By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — The world entered a new era of proliferation last year, one with intensified demand for weapons of mass destruction and new sources of key technologies, CIA Director George Tenet testified yesterday. The international consensus on preventing proliferation, he said, is “weakening.”
“More has changed on nuclear proliferation over the past year than on any other issue,” he said at an annual hearing before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on the subject of global threats (see GSN, Feb. 11).
“We have entered a new world of proliferation,” he said.
He predicted the trend would continue, as nations seek nuclear weapons for deterrence against perceived threats from larger powers and potential regional adversaries also seeking nuclear weapons.
“The desire for nuclear weapons is on the upsurge,” he said.
Tenet said also chemical and biological warfare programs are maturing and becoming less reliant on foreign suppliers, complicating U.S. monitoring efforts.
“Countries are more and more tightly integrating both their BW and CW production capabilities into apparently legitimate commercial infrastructures, further concealing them from scrutiny,” he said.
Critics charged that Tenet is overstating a proliferation trend that has been in existence for decades.
“The disservice was I think Tenet’s aggregating these threats that are totally different and have deep historic roots and making them seem like a modern, coherent movement,” said Jack Mendelsohn, a former State Department arms control official.
“This plays into the hands of the administration admirably, in saying the world is a more dangerous place and we need to go out there and go after everybody. It justifies in a large sense their aggressive unilateral policies,” he said.
New Trends
While over the past 60 years, key nuclear technologies have been retained by only a few states, Tenet said, “in the vanguard of this new world, we are knowledgeable about nonstate purveyors of WMD materials and technology.”
“Such nonstate outlets are increasingly capable of providing technology and equipment that previously could only be supplied by countries with established capabilities,” he said.
At the same time, Tenet said, the “international nonproliferation consensus” has “continued weakening.”
“Control regimes, like the NPT [Nuclear Nonproliferation] Treaty, are being battered by developments such as North Korea’s withdrawal from the NPT and its open repudiation of other agreements,” he said.
Smaller states will seek nuclear weapons as deterrence against threats from more powerful countries he said.
“The example of new nuclear states that seem able to deter threats from more powerful states simply by brandishing nuclear weaponry will resonate deeply among other countries that want to enter the nuclear weapons club,” he said.
Furthermore, the neighbors of states seeking nuclear weapons may also be compelled to do so, he said.
“The domino theory of the 21st century may well be nuclear. With the assistance of proliferators, a potentially wider range of countries may be able to develop nuclear weapons by leapfrogging the incremental pace of weapons programs in other countries,” he said.
U.S. Policies
While acknowledging North Korea’s breakout behavior, Bush administration critics have charged that the president’s own high-profile policies have contributed to proliferation, by causing some developing states to question their security.
These policies include the labeling Iran, Iraq and North Korea as an “axis of evil,” developing a new concept of pre-emptive war absent proof of an imminent threat, threatening Iraq with military action over its suspected weapons of mass destruction programs, and opposing or rejecting international arms control treaties or proposals that constrain U.S. military power.
“It seems that they [nations suspected of developing weapons of mass destruction] have probably had an impetus recently, and that impetus is that they see those U.S. policies as highly provocative,” Mendelsohn said.
The Bush administration has indicated those countries are considered a military challenge.
“We must be prepared to stop rogue states and their terrorist clients before they are able to threaten or use weapons of mass destruction against the United States and our allies and friends,” said an administration national security strategy document released last year (see GSN, Sept. 23, 2002).
Joseph Cirincione, director of the Nonproliferation Project of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the administration’s policies regarding international nonproliferation regimes have also affected the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
He cited the administration’s refusal to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, its suggestions the United States might use nuclear weapons first despite previous assurances to the contrary, its withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and “the overall ideology of the administration that holds treaties in very low esteem.”
“There is no question that North Korean withdrawal [from the NPT] is a crisis, but by far the biggest battering ram has been wielded by the United States itself,” he said.
Mendelsohn said, however, that the roots of the North Korean, Iranian and Iraqi nuclear weapons programs differ and they predate the current global security environment.
“These countries have for various reasons, for two decades, been in pursuit of these weapons,” he said.
Cirincione took issue with Tenet’s comments on “nonstate purveyors” of WMD technology, saying the phrase was misleading.
