U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, shown last month, said yesterday that U.N. sanctions have shaken up Iranian policies, possibly opening the door to resumed nuclear talks. President George W. Bush said, though, that Washington is not ready to engage in direct negotiations with Tehran (David Furst/Getty Images). U.N. Sanctions Spurring Nuclear Debate in Iran, U.S. Says By Jon Fox Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — An internal political debate in Iran might be pushing Tehran back toward the nuclear negotiating table, the Bush administration’s point man on the Iranian standoff said yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 14). Speaking at the Brookings Institution, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns suggested there is reason to believe U.N. Security Council sanctions are having an effect within the Iranian capital (see GSN, Sept. 14, 2006)...Full Story

North Korea Pledges to Follow Agreement North Korea intends to follow through on its commitments under the nuclear disarmament agreement approved by negotiators from six countries, Pyongyang’s lead envoy to the talks said today (see GSN, Feb. 14)...Full Story

Senate OKs Increased Nonproliferation Funding The U.S. Senate yesterday approved a fiscal 2007 spending bill that preserves a more than $60 million increase in funding for two nuclear nonproliferation programs.  Senators voted 81-15 to approve the bill as passed by the House of Representatives last month (see GSN, Feb.1)...Full Story

	Thursday, February 15, 2007

Senate OKs Increased Nonproliferation Funding The U.S. Senate yesterday approved a fiscal 2007 spending bill that preserves a more than $60 million increase in funding for two nuclear nonproliferation programs.  Senators voted 81-15 to approve the bill as passed by the House of Representatives last month (see GSN, Feb.1). The House gave the International Nuclear Material Protection and Cooperation program a $50 million boost, to $472.7 million, when it passed its version of the stopgap spending bill in January. The original budget request for the program in this fiscal year, which began in October, was $413.2 million. The Global Threat Reduction Initiative also received additional support.  Funded at $97 million in fiscal 2006, it received $115.5 million in the House spending plan.  The fiscal 2007 budget request was $106.8 million (Jon Fox, Global Security Newswire, Feb. 15). The Senate bill also restores $42 million to this year’s budget for construction of a weapons disposal facility at the Pueblo Chemical Depot in Colorado, The Pueblo Chieftain reported (see GSN, Feb. 7). The House cut the chemical weapons disposal funds for the Colorado facility during budget deliberations last year, but authorized allocation of the money in a January continuing resolution. “This is one more battle won in the long-standing effort to ensure that the necessary work to destroy the dangerous chemical weapons continues at Pueblo Depot,” said Senator Wayne Allard (R-Colo.). “I am very pleased that the U.S. Senate has approved Senator (Mitch) McConnell (R-Ky.) and my efforts to successfully push back the House’s decision to zero out critical funding for this project.  We must keep our momentum.  Today’s vote maintains that positive direction,” he added (John Norton, Pueblo Chieftain, Feb. 15). President George W. Bush has indicated that he would sign the $464 billion spending plan, the Associated Press reported (Andrew Taylor, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Feb. 14). Back to top       Spratt Seeks More FY08 Nonproliferation Money The fiscal 2008 federal budget needs additional funds for international nonproliferation projects, U.S. Representative John Spratt (D-S.C.) said last month (see GSN, Feb. 6). Spratt spoke to Inside the Pentagon prior to the White House’s release of its proposed budget.  Priority projects should include securing fissile material used at research reactors in various countries and developing a “rigid” accounting plan for U.S. and Russian WMD stockpiles, Spratt said. “I don’t think the (defense) budget will come to us … with enough money in to do these extra things,” he said. “If we’re going to add to the president’s request for nonproliferation — we probably will — we’ll have to find an offset,” Spratt added. He said he did not know which defense program might see funding cuts in order to enable increased nonproliferation spending, Inside Missile Defense reported.  “We’ll find something.” In a Jan. 25 speech, Representative Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.) supported the 2001 recommendation from a Energy Department task force to spend $30 billion over a decade on securing and eliminating Russian nuclear weapons. “I fully support this amount and believe that it is also critical that we directly engage the world’s most dangerous nuclear hot spots with all the tools that we have at our disposal,” she said (Sebastian Sprenger, Inside Missile Defense, Feb. 14). Back to top

