Non-nuclear nations have criticized nuclear weapons states for not reducing their nuclear stockpiles more rapidly. The United States has removed about half of its 50 MX missiles (above) from their silos, but has elected not to destroy the missiles or the silos (U.S. Air Force photo). NPT Meeting Collapses By Jim Wurst Global Security Newswire UNITED NATIONS — A meeting of parties to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) collapsed Friday night after delegates here failed to resolve differences on numerous political and procedural issues, notably how to refer to their own consensus decisions of 2000 (see GSN, May 7). This was the final preparatory meeting before next year’s review conference and delegates hoped that the meeting would produce recommendations for the conference, as preparatory meetings have in the past. Hours after the meeting was supposed to have ended, the meeting was simply adjourned with a final report containing minimum details. Breaking its own rules of procedure, the meeting did not even resume in open session to formally close it proceedings. Most of the meetings in the last week were held behind closed doors...Full Story

USEC Calls for New Power Plant Fueled “Exclusively” by Former Nuclear Weapon Material By Mike Nartker Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The head of the U.S. Enrichment Corp. — the sole U.S. producer of enriched uranium — proposed last week the development of a new nuclear power plant that would be powered solely by fuel produced from material taken from nuclear weapons (see GSN, March 26)...Full Story

Army Seeks New Cruise Missile Defense Capabilities By David Ruppe Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — Addressing a perceived increase in cruise missile threats, the U.S. Army is working to develop new defenses against the weapons by fiscal 2008, an official said Thursday (see GSN, Feb. 26)...Full Story

	Monday, May 10, 2004

U.S. Navy Launches Maritime Security Initiative The U.S. Pacific Command has launched the Regional Maritime Security Initiative, which seeks to prevent terrorist attacks in the Indian and Pacific oceans, the Washington Times reported today (see GSN, April 6). The goal of the effort is to create a coalition of countries willing to identify and intercept “transnational maritime threats under existing international and domestic laws,” Adm. Thomas Fargo said earlier this month. The effort particularly targets terrorists planning attacks using weapons of mass destruction, the Times reported. This new initiative does not entail creating any new forces to patrol the two oceans, according to Fargo. Instead, the effort is intended to “empower each nation to take the action it deems necessary to protect itself in its own waters, thereby enhancing our collective security,” he said (Richard Halloran, Washington Times, May 10). Back to top

