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"[Arms Control Today] has become indispensable! I think it is the combination of the critical period we are in and the quality of the product. I found myself reading the May issue from cover to cover."

– Frank von Hippel
Co-Director of Program on Science and Global Security, Princeton University
June 1, 2018
July/August 2007
Edition Date: 
Sunday, July 1, 2007
Cover Image: 

Libya Backs Out of CW Destruction Agreement

Alex Bollfrass

Vowing to take sole responsibility for destroying its chemical weapons, Libya has annulled its contract with the United States. The Libyan government cancelled the agreement, effective June 14, because of dissatisfaction with its provisions on liability, financing, and facility ownership.

Department of State spokesperson Nancy Beck told Arms Control Today June 18 that Libya had given notice in May that “it was exercising its option to withdraw from the government-to-government contract, citing concerns about indemnification, cost-sharing, and the disposition of the equipment used to destroy its chemical weapons stockpiles.”

Despite the contract’s abrogation, the State Department described Libya’s actions as “a model of nonproliferation.”

Under the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), to which Libya acceded in May 2004, Libya is obligated to destroy its stockpile by the end of 2010. The U.S.-Libyan agreement was signed in December 2006.

The bilateral agreement arranged for major U.S. assistance to the technically challenging and costly effort of eliminating chemical weaponry in the Libyan desert. In addition to destroying 23.6 metric tons of mustard gas, Libya must abolish around 1,300 metric tons of precursor chemicals to comply with the convention.

Beck also said that the United States had “demonstrated flexibility on indemnification and equipment disposition.” In particular, the equipment-disposition discussions focused on whether the U.S.-built destruction facility would be given or sold to Libya, and if it would be removed after completion. The indemnification deliberations centered on who would be liable for potential damages.

The State Department’s description leaves unclear whether Libya did not consider the United States flexible enough on these two matters or if the parties could not agree on financing, the third grievance cited by Libya. Under the contract’s terms, the United States would have contributed $45 million and Libya around $15 million.

Another U.S. official familiar with the issue told Arms Control Today on June 18 that money did not seem to be the pivotal issue and that Libya simply decided that it was too cumbersome to have the U.S. government involved. The official also expressed confidence that Libya is dedicated to destroying its stockpile.

Libyan representatives in the United States said they were not involved in the decision and declined to speculate on their government’s reasons. The Libyan ambassador to Washington, Ali Aujali, said he was generally not occupied with such “technical matters.”

The United States also is assisting chemical weapons destruction in Albania and Russia, where it has encountered similar challenges. Albania on April 29 became the first state to miss its destruction deadline under the CWC, officially blaming the delay on local weather conditions.

Russian officials have voiced complaints nearly identical to Libya’s over U.S. aid to its stockpile destruction efforts. Construction of the Shchuch’ye facility in particular has been held up by squabbles between the governments. (See ACT, May 2007 .)

Vowing to take sole responsibility for destroying its chemical weapons, Libya has annulled its contract with the United States. The Libyan government cancelled the agreement, effective June 14, because of dissatisfaction with its provisions on liability, financing, and facility ownership. (Continue)

U.S.-Indian Talks Fail to Move Nuclear Deal

Wade Boese

Top U.S. and Indian officials failed recently to jump-start their stalled negotiations on a bilateral civil nuclear cooperation agreement that both governments hail as a centerpiece of their new relationship.

The two sides sought to favorably portray the latest talks that took place May 31 to June 2 in New Delhi. The U.S. embassy there issued a statement describing the discussions as “useful,” while Indian Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon deemed them as “constructive and productive.”

But the lead U.S. negotiator, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns, left town without addressing reporters. His quiet exit spoke volumes about the lack of results, particularly since the Department of State had announced May 1 that the goal of Burns’ visit was to “reach a final agreement.”

The agreement being pursued is known as a 123 agreement, after the relevant section of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954. It would set the terms of future U.S.-Indian civil nuclear commerce. The United States previously cut off most nuclear trade with India following India’s 1974 explosion of a nuclear device derived in part from Canadian- and U.S.-origin material and technologies imported ostensibly for peaceful purposes.

Menon said June 2 that he was not setting dates or deadlines for completion of the agreement “because I do not think that is the right way to negotiate something that is so complicated.” Still, he noted that the two sides would like to finish negotiations “very quickly.”

President George W. Bush reportedly has invited Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to an August stay at his home in Texas. They would probably like nothing more than to cap their visit with a finished agreement.

The two leaders put the entire effort in motion two years ago. (See ACT, September 2005. ) Bush pledged to change U.S. law and international rules restricting nuclear trade with India in exchange for a Singh commitment to open up a greater portion of India’s nuclear complex to outside oversight, specifically safeguards administered by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Safeguards are measures intended to prevent nuclear technologies and materials in civil programs from flowing to nuclear weapons.

Congress gave its blessing to reviving nuclear trade with India in legislation passed last December. In that legislation, lawmakers established conditions under which future trade could be carried out. (See ACT, January/February 2007 .)

After the congressional action, Bush administration officials predicted a speedy conclusion of the 123 agreement. But the process has slowed to a standstill over the past several months because of differences over the details of the agreement.

India is opposed to clauses that would terminate cooperation and mandate the return of imports if New Delhi conducts another nuclear explosion. India also wants license to deal with U.S.-origin nuclear fuel however it sees fit, as well as the opportunity to purchase reprocessing and enrichment technologies. Those technologies can be used to make nuclear fuel or nuclear bombs. In addition, India is seeking assurances that it will not be deprived of foreign nuclear fuel supplies in the event the United States ceases cooperation.

Neither side has been in a compromising mood. Existing U.S. law and policy limits U.S. flexibility, while the Indian nuclear establishment and opposition lawmakers are pressuring the Singh government not to budge.

Burns acknowledges the difficulties but proclaims confidence they will be overcome. “I believe we will reach the mountaintop,” he said in a May 23 speech.

Conclusion of a 123 agreement would not mark the fulfillment of the Bush-Singh plan. Before U.S.-Indian nuclear trade could actually commence, there would also need to be congressional approval of the 123 agreement, completion of an IAEA-Indian safeguards agreement, and a nuclear trade exemption for India from the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), which operates by consensus.

A 1992 NSG rule restricts nuclear trade with non-nuclear-weapon states that do not subject all of their nuclear enterprise to IAEA safeguards. New Delhi does not do this, nor under the Bush-Singh plan does it plan to start. Because India is classified as a non-nuclear-weapon state under the terms of the 1968 nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which New Delhi has not signed, it must get relief from the NSG rule to take greater advantage of international nuclear trade.

Despite some preliminary contacts, the IAEA and India have yet to launch negotiations on India’s request for unique safeguards. Meanwhile, some NSG members, such as France, Russia, and the United Kingdom, favor granting India a trade exemption, but other members must still be convinced. The group does not plan to take up the matter until a 123 agreement and IAEA safeguards agreement are negotiated.

