http://nucnews.net/nucnews/briefslv.htm
Some of this may be new to you, some not.
It is enlightening, to me at least, to look back at history.
Russian warplanes harass U.S. craft over Pacific
September 11, 2001
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010911-581488.htm
Russian warplanes threatened patrolling U.S. Navy P-3 aircraft over the Pacific Ocean last week , as the American planes monitored a military exercise in the regionThe Washington Times has learned.
At one point during the aerial harassment, a MiG-31 interceptor pilot flew his jet within 50 feet of a P-3 maritime patrol and reconnaissance plane.
The incident was similar to a Chinese aerial intercept that resulted in a collision earlier this year
Meanwhile, Russian strategic air forces began a major exercise in the northern Pacific yesterday. The maneuvers will include practice missile attacks, Russia's official Itar-Tass news agency reported.
Russian Aide Emphasizes Opposition to ABM Plan
New York Times
September 11, 2001By PATRICK E. TYLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/11/international/europe/11RUSS.html
MOSCOW, Sept. 10 - Ronald Reagan liked to say, "Trust, but verify," in a world that bristled - and still does - with nuclear weapons.
On Sunday, the United States and Canada announced that they would send fighter jets and surveillance aircraft to monitor routine Russian military exercises in the Arctic region and the North Pacific.
Secret War Game Eases Concerns Over Readiness
New York Times
September 7, 2001
By THOM SHANKER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/07/politics/07MILI.html?searchpv=nytToday
WASHINGTON, Sept. 6 - A classified war game conducted by the nation's senior commanders has determined
that even with the current levels of troops and weapons, the American military could topple one
adversary while halting an offensive by a second aggressor, officials said today.
These results from Positive Match, the computer-generated simulation of military operations, have calmed
the internal debate between Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and some officers over strategy and
budgets, a dispute that had prompted questions about Mr. Rumsfeld's stewardship of the Pentagon.
Senior civilian and military officials said the war game showed that the new, reduced military
requirements set by Mr. Rumsfeld and senior commanders can be met without subjecting the current force
of fighters to unacceptable risk, usually measured in casualties. These officials, who spoke on
condition that they not be identified, said the agreement on matching the strategy to current force
levels was a breakthrough and might allow the Pentagon to present a unified front in arguing with
Congress and the White House for higher military spending.
The war game indicated that if the armed forces are relieved of the decade-old requirement to prepare to
win two major regional wars simultaneously, the current military could carry out the new set of combat
missions. "We found our current force structure can handle it," a senior military officer said.
Today, Mr. Rumsfeld met for two hours with the senior military leadership and reviewed the results of
Positive Match, which was carried out over four days in August, a senior Pentagon official said.
Under the new military strategy developed by Mr. Rumsfeld and the military leadership, the armed forces
must prepare to win decisively against one enemy, which includes fighting all the way to an aggressor's
capital and toppling the government. Should a second adversary try to challenge the United States at the
same time, American forces must be prepared to halt that enemy's offensive, but not necessarily fight to
a conclusive victory, as well as carry out other duties, including homeland defense and peacekeeping.
Bringing military strategy and force structure into line has a significant political impact for
civilians and the military at the Pentagon. "The building is loudly in agreement," one military officer
said, as it argues for full financing of the 2002 military budget now before Congress.
Still, some difficult decisions have been postponed.
Although a sweeping military review required by Congress every four years is due by Sept. 30, Mr.
Rumsfeld has given the services until March to answer questions about joint training, money for housing
and other personnel issues. The fate of several major weapons programs also remains undecided.
And even before Congress has approved a military budget for 2002, the Pentagon is busy writing its
budget request for 2003, which President Bush will propose in January. The armed services are writing
that budget under fiscal guidance signed by Mr. Rumsfeld last month that suggests military spending in
2003 of $339 billion to $348 billion, rising to more than $400 billion by 2007, officials said.
The administration is requesting $329 billion for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. Many Democrats have already said that the figure is too high; many Republicans, on the other hand, want to spend the money on different parts of the military, and many at the Pentagon say the figure is tens of billions shy of what they need to modernize the military and build a missile defense system.Although the results of Positive Match are stamped "Secret," contained in a report a half-dozen senior Defense Department and military officials agreed to discuss the war game on the condition that they not be identified.
Among the situations in the war game, commanders tested whether the armed forces could decisively defeat one potential adversary, North Korea, while repelling an attack from Iraq. The planners also looked at how military operations would be affected if another event, such as terrorists attacking New York City
with chemical weapons, took place at the same time.
The official report on Positive Match said the men and women of the armed forces were subject to "a high
level of moderate risk" in carrying out the new strategy, which was acceptable to the commanders.
Had they been ordered to carry out the old strategy - to win decisively in two theaters almost simultaneously - the risk would have been extremely high and would have been unacceptable to the commanders. Lowering the risk would have required increasing the budget to pay for more troops and weapons, or finding some significantly new, efficient way to fight.
To be sure, Positive Match, which was conducted by the Joint Chiefs of Staff with the war fighting
commanders, found serious shortages in strategic lift to move forces around the globe and in the broad
area of communications and intelligence, officials said. Even so, the findings have allowed a consensus
to emerge, with all parties to the debate able to claim victory.For several months, the central argument at the Pentagon had been over whether America could risk cutting its forces now to finance expensive new weapons the administration says would counter threats emerging in decades to come.
Today, the military can claim success that the imbalance between strategy and force size is being rectified - and through downsizing the strategy, not downsizing force levels, or at least not in this budget cycle.
And Mr. Rumsfeld can claim success that the right questions are being asked about how best to prepare the military for all these risks anticipated decades ahead, and that the vast bureaucracy of the Pentagon is being pointed in that new direction.
The only public statement on Positive Match was a passing reference by Mr. Rumsfeld today in a Pentagon news conference.
"There was recently a war game that was conducted that used some different approaches that we've been working with," he said. "And there isn't a doubt in my mind but that that approach is going to create some significant changes as to how we arrange ourselves, how we size our force, how we arrange war plans. And that is, I think, something that will be - when we look back, we'll see it as being very significant."
US Takes on Invader Role in War Games
August 27, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-SKorea-US-War-Games.html?searchpv=aponline
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- U.S. soldiers sitting at computers played the role of an enemy Monday in war games designed to test the ability of South Korea and the United States to fend off a North Korean invasion.
Some 10,000 American troops are taking part in an annual joint exercise that has drawn verbal attacks from the communist North since it was first launched in 1976.
This year was no exception, with North Korea accusing the United States of ``a mock 'cyber warfare' drill'' to hone its skills at spreading computer viruses and hacking into computer networks.
The 12-day maneuvers, called ``Ulchi Focus Lens,'' end Friday. They are among the U.S. military's most advanced war games involving computer simulation.
``It's kind of like a laboratory experiment'' for war, said 2nd Lt. Stephen Koch of Kansas City, Kan. a computer operator at the main U.S. military base in Seoul.
Koch and other soldiers in the ``Combined Battle Simulation Center'' spend 12 to 14 hours a day dispatching messages to unit commanders, monitoring their electronic responses and poring over map coordinates.
In one computer scenario, the crew of a U.S. Navy ship plots how to ferry supplies northward. In another, soldiers on the Demilitarized Zone that separates the two Koreas prepare to confront tanks and troops rushing southward.
At Camp Casey, a U.S. base north of Seoul, 200 computer operators act as the invaders, punching in messages about the deployment of their fictional troops. They work with a battle plan that is partly independent from that of the defenders, allowing for more spontaneity in the outcome.
The United States keeps 37,000 troops in South Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War.
Computer simulated war games are cheaper and more efficient than old-style exercises involving masses of troops, said Capt. John Neal, 27, of Murfreesboro, Tenn.
``You would literally be sending divisions of troops into the field,'' he said. ``It would cost a great deal of money. It would also disrupt the countryside and the activities of the populace.''
In 1994, the U.S. and South Korean armed forces canceled an annual exercise called ``Team Spirit'' in an effort to resolve a standoff over North Korea's suspected nuclear weapons program.
The biggest maneuver, ``Foal Eagle,'' has been held since 1961. Tens of thousands of troops take part.
North Korea has more than 1 million troops, but is believed to be short of training because of a lack of fuel and modern equipment. Still, Seoul lies within the range of the North's huge arsenal of artillery on the border.
``North Korea and South Korea have been preparing for war since the (1953) cease-fire,'' Lt. Koch said. ``It's just an amazing amount of guns pointing at each other.''
New York Times
July 10, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-arms-mi.html?searchpv=reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration said on Tuesday it was planning a ``much more robust'' missile-defense test program to be expanded to sites in Alaska.
snip...
Quigley cited the case of an aircraft known as JSTARS, which was still under development and testing when Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990. ``And yet when the nation
snip...
