Princeton University nonproliferation expert Frank von Hippel yesterday criticized Bush administration plans to promote nuclear power (Federation of American Scientists photo). Nuclear Power Program Boosts Proliferation Threat, Experts Argue By Chris Schneidmiller Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — A U.S. program to promote nuclear energy around the world without increasing the threat of proliferation would instead raise the likelihood that additional nations or terrorists might acquire a devastating weapon, three experts argued yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 26). The Energy Department unveiled the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership in 2006.  It now has 21 members, including all five recognized nuclear weapon states and nations such as Australia, Hungary, Jordan and Ukraine...Full Story

No Weapons Details in North Korean Nuclear Report North Korea is not expected to provide details of its atomic arsenal when it issues a long-awaited declaration of its nuclear programs, Agence France-Presse reported today (see GSN, June 23)...Full Story

Pine Bluff Facility Finishes VX Weapon Destruction The Pine Bluff Arsenal in Arkansas on Friday completed destruction of the deadly VX nerve agent it had held since the 1960s, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, May 6)...Full Story

	Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Funding Channels Aid Proliferation, Task Force Says The international community is failing to sufficiently police financial transactions that are helping arms dealers sell chemical, biological and nuclear weapons technologies, the intergovernmental Financial Action Task Force said in a report to be issued this week (see GSN, April 2). The 34-member group, established by the Group of Seven industrialized nations, indicated there is a need for increased national legislation against weapons proliferation and sanctions on violators, the Financial Times reported.  It studied the issue for a year before completing the report. Vincent Schmoll, who coordinates the task force’s efforts to track money laundering and terror financing developments, called financial networks that enable WMD proliferation “a serious problem.” “We have thought that it was vulnerability for a number of years.  This work seems to show that the vulnerability is there,” Schmoll said. The report outlines how weapon traffickers enlist special banking services, and calls on banks and governments to collect more intelligence on traffickers who often obscure their identities and those of their customers. The task force listed free-trade zones and transshipment hubs in the Netherlands, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates as sites that could serve as arms trafficking centers due to their relatively lax customs regulations.  However, the report does not name particular nations that are failing to sufficiently police WMD-linked funding channels (Michael Peel, Financial Times, June 23). Back to top

Nuclear Power Program Boosts Proliferation Threat, Experts Argue By Chris Schneidmiller Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — A U.S. program to promote nuclear energy around the world without increasing the threat of proliferation would instead raise the likelihood that additional nations or terrorists might acquire a devastating weapon, three experts argued yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 26). The Energy Department unveiled the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership in 2006.  It now has 21 members, including all five recognized nuclear weapon states and nations such as Australia, Hungary, Jordan and Ukraine. The intent is to provide participants with resources to meet their energy needs without giving them the tools to create nuclear weapons.  Supplier nations would provide other states with reactor fuel and then collect spent material for reprocessing so that it could be reused.  That, theoretically, would discourage customer countries from developing the fuel cycle that could power nuclear weapons or reprocessing technology to extract bomb-usable plutonium from spent reactor fuel. Partnering nations would also conduct research on new fuel-recycling technology that proponents believe would eliminate the need to separate pure plutonium and ultimately help draw down existing stocks of spent fuel and surplus plutonium. The program has found support from the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (see GSN, Sept. 17, 2007).  There are, however, a number of problems with this plan, critics said during a discussion on Capitol Hill. Three-fourths of nations with nuclear energy programs now store spent fuel rather than separating plutonium from the material for reuse, said Princeton University nonproliferation and arms control expert Frank von Hippel.  The GNEP program would promote separating material that could be diverted for weapons purposes far more easily than the highly radioactive, “self-protecting” spent material, he argued. The partnership’s technologies are also more expensive and dangerous than simply storing nuclear waste and could allow nations to lay the groundwork for a nuclear weapon program under the guise of cooperation, von Hippel said. “Aside from that it’s a great idea,” he said. Speakers found fault with the idea of reprocessing technology that would combine other chemical elements with plutonium to prevent its use in nuclear weapons.  