France Adds Nuclear Sub and Vows to Cut Warheads

By STEVEN ERLANGER

PARIS — Dedicating France’s fourth nuclear-armed submarine, President Nicolas Sarkozy on Friday defended his country’s arsenal as vital to deter a range of new threats, including the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran with intercontinental missiles.

“The security of Europe is at stake,” he said, conflating the Continent’s interests with those of France.

“Countries in Asia and the Middle East are rapidly developing ballistic capacities,” he said. “I am thinking in particular of Iran,” which is “increasing the range of its missiles while serious suspicions weigh on its nuclear program.”

Mr. Sarkozy, stung by defeats in local elections in some large French cities, stuck to traditional presidential themes of national security and defense. His sudden divorce and remarriage, and his tendency to flit from one scheme to another, have made him seem slightly unserious, contributing to his party’s losses.

His mood on Friday was somber, as he inaugurated a new generation of nuclear submarine of the “Triomphant” class, this one named Le Terrible, which could be best translated as The Fearsome. It will be equipped with a new, nuclear-tipped missile, the M-51, whose range is secret but is understood, according to Le Monde, to be some 4,970 miles, able to reach Asia.

Clearly trying to balance nuclear modernization with gestures toward a European population more interested in eliminating nuclear weapons than improving them, Mr. Sarkozy said France would continue to reduce the number of warheads on airplanes, bringing its total nuclear force to fewer than 300 warheads, half the number during the cold war.

The actual number of warheads France possesses is secret. This year, the Federation of American Scientists, which tracks nuclear arsenals, said France had 348 warheads — 288 on submarines, 50 on air-launched cruise missiles and 10 bombs.

Mr. Sarkozy also called for all nuclear powers to sign and ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, as France had done, and he proposed talks on a treaty banning nuclear-armed short- and medium-range ground-to-ground missiles, a category that includes Scud-type missiles, and an idea likely to go nowhere in a world of Hezbollah, Hamas and the like. He also called for an immediate moratorium on the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons and a treaty banning its production, similar to an American proposal of 2006.

Mr. Sarkozy has been criticized, especially by Germany, for leaping ahead without consultation with European allies on major initiatives, like the “Mediterranean Union,” a looser grouping than the European Union and modified after Berlin’s protests. On Friday, he offered a “dialogue” on the role of French nuclear weapons in Europe’s collective defense.

“Regarding Europe, it is a fact that France’s nuclear forces by their very existence are a key element in its security,” he said. “Let’s together draw the logical conclusions: I propose to begin, with those of our European partners who wish to, an open dialogue on the role of deterrence and its contribution to our common security.”

Britain also has nuclear weapons, the main reason that Britain and France remain permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. Neither country has been willing to cede its seat to the European Union. The United States provides most of Europe’s nuclear deterrence through NATO and its doctrine of collective defense.

At the same time, Mr. Sarkozy described the French “force de frappe” as a weapon of self-defense. He was vaguer about France’s national interests than his predecessor, Jacques Chirac, who made a similar speech in January 2006, in which he appeared to broaden the list.

Then, Mr. Chirac delivered an unexpected and controversial warning to “rogue” states sponsoring terrorism by threatening to use nuclear weapons against any state that supported attacks on his country or considered using unconventional weapons.

“The leaders of states who use terrorist means against us, as well as those who would consider using, in one way or another, weapons of mass destruction, must understand that they would lay themselves open to a firm and adapted response on our part,” Mr. Chirac said. “This response could be a conventional one. It could also be of a different kind.”

Mr. Sarkozy, an aide told Le Monde, wanted to “return to the ‘fundamentals’ ” of deterrence.

Iran a Nuclear Threat, Bush Insists

Experts Say President Is Wrong and Is Escalating Tensions

By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 21, 2008; A14

President Bush said Thursday that Iran has declared that it wants to be a nuclear power with a weapon to "destroy people," including others in the Middle East, contradicting the judgments of a recent U.S. intelligence estimate.

The president spoke in an interview intended to reach out to the Iranian public on the Persian new year and to express "moral support" for struggling freedom movements, particularly among youth and women. It was designed to stress U.S. support for Iran's quest for nuclear energy and the prospects that Washington and Tehran can "reconcile their differences" if Iran cooperates with the international community to ensure that the effort is not converted into a weapons program.

But most striking was Bush's accusation that Iran has openly declared its nuclear weapons intentions, even though a National Intelligence Estimate concluded in December that Iran had stopped its weapons program in 2003, a major reversal in the long-standing U.S. assessment.

"They've declared they want to have a nuclear weapon to destroy people -- some in the Middle East. And that's unacceptable to the United States, and it's unacceptable to the world," Bush told U.S.-funded Radio Farda, which broadcasts into Iran in Farsi.

Experts on Iran and nuclear proliferation said the president's statement was wrong. "That's as uninformed as [Sen. John] McCain's statement that Iran is training al-Qaeda. Iran has never said it wanted a nuclear weapon for any reason. It's just not true. It's a little troubling that the president and the leading Republican candidate are both so wrong about Iran," said Joseph Cirincione, president of Ploughshares Fund, a global security foundation.

Others said it is unclear whether the president believes what he said or was deliberately distorting Iran's position.

"The Iranian government is on the record across the board as saying it does not want a nuclear weapon. There's plenty of room for skepticism about these assertions. But it's troubling for the administration to indicate that Iran is explicitly embracing the program as a means of destroying another country," said Suzanne Maloney, an Iran specialist at the State Department until last year and now at the Brookings Institution's Saban Center.

National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said Bush was referring to previous Iranian statements about wiping Israel off the map. "The president shorthanded his answer with regard to Iran's previously secret nuclear weapons program and their current enrichment and ballistic missile testing," Johndroe said.

In two interviews beamed into Iran, Bush expressed deep respect for Iranian history and culture. In a second interview with the Voice of America's Persian News Network, Bush said: "Please don't be discouraged by the slogans that say America doesn't like you, because we do, and we respect you."

But analysts warned that Bush's statement on Iran's nuclear intentions could escalate tensions when U.S. strategy for the first time in three decades is to persuade Iran to join international talks in exchange for suspending its uranium enrichment, a process used for peaceful nuclear energy that can be converted for use in a weapons program. "The bellicose rhetoric from one side only produces the same from the other," Maloney said.

Signaling further pressure on Tehran, the administration also issued a warning on Thursday to U.S. financial institutions about the dangers of doing business with Iranian banks because of inadequate checks on money laundering and the growing risks to the international financial system posed by Iran's financial sector. "The government of Iran disguises its involvement in proliferation and terrorism activities through an array of deceptive practices," the Treasury Department said.

The advisory lists 59 major banks or their branches in cities such as Athens, Hong Kong, London and Moscow. It includes Iran's Central Bank and covers many banks not facing sanctions from the United Nations or the United States.

The Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network said that Iran's Central Bank and commercial banks started asking that their names be removed from global transactions to make it more difficult for intermediary financial institutions to determine their true identity or origin.

The United States recently imposed new restrictions on dealings with Bahrain-based Future Bank, which is controlled by Iran's Bank Melli.

"Over the past eight days, the U.S. government has undertaken a number of steps to put Tehran on notice that the international community will not allow the Iranian government to misuse the international financial system or global transportation network to further its aspirations to obtain nuclear weapons capability, improve its missile systems, or support international terrorism," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in a statement.

Staff writers Michael Abramowitz and William Branigin contributed to this report.

Hard-Liners Take Early Lead In Iranian Elections

Hard-line conservatives allied with President Mahmud Ahmadinejad have taken an early lead in Iran's parliamentary elections according to unofficial results.

Iranian state television is reporting that hard-line conservative supporters of Ahmadinejad have taken 53 out of 144 contests tallied so far. Moderate conservatives have won 38 mandates and reformists 18. Another 35 winners are independents.

There are 290 seats in the Iranian parliament, called the Majlis, and most results have not yet been tabulated.

Hasan Khanlou, a spokesman at Iran's Interior Ministry, nevertheless says turnout was more than 65 percent of Iran's 44 million eligible voters -- up significantly from the 51 percent who voted in the 2004 election.

The election, held on March 14, is seen as a crucial test for Ahmadinejad in advance of next year's presidential elections where he is expected to face challenges from moderate conservatives and -- to a lesser degree -- from reformers.

Iran's conservatives are divided between hard-line supporters of Ahmadinejad and a more moderate faction alligned with former nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamanei and other senior officials had called for a big turnout to defy the countries they say are Iran's enemies. Reformists had also urged their supporters to vote to deny conservatives clear dominance in the next parliament.