“Of course its individual companies that are selling nuclear technologies to other states, it’s always been that way,” he said.
“This phrase, ‘nonstate actors,’ makes it seem as though it’s terrorist groups, or outside of state control, which isn’t true. By phrasing it this way, he acts as if therefore states can have no control over them, as if they are out of legal, diplomatic control. … In sum, this is a justification of the use of military force as an instrument of choice to solve proliferation problems,” Cirincione said.
Proliferators
In prepared testimony, Tenet described in greater detail the status of WMD proliferation in a number of countries.
He noted changes over the past year in the status of North Korea’s suspected nuclear weapons program
“This includes developing a capability to enrich uranium, ending the freeze on its plutonium production facilities, and withdrawing from the Nonproliferation Treaty,” he said.
If, “as seems likely,” North Korea decides to reprocess spent nuclear reactor fuel in its possession, it may be able to derive sufficient plutonium for several additional weapons, he said, and noted continued North Korean proliferation of complete ballistic missile systems, production facilities and key technologies.
“Although [President Kim Jong Il] presumably calculates the North’s aid, trade, and investment climate will never improve in the face of U.S. sanctions, and perceived hostility, he is equally committed to retaining and enlarging his nuclear weapons stockpile,” he said.
Tenet expressed renewed concern about the Libya’s suspected interest in acquiring chemical weapons.
He charged that Chinese firms remain key suppliers of ballistic and cruise missile-related technologies to Pakistan, Iran and several other countries.
He said, on a positive note, that Russia has cut back on sensitive nuclear fuel-cycle assistance to Iran, having reexamined at least some aspects of that cooperation.
Nevertheless, Iran continues to pursue nuclear weapons, and is “moving toward self-sufficiency on its BW and CW programs.”
No Iranian government, he said, “regardless of its ideological leanings, is likely to willingly abandon WMD programs that are seen as guaranteeing Iran’s security,” he said.
India and Pakistan continue to develop and produce nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them, he said.
New Views on Missile Threats
Tenet also presented a new, more urgent assessment than in previous years of potential long-range ballistic threats posed by North Korea, Iran and Iraq.
He said the United States faces a “near term” threat from North Korea and “over the next several years” could face a similar threat from Iran and possibly Iraq.
In his testimony last year, Tenet recounted an intelligence community estimate the United States would most likely face intercontinental ballistic missile threats from North Korea, Iran, and possibly Iraq, by 2015.
France, with Russian and German support, offered the U.N. Security Council a detailed plan yesterday outlining new measures to expand and strengthen the weapons inspection regime in Iraq, according to the New York Times (see GSN, Feb. 11).
The French plan calls for tripling the number of inspectors now operating in Iraq and increasing aerial surveillance flights as well. The plan does not, however, include any mention of inspectors being supported by U.N. peacekeepers, a measure that had been discussed earlier.
“The idea is to make sure that the present system submits the Iraqi authorities to continued pressure,” the French document says. “Our approach is based on the need to compel Iraq to cooperate by taking the peaceful approach of intrusive inspections,” it adds.
France has proposed to strengthen the security units that work with inspectors, so that they can place troops at suspect Iraqi sites and prevent them from being tampered with before inspectors arrive, the Times reported (Preston/Weisman, New York Times, Feb. 12). The numbers of technical support personnel and translators fluent in Arabic should also be increased, according to the French plan. It also envisions the creation of mobile customs teams to monitor the flow of goods into and out of Iraq, as well as an office in western Iraq to act as a base for such teams, according to Time (Frank Pellegrini, Time, Feb. 12).
The French proposal calls for the heads of the inspections teams, chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix and International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei, to appoint a permanent inspections chief to be based in Baghdad and to create a full list of remaining disarmament tasks, according to the New York Times.
“It is important to push the Iraqis up against a wall and not leave them any way out regarding questions which they must answer,” the French plan says.
U.S. Officials Meet With Blix
U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and John Wolf, assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation, met with Blix yesterday and urged him to strongly criticize Iraq in his Friday report to the Security Council. During the meeting, Rice told Blix that time was running out for inspections, according to Bush administration officials.
Rice refused to set a deadline for the end of inspections, but said, “At some point it will become obvious that it’s time for them to go,” an administration official said.
