Not Just A Last Resort?: A Global Strike Plan, With a Nuclear Option:

Early last summer, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld approved a top secret "Interim Global Strike Alert Order" directing the military to assume and maintain readiness to attack hostile countries that are developing weapons of mass destruction, specifically Iran and North Korea.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8857.htm

http://snipurl.com/exrp

Iran Parliament Calls for Resuming Nuclear Fuel Development
(Neil MacFarquhar, New York Times)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/16/internat...ast/16iran.html

Monday, May 16
Iran's Parliament passed a nonbinding resolution on Sunday insisting that the government resume developing nuclear fuel, defying the American and European demand for a halt in all nuclear activity because they contend that Iran seeks to build a nuclear bomb.

The resolution, seeking production of enough nuclear fuel to produce a substantial amount of electricity, comes from a Parliament dominated by hard-liners. It ratchets up the pressure on the government not to compromise in talks scheduled for next week between Iran and the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany to try to break the deadlock on the issue.

Annan Warns U.S. on Iran
(Barbara Slavin, USA Today)
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-05...htm?POE=NEWISVA

Sunday, May 15
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned the Bush administration that the Security Council might deadlock if asked to punish Iran for its nuclear program.

The United States and Britain have called for Iran to be brought before the Security Council if it carries out threats to resume efforts to make nuclear fuel. The United States and Britain believe the fuel could be used for bombs, while Iran contends that it is to generate power. China and Russia, which have strong economic ties to Iran, might veto any push to sanction Iran, Annan suggested in interviews with USA TODAY.

The 50-Year Shadow
(Joseph Rotblat, New York Times - Opinion)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/17/opinion/17Rotblat.html

Tuesday, May 17
Fifty years ago, I joined Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell and eight others in signing a manifesto warning of the dire consequences of nuclear war. This statement, the Russell-Einstein Manifesto, was Einstein's final public act. He died shortly after signing it. Now, in my 97th year, I am the only remaining signatory. Because of this, I feel it is my duty to carry Einstein's message forward, into this 60th year since the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which evoked almost universal opposition to any further use of nuclear weapons.

I was the only scientist to resign on moral grounds from the United States nuclear weapons program known as the Manhattan Project. On Aug. 6, 1945, I switched on my radio and heard that we had dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. I knew that a new era had dawned in which nuclear weapons would be used, and I grew worried about the future of mankind.

The Ambiguous Arsenal
(Jeffrey Lewis, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist)
http://www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=mj05lewis

May/June 2005
If you read the Washington Times, in addition to believing that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction are hidden somewhere in Syria, you might believe that "China's aggressive strategic nuclear-modernization program" was proceeding apace.

So, it may come as a shock to learn that China's nuclear arsenal is about the same size it was a decade ago, and that the missile that prompted the Washington Times article has been under development since the mid-1980s. Perhaps your anxiety about "marginal improvements" to China's missile force would recede as you learned that China's 18 ICBMs, sitting unfueled in their silos, their nuclear warheads in storage, are essentially the same as they were the day China began deploying them in 1981. In fact, contrary to reports you might have recently read that Chinese nukes number in the hundreds--if not the thousands--the true size of the country's operationally deployed arsenal is probably about 80 nuclear weapons.

Report: Iran, N. Korea Edge Toward Nuclear Arms
(Jon Wolfsthal on NPR's Weekend Edition)
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4652641

Sunday, May 15
Iran and North Korea appear to be moving toward manufacturing nuclear weapons. North Korea says it has taken spent nuclear fuel from a reactor, which could be used to make weapons. Iran says it is prepared to develop fuel it needs to run civilian nuclear power plants, although it could also use that material for military purposes. Hear NPR's Liane Hansen and Jon Wolfsthal, deputy director of the Non-Proliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Letting Nukes Happen
(New York Times - Editorial)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/16/opinion/16mon1.html?

Monday, May 16
Step by step North Korea and Iran are advancing their capability to build nuclear weapons, and Washington appears to have no clear strategy for stopping them. Given how far along both countries already are in their nuclear programs, neither can any longer simply be coerced into turning back. The only strategy with any real chance of success would offer strong positive inducements for abandoning nuclear weapons development backed up by universally agreed threats of total economic and political isolation if bomb work continued. Perversely, this is the one formula that the Bush administration has refused to seriously consider.

