North Korea:  Washington Considering Nonaggression Treaty

The United States might offer North Korea a formal nonaggression pact if Pyongyang agrees to dismantle its nuclear weapons programs, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, July 21).

During talks last week, U.S. officials told Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo that they are willing to hold a second round of talks with China and North Korea, according to the Post.  The United States is insisting, however, that the talks be immediately followed by broader negotiations, which would include South Korea, Japan and possibly Russia, U.S. officials said.

During the broader talks, U.S. officials would present a plan to end the crisis on the Korean Peninsula.  Bush administration officials are currently debating the final form of the plan.

A White House official, however, denied that the U.S. approach had shifted.

“As we have said many times, we will not submit to blackmail or grant inducements for the North to live up to its obligations,” he said (Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, July 22).

U.S. President George W. Bush, meanwhile, dismissed reports that North Korea might have developed a second facility to reprocess spent nuclear fuel rods into plutonium.

“The desire by the North Koreans to convince the world that they’re in the process of developing a nuclear arsenal is nothing new,” Bush said.

Bush’s comments are in sharp contrast to his earlier statements on North Korea’s nuclear development and his rhetoric on Iraq’s alleged weapons programs, the New York Times reported (David Sanger, New York Times, July 22).

Some officials, however, are casting doubt on reports of a second reprocessing site, the Washington Times reported.  U.S. officials said that krypton 85 — a byproduct of plutonium production — detected at the border between the Koreas probably came from North Korea’s known reprocessing site at Yongbyon, according to the Washington Times (Bill Gertz, Washington Times, July 22).

The State Department said the report on the second site was uncertain.

“We receive a steady stream of information on various types of activity in North Korea, much of which is unsubstantiated and can’t be confirmed, and I would put certainly the one report over the weekend into that category,” State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said (Yonhap News Agency/BBC Monitoring, July 22).

North Korea Could Have Eight Nuclear Weapons by End of Year

Former U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry said yesterday that North Korea could develop up to eight nuclear weapons by the end of this year, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, July 15).

Perry also said that North Korea could produce five to 10 nuclear weapons next year.

“I consider that this poses an unacceptable risk to our security,” he said.  “There are plenty of bidders out there willing to bid for it.  And if any of the terror groups are willing to get nuclear weapons or are able to get that plutonium, then we could see it end up in an American city,” Perry added (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, July 22).

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Iran:  European Union Urges Iran to Sign Additional Protocol

The European Union said yesterday that Iran must sign the Additional Protocol — which allows intrusive International Atomic Energy Agency monitoring of its nuclear activities — or risk ruining the relationship between Tehran and Brussels (see GSN, July 21).

A statement by EU foreign ministers said they “decided to review future steps of the cooperation between the EU and Iran in September,” when the IAEA is due to present a second report on Iran’s nuclear program.

European officials said that hard-line and moderate officials in Tehran were damaging bilateral ties.

“It does not matter whether they are reformers or conservatives.  They are united when it comes to a national security doctrine,” a British diplomat said (Dempsey/Bozorgmehr, Financial Times, July 21).

The United States, meanwhile, has teamed with an Iraqi political party to rehabilitate a branch of the Iraqi intelligence services that spied on Iran, according to Iraqi politicians and agents.

The Iraqi National Congress, headed by longtime exile Ahmad Chalabi, has met with senior officials from the now-defunct Iraqi spy agency known as the Mukhabarat.

“As far as what we do, we are sending back information to the Pentagon, to people who are responsible,” said Abdulaziz Kubaisi, an INC member who has been recruiting former intelligence agents (Banerjee/Jehl, New York Times, July 22).

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International Response:  Central Asian States to Meet in September on Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone

By Mike Nartker
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Five Central Asian states plan to meet in September in an effort to complete an agreement establishing a nuclear weapons-free zone in the region, a senior U.N. disarmament official told Global Security Newswire yesterday (see GSN, March 11).

The meeting, scheduled to be held by the end of September in the Uzbek capital of Tashkent, will involve representatives from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, said Tsutomu Ishiguri, director of the U.N. Regional Center for Peace and Disarmament in Asia and the Pacific.  The purpose of the meeting is for the Central Asian states to develop a joint response to comments on a draft treaty provided by four of the five declared nuclear weapons states. Of the five, only China has submitted no comments.

The nuclear weapons states submitted their written proposals earlier this year, but the Central Asian states later requested that they be resubmitted in Russian so that they were available in a common language, Ishiguri said, adding that the proposals were resubmitted by early March.  After the Central Asian states had an opportunity to individually review the translated comments, representatives from the Central Asian states’ U.N. missions then met twice in New York — June 3 and July 17 — to “review notes,” Ishiguri said. 

U.N. mission representatives are now expected to meet again by the end of this month to finalize details for the Tashkent meeting, Ishiguri said.  He added that the Central Asian states need to send high-level officials to the Tashkent meeting, in addition to technical experts, so that decisions can quickly be made “on the spot.” 