U-2 Flights
Meanwhile, a translation of a letter delivered by Iraqi officials to Blix and ElBaradei Monday appears to say that Iraq has put a number of preconditions on any reconnaissance flights by U-2 high-altitude aircraft, according to the New York Times (see GSN, Feb. 10). Iraq’s U.N. Ambassador Mohammed al-Douri had said that Iraq had given permission for the flights to begin without conditions. The letter, however, says that Iraq has demanded “timely notification of each flight, including time and point of entry, speed and call signal that ensures communication with the pilot if necessary” (Preston/Weisman, New York Times).
“This is not a serious concession,” a U.S. official said. “It’s conditioned,” the official added.
While Blix has not responded to the Iraqi letter, he did agree during a meeting last month in Baghdad to notify Iraqi officials of each reconnaissance flight, according to U.N. officials. They noted that the Security Council had endorsed the inspectors’ decision to follow previous guidelines, which included notification of U-2 flights.
Missile Panel
Blix has also convened an international panel of ballistic missile experts to help determine whether two Iraqi missile programs —the al-Samoud 2 and the al-Fatah — violate U.N. regulations. Blix is expected to receive a report on the panel’s finding before his briefing to the Security Council at the end of this week, the Washington Post reported. With those findings, Blix will then tell the council whether Iraq is required to dismantle those programs and destroy its missile components capable of advancing missile ranges beyond U.N. limits (Colum Lynch, Washington Post, Feb. 12).
Security Council Views
China has indicated its support for the French-German-Russian position that inspections should be strengthened and expanded, rather than ended for military action, Agence France-Presse reported today.
“The inspection in Iraq is effective and should be continued and strengthened so as to implement Resolution 1441,” the official Chinese Xinhua news agency quoted Chinese President Jiang Zemin as telling French President Jacques Chirac. “Warfare is good for no one and it is our responsibility to take various measures to avoid war,” Jiang added (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo.com, Feb. 12).
Russian President Vladimir Putin indicated yesterday that his country might veto any Security Council action leading to the “unreasonable use of force.”
Currently, Russia has no need to use its veto, Putin said. When asked if Russia would support a French veto of a Security Council action, he replied, “If today a proposition was made that we felt would lead to an unreasonable use of force, we would act with France or alone.”
Putin warned against any attempts to launch military action against Iraq outside of the Security Council. “I am convinced that it would be a grave error to be drawn into unilateral action, outside of international law,” he said (John Leicester, Associated Press/Yahoo.com, Feb. 11).
Exile
Jordanian officials have said they are urging the United States to offer Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and as many as 50 senior Iraqi officials exile if they voluntarily step down from power, according to the New York Times.
Senior Jordanian officials said the exile proposal was not being offered because they think Hussein will accept, but rather because they believe he will not (see GSN, Feb. 7). By rejecting the offer, Hussein will isolate himself from other senior Iraqi officials, thereby increasing the chance that he would be overthrown in an internal coup, they said.
Hussein is likely to commit suicide rather than be captured, akin to Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler in the waning days of World War II, said a Jordanian official. Other senior Iraqi officials, including Hussein’s sons Qusay and Uday, however, would be more likely to save their own skins rather than risk disaster, Jordanian officials said.
“Uday might be the first to shoot his father if he refused an amnesty,” a senior Jordanian official said (John Burns, New York Times, Feb. 12).
NATO
NATO ambassadors met again today in Brussels to try to resolve the continuing internal dispute over providing defensive planning to Turkey in case there is war in Iraq. The talks were suspended about 90 minutes after they began and are expected to resume later in the day, according to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
“We have a sound basis to continue consultations further,” NATO spokesman Yves Brodeur said after the meeting. “[The] allies are all working very hard to find a solution to what is a serious issue. The work will, therefore, continue toward achieving a solution throughout the day as we believe that we now have elements which could help us to bring the discussion forward,” Brodeur added.
In addition to requesting that defense planning for Turkey begin, the United States had also requested increased protection for U.S. bases in Europe and permission to move troops from the Balkans closer to Iraq, NATO diplomats said. The United States appears to have dropped those additional requests (Ahto Lobjakas, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Feb. 12).
The Netherlands has decided to provide Turkey with three Patriot missile interceptor batteries to help augment its defenses, according to Channel NewsAsia. The batteries, along with the 350 Dutch troops, will be deployed at Turkish airbases in the southeastern part of the country. The Netherlands said it does not need NATO approval to provide the interceptors to Turkey because of a bilateral agreement (Channel NewsAsia, Feb. 12).