Despite all the dark hints of "surgical" American air strikes against either North Korea, Iran or both, there is actually little the United States can do militarily. Halfway measures like air strikes that left the present regimes smarting but still in charge would invite devastating retaliation. North Korean artillery could devastate South Korea's densely populated capital, Seoul, just across the border. Pro-Iranian, armed Shiite groups in Iraq and Afghanistan could strike at American troops in both of those countries. And even if the Bush administration convinced itself once again that a regime-changing knockout punch was conceivable, such an assault would be beyond the reach of the American military so long as the bulk of United States ground forces remain bogged down in Iraq.

Interview with Father and Son Nuclear Experts George and Matthew Bunn
(The World - Radio Talkshow)
http://www.theworld.org/latesteditions/05/20050512.shtml

Friday, May 13
Host Lisa Mullins speaks with father and son nuclear experts about why they've dedicated their professional lives to nuclear non-proliferation. Matthew Bunn works on the Project on Managing the Atom at Harvard. His father helped negotiate the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968.

Links of Interest:
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearing on John Bolton, CQ Transcriptions, Inc., 12 May 2005

"Securing the Bomb 2005: The New Global Imperatives"
Matthew Bunn and Anthony Wier, Managing the Atom Project at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, 5 May 2005

Upcoming Event:
On June 3, 2005 from 9:00am -12:45pm, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Center for Strategic and International Studies cordially invite you to the U.S. presentation of a new report by the Bellona Foundation of Norway on Russia’s nuclear industry “The Russian Nuclear Industry—The Need for Reform.” The report is the most comprehensive of its kind, and includes on-the-ground examinations of nuclear environmental and security hazards posed by the Russian nuclear civilian and military complexes. This new report is Bellona’s fourth in-depth study on sources of possible radioactive contamination in Russia. This event will be held at the Center for Strategic International Studies at 1800 K St., NW, Washington, DC. To RSVP, please contact Roman Sehling at RSehling@csis.org.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carnegie News:
George Perkovich: On Thursday, May 19 at 10:00am, Carnegie Vice President for Studies George Perkovich will be testifying before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on "Iran: Weapons Proliferation, Terrorism and Democracy." He will be joined by the Honorable R. Nicholas Burns, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs at the Department of State; Dr. Geoffrey Kemp, Director of Regional Strategic Programs at the Nixon Center; Dr. Gary Milhollin, Director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control; and Dr. A. William Samii, Ph.D., Regional Analysis Coordinator for Southwest Asia and the Middle East for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. This hearing will be held at 419 Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, DC, NE.

Joseph Cirincione: On Friday, May 20, Carnegie Director for Non-Proliferation Joseph Cirincione will speak at a breakfast meeting at the Council for Foreign Relations in New York on "Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference: What Will It Achieve?" Other speakers include Andrew K. Semmel, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Nonproliferation at the Department of State; Henry Sokolski, Executive Director, Nonproliferation Policy Education Center; and Charles D. Ferguson II, a Science & Technology Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Nuclear Regime in Peril
(Joseph Cirincione, YaleGlobal Online)
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=5728

Tuesday, May 17
The fate of the most successful international security pacts in history hangs in the balance, as envoys from around the world meet to review the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) at a United Nations conference. But US leadership is nowhere to be found. It is the latest sign that the Bush administration's counter-proliferation strategy has failed.

The NPT has united the world against the spread of nuclear weapons for 35 years and has permitted only one defector: North Korea. Today, this important security system is mired in such discord that it is in danger of crumbling. North Korea is ratcheting up the pressure, unloading yet another batch of plutonium-rich fuel from its reactor. Iran, meanwhile, threatens to end its suspension of uranium enrichment, a process that can make fuel for nuclear reactors and also for bombs.