HITTING A BULLET WITH A BULLET
The next such $100 million integrated test -- often equated with hitting a bullet with a bullet --
was to take place Saturday night.
It will feature a more realistic ``balloon'' decoy than the last test, on July 7, 2000, Quigley said.
Quigley denied critics' claims that the proposed opening of the Alaska test sites -- with funds being sought for the fiscal year starting October 1 -- was part of a Bush administration drive to deploy a rudimentary national missile defense quickly under the guise of improved testing.
snip...
The Bush administration has said it plans to build a ''multi-layered'' shield involving ground-, sea- and possibly space-based systems. It is also working on a laser that would be mounted on a Boeing 747 aircraft.
-------- missile defense
Achilles' Heel in Missile Plan: Crude Weapons
New York Times
August 27, 2001
By WILLIAM J. BROAD
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/27/international/27MISS.html?searchpv=nytToday&pagewanted=all
The missile defense planned by the Bush administration may be least able to destroy warheads from countries that are thought to pose the biggest threat, federal and private experts say.
The trouble is that so-called rogue nations, like North Korea, Iran and Iraq, would fire wobbling, rudimentary warheads during an attack, and those turn out to be among the hardest to hit.
"We've concluded that it's an extremely difficult problem," said a Pentagon antimissile scientist.
Creating any antimissile system would be enormously complex, but stopping a rudimentary missile would be far harder even than hitting advanced warheads, which are made to spin like tops or footballs. The whirling increases accuracy by keeping them pointed in the right direction. This rotation, known as spin stabilization, means that a warhead speeding around the globe can fall within a few hundred feet of its intended target.
But a crude warhead fired by an inexperienced attacker is likely to have no spin stabilization and to gyrate wildly, often tumbling end over end, making it hard to track.
While tumbling nuclear warheads are less accurate than those that are spin-stabilized and lack the precision to hit small targets, experts say they are fine for destroying cities.
"If you fire at New York, it means you might not get Central Park," a federal weapons expert said. "You might get the Jersey side or Queens. But no matter what, you're going to get enough of the metro area that New Yorkers will be unhappy."
While acknowledging that the tumbling issue is a potential snag, the Pentagon last week authorized the clearing of 135 acres in Alaska to prepare an antimissile base. And officials are planning interceptor flight tests meant to track and destroy mock tumbling warheads, but only years from now.
snip...
On Oct. 3, 1994, Jerry W. Cavender, the Army's program manager for National Missile Defense, wrote a weapon's contractor to spell out the most likely threats to the United States. He listed six categories of missiles, from the most rudimentary to the most advanced.
The "highest priority" threat, he wrote, included primitive attacks with tumbling warheads. As examples, Mr. Cavender listed hypothetical attacks by North Korea, firing at Los Angeles, and Iran, firing at Washington.
But enthusiasm for the challenge soon waned.
Dr. Nira Schwartz, a senior engineer in 1995 and 1996 at TRW, a military contractor,was asked to do computer simulations in which a kill vehicle was tested against 200 types of enemy decoys and warheads, including tumblers. The kill vehicle always failed to distinguish between tumbling warheads and decoys, Dr. Schwartz said in an interview.
snip...
For the moment, the Pentagon is keeping its antimissile focus on easier challenges. On July 14, the program conducted its fourth interception flight test. Officials said the mock warhead was destroyed, but it was also spin-stabilized.
Officials also said the kill vehicle had been able to distinguish between a 5-foot, cone-shaped warhead and a circular 5.5-foot decoy balloon, but critics called that exercise unchallenging and unrealistic. And on Aug. 15, General Kadish, the program's director, told reporters that in the next test, scheduled for October, the program would replay the July test, with no new complexities.
"It is still not totally comfortable for me to say that we can make the hit-to-kill technology work consistently," he said, "even in that simple scenario" with a single decoy. He added, "We still need some more reliability."
In an interview, Lt. Col. Richard Lehner of the Air Force, a spokesman for the Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, said that the program could give out no information on when it planned to do the tumbling tests, but he suggested that the experiments would not be any time soon.
"It's irresponsible to launch off on more difficult flight tests before we've solved the fundamentals," he said.
FBI Agents Resume Cole Probe
In Yemen More Cooperation, Security Pledged
By Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 4, 2001; Page A12
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A37010-2001Sep3?language=printer
"They have some additional leads, and the sense is the cooperation is good enough to send these people back -- they wouldn't be sending FBI agents back in if it wasn't," the official said.
A security plan worked out jointly by the State Department and the FBI has allayed the bureau's concern about threats directed at its investigators, the official said.
FBI agents have been trying to determine whether bin Laden is linked to the bombing but have yet to announce a definitive relationship. Bin Laden, a fugitive in Afghanistan, has been indicted in New York for orchestrating the August 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa.
Shortly after the FBI pulled its agents out of Yemen, a new bin Laden videotape began circulating in the Middle East in which the exiled Saudi millionaire hailed the bombing of the Cole.
Appearing in the video wearing a traditional Yemeni dagger, bin Laden recited a poem referring to the bombing and said: "And in Aden, they charged and destroyed a destroyer that fearsome people fear, one that evokes horror when it docks and when it sails."
U.S. Prepping for Possible Germ Warfare
Friday September 07 06:13 AM EDT
By John McWethy ABCNEWS.com
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/abc/20010907/wl/germwarfare010904_1.html
In a remote corner of the Nevada desert, a highly restricted area once used to test nuclear bombs, the
U.S. government has been running a secret experiment called Project Bachus.
It is a small germ warfare factory, set up inside an abandoned government building. U.S. officials say
they built it to better understand how to detect similar operations in places like Iraq or Afghanistan
(news - web sites) or even by terrorists here at home.
The factory, built by the Pentagon (news - web sites)'s Defense Threat Reduction Agency, has been
brought to full production for several weeks on two occasions - in 1999 and again in 2000. Technicians
grew several pounds of a harmless bacterium with characteristics similar to deadly anthrax.
"A terrorist could easily grow anthrax in a facility like this," Jay Davis, who was DTRA director at the
time the factory was built, said in an interview at the one-time classified facility, "and produce
enough quantity in a covert delivery to kill, say, 10,000 people in a large city."
The DTRA team bought all materials for the small-scale laboratory from local hardware stores and the
Internet. Included in their shopping list was a 50-liter fermenter purchased "used" from overseas.
"Commercial item. Off the shelf," Davis said. "Easy to find."
At no time did any of the purchases cause law enforcement to be suspicious, Davis added.
'Fairly Concealable'
Asked if this was how a terrorist group might put together such a laboratory, Davis said: "A terrorist
group would choose to do this, yes ... This is the size of thing you would be afraid a non-state group
would do, either people in our country or people in some other country. This is fairly concealable."
The primary reason for conducting the experiment was to place sensors outside of the building to create
what the intelligence community calls a "signature," according to intelligence sources. Once in
operation, technicians measured heat changes, emissions that could be sampled in the air and soil as
well as patterns of energy consumption.
"The ultimate product is knowledge," Davis said. Other officials say the primary customers for the
knowledge were the CIA (news - web sites) and Defense Intelligence Agency, both agencies responsible for
detecting an operation like this in other countries. Officials say the FBI (news - web sites) also was
given data from the project.
And according to officials who supervised the project but asked not to be identified, what is so
frightening about this top-secret project is that it shows that with the right technical knowledge, it
is surprisingly easy to build and operate a small germ warfare factory. And worse, even with the most
sophisticated sensors, it is extremely difficult to detect.
Proving Preparedness
The project was conducted in such extreme secrecy that some worry it might be misunderstood and seen as
a violation of the international treaty that bans making germ weapons.
"I think there is a very delicate line that has to be drawn between the need to keep some kinds of
information secret and the need to allay suspicions about what the country is up to," said Judith
Miller, a reporter for the New York Times and co-author of a new book on biological warfare called Germs
"People overseas will think that the United States may be secretly conducting an offensive weapons
program, that we may be secretly trying to develop biological weapons," she said.
As for the Bush administration, Miller said: "I think that this administration wants to not only expand
these projects, but intends to keep most of them secret."
Miller and other experts on biological weapons have been concerned that the supersecret U.S. projects
would be misunderstood by other governments and might lead those governments to develop offensive
biological weapons.
But the Pentagon agreed to show ABCNEWS this once-secret project. Sources say it's part of an effort to
anticipate a threat that has the potential to kill on a scale only nuclear weapons could match.
September 9, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-Iraq.html?searchpv=aponline
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Iraq's pursuit of chemical and biological weapons threatens to become a serious
problem, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Sunday.
Without monitoring by U.N. weapons inspectors, the Iraqis have been ``working diligently to increase
their capabilities in every aspect of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile technology,'' he
said. ``And as they get somewhat stronger, the problem becomes some greater.''
