U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, shown last month, promoted the U.S.-Indian nuclear trade deal in a speech yesterday in Washington (Mikhail Metzel/Getty Images). U.S. to Renew Push for India Pact By Marina Malenic Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — A top U.S. State Department official said yesterday that he planned to meet with his Indian counterpart in London next week in an effort to advance a civilian nuclear technology-sharing agreement that has come under fire from lawmakers in both countries (see GSN, May 12)...Full Story

EU Weighs Reactor Offer for Iran British, French and German officials yesterday discussed adding a light-water nuclear power reactor to a package of incentives they plan to offer Iran in exchange for suspension of Tehran’s sensitive nuclear work, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, May 16)...Full Story

Yucca Plan Hits Snags, Domenici Sees Long Delay By Darren Goode, CongressDaily WASHINGTON — Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) said yesterday that Congress might need to restructure the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository project because there is no plan to recycle a growing number of spent fuel rods that would otherwise be stored there (see GSN, April 3)...Full Story

	Wednesday, May 17, 2006

U.S. to Renew Push for India Pact By Marina Malenic Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — A top U.S. State Department official said yesterday that he planned to meet with his Indian counterpart in London next week in an effort to advance a civilian nuclear technology-sharing agreement that has come under fire from lawmakers in both countries (see GSN, May 12). “We agreed to meet, to go over all aspects of the U.S.-India agreement so that we can move this along on both sides,” Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said in remarks here at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Burns said he and Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran agreed to the meeting during a telephone exchange Tuesday, but that a specific date was not set. Meanwhile, the Bush administration plans to lobby Congress to approve the related legislation, Burns said. He said he expects to conduct a series of meetings with top lawmakers beginning May 25. Burns said he would share with U.S. Representative Tom Lantos (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House International Relations Committee who has put forth compromise legislation “our ideas about how this agreement should best be put forward for a vote.” The agreement would grant India access to U.S. nuclear energy technology in exchange for New Delhi placing most of its reactors under international safeguards. Currently, the vast majority of India’s nuclear facilities are not inspected by international officials because the nation is not party to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. India is still negotiating the terms of the potential safeguards with the International Atomic Energy Agency.  U.S. lawmakers from both political parties have insisted that Congress be allowed to examine the safeguards agreement and the details of the finalized bilateral deal before passing laws needed to implement the accord. In addition, many nongovernmental proliferation experts have criticized the deal for rewarding a non-NPT nation with nuclear trade. Nuclear Test Efforts to fine-tune the U.S.-Indian agreement have reportedly been hampered by New Delhi’s refusal to accept a formal provision barring it from conducting nuclear tests (see GSN, April 7). However, Burns said yesterday that Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh pledged to end nuclear testing when he and U.S. President George W. Bush first discussed the arrangement in July 2005. “That was a very important commitment,” Burns said. “We have great faith that the Indian government will meet” that pledge. Iran Relations Burns also dismissed accusations that India maintained any substantial military or defense relationship with Iran. “I would ask that India be judged by the United States on the same basis that we judge all of our allies — Japan, all the European allies. The European allies, all 25 of them, have full diplomatic relations with Iran. ... Many of them have multibillion-dollar commercial trade relations,” he said. “They have normal relations across the board, so does Japan. So somehow saying that India is the only country in the world talking to Iran ... I think would be wrong,” Burns said. Referring to Indian media reports alleging New Delhi’s involvement in training Iranian naval personnel, Burns said “the Defense News story, in our view, was wrong. The Indian government tells us they do not have a significant defense trade relationship with Iran.” He also praised India for voting with the United States at the International Atomic Energy Agency to condemn Iran’s nuclear activities in September and again in February, calling the moves “very courageous.” “What matters to us is how countries have treated Iran on the nuclear issue,” Burns said. “It is fair to judge India on those votes ... since what concerns America is whether our friends would support Iran or look the other way as Iran seeks to develop weapons capability.” “We can’t judge India against a standard that we don’t judge other countries,” he said. Back to top       EU Weighs Reactor Offer for Iran British, French and German officials yesterday discussed adding a light-water nuclear power reactor to a package of incentives they plan to offer Iran in exchange for suspension of Tehran’s sensitive nuclear work, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, May 16). U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, however, declined to say whether the upcoming offer would include the reactor. He said Iran would be required to halt its uranium enrichment and reprocessing program under the European plan. “We and others do not want the Iranian regime to have the ability to master those critical pathways to a nuclear weapon,” he said. A light-water reactor would be more proliferation resistant than the Iranian heavy-water reactor scheduled for completion by early 2009 at Arak, AP reported. However, light-water reactors use as fuel enriched uranium that could be processed to weapon-grade levels (George Jahn, Associated Press I/Washington Times, May 17). U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said yesterday that the incentives package had yet to be finalized. “The package has not been approved. It is under development,” Burns said (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, May 17). The Bush administration is waiting to endorse the offer until a set of potential punishments for Iranian intransigence is finalized, the New York Times reported today (Steven Weisman, New York Times, May 17). “It will be only when the entire package of both halves is put together … that we’ll be prepared to offer an opinion,” John Bolton, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said yesterday. He added that Libya, with whom the United States is re-establishing full diplomatic relations as a reward for its renunciation of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism, should serve as an example to Tehran (see GSN, May 16). “I do think that yesterday’s news that the United States has taken Libya off its list of state sponsors of terrorism and has decided to resume full diplomatic relations after almost 30 years shows what can happen when a country gives up seriously the pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and abjures the support of terrorism. And I think that’s a clear example to Iran,” Bolton said (Federal News Service, May 16). France, the United Kingdom and the United States hope that if Iran rejects the new incentives package, Russia could move toward supporting sanctions, European diplomats told the Times. European officials said there were troubles during a foreign ministers’ meeting on the nuclear standoff last week. They said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had an unpleasant exchange in both English and Russian at a dinner meeting in New York. Rice and some others then broached the idea of repackaging the EU proposals for Tehran, according to officials (Weisman, New York Times, May 17). Senior officials from U.N. Security Council permanent member nations and Germany have postponed a meeting scheduled for Friday in London, AFP reported today. The meeting is expected to occur in about 10 days, a British Foreign Office spokesman told AFP. “The reason is to allow more detailed preparations on the EU-3 proposals to Iran,” he said. