IAEA Board Begins Meeting; U.S. Drops Effort to Report Iranian Nuclear Program to U.N.

Concluding that it has inadequate international support, the United States has apparently abandoned efforts to have the International Atomic Energy Agency report that Iran is not complying with its nuclear safeguards agreement, diplomats said Friday.

Instead, the United States now plans to submit a less strongly worded resolution on Iran’s nuclear program during an agency Board of Governors’ meeting that began today, according to the Associated Press.  The U.S. resolution would call on Iran to provide unrestricted access to its nuclear program, said a senior diplomat.  The resolution could also set a deadline for Iran to fully comply and warn that if does not, then it will be declared in noncompliance, which could result in the issue being reported to the U.N. Security Council, a second diplomat said (George Jahn, Associated Press/Tuscaloosa News, Sept. 5).

The chances that the IAEA board would approve a resolution that left out Security Council involvement are “better than 50-50,” a Western diplomat said (Louis Charbonneau, Reuters/Yahoo!News, Sept. 5).

ElBaradei Opens Meeting

In a statement to the board today, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei set the tone in Vienna by saying Tehran must step up cooperation with the agency in the weeks ahead.

The meeting agenda for the two-day talks is varied, but the focus is expected to be squarely on Iran.

ElBaradei called on Tehran, “in the coming weeks, to show proactive and accelerated cooperation and to demonstrate full transparency by providing the agency with a complete and accurate declaration of all its nuclear activities.”  He urged Iran to take specific measures related to points raised in a report on Iran he submitted late last month to the board (see GSN, Sept. 4).

Iran has claimed that highly enriched uranium particles the IAEA found at the country’s Natanz centrifuge facility represented contamination that came from the country providing the equipment in question.  Numerous reports have indicated the provider was Pakistan.

This morning, ElBaradei said Iran should “provide a complete list of all imported equipment and components stated to have been contaminated with high enriched uranium particles, and — importantly — identify the origin and date of receipt of the equipment, including information about where it has been used or stored in Iran.”

He added that Iran should “resolve questions regarding the conclusion of agency experts that process testing of gas centrifuges must have been conducted in order for Iran to develop its enrichment technology to its current extent.”

Earlier this year, IAEA experts deemed centrifuge technology they observed in Iran to be impossible to develop without conducting tests using nuclear material.  Iran has said it introduced no such material into centrifuges before that time.

ElBaradei added that Iran should provide complete information on any uranium conversion experiments it has conducted, should sign the Additional Protocol to its IAEA safeguards agreement and, in the meantime, grant the agency access to “all sites and locations that the agency deems necessary to visit” (Joe Fiorill, Global Security Newswire, Sept. 8).

Iran, Russia to Discuss Bushehr Spent Fuel Arrangement Later This Month

Meanwhile, Russian Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev has said that Russian and Iranian officials would meet in Vienna later this month to discuss the return of spent nuclear fuel from the Bushehr nuclear plant in Iran to Russia, ITAR-Tass reported today (see GSN, Aug. 6).

The drafting and signing of an agreement on the return of spent fuel from the Bushehr plant, which Russia is currently constructing, “is a purely technical matter,” Rumyantsev said.  Both countries agree that such an agreement is necessary, and the only issue left to resolve is how the spent fuel will be returned, he said.  “We should decide what changes should be made and in what contracts,” Rumyantsev said (Veronika Romanenkova, ITAR-Tass, Sept. 8).

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Former U.S. Envoy Calls for Direct Talks With North Korea

By David McGlinchey
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — A former top U.S. State Department expert on North Korea — who resigned just before August talks on the nuclear crisis — today called for direct meetings between Washington and Pyongyang (see GSN, Sept. 2).

U.S. President George W. Bush has insisted that the United States will only meet North Korea in multilateral negotiations.  Last month’s Beijing talks included the United States, North Korea, China, Russia, South Korea and Japan, but produced no substantive results.

Days before the Aug. 27 meeting began, Jack Pritchard resigned as the U.S. special envoy for negotiations with North Korea.  He had recently been criticized by conservative lawmakers for not delivering a hawkish message in his dealing with Pyongyang.  At a Brookings Institution panel discussion today, Pritchard said the attempt to resolve the Korean nuclear crisis with multilateral talks alone “is ludicrous, it cannot happen.”

“The prospect for success, unless the format is altered, is grim,” he said.

Pritchard said that before the six nations come together to put their stamp on a diplomatic solution, contentious issues must be addressed in direct negotiations.

“Does that mean that we will resolve the problem bilaterally?  No … but we will lay the groundwork,” he said.  Pritchard referred to the current negotiations as “drive-by meetings.”

He also called for the Bush administration to appoint a full-time envoy to handle negotiations and coordinate diplomacy with regional allies.

At the same panel discussion, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Richard Holbrooke said the nuclear crisis is unlikely to deteriorate into an armed conflict, even though negotiations are not progressing smoothly.

“The chances of a war on the Korean Peninsula are minimal to nil,” Holbrooke said.  He said that North Korea understands it would most likely be defeated if it launched an attack into South Korea.  The U.S. military, meanwhile, is too heavily committed in Iraq to support an attack against Pyongyang, according to Holbrooke.

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Washington Consults With Allies on Security Assurance for North Korea

The United States will discuss with its allies how to address North Korea’s security concerns and persuade the reclusive nation to abandon its nuclear weapons program, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 5).

“Right now, the first challenge before us is to get North Korea to say clearly that they are prepared to give up entirely their nuclear weapons program in a verifiable manner,” Powell said on the ABC television program This Week.  “And we know what they want from us — the only thing they have asked for from us, the United States, is some sort of security assurance,” he added.

Powell said that the current U.S. policy was not focused on overthrowing North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.

“We will have to make a judgment with our allies, over the next few weeks, before the next meeting, as to what kind of security assurance would be satisfactory for all of us to provide to the North Koreans,” Powell said (Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Sept. 7).

South Korean Foreign Minister Yoon Young-kwan said that he expects Washington to “actively” address North Korea’s concerns.  Yoon recently met with U.S. leaders in Washington.

“I was told (at talks with U.S. President George W. Bush on Thursday) that the United States was actively considering and preparing to address the issue of North Korea’s security concerns,” Yoon said.  “I think that the United States may come up with its proposal at the next round of six-nation talks,” he added (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Sept. 8).

A top Russian diplomat is scheduled to visit Pyongyang this week to discuss the nuclear crisis with North Korean leader Kim.  Konstantin Pulikovski is slated to arrive tomorrow for a four-day visit (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Sept. 8).

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Orbital Wins Contract to Develop Advanced Earth Penetrator Test Rocket

The U.S. defense contractor Orbital Sciences Corp. announced last week that it has received a U.S. Air Force contract to develop a suborbital rocket for use in testing an advanced earth penetrator.

The contract, worth up to $7.5 million, covers the design and procurement of long-lead hardware in support of the Air Force’s Missile Technology Demonstration-3B program, according to a company press release.  The MTD-3B program uses Global Position System information to provide guidance and velocity information for high-speed earth penetration tests.  The contract also includes options for rocket fabrication, test and launch.  The rocket is scheduled to be tested in 2006  (Orbital Sciences release, Sept. 4).

