By Joe Fiorill
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — The U.S. State Department’s top international-security official today said he is unclear how much time Iran might need to complete its alleged nuclear weapons development but that Washington and like-minded countries cannot afford to wait indefinitely before taking action (see GSN, Feb. 8).
“I can’t give you a good sense … of the time,” Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Robert Joseph told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Joseph cited, without endorsing, U.S. intelligence agencies’ estimates that the timeline is between five and 10 years. “My sense,” he said, “is that we can’t wait 10 years and 17 resolutions before we address the full aspect of the threat.” After more than two years of nuclear revelations and corresponding debates and resolutions at the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Board of Governors, Iran has been reported to the U.N. Security Council in New York, which could impose economic sanctions. Under questioning from senators at today’s hearing, Joseph provided a wide-ranging update on Bush administration thinking about Iran’s nuclear programs. Asked by Senator Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) about the U.S. response to comments by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rejecting Israel’s right to exist, Joseph said he believes the statements helped the United States persuade previously reluctant Board of Governors members to support a Security Council referral. “A nuclear-armed Iran with this leadership does represent an existential threat to the state of Israel,” Joseph said. “We ought to make very clear not only that we find that repugnant but that that has policy significance, that that hardens our view, that we and the entire international community must band together and prevent this regime from acquiring nuclear weapons.” “I think we need to do everything we can to give the highest prospect for diplomacy working,” Joseph said, “and that’s what we’ve been trying to do.” He added that “this is very hard” because of unspecified Iranian “tools” and “resources” for countering diplomatic efforts. Asked whether the United States would accept Iranian possession of nuclear-energy technology, Joseph returned to the U.S. position on talks last year between three European Union countries and Iran. “We … supported the EU-3 proposal,” he said. “Part of the proposal that was made last August would have allowed peaceful nuclear power reactors in Iran. It would not allow [uranium] conversion or enrichment, and it was particularly straightforward on not permitting enrichment.” Joseph said the United States would allow completion of Iran’s Bushehr reactor, which Russia is building, as long as Moscow followed through on its proposal to provide and take back all the reactor fuel. “We have drawn the line with regard to Iran moving beyond that,” Joseph said.
By Joe Fiorill
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration’s Homeland Security Department budget request includes big increases for nuclear-detection programs in fiscal 2007 (see GSN, March 10, 2005). The $42.7 billion Homeland Security request released this week includes $536 million for the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office. The figure is an increase of about $219 million, or 70 percent, from fiscal 2006, the office’s first year of operation. Most of the jump is for research and development, which in the budget plan would receive a $137 million boost, to $327 million. The expanded research effort would include about $100 million for “transformational” research and development, nearly doubling the fiscal 2006 figure, detection office spokeswoman Tracy Tiell said yesterday. That increase would fund work on detection devices that seek to stimulate and detect radiation from shielded plutonium and weapon-grade uranium, Tiell said. Other devices would take advantage of the long “dwell” times of materials in cargo containers and others, she said. Some materials are difficult to detect unless the detector is in the vicinity of the material for an extended time. “We’re able to move forward with development of next-generation” technology, Tiell said when asked why the increases were requested for fiscal 2007. The request also includes a 42-percent increase, to $178 million, for acquisitions. Tiell said the money would fund continued deployment of radiation monitors at U.S. points of entry, as well as a transition to “next-generation” portal monitors at some locations and the building of “surge capacity” to deploy monitors on short notice as circumstances warrant. A new activity for the office is handling the Homeland Security portion of the Interagency Radiological and Nuclear Attribution and Forensics initiative. The budget request includes $18 million for the detection office’s work on the interagency effort, which Homeland Security said “will enable the department to combine information on potential capabilities of terrorist organizations and develop and deploy threat agents with laboratory-based forensics techniques that determine the source of nuclear and radiological materials or devices.” Homeland Security Associates founder Randall Larsen, a frequent critic of U.S. detection efforts, said spending increases to develop new technology are needed but criticized the department’s deployment approach. “I fully support spending money on research and development for detection, because what we have now is just not sufficient,” Larsen said yesterday. “What I am against is deploying current technological systems that I feel are a waste of money.” “Unless we’re hoping for dumb terrorists,” Larsen said, placing detectors at points of entry is of limited value. A smart terrorist is “going to bring it in a corporate jet,” he said, which limits the value of point-of-entry detectors. Instead, he called for placing more detectors around sites where nuclear materials are stored, in a bid to intercept attempts to smuggle out such materials. Money earmarked for detection programs should be spent on new rather than existing technology, Larsen said, but even more spending should be devoted to nonproliferation work. “The majority of the money should be spent on preventing terrorists from getting their hands on special nuclear materials,” he said.
