By Jim Wurst
Global Security Newswire
UNITED NATIONS — U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan yesterday said it was “a real disgrace” that disarmament and nonproliferation are not addressed in the document produced by the General Assembly for the summit that began this morning (see GSN, Sept. 13). Speaking minutes after the General Assembly adopted the 35-page “outcome document,” Annan yesterday told journalists, “The big item missing is nonproliferation and disarmament. This is a real disgrace. We have failed twice this year: we failed at the [Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty] Conference, and we failed now.” At least 170 heads of state are scheduled to attend the summit that began this morning. The summit, making the 60th anniversary of the United Nations and the fifth anniversary of the Millennium Summit, was supposed to be the launch of the most ambitious U.N. overhaul since its creation. While governments and nongovernmental experts complained that much of the substance in the document was weakened in the name of consensus, the section on “disarmament and nonproliferation” was the only key topic to be entirely dropped from the paper. “I hope the leaders will see this as a real signal for them to pick up the ashes and really show leadership on this important issue when we are all concerned about weapons of mass destruction and the possibility that they may even get into the wrong hands,” Annan said. “So I will appeal to the leaders who are coming here in the next few days to really step up to the plate and accept the challenge and show leadership on this issue.” U.N. delegates never solidly agreed to the disarmament and nonproliferation language during negotiations on the summit document. The first version in early June called on states to “pursue and intensify negotiations with a view to advancing general and complete disarmament and strengthening the international nonproliferation regime.” It encouraged them to strengthen the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the biological and chemical weapons conventions. The section listed a number of specific steps that nations could take, including the entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and negotiations over a fissile materials cutoff treaty. The text also “appeal[ed] to the nuclear weapons states to make concrete steps toward nuclear disarmament in accordance with Article VI of the NPT with the objective of eliminating all such weapons.” Seven nations, led by Norway, submitted alternative language in August to this section that would have sharpened nations’ commitments to disarmament and nonproliferation. The proposal never was substantively discussed because newly arrived U.S. Ambassador John Bolton submitted to the negotiators an annotated version of the draft with hundreds of amendments. Many of those changes struck at the heart of the document, including his proposals for disarmament and nonproliferation, by deleting the word “disarmament” from the section and proposing language that dealt exclusively with the dangers posed by the proliferation of nuclear weapons. For example, the sentence saying, “We emphasize that progress in disarmament and nonproliferation is essential to strengthening international peace and security” would have been replaced by “The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the possibility that terrorists might acquire such weapons remain the greatest threats to international peace and security.” The Bolton text also deleted references to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, a proposal that the Additional Protocol to International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards agreements be called “the standard for compliance,” and suggestions for a program of work for the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva. “The U.S. approach was very provocative. This is best illustrated by the deletion of reference to the NPT’s ‘three pillars: disarmament, nonproliferation, and the peaceful use of nuclear energy’ and the substitution of a reference to the NPT’s ‘role in preventing the further spread of nuclear weapons,’” said John Burroughs of the Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy. “This proposal went in the face of a broad and deep international consensus that a viable nonproliferation regime requires progress on arms control/disarmament and a recognition of the right to non-weapons uses of nuclear power.” Once the U.S. proposals were tabled, according to delegates, other nations that had held back their objections now felt free to introduce amendments that were unacceptable to other states. “The U.S. led the way [in proposing amendments] and by leading the way they opened the door for the other bullies to come in and take their swings at the text,” said Jennifer Nordstrom of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. When the United States tried to make the section solely about nonproliferation, other nations, such as India and Pakistan — which are not NPT parties — introduced language stressing disarmament and deleting references to the treaty. After the proposals and counterproposals were tabled, “We could not get back the balance between nonproliferation and disarmament” from earlier drafts, a European diplomat said yesterday. Speaking about the negotiations in general, Bolton said yesterday the “line-by-line amendments” were necessary because it was important to be “very frank with the other delegations on the amendments we wanted to see. Indeed, I think other governments were waiting for the opportunity, and should have that opportunity, because this is not a text dictated by nameless, faceless text writers.” The last version of the disarmament section was circulated Friday. It said states affirmed that “progress is urgently needed in the area of disarmament and nonproliferation,” that governments “support efforts for the global elimination of all weapons of mass destruction and prevention of the proliferation of all such weapons in all their aspects,” and affirmed “support for the multilateral treaties whose aim is to eliminate or prevent the proliferation of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.” However, by this time all references to specific treaties had been deleted and there were no commitments on eliminating weapons of mass destruction. The penultimate draft of the summit document on Monday simply had the heading “disarmament and nonproliferation” without any text. By yesterday, even the heading was gone. The only reference to nuclear weapons comes in the section on terrorism, in which the document calls for the early entry into force of the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism. That treaty, completed this spring, was opened for signatures this morning. Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President George W. Bush were the first heads of state to sign.
