By Jim Wurst, Global Security Newswire
UNITED NATIONS — A highly unusual move by the committee dealing with nonproliferation and regional issues — including the Middle East — has increased the likelihood that the review conference of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty will end Friday without any substantive decisions (see GSN, May 23). Yesterday, Main Committee II considered two reports: one from the committee itself and one from its subsidiary body, dealing with safeguards, Iran, North Korea and the proposal for a nuclear weapon-free zone in the Middle East. Both texts are heavily bracketed — meaning that there are major areas where consensus is lacking — so the committee was faced with a decision to forward the text to the plenary as it was or simply not send anything to the plenary. The committee decided not to forward its papers. This presents a dilemma for the other two committees that are holding their final meetings today. Some diplomats said the two committees would follow the lead of Committee II, while others said the committees could follow through on their own work regardless and let the plenary decide what to do with the texts. Since all the texts are heavily bracketed, a substantive, consensus final document was already unlikely, but without any text before it, the conference could come to an abrupt halt. “No committee reports, no final document,” one ambassador said. Another option — endorsed by some diplomats and rejected by others — would be for the president of the conference, Ambassador Sergio de Queiroz Duarte of Brazil, to bring the committee reports to the plenary on his own authority. Some delegates doubted he has that power, but there is little doubt that if he did so, there would be strong objections from many countries. Committee I deals with nuclear disarmament issues and its subsidiary body covers disarmament and security guarantees. Committee III deals with peaceful uses of nuclear technology and its subsidiary body is working on issues arising from withdrawal from the NPT. Swedish Ambassador Elisabet Borsiin-Bonnier, who chairs Main Committee III, told Global Security Newswire this morning, “My intention is to proceed as planned” with completing the drafts “and see what delegates allow me to do. That’s my ambition and my intention.” Bonnier would not comment of the status of her committee’s drafts, but other delegates said that — while bracketed — the texts were closer to consensus than those of Committee I. That committee has on its agenda the nuclear disarmament commitments made at the 1995 and 2000 review conferences, including entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, negotiations for a fissile materials cut-off treaty, and further reductions in nuclear weapons and reductions in the role of nuclear weapons in security doctrines. Committees I and III were holding their final meetings this morning. The tentative schedule calls for a plenary meeting this afternoon to receive the committee reports and for the drafting committee to start its work tomorrow morning in compiling a final document. The role of these committees is to examine how parties are implementing the various provisions of the treaty and to make recommendations for the final document of the conference, which is meant to be a roadmap for the work of the parties until the next review conference in 2010. At a news conference yesterday, Borsiin-Bonnier said the NPT conference is looking for “the middle ground. … A middle ground does not mean it’s lukewarm, it’s trying to see what areas we can focus on in the more immediate future.” Even if there is no agreement, “we are alive and kicking,” she said. Most countries want to move forward, she said, but “it is a handful that are, as we say in Sweden ‘pulling their legs behind themselves.’ The rest of us are seriously working on that and we are not stopping the day after the conference with or without papers to show.” Former U.S. Officials Criticize Bush AdministrationRobert McNamara, the former U.S. defense secretary and former World Bank president, yesterday joined Thomas Graham, who led the U.S. delegation at the 1995 review conference, in criticizing the Bush administration’s handling of this year’s NPT review conference and of disarmament and nonproliferation issues in general. McNamara said people of the world are not aware of “the very serious nuclear risk. … If they were, they would not tolerate what’s going on in the NPT conference today.” The greatest risk, he said, was the proliferation danger and example being set by North Korea and Iran. Stopping proliferation should be the conference major concern, but “I believe there is a high probability — in fact a certainty — that the conference will fail to achieve those objectives.” If those two states become nuclear weapons powers, then “other nations will follow. Iran and North Korea will not be the end of proliferation,” he said. While this “should not be seen as a concern solely of the U.S.,” much of the burden rests with Washington, McNamara said. The United States needs to conduct bilateral talks with