Getting to Zero Update
22 February 2008
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BASIC is embarking on an ambitious new program to help
leaders take the necessary steps to eventually rid the
world of nuclear weapons. To mark this occasion, BASIC
has replaced its Washington Nuclear Update with a new
Getting to Zero update. The Getting to Zero Update will
continue to follow developments that are relevant to
nuclear nonproliferation and the reduction of existing
nuclear stockpiles, as well as reporting on proposals
and political initiatives. The Update will also include
missile defense developments as they relate to 'Getting
to Zero' and BASIC's transatlantic security focus.
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Please note, BASIC and Crisis Action have a bi-weekly update
devoted solely to diplomatic developments related to Iran's
nuclear program, which may be found at the following Web address:
http://www.basicint.org/update/iran.htm.
Previous editions of the Washington Nuclear Update are available
at: http://www.basicint.org/update/wnu.htm.
In this issue:
COMMITMENTS TO DISARMAMENT AND ARMS CONTROL
Browne speech to CD
UK Defence Secretary Des Browne announced to the Conference
on Nuclear Disarmament in Geneva on February 5 that "The
United Kingdom is determined to have a world free of nuclear
weapons" and called on all governments to take specific
steps to create an international environment more conducive
to substantial disarmament. The Defence Secretary also spoke
of a "virtuous circle" in which disarmament and counter-proliferation,
while not contingent upon each other, could reinforce each
other. He added that the Nuclear Weapons States had an obligation
to take multilateral action on disarmament to avoid accusations
by the Non-Nuclear Weapons States that they "are failing to
fulfil their disarmament obligations." He warned that if the
NWS do not act, then "some states" would use this as an "excuse
for their nuclear intransigence".
He also offered to host a technical
conference of nuclear laboratories from the P5 to explore
the verification of warhead disarmament before the 2010 NPT
Review Conference. Browne explained, "The aim here is to promote
greater trust and confidence as a catalyst for further reductions
in warheads - but without undermining the credibility of our
existing nuclear deterrents."
Meanwhile, the British Foreign Office released its new Strategic
Framework. Counter terrorism, weapons proliferation and
their causes was the top of four policy priorities, and disarmament
was included within this goal.
US Global Security Priorities Resolution
US Rep. James McGovern (Democrat, Massachusetts) and Rep.
Daniel Lungren (Republican, California) are planning to introduce
a bill to the House of Representatives that urges the President
to enter into negotiations with Russia and other nuclear weapon
states to reduce the two countries' arsenals to 1000 deployed
warheads each and cap the total number of warheads at 3000
by 2015. The bill proposes that the savings be used to fund
disarmament initiatives by globalizing cooperative threat
reduction and programs directed at families and children to
alleviate the causes of terrorism.
CTBT
On January 29, Colombia became
the 144th country to ratify the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty.
Colombia is also one of 44 "Annex 2" states whose ratification
is required for the Treaty's entry into force. Out of those
"Annex 2" states, only three countries have not signed the
CTBT: India, North Korea, and Pakistan. Six other countries
have signed, but not yet ratified, the CTBT: China, Egypt,
Indonesia, Iran, Israel, and the United States.
See also: Resurrecting
the Test-Ban Treaty, Michael O'Hanlon, Survival,
Volume 50, Issue 1 February 2008.
START
Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
Richard Lugar (Republican from Indiana), called upon the United
States and Russia to forge a follow up agreement to START
I, which will expire in 2009. On January 30, Senator Lugar's
office released a statement titled, "Lugar
says arms control has suffered significant setbacks" along
with a link to a full
presentation that the senator had made the same day at
a conference sponsored by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency,
the US Air Force and the USAF Counterproliferation Center.
Senator Lugar argued that a legally-binding and verifiable
agreement would be necessary, beyond the Moscow Treaty, and
lamented:
The Departments of Defense and State told Congress
that they recognized the integral role of START in the Moscow
Treaty and that START therefore would be improved before it
expired in 2009. Congress was also told that efforts would
be launched to add verification mechanisms to the Moscow Treaty.
