India and Pakistan Monday exchanged information on their nuclear facilities, according to the Washington Post. Meanwhile, tensions loomed over the two countries as they each moved military forces toward their common border, according to reports.
The exchange of nuclear facility data, which includes locations of nuclear installations, has been an annual practice since 1992, the Post reported. The exchange began under an agreement between the two countries that stipulated they would not attack each other’s nuclear facilities in the event of war. The recent information swap is seen as an effort to reduce tensions between the two countries since an attack by Islamic militants on the Indian Parliament on Dec. 13 (Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Washington Post, Jan. 2).
Pakistani Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar said his country’s list would likely not contain any new installations. “We have not undertaken construction of any new facilities this year,” Sattar said. “[India has] to provide a list. From that we have to see whether or not any additions were made to the old list” (K.J.M. Verma, Rediff.com/Nuclear Control Institute, Dec. 30).
Pakistani Military Moves
Pakistan’s military actions on its border with India included preparations to transport nuclear weapons out of storage sites, the Washington Times reported Monday.
Pakistan was preparing to move its Chinese-made M-11 missiles from a base near Sargodha, Pakistan, according to officials. The Times reported that Pakistan was also moving the equivalent of two armored brigades near the northern part of the border (Bill Gertz, Washington Times, Dec. 31).
“Pakistan does not seek any war, local or general, conventional or nuclear. Pakistan is for peace and for adherence to the norms of peaceful coexistence,” Sattar said. “Nuclear weapons are awful weapons and any use of these weapons should be inconceivable for any state” (Hong Kong AFP, Dec. 29, in FBIS-NES, Dec. 29).
Indian Military Moves
India last week deployed ballistic missiles and increased jet fighter patrols along its border with Pakistan, according to the Washington Post.
Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes confirmed that Indian missiles, including Russian-made medium-range missiles and Indian-made truck-launched missiles, were “in position.” The missile batteries were deployed due to recent moves by Pakistan, according to other Indian defense officials.
It is unknown whether the missiles along the India-Pakistan border are armed with nuclear weapons, the Post reported. “It is a very dangerous gray area,” said Uday Bhaskar, deputy director of the Institute for Defense Studies and Analysis in New Delhi. “The nuclear question mark has drastically raised the stakes of this confrontation.”
Some Indian officials have said that the military buildup on the border is more of an effort to force Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to crack down on Islamic militants in Pakistan. The increased Indian military presence may also be a move to force the United States into pushing Musharraf, according to Indian analysts.
Many Indian officials, however, do not think Musharraf will move against the militants to a great enough extent to please India, according to the Post. Therefore, the two countries may be heading to a military conflict, some Indian officials and analysts said.
“If nonmilitary measures do not yield any tangible results, the thinking is clear that [India] will have no other option but to apply military force,” said Brahma Chellaney, of the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi.
“If people in the West think this is all just for show, they’re making a grave mistake,” Chellaney said. “They should not assume that the Indian state does not have the stomach to confront Pakistan and to impose costs on them” (Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Washington Post, Dec. 27).
Indian Defense Minister Fernandes said there would not be a nuclear war between India and Pakistan, but that Pakistan would be destroyed if such a war occurred.
“Those who deal with [nuclear] weapons are sensible,” Fernandes told the Hindustan Times. “Pakistan can’t think of using nuclear weapons despite the fact they are not committed to the doctrine of no first use like we are,” he said. “We could take a [nuclear] strike, survive and then hit back. Pakistan would be finished” (Frontier Post, Dec. 31).
The Indian Army Medical Corps is ready in the event of war using weapons of mass destruction, according to Indian officials.
Recent events, including the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the recent anthrax attacks in the United States, gave the unit “the impetus to formulate new strategies to protect and treat the fighting troops from the devastating effects of nuclear, biological and chemical warfare,” said Director General Lt.-Gen. R.K. Jetley. “The training of medical personnel for efficient management of casualties in such a war scenario may require to be reinforced and reoriented” (The Asian Age, Dec. 30, in FBIS-NES, Dec. 30).
By Greg Seigle
Global Security Newswire
The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has been slow to overcome organizational problems and has made limited use of its authority as a semiautonomous agency within the Department of Energy, according to the General Accounting Office. NNSA officials defended their work and said they were working out the kinks of a new organization.
