Why Shahram Amiri is hotter than Anna Chapman

There is perhaps only one thing that remains clear in the international furor over the defection/kidnapping of the Iranian scientist Shahram Amiri: getting another country's nuclear scientist on the rolls is the greatest coup that a spy agency can achieve. It's certainly more valuable than implanting a photogenic "illegal" into another country, as Russia's cover operators did in America with their undercover spy, Anna Chapman.

But the excitement of the chase can quickly fade, leaving a generation of atomic defectors feeling a bit jilted as they struggle to make a life for themselves in their new country. "Freedom can be harsh," Charles Duelfer, who led the CIA inquiry into Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, told Turtle Bay. "The U.S. government's interest wanes pretty quickly once fully debriefed. Then what do you do? Can't work on the U.S. nuclear program. Write a book? Then what?"

As long as there have been nuclear programs, there have been nuclear spies. In 1942, before he created James Bond, Ian Flemming, then a 34-year-old commander in the Royal Navy's volunteer reserve, toiled away in a naval intelligence unit and devised and realized a plan to create an elite unit of intelligence commandos who would cross enemy lines to capture vital enemy secrets, according to Sean Longden's history of the squad, T-Force: The Forgotten Heroes of 1945. Under Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the team uncovered many of Nazi Germany's nuclear secrets and captured prominent German nuclear scientists, including Willem Groth and Otto Hahn.

More than half a century after the dawn of the atomic era, nuclear scientists have maintained their staying power as a high-value intelligence target, garnering large sums for their country's nuclear secrets. American and European sleuths have aggressively pursued nuclear scientists in Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and beyond in an effort to ensure the safety of friendly countries' nuclear stockpiles or to unlock the key to an enemy's most treasured security secrets.

It remains unclear why Amiri decided to leave. A senior U.S. official told the Washington Post that Amiri possessed valuable insights into Iran's nuclear program and that he was paid $5 million to share them with American debriefers -- money he may no longer be able to access. But the official also suggested the U.S. had got what it needed: "We have his information, and the Iranians have him."

But U.S. specialists who have sought to help other nuclear defectors settle in the United States say the Amiri case highlights the challenges in recruiting foreign scientists. The CIA, they say, has often failed to provide the transplants with adequate career prospects or guarantees for the safety of relatives. Some U.S. officials said Amiri, who claims he was kidnapped by American authorities, may have returned because of concerns over the well-being of his family.

"This is a real problem," said David Albright, a nuclear scientist who heads the Institute for Science and International Security. Albright said that the CIA has provided top scientists that have outlived their usefulness with little support and menial careers. Perversely, he said, the approach has encouraged defectors to ply their handlers with exaggerated claims or to provide their services to the next highest bidder. The most notable case involved Rafid Ahmed Alwan, dubbed Curveball by the CIA, who claimed to have been a chemical engineer in a secret mobile biological weapons plant. His assertion, which provided a critical rationale for the U.S. invasion of Iraq, was later disproved by the CIA's Iraq Survey Group, which was led by Duelfer. "The incentive structure encourages these guys to exaggerate their technical qualifications and their knowledge of what's going on in a secret nuclear program," Albright said. "When they drain them dry, their value drops dramatically."

Khidhir Hamza, a former Iraqi nuclear scientist who defected to the United States in 1994, was considered a valuable catch, prompting the CIA to mount a secret operation to spirit his family out of the country, according to Albright. The following year, a more valuable defector, Saddam Hussein's brother in law, Hussein Kamal, fled Iraq for Jordan, providing detailed briefing of Iraq's weapons programs to CIA and U.N. specialists. The defection prompted Iraq to provide greater details about its chemical, biological, and nuclear programs; it also undercut Hamza's value, who was subsequently set up to operate a BP gas station in Fredericksburg, Va. A couple of years later, Hamza approached Albright for a job and helped provide insights into Iraq's nuclear program. But he was also drawn to the Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi, together with whom he played a role in exaggerating the threat of Iraq's nuclear program. "He went on to become their biggest nuclear exaggerator," he said.

The United States also assembled a series of task forces in Baghdad to search for high value nuclear operators. One CIA team quickly located Mahdi Obeidi, an Iraqi expert on nuclear centrifuges, who hid a trove of documents and centrifuge parts in his rose garden. The materials, which were buried in the early 1990s, provided a blue print of Iraq's nuclear program. Obeidi told the Americans that the materials had not been touched since then, and that he had ended his work in the nuclear weapons field.

Albright said that U.S. authorities initially offered to allow Obeidi to defect to the United States, but that he would have to leave his family behind. The CIA relented after CNN approached the CIA for comment on the scientist's predicament, according to Albright. "I can tell you it is very, very difficult to get the U.S. government to approve taking in someone," said Duelfer, who urged the White House to allow Obeidi to flee to the United States. "It always amazed me that it is so hard to get approval to bring in someone who may well have risked their life for us." The Russian illegals, he noted, had little trouble getting U.S. residency. "But that's the way it is," Albright says.

Duelfer said the United States "is a difficult place to adjust, especially if you come from circumstances of prestige and assured income...you can do what you want, but you may go broke." Returning home, he said, is not so unusual. Hussein Kamal was lured back to Iraq, where Saddam Hussein had him executed for his treachery. Mordechai Vanunu, an Israeli nuclear technician, was drugged and abducted by Mossad agents in 1986, after telling British reporters about the existence of an Israeli plutonium separation plant. Vitaly Yurchenko, a KGB colonel who defected in 1985, walked away from his CIA handler in Georgetown after being spurned by his mistress, who told him she fell in love with a KGB officer, not a traitor. Like Amiri, Yurchenko told the press he had been kidnapped and tortured.

"We could do better," said Duelfer. "Still, there are reasons we do it badly." He cited the massive costs, political and bureaucratic constraints, and "every imaginable weirdness you can think of from multiple wives and girlfriends to illness and criminal backgrounds."