Outside The Empowered Circle

Still, many Iranians have complained about a lack of choice after the Guardians Council -- an unelected body of clerics and jurists -- disqualified some 1,700 mostly moderate candidates on the grounds that they were insufficiently loyal to Islam or Iran's 1979 revolution.

"In this eighth parliamentary election [since Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution], we have unfortunately seen the omission of most of the reformists, nationalists, and candidates who stand outside the current empowered circle," former reformist legislator Jalal Jalalizadeh told Radio Farda on March 14. "As a result, in most of the polling areas there are no candidates other than the ones who are close to the ruling bloc. This has led to the disappointment of people and thus in many electoral areas they have not participated."

One unidentified man, voting in Tehran, told Reuters that "there wasn't a candidate on the lists that actually appealed to me...I couldn't find the right candidate."

In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack has criticized the elections, saying the results were "cooked" because the Iranian people were not able to vote for a full range of candidates.

Challenges Ahead

Analysts say, however, that despite the bias toward conservative candidates, Ahmadinejad will likely have a more difficult time with the new parliament than he had with the outgoing legislature.

"Reformists -- many of whom have been banned from running -- will, in the most optimistic view, succeed in getting one third of the seats in parliament," Mashaollah Shamsolvaezin, a Tehran-based journalist, told Radio Farda on March 14. "This powerful minority, along with the majority of the traditional and technocratic conservatives who oppose Ahmadinejad's policies, can form a remarkable majority, in order to put an end to the Ahmadinejad's current policies in terms of lawmaking. On the other hand, they can provide a tighter control over Ahmadinejad's domestic and foreign policy, especially in the field of economy."

Likewise, Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a close ally of reformist former President Mohammad Khatami said he expected Ahmadinejad to face "more challenges" with the next parliament.

Reformists and some conservatives have accused Ahmadinejad of fueling inflation, which now stands at 19 percent, with loans and subsidies. Reformists have also criticized him for his vitriolic anti-Western rhetoric, which has led to Tehran's increased international isolation.

The president is facing increased opposition from moderate conservatives led by Tehran Mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, former Islamic Revolution Guards Corps chief Mohsen Rezaie, and former nuclear negotiator Larijani.

There are also two coalitions of moderate reformers: the Reformist Coalition inspired by former reformist President Khatami and the National Confidence Party led by former parliament speaker Mehdi Karroubi.

(RFE/RL's Radio Farda contributed to this report)

U.N. Alleges Nuclear Work By Iran's Civilian Scientists

By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 11, 2008; A01

Iranian nuclear engineer Mohsen Fakhrizadeh lectures weekly on physics at Tehran's Imam Hossein University. Yet for more than a decade, according to documents attracting interest among Western governments, he also ran secret programs aimed at acquiring sensitive nuclear technology for his government.

Experts at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have repeatedly invited Fakhrizadeh to tea and a chat about Iran's nuclear work. But for two years, the government in Tehran has barred any contact with the scientist, who U.S. officials say recently moved to a new lab in a heavily guarded compound also off-limits to U.N. inspectors.

The exact nature of his research -- past and present -- remains a mystery, as does the work of other key Iranian scientists whose names appear in documents detailing what U.N. officials say is a years-long, clandestine effort to expand the country's nuclear capability. The documents, which were provided to the IAEA, the U.N. nuclear agency, in recent months by two countries other than the United States, partly match information in a stolen Iranian laptop turned over by Washington.

IAEA officials say these documents identify Fakhrizadeh and other civilian scientists as central figures in a secret nuclear research program that operated as recently as 2003. So far, however, Iran is refusing to shed light on their work or allow U.N. officials to question them. After being presented with copies of some of the new documents, Tehran denied that some of the scientists exist.

"When the allegations are raised, Iran simply dismisses them," said a Western diplomatic official familiar with the agency's dealings with Iran. "It insists that the documents are mostly fakes."

The standoff over interview requests has cast a shadow over a five-year U.N. effort to excavate the truth about Iran's nuclear past. In that search, Western anxieties have been compounded by Tehran's reluctance to clarify the history of its interest in technologies that could be used for either nuclear power or weapons.

A similar set of uncertainties helped provoke the U.S. war with Iraq, which the Bush administration justified partly by positing that Baghdad was deliberately concealing nuclear weapons research from U.N. inspectors. The outcome of that invasion suggests caution, however, since U.S. troops were unable to find any convincing evidence of banned weapons work, and deposed Iraqi officials said they had been secretive to conceal from regional opponents that they had ended such work, not continued it.

In Iran's case, U.N. officials say, the new evidence does not prove that the scientists carried out plans to build a nuclear device, but shows that Fakhrizadeh and other scientists struggled to master associated technologies. Several of the scientists, including Fakhrizadeh, appear to have moved freely between military and civilian research venues.

The documents purport to show advanced research into a variety of nuclear-related technologies, including uranium ore processing, warhead modification and the precision-firing of high explosives of the type used to detonate a nuclear device. Other documents point to attempts by civilian scientists to purchase sensitive equipment of the kind Iran would eventually use in its uranium enrichment plants.

Some of the new documents came from inside Iran, according to European officials familiar with them. None specifically include the word "nuclear," and IAEA officials say there is no evidence that any of the plans advanced beyond the paper stage.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran, a major opposition group that claims to have informants inside Iran's government, contends in materials provided to The Washington Post that nuclear weapons design work persists and has migrated to universities and schools. But U.S. and U.N. officials say they cannot corroborate the group's claim.

Instead, U.S. intelligence officials have said that Iran worked on weapons design in the past but halted the research in 2003. But government officials and weapons experts acknowledge concerns over Iran's refusal to answer questions or explain what key scientists are doing now.

"It's not the first time we've seen individuals who seem to wear white hats but are working on very different projects behind the scenes," said Leonard Spector, a former Energy Department nonproliferation official who is now deputy director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. He noted that other countries, particularly Pakistan, have used civilian scientists as cover for secret nuclear research.

Although the IAEA has not publicly described the contents of the new documents, the U.N. Security Council adopted new sanctions against Iran last week, in part because of what European leaders described as Tehran's "abysmal" performance in answering the IAEA's questions about past nuclear research.

"As long as Iran's choice remains one of non-cooperation, we for our part will remain determined to demonstrate the costs and consequences of that choice," British Ambassador Simon Smith said in a statement last week on behalf of Britain, Germany and France, which have taken the lead in trying to persuade Iran to stop making enriched uranium, a critical ingredient used in both nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants.

Calls placed to Iran's U.N. mission in New York were not returned.

Fakhrizadeh is prominent in several of the documents, according to two officials who have seen them. A personnel chart listed him as the senior authority overseeing all the research projects. Another paper, purportedly signed by Fakhrizadeh, establishes spending guidelines for the research programs, while a third sets rules for communication among scientists, suggesting, for example, that researchers avoid putting their names on correspondence that might eventually become public, according to a Europe-based diplomat who viewed the documents.

Fakhrizadeh, 47, who became a Revolutionary Guard Corps member after the overthrow of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in 1979, is a former leader of the Physics Research Center, which U.N. officials say was heavily involved in drawing up plans and acquiring parts for Iran's first uranium enrichment plant. He was among eight Iranians placed under international travel and financial restrictions under the terms of a U.N. resolution adopted last year because of his alleged ties to "nuclear or ballistic missile" research, U.N. records show.

According to the Iranian opposition group, in addition to holding the university post, Fakhrizadeh recently was appointed the director of a new Center for Readiness and New Defense Technology, which is in Tehran and is under direct military command. Several of his deputies have been reassigned to nuclear departments at ostensibly civilian schools such as Shahid Beheshti University, also in Tehran.

"Fakhrizadeh is a key person, but he is not the only player," said Mohammad Mohaddessin, chairman of the opposition group's foreign affairs committee.

Notorious Arms Dealer Busted in Bangkok

Viktor Bout Sold Guns Around the World

BANGKOK, Thailand, March 6, 2008 —

One of the world's most notorious arms dealers was arrested today in Bangkok on allegations that he supplied Colombian rebels with arms and explosives, Thai police said.

Russian Viktor Bout was arrested in his hotel room in the capital, Bangkok, on a warrant issued by a Thai court, said Police Lt. Gen. Pongpat Chayapan, head of the Crime Suppression Bureau.

The warrant stemmed from an earlier one issued by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, he said.

Sources told ABC News that Bout was arrested during negotiations to sell weapons in a sting orchestrated by a DEA special operations unit.

