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TRANSCRIPT OF MEETING WITH MEMBERS
OF THE
WEU ASSEMBLY DEFENCE COMMITTEE AND
INTERPARLIAMENTARY EUROPEAN SECURITY AND DEFENCE ASSEMBLY
JUNE 29, 2005 9:00-11:00 am
at the Stewart Mott House in Washington, D.C.
David Isenberg,
BASIC: biological weapons security
Previous:
Matt Martin,
BASIC: missile defense, nuclear security
Alistair
Millar, Fourth Freedom Forum: tactical nuclear weapons
and transatlantic security
Dr.
Chantal de Jonge Oudraat, Center for Transatlantic Relations:
NATO, UN and peace operations
Introduction
David Isenberg:
I've always thought that with sessions like this, the single
advantage is to be as brief as possible and extend more time
for questions and answers. So to use Chantal's nomenclature,
I am going to endeavor to be the extreme minimalist and speak
as briefly as possible.
But let me just respond to something raised
by Alistair before I forget it. There has long been this assumption,
erroneous in my viewpoint, but which has achieved near theologically
certain proportions, probably appropriate for the Bush Administration,
that if you build bunker busters you will inevitably destroy
any caches of biological or chemical material, which are buried
underground. This is, of course, theologically nice, but not
physically born out by the facts.
In fact, if you look at the analyses, the technical
analyses that have been done, and I would refer you to those
done by Michael Levi over at the Brookings Institution, who
used to be with the Federation of American Scientists, I believe,
you find out that such assumptions are not born out by the
facts. They depend on a very complex sequence of things happening
in terms of the bunker not being buried too deeply under the
ground, depending upon the type of fill material between the
surface and the bunker, the positioning of materials within
the bunker, whether there are any baffle doors by the entrance,
etc., the size of the bunker buster and its yield. When you
sort all of those out, you find the probability of such materials
being destroyed by such a thing are probably in many cases
no better than using conventional explosives and in fact if
you use a nuclear explosive, it would not do the job. So it's
an interesting theological assumption and I think it's interesting
that it never gets challenged and I would hope that some people,
when they get back to their respective countries, they might
start doing that.
Let me just briefly summarize some of the BW
developments I think worthy of note, both globally and then
in the US. There is a page in your packets summarizing the
SMI presentation I did in London. I would be happy to send
that out to anybody who is interested and I will hand around
my cards to those people who don't already have them so you
can e-mail me if you are interested. And I should say I feel
abashed talking about BW developments when we have a truly
vastly more experienced expert than me, Ambassador Leonard,
sitting at the back and I would certainly encourage anybody
interested in pursuing this to talk to him.
I would say nearly four years have passed since
the Bush Administration's fairly dramatic rejection of a draft
protocol for the biological weapons convention, leading to
the collapse of a decade long effort to supplement the BWC
with formal compliance measures. I'm sure most of you are
aware of just last week the third meeting of experts from
States' parties to the BWC was held in Geneva, from the 13th
to the 24th of June. The experts met to discuss and promote
common understanding and effective actions on the quote, "content,
promulgation and adoption of codes of conduct for scientists,"
unquote. They discussed ways in which the development and
implementation of codes of conduct for scientists could help
prevent the use of science, particularly life sciences and
biotechnology, and ways that might lead to violations of the
BWC.
Needing further address: how raising awareness
and educating scientists on the Convention's prohibitions,
the constraints and barriers against the development and the
proliferation of pathogenic microorganisms and toxins, and
related materials and technologies for hostile use.
The participants debated the overall benefits
of codes of conduct and generated a variety of approaches
for developing them. They discussed the relative merits of
a universal code versus multiple codes, and the relationship
of voluntary or contract-based codes of conduct and enforceable
legislation and regulations that govern the handling, the
transfer and transport and use of pathogenic microorganisms
and toxins for peaceful purposes.
I should say that while all of this is necessary,
probably useful and inevitable, in large part it's much like
one of Shakespeare's plays, it was much sound and the fury
and I'm not sure how much it all ultimately accomplished.
While many experts agreed on the general need
to raise awareness and increase education among the scientific
community and the public at large on biological weapons issues,
the participants varied in their opinion on who should be
responsible for promoting such codes of conduct and on whether
a top-down or bottom-up strategy should be pursued. In addition,
they discussed how limiting the scope of the code or codes
to scientists alone would exclude decision makers, facility
managers, and various technicians, transport staff, and other
relevant actors. Many of the participants emphasized the need
to avoid, quote, "reinventing the wheel," unquote, and recommended
building upon existing codes and practices.
Other issues raised included the protection
of whistle blowers, the integration of research ethics, scientific
education and expanding laboratory education and standard
operating biosafety and biosecurity practices.
The Chairman, Ambassador Freeman of the United
Kingdom, produced a paper listing considerations -- recommendations
and conclusions drawn from the presentations to assist the
delegations in their preparations for the next meeting of
States' parties to be held in Geneva in December. And you
should be able to find that paper online.
Now this meeting was part of a three-year program
mandated by the Fifth Review Conference of the BWC. That Conference,
which concluded in 2002, decided that States' parties would
meet twice yearly until the next review conference in 2006
to discuss and promote common understanding and effective
action on specific topics related to better implementation
of the BWC. Specifically, practical ways of strengthening
national measures against biological weapons through national
legislation on biosecurity measures and that is something
you of various members of national delegations have a chance
to work on when you are back home: measures to strengthen
and broaden national and international institutional efforts
on existing measures for the surveillance, detection, and
diagnosis in combating of infectious diseases affecting humans,
animals, and plants.
