A North Korean television anchor reads a Foreign Ministry statement today declaring North Korea to be nuclear-armed (AFP photo/North Korean TV). North Korea Declares Nuclear Arsenal, Refuses to Resume Six-Party Negotiations North Korea today for the first time publicly claimed that it possesses nuclear weapons and said it would not rejoin six-party talks aimed at reaching a settlement over its nuclear program, Reuters reported (see GSN, Feb. 9)...Full Story

DOE Adds $130 Million to Threat Reduction Programs The U.S. Energy Department’s proposed fiscal 2006 budget includes $130 million more for global threat reduction activities than this year, but contains cuts for securing nuclear materials and redirecting weapons scientists, according to an analysis released yesterday by the Russian American Nuclear Security Advisory Council (see GSN, Feb. 8)...Full Story

State Department Reorganization Raises Concerns By David Ruppe Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last week last week authorized a merger of the her department’s arms control and nonproliferation bureaus, prompting congressional interest and concerns from two former Clinton administration officials who said the move would diminish the department’s arms control focus (see GSN, Feb. 1)...Full Story

	Thursday, February 10, 2005

State Department Reorganization Raises Concerns By David Ruppe Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last week last week authorized a merger of the her department’s arms control and nonproliferation bureaus, prompting congressional interest and concerns from two former Clinton administration officials who said the move would diminish the department’s arms control focus (see GSN, Feb. 1). The State Department has not released any specifics on the plan, other than to say it would fold the two bureaus into a single unit and that the effort is intended “to best address vital national security issues that the United States will face in the future and the priorities we have established to address them.” “Many decisions on the planned merger remain to be made, including the makeup of the merged bureau’s offices and the new name,” a State Department official said. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs John Holum in letters last week to the chairman and ranking Democrat of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee expressed concern that the plan would “abolish” the arms control bureau and “marginalize” its missions and expertise by merging them with a larger bureaucracy. The consolidation would, they wrote further, “undercut nonproliferation” by softening focus on those issues and by undermining international perceptions of the U.S. commitment to its arms control obligations. “At a crucial time, when the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty is up for its five year review, the further eclipse of arms control would be seen as a signal the United States is less than serious about its own NPT responsibilities, weakening the regime just when it is most urgently needed to deal with nuclear ambitions in North Korea and Iran,” they wrote. Discouraging Future Agreements When the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency was moved into the State Department in 1999 after congressional and interagency negotiations, Albright and Holum wrote, separate nonproliferation and arms control bureaus were maintained “to nurture the distinct methods and skills of both disciplines.” The administration now is seeking to dismantle the department’s capability to negotiate future arms control agreements, they wrote. “Over the past few years arms control has not been among the administration’s top priorities. But downplaying an activity is one thing; disabling ourselves from ever pursuing it is quite another,” the letter said. Other nations have criticized the Bush administration for its opposition to some international arms control requirements. They have cited its unwillingness to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty; to commit to irreversible, verifiable nuclear arms reductions; and to negotiate a verification protocol to the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (see GSN, Dec. 10, 2001). In addition, in 2002, the United States withdrew from the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty (see GSN, June 13, 2002). Following the U.S.-Russian signing in 2002 of the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, a senior Bush administration official said that agreement signaled the end of formal U.S.-Russian arms control negotiations (see GSN, May 16, 2002). Arms Control-Nonproliferation Conflict Henry Sokolski, who runs the nonprofit Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, released a report last week that recommended reducing the number of arms control bureau directorates from around 20 to about five and shifting some arms control treaty verification activities into a separate, existing verification and compliance bureau. Sokolski, who was the deputy for nonproliferation policy at the Defense Department during the George H.W. Bush administration, argued that the arms control bureaucracy should play a supporting role to the nonproliferation mission. “If you’re going to have an office where you already have tensions between NP and AC, you’re going to have to say who’s got the supporting role and who has the lead,” he said.  