North Korea has carried out all but three of 11 nuclear disablement measures at its Yongbyon nuclear complex, South Korea’s top nuclear negotiator said today (see GSN, Jan. 31). Disablement of three key facilities was a major component of the second phase of a 2007 agreement intended to close down North Korea’s nuclear sector. Technical obstacles prevented work from being completed by the Dec. 31 deadline, South Korean envoy Chun Young-woo said during a forum in Seoul. However, the project is set for completion by March, according to Chun and other officials. Chun played down the issue of the nuclear declaration required as part of the disarmament deal, the Associated Press reported. The denuclearization process has stalled while nations in the six-party talks wait for Pyongyang to submit a full list. Washington rejected an earlier document as incomplete. “No party is ready to rock the boat over the declaration,” Chun said. “It may take some time to work out the differences.” The State Department’s top Korea expert traveled to Pyongyang this week in hopes of breaking the impasse. Once that matter is cleared, a plan for full North Korean nuclear dismantlement could be developed before July, Chun said. He added that North Korea could benefit from the U.S. Cooperative Threat Reduction program, which primarily secures and eliminates weapons of mass destruction and WMD materials in the former Soviet Union (see GSN, Jan. 23). North Korean nuclear scientists would need help finding nonmilitary work, Chun said. The Stalinist state has roughly 5,000 such scientists, some estimates indicate (Hyung-Jin Kim, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Feb. 1). The North Korean nuclear declaration is expected to show that Pyongyang has produced 30 to 40 kilograms of plutonium, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, chief U.S. negotiator at the six-party talks, said Wednesday. “They are supposed to give us a full figure on that, which will be in the neighborhood of 30, 40 kilos, something like that,” he said during a speech at Amherst College in Massachusetts. Hill had previously placed the figure at 50 kilograms but may have received new information, Kyodo News reported. Hill said Pyongyang is not believed yet to possess uranium enrichment capabilities. The Bush administration has said that any enrichment activities must be included in the declaration. “We are, we believe, on the way toward ruling out that they have developed uranium enrichment capabilities such as to take fissile material from such a program,” Hill said. “We need to continue to work with them on that.” The declaration must also address any exports of nuclear technology to Syria or other nations, Hill said (see GSN, Oct. 10, 2007; Kyodo News I, Feb. 1). “When Pyongyang submits a complete and correct declaration, the United States is prepared to take steps toward a normal relationship with North Korea,” which would include taking the Asian nation off the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Alexander Vershbow said yesterday. He dismissed as “idle speculation” a South Korean newspaper report this week that Washington and Seoul would allow North Korea to declare its plutonium weapons program and then to handle the uranium issue through back channels, Kyodo reported (Kyodo News II, Jan. 31). “With political will on North Korea’s part, we can achieve a comprehensive solution” in 2008 to the nuclear standoff, Vershbow said. “We will not settle for less than full denuclearization” (Agence France-Presse/Spacewar.com, Jan. 31).
By Jon Fox
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — Beginning Sunday, the Partnership for a Secure America, a bipartisan group of government and foreign policy veterans, will start airing a television commercial in major cities to raise awareness about the threat of nuclear terrorism (see GSN, March 7, 2005). A girl and her mother are window shopping on a city street. As the camera focuses in on a little girl’s eyes, the colors on the screen shift to reds and yellows. Zooming into to the blackness of one of her pupils, the image in the commercial abruptly shifts to a mushroom cloud. The similarities to Lyndon Johnson’s infamous 1964 presidential campaign ad, in which a small girl picks flower petals before apparently being annihilated, are not subtle, and they were not accidental. “It was a not unintentional visual reference,” said Matthew Rojansky, executive director of the Partnership for a Secure America. The 30-second television spot, designed to alert Americans to the need to secure loose nuclear material abroad, is scheduled to begin airing Sunday in major cities. It is part of a push by the bipartisan group to highlight five foreign policy and national security issues during the 2008 presidential election process. “These are issues you should care about,” said Robert McFarlane, a member of the group’s advisory board and national security adviser to President Ronald Reagan. Nuclear terrorism tops the group’s list, which also includes energy security and climate change, encouraging development in foreign countries, human rights and the rise of China. In the 1960s, the mushroom cloud was a symbol of the nuclear war Americans feared. More than 40 years later, the image illustrates the threat of nuclear terrorism, an ultimate catastrophe that is often invoked both politicians and those in the national security business. “Washington hasn’t done enough to protect us from the threat of terrorists getting nuclear weapons,” a man says in the commercial’s voiceover track. “Ask how your candidate will secure loose nuclear materials around the world to prevent a nuclear 9/11.” In the television ad, a girl and her mother are window shopping outside a storefront display