U.N. Sanctions Spurring Nuclear Debate in Iran, U.S. Says By Jon Fox Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — An internal political debate in Iran might be pushing Tehran back toward the nuclear negotiating table, the Bush administration’s point man on the Iranian standoff said yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 14). Speaking at the Brookings Institution, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns suggested there is reason to believe U.N. Security Council sanctions are having an effect within the Iranian capital (see GSN, Sept. 14, 2006). “It had a major impact in Iran,” Burns said.  He noted the criticism of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by a newspaper backed by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over his management of the nuclear issue, a development Burns called “extraordinary.” He also cited top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani’s re-emergence on the diplomatic stage.  Larijani has recently visited European capitals and yesterday was in Saudi Arabia to “to talk again about the possibility of negotiations.” “This is hopeful,” Burns said.  “It’s hopeful that the Iranians have emerged after 4 1/2 months of utter silence over the course of the autumn and begun to say themselves that they’re seeking some kind of a diplomatic way forward.” While some suggested late last year that Tehran had weathered international pressure over its uranium enrichment program relatively unscathed, Burns said international sanctions as well as U.S. financial measure are beginning to bear fruit (see GSN, Jan. 9).  “All of the sudden in the middle of February the Iranians are not doing so well,” he said. The Security Council voted unanimously to impose sanctions on Iran in late December, an outcome that Burns said “stunned” Tehran (see GSN, Jan. 4).  The United States has begun to push against Iranian involvement in Iraq.  U.S. carrier groups have moved into the Persian Gulf (see GSN, Dec. 20, 2006). Decisions by European and Japanese lending institutions to cut off relations with Iran have induced nervousness in Iran’s financial markets. The combined effects of these developments have pushed certain voices in Tehran to suggest that there might be a price to be paid for being an “international pariah,” Burns said.  “The Iranians are now questioning their own strategy.” While critics have argued that the administration is laying the groundwork for a military strike on Iran, Burns said such a conflict is neither inevitable nor desirable. “We are not going to give up,” he said.  “We’re convinced that sooner or later the costs to Iran of its isolation are going to be so profoundly important to them, destructive to their economic potential, that they’re going to have to come to the negotiating table.” Burns said that the inducements offered by the United States, Russia and the European Union to shut down Iran’s nuclear fuel program still stand. Iran, though, must agree to suspend uranium enrichment activities during the period of negotiations (see GSN, Feb. 12). Iran has rejected this offer, with officials saying they would not freeze Iran’s nuclear program as a precondition for negotiations, but suggesting they might accept some limitations on its enrichment technology. Burns called such a suspension a “temporary down payment,” but also said the U.S. position was that ultimately Iran must not be allowed to conduct enrichment on its own soil.  Under the package presented to Iran, any civil nuclear program would be supplied with fuel enriched outside the country.  That remains central to the deal, Burns said. If Iran continues to ignore international pressure and forge ahead with an enrichment program the United States and others believe is part of a nuclear weapons effort, Burns said sanctions would likely intensify. During a Wednesday morning press conference, President George W. Bush said that sitting down to bilateral discussions with Iranian officials would be fruitless.  The United States has not had a direct, normalized diplomatic relationship with Iran for more than 30 years. “This is a world in which people say, ‘Meet!  Sit down and meet!’” he said.  “My answer is, if it yields results, that’s what I’m interested in.” “If I thought we could achieve success, I would sit down.  But I don’t think we can achieve success right now.  And therefore, we’ll want to work with other nations,” he said.  “We’re more likely to achieve our goals when others are involved as well.” In pushing for more biting, restrictive financial sanctions against Iran, Washington might collide with European economic interests.  Some critics have described the current U.N. sanctions package as anemic. “Money trumps peace sometimes,” Bush said.  “Part of the issue in convincing people to put sanctions on a specific country is to convince them that it’s in the world’s interest that they forgo their own financial interest.” Back to top       North Korea Pledges to Follow Agreement North Korea intends to follow through on its commitments under the nuclear disarmament agreement approved by negotiators from six countries, Pyongyang’s lead envoy to the talks said today (see GSN, Feb. 14). “The talks went well,” Kim Kye Gwan told Kyodo News.  “We are ready to implement the results of the meeting” (Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Feb. 15). Experts expressed doubt about whether Pyongyang would agree that the deal requires it to give up its existing nuclear weapons, the International Herald Tribune reported. “I believe the North Koreans will say dismantling nuclear weapons is not in the letter of the agreement,” said Joseph Bermudez, a senior analyst with Janes Information Group.  He said Washington was “desperate” for an agreement at this round of six-party talks and “settled for less than could be had.” The deal requires North Korea to shut down nuclear facilities at Yongbyon under the watch of the International Atomic Energy Agency.  