The U.N. Security Council’s veto-wielding members are expected to avoid substantive action when they first consider the International Atomic Energy Agency’s referral of Iran’s controversial nuclear activities, Reuters reported yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 8). The council is expected to acknowledge the agency’s report and make no further comment, diplomats told Reuters. Delegates from permanent members China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States agreed on a draft letter to the agency during a brief private meeting, the diplomats said. “It’s not time for substance. I think that is the common position of the P-5,” said Chinese Ambassador Wang Guangya, referring to the permanent members. “We received the resolution of the (IAEA) Board of Governors, and that is all,” said Russian Ambassador Andrei Denisov. “No other steps are being planned or even discussed with the P-5. Not yet” (Irwin Arieff, Reuters I, Feb. 8). Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said yesterday that Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon would not necessarily lead to military action against Tehran, Reuters reported. “I don’t believe that even if Iran were in that position (of having the capability to make nuclear weapons) that there would be nothing the international community could do about it short of ... military action,” Straw said. Despite suspicions, Straw said that there is no proof that Iran intends to develop nuclear weapons. “I am conscious of the fact, not least because of the experience in respect of Iraq, we have to be very precise about what we are claiming,” he said (Reuters II/Yahoo!News, Feb. 8). Elsewhere, Iranian Vice President Esfandiar Rahim Mashaee said on a visit to Indonesia that Iran would not abandon its nuclear program, even under threats of military action, Reuters reported. “On the Iranian nuclear issue, we have always been clear in our action, and in Iran all of its nuclear (programs) have a peaceful mission,” he said. He also dismissed as fantastical U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s statement this week that Washington has not ruled out military strikes to stop Iran’s nuclear work. “It’s not surprising if Rumsfeld would resort to the threat of military action against Iran, but such a threat is as real as a Dracula’s sharp teeth,” he said (Reuters III/Yahoo!News, Feb. 9). Former Iranian nuclear chief Hassan Rohani has warned President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that the nuclear standoff could lead to international isolation, Deutsche Presse Agentur reported today. “We should avail ourselves of all national means for not getting isolated, we cannot just reach our aims by shouting slogans and adopting one sole simple strategy,” Rohani told the official ISNA news agency in an interview released today (Deutsche Presse-Agentur/Khaleej Times, Feb. 9). Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States, Turki al-Faisal, yesterday blamed Iran’s nuclear program and “inconsistent” U.S. policy for increasing regional tensions, the Associated Press reported. Al-Faisal also questioned the utility of nuclear weapons. “Where is Iran going to use these weapons?” he said. “If their intention is to bomb Israel, then they will kill Palestinians, Syrians, Jordanians and Saudis, as well.” “Where is the value of having a weapon of destruction that people know you are not going to use?” al-Faisal said. Ordinary Iranians support Tehran’s nuclear plans, however, partly because of what they see as an inconsistent U.S. nonproliferation policy, he added. “(Iranians) see a double standard,” he said. “They see the U.S. government negotiating with North Korea ... and they see the U.S. signing a nuclear peace agreement with India .... and they see the U.S. turning a blind eye completely to Israel, although Israel has the most nuclear weapons in our part of the world” (Amanda Lee Myers, Associated Press/Los Angeles Times, Feb. 9). China today announced support for nuclear talks scheduled for next week between Iran and Russia, Reuters reported. “We hope that this Russian invitation to Iran to hold talks on [Feb. 16] about participating in an international uranium enrichment center will help break, or encourage a break, in the current stalemate over the Iranian nuclear issue,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan. Kong did not, however, say whether Beijing intended to participate in the meeting (Reuters IV, Feb. 9).