And let me digress on this point because something
that Ambassador Leonard brought to my attention just last
week has now been duly certified as sort of the next big international
security threat to the planet. That is the specter and probability,
some experts would say inevitability, of a new pandemic arising
in the world, specifically a new pandemic called the avian
influenza - flu. If you look at events happening in Southeast
Asia, in countries like China, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand,
etc., you'll see that this is something that has not gone
away and in the past week they have detected new outbreaks
in Vietnam and China.
There is a great probability that this flu will
be zoonotic, meaning that it will leap species barriers from
animals to humans. It is very pathogenic among foul and poultry.
Its fatality exceeds that of 50 percent. If it became transmissible
to humans, the fatality would exceed that of smallpox. Well,
enough of the digression on that point.
The final point of the program mandate is that
by the Fifth Review Conference is to work on measures to enhance
international capabilities for responding to investigating
and mitigating the effects of cases of alleged abuse of biological
or toxical weapons.
Now the next meeting of the States' parties,
to be held in December, will consider this program and next
year, the Sixth Review Conference will consider the work of
the program and will decide on their actions. I guess it goes
without saying, given the stance of the Bush Administration,
they will -- especially if John Bolton does become Ambassador
to the United Nations -- they would probably take a rather
minimalists view of any Review Conference and probably seek
not to do much of anything.
At the end of the most recent meeting, it was
announced that the depository States, the United Kingdom,
the United States, and Russia, have started consultations
with regards to next year's Review Conference. There have
been some rumors that at the request of the United States
that the future preparatory committee meeting will be as short,
one week at the most and perhaps lasting as little as two
to three days, so that would be consistent with the Bush Administration's
policies on the issue to date. The Nonaligned Movement will
chair the Review Conference. It has nominated Pakistan.
I should mention, since I talked about Bolton,
one of the interesting things about the past and ongoing battle
over his nomination is that it underscores his philosophy
that treaties alone do not keep the world safe from the specter
of biological or chemical weapons use. And I think that more
people are now aware that back in December 2001 at a conference
on biological weapons that John Bolton stunned the rest of
the diplomats there by insisting without warning that the
nations of the world abandon their years' long effort to enforce
the BWC and try to enact a BWC Protocol.
I'm sure you know better than I that last December
the WEU General Affairs and External Relations Council noted
a six-month progress report on the implementation of the EU's
WMD strategy. It has a wide variety of useful information
on what the EU has been doing in this area and a list of priorities
for a coherent implementation of a WMD strategy.
Let me just end by mentioning a few issues that
both the United States and EU nations might consider doing
more work on. They might start by ending the barrier between
national analysis, planning and programs that artificially
distinguish between domestic and international terrorism attempts
and successful incidents and they instead should focus on
high-risk forms of terrorism and combine analytic functions.
They should create different hierarchies of intelligence to
allow for the sharing of data at the national and international
level. They should probably establish an international center
or centers for tracking, characterizing, and analyzing terrorists
and terrorism incidents, terrorists and terrorists' activities,
specifically with regard to BW. This is something that Interpol
has started doing, but it still has a long way to go. They
should create a specialized element in such centers for tracking
and analyzing covert and proxy biological WMD attacks.
They should ask the World Health Organization,
or task it with seeking international cooperation, and creating
a coordinated plan for dealing with both bioterrorism and
natural outbreaks and immunity problems, especially in light
of the inevitability of things like an avian flu pandemic.
Increased international efforts are needed to establish suitable
controls on equipment and supply sales and access to key facilities
and they should probably work on creating an international
system for tracking individuals with special forms of expertise
as well as procedures for vetting and clearing workers and
researchers. This is not only to deal with issues such as
the relatively well-known brain drain from Russia -with former
people who used to work in their BW program, but also to take
into account the future surplus of at least reasonably confident
BW workers that the United States is now creating.
I should point out in the aftermath of the anthrax
attacks after 9/11 that there's been a huge effort in the
United States to create biological research centers. Much
of this has devolved down to the level of pork where Congressmen
and Senators seek to satisfy their constituents who are anxious
to get a share of the biodefense money now washing through
the nation and they have set up many research laboratories,
many of them at the higher levels, BW3 and BW4 levels. A recent
article in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists estimates
that the US has created at least 10,000 new workers now working
with pathogens. When you consider we still don't know who
released the anthrax back in 2001, that has to be unsettling.
So I think I will leave it at there. I won't
summarize the developments going on with the US. You have
that in your folder. I would add that we put out a monthly BW Update circulated via e-mail and you can sign
up on our Web site for that. And I think that would be
something to at least mildly inform you as to what is going
on with regard to BW both here and abroad. Thank you.
Chris Lindborg: Thank you David. Before
we open our discussion, I want to point out again, in addition
to some of the other information packets in your folder, there
is also an article on NATO by a BASIC Council Member on the
European side. The article is by Dr. Andrew Cottey. So I would
invite you all to look at that when you have time. Also, please
help yourselves to publications in the back there that were
too large to fit into the folders. Some of them are from BASIC
and also Chantal de Jonge Oudraat brought some of those publications
and we also have some books here. So take your time, and help
yourselves to those as well as to food. But now I would like
to open it up to discussion. People should please raise their
hands and introduce themselves and then either make your point
or pose a question.
Next:
Discussion, including WEU Assembly
Defence Committee
Previous:
Matt Martin,
BASIC: missile defense, nuclear security
Alistair
Millar, Fourth Freedom Forum: tactical nuclear weapons
and transatlantic security
Dr.
Chantal de Jonge Oudraat, Center for Transatlantic Relations:
NATO, UN and peace operations
Introduction
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