Issue No. 962, 06 December 2011 Articles & Other Documents:

Featured Article: Questions Swirl around $6 Billion Nuclear Lab

1. Study Says 6 in 10 Israelis Want Middle East Nuclear Free Zone 2. China Must Protect Iran Even with WWIII 3. Mysterious Blasts, Slayings Suggest Covert Efforts in Iran 4. Iran Makes New Claim It Downed U.S. Drone 5. Explosion Seen as Big Setback to Iran’s Missile Program 6. Saudi May Join : Ex-Spy Chief 7. Iran Becoming a Pariah State, Says US Official 8. UAE Leader: would Destroy Iran if Attacked 9. US Envoys on N. Korea to Head to Asia 10. North Korea Seen Advancing Work on ICBM Capable of Reaching U.S. 11. Korea to Purchase 170 Stealth Cruise Missiles Next Year 12. Russian Navy to Receive 1st Graney Class Attack Sub by End of 2012 13. to Start Construction of Borey-A Class Nuclear Subs in 2012 14. Medvedev ‘Drops a Bomb’ on 15. U.S. Official Says Missile-Defense Shield Will Move Forward 16. Questions Swirl around $6 Billion Nuclear Lab 17. Russia Will Not Stop U.S. Missile Defense Plans, Envoy Says 18. Power to Homes, Businesses Faces Cybersecurity Threat, MIT Finds 19. Armageddon Super Virus Recipe: Keep Secret or Publish? 20. Panetta: Strikes Will only 'Delay' Iranian Nukes 21. Containing a Dangerous Enemy 22. A Nuclear-Free Middle East Starts at Home 23. Syria's Chemical Weapons an Opaque but Alarming Risk 24. What Happens the Day After Iran Gets the Bomb? 25. Make No Mistake, the Iranians Will Have Their Nuclear Way

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 chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) threats and countermeasures. 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 http://cpc.au.af.mil/ for in-depth information and specific points of contact. 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.

Issue No. 962, 06 December 2011 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.

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DigitalJournal.com Study Says 6 in 10 Israelis Want Middle East Nuclear Free Zone By John Thomas Didymus December 3, 2011 Tel Aviv - A new poll says that faced with possibility of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons, more Israelis are supporting the idea of a nuclear free Middle East zone. According to the poll, nearly two-thirds of Israelis favor a nuclear free zone in the Middle East. The University of Maryland research poll was joint project of the Anwar Sadat Chair at the University of Maryland and the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA). PIPA is a joint program of the Center on Policy Attitudes and the Center on International Security Studies at Maryland. The poll, according to PhysOrg.com, showed that 64 percent of Israeli Jews favored establishing a nuclear free zone in the Middle East even if this means that Israel and Iran would have to forgo having nuclear weapons. Fewer than 43 percent supported an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. The poll also found that 90 percent of Israelis believe it is likely Iran will acquire nuclear weapons. When respondents were asked which they preferred, a Middle East zone in which both Israel and Iran have nuclear weapons or one in which neither have nuclear weapons, 65 percent responded they would prefer that neither have nuclear weapons. Only 19 percent of respondents said they would prefer both Israel and Iran to have nuclear weapons. University of Maryland's Anwar Sadat professor for Peace and Development Shibley Telhami, said: "I find the results surprising given the long held assumption that the Israeli public is not prepared to even discuss the nuclear issue given their deep seated sense of insecurity." Steven Kull, director of PIPA, added "If Israel and Iran were to indicate a readiness to join a process toward turning the Middle East into a nuclear free zone this would be a major game changer in negotiations on Iran's nuclear program." The researchers found that Israeli Jews were in support of a long term goal of eliminating nuclear weapons in the region. They were in support of a proposal for Iran and Israel to make their nuclear programs mutually transparent. 60 percent of respondents favored a proposal to have Israel, Iran and all countries in the region "agree to have a system of full international inspection of all facilities where nuclear components could be built and maintained." The researchers believe their research findings are very relevant to any future negotiations with Iran. The poll results follow Iran's recent boycott of an Israel-Arab meeting on nuclear-free Middle East. Haaretz Daily reports Iran said it boycotted the meeting because it was convinced that IAEA director general Yukiya Amano, was biased in favor of the West. Iran also accused the IAEA of failing to address the issue of Israel's alleged atomic arsenal. The meeting was planned to pave way for an international conference next year to address the issue of freeing the Middle East of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. Haaretz Daily reports Israel is the only Middle East country outside the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Israel is believed to have the Middle East's only nuclear arsenal, but the country has never confirmed or denied the allegation.

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Israel has said it would join the treaty and agree not to have nuclear weapons only if there is a comprehensive Middle East peace with Arab states and Iran. http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/315494 (Return to Articles and Documents List)

Press TV – Iran China Must Protect Iran Even with WWIII Sunday, December 04, 2011 A professor from the Chinese National Defense University says if Iran is attacked, China will not hesitate to protect the Islamic Republic even by launching the Third World War. Major General Zhang Zhaozhong said, "China will not hesitate to protect Iran even with a third World War." The United States and Israel have repeatedly threatened with the "option" of a military strike, based on the allegation that Iran's nuclear program may consist of a covert military agenda. Iran has refuted the allegations, saying that as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the IAEA, it has the right to develop and acquire nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. Over the past weeks, Israel has renewed its aggressive rhetoric against Iran. On November 21, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned that "time has come" to deal with Iran. Israeli President Shimon Peres also threatened on November 6 that an attack against Iran is becoming "more and more likely." Iranian officials have promised a crushing response to any military strike against the country, warning that any such measure could result in a war that would spread beyond the Middle East. http://presstv.com/detail/213760.html (Return to Articles and Documents List)

Los Angeles Times Mysterious Blasts, Slayings Suggest Covert Efforts in Iran Attacks targeting nuclear scientists and sites lead some observers to believe that the U.S. and Israel are trying to derail Iran's programs. By Ken Dilanian, Los Angeles Times December 4, 2011 Reporting from Washington — At an Iranian military base 30 miles west of Tehran, engineers were working on weapons that the armed forces chief of staff had boasted could give Israel a "strong punch in the mouth." But then a huge explosion ripped through the Revolutionary Guard Corps base on Nov. 12, leveling most of the buildings. Government officials said 17 people were killed, including a founder of Iran's ballistic missile program, Gen. Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam. Iranian officials called the blast an accident. Perhaps it was. Decades of international sanctions have left Iran struggling to obtain technology and spare parts for military programs and commercial industries, leading in some cases to dangerous working conditions. However, many former U.S. intelligence officials and Iran experts believe that the explosion — the most destructive of at least two dozen unexplained blasts in the last two years — was part of a covert effort by the U.S.,

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Israel and others to disable Iran's nuclear and missile programs. The goal, the experts say, is to derail what those nations fear is Iran's quest for nuclear weapons capability and to stave off an Israeli or U.S. airstrike to eliminate or lessen the threat. "It looks like the form of war," said Patrick Clawson, who directs the Iran Security Initiative at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a Washington think tank. "It does appear that there is a campaign of assassinations and cyber war, as well as the semi-acknowledged campaign of sabotage." Or perhaps not. Any such operation would be highly classified, and those who might know aren't talking. The result is Washington's latest national security parlor game — trying to figure out who, if anyone, is responsible for the unusual incidents. For years, the U.S. and its allies have sought to hinder Iran's weapons programs by secretly supplying faulty parts, plans or software, former intelligence officials say. No proof of sabotage has emerged, but Iran's nuclear program clearly has hit obstacles that thwarted progress in recent years. "We definitely are doing that," said Art Keller, a former CIA case officer who worked on Iran. "It's pretty much the stated mission of the [CIA's] counter-proliferation division to do what it takes to slow … Iran's weapons of mass destruction program." Iran insists that its nuclear program is for civilian purposes only. Many Western experts are convinced that American and Israeli engineers secretly fed the Stuxnet computer worm into Iran's nuclear program in 2010. The virus reportedly caused centrifuges used to enrich uranium to spin out of control and shatter. Neither the U.S. nor Israeli government has acknowledged any role in the apparent cyber- attack. Nor did anyone claim responsibility after two senior nuclear physicists were killed, and a third wounded, by bombs attached to their cars or nearby motorcycles in January and November last year. Militants waving pictures of one of the slain scientists stormed the British Embassy in Tehran last week, setting fires and causing extensive damage. Several European countries recalled their envoys from Iran after the British government closed its embassy and expelled Iranian diplomats from London. Like the deaths, the explosions have drawn special scrutiny in the think tanks of Washington, where Iran watchers have tracked reports of unexplained blasts in Iranian gas pipelines, oil installations and military facilities. In October, Iranian news services reported three such explosions in a 24-hour period. The blasts killed two people. Another large blast was reported last week in Esfahan, Iran's third-largest city. Some analysts suspect that the CIA and Israel's intelligence agency, , are involved, with possible help from the MEK, a fringe Iranian group that the State Department lists as a terrorist organization, although it has many allies in Washington's foreign policy establishment. Based in Iraq, the group is believed to have links to dissident networks inside Iran. Iran claims to have arrested dozens of CIA informants in recent months, and U.S. officials acknowledge that a handful of informants in Iran have been exposed. What they did, or where, is unknown. In October, U.S. officials announced that they had uncovered an Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington. Some analysts caution against assuming the CIA is orchestrating all the attacks in Iran, arguing it gives U.S. intelligence far too much credit. But that doesn't preclude U.S. support for allied spy services in Europe and the Middle East that also target Iran. Still, there is more speculation at this point than hard evidence. A cyber expert who works closely with U.S. intelligence said he is convinced that Israel, not the U.S., launched the Stuxnet attack because U.S. government lawyers would not approve use of a computer virus that could spread far

Issue No. 962, 06 December 2011 United States Air Force Counterproliferation Research & Education | Maxwell AFB, Montgomery AL Phone: 334.953.7538 | Fax: 334.953.7530 beyond the intended target, as Stuxnet apparently did. That caution, of course, presumes the lawyers knew the virus would spread, and that's not clear. The expert would not speak publicly about classified matters. Whether the White House would authorize the targeted killing of Iranian scientists is far from certain. An executive order signed by President Reagan in 1981 prohibits direct or indirect involvement in assassinations, although the term is not defined. President Obama has authorized the killing of Al Qaeda members and other suspected militants, including at least one U.S. citizen in Yemen. Some analysts claim that the U.S. would not back a bombing campaign that has killed Iranian workers at oil refineries and other civilian sites. It would amount to sponsoring terrorism, a charge Washington regularly levels at Tehran. "I do not believe that the U.S. has participated in either attacking scientists or physical attacks against Iranian nuclear facilities," said Greg Thielmann, a former State Department intelligence official who helped expose the faulty intelligence cited by the George W. Bush administration before the 2003 invasion of Iraq. "Selling them bad parts, introducing malware — that does seem to me within the realm of what one might expect from U.S. intelligence activities." Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA operative who specialized on Iran, said he doesn't believe that the CIA could mount a sophisticated covert campaign of sabotage inside Iran, where the U.S. has not had an embassy since 1979. Gerecht long has urged the CIA to mount more aggressive operations against Iran. "I just think trying to maintain and run a paramilitary covert action group inside Iran is beyond America's covert capacity," he said. Whatever the cause, headlines about unsolved killings, unexplained explosions and sinister computer viruses have rattled Iranians, especially those who work in the nuclear program, analysts said. Perhaps that's the point. "All these things have a profound effect," Clawson said. "You have to watch your back when you go to work. You're not certain what's going to happen when you turn on your computer. You're not certain whether you can talk to your colleagues." http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iran-bomb-20111205,0,7550482.story (Return to Articles and Documents List)

Wall Street Journal December 5, 2011 Iran Makes New Claim It Downed U.S. Drone By JULIAN E. BARNES WASHINGTON—Iran said on Sunday that it shot down a U.S. stealth drone near the country's eastern border, but U.S. officials in Afghanistan said the craft could instead be an unmanned reconnaissance plane that veered off course and crashed last week. Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted a military official who said Tehran had downed an RQ-170 Sentinel, the U.S. Air Force's stealth drone. U.S. and NATO officials wouldn't say what kind of American drone had disappeared, but U.S. officials said there was no indication that the aircraft had been shot down by the Iranians. One American official said the drone likely suffered from a mechanical failure.