United States Bombs Iraqi Missile System
U.S. aircraft today attacked an Iraqi mobile Ababil-100 ballistic missile launcher, along with its command and supply vehicles, U.S. Defense Department officials said. Eight U.S. fighter jets unleashed 16 bombs on the missile launcher, which was located near the southern city of Basra, officials said.
Iraq had moved the missile launcher into the southern no-fly zone, said a statement from the U.S. Central Command. “Saddam Hussein put these systems in range of our troops and the people of Kuwait, and under U.N. authority, we struck them,” said Central Command spokesman Jim Wilkinson (Associated Press/Jerusalem Post).
This is the first time U.S. aircraft have attacked a ground-to-ground missile system in a no-fly zone, according to military officials. Previous U.S. airstrikes targeted systems in the Iraqi air defense network, such as anti-aircraft artillery and radar sites (Robert Schlesinger, Boston Globe, Feb. 12).
Inspections
U.N. inspectors today traveled to al-Muthanna, about 90 miles north of Baghdad, to begin destroying four containers of mustard gas and 10 155 mm artillery shells located at the site, according to Reuters. The process is expected to last up to five days, a U.N. spokesman said. The shells and containers had been set to be destroying during inspections in 1998 (Reuters/MSNBC.com, Feb. 12).
Yesterday, inspectors visited three suspect Iraqi sites, according to an IAEA press release. Chemical experts from the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission traveled to al-Muthanna to begin preparing the shells and containers for destruction. IAEA inspectors traveled to the Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center and conducted a radiation survey of two military bases south of Baghdad (International Atomic Energy Agency release, Feb. 11).
For further information, see:
UNMOVIC
IAEA Iraq Action Team
U.N. Resolution 1441
A U.S. federal judge has placed an espionage case in Spokane, Washington, under the Classified Information Protection Act, the Spokane Spokesman Review reported yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 7).
U.S. District Court Judge Robert Whaley imposed temporary security restrictions on attorneys, court staff members and jurors, after hearing from prosecutors in the case of a former Army National Guard intelligence officer and his ex-wife, who allegedly sent stolen classified documents to domestic anti-government groups.
In asking for the special restriction, U.S. Attorney Earl Hicks said that Rafael Davila stole classified national security documents that should not be revealed in the course of the trial.
“This subject area is one not handled before in this district,” Whaley said, while imposing the temporary restrictions. The judge said that he would need to study the subject further before making a final ruling on the restrictions, and he delayed the case for four days.
Whaley is scheduled to meet with a court security officer familiar with security precautions in espionage trials, the Spokesman Review reported (Bill Morlin, Spokane Spokesman Review, Feb. 11).
Experts from the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency have conducted hundreds of inspections in Iraq since resuming the post-Gulf War inspection regime Nov. 27. More than 100 inspectors are now based in the country at two facilities in Baghdad and Mosul. The following chart summarizes some of the inspectors’ reported activities.
