By Jon Fox
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — In what seems to be a growing call for a clear articulation of U.S. nuclear policy, a House panel completely eliminated funding for a next-generation nuclear warhead in a fiscal 2008 energy appropriations bill approved yesterday (see GSN, May 22).
Administration officials have led a strong push for the so-called Reliable Replacement Warhead that would eventually replace some of the payloads on U.S. submarine-launched ballistic missiles, the mainstay of U.S nuclear deterrence. The new warheads, of which the first design would only be one of a number of replacement weapons, would be easier to produce and maintain compared to the aging Cold War-era arsenal, officials have argued. Officials have also indicated the new warheads, which the administration hopes to put into production as soon as 2012, could also lead to a reduction in U.S. stockpiles, maintained in part as a hedge against the failure of any one weapons system. In denying funding for engineering and cost plans for the first replacement warhead design, the chairman of the House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee that oversees the nuclear weapon complex, Representative Peter Visclosky (D-Ind.), sent a message to the administration that it was putting the cart before the horse. Given that there is no defined strategy to address U.S. nuclear posture in a “post-Cold war, post-regional conflict … post-9-11” world, “why would you start down that path” toward new warheads, he said. “I don’t think it is asking too much to for a comprehensive nuclear strategy before we build a new nuclear weapon.” Initiating such a program could have “serious international and domestic consequences,” Visclosky said. He called for a comprehensive nuclear defense strategy as well as a stockpile plan to guide the transformation and downsizing of the U.S. arsenal that currently has roughly 10,000 deployed and reserve weapons. Visclosky’s comments join what appears to be a growing chorus of legislators and officials calling for an executive-level articulation of how many nuclear weapons the United States needs. A recent study on the RRW program by the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences noted that it was difficult to assess the merits of the new warhead given the absence of a post-Cold War strategy and definition of future stockpile needs (see GSN, April 25). Earlier this month, Tom D’Agostino, head of weapons programs at the National Nuclear Security Administration, added his voice to those calling for a clear definition of U.S. nuclear weapons plans (see GSN, May 10). While advocating such a policy discussion, however, he said it should not impede progress on the Reliable Replacement Warhead. In the fiscal 2008 defense authorization bill already passed by the full House, lawmakers shaved $20 million off the president’s $88 million request for the program and $25 million from the $30 million requested for RRW-related research within the Navy. That bill also provided for a year-long, bipartisan commission to assess current U.S. strategic nuclear posture (see GSN, May 3). “This commission is designed to help frame the debate over the future direction of the nuclear weapons program and place it in the context of related strategic consideration,” said Representative Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee, which drafted the provision. Visclosky’s subcommittee went one step further, eliminating all funding from the appropriations bill. “I would characterize it as a profound issue,” he said after the preliminary spending plan was approved. It still must be approved by the full House. Defining nuclear policy is not an issue unique to the current presidential administration, he said. “I can’t think of many more important issues, and it ought to be a policy that stands the test of time, stands the test of multiple administrations stands the tests of multiple Congresses of both parties being in control.” One factor behind the decision to cut RRW funding, Visclosky said, was recent testimony to the committee from Gen. James Cartwright, head of U.S. nuclear forces. “Gen. Cartwright acknowledged that the government of the United States does not have a post-Cold War nuclear strategy in place.” A second consideration was that current plans to modernize and consolidate the nuclear weapons production complex shoot for a completion date of 2030 but the Reliable Replacement Warhead, the main product of that transformed infrastructure, is slated for 2012 completion. “That’s no plan at all,” he said. The Senate has yet to complete its version of the same bill. The House spending plan also added $878 million, or a 74 percent increase, to the president’s budget request for nuclear nonproliferation programs undertaken by the Energy Department. Noting the delinkage between the U.S. mixed oxide nuclear fuel production facility and a paired project in Russia, lawmakers have decided the so-called MOX project in South Carolina is no longer a nonproliferation program but rather an energy project, granting $168 million in funds for fiscal 2008. The project is intended to dispose of plutonium removed from the U.S. nuclear weapons program by transforming it into nuclear power reactor fuel (see GSN, April 16). Visclosky indicated the program was on thin ice with Congress. “This subcommittee will closely monitor the progress of the MOX facility,” he said. “If mistakes continue to be made, the Department of Energy will find it very difficult to make a successful case for any further support.” The draft bill also reallocates $100 million, provided in 1999 but never spent, to help create a nuclear fuel bank under the oversight of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Yesterday the House Foreign Affairs Committee also approved a bill that authorizes $50 million toward the same fuel bank initiative. The bank would guarantee reactor fuel to nations in good standing with the U.N.’s atomic watchdog that do not possess enrichment or reprocessing facilities. The Nuclear Threat Initiative has offered $50 million toward the international fuel bank project pending a $100 million contribution from other sources.