The two-year-old NNSA, which supports the transition of Russian nuclear facilities and scientists to civilian roles, has made strides, said Gary Jones, GAO’s director of resources and environment. In its task to correct long-standing problems within the Energy Department, however, the agency has yet to address important issues such as the division of responsibilities among offices within its headquarters and between headquarters and field offices, Jones said in a letter to two congressional representatives released Dec. 27. Click here to read the GAO correspondence.
NNSA planning, programming, budgeting and evaluation processes are also lagging, said the letter to Representatives Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) and Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.) of the House Armed Services Committee’s oversight panel on Energy Department reorganization. The processes might not be implemented by the 2004 budget cycle, already a year later than Congress mandated.
“We recognize that NNSA’s implementation … is an evolving process,” the GAO said. “However, other important, fundamental and long-standing issues—such as organizational roles and responsibilities, where we have previously made recommendations—remain un-addressed.
“We believe the best time to address such problems is when the new organization and systems are first being laid out and the momentum for change is at its highest,” the letter continued. “NNSA’s ability to recapture and build momentum in areas such as planning, programming and budgeting will be critical to whether it will be successful in correcting the long-standing management problems inherited from DOE.”
Officials at NNSA acknowledged the problems cited by the GAO but also noted that they encountered numerous hurdles that slowed their momentum, including the Sept. 11 terrorists attacks, a slow budget process for 2002, delayed confirmations of presidential appointments to key positions and significant institutional barriers to coordinating with other federal agencies and with various other offices in the Energy Department and its own administration.
Twice in the past year the GAO has issued reports criticizing NNSA. Because they are busy with ongoing operations—especially the implementation of the Nuclear Cities Initiative (see GSN, Dec. 21) and the Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention, two programs designed to ease the transition of Russia’s nuclear facilities and scientists to civilian work—NNSA officials said they failed “to see the value added by [GAO’s] latest effort.”
“We are consolidating functions where we can,” Steven Black, acting director of NNSA’s Office of Nonproliferation and International Security, told Global Security Newswire during a Dec. 19 interview. “There are a number of things that have been done … We took the GAO’s good advice to find ways to consolidate functions where we could.”
In the recent GAO letter, which is based on findings discovered between November 2000 and last month, the lawmakers cited various areas in which the administration needs improvement:
* While NNSA announced a new headquarters organization last May, the reorganization did not contain a clear definition of the roles and responsibilities of headquarters offices and did not address field office organization at all. NNSA, GAO noted, is working to solve these shortcomings.
* NNSA lost some momentum in 2001 as it reevaluated its efforts to create new planning processes. While the agency has decided to use processes modeled after those used by the Defense Department—ones that streamline efforts and work well when offices are fully staffed and funded—it may not have them ready in time for the 2004 budgetary cycle. Even if these practices are implemented in time, it remains to be seen whether they will effectively handle the agency’s needs.
* NNSA has firm plans to use only 100 of its 300 excepted service positions authorized by Congress. The administration does not have the coherent human resources and workforce planning strategies it needs if it is to develop and maintain a well-managed workforce over the long run.
* NNSA has determined that there is no need for it to have its own procurement regulations and has begun to address long-standing contract management problems through efforts to improve contractor oversight and program evaluation.
“While some would like to see more progress, we cannot and will not compromise the integrity nor the rigor of the procurement process for the appearance of short term change,” wrote Anthony Lane, NNSA’s associate administrator for management and administration, in response to the GAO assertions.
Destroying the United States would take only 124 nuclear weapons, and destroying Canada would take only 11, according to a new study by the Natural Resources Defense Council, which has developed a computer program to predict the number of nuclear weapons necessary to destroy a country. The council developed the software to raise questions about the large nuclear stockpiles the United States and Russia possess, according to the Ottawa Citizen.
The program was based on the concept of mutual assured destruction, known as MAD. Former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara defined MAD as the ability to kill 25 percent of a country’s population and destroy 50 percent of its industry with nuclear weapons. The theory holds that countries would not strike with nuclear weapons if they knew their opponent could strike back and destroy them.
Using that definition, a large number of nuclear weapons would do little to increase security, said Matthew McKinzie, a physicist who helped develop the computer program. “The first 11 weapons [used] on Canada kills 25 percent of the population … But 22 weapons would only kill 30 percent of the population,” he said.
Under the Canadian simulation, Canada’s major cities and military installations were attacked with 475-kiloton warheads. “If you take out Canada’s major centers, what is there left in terms of medical and rescue services, government, industry and other functions?” McKinzie said. “There is not enough to continue functioning as a country. For Canada, 11 weapons will do that … Why do we need several thousand deployed nuclear weapons when even a few hundred would assure an overwhelming loss of life?”