| Date | Site | Activity | | Feb. 12 | Al-Muthanna, about 90 miles north of Baghdad | Inspectors began destroying four containers of mustard gas and 10 155 mm artillery shells located at the site (see GSN, Feb. 12). | | Feb. 11 | Al-Muthanna, about 90 miles north of Baghdad | UNMOVIC chemical inspectors prepared containers of mustard gas and artillery shells at the site for destruction (see GSN, Feb. 12). | | Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center | See GSN, Feb. 12. | | Two military bases south of Baghdad | IAEA inspectors conducted a radiation survey (see GSN, Feb. 12). | | 17th of Nissan factory in Baghdad | See GSN, Feb. 11. | | Feb. 10 | Ibn Firnas Company | UNMOVIC missile inspectors worked to verify Iraq's declaration of the site and establish a comprehensive monitoring mechanism (IAEA release, Feb. 10). | | Samarra East Airfield | UNMOVIC missile inspectors worked to verify Iraq’s declaration of the site and establish a comprehensive monitoring mechanism (IAEA release, Feb. 10). | | Al-Mamoun | UNMOVIC missile inspectors worked to verify Iraq's declaration of the site and establish a comprehensive monitoring mechanism (IAEA release, Feb. 10). | | Al-Fekar Factory | UNMOVIC missile inspectors worked to verify Iraq’s declaration of the site and establish a comprehensive monitoring mechanism (IAEA release, Feb. 10). | | Military Hospital | UNMOVIC biological inspectors conducted a ground survey in a section of the hospital’s compound (IAEA release, Feb. 10). | | Seed-processing facility east of An Nu'maniyah. | IAEA release, Feb. 10. | | 7 Nissan stores in southeast Baghdad | | Mosul Raiyard AR Rayanihay RR Siding | | Um al-Maarik | IAEA inspectors worked to establish the current disposition of monitored machine tools (IAEA release, Feb. 10). | | Badr State Establishment | IAEA inspectors worked to establish the current disposition of monitored machine tools (IAEA release, Feb. 10). | | Tigris River section, just south of Baghdad | IAEA inspectors conducted a carborne radiation survey (IAEA release, Feb. 10). | | Al-Musaayaib Ammo Depot, south of Baghdad | Inspectors visited the site’s bunkers, warehouses, small buildings and storage areas (IAEA release, Feb. 10). | | Feb. 9 | Agricultural Research Center | IAEA release, Feb. 9. | | Agricultural Research Center breeding station | | School on the western outskirts of Baghdad | UNMOVIC biological inspectors conducted a geo-physical survey of an area of land within the perimeter of the site (IAEA release, Feb. 9). | | Dairy products facility in an eastern suburb of Baghdad | IAEA release, Feb. 9. | | Al-Battani Center | | Al-Mutasim | | Al-Mamoun | | Al Taji Ammunition Depot, north of Baghdad | Inspectors recovered a sample from an empty 122mm chemical warhead previously found at the site. Inspectors also discovered an empty 122 mm al-Burak chemical warhead and an empty plastic chemical agent canister (IAEA release, Feb. 9). | | Nineveh Health Authority Vehicle Maintenance and Repair Unit | IAEA release, Feb. 9. | | Baghdad | IAEA inspectors conducted a mobile radiation survey (IAEA release, Feb. 9). | | Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Baghdad | IAEA inspectors held technical meetings with officials (IAEA release, Feb. 9). | | Feb. 8 | Al-Rasheed Water Project in Baghdad | See GSN, Feb. 10. | | Al-Mutassim Training Institute in northwestern Baghdad | | Djerf al-Naddaf facility | | Mosul Technical Institute | | Baghdad area | IAEA inspectors conducted a motorized radiation survey (see GSN, Feb. 10). | | Baghdad | IAEA inspectors deployed two mobile air-sampling units at two locations (see GSN, Feb. 10). | | Feb. 7 | Al-Wathba Water Project in Baghdad | IAEA release, Feb. 7. | | Suwaira Stores Plant Protection Division | | Technical Institute | | Combined agricultural and ammunition storage site near al-Kut | | Al-Waziriyah | | Munitions store | IAEA release, Feb. 8. | | Samarra Drug Industry | UNMOVIC biological inspectors conducted an aerial inspection of the site (IAEA release, Feb. 7). | | Salah Ad Din State Company | UNMOVIC biological inspectors conducted an aerial inspection of the site (IAEA release, Feb. 7). | | Jan. 31-Feb. 6 | See GSN, Feb. 7. | |
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The International Atomic Energy Agency today formally sent the North Korean nuclear crisis to the U.N. Security Council after determining that North Korea has violated its nuclear nonproliferation commitments (see GSN, Feb. 11).
None of the agency’s 35-member Board of Governors voted against the resolution, but Russia and Cuba abstained. Russia has opposed escalating the crisis, according to Reuters (Rake/Charbonneau, Reuters, Feb. 12).
“The D.P.R.K. is in further noncompliance with its obligations under its safeguards agreement with the agency,” the IAEA’s resolution says (IAEA release I, Feb. 12).
IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said North Korea has been in “chronic noncompliance” since 1993, and the agency was not able to fulfill its duties to ensure that Pyongyang was abiding by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
“Since 1994 the D.P.R.K. has sought shelter behind the U.S.-D.P.R.K. Agreed Framework, claiming a legally untenable ‘unique status’ under the NPT to circumvent compliance with its nonproliferation obligations,” ElBaradei said. North Korea “displayed complete disregard for its obligations under the safeguards agreement by cutting all seals and impeding the functioning of surveillance cameras that were in place in its nuclear facilities,” ElBaradei added (IAEA release II, Feb. 12).
