U.S. Air Force Eyes Single Nuclear Chain of Command

By Elaine M. Grossman
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON  The U.S. Air Force is considering consolidating day-to-day control over its nuclear-armed bomber aircraft and land-based intercontinental ballistic missile fleet under a single chain of command, a senior commander said today (see GSN, Feb. 13).

The idea is one of several under review as the service struggles to improve its handling of the strategic mission, following an incident last August in which a B-52 bomber mistakenly transported six nuclear-armed cruise missiles across several U.S. states (see GSN, Sept. 5, 2007). On Tuesday, Defense Department officials revealed that a Pentagon agency had accidentally shipped four Air Force nuclear missile fuses to Taiwan in late 2006 (see related GSN story, today).

Currently, organizational responsibility for 450 Minuteman 3 land-based missiles resides with Air Force Space Command at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo. Meanwhile, control of more than 90 nuclear-capable B-52s and 20 B-2 bombers is the purview of Air Combat Command, headquartered at Langley Air Force Base, Va.

The two commands oversee training exercises and equipment maintenance for their assigned nuclear weapons, as well as for an array of conventional weapons.

There is an ongoing debate as to, organizationally, is that the right construct to do that, particularly in the wake of last years nuclear handling incident, Gen. John Corley, the head of Air Combat Command, told reporters today. Would you want to merge all things nuclear inside of one  command chain?

If such a consolidation proceeds, ICBMs and bombers might come under a single, new heading called global effects, the general said. Operational control over nuclear weapons during combat already falls under a single organization, U.S. Strategic Command in Omaha, Neb.

That debate is ongoing at the present time, Corley said. The question might be resolved as early as June, when the services top generals confer at a periodic meeting called a Corona, he said.

However, he added, I dont know how that debate will roll out.

Such a shift, if implemented, would be broadly in line with many others recommended last month by a high-level Defense Department review that criticized military leaders for a growing sense of complacency about the nuclear mission.

Headed by retired Gen. Larry Welch, a former Air Force chief of staff, the Defense Science Board task force urged the service to create a number of new civilian and military leadership posts dedicated to nuclear weapons oversight. Streamlining nuclear responsibilities would help address a decade of credible reports of declining focus and an eroding nuclear enterprise environment,
which the panel cited as contributing to lapses in nuclear weapons handling.

The task force, though, stopped short of encouraging the sort of organizational shift now under debate.

There might be some attractive features to the notion of assigning all nuclear forces to a single organization, the report stated. However, it would require a major restructuring among multiple commands and could delay, rather than facilitate, correcting the current deficiencies, the group explained. Instead, the task force recommends focus on restoring full attention to  the operational mission. The only reasonably certain way the task force could find to do that is to make each level responsible and accountable for the strategic bomber force as their daily work.

At todays question-and-answer session, Corley did not elaborate on the benefits or drawbacks of a potential reorganization.

Another task force recommendation  one of several the service is implementing  is to rotate B-52 squadrons through six months of dedicated nuclear mission training on a regular basis (see GSN, Feb. 28). Both the B-52 and B-2 maintain conventional combat missions in addition to their nuclear roles.

The focus of a rotational [bomber training approach] is to restore the nuclear enterprise, Corley said.

At the same time, the Air Force is debating whether to retain as many as 76 B-52s into the future, rather than the 56 aircraft the service had previously told Congress it would keep, Corley said.

The B-52 number, by moving it back up to 76 total B-52s  44 of which are combat [capable]  gives me the comfort that Ive got the appropriate focus on the nuclear enterprise [and] that Ive got sufficiency in terms of numbers to do the conventional deterrence [mission], Corley said. It allows me to work the rotational basis.

If the service were to reduce the B-52 force to 56 aircraft  as the plan currently stands  just 32 of those would be combat-capable, Corley said.

The general added, though, that he did not yet have Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseleys approval for the shift in fleet size. Corley said he planned to meet with Moseley about the issue today.

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Missile Fuse Shipment a Mistake, U.S. Tells China

U.S. President George W. Bush and Chinese President Hu Jintao yesterday discussed the 2006 delivery of Air Force nuclear missile fuses to Taiwan, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, March 26).