China's Billion-Dollar Aid Appetite

Why is Beijing winning health grants at the expense of African countries?
-Jack C. Chow

Back in 2001, I was the lead U.S. negotiator in international talks meant to transform the way that poor countries fight some of the world's most pernicious diseases -- HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. Our vision looked like this: Instead of each country spending on its own, rich countries would pool donations into one coordinated fund that would give grants to help resource-strapped countries purchase medicines, build health programs, and prevent the diseases from spreading. We imagined the bulk of the money ending up in places like Lesotho, Haiti, and Uganda, where these three diseases have reached crisis levels. So it might surprise and concern you -- as much as it still does me -- to learn that one of the top grant recipients isn't in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, or impoverished Central Asia. It's a country with $2.5 trillion in foreign currency reserves: China.

Over the eight years since the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria first launched, China has applied for and been awarded nearly $1 billion in grants, becoming the fourth-largest recipient of funds behind Ethiopia, India, and Tanzania. Already, the country has drawn nearly $500 million from this credit line and soon expects to receive $165 million in new grants. China's aggregate award from the fund is nearly three times larger than that of South Africa, one of the most affected countries from these three diseases. Moreover, China has won malaria grant money totaling $149 million (and $89 million more might be on the way) -- in a country where only 38 deaths from the mosquito-borne illness were reported last year. That is more than the $122 million awarded to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which reported nearly 25,000 malaria deaths during the same period. In fact, only seven sub-Saharan African countries receive more malaria aid than China -- and 29 countries in Africa get less. Combined, those 29 countries report 64,000 deaths from the disease each year.

China has aggressively pursued Global Fund grants and has continued to win significant amounts with every passing year. Beijing does make a nominal contribution to the fund of $2 million annually, meaning that it has donated $16 million over the last eight years. By comparison, the United States, the leading donor, has committed $5.5 billion, and France has offered $2.5 billion over the same period. These contributing countries expect no financial return for their gift, but China has recouped its spending by 60 times.

Even more alarming, China's persistent appetite threatens to undermine the entire premise behind the Global Fund. The organization's leadership is trying to solicit between $13 billion and $20 billion to cover its next three years of operations -- a tall order at a time of global recession. Donors will grow even more reluctant if they realize that substantial funds are being awarded to a country that can more than pay for its own health programs.

How did China ever become eligible for grants in the first place? In short, because of a loophole. The Global Fund decides eligibility for grants based on the World Bank's classification system, which divides countries by income. High-income countries such as the United States, the European industrial countries, and Japan are ineligible. Low-income countries, including many in sub-Saharan Africa, are grant-eligible. In between, so-called lower-middle-income countries like China are eligible if the grants are part of a cost-sharing program through which the fund pays up to 65 percent and the country pays the rest. (China stays in this lower-middle-income category because its huge population keeps per capita figures down.) The country competes with the likes of Bolivia, Cameroon, and India in this category. But because the fund's pot of money isn't allocated by income group, any grants that China wins reduce the remaining money available for all eligible countries.

For a country like Cameroon, cost-sharing grants make a lot of sense. By giving part of the full amount, the fund can spur the host government into investing more of its discretionary budget in health. The extra cash can build health infrastructure and capacity, preparing the country to wean itself from foreign funds. But in China's case, the argument for a Global Fund grant is tenuous at best. During the depths of the world economic crisis in 2008, China put forth a massive economic stimulus package of $586 billion that included new health and education spending of $27 billion. The government announced its intention to boost rural health coverage with $125 billion in spending over the next several years. Even a fraction of that promised amount would negate any need by China to draw upon the Global Fund.

This is not to say, of course, that China's health system does not face formidable challenges. Indeed, global health policymakers worry that HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis in particular could rise dramatically as the country urbanizes and industrializes and a new middle class veers away from traditional social mores. Everyone remembers the SARS outbreak in 2002 and 2003 that practically shut down major cities in China. And beyond specific threats, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the chief implementer of the Global Fund portfolio and officiator of the government's public health strategy, has hard work ahead to build up China's health workforce and medical infrastructure.

But China might want these grants for reasons having more to do with politics than public health. The Health Ministry is the only member of China's policymaking State Council not led by a political party member. As such, its ability to compete for domestic funds pales in comparison with other assertive, powerful ministries led by longstanding party leaders. So the Health Ministry might be driven to external funding by political necessity. Or, China might value obtaining the technical assistance of international health agencies such as the World Health Organization, UNAIDS, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Global Fund grants provide a means of securing their advice and services. China's participation on the fund's board might also be useful to Beijing's global politics, confirming its importance on the world stage.

Whatever benefits China gains from seeking grants, however, stack up poorly against expensive opportunity costs exacted upon needier countries. The $1 billion awarded to China could have been used by the poorest countries to distribute 67 million anti-malarial bed nets, 4.5 million curative tuberculosis treatments, or nearly 2 million courses of anti-retroviral therapy for AIDS patients (a number equivalent to all those living with the disease in Kenya).

It is intriguing that health ministers from the poorest countries have expressed neither concern nor opposition to China winning grants. Nor has there been any substantial public challenge to or debate about the money China has received from the Global Fund. Part of the reason might be structural; the fund's large 26-member board (which includes representatives of countries, regions, organizations, and the Global Fund itself) operates based on consensus, and its meetings are time-constrained forums that pressure members to make rapid decisions. Changing eligibility policy, for example to exclude China, would entail time-intensive negotiations that may well pit groups of grantees against one another. The board also approves grants en bloc, relying upon the advice of technical experts who review them for feasibility and public health impact, not fairness, balance, or a country's ability to pay.

Even so, there is likely more behind the silence than just procedure. For many of the poorer countries that lose out, opposing China in international forums would risk incurring Beijing's diplomatic wrath. Health ministers are skittish to imperil their country's broader interactions with China, which in the case of African countries, often entails Chinese loans, grants, infrastructure projects, and investment -- and indeed, even further, health aid. In turn, African countries seeking access to the burgeoning Chinese market must curry Beijing's favor. Any country that openly opposes China at the Global Fund might see these economic links broken or be put at a disadvantage to competitors. And so the neediest countries endure a loss of grant money to China through their collective silence.

Donor governments have also been mute or reluctant to oppose China at the Global Fund, perhaps for similar reasons of not wishing to provoke a reaction that impacts other diplomatic or political equities elsewhere. In the United States, neither Congress nor the White House has voiced open concern that an amount equivalent to President Barack Obama's entire fiscal 2011 Global Fund budget request of $1 billion has gone to a country that can afford to pay its own way.