NPT Meeting Collapses By Jim Wurst Global Security Newswire UNITED NATIONS — A meeting of parties to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) collapsed Friday night after delegates here failed to resolve differences on numerous political and procedural issues, notably how to refer to their own consensus decisions of 2000 (see GSN, May 7). This was the final preparatory meeting before next year’s review conference and delegates hoped that the meeting would produce recommendations for the conference, as preparatory meetings have in the past. Hours after the meeting was supposed to have ended, the meeting was simply adjourned with a final report containing minimum details. Breaking its own rules of procedure, the meeting did not even resume in open session to formally close it proceedings. Most of the meetings in the last week were held behind closed doors. The political debate at the heart of all the procedural wrangling was the relative weight that should be given to disarmament and nonproliferation, specifically if the treaty’s priority should be disarmament by the nuclear powers or addressing proliferation threats by countries such as North Korea and Iran. The chairman of the meeting, Indonesian Ambassador Sudjadnan Parnohadiningrat, issued his own summary of the meeting on Thursday night, which was an attempt to reflect all the divergent positions expressed during the two-week meeting. As such, there are ideas in it to please and annoy everyone. There was never a chance that all the states would accept the summary as a consensus document, but it had been expected that the paper would be annexed to the final report under the chairman’s own authority and sent to the review conference. However, Sudjadnan’s paper was strongly criticized in an all-day closed meeting Friday by most of the nuclear weapon states, led by the United States, that insisted the paper could only be referred to in the list of documents and not annexed to the report. A key sticking point was whether to acknowledge the final document of the 2000 review conference. This seemingly procedural question was a lightning rod for the political divisions among the delegates because the 2000 decision includes what has become known as “the 13 steps” — specific actions the nuclear powers agreed to as part of their disarmament commitments under the NPT. The 13 steps include “an unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear weapon states to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals.” That undertaking includes signing and ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, reduction in tactical nuclear weapons and halting the production of weapon-grade nuclear materials. The United States now opposes many of these steps, most notably its rejection of the test ban treaty. Because of this stalemate, the meeting could not even agree to seemingly routine items such as an agenda for the 2005 conference. Brazilian Ambassador Sergio Duarte will be the president of the review conference, which is scheduled to be held in New York May 2-27, 2005. Back to top       USEC Calls for New Power Plant Fueled “Exclusively” by Former Nuclear Weapon Material By Mike Nartker Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The head of the U.S. Enrichment Corp. — the sole U.S. producer of enriched uranium — proposed last week the development of a new nuclear power plant that would be powered solely by fuel produced from material taken from nuclear weapons (see GSN, March 26). USEC President and Chief Executive Officer William Timbers outlined his proposal for the “Isaiah Nuclear Energy Plant,” named after the biblical prophet who called for swords to be turned to plowshares, during a May 4 speech in New York before the Business Council for the United Nations. The new plant would be created in the United States through a “private-sector initiative backed by the government” and would include a 1,000-megawatt reactor to be powered “exclusively” by fuel produced through the blending down of highly enriched uranium (HEU) taken from nuclear warheads, Timbers said. The reactor’s initial core would contain fuel produced from 3 metric tons of weapon-grade highly enriched uranium, which would amount to the elimination of more than 100 nuclear weapons, Timbers said. Each refueling would use fuel produced from about 25 additional warheads, he said, adding that over the lifetime of the reactor the equivalent of “more than 2,000 nuclear warheads” would be eliminated through conversion into Isaiah reactor fuel. Isaiah could be the first in a series of “five, 10, 20 or any number” of new nuclear power plants in the United States to be powered by fuel produced in part by material taken from nuclear weapons, Timbers said. He added that such plants would serve both energy and nonproliferation needs. “These power reactors could be generating thousands of megawatts of electricity and eliminating thousands of potential nuclear weapons at the same time,” he said. In a telephone interview today with Global Security Newswire, Greenpeace International senior adviser Tom Clements said the proposal was merely an attempt by the nuclear power industry to obtain government subsidies for construction of new nuclear power plants. He accused the industry of attempting to “cloak” the issue as one of nonproliferation, and he said the debate over the construction of new nuclear power plants in the United States would probably revolve around cost concerns. While he did not quote a specific dollar amount, USEC spokesman Charles Yulish said the Isaiah plant’s cost would be roughly equivalent to facilities now in operation. Nuclear reactors in the United States are already able to use fuel from recycled nuclear weapons. Yulish told GSN that there should be a “mutual alliance” between the nuclear power industry and the nonproliferation community. USEC is already involved in another project that seeks to eliminate nuclear weapons by converting nuclear warhead materials into civilian nuclear fuel — the U.S.-Russian Megatons to Megawatts program. The effort, which took effect in 1994, seeks to remove 500 metric tons of highly enriched uranium from Russian nuclear weapons for conversion to civilian nuclear power plant fuel by 2013. USEC, the U.S. commercial agent for the program, has said the effort to date has eliminated the equivalent of 8,000 nuclear warheads and has provided enough nuclear fuel to power a city the size of Boston for about 300 years. The Isaiah reactor “would build upon a pretty impressive record,” Timbers said. “It’s worth repeating that nuclear warheads that were once aimed at American targets are generating electricity to light and power those communities. What a change from the days of duck and cover and bomb shelters,” he said. Yulish said that Timbers “broached” the idea of the Isaiah plant during a conversation last fall with Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency chief Alexander Rumyantsev, who said that Russia was interested in the proposal. USEC has also been in discussions with U.S. agencies such as the National Nuclear Security Administration, which have also expressed interest, though “not with a capital I,” Yulish said. In his speech last week, Timbers also discussed a nuclear nonproliferation proposal put forward separately by the Bush administration and the International Atomic Energy Agency — a freeze on the development of uranium enrichment and fuel reprocessing facilities. While describing the proposal as “bold and challenging” Timbers also said that the international commercial nuclear fuel industry must be involved along with government and international agencies in any discussions on new restrictions (see GSN, April 26). “If you have a global industry that already works quite well, and is safeguarded, you don’t want to damage it while trying to fix a different situation,” he said. Timbers said the private sector is capable of providing necessary “assurances” to countries seeking to build enrichment or reprocessing facilities that they could obtain nuclear power plant fuel if they abandon their efforts. Such assurances could include the creation of fuel reserves; the allocation of physical assets; or the creation of cross-producer guarantees, which would involve various uranium enrichment companies agreeing to support each other’s contracts. Timbers added that the private sector could also “back up” guarantees offered by nations with “appropriate materials and value.” “We feel that the nuclear fuel supply issues, for countries that are prepared to give up the pursuit of uranium enrichment, can be resolved. It can be done,” Timbers said. Back to top       North Korea Won’t Scrap Nuclear Program; Working Group to Begin Wednesday in Beijing North Korean leader Kim Jong Il reiterated his stance that Pyongyang could agree only to freeze, not dismantle, some of its nuclear programs, during discussions last month with Chinese President Hu Jintao, according to Reuters (see GSN, May 6). The Yomiuri Shimbun reported today that China is concerned that Kim’s stance could cause a confrontation at a six-nation working group meeting, set to begin Wednesday in Beijing (Reuters, May 10). Meanwhile, North Korean officials have complained to other Asian officials that the United States has not provided definitions of such terms as “verifiable” and “irreversible” and thus Pyongyang has difficulty understanding what the Washington really wants in ending the nuclear standoff, the Washington Post reported. One administration official said the U.S. delegation plans to discuss dismantling North Korea’s nuclear programs. “We’re prepared to talk about the first step, which is a halt of the program, a freezing of the program, and what the [South] Koreans and the North Koreans call ‘compensation’ for that and which we call ‘corresponding measures,’” said the official. The United States has so far defined “corresponding measures” to mean the provision of a multilateral security guarantee, but no aid. However, other countries taking part in the negotiations — namely, China, South Korea and Russia — have offered shipments of heavy fuel oil if North Korea halted and began dismantling its nuclear programs. The U.S. official said the freeze would need a time limit of six to 18 months for North Korea to begin dismantling its programs. According to China, the talks will last at least five days. The U.S. delegation is set to be led by State Department official Joseph DeTrani, special envoy to North Korea, according to the Post (Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, May 10). Back to top       Former IAEA Representative Says Iran Should Consider Quitting Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Iran should consider withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty “if the U.S. and European pressures and games continue,” according to a former Iranian representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Agence France-Presse reported yesterday (see GSN, May 7). “Current circumstances could result in Iran’s nuclear case being sent to the U.N. Security Council, giving the U.S. legitimacy to take action against Iran,” Mohammad Kiarashi told the reformist Shargh newspaper. “The more obligations we accept, the deeper we sink into this quagmire,” he added (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, May 9). Back to top       Japanese Businessman Found Guilty of Exporting Nuclear-Capable Components to North Korea A Japanese businessman and his North Korean partner were convicted today by a Japanese court of attempting to ship parts to North Korea that could be used in uranium enrichment, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Jan. 13). Yoshifumi Yoshihara, 45, received a one-year prison term, suspended for three years. Ri Yong Sun, a 52-year-old North Korean woman living in Japan, was sentenced to 10 months in prison, also suspended for three years. The two shipped an inverter for an industrial washing machine to North Korea last November, but a trading company in Beijing intercepted the part and returned it to Japan last month, according to court documents. “They exported it, despite knowing full well that they did not have a permit to export it,” the presiding judge said (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, May 10). Back to top       United Kingdom Seeking Greater Nuclear Weapons Collaboration With United States The United Kingdom is seeking an agreement with the United States to guarantee collaboration on nuclear weapons over the next 10 years, the London Observer reported yesterday (see GSN, April 29). Over the past year, British scientists visited U.S. nuclear weapons facilities at least 190 times, and 219 British personnel have visited the Nevada Test Site, the Observer reported. In addition, the United Kingdom plans to spend more than $700,000 on new offices in Washington to help develop closer U.S.-British ties on nuclear weapons efforts, according to the Observer. While some experts are concerned that the United Kingdom is seeking to develop an infrastructure to build new nuclear weapons, the British Defense Ministry denied such allegations. “We have no plans for a replacement for Trident [submarine] and no plans to build any new type of nuclear weapon,” a ministry spokesman said (Mark Townsend, London Observer, May 9). Back to top       U.S.-Russian Plutonium Disposal Effort Stalled A U.S.-Russian agreement to eliminate 68 tons of weapon-grade plutonium has stalled, leading to increasing concerns over the Bush administration’s commitment to the effort, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, April 27). In 1998, the United States and Russia agreed to each eliminate 34 tons of weapon-grade plutonium. Agreements to build parallel plants to convert the plutonium into mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel, though, expired last year (see GSN, July 25, 2003). The plutonium disposal effort has been held up by a U.S.-Russian dispute over liability in the event of an accident or act of sabotage at a Russian facility, according to the Post. In March, U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said that the Bush administration hoped to resolve the issue by this spring and said that the matter “is being worked at high levels.” “How a little issue of indemnification can hold this up is beyond me,” Senator Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) told top Energy Department officials at a recent congressional hearing. “This is a way to get rid of a huge chunk of nuclear-grade plutonium,” he said. In threat-reduction agreements signed during the mid-1990s, Russia agreed to take responsibility for accidents or acts of sabotage in return for foreign assistance in disposing of Soviet-era nuclear weapons, according to the Post. With the plutonium disposal project, however, Russia has taken the position that if U.S. contractors are to blame for an incident, then either they or the U.S. government should be responsible for damages and possible prosecution, the Post reported. “They [the Russians] kept saying, ‘Hey, you can hire Chechen rebels under contract and they could blow up our facilities, and we would be powerless to prosecute,’” said an administration official. “We said that’s ridiculous.  We don’t hire people who will conduct sabotage,” the official said. The Bush administration is divided on the issue of liability protection, with the Defense and State departments seeking more stringent protections while the Energy Department is satisfied with a less rigorous formula, according to the Post. “What you would have thought was an incidental legal issue looms so large,” said Leonard Spector, head of the Washington office of the Monterey Institute of International Studies’ Center for Nonproliferation Studies, who suggested sharing the burden, a structure established in the civilian nuclear power sector. “Everybody is frustrated that an additional hurdle is being presented that has to be overcome,” he said (Peter Slevin, Washington Post, May 10). Back to top       Officials Explain 2001 MX Missile Test Failure A U.S. ICBM plunged in pieces into the Pacific Ocean during a test on July 27, 2001, when the weapon’s first stage could not be jettisoned due to a manufacturing flaw, the Lompoc Record reported (see GSN, May 7). Air Force Space Command officials recently released a report from the panel that probed the cause of the MX missile’s crash. The report says that all systems operated normally for the first 60 seconds of flight from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. However, with the first-stage motor still attached as the second stage ignited, the missile careened out of control, activating its self-destruct system and hurling flaming wreckage into the ocean. Three missile parts have been identified as possibly causing the mishap. Due to the missile’s destruction, the individual components could not be tested further. “As a result, the failure can only be identified as occurring within one of these three components,” Col. Allen Kirkman Jr., accident investigation board president, wrote in his statement of opinion. Vandenberg officials said Peacekeeper weapons with dummy warheads were launched successfully in 2002 and 2003. Typically, the base tests only one Peacekeeper missile annually, at a cost of about $61 million per test (Lompoc Record, May 9). Back to top