It came up very briefly during a telephone conversation between the two leaders, U.S. national security adviser Stephen Hadley told journalists. Basically, the president indicated that a mistake had been made. There was very little discussion about it.

China, which considers Taiwan part of its territory and objects to U.S. defense cooperation with the islands government, yesterday called for a full investigation of the incident. Defense Secretary Robert Gates by that point had already announced such a probe (Terence Hunt, Associated Press/Boston Herald, March 26).

The fuses are part of the trigger for a ballistic missile. They do not contain nuclear material.

The U.S. Defense Department communicated with Taiwan about the error for several months before Taiwanese officials indicated last week that it involved sensitive nuclear missile components rather than helicopter batteries ordered from the United States, the Washington Post reported.

Taiwanese officials found the fuses inside four crates sometime between August 2006 and last week, said U.S. officials familiar with the dialogue over the error. It remains uncertain when Taiwan realized it had the electronic ICBM components, but the United States was unaware of their absence during the 18 months they were in Taiwanese custody.

Last week they said they didnt think they could destroy these items and said it was warhead-related material, one U.S. official said. That was the first time there was any indication we werent dealing with a battery. All the alarm bells went off at that point (White/Kessler, Washington Post, March 27).

Taiwans defense minister said today he does not believe the fuses were dismantled and examined by a Taiwanese weapons research agency, Reuters reported.

When asked by a Taiwanese lawmaker whether the missile components had been reviewed by the Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology, Taiwanese Defense Minister Tsai Ming-hsien said: As far as I know, no (Reuters/Yahoo!News, March 27).

Pentagon officials said an ongoing probe of the accidental missile fuse shipment could focus on a U.S. contractor responsible for storing and transferring materials at Hill Air Force Base in Utah, the Salt Lake Tribune reported today.

The parts arrived at the base in 2005 and were sent out in August of the following year. According to Pentagon officials, the probe led by Navy Adm. Kirkland Donald would focus on the bases storage and transfer procedures, which have been managed by the contractor EG&G since 2002 (Matthew LaPlante, Salt Lake Tribune, March 27).

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North Korean Military Could Hinder Disarmament

There are indications that North Korean military elements are reluctant to follow through on the governments seeming intention to give up the countrys nuclear weapons, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, March 26).

North Korean leader Kim Jong Ils best efforts to orchestrate a balance among competing interests within the North may be a stretch too far for North Korean military hardliners, Keith Luse, an aide to U.S. Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), wrote in a report to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Discarding the jewel of their arsenal will be difficult.

Luse visited North Korea last month with Siegfried Hecker, former head of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Hecker asked to see a missile factory that had provided aluminum tube samples to U.S. experts in 2007. Traces of enriched uranium were found on the samples during subsequent testing in the United States.

North Korean military and industrial officials were extremely unhappy with the access the Americans were granted and with the fact that they were given samples of the aluminum tubes, Hecker wrote in his report to the Senate committee. I was told that neither I, nor anyone else, will get access again.

While the United States has estimated that North Korea holds between 40 and 50 kilograms of reprocessed plutonium, North Korean officials said they have placed the amount at 30 kilograms in talks with U.S. officials. The officials said they would offer the substantial cooperation and transparency needed to verify the figure, Hecker said (Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, March 27).

Top-level officials from China, South Korea and the United States yesterday called on North Korea to provide a full accounting of its nuclear activities, Agence France-Presse reported

U.S. President George W. Bush and Chinese President Hu Jintao discussed the matter during a telephone conversation yesterday.

The two presidents pledged to continue to work closely with the other six-party partners in urging North Korea to deliver a complete and correct declaration of all its nuclear weapons programs, and nuclear proliferation activities and to complete the agreed disablement, according to a statement.

Bush expressed appreciation to President Hu for the important role China has played within the negotiations, it added.

The nuclear declaration is a key component of the second phase of a denuclearization agreement reached last year in negotiations involving China, Japan, Russia, the United States and both Koreas. The process has faltered this year, with Washington saying Pyongyang has yet to address issues such as suspected uranium enrichment efforts and nuclear support for nations such as Syria.

Its time to bring this to a conclusion, said U.S. national security adviser Stephen Hadley. This has been going on for a while.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan also addressed the declaration after talks yesterday in Washington. A full declaration is needed so that there can be an effort to verify and deal with anything that has happened concerning North Korean programs and proliferation and the like, Rice said.