This has left the fund's leadership as the only front left for trying to change China's stance. Based on China's national income and the rate of other donor contributions, the Global Fund recommends that China should give $96 million over the next three years, amounting to 16 times its current annual donation. In 2007, prior to China's hosting of a board meeting in Kunming, the fund asked China's government to up its donor commitment, but the appeal went nowhere. In June, with fundraising pressures escalating, the fund's executive director, Michel Kazatchkine, met in Beijing with Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang, who issued a vague promise to cooperate with international organizations to expand disease prevention and treatment, but made no announcement to refrain from taking new grants or signaled any intent to become a major donor.

Not even a rival country's actions seem to have convinced Beijing. In recent years, nearby Russia has transformed itself from recipient to donor, and it has done so under arguably less favorable economic conditions than those in China today. In 2006, then President Vladimir Putin pledged to repay the Global Fund $270 million over four years, covering the past assistance it received, and announced $156 million in new domestic spending for HIV treatment. Now four years out, Russia has paid in $250 million to the Global Fund, essentially fulfilling Putin's pledge.

It is audacious for China to assert that it needs international health assistance on par with the world's poorest countries. In fact, at the same time it is drawing from the Global Fund, China is building its entire global image as one of economic growth, accumulating wealth and international stature. To boost its public profile and prestige, China spent billions to host the Beijing Olympics and the Shanghai World Expo. Surely it could spend another $1 billion of its cash on health as well. And why not take it one step further? By becoming a Global Fund donor, China could win acclaim with the West and the world's poorest -- earning exactly the kind of respect that a rising power deserves.

-Jack C. Chow served as U.S. ambassador on global HIV/AIDS from 2001 to 2003 and was the lead U.S. negotiator at talks that established the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. He is currently distinguished service professor of global health at Carnegie Mellon University in Heinz College's School of Public Policy and Management.

Does China Have Taiwan in a Strait Jacket?

With China-Taiwan relations nowhere near to being resolved, China's brand-new ballistic missiles are looking scarier than ever.

Six decades after the People's Republic of China was founded in the wake of Mao Zedong's victory over the nationalists, relations between the mainland and Taiwan are less contentious now than they have been in years. The May 2008 inauguration of Ma Ying-jeou as Taiwan's president put an end to Chen Shui-bian's tumultuous eight years in office, precipitating a thaw in what had been frosty relations between Taipei and Beijing.

But observers shouldn't assume that the ostensible rapprochement means that all problems are solved. As long as the stalemate at the heart of the problem across the Taiwan Strait -- how the island's status will ultimately be determined -- remains unresolved, China and Taiwan's relationship will remain unresolved as well. And nothing so far suggests that this impasse is any nearer to being settled today than when Chen was in power. With the strait continuing to be a potential flashpoint for crisis, then, maintaining a military balance between China and Taiwan thus remains vital for stability. But over the last decade, this balance has been tilting in Beijing's favor -- a development that could have serious implications not just for the China-Taiwan relationship, but for all of China's neighbors in the region, including the United States.

A key part of China's arsenal is a large force of conventionally armed short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs). The U.S. Department of Defense reported in this year's assessment of China's military that Beijing had deployed between 1,050 and 1,150 of these missiles and is adding to the stockpile at the rate of about 100 per year. The DoD report also says that the newer missiles offer "greater ranges, improved accuracy, and a wider variety of conventional payloads, including unitary and submunition warheads." These improvements change China's SRBMs from theoretical into actual threats.

A recent report that I coauthored with my RAND colleagues closely examines how China's new SRBMs could be used against Taiwan's air bases, assessing how many missiles of a given accuracy, carrying appropriate submunition warheads, would be needed to temporarily close every runway at each of Taiwan's 10 primary fighter bases.

Accuracy is measured by a missile's circular error probable (CEP), which is the radius of a circle around the target where 50 percent of the missiles fired will fall. Missiles with CEPs of 700-1,000ft (200-300m), accuracies characteristic of China's older SRBMs, are practically useless for attacking runways; they simply aren't sufficiently precise.

With smaller CEPs, however, such as the ones China is believed to be stockpiling, the job starts looking doable. With an accuracy of 130ft (40m), 200 SRBMs are needed. With very accurate missiles -- with CEPs of 16ft (5m) -- only 60 are required.

We performed a similar analysis to estimate how many submunition-equipped SRBMs would be required to have a 90 percent chance of destroying or damaging almost every aircraft not already in the air or parked in a hardened aircraft shelter. Again, with sufficiently accurate missiles and appropriate warheads, only about 30 to 40 SRBMs would be needed to accomplish this at all Taiwanese fighter bases.

In all, just 90 to 240 sufficiently accurate, submunition-equipped SRBMs would give China a better than fair shot at shutting down Taiwan's fighter force in a matter of minutes. If Taiwan's surface-to-air defenses can also be suppressed, a window would open through which the Chinese air force could fly perhaps hundreds of aircraft delivering precision-guided munitions on hardened air shelters and other targets too small or too hardened to be at risk from SRBMs. Blows like this could knock Taiwan's air force mostly out of the war in the opening hours of a conflict. U.S. bases that are relatively close to China, like those on Okinawa, will increasingly face a similar threat from China's modern missiles.

Chinese air superiority would allow Beijing to attack military and civilian targets on the island while suffering acceptable losses and would be vital for any serious cross-strait invasion attempt. Under these new circumstances, countering these dangers engendered by Chinese control of the air -- rather than dueling with them for control -- is a key wartime task for Taiwan.

Taiwan can take steps to address some of these problems, including further hardening measures, improved runway repair capabilities, decoys, and dispersal, along with better theater-missile defense capabilities. As China fields increasing numbers of more capable SRBMs, however, it will prove increasingly difficult for Taiwan to protect its military and civilian infrastructures from heavy damage, even with American help. Despite the calm political climate currently prevailing across the Taiwan Strait, this is a sobering finding.