Indian officials said yesterday that the United States might invite New Delhi to join the new Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Feb. 8). The goal of the plan is to expand the peaceful use of nuclear fuel around the world. U.S. companies would sell nuclear materials to foreign nations as long as those countries returned the spent fuel to the United States for reprocessing. The U.S. plan calls for research into “more proliferation resistant” reprocessing that would produce a mixture of plutonium and neptunium, making it harder to separate the plutonium for use in weapons. Talk of the partnership came up yesterday during a meeting between U.S. Energy Undersecretary David Garman, and Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran. The two were meeting in New Delhi to discuss the planned U.S.-Indian technology sharing agreement (Rajesh Mahapatra, Associated Press/The Hindu, Feb. 9). Meanwhile, eight former Indian diplomats have asked New Delhi to clarify to the public how the nuclear sharing agreement would change Indian policy, the Press Trust of India reported. “Given the sharp divergence of opinion on this landmark agreement and the strong passion that it has generated in the country, the very least that the Indian government could do, before finalizing the terms of implementing this agreement, is to present a full picture to the Indian public of where we are heading,” the diplomats said in a joint statement. They added that while Indian security must be considered, “the present ambiguity and paucity of information is not acceptable in a democratic country.” “In such a situation, bits and pieces of news and speculative comments appearing in the media, many of them from American sources, who always seem to be better briefed and know more, help only to create more confusion and engender more suspicion that India is somehow being maneuvered into surrendering its autonomy in decision-making in such vital matters,” according to the diplomats. The diplomats added “the fear shared by many is that the price India will be asked to pay to ensure U.S. congressional ratification will be too high, not only in the specific area of New Delhi's future nuclear program, but even on broader issues of nuclear proliferation, and perhaps also on other foreign policy aspects.” “An added anxiety is the not so very encouraging record of the U.S. in adhering to agreements, modifications and withdrawals from bilateral/multilateral accords driven by shifts and reversals in U.S. doctrine and policy are not unknown,” according to the diplomats (Press Trust of India, Feb. 8).
China today appealed to the six nations involved in stalled North Korea nuclear disarmament talks to return to the negotiating table, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Feb. 8). “Over the past few days, all parties concerned have had meaningful and helpful contacts,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan. “We hope these contacts will help to further efforts to resolve the remaining complicating factors and to resume talks at an early date,” he said (Associated Press, Feb. 9). Meanwhile, Cho Tae-yong, deputy head of South Korea’s delegation to the negotiations, has been appointed to lead the Foreign Ministry’s North American affairs bureau, Yonhap News Agency reported today. Presidential adviser Lee Yong-joon was named to replace Cho, but Seoul has not announced who will lead its delegation to the next round of talks after Song Min-soon was promoted last month (Yonhap News Agency, Feb. 9).
A federal judge in San Diego yesterday ordered a psychiatric evaluation for a man accused of passing false information to authorities about a nuclear terror attack on Boston, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Feb. 7). U.S. Magistrate Judge Louisa Porter scheduled a hearing March 9 to review the results of the evaluation of Jose Ernesto Beltran Ortiz. Porter ordered Ortiz held without bail after he pleaded not guilty to lying to federal officials and passing on false information about a terror attack. The Mexican national faces up to eight years in prison if convicted under a 2004 law that makes it a crime to knowingly provide false information about a terrorist attack, AP reported (Elliot Spagat, Associated Press/Monterey County Herald, Feb. 9).
Suriname and Cameroon this week ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the CTBT Organization in Vienna announced (see GSN, Dec. 8, 2005). Cameroon submitted its instrument of ratification on Monday. It was the 128th country to join the treaty. It also hosts one of the International Monitoring System stations for detection of nuclear tests. It is the 30th African state to ratify the pact (CTBTO release I, Feb. 8). Suriname became the 129th country to ratify the treaty on Tuesday, joining 23 other Latin American and Caribbean states. For the treaty to take effect, the 44 Annex 2 countries must ratify the pact. To date, 33 have done so (CTBTO release II, Feb. 9).
National Nuclear Security Administration chief Linton Brooks said Tuesday that the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico would continue to focus on scientific research, even as technicians there prepare to increase their production of nuclear weapon components, the Albuquerque Journal reported yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 8). Activists have claimed that plans for Los Alamos to increase its plutonium pit production will eventually transform the facility into a nuclear manufacturing center. “We predict that 30 to 40 plutonium pits per year is only the beginning, and that over time it will go up to a hundred pits or so per year,” said Jay Coghlan, director of Nuclear Watch of New Mexico. The laboratory’s Technical Area 55 is now the only U.S. site able to manufacture the plutonium cores for nuclear weapons, Brooks said. While he acknowledged that a permanent production facility could be built at Los Alamos, he said the laboratory’s “fundamental character” as a research institution would not change. “So even if we ended up building pits up here, my guess is we would want to separate that from the more traditional management of the laboratory,” Brooks said. “But it’s way premature to speculate on that” (John Arnold, Albuquerque Journal, Feb. 8).
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