Giving arms control a supporting role makes sense, he wrote, because U.S. policy focus has shifted toward preventing countries from acquiring strategic weapons capabilities, or nonproliferation, rather than verifying “the existence and number of strategic weapons and control or reduce their numbers.” In addition, unilateral and multilateral counterproliferation programs have arisen “to deal with weapons of mass destruction militarily after they have proliferated,” he wrote.   He said further that some arms control bureau interests have been at odds with nonproliferation bureau objectives, such as whether to focus Chemical Weapons Convention implementation activities on U.S. and Russian stockpile elimination or on inspecting suspected treaty violators. “There was a lot of … fighting with AC over what the priorities should be,” he said in an interview. For the arms control bureau, “the priority should be the disposal of stockpiles in Russia and the United States and for the nonproliferation bureau it was getting an inspection in Iran.” Senate Interest The Senate Foreign Relations Committee also has taken an interest in the reorganization and plans to hold a reconfirmation hearing for the appointed head of the new bureau, according to a Senate source. The State Department has not yet said who would run the combined bureau, but insiders expect that Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control Stephen Rademaker, who is also managing the nonproliferation bureau, would receive the nod. Questions regarding the reorganization would likely come up that hearing, but the committee also could insist upon separate hearings regarding the plan, the source said. “The reorganization is a sufficiently big change that it will be treated like a reprogramming [of funding]. So there will be a reprogramming notification [from the department] that comes up, and is treated like any other reprogramming, which means that … you could have a hearing on it if you want. You could put a hold on it if you want,” the source said. “How that issue and confirmation hearings intersect remains to be seen. It might depend upon how they intend to do the merger,” the source said. Back to top       China Defends Its Export Policies Beijing controls exports of technology that could be used to develop missiles or weapons of mass destruction, a Chinese official said yesterday following U.S. criticism of China’s export policies, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Feb. 8). Liu Zhixian, deputy director general of the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s arms control and disarmament department, made the statement to U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton and representatives of other Asia-Pacific countries attending a nonproliferation conference in Tokyo, said Japanese Foreign Ministry official Satoshi Suzuki. Suzuki did not say whether members of the U.S. delegation responded to Liu’s statement, according to AP (Kozo Mizoguchi, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Feb. 9). Back to top

North Korea Declares Nuclear Arsenal, Refuses to Resume Six-Party Negotiations North Korea today for the first time publicly claimed that it possesses nuclear weapons and said it would not rejoin six-party talks aimed at reaching a settlement over its nuclear program, Reuters reported (see GSN, Feb. 9). “We ... have manufactured nukes to cope with the Bush administration’s evermore undisguised policy to isolate and stifle the D.P.R.K.,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “The Bush administration termed the D.P.R.K., its dialogue partner, an outpost of tyranny,” the statement adds, using a phrase first employed by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during her Senate confirmation hearings. “This deprived the D.P.R.K. of any justification to participate in the six-party talks” (Jack Kim, Reuters, Feb. 10). North Korea’s announcement is less than surprising, Rice indicated, saying Washington has assumed since the mid-1990s that Pyongyang could produce nuclear bombs. “We have for some time taken account of the capability of the North Koreans to perhaps have a few nuclear weapons,” Rice said. Rice reiterated that the United States had no intention of attacking North Korea. “The fact of the matter is that the world has given them a way out and they should take that way out,” she said (Sebastian Allison, Reuters, Feb. 10). Analysts said today that North Korea’s pronouncement does not necessarily mean it has a deployable nuclear weapons system. “It is one thing to talk about having a weapon and it’s a different matter to talk about a complete