A CIA report delivered to Congress on Friday described the efforts of other countries to obtain weapons of mass destruction. Iraq may again be producing biological warfare agents, the report said, although
confirming that is difficult given the inspectors' absence.
``That problem, particularly biological weapons, over the coming decade is going to be an increasingly serious one,'' Rumsfeld said on ``Fox News Sunday.''
``It will have to attacked from a whole range of methods,'' including bombing. ``Some of them are
mobile. They can move them; they're in vans. So it is not a simple thing. But it'll have to be dealt
with using a variety of techniques.''
The CIA report also said Iraq was working on an unmanned drone, called the L-29, that could deliver biological or chemical weapons
-------- biological weapons
Secret Weapon Research
New York Times
September 7, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/07/opinion/L07WEAP.html?searchpv=nytToday
To the Editor:
Your revelations about the United States' secret biological weapons research (front page, Sept. 4)
recall the most tragic chapters in the development of nuclear weapons. Once again, in the name of
pursuing a worst-case scenario of what an enemy could do to us, we ourselves take the lead in developing
new weapons that endanger all. Our program only legitimizes others.
There is a particular fallacy in genetically engineering new strains of disease. Biological diversity makes it unlikely that an enemy's creation would exactly match ours. Thus, any vaccine we develop will be useful only with our own germ - for example, protecting our troops if we used the germ offensively.Whatever its intent, the military's program is objectively offensive and indefensible.
DAVID KEPPEL Bloomington, Ind., Sept. 4, 2001
==============
U.S. Germ Warfare Research Pushes Treaty Limits
September 4, 2001
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
by Judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg and William J. Broad.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/04/international/04GERM.html?searchpv=nytToday&pagewanted=all
In a program code-named Clear Vision, the Central Intelligence Agency built and tested a model of a
Soviet-designed germ bomb that agency officials feared was being sold on the international market. The
C.I.A. device lacked a fuse and other parts that would make it a working bomb, intelligence officials said
Both the mock bomb and the factory were tested with simulants - benign substances with characteristics
similar to the germs used in weapons, officials said.
A senior Bush administration official said all the projects were "fully consistent" with the treaty
banning biological weapons and were needed to protect Americans against a growing danger. "This
administration will pursue defenses against the full spectrum of biological threats," the official said.
The agency asked its spies to find or buy a Soviet bomblet, which releases germs in a fine mist. That search proved unsuccessful, and the agency approved a proposal to build a replica and study how well it could disperse its lethal cargo.
The agency's lawyers concluded that such a project was permitted by the treaty because the intent was
defensive. Intelligence officials said the C.I.A. had reports that at least one nation was trying to buy
the Soviet- made bomblets.
A model was constructed and the agency conducted two sets of tests at Battelle, the military contractor.
The experiments measured dissemination characteristics and how the model performed under different
atmospheric conditions, intelligence officials said. They emphasized that the device was a "portion" of a bomb that could not have been used as a weapon.
----------------
Next to Old Rec Hall, a 'Germ-Making Plant'
New York Times
September 4, 2001
By JUDITH MILLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/04/international/04BIOW.html
----
European Parliament OKs Spy Plan
September 5, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-EU-Echelon.html
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -- An alleged worldwide spy network dubbed Echelon and led by the United States
does exist -- and European nations should set up an encryption system to guard against it, the European
Parliament said Wednesday.
The European Union assembly voted 367 to 159, with 34 abstentions, to adopt 44 recommendations on how to
counter Echelon.
The parliament, meeting in Strasbourg, France, also accepted a 140-page report confirming the spy
network's existence, despite official U.S. denials.
--------
US Echelon spy network a fact, European Parliament told
Sept 5 2001
AFP
http://www.cndyorks.gn.apc.org/yspace/articles/echelon26.htm
US spy network sees everything in Europe
Sept 5
http://www.khilafah.com/home/category.php?DocumentID=2130&TagID=2
-------- biological weapons
Battelle's laboratories key to germ-warfare research
Wednesday, September 5, 2001
David Lore Dispatch Science Reporter
http://www.dispatch.com/print_template.php?story=dispatch/news/news01/sep01/830957.html
Battelle's biological-warfare programs have expanded in recent years,raising questions about whether the research is strictly defensive , as required by U.S. treaty commitments.
As many as 800 Battelle employees are involved in chemical- and biological-warfare research at the
institute's laboratories on King Avenue and in West Jefferson, said Gregory Frank, executive vice president for government contracts.
Nearly a third of the employees are involved in research to defend against biological attacks, Frank
said. The rest work with chemical weapons.
Much of Battelle's role has been to improve the anthrax vaccine being given to most U.S. military
personnel.
Pentagon officials confirmed yesterday that the Defense Intelligence Agency wants to
develop small amounts of a potentially more- potent variant of the bacterium that causes deadly anthrax.
Frank also said there is no plan to move the biological programs to the $22 million laboratory. Battelle announced last week that it will build a center for chemical- and biological-warfare programs in
Maryland near the Army's Aberdeen Proving Ground.
Clarke said the purpose of developing a new strain of anthrax is strictly defensive: to ensure that an effective vaccine is available should a biological weapon be used against American troops..
Although Project Jefferson's existence is unclassified, its specific tasks are secret, Brook said.
--------
Sunday, September 09, 2001
Las Vegas Review-Journal
Steve Sebelius
http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2001/Sep-09-Sun-2001/opinion/16951473.html
On Wednesday, Nevadans from all walks of life came to the National Nuclear Security Administration
building in North Las Vegas to tell the Energy Department they don't want the deadliest substance known to man to be stored in Nevada. And I couldn't agree more: The government should never again do biological weapons research here
==============
New Models for Non-proliferation and Energy Security
U.S. Newswire
10 Sep 13:58
http://www.usnewswire.com/topnews/Current_Releases/0910-125.html
New Models for Non-proliferation and Energy Security: Kazakhstan Begins Shutting Down Semipalatinsk Military-Industrial Complex To: Assignment Desk, Daybook Editor Contact: Lindsay Howard of Howard Communications, 718-243-2200
News Advisory:
Vladimir Shkolnik, Kazakhstan's Deputy Prime Minister for Nonproliferation and Energy, will address the
National Press Club on Tuesday, Sept. 11, from 8:30 to 10 a.m. on his country's progress in ridding itself of nuclear weapons and will introduce a book on the subject by Kazakhstan's president.The challenges facing Kazakhstan today are great. Beyond the nuclear challenge, the United States and Kazakhstan are working together to destroy and decontaminate the world's largest anthrax production and weaponization facility.
Yet to be resolved is the need to provide for the permanent and safe storage of the huge weapons-grade plutonium stockpile at BN-350 located in the very sensitive environment of the Caspian Sea's eastern shore
=================
U.S. Anthrax Plan Worries Russians
September 5, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Russia-Germ-Warfare.html
--------
When Is Bomb Not a Bomb? Germ Experts Confront U.S.
New York Times
September 5, 2001
By JUDITH MILLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/05/international/05GERM.html
A former senior government lawyer yesterday vigorously disputed the Bush administration's assertion that
the global treaty banning biological weapons permits nations to test such arms for defensive purposes.
The lawyer, Mary Elizabeth Hoinkes, who was general counsel of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency from 1994 to 1999, said such an interpretation of the 1972 treaty was a "gross misrepresentation" that "risks doing serious violence" to an accord the United States has long championed.
The New York Times reported yesterday that the United States had made and tested a model of a small Soviet-designed biological bomb as part of a series of secret research projects that officials said were aimed at defending against a growing threat of a germ attack.
Victoria Clarke, a Pentagon spokeswoman, also confirmed yesterday that the Defense Department had drawn up plans to produce small amounts of genetically modified anthrax, a deadly toxin, but that the project
had been "put on hold" earlier this year to make sure it did not violate international treaties and domestic laws.
Still, she said, the Pentagon intends to press ahead with the anthrax project. Pentagon officials have said that producing the stronger poison would aid in developing vaccines and other defenses.
=================
-------- biological weapons
Germ attack 'dwarfs' missiles as threat
September 6, 2001
By Tom Carter
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010906-93610055.htm
The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday called President Bush's planned missile
defense plan "myopic," arguing that the threat from terrorists armed with anthrax, smallpox and other germs is far greater than the peril of nuclear-tipped missiles.
Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., Delaware Democrat, issued the warning at the first in a series of hearings called to emphasize national security threats.
"We do not have enough money for everything" and the United States "must prioritize" which threats are
of greater importance, Mr. Biden said.
"In my view, the threat from anonymously delivered biological weapons and from emerging infectious
diseases simply dwarfs the threat that we will be attacked by a Third World [missile] with a return
address."