By Joe Fiorill
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — Faced with a stalemate over Iran’s nuclear programs, the International Atomic Energy Agency board could next week take the unusual step of making a decision by vote, rather than consensus, experts said yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 13). After many months of alternating progress and setbacks in talks between Iran and the European Union troika of France, Germany and the United Kingdom, Tehran has resumed controversial nuclear activities. The EU countries, meanwhile, are set to support a long-standing U.S. push to have the IAEA Board of Governors refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council. “We are pushing very hard for the thing to be taken to the Security Council, and I guess the EU-3 are kind of up to their eyeballs in agony right now,” former top U.S. nonproliferation official Lawrence Scheinman said yesterday in an interview. At IAEA board meetings over the past two years, countries have issued consensus statements on Iran that fell short of U.S. goals while calling Tehran to task over ambiguities in its nuclear intentions. Supporters and opponents of a Security Council referral are now claiming similar levels of support — about 14 countries each — among the 35 countries that make up the board, which begins a weeklong meeting Monday in Vienna. Amid increasing Western concern about Iran’s programs and with no end in sight to the stalemate, the board may be about to abandon its typical insistence on unanimity or near-unanimity. “This will be a departure from that,” Council on Foreign Relations Middle East expert Ray Takeyh told reporters in a conference call yesterday. He predicted the board would reach a decision by just a slim majority. Board rules allow for a two-thirds majority vote on some matters and for a simple majority vote in other cases. Under the IAEA statute, “Decisions on the amount of the agency's budget shall be made by a two-thirds majority of those present and voting. … Decisions on other questions, including the determination of additional questions or categories of questions to be decided by a two-thirds majority, shall be made by a majority of those present and voting.” Council on Foreign Relations nuclear expert Charles Ferguson, a former U.S. nonproliferation official, said during the conference call that the board could engage next week in a complicated series of maneuvers to make use of those rules. For example, he said, the panel could take an initial simple-majority vote to suspend the two-thirds-majority rule, then a second simple-majority vote on Iran that would be based on that suspension. World Nuclear Association Director General John Ritch, a former U.S. envoy in Vienna, said in an interview yesterday that a vote would be a mistake. “Applying the voting procedures that the rules provide for would be technically permissible but highly damaging to the fabric that holds the agency together,” Ritch said. “The principle of building consensus in the Board of Governors is what has enabled the IAEA to be a highly successful forum for the maintenance of a highly successful nonproliferation regime.” “I cannot imagine,” he added, “that the Bush administration would be so foolish as to exercise its full rights under the rules. A victory, even if won, would be a very short-lived success.” Scheinman, now at the Washington office of the Monterey Institute of International Studies’ Center for Nonproliferation Studies, said the rules are open to interpretation and that their potential uses are difficult to predict. “It gets complicated,” he said. “I could imagine a vote to refer the case to the Security Council,” Scheinman added, “at which point I’m reasonably certain nothing could happen” because of the presence on the council of Iran supporters Russia and China. “On the other hand,” he said, “you don’t know what the Iranians are going to do. How do they react to this?” Tehran might, for example, counterattack by denying oil to countries that voted against it, he said. Under new President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran is looking eastward for economic and political support and taking a harder line with the West, Takeyh said (see GSN, June 20). “They’re not going to make extraordinary, beyond-NPT [Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty] concessions to sustain that dynamic” of relations with EU countries or the United States, Takeyh said. “It is a government that’s actually indifferent to relations with the United States.” Ahmadinejad is slated to address the U.N. General Assembly today on Iran’s nuclear programs. Takeyh predicted he would emphasize the right of poor countries to pursue nuclear energy capabilities under the treaty. “I think it’s going to be couched in North-South terms,” he said. Scheinman added that Iran’s position on its nuclear rights is correct under the treaty. “I hate to say it, but they’re backed up by the NPT,” he said. “It’s a losing proposition to try to take the case that there is no inalienable right. That’s in the treaty.”
Little headway was made today toward resolving the international dispute over North Korea’s nuclear activities, said the top U.S. envoy to six-nation talks in Beijing (see GSN, Sept. 13). During today’s session, the Pyongyang delegation demanded North Korea be provided with a light-water nuclear energy reactor in exchange for relinquishing its atomic weapons program, said Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill. “I must say it was a meeting in which we did not make a lot of progress,” Hill said. “Neither the United States or any other participant is prepared to fund a light-water reactor.” “There are not too many other ways I know how to say ‘no,’” he said in reference to this afternoon’s meeting. China, Russia and South Korea have all expressed support for North Korea’s theoretical right to a civilian nuclear program, while Japan and the United States have said that Pyongyang’s past international treaty violations made possession of any such program a matter of concern. “When (the North Koreans) complete the dismantlement of their nuclear weapons and nuclear programs, they can enjoy, they can have the right to peaceful use of nuclear energy,” top South Korean nuclear negotiator Song Min-soon said today. Hill, however, has attempted to prevent the controversial issue from taking center stage at the negotiations. “I want to make sure that on the fundamental issues that confront us in this draft, namely the denuclearization and ridding the Korean Peninsula of these terrible weapons ... that we can achieve agreement on that,” he said. “When we do that we can look at some of these other questions.” Hill said officials planned to complete this round of talks “in a few days” in order to break in time for the Korean Thanksgiving holiday, Chuseok, this weekend. Meanwhile in Pyongyang, North and South Korean officials held separate high-level talks, AP reported. Elsewhere, Chinese President Hu Jintao told U.S. President George W. Bush yesterday in New York that Beijing was prepared to “step up” its efforts at the six-nation talks (Associated Press/USA Today, Sept. 14).