A Bad Fortune for the Vietnamese

At Bien Hung lake, whose water before contamination had been a deep blue, a dirty, gray viscous scum stretched from shore to shore. The lake is about one kilometer from the Bien Hoa air base in Dong Nai province, where, during the war, the American military had stored Agent Orange. Every day, American planes left this base on their missions to spray the toxic herbicides throughout the south of Vietnam. After the war, the Americans went home to their country, leaving the storehouse of poisonous chemicals still there. A unit of Vietnamese troops built a wall around the contaminated storehouse to keep people from getting into this dangerous area. The wall could stop human beings from getting in, but not the weather. With each heavy rain, dioxin flooded from the storehouses and air base to the lake and surrounding areas, contaminating everything it touched, including the fish. Then the fish and the water poisoned the people.

Mr. Vu Huu Dang and his family live very close to the lake. When we arrived at his house, he and his wife and son were sitting under the shade of a mango tree. Doctor Le Cao Dai had come here many times, so he was well acquainted with them. Pleased to welcome the doctor and a reporter to their home, Dang's wife, Mrs. Hoa brought tea and tobacco to us in the cool beneath the mango.

Before us sat a family of three: Mr. Dang, Mrs. Hoa, and their son, who was about 20 years old. Mr. Dang's sallow face swelled with edemata; red blistery sores covered his arms and legs, and in other places his skin appeared to be sloughing off. Mrs. Hoa's pale face wore a look of confusion; her eyes were sunken. The son looked emaciated, tired, and very sad. Three people, three parts to the many affected by dioxin.

Mrs. Thuy said: "At the time peace started, in July of 1975, I was carrying my eldest child. Listening to people talk, we all thought the people living in the area around the Americans' chemical weapons might be contaminated, or might give birth to deformed kids. I was really afraid. One day, I went to see the fortuneteller in Phuoc Long and asked him if my future had anything strange in it. After praying and making obeisance to the spirits of his house, the fortuneteller stared intently at my belly. He did not speak or laugh, and when his two eyes seemed stuck to the place they looked at, I began to feel strange, worried for myself. Calmly, I asked, 'What problem must I face?'

"The fortuneteller still didn't say anything. After another minute or two, he jerked up his chin and said, ‘There is a very strange baby in your belly!'

"Hearing that I had a child in my belly filled me with terror and I trembled uncontrollably. I asked under my breath:

"'Strange how?'

"The fortuneteller didn't answer at first, his eyes still locked on my belly. Then he said, 'Your baby's face is ferocious as a demon's.'

"I couldn't believe it. I shouted, 'Oh God! Can that be true? What can I do?'

"The fortuneteller told me to make ceremonial offerings immediately. 'It might change the situation,' he said. 'With heaven's help, you might give birth to a good child, but without it, the devil you'll give birth to will be very bad.'"

"After that, I was haunted always by the fortuneteller's terrible prediction. When calm returned, I could occasionally convince myself it wasn't true, that it couldn't be true since my husband and I were kindhearted people and a good turn deserves another. A devil-face baby could never get into my belly. Time went by and eventually I became pregnant. With the fortuneteller's warning on my mind, even while writhing on the bed in agony, I kept staring between my legs, desperate to see my child's face. When it appeared, I screamed and fainted."

And now, 30 years later, here was that child, a grown woman. Though Doctor Le Cao Dai had described Nguyen Thi Hoan to me in detail, when we met I still couldn't believe my eyes. I could never have imagined such a strange face. It was uneven, with several layers of skin that piled up to form a thick flap that hung over the left side. There was a hole like a dark eye gaping from her forehead, and under the flap was a semicircular hole like a toothless mouth. If all her life all she had to do was carry this huge face, Hoan could do it, but the flap in and of itself was just the start of the problem. She also had an ulcerated wound that bled and gave her interminable pain all the time.

Mrs. Thuy said: "It's been 30 years she's had a face like this, always with this fluid and pus running out of it like you see today. I apply medicine every day, but still the blood leaks. She lives her life from day to day, but it's been very hard for us, Uncles!"

What Do You Learn at Terrorist Training Camp?

Some marksmanship, maybe bomb-making, and a whole lot of indoctrination.

Faisal Shahzad, the suspect in the failed plot to bomb New York City's Times Square, has told U.S. investigators that he received bomb-making training at a camp in Pakistan's Waziristan region. Given the botched, even amateurish nature of Shahzad's attempt -- he forgot to take the keys to his getaway car, for instance -- many observers are now asking: What exactly does one learn at a terrorist training camp?

First of all, today's terrorist training camps are not what they used to be. Sprawling al Qaeda camps complete with such amenities as firing ranges, like Tarnak Farms near Kandahar, Afghanistan, where Osama bin Laden is believed to have plotted the 9/11 attacks, are largely a thing of the past.

Today, al Qaeda outsources most of its training to Pakistani outfits like Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET), the group believed to be behind the 2008 Mumbai attacks. The camps these groups run are often small, just one or two buildings, and temporary -- such groups stay on the move to avoid detection by satellite or intelligence agents. These groups are believed to be increasingly sharing resources when it comes to training. According to some estimates, there are about 40 militant training camps around Pakistan.

Enrolling in a militant training program is not easy, particularly for foreigners. Groups like the TTP, whose leadership has been decimated by U.S. drone strikes in recent months, are extremely wary of outsiders, believing that anyone who turns up looking for training could be a spy.

Five young American men learned this the hard way last December when they were picked up by Pakistani authorities after being rejected by several militant groups. However, wannabe jihadists of Pakistani descent, like Shahzad, can improve their odds of enrolling by having a relative or friend vouch for them. Insurgent groups with Western connections, like the so-called "German Taliban," are also believed to vet potential recruits from abroad.

Assuming you meet the entrance requirements -- Pakistani security officials say camps train only about 20 recruits at a time -- the curriculum can vary.

A typical day will begin with morning prayers, followed by a sermon on the significance of jihad. Physical drills and operational training take place during the day. Instructors are typically veteran jihadists, although in groups like LET or the Kashmiri nationalist organization Jaish-e-Mohammed, former members of Pakistan's intelligence services are also believed to have been on the faculty.