Unfortunately, Administration policy today does not match
the commitments made to Congress in 2002 and 2003.
The senator also listed a series of other arms control inadequacies,
including the inability to reach agreement on a Fissile Material
Cutoff Treaty and the "failure of the Bush Administration
to complete ratification of the IAEA Additional Protocol for
more than a year after Congressional passage." President Bush
only issued an Executive
Order directing US agencies to administer the Additional
Protocol on February 4th. This allows IAEA greater access
to non-military nuclear facilities in the United States, seen
by some as a gesture to back up its demands that Iran adopt
more intrusive versions of the Additional Protocol. It is
unclear when the President intends to submit ratification
to the IAEA.
De-alerting
Five countries: Chile, New Zealand, Nigeria, Sweden, and
Switzerland have combined forces to issue a statement
on de-alerting on February 19 at the Conference on Disarmament.
The five successfully introduced a de-alerting resolution
to the First Committee (124-3-34)
and the General Assembly (139-3-36)
- the United States, Britain and France voted against. Swedish
Ambassador Dahlgren emphasized that de-alerting is one of
the commitments agreed to at the 2000 Non-Proliferation Treaty
(NPT) Review Conference, and he looked forward to constructive
dialogue.
Further Reading
Germany
Outlines Multiparty Approach to Nuclear Fuel Cycle, IAEA
Staff Report, February 18, 2008 (includes summaries of other
proposals).
Remarks
by the National Security Adviser, Stephen Hadley, to the Center
for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University,
California, February 8, 2008. (Presentation focused on the
threat of nuclear weapons.)
United
States National Nuclear Security Administrator addresses Conference
on Disarmament, UN Website, February 7, 2008.
The
1997 IAEA Additional Protocol at a Glance, Arms Control
Association Fact Sheet, January 2008.
Country Updates
UNITED STATES
B-52 Bomber incident
The US Senate Armed
Services Committee received testimony on Air Force Nuclear
Security on February 12. Testimony focused on the flight
of a B-52 bomber from North Dakota to Louisiana with six nuclear
warheads loaded by mistake at the end of August 2007. Two
investigations found that the Air Force's level
of nuclear expertise has declined after the Cold War.
One, by the Defense Science Board Permanent Task Force on
Nuclear Weapons Surety, blamed the error on the merger of
nuclear with non-nuclear organizations and warned that the
Air Force could face worse incidents in the future. An internal
Air Force review, conducted by Maj.
Gen. Polly A. Peyer, concluded that though there was room
for improvement, there was no fundamental problem.
Follow up to GAO calls for review of program funding former-Soviet
scientists
On January 23, the Committee on House Energy and Commerce's
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations held a hearing
to examine the findings of the Government Accountability
Office, which has raised questions about the handling of some
aspects of Initiatives
for Proliferation Prevention programs. In particular,
the chairmen of the committee and subcommittee requested that
the Energy Department report back with information on whether
US aid for Russian scientists has been going to research groups
linked to Iran's nuclear program.
IRAN
The Iranian Vice President Gholamreza Aghazadeh met
with IAEA officials on February 18 to discuss Iran's nuclear
program. The New York Times reported on February 15
that the United States reversed course and is permitting the
IAEA to share
some US data on Iran's nuclear program with Iran. The
Bush Administration says the documents, which the Administration
had been reluctant to hand over - citing the sensitivity of
the information - supported its case that Iran had been pursuing
the development of nuclear weapons as recently as 2003, but
then Iran apparently stopped the program. The Chief US Delegate
to the IAEA, Thomas Schulte, said on February 15, that Iran
must confess to its having pursued a nuclear weapons program
before 2003, or the honesty of its cooperation with the IAEA
would remain in question. On February 13, the Deputy Director
of the US National Intelligence for Analysis, testified before
the House Armed Services Committee that Iran still has the
capability
to pursue a nuclear weapons program.