Iran Seeks Incentives from Europe in Impasse
(Neil MacFarquhar, New York Times)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/19/internat...ast/19iran.html

Thursday, May 19
The European Union and Iran will not break the impasse over restraining Iran's nuclear development program unless the Europeans offer significant incentives like a deal for 10 nuclear reactors, a top Iranian negotiator said Wednesday.

But no incentives will persuade Iran to abandon its plans to enrich fuel, said Hossein Mousavian, a negotiator with Iran's Supreme National Security Council. That is the central demand of the United States, which suspects that Iran would divert the resulting fuel to make nuclear arms. In an interview on Wednesday, Mr. Mousavian accused the Europeans of stalling, saying, "The maximum announced was U.S. readiness to give spare parts for used airplanes, which is just a joke as the result of three months of negotiations."

U.S., North Korea Met on Nuclear Program
(Farah Stockman, Boston Globe)
http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/arti...uclear_program/

Thursday, May 19
Two senior State Department officials met last Friday with North Korean diplomats in New York in a quiet effort to convince the reclusive regime to return to negotiations over its nuclear program, the State Department confirmed yesterday.

The previously unpublicized meeting, the first face-to-face encounter between US and North Korean officials since December, occurred amid the deepening crisis over Pyongyang's nuclear program. Since September, North Korea has refused to return to the six-nation talks over ending its nuclear program with the United States, China, South Korea, Russia, and Japan.

Russia Willing to Adopt Deeper Nuclear Cuts, Officials Say
(Global Security Newswire)
http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/2005_5_17.html#F7EF2554

Tuesday, May 17
Two Russian officials said yesterday that Moscow is open to reducing its strategic nuclear arsenal to levels lower than required by a 2002 treaty with the United States.

Russia is “ready to reduce to 1,500 warheads or less,” said Lt. Gen. Vladimir Verhovtsev, deputy director of the Defense Ministry’s department of nuclear safety and security. The Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty requires the United States and Russia to reduce their deployed strategic arsenal to less than 2,200 warheads by 2012.

Air Force Seeks Bush's Approval for Space Weapons Programs
(Tim Weiner, New York Times)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/18/business...Zl+XUfMmHCyDVDg

Wednesday, May 18
The Air Force, saying it must secure space to protect the nation from attack, is seeking President Bush's approval of a national-security directive that could move the United States closer to fielding offensive and defensive space weapons, according to White House and Air Force officials.

The proposed change would be a substantial shift in American policy. It would almost certainly be opposed by many American allies and potential enemies, who have said it may create an arms race in space. A senior administration official said that a new presidential directive would replace a 1996 Clinton administration policy that emphasized a more pacific use of space, including spy satellites' support for military operations, arms control and nonproliferation pacts.

Any deployment of space weapons would face financial, technological, political and diplomatic hurdles, although no treaty or law bans Washington from putting weapons in space, barring weapons of mass destruction.

U.S. Weighing Nuclear Stockpile Changes
(Wade Boese, Arms Control Today)
http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2005_05/Brooks.asp

May 2005
Existing nuclear weapons and infrastructure need a makeover if the United States wants to continue reducing its arsenal, a top Department of Energy official told Senate panels in April. But some lawmakers are leery that the initiative might open the door to new nuclear weapons and resumed nuclear testing.

Testifying before the Senate Armed Services subcommittee on strategic forces April 4, Linton Brooks, head of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), said the U.S. nuclear infrastructure and stockpile, although safe and reliable, should ideally be revamped so that weapons are easier to maintain and more responsive to current and future threats. The NNSA, part of the Energy Department, maintains U.S. nuclear forces.

Failure to establish a responsive infrastructure capable of producing or refurbishing arms in a more timely fashion, Brooks argued, could prevent the United States from cutting its nuclear forces in the future. “Until we achieve a responsive nuclear weapons infrastructure, we’re going to have to retain substantial non-deployed warheads to hedge against technical failure of a critical system or to hedge against unforeseen geopolitical changes,” the NNSA head stated. The Bush administration announced last June that it intended to cut the total U.S. stockpile of more than 10,000 nuclear warheads “almost in half” by 2012.

