United States:  NRC Approves Second Tritium Production Facility

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission last week approved a second energy plant — the Sequoyah Nuclear Power Plant near Chattanooga, Tenn. — for production of tritium, a component of nuclear bombs (see GSN, Sept. 25).

Up to 2,256 irradiated rods can be produced at the Sequoyah facility under the permit.  The rods would then be shipped to South Carolina where tritium would be extracted at the Energy Department’s Savannah River facility (see GSN, June 28).

Critics said the decision is hypocritical.

“We tell other countries not to use commercial reactors for weapons of mass destruction, so why are we?” asked Stephen Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (see GSN, Oct. 3, 2001).

The Tennessee Valley Authority runs both the Sequoyah facility and the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant near Spring City, Tenn., which the commission also recently approved for tritium production (see GSN, Jan. 29; Andy Drury, Chattanooga Times, Oct. 2).

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Pakistan:  U.S. Visit Finds Continuing Obstacles to Nuclear Cooperation

By Bryan Bender
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The first high-level U.S. military delegation to visit Pakistan in four years to discuss security cooperation failed to address possible joint efforts in the area of nuclear security, despite concerns that the country’s small but shrouded nuclear weapons complex may be at risk of theft or leakage, according to U.S. and Pakistani officials (see GSN, March 18).

Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith and dozens of U.S. officials spent nearly a week in Pakistan in late September as part of the U.S.-Pakistan Defense Consultative Group (see GSN, Sept. 27). The group was holding its first meeting since 1998, when Washington levied sanctions on both Pakistan and India following their exchange of nuclear tests.

In seeking South Asian cooperation in the war on terrorism, Washington has renewed military ties with both India and Pakistan and has restarted arms transfers and other military assistance to both.  Officials said, however, that expanding cooperation to the nuclear sphere has so far not been seriously broached, indicating the difficulty facing U.S. officials as they seek to expand nonproliferation programs to South Asia.

U.S. law currently bars substantial cooperation because neither Pakistan nor India is a party to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.  Lawmakers have proposed removing such restrictions so that U.S. nonproliferation aid can be expanded beyond the former Soviet Union to South Asia and elsewhere to meet the growing threat of nuclear terrorism (see GSN, March 20). 

One proposal calls for spending up to $50 million of unobligated Cooperative Threat Reduction funds — originally intended for nonproliferation efforts in the former Soviet Union — to reduce the threat of nuclear terrorism in other regions of the world.

Officials say the obstacles to nuclear cooperation are deeper outside the United States, however, especially in Pakistan and India, where nuclear programs are a key source of national pride and considered a critical defense against encroachment by their neighbors.

Without addressing the outstanding issues between the two countries — mainly settling the competing claims over the disputed territory of Kashmir — progress in opening up their nuclear programs to scrutiny and international cooperation will be difficult, according to government officials and private experts.

“It’s a sovereignty issue,” said one Pakistani diplomat.  “Kashmir and the nuclear program are very central.  Any compromise would be seen as strategic failure.”

Others warn of the difficulty in broaching nuclear cooperation with Pakistan and India given past disagreements with Washington and the inability of the two countries to settle their disputes.

“India and Pakistan have for many years taken a combative stance with regard to the Nonproliferation Treaty, branding it a discriminatory document in international forums and resisting policies developed on its basis,” Rose Gottemoeller, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said last month.   “In this context, the United States has often seen New Delhi or Islamabad as a kind of adversary in nonproliferation policy.”

She said that new cooperation would be difficult without addressing other underlying issues.  For example, India is likely to seek a resolution of its long-standing concerns with the nonproliferation regime — perhaps to allow it to buy reactors for its civilian nuclear program (see GSN, April 30).

“In other words, the new cooperation will disturb the long-standing policy status quo in a complicated and not wholly predictable way,” Gottemoeller testified Sept. 24 before the House Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs and International Relations.

As a result, discussions about security cooperation with both Pakistan and India have remained in the traditional spheres of arms sales and military training. 

In the recent consultation in Pakistan, which ended Sept. 30, U.S. officials focused on enhancing assistance to the Pakistani military to continue its crackdown on the al-Qaeda terrorist network, believed to be operating in its western border region with Afghanistan, while jumpstarting discussions about long-stalled Pakistani requests for new and upgraded military equipment, including F-16 fighter jets.

