U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff is expected to create an intelligence director within his agency to concentrate terrorism analysis and a chief medical officer dealing with bioterrorism, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, June 30).
The changes are part of an overhaul to focus the department, plagued by bureaucratic troubles and other problems, on biological and conventional terrorism, according to AP.
“Our department must drive improvement with a sense of urgency,” Chertoff said in a transcript of a statement he is set to make today to lawmakers. “Our enemy constantly changes and adapts, so we as a department must be nimble and decisive.”
The medical officer is expected to lead bioterror policy and coordinate response to an attack by federal, state and local agencies. Officials said the post was prompted federal agencies’ troubles in exchanging information during the March anthrax scare in the Washington area, AP reported (see GSN, April 14).
Chertoff also is expected to make transportation and border security top department priorities by adding personnel as well as new detection and screening technologies, according to department officials.
Representative Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said that Chertoff, in a briefing to lawmakers, also pegged chemical and nuclear plant security and immigration as areas of importance (Lara Jakes Jordan, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, July 13).
In an interview with USA Today, Chertoff said the aim of the changes is to stop a WMD attack.
Chertoff is announcing the changes less than a week after the Bush administration raised the terror threat level to high for mass transit systems following the London bombings, USA Today reported today.
However, the secretary rejected calls from Senator Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and others to direct significantly more money to transit security. The department needs to “keep our eye on the ball and focus on our priorities,” Chertoff said.
Chertoff added that the public should be aware that “we’re going to have the issues of terrorism and these kind of events for a very long time to come. … We can't be complacent, but we also need to kind of build in a sense of stability and calmness, and not react or overreact to individual instances.”
USA Today also reported that Chertoff plans a new division focusing on preparedness at vulnerable locations such as chemical and nuclear facilities, bridges and dams (Mimi Hall, USA Today, July 13).
http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/2005_7_13.html#9CEE65B5
Iranian President-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad pledged yesterday that his nation would implement “new measures” in its nuclear and foreign policy (see GSN, July 12).
“There will be new measures concerning foreign policy,” said Ahmadinejad, without elaborating. He takes office on Aug. 3 (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, July 12).
Top Iranian nuclear negotiator Hassan Rohani said in an interview published in today’s Sharq daily that Ahmadinejad may remove him from his position, Reuters reported.
“The new president naturally has the right to appoint whoever he chooses,” Rohani said.
He also warned that a negotiating team appointed by the new administration could overturn Tehran’s November agreement with the European Union to freeze sensitive nuclear work for the duration of their negotiations.
“I don’t think anyone is against negotiations (with the European Union), but there might be differences in our approach about suspension (of nuclear work). It is possible that this different viewpoint may be implemented,” Rohani said (Paul Hughes, Reuters, July 13).
Iran and the European Union are scheduled to resume working-level nuclear talks Monday, with EU officials expected to offer their official proposal on Iran’s nuclear program by Aug. 1, Iranian Supreme National Security Council spokesman Ali Aqa-Mohammadi, said yesterday (Vision of the Islamic Republic of Iran/BBC Monitoring, July 12).
http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/2005_7_13.html#B333A68F
The Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency and the International Atomic Energy Agency are hosting a three-day conference in Moscow beginning today to examine ways to regulate use of the nuclear fuel cycle, the U.N. agency announced in a press release (see GSN, May 31).
Yuri Sokolov, the agency’s deputy director general for nuclear energy, told conference delegates that the agency favors improving regulation of the nuclear fuel cycle.
“The IAEA is addressing the challenges through implementing strengthened safeguards and promoting assurances of supply of nuclear fuel cycle services together with assurances of nonproliferation,” he said. “In this regard, the agency is seeking to promote enhanced controls over sensitive parts of the nuclear fuel cycle, in particular uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing technology” (IAEA release, July 13).
Meanwhile, Russian atomic energy chief Alexander Rumyantsev yesterday called for increased nuclear security following last week’s bombings in London, the Associated Press reported.
Rumyantsev said that while Russian and U.S. nuclear sites are guarded, “in connection with the changing contemporary threats, new challenges arise which must be resisted — today we understand this when an appalling terror attack has just occurred” (Associated Press, July 12).
http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/2005_7_13.html#46BAD068