U.S. President George W. Bush yesterday backed Iran’s right to develop a civilian atomic energy program, Reuters reported (see GSN, Sept. 13). “Some of us are wondering why they need civilian nuclear power anyway. They’re awash with hydrocarbons,” he said. “Nevertheless, it’s a right of a government to want to have a civilian nuclear program,” he said. Bush added that such a right could only be supported if the materials and expertise needed to build a weapon — including the ability to enrich uranium — were not developed. Meanwhile, European officials acknowledged that the push to refer Iran’s case the U.N. Security Council was stalling (see related GSN story, today). “There is a distinct atmosphere of cold feet,” said one European diplomat (Reuters, Sept. 13). Over the past month, the Bush administration has conducted a series of briefings in Vienna designed to convince members of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Board of Governors that Tehran is attempting to build nuclear weapons under the guise of its civilian atomic energy program, the Washington Post reported today. The 60-minute slide show, titled “A History of Concealment and Deception,” includes a visual comparison of Iranian facilities and missiles with parallel structures in North Korea and Pakistan, according to the Post. It has been presented to diplomats from more than a dozen countries. Several diplomats who viewed the slide show, however, said it does not acknowledge ambiguities in the evidence about Iran’s program. Some said it reminded them of former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s presentation to the Security Council on prewar Iraq’s suspected WMD programs in February 2003. “I don’t think they’ll lose any support, but it isn’t going to win anyone either,” said one European diplomat. One U.S. official acknowledged that the evidence is not definitive. Those conducting the briefings “say you can’t draw any other conclusion, and of course you can draw other conclusions,” said the official. One official involved in the briefings said the intelligence community was not involved in crafting the presentation and “probably would have disavowed some of it because it draws conclusions that aren't strictly supported by the facts” (Dafna Linzer, Washington Post, Sept. 14). Elsewhere, an Iranian opposition group yesterday called for IAEA investigations into Tehran’s alleged smuggling of nuclear-related material from China, the Associated Press reported. “They have managed to smuggle centrifuges from China, to Dubai, to Tehran ... in the last two years,” said Ali Safavi of the National Council of Resistance of Iran. In addition, Iran is building the first phase of a 5,000-centrifuge cascade for enriching uranium to weapon-grade, Safavi said. “The first phase involves the manufacture of 5,000 machines. Some two-thirds have been manufactured, tested and ready to be installed,” he said. He added that Iran plans to make 50,000 centrifuges (Constant Brand, Associated Press/Daily Times, Sept. 13).
A change in U.S. defense doctrine allowing for pre-emptive nuclear strikes to block enemy WMD attacks could lead to increased proliferation, Russia warned the United States yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 12). “Lowering the threshold for use of atomic weapons is in itself dangerous,” said Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov. “Such plans do not limit, but in fact promote efforts by others to develop (nuclear weapons),” Ivanov said. Ivanov said he hoped U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld would inform him of changes in the Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations that allow for nuclear pre-emption. Rumsfeld has not yet received the document, which is expected to be signed within the next few weeks by the director of the Joint Staff, according to a Defense Department spokesman (Reuters, Sept. 13).
A bipartisan group of U.S. representatives from California has asked the Senate to restore funding for the superlaser project at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the Contra Costa Times reported yesterday (see GSN, June 16). The Senate voted in July to cut the fiscal 2006 $142 million allocation for the $3.5-billion National Ignition Facility, according to the Times, while the House of Representatives approved the entire amount. The project is roughly 80-percent finished. More than 30 House members, led by Representatives Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.) and Richard Pombo (R-Calif.), signed a letter promoting the project to the Senate and House Appropriations energy and water subcommittees. “NIF is a vital component of our nation’s stockpile stewardship program, which prevents us from needing to conduct nuclear testing,” Tauscher said in a press statement, adding that the project “has made invaluable contributions to the economies of California and the East Bay.” The superlaser, using just four beams, is already the world’s most powerful laser, the Times reported. With the full 192 beams operating, it would be capable of nuclear fusion ignition at temperatures and pressures found only in a nuclear explosion or on the surface of the sun. The laser was included in a top-10 list of “radioactive pork projects” released last month by the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, and the Tri-Valley CARES nuclear watchdog group has said that abandoning the project would save $30 billion in future years (Betsy Mason, Contra Costa Times, Sept. 13).
The U.S. Air Force today successfully tested a Minuteman 3 missile, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Sept. 8). The missile was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. It was the last of four tests planned for 2005, officials said. The dummy warhead hit a target in the Pacific Ocean after flying more than 4,000 miles in 30 minutes, AP reported (Associated Press/Washington Post, Sept. 14).
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