I think time and patience is running out, Yu said. I hope North Korea will submit the declaration as soon as possible so as not to lose good timing (P. Parameswaran, Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, March 26).

Meanwhile, a senior South Korean military official said yesterday North Korea is likely to possess six or seven nuclear weapons, the Yonhap News Agency reported. Gen. Kim Tae-young, who has been nominated as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also characterized Pyongyangs October 2006 nuclear test as half successful. The test has been seen as something of a dud due to the small yield (see GSN, Oct. 13, 2006; Yonhap News Agency, March 26).

Responding to a harder line taken by the new government in Seoul under President Lee Myung-bak, North Korea today expelled South Korean officials from a border-area industrial site, Reuters reported.

The month-old Lee administration has pressed Pyongyang to better address issues including nuclear disarmament and human rights (Jon Herskovitz, Reuters/New York Times, March 27).

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McCain Calls for Smaller U.S. Nuclear Arsenal

U.S. Republican presidential candidate John McCain yesterday said the United States should reduce the size of its nuclear arsenal in order to set an example for the rest of the world (see GSN, Feb. 11).

Forty years ago, the five declared nuclear powers came together in support of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and pledged to end the arms race and move toward nuclear disarmament, the Arizona senator said during a foreign policy speech. The time has come to renew that commitment. We do not need all the weapons currently in our arsenal. The United States should lead a global effort at nuclear disarmament consistent with our vital interests and the cause of peace.

McCain called for sustained international cooperation on nuclear nonproliferation, singling out North Koreas known weapons program and Irans suspected interest in developing atomic weapons.

He also took a hard line on Russia, saying the United States former Cold War rival should be removed from the Group of Eight industrial powers.

Rather than tolerate Russias nuclear blackmail or cyber attacks, Western nations should make clear that the solidarity of NATO, from the Baltic to the Black Sea, is indivisible and that the organizations doors remain open to all democracies committed to the defense of freedom, McCain said (U.S. Senator John McCain speech, March 26).

Meanwhile, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton called for strengthening diplomatic relations between Washington and Moscow, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported (see GSN, Jan. 7).

Russia is continuing to help Iran  investing a lot of expertise and money into the Iranian nuclear program, the New York senator said Tuesday. I think that is as dangerous to Russia as it is to us (see GSN, March 5).

Clinton also said that Bush administration policies enabled North Korea to resume nuclear operations, which I thought was a very serious mistake, and we havent gotten them to shut it down yet.

Pyongyang pulled out of the 1994 Agreed Framework, a Clinton administration deal intended to halt North Korean nuclear proliferation activities, after the White House in 2002 accused the Stalinist state of operating illicit uranium enrichment efforts (Betsy Hiel, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, March 26).

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Mozambique Ratifies African Nuke-Free Zone Treaty

Mozambiques parliament yesterday ratified the African Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone Treaty, the Mozambique Information Agency reported (see GSN, June 1, 2006).

The treaty requires signatories not to conduct research on, develop, manufacture, stockpile or otherwise acquire, possess or have control over any nuclear explosive device by any means anywhere, and not to seek or receive any assistance in the research on, development, manufacture, stockpiling or acquisition, or possession of any nuclear explosive device.

The agreement also prohibits members from permitting foreign powers to deploy any nuclear weapon in their territory and from assisting in any nuclear weapon test or encouraging a test at any location.

The treaty has been signed by 51 African nations and ratified by 24 countries. Another four nations must ratify the pact before it can enter into force.

Mozambican Foreign Minister Oldemiro Baloi called nuclear weapons-free zones one of the most effective means of preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and of promoting general and complete disarmament.

Baloi said that interest in the treaty was spurred by the 1960 French nuclear bomb test in the Sahara Desert and by South Africas ultimately abandoned nuclear weapon program.

Nuclear weapon-free zone treaties have been signed covering Antarctica, Latin America and the Caribbean islands, the South Pacific, and Southeast and Central Asia (Mozambique Information Agency/allAfrica.com, March 26).

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China Likely to Continue Space Program, Group Says

China is likely to continue pushing its space program forward as the United States keeps open an option to militarize U.S. space capabilities, Japanese Defense Ministry analysts said today in an annual East Asian security review (see GSN, Feb. 25).

