions for a chemical weapon using common materials that could cause large numbers of casualties in a crowded, enclosed area," Tenet said. Lethal in Tiny Doses Deadlier by far than cobra venom, a speck of pure ricin the size of a pinhead will kill an adult if injected into the bloodstream. A slightly larger dose -- roughly a pinch -- is fatal if swallowed or inhaled. Ricin is water-soluble and virtually odorless, so it can be used to contaminate water or food supplies on a small scale. Victims may be unaware of their exposure until hours afterward, when the toxin begins to attack living cells and disrupts their ability to make essential proteins. The result is respiratory distress, internal bleeding and organ failure. Death can occur in as little as 36 hours, and there is no antidote or cure. Ricin is not well suited for a weapon of mass destruction. At least a half-dozen countries, including the United States and Iraq, have sought to weaponize ricin and failed. The toxin's jumbo-sized molecules are heavy and tend to clump together, and bioweapons scientists found they needed tons of ricin to deliver lethal doses to a battlefield. However, the toxin has been used for assassinations and small-scale attacks. In one of the most famous assassinations of the Cold War, Bulgarian secret police in 1978 used a tiny pellet of ricin, fired from a specially designed umbrella, to kill dissident Georgi Markov on a street in London. Ricin's lethality has drawn interest from all manner of killers, plotters and extremists. While regarded as a biological weapon -- ricin is essentially a plant protein -- it is not a living organism and its effects are not contagious. Unlike the chemical nerve agent VX, it cannot be absorbed through the skin. And, although several recipes for ricin are available on the Internet, most would not yield a product of sufficient purity to cause mass casualties, bioweapons experts said. For would-be terrorists, however, ricin is appealing for a single reason: accessibility. "The technology for making it is low enough that literally any crank working in his basement can create a ricin preparation of some sort," said Jonathan Tucker, a biological weapons expert with the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. "You can't do that as easily with anthrax." The raw materials for ricin are cheap. The toxin naturally exists in castor beans, which grow wild in many parts of the world, including the United States, where the plants are prized by gardeners and landscapers as an ornamental shrub. Brazil, China and India grow industrial quantities of the colorful, plump beans to make castor oil, which is used in products ranging from laxatives and shampoos to lubricating oils. A single castor bean, if chewed, contains enough ricin to kill a child. Al Qaeda's interest in ricin dates to at least the late 1990s. Two terrorism manuals seized from al Qaeda operatives in several locations contain detailed instructions on making and using the toxin. One was found by British journalists in November 2001 at a deserted al Qaeda safe house in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. Another was titled, "The Encyclopedia of Jihad," and commends ricin as one of the "poisons that the holy warrior can prepare and use without endangering his health." Training From Al Qaeda Many of the details of Benchellali's ricin experiments -- including how much he made and how he intended to use it -- remain unknown. But after a year-long probe, French investigators have pieced together a chronology of his activities. This account is based on interviews with investigators, a family member, neighbors and French journalists, and the transcripts of police interrogations of Benchellali. The son of an Algerian-born Muslim cleric, Benchellali grew up in a gritty Lyon suburb, Les Minguettes, notable for its thickets of towering public housing complexes and 30-percent unemployment rate. As a boy, he witnessed his father's confrontations with the French government over laws banning Islamic head coverings for school girls. Although he developed a fondness for nice cars and clothes, he saw few opportunities for obtaining them, or for gaining full acceptance as a Muslim and Arab in France, according to family acquaintances. "As an Arab living here, the only area of society where you are truly accepted is religion," said Mustapha Kessous, a Lyon journalist and radio talk-show host who has written extensively about the Benchellali family and Lyon's immigrant community. "To anyone meeting you on the street, you are a Muslim and an Arab first, not a Frenchman." Police are uncertain how Benchellali first connected with al Qaeda. In the late 1990s, according to U.S. and French intelligence officials, he traveled to Afghanistan to train in one of several camps that the group established for foreign recruits. On one of his later trips he was accompanied by his younger brother Mourad, who eventually was captured by U.S. forces in Afghanistan and is now being held at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. U.S. officials believe Menad Benchellali may have received advanced training at al Qaeda's Derunta camp, near the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad. The camp housed one of al Qaeda's labs and a school for a select group of recruits who studied the use of toxic chemicals and biological toxins, including ricin, U.S. intelligence sources say. The instructors included at least two scientists: Yazid Sufaat, a U.S.