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American officials said they believe that after the remote pilots lost control of the aircraft, the drone crashed in an unknown location. On Sunday afternoon, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's command in Afghanistan said the Iranians may have been referring to an unmanned craft lost while flying a mission over western Afghanistan "late last week." "The operators of the UAV lost control of the aircraft and had been working to determine its status," said the statement released by NATO's International Security Assistance Force. The drone "suffered minor damage and is now in possession of Iran's armed forces," IRNA quoted the military official as saying. The news agency reported that the official also warned of a strong response if the U.S. were to violate Iranian airspace. Iran's assertion that it had shot down the drone wasn't the first such claim it has made. In January, Tehran said its forces shot down drones in the Gulf. In July, it said it shot down a drone near the city of Qom. U.S. officials rebutted those claims, and Tehran produced no evidence. The repeated Iranian claims about American drones, and the U.S. denials that have followed, reflect the continued high level of tension between Washington and Tehran. The U.S. has been orchestrating increasingly restrictive international sanctions over Iran's nuclear program, charging that the regime aims to build a . Iran, which denies those claims, has been stepping up its defiance against the West. Last week, Iranian protesters attacked the British Embassy in Tehran. Iran frequently threatens Western militaries. In the Persian Gulf, small Iranian boats often veer menacingly toward U.S. and British warships. The RQ-170 Sentinel was the type of stealth drone used to conduct surveillance on the compound used by Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, before the May raid by Navy SEAL commandos that killed the al Qaeda leader. The U.S. has flown missions with the RQ-170 Sentinel from bases in Afghanistan, but most of its capabilities remain classified. It is also known by a nickname, the "beast of Kandahar," earned when aviation enthusiasts first spotted the craft flying from Kandahar airfield in Afghanistan. If the drone that went down is an RQ-170, and if it is largely, or partially, intact, it is possible that the technological secrets of the advanced aircraft could be compromised. Even if Tehran didn't have the capability to replicate the technology used in the Sentinel, Iran could sell the drone to China or Russia, countries that would have a far easier time replicating the drone's technological secrets. Not only does the drone likely use advanced coatings and materials to make it difficult to detect by radar, but the drone also likely has the U.S.'s most-cutting-edge sensor technology, including sophisticated cameras and listening devices. Defense analysts have speculated in the past that the Sentinel, built by Lockheed Martin Corp., was based in Afghanistan not just to conduct secret missions into Pakistan but also for surveillance of Iranian military sites. The stealth drone was originally part of the Air Force's classified fleet and its existence was officially denied. But the service now makes available a fact sheet about the aircraft.

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The drone is a wing-shaped aircraft, like the stealth bomber, a design that is supposed to make it less visible to radar. The number of Sentinels that the Air Force operates remains a closely guarded secret. The "RQ" designation is used for unarmed drones, such as the RQ-4 Global Hawk. But some analysts have said the U.S. might try to arm the airframe at some point in the future. Iran claims to have its own fleet of unarmed drones, but U.S. officials question Tehran's ability to conduct even short-range reconnaissance with unmanned aircraft. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204770404577078160095550518.html (Return to Articles and Documents List)

New York Times December 5, 2011 Explosion Seen as Big Setback to Iran’s Missile Program By DAVID E. SANGER and WILLIAM J. BROAD Page – A7 WASHINGTON — The huge explosion that destroyed a major missile-testing site near Tehran three weeks ago was a major setback for Iran’s most advanced long-range missile program, according to American and Israeli intelligence officials and missile technology experts. In interviews, current and former officials said surveillance photos showed that the Iranian base was a central testing center for advanced solid-fuel missiles, an assessment backed by outside experts who have examined satellite photos showing that the base was almost completely leveled in the blast. Such missiles can be launched almost instantly, making them useful to Iran as a potential deterrent against pre-emptive attacks by Israel or the United States, and they are also better suited than older liquid-fuel designs for carrying warheads long distances. It is still unclear what caused the explosion, with American officials saying they believe it was probably an accident, perhaps because of Iran’s inexperience with a volatile, dangerous technology. Iran declared it an accident, but subsequent discussions of the episode in the Iranian news media have referred to the chief of Iran’s missile program as one of the “martyrs” killed in the huge explosion. Some Iranian officials have talked of sabotage, but it is unclear whether that is based on evidence or surmise after several years in which Iranian nuclear scientists have been assassinated on Tehran’s streets, and a highly sophisticated computer worm has attacked its main uranium production facility. Both American and Israeli officials, in discussing the explosion in recent days, showed little curiosity about its cause. “Anything that buys us time and delays the day when the Iranians might be able to mount a nuclear weapon on an accurate missile is a small victory,” one Western intelligence official who has been deeply involved in countering the Iranian nuclear program said this weekend. “At this point, we’ll take whatever we can get, however it happens.” In addition to providing a potential deterrent to attackers, Iran’s advances in solid-fuel missile technology, and the concern it could eventually have intercontinental reach, have been at the heart of the Obama administration’s insistence on the need for new missile-defense programs. As concerns about Iran’s intentions have deepened in the West, intense surveillance efforts have been turned on suspected Iranian weapons sites. Iran has frequently accused the United States and Israel of spying and sabotage programs, and on Sunday made another such claim, saying it had shot down an advanced American RQ-170 drone in eastern Iran.

Issue No. 962, 06 December 2011 United States Air Force Counterproliferation Research & Education | Maxwell AFB, Montgomery AL Phone: 334.953.7538 | Fax: 334.953.7530

That particular drone is among the most sensitive in the American fleet, and if the report is true it would mean Iran had gained at least partial access to closely guarded American technology. A stealth version of the drone was flown for hours, on repeated occasions, over Osama bin Laden’s hide-out in Abbottabad, Pakistan, earlier this year, without being detected by Pakistani air defenses, American officials said. There have been reports for months, all unconfirmed, that the same drone was being used regularly over Iran, presumably to hunt for hidden nuclear or missile sites. In a statement on Sunday, the American-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan said that the drone “to which the Iranians are referring may be a U.S. unarmed reconnaissance aircraft that had been flying a mission over western Afghanistan late last week.” It added that operators of the remotely controlled drone aircraft lost control of it “and had been working to determine its status.” The statement did not say what kind of drone was lost, or what might have caused the loss. The statement would seem to suggest that the craft wrongly flew across the border into Iran. If a drone was used for intelligence gathering in Iran, it presumably would not belong to the military — since there are no open hostilities with Iran — but rather to the C.I.A. or another intelligence agency, acting under a presidential finding about the Iranian nuclear program. One of the many theories swirling around the explosion at the missile base is that it could have been hit by a weapon, including one fired from a drone, setting off the huge explosion that followed. But since no outsiders can approach the base or gather evidence, it is unclear whether it will ever be known publicly what triggered the explosion. Even if the cause was an accident — and the United States has suffered some with its own solid-fuel motors — several officials said that it was a major setback for Iran’s effort to focus much of its industrial prowess on that kind of missile. Missiles powered by solid fuels rather than liquids have no need for trucks to fill them with volatile fluids, and can be fired on short notice, making them hard for other nations to destroy before they are launched. That would add to Iran’s ability to protect its nuclear sites from an Israeli strike — a subject of renewed debate in Israel in recent weeks — because Iran could threaten to retaliate before many of its missiles were struck. Solid-fuel missiles are also easier to hide. For those reasons, modern militaries rely on solid fuels for their deadliest missiles. Moreover, at a time Iran is being squeezed by sanctions, the country has succeeded in making the solid-fuel engines with indigenous technology. For liquid-fueled engines, many key components come from abroad. In a recent report, the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London called Iran’s shift to solid-fuel engines “a turning point” with “profound strategic implications” because the technology also brings Tehran closer to its goal of making long-range missiles. In its report three weeks ago, the International Atomic Energy Agency laid out, for the first time in public, detailed evidence it says suggests that Iran worked at some point in the past decade on designing a nuclear warhead that would fit atop its missile fleet. Partly for that reason, Western officials said, many of the sanctions imposed on Iran by the United Nations Security Council seek to block its import of rocket parts. Last week, the Institute for Science and International Security, a private group in Washington, released a commercial satellite image of the destroyed base. It called Iran’s labors there integral to “a major milestone in the development of a new missile.” Government and private analysts described the blast at the military base, which occurred Nov. 12 and killed Gen. Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam, the head of Iran’s missile program, as a major setback — not just because of the extensive damage to the site but also because of the loss of expertise from the specialists working there.