Taiwan Buys U.S. Arms; U.S. Eyes China

Wade Boese

Taiwan’s legislature recently approved buying a dozen anti-submarine planes, a modest portion of an original $18 billion U.S. arms package offered six years ago. The purchase comes amid persistent U.S. questions about China’s military modernization and a new move to prevent American technology from aiding that drive.

Soon after taking office, President George W. Bush authorized selling Taiwan an array of weapon systems, including destroyers, diesel-electric attack submarines, and aircraft. (See ACT, May 2001.) Later, the United States added short- and medium-range anti-missile systems. Taiwan agreed to acquire four Kidd-class guided-missile destroyers, the final two of which were delivered last September. The rest of the package, however, became entangled in politics.

Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian has urged making the deals, but his Democratic Progressive Party does not control the legislature, the Legislative Yuan. Led by the Nationalist Party, the majority coalition in the Legislative Yuan has blocked funding for the weapons, arguing that they are too expensive and too provocative to China, which opposes foreign arms sales to the island. Beijing asserts Taiwan is a renegade province that should be under the mainland’s control and does not rule out using force to accomplish that objective.

On June 15, the Legislative Yuan approved buying 12 P-3C Orion anti-submarine reconnaissance aircraft and upgrades to its current anti-missile systems, the Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC)-2. The parliament declined to seek newer PAC-3 batteries. Lawmakers also endorsed further study of the submarine option.

The Legislative Yuan’s shift has been attributed to Nationalist Party maneuvering to increase the appeal of its candidate in the presidential election next March. Speculation also exists that the recent move was orchestrated to ease a separate requested purchase of 66 U.S. F-16 fighter jets. Washington has resisted moving ahead on the proposal, insisting that Taiwan first complete the 2001 offer.

U.S. officials have repeatedly rebuked Taiwan for not acting on the package. In a May 3 press conference, Stephen Young, director of the American Institute in Taiwan, noted that “Taiwan’s friends” question whether Taipei is “serious about maintaining a credible defense.” The institute serves as the de facto U.S. embassy in Taiwan since Washington switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China in 1979.

Although Taiwan has essentially forgone major arms purchases the past several years, China has been working to improve its armed forces. The Pentagon noted May 25 in the latest edition of its annual report Military Power of the People’s Republic of China, the “balance of forces [is] continuing to shift in the mainland’s favor.”

The report highlights China’s 2006 receipt from Russia of the last of four Sovremenny-class destroyers and a final pair of eight Kilo-class diesel-electric attack submarines. Beijing also boosted its conventionally armed short-range ballistic missiles opposite Taiwan by at least 100 to approximately 900.

On the strategic side, the Pentagon upgraded the status of China’s road-mobile, solid-fuel DF-31 missile, which has an estimated range of some 7,000 kilometers, from developmental to “initial threat availability.” A Pentagon official told reporters May 25 that the phrase meant that the missile “could be employed in actual military operations.”

A longer-range variant, the DF-31A, which could target all of the United States, was still assessed as “developmental.” The Pentagon suggested that missile might become operational as early as this year, similar to China’s new submarine-launched ballistic missile, the JL-2.

These newer missiles have been in development for some time. The 2002 edition of the Pentagon report estimated that they would become available around mid- to late decade. All told, China’s current force of ICBMs capable of reaching the continental United States remains at approximately 20—no change since the Pentagon issued its first annual report in 2000.

Chinese leaders, according to the report, see space and counter-space capabilities as signs of prestige and power similar to nuclear weapons. China’s Jan. 11 destruction of an aging satellite in orbit (see ACT, March 2007 ) revealed only one element of what the Pentagon describes as a “multi-dimensional program” to “deny others access to outer space.”

China is funding its arms purchases, missile developments, and space capabilities with a growing military budget. In March, Beijing announced a nearly 18 percent spending increase from last year, to approximately $45 billion. The Pentagon, which in February asked Congress for $623 billion for one year, says China’s actual military budget could be as high as $125 billion.

China rails at such allegations. On May 28, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Jiang Yu blasted the Pentagon report as spreading the “myth of the China threat by exaggerating China’s military strength and expenses out of ulterior motives.” Qin Gang, another ministry spokesperson, defended China’s military modernization June 21 as “moderate and reasonable.”

Although the annual Pentagon report focuses on China’s capabilities, Washington says what it is really interested in and unclear about is Chinese intentions. “We wish that there were greater transparency, that [the Chinese] would talk more about what their intentions are [and] what their strategies are,” Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said May 24.

Possible conflicts with Taiwan are the near-term military focus of China, the report concludes. Yet, it also assesses that China is creating a base for pursuing “broader regional and global objectives.”

China’s growing capabilities has caught the attention of some U.S. lawmakers. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, warned at a June 13 panel hearing that China has “stepped into the superpower shoes that had been vacated by the Soviet Union with respect to military power.” But Undersecretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs Richard Lawless told the panel that Beijing “is not necessarily interested in the ability to stand toe-to-toe and go into a major conflict with the United States.”

Greater openness on China’s part could diminish the possibility of future conflict, U.S. officials say. Lawless noted that, without Chinese transparency, the United States is “put in the position of having to assume the most dangerous intent a capability offers.”

U.S. officials contend China is opening up slightly but not enough, particularly in the nuclear realm. Beijing has begged off recent U.S. invitations to engage in a nuclear policy dialogue, but Gates and other U.S. officials are strongly promoting the offer. “That kind of dialogue, whether or not it involves specific proposals for arms control or anything else, I think, is immensely valuable,” Gates said June 2.

The two governments are expected to begin exploring establishment of a military hotline this September. Still, Lawless cautioned that “there’s a lot left to finalize.”

Although seeking to improve relations with China, the United States is wary of China’s military rise. In its 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review, the Pentagon observed that China “has the greatest potential to compete militarily with the United States and field disruptive military technologies that could over time offset traditional U.S. military advantages.”

Aiming to prevent U.S. companies from abetting such developments, the Department of Commerce June 15 announced new rules on exporting dual-use goods to China. Dual-use items have civilian and military applications.

The recent measures expand the list of items that require U.S. companies to obtain a license when shipping to known military end uses in China. These 20 product categories include some high-performance computers, lasers, aircraft, aero-gas turbine engines, and machine tools.

At the same time, the Commerce Department is seeking to reward Chinese entities with records of not re-exporting or diverting imports to unauthorized purposes. Such importers will be eligible to become “validated end users” that will be exempted from getting licenses for some dual-use goods. In addition, the threshold for obtaining licenses for some dual-use items that are not destined for military uses will be increased from $5,000 to $50,000.

In a June 15 press statement, Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez described the new rules as a “common-sense approach” that will facilitate U.S. exports to “pre-screened civilian customers” while denying goods that “would contribute to China’s military.”