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Lockheed Martin Announces New Ship-Based Missile Tracking Antenna System

The U.S. defense contractor Lockheed Martin announced last week the development of a new antenna system that can be installed on ships to track ballistic missiles, according to Navy News Week (see GSN, Aug. 9).

The S-Band Mobile Array Telemetry (SMART) antenna system has a range of 1,100 nautical miles and can track eight independent targets, Navy News Week reported.  The system could be used to track tests of the Trident 2 ballistic missile (Navy News Week, Sept. 8).

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IAEA Seeks Iranian Clarifications on Heavy Water Reactor

By Joe Fiorill
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The International Atomic Energy Agency has asked Iran to explain why it has not declared plans to acquire “hot cells” for handling highly radioactive material at its planned heavy water reactor at Arak.  The agency request was described in a confidential report on Iran submitted last week by IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei to the agency’s Board of Governors (see GSN, Sept. 4).

The absence of hot cells from design plans Iran submitted to the agency in August is “contrary to what would be expected, given the radioisotope production purposes of the facility,” the report says.  According to the report, Iran has said it is building the heavy water reactor as a “research reactor suitable for medical and industrial isotope production and for R&D [research and development] to replace the old research reactor in Tehran.”  The reactor is scheduled to begin construction next year.

In explaining its request for clarification from Iran, the IAEA also made reference to recent reports of Iranian efforts to import equipment that could be used in hot cells.

The request comes amid widespread allegations that Iran is seeking to develop nuclear weapons even as it claims it is maintaining its Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty commitments.  While a heavy water reactor could be used to produce isotopes and for research, such reactors are also among the most popular for producing plutonium for nuclear weapons.

Experts said the inconsistencies inherent in Iran’s description of the heavy water reactor, while not damning in isolation, constitute an important plank in the case against Iran.

“It’s a curious thing with the Iranian story in general that everything kind-of-sort-of makes sense by itself, but … all together, it’s starting to look really suspicious,” Federation of American Scientists Strategic Security Project Director Ivan Oelrich said yesterday.

Oelrich said isotope production and research is “certainly a plausible explanation for what they’re doing” but that the “buildup” of inconsistencies in Iran’s claims gives pause.

Institute for Science and International Security President David Albright said Iran’s explanations of its heavy water activity are “just viewed as not very credible. … It inevitably increases suspicions that they had some secret plutonium activities going on.”

According to the IAEA report, Iranian officials have said they tried repeatedly to import a reactor to produce the isotopes and conduct research but failed and “concluded, therefore, that the only alternative was a heavy water reactor” using indigenously produced uranium dioxide.

Albright said, though, that if Iran came into compliance with its NPT obligations and signed the Additional Protocol to its IAEA safeguards agreement, “It’s quite likely that they could import a research reactor.”  He added that Iran’s stated purposes could be served by a 10-megawatt reactor — the planned Arak facility is a 40-megawatt reactor — and that if it is making isotopes, the country would do better to use enriched uranium than the natural uranium planned for Arak.

Asked about the hot cells, Albright said, “Again, it’s just one of these things —  are they trying to avoid a discussion of reprocessing? … I’m just waiting for them to say, ‘Yeah we’re going to build a reprocessing plant.”

Nevertheless, added the former U.N. inspector, “The evidence that there is secret reprocessing activity is lacking right now.”

Heavy water activity in Iran first came to light in August of last year with the revelation by the National Council of Resistance of Iran of a heavy water production facility at Arak, which was subsequently visited by the IAEA. 

After denying for a time that the heavy water production implied eventual use in a reactor, Iran presented details in July on the Arak reactor and submitted updated design information to the IAEA Aug. 4.  In a letter dated Aug. 19, Iran told the IAEA it decided two decades ago to begin heavy water research and development and conducted laboratory experiments in the mid-1980s, finally deciding in the mid-1990s to build a reactor.

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CTBT Conference Ends, Issues Declaration Calling for Universal Treaty Ratification

A three-day meeting in Vienna of Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty signatories ended today with the issuing of a final declaration calling for universal ratification of the treaty (see GSN, Sept. 4).

In the final declaration, delegates reaffirmed “the importance of the treaty and its entry into force for the practical steps for the systematic and progressive efforts towards nuclear disarmament and nuclear nonproliferation,” according to a CTBT Organization press release.

The declaration also contains 12 measures to help promote the treaty’s entry into force, including the creation of regional seminars to “increase awareness” of the treaty’s role, the CTBT Organization release said.  The declaration also recommends that the organization’s Provisional Technical Secretariat continue to provide legal aid to countries with respect to treaty ratification and implementation, as well as establish a contact point to improve information sharing.

Conference delegates also expressed concern that the treaty had still not entered into force seven years after opening for signature, according to the release.  They stressed the need for the 12 countries that need to ratify the treaty for it to enter into force to promptly do so (CTBT Organization release, Sept. 5).

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Bush Authorizes Concessions to North Korea

U.S. President George W. Bush authorized U.S. diplomats last week to say that Washington is prepared to offer incentives to North Korea, including easing sanctions and a possible peace treaty, but some U.S. officials are not certain North Korea understood the U.S. position, according to reports (see GSN, Sept. 4).

Under the U.S. offer, the potential assistance would be administered gradually as North Korea dismantles its nuclear weapons capability, officials said.  Bush had previously said that North Korea would receive no assistance until it completely dismantled its nuclear infrastructure and gave up its nuclear weapons.

“We’re going to give these talks a real chance,” national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said last night.  “This is the best opportunity for getting a resolution for a long time,” she added.

She tempered her remarks, however, by saying that “a lot depends on North Korean behavior” (David Sanger, New York Times, Sept. 5).

A senior U.S. State Department official, however, said that North Korea might not have understood the new overtures, which were made last week during six-nation talks in Beijing.

“I am disappointed because their presentations were quite prescripted.  They seemed to have little to do with what we were saying, or what others were saying,” the official said (Sonni Efron, Los Angeles Times, Sept. 5).

During the talks North Korea reportedly twice threatened to demonstrate its nuclear capabilities, according to a senior State Department official.

“These words are very disturbing.  And I hope that Pyongyang realizes that provocative actions can and will have consequences, whether it’s to the atmosphere of the talks, or something more than that,” the official said (Tim Johnson, Knight Ridder, Sept. 5).

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Washington Investigates French Company for Iran Shipment

U.S. authorities are investigating a French firm that might have illegally shipped pumps to Iran that could be used in Tehran’s suspected nuclear weapons program, the Washington Times reported today (see GSN, Sept. 4).

The cryogenic fluid transfer pumps could be used as part of a cooling system for Iran’s planned nuclear reactors, according to Treasury and Commerce department officials.  Technip-Coflexip might have diverted the pumps in January to Iran’s nuclear efforts, according to the Times.

“That’s the immediate concern,” a Commerce Department official said.  The export of the pumps is controlled, because of their nuclear capabilities, but the equipment can also be used to transfer liquid natural gas to commercial ship containers.

The allegations of nuclear use were made by an unidentified informant, according to the Treasury Department (Bill Gertz, Washington Times, Sept. 5).