Former Sen. Sam Nunn, Georgia Democrat, who now heads the Nuclear Threat Initiative sponsored by CNN founder Ted Turner, told the committee of a "war game" called "Dark Winter" in which he recently participated.
He played the U.S. president in the exercise, held at Andrews Air Force Base, in a scenario that simulated National Security Council meetings following the release of smallpox by terrorists in several U.S. cities.
-------- terrorism
Americans in Japan warned of possible terror attack
09/07/2001
The Associated Press
http://usatoday.com/news/world/2001/09/07/japan-terror-warning.htm
TOKYO (AP) - The U.S. Embassy warned Americans living in Japan to be on guard against possible terrorist attacks.
In a statement issued Friday afternoon to all resident Americans, the embassy said it had unconfirmed information that terrorists may strike U.S. military facilities or places frequented by U.S. military personnel.
Embassy spokesman Patrick Linehan described the threat as "credible" but could not give other details such as when or where a possible attack might occur. He also did not say when the warning would be lifted.
It was unclear whether the warning was specific to Japan or whether Americans in other countries had been warned too, Linehan said.
Such terrorist warnings are rare in Japan, Linehan said, adding that the last he remembered was a worldwide warning issued by the U.S. State Department last New Year's Eve.
Roughly 120,000 Americans live in Japan, according to the embassy's figures. Nearly 48,000 are active members of the U.S. military.
====================
U.S. Wary of Weapons Tech Sales
September 5, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-Russia.html?searchpv=aponline
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Despite urgent U.S. pleas, Russian companies are continuing to provide Iran with technology for weapons of mass destruction, a senior administration official said Wednesday.
The technology could help Iran in its programs to develop chemical, biological and especially nuclear weapons, the official said.
--------
US intends to cut nuclear arsenal unilaterally: Pentagon official
Agence France-Presse
(AFP) Sep 05, 2001
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/010905005307.tcjlqblt.html
WASHINGTON The United States intends to make unilateral cuts in its nuclear arsenal rather than engage Russia in protracted arms negotiations, a senior Pentagon official said Tuesday.
Douglas Feith, under secretary of defense for policy, said he will go to Moscow September 10-11 to resume talks with Russian defense officials on missile defense and nuclear arms cuts.
Iran Denies Seeking Nuclear Weapons
September 10, 2001By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-iran-usa.html?searchpv=reuters
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran Monday strongly rejected charges by the United States that it was seeking nuclear weapons and said Iran itself was a victim of weapons of mass destruction.
``The Islamic Republic of Iran, which has suffered from the use of chemical weapons and weapons of mass destruction, has never embarked on production of such weapons,'' state television quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi as saying.
``The effects of chemical weapons used against Iran (during the 1980-88 Iraq-Iran war) can still be seen,'' Asefi said.
The spokesman's comments followed a CIA report Friday which accused Iran of being one of the most active seekers of foreign technology for developing and delivering weapons of mass destruction.
--------
September 10, 2001
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010910-68476943.htm
An elite U.S. Army study center has devised a plan for enforcing a major Israeli-Palestinian peace accord that would require about 20,000 well-armed troops stationed throughout Israel and a newly created Palestinian state.
There are no plans by the Bush administration to put American soldiers into the Middle East to police an agreement forged by the longtime warring parties. In fact, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is searching for ways to reduce U.S. peacekeeping efforts abroad, rather than increasing such missions.
But a 68-page paper by the Army School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS) does provide a look at the daunting task any international peacekeeping force would face if the United Nations authorized it, and Israel and the Palestinians ever reached a peace agreement.
The cover page for the recent SAMS project said it was done for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But Maj. Chris Garver, a Fort Leavenworth spokesman, said the study was not requested by Washington.
"This was just an academic exercise," said Maj. Garver. "They were trying to take a current situation and get some training out of it."
snip..
"In general, the Bush administration policy is to discourage a large American presence," he said.
"But it has been rumored that one of the possibilities might be an expanded CIA role."
--------
US SHIES AWAY FROM UN TREATIES ON TERRORISM
by Thalif Deen
September 11, 2001(IPS)
http://www.ipsdailyjournal.org/daily/091201.htm
UNITED NATIONS, Less than 24 hours before the United States came under a wave of terrorist attacks, the United Nations was rejoicing over the fact that 83 of its 189 member states had ratified some 12 existing U.N. conventions against international terrorism. But what was "particularly gratifying", said Secretary-General Kofi Annan in his annual report to the General Assembly, was that 16 of those countries had ratified the landmark International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings which entered into force in May this year. The U.S., which was not on the list of 83 ratifiers, is one of the few countries that refuses to ratify international conventions, including those against terrorism. "Sign yes, ratify no," says a U.N. official, speaking on condition of anonymity. If a country refuses to ratify a treaty, that treaty has no legal validity in that country, he added.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
High alert evacuations
Tuesday, September 11, 2001
Philadelphia Daily News
http://dailynews.philly.com/content/daily_news/2001/09/11/local/ALERT11C.htm?template=aprint.htm
Authorities went on alert from coast to coast Tuesday, halting all air traffic, evacuating high-profile buildings and tightening security at strategic facilities following the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
... Military bases across the country went on alert. Extra security went into place at Department of Energy's nuclear weapons and research complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, and at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Md., home to the
Army's main germ warfare defense laboratory....
-------- colombia
Paramilitary cell declared terrorist
September 11, 2001
By Ben Barber
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010911-698133.htm
The State Department has ruled that the anti-communist paramilitary group United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia is a terrorist organization, just one day before Secretary of State Colin L. Powell is to visit that country.
The group, known by the Spanish acronym AUC, has long been affiliated with the military and blamed for thousands of killings and other human rights abuses during a 20-year rivalry with narcotics traffickers and leftist guerrillas.
-------
Documents Show CIA Spy Ideas
September 10, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Spy-Research.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Soviet-tracking psychics and cats wired as mobile eavesdropping platforms didn't work out so well. But CIA proposals for spy planes and satellites to peer on America's adversaries from above became resounding successes.
Recently declassified documents, released Monday by the National Security Archive, detail some of the successful -- and silly -- research of the CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology.
The CIA designed and operated spy satellites for years, until the separate National Reconnaissance Office took over many of those duties, said Jeffrey T. Richelson, a researcher with the archive and author of ``The Wizards of Langley,'' a book detailing the directorate's efforts. The directorate also developed the U-2 and A-12 spy planes. Another of its advances turned into an integral part of the pacemaker.
In the 1960s, under a program code-named Palladium, scientists trying to design stealthy aircraft figured out how to insert ghost planes on Soviet radar screens. Assisted by the National Security Agency, the CIA eavesdropped on Soviet radar operators and determined the sensitivity of particular Soviet radars.
---
September 9, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Missile-Defense-Alaska.html?searchpv=aponline
WASHINGTON (AP) -- It hardly seems the stuff of geopolitical significance: In forested flatlands about 100 miles from Fairbanks, Alaska, contractors are taking down 135 acres of fire-scorched spruce and birch trees on a closed military post.
Ballistic target missiles would be launched from one part of the range, either from a ground-based site or from an airplane. New radars would track the missile as it arcs toward space, shedding boosters and possibly dropping decoys.
Around 200 miles above the Earth, the targets would tip over and fall back toward the surface. One or several experimental missile defenses ground-based or naval interceptors, airborne lasers, or possibly orbital weapons -- would try to shoot it down.
Kodiak might later be used to launch target missiles for airborne laser and naval interceptor tests, but the site is not suited for deployment of any ABM systems, he said.
-------- spying
US Sentences Pakistani Brothers in Spy Camera Case
September 8, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/technology/tech-crime-pakistan-usa.html?searchpv=reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two Pakistani brothers, one of them a naturalized U.S. citizen, have been sentenced to prison for attempting to illegally ship spy cameras to Pakistan, the U.S. Justice Department said on Friday.
The men, who pleaded guilty earlier this year, were arrested by the U.S. Customs Service in January following a two-month undercover operation. They were trying to export pan tilt-zoom cameras that can be used for military surveillance and reconnaissance when installed in unmanned aerial vehicles known as drones.
Some of this may be new to you, some not.
It is enlightening, to me at least, to look back at history.
Russian warplanes harass U.S. craft over Pacific
September 11, 2001
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010911-581488.htm
Russian warplanes threatened patrolling U.S. Navy P-3 aircraft over the Pacific Ocean last week , as the American planes monitored a military exercise in the regionThe Washington Times has learned.
At one point during the aerial harassment, a MiG-31 interceptor pilot flew his jet within 50 feet of a P-3 maritime patrol and reconnaissance plane.