Mixing plutonium with an element such as neptunium — also a fissile material — “does not significantly increase [the] barrier to theft or use in a nuclear bomb,” Allison Macfarlane, an environmental science and policy professor at George Mason University near Washington, D.C., said in her presentation. Plutonium combined with other transuranic elements would be only moderately more self-protecting than separated plutonium, von Hippel said. “The mix is more radioactive by almost a factor of 100 than the pure plutonium but it’s more than 100 times less radioactive than what the [International Atomic Energy Agency] considers self-protecting,” he said.  “You could separate the plutonium from this mix in a glove box.” The Energy Department said today in a statement that the program “seeks to develop worldwide consensus on enabling expanded use of economical, carbon-free nuclear energy to meet growing electricity demand.  This will use a nuclear fuel cycle that enhances energy security, while promoting nonproliferation.  It would achieve its goal by having nations with secure, advanced nuclear capabilities provide fuel services — fresh fuel and recovery of used fuel — to other nations who agree to employ nuclear energy for power generation purposes only.” Selling reprocessing capabilities has already proven something of a bust on the global stage, von Hippel said.  Thirteen nations that hold one-third of the world’s nuclear energy capacity chose not to renew reprocessing contracts for services provided by France, Russia or the United Kingdom.  Some nations, he said, are simply unlikely to forgo having their own advanced technology. The existing nuclear proliferation situation — assuming North Korea gives up its weapons and Iran never produces nuclear armaments — is manageable, said Henry Sokolski, head of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center.  He argued that the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership could contribute to a more dangerous arrangement. No fewer than 18 nations already intend by 2020 to join the ranks of the 31 nuclear-energy-producing nations, many of which at least considered developing weapons, Sokolski said.  Adding so many nations to the nuclear mix significantly increases the chances for a “strategic miscalculation” that could lead to what he termed a “Nuclear 1914” — referring to the year that World War I began. Even light-water power reactors, considered the least useful in producing weapon-grade plutonium, cannot be considered harmless and have been used as cover for weapons programs, Sokolski said.  Light-water reactors must be shut down and disassembled for access to spent fuel, which contains plutonium that is not “super optimal” for weapons.  However, the large facilities also produce massive amounts of material. “As Stalin would say, quantity has a quality all of its own,” Sokolski said.  Also, “these things can be operated to make very good material.  They don’t just make poor reactor-grade material.” A nation seeking a nuclear arsenal could use a small, hidden reprocessing plant to extract enough plutonium from spent light-water reactor fuel to produce 20 or more weapons each month, he said.  “You could build these facilities inside other facilities.” Sokolski dismissed the ability of the International Atomic Energy Agency or U.S. intelligence agencies to identify known or possible military nuclear efforts in a timely fashion.  Programs in Iran, Iraq, Libya North Korea and Taiwan all went undetected for some time, he said, also questioning the U.N. nuclear watchdog’s chances of preventing diversion of nuclear fuel. He offered several recommendations to offset this danger.  Reforms are necessary at the International Atomic Energy Agency, including mandatory near real-time surveillance at nuclear facilities and automatic penalties for nations that violate agency rules or the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.  He also argued against subsidizing “money losing [nuclear energy] endeavors” that move states toward weapons capabilities. The U.S. Government Accountability Office and the National Academy of Sciences have also weighed in with concerns about the nuclear energy partnership, Macfarlane said.  A panel from the science organization found last year there was insufficient need to justify “rapid commercial-scale deployment” of GNEP technology, which in any case was expensive and not yet ready for use, she said. Macfarlane and another panel member took an even stronger view, arguing that the program would not solve nuclear proliferation and waste issues and that the Energy Department itself was the “wrong agent for developing commercial technologies.” “There’s just no need for it right now,” she told Global Security Newswire. The panel’s report was “based on faulty premises that are inconsistent with the fuel cycle research and development (R&D) program actually being implemented by DOE,” the agency responded last year. “The report errantly assumes that DOE has preselected the separations technologies to be deployed and the scale of the facilities to be built.  