 

Taiwan’s legislature recently approved buying a dozen anti-submarine planes, a modest portion of an original $18 billion U.S. arms package offered six years ago. The purchase comes amid persistent U.S. questions about China’s military modernization and a new move to prevent American technology from aiding that drive.

Soon after taking office, President George W. Bush authorized selling Taiwan an array of weapon systems, including destroyers, diesel-electric attack submarines, and aircraft. (See ACT, May 2001.) Later, the United States added short- and medium-range anti-missile systems. Taiwan agreed to acquire four Kidd-class guided-missile destroyers, the final two of which were delivered last September. The rest of the package, however, became entangled in politics. (Continue)

North Korea Reactor Shutdown Looms

Paul Kerr

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) officials visited North Korea in late June, almost two weeks after Pyongyang agreed to finish implementing a February pledge to halt its nuclear reactor. Another meeting of six-party talks designed to resolve the North Korean nuclear crisis may take place in July, but no firm date has been set.

An IAEA team led by Olli Heinonen, deputy director-general for safeguards, was scheduled to arrive June 26 in Pyongyang. North Korea invited the agency in a June 16 letter after a North Korean banking dispute moved toward resolution.

Heinonen told reporters June 23 that “[t]he purpose of the trip is…to negotiate details” about verifying and monitoring the shutdown of North Korea’s nuclear facilities located at Yongbyon, according to Reuters. IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei held initial discussions with North Korea about the issue in March. (See ACT, April 2007.)

Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Christopher Hill told reporters in Tokyo June 23 that North Korean officials indicated during a bilateral meeting in Pyongyang that the country would shut down its operating, graphite-moderated nuclear reactor within approximately three weeks.

Hill met with North Korean Vice Minister Kim Gye Gwan and North Korean Foreign Minister Pak Ui Chun during a June 21-22 visit to Pyongyang. The visit was the first by a U.S. official in Hill’s position since his predecessor, James Kelly, went to Pyongyang in October 2002. National Security Council official Victor Cha visited North Korea this past April.

A June 16 report from the state-run Korean Central News Agency said that Pyongyang invited the agency because “the process” of resolving the Macau-based Banco Delta Asia dispute had reached the “final phase.”

North Korea agreed in February to halt within 60 days the operation of the Yongbyon reactor and associated reprocessing facility, which is used to separate plutonium from spent reactor fuel, as well as “invite back IAEA personnel to conduct all necessary monitoring and verifications.” But Pyongyang refused to shut down the facilities because it contended the bank issue had not been resolved.     

The Department of State argued in April that the matter had been resolved as the bank had “un-blocked” the relevant North Korean accounts earlier that month. But North Korea said a resolution requires that the funds first be transferred.

Subsequent difficulty in conducting that transaction delayed resolution of the issue. After several false starts, the funds were ultimately transferred to a Russian bank in which North Korea reportedly holds an account. The funds were transferred via the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank and the Bank of Russia. A June 25 North Korean Foreign Ministry statement acknowledged that the funds had been transferred, “thus settling the controversial issue.”

Since September 2005, the bank matter had been a persistent obstacle to progress in the six-party talks, which also include China, Japan, and South Korea. That month, the U.S. Department of the Treasury designated Banco Delta Asia as a “money laundering concern.” The bank subsequently froze North Korea’s accounts, and other financial institutions curtailed their dealings with Pyongyang. The United States has asserted that the bank provided financial services to North Korean government agencies and front companies engaged in illicit activities.

Next Steps

IAEA spokesperson Melissa Fleming told Arms Control Today June 25 that the agency expects its team “to come back with agreed modalities” for verifying the shutdown. The IAEA Board of Governors must approve these plans “because this is a special verification mission,” she said. Fleming also confirmed a June 23 Los Angeles Times report that another team of inspectors is likely to go to North Korea in about two weeks.

U.S. officials have repeatedly emphasized the importance of resuming work on the remaining portions of the February agreement. State Department spokesperson Sean McCormack told reporters June 22 that “we need to really get to the point where the rubber meets the road.”

For its part, North Korea says that it is now willing to implement the second phase of the February agreement, according to the June 25 Foreign Ministry statement.

North Korea agreed to shut down its nuclear facilities as part of the first phase of a two-step agreement that contains initial steps for implementing a September 2005 joint statement. Pyongyang pledged in the 2005 statement to abandon its nuclear weapons and “existing nuclear programs” in exchange for a series of political and economic incentives. (See ACT, October 2005.)

North Korea’s fulfillment of its shutdown pledge would allow the other parties to implement the remaining elements of the first phase of the February agreement.

For example, South Korea is to provide 50,000 metric tons of heavy fuel oil to the country in exchange for the shutdown. South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min-soon told reporters June 20 that “preparations are underway” to provide the fuel “similarly in time with” North Korea’s shutdown of its nuclear facilities and the return of IAEA inspectors, according to Agence France-Presse.

Hill told reporters June 25 that the United States hopes “to have a six-party meeting of some kind…probably in the second week of July.” He said that meeting would likely happen after the shutdown begins but did not say whether the meeting would happen before the shutdown is complete.

According to Hill, the meeting should focus on implementing the February agreement’s second phase, which is to include North Korea’s provision of “a complete declaration of all nuclear programs,” as well as the “disablement of all existing [North Korean] nuclear facilities.” In return, the other parties are to provide “economic, energy, and humanitarian assistance up to the equivalent” of an additional 950,000 metric tons of heavy fuel oil.

Hill told reporters June 18 that the United States envisions the second phase taking place “in the latter part of this calendar year.” Regarding the disablement of the reactor, Hill asserted that the task could be completed within “several days, a couple of weeks at the most.” But he acknowledged a week later that the parties have not yet determined precisely how the reactor is to be disabled.

The February agreement also calls for a meeting of the six parties’ foreign ministers once the first phase is implemented. Such a meeting would likely take place in late July or early August, Hill said.

Hill argued during a June 19 press briefing that five working groups tasked with formulating specific plans for implementing the remaining portions of the September 2005 statement should resume their work. But a State Department official told Arms Control Today June 25 that the timing of those meetings had not yet been decided.

Iran Offers to Resolve Issues With IAEA

Paul Kerr

Iran has invited International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) officials to visit Tehran in order to “develop an action plan for resolving outstanding issues” related to the country’s past nuclear activities, agency spokesperson Melissa Fleming announced June 25. “The IAEA intends to send a team as early as practicable,” she added. Iran’s invitation came as permanent members of the UN Security Council began work on a new resolution that would impose sanctions on Iran.

Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council and Tehran’s lead nuclear negotiator, issued the invitation the previous evening during a meeting with IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei. Larijani and ElBaradei also had discussed the plan during a June 22 meeting.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mohammad-Ali Hosseini told reporters June 24 that Iran could reach an agreement with the IAEA within two months.

Iran has a gas centrifuge-based uranium-enrichment program and is constructing a heavy water-moderated nuclear reactor. Iran says these programs are for peaceful purposes, but both also could be used to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons.