United States Drafts Resolution

Days ahead of the International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors’ meeting, Washington has prepared a draft resolution alleging that Iran has violated the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.  U.S. officials have distributed the draft to some of the 35 nations on the IAEA board to gauge international reaction.

The board meeting is scheduled to begin Monday (Washington Times, Sept. 5).

“We would look for the board to take appropriate action,” said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher (Associated Press/Baltimore Sun, Sept. 5).

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U.S. Energy Department to Issue Fewer Polygraph Tests, Official Says

The U.S. Energy Department plans to reduce using polygraph tests to screen employees who work on nuclear weapon-related issues, a senior official said yesterday.

In testimony before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Deputy Energy Secretary Kyle McSlarrow said the new policy would probably reduce the number of polygraph tests administered from about 20,000 to 4,500.  Energy has come under fire over the last year for its polygraph policy and has come to agree with some of the criticism it has received, McSlarrow said.  For example, a U.S. National Academy of Sciences panel released a report last October saying polygraph testing was too flawed for use in security screening, according to the New York Times.

As a result of the criticism, Energy officials proposed “substantial changes” in the tests’ routine use, McSlarrow said.  The new policy does not mean, however, that the department will cease using polygraph testing all together, he said.

“No one has suggested that we abandon their use, or that we hire people and entrust them with national defense information with no prior checks or reviews whatsoever,” McSlarrow said.

Committee Chairman Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) yesterday praised Energy’s decision to revise its polygraph testing policy.

“This is a smart decision,” Domenici said.  “I have been appalled by the DOE’s continued massive use of polygraph tests in the wake of a national study condemning the reliability of these tests.  Our national scientists deserve better,” he said (William Broad, New York Times, Sept. 5).

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IAEA Contradicts Iranian Claims on Testing Methods

By Joe Fiorill
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Contradicting Iranian denials, the International Atomic Energy Agency said last week that uranium enrichment technology visible at the country’s Natanz Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant (PFEP) could not have been developed without conducting tests involving uranium hexafluoride.

Iran has acknowledged testing some of its centrifuges with uranium hexafluoride beginning June 25, but has denied introducing the material before then.  The IAEA said last week that full safeguards measures are in place for the current testing.

The agency added, as was reported last week by several media outlets, that IAEA environmental samples taken from Natanz between March and June “revealed particles of high enriched uranium” (see GSN, Sept. 2).

The assertions appear in a confidential report submitted to the IAEA Board of Governors last week by IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei and obtained yesterday by Global Security Newswire.

Brookings Institution Science and Technology Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies Michael Levi said yesterday “the report is more damning than the press leaks have suggested.”

The report is to be discussed beginning Monday at an IAEA Board of Governors meeting in Vienna, and the matter could be referred to the U.N. Security Council if the board is not satisfied with Iran’s transparency.

“The biggest issue is:  Did Iran enrich uranium?” said Institute for Science and International Security President David Albright.

“What you have in this report,” said the former IAEA inspector, “is a steady drumbeat that says, ‘We still don’t know whether Iran is telling the truth when it says it never enriched uranium in Iran.’”

Also at issue is whether Iran will sign the Additional Protocol to its IAEA safeguards agreement, a move that would permit the agency to conduct more intrusive monitoring of Iranian nuclear activities.  While urging Iran to adopt the measures, many observers say the protocol would be an insufficient check against potential Iranian development of nuclear weapons.

IAEA Findings Contradict Iranian Assertions

Iran has acknowledged that in 1991, China provided it with 1,000 kilograms of uranium hexafluoride, as well as smaller quantities of uranium tetrafluoride and uranium dioxide.

According to the IAEA report, though, officials from Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization told IAEA experts who visited the country this summer that the centrifuge facility had been developed with information acquired from open sources, without conducting any tests involving uranium.  Specifically, Iranian officials told the IAEA last month that “no experiments with inert or UF₆ gas were conducted,” according to the report.  Iran first said in February that its tests of centrifuge rotors, as part of design and development work begun in 1997, were conducted without nuclear material.

The Iranian statements are contradicted by the IAEA’s assertion that testing with uranium hexafluoride must have taken place at Natanz.  The IAEA report says its experts concluded that “it is not possible to develop enrichment technology to the level seen at Natanz based solely on open source information and computer simulations without process testing with UF₆.”

In a related finding, IAEA experts determined in March that about 1.9 kilograms of uranium hexafluoride was missing from two cylinders at an Iranian site.  Iran has said the loss could have resulted from “leakage from the cylinders resulting from mechanical failure of the valves and possible evaporation,” according to last week’s report.

Levi expressed doubt about Iran’s leakage claim, though, and both he and Albright said the quantity of material in question could be used to test uranium centrifuges.  “It’s enough to operate one test stand for a while,” said Albright.

Meanwhile, the IAEA said in its report that it is waiting to test a third, larger cylinder, but cannot do so until necessary equipment is installed at Natanz by Iran.

“So basically,” Levi said, “the Iranians control the timeline.”

In the case of the highly enriched uranium discovered at Natanz, the finding contradicts Iran’s assertion that, as paraphrased in the IAEA report, “no nuclear material was introduced to the PFEP prior to the agency’s having taken its first baseline environmental samples.”  The IAEA’s sampling was completed before June 11, when it submitted results to Iran, and Tehran denies introducing uranium hexafluoride into a centrifuge before June 25.

Iran said last month that the enriched uranium particles found at Natanz “must have resulted from contamination originating from centrifuge components which had been imported by Iran,” according to the report.

In media reports, experts have identified Pakistan as the foreign source in question, a charge Pakistan has denied.  Albright said yesterday that last week’s report appears to support the charge.

“The finger points at Pakistan as the source … probably not the government, but scientists or companies or agents of Pakistan,” he said.

IAEA Work Continues

“Additional work is … required to enable the agency to arrive at conclusions about Iran’s statements that there have been no uranium enrichment activities in Iran involving nuclear material.  The agency intends to complete its assessment of the Iranian statement that the high enriched uranium particles identified in samples taken at Natanz could be attributable to contamination from imported components,” the report reads.

“Iran has agreed to provide the agency with all information about the centrifuge components and other contaminated equipment it obtained from abroad, including their origin and the locations where they have been stored and used in Iran, as well as access to those locations, so that the agency may take environmental samples,” the IAEA went on.

One location where the IAEA has already taken such samples is a Kalaye Electric Co. facility in Tehran.  IAEA inspectors took the samples last month “with a view to assessing the role of that company in Iran’s enrichment R&D [research and development] program,” according to the report, but the facility had undergone “considerable modification” since a prior visit in March, a fact experts called suspicious.

The results of sampling on the Kalaye premises were not yet available when the IAEA report was issued last week.

Additional Protocol, Other Measures Sought

In remarks issued in response to last week’s media reports on the director general’s report, the IAEA said that “ultimately … the only way to build high confidence in the peaceful nature of their nuclear program is for Iran to sign and bring into force an Additional Protocol to their safeguards agreement with the IAEA.”