Evenings are for indoctrination. It might seem strange that students enrolled in militant training would need further convincing, but local recruits are reportedly often cajoled or forced into attending by their families or madrasas. Recruits are shown hours upon hours of video depicting Western atrocities against Muslims to dispel any doubts about the cause of jihad.

Typically recruits are given lessons on how to handle small arms such as AK-47s and PK machine guns as well as rocket-propelled grenades, tactics for attacking military convoys, and instructions for planting mines. Pre-2001 al Qaeda camps also trained their recruits on sniper rifles and mortars, but this is rarer today. Students found to be quicker learners are given more specialized training in skills such as bomb-making or operational security.

Relatively few foreigners have gone through the camps, and groups like the TTP rarely attack targets outside Pakistan or Afghanistan, so it's difficult to know what kind of specialized training Shahzad might have received or why he seemed so unprepared for his mission. One theory has it that Shahzad was trying to prove his loyalty in order to gain access to the movement and receive more advanced operational training.

In any evident, despite ample evidence of its involvement, the TTP doesn't seem too anxious to claim the would-be bomber as one of its alumni.

Will There Be an Indian Harvard?

India is currently confronting a dilemma that threatens to stop the country's impressive economic expansion in its tracks: an acute shortage of trained manpower. To provide the country with a much-needed injection of skilled engineers and managers, India's leaders have embarked on an ambitious effort to encourage foreign higher educational institutions to open campuses on their soil.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government has proposed legislation, which the Indian Parliament is expected to enact into law, paving the way for foreign universities to set up branches in India. They will have a vast pool of aspirants to choose from: 88 out of every 100 Indian students who graduate from high school don't go on to higher education. And though this number is projected to fall to 70 out of 100 by 2020, that will still leave large numbers of Indians out of higher education.

But India's higher education crisis is one of quality, not quantity. According to government statistics, India boasts 22,480 colleges and universities, which churn out nearly 500,000 technical and science graduates every year. But smothering government control, lack of infrastructure, and a shortage of highly trained faculty often produce graduates who lack the skills needed to join the workforce.

Indian industrialists routinely complain about the quality of the recruits. According to India's National Association of Software and Service Companies, only 10 to 15 percent of college graduates, and 25 percent of graduates from technical institutes, are suitable for employment in the outsourcing industry. "We are often disappointed with some of our fresh engineering recruits," says Debasri Ghosh, CEO of the Kolkata-based Unit Construction Company. "We have found them sometimes totally clueless about practical challenges on construction sites."

The government is pinning its hopes on the new law to enhance the quality of Indian higher education by exposing local institutions to competition and thereby encouraging higher standards. It also aims to entice many of the nearly 160,000 Indian students who leave every year for colleges and universities abroad -- mainly in North America, Britain, or Australia -- to stay in the country. These students withdraw nearly $7.5 billion in foreign currency reserves out of India annually -- money the country desperately needs. By convincing some of these students to attend university closer to home, the government also hopes to keep a large chunk of these funds in India.

India's business leaders are hoping foreign universities will train the country's best and brightest to the professional standards India needs to fuel its economic growth. For example, according to the Rehabilitation Council of India, the country needs to train around 20,000 clinical psychologists every year to cope with the growing number of patients. According to L. Manickam, honorary general secretary of the Indian Association of Clinical Psychologists, India is currently producing only 100 trained clinical psychologists annually.

India has seen the number of students enrolled in higher education grow by approximately 9 percent a year, and many think that the entry of foreign universities could play a role in meeting this growing demand. India's academic and industrial leaders have been cautiously enthusiastic about the move. A number of foreign institutions have also exhibited interest, and some have even gone so far as to purchase real estate. Georgia Tech and Canada's Schulich School of Business, for example, have already partnered with Indian investors and purchased huge tracts of land.

However, the world's premier universities -- such as Harvard and Yale, or Oxford and Cambridge -- are in no hurry to start dishing out degrees in India. India's educators don't expect that to change, at least in the short term. "You cannot transplant or import great educational institutions. They should grow at home," says Yash Pal, a former chairman of the University Grants Commission (UGC), which will process and regulate the foreign entrants.

Many universities are still studying the provisions of the proposed legislation, and they might find details that dampen their enthusiasm. For example, the proposed law stipulates that any foreign institution hoping to operate in India must make a payment of $12 million into a UGC fund as a sort of application fee. Foreign institutions will also not be able to repatriate their profits from the education business. They will, however, be allowed to send their profits from related activities, such as business consulting, back to their home country.

Foreign universities will enjoy some advantages over their local counterparts. They will be exempt from meeting quotas of socially and economically underprivileged students, which are mandatory for government-assisted institutions. They will also be free to determine the admissions process and fix tuition fees as they deem appropriate. "This [legislation] is a milestone which will enhance choices, increase competition, and benchmark quality," stated Minister of Human Resource Development Kapil Sibal, the Harvard-trained lawyer who is the driving force behind the legislation.

Some in India's academic circles fear that foreign universities will further impoverish local institutions by stealing away the best teachers from existing universities. "Backward regions of the country will suffer further because the few smart teachers there will be lured away by better salaries and working conditions by foreign institutions in big cities," says Pramod Arya, an education expert in the eastern state of Bihar.

But many teachers point out that increased salaries and better working conditions at foreign institutions will force Indian institutions to improve the quality of their service to stay in business. "Inefficiently run, substandard institutions will face the prospect of going out of business if they don't improve," says Atindra Sen, a former registrar of the University of Delhi. "Teachers will have better working conditions and students will get better courses and instructors."

Current conditions in the world of higher education can be miserable. There are several management institutes, such as the Oriental College of Management in Bhopal, where a teacher can be paid as little as $200 a month; entry-level lecturers at colleges such as Lakshmibai College in New Delhi receive a monthly salary of only about $400.

Critics of the government's move argue that India, which spends barely 3 percent of its GDP on education, must strengthen local institutions and offer better opportunities to its socially and economically disadvantaged citizens. They claim that, by not obliging foreign universities to meet its quotas, the government is relegating India's poorest citizens to inferior institutions. "With this bill, [the government] seems to be saying to the backward classes that, 'well, the best from the West is not for you,'" commentator Rama Bijapurkar wrote in the newspaper Business Standard.