nuclear weapons system,” said researcher Baek Seung-joo of South Korea’s Institute for Defense Analyses. “It is questionable whether North Korea has the capability to mount a reliable nuclear warhead.” Others noted that none of Pyongyang’s alleged nuclear capabilities was confirmed by concrete evidence. “Most people in the field assume that North Korea can deliver a simple, implosion weapon by missile with a range that could hit Tokyo,” said Gary Samore, director of studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in the United Kingdom, adding that no one on the outside could be certain that North Korea had actually produced nuclear weapons. “They want us to believe that they are capable of it,” he said (Jack Kim, Reuters II, Feb. 10). Back to top       DOE Adds $130 Million to Threat Reduction Programs The U.S. Energy Department’s proposed fiscal 2006 budget includes $130 million more for global threat reduction activities than this year, but contains cuts for securing nuclear materials and redirecting weapons scientists, according to an analysis released yesterday by the Russian American Nuclear Security Advisory Council (see GSN, Feb. 8). Budget highlights include: —      A net 17-percent increase, to $343.4 million, for the International Nuclear Materials Protection and Cooperation program. While efforts have previously focused on former Soviet states, the budget this year calls for $32 million in new money to safeguard nuclear materials in other nations and $58.9 million for the Megaports program to screen cargo at ports around the world for radioactive materials, according to RANSAC. More than $40 million would be cut from Russian areas of the program, including $23 million to improve security at Russian Strategic Rocket Forces and Navy warhead sites and $11 million removed from efforts to promote sustainability of program upgrades. —      A net 200-percent increase, to $132 million, to support the closing of three Russian reactors that produce weapon-grade plutonium (see GSN, Jan. 28). —      A net $4.3 million increase, to $98 million, for the Global Threat Reduction Initiative. The proposed budget includes more money for U.S. radiological threat reduction, spent fuel disposal in Kazakhstan and repatriation of U.S.-origin spent fuel from foreign research reactors, according to RANSAC. However, it cuts funding for repatriation of Russian-origin spent fuel, removal of nuclear material from unsecured international sites and international radiological threat reduction, and eliminates $9.9 million for buying Russian highly enriched uranium for U.S. reactors until the facilities convert to low-enriched uranium. —      Reducing funding by $2.8 million for the Global Initiative for Proliferation Prevention to redirect weapons scientists to other work. —      A net increase of $40 million for fissile materials disposition, which includes a $34.5 million reduction in funding for U.S. construction of plutonium dispositions sites, but a $74 million hike in U.S. operation and maintenance work and $500,000 more for Russian plutonium disposition activities. The funding cut for plutonium disposition is due to continuing debate between the United States and Russia over who would accept liability for such sites, RANSAC stated (see GSN, Jan. 14; William Hoehn, RANSAC release, Feb. 9). Back to top       Bush Claims International Consensus on Iran U.S. President George W. Bush said yesterday there is an international consensus against any Iranian efforts to develop nuclear weapons, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Feb. 9). “The Iranians just need to know that the free world is working together to send a very clear message: Don’t develop a nuclear weapon,” he said (Agence France-Presse/IranMania.com, Feb. 9). Iran said yesterday it would not relinquish its nuclear efforts, Reuters reported. “We give our guarantee that we will not produce nuclear weapons because we’re against them and do not believe they are a source of power,” said President Mohammad Khatami. “But we will not give up peaceful nuclear technology” (Hughes/Zakaria, Reuters, Feb. 10). Meanwhile, the deputy commander of U.S. Central Command acknowledged yesterday that the military is updating its war plan for Iran, but said it was simply a routine part of planning, the Washington Post reported (see GSN, Jan. 31). “We are in that process, that normal process, of updating our war plans,” said Lt. Gen. Lance Smith. “We try to keep them current, particularly if . . . our region is active.” The revisions were the result of long-range efforts to update routine plans for the region, Smith said. “I haven’t been called into any late-night meetings at, you know, 8 o’clock at night, saying, ‘Holy cow, we got to sit down and go plan for Iran,’” he said. “I’m not spending any of my time worrying about the nuclear proliferation in Iran” (Ann Scott Tyson, Washington Post, Feb. 10). U.S. intelligence on Iran’s nuclear program is insufficient to aid in any potential military action, experts