NEWS BRIEFS

U.S. Military Package for Pakistan Set

UAs part of its ongoing war against terrorism, the United States announced November 6 that it would supply Pakistan with $73 million in military aid to help Islamabad improve its border security. However, Secretary of State Colin Powell later ruled out the possibility that the United States would provide Pakistan with the F-16 fighter aircraft it has long sought.

A State Department official interviewed November 20 said the package, which will be administered by the State Department’s Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement, would largely consist of five Huey utility helicopters, trucks, water tankers, communications and night-vision equipment, as well as some type of fixed-wing surveillance aircraft. The equipment will be transferred to nonmilitary units deployed along Pakistan’s western border with Afghanistan and along the coast of the Arabian Sea. Another U.S. government official described the package as not being militarily significant and ventured that the equipment would not anger India, a longtime rival of Pakistan.

President George W. Bush cleared the way for delivery of U.S. arms and military assistance to Pakistan on September 22 and October 27 when he waived separate sets of sanctions prohibiting such exports to Pakistan. The United States had imposed sanctions on Pakistan for its development and testing of nuclear weapons, as well as for the October 1999 military coup by which current Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf took power.

Although Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld emphasized November 6 that the United States is “interested in strengthening military-to-military ties with Pakistan and India,” Powell indicated November 11 that there were limits to what U.S. weaponry would be made available to Pakistan. Appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press, Powell said the United States has “no plans now” to transfer F-16 fighter aircraft to Pakistan, even though Musharraf has requested them. Washington halted the delivery of 28 F-16 fighters to Islamabad in 1990, when U.S. legislation mandated sanctions because President George H. W. Bush could no longer certify that Pakistan did not have a “nuclear explosive device.”

Russia Finishes Weapons Reductions in Moldova

On November 14, Russia completed the destruction or withdrawal of all its tanks, armored combat vehicles (ACVs), and heavy artillery from Moldova, fulfilling a pledge it made in conjunction with the November 1999 overhaul of the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty.

Beating its end-of-2001 deadline by more than a month, Russia destroyed or withdrew from Moldova 364 weapons, including 108 battle tanks, 131 ACVs, and 125 pieces of heavy artillery. Of this total, Moscow destroyed all the tanks, 83 ACVs, and 48 pieces of heavy artillery.

Although completing its obligations regarding CFE-limited weapons in Moldova, Moscow still has an additional 42,000 tons of weapons and ammunition that must be withdrawn or destroyed as part of another November 1999 pledge to have no weapons or forces in Moldova by the end of 2002. In a November 22 statement to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, U.S. Ambassador David Johnson noted that “preparations are well underway” for Russia to withdraw and destroy the ammunition.

Russia also declared in early November that it had completed its withdrawal from a military base in Gudauta, Georgia, which would belatedly fulfill a separate November 1999 commitment to disband two Russian military bases in Georgia by July 1, 2001. But Georgia disputed the Russian declaration, claiming that several hundred Russian soldiers are still at the base. Moscow maintains the troops are peacekeepers.

Anthrax Continues to Surface; Source Unknown

Government officials have not yet identified the source behind the bioterrorist attack that has left five people dead from anthrax, and spores of the bacterium continue to be found in new locations. (See ACT, November 2001.)

Since the beginning of October, anthrax-laden mail has contaminated news media buildings, postal facilities, and government offices. In all, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has diagnosed 23 cases of anthrax: 11 (including the five who have died) with inhalation anthrax, and 12 (seven confirmed and five suspected) with cutaneous anthrax, which is more responsive to treatment than the inhaled form.

Of the 23 cases, all but two have involved news media or postal employees who apparently had either direct or indirect contact with the bacterium. However, the cause of anthrax exposure in the other two cases, in which a New York City hospital worker died October 31 and a 94-year-old Connecticut woman died November 21, remains a mystery.