The program is similar to the highly secret U.S. Single Integrated Operational Plan, which projects the likely consequences of attacks. Developers of the National Resources Defense Council’s program used declassified U.S. documents, such as radioactive fallout projections and census data, to develop the program. McKinzie said he planned to eventually distribute the program to the public.
The program predicted it would take 51 weapons to destroy Russia, 368 to destroy China, 300 to destroy all NATO countries and as few as four to destroy small countries, such as Iraq or North Korea (David Pugliese, Ottawa Citizen, Jan. 2).
U.S. President George W. Bush announced last week that the United States would continue, and in some cases accelerate, cooperative nuclear nonproliferation programs in Russia. Bush would propose an overall increase in such programs in his next budget, White House officials said, despite earlier Bush administration criticism of the programs (Mike Allen, Washington Post, Dec. 28).
The administration plans to expand the Energy Department’s Material Protection, Control and Accounting program to help safeguard Russian weapon-grade nuclear material and the Energy Department’s Warhead and Fissile Material Transparency program (U.S. State Department fact sheet, Dec. 27). The administration would also expand the International Science and Technology Center—which helps transfer Russian weapons experts to nonmilitary work (see GSN, Nov. 19)—and efforts to help improve nuclear materials detection at Russian border posts (Allen, Washington Post, Dec. 28).
The administration also announced plans to restructure several programs, including transferring a project to support ending Russian production of weapon-grade plutonium from the Defense Department to the Energy Department. The White House said the Nuclear Cities Initiative would merge with the Initiative for Proliferation Prevention (U.S. State Department fact sheet, Dec. 27). Some administration officials had advocated canceling the Nuclear Cities Initiative, but Bush did not cut the program entirely (see GSN, Dec. 20).
The White House announced that the State and Energy Departments would search for new approaches to disposing of weapon-grade plutonium in Russia (see GSN, Nov. 26), a project with increasingly high costs and disagreements over disposal methods (Allen, Washington Post, Dec. 28). The Bush administration prefers a cheaper method of using plutonium in reactors as mixed oxide fuel rather than disposing of plutonium by vitrifying it with nuclear waste materials and storing it indefinitely, the New York Times reported (Elisabeth Bumiller, New York Times, Dec. 28).
Congress approved $120 million last month for Energy Department nonproliferation programs in Russia as part of a $286 million supplemental appropriations measure for nonproliferation programs, according to the Washington Post (see GSN, Dec. 20).
Experts’ Reaction
Several experts expressed approval of the decision to maintain the cooperative nonproliferation programs. Lawrence Korb of the Council on Foreign Relations said the Bush administration had previously said it supported cooperative efforts with Russia but proposed cuts in nonproliferation programs.
“Now they realize these are important programs that could keep nuclear material out of the hands of terrorists,” Korb said. “If these terrorists get hold of nuclear weapons, it will make Sept. 11 look like a day at the beach” (Allen, Washington Post, Dec. 28).
“I think it shows a fairly profound evolution of Bush administration views over the past year,” said Rose Gottemoeller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “They raised huge expectations early in the administration that they were going to slash and burn. I think they began to see the national security implications, and then after Sept. 11 it became untenable to cut the programs radically” (Bumiller, New York Times, Dec. 28).
U.S. taxpayers should pay for the programs “because the U.S. is at war with terrorism and this is part of the cost of fighting the war,” said John Hughes of the Desert News in an opinion piece in today’s Christian Science Monitor.
Hughes listed several incidents of attempts to smuggle or steal nuclear material from Russia. Russian authorities reported two recent cases of terrorists attempting to break into nuclear storage sites, and several Russians, including nuclear laboratory employees and sailors, have been arrested trying to sell or steal material.
“Isolated incidents? No, just a few of dozens documented by an official U.S. government task force,” Hughes said (John Hughes, Christian Science Monitor, Jan. 2).
Senior civilian U.S. Defense Department officials and the U.S. Air Force are fighting over whether to increase funding for new B-2 bombers, the Washington Times reported last week (see GSN, Dec. 11).
Civilian Defense Department officials, led by Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, want the air force to restart production of the B-2, according to the Times. Pentagon officials said the air force’s five-year plan has no funding for long-range bombers, even though U.S. President George W. Bush has called for weapons with global reach.