By Jon Fox
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — In the coming weeks the United States will make a “major effort” to finalize a stalled nuclear trade agreement with India, and Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns expects to travel to New Delhi for a final meeting on the deal in the next week or two, he said yesterday (see GSN, May 23). A concrete date for the previously postponed meeting in New Delhi has not yet been set, but Burns said he plans to contact his Indian counterparts soon. During a conference here on the U.S.-Indian relationship at the Heritage Foundation, the administration’s point man on the controversial nuclear pact acknowledged that progress on a technical trade agreement has been slower than expected but expressed optimism that it will be concluded (see GSN, May 22). “Like all good things it’s going to require a little bit more hard work and some compromise on the part of the United States and Indian governments to complete the deal, but I am confident that we can do that,” he said. “I think in the next several weeks you’ll see us make a major effort to bring this to a conclusion. I think we have to do that.” Last year, the Congress passed and the president signed a law easing export controls regarding nuclear equipment and technology to allow trade with India, a nuclear-weapon power that has refused to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Decades of U.S. law had prohibited such trade with nations outside the treaty. Passage of that law, however, was just the first step in what remains a lengthy process. The United States and India must complete an agreement outlining the technical details of the nuclear trade between the two nations, a so-called 123 Agreement. Once that is hashed out, India must also complete an agreement on inspections for its civil nuclear facilities with the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group must also approve a change in its export regulations. Finally, the complete deal must come back to the U.S. Congress for ultimate approval. U.S.-Indian talks between technical experts in London this week failed to iron out remaining kinks, and Indian officials have opposed some of the nonproliferation measures that remain in U.S. law. Having worked on the finer details of the trade agreement since the beginning of the year, Burns said, “I think we’re 90 percent of the way there,” but he conceded, “It’s taken longer than we thought to nail down the 123 agreement.” Compromises on both side are necessary, he said, while suggesting that a psychological “adjustment” might be required of Indian officials. “It means understanding maybe what you did in isolation is not what you do in an integrated world,” Burns said. “It’s a long continuum but I’m optimistic that we’re going to get to the mountaintop together.”
North Korea has asked for security assurances from the United States, Japan and South Korea, saying the threat posed by those nations has driven Pyongyang to pursue nuclear weapons, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, May 23). “The D.P.R.K. had no other option but to possess nukes,” says a defense paper North Korea circulated at a regional security meeting this week in Manila. “The DPRK will automatically not be in need of even a single nuclear weapon when the time comes when the normalization of D.P.R.K.-U.S. relations and confidence-building is made,” the paper says. North Korea distributed the paper to participants of an annual gathering of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. The paper asserts that Pyongyang will abandon its nuclear weapon program when it no longer feels threatened, after the removal “of more than 1,000 nuclear weapons deployed in and around North Korea under the U.S. nuclear umbrella and termination of the U.S. hostile policy toward (North Korea) and its nuclear threat as well” (Jim Gomez, Associated Press I/International Business Times, May 24). North Korea agreed in February to freeze its nuclear activities, but has refused to implement that agreement until it receives about $25 million in funds once frozen in a Macau bank. The bank originally seized the funds under U.S. pressure, but Washington has said it would allow their release. Still, no other financial institution has been willing to receive the money, creating a difficult impasse. “For the past eight weeks or more we have been discussing this banking issue in Macau, which has turned into quite a complex matter — one of the most complex I've seen in my career,” said U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill. “I am confident that we will get to the end of it.” He urged North Korea to begin the nuclear freeze. “It's time for North Korea to pick up the phone and call the (International Atomic Energy Agency) and begin this process of shutting down this facility in Yongbyon,” he said (Margie Mason, Associated Press II/International Herald Tribune, May 24).
Officials from leading U.N. Security Council nations plan to meet within one week to discuss how to handle Iran’s continuing refusal to curb its nuclear program, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, May 23). The International Atomic Energy Agency’s director reported yesterday that Iran has expanded its uranium enrichment activities since the council last demanded a freeze of that program in March. Furthermore, the agency’s understanding of Iran’s nuclear efforts has “deteriorated” over the past year as Tehran has reduced the amount of information if provides to inspectors, said agency head Mohamed ElBaradei. The five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany would meet soon to craft their strategy to persuade Iran to return to negotiations to find a long-term solution to the nuclear crisis, said Chinese Deputy U.N. Ambassador Liu Zhenmin. “I think efforts are being made to encourage the Iranians to talk,” he said. “I think the six [nations] will have another meeting at experts level by the end of the month” (Edith Lederer, Associated Press I/Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader, May 24). U.S. President George W. Bush today called for more stringent measures against Iran. “'The world has spoken and said ... no nuclear weapons programs. And yet they're constantly ignoring the demands,” Bush said during White House press conference today. Iranian officials “continue to be defiant as to the demands of the free world,” Bush added. “My view is that we need to strengthen our sanction regime” (Associated Press II/New York Times, May 24). In addition to seeking strengthened U.N. measures, Washington would urge nations to apply their own, unilateral sanctions, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said yesterday. “The Iranians need to know that we’re serious about this,” he said (Cooper/Sanger, New York Times, May 24). The United States has also ratcheted up indirect pressure against Iran, the McClatchey news service reported today. U.S. ships, including two nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, began a major naval exercise yesterday in the Persian Gulf. Navy statements said the exercise “is not connected to events in the region” and “not directed against any nation” (Jonathan Landay, McClatchey/Miami Herald, May 24). Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad today reaffirmed his intention to press forward with plans to build thousands of uranium enrichment centrifuges. “If we stop for a while, they (Iran's enemies) will achieve their goals. The enemy wants Iran to surrender so it won't have any say in the world” he told a gathering of the Revolutionary Guards. “If Iran's right to nuclear technology is confirmed, all nations of the world will gather under Iran's political banner. Enemies of Islamic Iran know this, and for this reason they have mobilized,” he added (Nasser Karimi, Associated Press III/San Diego Union-Tribune, May 24). Still, Iran was prepared to seek a negotiated resolution to the crisis if the Security Council stepped away, a senior Iranian nuclear official said. “Iran is fully ready for solving the entire remaining issues in accordance with its legal commitments, on condition that our dossier would be returned to IAEA, that is the only concerned international organ for the purpose, but at any rate, Iran would continue cooperation with the agency,” said Mohammad Saeedi, deputy chairman of the nation’s Atomic Energy Organization (IRNA, May 24). Meanwhile, the United States lodged a formal complaint yesterday with ElBaradei over his recent remarks suggesting the possibility that the world may need to accept Iran having a uranium enrichment program, AP reported. U.S. Ambassador Gregory Schulte met with ElBaradei yesterday in Vienna and the British and French ambassadors were scheduled to support Schulte in meetings with ElBaradei tomorrow (George Jahn, Associated Press IV/Hindu, May 24). In remarks today, ElBaradei said there was time for all parties to seek a diplomatic solution to the escalating crisis. “I tend, based on our analysis, to agree with people like John Negroponte and the new director of the CIA, who are saying that even if Iran wanted to go for a nuclear weapon, it would not be before the end of this decade or sometime in the middle of the next decade. In other words three to eight years from now,” he told reporters on the sidelines of a nonproliferation conference in Luxembourg (Mark John, Reuters, May 24).
The United States has sought to sabotage Iran’s uranium enrichment program by slightly damaging or modifying equipment Tehran has bought through international smuggling networks, CBS News reported yesterday. The U.S. efforts have included former Russian nuclear scientists and exiled Iranians, according to sources in several countries. “Industrial sabotage is a way to stop the program, without military action, without fingerprints on the operation, and really, it is ideal, if it works,” said Mark Fitzpatrick, a former U.S. State Department official now with the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “One way to sabotage a program is to make minor modifications in some of the components Iran obtains on the black market, and because it's a black market … you don't know exactly who you are dealing with,” he added. The strategy could help delay, but not derail, Iran’s nuclear program, according to CBS. Iranian suspicions of Western interference can also create delays, even if no sabotage were conducted, Fitzpatrick said. “It’s impossible to say the extent to which Iran has discovered any industrial espionage,” he said. “Any technical problems that Iran experiences in its program, some of which were the result of its own speed-up effort, Iran may attribute to foreign espionage.” One sabotage effort apparently caused a brief setback to Iran’s enrichment program last year, CBS reported. Iran purchased power supplies that had been rigged to explode, said senior government representatives. Once turned on, the resulting blast destroyed 50 centrifuges, according to CBS (see GSN, Jan. 16; MacVicar/Velie, CBSNews.com, May 23).
Describing a “faltering” international nuclear nonproliferation regime, the top U.N. nuclear official called today for a “new security paradigm” based on the abolition of nuclear weapons (see GSN, Jan. 4). Such a system would include improved controls over stored nuclear weapon materials and the production and transfer of new materials. “Effective control of nuclear material is the ‘choke point’ for preventing the production of additional nuclear weapons,” said Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Another key element of the new security framework would be creating an international nuclear fuel supply system, ElBaradei told a nonproliferation conference in Luxembourg. “The ultimate goal, in my view, should be to bring all such operations under multinational control, so that no one country has the exclusive capability to produce the material for nuclear weapons,” he added. In the short term, nations should back “fuel bank” concepts proposed variously by the agency, Russia, Germany and the United States, he said. Such reserves would help developing nations have confidence that they could fuel their nuclear power programs without building their own fuel facilities that could also be used to manufacture nuclear weapon materials. ElBaradei also called for a new attitude toward addressing nuclear proliferation threats, referring obliquely to U.S. strategies toward prewar Iraq and Iran. “Dialogue is withheld as a reward for good behavior, rather than as a means to change behavior and reconcile differences. Public rhetoric substitutes for effective diplomacy,” he said. “The lesson should be obvious by now: We cannot bomb our way to security. Rather, we should focus on addressing the underlying causes of insecurity.” He also urged nuclear-weapon states to recommit themselves toward nuclear disarmament, an obligation they undertook in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. “Thirty-seven years after the treaty entered into force, we are well past the date when states party should be developing new nuclear weapons,” he said. “Yet that is precisely what is happening,” he added. “Virtually all nuclear-weapon states are extending and modernizing their nuclear weapon arsenals well into the 21st Century.” Concluding he urged nations to “start serious work towards a new collective security paradigm. If we want to prevent a nuclear catastrophe, the deadline for action is now” (IAEA release, May 24).
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