A nine-person team of U.S. experts arrived today in North Korea to begin overseeing disablement of nuclear facilities at the Stalinist state’s nuclear complex, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Oct. 31).
“I think as soon as we are set up in Yongbyon we will begin,” said team leader Sung Kim. “Hopefully early next week.”
After years of negotiations, North Korea agreed to declare and disable its nuclear program by the end of 2007 (Agence France-Presse/Spacewar.com, Nov. 1). Hill estimated today that disablement of three plants at Yongbyon — a nuclear reactor, nuclear fuel production facility and a spent fuel reprocessing site — could begin before the end of this week, Reuters reported. Earlier reports had indicated it could begin as soon as today “We are satisfied that we have an overall plan that will be effective and that will provide the disablement that we need,” he said (Reuters/Yahoo!News, Nov. 1). Kim said equipment would be dismantled during the disablement process, AFP reported. “I think it will be a combined effort with some North Korean help and of course our experts supervising and coordinating,” he said. It would take a “considerable amount of time” to prepare the disabled systems to resume operations, Kim said. Washington hopes that disablement will keep the plants off-line for a year while negotiations continue on permanently shuttering Pyongyang’s nuclear program, which is believed to have produced 45 to 65 kilograms of weapon-usable plutonium. “What we want to do is move beyond disabling to dismantling, and then to the abandoning of all the separated plutonium,” said Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, lead U.S. envoy to the six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear program. The disablement phase of work must be completed before Washington would consider negotiations on an official end to the 1950-53 Korean War, Hill said. The idea “is that we would get going with discussions after disabling, with the understanding that we would not conclude any peace arrangement until there’s denuclearization,” he said (AFP, Nov. 1). South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min-soon said today he hoped to see peace talks begin before the resolution of North Korean nuclear disarmament, the Associated Press reported. “If the ongoing denuclearization process proceeds and the directly related parties agree that it’s possible for the leaders to gather and make some form of declaration at an appropriate phase, I think it’s possible,” he said (Burt Herman, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Nov. 1).
By Elaine M. Grossman
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Navy last week said that a nuclear warhead under development might require the production of new “re-entry bodies,” a potentially costly aeroshell designed to carry a weapon as it descends to its target (see GSN, March 5). The Bush administration has said the first variant of its proposed Reliable Replacement Warhead would use a Mk-5 re-entry body, which is employed today in fewer than one in every eight Trident D-5 submarine-launched warheads. However, until now government officials have not publicly addressed whether they might utilize any spare Mk-5s for the new warhead or if new aeroshell production would be required. Producing potentially more than 1,000 new Mk-5 re-entry bodies could significantly boost the price tag of the administration’s controversial plans for the new warhead, according to defense experts. The Mk-5 would cost $800,000 apiece to procure in current-year dollars, not taking into account any additional development or integration costs that might be required, according to Lt. Karen Eifert, a Navy spokeswoman. One former military officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, estimated that procurement of new aeroshells could add hundreds of millions of dollars to an overall multibillion dollar warhead effort. “I think building the re-entry bodies would be a major acquisition program,” the source said. Pentagon officials “have not been forthcoming on this.” Reliable Replacement Warhead advocates have made affordability a key selling point but have not yet said how much it would cost to develop and produce the weapon. Administration officials say the price would depend on engineering and production plans to be drawn up this year and presented to Congress in 2008. A variety of replacement warheads could eventually renovate the entire nuclear stockpile, administration officials have said. The first variant is to replace the Trident missile’s W-76 warhead, which entered the force in 1978. While the W-76 warhead is housed in a Mk-4 re-entry body, the Pentagon wants to use the larger Trident aeroshell, the Mk-5, for the replacement warhead. One reason for the switch appears to be that the Mk-5 offers design features that might compensate for the new warhead’s slightly lower yield. The replacement warhead design trades away some of the W-76’s 100-kiloton yield in exchange for