Issue No. 962, 06 December 2011 United States Air Force Counterproliferation Research & Education | Maxwell AFB, Montgomery AL Phone: 334.953.7538 | Fax: 334.953.7530

General Moghaddam’s funeral was attended by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah . “That was a statement of how central Moghaddam’s work was,” one American intelligence official said. The sprawling complex where the blast took place has expanded dramatically in the last few years. Michael Elleman, a main author of the International Institute’s 148-page report on Iranian missiles, examined the public images of the destroyed base and said in an interview that the damage and other evidence was consistent with solid-fuel technology. Mr. Elleman added that the desert area around the base bristled with military compounds and networks of buildings and bunkers — all plainly visible in Google Earth images. Security cordons ringed the bases. He noted that the region south of the destroyed base, roughly one and five miles distant, held two separate complexes that carried the distinctive signature of a firing range for solid fuels. The closer of the two sites has eight test stands in a row, and the desert next to them had been clearly scorched by fiery plumes. In such tests, missile engines are mounted horizontally and shoot their blasts straight out. The more distant complex has three test stands in a row, the middle one bearing bold scorch marks from a recent firing. David E. Sanger reported from Washington, and William J. Broad from New York. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/05/world/middleeast/blast-leveling-base-seen-as-big-setback-to-iran- missiles.html?pagewanted=all (Return to Articles and Documents List)

Vancouver Sun – Canada Saudi May Join Nuclear Arms Race: Ex-Spy Chief By Agence France-Presse (AFP) December 5, 2011 RIYADH - Saudi Arabia may consider acquiring nuclear weapons to match regional rivals Israel and Iran, its former intelligence chief Prince Turki al-Faisal said on Monday. "Our efforts and those of the world have failed to convince Israel to abandon its weapons of mass destruction, as well as Iran... therefore it is our duty towards our nation and people to consider all possible options, including the possession of these weapons," Faisal told a security forum in Riyadh. "A (nuclear) disaster befalling one of us would affect us all," said Faisal. Israel is widely held to possess hundreds of nuclear missiles, which it neither confirms nor denies, while the West accuses Iran of seeking an atomic bomb, a charge the Islamic republic rejects. Riyadh, which has repeatedly voiced fears about the nuclear threat posed by Shiite-dominated Iran and denounced Israel's atomic capacity, has stepped up efforts to develop its own nuclear power for "peaceful use." Abdul Ghani Malibari, coordinator at the Saudi civil nuclear agency, said in June that Riyadh plans to build 16 civilian nuclear reactors in the next two decades at a cost of 300 billion riyals ($80 billion). He said the Sunni kingdom would launch an international invitation to tender for the reactors to be used in power generation and desalination in the desert kingdom. The United Nations has imposed successive packages of sanctions against Tehran over its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment. Those measures have been backed up by unilateral Western sanctions. http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Saudi+join+nuclear+arms+race+chief/5812470/story.html

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The Telegraph – U.K. Iran Becoming a Pariah State, Says US Official A senior US official on Monday said the situation over Iran's nuclear programme was becoming increasingly worrying and an urgent diplomatic solution needs to be found. 05 December 2011 The United States and Israel have not ruled out military action against Iran's nuclear facilities if diplomacy fails to resolve a dispute over a programme they suspect is aimed at developing atomic weapons. Iran denies it is seeking nuclear weapons and says it would respond to any strike by attacking Israel and U.S. interests in the Gulf. "Iran is violating international obligations and norms. It is becoming a pariah state," Robert Einhorn, the U.S. State Department senior adviser for non-proliferation and , told a news conference in the South Korean capital. "The situation in Iran has become more and more worrisome. The timeline for its nuclear programme is beginning to get shorter, so it is important we take these strong steps on an urgent basis. "If we do not, pressures will grow for much stronger actions. The U.S. favours a diplomatic solution pressure, but if we cannot achieve a diplomatic solution soon, inevitably interests will grow in a different kind of solution. That is why we need to act soon." Iran's nuclear ambitions, its claim to have shot down a U.S. spy drone in its airspace on Sunday and last week's storming of the British embassy in Tehran by protesters has contributed to a sharp increase in tensions in the region. He said enforcing sanctions would force Iran to negotiate seriously. Western nations last week significantly tightened sanctions against Iran, with the European Union expanding an Iranian blacklist and the U.S. Senate passing a measure that could severely disrupt Iran's oil income. Einhorn said the latest round of sanctions do not include crude oil imports, crucial to energy-starved economies like South Korea. "But we discourage countries from continuing to import crude oil in large quantities," added Einhorn, acknowledging that at the present time "pressure was tight" on the oil market. "We are conscious of energy security needs of countries like the Republic of Korea and don't want to interfere with those needs," he said, of Asia's fourth largest economy. Einhorn said he had received a positive response during talks with South Korean officials about tightening sanctions, adding Seoul was considering what additional measures to take. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/8935874/Iran-becoming-a-pariah-state-says-US- official.html (Return to Articles and Documents List)

Ha’aretz Daily – Israel 6 December 2011 UAE Leader: Israel would Destroy Iran if Attacked

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Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum discards concerns over Tehran's nuclear program, saying Iran has no use for such weapons. By Haaretz The prime minister of the United Arab Emirates has rejected the threat of a nuclear Iran, saying that if Tehran were to attack Israel, it would be destroyed the next day. In an interview with CNN, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the absolute monarch of Dubai, said that he does not think Iran would develop a nuclear weapon since it would be of little use to it. "What can Iran do with a nuclear weapon?" al-Maktoum asked CNN. "For example, will they hit Israel? How many Palestinians will die? And if you think Iran hits Israel, their cities will be safe? They will be gone the next day." Al-Maktoum insisted that Iran, which lies just 50 miles away from the UAE, is not building a nuclear weapon. On Monday, the Telegraph reported that Iran's Revolutionary Guard, quoting Western intelligence sources, has raised its alertness level, fearing a military strike by a foreign power. According to the Telegraph report, the commander of the Revolutionary Guard Mohammed Ali Jaafari issued a command to raise operational readiness, fearing what the report called "potential external strikes and covert attacks." Iran has consistently denied it is aiming to produce a nuclear weapon, despite recent IAEA findings that suggest Tehran has been working to produce an atomic bomb. Western powers have mounted several rounds of sanctions on Iran following the report, Australia being the latest power to expand sanctions. Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd said in a statement Tuesday that the measures will target people and companies involved in Iran's ballistic missile and nuclear programs and will restrict Australia's business with Iran's petroleum and financial sectors. http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/uae-leader-israel-would-destroy-iran-if-attacked-1.399831 (Return to Articles and Documents List)

News Hosted by Google.com US Envoys on N. Korea to Head to Asia By Agence France-Presse (AFP) December 5, 2011 WASHINGTON — The US team handling North Korea will head this week for talks in China, Japan and South Korea in the wake of Pyongyang's boast of progress on uranium production, the State Department said Monday. Glyn Davies, who took over in October as US special representative on North Korea policy, and Clifford Hart, the envoy for moribund six-nation nuclear talks, will leave Tuesday, starting their three-capital trip in Seoul. The envoys "will meet with senior government officials to exchange views on Korean Peninsula issues," the State Department said in a statement. The United States in October held rare one-on-one talks with North Korea in Geneva, hoping to maintain channels of communication despite pessimism in Washington at reaching a solution on long-running disputes with Pyongyang. North Korea -- which has defied the world by testing two atom bombs -- last week said it is making rapid progress on enriching uranium and is building a new reactor, projects that could give it a second way to make nuclear weapons.

Issue No. 962, 06 December 2011 United States Air Force Counterproliferation Research & Education | Maxwell AFB, Montgomery AL Phone: 334.953.7538 | Fax: 334.953.7530

US Secretary of State , who was visiting South Korea amid the announcement, called on the North "to take concrete steps that promote peace and stability and denuclearization." The United States has insisted that North Korea clearly commit to past six-nation agreements on giving up its nuclear weapons and work to repair ties with the South before substantive new negotiations can begin. The six-way talks comprise China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the United States. http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5i8pixWHL7- kom3BVgLRbA2v54OrA?docId=CNG.a6b7929e3130a615083167a1eb936d2f.61 (Return to Articles and Documents List)

Global Security Newswire North Korea Seen Advancing Work on ICBM Capable of Reaching U.S. Tuesday, December 6, 2011 North Korea is advancing efforts to construct an ICBM that could strike the United States, the Washington Times on Tuesday quoted the Obama administration as stating recently (see GSN, Aug. 17). The weapon is also believed capable of being transported on roadways, which would make it more difficult to track with radars. Obama officials discussed the information with House lawmakers in a November closed-door briefing. The intelligence was addressed in a letter in which five GOP representatives urged Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to prioritize developing national antimissile capabilities over European missile defense, according to the newspaper. "As members of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces ..., we write out of concerns about new intelligence concerning foreign developments in long-range ballistic missile development, specifically ballistic missiles capable of attacking the United States," the Nov. 17 document reads (see GSN, Nov. 22). "We believe this new intelligence reiterates the need for the administration to correct its priorities regarding missiles defenses, which should have, first and foremost, the missile defense of the homeland," the Republican lawmakers wrote. Then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned in early 2011 that Pyongyang was within half a decade of wielding a long-range ballistic missile capable of striking the continental United States. The Republican letter to Panetta did not single North Korea out as the developer of the new missile, but it referenced Gates' statements earlier this year about the North Korean ICBM threat. Informed sources said government experts think the new road-mobile missile could be derived from the North's intermediate-range Musudan missile, which was first unveiled last October. Separate information points to the new missile being built at the Stalinist state's enormous west-coast missile trial site at Dongchang-ri. Road-mobile missiles are tricky for radars to monitor, which makes it easier for them to escape detection. They also can be readied and fired in a significantly shorter amount of time than missiles fired from fixed locations. A February 2010 diplomatic dispatch leaked by the antisecrecy group WikiLeaks said the United States believes Pyongyang has three options for constructing intercontinental ballistic missiles. The first would make use of the existing long-range Taepodong 2 missile, which the Times reported can travel a maximum distance of 9,300 miles. Other estimates have put the Taepodong 2's top range at slightly less than 5,000 miles.

Issue No. 962, 06 December 2011 United States Air Force Counterproliferation Research & Education | Maxwell AFB, Montgomery AL Phone: 334.953.7538 | Fax: 334.953.7530

A second path would be to extend the top traveling distances of other missile classes such as the Musudan. The third option would be to "use the very large launch facility that is being constructed on the west coast of North Korea to launch a very large missile," the cable stated. The cable noted the new missile site at Dongchang-ri "is much larger than the Taepodong launch facility. This is not to say there is evidence of a new missile system larger than the Taepodong 2 being developed, but it suggests the possibility." A separate leaked U.S. cable written in October 2009 said the intermediate-range Musudan missile was developed from designs for the Russian submarine-fired SS N6 missile, which can travel as far as 2,400 miles. The GOP legislators urged Panetta to undo a Pentagon decision to scale back work on long-range land-based interceptors in order to focus on development of a European missile shield intended to counter ballistic missile attacks from the Middle East. The Republicans also requested the Defense Department share its "hedging strategy" for responding to evolving missile dangers such as road-transportable North Korean ICBMs. "In view of the briefing the subcommittee received this week, we do not believe the United States can afford further delay in the release of the hedging strategy by the Department of Defense," they wrote, urging that information on the strategy be provided before 2011 is over. Pentagon official Commander Leslie Hull-Ryde referenced Gates earlier statements and said "specific information related to North Korea's development of road-mobile ICBM would be an intelligence matter, and it is our policy not to comment on intelligence matters" (Bill Gertz, Washington Times, Dec. 5). http://www.globalsecuritynewswire.org/gsn/nw_20111206_4237.php (Return to Articles and Documents List)

Korea Times – South Korea December 6, 2011 Korea to Purchase 170 Stealth Cruise Missiles Next Year By Lee Tae-hoon Korea will purchase some 170 air-to-surface stealth cruise missiles next year capable of destroying high value targets such as military leaders or launching pads for nuclear weapons, multiple sources said Tuesday. A National Assembly official said the government has set aside 388 billion won ($343 million) to procure 177 low- observable, long-range, precision guided stand-off missiles that can be launched from F-15Ks, F-16Ks and other advanced jets after system integration. He said the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) from the American defense giant Lockheed Martin will vie with the Taurus, air-launched missile manufactured by Germany-based Taurus Systems GmbH. “JASSM is much cheaper and easier to integrate with the existing fleet of its American aircraft, but South Korea may have no other alternative but to choose the Taurus if the U.S. Congress continues to delay the authorization for the export of JASSM,” the official said. A government source said the unit cost of JASSM was about 1.2 billion won, whereas that of the Taurus was 3 billion won when Seoul requested quotations in 2009. “Seoul wants to introduce them as they will function as an effective deterrent against North Korea’s provocations,” he said. “It can be fired from Seoul and hit any targets in Pyongyang, including North Korean leader Kim Jong-il attending a massive military parade or other ceremonies, by using its GPS-aided inertial navigation system.”