The plants are eventually to be fully shuttered and North Korea would submit a “list of all its nuclear programs.” “The word weapon or disarmament doesn’t seem to be anywhere in the agreement,” said RAND Corp. senior analyst Bruce Bennett.  “So what we have agreed, at least in the letter of the law, is to stop their production but not necessarily to get rid of what they already have.” Dealing with Pyongyang’s existing stockpile of as many as 12 warheads could be the task of one of several working groups to be organized under the agreement, the Tribune reported (Donald Greenlees, International Herald Tribune, Feb. 15). Ensuring that Pyongyang is actually disarming could prove difficult, the Associated Press reported.  The mountainous nation has many tunnels and bunkers that could be used to secretly house weapons, nuclear material or production lines. “How much nuclear material it has, how much it has produced and whether they’ve hidden any, we have our estimates.  But no one can say for certain,’ said Chinese physicist Liu Gongliang. “If you say ‘we think you have more fuel,’ they won’t acknowledge it,” he said of the secretive regime, “and if you think you’ve got it all, they’ll keep any remaining materials for later” (Charles Hutzler, Associated Press, Feb. 14). The White House faces continuing criticism of the deal from conservatives, one of whom works within the administration, the Washington Post reported. “When exactly did [North Korean leader] Kim Jong Il become trustworthy?” asked the National Review.  The editorial page of The Wall Street Journal called the agreement “faith-based nonproliferation.” In e-mail messages, neoconservative deputy national security adviser Elliott Abrams questioned the apparent willingness to remove North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism before Pyongyang had proven it was no longer involved in such activities. The United States only agreed to begin Libya’s removal from the list after Tripoli ceased backing terror groups, Abrams noted in messages to Asia policy and nonproliferation policy officials. National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe sought to play down the internal exchanges.  “Initial press reports on the six-party talks agreement sparked a discussion among staff that we seeking clarification on some of the deal’s aspects.  All has been clarified, and we look forward to implementation,” he said. President George W. Bush yesterday fired back at comments from former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, who has criticized the agreement since its inception. “I strong disagree, strongly disagree with his assessment,” Bush said (Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, Feb. 15). Bush and the leaders of Japan and South Korea in telephone conversations yesterday agreed to work together to ensure that North Korea meets its obligations under the agreement, Agence France-Presse reported. The deal “has provided a way forward for North Korea, but … North Korea must live up to its commitments.  The Japanese and South Korean leaders pledged to make sure that North Korea does so,” Bush said (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Feb. 14). Chief U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill could soon visit Pyongyang, while Kim Kye Gwan would come to Washington, Reuters reported. “I understand Assistant Secretary of State Hill and Vice Minister Kim talked about making reciprocal visits when they met in Berlin last month and at Beijing talks,” a diplomatic source told the Chosun Ilbo newspaper.  “It looks like the idea will become reality soon” (Reuters/Washington Post, Feb. 14). Back to top       Iranian Officials Offer Hope for Nuclear Talks In the aftermath of a negotiated deal to ease the North Korean nuclear crisis, Iranian officials yesterday expressed a willingness to consider resuming nuclear talks (see GSN, Feb. 14). “If we continue to be in favor of a peaceful resolution of this problem, no idea should be unacceptable, not for us or for anyone else,” Ali Akbar Velayati, an adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, wrote in remarks published yesterday.  “We have only got one red line:  respecting our right to nuclear energy, which is guaranteed in the [Nuclear] Nonproliferation Treaty” (Parisa Hafezi, Reuters, Feb. 15). “Any time the United States sends a signal showing good will in its dealings with Iran, we will in return remove obstacles in the way of negotiations,” added former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (Ali Akbar Dareini, Associated Press/Washington Post, Feb. 14). Despite these potentially conciliatory statements, prospects for U.S.-Iranian talks appear distant, as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has consistently resisted the U.S. demand that Iran freeze its nuclear activities before any talks can resume (Hafezi, Reuters). In addition, U.S. President George W. Bush specifically rejected direct talks yesterday during a White House news conference. “If I thought we could achieve success, I would sit down.  But I don’t think we can achieve success right now.  And therefore, we’ll want to work with other nations,” he said.  “We’re more likely to achieve our goals when others are involved as well” (Dareini, Associated Press). Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov yesterday urged the Bush administration to demonstrate the same flexibility with Iran it used during the North Korea negotiations. “I will note the efforts by the American side, perhaps in some way against its own will, making reasonable compromises with Pyongyang and by doing so allowing blockage of the six-nation talks to be removed,” Lavrov said. “We would like to see the same flexibility ... in relation to the Iranian nuclear program, where probably something similar could be done — focusing not on defending the prestige of one’s position but on the basis of professional assessments,” he added (Steve Gutterman, Associated Press II/International Herald Tribune, Feb. 14). Back to top