After the Tashkent meeting, the Central Asian states will be in a position to meet with the nuclear weapons states to discuss their proposals, Ishiguri said.  While the five nuclear weapons states cannot prevent the creation of the zone, the Central Asian states have requested that they sign a protocol to the treaty stating that they agree to respect the zone.

The United Nations hopes the treaty can be signed by the end of this year, Ishiguri said.  The Central Asian states have twice anticipated signing the treaty — once in October 2002 and again in April.

In May, Ishiguri told GSN that delays in signing the treaty should not be interpreted as a sign that the Central Asian states are losing interest in establishing the zone.  He noted then that the Central Asian states had reaffirmed their commitment to the creation of the zone in working papers presented at a meeting of the U.N. Disarmament Commission (see GSN, April 18) and during a meeting of Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty members (see GSN, May 9).  He told GSN yesterday, however, that there is concern that momentum could be lost if the treaty is not signed soon.

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United States I:  Nuclear Weapons Meeting Could Draw Protests

Large protests are expected next month at Offutt Air Force base in Nebraska, where U.S. nuclear officials and scientists are scheduled to discuss plans for the U.S. nuclear arsenal, the Omaha World-Herald reported Thursday (see GSN, July 21).

The Aug. 7 meeting is expected to focus on whether the United States should develop low-yield nuclear weapons.

“It’s the whole enchilada, this meeting.  Anybody who is anybody in nuclear weapons will be there,” said Greg Mello of the Los Alamos Study Group, which first revealed the once-secret gathering that had been planned for almost one year (Robynn Tysver, Omaha World-Herald, July 17).

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United States II:  Energy Department Moves Forward With Weapon-Grade Uranium Reduction Program

The first shipment of low-enriched uranium produced through a program to reduce stockpiles of weapon-grade uranium was shipped last week to a site in Tennessee for further processing into nuclear reactor fuel, the U.S. Energy Department announced yesterday (see GSN, April 15).

Last week’s shipment of low-enriched uranium was created through the High-Enriched Uranium Blend Down Program, which seeks to reduce stockpiles of highly enriched uranium stored at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.  The HEU is blended down with natural uranium at the site to create low-enriched uranium, which is then sent to Nuclear Fuel Services in Erwin, Tenn.  There, the LEU will be prepared for fabrication into nuclear reactor fuel.  The program is scheduled to continue through 2007, according to the Energy release.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham yesterday praised the advance of the program.

“Today marks a big step in our nation’s nonproliferation efforts,” Abraham said.  “We have taken material that was left over from the Cold War and turned it into something that is unattractive for use in weapons.  Not only that, but we’ve turned it into a material that has an important peacetime use: producing electricity,” he said (U.S. Energy Department release, July 21).

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United States III:  Russians Visit Peacekeeper Missile Silo

In a gesture of cooperation between Cold War adversaries, five senior Russian military officials visited a heavily guarded U.S. Peacekeeper missile silo being dismantled in Wyoming yesterday, the Denver Post reported (see GSN, Oct. 4, 2002).

“It’s part of an overall process of transforming the relationship between our two countries from one of post-Cold War rivalry to one of working cooperatively,” said Brig. Gen. Frank Klotz, commander of the 20th Air Force.  The silo is located 60 miles north of Cheyenne, Wyo.

The Russian delegation included Gen. Col. Nikolay Solovtsov, commander of the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces (Coleman Cornelius, Denver Post, July 22).

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United States IV:  Officials Express Concern Over Los Alamos Incidents, Delay Action

U.S. Energy Department officials have expressed concern over a number of incidents at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, but have decided to delay further action, Energy Daily reported today (see GSN, June 19).

In a letter sent July 7 to Los Alamos Director George Nanos, Stephen Sohinki, director of Energy’s Price-Anderson Enforcement Office, outlined a number of safety incidents that had been reported in the first half of 2003, according to Energy Daily.  For example, workers were reported to have been contaminated with tritium while removing copper piping in the laboratory’s ion beam facility in May.

Sohinki also said that one Los Alamos section had reported six incidents of “elevated airborne radioactivity levels” in the first half of the year, which resulted in personnel and room contamination.  In addition, a laboratory facility’s nuclear inventory was found to be in excess of storage limits because of a poor calculation of materials stored there, he said.

Sohinki said that while the incidents normally would have been cause for a formal investigation, he would allow Nanos to address the issues first.

“Therefore, because of your personal commitment and positive first steps toward resolving the types of systemic issues discussed in this letter, (the Office of Enforcement) will exercise enforcement discretion,” Sohinki wrote (George Lobsenz, Energy Daily, July 22).  

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North Korea:  Pyongyang Might Have Second Reprocessing Facility

A second facility designed to produce weapon-grade plutonium may have been constructed by North Korea, the New York Times reported yesterday (see GSN, July 18).