said. “I will be highly remarkably surprised if the United States has (intelligence) assets in the organs of power,” said Ray Takeyh, an Iran expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, according to Reuters. “They don’t even know who the second-tier Revolutionary Guards are.” The Bush administration is relying on dissidents for information, as it did before the invasion of Iraq, former chief U.S. weapons inspector David Kay said yesterday. “The tendency is to force the intelligence to support the political argument,” Kay told CNN. The CIA has not yet supplied U.S. policy-makers with an up-to-date comprehensive intelligence assessment on Iran, he said. "We’re talking about military action against Iran and we don’t have a National Intelligence Estimate that shows what we do know, what we don’t know and the basis for what we think we know,” Kay said. Roughly 40 U.S. agents in Iran were arrested in the 1990s, said Richard Perle of the American Enterprise Institute. “As I understand it, virtually our entire network in Iran was wiped out,” Perle said in a recent House Intelligence Committee hearing. “I think we’re in very bad shape in Iran” (Reuters, Feb. 9). Back to top       Five Former Soviet Republics Prepare Treaty Establishing Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone in Central Asia Work finished yesterday on a treaty establishing a nuclear weapons-free zone covering the Central Asian nations of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Jan. 23, 2004). “The creation of a zone free of nuclear weapons significantly assists in supporting and strengthening peace and security on a global and regional level,” officials from the five former Soviet Republics said in a statement following their meeting in Uzbekistan. A signing ceremony is expected to be conducted at the former nuclear weapons test site of Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan, AFP reported (Agence France-Presse, Feb. 9). Back to top       U.S. Continues Effort to Oust ElBaradei The United States is continuing its efforts to force Mohamed ElBaradei out of his position as director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, despite reports that a lack of support from other IAEA member nations had killed the effort, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 24). “They’ve been lobbying, and close friends have given them a good reception,” one official told AP. U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton and other senior State Department officials “were still lobbying the capitals” of member states, said another official (George Jahn, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Feb. 9). Back to top       U.S. Has Removed All Nukes From Greece, Study Says The United States removed the last of its nuclear weapons from Greece in spring 2001, according to a study released yesterday by the Natural Resources Defense Council (see GSN, April 18, 2002). U.S. President Bill Clinton authorized the removal of 20 bombs in late 2000, the Associated Press reported. The removal makes Greece the first NATO member from which U.S. nuclear weapons have been completely withdrawn, the NRDC study says. The U.S. Defense Department has not publicly confirmed the move, AP reported. The United States removed some nuclear weapons from Turkey in 1991 and Italy in 1993, according to the study, but additional warheads remain in those countries. “The trend seems clear: Nuclear burden-sharing in NATO, in as far as host country nuclear strike missions are concerned, is on a slow but steady decline toward ending altogether,” the study says (Robert Burns, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Feb. 9). Back to top       Los Alamos National Laboratory Auditor Claims Retaliation for Criticism of Security, Safety Los Alamos National Laboratory quality assurance auditor Don Brown has filed a complaint with the U.S. Labor Department claiming he was demoted after preparing audits that were critical of the facility’s safety and security procedure, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, Jan. 31). Brown said he worked on two audits beginning in June 2003 and was demoted in fall 2004. Auditors first found that more than half the welds in one Los Alamos building were defective. Lab managers told them to stop their work before the audit was complete, Brown said in the complaint. A second audit uncovered the complete absence of a quality assurance program for two missile components used in nuclear warheads, according to the complaint. “I don’t want to lose one life, much less a lot of life,” Brown told AP. “The quality assurance program that’s used to assure nuclear safety is broken.” Los Alamos spokesman Kevin Roark said that safety matters are not ignored at the facility, and that the welding issue was not a threat to safety (Heather Clark, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Feb. 10). A scientist who resigned from Los Alamos last year blasted Director Peter Nanos and other managers for creating “an