Government Executive - Authors - Diane Barnes

Will the U.S. Keep Buying Medicine for 'Black Swan' Attacks?

Diane Barnes, Global Security Newswire — Fri, 27 Jun 2014 09:38:08 -0400

Congress will weigh this year whether to continue spending billions of dollars on antidotes for attacks seen as relatively unlikely, but potentially devastating.

Lawmakers helped to establish Project Bioshield in 2004 to incentivize otherwise unprofitable work on treatments for exotic possible terrorism tools, such as anthrax and botulinum toxin. In coming months, though, the decade-old initiative could face unprecedented scrutiny of its funding, in part due to a dearth of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear attacks in the United States since its launch, says a newly published Congressional Research Service report.

"Congressional policymakers could decide not to fund Project Bioshield," analyst Frank Gottron said in the assessment. "Given the continued absence of any [WMD] terrorist attacks in the United States since 2001, [they] could deem that the perceived risk of an attack no longer justifies [the] continued investment."

"Alternatively, policymakers could deem other, more conventional, countermeasure procurement methods sufficient or more efficient than Project Bioshield and redirect funding to those programs," Gottron wrote.

Congress guaranteed Project Bioshield a steady $560 million in annual funding for its first decade by setting aside billions in advance. The Health and Human Services Department set aside more than half of the program's 10-year, $5.6 billion "special reserve fund" to acquire treatments for symptoms of a wide variety of potential unconventional assaults. Of the $3.3 billion earmarked for WMD threats, about one-third went toward smallpox drugs, in case the long-eradicated virus is ever rebuilt or released from a rare laboratory stockpile.

Lawmakers last year authorized the program to continue receiving the same amount of money through fiscal 2018. Rather than maintaining its special reserve fund, though, they left funding levels to be determined through the annual appropriations process.

The program received $255 million in fiscal 2014 appropriations, and the Obama administration is seeking $415 million in the upcoming budget cycle.

"The switch to annual appropriations may complicate [the Health and Human Services Department's] long-term countermeasure development and acquisition planning," Gottron wrote. "Some developers contend that an advance appropriation helps company management more favorably consider a potential countermeasure when weighing internal investment opportunity costs."

Lawmakers may ultimately reinstate an approach similar to the 10-year reserve fund, the analyst added.

"Developers might prefer advance appropriations for as long a period as possible," he wrote. "However, providing an advance appropriation during the current fiscal environment may prove more difficult than in 2003."

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Terror May Become a Bigger Focus at Med School

Diane Barnes, Global Security Newswire — Tue, 24 Jun 2014 16:42:34 -0400

A team of professors near New York City wants to make terrorism a larger focus for medical-school students across the United States.

A plan now taking shape would insert discussions of terror threats -- such as a biochemistry-course lecture on nerve agents -- throughout the four-year curriculum at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, said Leonard Cole, director of the school's Terror Medicine and Security Program.

If a crowd of people suddenly begins "shaking and quivering and frothing at the mouth ... it would not be a smart thing for you to run and try to help," he said, referencing the symptoms shown by hundreds of people in last year's sarin-gas strikes in Syria.

Cole said that kind of awareness is still largely absent in U.S. medical schools, despite a call issued more than a decade ago by an organization that helps to accredit them. Writing for the Association of American Medical Colleges in 2003, an expert panel declared that dealing with chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear attacks should be "an integral component" of what medical schools teach.

The recommendation is "still not yet broadly implemented," Cole told Global Security Newswire in a June telephone interview. "We want to inculcate in the culture of our medical school and our medical curriculum the notion that this is just part of what you have to learn to be prepared for. The kids, as they graduate, [now] really don't have that sense."

The proposal under consideration at Rutgers would insert talk about unconventional weapons and other terrorism threats into numerous medical-school classes, as well as its first-year orientation. Students also would have an option to take a final-year course focusing on such dangers exclusively, Cole said.

"If we are successful, there's no reason we couldn't expect others to be successful," he said. Cole and other school faculty plan to explore teaching recommendations in a series of medical-journal articles now under preparation.

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Pentagon: B-61 Bomb Update Faces Possible Delays

Diane Barnes, Global Security Newswire — Mon, 07 Apr 2014 16:36:17 -0400

Defense Department experts see a danger of delays in work on a key nuclear-bomb component under development at multiple federal agencies.

Preparation of the new B-61 gravity bomb "tail kit" is currently proceeding on schedule, but the project's time line faces "risks" from separate work under way at the Defense and Energy departments, according to the Pentagon's Systems Engineering office.

"Interdependencies" involving a range of activities at the two departments "present technical challenges and will require close attention and development," the Pentagon office said in a report last month.

The potential coordination hurdles threaten to bog down progress, says the annual assessment for fiscal 2013.

The developmental component for the bomb's tail section is intended to improve the accuracy of the B-61 bomb's forthcoming Mod 12 variant, which is now in its second year of development. The refurbished bomb would eventually stand in for several earlier versions, some of which are fielded at bases in several European countries.

Ultimately, the possible issues may cause the project to miss a goal date for entering full production, as well as a deadline for delivering the first completed tail kit, the document warns. Both goals were scheduled for 2019, the Pentagon said in a Selected Acquisition Report from December 2012.

The authors of last month's analysis added that a "limited number of developmental test flights" could complicate efforts to ensure that the tail kit meets reliability standards. Project managers are already "mitigating 11 risks related to schedule, performance, production, integration and cost," they noted.

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U.S. Nuclear Lab Wraps Up Security Update 'Under Budget,' Despite Surprise Costs

Diane Barnes, Global Security Newswire — Fri, 04 Apr 2014 17:17:52 -0400

Nuclear-arms officials said a Los Alamos National Laboratory security update was done under budget, despite millions of dollars in unplanned costs.

The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration on Thursday said it spent $1 million less to improve protections at a sensitive area of the New Mexico site than its "original budget" had allocated.

However, the picture is a bit more complicated than that; program costs went down in April 2011, only to skyrocket anew later on as security boosts were installed at aging Los Alamos lab facilities that handle plutonium usable in nuclear arms.

Fixing the issues ultimately required tens of millions of dollars in unplanned expenses and more than a year of additional work, the Associated Press reported.

A nuclear agency official acknowledged in a Thursday statement that the effort to upgrade defenses at Technical Area 55 -- the country's sole site for manufacturing plutonium nuclear-bomb triggers -- was a "troubled project."

The comment by NNSA Associate Administrator Bob Raines was an allusion to flaws discovered in the late stages of the new system's delivery. His agency -- a semiautonomous branch of the Energy Department --revealed the problems in late 2012, several months before the project was originally slated for completion.

The nuclear agency could still say that the project wrapped up "under budget," though, because its earliest cost estimate was far greater than a projection it adopted later on.

"Due to favorable contract bids in April 2011, NNSA reduced the estimated total project cost from $245 million to $213 million," Energy Department Inspector General Gregory Friedman said in a report earlier this year.

The cost of fixing the system's problems apparently eliminated most of the earlier-anticipated savings. Still, the project came in just short of the initial $245 million estimate, according to an NNSA news release.

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Watchdog: U.S. Struggles to Track Nuclear-Arms Design Records

Diane Barnes, Global Security Newswire — Mon, 31 Mar 2014 17:27:40 -0400

An Energy Department investigator has lashed nuclear-arms offices for failing to keep a detailed paper trail of how they build and care for each bomb.