As for India, the United States has also discussed new arms sales and other transfers of military equipment, while expanding collective training.  Last week 85 Indian soldiers and airmen landed in Alaska to participate in the Geronimo Thrust ’02 exercise with U.S. forces, the first of its kind in North America.  The exercise, to last until Oct. 11, follows a weeklong exercise last month in which the U.S. and Indian navies participated in joint maneuvers.

Experts worry, however, that nuclear cooperation is much too important to pass up, despite the apparent hurdles.

“Concerns have … been raised about the safety of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal,” according to Rensselaer Lee, a Congressional Research Service international affairs consultant.  “Little public information exists on how well or poorly that country’s nuclear protective regime functions.”

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraff has repeatedly said that “there is an excellent command and control system in place and there is no question of their falling into the hands of any fundamentalists.”

Lee believes, however, that al-Qaeda terrorists and Taliban sympathizers may be present in the Pakistani nuclear complex, as they are in other spheres of Pakistani society.  “Hence, the possibility of ideologically motivated thefts of nuclear assets cannot be excluded,” she said.  “And, of course, an unanticipated regime change would create a whole new host of problems.”

Gottemoeller said that ways must be found to overcome the obstacles to nuclear cooperation in South Asia. 

“At a minimum, countries such as the United States, India and Pakistan have each amassed individual experience over the years in protecting nuclear assets,” she said.  “Such experience can be shared in a way that could benefit others.  If the United States worked separately with India and Pakistan to share information on protection and control of nuclear assets, the United States would be taking the first step toward transformation of these countries from adversaries to partners in the nonproliferation arena.”

Still, resistance will not be easy to overcome.  Even offers of simple cooperation, such as providing Pakistan with permissive action links that prevent the unauthorized use of nuclear weapons have had little effect (see GSN, Nov. 5, 2001).

“We register and are cognizant and sympathetic on nuclear proliferation concerns,” the Pakistani diplomat said.  “Thanks but no thanks, we can take care of ourselves.”

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Al-Qaeda:  Operatives Seek Russian Weapons and Materials, U.S. Suspects

U.S. intelligence agencies are concerned that terrorist groups including al-Qaeda are attempting to obtain small nuclear devices and weapon-grade materials from Russian sources, the Washington Times reported today (see GSN, Sept. 26).

Recent intelligence reports have noted discussions between al-Qaeda operatives on the purchase of nuclear weapons and weapon-grade materials from Russian organized crime groups, according to the Times.  The murder of Sergei Bakhvalov, a Russian nuclear chemist and expert in plutonium extraction, in August might also have been linked to terrorists attempts to obtain nuclear weapons, materials or expertise, according to Russian authorities. 

There have been instances where al-Qaeda operatives have made contacts to see if it is possible to purchase weapons of mass destruction on the international black market, a senior U.S. defense official said.

“I can’t tell you here that I have evidence they’ve made use of them,” the official said.  “I know that they are working on them; the documentation is there.”

Russian stockpiles of nuclear weapons and weapon-grade materials are secure and can resist terrorist attacks, Russian officials said.

“A theft or a leak from our nuclear weapons storage facilities is absolutely impossible,” said Col. Gen. Igor Volynkin, head of the Russian Defense Ministry’s 12th main department in charge of nuclear security.  “The Defense Ministry’s 12th department is reinforcing and is capable of resisting any terrorist attacks.”

There are no signs yet that al-Qaeda has successfully obtained a nuclear weapon or the materials needed to construct one, a U.S. intelligence official said, but the possibility cannot be completely dismissed.

Terrorists might also be able to use Russian nuclear weapons through indirect methods such as cyberterrorism, according to Bruce Blair, director of the Center for Defense Information.  He noted a U.S. Defense Department study indicating that terrorists could gain remote access to the U.S. Navy’s nuclear command system and send a launch order to Trident nuclear missile submarines.

“The point of this last story is that the nuclear security problem in Russia has been too narrowly conceived,” Blair said.  “There are other scenarios besides the loss of a weapon or materials that fall into the wrong hands” (Bill Gertz, Washington Times, Oct. 8).

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International Response:  Russia Unhappy With Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone, Experts Say

Experts are divided over whether Russia will support a treaty establishing a Central Asian nuclear weapon-free zone, the Washington Post reported Saturday (see GSN, Oct. 2).

“The Russians don’t like this at all,” said William Potter, director of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.  “They’re not happy with anything that limits their freedom to maneuver.”

The zone is probably of more interest, however, to the countries involved — Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan — than to Russia, said Alexei Malashenko of the Carnegie Moscow Center.