The incident was similar to a Chinese aerial intercept that resulted in a collision earlier this year
Meanwhile, Russian strategic air forces began a major exercise in the northern Pacific yesterday. The maneuvers will include practice missile attacks, Russia's official Itar-Tass news agency reported.
Russian Aide Emphasizes Opposition to ABM Plan
New York Times
September 11, 2001By PATRICK E. TYLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/11/international/europe/11RUSS.html
MOSCOW, Sept. 10 - Ronald Reagan liked to say, "Trust, but verify," in a world that bristled - and still does - with nuclear weapons.
On Sunday, the United States and Canada announced that they would send fighter jets and surveillance aircraft to monitor routine Russian military exercises in the Arctic region and the North Pacific.
Secret War Game Eases Concerns Over Readiness
New York Times
September 7, 2001
By THOM SHANKER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/07/politics/07MILI.html?searchpv=nytToday
WASHINGTON, Sept. 6 - A classified war game conducted by the nation's senior commanders has determined
that even with the current levels of troops and weapons, the American military could topple one
adversary while halting an offensive by a second aggressor, officials said today.
These results from Positive Match, the computer-generated simulation of military operations, have calmed
the internal debate between Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and some officers over strategy and
budgets, a dispute that had prompted questions about Mr. Rumsfeld's stewardship of the Pentagon.
Senior civilian and military officials said the war game showed that the new, reduced military
requirements set by Mr. Rumsfeld and senior commanders can be met without subjecting the current force
of fighters to unacceptable risk, usually measured in casualties. These officials, who spoke on
condition that they not be identified, said the agreement on matching the strategy to current force
levels was a breakthrough and might allow the Pentagon to present a unified front in arguing with
Congress and the White House for higher military spending.
The war game indicated that if the armed forces are relieved of the decade-old requirement to prepare to
win two major regional wars simultaneously, the current military could carry out the new set of combat
missions. "We found our current force structure can handle it," a senior military officer said.
Today, Mr. Rumsfeld met for two hours with the senior military leadership and reviewed the results of
Positive Match, which was carried out over four days in August, a senior Pentagon official said.
Under the new military strategy developed by Mr. Rumsfeld and the military leadership, the armed forces
must prepare to win decisively against one enemy, which includes fighting all the way to an aggressor's
capital and toppling the government. Should a second adversary try to challenge the United States at the
same time, American forces must be prepared to halt that enemy's offensive, but not necessarily fight to
a conclusive victory, as well as carry out other duties, including homeland defense and peacekeeping.
Bringing military strategy and force structure into line has a significant political impact for
civilians and the military at the Pentagon. "The building is loudly in agreement," one military officer
said, as it argues for full financing of the 2002 military budget now before Congress.
Still, some difficult decisions have been postponed.
Although a sweeping military review required by Congress every four years is due by Sept. 30, Mr.
Rumsfeld has given the services until March to answer questions about joint training, money for housing
and other personnel issues. The fate of several major weapons programs also remains undecided.
And even before Congress has approved a military budget for 2002, the Pentagon is busy writing its
budget request for 2003, which President Bush will propose in January. The armed services are writing
that budget under fiscal guidance signed by Mr. Rumsfeld last month that suggests military spending in
2003 of $339 billion to $348 billion, rising to more than $400 billion by 2007, officials said.
The administration is requesting $329 billion for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. Many Democrats have already said that the figure is too high; many Republicans, on the other hand, want to spend the money on different parts of the military, and many at the Pentagon say the figure is tens of billions shy of what they need to modernize the military and build a missile defense system.Although the results of Positive Match are stamped "Secret," contained in a report a half-dozen senior Defense Department and military officials agreed to discuss the war game on the condition that they not be identified.
Among the situations in the war game, commanders tested whether the armed forces could decisively defeat one potential adversary, North Korea, while repelling an attack from Iraq. The planners also looked at how military operations would be affected if another event, such as terrorists attacking New York City
with chemical weapons, took place at the same time.
The official report on Positive Match said the men and women of the armed forces were subject to "a high
level of moderate risk" in carrying out the new strategy, which was acceptable to the commanders.
Had they been ordered to carry out the old strategy - to win decisively in two theaters almost simultaneously - the risk would have been extremely high and would have been unacceptable to the commanders. Lowering the risk would have required increasing the budget to pay for more troops and weapons, or finding some significantly new, efficient way to fight.
To be sure, Positive Match, which was conducted by the Joint Chiefs of Staff with the war fighting
commanders, found serious shortages in strategic lift to move forces around the globe and in the broad
area of communications and intelligence, officials said. Even so, the findings have allowed a consensus
to emerge, with all parties to the debate able to claim victory.For several months, the central argument at the Pentagon had been over whether America could risk cutting its forces now to finance expensive new weapons the administration says would counter threats emerging in decades to come.
Today, the military can claim success that the imbalance between strategy and force size is being rectified - and through downsizing the strategy, not downsizing force levels, or at least not in this budget cycle.
And Mr. Rumsfeld can claim success that the right questions are being asked about how best to prepare the military for all these risks anticipated decades ahead, and that the vast bureaucracy of the Pentagon is being pointed in that new direction.
The only public statement on Positive Match was a passing reference by Mr. Rumsfeld today in a Pentagon news conference.
"There was recently a war game that was conducted that used some different approaches that we've been working with," he said. "And there isn't a doubt in my mind but that that approach is going to create some significant changes as to how we arrange ourselves, how we size our force, how we arrange war plans. And that is, I think, something that will be - when we look back, we'll see it as being very significant."
US Takes on Invader Role in War Games
August 27, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-SKorea-US-War-Games.html?searchpv=aponline
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- U.S. soldiers sitting at computers played the role of an enemy Monday in war games designed to test the ability of South Korea and the United States to fend off a North Korean invasion.
Some 10,000 American troops are taking part in an annual joint exercise that has drawn verbal attacks from the communist North since it was first launched in 1976.
This year was no exception, with North Korea accusing the United States of ``a mock 'cyber warfare' drill'' to hone its skills at spreading computer viruses and hacking into computer networks.
The 12-day maneuvers, called ``Ulchi Focus Lens,'' end Friday. They are among the U.S. military's most advanced war games involving computer simulation.
``It's kind of like a laboratory experiment'' for war, said 2nd Lt. Stephen Koch of Kansas City, Kan. a computer operator at the main U.S. military base in Seoul.
Koch and other soldiers in the ``Combined Battle Simulation Center'' spend 12 to 14 hours a day dispatching messages to unit commanders, monitoring their electronic responses and poring over map coordinates.
In one computer scenario, the crew of a U.S. Navy ship plots how to ferry supplies northward. In another, soldiers on the Demilitarized Zone that separates the two Koreas prepare to confront tanks and troops rushing southward.
At Camp Casey, a U.S. base north of Seoul, 200 computer operators act as the invaders, punching in messages about the deployment of their fictional troops. They work with a battle plan that is partly independent from that of the defenders, allowing for more spontaneity in the outcome.
The United States keeps 37,000 troops in South Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War.
Computer simulated war games are cheaper and more efficient than old-style exercises involving masses of troops, said Capt. John Neal, 27, of Murfreesboro, Tenn.
``You would literally be sending divisions of troops into the field,'' he said. ``It would cost a great deal of money. It would also disrupt the countryside and the activities of the populace.''
In 1994, the U.S. and South Korean armed forces canceled an annual exercise called ``Team Spirit'' in an effort to resolve a standoff over North Korea's suspected nuclear weapons program.
The biggest maneuver, ``Foal Eagle,'' has been held since 1961. Tens of thousands of troops take part.
North Korea has more than 1 million troops, but is believed to be short of training because of a lack of fuel and modern equipment. Still, Seoul lies within the range of the North's huge arsenal of artillery on the border.
``North Korea and South Korea have been preparing for war since the (1953) cease-fire,'' Lt. Koch said. ``It's just an amazing amount of guns pointing at each other.''
New York Times
July 10, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-arms-mi.html?searchpv=reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration said on Tuesday it was planning a ``much more robust'' missile-defense test program to be expanded to sites in Alaska.
snip...
Quigley cited the case of an aircraft known as JSTARS, which was still under development and testing when Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990. ``And yet when the nation
snip...
HITTING A BULLET WITH A BULLET
The next such $100 million integrated test -- often equated with hitting a bullet with a bullet --
was to take place Saturday night.
It will feature a more realistic ``balloon'' decoy than the last test, on July 7, 2000, Quigley said.
Quigley denied critics' claims that the proposed opening of the Alaska test sites -- with funds being sought for the fiscal year starting October 1 -- was part of a Bush administration drive to deploy a rudimentary national missile defense quickly under the guise of improved testing.
snip...
The Bush administration has said it plans to build a ''multi-layered'' shield involving ground-, sea- and possibly space-based systems. It is also working on a laser that would be mounted on a Boeing 747 aircraft.