Unresolved issues related to these programs have been a persistent source of controversy. Since its investigation began in 2002, the IAEA has discovered that Tehran engaged in secret nuclear activities, some of which violated its safeguards agreement with the agency. The government has provided explanations for some of these issues, but the agency says that several others remain unresolved. (See ACT, March 2006.)

IAEA safeguards agreements, which are required under the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), allow the agency to monitor NPT states-parties’ declared civilian nuclear activities.

Partly in response to Iran’s failure to clarify the outstanding nuclear issues, the Security Council has imposed sanctions on Iran in two previous resolutions, the most recent of which was adopted in March.

According to a May report from ElBaradei to the IAEA Board of Governors, the outstanding issues include “information relevant to the assembly of centrifuges, the manufacture of centrifuge components…and research and development of centrifuges or enrichment techniques.”

 Most recently, ElBaradei told the IAEA board June 11 that the agency is unable “to make any progress in its efforts to resolve [the] outstanding issues,” adding that “it is incumbent on Iran to work urgently” with the IAEA so that it can “provide assurance regarding the exclusively peaceful nature of all of Iran’s nuclear activities.”

Iran has previously promised to cooperate with the IAEA’s investigation, but nothing has come of those pledges. For example, an April 2006 Iranian letter said that Tehran was “prepared to resolve the remaining outstanding issues” with the agency and pledged to provide a timetable for compliance within the next three weeks. (See ACT, June 2006.)

More recently, Iran reiterated in a February letter to the IAEA its willingness to cooperate with the investigation. But this offer appeared to retain a previous condition that the Security Council end its involvement with the Iranian nuclear issue. (See ACT, March 2007.)

Meanwhile, Larijani met June 23 with the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, in Lisbon in an effort to restart negotiations with Germany and the five permanent members of the Security Council.

Those countries have said repeatedly that they are willing to negotiate with Tehran about a June 2006 offer of incentives intended to persuade the Iranian government to end its uranium-enrichment program. However, they continue to insist that Iran suspend work on those programs, a step it has refused to take.

Solana described the meeting as “very constructive.” Similarly, Larijani said that they had a “good discussion,” according to an official Iranian radio report. Solana told reporters that the two officials, who also met in April and May, are to meet again in about three weeks, according to Agence France-Presse.

Resolution Work Proceeds Slowly

The two previous Security Council resolutions included a demand that Iran suspend all activities related to its enrichment program, as well as construction of its heavy water reactor. (See ACT, April 2007.)

The resolutions also require Iran to cooperate fully with the IAEA’s investigation, as well as to ratify an additional protocol to its comprehensive IAEA safeguards agreement. Iran has signed an additional protocol, which augments the IAEA’s authority to investigate possible undeclared nuclear activities, but has not ratified it.

ElBaradei’s May report, which he issued per the council’s request, showed that Iran has not complied with the most recent resolution, which the council adopted in March. Resolution 1747 requires Iran to comply “without further delay” with the council’s demands or face “further appropriate [nonmilitary] measures.” (See ACT, April 2007.)

Hosseni said that Iran would increase its cooperation with the IAEA in order to dissuade the UN Security Council from adopting another resolution. However, Department of State spokesperson Tom Casey told reporters the next day that the United States is “moving forward with a discussion” with other permanent council members about “what kind of sanctions” could be included in a new resolution. He did not specify further.

Iranian officials have reiterated that Tehran will react negatively to a new sanctions resolution. Larijani said that Iran would respond to such a measure by making “another, longer stride” in its nuclear program but did not elaborate, according to an interview in the June 21 edition of Newsweek. Likewise, Ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s permanent representative to the IAEA, warned in a June 15 interview with the semi-official Mehr News Agency that Tehran could further decrease its cooperation with the IAEA if the council were to adopt another sanctions resolution.

Iran has gradually scaled back its cooperation with the agency since early 2006. For example, Tehran had been behaving as if its additional protocol were in force since the fall of 2003, but stopped doing so in February 2006.

More recently, Iran has not allowed the IAEA to inspect its heavy water reactor facility since Tehran’s March decision to end its compliance with a portion of the subsidiary arrangements for its safeguards agreement. (See ACT, April 2007.)

Sanctions on Iran Grow

Paul Kerr and Wade Boese

During the past several months, the U.S. Departments of State and the Treasury have placed sanctions on several Iranian entities that they claim have engaged in activities related to Tehran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Meanwhile, the international community has moved forward in implementing other sanctions on Iran that were imposed in UN Security Council resolutions.

In June 2005, President George W. Bush authorized the Treasury Department in Executive Order 13382 to freeze the U.S. assets of foreign entities suspected of supplying or supporting the development of unconventional arms and ballistic or cruise missile programs. (See ACT, September 2005. ) The order bars U.S. citizens, companies, and institutions from doing business or facilitating transactions with sanctioned entities, a term that encompasses individuals, private companies, or government agencies. Other foreign entities that do business with those already sanctioned risk being penalized as well.

The Treasury Department recently added a total of seven Iranian entities in three separate announcements. The first announcement was in April, the second and third in June. Earlier this year, the department added nine entities to the list, six of which were Iranian. (See ACT, March 2007. )

The U.S. government has designated a total of 43 entities under the executive order; 20 are Iranian. Of those, 15 are subsidiaries of five other entities.

Whether any of these designees have any assets under U.S. jurisdiction is unclear. Treasury Department spokesperson Molly Millerwise told Arms Control Today June 28 that the department does not disclose such information. Asked whether the assets belonging to subsidiaries of designated parent entities also are frozen, Millerwise explained that “all of” a designated company’s “property and interests in property are blocked. Depending on the facts and circumstances, its investments in other companies may be considered blocked property.”

Almost all of the recently designated entities are listed in an annex to UN Security Council Resolution 1737, which was adopted last December. The two exceptions are Iran’s Aerospace Industries Organization and a related entity, Mizan Machine Manufacturing Group. The resolution imposed a series of sanctions on Iran, including restrictions on importing and exporting a variety of goods and technologies related to Tehran’s nuclear and missile programs. (See ACT, April 2007. )

On April 3, the State Department designated Iran’s Defense Industries Organization under the executive order for activities “that have materially contributed to, or pose a risk of materially contributing to, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction or their means of delivery,” according to an announcement in the Federal Register. The State Department provided no details, but the annex to Resolution 1737 describes the Defense Industries Organization as an “overarching” entity controlled by Iran’s Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics. Some of the organization’s “subordinates” have been involved in Iran’s centrifuge and missile programs, according to the annex. The April 3 designation was the first such action by the State Department under the executive order.

On June 8, the Treasury Department designated two companies, Pars Tarash and Farayand Technique, for their involvement with Iran’s gas centrifuge-based uranium-enrichment program. There is widespread concern within the international community that this program could be used to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons. Tehran maintains that the program is exclusively to produce fuel for nuclear reactors (see page 26 ). 