A U.S. Embassy spokesman "congratulated" Thai police for the arrest.

Sources told ABC News that the DEA expects Bout to be turned over to U.S. custody and a DEA news conference is scheduled for later today.

Though Bout was nabbed on drug charges, he was infamous as one of the world's leading arms dealers. The Nicholas Cage character in the movie "Lord of War" was based on Bout.

Police Col. Petcharat Sengchai told reporters that Bout was wanted on charges of "procuring weapons and explosives for Colombian rebels" known as the Revolutionary Armed Forced of Colombia or FARC.

The leftist FARC has been fighting Colombia's government for more than four decades, funds itself largely through the cocaine trade and kidnaps for ransom and political ends.

Bout, a murky figure rarely seen in public, has also been accused of trafficking weapons to Central and West Africa since the early 1990s. U.N. reports say he set up a network of more than 50 aircraft around the world and trade experts have said the illicit diamond trade was likely one source of funds for his smuggled arms shipments.

Although Bout has been investigated by police in several countries, he has never been prosecuted for arms dealing.

U.S. authorities are most interested in Bout for his relationship with the Taliban and al Qaeda during the late 1990s and possibly even later.

He is suspected of having smuggled weapons to the Taliban and breaking the U.N. air embargo. Many U.S. officials believe his planes carried arms into Afghanistan and carried heroin out of the country.

A 2005 report by Amnesty International, a Britain-based human rights watchdog, alleged Bout was "the most prominent foreign businessman" involved in trafficking arms to U.N.-embargoed destinations from Bulgaria, Slovakia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan and other countries.

The report also implicated Bout in transferring "very large quantities of arms" from Ukraine that were delivered to Uganda via Tanzania aboard a Greek-registered cargo ship.

In 2003, the United Nations imposed an arms embargo on the provinces of North and South Kivu and the Ituri regions of eastern Congo and also on groups that were not a part of the 2003 peace agreement for the region.

ABC's Richard Esposito and Pierre Thomas contributed to this report

Colombia Says Rebels Sought to Make Dirty Bomb

By SIMON ROMERO

CARACAS, Venezuela — Colombia added a new accusation against the FARC rebel group on Tuesday, saying Colombian forces had found evidence that the rebels had been seeking the ingredients to make a radioactive dirty bomb.

The accusation, made by Colombia’s vice president, Francisco Santos, at a United Nations disarmament meeting in Geneva, represents a sharp verbal escalation surrounding the three-country dispute involving Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador. The quarrel began over the weekend when Colombian forces hunted down and killed a Colombian guerrilla leader on Ecuadorean soil.

Material found on a laptop computer recovered in that raid provided the basis for Mr. Santos’s accusations about a dirty bomb, a weapon that combines highly radioactive material with conventional explosives to disperse deadly dust that people would inhale.

“This shows that these terrorist groups, supported by the economic power provided by drug trafficking, constitute a grave threat not just to our country but to the entire Andean region and Latin America," Mr. Santos said in a statement that was posted in Spanish on the disarmament conference’s web site. The rebels were “negotiating to get radioactive material, the primary base for making dirty weapons of destruction and terrorism,” he said.

It was unclear from Mr. Santos’s statement whom the rebels were negotiating with.

Mr. Santos based his claim on information provided Monday in Bogotá by Colombia’s national police chief about a deal involving the FARC’s negotiations for 110 pounds of uranium.

The tension further escalated when President Álvaro Uribe of Colombia said Tuesday that he would file a complaint with the International Criminal Court against President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, accusing him of providing financial assistance to the FARC, which stands for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, Colombia’s largest rebel group.

In another reaction to Colombia’s cross-border raid, Elías Jaua, Venezuela’s agriculture minister, said that Venezuela was planning to close its border with Colombia to halt commercial trade.

On Monday, Ecuador broke off diplomatic relations with Colombia, and Venezuela expelled Colombia’s ambassador and other diplomats.

The three countries have been swapping accusations of treachery and deceit in the dispute over the killing of the guerrilla leader, Raúl Reyes, by Colombian forces.

The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry, in ordering the expulsion of the Colombian Embassy’s diplomatic personnel, said it was acting “in defense of the sovereignty of the fatherland and the dignity of the Venezuelan people.”

President Rafael Correa of Ecuador, who expelled Colombia’s ambassador over the weekend, went a step further on Monday by breaking off diplomatic relations. The move was not unexpected after his claim that Mr. Uribe of Colombia was lying about the nature of the raid.

Venezuela and Ecuador sent troops to the Colombian border on Sunday in response to Colombia’s military raid on the rebel encampment in the jungle about a mile inside Ecuador. Colombian forces killed 21 guerrillas in the FARC.

In addition to killing Mr. Reyes, Colombia said it had recovered his laptop computer. Its contents have since been at the center of several allegations.

At a news conference in Bogotá, Gen. Oscar Naranjo, Colombia’s police chief, accused Venezuela of channeling $300 million to the FARC, based on what he said was information obtained from Mr. Reyes’s computer.

General Naranjo also said computer documents showed financial support from the FARC for Mr. Chávez of Venezuela, going back to the time Mr. Chávez spent in prison after an unsuccessful coup attempt in Caracas in 1992.

“This implies more than cozying up, but an armed alliance between the FARC and the Venezuelan government,” General Naranjo said.

Venezuela’s government, which sent tank units to its border with Colombia in a response to the Colombian raid, denied aiding the rebels. “We are used to the Colombian government’s lies,” Vice President Ramón Carrizales said.

General Naranjo displayed photographs and documents he said had been taken from Mr. Reyes’s computer, but the context of the information was unclear.

Ecuador also rejected claims by Colombia of ties with the FARC, and sent 3,200 troops to Sucumbios, an Amazonian province near its border with Colombia where the attack on the FARC’s camp took place.

Mr. Correa, the Ecuadorean president, said the Colombian rebels had been killed in their sleep “in their pajamas,” and not in the heat of pursuit as Colombia’s security forces had said. Ecuadorean emergency officials recovered several wounded members of the FARC, transporting them to hospitals in Quito.

Faced with one of Latin America’s worst diplomatic crises in recent years, the Organization of American States said it would convene a meeting in Washington on Tuesday to try to prevent an escalation of the dispute between Colombia, a staunch Bush administration ally, and the leftist governments of Ecuador and Venezuela.

Even as Colombia’s government offered details on the FARC’s relations with Venezuela and Ecuador, Colombian officials said Monday that they would not send more troops to the borders with the two countries in response to the mobilizations ordered by Mr. Chávez and Mr. Correa.

Because of the FARC’s resilient history at the heart of Colombia’s war, it has had contact with insurgencies and governments throughout Latin America and beyond, including the United States, which classifies the FARC and other armed groups in Colombia as terrorists.

For instance, in 1998 a Clinton administration official, Philip T. Chicola, then the State Department’s director of Andean affairs, had a clandestine meeting with Mr. Reyes in Costa Rica in an effort to establish a way of communicating with the FARC during times of crisis.

The meeting was described in a diplomatic cable written by Mr. Chicola in January 1999 and declassified in 2004. Also present at the meeting was Mr. Reyes’s wife, Olga Marín, who is believed to be the daughter of the FARC’s top commander, Manuel Marulanda, and also reported to be present, and possibly wounded, in the raid on the jungle camp on Saturday.

The Bush administration on Monday reiterated its support for Colombia’s struggle against the FARC and cocaine trafficking, but called for a negotiated solution to the crisis.

“This, for us, is an issue between the governments of Colombia and Ecuador,” said Tom H. Casey, deputy spokesman at the State Department, in a briefing to reporters on Monday in Washington. “We believe it’s appropriate for them to work that out through diplomatic discussion.”

Still, what began over the weekend as an operation by Colombian forces in Ecuadorean territory has evolved into a wider regional matter.

“Our view of this issue right now is that there is no doubt that there is a territorial violation and we condemn it,” said Celso Amorim, Brazil’s foreign minister, speaking to reporters in Brasília. “It raises insecurity problems in all countries of the region, mostly in the smaller ones.”

And amid the Colombian accusations, Mr. Chávez remains at the center of the increasing tension, with his political opponents here criticizing his decision to mobilize troops and fighter jets in a show of Venezuelan force.

“If anyone has to protest, it is Ecuador’s government, as the military incident took place in Ecuadorean territory, not ours,” Teodoro Petkoff, the publisher of the newspaper Tal Cual, said in an editorial. “Venezuela has nothing to complain about.”