Links of Interest:
"Withdrawal from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, European Union common approach"
Working Paper submitted by Luxembourg on behalf of the European Union at the 2005 NPT Review Conference, 10 May 2005

"Implementation of article VI of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and paragraph 4 © of the 1995 decision on “principles and objectives for nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament,”
Report submitted by Australia at the 2005 NPT Review Conference, 28 April 2005

Carnegie News:
George Perkovich: On Thursday, May 19 at 10:00am, Carnegie Vice President for Studies George Perkovich is testifying before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on "Iran: Weapons Proliferation, Terrorism and Democracy." He will be joined by the Honorable R. Nicholas Burns, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs at the Department of State; Dr. Geoffrey Kemp, Director of Regional Strategic Programs at the Nixon Center; Dr. Gary Milhollin, Director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control; and Dr. A. William Samii, Regional Analysis Coordinator for Southwest Asia and the Middle East for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. This hearing will be held at 419 Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, DC, NE.

Joseph Cirincione: On Friday, May 20, Carnegie Director for Non-Proliferation Joseph Cirincione will speak at a breakfast meeting at the Council for Foreign Relations in New York on "Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference: What Will It Achieve?" Other speakers include Andrew K. Semmel, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Nonproliferation at the Department of State; Henry Sokolski, Executive Director, Nonproliferation Policy Education Center; and Charles D. Ferguson II, a Science & Technology Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

S.Korea criticised on talks but North needed aid Reuters.uk

Changing Iran’s Nuclear Interests
Policy Outlook by George Perkovich
May 2005

The real “nuclear option” that should be on the minds of the United States Congress is the very real potential for Iran to continue its pursuit of nuclear technology and acquire the know-how to produce a nuclear weapon, argues nuclear non-proliferation expert George Perkovich. In testimony given to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on May 19th and in a new Policy Outlook, Changing Iran’s Nuclear Interests, Perkovich details the decision-making context in Iran, outlines the large-scale objectives for international security, and provides clear policy recommendations for the United States.

Perkovich says the Iranian political state of affairs is far from desperate, particularly after the U.S. campaign for democratic change in the Middle East has succeeded in empowering Shiites with a political voice throughout the region. Iranians are dissatisfied with their government, but there is no interest in reproducing the violent regime-change scenario playing out next door in Iraq or in reprising the 1979 Iranian Revolution. To influence positive change in Iran, Perkovich recommends the United States first recognize the ineffectiveness of U.S. policy toward Iran over the past twenty-six years; understand that unilateral sanctions, denouncements, and other forms of coercion are insufficient; and seek the cooperation of at least Europe and Russia to affect Iranian behavior.

To access the full text of George Perkovich's policy outlook, Changing Iran's Nuclear Interests, click here.

George Perkovich is vice-president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. An expert on Iran, South Asia, and nuclear weapons, he is the author of Iran Is Not an Island: A Strategy to Mobilize the Neighbors (Carnegie Policy Brief, February 2005). In March 2005, he participated in an Iranian-sponsored conference in Tehran on the nuclear issue.

For the latest proliferation news and resources, visit the Carnegie Proliferation News website, www.ProliferationNews.org.

http://www.antiwar.com/ips/rizvi.php?articleid=6033

Israeli Arsenal Vexes Nuclear Negotiators

--------------------
Stakes High for Iran Talks
--------------------

This week's summit in Geneva will focus on containing the nation's nuclear ambitions. The alternative could be a face-off with the U.S.

By Alissa J. Rubin and Sebastian Rotella
Times Staff Writers

May 22 2005

VIENNA; Amid Iranian threats to break off negotiations and European warnings about "irreversible gestures" on Tehran's part, the stakes are high as the two sides prepare to meet over the Islamic Republic's nuclear ambitions.

The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wo...headlines-world

NUCLEAR WEAPONS EFFECTS CALCULATOR

The heat and blast effects of a nuclear explosive detonated in a
major American city can be readily estimated using a new online
tool from the Federation of American Scientists.

The Nuclear Weapons Effects Calculator, devised by FAS staff
member Blake Purnell, is based on data from Glasstone's canonical
Effects of Nuclear Weapons. The Java-based calculator allows the
user to vary the size of the modeled blast (in kilotons) as well
as the height of detonation over one of 25 American cities.