both countries, he said, “The U.S. should address these concerns head-on. It is inconsistent and ineffective to demand disarmament and pursue ‘regime change’ simultaneously.” Looking beyond the NPT, McNamara said proliferation is “an issue that should be dealt with by the U.N. Security Council. The council should state it will ask the secretary general to monitor proliferation and to report to the council as to whether the risk of proliferation was increasing or decreasing. Certainly today, he would say the risk is at unacceptable levels and it’s on the verge of increasing. He should recommend the action required to reduce that risk.” McNamara and Graham also criticized the United States for backing away from the disarmament commitments made at the 1995 and 2000 conferences. Graham headed the U.S. delegation to the 1995 review conference which saw the indefinite extension of the NPT in exchange for a set of principles and objectives for nuclear disarmament. “There would have been no permanent extension of the NPT if these commitments had not been made by the nuclear-weapon states. To ignore them is to undermine the continued political viability of the NPT,” Graham said. “Implementation of the 1995 Statement of Principles by the nuclear-weapon states, particularly the United States, since that date has not been exemplary, and implementation of the addition steps approved in 2000 has been nonexistent,” he added. “The political value of nuclear weapons, meanwhile, remains as high as ever.” Graham said, “If you are going to take these off the table you take the indefinite extension off the table too. It was a bargain and it has to be understood that way. The countries that agreed to make it permanent agreed in the context of the nuclear weapon states doing what they promised to do.” By this, he explained, he did not mean the extension could be revoked, because the extension and commitments have different legal standings. The extension “has legal force,” he said, while the promises “are political statements, [and] they are not considered to be legally binding. But they were the diplomatic and political quid pro quo for making the treaty permanent, so to push them aside undermines the strength of the extension, undermines the viability of the indefinite status of the NPT in a political sense.” “It makes the treaty weaker,” Graham added. Speaking at a news conference Monday, Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) said, “This particular administration has a singular pension for unilateralism. That unilateralism has infected the NPT process itself. You can safely predict that by the end of the week, the administrations representatives here at the U.N. will bemoan the fact that there was not a consensus.” However, he added, “It’s not sufficient for the United Sates to pin the lack of consensus on Iran and North Korea when the U.S. administration has set in motion a series of policies that have been a disincentive for the participation of non-nuclear states in any program of nuclear nonproliferation.” Those policies include abrogating the Antiballistic Missile Treaty, rejecting the CTBT, and “a willingness to use nuclear weapons,” Kucinich said
By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON š– The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved the $29.7 billion fiscal 2006 Energy and Water Development Appropriations bill yesterday evening. The bill, approved by a 416-13 vote, includes $1.5 billion for nuclear nonproliferation programs and $6.2 billion for U.S. nuclear weapons activities (see GSN, May 19). Funding for nonproliferation and to dispose of U.S. plutonium is more than the $1.3 billion Congress awarded for the current fiscal year, but is $136 million less than requested by the administration. Appropriations for nuclear weapons activities, from research to maintenance to dismantlement and disposal, were reduced in the bill from the administration’s request by $450 million. The bill forbids expenditures for creating a “Modern Pit Facility” that would enable mass production of plutonium cores for refurbishing nuclear weapons or building new ones. House appropriators last year cut funding for such a facility until the Congress reviewed the revised administration plan for the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile. The bill provides $25 million for an initial study of a Reliable Replacement Warhead, an effort to design long-lasting nuclear warheads without the need to conduct explosive nuclear tests. The administration had requested $9.3 million. The Energy Department had requested $25 million to shorten the time needed to prepare for a test, but lawmakers approved only $15 million and said the preparation time should remain at 24 months and not move toward the administration’s goal of 18 months. The bill also denies a $4 million request for the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator. However, under a deal arranged between Representative David Hobson (R-Ohio) and Republicans and Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee, funding for the study would instead be