The National Nuclear Security Administration has not consistently tracked each of the thousands of nuclear weapons under its charge with a comprehensive file of "drawings, specifications, engineering authorizations, manufacturing records" and other documents from its assembly and maintenance, says a new report by the Energy Department's inspector general.

The missing data exposes the U.S. nuclear arsenal to an array of unnecessary costs and risks, Gregory Friedman said his team had found.

In one case, officials incorrectly approved two components to be added to a variant of the W-76 nuclear warhead. The error, they said, cost between $20 million and $25 million, and held up preparation of new parts by an extra 12 months.

The United States never "treated the maintenance of original nuclear weapons [records] as a priority" during or after the Cold War, according to the March 26 assessment. The auditors argued, though, that "recapturing the department's original nuclear weapons data in a configurable format can potentially save tens of millions of dollars."

The report also warns that lax controls on the nation's nuclear-arms records left an opening for possible saboteurs to tamper with arms designs.

In a possible violation of Energy Department rules, Los Alamos National Laboratory granted about 30 design personnel access to sensitive design information, "regardless of whether they were assigned to a nuclear-weapon project," auditors wrote.

According to the New Mexico facility's administrators, restricting the information further would not help security, and "they believed that their internal processes were more efficient."

Energy Department officials agreed with the investigators' calls for record-keeping updates.

"Upgrade requirements continue to be identified and an acquisition strategy will be determined in [fiscal year] 2015," the report states.

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Potential Suicide Bomber in Sochi May Indicate Broader Threat to Olympics

Diane Barnes, Global Security Newswire — Thu, 23 Jan 2014 09:15:35 -0500

A former U.S. counterterrorism adviser says a potential suicide bomber's presence in Sochi, Russia, may indicate a broader plot afoot against next month's Olympics.

Russian officials said they were searching the host city of the upcoming Winter Olympics for Ruzanna Ibragimova, a 22-year-old woman described as a "black widow" of a slain Islamic fighter. Authorities described Ibragimova and two other females as possible participants in suicide-bomb plots, according to news reports.

Juan Zarate, a former U.S. deputy national security adviser for combating terrorism, on Tuesday said Ibragimova might be just one participant in a larger conspiracy hatched by the Caucasus Emirate, an extremist organization that has threatened to carry out strikes at next month's games. The group aims to create an autonomous Islamic state in the North Caucasus region, located east of Sochi in southern Russia.

"The Caucasus Emirates and their various groups and operatives ... can use a variety of means to attack, not just a variety of targets to focus on," said the one-time White House official, speaking at a Washington panel discussion hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "They've used suicide bombers, to include the now-famed black widows; they’ve used teams of operatives; they’ve used assault teams. They’ve vectored against airplanes and metros and trains, hospitals, security sites."

Zarate, who supported the development of U.S. counterterrorism strategy from 2005 to 2009, added that future targets might similarly extend beyond the Olympics.

"You have the potential that [Ibragimova is] a singular actor intended to disrupt, but it also could be that she’s a part of a broader series of suicide bombers who have been dispatched to attack different sites," he said.

"No doubt the Russians are following not just reports of a singular actor, but multiple threat threads and individuals that they’re concerned with," said Zarate, who is now a CSIS senior adviser.

Olympics delegations from Hungary and Slovenia said they have received written threats, according to a Wednesday news report. The messages reportedly came in addition to threats issued previously by the Caucasus Emirate and others.

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Contractors Slammed for Uranium Project's Ballooning Expense

Diane Barnes, Global Security Newswire — Mon, 15 Jul 2013 16:58:15 -0400

When U.S. government contractors designing a $500 million nuclear-weapon facility last year said they would have to raise the roof, they didn’t exactly mean it was time to pump up the music.

An update to plans for the future Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 national security complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., would increase its height by 13 feet -- a move required for the building to hold all its intended contents. Problem was: officials offered no stab at how much the revision would cost.

The changes ended up costing well over half a billion dollars more, congressional auditors said last Friday. The site is to replace existing facilities that handle and store highly enriched uranium.

The Government Accountability Office blamed the additional $540 million price tag on a failure by the lead design firm to “adequately manage and integrate the design work” of four subcontractors. Construction of the building itself has not begun.

The unanticipated expense contrasted with a number of “overly optimistic assumptions” made by the National Nuclear Security Administration, which has overseen the project, and laid out in a 35-page GAO report.

The project’s maximum anticipated expense soared from $1.1 billion to $6.5 billion between 2004 and 2011, and the cost might increase further because the roof revision burned through nearly half of NNSA “contingency” funds.

The nuclear weapons complex oversight agency -- a semiautonomous branch of the Energy Department -- “did not account for such a large sum of money being needed to address this risk,” the auditors said in their report to the Senate Appropriations Energy and Water Development Subcommittee.

The panel fears “NNSA will not be able to execute multiple, highly complex life-extension projects and construction projects concurrently under ambitious schedules,” lawmakers said in a report on spending legislation approved by the full committee in June.

The Energy Department last month informed Congress the facility will not start becoming operational until 2025, the Knoxville News Sentinel reported on Saturday.

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Lawmakers Fault Pre-Boston Attack Intel Sharing

Diane Barnes, Global Security Newswire — Thu, 09 May 2013 16:26:42 -0400

An early dissection of what federal authorities learned in past years about the accused perpetrators of last month's Boston Marathon bombings reveals how far the United States still has to go in sharing and making sense of leads on suspected terrorists, current and former lawmakers said on Thursday.

Russia warned the FBI of 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev's possible ties to Islamic extremists more than two years before he and his brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, allegedly detonated two homemade bombs near the finish line of the Boston race, killing three people and injuring close to 300. The bureau set aside the Russian concerns after failing to turn up more incriminating data in the months that followed, and the CIA dismissed the same information later that year. Police and intelligence personnel have reportedly not connected the brothers to any extremist group outside the United States, despite Tamerlan's 2012 trip to Russia.

"He was on our radar screen, and then he was off," House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R- Texas) said at the first congressional hearing on the attacks. Despite creation of the Homeland Security Department and numerous other steps since the Sept. 11 attacks to improve interagency security coordination, "the Boston bombers may have succeeded because our system failed," he said.

Boston police received no notice of the Russian warnings until the older brother died in a shootout several days after the bombing, even through several city law enforcement personnel regularly collaborated with federal counterparts through a Joint Terrorism Task Force, Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis told the committee.

Notice of the Russian concerns "absolutely" would have prompted a response by city authorities, Davis said. The official later voiced support for getting "as much information [on terrorism threats] out as quickly as possible," but he declined to speculate on whether the tip-off could have prevented the bombings.

Former panel chairman Joseph Lieberman, though, said the FBI's failure to provide its information on the Tsarnaevs "may be one of the most significant and painful takeaway lessons" from the attacks.

"The fact that neither the FBI nor the Department of Homeland Security notified the local members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force is really a serious and aggravating omission," the recently retired Connecticut senator said in testimony.

Still, Lieberman said the federal government faces a significant hurdle in the sheer volume of data it must process and potentially act upon.

"A lot of the old stovepipes have come down," but "the larger problem for our Homeland Security personnel often may be in separating the wheat from the chaff,” Lieberman said. "Nobody bats 1,000 percent."