“The leaders of Central Asia want to emphasize that they are an exception (in the region) — they’re not Iran, they cannot be compared to Pakistan, they don’t dream of this prospect,” Malashenko said.  “In that context, they belong to world society.”

During negotiations on the draft treaty establishing the zone, Russia pushed to retain its ability to deploy nuclear weapons within Central Asia.  Kazakhstan inserted language that said the treaty does not affect obligations under past agreements — including the 1992 Tashkent Collective Security Treaty, which, according to the Russian interpretation, allowed Russia to seek permission to deploy nuclear weapons within treaty countries.

Last week, Uzbekistan added language saying that treaty signatories would take all necessary measures to implement the main provisions of the treaty, thus obligating them to refuse Russian nuclear weapons, according to the Post.

The five Central Asian countries are still negotiating when to sign the treaty, the Post reported.  Kazakhstan wants to wait until the end of the year to see if the five declared nuclear-weapon states will sign a protocol agreeing that they will respect the treaty, said Arman Baislanov, head of the national security department at the Kazakh Foreign Ministry.  The other four countries, however, want to sign the treaty during an Oct. 16-23 visit by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to the region.

All five countries have agreed to hold the treaty signing ceremony at Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan — the site of more than 460 Soviet nuclear weapons tests.  Area residents still continue to suffer from the remaining radioactive wastes, the Post reported.

“We have a lot of negative experience,” Baislanov said (Washington Post, Oct. 5).

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North Korea:  U.S. Envoy Begins Second Day of Talks

A U.S. delegation led by Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly began a second day of talks today with North Korean officials in Pyongyang (see GSN, Oct. 3).

Kelly met yesterday with a North Korean delegation led by Vice Foreign Minister Kim Gye Gwan and then ate an informal dinner with the officials, State spokesman Richard Boucher said.  Kelly plans to continue discussions today before returning to Seoul Saturday, according to Boucher.

“His mission is ... to explore comprehensive dialogue with North Korea and, based on close coordination with South Korea and Japan, to explain U.S. policy and seek progress on a range of issues of long-standing concern to the United States,” Boucher said of Kelly’s discussion plans (Martin Nesirky, Reuters/Yahoo.com, Oct. 4).

North Korea expects the visitors to outline the U.S. policy on Korea and to “exchange views of issues of bilateral concern,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported.  Kelly is the highest-ranking U.S. official to travel to North Korea since a visit in 2000 by then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, according to the agency (Korean Central News Agency, Oct. 3).

IAEA Waits for Final Confirmation on Inspections

Meanwhile, the International Atomic Energy Agency is awaiting final confirmation from Pyongyang to begin inspections of North Korea’s nuclear program, the agency said yesterday.

“We have made initial contact with North Korea’s diplomatic mission here in Vienna and are awaiting a response to a follow-up fax we sent to Pyongyang,” IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said.  “We’re ready to go there anytime, the same as (with weapons inspections) in Iraq.  We’ve even developed some specialized equipment tailored to North Korea’s nuclear fuel to analyze its contents” (Reuters, Oct. 3).

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United States:  Air Force Begins Peacekeeper ICBM Dismantlement

The U.S. Air Force Tuesday began dismantling 50 Peacekeeper ICBMs stationed at Warren air base in Wyoming (see GSN, Sept. 27).  The dismantlement should help the United States reach the maximum limit of 2,200 deployed warheads that the U.S.-Russian Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty dictates.

Air Force technicians Tuesday began removing 10 warheads from the first Peacekeeper scheduled to be dismantled, according to the Associated Press.  They sent the warheads Wednesday to an Energy Department site for storage.  U.S. officials plan to use the warheads to replace older ones on Minuteman 3 ICBMs stationed at bases in Montana, North Dakota and Wyoming, AP reported.

Officials plan to dismantle each Peacekeeper in sections because of its sophistication, Air Force Col. John Faulkner, commander of the air base’s 90^th Maintenance Group, said.  Technicians plan to remove one section per day from a missile, resulting in a 17-day process for each missile.  Each launch facility will be maintained as a nuclear site until the missile is completely deactivated, and then the Pentagon will decide what to do with it, Faulkner said.

“I honestly didn’t think this day would happen when I left the service in the early 1980s ... I’m delighted this day is here,” Air Force Secretary James Roche said during a visit to the air base.  The deactivation “is a reflection of how the world has changed and is adapting to a new era.  In that new era we don’t need as many nuclear systems,” he said (Sarah Cooke, Associated Press, Oct. 4).