"This is just a very graphic way to let anyone see what the effect
of a bomb on his city would be," said Ivan Oelrich, FAS strategic
security project director, as quoted in Science magazine (May 13,
2005, p. 933).

See the FAS Nuclear Weapons Effects Calculator here:

http://tinyurl.com/5r5z6

Airbrushing History
(Carnegie Analysis, Joseph Cirincione)
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/npp/publi...a=view&id=16978

Tuesday, May 23
We know the victors write history, but can they re-write it as well? In a U.S. pamphlet handed out at the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) conference in New York this month, officials have erased key international agreements from the historic account. Gone are any references to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and to commitments made at the 2000 NPT conference. Official disdain for these agreements seems to have turned into denial that they existed. The U.S. refusal to comply with it own obligations is a key reason why the conference may break up in disarray, setting back global efforts to stem the spread of nuclear weapons.

Prewar Findings Worried Analysts
(Walter Pincus, Washington Post)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...5052100474.html

Sunday, May 22
On Jan. 24, 2003, four days before President Bush delivered his State of the Union address presenting the case for war against Iraq, the National Security Council staff put out a call for new intelligence to bolster claims that Saddam Hussein possessed nuclear, chemical and biological weapons or programs. The person receiving the request, Robert Walpole, then the national intelligence officer for strategic and nuclear programs, would later tell investigators that "the NSC believed the nuclear case was weak," according to a 500-page report released last year by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

It has been clear since the September report of the Iraq Survey Group -- a CIA-sponsored weapons search in Iraq -- that the United States would not find the weapons of mass destruction cited by Bush as the rationale for going to war against Iraq. But as the Walpole episode suggests, it appears that even before the war many senior intelligence officials in the government had doubts about the case being trumpeted in public by the president and his senior advisers.

The question of prewar intelligence has been thrust back into the public eye with the disclosure of a secret British memo showing that, eight months before the March 2003 start of the war, a senior British intelligence official reported to Prime Minister Tony Blair that U.S. intelligence was being shaped to support a policy of invading Iraq.

U.S. Efforts on Korea Talks Bring a Response
(Choe Sang-Hun, International Herald Tribune)
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/05/23/news/korea.php

Tuesday, May 24
North Korea said it was seriously studying a U.S. overture for resuming six-nation negotiations on ending its nuclear weapons development, while South Korea said Monday that how North Korea responds to the American initiative could be a turning point in the nuclear standoff.

Joseph DiTrani, the U.S. special envoy on North Korea, visited the Communist state's UN mission in New York on May 13 and delivered an official message that Washington recognized the North as a sovereign state and had no intention of invasion. DiTrani then urged North Korea to return to six-nation talks.

The visit, the first direct U.S.-North Korea contact in six months, raised hopes that the two main players in the nuclear confrontation might be working toward a compromise to break a yearlong deadlock in nuclear talks.

Nuclear Nightmares
(Tom Morton, ABC Radio National - Australia)
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/bbing/default.htm

Radio interviews and transcripts with officials and experts, including Henry Sokolski, Robert McNamara and Joseph Cirincione
For nearly 40 years, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty has stopped nuclear weapons from spreading to more and more countries – or proliferating, in the arms control jargon.

But the treaty is close to breaking point. Many experts believe we’re not that far away from a world in which Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia - and a host of other countries – decide it’s time to get nuclear weapons. And there's an emerging consensus between left and right, between Washington hawks and the peace movement, that the distinction between peaceful and military uses of nuclear energy is an illusion.

We take you to the conference in New York where our nuclear future is being shaped.

The Nuclear Posture Review: Setting the Record Straight
(Keith B. Payne, Washington Quarterly)
http://twq.com/05summer/docs/05summer_payne.pdf

Summer 2005
The Bush administration’s 2001 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) was a watershed event in U.S. strategic policy. Despite its title, the scope was much broader than nuclear matters. It was a strategic posture review, the Pentagon’s first strategic policy initiative to depart fundamentally from a Cold War–era policy orientation focused overwhelmingly on the Soviet strategic nuclear threat, nuclear deterrence, and management of the U.S.-Soviet “balance of terror.” The first post–Cold War NPR, drafted in 1994, had retained the central assumption that the primary U.S. strategic concern was managing the hostile relationship between the two great nuclear powers. In contrast, the 2001 NPR set in motion far-reaching changes designed to align U.S. strategic policy with the different realities and threats of the post–Cold War security environment.