A series of critical findings are based on these incorrect premises,” according to an Energy Department statement from October 2007. Congress has aired its own doubts during the funding process.  The Bush administration sought $405 million in this fiscal year but received only $179 million.  Lawmakers have already indicated they are prepared to make significant cuts to the more than $300 million request for fiscal 2009. Back to top       No Weapons Details in North Korean Nuclear Report North Korea is not expected to provide details of its atomic arsenal when it issues a long-awaited declaration of its nuclear programs, Agence France-Presse reported today (see GSN, June 23). “The weapons are to be determined at a subsequent phase.  The declaration, at this point, the purpose of it, is to list all of their nuclear materials and all their nuclear facilities and programs,” said U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, according to a spokeswoman at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. “The North Koreans acknowledged that we have to deal with the weapons, but not in this phase,” according to Hill. The nuclear declaration is required under the second phase of a 2007 agreement in which Pyongyang pledged to end its nuclear operations in exchange for a host of benefits from China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States. North Korea halted operations at its Yongbyon nuclear complex and is disabling three key nuclear facilities, including its sole operating reactor.  However, the denuclearization process has faltered this year amid U.S. claims that Pyongyang did not want to address the full scope of its nuclear activities. The two nations reportedly agreed in April that the regime would provide comprehensive details of its plutonium operations and “acknowledge” U.S. suspicions regarding uranium enrichment and nuclear proliferation activities. The declaration reportedly could arrive on Thursday, nearly six months after it was due. “We know the North Koreans have been themselves saying that this Thursday would be the date that they submit their declaration,” said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino.  “We will see if that actually happens — and if it does, it must be correct and verifiable” (Agence France-Presse I/iStockAnalyst, June 24). North Korea is expected to report holding 37 kilograms of weapon-usable material as part of the accounting of plutonium production and stockpiling at Yongbyon, AFP reported.  The United States has previously estimated that Pyongyang held a larger plutonium stockpile (Agence France-Presse II/Spacewar.com, June 24). “It will take many months to verify the amounts of fissile material,” Hill said in Beijing, following a meeting with Wu Dawei, the top Chinese negotiator to the six-party talks. After the declaration is issued, envoys from the negotiating nations would meet to map out work toward full nuclear dismantlement in North Korea, Hill said. “The six-party talks are coming up soon and we hope they move the process along and get us to the end goal here, which is denuclearization,” he said (Henry Sanderson, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, June 24). Once it has the declaration in hand, the Bush administration is expected to begin the process of removing North Korea from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. Japan today reaffirmed its hope that during this process Washington would not forget an issue crucial to leaders in Tokyo — the fate of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s.  Japan has refused to provide aid to North Korea and had expressed hope that the Stalinist state would remain on the U.S. list until the abduction issue was resolved. “The United States fully understands Japan’s position, although maybe they fully understand it in their own way,” said Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura. Komura said he planned to discuss the issue during a meeting Friday with visiting U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Rice said yesterday that “the United States will not set aside the abduction issue,” AFP reported. North Korea, which previously claimed that all surviving abductees had been returned to Japan, more recently said it would look again into the matter (Agence France-Presse III/Spacewar.com, June 24). Back to top       Port Operator Backs Global Cargo Scans A leading international port operator has endorsed the idea that all sea cargo can be scanned for nuclear materials without disrupting international trade, a concept opposed by the Bush administration, the Journal of Commerce reported yesterday (see GSN, June 13). U.S. law requires that all U.S.