Nonetheless, optimists still hope that this legislation will open India's doors to the world's best universities. Sibal, the human resources minister, sees India emerging as "the world's hub of quality and accessible higher education." Although that seems like a distant dream, the new law will certainly be a step in the right direction.

Missiles in news

India today successfully test-fired indigenously developed ballistic missiles 'Prithvi II' and 'Dhanush' from different locations off the Orissa coast, adding more firepower to the armed forces.

"The tests were successful. Both the missiles test-fired early today met all the parameters," the director of the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur, S P Dash, told PTI.

While the 'Prithvi II' was test-fired from complex-3 of ITR Chandipur, 15 km from here, from a mobile launcher at around 0548 hours, the 'Dhanush' was fired from INS-Subhadra in the Bay of Bengal near Puri at around 0544 hours by the Navy personnel as part of user training exercise.

The test firing of the short-range, surface-to-surface 'Prithvi II' ballistic missile having a range of 295 km, which has already been inducted into the armed forces, was a user trial by the Army.

The sleek missile is "handled by the strategic force command", the sources said.

Prithvi, the first ballistic missile developed under the country's prestigious Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP), has the capability to carry 500 kg of warhead and has liquid propulsion twine engine.

With a nine-metre length and one-metre diameter, Prithvi II uses an advanced inertial guidance system with manoeuvring trajectory and reach the targets with a few metre accuracy.

The entire trajectory of today's trial was tracked down by a battery of sophisticated radars and an electro-optic telemetry stations were positioned in different locations for post-launch analysis, defence sources said.

The nuclear-capable 'Dhanush', the naval version of Prithvi, followed the pre-designated trajectory with text-book precision and two naval ships located near the target have tracked the splash, sources said.

The 350-km range missile will give the Navy the capability to attack enemy targets with great precision.

The sophisticated radar systems located along the coast monitored its entire trajectory, the sources said.

The single stage missile, weighing six tonnes, is powered by liquid propellants.

India plans to progressively base six surface-to-air Akash missile squadrons in the North-East to counter the threat posed by Chinese fighters, helicopters and drones in the region.

Sources say IAF will get eight Akash tactical air defence squadrons by 2015, with the first one becoming operational by 2011 itself, at a cost of over Rs 6,100 crore. Every squadron will have two `flights' of four Akash launchers each. Moreover, the Army is now poised to order two Akash regiments, with six firing batteries each, for around Rs 4,000 crore.

With an effective interception range of 25 km, the DRDO-developed Akash system with supersonic missiles and a network of radars is designed to neutralise multiple aerial targets attacking from several directions simultaneously in all-weather conditions. With an 88% "kill probability'', it can even take on sub-sonic cruise missiles.

The plan to base Akash squadrons in North-East constitutes yet another step to counter China's massive build-up of military infrastructure all along the unresolved 4,057-km Line of Actual Control (LAC).

Though it woke up quite late, India is now fastracking measures like raising of two new specialised infantry mountain divisions and an artillery brigade for Arunachal Pradesh and basing of two Sukhoi-30MKI squadrons (36 fighters) each at Tezpur and Chabua in Assam.

India is also looking to deploy the 3,500-km Agni-III and the under-development over 5,000-km Agni-V ballistic missiles as soon as possible. While Agni-III will be operationally ready by 2011-2012, the two new infantry divisions, with 1,260 officers and 35,011 soldiers, will be in place by 2012.

The government, of course, likes to downplay all this. Defence minister A K Antony on Monday said the two new divisions were part of the overall strategy to strengthen the armed forces.

"It's not directed at China or any country. The aim is to have an effective deterrent against any threat or eventuality,'' said Antony, after inaugurating DefExpo-2010, which has attracted a record 650 companies.

India is not "a war-mongering country'', nor does it covet "even an inch'' of any country's territory. "But we are ready to defend every inch of our territory... Our aim is to give the most modern equipment to our armed forces so that they can meet any challenge from any quarter at any time,'' said Antony.

Yes, there is the long-pending border dispute with China, but both New Delhi and Beijing are trying to "amicably resolve'' it through talks. Relations with China in other sectors like trade have dramatically improved, said Antony.

While this is certainly true, China is upgrading as many as 14 airfields in Tibet, of which at least half are now fully-operational. Its Linzi airbase, for instance, is not even 30 km away from the LAC in Arunachal.

With straight double-digit hikes in its defence budget for over 20 years, the 2.25-million strong People's Liberation Army has swiftly enhanced its transborder and `area-denial' military capabilities as well as bolstered its nuclear missile arsenal.

Brimming with confidence after last week's successful Agni-III test, India now hopes to test its first-ever intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) within a year. This nuclear-capable Agni-V missile will be able to hit even northernmost China.

Moreover, in the backdrop of Beijing testing anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons and ballistic missile defence (BMD) systems, DRDO chief V K Saraswat on Wednesday said India already had the 'building blocks' for ASAT weapons and was far ahead of China in the BMD arena.

DRDO, in fact, will conduct the fourth test of its two-tier BMD system, designed to track and destroy hostile missiles both inside (endo) and outside (exo) the earth's atmosphere, towards end-March/early-April. But all eyes are now on Agni-V, which with a range of over 5,000-km can arguably be called an ICBM, usually used to denote a missile capable of hitting targets over 5,500 km away.

Why is India not developing true-blue ICBMs, especially since Chinese missiles like Dong Feng-31A have a range of 11,200-km?

"We have the capability. But the missile's range and lethality is based on the immediate objective of threat mitigation. Agni-V suits our present requirements," said Saraswat.

Being designed by adding a third composite stage to the two-stage 3,500-km Agni-III, the 17.5-metre tall Agni-V will be a canister-launch missile system to ensure it has the requisite operational flexibility to be swiftly transported and fired from anywhere. Consequently, if launched from near the Line of Actual Control, the solid-fuelled Agni-V will be able to hit China's northernmost city of Habin. Both Agni-III, which DRDO says is now 'mature' for induction, and Agni-V will add muscle to India's 'dissuasive deterrence' posture against China.