Jenny Carolina González contributed reporting from Bogotá, Colombia, and Uta Harnischfeger from Zurich.

European powers drop bid to push resolution against Iran

The Associated Press
Tuesday, March 4, 2008

VIENNA: Facing objections by Russia, China and developing nations, European powers abandoned on Tuesday an attempt to introduce a resolution on Iran's nuclear defiance at a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Western diplomats said.

Opponents felt a resolution against Iran would be superfluous a day after the UN Security Council toughened sanctions on Iran and could provoke a Tehran to reduce, not increase, cooperation with UN inspectors, they said.

"The board doesn't need to compete with the Security Council," said an Asian diplomat on the 35-nation governing board of the IAEA. Almost half the governors are from developing nations.

Britain, France and Germany scrapped the resolution after concluding that their goals had been achieved by the Security Council and there was no point risking a schism among UN nuclear policy makers that Iran might exploit, Western diplomats added.

"Iran thought it could manipulate the IAEA to avoid a Security Council resolution while moving forward to develop its uranium enrichment capability," Gregory Schulte, U.S. ambassador to the IAEA, told reporters.

"As the resolution adopted yesterday in New York shows, Iran clearly failed. In fact what the resolution does from a Vienna perspective is to underscore that Iran's file remains open and to fully support the IAEA in its continuing investigation of outstanding issues, particularly with respect to weaponization."

In Tehran, the government rejected the resolution imposing new sanctions as "worthless" and vowed to move ahead with its uranium enrichment program.

"This resolution is contrary to the spirit and articles of the International Atomic Energy Agency," said a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Muhammad Ali Hosseini, according to the official press agency IRNA.

"It has been issued based on political motivations and a biased approach. It is worthless and unacceptable."

He said the sanctions would "have no impact on the resolve and determination of the Iranian nation and government to fulfill its legitimate rights in continuing its peaceful nuclear activities within the framework of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty."

Iran has pursued a uranium-enrichment program it says is meant only to generate electricity. But its history of nuclear secrecy and continued curbs on IAEA inspections stoke fears it could turn enrichment technology to yielding nuclear arms.

In imposing more far-reaching sanctions by a 14-to-0 vote, the Security Council cited Iran's defiance of demands to suspend enrichment, failure to fully explain past nuclear activity and continued restrictions on IAEA inspections.

The third round of sanctions approved Monday orders a freeze on assets of more Iranian officials and companies with links to the country's nuclear and missile program, and for the first time bans trade with Iran in some goods with both civilian and military uses.

Last week the IAEA's chief of nonproliferation safeguards presented to board diplomats detailed intelligence suggesting Iran had tried to "weaponize" nuclear materials.

He revealed diagrams, slides and video, much of them from a laptop removed from Iran by a defector, indicating administrative links between projects to process uranium, test high explosives and modify a missile cone for a nuclear payload.

The IAEA director, Mohamed ElBaradei, opening the weeklong governors session Monday, pressed Iran to cooperate with the agency inquiry into the allegations, signaling the IAEA would not take Tehran's flat denials for a final answer.

Iran's ambassador to the IAEA repeated on Tuesday that Tehran would have nothing more to do with the inquiry and would never suspend its nuclear program, but would keep its declared enrichment sites under IAEA monitoring despite the new sanctions.

Ali Asghar Soltanieh noted that ElBaradei had certified Iran had resolved six outstanding questions about its past nuclear activity and said arms studies did not count because they were "fabrications" of Iran's chief foe, the United States.

"The alleged studies were thoroughly reviewed in two rounds of talks, and we gave our final assessment," he told reporters invited to a slide presentation held to counter the IAEA one last week.

"The issue is over."

He offered no substance in the presentation, entitled "A Short Glance at Iran's Peaceful Nuclear Activities," to refute the intelligence material.

Security Council Adds Sanctions Against Iran

By WARREN HOGE and ELAINE SCIOLINO

UNITED NATIONS — The Security Council on Monday adopted its third resolution imposing sanctions on Iran for its refusal to cease enriching uranium, an activity that Western nations say is designed to build nuclear weapons.

The previous two measures gained unanimous support of the 15-member panel, but in Monday’s balloting, Indonesia abstained, saying it “remained to be convinced of the efficacy of adopting additional sanctions at this juncture.” Fourteen countries voted in favor.

The resolution authorizes inspections of cargo to and from Iran that is suspected of carrying prohibited equipment, tightens the monitoring of Iranian financial institutions and extends travel bans and asset freezes against persons and companies involved in the nuclear program.

It adds 13 names to the existing list of 5 individuals and 12 companies subject to travel and asset restrictions. The new names include people with direct responsibility for building fast-spinning centrifuges that enrich uranium ore and a brigadier general engaged in “efforts to get round the sanctions” in the two earlier resolutions.

The new measure also bans all trade and supply of so-called dual-use items, materials and technologies that can be adapted for military as well as civilian ends.

Earlier Monday in Vienna, Mohamed ElBaradei, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations nuclear monitor, said that newly disclosed intelligence reports that Iran had secretly researched how to make nuclear weapons were of “serious concern” and would be pursued by his office.

“Iran continues to maintain that these alleged weaponization studies related to conventional weapons only are fabricated,” Dr. ElBaradei said in a speech to the agency’s 35-country policy-making body. “However a full-fledged examination of this issue has yet to take place.”

The studies were described last Monday, in a briefing for the agency’s 35-country governing body by Olli Heinonen, the agency’s senior inspector.

They included sketches and a video that appeared to have come from Iran’s own military laboratories, and Mr. Heinonen said they showed work “not consistent with any application other than the development of a nuclear weapon.”

In a thinly veiled criticism of Iran, Dr. ElBaradei said, “I urge Iran to be as active and cooperative as possible in working with the agency to clarify this matter of serious concern.”

Iran says that the agency’s findings support its claim that its nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes, and it has rejected all suggestions that it was studying how to make nuclear weapons.

Iran’s ambassador to the agency, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, called the intelligence data “forged and fabricated” and denounced the new Council resolution Monday as “irresponsible” and “an arrow aiming at the heart of” the atomic energy agency.

Iran argues that its program is devoted solely to producing fuel for nuclear reactors that generate electricity. The United States and its European allies on the council contend the real purpose is to make Iran an atomic power, and they say they are determined to prevent that from happening.

The resolution voted Monday was originally scheduled for a decision on Friday, but its two sponsors, Britain and France, delayed consideration in the hope of getting as close to unanimity as possible. In addition to Indonesia, three other Council countries - Libya, South Africa and Vietnam - had expressed reservations.

To address them, the final version included last minute language changes making it clear that cargo inspections must conform to local and international laws and stressing the central role of the International Atomic Energy Agency and evidence in the latest report from Dr. ElBaradei Feb. 22 that Iran was cooperating with the agency.

The resolution extends the reach of punishments in the two earlier measures, adopted in December, 2006 and March, 2007, but it does not make them any tougher.

The text was drawn up after months of talks among the Council’s five permanent members - Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — and Germany, which is not a Council member.

It repeats a pledge from the six countries to establish full relations and economic cooperation with Iran should it agree to suspend enrichment-related and reprocessing activities.

In Vienna, Britain, France and Germany said they were preparing a draft resolution critical of Iran that could be adopted by the agency’s policy-making body later this week. The United States, Canada, Australia and Japan already have indicated privately they would support such a move.

It would be the first time the board had passed such a resolution on Iran since it sent the Iran to the Security Council for review two years ago.

The United States, which in the past has criticized Dr. ElBaradei for not being tough enough on Iran, expressed support for this approach. “Despite some progress in addressing past issues, troubling questions remain about Iranian activities that strongly suggest a clandestine weapons-related program,” Gregory L. Schulte, the American envoy to the agency, told reporters in Vienna.

He added, “Between the indications of weapons work, which would constitute a violation of Iran’s treaty obligations and Iran’s blatant violations of Security Council resolutions, there is strong reason for Iran’s file to remain open both in New York and in Vienna.”

Warren Hoge reported from the United Nations, and Elaine Sciolino from Paris.

North Korea Criticizes Military Exercise

By CHOE SANG-HUN

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea said Monday that annual American-South Korean military exercises that began over the weekend could further delay progress on ending the North’s nuclear weapons programs.

Although such criticism from the Communist country is routine, it dampened hopes for warmer ties between the United States and North Korea — hopes that had been raised after the New York Philharmonic’s concert last week in the North Korean capital., Pyongyang.