U.S. officials said they detected krypton 85 — a gaseous byproduct of reprocessing spent nuclear fuel into plutonium — but it did not appear that the gas was coming from Yongbyon, where North Korea was thought to have its entire stock of spent nuclear fuel rods (see GSN, July 14).

Evidence of the new site is “very worrisome, but still not conclusive,” a senior White House official said.

According to computer analysis, the gas might have been drifting from deeply buried facilities in the North Korean mountains.

“This takes a very hard problem and makes it infinitely more complicated,” said an Asian official familiar with U.S. intelligence.  “How can you verify that they have stopped a program like this if you don’t know where everything is?” the official added (Sanger/Shanker, New York Times, July 20).

South Korean officials said the evidence had not been confirmed.

The report will probably not dissuade Washington from “the firm U.S. position of seeking a peaceful and diplomatic solution” to the nuclear crisis, according to South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo-hyuck.

“There is no conclusive information about such facilities,” Lee said (CNN.com, July 21).

Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Tony Blair met with South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun yeseterday and proposed a plan to hold talks with North Korea in two stages.

The first phase would include North Korea, China and the United States.  In later talks, the format would be expanded to include Japan and South Korea, Blair said.

“We cannot have a situation in which North Korea not merely continues to develop a nuclear-weapons program but proliferates and exports that technology around the world,” he said (Gordon Fairclough, Wall Street Journal, July 21).

The talks could be held as early as August, a South Korean official said Thursday (Yonhap News Agency, July 17 in FBIS-CHI, July 17).

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Iran:  U.N. Nuclear Team Arrives in Tehran

U.N. nuclear experts arrived in Tehran Saturday, 24 hours after a report indicated that enriched uranium was found in environmental samples taken from Iran, Reuters reported today (see GSN, July 18).

The Iranian nuclear agency said the visit was scheduled in advance and is not a reaction to the recent alleged findings.

“It is a routine and preplanned visit of Iran’s nuclear facilities.  They visit Iran’s nuclear sites according to their scheduled plans,” said Khalil Mousavi, a spokesman for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization.

The presence of enriched uranium might indicate that Iran has been attempting to develop nuclear weapon-grade material, Reuters reported.  Iranian officials said, however, that the International Atomic Energy Agency has not discussed the issue with them.

“It is the responsibility of the IAEA to make comments on this issue, not diplomats who do not have exact information on such things,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Asefi said Saturday (Reuters/Planet Ark, July 21).  “As soon as the agency takes a stance on this, then we will announce our stance,” he added.

IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said the agency is reviewing the evidence and U.N. officials will draw conclusions after an investigation is completed.

“Results of the environmental sample analyses are being reviewed at the agency, and we expect to take more samples over the next few weeks,” Fleming said (CNN.com, July 18).

Iran said it is not considering withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, but it is also not ready to agree to the Additional Protocol, which would allow for more intrusive International Atomic Energy Agency monitoring of its nuclear activities.

“Withdrawing from [the] NPT is not on the agenda and Iran abides by its obligations,” Asefi said.  “But for the moment, the question of signing the Additional Protocol is not on the agenda,” he added.

Asefi said Iran has a “positive approach” toward the protocol, and “signing the Additional Protocol is a national decision based on a general consensus by the supreme council of national security and parliament’s approval” (Agence France-Presse, July 21).

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U.S. Plans:  Nuclear Proliferation Threatens U.S. “Empire,” Historian Says

By David McGlinchey
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The United States maintains a beneficent global “empire,” but constraining nuclear proliferation must become a priority if Washington wants to retain its unprecedented power, an Oxford University history professor said Thursday.

“Nuclear weapons have changed the nature of empire,” said Niall Ferguson, speaking at an American Enterprise Institute debate here on the existence of the U.S. imperial realm.

Ferguson, who recently authored Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power, argued that the United States is, and should be, an empire.  He said U.S. forces abroad could spread stability, democracy and free markets, but Washington must accept its imperial role and become heavily involved in countering emerging threats.

However, Robert Kagan, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, argued that the United States is an extremely powerful and positive global force, but it does not rise to the level of an empire.  He said U.S. allies overseas are not imperial subjects, but instead keep up a “continuing voluntary association.”

Ferguson said the United States must maintain forces and influence in countries long after the U.S. public wants them withdrawn if it is to maintain its status as an empire.  The U.S. desire to pull back from recently conquered countries, such as Iraq, only leads to instability in those areas, he argued.

Washington must also work with other countries to push nonproliferation efforts “if you don’t want tyrants to get nuclear weapons,” Ferguson said.

Kagan said the United States is powerful, but its democratic underpinnings prevent an empire from developing.  He called the empire argument “catastrophic, in addition to being wrong,” saying that the empire label would foster anti-U.S. sentiment abroad.

Ferguson countered that the rest of the world already believes the United States is an empire — it is only Americans who believe otherwise.