"Mistrust" between U.S. and Russian security services might be partly to blame for Washington's decision to set aside the Russian concerns, Lieberman said. Guidelines established by the U.S. Attorney General's Office might have prevented the "FBI from acting more aggressively or sharing the information with the state and local law enforcers," he added without elaborating on the rules.

Moscow's alert landed the older brother on one federal watchlist with hundreds of thousands of other names, but authorities took no further action in investigating his background prior to last month's attack.

The Homeland Security Committee's top Democrat said the United States must act "to fix and integrate" its numerous terrorism watchlists, but added that "no one agency or entity has the responsibility and the authority to scrub and integrate these vast systems that contain records on millions of people."

"Congress cannot continue to complain about the failure of the databases without giving the authority and the funding to one agency to fix these problems," panel Ranking Member Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) added in opening comments.

The Boston police chief said "cameras and other technical means" might help to further bolster terrorism defenses, but "there's no computer that's going to spit out a terrorist's name."

Government auditors have repeatedly flagged "formidable challenges" in how federal organizations process and exchange terrorism threat data with state and local counterparts. Difficulties in disseminating such information "in a timely, accurate, and useful manner" pose a "high risk" to U.S. counterterrorism operations, the congressional Government Accountability Office has said, citing a succession of reports from recent years to make its case.

Russian President Vladimir Putin last month called for closer U.S.-Russian collaboration on counterterrorism matters, and FBI Director Robert Mueller reportedly discussed the Boston attacks and bilateral security cooperation with top law enforcement officials in Moscow this week.

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Days After Ricin Mailings, Pentagon Says it Wants a Vaccine

Diane Barnes, Global Security Newswire — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 17:32:37 -0400

The United States needs a vaccine to protect troops against ricin, the Defense Department said in an announcement issued days after envelopes filled with the deadly toxin were mailed to President Obama and two Mississippi public officials.

No antidote or means of prevention yet exists for ricin, which can be lethal in minute quantities in the bloodstream. A judge on Monday ordered 41-year-old Mississippi resident Everett Dutschke to be held without bond until a Thursday hearing for allegedly sending the poisonous substance to the White House, the Washington office of Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and a judge in Mississippi. The mailed material ultimately harmed none of its handlers or intended recipients.

The Pentagon "has a new requirement for a pre-exposure prophylaxis ricin vaccine that provides balanced onset and duration of protection for administration to healthy individuals," says the "request for information" published on April 22. The document sets a May 10 deadline for organizations to present developmental vaccines for consideration. The aim is to prepare a treatment to test in animals and ultimately to secure Food and Drug Administration licensing of a vaccine.

"Presumably if several companies smell funding possibilities in the future, they will volunteer information that they have developed [a drug] that might be a good vaccine," said Graham Peaslee, a chemistry and environmental science professor at Hope College in Holland, Mich. "Then DoD would come back with a [request] to test them."

Last week's request came from a procurement program involved in providing anthrax and smallpox vaccinations to military personnel, but the document does not specify which service members could receive a ricin treatment if one is produced. Mississippi National Guard forces reportedly took part in raids last week of Dutschke's residence and former martial arts school; a court affidavit says investigators found ricin on a dust mask and other items found near the school, theAssociated Press reported.

One experimental vaccine against the toxin generated human immune responses in a trial launched in 2011 at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md., according to Nature. Additional tests are necessary, though, and the project now faces uncertain funding prospects, the journal reported.

The rationale behind the Pentagon's latest request was unclear, as were the development project's anticipated time line and cost. A spokesman did not respond by press time to a request for comment.

Peaslee, though, suggested the Defense Department is "looking for a backup plan in case the Army-developed vaccine doesn't work."

"They may have more info that hasn't been released on the Army trials, or they may just have a real sense of urgency" due to the recent ricin incident, he said by e-mail.

Ricin countermeasures have also been a focus of several university-backed studies. Australianscientists in 2011 suggested an eventual antidote could act by inhibiting a victim's production of a specific protein, and British researchers last year said black tea's antioxidants might help to counter the toxin's harmful effects.

Plots involving the toxin have generally been limited to individuals and small groups, with the possible exception of Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov's death by ricin-tipped umbrella stabbing in 1978.

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Tired, Poorly Trained Guard Dogs Could Endanger Nuclear Arms Site

Diane Barnes, Global Security Newswire — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 15:10:56 -0400

A U.S. nuclear arms site in Tennessee could be working its guard dogs to exhaustion during vehicle checks and skipping steps in their training, raising the risk that intruders or explosives could slip into the facility unnoticed, the Energy Department inspector general said in a recent report.

"We found that half of the canine teams we observed failed explosive detection tests, many canines failed to respond to at least one of the handler's commands, and that canines did not receive all required training," says the assessment by Energy Department auditors made public Thursday. The department backed calls in the report to settle on and implement "acceptable" work requirements for the dogs, and to develop training certification practices up to par with those of a state or federal police canine program.

The Y-12 National Security Complex receives guard dog services under a five-year contract worth nearly $15 million, the report indicates.

Y-12 has faced a number of security failures over the past year, including a July break-in in which three peace activitists reached the site's bomb-grade uranium storage area and allegations of cheating on exams by contract security personnel. The troubles led the Energy Department's semi-independent National Nuclear Security Administration to dismiss the security contractor at the installation; a new management firm is also being put into place.

Auditors said they had been unable to confirm claims that the guard dog company had "rigged" canine proficiency tests, possibly by ordering animals to "sit" when they failed to do so on their own to signal detection of simulated contraband.

Worries over lax training prompted the Y-12 facility's operator to place the canine security program on hold for several days last August while an outside group tested the ability of on-site dogs to sniff out explosives. In that test, 14 of the site's 35 canine groups failed to detect one or two of the 10 "explosive testing aids" used in the exam.

Despite "immediate corrective actions" by Energy personnel, further action is warranted in part to ensure dogs "are appropriately evaluated, supporting documentation is comprehensive and that the canine teams are evaluated on all 12 types of explosive aids" required under contract, the report states.

Separately, investigators said they had confirmed grounds for concern that dogs were being overworked. A number of handlers said managers had refused their requests to grant the animals additional rest time, including during periods of "record-breaking heat," and auditors reported 91 cases in which operators worked their dogs beyond established limits.

The canine contractor's internal rules require handling personnel to consult with managers about giving dogs rest time if they perform more than 25 vehicle checks in one hour and their workload does not drop in the following half-hour. The IG report, though, notes a dog team last May had completed 60 vehicle checks in one hour and 42 the following hour.

"The skills and proficiency of the canine detection teams could be impacted if the team is required to conduct excessive vehicle searches, thereby potentially compromising the security posture at the department's Y-12 site," the report warns. The guard dog firm said those checks included vehicle "screenings" less intensive than full "searches," but auditors said the company's own guidance establishes no such distinction.

Federal and contractor personnel said they had not reviewed canine training and certification records because the Energy Department did not identify canine operations as a "high-risk security area." The National Nuclear Security Administration contested an IG finding that such security risk assessments could be problematic.

The assessment does not specifically identify the firm involved, but the Knoxville News Sentinelnamed the firm K-9 SOS as a longtime guard dog handler at Y-12.

