Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh narrowly won a parliamentary vote of confidence today, keeping alive his effort to enable the nation to purchase nuclear technology abroad, Reuters reported (see GSN, July 21).
The vote was forced by the withdrawal from Singh’s coalition of several parties critical of a nuclear trade deal he has pursued with the United States. That agreement would open the door for international inspectors to monitor India’s civilian sector and would allow nuclear exporters to set some conditions of supply on their sales to India. Singh survived the critics’ withdrawal by signing up replacement political support, and the lower house of parliament today voted 275-256 to maintain Singh’s government, parliamentary speaker Somnath Chatterjee announced. The voting session was not without incident, however, as opposition politicians accused Singh supporters of trying to bribe some lawmakers to abstain from the vote. In addition, several seriously ill members were transported from hospitals, and some jailed lawmakers were granted temporary releases, Reuters reported (Surojit Gupta, Reuters I, July 22). Some opposition lawmakers interrupted today’s proceedings when they displayed bundles of cash that they said had been offered as bribes, according to Reuters. Bharatiya Janata Party leader Lal Krishna Advani alleged that three members had been offered a total of $235,000 to refrain from voting. The ruling Congress Party denied the allegation. “This is all a drama, and it has been planted deliberately by the people who know they have lost the vote," said party spokesman Ashwini Kumar. “We are seriously looking into the allegations but the opposition knows we will win so they are resorting to such activities” (Bappa Majumdar, Reuters II/National Post, July 22).
Elaine M. Grossman
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — The top U.S. nuclear weapons commander, Gen. Kevin Chilton, warned today that the nation should not rule out the possibility of resuming explosive nuclear testing to ensure the reliability of the U.S. strategic arsenal (see GSN, June 26, 2007). President Bill Clinton signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996, but the U.S. Senate later rejected the pact, and the United States is now one of just nine nations preventing the treaty from entering into force (see GSN, Sept. 18, 2007). The others include China, Iran and North Korea. The United States last conducted a nuclear test in 1992, after which President George H.W. Bush called for a moratorium. “I support not wanting to test,” said Chilton, who heads U.S. Strategic Command in Omaha, Neb. However, “I also support the right of the United States to change their mind on this issue, should it become decided that [it] is absolutely essential to secure our safety and security. And the protocol of the convention allows that.” Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama (Ill.) has said he would make ratification of the test ban treaty a priority. His opponent, Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.), has pledged to continue the moratorium and take a fresh look at ratification, which he initially opposed in 1999 (see GSN, May 28). Thanks to a Stockpile Stewardship Program overseen by the National Nuclear Security Agency that monitors the stockpile without explosive tests, Chilton said he can certify today that the U.S. nuclear arsenal is reliable (see GSN, May 19). However, the Air Force general expressed concern that a time would come when confidence in one or more “families” of weapons in the arsenal would diminish, perhaps due to the discovery of a serious problem. It could be that the prospects for fixing such a problem without explosive testing would be dim, he said. Nuclear weapons currently fielded are “all well past” their 15-year design lives, Chilton said at a breakfast speech sponsored by the National Defense University Foundation and the National Defense Industrial Association. “They’re not static. When they’re sitting on the shelf, they’re actually little chemistry experiments that are cooking away.” Gradual degradation of the chemicals inside an atomic weapon can “affect the non-nuclear components that are associated [with] — and are absolutely critical to — the function of the weapon system,” he said. Thus, Chilton said, “I sense there’s a cliff out there someplace, and I don’t know how close I am to the edge of that cliff.” “It sounds like he has a little commitment phobia,” said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association. “The treaty does provide for withdrawal if a state determines it’s in its supreme national interest to do so.” He also argued that the United States is bound by the treaty because Clinton signed it, even without full ratification. The Bush administration has proposed undertaking a program to develop a new nuclear weapon — the Reliable Replacement Warhead — that might offer higher confidence in the absence of underground tests. However, in the wake of congressional action to deny the Bush administration requests for RRW funds in fiscal year 2009, Chilton stopped short of wedding himself to that program (see GSN, July 10). He did reiterate more broadly his past support for renovating the U.S. arsenal with a new warhead that, like the RRW concept, would offer increased reliability, safety, security and maintainability compared to today’s weapons. The development of a new warhead with such features, which the administration has said it could field without explosive testing, could ease reliability concerns down the road, Chilton suggested. Asked if he would support the test ban agreement