Moreover, DRDO is also developing MIRV (multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles) warheads for Agni missiles. An MIRV payload on a missile carries several nuclear warheads, which can be programmed to hit different targets. A flurry of such missiles can hence completely overwhelm BMD systems.

But unlike China, which fired a missile to bring down a satellite in January 2007, India will not test a 'real' ASAT weapon. "It will lead to debris in space. We can simulate a test on ground using an 'electronic' satellite. We have the building blocks for it," said Saraswat.

"Agni-III's propulsion system coupled with the BMD system's 'kill vehicle' will compose an ASAT weapon. The propulsion system is adequate to carry the ASAT warhead to 1,000-km altitude," said Saraswat.

India today "successfully" test-fired its nuclear-capable Agni-III ballistic missile with a range of more than 3,000 km from the Wheeler Island off Orissa coast.

The indigenously developed surface-to-surface missile was tested from a rail mobile launcher near Dhamara, about 100 km from here, at about 1046 hours, defence sources said.

"All mission parameters were met," they said, adding the test was a success.

This was the fourth flight test in the Agni-III series carried out to establish the "repeatability" of the missile's performance, they said.

The entire trajectory of today's trial was monitored through various telemetry stations, electro-optic systems and sophisticated radars located along the coast, in Port Blair and by Naval ships anchored near the impact point in the down range area for data analysis, the sources said.

Agni-III missile is powered by a two-stage solid propellant system. With a length of 17 metres, the missile's diameter is 2 metres and launch weight is 50 tonnes.

It can carry a payload of 1.5 tonnes which is protected by carbon-carbon all composite heat shield.

India on Sunday became the first country to have a 'maneuverable' supersonic cruise missile when it successfully test-fired the vertical-launch version of 290-km range BrahMos from a warship in the Bay of Bengal off the Orissa coast.

"The vertical-launch version of missile was launched at 1130 hours today from Indian Navy ship INS Ranvir and it maneuvered successfully hitting the target ship. It was a perfect hit and a perfect mission," BrahMos aerospace chief A Sivathanu Pillai said.

After today's test, India has become the first and only country in the world to have a "maneuverable supersonic cruise missile in its inventory," he said in New Delhi.

In separate messages, President Pratibha Patil and Defence Minister A K Antony congratulated the BrahMos scientists and the navy for the successful test-launch. Pillai said the software of the missile was improved and today's test proved its capability of maneuverability at supersonic speeds before hitting the target.

"During the test, the missile hit a free-floating ship piercing it above the waterline and destroying it completely," BrahMos officials said.

The test-firing was part of the pre-induction tests by the Navy as moves are afoot to deploy the vertical-launch version of the missile in ships. The weapon system has been designed and developed by the Indo-Russian joint venture company.

All the three Indian Navy's Talwar class ships, under construction in Russia, have been fitted with vertical launchers and many other ships will also be equipped with them, officials said.

The navy had earlier carried out several tests of the BrahMos but most of them had been done from inclined launchers abroad INS Rajput. The missile is already in service with the Navy and its Shivalik class frigates have been equipped with it.

BrahMos has also been inducted into the Army and preparations are on to develop its air-launched and the submarine-launched versions, officials said.

In a significant step towards boosting ''second-strike'' capabilities, India on Wednesday tested a new 600-km range 'Shaurya' ballistic missile, which can fired from underground silos unlike the Prithvi and Agni missiles.

The surface-to-surface missile, capable of carrying a one-tonne conventional or nuclear warhead, was successfully fired from a 30 to 40-feet deep pit with an in-built canister to mimic an underground silo at about 11.25 am.

''The successful test-firing of the new state-of-the-art canisterised missile marks another milestone in the country's missile programme,'' said defence minister A K Antony.

The Prithvi (150-350-km range), Agni-I (700-km) and Agni-II (2000-km-plus) missiles already inducted into the armed forces, as also the almost-ready Agni-III (3,500-km), are all transported on special vehicles or trains. Though this gives them flexibility in deployment, it also makes them vulnerable to enemy pre-emptive strikes.

Conversely, Shaurya missiles can remain hidden or camouflaged in underground silos from enemy surveillance or satellites till they are fired from the special storage-cum-launch canisters. ''Consequently, the Shaurya system will strengthen our second-strike capabilities,'' said a top official.

Silos are the primary basing system for land-based ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles, with strike ranges over 5,500-km) of countries like the US, Russia and China.

Defence scientists admit that given Shaurya's limited range at present, either the silos will have to be constructed closer to India's borders or longer-range canisterised missiles will have to be developed.

''Wednesday's test was part of the ongoing technology development work by DRDO. The Shaurya system will require some more tests before it becomes fully operational in two-three years,'' he added.

The composite canister make the missile much easier to store for long periods without maintenance as well as to handle and transport. It also houses the gas generator to eject the missile from the canister before its solid propellant motors take over to hurl it at the intended target.

Moreover, defence scientists say the high-speed, two-stage Shaurya has ''high manoeuvrability'' which also makes it ''less vulnerable'' to existing anti-missile defence systems.

The absence of submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), the most reliable and survivable nuclear strike weapons, has long troubled the Indian defence establishment, especially since India has a ''no first-use'' nuclear doctrine.

It is, therefore, important to have nuclear-powered submarines armed with nuclear-tipped missiles, remaining quietly underwater for long periods, to deter an adversary from launching first strikes or to carry out a second-strike in retaliation.

The Shaurya project is intended to plug this gap somewhat. The Shaurya missile system has clear parallels with the under-development K-15 SLBM, as part of the overall secretive Sagarika project, with an initial 700-km strike range.

The canisterised K-15 missiles will arm the indigenous nuclear-powered submarines being built under the 26-year-old ATV (advanced technology vessel) programme at Visakhapatnam, with the first vessel slated to begin sea-trials in early 2009.

The around 10-metre long Shaurya, in turn, will be operated by the Army. ''Like Sagarika, which is fired from an underwater silo in the shape of a submarine, the Shaurya comes out from an underground silo on land,'' said a scientist.