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad today rejected incentives in advance of the offer. “They think they can take away our gold and give us some nuts and chocolate in exchange,” he said during a rally (Agence France-Presse, May 17). Meanwhile, International Atomic Energy Agency officials are scheduled Friday to begin another round of inspections in Iran, the Mehr News Agency reported today. The team is expected to conduct routine inspections of the Natanz uranium enrichment site and the Isfahan Uranium Conversion Facility, a source told Mehr (IranMania, May 17). Elsewhere, an adviser to Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator met recently in the United States with officials of the International Crisis Group, an organization that recently proposed a compromise plan on the nuclear standoff, Newsweek reported (see GSN, April 7). Mohammad Nahavandian reportedly told the group’s Middle East director, former Clinton administration official Robert Malley, that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was keen to cooperate with Washington on matters beyond Iraq, which he believed could lead to a “grand bargain” addressing all bilateral issues. Despite the Bush administration’s insistence that bilateral talks are off the table, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns has indicated that talks could occur when the U.S. leverage and likelihood of success are greatest, according to Newsweek. “Whereas in recent months the U.S. response was, ‘It’s impossible to do direct talks,’ now the refusals from Washington are not so unequivocal,” said a senior European envoy. While U.S. military contingency planning for a potential strike on Iran continues, two officials said military commanders have expressed to Bush their pessimism on the chances for success of air strikes on Tehran’s nuclear installations. Former Bush administration official Flynt Leverett said refraining from negotiations would put Tehran closer to developing a nuclear weapon in the end. He faulted Bush’s decision not to pursue Tehran’s effort to begin direct talks in 2003. “If we had pursued this three years ago and been able to work out a deal, the Iranians wouldn’t have 164 centrifuges today,” Leverett said. “Now if we do a deal with them we’re probably going to have to accept centrifuges and some kind of small-scale enrichment activity. If we wait three years from now, who knows what the bottom line will be?” (Michael Hirsch, Newsweek, May 22). Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki met today in Jordan with his counterpart there, Abdul-Illah al-Khatib, AP reported. Jordan has called for dialogue on the nuclear issue between Iran and the West. Official visits between the two countries have been rare, according to AP (Associated Press II/Pravda, May 17). Back to top       Russian Nukes Can Survive Strike, Designer Says The latest generation of Russian strategic missiles was developed with the capability to survive nuclear first strike, the head of Moscow’s chief missile design center said yesterday (see GSN, April 17). “The results we have achieved allow us to say with certitude … that we are capable of ensuring the missiles survivability,” Yuri Solomonov, head of the Institute of Thermal Technology, said in a speech. Solomonov said the engines drop from the newest Russian missiles earlier in flight than older models, the Associated Press reported. That decreases the chances for detection by enemy early warning technology. “The reduction of the active phase of flight is the most radical way of dodging the enemy’s weapons,” he said. Warheads in the new design also appear largely identical to decoys, increasing the difficulty of detecting the actual threat, Solomonov said. Russia is improving its missiles in response to the U.S. missile defense program, Solomonov said. However, he indicated support for cooperation by the two countries on missile defense, AP reported. He said he would press for approval of a joint experiment that would simulate tracking and destroying an incoming missile (Vladimir Isachenkov, Associated Press/Navy Times, May 16). Back to top       U.S. Nuclear Negotiator to Visit South Korea U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, the top U.S. envoy to stalled multilateral talks on North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, is scheduled to visit South Korea next week, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, May 16). Hill is expected to arrive May 25 for the two-day visit. He “plans to discuss important issues between South Korea and the United States, including the six-party talks,” South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon announced today. Ban said the case of Libya, which is set to renew full diplomatic relations with the United States as a reward for renouncing weapons of mass destruction (see GSN, May 16), “is an example that shows there is a brighter future when one gives up WMD.” “Our government will urge North Korea to realize that there will be a brighter and better future for them if they give up nuclear weapons and to return to the six-party talks soon for prompt resolution of the North Korea nuclear issue,” he said (Bo-Mi Lim, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, May 17). Back to top       U.S. ICBMS to Get Upgrade Defense contractor Lockheed Martin received a $28 million contract to provide hardware for upgrades of the U.S. arsenal of Minuteman 3 ICBMs, the company announced today (see GSN, April 10). The contract comes through the Safety Enhanced Re-entry Vehicle program. All Minuteman 3 missiles are scheduled to receive upgrades through the program by 2011. The SERV program enables Minuteman 3 missiles to carry single Mark 21 re-entry vehicles previously used on now-decommissioned Peacekeeper ICBMs, according to a company press release (see GSN, Sept. 20, 2005). “This ensures continued reliability and effectiveness of the Minuteman 3 weapon system, in part because the Mark 21 re-entry vehicle is a newer design with enhanced safety features,” the release states. “Lockheed Martin Space Systems will provide the electronic command signal generator component and associated cabling that interface between the guidance and control system of the Minuteman 3 missile and the re-entry vehicles,” it adds. “Lockheed Martin also will provide the flight hardware for attachment of the re-entry vehicles to the missile.” Lockheed Martin could receive $104 million over six years through the SERV project (Lockheed Martin release, May 17). Back to top