B-2s have gained more support, due in part to the expanded use of joint direct attack munitions (JDAMs), which allow bombers to conduct the same precision strikes as fighters, according to the Times. Although JDAMs are not as accurate as laser-guided weapons, they are still accurate within a few yards of a target and are unaffected by poor weather conditions. A B-2 bomber can carry up to 16 JDAMs, while the air force F-16 fighter can carry only two, the Times reported.
“Bombers have resurrected themselves,” said an air force source. The source added that the stealth capabilities of B-2s make it very useful against countries with more advanced air defenses, such as Iraq.
Air Force Secretary James Roche, however, opposes the production of new B-2s, the Times reported. A Pentagon official said Roche becomes “downright emotional” if the idea is mentioned. As an alternative to new B-2s, Roche has proposed the development of a “supercruise” bomber later in the decade, officials said.
The air force is concerned that any new B-2s would reduce funding for the F-22 Raptor stealth fighter, according to the Times. A plan under discussion among Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s staff is to reduce the F-22 order from 339 to 150, and to use the saved money to build new B-2s. The air force has some B-2 supporters, but they have said the funding should come from the U.S. Marines’ V-22 Osprey or the U.S. Army’s Commanche helicopter, instead of the F-22, according to the Times.
Pete Aldridge, the Pentagon’s acquisition chief, voiced his support for both the F-22 and the Joint Strike Fighter last week. “When we get the F-22 and the Joint Strike Fighter, we’ll have, with essentially all-stealth capability … the ability to just dominate the sky over any adversary,” Aldridge said (Rowan Scarborough, Washington Times, Dec. 26).
The first round of U.S-Russian talks to reduce offensive strategic weapons will be held Jan. 14-18 in Washington, the Russian news agency Interfax reported last week (see GSN, Dec. 18).
The U.S. and Russian delegations will agree “on the amount and time of the reduction, and will decide on the control and transparency of the process,” Russian sources said. The two countries may be able to draft an agreement on reductions before U.S. President George W. Bush’s trip to Moscow later this year, one of the sources said (Interfax, Dec. 27).
Richard Kelly Smyth, a former U.S. physicist charged with smuggling potential nuclear weapons components to Israel, last week pleaded guilty to two counts, according to the Associated Press (see GSN, Nov. 27).
Smyth pleaded guilty to making false statements or false documents by signing or approving invoices to send the components to Israel and to exporting the components without a license, the AP reported. In exchange, prosecutors agreed to dismiss 28 other charges against him. Smyth faces a maximum sentence of seven years in prison and a $110,000 fine.
Smyth was charged in 1985 with exporting the components, called krytrons, to Heli Corp. in Israel. Krytrons are small glass bulbs with a wide range of uses, including as triggers in nuclear weapons. Because of this, their export must first gain U.S. State Department approval, according to the AP. After Smyth’s indictment, Israel returned most of the krytrons and said they were not for use in nuclear weapons (Associated Press/Las Vegas Sun, Dec. 29).
“This is the kind of case that should be settled,” said Smyth’s defense attorney James Riddet. “My client is not in the greatest health. He’d like to put this behind him and end the uncertainty that faces him and his family” (David Rosenzweig, Los Angeles Times, Dec. 28).
North Korean nuclear energy officials left South Korea Sunday after touring nuclear facilities there for two weeks (see GSN, Dec. 21). The delegation of 20 North Koreans visited the Kori nuclear power station, nuclear reactors in Ulchin, the Korea Power Engineering Company in Yongin and the Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety in Taedok Science Town.
The officials visited Doosan Heavy Industries and Construction in Changwon, which is manufacturing parts for two light-water nuclear reactors to be built in North Korea (Seoul Yonhap, Dec. 30 in FBIS-EAS, Dec. 31). They also stopped at the headquarters of the main contractor for the reactor project, Korea Electric Power (BBC News/Nuclear Control Institute, Dec. 30).
The tour was part of a training agreement signed in October 2000 by North Korea and the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), an international organization that is building the reactors in exchange for a freeze of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. The two parties agreed that KEDO would train 530 North Korean technicians in North Korea in the first half of 2002, and 290 would also train in South Korea over the next two years, according to Yonhap (Seoul Yonhap, Dec. 28 in FBIS-EAS, Dec. 31).
Click here to read the training agreement.
Meanwhile, KEDO and the European Community agreed to renew the European Union’s membership in the organization, KEDO reported in December. The EU also agreed to continue its role on the KEDO executive board and to contribute about $18 million each year from 2001 to 2005 (KEDO release, Dec. 19).
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