Anticipating the IAEA move, European foreign policy chief Javier Solana said yesterday that he hoped the Security Council would not act too aggressively toward North Korea.
“I don’t think it is the moment to impose sanctions. I think sanctions will contribute to the opposite of what we want to take — which is to defuse the crisis,” Solana said during a visit to Seoul (Korea Herald, Feb. 12).
Also speaking yesterday, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell declined to limit possible U.S. policies.
“We have all of our options available to us,” Powell the U.S. Senate Budget Committee. “The option we’re pushing is a diplomatic one, and we want to do it within a multilateral framework,” he added (James Dao, New York Times, Feb. 12).
Moscow is still trying to find an alternate solution to the nuclear crisis.
Russia is planning “numerous steps” to push Washington and Pyongyang to talks,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov said in statement to the Interfax news agency.
“We feel there is potential for dialogue between the United States and North Korea and believe that this chance should be used before making any important decisions,” his statement said (Dao, New York Times).
“The North Koreans have told us about their desire to hold a dialogue with the United States,” Losyukov said. “The Americans have told the same thing. We need to figure out why, unfortunately, this is not happening while the crisis continues and — if not getting even worse — then at least staying at the same level,” he added (Dawn, Feb. 12).
U.S. lawmakers from both parties have criticized the White House for its approach to North Korea.
“There needs to be informal dialogue,” said Representative Kurt Weldon (R-Pa.). “That’s the biggest problem now. No one is having discussions,” he added (Dao, New York Times).
Moscow is afraid that taking the issue to the Security Council could be “one more step that might trigger retaliation by Pyongyang,” according to a Western diplomat.
Many IAEA board members, however, fear that the future of the organization hangs in the balance.
“We never had a state walk out of the NPT before. We never had a state tearing up the safeguard agreements (which provide for IAEA inspections of nuclear sites) before,” said a senior diplomat.
CIA Director George Tenet said yesterday that Pyongyang is attempting to make Washington accept a nuclear North Korea.
North Korean leader “Kim Jong Il’s attempts this past year to parlay the North’s nuclear weapons program into political leverage suggest he is trying to negotiate a fundamentally different relationship with Washington — one that implicitly tolerates the North’s nuclear weapons program,” he testified to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo.com, Feb. 12).
North Korea today asked the United Kingdom to push the United States to open dialogue with Pyongyang.
“We think because the U.K. has a special relationship with the U.S., we expect the U.K. can play a certain role in relations between our country and the U.S.,” said Ri Hui Chol, a senior North Korean Foreign Ministry official (Reuters/MSNBC.com, Feb. 11).
British Foreign Office minister Bill Rammel rejected the suggestion.
“This isn’t a bilateral issue between the U.S. and North Korea. It is an issue for the entire international community,” he said (Gideon Long, Reuters, Feb. 12).
Washington Holding Back Food Aid
The United States is temporarily holding back shipments of food to North Korea because of reports that the humanitarian supplies are being redirected to the North Korean army and Pyongyang’s political elite.
“We are going to continue to be there, because we don’t use food as a weapon,” said Tony Hall, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. food agencies. “But we are going to be darn sure that if we tell you where the food is supposed to be and you give it to someone else, then we’re going to wait, and we’re going to be darn sure that our food is getting through to the right people,” he added.
No U.S. food aid has been pledged to the program yet this year.
“We will give, we just don’t know when,” said a U.S. official.
Food program officials “try to follow the food, but what we’re hearing is they will take the food out, and they will actually see the food being given to the people. The food program leaves, and (government officials) grab the food and take it from (the recipients),” Hall said (Nicole Winfield, Washington Times, Feb. 12).
By Mike Nartker
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — The United States and Russia should each appoint a senior official — a nuclear nonproliferation “czar” — to oversee each country’s nuclear nonproliferation efforts, U.S. and Russian scientific advisers said in a joint December 2002 letter released last week by the U.S. National Academies (see GSN, Nov. 15, 2002).