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How Pressure Cookers Get Classified as a WMD

Diane Barnes, Global Security Newswire — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 15:37:24 -0400

Accusing Dzhokhar Tsarnaev of carrying out a WMD strike at the Boston Marathon could offer prosecutors a clear route to a conviction, even though the two pressure-cooker devices used in last week's attack do not fit the accepted definition of a "weapon of mass destruction," academics and former federal prosecutors said on Tuesday.

Tsarnaev, 19, could face execution if he is convicted of "using and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction" in the twin explosions that killed three people and wounded more than 200 on April 15. The charge is possible due to an expansive legal definition folding such arms into a wider class of "destructive devices" that can include small explosives, even when such devices lack any of the chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear components associated with most WMD discussions outside of U.S. law.

"In some ways this is the easiest count to allege at this moment in time," said Michael Sullivan, a former U.S. attorney for Massachusetts. "The devices themselves fit very nicely within the statute."

"Within the next 30 days, the government will indict the defendant, and there I think you'll see some additional counts beyond the two counts in [Monday's] complaint, particularly if they develop evidence related to his terrorist activities," Sullivan said by telephone from Boston. Tsarnaev faces a separate charge of "malicious destruction of property by means of an explosive device resulting in death." His brother and suspected accomplice Tamerlan was killed in a Friday shootout with police.

The broad legal definition for "weapons of mass destruction" began to take shape in 1994, under one provision of a federal law better known for imposing a decade-long ban on manufacturing certain assault weapons.

The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act "beefed up the federal death penalty statutes and ... created these new offenses," said Richard Roper, a former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Texas. "This is one of them."

Roper said the Patriot Act and a later 2004 law tweaked that statutory WMD definition, which federal prosecutors have used on numerous occasions since the Sept. 11 attacks in cases involving "conventional" explosives.

Weapons of mass destruction charges might be "a favored tool of prosecutors" because pursuing them does not involve clearing certain hurdles involved in other legal strategies, a Duke University public policy specialist suggested.

"You don’t have to get into the definition of whether this is terrorism or not, you don’t have to prove motivation, you just have to prove that the person has used [a destructive device] against any person or property in the United States," said David Schanzer, who heads the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security.

"There’s an incongruity between the statute and the way the word ‘WMD’ is used [elsewhere], but I don’t see that as a problem," he added.

Roper said prosecutors sometimes pile a WMD accusation onto other charges to gain additional leverage in plea negotiations. Defense lawyers know such charges carry "the possibility of the death penalty, and sometimes that engenders more cooperation," he said.

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Pentagon Saves National Guard WMD Unit That Helped in Boston

Diane Barnes, Global Security Newswire — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 17:01:52 -0400

The U.S. Defense Department was poised as recently as last month to dismantle a National Guard crisis team that assisted in the emergency response to the bombings at Monday's Boston Marathon.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on March 29 informed lawmakers in writing of plans to dismantle the New York-based 24th National Guard Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Team, as well as a similar WMD unit housed in Florida, House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee Chairman Bill Young (R-Fla.) said on Tuesday. The units were to cease operations by late June, Hagel said in a letter that did not offer a reason for the decision.

Members of the New York team "responded to the Boston Marathon bombings," where twin blasts killed three people and wounded close to 200 near the end of the course, Young said.

The Pentagon move, now reversed, would have been at least the second attempt to eliminate the two teams as a cost-saving method. New York and Florida both have two of the full-time units that would provide assistance to civil authorities following a biological, chemical, radiological or nuclear incident. California also has two, while other U.S. states and territories are alloted one team.

Young noted that his committee had authorized funding for the teams in a fiscal 2013 defense bill.

"Congress is very, very supportive of those teams," the lawmaker said. He pressed Hagel and other top Pentagon officials during a Tuesday budget hearing to explain the reasoning behind the planned elimination of the units.

Hagel, though, said his department reversed its decision and requested funding for the teams in its fiscal 2014 budget proposal.

"I think the Congress was informed of that [in] the last few days, and we put the money back in," the Pentagon chief said. He later reaffirmed his department's backing for the teams in response to questioning by Representative Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.).

The roughly 20-person New York unit -- based at Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn -- dispatched five personnel to Boston after receiving a request last Friday from the Massachusetts state government, said Eric Durr, public information director for the New York state Military and Naval Affairs Division.

"Anytime you've got a high-key event where there's lots of people, there's usually a ... unit from a civil support team in the area to provide assistance to first responders," Durr told Global Security Newswire by telephone. He declined to discuss specifics of how the 24th personnel provided assistance following the Monday attack.

The National Guard said operating a second WMD unit in New York requires about $500,000 each year, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) indicated in a 2012 press release.

The motivation behind the Pentagon about-face was not immediately clear. Defense Department officials did not respond by press time to requests for comment.

All 57 WMD civil support teams are included in the National Guard’s fiscal 2014 budget justification, which makes specific reference to the additional units in New York and Florida. Short-term spending measures have financed the teams during the current budget cycle.

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Pentagon Seeks High-Tech Nuke Radiation Defenses

Diane Barnes, Global Security Newswire — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 16:55:41 -0400

The Defense Department this week said it is looking for technologies to protect people against potentially deadly radiation near the site of a nuclear strike or other atomic disaster.

Proposals from government, academic, and private-sector sources could provide fodder for a possible government push to devise new means of "enhancing long-term survival in victims exposed to large doses of ionizing radiation," according to a solicitation issued last month by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

The DARPA office said it is looking for both pre-exposure and post-exposure treatments to counter radiation's short-term effects.

Scientists have achieved a degree of progress in delaying death from acute radiation syndrome, but further studying how "the chronic effects of exposure play out within the body” could support development of new technologies to aid radiation victims, said Millie Donlon, a program manager with the DARPA Defense Sciences Office.

"There are many facets to this challenge and DARPA needs input from many fields," but a fruitful research endeavor could eliminate "at least some of [radiation's] destructive power," Donlon said in a press release issued this week.

One independent expert suggested the solicitation was an outgrowth of a prior agency finding that a protein-antibiotic combination could protect rodents exposed to high-level radioactivity.

"If you have radiation exposure and all the [digestive] bacteria in your gut die, then you're probably going to die," said Graham Peaslee, a chemistry and environmental science professor at Hope College in Holland, Mich. "They're basically trying to save your gut with this treatment, and it apparently works."

Any significant findings from related future research would likely be made public, as there is "nothing terribly classified about saving people," he said by telephone on Friday.

The Pentagon research arm indicated it also hopes to combat radiation's longer-term effects, which can include cancer. It welcomed "speculative concepts" to dramatically improve radiation treatments, and noted indications that caffeine and other antioxidants can "suppress lethality" and reduce damage to genetic material from radiation exposure.

"Understanding how these compounds act to reduce morbidity and mortality may pave the way to new, more effective therapies and protocols," the solicitation says.

The released information does not cite a deadline for submitting proposals or for standing up a potential scientific initiative. DARPA officials did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

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New Defense Chief Addresses Massive Cuts

Diane Barnes, Global Security Newswire — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 17:45:15 -0500

Newly installed U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Wednesday said the nation's armed forces now face the "reality" of implementing across-the-board spending cuts set to take effect in two days.