Very early in his first term, President George W. Bush emphasized that the new strategic environment, including in particular the emergence of hostile states with weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and the improvement in U.S.-Russian relations, demanded changes in strategic policy. “[W]e must seek security based on more than the grim premise that we can destroy those who seek to destroy us. This is an important opportunity for the world to rethink the unthinkable, and to find new ways to keep the peace,” he said. “Deterrence can no longer be based solely on the threat of nuclear retaliation.” The NPR responded to this call.

Although the NPR was intended to address the dramatically different post–Cold War security conditions, much of the criticism leveled against it has been based on criteria for strategic forces inherited from Cold War deterrence axioms, adages, and definitions. It has been claimed that the NPR rejects deterrence, blurs the distinction between conventional and nuclear forces, places greater emphasis on nuclear weapons, calls for new nuclear weapons and testing, lowers the nuclear threshold, spurs nuclear proliferation, and continues Cold War modes of force sizing. Yet, these are all errors of fact or interpretation, based on entrenched strategic maxims pertinent to a strategic environment that no longer exists.

Chavez Says Venezuela Interested in Nuclear Energy
(Patrick Markey, Reuters)
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?t...storyID=8567072

Sunday, May 22
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Sunday his government was interested in nuclear energy and could start talks with Iranian partners to study possible atomic and solar power projects.

Chavez, a fierce critic of the United States and a leftist ally of Communist Cuba, said Venezuela and other Latin American countries could develop nuclear energy as an alternative power source for civilian purposes.

"We are interested too, we must start working on that area... the nuclear area. We could, along with Brazil, with Argentina and others, start investigations into the nuclear sector and ask for help from countries like Iran," Chavez said on his regular Sunday TV program. "It is for development, for life, for peace and energy," the president said during the program broadcast at an event in Caracas for Iranian companies.

Links of Interest:
PBS FRONTLINE: On Tuesday, May 24 at 9:00pm, PBS FRONTLINE will air "Iran: Going Nuclear." Details on the show and an interview with the BBC reporter who traveled to Iran with U.N. inspectors are posted on the show's web site at http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/blog/200...going_nucl.html.

Live Webcast: On Tuesday, May 24 at 2:00pm, tune in to the live webcast of the Congressional hearing on "Reducing the Threat of Nuclear Terrorism: A Review of the Department of Energy's Global Threat Reduction Initiative," U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.

Carnegie News:
2005 Carnegie International Non-Proliferation Conference: November 7-8 in Washington, D.C., the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace will hold its annual International Non-Proliferation Conference. The theme will be "Sixty Years Later," a look back at the six decades of the nuclear age and a look forward to solutions to today's proliferation problems. The conference will be the first opportunity after the May 2005 NPT Review Conference for U.S. and international government officials, experts, and members of academia and media to address current non-proliferation challenges.

The 2004 conference drew more than 750 participants from 23 countries with an agenda that featured a roster of prominent speakers. Eminent speakers at past conferences have included President Bill Clinton (by video), Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency; Hans Blix, chairman of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission; U.S. National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, former U.S. Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham, U.S. Senator Richard Lugar, Senator Chuck Hagel, Senator Joe Biden, Senator Edward Kennedy, former Senator Sam Nunn, and then-Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar of Pakistan. Stay tuned for an agenda and a list of speakers for the 2005 Carnegie International Non-Proliferation Conference.

No Easy Out
(Carnegie Analysis, Joseph Cirincione)
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/npp/publi...a=view&id=16979

Tuesday, May 24
The U.S. position at the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) conference on toughening penalties for any state that withdraws from the treaty makes a lot of sense. It reflects the proposals of several other countries (particularly the European Union common position), and closely parallels recommendations made in the Carnegie study, Universal Compliance. If adopted, these positions could discourage additional states from following North Korea’s example and could substantially reduce the potential for withdrawing states to proceed to the production of nuclear weapons.