improvements in safety, security and reliability, according to defense officials. “The Mk-5 provides somewhat more accuracy than the Mk-4, offsetting any loss of effectiveness from a slight yield reduction of the RRW, so that the [new unit] could fulfill … mission requirements” of the one it replaces, according to a July Congressional Research Service report. The Navy maintains roughly 400 Mk-5 re-entry bodies on active deployment or in readily accessible storage, but they now house a W-88 warhead that is to remain in the force for the time being. The new warhead would require an estimated 1,100 aeroshells, according to Hans Kristensen, director of the Federation of American Scientists Nuclear Information Project. That is how many W-76 warheads currently in the Trident missile fleet would be replaced by Reliable Replacement Warheads by 2021, under existing administration plans, he told GSN this week. The Navy would not comment on whether it keeps any significant number of Mk-5 aeroshells in storage. The service would say only that it plans to review options for using either existing or newly produced re-entry bodies. “The Navy intends to leverage off of available material assets where possible,” said Eifert, the service spokeswoman. “The number of aeroshells which might be manufactured for the RRW and any associated costs have yet to be determined.” Those questions will be resolved as the warhead effort proceeds through a system development and demonstration phase that began last spring at the Energy Department, Eifert said. Work done during this stage of an acquisition program typically focuses on developing a system or capability; reducing integration and manufacturing risks; ensuring the system can be maintained affordably once it is operational; and demonstrating system integration, interoperability, safety and utility, according to the Defense Department. While Pentagon participation in this phase awaits congressional approval, development and demonstration work is slated to wrap up by September 2008, Eifert said. Retired Gen. Larry Welch, who commanded U.S. strategic forces before becoming Air Force chief of staff in 1986, said he is confident the Navy would be able to recycle existing assets. “There are enough Mk-5 aeroshells for SLBM plans,” he stated in an Oct. 24 e-mail, referring to the replacement warhead for sea-launched ballistic missiles. “Different aeroshells are available for other future ballistic missile warheads.” Welch, now president and CEO of the Institute for Defense Analyses in Alexandria, Va., said he did not know specifically how many Mk-5s are on hand. However, another defense expert cast doubt on the notion that enough Mk-5s are available to preclude new manufacture. Perhaps the smaller Mk-4 re-entry body should be used for the replacement warhead, particularly given that they currently house the weapon that the new warhead is intended to supplant, the source suggested. “Is it better to sacrifice a little more yield to keep things in the Mk-4 re-entry body instead of maybe reopening the Mk-5 production line?” asked the expert, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue. Lawmakers have expressed serious concerns that many details about the Reliable Replacement Warhead, including its costs, remain unknown (see GSN, May 24). As one means of cutting costs, some lawmakers have urged that the administration reuse plutonium “pits” from dismantled or stored weapons in building the Reliable Replacement Warhead.
The International Atomic Energy Agency might not be able to determine the definite purpose of a suspected Syrian nuclear facility destroyed last month in an Israeli attack if the agency cannot obtain more photographic evidence from the site, a diplomat told Reuters yesterday (see GSN, Oct. 30). The structure of the tall, box-shaped building seen in satellite images of the site before the Sept. 6 air strike suggests the structure might have housed a nuclear reactor similar to the North Korean reactor at Yongbyon, according to Western analysts. Syria quickly razed and cleared the site after the bombing, suggesting that Damascus might have wanted to hide its remains from satellite cameras, Reuters said. Syria has denied that the bombed site was a nuclear facility and said it is not hiding anything from the U.N. nuclear watchdog. According to the diplomat, IAEA inspectors have questioned Damascus on commercial satellite imagery of the site before and after the bombing, but Syrian officials have not responded and the available photographs are unlikely to offer answers. "IAEA experts are looking back at the evolution of this facility. But with these pictures alone they feel they may be unable to draw conclusions," said the diplomat. "If the IAEA got credible indications from anyone of nuclear procurement or activity, that would be different. But imagery of a tall building shaped like a square, that's not enough (to tell whether or not the site may have been a nuclear site)," the diplomat said (Mark Heinrich, Reuters, Oct. 31).
