US embassy cable - 04THEHAGUE1697

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 THE HAGUE 001697 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR AC/CB, NP/CBM, VC/CCB, L/ACV, IO/S 
SECDEF FOR OSD/ISP 
JOINT STAFF FOR DD PMA-A FOR WTC 
COMMERCE FOR BIS (GOLDMAN) 
NSC FOR JOECK 
WINPAC FOR LIEPMAN 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PARM, PREL, CWC 
SUBJECT: CHEMICAL WEAPONS CONVENTION (CWC): STATUS OF THE 
VIS ENHANCEMENT PROJECT 
 
This is CWC-85-04. 
 
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SUMMARY 
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1.  (U) We discussed the status of the Verification 
Information System (VIS) Enhancement Project with a number of 
officials in the Technical Secretariat (TS) on the margins of 
the June 29-July 2 Executive Council session.  The project 
remains on schedule, although some TS officials expressed 
concerns and questioned the willingness of the contractor to 
meet the TS deadlines.  Others asserted that the contractor 
is dictating the terms and timelines of the effort without 
adequate oversight.  TS officials also raised concerns 
regarding VIS information security, lack of planning for and 
funding of VIS implementation, and the absence of any plan to 
publicize the effort to ensure the VIS is endorsed by States 
Parties.  In fact, the Office of Internal Oversight in the TS 
has recommended that a qualified outside expert do a project 
audit.  Ambassador Javits emphasized to Director General 
Pfirter and Deputy DG Hawtin that the U.S. places great 
importance on the timely completion of a fully functioning 
VIS that addresses all the concerns of users in the TS as 
well as States Parties.  End Summary. 
 
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SECURITY AND CONFIDENTIALITY 
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2.  (U) Rob Simpson, head of the Office of Confidentiality 
and Security (OCS) and a member of the VIS project management 
team chaired by the Deputy DG Brian Hawtin, provided his 
opinion that the VIS would not be deployed on the Secure 
Critical Network (SCN) by December 2004.  Thus, the fourth 
security audit team (SAT-IV) may not be able to do a full 
audit of SCN/VIS before the end of their 2004 mandate. 
Simpson stressed adequate security needed to be part of the 
development effort, although this element of the VIS project 
remains unfunded.  Simpson noted that the OCS-requested VIS 
requirements have not been provided to the TS, although the 
contractor (Sitar, Inc.) charged 80,000 euros for a paper 
explaining why it was not going to provide them. 
 
3.  (U) SAT-IV review of the VIS before its deployment to the 
SCN would be useful, agreed Simpson, citing delegations' 
concerns about how the VIS would protect their highly 
sensitive information.  Simpson has provided the head of 
SAT-IV (Harada, Japan) 11 security-related VIS documents 
drafted by Information Systems Branch (ISB).  Harada is to 
disseminate these documents to SAT-IV for their consideration 
of VIS security aspects.  Simpson also said that ISB 
initially had requested a security gap analysis from the 
contractor without OCS involvement, and that currently there 
is a Memorandum of Understanding between OCS and ISB 
regarding the VIS design providing specifications on how 
security is to be done. 
 
4.  (U) Simpson reported that the target of the initial VIS 
project is the Verification Division's Declaration Branch. 
Addition of facility inspections to the Relational Database 
Management System (RDBMS) reporting will be a follow-on 
effort.  Simpson relayed that the contractor failed to 
provide a cost estimate and timeline to the revised Statement 
of Work (SoW) by June 17, delaying negotiation of the 
follow-on contract by a month.  (Note: this had yet to be 
received as of July 6.)  There apparently is speculation that 
the contractor is balking at the new SoW, and wants the 
contract scaled back. 
 
5.  (U) The SCN upgrade to Windows 2000, continued Simpson, 
would probably take place in early fall 2004 because 
Microsoft will no longer support NT4 as of January 1, 2005. 
As OCS does not expect the RDBMS to be deployed on the SCN 
until late 2004 at the earliest, there is no need to do it 
this summer.  The upgrade will be completed by the December 
1-6 visit of SAT-IV.  Simpson noted that SAT-IV would do a 
full audit of the SCN at that time, using ISO 17999 to 
organize its approach to the audit. 
 
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VERIFICATION DIVISION AND INSPECTORATE 
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6.  (U)  Horst Reeps, Head of the Verification Division, and 
Carlos Trentadue, Acting Head of the Inspectorate, both of 
whom are on the VIS Project Management Team, expressed 
frustration at the current state of the project.  Reeps 
reported that in the last two months, he and Trentadue have 
sent four memoranda to the DDG, protesting that after a year, 
they have only paper charts and diagrams while what they need 
is a functional VIS.  Trentadue added that although the two 
groups have provided about 800 person-hours to the effort, as 
yet they have seen nothing tangible.  Reeps commented that 
the entire approach is too erratic, there are too many 
intermediate levels of command, and a supervisor desperately 
is needed. 
 