Albright said Iran “has to demonstrate transparency and implement the protocol.”  He dismissed concerns that a failure to sanction Iran for its acknowledged past omissions in reporting and for the inconsistencies implicit in the latest IAEA findings could set a bad example.

“You’re so used to being lied to,” said Albright, “that progress is when people start telling you the truth.”

Levi said the protocol could be useful if accompanied by further concessions from Iran.

“There’s a point in concluding an Additional Protocol if it is concurrent with Iran giving up everything except the Bushehr power plant,” he said, referring to Iran’s major nuclear power plant, which is currently being built by Russia.

Albright said the Bush administration would like to see Iran give up even the Bushehr facility but that there is “no way” Iran will halt work at the facility.  As for Natanz, he said, “many countries cannot live with Iran operating” the facility, but “you have to offer Iran something” in return for shutting Natanz down.

The concern about Natanz stems from the facility’s high potential for producing nuclear weapon material.  In an article in the September/October issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Albright and ISIS colleague Corey Hinderstein estimate that the eventual production capacity at Natanz would fall far short of the amount needed to fuel all the reactors Iran says it plans to build, but that “the same capacity would be sufficient to produce about 500 kilograms of weapon-grade uranium annually.”

“At 15-20 kilograms per weapon, that would be enough for roughly 25-30 nuclear weapons per year,” they write, adding that Iran could also make low-enriched uranium fuel at Natanz for a time, eventually gaining the capacity to “produce enough weapon-grade uranium for a nuclear weapon in a few days.”

Levi said Iran should be required “at the very least … [to] halt further work until the further tests can be done” by the IAEA, but he expressed doubt about whether the IAEA board in its current form would remit the matter to the Security Council, where the threat of economic and other sanctions could sway Iran.  In June, 15 Nonaligned Movement (NAM) countries on the board prevented the matter from going to the council (see GSN, June 19).

“For the NAM,” said Levi, “the priority is … to minimize the barriers to nuclear power. … I don’t know what will convince the NAM folks.”

Levi and Hinderstein write in their Bulletin article that, in order to encourage progress in the matter, the United States and others should offer “incentives” for Iran, Iran’s security concerns should be respected, and Washington and others should seek to restart talks on regional arms control in the Middle East.

The IAEA said in its report that Iran has already demonstrated “an increased degree of cooperation” since June, but the agency added that “information and access were at times slow in coming and incremental, and that … there remain a number of important outstanding issues, particularly with regard to Iran’s enrichment program, that require urgent resolution.”

“Continued and accelerated cooperation and full transparency on the part of Iran are essential for the agency to be in a position to provide at an early date the assurances required by member states,” the report says.

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China Appears Ready to Ratify CTBT, Conference Official Says

International officials expect China to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty soon, Agence France-Presse reported today (see GSN, Sept. 3).

“They seem ready to ratify,” said Wolfgang Hoffmann, secretary general of the CTBT Organization, the Vienna institution responsible for the implementing the treaty banning all nuclear explosions.  Leading a three-day conference to promote the treaty’s entry into force, Hoffman said, “I got this impression from talks I had last July in Beijing with both sides, civilian and military.”

Other sources close to the conference also said China appears willing to ratify the treaty, AFP reported. 

“The question is no longer whether China will sign the ratification document, but when,” a source close to the conference said.  “If they do this, it will be a big step towards ensuring that the treaty enters into force,” the source said (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Sept. 4).

China said today that it hoped the treaty would soon enter into force, but did not say exactly when it would ratify the treaty.

“We attach great importance to (the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty) because we believe it has an important role in the nonproliferation process, especially the disarmament process,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan said.

The treaty was sent to the National People’s Congress for ratification in March 2000.  Although the NPC met in August, the treaty was not discussed, sources said.  The NPC is scheduled to meet again in late October, according to Agence France-Presse.

“We hope for the early ratification and coming into force of the treaty,” Kong said.  “We hope the National People’s Congress in accordance with the relevant legal procedures will go through the procedures,” he said (Agence France-Presse, Sept. 4).

Meanwhile at the Vienna conference, Chinese delegate Zhang Yan said his country had established a national preparatory authority for the implementation of the treaty, according to a CTBT Organization press release.  In addition, China has agreed to host 12 of the international monitoring system facilities that are part of the treaty’s verification regime, Zhang said.

Also during the conference, delegates from several countries, such as Serbia and Montenegro and Sri Lanka, announced their countries’ progress on moving forward on ratifying the treaty (CTBT Organization release I, Sept. 4).  Renald Clerisme, Haiti’s delegate to the conference, said his country’s ratification of the treaty was imminent.

In addition, a number of delegates expressed the need for a strong final document to be issued at the conference’s conclusion, according to a CTBT Organization press release (CTBT Organization release II, Sept. 4).

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China Continues to Pin Talks Failure on Washington

Echoing comments made several days before by Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi, a Chinese official close to nuclear negotiations said that the United States holds the key to progress on the Korean Peninsula, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, Sept. 3).

“It depends on the United States,” the official said.  “It depends on if the United States can have a more unified position and more specific proposals to induce North Korea back to the negotiating table,” the official added.

A high-ranking South Korean official said that regional powers are attempting to find common ground.

“For us to come to an agreement … all the countries at the table will need to compromise,” the official said.

The talks last week were attended by China, the United States, Japan, Russia, North Korea and South Korea (Pomfret/Faiola, Washington Post, Sept. 4).

South Korea, meanwhile, said that it was opposed to suspending construction on light-water nuclear reactors in North Korea.

“We have spent no less than $930 million so far.  If the project is terminated, we would be left with $1.4 billion of losses,” Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun said today.  The United States has expressed concerns about the project, but inherent safeguards make it difficult to use the facilities for military ends, according to Jeong (Agence France-Presse, Sept. 4).

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, meanwhile, reaffirmed that North Korean diplomats at the recent six-nation talks said they were prepared to test a nuclear weapon.

“That’s what they said, I don’t know if it was a promise or just a statement,” Powell said (Agence France Presse/Yahoo!News, Sept. 4).

“But the way forward is not helped by threats and truculent statements that are designed to try to frighten the international community or try to frighten us,” he added (CNN.com, Sept. 3).

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Washington Pushing IAEA for Strong Resolution on Iran

The United States is pushing the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency to release a strong condemnation of Iran’s controversial nuclear development, the Financial Times reported today.  The agency’s Board of Governors is scheduled to begin a two-day meeting on Monday (see GSN, Sept. 3).

If the board finds Iran to be in noncompliance with its IAEA safeguards agreement, the issue would be forwarded to the U.N. Security Council.  Some diplomats, however, believe that Washington is asking for a noncompliance finding to ensure the board at least adopts a strongly worded resolution.

U.S. Ambassador to the IAEA Ken Brill said yesterday that Washington wants “a strong resolution that will help the IAEA get Iran to stop violating its NPT [Nuclear Nonproliferattion Treaty] Safeguards Agreement and come clean on what it has been up to” (Roula Khalaf, Financial Times, Sept. 3).

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Indian Nuclear Authority Orders Military to Transfer Control of Arsenal to New Command

The Indian Nuclear Command Authority has ordered the Indian military to transfer control of India’s nuclear arsenal to the Strategic Forces Command, Aerospace Daily reported today (see GSN, Sept. 2).