Senate Committee Restores Funds for Chemical Weapons Destruction at Pueblo Chemical Depot The Senate Armed Services Committee voted Friday to restore $147 million to the fiscal 2005 budget for an accelerated weapons destruction program at the U.S. Army’s Pueblo Chemical Depot, the Pueblo Chieftain reported (see GSN, April 23). “We have scored a major victory for the people of Pueblo and southern Colorado,” said Senator Wayne Allard (R-Colo.). The Pentagon’s budget request for 2005 allocated less than $5 million for a Pueblo facility that would destroy 2,600 tons of weapons containing mustard agent. Local officials had expected more than $152 million to be allocated (Pueblo Chieftain, May 8). Back to top       Faster Chemical Weapons Burning OK’d at Anniston The Environmental Protection Agency has given the green light for faster chemical weapons incineration at the Anniston U.S. Army depot, and the incinerator began burning chemical-laden rockets at a rate of 25 per hour on Friday, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, April 23). The Alabama installation passed a recent round of air-quality tests after the incinerator narrowly failed tests in November. The depot was burning 16 rockets per hour while the tests were under way. The EPA decision showed that community safety could be ensured throughout the process, said Tim Garrett, the Army’s site project manager at the incinerator. “The EPA letter is good news for us and the community,” Garrett said. An incineration opponent said the test results did not prove that the entire chemical weapons stockpile could be destroyed safely. “We don’t agree with the process and the methods that were used in the second trial burn to try and demonstrate compliance,” said Craig Williams of the Kentucky-based Chemical Weapons Working Group. “But since EPA let them do it, we’re not surprised,” he added (Associated Press/NBC13, May 7). Back to top