-------- missile defense
Achilles' Heel in Missile Plan: Crude Weapons
New York Times
August 27, 2001
By WILLIAM J. BROAD
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/27/international/27MISS.html?searchpv=nytToday&pagewanted=all
The missile defense planned by the Bush administration may be least able to destroy warheads from countries that are thought to pose the biggest threat, federal and private experts say.
The trouble is that so-called rogue nations, like North Korea, Iran and Iraq, would fire wobbling, rudimentary warheads during an attack, and those turn out to be among the hardest to hit.
"We've concluded that it's an extremely difficult problem," said a Pentagon antimissile scientist.
Creating any antimissile system would be enormously complex, but stopping a rudimentary missile would be far harder even than hitting advanced warheads, which are made to spin like tops or footballs. The whirling increases accuracy by keeping them pointed in the right direction. This rotation, known as spin stabilization, means that a warhead speeding around the globe can fall within a few hundred feet of its intended target.
But a crude warhead fired by an inexperienced attacker is likely to have no spin stabilization and to gyrate wildly, often tumbling end over end, making it hard to track.
While tumbling nuclear warheads are less accurate than those that are spin-stabilized and lack the precision to hit small targets, experts say they are fine for destroying cities.
"If you fire at New York, it means you might not get Central Park," a federal weapons expert said. "You might get the Jersey side or Queens. But no matter what, you're going to get enough of the metro area that New Yorkers will be unhappy."
While acknowledging that the tumbling issue is a potential snag, the Pentagon last week authorized the clearing of 135 acres in Alaska to prepare an antimissile base. And officials are planning interceptor flight tests meant to track and destroy mock tumbling warheads, but only years from now.
snip...
On Oct. 3, 1994, Jerry W. Cavender, the Army's program manager for National Missile Defense, wrote a weapon's contractor to spell out the most likely threats to the United States. He listed six categories of missiles, from the most rudimentary to the most advanced.
The "highest priority" threat, he wrote, included primitive attacks with tumbling warheads. As examples, Mr. Cavender listed hypothetical attacks by North Korea, firing at Los Angeles, and Iran, firing at Washington.
But enthusiasm for the challenge soon waned.
Dr. Nira Schwartz, a senior engineer in 1995 and 1996 at TRW, a military contractor,was asked to do computer simulations in which a kill vehicle was tested against 200 types of enemy decoys and warheads, including tumblers. The kill vehicle always failed to distinguish between tumbling warheads and decoys, Dr. Schwartz said in an interview.
snip...
For the moment, the Pentagon is keeping its antimissile focus on easier challenges. On July 14, the program conducted its fourth interception flight test. Officials said the mock warhead was destroyed, but it was also spin-stabilized.
Officials also said the kill vehicle had been able to distinguish between a 5-foot, cone-shaped warhead and a circular 5.5-foot decoy balloon, but critics called that exercise unchallenging and unrealistic. And on Aug. 15, General Kadish, the program's director, told reporters that in the next test, scheduled for October, the program would replay the July test, with no new complexities.
"It is still not totally comfortable for me to say that we can make the hit-to-kill technology work consistently," he said, "even in that simple scenario" with a single decoy. He added, "We still need some more reliability."
In an interview, Lt. Col. Richard Lehner of the Air Force, a spokesman for the Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, said that the program could give out no information on when it planned to do the tumbling tests, but he suggested that the experiments would not be any time soon.
"It's irresponsible to launch off on more difficult flight tests before we've solved the fundamentals," he said.
FBI Agents Resume Cole Probe
In Yemen More Cooperation, Security Pledged
By Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 4, 2001; Page A12
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A37010-2001Sep3?language=printer
"They have some additional leads, and the sense is the cooperation is good enough to send these people back -- they wouldn't be sending FBI agents back in if it wasn't," the official said.
A security plan worked out jointly by the State Department and the FBI has allayed the bureau's concern about threats directed at its investigators, the official said.
FBI agents have been trying to determine whether bin Laden is linked to the bombing but have yet to announce a definitive relationship. Bin Laden, a fugitive in Afghanistan, has been indicted in New York for orchestrating the August 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa.
Shortly after the FBI pulled its agents out of Yemen, a new bin Laden videotape began circulating in the Middle East in which the exiled Saudi millionaire hailed the bombing of the Cole.
Appearing in the video wearing a traditional Yemeni dagger, bin Laden recited a poem referring to the bombing and said: "And in Aden, they charged and destroyed a destroyer that fearsome people fear, one that evokes horror when it docks and when it sails."
U.S. Prepping for Possible Germ Warfare
Friday September 07 06:13 AM EDT
By John McWethy ABCNEWS.com
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/abc/20010907/wl/germwarfare010904_1.html
In a remote corner of the Nevada desert, a highly restricted area once used to test nuclear bombs, the
U.S. government has been running a secret experiment called Project Bachus.
It is a small germ warfare factory, set up inside an abandoned government building. U.S. officials say
they built it to better understand how to detect similar operations in places like Iraq or Afghanistan
(news - web sites) or even by terrorists here at home.
The factory, built by the Pentagon (news - web sites)'s Defense Threat Reduction Agency, has been
brought to full production for several weeks on two occasions - in 1999 and again in 2000. Technicians
grew several pounds of a harmless bacterium with characteristics similar to deadly anthrax.
"A terrorist could easily grow anthrax in a facility like this," Jay Davis, who was DTRA director at the
time the factory was built, said in an interview at the one-time classified facility, "and produce
enough quantity in a covert delivery to kill, say, 10,000 people in a large city."
The DTRA team bought all materials for the small-scale laboratory from local hardware stores and the
Internet. Included in their shopping list was a 50-liter fermenter purchased "used" from overseas.
"Commercial item. Off the shelf," Davis said. "Easy to find."
At no time did any of the purchases cause law enforcement to be suspicious, Davis added.
'Fairly Concealable'
Asked if this was how a terrorist group might put together such a laboratory, Davis said: "A terrorist
group would choose to do this, yes ... This is the size of thing you would be afraid a non-state group
would do, either people in our country or people in some other country. This is fairly concealable."
The primary reason for conducting the experiment was to place sensors outside of the building to create
what the intelligence community calls a "signature," according to intelligence sources. Once in
operation, technicians measured heat changes, emissions that could be sampled in the air and soil as
well as patterns of energy consumption.
"The ultimate product is knowledge," Davis said. Other officials say the primary customers for the
knowledge were the CIA (news - web sites) and Defense Intelligence Agency, both agencies responsible for
detecting an operation like this in other countries. Officials say the FBI (news - web sites) also was
given data from the project.
And according to officials who supervised the project but asked not to be identified, what is so
frightening about this top-secret project is that it shows that with the right technical knowledge, it
is surprisingly easy to build and operate a small germ warfare factory. And worse, even with the most
sophisticated sensors, it is extremely difficult to detect.
Proving Preparedness
The project was conducted in such extreme secrecy that some worry it might be misunderstood and seen as
a violation of the international treaty that bans making germ weapons.
"I think there is a very delicate line that has to be drawn between the need to keep some kinds of
information secret and the need to allay suspicions about what the country is up to," said Judith
Miller, a reporter for the New York Times and co-author of a new book on biological warfare called Germs
"People overseas will think that the United States may be secretly conducting an offensive weapons
program, that we may be secretly trying to develop biological weapons," she said.
As for the Bush administration, Miller said: "I think that this administration wants to not only expand
these projects, but intends to keep most of them secret."
Miller and other experts on biological weapons have been concerned that the supersecret U.S. projects
would be misunderstood by other governments and might lead those governments to develop offensive
biological weapons.
But the Pentagon agreed to show ABCNEWS this once-secret project. Sources say it's part of an effort to
anticipate a threat that has the potential to kill on a scale only nuclear weapons could match.
September 9, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-Iraq.html?searchpv=aponline
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Iraq's pursuit of chemical and biological weapons threatens to become a serious
problem, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Sunday.
Without monitoring by U.N. weapons inspectors, the Iraqis have been ``working diligently to increase
their capabilities in every aspect of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile technology,'' he
said. ``And as they get somewhat stronger, the problem becomes some greater.''
A CIA report delivered to Congress on Friday described the efforts of other countries to obtain weapons of mass destruction. Iraq may again be producing biological warfare agents, the report said, although
confirming that is difficult given the inspectors' absence.
``That problem, particularly biological weapons, over the coming decade is going to be an increasingly serious one,'' Rumsfeld said on ``Fox News Sunday.''
``It will have to attacked from a whole range of methods,'' including bombing. ``Some of them are
mobile. They can move them; they're in vans. So it is not a simple thing. But it'll have to be dealt
with using a variety of techniques.''