News also emerged from Pyongyang over the weekend that the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, who did not attend the Philharmonic’s concert, paid a rare visit to the Chinese Embassy on Saturday for “cordial talks” — a move that suggested that Mr. Kim was striking a delicate diplomatic balance between the big powers.

The military exercise, which involves tens of thousands of United States and South Korean troops and the Nimitz, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, was “an exercise for invasion to trigger a nuclear war,” the North’s official Korean Central News Agency quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying.

“This nuclear threat won’t work with us, but will only put the brakes on the denuclearization process on the Korean peninsula,” the unnamed spokesman was quoted as saying.

He said North Korea would “further bolster all its deterrent forces,” a term the country often uses to refer to its nuclear arsenal.

The United States and South Korea have been staging annual joint war games for years, and each year North Korea criticizes them.

This year’s weeklong drill, which started Sunday, comes at a delicate time for North Korea.

Frustration in Washington is rising over North Korea’s delays in giving a full accounting of its nuclear programs. In Seoul, Lee Myung-bak, a conservative politician who has championed a tougher stance toward the North, was sworn in as president on Feb. 25.

On Sunday, a North Korean military official was quoted by the official news media as saying that the country was ready to strike back against the military exercises, using “all our means we have prepared at a high cost.”

Assistant Secretary of State Christopher R. Hill, the top American negotiator on North Korea, flew to Beijing on Saturday and met with Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei of China to discuss how to restart the stalled nuclear disarmament talks with Pyongyang. But he was stood up by North Korea’s top nuclear negotiator, Kim Kye-gwan.

Still, Mr. Hill held out hope for resuming the so-called six-party talks, which involve North and South Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russia. “Time is short so I hope we can get on with that this month,” Mr. Hill, who is on a 16-day trip to Asia, said Monday at a news conference in Hanoi, Reuters reported.

The disarmament talks are bogged down over Pyongyang’s failure to meet the agreed-upon deadline of Dec. 31 to make a complete declaration of its nuclear programs.

Analysts say the main sticking point is North Korea’s reluctance to state whether it tried to enrich uranium or to transfer nuclear technology to Syria.

U.N. Says Iran May Not Have Come Clean on Nuclear Past

By Joby Warrick and Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, March 2, 2008; A16

Iranian documents obtained by the United Nations' nuclear watchdog strongly suggest that Iran was working on a nuclear weapons design as recently as four years ago, U.N. officials disclosed last week in a private briefing.

The documents suggest that Iran's research on nuclear weapons continued for several months after U.S. intelligence officials say the effort was suspended, the International Atomic Energy Agency's top nuclear security expert told diplomats in Vienna, according to notes taken by a participant.

Olli Heinonen, the IAEA's deputy director general, was elaborating on a public report released Feb. 22 that questioned whether Iran had come fully clean about its nuclear past. In the report, the watchdog agency said Tehran had not credibly explained documents that appeared to point to research programs devoted to uranium processing, high explosives and missiles design -- all of which can be used in making nuclear weapons. Iran has denied ever seeking nuclear weapons and has dismissed the documents as fakes.

In the technical briefing Monday with diplomats from IAEA member states, Heinonen offered new details about the Iranian documents, according to notes obtained by The Washington Post. He revealed that the IAEA had collected corroborating evidence, from the intelligence agencies of several countries, that pointed to sophisticated research into some key technologies needed to build and deliver a nuclear bomb.

Some of the documents, for example, described studies on modifying Iran's Shahab missile to allow it to accommodate a large warhead, which would detonate 600 meters above its target. The feature would make sense only if the warhead was nuclear, Heinonen suggested.

Iran now faces a tougher challenge in convincing the world that it has never sought nuclear arms, according to a nuclear weapons expert who reviewed the briefing notes.

"The information is much harder to refute," said David Albright, a former U.N. weapons inspector and president of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security. "It seems to point to work on nuclear weapons -- even if the program wasn't coherent and even if a decision was never made to actually build a weapon."

Iran's U.N. ambassador, Mohammad Khazee, told reporters Thursday that the new allegations being studied by the IAEA are "baseless" and that Iran has never sought to acquire nuclear weapons.

The U.N. Security Council is expected to vote tomorrow on a third resolution imposing travel and financial sanctions on Iranian individuals and institutions. The measures are intended to pressure Tehran into suspending its enrichment of uranium and other nuclear programs that have a potential military use.

A Security Council diplomat said Iran's top envoy to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, reacted angrily to last week's briefing. He said that the documents could have been manufactured by any student who was "paid $100" and that the IAEA had exceeded its mandate as a technical agency by engaging in intelligence activities.

U.S. warns Europe of Iran missiles

Tehran is close to building arms capable of reaching major capitals, says an official promoting a defense system.
By Kim Murphy
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

February 29, 2008

LONDON — With American officials working to close a deal on a missile defense system in Europe, the head of the U.S. program warned Thursday that Iran was within two or three years of producing a missile that could reach most European capitals.

"They're already flying missiles that exceed what they would need in a fight with Israel. Why? Why do they continue this progression in terms of range of missiles? It's something we need to think about," Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry Obering III, director of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, told a conference here on missile defense.

The message was aimed at staving off skepticism in Europe and clinching a deal for radar and interceptor sites in the Czech Republic and Poland. It underscored increasing concern among defense experts that while attention has focused on nuclear proliferation, nations such as China, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan and India have made significant strides in developing missiles that can reach far beyond their immediate neighbors.

"Our short-range defenses could protect Rome and Athens," Obering said, but he warned that London, Paris and Brussels would remain vulnerable "against an Iranian [intermediate-range missile] threat."

Many in Europe have expressed doubts that Iran would target European cities. But Obering said it was possible to imagine as little as seven years from now a nuclear-armed Iran shutting off oil shipments in the Persian Gulf, or Al Qaeda militants seizing freighters off Europe and arming them with nuclear-tipped Scud missiles "to punish the West for invasion of Muslim holy lands."

The timing of the warning was hardly coincidental, as Bush administration officials this week were attempting through talks in Washington to clear the last hurdles for agreements with Poland and the Czech Republic on the U.S.-run system of interceptor missiles and radar in Europe.

The Czech Foreign Ministry official in charge of security policy, Veronika Kuchynova Smigolova, predicted that the deal could be signed as early as next month's NATO summit in Bucharest, the Romanian capital, and ratified by the Czech Parliament by summer.

But Russia remains vigorously opposed to what it sees as a permanent new U.S. military infrastructure near its borders in Central Europe, and there are concerns on the continent about further alienating Iran and Russia. Some critics have questioned the wisdom of allowing the U.S., rather than the European Union or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, to take the lead in defending Europe against such missiles.

Malcolm Chalmers, a onetime foreign policy advisor to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, said the decision to locate the system in former Warsaw Pact nations may have sparked opposition in Moscow that otherwise "would be much less vociferous."

"Did we only deploy it there because that's the only place available?" said Chalmers, who is now a fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, which sponsored Thursday's conference.

Some Europeans have questioned whether Iran represents a genuine threat to Europe, and have accused the Bush administration of undermining existing arms control agreements by proceeding unilaterally on missile defense.

"This is firstly and foremostly an American choice and should be taken as such," said Yves Boyer, deputy director of the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris. "It has not been requested by any European state and . . . it does not answer the critical need for Europeans to process their own assessment of strategic capabilities."

Jane Sharp, senior research fellow in defense studies at King's College London, said the Bush administration had cost the West a once-cooperative relationship with Russia.

"Even if ballistic missile defense did look credible to a potential adversary, they're still destabilizing, because the logical response for any adversary for a credible defense is to acquire more offensive capability -- this is what the Russians are telling us every day," she said.

But reflecting the wariness of Russia long present among the European Union's newest members -- Poland has made it clear that it fears attack from Russia much more than from Iran -- Smigolova said the proposed defense program would restore equality of security on both sides of the Atlantic.

"Russia knows very well that one radar and 10 interceptors won't change the strategic balance and doesn't present any real military problem for them," she said. "But for them, a U.S. presence in Central Europe is the final confirmation of the loss of their influence over this part of Europe."

Smigolova said the Czech government was "well aware" of widespread public opposition to the system in that country and in Europe, but would be pushing to ratify the agreement after remaining concerns over environmental protections were worked out.

Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek met Wednesday at the White House with President Bush but withheld his approval for the system, citing remaining differences on environmental standards for the radar equipment. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk is scheduled to visit Bush on March 10.

U.S. negotiators are due in Poland today to discuss modernizing that country's military, a key Polish request in the missile defense talks.