-trained biochemist who is now in custody in Malaysia, and a Pakistani microbiologist who U.S. officials have declined to name. At Derunta, U.S. forces discovered castor oil and equipment for making ricin. "There is a lot of evidence of crude attempts to produce ricin," at Derunta, said a U.S. intelligence official who spoke on condition he not be identified by name. After al Qaeda lost Afghan camps to invading U.S. forces in late 2001, Benchellali's chemical training shifted to the Pankisi Gorge, a lawless area in Georgia that borders Chechnya, the separatist republic in southern Russia, French authorities say. The existence of makeshift laboratories and training camps in the mountainous region has been documented by the Georgian government, which moved to close the camps early last year. Benchellali told police he had planned to join the Chechen rebels but was thwarted in his attempts to cross into Russia. He decided instead to return to France, taking with him new skills and a network of contacts spanning most of Western Europe. Lab in a Spare Room The apartment in suburban Lyon to which Benchellali returned two years ago is small but tidy, its thin green carpet and modest furnishings showing meticulous care. The dominant feature is a wall-length bookshelf filled with handsome brown leather volumes with titles in gold Arabic script. A young girl who answered the door recently explained that the dwelling had been nearly empty for weeks: Since early January, three members of the family -- both parents and a brother -- have been jailed pending trial on charges they aided Menad Benchellali's attempts to make ricin. The lab was located in a spare bedroom that doubled by day as a sewing room. French police say Benchellali, fresh from training camp in the Pankisi Gorge, would lock himself in the room and work through the night on his mysterious projects, the nature of which he kept to himself. In fact, French police say, he was experimenting with a variation of one of the recipes he learned abroad: a ricin concoction laced with the toxin that causes botulism. While extremely toxic, ricin can be extracted using rudimentary kitchen equipment and can be handled without danger if a person takes basic precautions. Family members acknowledged to police that they sometimes ran errands for Benchellali, picking up lab equipment and bottles of acetone from a local market. Acetone is used in the processing of the castor beans. "Menad would tell me what he needed, and I would make a list," one of his sisters told police, according to a transcript of her interrogation, which was relayed by a French investigator. Benchellali's mother, Hafsa, told police she became concerned after finding strange potions and liquids scattered around her sewing room following one of her son's all-night sessions. But when she confronted her son, he warned her to stay away. "He said it was dangerous," the woman said, according to the transcript, "and it was better if I didn't know what he was doing." The experiments ended abruptly in December 2002 when Benchellali was arrested along with three others in connection with an alleged plot to bomb the Russian Embassy in with conventional explosives. Months passed before terrorism investigators became fully aware of the ricin experiments and the extent of Benchellali's possible ties with al Qaeda's biological and chemical programs abroad. On Jan. 10, 2004, police raided the family's apartment in a search for weapons and equipment, but by then any traces of ricin that might have existed had vanished, French officials said. Relatives and neighbors contend that the government's claims about Benchellali are wildly exaggerated. Jacques Debray, a lawyer representing the Benchellali family, said he believed that France's arrest of the parents was partly a pressure tactic to extract confessions -- including possible new leads to assist the U.S. government in its prosecution of Mourad Benchellali, the son held prisoner at Guantanamo Bay. "Such information could clearly improve relations with the United States," Debray said. French terrorism officials, however, are convinced that the arrests halted a terrorist attack and likely saved lives -- and not just in France. But the details of such plans for an attack are not known. "Members of this group had training in chemical and biological weapons," said a senior French terrorism investigator who spoke on the condition he not be identified by name. "We know they wanted to develop poisons and use them to create panic. It was to be one tool among many." Plots Across Europe Menad Benchellali's arrest gave police a breakthrough that led to the unmasking of other plots and terror cells in Europe. In January 2003, prompted by French discoveries in the Benchellali case, British police raided apartments in London, Bournemouth and Manchester and apprehended 13 North African men suspected of ties to al Qaeda and an affiliated terrorist group, Ansar al-Islam. In one of the London apartments authorities found castor beans, traces of ricin and equipment for making the toxin. Later that month, Spanish police arrested 16 North Africans and seized additional equipment, chemicals and false passports. French officials believe the Spanish, British and French cells were communicating with one another and coordinating their activities, especially those related to obtaining toxins and poisons. Members of all three groups had spent time at the same Pankisi Gorge camp. Yet, more than a year after Benchellali's arrest, European and U.S. counterterrorism officials are not convinced that all members of the network have been identified. The Bush administration has said it believes more than 100 militants were part of the same cluster of terrorist cells that allegedly included Benchellali. It also contends that members of the network took orders from Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian-born Palestinian terrorist believed to have organized recent suicide bombings in Iraq. While other governments are less certain about the command structure, there is wide agreement among counterterrorism officials that additional sleeper cells continue to operate in Europe, Asia and possibly North America. "They are honing their skills and awaiting instructions," said Jacquard, the French terrorism expert. "They make what they want and they raise their own money. Some may not be sophisticated. But they communicate with more professional and trained individuals who are operating under the last orders they received from leaders of al Qaeda." Terrorism experts say an attack with ricin probably would not cause massive casualties, though it could kill or sicken dozens or even hundreds under the right conditions. Even a small-scale attack could cause panic and disrupt commerce and government services, as was illustrated two months ago when the discovery of ricin traces on a mail- sorting machine shut down Senate office buildings for several days. "These are toxins that, if released in a enclosed space, could cause extreme harm," said Jeffrey M. Bale, an expert on chemical and biological terrorism at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. "There's no doubt that the groups we're seeing today could carry out such an attack. What surprises me is that that they haven't already done so." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2159-2004May4.html