The CIA report also said Iraq was working on an unmanned drone, called the L-29, that could deliver biological or chemical weapons
-------- biological weapons
Secret Weapon Research
New York Times
September 7, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/07/opinion/L07WEAP.html?searchpv=nytToday
To the Editor:
Your revelations about the United States' secret biological weapons research (front page, Sept. 4)
recall the most tragic chapters in the development of nuclear weapons. Once again, in the name of
pursuing a worst-case scenario of what an enemy could do to us, we ourselves take the lead in developing
new weapons that endanger all. Our program only legitimizes others.
There is a particular fallacy in genetically engineering new strains of disease. Biological diversity makes it unlikely that an enemy's creation would exactly match ours. Thus, any vaccine we develop will be useful only with our own germ - for example, protecting our troops if we used the germ offensively.Whatever its intent, the military's program is objectively offensive and indefensible.
DAVID KEPPEL Bloomington, Ind., Sept. 4, 2001
==============
U.S. Germ Warfare Research Pushes Treaty Limits
September 4, 2001
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
by Judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg and William J. Broad.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/04/international/04GERM.html?searchpv=nytToday&pagewanted=all
In a program code-named Clear Vision, the Central Intelligence Agency built and tested a model of a
Soviet-designed germ bomb that agency officials feared was being sold on the international market. The
C.I.A. device lacked a fuse and other parts that would make it a working bomb, intelligence officials said
Both the mock bomb and the factory were tested with simulants - benign substances with characteristics
similar to the germs used in weapons, officials said.
A senior Bush administration official said all the projects were "fully consistent" with the treaty
banning biological weapons and were needed to protect Americans against a growing danger. "This
administration will pursue defenses against the full spectrum of biological threats," the official said.
The agency asked its spies to find or buy a Soviet bomblet, which releases germs in a fine mist. That search proved unsuccessful, and the agency approved a proposal to build a replica and study how well it could disperse its lethal cargo.
The agency's lawyers concluded that such a project was permitted by the treaty because the intent was
defensive. Intelligence officials said the C.I.A. had reports that at least one nation was trying to buy
the Soviet- made bomblets.
A model was constructed and the agency conducted two sets of tests at Battelle, the military contractor.
The experiments measured dissemination characteristics and how the model performed under different
atmospheric conditions, intelligence officials said. They emphasized that the device was a "portion" of a bomb that could not have been used as a weapon.
----------------
Next to Old Rec Hall, a 'Germ-Making Plant'
New York Times
September 4, 2001
By JUDITH MILLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/04/international/04BIOW.html
----
European Parliament OKs Spy Plan
September 5, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-EU-Echelon.html
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -- An alleged worldwide spy network dubbed Echelon and led by the United States
does exist -- and European nations should set up an encryption system to guard against it, the European
Parliament said Wednesday.
The European Union assembly voted 367 to 159, with 34 abstentions, to adopt 44 recommendations on how to
counter Echelon.
The parliament, meeting in Strasbourg, France, also accepted a 140-page report confirming the spy
network's existence, despite official U.S. denials.
--------
US Echelon spy network a fact, European Parliament told
Sept 5 2001
AFP
http://www.cndyorks.gn.apc.org/yspace/articles/echelon26.htm
US spy network sees everything in Europe
Sept 5
http://www.khilafah.com/home/category.php?DocumentID=2130&TagID=2
-------- biological weapons
Battelle's laboratories key to germ-warfare research
Wednesday, September 5, 2001
David Lore Dispatch Science Reporter
http://www.dispatch.com/print_template.php?story=dispatch/news/news01/sep01/830957.html
Battelle's biological-warfare programs have expanded in recent years,raising questions about whether the research is strictly defensive , as required by U.S. treaty commitments.
As many as 800 Battelle employees are involved in chemical- and biological-warfare research at the
institute's laboratories on King Avenue and in West Jefferson, said Gregory Frank, executive vice president for government contracts.
Nearly a third of the employees are involved in research to defend against biological attacks, Frank
said. The rest work with chemical weapons.
Much of Battelle's role has been to improve the anthrax vaccine being given to most U.S. military
personnel.
Pentagon officials confirmed yesterday that the Defense Intelligence Agency wants to
develop small amounts of a potentially more- potent variant of the bacterium that causes deadly anthrax.
Frank also said there is no plan to move the biological programs to the $22 million laboratory. Battelle announced last week that it will build a center for chemical- and biological-warfare programs in
Maryland near the Army's Aberdeen Proving Ground.
Clarke said the purpose of developing a new strain of anthrax is strictly defensive: to ensure that an effective vaccine is available should a biological weapon be used against American troops..
Although Project Jefferson's existence is unclassified, its specific tasks are secret, Brook said.
--------
Sunday, September 09, 2001
Las Vegas Review-Journal
Steve Sebelius
http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2001/Sep-09-Sun-2001/opinion/16951473.html
On Wednesday, Nevadans from all walks of life came to the National Nuclear Security Administration
building in North Las Vegas to tell the Energy Department they don't want the deadliest substance known to man to be stored in Nevada. And I couldn't agree more: The government should never again do biological weapons research here
==============
New Models for Non-proliferation and Energy Security
U.S. Newswire
10 Sep 13:58
http://www.usnewswire.com/topnews/Current_Releases/0910-125.html
New Models for Non-proliferation and Energy Security: Kazakhstan Begins Shutting Down Semipalatinsk Military-Industrial Complex To: Assignment Desk, Daybook Editor Contact: Lindsay Howard of Howard Communications, 718-243-2200
News Advisory:
Vladimir Shkolnik, Kazakhstan's Deputy Prime Minister for Nonproliferation and Energy, will address the
National Press Club on Tuesday, Sept. 11, from 8:30 to 10 a.m. on his country's progress in ridding itself of nuclear weapons and will introduce a book on the subject by Kazakhstan's president.The challenges facing Kazakhstan today are great. Beyond the nuclear challenge, the United States and Kazakhstan are working together to destroy and decontaminate the world's largest anthrax production and weaponization facility.
Yet to be resolved is the need to provide for the permanent and safe storage of the huge weapons-grade plutonium stockpile at BN-350 located in the very sensitive environment of the Caspian Sea's eastern shore
=================
U.S. Anthrax Plan Worries Russians
September 5, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Russia-Germ-Warfare.html
--------
When Is Bomb Not a Bomb? Germ Experts Confront U.S.
New York Times
September 5, 2001
By JUDITH MILLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/05/international/05GERM.html
A former senior government lawyer yesterday vigorously disputed the Bush administration's assertion that
the global treaty banning biological weapons permits nations to test such arms for defensive purposes.
The lawyer, Mary Elizabeth Hoinkes, who was general counsel of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency from 1994 to 1999, said such an interpretation of the 1972 treaty was a "gross misrepresentation" that "risks doing serious violence" to an accord the United States has long championed.
The New York Times reported yesterday that the United States had made and tested a model of a small Soviet-designed biological bomb as part of a series of secret research projects that officials said were aimed at defending against a growing threat of a germ attack.
Victoria Clarke, a Pentagon spokeswoman, also confirmed yesterday that the Defense Department had drawn up plans to produce small amounts of genetically modified anthrax, a deadly toxin, but that the project
had been "put on hold" earlier this year to make sure it did not violate international treaties and domestic laws.
Still, she said, the Pentagon intends to press ahead with the anthrax project. Pentagon officials have said that producing the stronger poison would aid in developing vaccines and other defenses.
=================
-------- biological weapons
Germ attack 'dwarfs' missiles as threat
September 6, 2001
By Tom Carter
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010906-93610055.htm
The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday called President Bush's planned missile
defense plan "myopic," arguing that the threat from terrorists armed with anthrax, smallpox and other germs is far greater than the peril of nuclear-tipped missiles.
Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., Delaware Democrat, issued the warning at the first in a series of hearings called to emphasize national security threats.
"We do not have enough money for everything" and the United States "must prioritize" which threats are
of greater importance, Mr. Biden said.
"In my view, the threat from anonymously delivered biological weapons and from emerging infectious
diseases simply dwarfs the threat that we will be attacked by a Third World [missile] with a return
address."
Former Sen. Sam Nunn, Georgia Democrat, who now heads the Nuclear Threat Initiative sponsored by CNN founder Ted Turner, told the committee of a "war game" called "Dark Winter" in which he recently participated.
He played the U.S. president in the exercise, held at Andrews Air Force Base, in a scenario that simulated National Security Council meetings following the release of smallpox by terrorists in several U.S. cities.
-------- terrorism
Americans in Japan warned of possible terror attack
09/07/2001
The Associated Press
http://usatoday.com/news/world/2001/09/07/japan-terror-warning.htm
TOKYO (AP) - The U.S. Embassy warned Americans living in Japan to be on guard against possible terrorist attacks.