Little new evidence has surfaced to assist investigators uncover the perpetrator behind the attacks. On November 7, Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge said, “We have not ruled out whether this was an act of an individual or a collective act, whether it was a domestic source or a foreign source.”

Investigators are examining whether an anthrax-filled letter addressed to Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) that was discovered November 16 may contain forensics clues, such as fingerprints, to help identify the source. Previously discovered mail contaminated with anthrax spores yielded no such information. The Leahy letter, which has not yet been opened, was found after authorities sorted through congressional mail that had been quarantined following the October 15 discovery of an anthrax-laced letter addressed to Senator Tom Daschle (D-SD). On NBC’s Meet the Press November 25, Leahy said preliminary tests showed there was enough anthrax in the letter addressed to him to kill 100,000 people.

In November, traces of anthrax continued to turn up in government buildings, including the offices of Senators Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and Christopher Dodd (D-CT), and at additional postal sites, such as a Kansas City, Missouri, facility that received cross-contaminated mail from a Washington postal facility.

Open Skies Treaty to Enter Into Force

On November 2, Russia and Belarus deposited their instruments of ratification for the Open Skies Treaty, triggering the 60-day countdown for the accord’s entry into force on January 1, 2002.

Negotiated by NATO and former members of the now-defunct Warsaw Pact and signed in 1992, the Open Skies Treaty permits countries to conduct unarmed reconnaissance flights over the territories of other treaty parties. Aircraft used in the flights will have to meet certain specifications and will be equipped with sensors, such as cameras and infrared devices, sensitive enough to enable the observing party to distinguish between tanks and trucks on the ground.

The treaty allocates each state-party a quota of flights that it must permit over its territory annually. For example, the United States and Russia, which shares its quota with Belarus, each have a quota of 42 flights, while smaller countries, such as Spain and Bulgaria, have to allow only four flights per year.

Under the treaty, however, states-parties only need to permit up to 75 percent of their flight quota from the date of entry into force to the end of the following year. Thus, states-parties will have until the end of 2003 to conduct the first round of reduced annual flights.

Treaty signatories have been conducting practice flights, and more than 350 trial missions have taken place since 1996, according to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

Kyrgyzstan is the only country of the 27 treaty signatories that has not ratified the treaty, but its ratification is not required for the accord’s entry into force. For the first six months after entry into force, other OSCE members not party to the treaty may apply to join the accord, and after that any country may request to accede to the treaty. Finland and Sweden, both of which are OSCE members, announced on November 5 that they want to join the treaty.

Russia, India Conclude Nuclear Reactor Deal

Over U.S. objections that Moscow would violate its commitments under the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), Russia and India concluded a deal committing Russia to construct two 1,000-megawatt, light-water, pressurized reactors at Kudankulam in southern India, according to a Russian source.

The deal was signed November 6, during Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s state visit to Moscow. India and the Soviet Union initially agreed to the deal, reportedly worth $2.6 billion, in 1988, although New Dehli had previously been unable to finance the project.

The Pioneer, an Indian newspaper, reported that the first of the two reactor units are expected to be completed by December 2007, and “site-related activities” have already commenced, according to Rajagopalan Chidambaram, chairman of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission.

The United States has long opposed the project, citing Russian obligations as a member of the NSG, a group of 39 countries that have agreed to restrict their exports of nuclear equipment and technology that could be used for weapons purposes. In 1992, NSG members agreed not to sell nuclear technology to non-nuclear-weapon states, such as India, that do not accept International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards at all of their nuclear facilities.

Russia has disputed Washington’s assertion, citing a clause in the 1992 agreement that exempts the arrangement from applying to “existing agreement and contracts.” But a State Department official said that no specific contracts or financial arrangements were concluded in 1988 and that the deal cannot therefore be exempted under this clause.

The official added that Washington’s concerns stem not from a belief that the reactor project would allow India to divert nuclear technology or materials to its weapons program but rather that the United States sees the deal as inconsistent with Russia’s commitments as an NSG member.