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Reuters Some in U.S. think Syria has atomic centrifuges - sources Wed May 5, 2004 07:33 AM ET By Louis Charbonneau VIENNA (Reuters) - Some members of the Bush administration believe Syria has centrifuges that can purify uranium for use in bombs, though the intelligence community is divided on the issue, diplomats and experts told Reuters. Last week, U.S. Undersecretary of State for Arms Control John Bolton said Adbul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani scientist who sold nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea, had "several other" customers who may want the bomb. Western diplomats in Vienna said Bolton was clearly referring to Syria. One atomic energy expert, who follows nuclear intelligence closely, said Bolton leads a faction in President George W. Bush's administration that believes they have strong evidence Syria is operating uranium-enrichment centrifuges. But a U.S. official, who asked not to be named, warned the intelligence on Syria had not dispelled all doubts. "Those who are pushing the idea that Syria has centrifuges have been held back by other members of the inter- agency community who question the veracity of the claim," he said. Several Western diplomats who follow the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), have been saying for months that Syria was a customer of Khan's. "Syria certainly had contact with Khan," said a non-U.S. Western diplomat, adding that suspicions of Syrian research in atomic weapons have existed for decades. Since Washington began its post-September 11 policy of aggressively pursuing countries it believed had weapons of mass destruction that could be used against the United States and its allies, it has repeatedly issued warnings about Syria. In the Central Intelligence Agency's most recently published report on Syria from June 2003, the CIA said: "We are looking at Syrian nuclear intentions with growing concern". But several sources said not everyone in the U.S. intelligence community and government is certain Syria has operating centrifuges. Likewise, one of the sources said not even Syria's arch-foe Israel is convinced. "There is disagreement within the intelligence community about whether Syria has operating centrifuges...in the U.S. and with the Middle East," the atomic energy expert said. SYRIA DISMISSES CONCERNS Syria, which has publicly called for a Middle East free of nuclear weapons, dismissed the allegations. "This can only be part of a campaign of absolutely baseless accusations against Syria," a Syrian official told Reuters in Damascus. "Syria has no programme to acquire...nuclear weapons." The U.S. official said some feared pressuring Syria now may undermine relations with Damascus when it is starting to cooperate on sealing its border to militants crossing into Iraq. Centrifuges can be used to purify uranium for use as nuclear fuel or in weapons. Experts say getting weapons-grade material is the biggest hurdle for any country that desires the bomb. But diplomats and arms experts said revelations about Khan's nuclear black market showed a means existed for Syria to get hold of equipment it needed to enrich uranium without decades of research that would have been needed to develop it on its own. On the other hand, one arms expert said even with enrichment devices Syria could not be close to having a nuclear weapon. "Could Syria have centrifuges? Sure. Is it possible that they could be close to getting a nuclear weapon? No way," Joseph Cirincione, director for Non-Proliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told Reuters. Everyone interviewed for this story said Bolton, who made strong assertions about Iraq's nuclear plans before the war in Iraq, would have trouble convincing people outside the United States that Syria was a threat. The U.S. military has never found any evidence to support claims that ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had revived his nuclear weapons programme. "Given what was revealed about the quality of intelligence in Iraq, people have become very wary of U.S. intelligence about other countries," said a Western diplomat close to the IAEA. Bolton has crusaded against many states suspected by the Bush administration of seeking WMD. He has attacked Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Libya and now Syria. Pakistan could hold the key to resolving the debate about any Syrian nuclear capabilities. Khan, the man credited with building up Pakistan's successful nuclear weapons programme, has been cooperating with Pakistani authorities after admitting that he leaked nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea. Diplomats and non-proliferation experts agreed that if Syria does in fact have centrifuges, they had to come from Khan and the Pakistani authorities would be able to resolve the issue. But Islamabad may refuse to cooperate, as in the case of Iran. http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=5045385

