Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last week approved legislation that would limit international access to the country’s nuclear installations if the nation is reported to the U.N. Security Council, Agence France-Presse reported Saturday (see GSN, Dec. 16).
The law is not specific, but retaliatory measures could include revocation of Tehran’s Additional Protocol to its International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards agreement, which gives agency officials increased access to nuclear sites, according to AFP (Agence France-Presse I/Yahoo!News, Dec. 17). Iran has demonstrated that it cannot be trusted with technology that could be used to produce a nuclear weapon, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday. “The more we hear from this Iranian government, the more that people recognize and acknowledge publicly that this is a government that shouldn’t expect the international community to trust them with technologies that might lead to a nuclear weapon,” Rice told Fox News (Agence France-Presse II/IranMania.com, Dec. 18). Meanwhile, Germany plans to ask the Security Council to punish Iran for anti-Israel comments made by Ahmadinejad last week, AFP reported Saturday. “We are looking at (possible) measures at the level of the U.N.,” Thomas de Mazieres, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s chief of staff, told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper. Germany would only seek U.N. action, however, if there was agreement within the European Union, said de Mazieres. Ahmadinejad’s remarks will jeopardize EU-Iran nuclear talks, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier warned in the Bild am Sonntag. “After the comments by the Iranian president, discussions on nuclear matters between Europeans and Iran are going to become difficult,” Steinmeier wrote (Agence France-Presse III/Yahoo!News, Dec. 17). Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi yesterday dismissed international condemnation of Ahmadinejad’s remarks as “emotional,” the Associated Press reported. “The West had a very emotional attitude about Ahmadinejad’s comments. Westerners have to learn to tolerate others’ opinion,” Asefi said. He added that Iran planned to present the European Union with new nuclear proposals. “We have not demanded anything excessive. The European side should not make an excessive demand either,” Asefi said. Top Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani said this week’s new round of talks would be “unconditional.” “Their problem is not with the atomic bomb, they want to thwart Iran’s scientific advancements,” he said (Nasser Karimi, Associated Press/Billings Gazette, Dec. 18). Israeli President Moshe Katsav accused the European Union on Sunday of showing weakness in the standoff, AFP reported. “The attempts of Europe to find a compromise with Iran are interpreted by the Iranian authorities as a sign of weakness and hesitation,” he said. “Iran is trying to exploit this weakness and hesitation, from Europe in particular, to move closer towards obtaining weapons of mass destruction,” he said (Agence France-Presse IIII/IranMania.com, Dec. 18). Elsewhere, Persian Gulf leaders today called for a nuclear weapon-free Middle East, but focused only on Israel for its failure to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Reuters reported. Delegates said Tehran’s nuclear ambitions dominated the closed-door meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council. A draft statement of the group’s resolution obtained by Reuters had included a call for Iran to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency but was deleted from the final version. One Gulf official said the council — which consists of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — wanted to emphasize diplomacy in the case of Iran. “They opted for diplomacy so as not to alienate Tehran,” said the official. UAE Foreign Minister Rashid Abdullah al-Nuaimi said Gulf countries were, however, “extremely worried and concerned” about Iran’s Bushehr nuclear plant (Kandil/Hammond, Reuters, Dec. 19).