-bound cargo be screened for radiation at ports of origin by 2012, but the Homeland Security Department has argued that such a goal is unreachable, wasteful and ineffective. A pilot program run by port operator DP World, however, has demonstrated that all cargo can be screened without interfering with port traffic, according to a company official. DP World ran the program from August 2007 to May 2008 at two ports, one in Pakistan and one in the United Kingdom, using an Advanced Spectroscopic Portal scanner, a recent technology designed to replace existing radiation scanners (see GSN, March 5). “We captured 100 percent of all container traffic; not just going to the United States — all container traffic to be exported — through the radiation portal,” said DP World security director David Fairnie.  “It was successful, in our opinion, because the benchmark we used was whether it would impact our terminal operations, and our customers' and business partners' operations.  There was no impact.” He praised the new scanner’s reliability and its ability to ignore harmless radioactive materials that trigger older scanners’ alarms, forcing time-consuming inspections.  The pilot program experienced a 0.7 percent false-alarm rate, Fairnie said (R.G. Edmonson, Journal of Commerce, June 23). Back to top       Indian Decision Nears on U.S. Nuclear Deal The fate of a tentative U.S.-Indian nuclear trade agreement could hinge on a meeting tomorrow between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s representatives and his communist allies who oppose the deal, Reuters reported (see GSN, June 19). Four communist parties have threatened to withdraw their support for Singh’s ruling coalition, thus forcing early elections, if he moves to implement the trade deal.  The pact calls for India to purchase U.S. nuclear materials and technology while opening the nation’s civilian nuclear sector to international monitoring.  The communist critics have expressed concern that the deal creates excessive U.S. influence over Indian energy and military affairs. In meetings last week, Singh heard the views of other coalition partners as he tried to determine whether to press the trade deal and face elections before the end of the year.  Some of those partners urged him to hold off on the deal, fearing that high inflation could jeopardize the government’s ability to stay in power following new elections. Singh, however, might be hesitant to drop a deal which he has backed so strongly over the past three years.  He might instead be willing to test the communists’ will, Reuters reported. Publicly, ruling Congress party officials have avoided antagonizing the deal critics. “The prime minister has categorically stated that the nuclear deal is one important agenda, but the future of the government does not depend on the nuclear deal alone,” said party leader Veerappa Moily. One communist leader expressed confidence that Singh would not push for the trade deal. “At the moment, it seems unlikely that the government will risk their electoral prospects, especially keeping in mind the inflation," said communist leader Nilotpal Basu.  “There are differences on the deal even within the Congress, so they are unlikely to push ahead” (Krittivas Mukherjee, Reuters/Washington Post, June 24). Back to top       Iran Warns EU of Possible Sanctions Backlash Iran today denounced the European Union’s decision to impose new penalties on the nation for its pursuit of nuclear capabilities that could have weapons applications, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, June 23). "This illegal and contradictory approach of double standards … is meaningless and is strongly denounced," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said in a statement.  He said the penalties, aimed at individuals and businesses linked to Iran’s nuclear and missile programs, “will waste European opportunities and will not create a suitable atmosphere for solving the matter through diplomacy.” Iran maintains that its nuclear program is strictly intended to produce electricity (Agence France-Presse/Google News, June 24).  U.S. Assistant Treasury Secretary Daniel Glaser praised the new penalties, Reuters reported.  Washington in 2007 conducted an asset freeze of Iran’s Bank Melli similar to an EU sanction imposed yesterday. "Now that you have Europe really stepping up and trying to take tangible action, it really underscores the fact that it isn't just the U.S. that's doing it," Glaser said.  “I’m optimistic that we're going to be able to find traction in the Gulf and in Asia” to further isolate Iran economically, Glaser said. Iranian financial analyst Saeed Laylaz said the new EU sanctions against Bank Melli would raise the price of goods in Iran.  “Its impact (will be) more expensive imports,” he said. Despite the new sanctions, EU powers said they were still prepared for negotiations on a proposed package of incentives Iran would receive for halting its uranium enrichment program (Mark John, Reuters, June 23). Meanwhile, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said yesterday that France and the European Union share Israel’s concern about Iran’s nuclear program, the Associated Press reported. “If Iran develops nuclear weapons, it’s unacceptable to our country,” Sarkozy said in a speech to Israeli lawmakers. In the past, the French president has said continued diplomacy is the key to preventing Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon or an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.  