In Wednesday's test, the missile took off vertically and its entire trajectory was tracked through an integrated system of radars, electro-optical tracking instruments, telemetry stations and two naval ships located close to the impact point deep in Bay of Bengal. ''With a flight duration of 485 seconds, it reached the full range and hit the target as intended,'' said the official.

The test comes at time when India is finally getting ready to gate-crash into the exclusive club of the Big Five countries -- US, Russia, China, France and UK -- which field SLBMs.

The 'K-15' is near-about ready after over a decade of hits and misses, and four tests from 'submersible pontoon launchers' in the last couple of years, for integration with the 6,000-tonne ATVs, each designed to carry 12 vertical-launched nuclear-tipped SLBMs.

India will then finally achieve its long-standing aim to have an operational nuclear weapon triad -- the capability to fire nukes from the land, air and sea.

A 700 to 750-km SLBM will, of course, still fall short of the over 5,000-km range SLBMs deployed by countries like US and Russia. But, as reported earlier, DRDO is already working on a submarine-launched version of Agni-III, which is to be followed by the Agni-V missile with a strike range of 5,000-km.

India is developing a sub-sonic 1,000-km range cruise missile "Nirbhay" which can be used for a "variety of applications", a top military scientist said today.

The 1000-kg "missile is getting into some shape", Dr V K Saraswat, Scientific Advisor to Defence Minister and Chief of Defence Research and Development Organisation said.

He also said the flight-trial of air-to-air missile 'Astra', having a range of 45 to 100 km, is on the cards.

Saraswat was delivering the keynote address at a national convention on 'The Frontiers of Aeronautical Technologies', organised by the Aeronautical Society of India here.

He said India's armed forces are looking for long duration loitering missiles which can enter "enemy territory", search targets such as radars, concentration of assets and "a variety of movements of enemy", "home-on" the targets and "bang" them.

"We need to develop (loitering missiles)", he said. Saraswat made a strong push for deploying space-based sensors to keep tab on "adversaries" and gather intelligence via-a-vis defence surveillance.

He said space-based sensors are a must for tracking and detection of movements of enemies. Unless it have space-based sensors, India would not be able to make its ballistic missile defence system a "potent weapon", the scientist said.

India is launching a major programme for surveillance, particularly space-based, in terms of electro-optical payload and synthetic aperture radar. "So, unless we prepare ourselves for future space-based systems, security is going to be a major issue," he said.

The third successful test of the ballistic missile defence (BMD) system on Friday has put India into an exclusive club of countries such as the US, Russia and Israel which are developing Star War kind of capabilities.

With this test, India reached another milestone towards making the home-grown BMD system operational by 2011-12.

The test was carried out from Wheeler Island in Orissa around 4.30 pm when the two-stage "exo-atmospheric" hypersonic interceptor missile fitted with advance systems hit the target at an altitude of 75 km.

A complex and expensive technology, the BMD system provides India an effective defence shield against both China and Pakistan fielding a wide variety of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles.

Though these capabilities are a crucial necessity, a BMD system can be overwhelmed by a flurry of ballistic missiles. It's quite vulnerable to cruise missiles since they fly at low altitudes.

The two-tier BMD system being developed by DRDO, capable of tracking and destroying hostile missiles both inside (endo) and outside (exo) the earth's atmosphere, has already been tested two times — the exo-atmospheric test at 48-km altitude on November 27, 2006, and the endo-atmospheric at 15-km on December 6, 2007. The two tests had demonstrated India's capabilities akin to the Israeli Arrow-2 BMD system and the US Patriot system.

After the third test, DRDO plans to test both the "exo" and "endo" interceptor missiles together in an integrated mode by September-October. In Phase-I, a BMD system capable of taking on "2,000-km class targets" is being developed. Phase-II, in turn, will be geared towards tackling threats from missiles up to 5,000-km, said sources.

DRDO chief controller for missiles, V K Saraswat, had earlier told TOI that the BMD system of Phase-I should be ready for deployment by 2011 or so, after several tests against a variety of missiles to ensure "a kill probability of 99.8%".

There have been some Israeli and French imprints in the ongoing development of India's BMD system. The crucial long-range tracking radars (LRTRs) used to detect and track the `enemy' missile as well as guide the interceptor to it, for instance, can be traced to the two Israeli Green Pine early-warning and fire control radars imported by India in 2001-2002.

Similarly, some guidance and other technologies like IIR (imaging infra-red) seekers will require international collaboration in Phase-II.

After Israeli UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) or spy drones which act like cruise missiles, the Indian armed forces are looking to induct `loitering' missiles that hover before selecting and hitting targets of greater priority.

Army has issued a global RFI (request for information) about medium-range loitering missile systems, seeking details about their day and night camera payloads, ground control stations, data links, launchers and the like. Only a few armament majors like Israeli Aerospace Industries and Raytheon make such missile systems.

"The RFI was issued earlier this month. The loitering missile is basically a UAV which can transmit data after hovering over a target undetected for about 20-30 minutes and then hit a selected target,'' said an officer.

The RFI has sought details on the missile's cruising speed, maximum range at which it can engage a target, its loitering time, data link's range and the like. The system should also have the capability to abort an attack after locking on to a target and then later hit another redesignated target.

Army wants the loitering missile to have a conventional warhead, apart from anti-tank and anti-material warheads with deep armour-penetrating capabilities.

The armed forces, of course, are still some years away from inducting combat UAVs like the American Predators, which let loose Hellfire missiles with devastating effect, which are being used in operations against the Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan.

They are, however, inducting some loitering killer drones like the Israeli Harpy UAVs, which are designed to detect and attack enemy radars as anti-radiation missiles.

Such a UAV first tracks and verifies hostile radar emissions after being launched in any kind of weather. It then enters into an attack mode to dive almost vertically and finally, detonates its warhead just above the enemy radar to effectively `kill' it.

IAF has also ordered the advanced version of these UAVs, called Harop, which add electro-optical sensors to the radio-frequency seekers to ensure they can hit even enemy missile sites and other important military installations.

Since the 1999 Kargil conflict, Indian forces have inducted over 100 Israeli Searcher-II, Heron and other UAVs as `force-multipliers' in reconnaissance missions as well as for precision-strike operations.