The companies are connected to Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, the Kalaye Electric Company, or both, according to a department press release.

Bush included the Atomic Energy Organization, which the Treasury Department describes as “the main Iranian institute for research and development activities in the field of nuclear technology,” in an annex to the original 2005 executive order. The Kalaye Electric Company, a subsidiary of the organization, was similarly designated in February 2007. (See ACT, March 2007. )

On June 15, the department designated two individuals, Mohammad Qannadi and Ali Hajinia Leilabadi. According to a department press release issued that day, Qannadi and Leilabadi act or purport to act “for or on behalf of” Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization and the Mesbah Energy Company respectively. The Mesbah Energy Company is an Atomic Energy Organization “subordinate,” which the Treasury Department designated in January 2006.

Mesbah Energy Company has been used to “procure products for Iran’s heavy water project,” the press release stated. Iran is constructing a heavy water-moderated nuclear reactor and an associated heavy-water plant. The annex to Resolution 1737 describes the company as a “provider” for the reactor project. The United States and other countries suspect that the reactor could be used to produce plutonium for fissile material in nuclear weapons.

The United States also has targeted entities involved in Iran’s ballistic missile program. On June 8, the Treasury Department designated Fajr Industries Group and Mizan Machine Manufacturing Group under the 2005 executive order. Both are connected to Iran’s Aerospace Industries Organization, according to the department.

The Aerospace Industries Organization, which was also identified in the original executive order’s annex, “is a subsidiary of the Iranian Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics, and is the overall manager and coordinator of Iran’s missile program.”

Both of the newly designated entities are involved in procuring equipment and materials for Iran’s ballistic missile program, according to the department, whose June 8 press release provided some details about these activities.

For example, it stated that Fajr Industries Group “has consistently procured a wide range of missile guidance and control equipment on behalf of” the Aerospace Industries Organization. Since the late 1990s, the company has “purchased high strength steel alloy, useful for guidance equipment in ballistic missiles,” the press release said.

For its part, the Mizan Machine Manufacturing Group purchased in April 2005 “a state-of-the-art crane…probably intended for use in Iran’s Shahab missile program,” the press release says, adding that such cranes “can be used to support missiles…in the field or at storage facilities.” The Shahab-3 is the longest-range missile that Iran has deployed to date. (See ACT, January/February 2007. )

Additionally, the company acted on behalf of the Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group, a “subordinate entity” of the Aerospace Industries Organization, to acquire equipment “that could be used to calibrate guidance and control instruments for more accurate [ballistic missile] targeting.”

State Department Sanctions

Earlier this year, the State Department imposed sanctions on 31 entities under the Iran and Syria Nonproliferation Act for unspecified transfers of items, either to or from Iran or Syria, related to weapons of mass destruction, certain conventional weapons, and ballistic or cruise missiles. 

For two years, the sanctioned entities will be prohibited from receiving U.S. government contracts, assistance, or military trade, as well as any goods controlled by the 1979 Export Administration Act, which regulates exports that have both civilian and military purposes. The State Department provided no details about the entities’ activities.

According to announcements published in the Federal Register Jan. 5 and April 23, two dozen entities located in 10 countries were sanctioned in January; 13 entities located in seven countries were sanctioned in April. The State Department in April also sanctioned Hezbollah, a foreign terrorist organization.

Of the penalized entities, four were Iranian. One of these, the Sanam Industrial Group, also is designated under Resolution 1747, which contains an annex similar to that of Resolution 1737. The council adopted Resolution 1747 March 24. Iran’s Defense Industries Organization was sanctioned both in January and April.

Except for Hezbollah, the other entities are located in 10 other countries: China, Iraq, Malaysia, Mexico, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Singapore, Sudan, and Syria. Six of these entities were sanctioned both in January and April.

Implementation of UN Sanctions Continues

Belgium’s UN permanent representative Johan Verbeke, who chairs the committee overseeing the sanctions imposed on Iran, gave a progress report to the Security Council June 21. The Security Council set up the committee to monitor countries’ compliance with Resolutions 1737 and 1747.

Verbeke said that the committee, which is required to report to the Security Council every 90 days about its progress, has received reports from 50 states and the European Union regarding their implementation of Resolution 1747. That resolution called on all countries to report on their implementation of the sanctions within 60 days.

A total of 73 countries have submitted reports regarding their implementation of Resolution 1737, he added. As of March 23, some 51 states and the EU had done so, Verbeke reported at the time. The United Nations has a total of 192 member states. (See ACT, May 2007 .)

In addition to receiving governments’ reports, the committee adopted guidelines May 30 for implementing the resolutions, Verbeke said.

Iran-Iraq Chemical Warfare Aftershocks Persist

Alex Bollfrass

Almost two decades after the end of the Iran-Iraq War, the conflict’s chemical weapons legacy lingers in the streets of Ramadi and in courtrooms throughout the world. Iranian, Kurdish, and U.S. victims of Iraq’s chemical weapons are seeking judicial redress. At the same time, the Iraqi special tribunal has sentenced three key perpetrators to death.

Revealing that the left-over dangers from eight years of that war have not ended, UN inspectors charged with verifying and monitoring Iraq’s disarmament warned in their latest report of the continuing threat that munitions and expertise left behind by the war still pose even as insurgents mount new types of chemical attacks.

Death Sentence for “Chemical Ali”

Ali Hassan al-Majid, Saddam Hussein’s cousin and top aide, was pronounced guilty on June 24 of ordering the use of chemical weapons during the dictator’s anti-Kurdish operation, a decision that earned him the nickname “Chemical Ali.” He was sentenced to death by hanging.

The so-called Anfal campaign lasted from late February to early September 1988. The prosecution alleged that the campaign destroyed approximately 2,000 villages and killed 180,000 people. The trial’s defendants claimed that it was a counter-insurgency operation and the Kurds were supporting the Iranian enemy. According to the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal’s verdict, the Anfal campaign constituted genocide, a war crime, and a crime against humanity.

During the Anfal campaign, Ali Hassan served as secretary-general of the Ba’ath Party’s northern bureau. He later oversaw the Kuwaiti occupation and was minister of the interior prior to the 2003 U.S. invasion. Two other high-ranking officials were also given the death penalty and another two received life sentences for their role in the attacks.

Complaints Collect in Dutch Courts

Iraq’s chemical warfare program relied on foreign suppliers, one of whom recently had his 15-year prison sentence extended another two years. The businessman Frans van Anraat had been convicted in December 2005 of complicity in war crimes for shipping more than 1,100 tons of thiodiglycol from a U.S. company to Iraq. The chemical was crucial in the production of the mustard gas used by the Ba’athists in their attacks on Kurds in 1987 and 1988, which included the Anfal campaign.