He said, however, that the United States should extend its empire while placating — and intentionally misleading — local populations with promises of troops withdrawals.  In countries where the United States maintains a large military presence, Ferguson encouraged U.S. leaders to “say you are not an empire, say you will leave soon,” but “the key is not to mean these things,” he said.

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United States I:  Strategic Command to Discuss Nuclear Stockpile Next Month

The U.S. Strategic Command is expected to discuss the future status and makeup of the U.S. nuclear arsenal during a meeting scheduled for next month, according to Aviation Week & Space Technology (see GSN, July 17).

The meeting is expected to include representatives from the U.S. Energy Department, military and laboratories, according to Aviation Week.  Participants will discuss what types of nuclear weapons will be needed to combat a “new set of potential adversaries,” senior officials overseeing the nuclear stockpiles said.

The U.S Defense Department “needs to identify shortcomings of the stockpile in dealing with rogue nations, terrorists or nations that harbor terrorists,” the senior official said.

In addition, the Pentagon’s Defense Science Board is expected to soon complete its strategic strike assessment, Aviation Week reported.  The assessment is expected to address nuclear modernization issues, such as whether Cold War-era alert postures should be modified, according to board Chairman Bill Schneider (Robert Wall, Aviation Week & Space Technology, July 21).

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International Response:  IAEA Board Approves Budget Increase

The International Atomic Energy Agency’s board of governors agreed Friday to increase the agency’s budget for the first time since the late 1980s, according to an IAEA press release.

The board agreed to a $15 million increase over the IAEA’s current $245 million budget, according to the release.  The agency’s budget is expected to increase by $25 million by 2007.  Most of the increase is slated to go toward the IAEA’s verification program because it “has been experiencing the greatest demand for additional resources and has for years been the most chronically underfunded,” IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said.

The budget must now be approved by the IAEA General Conference, scheduled to be held in September.

The budget increase “represents a real vote of confidence in the IAEA and a recognition of the importance of our work,” ElBaradei said.  “It is a long overdue but very welcome first step in tackling the chronic underfunding of the IAEA,” he said (International Atomic Energy Agency release, July 18).

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United States II:  House of Representatives Approves Fiscal 2004 Energy Appropriations Bill

The U.S. House of Representatives yesterday voted 377-26 to approve the fiscal 2004 energy and water appropriations bill (see GSN I and GSN II, July 17).

The bill includes an amendment prohibiting the transfer of nuclear technology to North Korea, which would effectively end a project to construct two light-water nuclear reactors there that began under the auspices of the 1994 Agreed Framework, according to Reuters.

The U.S. Senate must still approve its own version of the bill (Reuters/Philadelphia Inquirer, July 19).

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Iran:  Inspectors Discover Enriched Uranium in Samples

U.N. inspectors have detected enriched uranium in environmental samples taken from Iran, Reuters reported today (see GSN, July 17).

The enrichment level of the uranium might indicate that Iran was attempting to make weapon-grade uranium, diplomats said.  Iran did not notify the International Atomic Energy Agency of its enrichment plans.

On its own, however, the discovery is not conclusive evidence that Tehran was enriching uranium, according to the diplomats.

“The results of environmental sample analyses are being reviewed at the agency, and we expect to take more samples over the next few weeks,” IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said.

“Only the IAEA will be in a position to judge the significance of the analysis results.  At this point, we are still in the middle of a complex inspection process in Iran, in which we are investigating a number of unresolved issues,” she added (Louis Charbonneau, Reuters, July 18).

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U.S.-Russia I:  Washington, Moscow Sign Plutonium Reactor Access Accord

U.S. and Russian officials signed an agreement in Moscow yesterday giving non-Russian personnel access to two closed nuclear cities where Russia has agreed to shut down its only remaining plutonium production reactors.  The agreement will enable U.S.-funded contractors to enter the cities and construct two coal-burning power plants to replace the three nuclear weapon plants that also provide power and heat to surrounding communities.

Yesterday’s signing advances a long-established, U.S.-Russian agreement in principle to end Russian plutonium production which continues at the cities of Seversk, formerly Tomsk-7, and Zheleznogorsk, formerly Kranoyarsk-26.

“Replacing these reactors with fossil fuel energy is critical to eliminating the production of weapons-grade plutonium in Russia and closing these facilities,” said U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham.

Abraham and Russian Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyanstev formally signed the reactor shutdown plan in March (see GSN, March 12) and in May the United States selected contractors to perform the work (see GSN, May 28).  The reactors are expected to shut down in five to eight years.

The access agreement allows outsiders to perform activities related to building the new power plants, but negotiators are still working on an access agreement to allow outside experts to install reactor safety improvements while they continue to operate.

“This is one further step in what has been a long process,” said Matthew Bunn, a researcher at Harvard University in Boston (Josef Hebert, Associated Press/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, July 18).