County Set to Receive Bioterror Preparedness Funds A federal grant of $1.1 million is expected to fund bioterrorism preparedness efforts in Riverside County, Calif., the City News Service reported yesterday (see GSN, March 17). County supervisors were expected yesterday to vote on an agreement to split with money with the California Health Services Department. The state would use $510,000 to buy protective equipment for the county. Riverside County would use the remaining money to develop a preparedness and response plan for acts of bioterrorism and natural outbreaks, City News Service reported. Training would be offered to county public health workers, and medical staffers at hospitals, community clinics and emergency medical services (City News Service, May 16). Back to top

Russian CW Disposal Site to Begin Operation in 2006 The Russian chemical weapons disposal facility at Maradykovsky is expected to begin operations in the last half of 2006, ITAR-Tass reported today (see GSN, May 2). “The first phase of this [facility] is 90 percent ready, and I have no doubt that it will be launched at a set time,” said Valery Kapashin, head of the federal directorate for chemical weapons storage and disposal. Depots at Maradykovsky contain 41,000 air bombs and missile warheads filled with sarin, soman and VX nerve agents, ITAR-Tass reported. The stockpile is scheduled to be eliminated by 2010. Maradykovsky would be the third disposal site to begin operations, following Gorny and Kambarka. Russia plans to build processing facilities at each of its seven chemical weapons storage depots (ITAR-Tass, May 17). Back to top       Iraqi Chemical Attack Victims Seek Compensation Advocates for survivors of the 1988 chemical attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja by former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s regime are seeking restitution from the international companies and governments that helped Hussein acquire those weapons, Agence France-Presse reported today (see GSN, April 4). Hussein and other former top officials are to blame for the attacks, said Halabja Chemical Victims’ Society head Kamil Abdel Qader. He argued, though, that international commercial enterprises should accept responsibility for their part in the deaths of 5,000 people and suffering of hundreds of survivors from the Iraqi town. “We are trying to find the companies that helped the Iraqi government get chemical weapons for Saddam. We are trying to tell the world what happened here,” Abdel Qader said. “Those who are suffering need a lot of money to get treatment in Western hospitals. We want to see those who helped Saddam punished and our rights restored,” he said. Specific firms involved in chemical weapons-related trade with Baghdad in the 1980s have never been publicly identified, according to AFP. Abdullah Mahmud, an author who has conducted research on Hussein’s campaigns against the Iraqi Kurdish population, said France, the former Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, the United States, the former West Germany and other countries participated in such sales. “At that time Saddam had a good economy because of Iraq’s oil wealth and he could afford pretty much any weapons he wanted,” Mahmud said. “The people deserve to be compensated, and these companies should be uncovered.” Iraqi authorities have not yet announced whether they plan to investigate major international companies. Asked if such information would surface in Hussein’s trial, chief investigating judge Raed al-Juhi replied, “I cannot answer this question at the time to protect the investigation. ... Everybody involved in the crime will be brought to trial” (Agence France-Presse/Kurdish Media, May 17). Back to top       Mustard Vapor Detected at Pine Bluff Arsenal Workers conducting routine air monitoring late Monday of a storage igloo at the Pine Bluff Arsenal in Arkansas detected a small amount of mustard agent vapor leaking from a container, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, May 16). There was no danger to employees, nearby residents or the environment, the arsenal said in a press release. Workers isolated and sealed the container (Associated Press/WREG.com, May 16). Back to top