if Congress offered an “iron-clad” commitment to field the Reliable Replacement Warhead, Chilton stood his ground on the testing issue. “I’m not a political person in that regard,” the general said. “However, I would never want to trade away our ability to make a decision to have to test, should we decide we need that. I wouldn’t do that as a negotiating [point] for funding support for something that’s as critical for the defense of the United States of America.” Kimball took issue, though, with the Strategic Command leader’s dire warnings about degradation in the nuclear arsenal. “I find it highly irresponsible for Gen. Chilton to be making the assertion that one or more types of nuclear weapons in the arsenal are headed for a catastrophic reliability failure,” he told Global Security Newswire. “There is no evidence that has been presented to the Congress in classified or unclassified form that backs up that assertion.” Instead, Chilton has cited a vague “feeling” of uneasiness to justify a “huge investment” in modernizing the U.S. stockpile, according to the critic. “That is not a sound basis upon which to make far-reaching policy decisions,” Kimball said. Today, Chilton also countered critics who contend that the development of a new U.S. nuclear warhead could make it harder for Washington to limit the proliferation of atomic weapons around the world. “We have reduced our deployed weapons from … 10,000 to [Moscow Treaty levels of] 1,700 to 2,200. Did that discourage Iran? Did that discourage North Korea? Did that discourage Pakistan?” Chilton asked. “Countries who want to develop nuclear weapons will do so for their own interests, independent of our activities to sustain our nuclear deterrent.” Conversely, he said, were the reliability of the U.S. nuclear arsenal called into question, allies that come under Washington’s “umbrella” deterrent might decide to develop nuclear weapons of their own. “Do you think if there became any doubt of the reliability or the maintainability or sustainability of the U.S. nuclear deterrent, do you think Japan and South Korea might take a different tack as to whether or not they want to field a nuclear weapon?” Chilton asked. “I think the answer is yes. I think failing to sustain our deterrent and failing to sustain our umbrella will encourage proliferation around the planet.” Kimball debated Chilton’s assertion on this point, as well, noting that these Washington allies have actually pressed the United States to ratify the test ban treaty.
By Chris Schneidmiller
Global Security Newswire
BARCELONA, Spain — Nuclear forensics is a bit like the work done by the investigators of “CSI,” except the substance in question is not blood but potentially dangerous radioactive material, specialists in the field said yesterday (see GSN, June 20). Speakers made several references to the U.S. television crime drama during a panel discussion at the 2008 Euroscience Open Forum, highlighting the similarities and differences between their science and that of their fictional counterparts. Nuclear forensics employs trained personnel and highly sophisticated technology to help determine the origin of nuclear and radioactive substances that are seized from smugglers or otherwise discovered in an unexpected location. The answers lie in the characteristics of the item itself. “Identifying the place of theft or diversion is key to preventing future thefts or diversions,” said panel moderator Gabriele Tamborini, press officer for the European Commission’s Institute for Transuranium Elements. “Our scientists are working like CSI detectives, combining their skills in the field of nuclear forensics to combat the threat of nuclear terrorism.” The International Atomic Energy Agency from 1993 to 2007 recorded more than 1,300 cases of lost, discovered or seized nuclear and radioactive material. In 16 cases dating back to 1992, authorities recovered weapon-grade material, Tamborini said. The number of identified cases increased through much of this decade until last year, though one speaker cautioned that much of that could be due to better reporting by nations that participate in the IAEA illicit trafficking database. Roughly 10 cases annually in recent years have involved actual nuclear material. There is no way to know how many cases went unreported, said Klaus Mayer, head of nuclear forensics at the institute, a German-based branch of the European Commission’s Joint Research Center. “Obviously what we see is the tip of the iceberg but we don’t know what is hidden,” he said. Mayer discussed one recent case to illustrate the forensics work of the institute. It began when German authorities in 2007 recovered 14 uranium pellets from a garden outside a house in the town of Lauenforde (see GSN, March 2, 2007). “The questions that arise in such a case are … how did the material get there, where did it come from, what was the intended use of the material initially and by the person who took it there, and how long has the material been around?” Mayer said. “This is the set of questions that is asked every time nuclear material pops up in a garden, at an airport, at the border crossing station, wherever.” It takes longer than a 45-minute television episode to determine the answer, Mayer said. Also, much of the work happens in a laboratory rather than at the scene of a crime. The institute received the fuel pellets from Lauenforde late on Friday and began its examination the following Monday. Forensics specialists began with a visual inspection of the pellets and took measurements to confirm that they were identical. That was followed by chemical analysis of one item, showing that