For further information, see:

U.S.-Russia Nuclear Reduction Treaty Text (U.S. State Department)

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U.S.-Russia:  HEU Deal Eliminates Equivalent of 6,000 Warheads

More than 150 metric tons of Russian highly enriched uranium, the equivalent of 6,000 nuclear weapons, has been eliminated to date through the U.S.-Russian “Megatons to Megawatts” program, the U.S. Enrichment Corporation said yesterday (see GSN, May 10).

Under the program, USEC purchases uranium taken from Russian nuclear weapons for use as fuel in U.S. nuclear power plants.  Since 1994, the program has provided enough fuel to power a city the size of Boston for about 230 years, USEC said in a press release.

When the Megatons to Megawatts program is completed — scheduled to be in 2013 — 500 metric tons of uranium taken from Russian nuclear weapons will have been converted into enough nuclear fuel to power the entire United States for two years, USEC said.  So far, the program has completed about one-third of its 20-year goal, USEC and Techsnabexport, the Russian agent for the program, said in a joint statement.

“Each and every day, the Megatons to Megawatts program eliminates more nuclear warhead material.  And from this warhead material we derive a valuable resource — clean-burning nuclear fuel, used to light and power our nation from coast to coast,” USEC President and Chief Executive Officer William Timbers said at a press conference yesterday in Washington.

“We have reached a milestone on the way to a better future,” said Techsnabexport General Director Vladimir Smirnov.  “The celebration today would be inconceivable without the constant cooperation of the executive agents, the goodwill they have demonstrated so many times and their constant readiness to seek mutually acceptable solutions.”

The United States and Russia signed an agreement in 1993 to create the Megatons to Megawatts program.  Russia is expected to receive $8 billion from its participation (U.S. Enrichment Corporation release, Oct. 3).

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Russia:  United States Still Funds Useless Plants

By David McGlinchey
Global Security Newswire

The U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency is spending $1.2 million to maintain U.S. facilities in Russia that earlier this year were discovered to be useless, according to a report released Sept. 30 by the Pentagon Inspector General (see GSN, May 29).

The Defense Department spent $95.5 million to build facilities to convert rocket fuel into commercially usable products, but officials learned in February that Russia had already used the fuel for its space program, according to the report from the Pentagon Inspector General.

The report, signed by Deputy Assistant Inspector General for Auditing David Steensma, says that in the future DTRA should require “a commitment from Russia to provide the weapon systems and their components.”

The United States could also save $197,000 a month if a decision is made on the future of the facilities, the report says (Rowan Scarborough, Washington Times, Oct. 3).

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International Response:  IAEA Officials Participate in Anti-Smuggling Training Exercise

International Atomic Energy Agency officials arrived in Vladivostok, Russia, today to participate in anti-nuclear smuggling exercises, part of an IAEA training course for customs inspectors.  The course began Sept. 16 and involves experts from the energy ministries of Russia and other former Soviet states (RIA/BBC Monitoring, Oct. 3).

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United Kingdom:  Weapons Program Should End With Trident, Scientists Say

The United Kingdom should immediately declare that it will abandon nuclear weapons once the Trident missile system reaches the end of its service life, a group of scientists said today.

Such a declaration would not endanger British national security and would increase pressure on other countries to also give up their nuclear weapons, according to a report prepared by the Pugwash group, released on the 50-year anniversary of the first British nuclear test.  The report’s authors include Joseph Rotblat, a Nobel peace prize laureate who was involved in U.S. efforts to develop nuclear weapons.

“Were the U.K. to show a more determined commitment to nuclear disarmament, especially following a decision not to replace Trident, it could expect to become a leading member, if not the leader, of the group of states actively working for the creation of a nuclear weapon-free world,” the report says.

In the 1998 British strategic defense review, a “sub-strategic” role was referred to for the Tridents, but no further details were provided.  It would be even more dangerous, however, to arm the missiles with smaller, low-yield nuclear weapons, the report says.

“Trident in its current form is less provocative to non-nuclear weapon states than justifying U.K. nuclear weapons afresh by placing new emphasis on sub-strategic nuclear capability,” the report says.  Instead it would be better “for the U.K. to oppose apparent U.S. moves to incorporate low-yield nuclear weapons into areas of conventional defense planning,” it says (Richard Norton-Taylor, London Guardian, Oct. 3).

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