The strategic command was created in January, along with the Nuclear Command Authority, as part of India’s efforts to formalize its nuclear command-and-control structure.  The Indian military, however, has been reluctant to make the transfer, saying that the authority is not prepared to receive or implement the command-and-control systems (Bulbul Singh, Aerospace Daily, Sept. 4).

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Russian Nuclear Material Used in Cancer Research

Researchers at the University of Maryland are attempting to use material from Russian nuclear weapons to fight cancer, the Associated Press reported today.

Scientists want to use a uranium extract to shut down blood vessels that run to cancerous tumors.

“One of the ways that most solid tumors grow is to induce the body to feed it,” said Bruce Line, the university’s director of nuclear medicine.  “If we can stop that process by cutting off the blood supply to tumors, then we can keep the tumor from growing and also help to reduce its size and keep it from eventually taking the patient’s life,” he added.

The Atoms for Peace initiative has provided $800,000 toward the effort, much through the work of Representative Steny Hoyer (D-Md.).

The university expects six to eight shipments of the material in the next few months, according to AP (Associated Press/Washington Times, Sept. 4).

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U.S. Nuclear Weapons Programs Could Require Testing, Official Says

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The United States may need to resume underground nuclear weapons testing to complete the Bush administration’s efforts to develop better nuclear weapons for attacking deeply buried facilities and for destroying enemy chemical and biological weapons, a senior Defense Department official said in a recent interview.

Speaking to Global Security Newswire before his retirement last month, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Matters Fred Celec said testing might be needed if scientists find that they must design new nuclear warheads because existing ones cannot perform those missions.

For targeting deeply buried and hardened facilities, the administration has requested $15 million for fiscal 2004 for the Energy Department’s Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator program.  The plan is to study the feasibility of modifying two current weapons, the B-61 and the B-83, to enable them to detonate reliably after withstanding the enormous stress of penetrating the ground.

Celec said the program involves “an attempt to use an existing nuclear weapon, … repackaging it in a different bomb casing, so that we would have sufficient confidence in its performance that we would not have to do a nuclear test.”

“At the end of the day, we could conceivably arrive to the point where we say, ‘This just won’t work,’” he said, “in which case, we would have to go back to the drawing boards to design a new weapon.  And, in that case, we in all probability would need or require a nuclear test.”

The administration has also requested $6 million for fiscal 2004 for other nuclear weapons work that would include exploring options for destroying chemical and biological agents with a nuclear weapon.  The principal challenge of that task is to create a weapon that will neutralize the targeted agents without dispersing them in the blast, Celec said.

“If an existing weapon was [found to be] effective … [then] no, you’re not going to need a nuclear test,” Celec said.

“On the other hand, if you say, ‘I’ve got to go design a new nuclear weapon … you probably will have to have a nuclear test,’” he said.

Some nuclear weapons experts question Celec’s assertion that nuclear testing would probably be needed in either case, however, saying decades of Cold War research, development and testing have outlined the limitations on developing radically new nuclear weapons capabilities that might enable the United States to overcome the challenges facing either program.

While U.S. scientists could design new weapons, they are unlikely to devise ones offering radically improved capabilities that might require testing, according to former Sandia National Laboratories Vice President Robert Peurifoy.

“We’re at the end of the road in terms of better weapons.  I’m prepared to debate that issue with anyone you name,” said.

University of California at Berkeley professor Raymond Jeanloz says experts within the U.S. nuclear community appear convinced their work will not likely lead to testing.

“When I have personally talked in the last several weeks with the directors of Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, they have very sincerely and in a clear-cut manner expressed their view that they don’t believe anything they’re pursuing is pushing the country toward resuming testing,” he said.

Arms Control Concerns

The administration’s nuclear weapons programs are currently a hotly debated topic by national security experts in Washington, and particularly in Congress.

Critics of the administration’s plans have argued that developing the weapons, and potentially testing them, could undermine or destroy the 188-party 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty that bans nuclear weapons from all but five countries.

“A decision to resume testing to build low-yield nuclear weapons could deal the regime a fatal blow while providing the United States with a capability of questionable military value,” wrote Jeanloz, Peurifoy, and two other arms control advocates in a March Arms Control Today article.

Bush administration officials have said such weapons are needed to counter enemy threats the United States faces from growing numbers of deeply buried facilities and stores of chemical and biological weapons.

The Energy Department’s Advanced Concepts Initiative, which incorporates the two efforts, is intended to ensure “that future American presidents have deterrence options to deal with these threats,” said Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham in March 20 congressional testimony.

Congress is expected to decide this month whether to approve the requested appropriations as part of the energy and water appropriations bill.  Legislators are also expected to approve a partial repeal of 10-year-old law restricting research, development, testing and production of smaller-yield weapons, contained in the defense authorization bill for 2004 (see GSN, July 17).

Earth Penetrator Testing Need Questioned

Peurifoy contends that a new weapon requiring resumed nuclear testing should not be needed if the B-61 and B-83 prove unsuitable.  He says the United States during the Cold War had designed and tested far sturdier warheads that could be used.

“You can start with the W-33, and then you can look up the W-79, the W-82.  We did a whole bunch of different tests that produced low-yields that were very rugged but never entered the stockpile,” he said.  The three warheads types he cited were designed as nuclear artillery shells.

The United States tested one such design in a 1962 test named Aardvark that produced a yield of 40 kilotons.  That design was found to withstand as much as 10,000 times the force of gravity, he said.

“That would be my candidate if I wanted to build a penetrator, because it’s stronger than hell and produces any yield of interest in terms of low yield,” he said.

Celec said he was not aware of a warhead that could withstand 10,000 Gs, and said it would not be possible to build weapons today exactly as they were designed decades ago and so there would be a need to fully test it anyway. 

“I would argue that because of the changes in procedures and environmental regulations and the sunset technologies, all those sorts of things, what you would end up with is a new weapon.  It might look very much like one you had pretty high confidence in, in the past, but I don’t think you’d have sufficient confidence that you wouldn’t say, ‘I think I have to test this,’” he said.

Stanford University physicist Sydney Drell challenged part of that view, saying the old designs could be built using old and new technologies and that all of those components outside of the physics package could be tested without resorting to a nuclear weapons explosion.

“I believe that all the parts of the weapon outside the physics package not only can be, but must be tested,” he said.

“It’s the physics package one’s talking about, that’s the only thing we don’t test,” he said.

Peurifoy said there should be no technological obstacles to building a weapon based on the design exploded in the Aardvark test, which was of the simplest type and did not require outdated technologies such as vacuum tubes.

“I did not know that uranium has disappeared from the face of the earth.  I did not know that gunpowder disappeared from the face of the earth.  I did not know that we have no more competent engineers in the United States.  Therefore I challenge his argument,” he said.

Earth Penetrator Utility Questioned

Peurifoy and others also questioned the likelihood that some new earth penetrator with radically different capabilities that would allow it to be both highly effective and minimally destructive in terms of collateral damage could be developed.

“Technically, my argument is that this is a very difficult task that cannot be successfully achieved without producing large radioactive damage,” he said.