In a statement issued Friday afternoon to all resident Americans, the embassy said it had unconfirmed information that terrorists may strike U.S. military facilities or places frequented by U.S. military personnel.
Embassy spokesman Patrick Linehan described the threat as "credible" but could not give other details such as when or where a possible attack might occur. He also did not say when the warning would be lifted.
It was unclear whether the warning was specific to Japan or whether Americans in other countries had been warned too, Linehan said.
Such terrorist warnings are rare in Japan, Linehan said, adding that the last he remembered was a worldwide warning issued by the U.S. State Department last New Year's Eve.
Roughly 120,000 Americans live in Japan, according to the embassy's figures. Nearly 48,000 are active members of the U.S. military.
====================
U.S. Wary of Weapons Tech Sales
September 5, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-Russia.html?searchpv=aponline
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Despite urgent U.S. pleas, Russian companies are continuing to provide Iran with technology for weapons of mass destruction, a senior administration official said Wednesday.
The technology could help Iran in its programs to develop chemical, biological and especially nuclear weapons, the official said.
--------
US intends to cut nuclear arsenal unilaterally: Pentagon official
Agence France-Presse
(AFP) Sep 05, 2001
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/010905005307.tcjlqblt.html
WASHINGTON The United States intends to make unilateral cuts in its nuclear arsenal rather than engage Russia in protracted arms negotiations, a senior Pentagon official said Tuesday.
Douglas Feith, under secretary of defense for policy, said he will go to Moscow September 10-11 to resume talks with Russian defense officials on missile defense and nuclear arms cuts.
Iran Denies Seeking Nuclear Weapons
September 10, 2001By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-iran-usa.html?searchpv=reuters
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran Monday strongly rejected charges by the United States that it was seeking nuclear weapons and said Iran itself was a victim of weapons of mass destruction.
``The Islamic Republic of Iran, which has suffered from the use of chemical weapons and weapons of mass destruction, has never embarked on production of such weapons,'' state television quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi as saying.
``The effects of chemical weapons used against Iran (during the 1980-88 Iraq-Iran war) can still be seen,'' Asefi said.
The spokesman's comments followed a CIA report Friday which accused Iran of being one of the most active seekers of foreign technology for developing and delivering weapons of mass destruction.
--------
September 10, 2001
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010910-68476943.htm
An elite U.S. Army study center has devised a plan for enforcing a major Israeli-Palestinian peace accord that would require about 20,000 well-armed troops stationed throughout Israel and a newly created Palestinian state.
There are no plans by the Bush administration to put American soldiers into the Middle East to police an agreement forged by the longtime warring parties. In fact, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is searching for ways to reduce U.S. peacekeeping efforts abroad, rather than increasing such missions.
But a 68-page paper by the Army School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS) does provide a look at the daunting task any international peacekeeping force would face if the United Nations authorized it, and Israel and the Palestinians ever reached a peace agreement.
The cover page for the recent SAMS project said it was done for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But Maj. Chris Garver, a Fort Leavenworth spokesman, said the study was not requested by Washington.
"This was just an academic exercise," said Maj. Garver. "They were trying to take a current situation and get some training out of it."
snip..
"In general, the Bush administration policy is to discourage a large American presence," he said.
"But it has been rumored that one of the possibilities might be an expanded CIA role."
--------
US SHIES AWAY FROM UN TREATIES ON TERRORISM
by Thalif Deen
September 11, 2001(IPS)
http://www.ipsdailyjournal.org/daily/091201.htm
UNITED NATIONS, Less than 24 hours before the United States came under a wave of terrorist attacks, the United Nations was rejoicing over the fact that 83 of its 189 member states had ratified some 12 existing U.N. conventions against international terrorism. But what was "particularly gratifying", said Secretary-General Kofi Annan in his annual report to the General Assembly, was that 16 of those countries had ratified the landmark International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings which entered into force in May this year. The U.S., which was not on the list of 83 ratifiers, is one of the few countries that refuses to ratify international conventions, including those against terrorism. "Sign yes, ratify no," says a U.N. official, speaking on condition of anonymity. If a country refuses to ratify a treaty, that treaty has no legal validity in that country, he added.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
High alert evacuations
Tuesday, September 11, 2001
Philadelphia Daily News
http://dailynews.philly.com/content/daily_news/2001/09/11/local/ALERT11C.htm?template=aprint.htm
Authorities went on alert from coast to coast Tuesday, halting all air traffic, evacuating high-profile buildings and tightening security at strategic facilities following the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
... Military bases across the country went on alert. Extra security went into place at Department of Energy's nuclear weapons and research complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, and at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Md., home to the
Army's main germ warfare defense laboratory....
-------- colombia
Paramilitary cell declared terrorist
September 11, 2001
By Ben Barber
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010911-698133.htm
The State Department has ruled that the anti-communist paramilitary group United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia is a terrorist organization, just one day before Secretary of State Colin L. Powell is to visit that country.
The group, known by the Spanish acronym AUC, has long been affiliated with the military and blamed for thousands of killings and other human rights abuses during a 20-year rivalry with narcotics traffickers and leftist guerrillas.
-------
Documents Show CIA Spy Ideas
September 10, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Spy-Research.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Soviet-tracking psychics and cats wired as mobile eavesdropping platforms didn't work out so well. But CIA proposals for spy planes and satellites to peer on America's adversaries from above became resounding successes.
Recently declassified documents, released Monday by the National Security Archive, detail some of the successful -- and silly -- research of the CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology.
The CIA designed and operated spy satellites for years, until the separate National Reconnaissance Office took over many of those duties, said Jeffrey T. Richelson, a researcher with the archive and author of ``The Wizards of Langley,'' a book detailing the directorate's efforts. The directorate also developed the U-2 and A-12 spy planes. Another of its advances turned into an integral part of the pacemaker.
In the 1960s, under a program code-named Palladium, scientists trying to design stealthy aircraft figured out how to insert ghost planes on Soviet radar screens. Assisted by the National Security Agency, the CIA eavesdropped on Soviet radar operators and determined the sensitivity of particular Soviet radars.
---
September 9, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Missile-Defense-Alaska.html?searchpv=aponline
WASHINGTON (AP) -- It hardly seems the stuff of geopolitical significance: In forested flatlands about 100 miles from Fairbanks, Alaska, contractors are taking down 135 acres of fire-scorched spruce and birch trees on a closed military post.
Ballistic target missiles would be launched from one part of the range, either from a ground-based site or from an airplane. New radars would track the missile as it arcs toward space, shedding boosters and possibly dropping decoys.
Around 200 miles above the Earth, the targets would tip over and fall back toward the surface. One or several experimental missile defenses ground-based or naval interceptors, airborne lasers, or possibly orbital weapons -- would try to shoot it down.
Kodiak might later be used to launch target missiles for airborne laser and naval interceptor tests, but the site is not suited for deployment of any ABM systems, he said.
-------- spying
US Sentences Pakistani Brothers in Spy Camera Case
September 8, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/technology/tech-crime-pakistan-usa.html?searchpv=reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two Pakistani brothers, one of them a naturalized U.S. citizen, have been sentenced to prison for attempting to illegally ship spy cameras to Pakistan, the U.S. Justice Department said on Friday.
The men, who pleaded guilty earlier this year, were arrested by the U.S. Customs Service in January following a two-month undercover operation. They were trying to export pan tilt-zoom cameras that can be used for military surveillance and reconnaissance when installed in unmanned aerial vehicles known as drones.
(lesser known) Computer Wargames Septmeber 2001Part 2
Links...
Missing and stolen laptops from government containing
personel data
The VA, is not the only recent incident where computers were
stolen (or hacked)
Google
and the CIA
Personal Information computer ID security theft
Mind
Control at MIT being digital by NICHOLAS NEGROPONTE
Index of Alex
Constantine
Alex
Constantine directory
Daniel
Goldin: NASA's Creature from the Black Vault Part 2
TV
Fakery - Randy Hill, ICT, DARPA, AI, 9/11 videos
Khashoggi,
Part 36: Who Mentored Michael Hayden?
Michael
Hayden's Ties to 9/11, Hookergate, PSYOPS, etc..
More
Spooks at Mt. Holyoke - arms control
Right-Wing
Christian Connections to Heaven's Gatem Research
nuclear
weapons china iran mini nuke 2001
nuclear
weapons china iran mini nuke 2001 [page 2]
physics911 weblog
9-11 review
Wiki
9/11 review
search September
11th articles 911review
Your Ad Here
September 11th computer war games 2001
war games September 11th Global Guardian
Michael Tuohey portland hijack 9/11
September 11th computer war games 2001
war games September 11th Global Guardian
Michael Tuohey portland hijack 9/11
Web Pages referring to this page
Link to this page and get a link back!