By Chris Schneidmiller
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — The City Council of Toledo, Ohio, last week approved what is apparently the first resolution by a municipal body calling on Congress and the White House to take all possible efforts to prevent an act of nuclear terror (see GSN, Dec. 9). The resolution, supported unanimously by the 12-person council, says: “Be it resolved ... that the City Council of Toledo, Ohio strongly urges the United States congressional delegation of the state of Ohio to take the lead in pressing their colleagues and the Bush administration to continue to work with other countries and the United Nations to immediately implement actions that will secure to a high standard fissile material and nuclear weapons around the world.” The resolution was offered to the council by city resident Phineas Anderson, who said the book Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe, by Graham Allison of Harvard University, opened his eyes to the threat (see GSN, June 29, 2004). “I feel we are in greater danger now, not in terms of our entire country being destroyed as was the possibility when confronting the USSR, but of a city being ruined and many, many Americans being killed at one time,” Anderson said by e-mail. President George W. Bush in his re-election campaign identified an act of terrorism involving a weapon of mass destruction as the No. 1 security threat facing the United States (see GSN, Oct. 1, 2004). However, his actions have yet to match his rhetoric, Anderson said. Congressional leaders also need to step up their efforts to secure this country, he said. A nuclear strike would be far more catastrophic than a chemical or biological incident, and the threat has not received the same attention as dangers such as avian influenza, Anderson said. Anderson organized a presentation by Allison in October before the Rotary Club of Toledo and a number of state and local officials. Afterward, the retired educator and federal employee sought other avenues to press the issue. The resolution offered an opportunity to educate local officials about the danger and to show congressional lawmakers that their constituents believe nuclear terror needs to be addressed. While local communities have dealt with nearby power reactors, Greenpeace nuclear policy analyst Jim Riccio said he did not know of other resolutions focused directly on nuclear terrorism. Anderson said he also believes the resolution is the first of its kind. Anderson has taken his campaign to several governmental and private entities in his area. The Board of Lucas County Commissioners issued a letter of support using language similar to that in the Toledo resolution, and Anderson said he expects other nearby jurisdictions to soon follow suit. If the issue of global nuclear safety is outside the normal purview of city hall, local officials feel that taking steps to protect their friends and neighbors is not. “It certainly was a unique experience, however, being responsible for emergency management planning we are mindful of all kinds of threats to the community,” said Tina Wozniak, Lucas County board president. Ultimately, Anderson plans early next year to present a package of letters and resolutions to each member of Ohio’s delegation in Congress. He hopes the delegation, in turn, will be persuaded to push their colleagues into action. “The whole thrust is to have a whole delegation like Ohio’s to keep the eye on the ball,” Anderson said in a telephone interview. Resolutions passed locally could attract residents’ attention to the issue of nuclear security, said Paul Leventhal, founder and president of the Nuclear Control Institute. A groundswell of local concern could lead to increased focus on the matter in Congress, he said. “It’s basically all to the good when the threat of nuclear terrorism is brought down to the local level so that local constituents are made aware,” Leventhal said. “It has to come from the ordinary, everyday citizens, from the grass-roots level,” said Toledo City Council President Louis Escobar. “We have to make our voices heard.” The council resolution notes several efforts made to secure WMD materials around the world — including the U.S. Global Threat Reduction Initiative and U.N. Security Council Resolution 1540 — but proposes no specific strategies for safeguarding nuclear material. Anderson said he wanted his document to remain simple and direct; details can follow as the endeavor continues. Critics of U.S. nuclear policy, though, had some suggestions. Leventhal said the resolution should be directed to Representative David Hobson (R-Ohio), a primary supporter of the spent fuel recycling initiative to separate plutonium from nuclear waste from U.S. nuclear power reactors. The material could then be used again in reactors or weapons (see GSN, Nov. 15). Fiscal 2006 energy and water appropriations legislation included $130 million for reprocessing research. Critics say creating another source of plutonium increases the danger that it will be diverted. “This is exceedingly dangerous from a terrorism standpoint,” Leventhal said. Hobson did not respond to requests for comment by deadline. Proponents of spent fuel recycling argue that it could provide new fuel elements for reactors and reduce issues of permanent nuclear waste storage. Some of the fiscal 2006 funding was to be used for study of “proliferation-resistant” technologies. U.S. residents should also push the federal government to require heightened security at nuclear power reactors, Riccio said. The facilities nationwide store 52,000 tons of spent fuel, according to a Nuclear Regulatory Commission. All but 10,000 tons is contained in cooling pools that are vulnerable to an intentional release of radioactive material by terrorists using explosives or a hijacked airplane, critics have said. While spent fuel must remain in the pools for five years, federal agencies have failed to push reactor operators to place additional cooled material into dry casks that would provide protection against a radiation release, Riccio said. NRC spokesman David McIntyre said that most spent fuel in the pools has remained there past the five-year mark. Reactor security forces also remain largely inadequate to counter an assault, Riccio said. “If the American public realized what pathetically little steps have been taken to secure these sites they’d be irate,” he said. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission argues that security plans made before and since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks have prepared nuclear reactors to deal with strikes on the ground or from the air (see GSN, June 4, 2004). The agency this year conducted security assessments of spent fuel pools at all licensed U.S. reactors, and believes the likelihood is low that a terrorist incident would lead to the release of radioactive material, McIntyre said today. Mechanisms are in place to prevent large-scale releases in the event in an attack, he added. “We feel fuel is safely stored in either pools or casks,” McIntyre said. Anderson said his work is not finished when the resolutions are sent to Congress. He was scheduled to speak today with officials from the Families of September 11, a nonprofit group formed by relatives of people killed in the attacks, in hopes that the organization might take up the cause. Escobar said he hopes to organize programs on the issue at the University of Toledo, where he is the coordinator for the multicultural student center. The resolution itself could be a guide for other communities in other areas looking to make themselves heard on the threat of nuclear terrorism, Riccio said. “Hopefully it can become viral or mushroom beyond Ohio,” he said.