With respect to the Aardvark design, he said, “You could detune it if you wished to produce anything less than 40 kilotons if you wanted.  The problem is you could not kill much underground.  And you certainly cannot kill things [underground] without producing large amounts of radioactive fallout in the area.”

A very large weapon producing massive fallout would be needed to reach deep targets, while a low-yield weapon would not likely destroy a deep bunker but would still produce significant fallout, says David Wright of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

He calculates that for at least one type of soil, a one-kiloton weapon exploding 35 feet underground would disperse 60,000 tons of radioactive debris and destroy bunkers buried as deep as 80 feet.  To reach a bunker at 240 feet, a 100-kiloton weapon would be needed, but that would spew 1.5 million tons of radioactive debris. 

The smaller weapon might destroy chemical and biological agents within a radius of 15 to 30 feet.  The larger one might destroy those within 20 to 40 feet.  Beyond those distances, the agents would likely be dispersed if they were within the blast range, he said.

Celec agreed that using any earth-penetrating weapon would certainly produce radioactive fallout, but he said the lesser fallout from a low-yield weapon would be preferable to other alternatives, such as a large-yield nuclear weapon, a warhead exploded above ground or a conventional weapon that cannot reach deep targets.

He also said the United States has identified scenarios in which using a nuclear weapon to collapse an underground facility holding chemical or biological agents would save many more lives than it would take.

“We’ve looked at some very specific targets around the world and the casualties from an earth penetrator destroying a particular target is in the hundreds and if you lofted the agent just using a conventional attack it would be close to a million,” he said.

Agent Defeat Doubts

Critics did say it is conceivable that testing would be needed if a new weapon were designed for neutralizing chemical and biological agents.  They said, however, it is unlikely that nuclear weapons scientists today could design a new warhead radically more effective in an agent-defeating role than anything designed in the past.

“What are you going to optimize that people haven’t already optimized before?” said Wright.

He cited two recent, separate studies by physicists Michael May of Stanford University and Robert Nelson of the Council on Foreign Relations that concluded that a nuclear attack on buried chemical or biological agents would be more likely to disperse the agents than destroy them, unless the agents’ location was precisely known and struck (see GSN, Aug. 11). 

At issue are the relative amounts of blast, heat and radiation that nuclear weapons are likely to produce, as well as the physical properties of earth, Wright said.

“You can maybe tweak some of these effects, but the point of these two papers is you are not very close to making these things useful,” Wright said.

“It comes down to the fact that soil is a very good absorber of radiation and heat and a very good transmitter of blast.  It works against you to make the problem intrinsically hard.  When people say they are going to work around this, you know, there’s fundamental physics here.  The idea that they would somehow figure out something that’s such a breakthrough that would get around those fundamental physics seems questionable,” he said.

Peurifoy is so certain that the challenges of developing either weapon cannot be overcome that he suspects senior Bush administration officials just want to restart nuclear testing.

“This is simply a smokescreen to find a way to resume yield testing,” he said.

Scientists Not Convinced

Celec said he was familiar with one of the May and Nelson studies and did not dispute the main conclusion, but said scientists at the national laboratories have not concluded the problem is unsolvable.

“The only thing I would say is the very best minds at the nuclear laboratories who do this for a living every day are not as certain as the people who only do this part time,” he said.

“[It] would be only after we do the calculations and we do some above ground experiments … permitted experiments, if you will, with high explosives and simulants and things of that nature, that we will be able to draw the conclusion that one, that these are either effective or not, or two, that they could be made effective if we tailored the weapon in some way,” he said.

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Iran Secretly Purchased Centrifuge Components During 1980s, Iranian Official Says

Iranian Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency Ali Akbar Salehi said yesterday that his country clandestinely purchased uranium enrichment equipment during the 1980s, according to the Beirut Daily Star (see GSN, Sept. 2).

The IAEA has said that environmental samples taken near an Iranian nuclear facility in Natanz revealed traces of enriched uranium.  Iran has claimed that some of the components it has purchased for its centrifuge program were previously contaminated with enriched uranium.  During the Iran-Iraq war, which lasted from 1980 to 1988, Iran purchased centrifuge components on the international black market, Salehi said.  

“This stuff was imported in 1985, more than a decade and a half ago,” Salehi said.  “We have declared to the IAEA that we have bought these things through intermediaries,” he said.

While the IAEA has called on Iran to provide information on where the components were purchased and to explain why they might have been contaminated with enriched uranium, Tehran has refused to do so, according to Salehi.  Salehi refused to directly answer whether the centrifuge components, which he said were intended only as prototypes, were purchased in Europe.

“All these centrifuges have a European basis for design, but that doesn’t mean all of the places that manufactured these parts are European countries,” Salehi said.

The IAEA Board of Governors is scheduled to meet next week to discuss two reports on Iranian nuclear activities, according to the Star.  Salehi said that the United States would not be able to persuade the board, however, to conclude that Iran has not complied with its agency safeguards agreement.

“I don’t think that such a scheme will fly,” Salehi said in an interview with Reuters.  “I think the U.S. should be more wise so as not to put itself in an embarrassing position,” he said.

Diplomats in Vienna have said that a majority of the 35-member Board of Governors opposes reporting Iran to the Security Council at this time (Daily Star, Sept. 3).

Additional Protocol Debate

Meanwhile, officials in Tehran have said more time is needed to increase domestic support for signing an Additional Protocol to its IAEA safeguards agreement, which would allow the agency to conduct more intrusive monitoring of Iranian nuclear facilities.

“We are trying to win the trust of those who have real concerns, but we will not give in to the political uproar,” Iranian President Mohammad Khatami said Monday.

Iran does not view the impending IAEA Board of Governors meeting, scheduled to begin Monday, as a deadline for a decision on signing the protocol, according to Agence France-Presse.

“No deadline has been set.  The Islamic republic will decide in accordance with its national interests,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi said (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Sept. 3). 

IAEA Director General Mohammed ElBaradei called on Iran yesterday to sign the protocol, and suggested that Tehran has already made a decision to do so.

“I hope they will sign it very soon,” ElBaradei said during a press conference in Berlin after meeting with German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer.  “They told me last week they have taken the decision to conclude a protocol,” ElBaradei said.

While Iran is making a final decision to officially sign the protocol, it should act as if it had already done so, ElBaradei said.

“I would also hope that Iran, until they sign and ratify the protocol, acts as if the protocol is in force,” ElBaradei said.  “The more transparency we see in Iran, the more confidence we can create that the (nuclear energy) program is dedicated for peaceful purposes,” he said (Agence France-Presse/Jordan Times, Sept. 3).

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North Korea Blames Washington For Scuttling Nuclear Talks

North Korea maintained its anti-U.S. rhetoric yesterday as its parliament supported Pyongyang’s effort to establish a nuclear deterrent (see GSN, Sept. 2).

The Korean Central News Agency, Pyongyang’s state-run media outlet, yesterday accused Western “unsavory elements and media” for spreading “weird misinformation” about last week’s talks on the Korean nuclear crisis and said that North Korean negotiators had offered to abandon their nuclear weapons program “in exchange for the U.S. renunciation of its hostile policy toward the D.P.R.K.”