It is likely that China will continue to actively engage in space development in the years ahead, given that such development serves as a vital means of achieving military competitiveness against the United States  and raising national prestige, the Japanese National Institute for Defense Studies said in the report.

The report refers to strong ties between Chinas space program and its military, and suggests Beijing could already be using many of its satellites for military purposes, Kyodo News reported.

Although China has consistently advocated a ban on the development of weapons in space, this (space development) may be just an attempt to put a check on the United States, the report says (Kyodo News/Japan Times, March 27)

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Iran Demands Reimbursement for U.N. Sanctions

Iran has threatened to take legal action on grounds that the U.N. Security Council violated its charter by enacting sanctions against the nation over its nuclear program, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, March 25).

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki prepared a 20-page letter that contains a paragraph-by-paragraph rebuttal to the latest Security Council sanctions resolution, accusing France, Germany, the United Kingdom and United States of clearing with the international body for political gain.

The Western powers campaigned for the sanctions as a measure to pressure Iran to halt controversial nuclear activities they suspect could be intended for nuclear weapons development (see GSN, March 4).

Mottaki said in the letter that Iranian officials have addressed the International Atomic Energy Agencys concerns about its nuclear program and the U.N. nuclear watchdog has repeatedly stated that there is no evidence to prove any diversion of the Iranian nuclear program towards military purposes.

Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei last month reported advancement in a probe seeking to clarify Irans nuclear ambitions, but warned that Tehran had not sufficiently answered questions about Western intelligence purporting to show Iranian efforts to develop technologies for weaponizing its nuclear capabilities (see GSN, Feb. 22).

Mottaki accused the four Western powers of providing false and erroneous information to the agency.

These countries should, as a minimum step, admit their mistakes, apologize to the great nation of Iran, correct their behavior, and above all, compensate all the damages they have inflicted on the Islamic Republic of Iran, Mottaki wrote.

The Islamic Republic of Iran and its citizens have the right to resort to legal actions to seek redress against the sponsors of these unlawful actions, he said without elaborating on the reimbursement sought or the type of legal appeal being considered.

The United States wrote off Irans contention that the Security Council overstepped its legal boundaries by enacting the sanctions. The U.N. charter is perfectly clear on these issues, said Richard Grenell, spokesman for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations (Edith Lederer, Associated Press/Google News, March 27).

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China, Japan Prepare CW Disposal Plan

Details are being finalized on a plan to eliminate hundreds of thousands of Japanese chemical weapons abandoned in China at the end of World War II, the South China Morning Post reported today (see GSN, Sept. 28, 2007).

A Japanese official said, though, that an agreement might not be in the immediate offing. I didnt hear that there will be a conclusion soon, he said.

Under the tentative plan, recovery efforts would focus on between seven and 10 areas, with destruction in each sector taking between four and 10 years depending on the number of weapons that are recovered. Under the Chemical Weapons Convention, the two nations have until April 2012 to complete the project.

The number of abandoned weapons remains in dispute. It has previously been estimated at around 400,000, but the Morning Post reported that Japan has placed the number at 700,000 shells. China says there are 2 million metric tons of weapons dispersed among 40 sites in 15 provinces, according to the newspaper. It says the munitions have killed or injured more than 2,000 people.

Japan agreed in a 1999 memorandum of understanding to recover its aging chemical weapons by June 2007, but there was limited progress before that deadline.

One obstacle is determining which weapons are Japanese and which might have belonged to Russia or Chinese nationalists who retreated to Taiwan after communists took control of China in the 1940s, said one Japanese official. Japanese Defense Ministry records might help solve that question, the Morning Post reported (Bill Savadove, South China Morning Post, March 27).

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Bush, Putin to Discuss Missile Defense

U.S. President George W. Bush is scheduled to visit Russia early next month for talks on missile defense and other issues with President Vladimir Putin, the Washington Post reported (see GSN, March 26).

Im optimistic we can reach accord on very important matters, Bush said yesterday. I think a lot of people in Europe would have a deep sigh of relief if were able to reach an accord on missile defense. And hopefully we can.