environment of fear and intimidation” at the facility in the wake of highly publicized safety and security troubles, the Albuquerque Journal reported yesterday. Nanos shut down most laboratory work last summer after a laser accident and the apparent disappearance of two disks containing classified information. The disks later turned out not to have existed. In a letter released to local media, former strategic research associate director Thomas Meyer said many of the problems that led to the shutdown had been identified but never addressed. He said that the full shutdown was an excessive response to the situation, and criticized Nanos for referring to some Los Alamos scientists as “cowboys.” “They (scientists) have been inappropriately pilloried and impugned publicly by their own director,” Meyer wrote in his letter. Meyer resigned last year rather than face being fired. He oversaw the scientist who was responsible for a laser accident that damaged a student intern’s eye, according to the Journal. Spokesman James Fallin said that Nanos’ “cowboy” comment referred only to a few scientists who failed to follow rules at Los Alamos. “What (Nanos) is attacking is complacency and the attitude that things are well enough if left alone and the idea that accountability isn’t something used at this institution,” Fallin said (Adam Rankin, Albuquerque Journal, Feb. 9). Back to top

Rail Firm Challenges Ban on Hazardous Shipments The CSX Corp. railroad firm has asked a federal regulatory board to quash a 90-day order enacted by the District of Columbia Council barring train shipments of chlorine and other toxic materials from passing through the nation’s capital, the Washington Post reported yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 2). The emergency order violates the company’s constitutional right to conduct interstate commerce, and would do little to improve safety while forcing some trains to be rerouted through several states to avoid the city, CSX argues in its filing with the federal Surface Transportation Board. D.C. Attorney General Robert Spagnoletti said Tuesday he is planning an “aggressive battle” against efforts to overturn the ban. He noted, though, that the effort would require additional money as his office’s $4 million litigation budget is already designated for other purposes. Council members plan to seek a permanent block on trains carrying toxic materials into the District. CSX in its filing acknowledged that it began voluntarily rerouting hazardous materials shipments around the city last spring, the Post reported. “I guess two different people were writing it: one who said they are already doing (the ban) and another who said it was impossible to do,” said council member Kathy Patterson, who co-sponsored the emergency legislation (Eric Weiss, Washington Post, Feb. 9). Mayor Anthony Williams said he would sign the emergency legislation and put the ban into effect, the Washington Examiner reported today. “I think our first order of business is to err on the side of our people and the protection of our people,” Williams said (Washington Examiner, Feb. 10). Back to top       Incineration Set to Begin Next Month at Pine Bluff Chemical weapons incineration is scheduled to begin at the end of March at the Pine Bluff Arsenal in Arkansas, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 3). The U.S. Army had expected to begin disposal late this month, but pushed the schedule back to allow for additional training and increased notifications, AP reported. “We are committed to the highest standards of safety, and that commitment is a promise that compels us to complete additional training to assure our community that our workers and our facility are prepared to be fully effective in responding to all events, both routine and nonroutine,” project site manager Randy Long said in a statement. Pine Bluff contains 12 percent of the U.S. chemical weapons stockpile (Associated Press, Feb. 9). Back to top

India to Host Training for Investigators of Radioactive Materials Smuggling India announced yesterday it would host international workshops to combat radioactive materials smuggling, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Feb. 7). India is expected to conduct training courses for investigators to develop expertise in tracking down illegal nuclear shipments as part of the Regional Radiological Security Partnership program. The workshops are to be conducted under International Atomic Energy Agency guidance, according to a statement by the External Affairs Ministry. India also announced it would send a delegation to the United States next month to study U.S. port security measures. India recently signed on to the U.S.-led Container Security Initiative, a program which screens cargo bound for the United States at ports of origin for illicit shipments of WMD-related materials, The Indian Express reported (Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Feb. 10).   Back to top

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