In their letter to the U.S. and Russian academies, John Holdren, chair of the U.S National Academy of Sciences Committee on International Security and Arms Control and Nikolai Laverov, a member of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Science and Technology Advisory Council, reported on the progress of a joint U.S.-Russian committee that has worked to develop recommendations to strengthen cooperation in nuclear nonproliferation efforts.
“There can be no doubt ... about the interest of proliferant states and terrorist groups in trying to exploit the continuing inadequacies in the protection of nuclear weapons, materials, technologies and expertise in order to acquire nuclear weapons capabilities; and there can be no doubt about the intolerable consequences that would ensue if even one such weapon were exploded in a U.S. or Russian city,” Holdren and Laverov said in their letter.
Yesterday, CIA Director George Tenet told a U.S. Senate committee, “The desire for nuclear weapons is on the upsurge. Additional countries may decide to seek nuclear weapons as it becomes clear their neighbors and regional rivals are already doing so. The ‘domino theory’ of the 21st century may well be nuclear.”
One of the U.S.-Russian committee’s main recommendations is that both the United States and Russia should appoint a full-time, high-level official to oversee each country’s nuclear nonproliferation efforts. These officials would also be responsible for improving bilateral cooperation and would update their presidents on the progress and needs of nonproliferation programs.
The idea of appointing a single official to mange nonproliferation efforts is not new. Former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn, now co-chairman of the private Nuclear Threat Initiative, made a similar recommendation during a speech in mid-November 2002. While serving in Congress, Nunn co-sponsored the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, which provides U.S. assistance to securing former Soviet weapons of mass destruction and related materials.
“The first step is to put our own houses in order — identifying, accounting for, and securing the weapons and materials in Russia and the United States,” Nunn told a nonproliferation conference in Washington. “Each president should appoint one high-level person, reporting directly to the president, to take full responsibility for this issue, and this issue alone,” he added.
Some experts have argued that, if a nonproliferation czar is created, the position should be a new one, and not merely another responsibility for an existing White House official. For example, some have said a new deputy national security adviser, who would also have their own staff, should fill the position, said Matthew Bunn, senior research associate at the Managing the Atom Project at Harvard University. A disadvantage to this, however, is that National Security Council staff members are only accountable to the White House, and the official in charge of U.S. nuclear nonproliferation efforts needs to be both responsible to the president and Congress, Bunn said.
Regardless of the exact position developed, the new official has to be part of the White House with direct access to and full confidence of the president, Bunn said. He made a similar point in a May 2002 report, Securing Nuclear Weapons and Materials: Seven Steps for Immediate Action.
“[U.S.] President [George W.] Bush needs to appoint someone in the White House who reports directly to him, who has no other mission but this — someone tasked to wake up every morning thinking, ‘What can I do to keep nuclear weapons out of terrorist hands today?’” said the report, co-authored by Holdren and Anthony Weir, both of Harvard’s Managing the Atom Project.
Although many experts have said that a White House-level official is needed to act as a nonproliferation czar, there has been little consideration of the idea within the Bush administration, Bunn told GSN, adding that it was unlikely that any action would be taken. Those officials in charge of nonproliferation programs, now scattered among various U.S agencies such as the Defense, Energy and State Departments, have quietly opposed placing so much control in the hands of the White House, he said, adding that such officials would be unlikely to “go on the record” with their criticism.
Up on Capitol Hill, however, there has been much more support from Congress for the idea, Bunn said. For example, in 1996, legislation was proposed to establish a single position to oversee nonproliferation programs, but that provision was ultimately watered down and an existing deputy national security adviser simply added monitoring nonproliferation issues to his other responsibilities.
Even so, there has been “strong support for this idea on Capitol Hill for a number of years,” Bunn said.
It is unlikely, however, that the current Congress will introduce a bill to create a nonproliferation czar position, Bunn said. He noted that Republican-led Congresses typically avoid dictating to a Republican president how to set up his administration.
Fissile Materials
The committee has also recommended several measures to reduce the amount of available fissile materials. For example, priority should be given to consolidating Russian stockpiles of highly enriched uranium at fewer, more secure storage sites and on returning to Russia small stockpiles of Soviet-era HEU currently outside of Russia. The committee praised the August 2002 joint U.S.-Russian-Yugoslav mission to return more than 100 pounds of HEU to Russia from a Yugoslav research reactor (see GSN, Aug. 23, 2002). Enough fissile material was recovered during that mission to produce two nuclear weapons, according to reports.