Hagel issued the warning within hours of taking the oath to assume the Pentagon's top post and less than a day after the Senate confirmed his nomination in a 58-41 vote.

The former GOP senator told a Pentagon audience he would not "dwell" on the challenge posed by spending reductions mandated under the 2011 Budget Control Act. The cuts are scheduled to reduce defense funding by roughly $46 billion from March 1 to Sept. 30 failing an unlikely last-minute save by Congress and the White House.

"That's a reality," Hagel said in his first remarks at the Pentagon as the department's new leader. "We need to figure this out. You are doing that. You have been doing that. We need to deal with this reality."

"What we're all dealing with is, yes, dollars [are] coming down, but it's the uncertainty of the planning, it's the uncertainty of the commitments, the uncertainty of what's ahead," Hagel later added. In a separate written statement to Pentagon personnel, he pledged to "work within the administration and with Congress to help resolve this uncertainty."

Hagel was set to confer on Wednesday afternoon with top military officers as well as officials at the White House, according to a Defense Department press release.

The service chiefs of the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force and National Guard on Tuesday highlighted the threat posed to U.S. military capabilities by the imminent budget sequester and the scheduled March 27 expiration of a continuing budget resolution for fiscal 2013.

Air Force Secretary Michael Donley told lawmakers his branch would protect flight activities linked to its "nuclear deterrence" mission from the looming budget cuts.

Still, the spending curbs would "impact every one" of the Air Force's modernization efforts if they remain in place into fiscal 2014, he said during a hearing of the House Appropriations Committee. Last month, Donley suggested the automatic cuts could endanger plans to develop a next-generation strategic bomber.

In a Tuesday statement, President Obama welcomed Hagel's confirmation and said he would rely on the Pentagon chief's advice and leadership in maintaining U.S. readiness "to meet the threats of our time."

Hagel faced strong Republican criticism over his past comments in support of further U.S. nuclear arms reductions and against unilateral sanctions intended to curb Iran's disputed atomic activities. Only four GOP senators voted in favor of his appointment.

- See more at: http://www.nti.org/gsn/article/new-pentagon-chief/#sthash.fgmyhiHw.dpuf]]>

U.S. to finalize avian flu funding policy in weeks

Diane Barnes, Global Security Newswire — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 16:28:34 -0500

The United States plans "in the next several weeks" to issue its final policy on how it will consider future grant requests for research intended to produce more virulent or communicable versions of avian influenza, National Institutes of Health leaders said on Friday.

More than three dozen scientists this week announced they would end a voluntary moratorium on studies to produce more transmissible H5N1 virus strains, but U.S. funding recipients have agreed not to resume such experiments until the framework is ready, says a joint statement from NIH Director Francis Collins and Anthony Fauci, head of the agency's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

The global pause took effect last January after bioterrorism fears prompted a U.S. advisory panel to recommend certain data from two studies that genetically modified the H5N1 virus to increase its transmissibility between mammals. The biosecurity board later reversed its finding, paving the way for full publication of the findings; a number of biosecurity experts, though, continued to air concerns that future experimentation could become the starting point for a deadly human pandemic initiated either unintentionally or by design.

The Health and Human Services Department responded to those fears in part by preparing aproposal to subject federal grant requests for "gain-of-function" avian influenza studies to special evaluation, but many participants at an international conference last month suggested the framework would apply to an unacceptably wide array of research that could produce biodefense benefits. University of Wisconsin (Madison) scientist Yoshihiro Kawaoka, who led one of the two controversial studies, suggested limiting the policy to research seeking to increase the agent's airborne transmissibility.

Collins and Fauci on Friday said the framework would address "funding decisions regarding research that might increase mammalian transmission of [highly pathogenic] H5N1 viruses by respiratory droplets." However, no NIH official was available by press time to confirm whether the announcement reflected plans to narrow the scope of the proposed policy.

A number of participants at the December meeting criticized what they considered to be ambiguities in certain standards laid out by the draft plan for determining what avian flu investigations would qualify for financial support from Health and Human Services. In one area of concern, detractors said it was unclear what "evidence" the government would require to show that a modified avian flu virus could emerge in the environment through natural selection in the "foreseeable future." Advocates of laboratory tweaks to the H5N1 genome contend such alterations are necessary to prepare against dangerous variations of the virus potentially emerging in nature.

Federal officials have extended the public comment period for the draft policy through Jan. 31, scientists said in a Wednesday conference call with journalists.

Collins and Fauci commended flu scientists around the world "for the spirit in which they instituted this extended 'pause' on their work, which has provided time for thoughtful consideration of its implications." The moratorium was initially intended to expire after 60 days.

The funding proposal under development would only address research aimed at augmenting H5N1 viruses. A policy announced last year addresses funding of research involving 15 "high consequence" biological agents. The National Institutes of Health is also preparing a declaration of "roles and responsibilities" of the U.S. government, as well as scientists and sponsoring institutions, in overseeing sensitive biological research involving other pathogens.

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Sequestration endangers new bomber, Air Force secretary warns

Diane Barnes, Global Security Newswire — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 15:35:16 -0500

The head of the U.S. Air Force on Friday said his service hopes to keep plans for developing a future strategic bomber on track in the face of looming budget cuts, but he suggested the project's future could be in question if federal sequestration takes effect.

The Air Force hopes by the mid-2020s to start receiving the new bombers, which are intended to gradually replace the service's aging B-1 and B-2 aircraft. The Pentagon has indicated it wants to design and build between 80 and 100 of the aircraft designed to carry nuclear bombs.

"Long-term, we're committed to the Long-Range Strike Bomber," Air Force Secretary Michael Donley told reporters at the Pentagon. "We're going to try to keep programs like that on track, but every program would be affected if sequestration were to hit."

A "fiscal cliff" plan signed into law on Jan. 2 delayed by two months a set of mandatory, across-the-board spending cuts previously set to take effect at the start of this year under the 2011 Budget Control Act. The scheduled reductions would slash funding for most Pentagon programs by nearly one-tenth.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Thursday announced his department would develop plans to implement the sequestration curbs and would immediately eliminate nonessential spending to soften their blow if Congress fails to reach a cancellation agreement.

The "near-term actions cannot fully mitigate the impacts of sequestration should that occur," Donley warned. "If we do not have resolution by March, sequestration will have immediate and negative impacts on Air Force readiness, specifically flying hours and maintenance."

"As Secretary Panetta has reiterated, the focus now must be on taking the threat off the table and enacting a budget agreement that will stabilize defense planning for the remainder of [fiscal year 2013] and the years ahead," the official added.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh said "we can be confident that the defense budgets will shrink, but how far remains to be seen."

The fiscal 2013 defense authorization law enacted this month requires the planned aircraft to be ready to accommodate nuclear bombs immediately upon becoming operational, and to be certified to host such armaments within 24 months of the initial milestone.

Donley said the Air Force is "in a much stronger place than [it was] a few years ago" in managing its nuclear weapons. The service unified its nuclear missile and bomber operations in 2009 under the new Global Strike Command and undertook various other reforms following a series of mishaps that included a mistaken 2006 shipment of nuclear missile fuses to Taiwan and an accidental 2007 flight of six nuclear-armed cruise missiles across several U.S. states.

The service has rolled out "more rigorous inspection processes [and] put in place much more intensive oversight ... to help us get unified management over this capability," Donley said.