House Blocks U.S. Missile Defense Cuts The U.S. House of Representatives last week blocked a move to cut spending on the national missile defense program by almost half in fiscal 2007, the Huntsville (Ala.) Times reported (see GSN, May 11). The House approved the fiscal 2007 National Defense Authorization Bill, which includes $9.3 billion for the Missile Defense Agency. Lawmakers voted 301-124 against an amendment to halve the agency budget. “Now is not the time the time to reduce MDA’s budget,” said Representative Bud Cramer said (D-Ala.). “Doing so would devastate or stop several key missile-defense programs we need to defend against the ballistic missile threat.” Meanwhile, the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense program met all test objectives Thursday during a test interceptor launch at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico according to a Missile Defense Agency statement. The test, using a computer-generated target, was intended to evaluate the missile’s targeting, radar and computer network capabilities, according to the Times (Shelby Spires, Huntsville Times, May 13). Back to top

Yucca Plan Hits Snags, Domenici Sees Long Delay By Darren Goode, CongressDaily WASHINGTON — Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) said yesterday that Congress might need to restructure the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository project because there is no plan to recycle a growing number of spent fuel rods that would otherwise be stored there (see GSN, April 3). Such a move would mean further delay for a project that is already behind schedule, even as Congress and the Bush administration are starting to think about the need for a second waste-storage site. “I think I'm telling you that everything is delayed for a long time,” Domenici said. “Confusion is rampant.  Timelines are all out of whack.” Following his committee’s hearing on the status of the stalled project, Domenici said it has “become quite clear we’re not going to be putting the spent fuel rods in Yucca Mountain. I think we're going to have to put recycling in the legislative process that involves Yucca Mountain.” Domenici does not want to put spent nuclear fuel rods at the Nevada site because only about 5 percent of their energy has been used when they come out of a reactor. “Recycling is ultimately responsible for what kind of repository we need,” Domenici said. “It will certainly be a different Yucca Mountain than we have been talking about.” This could mean trying to combine the Bush administration's new Global Nuclear Energy Partnership program, which aims to expand global nuclear energy production and the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel, and the Yucca project, Domenici said (see GSN, May 3). He said there is time to do this without further delaying the Yucca project because it is already moving slowly. Congress approved Yucca Mountain as the site of the repository in 2002 but the Energy Department has not yet applied for an operating license. Department officials say they will announce a schedule this summer for submitting that application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The Energy Department last month sent Congress a long-awaited plan to modify and expedite completion of the repository, including lifting the current statutory limit on the amount of waste that could be stored there, expediting federal licensing and environmental reviews and withdrawing land around the site from public use. While Domenici is a big supporter of the global partnership, it has been criticized by Democrats and other Republicans as too far-reaching and expensive. Critics have also said it might offset nuclear nonproliferation efforts. The House Appropriations Committee today is marking up a fiscal 2007 Energy and Water spending bill that undercuts the administration's $250 million initial request for the global partnership by $96 million. Still, Domenici pledged to “fully fund it and ... see if I can look around and find more money.” While recycling spent nuclear fuel would ideally reduce the amount of waste needed to be stored at Yucca, there is growing interest in establishing a second national repository, even as the Yucca project remains stalled. The Energy Department estimates more than 100,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel will be generated by existing reactors and is advocating that the 70,000 metric ton cap at Yucca be loosened. Senator Richard Burr (R-N.C.) calculated that the United States will reach that limit by 2010. “What's next?” Burr asked at the hearing. “At what point do we collectively ... look at this and say we've got to think about something else.” Senator Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) blamed both the Energy Department and Environmental Protection Agency for dragging their feet. “We're to the limit of what we can even put in,” Bunning said. “And now you're talking about a second repository? Do you know how foolish that looks to the American public?" Paul Golan, acting director of the Energy Department's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste, told reporters after the hearing that he assembled a task force Monday to make an initial report in July about selecting a second site. Waste is stored at more than 120 temporary locations in 39 states. The House fiscal 2007 Energy and Water spending bill includes $30 million for interim storage on top of the $544.5 million the Bush administration has requested for the Yucca project next year. Golan told the Energy and Natural Resources Committee yesterday that “the department continues to have an open mind on interim storage.” But he also said the administration lacks the authorization to proceed with an interim storage plan.   Back to top

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