Bush said in a news conference Thursday that he still hoped to persuade the Russian government to drop its opposition. "I believe it's in our interests to try to figure out a way for the Russians to understand the system is not aimed at them, but aimed at the real threats of the 21st century," Bush said.

U.S. officials and many European security experts have said the rate at which new nations are obtaining the capability to build longer-range missiles, with increasingly sophisticated maneuvering ability, is greatly expanding.

kim.murphy@latimes.com

Times staff writers Paul Richter in Washington and Janet Stobart in London contributed to this report.

Iran says U.S. work plan intelligence fake

Reuters
Sunday, February 24, 2008; 9:44 AM

VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran said on Sunday it had cleared up all past outstanding issues over its nuclear program with the United Nations nuclear watchdog and accused the United States of providing intelligence that was fake.

"The work plan is finished," Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency, told Reuters, referring to a pact between Tehran and the IAEA to answer outstanding questions about its nuclear activities one by one.

In its latest report published on Friday, the IAEA said Iran had responded to questions and clarified issues raised in the context of the work plan struck in August, with the exception of alleged studies into the possible weaponization of nuclear materials.

The agency said it confronted Iran for the first time with Western intelligence reports of work linked to making atomic bombs, adding Tehran had failed to provide satisfactory answers.

Soltanieh said the intelligence, coming mainly from the U.S. and a laptop spirited out of Iran in 2005, was fake. "This is 100 percent fabricated and forged," said Soltanieh.

Some of the documents had only been shown to Tehran in mid-February -- after it had already given its final assessment on the outstanding issues to the agency and in any case too late to be addressed in time for the February report, said Soltanieh.

"At the eve of every board of governors they brought up new allegations against Iran and they created a new political environment," Soltanieh said. "We cannot permit an endless process to go on," he said.

The IAEA's 35-nation board of governors is scheduled to meet March 3-7.

Western powers suspect Iran is seeking to build atomic bombs, but Tehran insists it is seeking to master nuclear technology so it can make fuel for a planned network of nuclear power plants and save its huge oil and gas reserves for export.

(Reporting by Karin Strohecker)

U.S. Seeks Support For Sanctioning Iran

Nuclear Issues Unresolved, IAEA Says

By Joby Warrick and Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, February 23, 2008; A11

The Bush administration stepped up its campaign for tougher sanctions against Iran yesterday after a U.N. report concluded that Tehran had not fully come clean about past activities that U.S. experts say were part of a secret nuclear weapons program.

The report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) also said Iran is making steady progress in producing enriched uranium -- a crucial ingredient in both nuclear weapons and commercial nuclear power -- in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions. But the nuclear watchdog reported no evidence that Iran is seeking to build a nuclear device.

The mixed verdict provided fresh ammunition for a White House that is seeking to rally international support for a third U.N. resolution imposing sanctions against the Islamic republic. Hours after the release of the report in Vienna, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said there were now "very strong" grounds for moving quickly at the United Nations to pass such a resolution.

Iran "is clearly making all kinds of statements that suggest that it's not going to deal with the will of the international community," Rice said. "It hasn't answered questions about past activities in covert programs that they say they didn't have."

As she spoke, the State Department was beginning to lobby allies to pass the long-delayed sanctions resolution against Iran. The department announced it will host talks on Monday among the world's major powers, including Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany, in the hope of getting the resolution passed.

The IAEA concluded that Iran had provided answers to most questions about its nuclear past, with a key exception: It has not yet responded credibly to U.S. allegations that it conducted weapons research into high explosives and missile design in the 1990s.

Those allegations, based on documents taken from a stolen Iranian laptop in 2004, are part of a highly detailed case made by U.S. officials to show that Iran had conducted research into building nuclear weapons through the 1990s. U.S. intelligence agencies concluded last year that Iran ended its weapons research in 2003.

IAEA officials confronted Iran this month with evidence of its past weapons research, as supplied by the Bush administration. But Iran, which has never acknowledged possessing nuclear weapons, told IAEA officials that the U.S. claims were "baseless" and dismissed the supporting documents as "fabrications," the IAEA report said. The agency said it plans to share original copies of the U.S. evidence with Iran, following a White House decision last week to allow Iran to inspect the materials on which the U.S. claims are based.

Resolving questions about the laptop documents is key to understanding "the full nature of Iran's past nuclear program," a senior IAEA official said. "We have moved forward, but we are not yet at the end of the road."

In the Iranian capital, the country's top nuclear negotiator hailed the report as a vindication of Tehran's nuclear policies. "The report showed that our activities are peaceful," Saeed Jalili said at a news conference. "From our viewpoint, this issue has ended."

Iranian state television showed celebratory clips of the Iranian flag, the country's unfinished nuclear reactor at Bushehr and colorful flowers. The West "wanted to say that Iran's nuclear activities had been diverted from the peaceful path. Today the agency . . . accepted all of these [allegations] were false," Jalili said.

But even as Iran toasted its success, the Bush administration was setting a course for passage of a sanctions resolution within two weeks. Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said the IAEA's findings strengthen the U.S. case for sanctions while demonstrating that Tehran continues to violate U.N. resolutions calling for the suspension of uranium enrichment.

The report contained a "number of things that were quite disturbing," Khalilzad said, citing Iran's refusal to corroborate U.S. claims that it had operated a military program for nuclear weapons. "They did not own up to it," Khalilzad told reporters at a luncheon at his New York residence. "They did not come clean."

"Yes, they have answered some questions and made some progress on some issues," he said. "But those are not the most central issues, and on the most central issues of the past, there is no progress. In fact, things are getting worse."

The debate over sanctions is expected to be intense. Four countries currently on the Security Council, South Africa, Libya, Indonesia and Vietnam, have expressed reservations about a third resolution against Iran. Opposition from Russia and China had forced the White House to scale back plans for harsh sanctions that would target Iran's military. Instead, a weakened compromise crafted at talks in Berlin on Jan. 22 calls for largely voluntary steps in monitoring financial transactions, arms sales and travel by senior officials linked to proliferation.

Staff writer Colum Lynch at the United Nations and special correspondent Thomas Erdbrink in Tehran contributed to this report.

Pakistan eases restrictions on A Q Khan

3 Jul, 2007 l 0041 hrs ISTlAP

ISLAMABAD: Authorities have eased the virtual house arrest imposed on A Q Khan, the disgraced scientist who sold Pakistan's nuclear secrets to Iran, North Korea and Libya, officials said on Monday.

In his first public comment in years, Khan said that he was recovering from treatment for cancer, but declined to discuss other topics. Khan, the architect of Pakistan's nuclear programme, confessed in 2004 to heading an international ring of smugglers that supplied sensitive technology to Iran and others.

Pervez Musharraf pardoned him while confining him to his villa in the capital, Islamabad. The house is kept under close guard and he has been permitted few visitors.

However, two senior government officials said that the restrictions were eased several months ago and he can now meet friends and relatives either at his home or elsewhere in Pakistan. "There were several restrictions on Dr Abdul Qadir Khan, many of which have been eased. He is virtually a free citizen,'' said one of the officials, who is attached to the nuclear programme.

However, the second official said Khan was only allowed to meet associates and relatives on a list approved by officials. His freedom of movement was still curbed because of security concerns, according to the officials, both of whom asked not to be named.

The foreign ministry said there has been no change in Khan's status. Asked whether the government had relaxed restrictions on Khan, an official said "there is no change in his status. He continues to lead a quiet life with his family. He meets his friends. He talks to people. This was happening even before the news reports," she said.

Overhauling Intelligence

By Mike McConnell

From Foreign Affairs, July/August 2007
Summary: Sixty years ago, the National Security Act created a U.S. intelligence infrastructure that would help win the Cold War. But on 9/11, the need to reform that system became painfully clear. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is now spearheading efforts to enable the intelligence community to better shield the United States from the new threats it faces.

Mike McConnell is Director of National Intelligence of the United States.

INTELLIGENT REFORM

Before World War II, the United States' defense, intelligence, and foreign policy apparatus were fragmented, as befitted a country with a limited role on the world stage. With U.S. entry into the war, interagency collaboration developed out of crisis-driven necessity. Wartime arrangements, although successful, were ad hoc. And after the war, President Harry Truman and Congress realized that the United States could not meet its new responsibilities without a national security structure that rationalized decision-making and integrated the intelligence and military establishments. It was against this background that on July 26, 1947 -- 60 years ago this summer -- Truman signed the National Security Act, a seminal piece of legislation for the U.S. intelligence community that laid the foundation for a robust peacetime intelligence infrastructure.