provided to the Air Force, which could also examine conventionally armed penetrators. “In order to best explore all options for holding hard and deeply buried targets at risk, and to include options not previously considered as part of the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator study, the Strategic Forces Subcommittee transferred authorization for this study from the Department of Energy to the Department of Defense,” said Armed Services Committee spokesman Josh Holly. Congress approved no money for the program last year. Interim Civilian Nuclear Waste Storage ProposedNonbinding report language accompanying the bill includes a call for storing all U.S. spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste at an interim site until a long-delayed storage facility is completed at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The report suggests constructing such a site at one of the Energy Department’s complexes in Idaho, Hanford, Wash., or Savannah River, S.C. If those choices are not available, the report recommends considering using “federally owned sites, closed military bases, and non-federal fuel storage facilities.” It suggests beginning transfers the interim site by October 2006. According to Representative John Spratt (D-S.C.) in a statement released yesterday, current federal law forbids an interim storage facility until Yucca Mountain is licensed. In any case, he said, an interim site would be risky. It “puts nuclear waste at facilities not intended to hold them” he said, and, “Transport of this nuclear material to these interim sites could go through population centers, posing an additional security risk.” Arguing for the interim site recently, Hobson said that consolidating spent fuel at such a facility would help lower costs for U.S. electricity consumers and that the bill would not interfere with progress on Yucca Mountain.
Iranian President Mohammad Khatami indicated today that Iran was prepared to step back from earlier threats to resume uranium enrichment activities, just as negotiators from his country began meeting in Geneva with British, French and German foreign ministers, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, May 24). “We are ready to compromise, and we hope Europe makes its decision independently and not based on U.S. pressures,” said Khatami. Resuming activity at an Iranian uranium conversion facility “does not mean resumption of enrichment,” he said. Meanwhile, some experts questioned whether a tougher policy of economic sanctions would work against Tehran. “The most severe sanctions that would affect Iran would be sanctions against their oil industry,” said Gary Sick, a researcher at Columbia University. “That would mean basically taking 3 million barrels a day off the market which would probably cause the price to spike” (Alexander Higgins, Associated Press/Philadelphia Inquirer, May 25). European Union officials yesterday left open the possibility that Tehran could conduct some uranium work in the future as part of a final compromise on the standoff. The move made during preliminary talks with Iranian negotiators in Brussels took the Bush administration by surprise, a U.S. official said. “We felt assured that conversion would not be on the table now or in the future,” said one U.S. official. EU negotiators told their Iranian counterparts that conversion work would be unacceptable at this time, on EU official said. “But that clearly leaves a door open for it in the future and the Iranians understood that,” said the official (Dafna Linzer, Washington Post, May 25). Meanwhile, some diplomats said they detected signs of a split between the three European powers, with Germany opposing the possible referral of Iran’s case to the U.N. Security Council, Reuters reported. French and British officials have begun preparing a proposal for Security Council referral at next month’s International Atomic Energy Agency meeting if Iran resumes uranium enrichment-related activities, European diplomats said. As the world’s largest exporter to Iran, Germany does support automatic referral in case of a resumption of enrichment-related activities, Reuters reported. “Germany’s position is still cessation (of enrichment) but it’s hesitating on the second step — Security Council referral,” said a diplomat from one of the European powers. “Berlin doesn’t want any ultimatums or automatic referrals.” One expert said sanctions on Iran would come at an awkward time for Germany, which is going through a recession. “The problem for Germany is that if there are sanctions, they take a bad hit at a bad time,” said David Albright, director the Institute for Science and International Security. He said Iran was in a better position to negotiate a favorable agreement now, rather than after German elections in the fall, when a conservative defeat of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s Social Democrats is expected. “I think they would get a better deal from (Foreign Minister Joschka) Fischer and Schroeder than from a different government,” said Albright (Louis Charbonneau, Reuters, May 24).