Issue No. 962, 06 December 2011 United States Air Force Counterproliferation Research & Education | Maxwell AFB, Montgomery AL Phone: 334.953.7538 | Fax: 334.953.7530

The plan to purchase state-of-art guided missiles gained much of its momentum after Defense Minister Kim Kwan- jin announced in March that he would alter the nation’s military posture from passive defense to proactive deterrence to address the North’s growing military threats. “If the Pentagon issues the LOA (Letter of Offer and Acceptance) early next year, we plan to assess the two air-to- surface guided missiles over their performance, price and the extent of technology transfer and select the winner no later than September 2012,” a senior military official said. He said if the acquisition program runs without a hitch, the South will likely be able to deploy the first batch of missiles in late 2013. The official, however, did not rule out the possibility of the plan being shelved if the U.S. Congress does not give a green light to the export of JASSM by June next year and if Taurus Systems GmbH continues to demand too high a price. “The Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) may reconsider the project and push the development of indigenous air-to-surface cruise missiles if it cannot buy them at a reasonable price and secure a guarantee of substantial technology transfer,” he said. Australia is the only foreign country to have the JASSM in its inventory. Several countries, such as Finland and India, are negotiating with Washington over the sales of the fire-and-forget missile capable of destroying well- defended, fixed and re-locatable targets with pinpoint accuracy. JASSM has an operation range of 370 kilometers and a warhead of 450 kilograms. German and Spain operate Taurus, which can fly more than 500 kilometers with a warhead of 500 kilograms. Morri Leland, a director of Lockheed Martin, said JASSM would be a great choice for the South as it has threats that demand certain scenarios that include hard-to-penetrate, pin-point, and heavily defended targets. “It was specifically designed for very high threat scenarios like those Korea faces,” he said. JASSM can navigate autonomously in adverse weather, day or night to its programmed target through a preprogrammed route with the help of its anti-jam GPS and infrared seeker before destroying its target. http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2011/12/116_100261.html (Return to Articles and Documents List)

RIA Novosti – Russian Information Agency Russian Navy to Receive 1st Graney Class Attack Sub by End of 2012 3 December 2011 The delivery of the first Graney class nuclear-powered multipurpose attack submarine to the Russian Navy has been postponed until the end of 2012 due to additional tests of its weapons systems, the Sevmash shipyard said. Construction of the Severodvinsk submarine began in 1993 at the Sevmash shipyard in the northern Russian city of Severodvinsk but has since been dogged by financial setbacks. It was floated out in June last year and has undergone two sets of sea trials. “The delivery of the *Severodvinsk submarine+ to the Defense Ministry has been postponed until next year,” Sevmash General Director Andrei Dyachkov said on Friday in an exclusive interview with RIA Novosti. Dyachkov said the testing of the submarine’s weaponry required at least six months of additional sea trials in 2012.

Issue No. 962, 06 December 2011 United States Air Force Counterproliferation Research & Education | Maxwell AFB, Montgomery AL Phone: 334.953.7538 | Fax: 334.953.7530

“The submarine itself showed a good performance *during previous trials+,” the official said. “It will be commissioned by the end of 2012.” Graney class nuclear submarines are designed to launch a variety of long-range cruise missiles (up to 3,100 miles or 5,000 km), with conventional or nuclear warheads, and effectively engage submarines, surface warships and land-based targets. The submarine's armament includes 24 cruise missiles and eight torpedo launchers, as well as mines and anti-ship missiles. Meanwhile, the construction of the second Graney class submarine, the Kazan, at the Sevmash is going according to schedule. The Kazan will feature more advanced equipment and weaponry than the Severodvinsk, and can be considered as a prototype of modernized Graney-M class submarines. Dyachkov said on Friday that Sevmash would start building a series of five advanced Graney-M class attack submarines in 2012 under a recent contract between the Russian United Shipbuilding Corporation and the Defense Ministry. MOSCOW, December 3 (RIA Novosti) http://en.rian.ru/mlitary_news/20111203/169275854.html (Return to Articles and Documents List)

Journal of Turkish Weekly Russia to Start Construction of Borey-A Class Nuclear Subs in 2012 Saturday, 3 December 2011 Russia will start building modernized Borey-A class strategic nuclear-powered submarines in 2012, the Sevmash shipyard said. Fourth-generation Borey class submarines are expected to constitute the core of Russia's modern strategic submarine fleet. Russia is planning to build eight Borey and Borey-A class subs by 2020. “We will lay down the first modernized Borey-A class submarine next year,” Sevmash General Director Andrei Dyachkov said on Friday in an exclusive interview with RIA Novosti. Dyachkov said the contracts on the construction of two more Borey-A class submarines would be signed in the Q1 of 2012. The official did not specify the differences between the Borey and Borey-A class submarines, but it was reported earlier by some Russian military sources that modifications could include major structural changes and the installation of four more missile launch tubes. Three Borey class vessels, the Yury Dolgoruky, the Alexander Nevsky, and the Vladimir Monomakh, are in different stages of completion at Sevmash. The Yury Dolgoruky has recently completed all sea trials and is expected to enter service with the Russian Navy as soon as the Bulava ballistic missile successfully passes the final tests. A Borey class strategic submarine is 170 meters (580 feet) long, has a hull diameter of 13 meters (42 feet), a crew of 107, including 55 officers, a maximum depth of 450 meters (about 1,500 feet) and a submerged speed of about 29 knots. It can carry up to 16 ballistic missiles with multiple warheads. MOSCOW, December 3 (RIA Novosti)

Issue No. 962, 06 December 2011 United States Air Force Counterproliferation Research & Education | Maxwell AFB, Montgomery AL Phone: 334.953.7538 | Fax: 334.953.7530 http://www.turkishweekly.net/news/127476/russia-to-start-construction-of-borey-a-class-nuclear-subs-in-2012- .html (Return to Articles and Documents List)

Russia Today (RT) – Russia Medvedev ‘Drops a Bomb’ on Missile Defense 05 December 2011 By Robert Bridge, RT President provided some key insights into the run-up to the parliamentary elections, which saw retain its majority position in the . Speaking on US plans to build a missile defense system in Eastern Europe, a project that threatens to escalate into another arms race, Medvedev said that his most recent warnings on the project had no connection to the electoral campaign as some critics at home and abroad suggested. "As soon as I made the statement, I heard rumors it was made to strengthen the position of United Russia before the election and my own position during the period of the transition in power," the Russian leader told his supporters in Gorki, the presidential residence in the suburbs of Moscow. "I would like to say again now that the election is over – this was an absolutely conscious statement. I did not want to make it for a long time, but I had to make it in the end," he said. Last month, Medvedev warned the western powers that Russia would fortify its borders with Iskander ballistic missiles unless a compromise is reached on the European missile defense project, which Moscow views as a direct threat to its national security. The US and NATO have balked on the question of Russia's participation in the long- term project, just miles from the Russian border. The President stressed that his comments were very well received by the Russian public, who is also beginning to express alarm at the irrational behavior of the United States and NATO of late. "I do not know how it may be interpreted, but I want to say one simple thing that leads to one simple conclusion: I have not seen such unanimity regarding the president's position for a long time,” Medvedev said. “Everyone – the left, the right, the young and the old – want us to be firm. There is such a demand." Medvedev made his comment after a speech by Dmitry Rogozin, Russia's Permanent Representative to NATO, a member of the committee of the president's supporters. "So what shall we do,” the president asked Rogozin in a tongue-in-cheek comment. “Shall we drop a bomb or not?" 'Against all' an option On a political question related to future elections, Medvedev discussed the possibility of reinstating the 'against all' option on election ballots, while holding out his personal opinion that he found it a “strange way of expressing one’s opinion.” "We may have the 'against all' option again. Nothing awful will happen," he said. "However, in my opinion, that is a rather strange way of expressing one's opinion.” A drift in the voters’ political convictions derives from an insufficient political structure, as well as ideological problems, he said. The President also said that some people are merely voting “out of spite.” "When one loses votes, someone else gains,” he said. “Yet I think we should all grow up – there are some people voting out of spite.”

Issue No. 962, 06 December 2011 United States Air Force Counterproliferation Research & Education | Maxwell AFB, Montgomery AL Phone: 334.953.7538 | Fax: 334.953.7530

The Russian leader added, however that this could be a sign of protest, which he called “natural.” Speaking on the phenomenon of people suddenly switching political allegiances, Medvedev said this was likely to be explained by a weakness of conviction. "As for ideological preferences, I can say that it is rather strange for a person who has always voted for the right to start voting for the left,” he said. “If that is done to spite the system, then that is a question of choice. This means a person has never had firm right-wing convictions." http://rt.com/politics/medvedev-missile-defense-us-elections-gorki-071/ (Return to Articles and Documents List)

New York Times December 3, 2011 U.S. Official Says Missile-Defense Shield Will Move Forward By THOM SHANKER and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN WASHINGTON — The American ambassador to NATO on Friday dismissed recent expressions of outrage from Moscow over proposed missile defenses in Europe, saying that the NATO deployment will proceed “whether Russia likes it or not.” The ambassador, Ivo Daalder, said the United States was well aware that “there are significant forces within Russia” that believe that the alliance’s system of radars and interceptors could blunt Moscow’s own arsenal of missiles, and thus undermine Russia’s strategic deterrent. Mr. Daalder said he would meet officials from Moscow at NATO headquarters in Brussels next week to explain — once again — that the alliance shield is designed solely to defend against a potential missile attack from Iran. But Mr. Daalder also noted that recent complaint, especially from President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia, might be motivated by the demands of domestic politics ahead of national elections there. The American commitment to work with NATO allies and deploy the missile shield is founded on a belief that Iran is accelerating its program to field missiles capable of reaching across NATO territory in Europe, Mr. Daalder said. Since President Obama announced new plans for the shield two years ago, Mr. Daalder said, “our estimate of the threat has gone up, not down. It is accelerating — this is the Iranian ballistic missile threat — and becoming more severe than even we thought two years ago.” Thus, he said, the United States and its allies remain wholly committed to the program. “Whether Russia likes it or not, we are about defending NATO-European territory against a growing ballistic missile threat,” Mr. Daalder said. “We will adapt the timing and the details to that threat, which is why the focus of our joint effort ought to be about how to figure out how to reduce that threat rather than trying to threaten and retaliate for a deployment that has nothing to do with Russia.” Last week, President Medvedev threatened that Russia would deploy its own missiles and that it could withdraw from the New Start nuclear arms reduction treaty if the United States proceeds with its plans for a missile-defense system in Europe. Returning to that theme this week, Mr. Medvedev dismissed the idea that he was kicking around a political football. “This statement is not of some tactical nature, not to mention some election nature,” Mr. Medvedev said Thursday at a meeting with Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin and political supporters, according to the Interfax news agency.