The agency said North Korea had put forward a “package solution,” but the United States had unfairly demanded that North Korea dismantle its nuclear program before any deal is reached.

The United States “is asking the D.P.R.K. to drop its gun first while it is still leveling its gun at the D.P.R.K.  What a brigandish demand,” KCNA said (Korean Central News Agency, Sept. 3).

Meanwhile, North Korea’s parliament today backed the North Korean Foreign Ministry’s weekend statement that further talks are “useless” and legislators supported Pyongyang’s deterrence policy.

“The first session of the 11th Supreme People’s Assembly of the D.P.R.K. considered as just all the measures taken by the Foreign Ministry upon the authorization of the D.P.R.K. government, supported and approved them and decided to take relevant measures,” KCNA reported (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Sept. 3).

In other matters, the parliament re-elected national leader Kim Jong Il to serve another five-year term as chairman of the National Defense Commission, which control’s the country’s military forces.  The assembly “broke into stormy cheers of ‘hurrah’ overwhelmed with unbounded emotion, jubilation and ardent reverence,” the national media reported (Associated Press, News24.com, Sept. 3).

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United States Returns $350 Million to Pakistan Over Blocked F-16 Sale

The United States has returned $350 million to Pakistan that Islamabad paid more than a decade ago to purchase 40 U.S. F-16 fighters, Aviation Week and Space Technology reported Monday (see GSN, June 24).

The F-16 sale was blocked due to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program, according to Aviation Week.  Pakistani Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali has said Pakistan would now seek to purchase F-16s from Belgium, but such a sale would still require U.S. permission (Aviation Week and Space Technology, Sept. 1).

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China, United States Could be Pressured to Ratify CTBT at Meeting

China and the United States are expected to come under pressure to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty at a meeting of treaty signatories that began today in Vienna, according to Agence France-Presse (see GSN, Sept. 2).

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan has called on countries to send high-level officials to the meeting, but the United States has refused to attend the meeting and has so far refused to ratify the treaty.  The absence of U.S. officials, however, does not mean that Washington has completely abandoned the treaty, said Finnish Ambassador Tom Groenberg, who is chairing the three-day conference.

“In order for us to have them ratify, we have to continue to talk to them and demonstrate that we have a convincing system of verification,” Groenberg said.

In a statement read at the opening of the conference today, Annan called on all countries to sign or ratify the treaty “without delay.”  He added that he “particularly” directed his call toward North Korea and other states whose ratifications are required for the treaty to enter into force (Agence France-Presse/Business Recorder, Sept. 3).

In addition, International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei also called on countries to sign and ratify the treaty.

“I encourage all signatory states to ratify the treaty, and all those states that have yet to sign to do so and to ratify the treaty, as soon as possible,” ElBaradei said in written remarks submitted to the conference (Louis Charbonneau, Reuters/Yahoo!News, Sept. 3).

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Russian Conducts Successful SLBM Test

The Russian submarine Podolsk yesterday successfully tested a sea-launched ballistic missile, according to the Russian military (see GSN, Aug. 11).

The missile, fired off Russia’s eastern coast, traveled about 6,000 kilometers and successfully hit a designated target on the Chizha range in northern Russia, the Russian Navy said in a statement. 

The Podolsk is a Delta 3 class submarine and is armed with 16 R-29R SLBMs equipped with multiple warheads, according to the Associated Press (Associated Press/Moscow Times, Sept. 3).  The R-29R, also known as the SS-N-18, can carry between three and seven warheads and has a range of 6,500 to 8,000 kilometers depending on the number of warheads it carries, according to a Federation of American Scientists fact sheet (Mike Nartker, Global Security Newswire).

Meanwhile, Russian naval chief Adm. Vladimir Kuroyedov said last week that planned new nuclear submarines would be smaller than their Soviet-era counterparts, according to the Associated Press.

New Russian nuclear submarines will have a maximum displacement of 12,000 metric tons, Kuroyedov said.  In comparison, a Russian Typhoon-class ballistic missile submarine has a displacement of about 25,000 metric tons, AP reported.

“We won’t build giant submarines any more,” Kuroyedov said (Associated Press, Aug. 25).

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Peacekeeper Deactivation Accident Almost Releases Solid Rocket Propellant

The accidental release of more than 100,000 pounds of solid rocket propellant was narrowly averted last week during the deactivation of a Peacekeeper ICBM deployed at Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming, according to the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle (see GSN, July 22).

During the final phase of the deactivation of the missile, a specialized crane used to disassemble and move missile components experienced a malfunction, which released hydraulic fluid.  Ten people working at the site overrode the system by pumping in more hydraulic fluid until the missile could be controlled and stabilized, the Tribune Eagle reported.  No workers were injured during the incident and the public was “never in any danger” said Lt. Matthew Bates, spokesman for the 90th Space Wing (Michelle Dynes, Wyoming Tribune-Eagle, Sept. 3).

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Fractious North Korea Nuclear Talks End With No Public Progress

Six-nation talks on the North Korean nuclear crisis ended Friday with a senior Chinese official blaming the lack of progress on the United States.  The talks were marked by North Korea announcing that it intends to test a nuclear weapon, according to reports (see GSN, Aug. 22).

“America’s policy toward the D.P.R.K. — that is the main problem we are facing,” said Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Beijing’s chief delegate at the talks.  “We want [the] U.S. to make clear its position,” Wang said (Joseph Kahn, New York Times, Sept. 2).

North Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Kim Yong Il said Wednesday that North Korea intends to test a nuclear weapon, according to the Associated Press.  He also accused Japanese and Russian officials of lying at the behest of the United States (Yuri Kageyama, Associated Press/Washington Post, Aug. 28).

During the negotiations — which included China, Japan, Russia, the United States, North Korea and South Korea — Pyongyang reportedly offered to abandon it nuclear weapons production and open its facilities to inspectors in exchange for a U.S. nonaggression treaty, financial assistance and energy aid (Xinhua News Agency, Sept. 2).

During the talks, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly met informally with North Korean diplomat Kim, Reuters reported (Rhoads/Kitano, Reuters, Aug. 27).

Days before the meeting began, a top U.S. State Department expert on North Korea resigned.  Jack Pritchard, the U.S. special envoy for negotiations with North Korea, was recently criticized by Senator Jon Kyl (R-Ariz) for not delivering a hawkish message in his dealing with Pyongyang (Christopher Marquis, New York Times, Aug. 26).

The talks concluded Friday, and at that point Chinese officials said all the participating nations had agreed on the need for future meetings.  Within 24 hours, however, North Korea announced that it had no need for future talks (Kahn, New York Times).

Today, North Korea altered its approach and said it has “not yet changed our firm will to resolve the nuclear problem between the D.P.R.K. and the United States through dialogue” (Sang-hun Choe, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Sept. 2).

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IAEA Report on Iranian Nuclear Activities Bolsters U.S. Claims

By David McGlinchey
Global Security Newswire

In a report that could pose some tough choices for the White House, the U.N. nuclear inspection agency last week said it had found evidence that Iran might be closer to producing nuclear weapons than was previously thought (see GSN, Aug. 20).