filled with teddy bears. An announcer reminds the viewer that while these two are looking for stuffed animals others may be browsing nuclear facilities for the “ultimate weapon.” A man in a dark hooded sweatshirt pulls a silver metal-clad case out of a van on the street, catching the young girl’s attention. Then through her eyes we see the telltale explosion, the suggestion being that inside that case is a terrorist nuclear device. The ad, Rojansky said, is “primarily targeted to what you would call the opinion leader segment” among the voting population. Pressuring the actual decision-makers to take action only goes “so far if you don’t have pressure from the people empowering them, which is the American voter,” he said. “The teaming up of nuclear material with terrorists groups could be catastrophic, obviously,” McFarlane said. “So it bears reminding people that this really is a menace we have to get better control of through controlling nuclear material themselves.” Rojansky said arousing fear is not the goal. Rather, the ad is designed as a reminder that the threat of the nuclear terrorism remains “real,” he said. “They’re aware that there’s a risk of terror attacks but it’s the solution they’re less aware of,” Rojansky said. The commercial notes the Sept. 11 commission’s recommendation to strengthen effort to secure nuclear material abroad through cooperative threat reduction programs, and states that despite that call Washington has not done enough to address the nuclear threat. Securing material at its source is more reasonable that spending “billions of dollars to build an impenetrable fortress around the United States,” Rojansky said. “There are actually a finite number of facilities out there,” he said. The ad was produced with the participation of the Saga Foundation, which is partnered with the Nuclear Threat Initiative. [EDITOR’S NOTE: The Nuclear Threat Initiative is the sole sponsor of Global Security Newswire, which is published independently by the National Journal Group.]
The U.S. Defense Department plans to form a panel of independent experts to conduct a comprehensive review the Nuclear Command and Control System, Inside the Pentagon reported yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 7). The system is “the combination of facilities, equipment, communications, procedures and personnel essential for planning, directing and controlling nuclear weapons, weapon systems and associated operations,” the Pentagon said in a 2006 directive. It involves the White House Military Office, the National Intelligence Director’s Office, and the Defense, Energy, Homeland Security, Justice and State departments. The experts’ panel is set to “examine the full range of NCCS policies, procedures, responsibilities, functions, capabilities, management and oversight necessary to: 1. Meet national and department/agency policy and guidance; and 2. Maintain the highest standards required for planning, directing and controlling nuclear weapons, weapon systems and associated operations,” the Defense Department said in a Jan. 26 Federal Register notice. The panel will “recommend changes to NCCS policies, responsibilities, functions, capabilities, management structures and oversight mechanisms, as well as identifying other enhancements to NCSS elements (facilities, equipment, personnel, communications and procedures),” the notice states. Not up for consideration are the size and structure of the nuclear arsenal, deterrence plans, or arms control and threat reduction matters. The defense secretary is due to select no more than six people for the panel (John Liang, Inside the Pentagon, Jan. 31).
The United States nuclear arsenal could become dominated by submarine-launched ballistic missiles as it is scaled back under a strategic weapon reduction agreement, Inside the Pentagon reported yesterday (see GSN, Dec. 19). Up to 75 percent of the U.S. nuclear arsenal might be comprised of SLBMs once the stockpile reaches its target size, one Energy Department official said last week. A Capitol Hill source said that prediction was “a little high,” forecasting the potential count of submarine-based weapons at slightly more than half the U.S. arsenal. The United States is obligated under a treaty with Russia to reduce its operationally deployed nuclear warheads to less than 2,200 by 2012 (see GSN, Oct. 30, 2007). In 2007, 34 percent of the U.S. nuclear arsenal consisted of SLBM warheads, while 43 percent of the stockpile was bomber-based, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. An increased focus on SLBM warheads could result from the U.S. Air Force decision to phase out the Advanced Cruise Missile and reduce its procurement of the Air-Launched Cruise Missile, a change aimed at reducing the service’s nuclear arsenal to “a 500 or 600 force,” the Capitol Hill source said (see GSN, March 7, 2007). If the ground-launched ICBM force falls between 400 and 500 warheads, the stockpile reduction would result in a “Trident-heavy force,” the source said in reference to the submarine-launched D-5 Trident ballistic missile. A plan to adopt an SLBM-based nuclear force remains “fairly consistent” with previous U.S. nuclear weapons policy, a defense expert at the Heritage Foundation said. A nuclear arsenal dominated by sea-based warheads would pose the risk of compromising much of the U.S. stockpile if a major breakdown in the SLBM force occurs. The Capitol Hill source considered such a malfunction unlikely. “We have a long history of not having catastrophic failures. It has been a long time since we have had one. And any failures or problems that we have had have been fixed piecemeal. You do not need to take the force down to do it,” the source said (Carlo Munoz, Inside the Pentagon, Jan. 31).