A Dutch appeals court increased Van Anraat’s sentence on May 9, arguing that he had been “driven by naked greed,” but it found the evidence insufficient to convict him of complicity in genocide. The appeals court also ruled that 15 Kurdish plaintiffs would not receive the €680 in damages that the lower court had awarded them.

These victims, however, are being represented in a separate upcoming civil case. The state prosecutor also is considering an appeal of the case to the Netherlands’ high court in hopes of establishing van Anraat’s complicity in genocide.

The Iranian government will be filing its own legal claims in the matter. Iranian news sources reported that Deputy Foreign Minister Mehdi Mostafavi announced May 12 in Tehran that his government would be launching suits against Iraq’s Western chemical suppliers and that it had created a dossier on the subject.

Iranian diplomats contacted by Arms Control Today did not respond to requests for details. It appears that the first suit will be brought in the Netherlands, in connection with the van Anraat case.

During the war, Iran developed its own chemical weapons program and supplier network in response to Iraqi attacks. One Israeli supplier, Nahum Manbar, is on the verge of release from prison in that country. He was sentenced to 16 years in 1998 but is likely to be released soon, pending the state attorney’s request for Israeli intelligence to vet if Manbar’s release would pose a threat. Two of Iran’s suppliers have also served jail sentences in the United States.

U.S. Veterans’ Suit Wilting

The Iranian lawsuits are starting just as U.S. Persian Gulf War veterans’ quest for compensation is trickling to a halt. The U.S. military blew up Iraqi ammunition depots containing chemical weapons agents and may have inadvertently exposed its own soldiers to toxic fallout. The class action lawsuit targeting alleged Western chemical suppliers to Hussein’s government, originally filed in 1994, has failed to gain traction in U.S. and European courts.

The class action complaint comprises some 3,000 plaintiffs, but its list of defendants has dwindled from 46 businesses to two companies. The lead attorney in the case, Gary Pitts, told Arms Control Today June 15 that he has been unable to establish proper jurisdiction over the mostly European companies in the United States, despite their U.S. subsidiaries.

As an American, Pitts has been unable to file in the national courts of the major suppliers: Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. Some of the biggest suppliers to Iraq were German, but Germany’s judiciary rules do not permit consolidated lawsuits. This means that each plaintiff would need to file separate suits against each company.

Pitts said the “heavy players” had escaped punishment. One of the two remaining defendants, Alcolac Inc., was previously convicted of violating U.S. export laws in 1989 for supplying van Anraat with the thiodiglycol that he sold to the Iraqis. Kellogg, the other company, built an ammonia facility in Iraq but was not listed in the detailed records of its chemical weapons program that Iraq gave to the United Nations.

Another setback for the case has been the disappearance of a key witness, Alaa al-Saeed. He headed the Iraqi chemical weapons program at al-Muthanna, the largest chemical weapons facility under the Ba’athist government, and had agreed to testify in the case.

On his way to a new Iraqi government post in the Science Ministry, al-Saeed was kidnapped in March and is still believed to be in captivity. A representative of the U.S. embassy in Iraq confirmed to Arms Control Today June 17 that its Office of Hostage Affairs had an open file on al-Saeed but declined to provide details.

UNMOVIC Issues Warning of Lingering Expertise, Materials

In addition to occupying judges with questions of guilt and compensation, the war’s consequences still pose threats to the lives of people in Iraq. The UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) recently warned about the danger of an escalation in chemical attacks in Iraq. In their May 29 report to the Security Council, the commissioners noted that at least 10 insurgent attacks have killed dozens and injured hundreds of individuals. It observes that the situation is aggravated by the presence of a past program’s materials and expertise.

These attacks involved the dispersion of widely available chlorine gas with conventional explosives. The report, addressing the period between the beginning of March and the end of May, alerts the Security Council that hundreds of individuals in Iraq have experience in producing and delivering chemical weapons. The supply of these scientists’ expertise and insurgents’ demands for deadly weaponry presents a dangerous combination.

Another risk factor mentioned in the report is the existence of procurement networks that can acquire chemical precursors for weapons. UNMOVIC says that despite Security Council resolutions mandating that any dual-use chemicals imported into Iraq must be reported to it, UNMOVIC has received no such information since the U.S. invasion of March 2003. Consequently, weapons-usable chemicals can be shipped into Iraq with impunity.

Dual-use-chemical production equipment exists in Iraq, providing the infrastructure for small-scale production of chemical weapons. UNMOVIC points out that those interested in using chemical weapons could improvise primitive delivery systems to reach their targets.

The report also noted the possible existence of pre-1991 chemical weapons. Mustard gas-filled artillery shells may be particularly dangerous because the agent is unlikely to have deteriorated in potency. The remaining nerve-agent warheads are less of a direct threat because of probable degradation, but they may still pose a health hazard, according to the Iraq inspection agency.

The agency was disbanded June 29 before it could take action on removing these threats. Legal consequences from the Iran-Iraq War, on the other hand, will be rippling through the courts for the indefinite future.

Almost two decades after the end of the Iran-Iraq War, the conflict’s chemical weapons legacy lingers in the streets of Ramadi and in courtrooms throughout the world. Iranian, Kurdish, and U.S. victims of Iraq’s chemical weapons are seeking judicial redress. At the same time, the Iraqi special tribunal has sentenced three key perpetrators to death. (Continue)

IAEA, Congress Tackle Nuclear Fuel Supply

Oliver Meier and Miles A. Pomper

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei June 13 presented the agency’s Board of Governors with a report outlining ways countries might work together to discourage the spread of uranium enrichment and spent fuel reprocessing facilities. The report came as the standoff over Iran’s nuclear program and increased interest in nuclear energy have prompted growing concern, including in Congress, about the spread of such facilities that could provide either fuel for power plants or fissile material for nuclear weapons.

The text of the report was not publicly released, reportedly because some board members objected to doing so. Nonetheless, knowledgeable sources said the report, written by IAEA staff, evaluates the legal, technical, financial, and institutional aspects associated with the problem, analyzing nearly a dozen proposals for multilateral cooperation put forward by IAEA member states, many at a special, two-day agency conference in September 2006. (See ACT, November 2006. ) But the sources said the report does not advocate any particular plan for moving forward and leaves the thorniest issues for the states on the IAEA board to resolve.

The proposals outlined in the report essentially fall into three camps: reliance on the international market, backup commitments by individual states, and the establishment of a last-resort facility under the auspices of the IAEA. All are intended to convince countries to rely on the international market rather than national facilities to enrich uranium or to extract plutonium for spent nuclear fuel. In his June 11 statement to the board, ElBaradei essentially argued that all of the mechanisms could complement each other, calling for “an incremental approach, with multiple assurances in place.” In doing so, he stuck to a theme that he has embraced since receiving an IAEA expert group report in February 2005, which evaluated several steps toward a multilateral solution of the problem. (See ACT, March 2005. )

According to a June 15 IAEA press release, the report argues for moving toward a multilateral framework by creating mechanisms that would “assure the supply of fuel for nuclear power plants; over time, convert enrichment and reprocessing facilities from national to multilateral operations”; and “limit future enrichment and reprocessing to multilateral operations.”