7.  (U) Reeps and Trentadue reported that after numerous 
meetings with the contractor, and equally numerous requests 
for a timeline for planning purposes, they have yet to see 
anything specific.  They need to plan so they can train 
relevant staff members on VIS use and find the funds and 
support to hire four or five Technical Assistance Contractors 
(TACs) with language skills and appropriate security 
clearances to manually enter the historical industry 
declaration data into the VIS.  There currently is no 
provision for this effort in the 2005 budget, although the 
full implementation of VIS supposedly will take place in 
mid-2005. 
 
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INFORMATION SERVICES BRANCH 
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8.  (U) Greg Linden, Chief of the Information Systems Branch, 
presented the status of and the plan for completion of first 
phase of the VIS project.  He announced that as of July 1 the 
contractor has provided the TS four products: 
-- the RDBMS (completed and provided to the TS two months 
ago); 
-- the country maintenance database which will be available 
on the OPCW website with a list of States Parties names and 
their TS country codes; 
-- the chemical verifier database which will be available on 
the OPCW website with a standard list of chemical names and 
their CAS numbers; and 
-- an automated list of declaration handbook formats in 
pull-down menu format (the CTFS in TS clothing) which will 
also be provided to States Parties via the OPCW website. 
 
9.  (U) Linden reported that the VIS project management board 
meets about every six weeks, to assess the status of the 
project.  He admitted that a detailed schedule had yet to be 
provided to board members, but that this will be a 
requirement of the next contract with Sitar, Inc.  When asked 
when users would be able to test-drive the system with mock 
data, Linden reported that Verification Division users would 
have access in the September/October timeframe.  Delegations 
would be able to check the VIS system in late 2004. 
 
10.  (U) When asked whether an off-the-shelf RDBMS might have 
been preferable, Linden responded that such products would 
not be able to incorporate the various copies of the data 
needed by the TS: a digital legacy copy with errors as 
provided as well as a "corrected" copy, which would be a 
working mirror of information provided by States Parties.  In 
addition, industrial declaration data builds on declarations 
beginning in 1997, and in order to be of value, these 
declarations also must be manually entered into the VIS. 
This effort will require up to six TAC linguists who can be 
cleared to handle classified data. 
 
11.  (U) When asked about the status of the TS note 
announcing the VIS project, Linden reported there had been an 
administrative snafu, but the draft was moving through the 
process and should be published in July.  We emphasized the 
importance of the paper for delegations to build support in 
capitols for electronic submissions of industry declarations. 
 
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AMBASSADOR'S DISCUSSIONS WITH THE DEPUTY DG 
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12.  (U) Ambassador Javits and delegation reps met with DDG 
Hawtin on July 2 and relayed concerns about the negative 
feedback we had received on the margins of the EC.  Javits 
inquired about the status of the TS VIS note, and made clear 
that disseminating it as soon as possible was a U.S. 
priority.  The DDG noted the strides made by Linden towards 
deployment of a fully operational and functional VIS that 
would meet the needs of users within the TS as well as States 
Parties.  Hawtin asked that the delegation forget the 
inadequate efforts made between 1993 and 2002, and should 
focus instead on the enormous progress made since Linden 
joined the TS.  For over a decade no progress had been made, 
while over the past year, the TS had received a functional 
RDBMS and will have a working VIS prototype by the end of the 
summer. 
 
13.  (U) The DDG characterized the critics in the TS as 
negative influences who did not have suggestions on how to 
improve the project.  Hawtin noted that a hoax e-mail 
originating from someone in OCS had resulted in an inquiry 
from OCS, ISB and the Office of Internal Oversight (OIO) into 
the VIS project, with the OIO recommending that a qualified 
outside expert do a project audit.  In response, the DDG 
tasked ISB and OCS to provide a written response to the 
charges contained in the hoax e-mail, to provide the basis 
for a DDG recommendation to DG Pfirter on the need for a 
project audit.  With regard to the Verification Division's 
request for four TACs to manually enter historical industry 
declaration data into the RDBMS, Hawtin commented that he did 
not include it in the 2005 budget because, being a priority 
for the declaration branch, it should come from the funds 
available to the division in 2005. Finally, the DDG promised 
to look into the draft VIS paper and ensure that it be 
published expeditiously. 
 
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AMBASSADOR'S DISCUSSION WITH DG PFIRTER 
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14.  (U)  Ambassador Javits met with the DG on July 2 and 
noted the delegation's request that the VIS paper be 
published quickly.  Javits also expressed U.S. support for 
the VIS project and inquired whether funding would be 
available to complete the first stage of the VIS effort.  The 
DG was noncommittal, but confirmed that the project was a TS 
priority.  The DG also agreed to ensure the VIS paper would 
be disseminated shortly. 
 
15.  (U)  Ito sends. 
SOBEL