the pellet was enriched to 3.5 percent uranium 235, which is typical for material to be used as reactor fuel. A battery of additional tests proved that the uranium was particularly pure, a clue to identifying the production facility; that the pellets were marked with numbers and had a particular geometry, providing information on the type of reactor at which they were to be introduced; and that all 14 pellets had imperfections, indicating that they would have been discarded without being used. By comparing the clues gleaned from the items to information in the institute’s database on uranium fuel pellets, investigators were able to identify a German fuel fabrication facility operated by industrial giant Siemens as the “unambiguous” source of the garden material, Mayer said. The diversion would have occurred at the point at which quality control rejected the pellets, which tests showed had been produced in early 1991, Mayer said. How the pellets ended up in a German garden was beyond the scope of the institute’s research, but Mayer briefly explained that the homeowner apparently acquired them in a “drug exchange.” More importantly for the institute, the Siemens plant had been made aware of the diversion of material and could take steps to ensure it would not happen again. “You don’t want these thefts or diversions to be repeated in the future,” Mayer said. In another case, the institute was able to show that 300 grams of a plutonium-uranium powder mix seized in 1994 at the Munich Airport had originated in Russia, Mayer said. The institute has also sought to help police by developing a “dedicated glove box” that would allow investigators to collect fingerprints from items contaminated by radiation without risking exposure. Development is under way for procedures that would allow for safe DNA sampling under those circumstances, Mayer said. While nuclear forensics follows a nuclear trail from its end to the beginning, the International Atomic Energy Agency works to ensure that nothing illicit is occurring at points of origin within its member states. The goal of the safeguards program is to ensure that IAEA member states are providing accurate declarations of their nuclear activities and stockpiles, and that there are no undeclared operations taking place or materials being produced, said senior safeguards analyst Diane Fischer. She likened trying to discover evidence of secret activity involving microscopic material to trying to find a particular type of jelly bean among hundreds or thousands of jelly beans spread across all eight halls of the conference center in Barcelona. “You can imagine this is a pretty daunting task. It’s going to take a lot of time and you don’t ever know when to stop,” Fischer said. “This is what we face every single day when we ask our laboratories to analyze and look for microscopic particles of uranium and plutonium on our swipe samples.” Those cotton swipes, applied directly by IAEA safeguards personnel to equipment in nuclear facilities, can tell the agency whether nuclear material is uranium or plutonium, whether it has been irradiated and whether it is weapon-grade, Fischer said. It can be a tricky process — sometimes agency staffers are faced with rooms that have been emptied of equipment or facilities that have been demolished, leaving them to determine the best remaining source for swipe material. Samples are shipped for analysis at an IAEA laboratory near Vienna, Austria, along with 14 partner facilities in the Finland, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States and other nations. There, they undergo testing by highly sensitive techniques to detect uranium or plutonium. All findings must be confirmed by two laboratories. “Unlike CSI, when a piece of paper rolls off your machine, you don’t look at it and say, ‘Oh my God, there’s HEU from some country,” Fischer said. Instead, the results are studied and evaluated alongside the state declarations regarding their nuclear activities, inspectors’ reports, publicly available information and other data to achieve a clear picture of a nation’s atomic operations, she said. The ultimate goal is to ensure those activities are peaceful.
Russia might place nuclear-capable strategic bombers in Cuba if the United States goes through with a plan to deploy missile defenses in Eastern Europe, Izvestia reported yesterday. "While [the United States is] deploying the missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic, our strategic bombers will already be landing in Cuba," said an anonymous air force official. A Russian Defense Ministry spokesman neither confirmed nor denied the report, but Russian leaders have made calculated leaks to Izvestia in the past, the Washington Post reported. The newspaper did not specify whether Russia would establish a Cuban airbase for its Tu-95 and Tu-160 bombers or just place them on the island temporarily. The long-range aircraft can reach U.S. territory from Russia. One independent Russian analyst played down comparisons between the reported Russian threat and the Cuban missile crisis, a 1962 nuclear standoff between the Cold War superpowers. "It's very silly psychological warfare," military expert Alexander Golts said. "[Russian Prime Minister Vladimir] Putin and [President Dmitry] Medvedev are very militant in words but very cautious in practical issues. They have not taken any step that can be seen as a real threat to the West, and I cannot see any reason to raise this threat against the U.S." However, he added that the report would look “like a repetition” of the Cuban missile crisis if Russia acts on the threat (Peter Finn, Washington Post, July 22).