The U.S. position was presented at the NPT review conference in New York on May 23 by Sally Horn, senior advisor to the bureau of verification and compliance at the department of state. It has several key elements, provided in the excerpts from her speech.



In European Talks, Iran Agrees to Extend Nuclear Suspension
(Elaine Sciolino, New York Times)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/25/internat...artner=homepage

Wednesday, May 25
The foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany persuaded Iran today to continue its freeze on sensitive nuclear activities, thus averting a diplomatic crisis that could have led to punitive measures against Iran.

In exchange, the three European governments agreed to present Iran with detailed proposals by early August at the latest on how to carry out an agreement reached last November that links economic, political and security rewards to Iran's nuclear freeze.

Much to Iran's satisfaction, Mr. Straw, in announcing the compromise agreement today, emphasized that Iran's right to pursue a peaceful nuclear program remained in place. Officials from both sides stressed that Mr. Rowhani would have to sell the European offer to his government. But the outcome today means that both sides have bought some time, and the freeze on Iran's uranium conversion and enrichment activities will hold until after Iran's presidential elections, which are scheduled for June 17.



Prospects at Nuclear Conference Unravel
(Charles J. Hanley, Associated Press)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...5052500266.html

Wednesday, May 25
The world's nuclear tensions, distilled into words on paper, threatened on Wednesday to wreck a conference to strengthen the nonproliferation treaty, as diplomats labored on into the monthlong meeting's final days.

One of three committees ended its closed-door work with no recommendations to forward, in part because of Iran's objection to being singled out as a proliferation concern. The two other committees also wrangled behind closed doors over a long list of divisive issues, among them U.S. objections to wording related to the disarmament obligations of nuclear-weapons states under the 1970 treaty.

Many nuclear "have-nots" complain the weapons states are moving too slowly toward disarmament, and cite in particular Bush administration talk of "modernizing" the U.S. nuclear arsenal and its rejection of the 1996 treaty banning nuclear tests.



Confront North Korea
(Brent Scowcroft and Daniel Poneman, Wall Street - Opinion)
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1117065...%5Fcommentaries

Thursday, May 26
If North Korea tests a nuclear weapon, the reverberations will circle the globe. A test would provoke other nations to reconsider their nuclear options, and could disrupt political and economic stability in Asia and beyond. Their prospect should galvanize international efforts to arrest the North Korean nuclear program. The six-party talks designed to deal with the North Korean challenge have stalled. Pyongyang has gained effective control and pacing of the crisis, boycotting the talks and cranking up its nuclear program. The world is powerless to assess the accuracy of its escalating assertions of nuclear weapons capability, as North Korea has kicked out all international inspectors and monitoring equipment. From the North Korean perspective, why hurry back to negotiations that will only bring increased diplomatic pressure? Each day they advance their nuclear options, enhancing their military capability and increasing the price they can demand at the negotiating table. As the vice president has said, time is not on our side in the case of North Korea.

That is why it is vital to force the issue now. We must not wait for Pyongyang to decide whether and when it is ready to negotiate, for such delay could be fatal to our interests and to those of the world. Even if not fatal, to permit North Korea to taunt the world with its nuclear claims with impunity invites others to follow suit. The U.S. therefore has enormous stakes in breaking the logjam. How can we prevent North Korea from lulling the world into accepting it as a de facto nuclear power? To fall back to missile defenses to block North Korean nuclear-tipped missiles and naval interdiction to block nuclear weapon exports is inadequate. The world cannot weave a net so fine as to guarantee capture of a single bomb before it falls into the hands of terrorists or into the heart of a major city.



Senators Feinstein, Hagel Introduce Resolution Reaffirming U.S. Commitment to Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
(Press Release from the Office of U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein)
http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/05releases/r-npt-resol.htm

Tuesday, May 24
U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) have introduced a resolution calling on the parties participating in the 2005 Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in New York City this month to reaffirm their support for nuclear nonproliferation and take additional measures to strengthen the treaty.