With the proper tools and public support and the help of allies, the United States built the world's premier intelligence establishment. It put spy planes in the sky, satellites into space, and listening posts in strategic locations around the world. It also invested in its people, developing a professional cadre of analysts, case officers, linguists, technicians, and program managers and trained them in foreign languages, the sciences, and area studies.

But by the time the Cold War ended, the intelligence establishment that had served Washington so well in the second half of the twentieth century was sorely in need of change. The post-Cold War "peace dividend" led to a reduction of intelligence staffing by 22 percent between fiscal years 1989 and 2001. Only now is staffing getting back to pre-Cold War levels. The National Security Act mandated that information be shared up the chain of command but not horizontally with other agencies. At the time of the act's passing, little thought was given to the need for a national-level intelligence apparatus in Washington that could synthesize information from across the government to inform policymakers and help support real-time tactical decisions. That reality, coupled with practices that led to a "stovepiping" of intelligence, arrested the growth of information sharing, collaboration, and integration -- patterns that still linger.

All these shortcomings have made the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (IRTPA) and the creation of the post of director of national intelligence (DNI) timely and appropriate but, by themselves, insufficient. Indeed, these measures must be only the beginning of a larger reform. The state-sponsored terrorist groups that threaten the United States are accompanied by an ever larger number of nonstate actors moving at increasing speeds across geographic and organizational boundaries. These new actors blur the traditional distinctions between foreign and domestic, intelligence-related and operational, strategic and tactical. To respond, Washington must forge a collaborative approach to intelligence that increases the agility of individual agencies and facilitates the effective coordination and integration of their work.

BRINGING DOWN WALLS

The post of DNI was created in 2005 to transform and modernize intelligence institutions, rules, and relationships to meet today's intelligence needs. Since 1947, new threats to U.S. national security have appeared, new missions have been developed, and new intelligence agencies have come into existence. A national intelligence authority was needed to focus, guide, and coordinate all the United States' 16 intelligence agencies to better provide timely, tailored intelligence support to a wide range of users with different, and often competing, requirements. The National Security Act sought to unify U.S. military and foreign intelligence efforts, but it did not envision or provide for today's requirement to integrate intelligence and law enforcement. Our main challenge in doing this is to strike the right balance between centralized direction and decentralized execution so that the Office of the DNI does not just end up being another layer of bureaucracy on top of the existing structures.

Ensuring the integration of foreign and domestic intelligence collection and analysis, as the 9/11 Commission recommended, is one of the most important responsibilities given to the Office of the DNI -- and a vital component of striking that balance. How to do this while respecting and protecting the rights Americans hold dear has been among the most difficult challenges facing the intelligence community. The difficulties have been compounded by the need to operate under the rigid barriers put in place by the National Security Act. Under the act, U.S. intelligence capabilities involve four distinct areas of responsibility: supporting the president, engaging in clandestine activities abroad in support of national policy goals, protecting the United States against Soviet penetration, and supporting strategic military operations. The director of central intelligence and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) are given responsibility over the first two, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) over the third, and military intelligence units over the fourth.

Today, sticking rigidly to these historical distinctions would be a serious impediment to protecting U.S. national security. The United States has enemies who seek to acquire and detonate weapons of mass destruction on U.S. soil. This is a constant and significant threat, and the intelligence community's work to thwart it must not be constrained by policies of the past. U.S. intelligence agencies started to integrate domestic and foreign intelligence operations after the first World Trade Center terrorist attack in 1993 and the follow-on attacks on the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996, the U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998, and the U.S.S. Cole in 2000. The work took on even greater urgency after the tragedy of 9/11. As a result, Americans today benefit from the combined intelligence work of the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI's National Security Branch -- an office that brings together the bureau's counterintelligence, counterterrorism, weapons of mass destruction, and intelligence components. The DHS and the FBI are providing a more integrated approach to intelligence in order to protect the United States from foreign and homegrown terrorists.

But even as the wall between domestic and foreign intelligence collection was coming down, a wall between foreign intelligence and law enforcement remained standing. In 1981, for example, the Drug Enforcement Administration was taken out of the intelligence community because of concerns that it would improperly mix intelligence and law enforcement. But that commingling was absolutely necessary: with its large law enforcement presence abroad, the DEA is able to contribute unique narcotics information and overseas experience. Hence, last year, the DNI helped the DEA establish its Office of National Security Intelligence. This newest member of the U.S. intelligence community brings access, insights, and experience in foreign and domestic narcoterrorism.

Coordinating domestic and foreign intelligence continues to be a challenge. The intelligence community has an obligation to better identify and counter threats to Americans while still safeguarding their privacy. But the task is inherently a difficult one. New technology being developed by the Office of the DNI's chief information officer and chief technology officer to access and process vast amounts of digital data to find terrorist-related information is being overseen by the DNI's Privacy and Civil Liberties Office. Another challenge is determining how and when it is appropriate to conduct surveillance of a group of Americans who are, say, influenced by al Qaeda's jihadist philosophy. On one level, they are U.S. citizens engaging in free speech and associating freely with one another. On another, they could be plotting terrorist attacks that could kill hundreds of people.

COME TOGETHER

The DNI also needs to transform the culture of the intelligence community, which is presently characterized by a professional but narrow focus on individual agency missions. Each of the 16 organizations within the intelligence community has unique mandates and competencies. They also have their own cultures and mythologies, but no one agency can be effective on its own. To capture the benefits of collaboration, a new culture must be created for the entire intelligence community without destroying unique perspectives and capabilities.

The way to do so would be to follow the model provided by the Goldwater-Nichols reforms of the military in the late 1980s. The Goldwater-Nichols Act created a unified military establishment and, among other things, laid the foundations for a "joint" military. It created incentives for interservice collaboration (such as requiring joint service to achieve flag rank) and promoted joint training and development. What Goldwater-Nichols did for the military, IRTPA should provide the means to do for the U.S. intelligence community.

Greater collaboration is vital because no single agency has the capacity to survey all the available information. The U.S. intelligence community collects more than one billion pieces of information every day. Intelligence can only help inform and shape decisions if it is processed through the mind of an analyst who resolves any conflicts and ambiguities. For example, a piece of paper with a list found on a suspected terrorist -- known in the field as "pocket litter" -- could turn out to be a grocery list or a coded roster of associates. It takes an analyst trained in what to look for to tell the difference. U.S. intelligence agencies will never have enough analysts to fully examine all the data they collect, but the ones they do have can do their job better by developing new ways of thinking about analysis and information distribution in a more integrated community.

As the intelligence community grew during the Cold War, it sometimes acted like anything but a collaborative community. Analysts often did not know their counterparts at other agencies unless they reached out to them on their own. There were few processes in place to collaborate, share lessons learned and best practices, and exchange viewpoints. This approach may have worked during the Cold War, when strategic threats evolved slowly and various streams of analysis could proceed independently before being combined, but it cannot succeed today, when events evolve quickly and require rapid action.

Consider a recent example. In the spring of 2005, the CIA and the military's Northern Command received information about two passengers aboard a plane flying from the Middle East to Mexico that would shortly cross U.S. airspace. Because the flight was not operated by a U.S. carrier and was not scheduled to land in the United States, there was no requirement for the passenger list to be reviewed prior to takeoff. Although the airline's ticket agent thought the two passengers appeared suspicious, the flight departed before their names could be checked. The airline passed on the names and the flight information to U.S. authorities, however, and this information was funneled to the National Counterterrorism Center, the U.S. government's hub for all counterterrorism intelligence, where analysts can access more than 30 separate government computer networks carrying more than 80 unique data sources. Within hours, the NCTC found information indicating that the two passengers had been placed on a "no-fly list" immediately after 9/11 because they had lived in the United States in the 1990s, had connections to two of the 9/11 hijackers, and possessed pilot's licenses. Based on this information, the plane was denied entry into U.S. airspace, and the pilot decided to return to Europe. The intelligence community's real-time coordination and rapid-response capabilities were essential.

Interagency collaboration needs to be established at two levels: intelligence collection and intelligence analysis. To this end, the Office of the DNI is in the process of developing virtual communities of analysts who can securely exchange ideas and expertise across organizational boundaries and harness cutting-edge technology to find, access, and share information and analytic judgments. Analysts are increasingly using interactive online journals, such as classified blogs and wikis, to this end. Such tools enable experts adept at different disciplines to pool their knowledge, form virtual teams, and quickly make complete intelligence assessments. Interagency joint-duty programs are also being implemented so that personnel from any agency can benefit from the knowledge of the entire intelligence community. An example of progress thus far is the newly created Rapid Analytic Support and Expeditionary Response, or RASER, team, a group of relatively new analysts drawn from all the intelligence agencies who undertake special training so that they can react rapidly to crises, drive intelligence-collection efforts, and work as catalysts for increased integration. Starting this summer, this elite "special forces" analytic team will be ready to be deployed against some of the United States' hardest intelligence targets.