The debate on how to prevent the spread of sensitive nuclear technology by limiting the construction of national nuclear fuel-cycle capabilities in additional states has gained new urgency since President George W. Bush in February 2004 proposed to limit supply of such technologies to states that already have such capabilities. (See ACT, March 2004. ) Efforts to get the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) to endorse such proposals permanently have languished, although the NSG has since approved annual moratoria on initiating any new agreements along these lines. Several developing countries, however, have criticized this approach as discriminatory, arguing that it institutionalizes a new cartel of technology holders. In particular, they say that it would infringe on their rights under the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty for access to nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

The agency says its proposals would not limit the right of states-parties to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes and maintains that states would remain “free to choose their fuel options.” But it left important details to the IAEA board. For example, the board would still have to decide whether to limit supply assurances to countries that do not operate enrichment and reprocessing facilities or who renounce such an option. It would also have to decide whether it would require any potential recipients to have in place an additional protocol to their safeguards agreement. Such protocols provide the agency with greater authority to search for undeclared nuclear activities.

A June 8 statement from the Group of Eight (G-8) summit in Heiligendamm, Germany, provides some indications of a possible board response. The group, which includes several key IAEA board members, stated that any proposal on fuel supply assurances should provide “added value” to the nonproliferation regime. Although the G-8 supported the IAEA’s position that participation in any fuel supply mechanism should be voluntary, there are differences regarding what that would mean. The G-8 said only that a possible future mechanism “should not preclude any state from purchasing nuclear fuel cycle services on the existing market beyond the frameworks of multilateral mechanisms,” without taking a position on the right to set up new indigenous enrichment and reprocessing facilities.     

In an indication of the U.S. position, the House of Representatives on June 18 passed by voice vote the International Nuclear Fuel for Peace and Nonproliferation Act to help establish an international nuclear fuel bank. The bill was introduced by House Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) and provides $50 million to supplement an equivalent September 2006 pledge to the IAEA by the private Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI).

Implementation of the NTI pledge and the Lantos bill, however, will depend on the pledge of an additional $50 million by a third party. The bill authorizes the contribution to establish the fuel bank on the territory of a non-nuclear-weapon state, including maintaining a reserve of low-enriched uranium (LEU) for reactor fuel to provide to eligible countries as a fallback mechanism. Only states that do not operate enrichment or reprocessing facilities “on any scale,” are in compliance with their safeguards obligations, and have an additional protocol to their safeguards agreements in force would be eligible to receive services from the fuel bank. 

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee June 27 endorsed somewhat similar legislation by Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind). In addition, the House Appropriations Committee June 11 approved an energy and water spending bill that would provide $100 million in fiscal year 2008 for the fuel bank, if an additional $50 million were pledged by other IAEA member-states.

Unlike the Lantos legislation, the IAEA report says that a future nuclear fuel bank could be either a physical entity or a virtual one providing guarantees that appropriate fuel is forthcoming. It outlines the advantages and disadvantages of each approach. The report also argues that supply assurances should be tailored narrowly to convince states that their nuclear fuel supply will not be cut off for purely political reasons, that is, reasons other than a failure to pay for nuclear fuel or to meet their nonproliferation commitments under their safeguards agreement with the IAEA. Such safeguards are intended to prevent the diversion of peaceful nuclear material or technology to weapons purposes.

Because the member states had not seen the more than 90-page report before it was presented to the board, initial reactions were guarded. Several developing states of the Nonaligned Movement, including Iran, apparently repeated their concerns that any multilateral mechanism must not infringe on their right to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Germany, acting in its current capacity as EU president, said in a June 14 press release that the report “comes at the right time” and that the European Union is “eager to find a solution which takes sufficient account of the current proliferation concerns regarding sensitive components in the nuclear fuel cycle.”

A Department of State official said June 19 that the United States believes that the IAEA report provides the basis for moving forward with debates on the board on the issue and that Washington “looks forward to discussion of the question of establishing a fuel assurance mechanism and to early action by the board to approve an IAEA role in a mechanism.” Still, substantive discussions are not expected before the next board meeting in September. They could also be postponed until the subsequent session in November.

Anti-Nuclear Terrorism Strategies Discussed

Abby Doll

On June 11, some 38 partner states of the nearly one-year-old Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism convened for the third meeting in Astana, Kazakhstan, to discuss future prospects. In a simultaneous meeting, representatives from close to 30 countries attended the initiative’s Conference on International Nuclear Terrorism Law Enforcement in Miami, Florida.

The anti-nuclear terrorism initiative was introduced jointly by President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin in the summer of 2006 in an effort to combat the nuclear terrorism threat through a cooperative network of partner states. (See ACT, September 2006 .) Since then, membership has grown to more than 50 countries, and participating governments have agreed to a statement of principles and a plan of work.

The statement of principles, which was agreed on during earlier meetings in Rabat, Morocco, and Ankara, Turkey, includes a list of commitments to tackle factors that facilitate nuclear terrorism. Member states pledge to address the security of nuclear storage facilities, the illicit trafficking of sensitive radiological and nuclear material, and the development of their countries’ strategic response to nuclear or radiological terrorist attacks or threats.

In Astana, the 38 countries joined observers from the International Atomic Energy Agency and the European Union to discuss the initiative’s progress in furthering these principles and developing the plan of work, which includes capacity-building activities for participating states. Japan and Australia have completed the first two capacity-building activities by hosting the Seminar on Strengthening Nuclear Security in Asian Countries and the Asia-Pacific Seminar on Combating Nuclear Terrorism, respectively.

The Miami conference, hosted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), sought to add meat to the bones of the initiative’s objectives by specifically supporting the principle to enhance participants’ abilities in “response, mitigation, and investigation” of nuclear terrorism activities.

For five days, more than 400 officials from law enforcement, intelligence, border control, nuclear security, and other related professions attended presentations on topics ranging from nuclear smuggling to nuclear forensics. Notable speakers included FBI Director Robert Mueller and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales. Case studies, tabletop exercises, and demonstrations of technical procedure also supplemented the discussions.

On the third day, two Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams from the FBI and the Miami police staged a simulated drill at the Orange Bowl to demonstrate a response to a radiological dispersion device. Delegates from 28 countries watched the team demobilize a “terrorist cell” operating inside a fictitious warehouse and then use a specialized robot from the Miami Fire Department to destroy the mock radiological device.

Emphasizing the importance of information-sharing to achieve the principle’s goal, Mueller stressed that “no one person, no one officer, no one agency can prevent a nuclear terrorist attack on its own. There are too many unlocked doors and unknown players, too many ports and porous borders.”