The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee has endorsed a $16 million funding increase for the International Atomic Energy Agency, U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) announced yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 27). If passed into law, the bill would boost Washington’s voluntary contribution to the U.N. nuclear watchdog in fiscal 2009. “These additional funds will expand and accelerate the IAEA's efforts to assist countries with securing nuclear materials while helping upgrade technical analysis of samples obtained during inspections,” Senator Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) said in a statement. Senators Hagel, Obama and Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) requested a $10 million increase in IAEA funding in a March letter to the committee’s chairman and ranking Republican (U.S. Senator Barack Obama release I, July 21). Obama, the presumptive Democratic candidate for the U.S. presidency, called last week for doubling the agency’s budget. “The IAEA is understaffed and under-resourced at a time when demand for its expertise are growing,” says a campaign fact sheet on the candidate international security views (see GSN, July 16). Obama would “work to double the IAEA budget in the next four years (increasing the U.S. annual share to about $225 million). He will press countries to adopt the "Additional Protocol" — which grants the IAEA the right to conduct more intrusive inspections, including at undeclared facilities — and seek agreement among members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group not to transfer nuclear technology to Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty countries that have not adopted the Additional Protocol,” the fact sheet says (Obama release II, July 16).
The Y-12 nuclear weapons facility in Tennessee has reopened an apprenticeship program aimed at replacing retiring members of the plant’s 4,500-member staff, the Knoxville News-Sentinel reported yesterday (see GSN, July 1). The program was discontinued in the late 1970s and ran only briefly around the early 1990s. It has resumed because up to half of the workforce is now eligible for retirement at the facility, which builds uranium parts for every U.S. nuclear warhead and holds much of the country’s weapon-grade uranium. More than 2,600 people have applied this year for 50 positions available at the plant, where they would train for four years as electricians, technicians, carpenters and in other trades. They would be cleared to receive security clearances while working in unrestricted areas of the facility. "If we hire at the rate of 50 a year, it will take about 10 years to get our work force fully self-sustainable," said Bill Klemm, vice president of the plant’s administrative contractor Babcock & Wilcox Technical Services. Plant officials are examining applications and plan to begin recruiting workers shortly (Frank Munger, Knoxville News-Sentinel, July 21).
At least two people were killed yesterday in crash of a U.S. B-52 strategic bomber into the Pacific Ocean off the island of Guam, and no survivors have yet been found, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, July 21). The Air Force yesterday recovered the remains of two crew members near the crash site. "We've seen fuel in the water, oil slicks, some pieces of what look like a plane. This is right within the area where we had planned our searches," said Air Force spokesman Lt. John Titchen. "We are now planning our searches to include wind and water current, any kind of drift that may happen to someone in the water." "We recognize, however, that the longer this search continues the less likelihood there is that we'll find survivors," he said. The search has been conducted using three helicopters, two F-15 fighter jets, a destroyer vessel and a Navy P-3 Orion maritime patrol aircraft that had flown from Japan. The Air Force now has 93 remaining B-52 bombers (Jaymes Song, Associated Press/Google News, July 22).
A pair of U.S. officials tapped to lead the Air Force today called on the service to restore its reputation following two nuclear-weapon mismanagement incidents disclosed in the last year, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, June 9). "I believe the most urgent tasks for the new leaders are to steady this great institution, restore its inner confidence … and rebuild its external credibility," acting Air Force Secretary Michael Donley said at his Senate confirmation hearing. After meeting with top Air Force officials, Donley said, they are "ready to put the difficulties of the past few months behind them … to learn the appropriate lessons from these experiences and to move forward." Gen. Norton Schwartz, the candidate for Air Force chief of staff, attended the hearing with Donley. The two men would succeed former Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne and Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley, who resigned last month at the request of U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates (see GSN, June 6). The move followed the March discovery that the Air Force had shipped nuclear missile parts to Taiwan in 2006 (see GSN, March 25) and an August incident in which Air Force personnel mistakenly transferred six nuclear weapons across the country (see GSN, May 30; Pauline Jelinek, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, July 22).
| 
Back to top