The meeting is scheduled for April 6, following a NATO summit in Romania. Putin leaves office on May 7, after which he appears set to stay in government as Russian prime minister.

White House officials said the Bush-Putin meeting might not produce an agreement but said they hoped it would reduce tensions on the missile defense issue.

Russia has strenuously opposed U.S. plans to install 10 missile interceptors in Poland and a radar base in the Czech Republic. Moscow has said the system would undermine its strategic security and has questioned U.S. statements that its intention is to provide protection against Iranian missiles.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates visited Moscow last week to discuss measures intended to overcome Russian opposition to the plan. Further negotiations are being held this week in Washington (Peter Baker, Washington Post, March 27).

The proposed confidence-building measures include giving Russian officials access to the European sites and keeping the system nonoperational until there is proof of an Iranian missile threat to Europe, CNN reported.

The main issue there, is to find a way, in concrete terms, to reassure Russia that the radar and missile installation that is planned in Poland and the Czech Republic are  about potential threats coming to Europe, coming to Russia, if you will, from the Middle East, and are not aimed at Russia, national security adviser Stephen Hadley said yesterday (CNN, March 26).

The White House has expressed hope that deals could be finalized with Prague and Warsaw in coming months.

The new Polish government under Prime Minister Donald Tusk has appeared reserved about accepting the interceptors but seemed to move closer to agreement after receiving U.S. pledges of support for upgrading its military. However, there are still significant obstacles to the deal, the Federation of American Scientists said yesterday.

The proposal remains unpopular among the majority of Polish citizens  55 percent, according to one survey. They also believe the nation should receive additional benefits, such as visa waivers.

Warsaw must also be assured that its security is not damaged by the deal, the group said.

If Polish negotiators feel that the U.S. is not willing to invest enough into Polands anti-aircraft capabilities, or is unable to appease Russia and prevent her from targeting Poland with nuclear weapons, they may very well opt out of the deal, according to an analysis (Katarzyna Bzdak, Federation of American Scientists, March 26).

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U.S. Tightens Radioactive Material Purchase Rules

A panel of independent experts last week urged the federal government to implement stricter licensing rules for entities seeking to buy materials that could be used in a radiological weapon, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, March 18).

Last year, Government Accountability Office investigators used a front company to obtain a Nuclear Regulatory Commission license and order enough equipment to build a dirty bomb (see GSN, July 24, 2007). The probe of U.S. radioactive material regulations was requested by Senators Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and Norm Coleman (R-Minn.).

After reviewing the existing licensing process, the expert panel on March 18 called for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to conduct background checks on all license applicants, inspect their operating sites, and end its good faith presumption that potential purchasers have no destructive intent.

Commission spokesman Eliot Brenner said yesterday that the agency had implemented the changes before the panel reported its findings. We went from a trust-but-verify, to a no-more-Mr.-Nice-Guy attitude, he said.

In last years probe, Coleman said, the agency did not verify the front firms authenticity and licensed it to purchase radioactive cesium 137 and americium 241 in limited amounts. Auditors said they could have purchased enough of the materials for a bomb by duplicating the license and removing quantity restrictions (Frederic Frommer, Associated Press/Star Tribune, March 26).

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Colombia Recovers Uranium

Colombia has taken control of up to 66 pounds of uranium that one leader had seemingly linked to potential development of a radiological dirty bomb by leftist rebels, the Los Angeles Times reported today (see GSN, March 6).

Two former members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) last week delivered a sample of degraded uranium to authorities, the nations Defense Ministry said. The entire stash as of yesterday had been found near Bogota.

Colombia announced earlier this month that information on laptop computers recovered following a strike on a FARC site in Ecuador had indicated the rebel groups interest in buying uranium. In a speech before the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, Vice President Francisco Santos said that such material was the primary basis for generating dirty weapons of mass destruction and terrorism. He subsequently said he had not meant to indicate that the rebel group itself wanted to produce such a weapon.

One Western official also questioned whether the rebels had such intent. There is a bit less than meets the eye here, the official said.

The recovery of the uranium was not linked to the information on the laptop computers, the Defense Ministry said. The material is expected to be studied in order to determine its place of origin and how it might have been used, said Gen. Freddy Padilla, head of the Colombian armed forces (Chris Kraul, Los Angeles Times, March 27).

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