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Los Angeles Times May 5, 2004 THE NATION Hoarder of Arms Gets 11 Years By Scott Gold, Times Staff Writer HOUSTON — An East Texas man whose stockpile of weapons triggered an exhaustive investigation into a suspected domestic terrorism plot was sentenced Tuesday to 11 years in federal prison.

"For the record, I am neither a terrorist or a separatist," William J. Krar, 63, told U.S. District Judge Leonard Davis in Tyler, Texas, protesting how the government had characterized him. "I've never desired to hurt anyone or the country that I love." Krar did not address lingering questions about the weapons cache he had amassed in recent years inside a storage facility in Noonday, a town about 100 miles southeast of Dallas.

The weapons included a sodium cyanide bomb that federal authorities said could have killed everyone inside a midsized civic building or a small basketball arena. The bomb's ingredients included 800 grams of nearly pure sodium cyanide, which can only be acquired legally for agricultural or military projects.

Krar pleaded guilty in November to possessing a dangerous chemical weapon and could have been sentenced to life in prison. He received a sentence of 11 years and three months Tuesday. Davis also ordered Krar to pay the federal government $29,600 to reimburse costs connected to the investigation.

Prosecutors did not return messages seeking comment Tuesday.

Krar's lawyer, Tonda Curry, questioned Davis' finding that the defendant's actions had resulted in a "substantial disruption of public service." But she thought the case was resolved fairly.

"He pleaded guilty to what he did," Curry said in an interview. "The government realized the limits of what he did."

Krar's wife, Judith L. Bruey, 55, was sentenced to four years and nine months in federal prison. She had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess chemical weapons.

Federal officials had said they thought Krar could have been involved in a domestic terrorism plot similar to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

Krar, an arms dealer with connections to white supremacists, was arrested after he tried to send fake documents, including United Nations and Defense Department identification cards, through the mail. The package was delivered to the wrong address.

The documents had been addressed to a member of a New Jersey militia. The group, according to its website, thinks the federal government has grown too powerful. The militia is prepared "as a last resort to come to our nation's defense against all enemies, foreign or domestic."

Krar has declined to cooperate with investigators, and federal officials say they do not know why he was hoarding weapons. One FBI affidavit said authorities thought the weapons could have been intended for use in a "covert operation" that "could potentially include plans for future civil unrest and/or civil disorder against the United States government."

Two documents retrieved from a car that Krar had rented at the time of his arrest were titled "trip" and "procedure," and appeared to list code phrases, among other things. Investigators thought the phrases warned whether law enforcement officers were nearby or suspicious.

"Tornadoes are expected in our area," one document said, which federal officials interpreted to mean that "things [were] very hot; lay low or change your travel plans." http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-krar5may05,1,1737647.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