Army Seeks New Cruise Missile Defense Capabilities By David Ruppe Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — Addressing a perceived increase in cruise missile threats, the U.S. Army is working to develop new defenses against the weapons by fiscal 2008, an official said Thursday (see GSN, Feb. 26). At least one of three key components, though, may not be ready for fielding until two years after that goal, the official also said in March congressional testimony. In that hearing, Lt. Gen. Larry Dodgen, commander of the Army Space and Missile Defense Command, told Congress that cruise missile defense efforts needed to be accelerated. Existing Army defenses against cruise missiles consist primarily of the Patriot antiballistic missile systems, which did not shoot down a small number of Iraqi cruise missiles apparently fired at U.S. forces last year during the war. There is an inherent difficulty in using ballistic missile defenses for lower-altitude, slower-flying cruise missile defense, Dodgen said last week at an event sponsored by the National Defense University Foundation. “It makes it extremely difficult for the systems that we use to combat ballistic missiles to also position themselves for cruise missiles,” he said, adding that expanding the role of the interceptors can complicate the challenge of identifying airborne objects in combat. Another challenge, he said, is tracking cruise missiles at greater distances, which experts say is difficult because the weapons fly lower and slower than ballistic missiles and are better concealed by the horizon from ground-based radar. The Army plans to build a cruise missile defense system with three principal components: a new airborne sensor called JLENS, to help track more distant and low-flying threats; a modified seeker guided-missile called SLAMRAAM; and an “integrated fire control” system for integrating the radar data from other sensors, including from those other services, to add greater surveillance range. JLENS, or Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensors, is a dirigible holding fire control and surveillance radars (see GSN, Oct. 6, 2003). SLAMRAAM stands for Surface-Launched Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile. It will be a version of a missile already used by Air Force and Navy aircraft. Regarding the integrated fire control, Dodgen said last week the military has already shown it can use radar data gathered from an airborne platform to fire a missile when the missile system’s own radar cannot see the target coming.  “We can shoot a missile, and we can use radar data from some other sensor that is not organic to the engineered system that we have,” he said. Dodgen in March testimony said the SLAMRAAM could be ready by fiscal 2008, but the JLENS not until fiscal 2010. “It is clear that the required systems and capabilities necessary to counter this emerging threat need to be accelerated to field a cruise missile defense as soon as possible,” he said in prepared testimony to the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces. Dodgen last week said the envisioned new cruise missile defense capability was intended to address advanced cruise missile threats the United States might someday face from a major or smaller power. For the near term the Army has taken measures, which Dodgen did not specify, following the Iraq cruise missile attacks to shore up its defenses. Back to top

