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CTBT: Progress Mixed on Organization’s Five-Year Anniversary By David Ruppe Nevertheless, treaty proponents, and even some of its opponents such as the United States, continue to fund the organization, helping it to build capabilities it could use if the treaty ever takes effect. The Bush administration for fiscal 2002 contributed $16.5 million, the largest contribution of any nation. The CTBTO, with an $84 million budget, continues to build and improve the International Monitoring System, a network of facilities worldwide using various technologies to detect possible nuclear explosions. Just over 100 seismological, hydroacoustic, infrasound, and radionuclide stations are already in place, monitoring all regions of the globe for evidence of nuclear explosions underground, underwater or in the atmosphere. Satellite communications are being installed, so far enabling some 80 stations to continuously relay secure data in near real time to Vienna, where it is processed using Sun Microsystems high-performance computers, and forwarded upon request to treaty signatories for scrutiny. Enough computer memory has been created, 125 terabytes so far, to archive up to 10 years’ worth of collected data for ready retrieval. The organization also is gradually buying equipment and training for on-site inspection operations. Annual funding so far has been strong by U.N. standards, usually between 90 and 98 percent of the requested budget, CTBTO Executive Secretary Wolfgang Hoffmann of Austria, told Global Security Newswire yesterday. “Other organizations have to do sometimes with less than 50 percent, and they still survive,” he said. Hoffmann is optimistic that by 2007, 321 sensors at 260 stations will be in place and a full complement of on-site inspectors will be equipped to help implement the treaty, although that will require “rising budgets, year after year.” Peter Basham, coordinator of the monitoring system, said the organization would need a 10 to 15 percent increase to its annual budget for two or three years, and then could gradually decrease back down to around the $84 million level. The system, CTBTO experts say, would enable round-the-clock detection of nuclear explosions with yields as low as one kiloton anyplace in the world. Political Differences Since 1995, 165 states have signed the document, and 89 have ratified it. “I think the CTBT is really enjoying global support,” said Austrian Foreign Minister Benita Ferrero-Waldner, at a joint press conference with Hoffmann. “I can only hope that the nuclear weapon states will honor these commitments,” she added. While the CTBTO develops the treaty’s monitoring system, certain key political support is lacking for full implementation of the treaty, from the United States in particular. The treaty cannot enter into force until 13 specific nations ratify the pact, the United States among them. Other nations needed to ratify include China, India and Pakistan. Former U.S. President Bill Clinton signed the treaty in 1996, but the U.S. Senate refused to approve ratification and current President George W. Bush has said he has no intention of supporting the treaty. Bush opposed the treaty during the presidential election campaign, saying it was unverifiable and could undermine U.S. nuclear deterrence. Bush has indicated he stands by a U.S. moratorium on nuclear testing implemented by his father, President George H.W. Bush, in 1992, but the administration has also signaled it will not rule out testing in the future. The administration has requested funding to speed up the preparation time for conducting a nuclear test (see GSN, Jan. 8) and has been conducting studies into possibilities for developing new or modified earth-penetrating nuclear weapons (see related GSN story, today). Hoffmann and other national delegates see U.S. leadership as the key to the winning remaining support for the treaty. “There is no question that the United States plays a key role … this treaty would not be here without the Americans,” said Hoffmann, noting that the Clinton administration was a leading proponent of the treaty. “We have to regain U.S. support to get the treaty into force.” Support Verification U.S. substantive support for much of the organization continues, said Hoffmann, because the United States, like most other countries, believes the organization’s International Monitoring System serves its national security interests by monitoring countries that might try to secretly test nuclear weapons. The United States provides key technical support on the monitoring side, a good deal of funding and 37 monitoring stations. The United States has its own monitoring systems, separate from stations it contributes to the treaty, but they do not provide the extent of coverage the CTBTO system would. “We can go places where they can’t,” said Basham. The system, for instance, has monitoring stations in China and Russia. He said the system should have the Indian Ocean completely covered by early next year. Since last August, however, the Bush administration has not participated in the on-site inspection program or committees dealing with it, nor has it contributed money for that program or for efforts to promote treaty ratification (see GSN, Nov. 12, 2001). Without full treaty ratification, Hoffmann said, the CTBTO’s effectiveness will be hampered. It will not be able to perform on-site inspections of incidents, there would be no clarification procedure for reviewing questioned data and there would be no formal meeting of a council of member states. The monitoring system, nevertheless, could still provide unprecedented data for detecting and locating potential nuclear explosions, but also possibly for scientific purposes, such as locating earthquakes and volcanoes, said Basham. “It’s the best environmental monitoring system ever conceived and devised,” he said. It is “seeing all kinds of things around the world and I bet people will take advantage of it.”
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