By Joe Fiorill
Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — The new U.S. Domestic Nuclear Detection Office is planning a major push to spur development of new, more powerful technology for detecting radiation in objects entering the country, the office’s acting head said here yesterday (see GSN, April 26). The office plans to invest in new active and passive radiation detection technology and eventually to seek systems that combine the two, said Vayl Oxford. Current Homeland Security Department detectors are mainly of the passive variety, sensing radiation that is constantly emitted by sources, and are generally seen as inadequate to the task of detecting a nuclear device. At a panel discussion yesterday, Oxford said his unit is studying new, improved passive technologies but that next on its agenda is exploration of active detection, which involves stimulating radiation externally. Active technology would allow for improved detection of shielded materials, but current power and cooling requirements pose an obstacle to widespread use, Oxford said at the McGraw-Hill Homeland Security Summit. In addition to seeking ways to lower those requirements, the office hopes eventually to see development of “one system that does it all” by using both the active and passive approaches, he said. Another shortcoming of current technology is its poor ability to distinguish among sources of radiation that can vary from — as Oxford acknowledged yesterday — cat litter to a nuclear device. The office is turning its focus to spectroscopic techniques, which can allow for distinguishing among sources, Oxford said. In the next two to four months, he said, the detection unit will begin testing the “next generation” of spectroscopic detectors at the Energy Department’s Nevada Test Site, studying 70 to 80 different material and shielding scenarios and using actual special nuclear material housed at the site. The focus of the office has been a subject for debate in recent weeks, with experts such as Homeland Security Associates founder Randall Larsen criticizing the new unit’s focus on detection and on domestic work. Larsen said yesterday at the panel discussion that current technology is essentially incapable of detecting a weapon and that, because of the weakness of the signal given off by highly enriched uranium, future detectors are not likely to fare much better. Although he supported some spending to try to improve detection, he added that even with good detection at strategic border points, the United States would not be likely to intercept a terrorist nuclear attack at the border. A terrorist group with limited resources would more plausibly fly a bomb into the country itself than try to slip it through in, for example, a commercial shipping container, he said. “I’m afraid sometimes that we underestimate the intelligence of the enemy,” Larsen said. Both Larsen and Natural Resources Defense Council Nuclear Program Director Tom Cochran said U.S. efforts should instead be focused on securing sensitive nuclear materials where they are, primarily in Russia. Cochran was involved in with group helping ABC News acquire non-weapon-usable uranium in recent years for use in two tests in which the news organization successfully shipped the material undetected into the United States from overseas (see GSN, Oct. 15, 2004). He concurred with Larsen yesterday about the limits of detection technology, blasting Homeland Security for spending on detectors rather than on source security — a set of priorities he conceded is likely to persist. “I think Homeland Security and Mr. Oxford are going to be given a lot of money and they’re going to buy a whole lot of new detectors,” Cochran said. Oxford agreed that detectors are imperfect and that securing sources is preferable but said a “layered defense” is needed that only “starts with continuing the emphasis on securing fissile materials overseas.” “We can’t sit and be comfortable that we will secure this problem overseas,” Oxford said. Oxford played down the House of Representatives’ bid to cut 50 percent from the administration’s budget proposal for his office. He expressed confidence that the office will get the money it needs but said such a cut would nearly eliminate “transformational” research — that is, the kind intended to bring about fundamental, wide-ranging improvements in detection technology — and would also affect the office’s plan to conduct its own ABC-style unannounced tests of deployed detectors.
