Nuclear related 111107

US has plans to safeguard Pakistan’s nukes

11 November 2007

WASHINGTON - The United States has developed contingency plans to safeguard Pakistani nuclear weapons if they risk falling into the wrong hands, but US officials worry that their limited knowledge about the location of the arsenal could pose a problem, The Washington Post reported on Sunday.

“We can’t say with absolute certainty that we know where they all are,” the newspaper quotes an unnamed former US official as saying.

If an attempt were made by the United States to seize the weapons to prevent their loss, “it could be very messy,” the official said.

Of the world’s nine declared and undeclared nuclear arsenals, none provokes as much worry in Washington as Pakistan’s, the report said.

The government in Islamabad is arguably the least stable. Some Pakistani territory is partly controlled by insurgents bent on committing hostile acts of terrorism in the West. And officials close to the seat of power — such as nuclear engineer A.Q. Khan — have a worrisome track record of transferring sensitive nuclear technology.

Because the risks are so grave, US intelligence officials have long had contingency plans for intervening to obstruct such a theft in Pakistan, the paper said, citing “two knowledgeable officials.”

The officials would not discuss details of the plans, but several former officials said the plans envision efforts to remove a nuclear weapon at imminent risk of falling into terrorists’ hands, The Post said.

The plans imagine, in the best case, that Pakistani military officials will help the Americans eliminate that threat, according to the report.

But in other scenarios there may be no such help, said Matt Bunn, a nuclear weapons expert and former White House science official in the Clinton administration.

“We’re a long way from any scenario of that kind,” Bunn is quoted as saying. “But the current turmoil highlights the need for doing whatever we can right now to improve cooperation and think hard about what might happen down the road.”

Former and current administration officials say they believe that Pakistan’s stockpile is safe, the paper said.

But they worry that its security could be weakened if the current turmoil persists or worsens. They are particularly concerned by early signs of fragmented loyalties among Pakistan’s military and intelligence leaders, The Post said.

Source: Khaleej Times

Gulf Arab ministers discuss regional defence boost

Wed Nov 7, 2007 11:14am EST

RIYADH, Nov 7 (Reuters) - Gulf Arab defence ministers met in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday to discuss joint defence against "emerging regional powers", which diplomats said was an apparent reference to Iran.

Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries share U.S. concerns that Iran's nuclear energy programme is a cover for developing nuclear weapons. They have announced plans for their own nuclear energy programme.

"We are here to discuss developing defence in the Gulf countries ... in the light of changing sources of threat, the rise of the terrorism danger and emerging regional powers," Deputy Saudi Defence Minister Prince Abdul-Rahman bin Abdul-Aziz told a meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council.

"We must work hard to develop our armed forces so that they can secure regional stability and the safety of oil sources," he said, in comments carried by Saudi media.

Saudi Arabia is the world's biggest oil exporter and the Gulf Cooperation Council includes other oil and gas producers Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates.

The loose economic and political alliance also includes Bahrain, where the government is wary of Iranian territorial designs because of its Shi'ite majority population.

Iran is a non-Arab, Shi'ite Muslim power whose regional influence has grown since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, which empowered the Iraqi Shi'ite majority.

The United States has a large military presence in the Gulf region, based mainly in Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait, but Saudi Arabia, the largest Gulf country, has gone on an arms spending spree in the last two years to boost its own defences.

Source: Reuters

Russia raps Saudi atomic fuel proposal for Iran: RIA

Fri Nov 2, 2007 8:35am EDT

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's nuclear chief on Friday said only full nuclear powers should create centers for enriching uranium, in a swipe at a Saudi proposal for Arab states to help supply Iran with enriched uranium.

U.S.-allied Gulf Arab states are ready to set up a body to provide enriched uranium to Iran in a bid to defuse Tehran's stand-off with the West over its nuclear plan, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister told a magazine this week.

Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries -- Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates -- have proposed creating a Middle East consortium for users of enriched uranium, Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal told the Middle East Economic Digest (MEED).

When asked about the report, Russia's nuclear energy agency chief Sergei Kiriyenko said Russia had received no official information about the proposal, RIA news agency reported.

"In our opinion there should be many such centers but it is obvious that such centers must be in countries which have the full technology for enrichment (of uranium) so that this technology doesn't spread around the world," Kiriyenko said.

Prince Saud said Iran was considering the offer. He said the enrichment plant should be in a neutral country, such as Switzerland.

In late 2005 Russia offered to create a joint centre with Iran to enrich uranium on Russian territory, but Iran sent conflicting signals about its intentions. Later, Tehran said it would produce nuclear fuel inside Iran.

The Kremlin says that Iran should not be pushed into a corner and opposes tougher sanctions but senior officials say Russia has no interest in seeing Iran get nuclear weapons.

Russia, which says there is no evidence that Tehran is trying to develop a nuclear bomb, fears that a U.S. invasion of Iran could provoke a wider conflict in the Middle East.

Source: Reuters

A Chance for Nuclear Leadership

By Deepti Choubey

Wednesday, November 7, 2007; 12:00 AM

Whoever wins in 2008, the most important strategic foreign policy issue facing the next President and Congress will be how to prevent the further spread of nuclear weapons. For almost four decades the world has been protected by a global agreement -- the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) -- which worked to keep the number of nuclear weapon states small. That agreement, and the world order that relies on it, badly needs U.S. leadership.

There are three reasons why American influence is needed. First, the nuclear "have-not" states, who signed away their right to develop nuclear weapons, don't believe that the "haves" are living up to their side of the deal to eventually dismantle their weapons.

Second, Iran's continuing refusal to comply with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) obligations and legally binding UN Security Council resolutions undermines the effectiveness of a rule-based system for managing nuclear technology and threatens international peace and security.

And third, as excitement over a nuclear energy renaissance grows, non-nuclear-weapon states in the developing world declare large ambitions to master the nuclear fuel cycle, a scenario the old rules didn't account for.

But the regime can be saved.

Last month marked the eighth anniversary of the Senate's failure to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). The treaty bans all nuclear explosions in all places and provides an opportunity for nuclear weapons states -- China, France, Russia, the U.K. and U.S. -- to make good on their legal obligation to dismantle their nuclear weapons arsenals.

Forty-four states need to sign and then ratify the Treaty for it to go into effect. Pakistan, North Korea and India are the only three states not to sign. An additional seven states -- the U.S., Iran, China, Colombia, Egypt, Indonesia and Israel -- have signed but not ratified.

U.S. leadership, in the form of Senate ratification, would pressure other "hold out" states to follow suit.

Opponents to the CTBT have three concerns: can cheaters be detected, can the U.S. maintain a credible nuclear deterrent without testing, and will the CTBT help prevent the spread of nuclear weapons?

Political and technical progress over the last decade has reduced these concerns: The CTBT monitoring system detected last year's nuclear test in North Korea (twenty times smaller than the Hiroshima bomb). Government studies have confirmed that U.S. weapons will be reliable for 85 years -- twice their expected life span -- further diminishing the need to test ever again. And finally, the world's leading experts agree that U.S. ratification of the Treaty would pressure other states to clarify their nuclear policies to the rest of the world -- including Iran, China, Egypt, India and Israel.

Without the CTBT, it is difficult to imagine non-nuclear weapon states agreeing to the tighter rules the U.S. seeks to reshape the nuclear fuel cycle and prevent the emergence of more nuclear weapon states.

The CTBT would also freeze currently inferior arsenals in North East Asia, South Asia and the Middle East by cementing the technical superiority of the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal, while forbidding other nuclear weapons states from conducting tests needed to improve their own. Those who fear China as a "peer competitor" should jump at this opportunity. China, already a signatory to the CTBT, with no domestic political opposition, could ratify within months.