Iran is reported to have received its final
shipment of nuclear fuel from Russia for its first nuclear
reactor, that could be up and running by this summer. On February
4, Iran launched a test rocket that the government said would
be used for launching satellite technology. However, France
said that the rocket is incapable of navigating space,
feeding speculation that the launch was really intended to
test weapons technology. Two weeks later, diplomats charged
by the IAEA to investigate Iran's nuclear program said that
Iran
has started to run ten IR-2 centrifuges. Russia's Foreign
Minister, Sergei
Lavrov, chastised the Iranian government for its pursuit
of rocket technology and uranium enrichment. The following
day, on February 14, President Nicolas Sarkozy and other French
officials pressed for a tougher stance against Iran during
a meeting they held with ElBaradei in Paris. The IAEA is expected
to report on Iran's nuclear programme on or soon after February
22.
Further Reading
Russia's
Subtle Shift on Iran, Andy Grotto, ArmsControlWonk.com,
February 14, 2008,
Kay:
Recent Iran NIE Recalls Erroneous 2003 Iraq Estimate,
Gwertzman Asks the Experts, Council on Foreign Relations,
February 11, 2008.
Mixed
Signals on an Atomic Iran, Greg Bruno, Daily Analysis,
Council on Foreign Relations, February 11, 2008.
Iran
Installing More Advanced Centrifuges at Natanz Pilot Enrichment
Plant: Factsheet on the P-2/IR-2 Centrifuge, David Albright
and Jacqueline Shire, The Institute for Science and International
Security (ISIS), February 7, 2008.
Iran's
IR-2 centrifuge, Andreas Persbo, Verification Thoughts,
February 7, 2008.
Annual
Threat Assessment of the Director of National Intelligence
for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, J. Michael
McConnell, Director of National Intelligence, Statement for
the record, Unclassified, February 5, 2008 (includes excerpts
on Iran's nuclear program).
Dial
down the hostility toward Iran, Joe Volk, News & Record,
Greensboro, North Carolina, January 30, 2008.
INDIA
India's chief controller of the Defense Research and Development
Organization announced on February 18 that India will for
the first time test
a submarine-launched ballistic missile that is capable
of being tipped with a nuclear warhead. Meanwhile, the US-India
nuclear deal remained in limbo while India was still working
on the details
of a safeguards agreement with the IAEA. US Secretary
of State Condoleezza told the House Committee on Foreign Affairs
on February 13 that the India-US nuclear deal would come under
the purview of the Hyde Act, adding more tension
to India's internal political disputes over the agreement.
During Nicolas Sarkozy's visit to India at the end of January,
the French President and India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
announced that France
and India will sign off on a civilian nuclear energy arrangement
after India reaches a safeguards agreement with the IAEA and
receives exemptions from the Nuclear Suppliers Group for the
pending US deal. Sarkozy elaborated on France's plans in this
interview
with the Hindustan Times.
Further Reading
Rice's
Pledge to Make Global Rules on Nuclear Trade with India "Consistent"
with US Law Requires Shift in US Policy, Arms Control
Association Press Release, February 14, 2008
A
Cold Start for Hot Wars? The Indian Army's New Limited War
Doctrine, Walter C. Ladwig III, International Security
32 3 (Winter 2007/08): 158-190.
Left
slams 'US pressure', Sutirtho Patranobis, Hindustan
Times, February 11, 2008.
PAKISTAN
Pakistan test fired its Ghaznavi missile on February 13 for
the third week in a row. The short-range missile is capable
of carrying a nuclear warhead. On January 26, the government
announced that during the past six months, the military
has increased security around its nuclear weapons installations.
Officials claimed that there had been no specific new threats
to the security of the arsenal. President Pervez Musharraf
has been defending the security record of Pakistan's arsenal
in recent months in face of heightened concerns caused by
the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, reports of safe havens
for Al-Qaeda near the border with Afghanistan and questions
about the overall stability of the government. The position
of the President himself appears unstable, as newly-elected
Parliamentarians consider coalitions. The US Annual Threat
Assessment of the Director of National Intelligence on February
5 iterated that there were still some "vulnerabilities"
in the Pakistan government's control of the arsenal.