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Los Angeles Times May 6, 2004 N. Korea May Have A Missile That Can Hit Guam Pyongyang is ready to deploy a longer-range ballistic weapon, South Korean newspapers report. Hawaii might even be within reach. By Barbara Demick, Times Staff Writer SEOUL — North Korea is preparing to deploy a newly developed ballistic missile that has a range sufficient to reach U.S. bases in Guam and possibly Hawaii, South Korean newspapers reported this week. The North has been trying for years to develop ballistic missiles that could reach the United States, but it has been widely assumed that such missiles were in the developmental stage. If the reports are confirmed, they would be an alarming development given that the Pyongyang government is also pursuing nuclear technology. The reports cited unnamed South Korean officials saying that intelligence satellites had recently collected evidence of two missile bases under construction in North Korea. Missiles and mobile launching pads observed at the sites were said to be of a design that did not resemble North Korea's better-known Rodong missiles. "We presume these bases to be for a new kind of ballistic missiles — not Rodongs or Scuds," a high-ranking South Korean official was quoted as telling the Chosun Ilbo, a conservative daily newspaper that broke the story. The official told the newspaper that the missile was likely to have a range of 1,800 to 2,500 miles, making it capable of reaching key Pacific bases in Guam and Okinawa. And because the missile can be launched from a craft, it might be able to reach Hawaii. "I believe this is an entirely new missile," said Kim Tae Woo, an expert on the North Korean military at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses in Seoul. He said there was no evidence that North Korea had test-fired the missile. But he said the building of bases suggested that the government was confident enough in the missile's accuracy to prepare to deploy it, and that it was no longer in the developmental stage. Information about the missiles was reportedly gathered by U.S. intelligence satellites. Kim suggested that neither South Korea nor the United States had been eager — for diplomatic and political reasons — to make public the reports on the missile. "Washington doesn't want to see anything shocking like this come out before the presidential election. The South Korean government usually keeps silent about what North Korea is doing," Kim said. The South Korean government has been trying to nudge North Korea into adopting a more conciliatory position in ongoing discussions among them and four other countries over Pyongyang's development of nuclear weapons. Talks on economic cooperation between the Koreas opened Wednesday in Pyongyang. Low-level talks on the nuclear issue are scheduled next week in Beijing. The South Korea Defense Ministry declined to answer questions about the intermediate-range missiles at a news conference. Officials from the U.S. Embassy in Seoul also refused to comment. North Korea's new missile bases were reportedly first detected late last year and are said to be 70% to 80% complete. One is located in Yangdok, 50 miles east of Pyongyang, and the other in Hochon in North Hamgyong province. North Korea's Rodong missile has a range of 810 miles, making it capable of reaching most of Japan. In 1998, the North test-fired a long-range missile called the Taepodong 1 over Japan. But that missile is considered to be in the development stage, as is the Taepodong 2, which is believed to have a potential range of 4,000 miles. "There is a lot of speculation about North Korea's efforts to build missiles that could reach the United States, but there is no evidence that they've achieved that yet," said Hong Yong Pyo, a missile expert at Hanyang University in Seoul. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-missile6may06,1,2703416.story?coll=la-headlines-world