Either situation would amount to a “catastrophe,” he said (Associated Press/PR-inside, June 23). Back to top       German Critics Demand Removal of U.S. Nukes German opposition politicians have called on the United States to remove its nuclear weapons from their nation, citing security weaknesses identified by a recent U.S. Defense Department review, Agence France-Presse reported yesterday (see GSN, June 19). The study, triggered by nuclear security lapses in the United States, found that safeguards for U.S. weapons stored in Europe did not meet all Pentagon standards. “The nuclear weapons are a hangover from the Cold War and must go," said Guido Westerwelle, the head of the liberal opposition Free Democrats.  “If there are any security risks, this is one more reason to remove all nuclear weapons that were kept in Germany for tactical reasons” (Agence France-Presse/Google News, June 23). Germany’s leadership, however, defended the U.S. nuclear presence. “We cannot do without them, as long as there are nuclear weapons in the world,” said Eckart von Klaeden, foreign affairs spokesman for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling party.  “They protect us, too” (Michael Hoffman, Air Force Times, June 23). Back to top

Man Denies Ricin Possession A 52-year-old man has told Irish authorities that he does not know how a contact lens case found to contain the lethal toxin ricin ended up in his prison cell, the Irish Times reported today (see GSN, June 23). Essam Eid is being tried on charges that he accepted a contract from Sharon Collins of Ennis, Ireland, to kill her partner and the man’s two sons.  The Egyptian native allegedly manufactured ricin in his Nevada home as a possible means of carrying out the killings. A chemical analysis laboratory tested samples taken from the lens case, which was recovered during a search of Eid’s cell at Limerick Prison.  Microbiologist Emma Stubberfield testified that one sample produced a weak positive for ricin while a second more strongly indicated the presence of the toxin. Stubberfield said the test is a reliable indicator for the presence of ricin, but noted that certain other substances can create a false positive reading. Eid told police he did not use contact lenses and suggested the case was planted, one detective said. Police arrested Eid after Robert Howard’s business was burglarized in September 2006.  He had allegedly planned to kill Howard and his sons in August or September of that year, but the reported plot came apart without any harm to the intended victims (Irish Times, June 24). Back to top

Pine Bluff Facility Finishes VX Weapons Destruction The Pine Bluff Arsenal in Arkansas on Friday completed destruction of the deadly VX nerve agent it had held since the 1960s, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, May 6). The message “long time coming” was written on the last VX-filled land mine before it was sent down a conveyor belt to be incinerated.  The Pine Bluff facility once held more than 9,000 VX land mines, along with tens of thousands of rockets and other chemical weapons. "Those weapons have been eliminated and they are gone," said Army project manager Mark Greer.  "It's history.  Literally, they are history." VX gas acts against the nervous system, causing involuntary muscle spasms and potentially fatal choking if inhaled.  For years, the 10 counties neighboring the facility maintained evacuation plans in case an accident took place at the site involving the lethal agent. The disposal plant has already destroyed the full Pine Bluff stockpile of the nerve agent sarin. The mustard agent that remains at the facility poses little danger by comparison because it is stored in bulk containers rather than munitions, said Steve Lowrey of the Pine Bluff Chemical Activity office. “There's no explosives associated with it like a weapon to help disperse it into the atmosphere," Lowrey said.  "The only thing you'd be looking at is evaporation from what would relatively be a minor leak. … The actual area for most events would probably never leave post." The 725 workers who destroyed the VX weapons are now set to prepare the disposal facility to destroy the mustard agent, said David Reber, Pine Bluff general manager for Army contractor URS Corp. The mustard incineration is expected to take about three years and final cleanup an additional two years, Reber said (Jon Gambrell, Associated Press/Lexington Herald-Leader, June 24). More than 85 percent of the U.S. stockpile of VX has been destroyed following completion of work at Pine Bluff, the U.S. Army said.  The nerve agent is still held at four chemical weapons storage sites (U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency release, June 23). Back to top

About Newswire  |  Contact National Journal  |  Re-Use Guidelines

© Copyright 2008 by National Journal Group, Inc. The material in this section is produced independently for NTI by National Journal Group, Inc. Any reproduction or retransmission, in whole or in part, is a violation of federal law and is strictly prohibited without the consent of the National Journal Group, Inc. All rights reserved.