See also Perilous
Pursuit: With missile defense, India turns the thumbscrews
on unsettled Pakistan, Madhusree Mukerjee, Scientific
American Magazine, March 2008.
NORTH KOREA
A US non-governmental delegation that includes former US
ambassador to South Korea, Donald Gregg and former Defense
Secretary William J. Perry plans to meet
with North Korea's nuclear negotiator, Kim Kye Gwan, in the
last week of February in the People's Republic. Earlier in
February, another US non-governmental delegation,
headed by Siegfried Hecker, former director of Los Alamos
National Laboratory and now co-director of the Center for
International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University,
met with senior officials from the North Korean Ministry of
Foreign Affairs and the Yongbyon nuclear plant. The delegation
echoed other recent reports, saying that North Korea has slowed
down the removal of fuel rods from the Yongbyon nuclear reactor
because it believes that other parties to the February 2007
agreement have not kept their part of the deal, including
the delivery of one million metric tons of fuel oil and the
removal of North Korea from the US list of states that sponsor
terrorism.
During testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
on February 6, US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher
Hill said that the United States would be willing
to establish full diplomatic relations if North Korea
undergoes "full denuclearization". He also said that the United
States still had problems with any possible uranium enrichment
program and that North Korea is still required to declare
all of its nuclear programs. He noted, however, that some
of the aluminum tubes that were suspected of contributing
to such a program have since been used for other programs,
suggesting that North Korea may have dropped
any uranium enrichment program.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Christopher Hill
will visit South Korea, China and Japan to discuss the Six-Party
Talks the last week of February.
Further Reading
U.S. Envoy
Says North Korean Uranium Program Remains Stumbling Block,
Interview with US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher
Hill, The Capital Interview, Council on Foreign Relations,
February 15, 2008.
Statement
of Christopher R. Hill, Assistant Secretary of State,
Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, before the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, "Status of the Six-Party Talks
for the Denuclearization of Korean Peninsula," February 6,
2008.
In
North Korea, Process Over Progress, Michael Gerson, Op-ed,
Washington Post, February 1, 2008.
Samore:
North Korea May Delay Nuclear Treaty Implementation Until
2009, Interview with Gary Samore, Gwertzman Asks the
Experts, Council on Foreign Relations, January 25, 2008.
MISSILE DEFENSE
On February 1, Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski of Poland
said that his country had agreed
in principle to the missile defense system proposed by
the United States after US officials said that they would
assist Poland with other defense requests. Specifics on the
requests were not available, although previous reports suggested
that Poland was interested in bolstering
its short and mid-range air defenses. Sikorski's announcement
came only weeks after the Polish Prime Minister, Donald Tusk,
expressed his desire to proceed cautiously and suggested that
Poland could wait for another US administration if necessary.
The Czech government has been more eager to reach a deal,
despite considerable domestic opposition to the missile defense
plans. The Czech Foreign Minister, Karel Schwarzenberg, said
on February 9 that he is anxious
to finalize an agreement on the system before President
Bush leaves office and even hopes to conclude a deal this
spring. The Czech Prime Minister, Mirek Topolanek, will meet
with President Bush in the United States on February 27.
At the end of the informal meeting of defense ministers on
February 2, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said
that he hoped agreements on European missile defense would
be reached by
the time of the Bucharest NATO Summit in April.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a major policy speech
on February 8 that "a new
arms race has been unleashed in the world", because of
the US insistence on establishing a missile defense system
in Central Europe. The remarks were made the same day that
Polish Prime Minister Tusk and Foreign Minister Skiroski met
with Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov
in Moscow and discussed missile defense plans. No
major agreement was apparent.
Lt. General Henry Obering, head of the US Missile Defense
Agency (MDA), elaborated
on the need for a mobile X-band radar facility closer to Iran
required to make the proposed European-based missile defense
system work. This might be positioned in southeastern Europe,
the Caucasus or the Caspian Sea region and he mentioned Turkey
as a specific possibility. President Bush has asked Congress
for $719.8 million, as part of the total $9.3 bn MDA request
for FY 2009 to start installing the 10 interceptor missiles
in Poland and radars in the Czech Republic.
