Pakistan: U.S. and Pakistani Officials Discuss Nuclear Arsenal Security

U.S. military and intelligence officials met with Pakistani officials last week to discuss how the United States could help to improve the security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and two nuclear plants (see GSN, Sept. 26).  The talks focused on how to protect nuclear weapons and create new restrictions on personnel handling the weapons. 

There are formal limitations on how much assistance the United States can offer.  One restriction is Pakistan’s refusal to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which prohibits transfers of nuclear technology to countries that have not signed the treaty.  U.S. law also imposes restrictions on sharing information about nuclear weapons with other countries. 

Many experts predict the United States will find ways around such obstacles and provide Pakistan with advice and technology to increase security at nuclear facilities, according to the New York Times.  The United States could even provide classified information, such as how to create devices to disable a stolen weapon. 

A number of U.S. officials and experts have expressed concern that Pakistan’s arsenal could be at risk from attack or control by radical forces in the country and military.  “The greatest risk is a fissure within Pakistan’s military caused by officers sympathetic to the Taliban,” said Gary Milhollin of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control (Douglas Frantz, New York Times, Oct. 1).

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf assured the world that Pakistan is a stable country with a secure nuclear arsenal.  “I am very, very sure that the command and control center that we have developed for ourselves is very, very secure … There is no chance of these assets falling into the hands of extremists,” he said, adding, “There is no destabilization within.  There is no opposition, no mass opposition, to me and my government” (CNN, Sept. 30).

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U.S. Use Policy: Biological Attack Deserves Nuclear Response, Says Kyl

The United States should respond to a terrorist chemical or biological weapons attack with nuclear weapons, said U.S. Senator John Kyl (R-Ariz.) last week (see GSN, Sept. 20).  “I can’t think of any other appropriate response in the case of a massive attack with biological weapons,” Kyl said. “We have to let them know nothing is off the table.” 

Kyl was not specific about potential targets for such a strike and said it would kill innocent civilians.  A biological weapons attack may have already happened (see GSN, Sept. 27), according to Kyl, and he said he expected terrorists to strike again against the United States during the next several months (Associated Press, Sept. 29).

Testing:  Bones From Dead Babies Used in Nuclear Tests in Britain

From the mid-1950s until 1970, the bones of thousands of dead babies in Britain were removed, without their parents’ consent, and tested for radioactive fallout.  The testing was part of a study on the effects of nuclear weapons testing, a spokesman for Britain's Atomic Energy Agency said yesterday. 

The study looked at the effect atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons was having on health.  Thigh bones from 3,400 dead infants were removed, incinerated and tested for levels of strontium-90, a radioactive isotope able to penetrate the body. British scientists were able to establish strontium-90 levels in children's bones had increased when atmospheric testing was prevalent.  Results from the tests may have contributed to Britain's 1963 ban on atmospheric testing, according to the Atomic Energy Agency. 

"The program was done for the best reasons," said Beth Taylor of the agency.  "It was the period when we were doing atmospheric testing of hydrogen bombs and there was quite a bit of concern about the dangers of nuclear fallout" (Alan Cowell, New York Times, Oct. 1).    

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U.S.-Russia:  Strategic Nuclear Talks Continue in Moscow

High-level U.S. and Russian officials met for unscheduled talks in Moscow Saturday to discuss strategic nuclear weapon reductions and missile defenses (see GSN, Sept, 25).  Returning through Moscow on his way from Uzbekistan, U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton met with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Georgy Mamedov (UPI, Sept. 29).

According to a Foreign Ministry statement, the two discussed “specific proposals for creating a new architecture of Russian-American strategic relations transmitted … [by] Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov (see GSN, Sept. 21) to senior Bush administration officials” in September (Foreign Ministry release, Sept. 29).

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Iran: Russian SAMs to Defend Bushehr?

Iran may be seeking Russian air defense missile systems to defend its nuclear facilities at Bushehr, according to analysts commenting on pending Iranian-Russian arms deals.  Arms talks between the two nations were scheduled to begin today in Moscow.

Russia suspended arms exports to Iran in 1995, but announced last year that it would resume sales.  U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton urged Russia to continue its moratorium when he visited Moscow last month (see GSN, Sept. 18), but Russia was finding it difficult to resist the potential $300 million a year that Iranian arms purchases would generate, experts said (Robert Cottrell, Financial Times, Sept. 30).

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British Fuel Cycle: Sellafield Could Start Up This Week

The United Kingdom could give a green light this week to British Nuclear Fuels to open a new nuclear fuel plant at Sellafield despite increased fears that the plant’s shipments are vulnerable to attack.  The plant, which produces nuclear fuel from reprocessed uranium and plutonium, was completed in 1996, but several rounds of government consultation have delayed its operation. 

Opponents to the mixed-oxide plant say that shipments of the fuel, sometimes overseas, are vulnerable to terrorist suicide attacks or theft.  BNFL Chairman Hugh Collum said the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States did not indicate that the plant’s cargo is more vulnerable.  The ships carrying nuclear fuel are usually armed and accompanied by another ship. 

The United States, which has a veto over the transport of nuclear materials originating from the plant, is likely to object to transporting the material internationally, according to the Guardian (Gow/Brown, Oct. 1). 

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Afghanistan: Taliban Has “Huge Stockpile” of Nuclear Weapons

The Taliban has nuclear weapons and is prepared to use them, according to a senior Taliban official in Islamabad in an interview in the London Sunday Mirror.

“We bought our nuclear weapons from the U.S.S.R. when it broke up.  We have a huge stockpile but I am forbidden from saying anything more.  It is top secret,” said Hafiz Hussain Ahmed.

“If the United States and Britain attack Afghanistan with nuclear weapons, we will respond with the same type of warfare,” Ahmed said.  “There are also Muslim-minded people in the West who have sworn they can provide us with the latest military technology.  If the war starts we can call upon unlimited resources from our network of supporters across the world.”

“This will be the Third World War,” Ahmed said (Dominic Turnbull, London Sunday Mirror, Sept. 30).

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North Korea: KEDO Delegation Leaves Pyongyang

A delegation from the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) left Pyongyang on Saturday after five days of talks.  KEDO spokesman Brian Kremer described the sessions as “routine meetings that we have throughout the year to discuss the implementation of light-water reactor project” (see GSN, Sept. 26).  Deputy Executive Directors Akira Nakajima and Kyu-Hyung Cho led the KEDO delegation (Greg Webb, GSN, Oct. 1).

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North Korea: Blame Belongs to United States

North Korea responded vigorously Saturday to last week’s International Atomic Energy Agency statement urging North Korea to cooperate with the IAEA’s efforts to verify the North’s nuclear holdings (see GSN, Sept. 24).

In an official statement, Pyongyang said, “If the IAEA conference wants to know who is to blame, it should first of all call the U.S. into question for being insincere in the implementation of the Agreed Framework.”

“If the U.S. had remained sincere in implementing the Agreed Framework, it would have been implemented to such a level as to enable the DPRK and the IAEA to start negotiations on verifying the accuracy and perfectness of the initial report on nuclear substance,” the statement said (KCNA, Sept. 29).

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