Issue No. 962, 06 December 2011 United States Air Force Counterproliferation Research & Education | Maxwell AFB, Montgomery AL Phone: 334.953.7538 | Fax: 334.953.7530

Steven Pifer, an arms control expert who has managed Russia policy from top positions at the State Department and National Security Council, said that some of the tougher language out of Moscow seemed intended less for Washington and more for Russian voters, who head to the polls for parliamentary elections on Sunday. And with presidential elections in both Russia and the United States next year, the volume could grow louder, even though the basic positions in the missile-defense debate have not changed. “We’ll probably see more rhetoric on both sides in 2012,” said Mr. Pifer, now of the Brookings Institution. “The Russian presidential transition and our election will make it a difficult year to do serious arms control.” Mr. Pifer said U.S. officials have made efforts to ease the Russians’ concerns, for instance, by inviting them to observe missile interceptor tests, but so far the Russians have refused. “There are some pretty decent offers on the table,” he said. Mr. Medvedev said Russia was open to further negotiations, but would be compelled to respond if the United States proceeded in deploying the missile-defense system. “Our response to the European missile shield will be gradual and its first step was already taken when a radar was activated in the Kaliningrad region,” he said. “More steps will follow if necessary.” He continued: “Time has not run out to negotiate an agreement. But we also must understand that if the situation develops the old way, we will have to respond. We have material and military prerequisites for that.” A spokesman for Russia’s Foreign Ministry told reporters on Thursday that the missile-defense issue would be a focus of a meeting between Russian and the NATO council’s foreign ministers on Thursday. Separately, senior officials in two former Soviet republics, made statements this week in support of Russia’s position. “We share the defense capability concerns and risks of Russia,” President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko of Belarus told Interfax. “Today we are under the protection of Russia’s nuclear umbrella and if the interests of this umbrella are damaged by any grouping, it means damage and danger for us.” Meanwhile, the speaker of Parliament in Kyrgyzstan said his government supported Russia’s response and its efforts to negotiate a resolution of the dispute. Thom Shanker reported from Washington, and David M. Herszenhorn from Moscow. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/03/world/europe/us-official-says-missile-defense-shield-will-move- forward.html (Return to Articles and Documents List)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution Sunday, December 04, 2011 Questions Swirl around $6 Billion Nuclear Lab By JERI CLAUSING, Associated Press SANTA FE, N.M. — At Los Alamos National Laboratory, scientists and engineers refer to their planned new $6 billion nuclear lab by its clunky acronym, CMRR, short for Chemistry Metallurgy Research Replacement Facility. But as a work in progress for three decades and with hundreds of millions of dollars already spent, nomenclature is among the minor issues. Questions continue to swirl about exactly what kind of nuclear and plutonium research will be done there, whether the lab is really necessary, and — perhaps most important — will it be safe, or could it become New Mexico's equivalent of Japan's Fukushima? As federal officials prepare the final design plans for the controversial and very expensive lab, increased scrutiny is being placed on what in recent years has been discovered to be a greater potential for a major earthquake along

Issue No. 962, 06 December 2011 United States Air Force Counterproliferation Research & Education | Maxwell AFB, Montgomery AL Phone: 334.953.7538 | Fax: 334.953.7530 the fault lines that have carved out the stunning gorges, canyons and valleys that surround the nation's premier nuclear weapons facility in northern New Mexico. Final preparations for the lab — whose the high-end price tag estimate of $5.8 billion is almost $1 billion more than New Mexico's annual state budget and more than double the lab's annual budget — also comes as a cash- strapped Congress looks to trim defense spending and cut cleanup budgets at contaminated facilities like Los Alamos. It also comes as the inspector general recommends that the federal government consider consolidating its far-flung network of research labs. Despite the uncertainty, the National Nuclear Safety Administration, an arm of the Department of Energy that oversees the nation's nuclear labs, is moving forward on final designs for the lab. Project director Herman Le-Doux says it has been redesigned with input from the nation's leading seismic experts, and the NNSA has "gone to great extremes" to ensure the planned building could withstand an earthquake of up to 7.3 magnitude. Most seismic experts agree that would be a worst-case scenario for the area. But many people who live near the lab — and have seen it twice threatened by massive wildfires in 10 years — see no reason for taking the chance. "The Department of Energy has learned nothing from the Fukushima disaster," said David McCoy, director of the environmental and nuclear watchdog group Citizens Action New Mexico, at a recent oversight hearing. That's become a common refrain since last year's earthquake and tsunami in Japan caused a meltdown at one of its nuclear plants. "The major lesson of Fukushima is ignored by NNSA: Don't build dangerous facilities in unsafe natural settings." Lab officials say CMRR is needed to replace a 1940s era facility that is beyond renovation yet crucial to supporting its mission as the primary center for maintaining and developing the country's stockpile of nuclear weapons. While much of the work is classified, they insist the lab's mission is to do analytical work to support the nearby Plutonium Facility, or PF-4, which is the only building in the country equipped for making the pits that power nuclear weapons. Watchdog groups, however, call it an effort by the DOE and NNSA to escalate the production of new nuclear weapons and turn what has largely been a research facility into a bomb factory. And they are not giving up their efforts to halt the project. The Los Alamos Study Group, headed by Greg Mello, one of a number of area activists who have made a career out of monitoring LANL, has two lawsuits challenging the project and what he says is the federal government's refusal to look at alternatives despite the increased seismic threats uncovered in 2007 that have sent the price tag soaring. Mello spends his days poring over every available public document on Los Alamos and the nation's nuclear program. And he makes frequent trips to Washington to lobby against funding for CMRR, which he says is an unnecessary attempt to "open the door for an overall expansion in intensity and scale" of the nation's nuclear weapons program. At just about every public hearing related to the labs, Mello lines up with a regular group of aging hippies, retired scientists, former lab employees, residents of nearby pueblos as well as housewives and grandmothers from Santa Fe and other neighboring communities to oppose CMRR and anything and everything related to an expansion or continuation of the nuclear mission at Los Alamos. While much of the public outcry over Los Alamos in recent years has focused on lagging cleanup efforts of radioactive waste and hazardous runoff into the canyons that drain into the Rio Grande, earthquake danger and the potential for catastrophic releases of radiation from existing facilities was front and center at a recent meeting in Santa Fe of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, appointed by Congress to oversee the nation's nuclear facilities.

Issue No. 962, 06 December 2011 United States Air Force Counterproliferation Research & Education | Maxwell AFB, Montgomery AL Phone: 334.953.7538 | Fax: 334.953.7530

"The board believes that no safety issue problem in (the nation's nuclear complex) is more pressing than the plutonium facility's vulnerability to a large earthquake," the board's chairman, Peter Winokur said in reference to efforts to reinforce PF-4. The board has worked closely with NNSA to ensure CMRR is designed to withstand a major quake, so Winokur said the board is not concerned about that project — "as long as they follow through." It's that follow through that has watchdogs concerned. "Los Alamos doesn't have that safety ethos needed for a facility that will store the bulk of the nation's stockpile of plutonium," Mello said Winokur agreed that safety remains a concern at the lab. Since the last contractor took over operations in 2006, he said, "It's fair to say they have improved safety at the sites." But he pointed to two recent memos about deficiencies in nuclear safety programs that he said underscore the fact "that the operations out there are very challenging and that there is plenty of room for improvement." Asked if he thought it was wise to spend billions of dollars to keep the nation's nuclear weapons operations centered on an earthquake-prone mesa, Winokur said his mandate from Congress is to oversee safety, not second guess major policy decisions. "I'll leave that to Congress and DOE about whether or not they want to build a facility of that nature in that region of the country where they do have a fairly large earthquake threat," Winokur said. http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/questions-swirl-around-6-1250761.html (Return to Articles and Documents List)

Global Security Newswire Russia Will Not Stop U.S. Missile Defense Plans, Envoy Says Monday, December 5, 2011 The U.S. ambassador to NATO on Friday said the Obama administration initiative to establish a missile defense system across Europe would go forward "whether Russia likes it or not," Reuters reported (see GSN, Nov. 30). The U.S. plan calls for deploying a web of missile interceptors and associated technology in nations such as Poland, Romania and Turkey. The plan would provide the backbone of a planned NATO missile shield, and the Western alliance has spent the last year trying to persuade Russia to join the effort. Moscow, though, says the NATO system might be aimed at countering Russia's nuclear forces. It has threatened to deploy short-range missiles in its Baltic enclave and to withdraw from the New START nuclear arms control treaty if an agreement on missile defense cannot be reached with Washington and NATO. However, U.S. Ambassador Ivo Daalder informed journalists the Kremlin's problems with the planned missile shield "won't be the driving force in what we do." Since the Obama administration announced its "phased adaptive approach" for European missile defense in fall 2009 -- a scaled-back approach to an earlier Bush administration plan -- U.S. calculations of the danger of a ballistic missile strike from Iran have only increased, Daalder said. "It's accelerating and becoming more severe than even we thought two years ago," Daalder said of the Iranian missile threat (see GSN, Nov. 30). "We're deploying all four phases [of the phased adaptive approach], in order to deal with that threat," the ambassador said.

Issue No. 962, 06 December 2011 United States Air Force Counterproliferation Research & Education | Maxwell AFB, Montgomery AL Phone: 334.953.7538 | Fax: 334.953.7530

Should the danger of an Iranian missile attack abate, "then maybe the system will be adapted to that lesser threat," Daalder allowed. As the alliance has primarily disregarded Moscow's repeated objections to the missile shield plan, Russian Ambassador to NATO Dmitry Rogozin last week warned his nation could consider canceling an agreement that allows NATO to transport supplies to Afghanistan over Russian territory. Daalder said Moscow and the alliance continue to disagree on a range of matters, particularly the Kremlin's demand for a legally enforceable guarantee that U.S. missile interceptors in Europe would not be aimed against Russia's strategic forces. "They have gotten themselves quite hung up on our unwillingness to put this in legally binding writing," the U.S. diplomat told reporters. He said Obama officials doubt a binding guarantee would be approved by the U.S. Senate or that the United State "wouldn't necessarily at some point walk away from it" -- as Washington unilaterally did in 2002 with a 1970s era antiballistic missile pact with Moscow. Should Washington ever decide to field antimissile systems to neutralize the threat of Russia's nuclear weapons, "we wouldn't deploy them in Europe. We would deploy them in the United States," Daalder said. The physical principles of missile interception make it "easier and better to approach an incoming missile from the opposite side than it is to try to chase it down," he said (Jim Wolf, Reuters, Dec. 2). http://www.globalsecuritynewswire.org/gsn/nw_20111205_9867.php (Return to Articles and Documents List)