President Bush ordered the Navy to launch an Aegis-LEAP missile
defense system interceptor to shoot down a defunct US National
Reconnaissance Office satellite, named USA 193. The
intercept occurred on the night of February 20 over the
Pacific Ocean. The Administration had said that the intercept
was for safety reasons and not to protect US secrets or to
showcase missile defense and anti-satellite technologies.
The satellite was said to have contained hydrazine fuel, which
can be fatal if inhaled. However, skeptics were arguing ahead
of the launch that the satellite was unlikely to land on a
populated area and that the Administration
had other motives for the intercept. Some fear that the
US interception had parallels with one by China
last year and that it could help fuel an eventual arms race
in space.
Further Reading
An
Initial Look at MDA's FY 09 Budget Request: A Morass Becomes
Murkier, Victoria Samson, Center for Defense Information,
February 8, 2008.
Long-Range
Ballistic Missile Defense in Europe, Steven Hildrith and
Carl Ek, Congressional Research Service Report, January
9, 2008.
PUBLICATIONS
The Greatest
Threat to Us All, Joseph Cirincione, The New York Review
of Books, March 6, 2008.
NASA's
Flimsy Argument for Nuclear Weapons: Nukes will not be needed
to guard against dangers from space, Thomas Graham Jr.
and Russell L. Schweickart, Scientific American Magazine,
March 2008.
A world
free of nuclear weapons - a dream? Hiroki Sugita, Japan
Today, February 18, 2008.
My
Conversation with Jonathan Schell, Video excerpt from
the Charlie Rose Show, Posted February 13, 2008. (Discussion
about Schell's book, The Seventh Decade of Nuclear Danger.)
South
Africa court sentences Swiss man in nuclear case, Reuters
via The Star Online, February 5, 2008.
An
issue that needs airing: Presidential candidates must address
how the world will keep nuclear materials out of the hands
of those bent on slaughter, Senator Robert P. Casey, Jr.
(US Senate Foreign Relations Committee), Philadelphia Inquirer,
February 4, 2008.
Living
with Ambiguity: Nuclear Deals with Iran and North Korea,
Robert S. Litwak, Survival, Vol. 50, No. 1, February
1, 2008.
Toward
True Security, Ten Steps the Next President Should Take to
Transform Nuclear Weapons Policy, Federation of American
Scientists, Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Union
of Concerned Scientists, February 2008.
The
Threat of Nuclear Terrorism: Overblown or Understated?
Event - New America Foundation, January 30, 2008.
The
Limits of Zero: How the Rush to Abolition May Not Make us
More Secure, Brian Finlay, The Henry L. Stimson Center,
January 22, 2008.
Update on BASIC GETTING TO ZERO project
Hoover Group in Oslo next week
Principal participants within the Hoover Group are discussing
next steps with prominent Europeans, including Yevgeny Primakov
in Oslo, Norway at the end of February. Sam Nunn and George
Shultz are addressing a meeting of the UK's All-Party Parliamentary
Group on Global Security and Non-Proliferation (clerked by
BASIC) on February 28, and the BASIC Washington office is
planning a briefing to include some of the participants on
their return to the United States.
OpEds published
A
World Without Nuclear Weapons, by Ambassador Robert Barry,
The Guardian, January 22, 2008. Also see NATO
First-Strike Doctrine Exploded, by Ian Davis, letter in
The Guardian, January 23, 2008.
Blog launch
BASIC launched its GTZ blog this
month, and invites update subscribers to comment and to subscribe
to blog alerts. Topics covered in the first two weeks include:
Amb. Robert Barry
Paul Ingram
Chris Lindborg
Adam Pitman
BASIC's work is made possible by the generous support of
our donors: the Ploughshares
Fund, the Ford Foundation,
the Joseph Rowntree Charitable
Trust, and Rockefeller Family Associates.
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