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India:  U.S. Company Pleads Guilty to Nuclear-Related Export Violations

The U.S. freight-forwarding company DSV Samson Transport pleaded guilty yesterday to violating U.S export control regulations designed to prevent nuclear proliferation by forwarding more than 30 shipments to India from 1999 to 2001, according to a U.S. Commerce Department press release (see GSN, July 3).

In its guilty plea, DSV Samson admitted to forwarding at least 36 shipments to Indian entities, including the Indian Atomic Energy Department’s Directorate of Purchase and Stores, without required export licenses, the Commerce release said.  U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth sentenced the company to a $250,000 fine, an $800 special assessment and five years probation.  In addition, DSV Samson reached an agreement with Commerce’s Industry and Security Bureau to pay a civil penalty of $399,000 to resolve related administrative charges.

“This case demonstrates that the Department of Commerce will hold freight forwarders accountable for fulfilling their responsibilities under our export-control laws,” Acting Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Export Enforcement Lisa Prager said.  “Forwarders play a key role in the global supply chain.  As such, it is important that they be extremely attentive to their export control obligations,” she said (U.S. Commerce Department release, July 17).

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North Korea:  Chinese Official Heading to Washington

Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo left Beijing for Washington yesterday to meet with White House officials and discuss the crisis on the Korean Peninsula, the New York Times reported (see GSN, July 17).

Dai recently returned from a four-day visit to Pyongyang, according to the Times.

“China hopes to see the quick resumption of the peace talks,” said Kong Quan, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry.  “The purpose of the Beijing talks would be to seek a final settlement to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” Kong added (Joseph Kahn, New York Times, July 18).

China is pushing to resolve the issue, Kong said.

Beijing also called for calm on the peninsula after an exchange of gunfire across the DMZ this week.  Kong urged the two nations to avoid pushing the confrontation further (Chinese People’s Daily, July 17).

China believes North Korea has reprocessed enough plutonium to develop a nuclear weapon, spurring the latest push in Chinese diplomacy, the Wall Street Journal reported today.

“The Chinese are scared,” said a Western diplomat in Beijing.  “It’s in their interests to keep open the process of negotiations for as long as possible,” the diplomat said.

Beijing’s intelligence services have determined that North Korea has the nuclear material and the equipment necessary to build a weapon, according to Western diplomats and officials who have seen or were briefed on internal Chinese government documents (Charles Hutzler, Wall Street Journal, July 18).

Russia Wants Role in Talks

A Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman said today that Moscow would be a logical inclusion in multilateral talks on the nuclear standoff.

“We favor a formula that would bring results,” Alexander Yakovenko said.  “If the formula were opened out, Russian participation would be logical,” he added (Agence France-Presse, July 18).

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Russia:  Naval Official Denied Submarines Stopped Patrolling

Contrary to U.S. reports, Russian Navy officials said they never suspended worldwide nuclear submarine patrols, ITAR-Tass reported Wednesday (see GSN, July 1).

“In reality, the Navy has stepped up its activities this year because we have received sufficient funding for combat training,” said Capt. Igor Dygalo, an aide to the Russian Navy’s top ranking official  (see GSN, July 8; ITAR-Tass/CDI Russia Weekly, July 14).

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U.S.-Russia II:  Future Arms Control Treaties Are Unlikely, U.S. Officials Says

The U.S. ambassador to Russia has said the United States and Russia may no longer need to create arms control treaties to further reduce their nuclear arsenals, ITAR-Tass reported Wednesday (see GSN, May 16, 2002).

Treaties calling for cuts beyond the U.S.-Russian Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty may no longer be needed because of the changing relationship between the United States and Russia from adversaries to allies, Alexander Vershbow said, noting that the United States does not have similar treaties with allies such as the United Kingdom or France.

“I think with or without treaties, we will continue to share a common interest in reducing nuclear weapons to the lowest possible level consistent with our security, our security interests,” Vershbow said (ITAR-Tass/CDI Russia Weekly, July 17).

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United States:  U.S. Legislators Offer Mixed Signals on Bush Nuclear Program

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Members of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate yesterday advanced differing positions on Bush administration efforts to develop new nuclear weapons, with the House moving to maintain current limits on development and a Senate panel approving funding requests for new nuclear weapons.

The House, in its action, voted to uphold decade-old restrictions on the advanced development and production of low-yield nuclear weapons, co-authored by Representative John Spratt (D-S.C.). The restrictions ban the United States from adding new low-yield weapons to its nuclear arsenal by prohibiting all but basic research and development activities.

Yesterday’s vote reaffirmed an earlier House vote to partially repeal the ban by allowing research activities.  Some congressional staffers last week said they feared House Republicans would seek a total repeal in a House-Senate conference on the fiscal 2004 defense authorization bill (see GSN, July 9).  A Senate version of the bill, meanwhile, would effectively eliminate restrictions on all research and development, but would require further congressional authorization before “testing, acquisition or deployment.”