BusinessWeek Power to Homes, Businesses Faces Cybersecurity Threat, MIT Finds December 05, 2011 By Brian Wingfield Dec. 5 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. needs standards to guard against cyber attacks on power lines that run to homes and businesses, according to a Massachusetts Institute of Technology report. Federal standards to secure the nation’s high-voltage electricity grid against sabotage from hackers, disgruntled employees and terrorists don’t cover almost 6 million miles (9.7 million kilometers) of lower-voltage power lines, according to the 268-page study being released today. The study focuses on challenges to the U.S. power network over the next two decades, including the addition of renewable sources of energy, such as wind and solar power, and electricity pricing. U.S. officials are studying whether reliability may be jeopardized by attacks on the network or by Environmental Protection Agency rules, which utilities say will force them to shut down some generating plants fueled by coal and oil. “If regulatory policies and the technologies employed in the grid do not change, it is likely to be difficult to maintain acceptable reliability and electric rates,” the scientists from MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said in today’s report. Attacks on the power network are “a greater threat to our reliability” than air-pollution rules, John Norris, a member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, said at an agency conference Nov. 30. The EPA will ensure its regulations don’t endanger grid reliability, Gina McCarthy, the environmental agency’s assistant administrator, said at the conference. Single Agency

Issue No. 962, 06 December 2011 United States Air Force Counterproliferation Research & Education | Maxwell AFB, Montgomery AL Phone: 334.953.7538 | Fax: 334.953.7530

The MIT study also calls for designation of a single federal agency to combat cyber attacks on the U.S. power network. President ’s administration has proposed that the Homeland Security Department lead cybersecurity efforts for the power network, while Congress has placed more emphasis on the Energy Department and FERC, according to the study. “Ongoing jurisdictional confusion raises security concerns, underscoring the need for action,” according to the MIT study led by John G. Kassakian, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science, and Richard Schmalensee, a professor of economics and management. The North American Electric Reliability Corp., an Atlanta- based organization that serves as the government’s power-grid watchdog, has measures in place to guard against cyber attacks and can fine utilities as much as $1 million a day for violating reliability standards. The National Institute of Standards and Technology is also taking steps to bolster cybersecurity. The agency chosen to lead grid-cybersecurity efforts should work with state and federal authorities as well as industry experts, the MIT group said. FERC should also have greater authority to let high-voltage power lines be built across state lines over local opposition, according to the study. Editors: Larry Liebert, Judy Pasternak http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-12-05/power-to-homes-businesses-faces-cybersecurity-threat-mit- finds.html (Return to Articles and Documents List)

Sydney Morning Herald – Australia Armageddon Super Virus Recipe: Keep Secret or Publish? By Glenda Kwek December 6, 2011 To publish or not to publish? That is the question gripping scientists after virologists said they had developed a bird flu virus - with a 60 per cent human mortality rate - that could spread as easily as the common cold. Some fear the virus, if it fell into the wrong hands, could be modified by bioterrorists into a weapon that kills billions of people. But supporters said publishing the H5N1 study would have the opposite effect, by helping governments and other scientists learn about how they could counter such pandemics - whether they occurred naturally or artificially. "This study, from what I can tell, may be the most worrisome and controversial biological dual-use research that has occurred," said Michael Selgelid, the deputy director of the Centre for Human Bioethics at Monash University. The study, led by virologist Ron Fouchier of the Erasmus medical centre in the Netherlands, was first outlined at an influenza conference in September, but is yet to be published in a journal - the next step for an academic. Dr Fouchier and his colleagues are waiting for a review of the study by the National Security Advisory Board on Biosecurity (NSABB), a US body that issues non-binding decisions on live sciences research. The NSABB's next meeting is on December 15, but even if it recommends the study not be published - and the decision is supported by the US government, the scientists could still publish their work in non-US journals, or on the internet, Dr Selgelid said.

Issue No. 962, 06 December 2011 United States Air Force Counterproliferation Research & Education | Maxwell AFB, Montgomery AL Phone: 334.953.7538 | Fax: 334.953.7530

Sensitive research The H5N1 virus previously affected only birds, but in 1997, it was found in humans in Asia. The flu spread across the world, infecting almost 600 people, according to the latest data from the World Health Organisation (WHO). The virus was not known to have, or had not, mutated to the point at which it could be transmitted between humans until Dr Fouchier and his team embarked on their research. Using ferrets, which react to viruses in a similar way to humans, the scientists tested out mutations of the bird flu. Through five mutations, they created a strain of the H5N1 that was airborne, killing ferrets kept in different cages, the New Scientist magazine quoted Dr Fouchier as saying. "It is worth asking the question - have the scientists pre-empted a naturally occurring threat, or have they simply created a threat that would not - and might never - otherwise exist?" asked biosecurity expert Christian Enemark of the Australian National University (ANU). Associate Professor Enemark said that, while it was not possible to measure the likelihood that such research could be used as a bio-weapon, "before this virus was created, however, there was no such chance". Even if the virus was not used for nefarious purposes, it could accidentally be released from a laboratory and cause a health crisis, Dr Selgelid added. How devastating could it be? The 1918 Spanish flu is considered to have been the "most severe" influenza pandemic, killing between 20 and 40 million people, the WHO said. But the airborne disease had a mortality rate of about 2.5 per cent, compared with the H5N1 virus, which has a mortality rate of about 60 per cent. "The study's [mutated] virus seems to be as deadly even when it became easily transmissible between ferrets," Dr Selgelid said. "It seems not unlikely that the same changes would lead to a contagious human flu virus with a very high mortality rate." The recently released Hollywood film Contagion depicts the sudden outbreak of a similarly virulent disease. Both the virus - and the fear surrounding its deadly impact - spread like wildfire, infecting hundreds of thousands of people, as medical authorities struggled to find a vaccine. But should science be censored? Associate Professor Enemark and Dr Selgelid said the justifications for publishing the H5N1 study depended on whether the public health benefits of releasing it outweighed the risks. Dr Selgelid said that, while supporters of the study believed it would help scientists monitor and understand further mutations of the bird flu, there were many other ways the virus could evolve. "More importantly, even if we see it coming, in reality, there is not much we can do about it. One of the important lessons learnt from the H1N1 flu [swine flu] epidemic is that it's really hard to contain pandemics of flu," he said. "So those benefits seem limited." Associate Professor Enemark, who specialises in the security impact of infectious diseases, said he saw "very little" of such types of sensitive data published. Even if they existed, "it never sees the light of day", he said.

Issue No. 962, 06 December 2011 United States Air Force Counterproliferation Research & Education | Maxwell AFB, Montgomery AL Phone: 334.953.7538 | Fax: 334.953.7530

"I would oppose publication, not because it would make a huge practical difference in an immediate sense, but mostly because it would send a strong signal to research scientists that it is not just their opinions that matter. "In this particular case, the risk-benefit calculus is arguably so finely balanced, and the stakes potentially so high, that there needs to be broader input on research and publication decisions from non-scientist policymakers, ethicists, and so on," he said. But what about the scientific ideal of freely sharing information and ideas? Shouldn't scientists refuse censorship by governments? Dr Selgelid said censorship should occur only in exceptional cases, but that precedents have already existed for decades in the nuclear industry. "In nuclear physics, discoveries with weapons implications are automatically born classified in the United States whether or not the research is funded by governments." To ensure that any such censorship is justified and verified, an international body similar to the NSABB and under the auspices of the WHO could be set up, with a panel of experts in both the science and security fields examining research that could lead to potentially severe impacts on public health, Dr Selgelid said. The body should also have the power to impose binding decisions under international law, he added. "This study reveals that biological sciences are now in a situation similar to that of atomic physics at the time when key discoveries were made that enabled the production of the first atomic weapons," he said. "This is a key moment in the history of biology." Other controversial studies in the past decade * 2001 - Scientists from the CSIRO and the ANU were working on developing a contagious contraception for mice to make them infertile - using a mousepox virus. But what they discovered was a vaccine-resistant strain of mousepox. As mousepox is closely related to smallpox - one of the worst diseases in human history and at the top of feared biological agents - there were fears it could be used as a bio-weapon, Dr Selgelid said. The study was published, along with the description of materials and methods used, he said. * 2002 - Scientists from the State University of New York in Stony Brook, who were funded by the US's Department of Defence, synthesised the polio virus from scratch, using information published on the internet. They bought strains of DNA via mail order, stitched them together and created the synthesised polio genome. They then mixed it in a "cell juice" solution that gave birth to a live polio virus that killed mice that were injected with it, Dr Selgelid said. The study and its methods were also published. Dr Eckard Wimmer, the lead scientist on the project, warned: "The world had better be prepared. This shows you can re-create a virus from written information." * 2005 - Scientists from the US's Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reconstructed the Spanish flu virus, using the remains of a victim buried in the permafrost in Alaska in 1918. They sequenced the flu's genome before reconstructing the virus using methods similarly those used in the polio study. Scientific observers said then that terrorists were not likely to have the capabilities to carry out similar reconstructions. "These are not easy viruses to reconstruct," Professor Diane Griffin of Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health said in 2005. "You're not going to do this in a cave in Afghanistan." http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/armageddon-super-virus-recipe-keep-secret-or-publish-20111206- 1og76.html (Return to Articles and Documents List)

Issue No. 962, 06 December 2011 United States Air Force Counterproliferation Research & Education | Maxwell AFB, Montgomery AL Phone: 334.953.7538 | Fax: 334.953.7530

Washington Examiner OPINION/Beltway Confidential Saturday, December 3, 2011 Panetta: Strikes Will only 'Delay' Iranian Nukes ByJoel Gehrke Commentary Staff Writer Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said that a military strike on Iran would only "delay" their efforts to build nuclear weapons, not end the Iranian program, and warned that Iranian acquisition of atomic bombs could spark a nuclear arms race throughout the Middle East. "I think – talking to my friends – the indication is that at best it might postpone it maybe one, possibly two years," Panetta said last night after a speech at the Saban Center on Middle East Policy. "It depends on the ability to truly get the targets that they’re after. Frankly, some of those targets are very difficult to get at. " "That kind of shot would only, I think, ultimately not destroy their ability to produce an atomic weapon, but simply delay it," he continued. "Of greater concern to me are the unintended consequences, which would be that ultimately it would have a backlash and the regime that is weak now, a regime that is isolated would suddenly be able to reestablish itself, suddenly be able to get support in the region, and suddenly instead of being isolated would get the greater support in a region that right now views it as a pariah." Panetta added that the United States would be blamed for any military strike on Iran, and noted that "once Iran gets a nuclear weapon, then they’re not – you will have an arms race in the Middle East," he said. "What’s to stop Saudi Arabia from getting a nuclear weapon? What’s to stop other countries from getting nuclear weapons in that part of the world? Suddenly we have an escalation of these horrible weapons that, you know, I think create even greater devastation in the Middle East." But the defense maintained that the United States is committed to preventing Iran from getting nuclear weapons. "We ought to continue to put our pressures, our efforts, [continue to have] our diplomatic, our economic, experts working together to make sure that that does not happen," he suggested. "You always have as a last resort . . . the last resort of military action, but it must be the last resort, not the first." Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, responding to Panetta's comments today in Israeli media, agreed that the military option is a last resort, but added that "We can't wait and say – we'll see if they have a bomb, and then we'll act. What if by then we will not be able to act?" http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/panetta-bombing-will-only-delay- irans-nukes/235476 (Return to Articles and Documents List)