"We've worked very hard through the Nuclear Weapons Center and Air Force Materiel Command to get very close alignment between operations and sustainment," he added. "So I think we've made considerable progress in our oversight of the nuclear enterprise."

Donley said his service is "in the midst of implementing" a bilateral strategic arms control accord with Russia. The New START agreement requires the United States and Russia to by 2018 each cap their arsenals of deployed long-range nuclear weapons at 1,550 warheads and 700 delivery systems.

The service is making "preparations for adjusting the size of the bomber force, and also planning for adjustments in the size of the ICBM force," Donley said. "We're doing the advance planning that goes with START implementation," he added without elaborating.

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Security debate shadows nuclear chief's departure

Diane Barnes, Global Security Newswire — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 16:15:15 -0500

A top U.S. nuclear official is set to retire next week in good standing with the Obama administration, even though a major security scandal prompted a number of watchdogs to call for his resignation months ago.

When Thomas D’Agostino announced last month that he would step down as administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration on Jan. 18, Energy Secretary Steven Chu praised him as a "talented leader" of the semiautonomous Energy Department office that oversees the U.S. nuclear security complex and conducts nonproliferation projects around the world.

"From leading a vast acceleration of the department’s efforts to reduce nuclear dangers at home and abroad, to overseeing our efforts to protect public health and safety by cleaning up the nation’s Cold War nuclear legacy, Tom has earned the title one major news outlet gave him: “undersecretary for saving the world,'" the Cabinet official said in written remarks.

Chu's statement did not mention that the veteran U.S. nuclear systems insider had presided over several high-profile embarrassments, including a July break-in at a bomb-grade uranium storage area of the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee; allegations of cheating on security exams by contract personnel hired to guard the same site; and a surge in expenses anticipated from refurbishing B-61 nuclear gravity bombs and building a new uranium processing plant.

D'Agostino's agency took shape in 2000 to address security problems and cost overruns that plagued U.S. atomic arms activities under full Energy Department control, and issue experts stressed that such lapses are not exclusive to his five-and-a-half-year tenure. Still, the split over the NNSA chief’s performance taps into an ongoing debate over how the nation manages its nuclear weapons infrastructure, with various sides arguing alternately to grant the agency and its contractors greater independence, strip it of all autonomy, or take other actions to reshuffle oversight of the nuclear weapons complex.

Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee last year led a charge to eliminate Energy Department oversight of NNSA operations and increase the independence of private firms working under the atomic office. Rep. Michael Turner, R-Ohio, and GOP colleagues on the panel's Strategic Forces Subcommittee blamed Energy management for numerous schedule and budgetary overruns in NNSA projects, as well as for tying the hands of scientists at the nation’s nuclear weapon laboratories.

The Y-12 infiltration derailed the GOP-led initiative in the last Congress by dealing a critical blow to "the myth of contractor competence," Robert Alvarez, a former Energy security adviser in the Clinton administration, wrote in an article published last month by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

Observers assigned D'Agostino varying degrees of blame for the incident, in which three intruders passed by malfunctioning perimeter sensors and security cameras that had been out of service for months.

“How he could have survived that for one minute is beyond me,” said Peter Stockton, a special investigator at the Project on Government Oversight. The Clinton-era Energy insider argued that the NNSA leader should have obtained advance warning of the surveillance problems from his agency's site offices and then ensured the problems were addressed by private companies managing operations and security at the facility.

"I don’t know whether he was aware of [the nonfunctioning cameras] or not, but he should have been," Stockton told Global Security Newswire in a telephone interview.

Alvarez also called for D’Agostino to resign in light of the July break-in. Observers were failing last summer to ask “what responsibility does the head of the national security agency hold in terms of his breach,” he told GSN then.

Another expert, though, attributed the Y-12 breach to "systemic problems."

"I don’t think that the solutions to those problems are going to be addressed by attacking the person who’s leaving" the top NNSA post, said Nickolas Roth, a policy fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation. Still, "very serious things went wrong in the Y-12 incident, and the new administrator needs to make sure that things like that can’t happen again," he added.

Roth voiced opposition to full NNSA autonomy, and instead urged the Energy secretary to "take an extremely active role in making sure that the administrator has both the political backing and the resources … to deal with the sort of problems that the NNSA is facing."

"There are certainly redundancies and inefficiencies between the relationship within NNSA and DOE," he added. "I don’t think anyone disagrees that finding ways of streamlining those things is a good idea, but you have to do that in a way that doesn’t diminish accountability and oversight."

In a bid to address problems seen in relying on private firms to guard nuclear-weapon operations, Turner last year proposed shifting responsibility for their protection from the Energy Department to the military. Experts, though, have warned existing statutes might conflict with the plan advanced by the lawmaker, who chaired the Strategic Forces Subcommittee prior to the start of the new congressional session last week.

The fiscal 2013 defense authorization law signed by President Obama this month mandates creation of a congressional panel to examine an array of options for altering oversight of the nuclear weapons complex. The legislation calls for the bipartisan group to convene its first meeting by March 1, submit initial findings within 180 days of the law’s Jan. 2 enactment and present final recommendations by Feb. 1 of next year.

The legislation also demands an independent study into the possibility of expanding "direct sponsorship" of the nuclear laboratories to the Defense and Homeland Security departments, as well as to intelligence offices. The laboratories are solely under Energy Department oversight at present.

It was unclear how much attention such management reform initiatives would receive from Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., who is succeeding Turner as head of the strategic forces panel. Neither Rogers' office nor Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee responded to requests for comment.

D’Agostino is slated to be succeeded on an interim basis by Neile Miller, who now serves as the agency’s principal deputy administrator. Miller previously managed a national security portfolio that included NNSA activities as head of the White House Management and Budget Office, and she served as the Energy Department’s top budget official from 2007 to 2010.

Stockton suggested the incoming leader “has the background" to tamp down on cost overruns at the nuclear office, but added it remains to be seen "whether she can get the horses to actually carry anything out.”

A longer-term occupant for the post must receive backing from President Obama and confirmation from the Senate. The White House will provide more information on the search for a successor, NNSA spokesman Joshua McConaha stated by email.]]>

Hagel pick could signal U.S. policy shift on Iran

Diane Barnes, Global Security Newswire — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 09:26:09 -0500

President Obama might be signaling plans to shift his administration's approach to an entrenched dispute over Iran's nuclear program by nominating a noted critic of hard-line policies to lead the Defense Department, a former Iranian nuclear negotiator and other expert observers said on Tuesday.

Obama has insisted he is ready to curb Iran's atomic ambitions through military force if diplomatic outreach and intensifying sanctions do not yield an agreement to resolve concerns that elements of Iran's ostensibly peaceful atomic program are geared toward development of a nuclear-weapon capability.

Washington and Tehran have been "inching towards a confrontation" as the United States has sought to pressure Iran through isolation and covert action, said Hossein Mousavian, a one-time spokesman for Iran's nuclear negotiating team. However, the nomination of former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska could create "an opportunity to bring a peaceful solution to the Iranian nuclear dilemma" if the Senate confirms his nomination to the top Pentagon post and the designation of Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., to become the next secretary of State, the former envoy told Global Security Newswire.

A second issue specialist said the requested appointments would be likely to alter "the configuration of the debate inside the administration."

