Kerry, Bush Differ Sharply on Nonproliferation

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Debating head-to-head for the first time last night, President George W. Bush and Democratic presidential nominee Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) expressed numerous, strong differences in their views on how the United States should stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

The differences were apparent on how the candidates would deal with North Korea, Iran, unsecured nuclear-weapon materials in Russia, new U.S. nuclear weapons, and using force against countries suspected of developing catastrophic weapons — as well as even how the two defined the problem.

Asked about “the most serious threat” facing U.S. national security, Kerry said “nuclear proliferation.”

“There are some 600-plus tons of unsecured material still in the former Soviet Union and Russia. At the rate that the president is currently securing that, it will take 13 years to get it,” Kerry said, referring to ongoing U.S. cooperation with Russia and other states to secure, neutralize and destroy such materials through the U.S. Defense Department’s Cooperation Threat Reduction program and similar efforts.

Kerry said nuclear proliferation demanded increased spending on such programs, a new approach on negotiations with North Korea, and termination of a U.S. program to develop a “bunker-buster” nuclear weapon capable of penetrating the earth (see GSN, July 16).

“We’re telling other people, you can’t have nuclear weapons, but we’re pursuing a new nuclear weapon that we might even contemplate using,” Kerry said. Not this president.  I’m going to shut that program down, and we’re going to make it clear to the world, we’re serious about containing nuclear proliferation.”

Bush said the “biggest threat facing this country is weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a terrorist network.”

He listed several efforts the administration had undertaken to address the problem: creation of the multinational Proliferation Security Initiative to interdict suspected unconventional weapons and materials shipments at sea (see GSN, Aug. 6), the rollback of a Pakistani-linked nuclear smuggling network, successful efforts to persuade Libya to renounce its weapons of mass destruction (see GSN, Sept. 23), and the aggressive development and activation of a national missile defense system (see GSN, Sept. 30).

“We’ll be implementing a missile defense system relatively quickly. And that is another way to help deal with the threats that we face in the 21st century,” he said.

Kerry vowed to increase spending sufficient to reduce to four years the projected time for securing Russian nuclear materials.

“Now, there are terrorists trying to get their hands on that stuff today. And this president, I regret to say, has secured less nuclear material in the last two years since 9/11 than we did in the two years preceding 9/11,” he said.

“The president actually cut the money for it,” Kerry said.

Bush said funding on nuclear nonproliferation increased by about 35 percent during his administration, though several nonproliferation experts said they are not aware of the increased spending he described.

“The numbers we have is it has increased 29 percent,” mostly as a response to requests by the Bush administration for Energy Department nonproliferation activities, according to Molly Pickett, an analyst at the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation.

She said, though, that some of the overall increase, to about $2 billion this year for programs in the Energy, State and Defense departments, occurred as a result of Congress’ unwillingness to approve a significant cut to the Cooperative Threat Reduction program proposed by the administration for fiscal 2002.

“There was a backlash and Congress put it back in,” she said.

The White House did not respond in time this morning to a request for clarification.

The candidates also sharply differed on how they would try to stop suspected North Korean nuclear weapons development. 

Kerry advocated bilateral talks between North Korea and the United States.

“I want bilateral talks which put all of the issues, from the Armistice of 1952, the economic issues, the human rights issues, the artillery disposal issues, the DMZ issues, and the nuclear issues on the table,” Kerry said.

He argued the administration had failed to stop North Korea from pursuing nuclear weapons because it had refused to negotiate with the country’s leadership.

“For two years, this administration didn’t talk at all to North Korea. While they didn’t talk at all, the fuel rods came out, the inspectors were kicked out, the television cameras were kicked out, and today there are four to seven nuclear weapons in the hands of North Korea. That happened on this president’s watch,” Kerry said.

Bush argued against bilateral negotiations.

“I can’t [tell] you how big a mistake I think that is, to have bilateral talks with North Korea. It’s precisely what Kim Jong Il wants. It’ll cause the six-party talks to evaporate, it means that China no longer is involved in convincing, along with us, [North Korean leader] Kim Jong Il to get rid of his weapons.”

“We must have China’s leverage on Kim Jong Il, besides ourselves. And if you enter bilateral talks, they’ll be happy to walk away from the table. I don’t think that’ll work,” he said.

Bush said North Korea was breaking a previous bilateral agreement by processing highly enriched uranium.

Kerry charged the Bush administration’s approach toward Iran has been unsuccessful, saying, “Iran is moving towards nuclear weapons and the world is more dangerous” (see GSN, Sept. 29).

He said the United States earlier could have offered to provide Iran with nuclear fuel, to challenge the country to renounce alleged weapons-oriented efforts. If Iran refused, he said, the United States might have had more leverage to muster international sanctions.

“The president did nothing,” he said.

Bush advocated multilateral discussions with Iran to try to persuade it to discontinue its alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons.

“We’ve worked very closely with the foreign ministers of France, Germany and Great Britain, who have been the folks delivering the message to the mullahs that if you expect to be part of the world of nations, get rid of your nuclear programs,” he said.

Kerry said the “British, French and Germans were the ones who initiated an effort — without the United States, regrettably.”

Bush said Iran already is sanctioned by the United States. “We can’t sanction them anymore. There are sanctions in place on Iran.”

Kerry responded, “The United States put the sanctions on alone. And that’s exactly what I’m talking about. In order for the sanctions to be effective, we should have been working with the British, French and Germans and other countries.”

The candidates also differed strongly on when the United States would be justified in attacking another country suspected of developing weapons of mass destruction, and debated whether the United States should have attacked Iraq as it did.

Bush reiterated his administration’s policy that the United States should be willing to attack another country before there is complete evidence the country has the ability and intention to strike the United States with a chemical, biological or nuclear weapon.

“In Iraq, we saw a threat, and we realized that after September the 11th, we must take threats seriously before they fully materialize. Saddam Hussein now sits in a prison cell; America and the world are safer for it,” he said.

That so-called “Bush Doctrine” of preventive war is considered destabilizing by many in the international community, and Bush administration critics have argued that the policy could encourage countries to seek their own nuclear weapons to deter U.S. action.

International law permits pre-emptive war, meaning a country can attack another if it has demonstrable evidence of an imminent attack.

Kerry reiterated his support for this approach, and criticized Bush for pursuing Iraq without evidence of an imminent threat or alternatively with U.N. Security Council approval

“A president always has the right, and always had had the right, for [a] pre-emptive strike. That was a great doctrine throughout the Cold War, and it was always one of the things we argued about with respect to arms control,” Kerry said.

“But if and when you do it, … you’ve got to do it in a way that passes the test, that passes the global test, where your countrymen, your people understand fully why you’re doing what you’re doing, and you can prove to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons,” he said.

Kerry faulted Bush for maintaining he would in hindsight have still attacked Iraq, “even knowing there were no weapons of mass destruction, even knowing there was no imminent threat, even knowing there was no connection of al-Qaeda.”

Kerry said he too viewed ex-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein as a threat prior to the war, but supported securing U.N. Security Council authority for military force.

He said his position was “Saddam Hussein was a threat. There was a right way to disarm him, and a wrong way. And the president chose the wrong way.”

Bush dismissed the idea the United States should seek global authority for such action, because it was done “to protect the American people.”

“To date the campaign and the coverage of it have not addressed how each candidate proposes to address the biggest threat to U.S. security: the world’s growing set of weapons of mass destruction dangers. But that may have begun to change with last night’s refreshingly substantive debate,” said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association.

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