In a statement today, Spratt said the restrictions in the 1990s helped the United States persuade other countries to give up nuclear weapons and to permanently extend the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in 1995.

“I would not like to see us backtrack on these achievements, and I hope that the House’s position will prevail in conference with the Senate,” he said.

The fate of that and other contentious Bush administration nuclear weapons proposals remains unresolved, however, with various pieces of major legislation this year differing in their House and Senate versions (see GSN, July 16).

Instructions for Negotiation

With the voice vote yesterday, the House instructed its conferees to insist on maintaining the language the House has already passed during the House-Senate 2004 defense authorization bill conference.

While the instructions are not binding, experts say it would be unlikely that they would be disregarded by the senior House conferees, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter (R-Ind.) and senior committee Democrat  Ike Skelton (Mo.).

Hunter yesterday said he would not urge opposition to the motion to instruct, but the outcome of the conference remains uncertain.

“The House approach is better than the Senate’s because it’s a clear statement of U.S. policy against development of tactical nukes, and contains a stronger guarantee that the Congress will be an equal partner in any decision to move beyond research,” Spratt said.

“We authorized research but retained the prohibition on development activities that could lead to the production of a destabilizing and unnecessary new low-yield nuclear weapon,” said Skelton.

Question Persists on Funding

Meanwhile, key House and the Senate appropriations committees appear to differ over funding the mini-nuke and other Bush administration nuclear weapons priorities its fiscal 2004 Energy Department appropriations request.

The Senate Appropriations Committee today approved in full the administration’s funding request for work on low-yield weapons in 2004 ($6 million), research on a modified nuclear weapon intended for earth penetration ($15 million) and activities to reduce the preparation time for resuming nuclear testing ($25 million).

The House Appropriations Committee this week, however, voted not to fund nearly all those programs, saying in a report the administration needed to provide better justifications for the requests.

Debate Over Implications

In a markup session yesterday, the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development debated the potential implications of lifting the ban on research and development of low-yield nuclear weapons.

Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) charged, “This bill launches a new generation of nuclear weapons … that will make this nation less safe in the future, not more safe.”

Subcommittee chairman Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) disagreed, and said the funding would ease restrictions on the freedom of U.S. nuclear scientists.

“If you vote for this you will not be voting for a new generation of nuclear weapons.  That I can assure you,” he said.

“We’re talking about whether or not we’re going to let our scientists have new ideas and new thoughts or whether we’re going to try from the outside to put some kind of parameters around their thinking,” he said.

Feinstein said the administration’s Nuclear Posture Review indicated a goal to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons.

“The fact of the matter is the administration has decided to take concrete steps for creating new classes of nuclear weapons and the wheels are beginning to grind to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons,” she said.

“The administration seems to be moving toward a military posture where nuclear weapons are just like other weapons,” she said.

A formal White House policy statement on the defense authorization bill said eliminating research and development restrictions was needed to address new threats.

“Maintaining the prohibition on development will hinder the ability of our scientists and engineers to explore technical options to deter national security threats of the 21st century,” it says.

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North Korea:  China Says North Korea Open to Multilateral Talks

Chinese officials have told the United States that North Korea is willing to agree to multilateral talks to resolve the nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, July 16).

Beijing said, however, that the United States must agree to three-nation talks, excluding South Korea and Japan.  U.S. officials said, however, they would continue to push for the inclusion of Seoul and Tokyo.

“We think five is the right formula and will keep pressing for that,” said one senior State Department official (Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, July 17), but Undersecretary of State John Bolton told Japanese reporters, “If there is a way to start at three and go to five, we are open to suggestions on it” (Japan Times, July 17).

China now appears to be bringing its substantial influence to bear in an effort to force talks on the nuclear standoff.

“China is moving.  They are working on it,” said a South Korea official.  “If North Korea rejects dialogue now, China will be unhappy,” he said (Kessler, Washington Post).

Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing reportedly told U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell of the possible breakthrough during a telephone call Tuesday (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, July 17).

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said the process should move forward relatively soon.

“So the diplomatic track is alive and well and I expect to see some developments along that track in the very near future,” he said (Harry Murphy, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, July 16).

Troops Fire Across DMZ

Meanwhile, Seoul said North Korean soldiers opened fire on a South Korean position yesterday.  South Korean soldiers returned fire a minute later, according to the officials.

“Everything that they have done on the DMZ over the course of the past few years has been done with a particular purpose,” said Korea expert Scott Snyder of the Asia Foundation.  “The North Koreans have continued to look for ways to remind the United States that it is out there and that they can do damage as a way of trying to draw attention,” he added (Eckert/Jung-hwa, Reuters, July 17).

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Iran:  Moscow, Tehran Could Sign Spent Fuel Agreement By End of Month

Tehran and Moscow could sign an agreement by the end of the month on the return of spent nuclear fuel from the Bushehr nuclear plant in Iran to Russia, Russian Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev said yesterday (see GSN, July 3).