The International Atomic Energy Agency said that environmental samples taken from the Iranian nuclear facility at Natanz revealed traces of enriched uranium, which could be used to build a nuclear bomb (see GSN, July 18).  The Washington Post reported last week that U.N. officials suspect Pakistan of secretly helping Iran develop its nuclear facilities.

Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi last week confirmed the enriched uranium discovery, but denied that Iran had conducted any enrichment activity.

“The components that we have imported from outside [have] been contaminated,” he said (see GSN, Aug. 18).

President Bush said in June that the international community “will not tolerate the construction of a nuclear weapon” by Tehran.  The question is, how will Bush back up his rhetoric if the IAEA concludes that Iran has indeed violated the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty?

In June, the IAEA released an initial report that documented several new nuclear research facilities in Iran and raised questions about whether Iran’s nuclear efforts are designed purely for the peaceful production of energy, as Tehran asserts.  The new report will be formally presented next week to the IAEA’s Board of Governors, which is then expected to decide whether Iran’s growing nuclear program is in violation of the nonproliferation treaty.

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei and other inspectors have traveled to Iran in recent months, and ElBaradei has said he will be “in a much better position to make a judgment” about Iran’s nuclear ambitions by next week.

“I think they’ve come across some pretty damning evidence,” James Phillips, an Iran expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said earlier this month after rumors of the enriched uranium surfaced.  If the IAEA concludes that Iran is in violation of the treaty, the Bush administration will have to consider its options, including the use of force.  “It is a tough decision to consider military action,” Phillips said.  “It has to be considered — perhaps not publicly, but I’m sure it’s being considered privately.”

The United States has invaded both of Iran’s neighbors in the past two years, and Tehran must know that Bush’s strong words are not to be taken lightly.  In his July press conference, the president stressed that “all options remain on the table” in regard to Iran.  But he said he preferred a multilateral approach for convincing the Iranians that “the development of a nuclear weapon is not in their interests.”  Bush concluded by saying, “I really believe that we can solve this issue peacefully.”

Most experts dismiss the idea of a U.S. invasion of Iran; the country is larger than Alaska and has a population of 70 million, three times the size of Iraq’s.  But a strike to destroy Iran’s nuclear activities is a possibility.  Iran’s military — hopelessly overmatched — would probably not retaliate against U.S. forces, according to experts.

U.S. intelligence agencies, however, do not yet know enough about Iran’s nuclear facilities to make such a strike effective, according to Corey Hinderstein, a senior analyst at the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington.  Hinderstein said she would be “very surprised” if Bush allowed a strike without a comprehensive knowledge of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.  And that may take some time to acquire.

Although U.S. officials do not know the location of every Iranian nuclear facility, they have developed a picture of a broad and multipronged nuclear effort, including Iran’s efforts to mine and enrich uranium.

Confusing the situation further, Iran has also built a plant to produce heavy water, which can be used to allow unenriched uranium to fuel a nuclear reactor.  The plutonium byproduct from a heavy-water reactor can be reprocessed for use in a nuclear weapon.

Currently, the European Union and the United Nations are urging Iran to sign the Additional Protocol to its IAEA safeguards agreement, allowing inspectors to conduct more intrusive monitoring of the country’s nuclear activities.  Tehran has so far resisted, but the concerted international pressure has forced Iranian officials to at least consider the pact.

That is good news, but only half the story, according to Amin Tarzi, a longtime Iran analyst who now works with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.  “The bad news,” he said, “is that if Iran really wants to make nuclear weapons, signing the Additional Protocol does not mean much.”

According to experts, Iran can continue to develop dual-use nuclear technologies that can be used for peaceful or bomb-making purposes, yet still be in compliance with the treaty.  And “if they decide to pursue a weapons capability, they would be able to do so very quickly,” Hinderstein said.

Iran could be stalling on the Additional Protocol simply as a way to keep U.N. inspectors at bay.  “They are basically buying time,” Tarzi said.  “They may actually sign the Additional Protocol.  They will do their bargaining — I always call it the carpet-bazaar mentality.  They will bargain and bargain and bargain.”

Phillips said the debate over the Additional Protocol is merely an attempt to “forestall concerted international pressure.  I think they’re fully committed to obtaining a weapon.”

Although experts agree that Iran might be playing a political game while building a nuclear arsenal, they also agree that Washington has no clear path to prevent that outcome.  Said Hinderstein, “I don’t think the United States, frankly, has a lot of options.”

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New Indian Nuclear Command Holds First Meeting

The Indian Nuclear Command Authority held its first meeting yesterday to make decisions to “consolidate India’s nuclear deterrence,” a New Delhi statement said (see GSN, Jan. 6).

Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee led the meeting of the authority, which was created in January as part of India’s efforts to formalize its nuclear command and control structure.  During the meeting, a number of decisions were made to “further development and management of the [nuclear] program, the statement said (Agence France-Presse, Sept. 1).

A number of topics related to India’s nuclear arsenal were discussed during yesterday’s meeting, including alternate chains of command for retaliatory nuclear attacks, the transfer of nuclear delivery systems to the Strategic Forces Command and the development of a nuclear triad, sources said (Rajat Pandit, Times of India, Sept. 2).

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CTBT Entry Into Force Conference Begins Tomorrow

The 2003 Conference on Facilitating the Entry into Force of the Comprehensive nuclear Test Ban Treaty is scheduled to begin tomorrow in Vienna, according to a CTBT Organization release (see GSN, Aug. 13).

The conference, scheduled to be held through Friday, is expected to “renew global awareness of the treaty and encourage states who have not already done so to sign or ratify it,” the organization said.  Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja is expected to be chosen as conference president, according to the release.  The conference is also expected to receive a progress report by Mexico on cooperation among countries to facilitate the treaty’s entry into force as well as discussions between treaty signatories and ratifiers.

Article XIV of the treaty allows parties to convene a formal conference on ways to help the treaty take effect.  To date, 168 countries have signed the CTBT and 104 have ratified it, but 44 specific countries are required to ratify the pact before it can enter into force and only 32 have done so.  This week’s conference is the third conference to be held since the treaty was opened for signature in 1996 (see GSN, Nov.14, 2001; CTBT Organization release, Aug. 29).

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U.S. Plant Preparing to Produce Replacement Warhead Components

The Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge, Tenn., is preparing to begin production of replacement components for W-76 nuclear warheads deployed on Trident missile systems, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, Aug. 11).

The W-76 warhead life-extension program is expected to begin in about a year, with the first delivery of components set for 2007, plant general manager Dennis Ruddy said.  Y-12 is now developing processes and reactivating systems used when the warheads were originally produced, AP reported. 

The number of warheads that will be replaced in the U.S. arsenal has not yet been determined, officials said. 

Several decisions remain to be made on the life-extension programs, such as which components of the warhead to reuse, Ruddy said.

“One of the desires is to have the capability to remake parts, but to the extent that we can to harvest them out of weapons as they’re recycled,” Ruddy said.  “It’s like taking good tires off an old car and putting them on the new one,” he said (Associated Press, Sept. 1).

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