Nuclear experts have criticized the U.S. representative to a U.N. disarmament conference for stating that the United States does not maintain its nuclear arsenal on a “hair-trigger alert” status, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, Oct. 30). “U.S. nuclear forces are not and have never been on hair-trigger alert,” Christina Rocca said Oct. 9 at the U.N. Conference on Disarmament. The statement came as the U.N. General Assembly prepared to vote on a nonbinding resolution urging nations to “decrease the operational readiness” of their nuclear arsenals. “The maintenance of nuclear weapons systems at a high level of readiness increases the risk of the use of such weapons, including the unintentional or accidental use,” the resolution reads. Hans Kristensen, director of the Federation of American Scientists Nuclear Information Project, disputed Rocca’s claim. “It's plain wrong," Kristensen said. “There are forces on alert, and whether they are on ‘hair-trigger alert’ or ‘launch on warning,’ they are capable of launching in minutes.” Russia and the United States both have about a third of their strategic nuclear arsenals ready to launch on short notice, said Bruce Blair, a nuclear weapons analyst and president of the World Security Institute. “Hundreds of missiles armed with thousands of nuclear warheads can be launched within a very few minutes," Blair said. “There has been long history of denying U.S. forces are on 'hair-trigger alert,’” he added. “Some of that is based on lack of knowledge, and some of it is an evasion, and some of it is just an outright lie.” One high-level U.S. official said that view was exaggerated. "The idea we are on Cuban-missile-crisis posture, sitting on the silo ready to push the button, is false," the official said. “The essence of deterrence strategy is having some element of ambiguity.” At the U.N. conference, Rocca also argued that the United States has been fulfilling its obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to reduce the size of its nuclear stockpile. The treaty requires China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States to engage in “good-faith” disarmament talks. Rocca noted that the United States has reached arms reduction agreements with Russia over the last 20 years resulting in the elimination of 3,000 tactical missiles and 1,000 strategic bombers and missiles. “The NPT never envisaged complete nuclear disarmament without regard to the international security environment," she said. "Nuclear weapons continue to have relevance” (Colum Lynch, Washington Post, Nov. 1).
U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said today that the United States would work to overcome Russian and Chinese hesitancy over imposing new U.N. Security Council sanctions against Iran if Tehran does not suspend its uranium enrichment program within two weeks, Reuters reported (see GSN, Oct. 31). Germany and the five permanent Security Council members planned to discuss a third round of sanctions in London tomorrow. Burns said the Security Council has given Iran time since its March 24 sanctions resolution to negotiate an end to its uranium enrichment program with EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana. “Russia and China have been effectively blocking a third resolution since then,” he said. In September, the Security Council members agreed to wait to impose new sanctions until the release this month of a report from Solana and another from International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei on Iran’s disclosure of details on its nuclear program. Burns said a report of good Iranian cooperation would not be sufficient to block new sanctions. “Our judgment is that if Iran has not suspended in the next couple of weeks, that's not sufficient, it will remain a refusal to meet Security Council requirements. That will be a highly relevant factor for us,” he said. “Our hope is the following: first, a third sanctions resolution will be passed as soon as possible. Second, we'd very much support seeing the EU go forward with (its own) sanctions. Third, major trading partners of Iran should reduce trade to show Iran that this is not business as usual,” he said (Mark Heinrich, Reuters, Nov. 1). Burns said yesterday that Russia and China must “meet their commitments … to diminish their level of trade — China’s is increasing — with Iran and stop selling arms” to the Middle Eastern country, Agence France-Presse reported. He added that "it is important that major trading partners of Iran, Japan and South Korea, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia reduce the level of trade, reduce the sense of business as usual with Iran," he said (Agence France-Presse/Google News, Oct. 31). The meeting in London tomorrow “is a technical one but it is an important new step in the story,” a diplomat told the Financial Times. “The meeting will not take decisions but it will put the Security Council in a situation where it can act quickly if Iran fails to respond adequately to the ElBaradei and Solana initiatives.” U.S. officials said they would not require the Security Council measures to match unilateral sanctions the United States imposed on Iran last week. “I don’t think anyone sees it as a template for what is happening in the U.N. process,” one official said. Still, U.S. officials hope that a new round of U.N. nuclear sanctions against Iran would further isolate Tehran, pressuring it to comply with Security Council demands. Some veteran EU diplomats said Russia is quietly more sympathetic with Western suspicions over Iran’s nuclear program than China. “I see Russia exerting pressure on Iran to an unexpected degree,” said one EU diplomat. “China has significant economic interests in Iran and this will create a real problem in getting a U.N. agreement,” another EU diplomat said. “It is unlikely that China has yet had any chance to revisit its position so soon after the recent Communist party congress” (Financial Times, Oct. 31). Meanwhile, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad demanded that European nations refuse to impose independent sanctions against Iran as the United States has done, the Associated Press reported. “If they plan to cooperate with the enemy of the Iranian nation, we cannot interpret this as a friendly behavior. We will show reaction,” Ahmadinejad said (Nasser Karimi, Associated Press I/International Herald Tribune, Nov. 1). The Iranian Revolutionary Guard said yesterday that the United States would be “stuck in a quagmire” greater than its current conflicts in Iraq or Afghanistan if it attacked Iran, AP reported. “If enemies prove to be naive enough to invade Iran, they will be slapped hard,” Iranian state media quoted Revolutionary Guard commander Mohammad Ali Jafari as saying. “The enemy knows that if it attacks Iran, it will certainly get stuck in a quagmire deeper than Iraq and Afghanistan and will be defeated,” he said (Ali Dareini, Associated Press II/Google News, Oct. 31).