Environmental experts have completed their examination of the agreement, which has cleared the way for Russia and Iran to sign, Rumyantsev said.  “For a long time the Iranian side has had no objections to the signing,” he said (Daily Star, July 17).

Russia will supply the first 11 deliveries of 500 kilograms each of fuel for the Bushehr reactor to Iran via cargo jet after the agreement is signed, Rumyantsev said.  The first fuel shipments would likely be loaded into the reactor in mid-2004, he said (Xinhua News Agency, July 17).

Iranian Defense Strategy Does Not Include Nuclear Weapons, Khatami Says

Meanwhile, Iranian President Mohammad Khatami has said that Iran’s defense strategy does not include nuclear weapons (see GSN, July 16).

“I frankly say that there is absolutely no place in Iran’s defense strategy to acquire nuclear arms,” Khatami said.  “We are, in fact, asking the world and the region to get rid of such weapons,” he said.

Instead, Iran is seeking nuclear technology for peaceful uses, Khatami said, denying that its civilian nuclear program was a cover for military activities.

“Acquiring nuclear technology does not mean having nuclear arms,” Khatami said.  “What Iran has obtained through its own capabilities ... is an introduction to peaceful nuclear technology,” he said (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, July 16). 

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CTBT:  Algeria Ratifies Treaty

Algeria ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty July 11, bringing the total number of treaty ratifiers to 103, according to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization (see GSN, June 25).

Algeria is one of the 44 nations that must ratify the treaty before it can enter into force.  Of those 44 nations, 32 have ratified the treaty (CTBT Organization release, July 17).

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United States:  Cutting Nuclear Research, House Appropriators Demand Better Planning

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — In approving the $27 billion Energy Department appropriations bill yesterday, the Republican-controlled House Appropriations Committee voted to significantly cut Bush administration fiscal 2004 funding requests for new nuclear warhead activities and increased testing readiness.  The lawmakers demanded that the administration provide more detailed national security justifications if it wanted to receive the funds (see GSN, July 15).

The committee also criticized the administration for not producing a detailed plan to change the current nuclear arsenal, saying in committee report released yesterday that the U.S. arsenal was “built to fight the now defunct Soviet Union.”

The House appropriators cut all $6 million requested for research and development through the Advanced Concepts Initiative, under which new, low-yield nuclear weapons would be researched.

In addition, the committee reduced funding for researching modifications to an existing nuclear earth-penetrating nuclear weapon, the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, by $10 million from the requested $15 million.  Both the House and Senate earlier this year authorized spending on it up to $15 million in bills yet to be finalized.

Yesterday’s cuts, contained in the House Energy and Water Development Appropriations bill marked up by the committee, contrast with largely enthusiastic support for the administration plans in the House and Senate Armed Services committees.  Both the House and Senate have passed bills that would authorize full spending on the programs (see GSN, July 9).  Senate appropriators are scheduled to act on the bill tomorrow.

The funding cuts would be made, the committee report says, “in favor of higher priority current mission requirements.”

Testing Readiness Cut

The committee also cut the entire $24 million request to shorten the time needed to prepare for a nuclear weapons test.  The committee report says the administration must provide a “better definition of the national security requirement.”

The report says the proposal “reflects a disturbing ‘cost-is-no-object’ perspective in the [Energy] Department’s decision-making process.”

The administration is seeking funding for reducing the lead-time from an estimated 24 to 36 months down to 18 months.

“The committee is concerned with the open-ended commitment to increase significantly funding for the purpose of Enhanced Test Readiness without any budget analysis or program plan to evaluate the efficiency or effectiveness of this funding increase,” the report says.

The administration also needs to provide better justifications of its nuclear weapons stockpile requirements, the report says.

“The committee is concerned the NNSA [the Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration] is being tasked to start new activities with significant outyear budget impacts before the administration has articulated the specific requirements to support the president’s announced stockpile modification,” it said.

Looking for Money

John Isaacs, president of the Council for a Livable World, an arms control lobbying organization, attributed the cuts to something else altogether.

“My understanding is the committee is looking for money for water projects, which the White House cut by $300 million, and this is how they got it,” he said.

The committee targeted cuts to the administration’s nuclear weapons priorities, Isaacs said, because unlike developing national missile defenses they have not been “an article of faith of the Republican party.”

“It means they were more vulnerable when looking for money,” he said.

Overall, the committee increased funding for NNSA, which oversees Energy Department nuclear weapons and nonproliferation programs, by $330.1 million more than fiscal 2003 levels to $8.5 billion for 2004.  That is, however, $326.4 million less than the administration had requested.

Budget Process Called Flawed

The committee report says the U.S. nuclear weapons program has not been forced to make the difficult cost-benefit trade-offs other programs make.  It says the current process for deciding requirements and shaping the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal is “flawed” because the Pentagon sets requirements while Energy is required to fund them.