It remains unclear how the initiative will coordinate with other nuclear terrorism prevention measures. These include UN Security Council Resolution 1540 and the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism as well as U.S.-led initiatives such as the Proliferation Security Initiative and the Global Threat Reduction Initiative. Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation John C. Rood maintains that “there’s value in having some diversity of efforts” to address a common problem.

Pakistan recently endorsed the statement of principles, bringing the membership of the initiative to 51 states. Rood said that the meeting’s discussion generated a two-year work program of about 20 coordinated activities sponsored by participating governments. In September, Bulgaria, Georgia, Moldova, and Romania will test the progress of the initiative’s capacity-development measures by running an exercise with a hypothetical radiological dispersion device or “dirty bomb.”

 

Statement of Principles by Participants in the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism, October 2006

• Develop, if necessary, and improve accounting, control and physical protection systems for nuclear and other radioactive materials and substances;

• Enhance security of civilian nuclear facilities;

• Improve the ability to detect nuclear and other radioactive materials and substances in order to prevent illicit trafficking in such materials and substances, to include cooperation in the research and development of national detection capabilities that would be interoperable;

• Improve capabilities of participants to search for, confiscate, and establish safe control over unlawfully held nuclear or other radioactive materials and substances or devices using them;

• Prevent the provision of safe haven to terrorists and financial or economic resources to terrorists seeking to acquire or use nuclear and other radioactive materials and substances;

• Ensure adequate respective national legal and regulatory frameworks sufficient to provide for the implementation of appropriate criminal and, if applicable, civil liability for terrorists and those who facilitate acts of nuclear terrorism;

• Improve capabilities of participants for response, mitigation, and investigation, in cases of terrorist attacks involving the use of nuclear and other radioactive materials and substances, including the development of technical means to identify nuclear and other radioactive materials and substances that are, or may be, involved in the incident; and

• Promote information sharing pertaining to the suppression of acts of nuclear terrorism and their facilitation, taking appropriate measures consistent with their national laws and international obligations to protect the confidentiality of any information which they exchange in confidence.

On June 11, some 38 partner states of the nearly one-year-old Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism convened for the third meeting in Astana, Kazakhstan, to discuss future prospects. In a simultaneous meeting, representatives from close to 30 countries attended the initiative’s Conference on International Nuclear Terrorism Law Enforcement in Miami, Florida. (Continue)

Lawmakers Sideline New U.S. Nuclear Warhead

Wade Boese

Congress has yet to complete the raft of bills governing U.S. nuclear funding and policy for the next fiscal year, but the early returns are not promising for the Bush administration’s program to develop a new nuclear warhead. Lawmakers say they want long-term nuclear plans before new weapons.

Launched in 2004, the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) program aims to produce warheads that will ostensibly be safer, easier to maintain, and more reliable than the estimated 10,000 warheads in the current U.S. stockpile. Existing warheads have been certified annually as safe and reliable, but RRW program advocates say the weapons might degrade over time. They contend the new weapon will be less vulnerable to these risks because of simpler design and more modern and less hazardous components.

Still, legislators this year have capped development of the RRW and cut funding. The most severe action occurred June 20 when the House in its yet-to-be-finalized energy and water appropriations bill zeroed out the nearly $89 million funding request for the initiative from the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). This semi-autonomous Department of Energy entity manages the U.S. nuclear weapons complex.

On the Senate side, the panel with initial responsibility for the energy and water appropriations bill June 26 trimmed $22 million from the NNSA request. If the full Senate follows suit then the two chambers will ultimately have to negotiate a final sum, which tends typically to be a compromise between the different amounts.

In addition to the NNSA request, the Bush administration also sought $30 million for the Navy to work on the RRW program. That pot of funding will be dealt with through the defense appropriations bill on which neither the House nor Senate has started work.

The two chambers have made progress on their separate versions of the defense authorization bill. Authorization measures establish legislative guidance for programs, while appropriation bills provide the money. As they currently stand, both the House and Senate authorization bills confine RRW work to design activities and block engineering work.

The first RRW design was selected in March, and program officials are currently refining the design and projecting future costs and schedule. (See ACT, April 2007. )

Lawmakers have raised questions about whether the RRW program will accomplish the administration’s proclaimed goals. One stated purpose of the program is to enable the United States to reduce its overall arsenal size. Administration officials argue that the new warheads will be easier to produce, making it unnecessary to maintain as many spares for crises or emergencies.

RRW advocates also contend the program will diminish the probability that the United States will have to return to nuclear testing, which was suspended in 1992. They say the current upkeep process gradually moves warheads away from proven designs, raising doubts about their performance and increasing pressure to test.

The minimalist RRW design will preclude such uncertainty, according to program supporters. Thomas D’Agostino, who has been nominated to head the NNSA, told a Washington audience June 15, “I wouldn’t recommend spending a dollar [on the RRW program] if I thought this couldn’t be certified without an underground nuclear test.”

But some legislators are skeptical. Speaking June 19 on the House energy and water measure, Rep. David Hobson (R-Ohio) said the RRW program “has merit…but all we have right now is a vague promise.” Hobson has been a vocal critic of what he sees as an outdated and oversized nuclear weapons complex.

The chair of the House Appropriations Energy and Water Development Subcommittee, Rep. Pete Visclosky (D-Ind.), shares a similar view and has other worries. He argued June 20 that pressing ahead with the program “will be misunderstood by our allies, exploited by our adversaries, [and] complicate our work to prevent the spread and the use of nuclear weapons.” Visclosky later declared, “I wish the administration…had as much aggression and commitment to downsizing the complex as they do on developing a weapon.”

Teaming with Hobson, Visclosky led the House in cutting the RRW funds. In a June 6 report, Visclosky’s panel stated, “[T]here exists no convincing rationale for maintaining the large number of existing Cold War nuclear weapons, much less producing additional warheads.” It further contended the RRW program was “premature,” absent a long-term nuclear strategy.

This sentiment appears widespread. The House defense authorization bill, passed May 17, calls for establishing a 12-member commission to conduct a strategic posture study. The Senate has yet to finalize its defense authorization bill, but an early version passed June 5 by the Armed Services Committee would require the Pentagon to undertake a nuclear posture review. Whether both studies make it into a reconciled bill remains to be seen, but many lawmakers apparently want more long-term thinking about the U.S. nuclear stockpile and its mission.

Senator Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), however, asserted that the House RRW actions, in part, could send U.S. nuclear strategy in a “new, unknown direction.” Also representing New Mexico, Republican Rep. Heather Wilson charged the recent moves amounted to a “radical shift” in U.S. nuclear weapons policies and risked forcing a resumption of nuclear testing. New Mexico is home to two U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories.

Congress has yet to complete the raft of bills governing U.S. nuclear funding and policy for the next fiscal year, but the early returns are not promising for the Bush administration’s program to develop a new nuclear warhead. Lawmakers say they want long-term nuclear plans before new weapons. (Continue)

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