China could conceivably be persuaded to do so within the current negotiations with North Korea. If the Six Party Talks' plan to dismantle North Korea's nuclear program bears fruit and removes fissile material from the Korean peninsula, there should be few obstacles to securing North Korea's agreement to not test again. It would be easier to achieve this outcome if two of the six parties -- the U.S. and China -- ratified the treaty.

In South Asia, the CTBT could help to prevent the arms race that Pakistan warns could result from the Bush administration's pursuit of an unprecedented exception to both U.S. and global rules on nuclear trade for India. Securing Indian support of the CTBT could diminish concerns about India's ability to increase its arsenal. Pakistan, eager to keep up with reciprocal measures and gain the same treatment as India, could likely also be persuaded to do the same.

In the Middle East, Iran could ratify the CTBT as further evidence that its nuclear program is truly for peaceful purposes. Whether Iran ratifies it or not, there is no doubt that crossing the redline of exploding a nuclear device, as the North Koreans did after withdrawing from the NPT, would only shore up international opinion against Iran and finally unify the UN Security Council to take serious action. The CTBT also represents another obstacle to thwart the nuclear weapons ambitions of Iran's neighbors. Nine of the fifteen states that have announced interest in developing nuclear energy programs since 2005 are in the Middle East and include Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. They could follow the South African example of constructing crude gun-type weapons that do not require testing. The CTBT would, however, inhibit efforts to develop more sophisticated arsenals because without nuclear testing these nations could have no confidence that their covertly and illegally developed weapons would even work.

Moving forward requires recognizing that earlier concerns are outdated and that a world with a CTBT better promotes American interests than a world without one. It seems foolish to forego the benefits of the test ban. This is a strategic flaw that Congress should begin to address now in preparation for the next Congress and President.

Source: Washington Post

Sunni States' Fears of Iran Trigger Middle East Nuclear Race

Peter C. Glover

07 Nov 2007

As the United States turns up the sanctions heat yet again on Iran's nuclear pretensions, the specter of a Middle East bristling with atomic warheads, fueled by mutual suspicion and ancient hatred, has been created by the Shia-Sunni divide. Over the past year, in reaction to the bellicose rhetoric of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, several Muslim states in the region have quietly declared their own nuclear aspirations. Though the region's rapid, oil-driven, economic growth rate of 5.7 percent in 2006 -- creating an unprecedented strain on the region's power infrastructure -- is a factor, Sunni Muslim fears of Shia Iran's ambitions undoubtedly are a main catalyst of the nuclear surge.

The Shia-Sunni Divide

The Judeo-Christian West and Islamic East may have a 1,400-year history of violence, but the 1,000-year history of the Sunni-Shia schism has been no less bloody, with the intra-Islamic sectarianism in Iraq being the latest example. Despite Tehran's rhetoric, however, the real Iranian nuclear threat is probably still years away. Even so, the region's Sunni rulers, fearing what it will mean in terms of their regional influence, are desperate not to be left behind by a nuclear Iran.

Two years ago, King Abdullah of Jordan warned that Iran's growing influence in Iraq was part of a concerted attempt to "create a Shiite crescent" through the region. Iran's recent proxy wars against Israel, using Hezbollah from Lebanon and Hamas from Gaza, have further alarmed Iran's Sunni Muslim neighbors. In August the respected British defense journal Jane's reported, "Bellicose rhetoric and the increasing influence of Teheran-affiliated Shia groups in Iraq, Lebanon and other Middle Eastern countries, have alarmed Sunni regimes." The report went on to identify that "the near-simultaneous decision of so many Sunni Arab regimes" to pursue nuclear energy programs "raises the possibility of a nuclear arms race among the Islamic countries of the Middle East."