Air Force Fields Mobile BW Analysis Lab The U.S. Air Force last week inaugurated a new biological weapon detection system at McConnell Air Force Base in Kansas, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Dec. 18, 2006). The Laboratory Response Team Trailer is designed to use DNA analysis to identify 14 biological agents, including anthrax and plague. The Air Force plans to field at least seven trailers in an effort to improve its terrorism response capabilities. “We can meet the needs.  We could isolate or really limit the affected regions.  If we could get our crew in there, get testing as fast as possible, we could possibly limit any outbreak,” said Lt. James Clark, laboratory services chief for the 22nd Medical Group at the air base (Associated Press/Wichita Eagle, Feb. 7). Back to top

India Plans Agni 3 Missile Test Before Summer India plans to flight test its nuclear-capable Agni 3 ballistic missile in coming months to ensure that engineers have corrected a problem that caused a failure in the system’s first test last year, India’s top military scientist said yesterday (see GSN, July 11, 2006). The next test “may be in May or June or even earlier,” said M. Natrajan, head of India’s Defense Research and Development Organization. Natrajan said he believed the cause of last year’s test failure has been identified and corrected. “We have now come up with a flexible heat shield.  All other parameters of the missile would remain the same,” he said (SaharaSamay.com , Feb. 15). The first test’s failure was not a complete loss, according to Indian defense analyst Uday Bhaskar. “It’s an important punctuation in the evolution of India’s credible nuclear deterrence.  The fact that it took off is a major success,” he said.  “Re-entry is always a tricky situation and I would think it would take eight to 10 tests before it fully evolves” (Gulf Times, Feb. 15). Back to top

Israel Considers Boosting Missile Defenses Israel is considering increasing the number of Arrow 2 antimissile batteries deployed around the country, the Xinhua News Agency reported yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 12). There are now two deployed Arrow systems, one in south Israel and the other in the north.  Additional batteries could be installed to protect the Dimona nuclear reactor and other important sites, according to the Jerusalem Post. Israel in two months plans a test of the new Arrow 2.5 missile, which would have a larger warhead and be able to reach higher altitudes at which nonconventional weapons can more safely be destroyed, defense sources told the Post. Israel and the United States developed the Arrow to destroy medium- and long-range ballistic missiles (Xinhua News Agency/People's Daily, Feb. 14). Back to top

Bush Offers Putin Cooperative ‘Spirit’ U.S. President George W. Bush responded yesterday to recent criticism from Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying the two nations can work together to pursue many mutual goals, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Feb. 13). “It’s a complicated relationship,” Bush at White House press conference.  “It’s a relationship in which there are disagreements, but there’s also a relationship in which we can find common ground to solve problems.  And that’s the spirit I’ll continue to work with Vladimir Putin.” Speaking last weekend at a Munich security conference, Putin charged that Bush led an aggressive foreign policy that was spurring WMD proliferation. Bush said the United States and Russia had the same nonproliferation goals and were working together to resolve the nuclear crises in North Korea and Iran (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Feb. 14). Back to top

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