Thirteen Middle Eastern nations over the last year have declared their interest in nuclear power, amidst suspected efforts by Iran to create a nuclear weapons capability, the Christian Science Monitor reported today (see GSN, Sept. 21). According to some analysts, predominantly Sunni Muslim countries such as Jordan, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Yemen have opted to pursue nuclear power in an attempt to counter Iran’s perceived push for greater regional prestige and influence through its controversial nuclear activities. “To have 13 states in the region say they're interested in nuclear power over the course of a year certainly catches the eye," says Mark Fitzpatrick, a fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “The Iranian angle is the reason.” “Although Egypt does not feel directly threatened by Iran, it does feel its own power and influence in the region threatened by a resurgent nuclear-armed Iran," he said. The dearth of natural resources in Jordan and decreasing oil reserves in Egypt and elsewhere have foreshadowed a time when nuclear power might become less expensive than oil-based energy. “The rules have changed on the nuclear subject throughout the whole region," King Abdullah of Jordan told an Israeli newspaper earlier this year. “Where I think Jordan was saying, ‘We'd like to have a nuclear-free zone in the area,’ … (now) everybody's going for nuclear programs.” The United States and other Western powers have expressed strong opposition to Iran’s nuclear enrichment program, which could produce material for a nuclear weapon, but they have generally been more tolerant of nuclear programs in other Middle Eastern nations. Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, expressed concern at U.S. inaction on Middle Eastern nuclear development outside of Iran. “I think we're trying to put out a fire of proliferation with a bucket of kerosene," he said. Sokolski said a high-level Bush administration official had recently told him that nuclear power programs in Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries were “inevitable” and the United States should support them in order to have some say in those efforts. An Egyptian decision to develop its own nuclear fuel cycle would be a clue that it plans a program that goes beyond energy, said nonproliferation expert Jon Wolfsthal of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. If you are interested in having the capability of building a nuclear weapon, the best way to start is by building up your nuclear power infrastructure,” he said. Egypt is unlikely to agree not to develop the fuel cycle or allow heightened international monitoring to provide that it has no weapons plans, Fitzpatrick said. “They already resent the nuclear asymmetry with Israel, and a nuclear-armed Iran on top of that adds too much for them,” he said (Dan Murphy, Christian Science Monitor, Nov. 1).
Staffing at the U.S. nuclear weapons complex could drop by up to 9,000 positions over 10 years under a plan being developed by the Bush administration, the Albuquerque Journal reported yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 26). The plan would also reduce acreage of the U.S. eight sites devoted to nuclear weapons development, construction and maintenance by about a third while renovating or replacing facilities that have been in use since the early Cold War. The goal would be to streamline and modernize the nuclear weapons complex, said David Campbell, congressional, intergovernmental and public affairs director for the National Nuclear Security Administration. While specific changes that have been proposed for the eight sites have not been revealed, Campbell said that none of the locations would be closed. The National Nuclear Security Administration under the plan would retain responsibility for managing the U.S. nuclear stockpile. “NNSA's mission is not going away,” Campbell said. “We have a duty, a responsibility to maintain the stockpile, make it secure and reliable.” About 600 buildings would be cut across the eight sites and the nuclear establishment would shed between 20 and 30 percent of its 32,000-member work force. “Not every site will go down 20 to 30 percent,” Campbell said. “Those are things that need to be worked out.” The Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories in New Mexico directly employ roughly 13,000 people. The proposed changes draw from “Complex 2030,” a plan unveiled by the administration last year to transform the U.S. nuclear complex by the year 2030. In light of the newly proposed changes, the plan has focused on changes over the next decade using the name “Complex Transformation.” One proposal from Complex 2030 that remains under consideration is to save money by consolidating dangerous nuclear materials such as plutonium at a smaller number of sites. The material is now held at seven U.S. sites (John Fleck, Albuquerque Journal/TMCnet, Oct. 31).
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