Any lingering doubts over the sudden Sunni Muslim nuclear scramble were dispelled by King Abdullah in January this year. In an interview with Israel's Haaretz newspaper, the king said, "The rules have changed on the nuclear subject throughout the whole region. Where I think Jordan was saying, 'We'd like to have a nuclear-free zone in this area,' after this summer [referring to Hezbollah's Iran-backed war with Israel], everybody's going for nuclear programs."

The Nuclear Rush

In September 2006, Egypt's President Mubarak became the first leader of a Sunni Arab state to announce a new nuclear program. In Egypt's case, it meant reinstating a nuclear program formerly suspended for two decades in the wake of the Chernobyl disaster. Like many Middle East states, Egypt is facing a shortage of electricity and water along with a soaring youth population. While Egypt already has a handful of small nuclear research reactors, it has lately announced its intention to build the country's first nuclear power plant at Al-Dabaa. Though the plant, due to come online in 2015, will indeed help Egypt's burgeoning domestic power demands, the Egyptian government is also known to be worried at the failure of the United Nations to stop Iran's pursuit of uranium enrichment.

By the end of 2006, however, so concerned had many regional governments become that the issue of Iran's nuclear ambitions rose to the top of the agenda for a conference of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) of Arab States. At its conclusion, all six members -- Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait and the UAE -- announced their intention to pursue domestic nuclear energy programs "for peaceful purposes."

Hot on the heels of the GCC conference, in January 2007, Muslim Algeria signed a nuclear development deal with Russia. In the early months of 2007, Morocco and Jordan each independently declared they too wanted to go nuclear. By late summer 2007, the newly elected French President Nicolas Sarkozy had cut a nuclear cooperation deal to progress Libya's nuclear plans.

Is all this just more scimitar rattling in the ongoing war of Middle East political rhetoric? Not so it seems. Some Middle East states have already taken significant steps towards getting their nuclear show on the road.

By September 2007 France had also committed to helping the UAE launch its nuclear program, while the GCC group of six Arab states, of which the UAE is a member, had entered into serious partnership negotiations with the International Atomic Energy Agency in order to advance their atomic plans. The prospective GCC nuclear program is to be the major topic at the group's next conference in Qatar in November.

The Arab League has also given its blessing to these nuclear initiatives. In March this year, it "called on the Arab states to expand the use of peaceful nuclear technology in all domains serving continuous development."

Israel's Strike in Syria

On Sept. 6, Israeli jets struck at what Syrian President Bashar Assad later admitted to the BBC was an "unused military facility" at Deir er-Zor. Strangely, both Israel and Syria have remained mysteriously tight-lipped about the entire episode. Bit by bit, however, scraps of intelligence enabled a reasonably clear picture to emerge, as a key report in the U.K.'s Spectator has revealed. What appears most likely is that Israel prevented Syria, Iran's main regional ally, from receiving a consignment of North Korean "nuclear material labelled 'cement.'" If the report's assessment is correct -- and little else makes any sense given the unusual reticence of Syria to make an international incident out of the strike -- then Israel may have prevented Iran's "Shiite crescent" from gaining a strategic advantage in the region.

Geopolitical Realities

It is hard to deny that a region with a soaring demand for electricity can ignore the contribution of nuclear power. After all, the rest of the world is currently reassessing what contribution a virtually carbon-free nuclear energy source can make to their economies. And not every Middle East state has the luxury of proven oil and gas reserves, Iran's being the second largest on the planet.

But the Iranian regime has sponsored such a catastrophic neglect of its energy infrastructure, diverting its massive oil and gas revenues into a two-fold project of gaining nuclear capability and sponsoring global terrorism, it cannot even service its own domestic energy needs. While some Western observers continue to believe diplomacy will save the day, Sunni Muslim leaders in the region appear to be more skeptical.

Ironically, unless Iran performs an embarassing U-turn, abandoning its enrichment program, a U.S. or Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear sites may well find it has tacit support from a most unlikely source: Sunni Muslim regimes across the Middle East.

Source: World Politics