The U.S. intelligence community also needs to know where collection gaps exist, where it needs greater specific intelligence, and on what areas it is overly focused. Some gains have been made with the creation of mission managers -- a recommendation of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission -- who oversee and manage high-interest topics, such as North Korea, Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela, and counterterrorism, counterproliferation, and counterintelligence, for appropriate collection and analysis. The intelligence community is also investing in more in-depth and long-range analysis so that analysts can dig deeper into issues of concern for the future, such as the changing character of warfare and energy security, unencumbered by the demands of producing current intelligence. Furthermore, addressing a critical need emphasized by the 9/11 Commission and the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission, the intelligence community has formed "devil's advocate" and alternative analyses, examining, for example, whether avian influenza can be weaponized and how webcams could aid in terrorist planning. Beyond these efforts, the intelligence community can still learn a lot from commercial best practices and best-in-class analytic technologies to help its analysts sift through data and more rapidly identify key insights.

CULTURE SHOCK

Old cultures and practices need to be changed so that today's intelligence community can rapidly exchange information between officers on the ground -- both at home and abroad -- and decision-makers in Washington. Most important, the long-standing policy of only allowing officials access to intelligence on a "need to know" basis should be abandoned. The U.S. intelligence community needs to adopt a mindset guided by a "responsibility to provide" intelligence to policymakers, war fighters, and analysts while still reasonably protecting sources and methods. Significant progress has been made since 9/11, but policy and cultural impediments remain. The challenge now is to convince collectors that they are not data owners so much as data providers.

The way to do so would be to share threat information with state and local officials as well as members of the private sector. The unique contribution made by men and women on the ground is vital to U.S. national security. In 2000, for example, a county sheriff's investigation into a local cigarette smuggling case in Charlotte, North Carolina, uncovered a multistate terrorist cell supporting Hezbollah. In 2005, a local police detective investigating a gas station robbery in Torrance, California, uncovered a homegrown jihadist cell planning a series of attacks in Illinois. State and local partners should no longer be treated as only first responders; they are also the first lines of prevention. Changing mentalities in this way is the responsibility of the program manager for the Information Sharing Environment, which was created by the IRTPA and exists to foster a partnership between all levels of government and both the private sector and foreign partners in order to share terrorist threat information.

Another important area in which mindsets need to change is in hiring practices. Policy barriers have stood in the way of attracting intelligence professionals with the right skills and backgrounds. The responsibility to protect sources and intelligence-collection methods from unauthorized disclosure has heightened some organizations' risk aversion. As a result, intelligence agencies have faced significant obstacles in hiring some of the people they need most: first- and second-generation Americans with fluency in languages ranging from Albanian to Urdu and with unique political, technical, or scientific skills. These men and women possess cultural insights and skills that no amount of teaching can impart. If the intelligence community is going to reach out to native speakers, it must change its recruitment practices, which currently make it difficult to hire such candidates.

STAYING ON THE CUTTING EDGE

Throughout the Cold War, the U.S. intelligence community was at the forefront of technological innovation, be it for weapons systems, computers, or satellite technology. In the last 20 years, its lead has dwindled as innovation has moved from the public to the private sector and technological know-how has spread across the world. Worse still for the United States, its adversaries have been quick to adapt to technological improvements.

The U.S. intelligence community needs to harness the promise of advances in fields such as the biosciences, nanotechnology, and information technology. The new Intelligence Advanced Research Program Agency seeks to do just that, much as a similar Department of Defense program is doing to drive leading-edge technologies to meet defense requirements. One fruit of that effort was the development in 2004 of Argus -- named for the giant from Greek mythology with one hundred eyes -- which monitors foreign news media and other open sources for early indications of epidemics or other serious biological incidents, such as increased absenteeism, failures of health-care infrastructure, and other disruptions of normal life. At the outset of the avian flu outbreak in November 2006, Argus became fully operational and provided rigorous, validated information on the disease. Today, it monitors more than one million reports a day from nearly 3,000 sources in 21 major languages in 195 countries. In the future, Argus may be able to use open-source reporting to more rapidly detect other causes of societal disruption -- especially in closed societies -- such as nuclear accidents and environmental disasters.

Beyond developing technologies, however, it is essential to make sure new tools get from the drawing board to the field. To that end, our Rapid Technology Transition Initiative focuses on invigorating research and development so that ideas can be translated into usable tools quickly and cost effectively. RTTI has already shown its value. Since its deployment late last year, the FBI's Biometric Quick Capture Platform -- a portable database funded through RTTI -- has facilitated the biometric identification of suspects in custody overseas. It has helped users collect and store fingerprint data and perform real-time electronic searches of federal fingerprint databases. These queries can quickly establish links to a person's previously used identities and past criminal or terrorist record. Just two months after the release of RTTI funds to the FBI, the bureau's field personnel were using this tool to identify whether individuals in custody overseas had criminal records or were dangerous threats to U.S. forces.

But moving cutting-edge technologies into the hands of U.S. intelligence personnel means shortening timelines for developing these technologies. In this area, there is still much work to be done. The U.S. intelligence community's European colleagues, for example, are able to build, launch, and operate a new satellite system in about five years and for less than a billion dollars. By contrast, a U.S. spy satellite system, although admittedly more complex than a European equivalent, can take more than ten years and cost billions of dollars to develop. This is due, in part, to the larger number of requirements the United States tends to place on individual systems and its higher aversion to the risk of mission failure, both of which increase the systems' complexity and the demands placed on the technology. If the U.S. intelligence community is to close this gap, it will need a more disciplined, agile acquisition policy. It was to this end that the DNI recently elevated the task of acquisitions to the level of a deputy director of national intelligence (there are four deputy directors).

THE END OF THE BEGINNING

Although the United States is improving the nuts and bolts of its intelligence system, it must not lose sight of the strategic conditions that will determine the ultimate success of those efforts. The United States must comprehend the profound threats of the times and position its institutions to meet those challenges. The intelligence community understands the threats posed by terrorists inside and outside the United States, nuclear proliferators, and rogue and failed states. Now, it must set its priorities to meet these threats.

If the efforts to improve the intelligence community are to endure, they will need sustained support from the executive branch, Congress, and the American people. It will take years to fully clarify and coordinate the DNI's responsibilities and powers, transform the collection and analysis of intelligence, accelerate information sharing, change institutional cultures, build high-tech capabilities, and boost the acquisition of new technologies. And it will take the patience of the American people and their willingness to lend their talent and expertise to the intelligence community.

Optimism after North Korea

Writing in today’s Washington Post, Joseph Nye reminds us that we don’t need to give up on halting international proliferation simply because North Korea built a barely functional nuclear weapon of some kind.

Nye notes that during the 1970s, a similar nuclear "breakout" moment occurred, but the NPT and related proliferation regimes did not collapse. Through assiduous diplomacy, the United States pushed the individual countries who were pressuring the proliferation regime to stop their anti-regime activities and arranged a strengthening and updating of the nuclear proliferation regime, the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group. And most importantly, the United States extended its nuclear umbrella to clearly cover some of its most vulnerable allies, like South Korea and Japan.

Nye says that the U.S. can reaffirm its commitment to Japanese and South Korean security and ask everyone to recommit to international proliferation institutions as the United States had the world do in the seventies. Nye makes it seem that, with work, these are achievable.

Nye also wants the United States to support two IAEA initiatives:

• Increased funding for the IAEA and its inspection activities;
• An international enriched uranium “bank” for countries that promise not to develop indigenous nuclear enrichment programs.

As for North Korea itself, Nye believes that integration is better than sanctions. Of all the things that Nye recommends, that’s the only one I can’t agree with. The North Korean regime would be able to use economic integration to strengthen itself without freeing its people, using the Chinese example.

If anything, the North Koreans’ recent return to nuclear negotiations has given us a hypothesis we really should test – whether financial sanctions are the lever we can use to pressure the Kim regime. If the Kim regime doesn’t back down after the upcoming negotiations, we should try to get China to have its banks limit North Korean access to the international financial system. That pressure, in addition to American limits on North Korean finances, might be enough to push the North Koreans to give up their nuclear programs.

If that fails, then maybe we’ll try Nye’s prescription for economic integration. Only so much optimism for me.