The United States should use programs it has used to contain the former Soviet Union’s WMD arsenal in efforts to end the standoff over North Korea’s nuclear program, a group of experts said in a report released Friday (see GSN, Dec. 16). “With better relations between Washington and Pyongyang, North Korea may be open to dismantling parts or even all of its WMD program in return for tangible political, economic and security benefits that might be provided through a program like cooperative threat reduction,” says the report, released by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “I think (the programs) are absolutely applicable” to North Korea, said Joel Wit, a senior fellow at the center, former State Department North Korea expert and report co-author. The authors said the United States should take the lead in establishing such programs to encompass all of Pyongyang’s WMD arsenals, with support from Russia, China, South Korea, the European Union and others, Agence France-Presse reported. “Elimination of these threats will require a series of diplomatic agreements, perhaps stretching out over the next decade at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars,” the report says. The experts called for “far-reaching proposals” that would show “a long-term commitment on the part of the United States not only to implementation of any Beijing agreement but also to helping Pyongyang redirect important resources that may bolster its economic development” (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, Dec. 17). Meanwhile, North Korea today responded to U.N. and U.S. criticism of its human rights record by threatening to boost its “nuclear deterrent,” the Associated Press reported. “If the United States strengthens its hostile policy aimed at stifling us under the pretext of human rights and the nuclear issues, we will respond by further solidifying our self-defense force including nuclear deterrent,” the Foreign Ministry announced in a statement (Associated Press, Dec. 19). Elsewhere, South Korea’s top nuclear negotiator, Unification Minister Chung Dong-young, is in Washington for talks, the Yonhap News Agency reported yesterday. Chung departed for Washington two days after the end of bilateral negotiations with North Korean officials and is expected to discuss the nuclear crisis with top State Department officials, according to Yonhap (Yonhap, Dec. 18).
A Dutch businessman convicted of illicit transfers of dual-use nuclear technology to Pakistan between 1999 and 2002 was sentenced Friday to one year in prison, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Nov. 21). Henk Slebos knowingly sold prohibited equipment to former top Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan for use in Islamabad’s nuclear weapons program, the court ruled. Slebos admitted that his company made the shipments but defended his actions. “It was no different between the United States and Russia during the Cold War,” he told AP, adding that hundreds of companies delivered equipment to Khan’s laboratories. Slebos will be free for two weeks, during which time he may file an appeal, according to AP (Toby Sterling, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Dec. 17). Another man with alleged connections to the Khan network, German engineer Gotthard Lerch, was charged Friday with participating in Libya’s now-defunct nuclear weapons program, AP reported. Lerch is accused of violating German trade and weapons laws to help Tripoli develop a uranium enrichment centrifuge between 1999 and 2003, said Christina Arnold, a spokeswoman for prosecutors in Mannheim (Associated Press/Pravda, Dec. 16).
The U.S. Energy Department has reprimanded and fined the University of Tennessee-Battelle LLC for safety violations at the Oak Ridge nuclear weapons complex in Tennessee, the Associated Press reported Friday (see GSN, July 27). A $100,000 fine is being levied for the facility manager’s failures to comply with radioactive material inventory limits at storage facilities last year, the agency announced. The handling errors occurred at Oak Ridge and at another building on the neighboring Y-12 nuclear weapons plant site. The department said the penalty could have been higher, but that the nonprofit entity received credit for responding promptly to the errors. “Once UT-Battelle recognized that multiple facilities with radioactive material inventory problems existed, they expanded their internal investigation and took comprehensive corrective actions,” the agency said in a statement (Associated Press, Dec. 16)
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