Concerns Grow Over Possible “Dirty Bomb” Attack There is growing concern among intelligence analysts and independent experts that terrorists could detonate a “dirty bomb” — which combines radioactive materials and conventional explosives — in a U.S. or European city, the Los Angeles Times reported yesterday (see GSN, May 7). While there have been no specific threats of a terrorist attack involving crude nuclear or radiological weapons, senior U.S. and European officials, as well as unofficial experts, said that several factors recently increased concerns over such an incident. The concerns involve three al-Qaeda operatives who conducted dirty bomb and chemical weapons experiments, as well as suspicion that al-Qaeda is planning a large-scale attack, the sources said. In addition, there has been increased discussion on radical Islamic Web sites concerning the use of nuclear weapons against the United States, they said. Governmental and independent experts could not say why terrorists have not yet conducted a dirty bomb attack, according to the Times. “I’m very surprised that a radiological device hasn’t gone off,” said Matthew Bunn of Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. “There is a bigger puzzle — why no al-Qaeda attacks since Sept. 11 in the U.S.?” he added. The arrest of a number of al-Qaeda operatives has hindered the group’s ability to plan large-scale attacks, a European intelligence official said. The official added, though, that “the division is still focused on spectaculars, and they take three or four years to plan and execute.” According to counterterrorism experts, al-Qaeda has seemingly divided into two tiers — one that focuses on so-called “soft” targets, such as the conventional bomb attacks in Indonesia, Morocco and Spain, and another group of more experienced operatives involved in longer-term planning for an attack in the United States or Europe. “There is a sense that one part of al-Qaeda is waiting and putting into place the big, spectacular attack,” said Magnus Ranstorp, director of the Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. “It will come out of left field, and it may well be a dirty bomb,” Ranstorp said (Douglas Frantz, Los Angeles Times, May 9).   Back to top

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