The U.S.-Russian “Megatons to Megawatts” program, under which the U.S. Enrichment Corp. purchases uranium taken from Russian nuclear weapons for use as fuel in nuclear power plants, needs to be expanded, Holdren and Laverov said in their letter (see GSN, Oct. 4, 2002). The agreement, signed 10 years ago Monday, has provided the United States with enough fuel to power a city the size of Boston for about 230 years, USEC has said. Even so, Russia should accelerate the conversion of weapon-grade materials to fuel beyond the rate needed to implement the U.S. purchase agreement, the committee recommended.
While the U.S.-Russian HEU deal is currently designed to ensure that the Russian uranium does not further depress the worldwide LEU market, “proliferation concerns should take priority over economic ones,” Holdren and Laverov said.
The United States and Russia also need to expand their efforts to convert research and test reactors to use low-enriched uranium, Holdren and Laverov said, noting that efforts to convert U.S. research reactors to LEU use have been stalled because of a lack of funding. “This issue needs more attention in both countries, as a matter of urgency,” they said.
In September 2002, the nonprofit Russian American Nuclear Security Advisory Council released a report calling for increased support for a joint U.S.-Russian program to develop alternative fuels for research reactors to aid in their conversion to LEU use (see GSN, Sept. 27, 2002). RANSAC noted several concerns regarding the U.S.-Russian Reduced Enrichment for Research and Test Reactors program, including a lack of funding and technical difficulties in converting research reactors to use the developed alternative fuel assemblies.
“It is vitally important that this effort receive renewed political and financial support in both the United States and Russia,” the RANSAC report said. “The program could make an important contribution to the effort to eliminate vulnerable HEU stockpiles in Russia and those other countries that possess Soviet-designed research and test reactors,” it added.
A high priority should be placed on international cooperative efforts to decommission Russian nuclear submarines, Holdren and Laverov said. They noted that the nuclear fuel in use in Russian submarines is at varying states of enrichment. Because of this, “some of the spent fuel may represent a significant proliferation hazard and most of it represents a serious radiological terrorism hazard — both to theft and radiological dispersion and to sabotage,” they said.
Training
The committee has recommended that the United States and Russia should also increase funding to train nonproliferation workers and to make them fully aware of the threats of diversion of fissile materials (see GSN, Dec. 6, 2002). Programs should also be created to train new nonproliferation workers and managers in order to fill that gaps likely to be created by strengthening and expanding nonproliferation programs, according to Holdren and Laverov.
“Those involved today in guarding and managing nuclear material need training to make them fully understand the importance of the role they are playing in ensuring U.S., Russian and world security,” Holdren and Laverov said in their letter. “They are literally at the front line of the global struggle to stem the spread of nuclear weapons, and many of them do not know it,” they added.
[EDITOR'S NOTE: Sam Nunn is co-chairman and chief executive officer of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, the sole sponsor of Global Security Newswire, which is published independently by National Journal Group.]
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More than half of the British military personnel stationed in the Persian Gulf region have refused to be vaccinated against anthrax, the London Guardian reported today (see GSN, Oct. 23, 2002).
Of 16,500 personnel offered the anthrax vaccination, only 8,103 have accepted, according to British Junior Defense Minister Lewis Moonie. While the vaccination is voluntary, service personnel are strongly recommended to receive it, according to the Guardian.
The lack of full vaccination in military units could have an adverse effect on operations, according to British defense officials (Richard Norton-Taylor, London Guardian, Feb, 12).
Australian Sailors Shipped Home
Meanwhile, 11 Australian sailors on a ship destined for the Middle East have been sent back home after refusing to accept the anthrax vaccine, Australian Defense chief Gen. Peter Cosgrove told an Australian Senate committee hearing today. There are still a number of sailors determining whether to be vaccinated, Cosgrove said, adding that a deadline for their decision appears necessary.
“The practical end point would be based around scheduled aircraft services to move them in a timely way out of the theatre ... and the need to send replacements,” Cosgrove said (Sydney Morning Herald, Feb. 12).
For further information, see:
CDC Frequently Asked Questions About Anthrax
Journal of the American Medical Association Background on Anthrax
France will immunize 150 volunteers with the smallpox vaccine, according to French Health Minister Jean-Francois Mattei.< | |
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