When Defense “develops their requirements,” the committee report says, “their decision process is not constrained by the normal types of budget trade-offs that an agency confronts in the process of formulating a budget request.”

 The report calls for a “serious debate about whether the approximately $6 billion spent annually on DOE’s nuclear weapons complex is a sound national security investment.”

“If these costs were funded directly by the DOD, the nuclear weapons activities would be considered against other national defense priorities, such as developing improved conventional weapons, procuring more existing weapons systems, paying ever increasing operational and training costs, and providing a better quality of life for our sailors, soldier and airmen,” it says.

The committee report says the Bush administration is asking too much of the NNSA at this time.

“It appears to the committee the [Energy] Department is proposing to rebuild, restart, and redo and otherwise exercise every capability that was used over the past 40 years of the Cold War and at the same time prepare for a future with an expanded mission for nuclear weapons,” it said.

The committee said it would not “support redirecting the [NNSA’s] management resources and attention to a series of new initiatives” until it could demonstrate it is successfully meeting its primary mission, “maintaining the safety, security and viability of the existing stockpile” (see GSN, Dec. 18, 2002).

Reporting Faulted

The committee faulted the Bush administration for not delivering a committee-requested report providing specific plans to reduce the U.S. strategic nuclear arsenal in accordance with the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, which took effect last month (see GSN, June 2). 

A Defense official recently told Global Security Newswire the administration was planning to begin “retire” some of the planned downloaded warheads beginning in 2006, but said “dismantlement plans are not yet finalized.”

The official added, “Other warheads removed from missiles and bombers will be maintained in a nondeployed status as a hedge against unforeseen technical or international events.”

The appropriators yesterday said that lacking specific new plans for the future structure of the stockpile, NNSA continues to budget for maintaining active and inactive strategic nuclear warheads at START I levels.

“The National Nuclear Security Administration has not been able to reconcile the recently announced dramatic reductions planned for deployed operational nuclear warheads to its strategic weapons modernization plans, some of which will cost billions of dollars each, and which are currently structured to upgrade the maximum number of warheads,” the committee report says.

“NNSA is forced, through inertia and indecision, to maintain all contingencies regardless of how unlikely the threat,” the report says.

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North Korea:  China Pushes for Multilateral Talks

China has proposed a plan to begin multilateral negotiations among the United States, North Korea and other Northeast Asian countries, the New York Times reported today (see GSN, July 15).

“Right now it is critical to continue the process of the talks,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan said.

“It is of critical importance to the peace, stability and development of the East Asian and Asian region,” Kong added.

Deputy Chinese Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo returned from Pyongyang yesterday after delivering the details of the plan in a letter to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.  The multilateral meetings would include sideline talks between Washington and Pyongyang, potentially satisfying North Korea’s desire for direct contact with U.S. officials.

“China has been very clear that it remains open and flexible on the participants and the formalities of the talks,” Kong said (Joseph Kahn, New York Times, July 16).

North Korea reportedly told the United States it would agree to multilateral talks if Washington promises not to undermine the Pyongyang leadership.

“We would be ready to accept five-nation talks if a promise was made to guarantee (the survival of) the regime,” a North Korean diplomat said, according to a Japanese newspaper (Reuters, July 16).

The White House meanwhile said it could not confirm North Korean claims to have reprocessed all of its 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods, a key step toward building a nuclear weapon.  Some senior officials said North Korea might be bluffing.

“The point is, they’re not going to spook us,” an official said.  “They’ve got to understand that they don’t get anywhere just by trying to up the level of blackmail,” the officials added (Sonni Efron, Los Angeles Times, July 16).

The U.S. Defense Department, meanwhile, said it is taking North Korea’s comments seriously.

“When they told us they had nuclear weapons, they meant it,” Lawrence Di Rita, an aide to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, said.  “Certainly what they’ve told us in the past has been worth paying attention to,” he added (Associated Press/Newsday, July 16).

The White House is also considering allowing thousands of North Korean refugees to emigrate to the United States as a means of increasing the pressure on Pyongyang.

Such a move would most likely increase attempts at emigration from North Korea.  Refugees mostly escape into China, which usually repatriates them, and encouraging more emigration could cause trouble with Beijing, the Washington Post reported.

“The Chinese will be enraged by this,” an official said (Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, July 16).

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Iran:  Tehran Willing to Sign Protocol After Rights Are Clarified

Iran has indicated that it may be willing to sign the Additional Protocol to its international nuclear safeguards agreement, which would allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to conduct intrusive inspections of Tehran’s nuclear activities, Agence France-Presse reported yesterday (see GSN, July 15).

During a visit to Moscow, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Galiamali Khosru said that Iran and the IAEA must understand their specific rights before the agreement is signed.

“We favor signing the protocol but we believe that the rights of Iran and the IAEA must be clarified,” Khosru said (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, July 15).

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