Observers in India worry that a nonstate entity or a rogue military element might gain control of a Pakistani nuclear weapon, even if Islamabad’s atomic arsenal is well defended against forcible seizure, the Straits Times reported yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 28). Analysts believe that the process of producing weapon-grade uranium for Pakistan’s arsenal could be vulnerable to leaks of material. “There is no denying that the Pakistanis have taken great care about the safety of their nuclear weapons,” said one high-level official in India, Pakistan’s nuclear-armed rival. “But the question is: Who guards the guardians? After all, the proliferation was an inside job,” he said, likely referring to the nuclear smuggling ring once overseen by top Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan (see GSN, Aug. 22, 2007). Roughly 55 pounds of highly enriched uranium could produce a Hiroshima-sized nuclear bomb, making it possible for an independent actor to gradually accumulate enough material for such a weapon, the Straits Times said. “Given the sloppy work culture, it is hard to imagine that accurate records have been maintained over a quarter-century of fissile material production,” wrote Pervez Hoodbhoy, a nuclear physicist at Pakistan’s Quaid-e-Azam University. “So, can one be certain that small, but significant, quantities of highly enriched uranium have not made their way out?” Top Pakistani military officials defended their country’s ability to protect its nuclear arsenal earlier this week, but Hoodbhoy said that intelligence and military officials in Pakistan could be swayed by wider trends of radicalization (Ravi Velloor, Straits Times, Jan. 31). President Pervez Musharraf today blamed his country’s rivals for spreading uncertainty about Pakistan’s ability to secure its nuclear weapons, Agence France-Presse reported. “We have taken note of various imaginary scenarios being propounded by those who do not wish Pakistan well. Such elements have never reconciled to a nuclear Pakistan,” the Pakistani army quoted Musharraf as saying. Musharraf warned “such elements” to act carefully, adding that Pakistan could resist any attempt to undermine its national sovereignty or nuclear deterrent force (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Feb. 1).
Intelligence information obtained by France apparently contradicts a recent U.S. intelligence assertion that Iran is not seeking nuclear weapons, Agence France-Presse reported today (see GSN, Jan. 31). “Coordinated information from a number of intelligence services leads us to believe that Iran has not given up its wish to pursue its (nuclear) program,” and is “continuing to develop” it, French Defense Minister Herve Morin said in Washington. The 16 U.S. intelligence services concluded in a National Intelligence Estimate released in December that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons development in 2003 but continues its uranium enrichment program, which Tehran could use to produce a key nuclear weapon ingredient. Morin urged the International Atomic Energy Agency to “continue carrying out all the necessary investigations” into Iran’s nuclear program (Agence France-Presse/Google News, Feb. 1).
Further questions have been raised about safety procedures at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Tennessee, the Knoxville News Sentinel reported today (see GSN, Sept. 19, 2007). The facility has failed to fully fix problems found two years ago in safety documents, which could “lead to improper classification of safety systems and less than adequate protection of the public and workers,” the head of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board said in a Jan. 17 letter. The Tennessee plant has been insufficiently conservative in considering the off-site effects of an accident, possibly impacting safety planning, panel Chairman A.J. Eggenberger stated in his letter to Thomas D’Agostino, head of the National Nuclear Security Administration. Personnel at Y-12 “inappropriately limited the scope” of potential conditions in their consideration of the effects of a fire that involves uranium metal at the aging 9212 production facility, Eggenberger said. “The board believes the methodology used at Y-12 to estimate airborne release fractions remains nonconservative,” he wrote. Y-12 staff and board members have been talking about the safety issues, according to Ted Sherry, NNSA site manager at the weapons plant. The agency believes that Y-12 operating contractor B&W Technical Service’s safety measures are “appropriate and safe,” he said. “These controls are backed by detailed, conservative analyses that ensure that we will continue to protect our workers and the public,” Sherry said. The board and the agency have been considering strategies for improving the 9212 plant, parts of which date back to 1945, until the uranium processing site can be replaced around 2018, the News Sentinel reported. Uranium spills and other troubles have also given Eggenberger concern regarding the safety or uranium enrichment work at Y-12 (Frank Munger, Knoxville News Sentinel, Feb. 1).
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