Global Security Newswire

U.S. leaders should seek to improve the Proliferation Security Initiative, the U.S.-led effort to interdict shipments of WMD-related cargo, by undertaking initiatives such as creating similar programs to focus on WMD dismantlement and nonproliferation verification, according to a report released yesterday by the Heritage Foundation (see GSN, Feb. 2).

The report, written by Baker Spring, outlines several recommendations that Congress should urge the Bush administration to implement to strengthen the initiative. The report calls on lawmakers to avoid, though, “enshrining” the program in U.S. law to avoid weakening the effort and says that any recommendations should be made in private meetings with administration officials or through public hearings.

Among the report’s recommendations is a call to create separate, but similar, efforts to handle the dismantlement of WMD programs and verification of nonproliferation obligations. In a Weapons Program Dismantlement Initiative, the report says, members would agree to contribute teams of experts to aid in international dismantlement efforts, such as the one currently being conducted in Libya (see GSN, March 17). 

In a Nonproliferation Verification Initiative, members would create teams to verify the WMD program dismantlement process and to certify that countries are not creating new WMD programs, the report says.

The report also calls on lawmakers to recommend that the Bush administration work to crack down on WMD proliferation sources within the PSI membership that are revealed through the investigation into nuclear transfers conducted by top Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan (see related GSN story, today). In addition, lawmakers should call on the administration to press for a declaration from PSI members that the initiative itself will not hire a separate staff, which will help prevent the effort from turning into “an international bureaucracy,” the report says. 

U.S. lawmakers should also seek that the initiative include a principle that would commit members to not supply countries of proliferation concern with dual-use items that could “reasonably be assumed” to provide WMD production capabilities, even if the items themselves are “ostensibly for peaceful purposes,” the report says. It adds that the Bush administration should be called upon to encourage PSI members to conduct regional efforts with the aim of expanding membership (Heritage Foundation release, March 18).