The Australian – Australia OPINION/Editorial Containing a Dangerous Enemy By The Australian December 05, 2011 JUST how seriously unhinged Iran's malevolent rulers are and why they must be thwarted in their ambitions to build nuclear weapons is clear from events surrounding the outrageous assault on the British embassy in Tehran in flagrant contravention of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. Mendaciously, the regime has dismissed the onslaught as the work of student protesters acting alone, without official sanction. Incontrovertible evidence indicates, unsurprisingly, the attacking mob was made up of thugs from the regime's Basij militia frequently used

Issue No. 962, 06 December 2011 United States Air Force Counterproliferation Research & Education | Maxwell AFB, Montgomery AL Phone: 334.953.7538 | Fax: 334.953.7530 to assault and kill opponents and that the destructive violence was part of an ongoing struggle between Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (Ayatollah Khomeiny's successor) and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Although no hostages were taken, the assault was alarmingly similar to that launched against the US embassy's so- called nest of spies 32 years ago, with police standing by idly while the plunder and destruction continued, the ruling ayatollahs' thumbprints all over it. In that lies confirmation, if it were needed, that the regime in Tehran is as bad now as it was then and is beyond the pale of civilised behaviour. The trigger for the assault was the British government's bar on Iranian banks conducting business within the UK financial system following last month's International Atomic Energy Agency report containing evidence of the extent to which Tehran is rapidly advancing towards attaining the bomb. Britain has withdrawn from Tehran, while a host of other European countries have closed their embassies and the EU has announced new sanctions, though no embargo on Iranian oil imports. Russia and China, however, playing the same perfidious role they are in Syria, Iran's close ally, have distanced themselves from the widespread denunciation. The Iranian regime's furious reaction to the bar on access to Britain's banking system is, hopefully, a sign sanctions are working. But time is short. Given the display of madness seen in Tehran last week, it is no wonder Israeli hawks have been talking up plans for a military assault targeting Iran's nuclear installations. The storming of the embassy indicates that diplomacy has hit the wall in Iran. The crisis over the country's nuclear ambitions is entering a dangerous new phase. There must be no let up in efforts to convince the regime to pull back from the precipice. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/containing-a-dangerous-enemy/story-e6frg71x-1226213657781 (Return to Articles and Documents List)

Boston Globe OPINION/Columnist A Nuclear-Free Middle East Starts at Home By James Carroll December 05, 2011 WHAT’S THAT sound? A recent print advertisement shows a rower wearing noise-canceling headphones and facing away from the waterfall over which he is about to plunge. Likewise, a narrowly preoccupied world does not perceive the larger disaster unfolding day by day in the Middle East and Southwest Asia. Yes, there are a clutch of much noted troubles: Iran ever more the pariah, storming the British embassy; Egypt electing Islamists who make the Muslim Brotherhood seem moderate; defiant Syria inflaming even longtime ally Turkey; Pakistan’s open fury at US border strikes; increasingly uncertain outcomes as the Arab spring faces winter. Bracketing all these problems, and squaring them, are the nuclear dangers posed by Iran and Pakistan - one nascent, the other clear and present. But here is the new hazard: The breakdown of a shaky but effective regional stability gives each nation in the area reason to move toward nuclear weapons of its own. Iran’s ongoing project is the harbinger. That rumbling sound is a coming cascade of in the region - a waterfall in which the very future could drown. And what drives the deadly current is the broader world’s nuclear complacency, including Israel’s. Its officially unacknowledged nuclear arsenal, a source of deterrent security for two generations, now gives every hostile neighbor something to envy - and imitate. How would a Middle East rife with nukes make Israel safer? The urgent alternative to a regional explosion of nuclear-armed states is the idea of a Middle East nuclear-free zone. Not long ago, the United Nations announced a conference on the subject, to be hosted next year by Finland. What once seemed an outlandishly wishful notion has taken on an unexpected relevance. For Israel, which has never signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the nuclear-free zone is a nonstarter until a reliable Arab-Israeli peace is achieved, but events may be outrunning that stance. Responsive to Israel’s anxiety,

Issue No. 962, 06 December 2011 United States Air Force Counterproliferation Research & Education | Maxwell AFB, Montgomery AL Phone: 334.953.7538 | Fax: 334.953.7530 the Obama administration, while welcoming “practical measures’’ toward a nuclear-free zone, has promised that the upcoming conference will not single Israel out for pressure. But that is a curious reassurance coming from a nation which itself should be singled out, because the United States is doing more to promote the mad impulse toward nuclear acquisition than any other country. As usual, Obama is in a bind. He came into office with the goal of “a world without nuclear weapons,’’ and he made arms reduction a priority. He finalized the new START treaty with Russia, which went into effect early this year. But in order to garner the needed Republican votes for ratification last year, Obama had to make a trade-off, signing on to a Pentagon program of nuclear “modernization’’ advanced by those who would treat such weapons as normal and permananent. The normalization of nukes by countries already in possession of them not only violates the obligation, enshrined in the Non-Proliferation Treaty, to work for abolition, but itself fuels the nuclear ambition of have-not nations. All of this defines the inexorable current toward the cascade. But something new is happening. The lively prospect of wildly irresponsible leaders in control of nukes - not just Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but perhaps someone worse in a future Pakistan - requires a major game-changer. Saber-rattling, and short-term assaults on production facilities (such as Israel is rumored to be considering against Iran), only encourage the long-term transformation of nuclear have-nots into haves. A global shift away from nuclear fatalism is needed. Ironically, the world economic crisis suddenly makes it possible, with Obama positioned to lead the way. Now that the Congressional supercommittee has failed, the Budget Control Act of 2011 requires massive cuts in Pentagon spending - the perfect opening to slash the tens of billions of dollars spent each year on nukes. The ten-year program to spend billions more on “modernization’’ can be targeted, too. Now is the time for unilateral cuts in the 5,000-warhead arsenal, getting it well below START treaty levels, down to the few hundreds that experts agree are sufficient to maintain deterrence. If America took such initiatives, the river rushing toward a cascade of proliferation would be instantly rechanneled. What was once the dream of nuclear abolitionists, including Ronald Reagan, would be transformed in a stroke into the ultimate form of realism. James Carroll’s column appears regularly in the Globe. http://bostonglobe.com/opinion/2011/12/05/nuclear-free-middle-east-starts- home/I1CRHnfd7gFHw47npc13zL/story.html (Return to Articles and Documents List)

World Politics Review – Ipswich, MA OPINION/Analysis Syria's Chemical Weapons an Opaque but Alarming Risk By Michelle E. Dover 05 December 2011 Recent reports from Syria of military defectors attacking an Air Force intelligence building in Hasrata highlight the growing likelihood that Syrian military sites will become a target in the country’s ongoing conflict. While no other similar attacks have been reported since then, the Hasrata incident illustrates the possibility of escalating instability within Syria’s military command, which could in turn lead to difficulties in controlling and securing Syrian military assets. In such a climate, Syria’s alleged chemical weapons program is cause for particular concern. The international community suspects Syria of having a comprehensive chemical weapons program that includes production and delivery capabilities, and there is unease among U.S. officials and weapons experts over how control of chemical agents and weapons may factor into the current conflict. Should the violence escalate, shifts in power could jeopardize the security and control of Syria’s chemical weapons, particularly since many of its suspected facilities are located near current or recent sites of unrest.

Issue No. 962, 06 December 2011 United States Air Force Counterproliferation Research & Education | Maxwell AFB, Montgomery AL Phone: 334.953.7538 | Fax: 334.953.7530

Syria has never explicitly confirmed its possession of chemical weapons, and public information on the program’s details is neither specific nor thoroughly documented. Damascus also has not signed the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), which prohibits the development, production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons. Since Syria does not adhere to the treaty, makes no declarations and allows no inspections, the international community has no easy way of determining what capabilities the country may have. Initial press and intelligence reports in the 1970s and 1980s indicated that Syria was acquiring a chemical weapons stockpile with help from the USSR, Egypt and Czechoslovakia. This approach appears to have shifted in the 1990s to a focus on domestic production. Syria is thought to have either stockpiles of -- or the current capability to produce -- mustard gas and more-lethal nerve agents such as sarin and possibly VX. The only report of possible Syrian use of chemical weapons consists of unconfirmed allegations by Amnesty International that the Syrian regime used cyanide gas in its repression of the 1982 uprising in Hama. A recent statement from Lt. Gen. Ronald Burgess, Jr., the director of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, suggests that Syria still relies on foreign assistance for the precursor chemicals needed to produce chemical warfare agents and research-and-development collaboration. If so, Syria’s chemical weapons program is not entirely self-sufficient. News reports of illicit trade of precursor chemicals corroborate such an assessment, and may also indicate that at least some components of Syria’s chemical weapons program remain active. In the 1990s, for example, Syria allegedly received nerve agent precursors from Russia, while as recently as in the 2000s, Iran may have collaborated with Syria on research and provided precursor chemicals. Syria probably has artillery shells, aerial bombs and ballistic missiles -- including SCUDs, SCUD-variants, and SS-21s -- that could carry chemical agents. Russia and North Korea are believed to have aided Syria’s missile capabilities. Since the 1980s there have been numerous open-source reports and declassified documents that list research, production and storage sites of chemical agents and missiles in Syria, many of which are located in or around several of the largest cities that are currently seeing protests. Homs, Hamah and Latakia, for example, have all been cited as locations for chemical weapons production facilities and have been major centers of unrest. Aleppo, another city that has seen major protests and violent repression, is alleged to be the site for missile production and storage. Aleppo is also not far from a suspected chemical weapons production site in Al-Safirah. The fact that potential chemical weapons sites are situated in areas of unrest raises questions about these sites’ security as well as what might happen if they were attacked, infiltrated or overrun. In the United States, munitions depots are protected by multilayered security measures, ranging from physical barriers to electronic surveillance. The level of security at Syria's sensitive military sites is unknown, including the number and sophistication of physical barriers, the type of accounting systems in place and the number and training of guards at such sites. Should security at these facilities be breached by outsiders or sabotaged by guards, any number of worrisome outcomes could arise, including use of chemical weapons or their transfer to non-Syrian actors such as . The questions of whether and how control of a WMD program changes hands is not new; similar situations were faced during the dissolution of the Soviet Union and are now at issue in Libya. In the case of the former Soviet Union, the United States eventually responded by creating programs to help secure former WMD sites under the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program established in the early 1990s. In Libya, the transfer of control over remaining elements of the country’s chemical and nuclear programs to its transitional authority has been scrutinized carefully given the current chaos. Unlike Syria, however, Libya became a party to the CWC under Moammar Gadhafi’s rule, had made declarations of what chemical weapons it possessed and was in the process of destroying its stockpile when the uprising occurred. While recent reports indicate that undeclared sites with chemical weapons have been identified, the Libyan transitional authority is continuing to cooperate with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the implementing body of the CWC. According to U.S. and Libyan officials, the new sites are under heavy security and constant drone surveillance. The United States and Israel have stated they are concerned about the status of Syria’s WMD programs and that they are watching the situation carefully, though they have not said how.