The nominations "may be an indication of [Obama's] willingness to fight to create political space for his policies to a greater extent than he was during his first [term]," Trita Parsi, founder and president of the National Iranian American Council, said by telephone. He noted Kerry’s 2009 assertion that prior U.S. opposition to any Iranian enrichment of uranium -- a process with both civilian and military applications -- was “ridiculous.”

Hagel's nomination suggests Obama "rates the military option on Iran even lower than he indicates in public," said Peter Feaver, a political science and public policy expert at Duke University. In 2006, Hagel said "a military strike against Iran ... is not a viable, feasible, responsible option.”

In announcing Hagel's nomination on Monday, Obama referred to the two-term senator's record of defying "conventional wisdom" while in Congress. Hagel and one GOP colleague were alone in opposing one set of Iran penalties in 2001, and the Nebraska lawmaker received credit for preventing another sanctions proposal from advancing through the upper chamber in 2008, Foreign Policy magazine noted. Hagel separately voiced openness that year to the prospect of opening a U.S. interests section in Iran.

The former legislator reaffirmed his opposition to U.S. sanctions in a Monday interview with the Lincoln Journal Star.

"I have not supported unilateral sanctions because when it is us alone they don't work and they just isolate the United States," he told the Nebraska newspaper. "United Nations sanctions are working. When we just decree something, that doesn't work."

Hagel would have no formal role as Defense secretary in developing or implementing punitive economic measures against Iran, but he would oversee all U.S. military deployments, including those intended to back up Obama's threats of force against the Middle Eastern state.

The former senator "carries credibility precisely because he’s not eager to make military threats," Parsi said. "But when he makes it, he’s far more likely to mean it."

Obama's choice for replacing Leon Panetta at the Pentagon suggests the president would seek to minimize aggression by a nuclear-armed Iran rather than launch a military strike “if push came to shove,” Feaver said. Still, Hagel's “impeccable credentials” in questioning calls for an attack could alternately prove useful in making a case for military force, the expert added.

The former lawmaker can be expected to pass muster during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee because he has not publicly defied the president's harder-line stances, according to the Duke University professor. Still, he would likely face an unusually significant amount opposition for a Defense secretary-designate, the expert said. Hagel's confirmation hearing had not been scheduled as of Tuesday.

Committee member Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., is among several GOP senators to voice reservations over Obama's choice to lead the Pentagon.

"During these dangerous times, there is no more important Cabinet position than secretary of Defense," Graham wrote in his Twitter feed. "I fear [Hagel's] views, particularly toward Iran, send the worst possible signal at the worst time to the Iranians, our Israeli allies, and the world."

Hagel's nomination prompted an optimistic response from the Iranian Foreign Ministry. Iran's leaders “hope that practical changes would occur in the U.S. foreign policy and respect for nations’ rights would become Washington’s (new) approach,” spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said on Tuesday in comments quoted by state-run Press TV.

Mousavian echoed that stance, suggesting Tehran’s assessment would ultimately “be based on actions not words.”

Obama began his first term by promising a diplomatic approach to the nuclear standoff and concluded it boasting that his adminstration had taken unprecedented action to punish the Middle Eastern state, the one-time Iranian envoy wrote in an email.

"The mismatch between words and actions have left the Iranian leadership [to] question the true intentions of Washington," said Mousavian, who is now a visiting scholar at Princeton University.

If Hagel wins confirmation, Parsi said, Iran's leaders would probably view Obama’s ability to deal with congressional demands for a harder line on Iran as more significant than the new Pentagon chief's possible impact within the administration.

“There’s a perception [in Iran] that the president has not been sufficiently strong to, for instance, put sanctions relief on the table last year due to fear of a backlash in Washington," he said.

The Obama administration has also appeared at times to clash with Israel over how to deal with Iran.

The Israeli Embassy in Washington declined to comment on Hagel’s past statements on Iran, but said it ”looks forward to working with the next appointed secretary of Defense."

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak believes U.S.-Israeli security ties are “closer than ever” under President Obama, and “we have every confidence that those relations will continue to grow,” the embassy said in an email statement.

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U.S. to push for new anthrax vaccine by 2017

Diane Barnes, Global Security Newswire — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 15:41:52 -0500

The United States wants to have a new anthrax vaccine ready for large-scale acquisition no later than the 2017 budget year, the Health and Human Services Department said on Monday in its implementation plan for a national health preparedness initiative.

Such a treatment could win government authorization for potential distribution during a crisis, but full licensure could take longer, Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority head Robin Robinson told Global Security Newswire. "We have four candidates that are in development right now, and the trajectory for being able to purchase those" would fall between 2014 and 2018, Robinson said, adding that two other possible vaccines are "under consideration."

The federal government has sought for years to develop a successor to BioThrax, the only anthrax vaccine licensed by the Food and Drug Administration. A new version of the vaccine -- which could be ready as soon as fiscal 2015 for inclusion in the Strategic National Stockpile of medical countermeasures -- might be suited for storage at room temperature for up to a decade, Robinson said. He added it could be capable of conferring immunity with fewer doses than the five required by the existing vaccine.

Efforts to facilitate development of a new anthrax vaccine have absorbed hundreds of millions of dollars to date. In one high-profile setback, Health and Human Services in 2006 canceled plans for preparation of a new anthrax vaccine by the biotechnology firm VaxGen. The current vaccine's shortcomings could complicate any emergency distribution, and they necessitate the costly replacement of stockpiled materials on an ongoing basis.

"It's an expensive undertaking but it's also risky, which is why we have a number of different candidates," Robinson said. The four developmental candidates have made varying degrees of progress toward animal and human testing.

Meanwhile, separate research activities would seek to augment the existing anthrax vaccine "through the development and testing of adjuvants that could enhance performance and reduce the doses necessary to achieve full immunity," says the plan for activities under the HHS Public Health Emergency Medical Countermeasures Enterprise. Certain augmenting agents under development promise to render the vaccine effective following exposure to the bacteria; the existing shot must be administered well in advance.

Anthrax has been identified as a leading bioterror threat. Five people died after exposure to spores dispersed through the U.S. postal system in 2001.

Robinson said "considerable progress has already been made" in pursuing goals outlined in the broader HHS implementation blueprint, which establishes time lines for completing medical preparations against a wide array of unconventional-weapon and natural disease threats. The paper calls for federal agencies to collaborate in prioritizing the development and acquisition of various medical countermeasures, refining rules for their use, establishing distribution plans and making arrangements for potential administration to minors and other "special populations."

"The next four years should be bountiful in the amount of preparedness afforded by this plan," the BARDA chief said.

The National Institutes of Health is set through fiscal 2017 to fund development of medical treatments for nerve agents and other chemical warfare materials, as well as hazardous substances from manufacturing processes. One developmental drug could aid in mitigating seizures produced by nerve agents, and officials hope to create a more potent, easier-to-administer countermeasure for cyanide.

National Institutes' personnel have identified nearly 100 potential treatments for various types ofacute radiation syndrome and related ailments, and the government intends through fiscal 2014 to select promising candidates to receive BARDA funding.

No steps to develop nonmilitary vaccines for biological "material threats" other than anthrax and smallpox are included in the HHS document, which elaborates on development priorities established in a strategy document issued earlier this year. Both papers are slated for reassessment and revision at least every half-decade.