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Christian Science Monitor May 6, 2004 US And Russia Nukes: Still On Cold War, Hair-Trigger Alert A Clinton-era plan to enhance US-Russia early warnings systems languishes under bureaucracy. By Scott Peterson, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor MOSCOW – It promised to be a quiet evening at the Soviet nuclear early warning center when Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov settled into the commander's seat on Sept. 26, 1983. But within minutes, Colonel Petrov was locked in perhaps the most dangerous drama of the cold war. An alarm sounded, warning screens blinked. A computer map on the wall showed the hostile launch of a US nuclear warhead. "Every second counted.... My legs were unsteady, my hands were trembling, my cozy armchair became a hot frying pan," says the former officer. It only got worse. Within five minutes the computer registered five more launches; the alarm flashed: "Missile Attack." The decision that Petrov made in those pressure-cooked minutes - that the computer was in error, and the elaborate early warning system that he helped build was wrong - may have prevented a nuclear holocaust. Twenty years later, there is growing concern that a similar nuclear miscue could happen again. The lone superpower and its former rival still aim thousands of missiles on hair-trigger alert at each other's major cities. As the US rushes to deploy a missile shield this summer designed to intercept North Korean warheads, Clinton-era plans that would improve both US and deteriorating Russian detection systems are stalled. At presidential summits in both 1998 and 2000, the US and Russia announced plans for a joint, real-time warning system in Moscow. The blueprint, drawing on American's sophisticated satellite network and Russia's wide radar net, promised to keep better tabs on the superpower arsenals as well as on terrorist threats. "I wish I could say there is no chance of it [today]," Petrov says, in a matchbox kitchen with a yellowing star chart. "But when we deal with space - when we [play] God - who knows what will be the next surprise?" Dreams of joint efforts ground to a halt long ago. Meanwhile, neglect has left Russia's system in disrepair. "The fact is, the Russians are flying blind," says Jon Wolfsthal, a nonproliferation expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. "There are huge portions of their periphery that are unmonitored because their satellites are down, and they've lost a number of [Soviet-era] radar sites." The result is a growing concern about false readings that could show a hostile nuclear launch, and provoke real retaliation. Such fears have been augmented by a string of Russian military accidents, from failed test missile launches to a sunken nuclear submarine. After a secret year-long investigation into the 1983 incident, Petrov says the false readings that shocked him and his team were attributed to a rare but predictable reflection off the earth. The system was fooled again in 1995, when Russians briefly thought that a scientific launch from Norway was a nuclear-tipped US missile heading their way. President Boris Yeltsin reportedly brought out the launch suitcase called the "nuclear football" - perhaps the closest it's ever come to being used in Soviet or Russian history - before coming to believe there was no need to respond. "There are examples of weather satellite launches, the full moon rising, flocks of geese - all these horror stories in history," says Mr. Wolfsthal. Part of the solution was meant to be a joint warning center built in Moscow. It was to have been completed years ago. When President Bill Clinton and Mr. Yeltsin first announced plans to build the center in 1998, it was heralded as a breakthrough in preventing a "false warning" leading to accidental war. When Russia's new President Vladimir Putin signed the deal in 2000 with Mr. Clinton, the White House touted it as a "milestone in ensuring strategic stability." Expert advice backed up that view, with compelling findings in the mid-1990s that combining the US and Russian systems would significantly boost results. "We went through a whole simulation of different missiles fired by different countries from the Mideast to Europe at different targets at different trajectories," says Bruce Blair, president of the Center for Defense Information in Washington who oversaw the detailed research with Russian scientists. "We looked at detections of the US system operating alone, and the Russian one alone, and found the combined performance would be 20 to 70 percent better," says Mr. Blair, a former Minuteman launch officer and early proponent of the joint warning center. With seven Russian radars stretched from the Baltics to Azerbaijan - which can pick-up Middle East launches - and the US satellites, "you just have a lot more assets focusing on the threat," adds Blair. "We could work together and have a much better ability to detect third country attacks." US and Russian leaders had another reason to be optimistic. Russian missile officers used a US command center in Colorado Springs, Colo., for months at the end of 1999, to familiarize themselves with the US early-warning system - and to be on hand during the Millenium New Year - to ensure direct contact with Moscow in case any Y2K computer "bug" affected the Russian system. "It was incredibly useful, and built a lot of trust between ... early-warning groups on both sides," says Carnegie's Wolfsthal. "But in the end, they went away, and we're left without real-time sharing." The joint project, first envisioned for completion in mid-2001, has foundered on everyday issues of what Russian taxes should be paid for imported US equipment, and legal concerns about liability. "It's a lack of political will on both sides," says Vladimir Dvorkin, a former major general in Russia's nuclear forces, and a top strategist until 2001. Russia's early warning is "less trustworthy" than the American one, he says, though its readings "will never serve as the only guide [to launch]." Even more important, General Dvorkin says, is "joint analysis of threats coming from unstable regions with authoritarian regimes." The mundane points stalling the project are surprising security experts. "If you're a lawyer at the State Department, [liability and taxes] may be very important issues," says Wolfsthal. "But if you are concerned about the geostrategic survival of the human species, they are minuscule in their relevance." Experts on both sides are planning to issue a wake-up call, however. A group has planned to begin a year-long modeling exercise that will examine the risks of inaction, and the need for the joint center. "We want to show what can happen without this center," says Pavel Zolotarev, a former Strategic Forces major general. "If such a center were already open here, these threats would probably not lead to dangerous situations. We'll get these results in a year, but who knows when we will be able to convince the leadership?" Over the past decade, the US has spent roughly $7 billion funding nuclear-threat-reduction programs to control "loose nukes" and to secure weapons-grade nuclear material and scientific expertise that might be easy targets for terrorists. The $1 billion total spent per year on all threat reduction amounts to less than one-third of one percent of US defense spending. Taking the thousands of warheads off hair-trigger alert, experts say, would also help lower risks. Experts estimate that there is a world total of 30,000 assembled nuclear weapons and enough bomb-grade material to create nearly a quarter million more. Some Russian experts argue that, since they have no intention of ever "launching on warning," Moscow is deliberately letting its early-warning system deteriorate. "Certainly if you look at what they do to maintain their satellite constellation, it's pathetic," says Matthew Bunn, a nuclear expert at Harvard's Belfer Center. There is virtually no coverage of areas where US submarines could launch missiles - long considered the first phase of any attack on Soviet forces. "I can't imagine a Russian president awakened in the middle of the night with a blip on the radar screen, saying 'Yes, I'm going to launch the missiles on that basis,' knowing what he has to know about the state of their early-warning system," says Mr. Bunn. • Second in an occasional series on US-Russian strategic issues. "Old weapons, new terror worries," ran April 15, 2004. http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0506/p07s01-woeu.html

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