Issue No. 962, 06 December 2011 United States Air Force Counterproliferation Research & Education | Maxwell AFB, Montgomery AL Phone: 334.953.7538 | Fax: 334.953.7530

The potentially destabilizing factor of Syria's chemical weapons program should be a matter of concern to U.S. policymakers, who should aim to ensure the security of sites related to the program, perhaps by engaging in contingency planning with Syrian opposition leaders and other regional powers such as Turkey. Much remains unknown about Syria’s chemical weapons, but what is known warrants closer attention. Michelle Dover is a research assistant at CNS and a graduate student in the International Peace and Conflict Resolution program at American University. http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/10838/syrias-chemical-weapons-an-opaque-but-alarming-risk (Return to Articles and Documents List)

Foreign Policy OPINION/The Cable What Happens the Day After Iran Gets the Bomb? By Josh Rogin Monday, December 5, 2011 A team of conservative policymakers and thinkers believes that there's a real chance that Western efforts to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon will fail, in which case the United States would have to lead an international effort to contain Iran and deter the Islamic Republic from using its nuclear weapons capability. Experts at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a conservative Washington think tank, have spent the last six months thinking about how the United States should respond to a nuclear-armed Iran. They are getting ready to release an extensive report tomorrow detailing a comprehensive strategy for dealing with that scenario, entitled, "Containing and Deterring a Nuclear Iran." "The report is very much an acknowledgement of the very real possibility of failure of the strategy to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, and any responsible party should recognize that failure is an option. There's been a huge disservice done by all who have spent their lives in denial of that possibility," AEI Vice President Danielle Pletka told The Cable in a Monday interview. "Whenever you devise a strategy for what happens before a country gets a nuclear weapon, you should have a strategy for what happens after they get one as well." Pletka will unveil the report on Tuesday morning at an event with Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL), and fellow AEI experts Tom Donnelly, Maseh Zarif, and Fred Kagan. The project brought together Iran experts of all stripes to brainstorm what would be needed to create the maximum level of confidence that, if Iran does develop a nuclear weapon, it would not decide to use it. "While there can never be certain deterrence, Cold War presidents often had confidence that the United States had sufficient military power to support a policy of containment through a strategy of deterrence; for most of the period they felt that deterrence was assured," the report states. "It is worth repeating Dean Acheson's basic formulation: ‘American power would be employed in stopping *Soviet aggression and expansion+, and if necessary, would inflict on the Soviet Union injury which the Moscow regime would not wish to suffer.' Assured deterrence began with assured destruction of the Soviet regime." Pletka said that while the geopolitical environment is now different, the basic goal of U.S. policy is the same -- to create a situation whereby Iranian leaders would credibly believe that any nuclear attack would mean the end of their regime. But Pletka doubts whether this administration has the stomach for such a stance. "Take out Soviet and Moscow from Acheson's quote, and sub in Iran and Tehran. Are we willing to inflict on Iran injury which the Tehran regime would not wish to suffer? I doubt it," Pletka warned. "There's no question that a country can be deterred from using a nuclear weapon, the only question is if there is the will to put those tools in place."

Issue No. 962, 06 December 2011 United States Air Force Counterproliferation Research & Education | Maxwell AFB, Montgomery AL Phone: 334.953.7538 | Fax: 334.953.7530

The report works under the assumption that Iran is working to build a nuclear weapon now and could complete one before the 2012 U.S. presidential election, after which it would continue to build nuclear weapons at a rapid pace. The report also assumes that the Obama administration is unwilling to go to war with Iran before November 2012 over the issue, and that even a limited strike by Israel would not achieve a full destruction of Iran's nuclear capabilities. "Strategically, Iran's leaders would be foolish to wait until after November 2012 to acquire the capability to permanently deter an American attack on their nuclear program," the report states. "Sound American strategy thus requires assuming that Iran will have a weaponized nuclear capability when the next president takes office in January 2013. The Iranians may not test a device before then, depending, perhaps, on the rhetoric of the current president and his possible successor, but we must assume that they will have at least one." "Make no mistake -- it would be vastly preferable for the United States and the world to find a way to prevent Iran from crossing that threshold, and we wholeheartedly endorse ongoing efforts that might do so," the authors write. "But some of the effort now focused on how to tighten the sanctions screws must shift to the problem of how to deal with the consequences when sanctions fail." For Donnelly, part of the report's value is that it highlights the high costs of a deterrence and containment strategy compared to the costs of taking stronger actions now to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran. "Deterrence and containment are the default mode for the people who are not up for going to war, but we wanted to point out that this was not a cheap or easy alternative, which is the way a lot of people make it sound," Donnelly told The Cable in an interview. At Tuesday's event, Kirk will make the argument that the deterrence and containment strategy are too costly and too uncertain to depend on. His speech will be entitled, "If Iran gets the bomb..." "Today, the Islamic Republic of Iran is on the march to nuclear weapons. And if this brutal, terrorist-sponsoring regime achieves its goal -- if Iran gets the bomb -- we, the United States of America and freedom-loving nations around the world, will have failed in what could be our generation's greatest test," Kirk will say, according to excerpts of his speech provided to The Cable. "Iran remains the leading sponsor of international terrorism -- a proliferator of missiles and nuclear materials -- a regional aggressor -- and an abuser of human rights. We cannot afford to risk the security of future generations on a policy of containment." Josh Rogin reports on national security and foreign policy from the Pentagon to Foggy Bottom, the White House to Embassy Row, for The Cable. http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/12/05/what_happens_the_day_after_iran_gets_the_bomb (Return to Articles and Documents List)

Sydney Morning Herald – Australia OPINION/National Times Make No Mistake, the Iranians Will Have Their Nuclear Way By Hugh White December 6, 2011 Tehran's arms plans can't be halted: we need to focus on how we live with them. Western leaders talk big about Iran's nuclear ambitions being ''unacceptable''. But what they say makes little difference. The Iranians really want nuclear weapons, and the rest of the world has no credible way to stop them. We are going to see a nuclear-armed Iran whether we like it or not. The challenge now is to work out what that means, and what we should do about it.

Issue No. 962, 06 December 2011 United States Air Force Counterproliferation Research & Education | Maxwell AFB, Montgomery AL Phone: 334.953.7538 | Fax: 334.953.7530

Last week's storming of the British embassy in Tehran reminded us how hard Iran is to deal with. Meanwhile, last month's report by the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that Iran is perfecting the design of a nuclear weapon as well as producing the enriched uranium needed to make it. Iran is well on the way. It is not hard to see why Iran wants nuclear weapons. One reason is fear. Iran lives in a fractious region surrounded by nuclear-armed neighbours - Russia to the north, China to the north-east, Pakistan and India to the east, Israel to the west. And, of course, Tehran fears America, and perhaps believes that nuclear weapons will help it avoid the fate of Saddam Hussein's Iraq. But besides fear there are also ambition and pride. Iranians see themselves as heirs to a great civilisation, and the Middle East's natural leader. They see nuclear weapons as both the necessary instrument and the natural prerogative of a great regional power. Why, they ask, should India and Pakistan be accepted as nuclear powers and not Iran? It is a fair question. Fear, ambition and pride is a potent mix of motives. It does not justify Iran's nuclear program, but it does explain why its government is so committed to it, and why so many Iranians across the political spectrum support it. And it explains why even the tougher economic sanctions now being enforced are unlikely to change Iranian minds. With sanctions failing, someone - presumably Israel or America or both - appears to be trying sabotage of critical machinery and assassination of key personnel to slow Iran's nuclear program. No doubt this is causing distress, delays and expense. But the chances of stopping the program this way, or delaying it by more than a few months, are very slender. This is why talk keeps coming back to military options. It is tempting to believe that if diplomacy or dirty tricks fail, armed force offers a swift, effective option. But this is an illusion. No credible military option offers even a modest chance of stopping Iran's nuclear program, and little prospect even of slowing it down significantly. The uranium enrichment plants at the heart of Iran's program are easy to hide and easy to protect by burying them deep underground. Neither Israel nor America can be confident they could find enough of Iran's' critical nuclear infrastructure to make any significant difference to its weapons program, or destroy it once they had found it. The most they could realistically expect is to set Iran back a few months or perhaps a year. This meagre gain has to be weighed against Iran's ability to retaliate. It has many ways to hit back against America and Israel. Serious voices in both countries caution that the cost-benefit analysis simply doesn't add up. So it is time to stop talking about how to stop Iran getting nuclear weapons, and start asking what it means when they do. The consequences will spread wider as Iran builds bigger, longer-range missiles, but the first and greatest consequences will be in Iran's neighbourhood, especially for Israel. The most obvious danger is in fact the least likely. Nuclear deterrence ensures that Iran is extremely unlikely simply to launch a direct nuclear attack on Israel. Iran's leaders know Iran would simply then be destroyed by a massive Israeli nuclear retaliation - and if the Israelis didn't get them, America would. Moreover, Washington will extend a similar deterrent umbrella over any of Iran's other neighbours who feel directly threatened by nuclear attack. So the more important effect of Tehran's bomb will be indirect - in the way it shifts the conventional balance of forces in the region. With its own nuclear umbrella, Iran will be much less fearful of attack by its neighbours, and much more willing to use its conventional forces to attack them. Moreover, Washington will be much less likely to intervene. So with nuclear weapons, Iran will stand a much better chance of realising its age-old ambition to dominate the Gulf. The other big effect of an Iranian bomb will be to neutralise Israel's nuclear advantage. For decades, Israel has known that if it ever faced defeat on the battlefield, it could stop an invasion by threatening its attackers with

Issue No. 962, 06 December 2011 United States Air Force Counterproliferation Research & Education | Maxwell AFB, Montgomery AL Phone: 334.953.7538 | Fax: 334.953.7530 nuclear strikes. This threat has been credible as long as Israel has been the region's only nuclear power. It will stop being credible when Iran can threaten nuclear strike against Israel in retaliation. Then Israel's survival in a war will again depend on its tank brigades, and they cannot hold back its enemies forever. All this points to a very uncomfortable conclusion. As Iran becomes stronger, it becomes more important for those with vital interests in the Middle East to get along with it. For America, a stable long-term future for the Gulf is going to be impossible unless the US and Iran can get on better together. That means giving Iran more political space. Not easy. For Israel, it means all the compelling arguments against compromise with its neighbours run up against the cold, unsentimental logic of power. Iran's nuclear program is just one, very important, reflection of the fact that time is not on Israel's side. Hugh White is professor of strategic studies at ANU and a visiting fellow at the Lowy Institute. http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/make-no-mistake-the-iranians-will-have-their-nuclear-way-20111205- 1ofbb.html (Return to Articles and Documents List)

Issue No. 962, 06 December 2011 United States Air Force Counterproliferation Research & Education | Maxwell AFB, Montgomery AL Phone: 334.953.7538 | Fax: 334.953.7530