Health and Human Services development activities would receive support from several recently established scientific organizations comprised of experts from the academic and commercial biotechnology sectors, the new emergency preparedness document notes.

(Image via pixs4u/Shutterstock.com)

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U.S. plans trial distribution of anthrax vaccine in early 2013

Diane Barnes, Global Security Newswire — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 16:41:00 -0400

The plan, details of which were reported by Global Security Newswire in April, would give participating state and local emergency personnel the option of accepting a course of anthrax vaccination doses from the U.S. Strategic National Stockpile of medical countermeasures. The project would examine the potential to more widely distribute the countermeasure to first responders on a voluntary basis.

The department is putting the "final touches" on preparations for "soliciting groups who would be interested in participating in this pilot project," Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Alexander Garza said on Thursday at a joint hearing convened by two House Homeland Security subcommittees.

Garza said that the department was still fielding questions on the project from state agencies, local offices, and nongovernmental groups. Homeland Security was working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to recruit two federal offices and two state offices in the trial initiative, according to earlier reporting.

"As you can imagine, this is a very complex endeavor," he said, referring to challenges in implementing the Defense Department's mandatory anthrax-vaccination program. "So it is no small feat to do this time."

Garza did not elaborate on difficulties faced by the Pentagon immunization effort, but federal courts have weighed multiple challenges to its legality.

The new initiative is "fairly close" to moving forward, but certain "bureaucratic mechanisms" made the exact timing of implementation difficult to predict, the official said in response to questioning by House Homeland Security Emergency Preparedness Subcommittee ranking member Laura Richardson, D-Calif.

"If pressed, I would say early next year" is a realistic estimate for the rollout, Garza said.

(Image via Vladimir Koletic/Shutterstock.com)

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Defense nominee backs prompt global strike effort

Diane Barnes — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0400

The development of a capability to deliver conventional warheads to any point on Earth within minutes "would be a valuable option for the president to have at his disposal," CIA Director Leon Panetta told lawmakers ahead of a hearing on his nomination to succeed Robert Gates as U.S. Defense secretary.

Panetta's statements suggest the Pentagon under his leadership would continue forward with the controversial program.

A "conventional prompt global strike" capability would enable the United States "to strike time-sensitive targets, so that distant, hard-to-reach places will no longer provide sanctuary to adversaries," Panetta said in written testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

"It is my understanding that the only current prompt global strike capability in the U.S. inventory is a nuclear-armed ballistic missile," he said.

The United States might consider employing such a system against "regional adversaries considering an attack using weapons of mass destruction," "high-priority" nonstate entities or "situations where a fleeting, serious threat was located in a region not readily accessible by other means," Panetta said.

The CIA chief declined to express a preference for any of the technologies now being studied for carrying out a rapid non-nuclear strike. One such system would involve use of a hypersonic drone aircraft designed to travel at speeds of up to 4,000 mph .

"I understand that [the Defense Department] is developing and testing technologies relevant to both land-based and sea-based CPGS [conventional prompt global strike]," Panetta said in his written testimony. "It would be premature to make any decisions regarding a future deployed system until the results of these tests are in-hand.

The White House informed Congress earlier this year that the Defense Department "at present has no plans to develop or field" ICBMs or submarine-launched ballistic missiles that would be tipped with conventional warheads and delivered "with traditional ballistic trajectories," Arms Control Today reported in April. Earlier discussion of such a scheme had prompted concerns that other nuclear powers would be unable to distinguish such a weapon from a nuclear-tipped ballistic missile, potentially leading to catastrophe.

Effective use of such a weapon system "would depend on the availability of timely and accurate intelligence on the nature, location, and disposition of a potential target," Panetta stated. "If confirmed, I will consider what specific improvements in intelligence capabilities may be needed to enable effective use of CPGS systems for various types of targets."

Separately, Panetta did not rule out recommending that new underground nuclear test detonations be conducted if he could not "certify the stockpile as safe, secure and reliable." His "recommendation ... would depend critically on the root causes of problems in the stockpile," Panetta said .

The CIA director endorsed expansion of the U.S. Cooperative Threat Reduction initiative to regions outside of the former Soviet Union, and backed the program's broad goals of countering threats posed by weapons of mass destruction and related materials .

Speaking before the Senate panel on Thursday, Panetta reaffirmed Obama administration stances in matters including U.S. nuclear weapons modernization and the atomic threats posed by Iran and North Korea.
Asked by Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) whether failure to oust Libyan dictator Muammar Qadhafi from power would signal that Iran has no need "to fear America when it comes to developing nuclear weapons," Panetta appeared to agree.

"I think it tells them that our word isn't worth very much if we're not willing to stick to it," the CIA chief said. President Obama has demanded that Qadhafi step down.

Gates is slated to exit the Pentagon's top post on June 30. Panetta is expected to be confirmed by the Senate and to take his new job on July 1.

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Pentagon details plan for new nuclear bomber

Diane Barnes — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0400

The Defense Department in a new acquisition document has laid out preliminary plans to develop a fleet of next-generation nuclear bombers capable of carrying out long-range missions with or without onboard pilots.

A "new penetrating, nuclear-capable bomber program" would form the "centerpiece" of a broader suite of U.S. long-range strike aircraft intended to eliminate and discourage the development of barriers to military operations, the Pentagon said in a legally required aircraft procurement plan spanning the next three decades. Meanwhile, the nation's existing B-1, B-2, and B-52 bombers would continue undergoing updates to ensure their readiness to carry out long-range missions until 2040, the document states.

The department envisions preparing a fleet of between 80 and 100 of the new bombers at a cost of $550 million for each aircraft. The proposed quantity, the report says, would allow for Air Force "capabilities required to operate in an anti-access, area denial environment and ensure a sustainable inventory over the long term."

The Pentagon's 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review established broad objectives that guided the latest acquisition plan covering bombers, fighter jets, and other aircraft. Those four "strategic priorities" are: achieving victory in present conflicts and staving off new conflicts; laying the groundwork for success against hostile forces in a variety of scenarios; and maintaining and bolstering the nation's military as an organization comprised solely of volunteers.

The Defense Department projected a slight decline in its overall aircraft holdings between fiscal years 2012 and 2021; aviation force levels are slated to jump from 5,555 in the next budget period to 5,626 in fiscal 2016, before falling to 5,467 a decade from now.

The military expects to maintain 156 long-range bombers for most of the next decade, before the total inventory declines by a single plane in fiscal 2021, according to the report.

Modernization efforts would be funded to augment the "effectiveness and survivability" of the B-2 bomber, the document states. Meanwhile, the Air Force would cull six of its B-1 aircraft between fiscal 2012 and 2016 to finance updates to the remaining bombers from that fleet, it adds.

The bombers and the rest of the updated fleet of fixed-wing aircraft are expected to support or conduct six crucial military mission areas, according to the Pentagon. These include countering the spread and use of weapons of mass destruction, battling terrorists, protecting the United States, and supporting allied nations.

"The aviation plan provides the aircraft needed to cover the full complement of operations that U.S. military forces could undertake in the decades ahead, and it will evolve as security needs change," the report says. "As [Defense Secretary Robert] Gates has stated, 'What is needed is a portfolio of military capabilities with maximum versatility across the widest possible spectrum of conflict.'"

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