The executive director of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization — a consortium formed to implement a 1994 nuclear energy reactor agreement with North Korea — has been released, Reuters reported today (see GSN, May 24). The KEDO board of directors, which includes representatives of South Korea, Japan and the European Union, decided yesterday not to renew Charles Kartman’s contract, which expired in April. The Bush administration has long viewed Kartman with suspicion for favoring greater engagement with Pyongyang, according to Reuters. “They have had difficulty killing it [the 1994 deal] outright and too much resistance from the (U.S.) allies, so now they are killing it softly” by forcing Kartman out of KEDO, one Kartman supporter said (Reuters, May 25). Koichi Haraguchi, Japan’s board representative, also proposed cost-cutting measures such as downsizing the organization’s staff, Kyodo reported. Other participants backed the move, and such a personnel cut might make the suspended reactor deal difficult to resume, according to Kyodo (Kyodo/Yahoo!News, May 25). Meanwhile, the U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee has advised urging China to play a more forceful role in curtailing a possible North Korean nuclear test and in resolving the crisis. U.S. officials should suggest to China that Japan could seek nuclear weapons in response to a nuclear-armed North Korea, the committee said. “A [nuclear] test in North Korea would certainly raise the prospect of a major public debate in Japan over whether to turn its latent nuclear capabilities in its civilian and space sectors into an overt nuclear weapons program,” the panel said in a report distributed to Senators last week. Washington must “essentially” demand that Beijing “make a choice: either help out or face the possibility of other nuclear neighbors,” the report says. “Helping the United States would include participating fully in the quarantine of North Korea, tolerating Japanese, South Korean and Taiwanese missile defense programs, and doing nothing to pressure the South Koreans to agree to a confederation with North Korea,” the report adds. The panel also proposed offering a “mutually beneficial outcome” to China. “For China, such an outcome might include U.S. restraint on Japan’s and Taiwan’s nuclear ambitions,” the report says (Kyodo/Japan Times, May 23).
The Institute for Strategic and International Studies said regional troubles, failures of the Nonproliferation Treaty, black market supply networks and poor leadership could lead to a terrorist group acquiring a nuclear bomb, the Scottish Press Association reported yesterday (see GSN, May 23). “The most chilling possibility is the acquisition of a nuclear weapon by al-Queda or a similar terrorist group dedicated to inflicting mass civilian casualties and impervious to threats of retaliation,” the Institute writes in its annual Strategic Survey. “The possible emergence of new nuclear-weapon states in North Korea and Iran, the threat of nuclear terrorism around the globe and the relaxed pace of nuclear disarmament strongly suggest the existing nuclear non-proliferation regime — with the NPT at its core — is eroding,” the book says. “Moreover, it is being replaced with an ‘every man for himself’ mentality that, if left unchecked, could spawn a new generation of nuclear weapons and increase the risk that the transnational Islamist terrorist network over which Osama bin Laden loosely presides becomes a nuclear power.” The Institute urges existing nuclear powers to recommit to the NPT and the United States to reopen direct diplomatic relations with North Korea. It also urges Western governments to build relationships with Islam to curtail the Iranian threat. The survey also suggests that current antiterrorism tactics are not sufficient. “A better Western political accommodation with Islam — more a function of soft rather than hard power — was also required,” the survey says. “While European Muslims aggrieved by adverse circumstances in their host countries derive energy and political affirmation from al-Qaeda, their support for its maximalism could flag if conditions for Muslims in Europe improve.” The survey is critical of past U.S. actions in particular, saying U.S. efforts have helped terrorist organizations recruit new personnel. However, the United States has recently realized the benefits of less aggressive tactics, which could weaken terrorists’ networks. “Eventually, ideological cracks could emerge from agendas and degrees of commitment among jihadists,” the report says (Gavin Cordon, Scottish Press Association/Scotsman.com, May 24).
The U.S. Air Force is seeking larger, faster helicopters to replace its aging fleet of UH-1 Huey utility helicopters for patrolling U.S. ICBM silos, Defense Daily reported today (see GSN, April 11). “[The Hueys] are becoming increasingly difficult to maintain because of their age,” Maj. Gen. Frank Klotz, commander of the 20th Air Force, said yesterday in a talk on Capitol Hill. “What we would like to see … is a helicopter that has the range to fly throughout our missile fields, one end to the other,” said Klotz (Sharon Weinberger, Defense Daily, May 25).
| 
Back to top