“North Korea has already withdrawn from the Treaty and escaped penalty,” Senator Feinstein said. “ Iran may be next. How many others will follow if we stand still and do nothing to strengthen the treaty? That is why we must come together to breathe new life into the nuclear nonproliferation regime and seriously consider steps to strengthen the treaty and make the world safer from the threat of nuclear terror.”



Managing China's Rise
(Benjamin Schwarz, Atlantic Monthly - Opinion)
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200506/schwarz

June 2005 Issue
When President Bush took office, in 2001, the dominant national-security issue for his administration—and for most foreign-policy analysts, whether Republican or Democrat—was not terrorism or even Iraq but China. The issue, specifically, is that China will eventually emerge as what Pentagon planners call a "peer competitor" to the United States in East Asia—that is, a great power with the economic and military muscle to challenge America's preponderant position in a region that is sure to be the economic pivot of the new century.

When "eventually" may roll around is a matter of intense debate between moderates and hardliners. The moderates have a better case. Hardliners, some of whom hold powerful positions in the current administration, see a hegemon on the horizon. But China is a defense-minded state, vulnerable to domestic turmoil and burdened with colossal environmental problems and natural-resource demands. True, over the past several years China has selectively and impressively modernized its armed forces, but they're still debilitated by pervasive corruption and are organizationally and technologically far behind not only America's but also Japan's and South Korea's.



Pentagon Report to Portray China as Emerging Rival
(Demetri Sevastopulo, Financial Times)
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/e1d67dda-cc83-11d...000e2511c8.html

Tuesday, May 24
The Pentagon is preparing to release a report on the Chinese military that warns the US that it should take more seriously the possibility that China might emerge as a strategic rival to the US, according to a senior government official.

The report has generated controversy in the Bush administration because of earlier drafts that concerned National Security Council officials by painting what they saw as an overly antagonistic picture of China, according to two people with knowledge of the report.

There were also concerns that the report could complicate US efforts to work with China to encourage North Korea to return to the negotiating table over its nuclear programme.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Links of Interest:
Statements by the U.S. Delegation to the 2005 NPT Review Conference,
Bureau of Nonproliferation, State Department, May 2-27, 2005

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/GE27Aa03.html

More arms for US's 'friends'
Thalif Deen

--------------------
Nuclear Talks End in Discord
--------------------

The U.N. conference stumbles over priorities. The U.S., focused on North Korea and Iran, is criticized over its own weapons stockpile.

By Maggie Farley
Times Staff Writer

May 28 2005

UNITED NATIONS; A monthlong conference aimed at curtailing the spread of nuclear weapons ended in failure Friday after being scuttled by arguments among the United States, Iran and Egypt.

The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wo...0,5159297.story

--------------------
U.S. May Be Trying to Isolate N. Korea
--------------------

By Barbara Demick
Times Staff Writer

May 28 2005

SEOUL; By severing some of the few remaining U.S. ties with North Korea in recent days, the Bush administration appears to be trying to further isolate the Pyongyang regime over its pursuit of nuclear weapons, analysts say.

The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wo...0,7208172.story

Month of Talks Fails to Bolster Nuclear Treaty
(David E. Sanger, New York Times)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/28/politics/28nations.html?

Saturday, May 28
A monthlong conference at the United Nations to strengthen the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty ended Friday in failure, with its chairman declaring that the disagreements between nuclear-armed and non-nuclear states ran so deep that "very little has been accomplished."

The conference, which takes place every five years, had once been seen as a chance to deal with gaping loopholes in the treaty that have allowed a resurgence in the spread of nuclear weapons.

But in the months leading up to the meeting, it became clear that little progress was likely, and in the end the bickering between the United States, which wanted to focus on North Korea and Iran, and countries demanding that Washington shrink its own arsenals, ran so deep that no real negotiations over how to stem proliferation ever took place.

Kofi A. Annan: Break the Nuclear Deadlock
(Kofi A. Annan, International Herald Tribune - Opinion)
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/05/29/news/edannan.php

Monday, May 30
Regrettably, there are times when multilateral forums tend merely to reflect, rather than mend, deep rifts over how to confront the threats we face. The review conference of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which ended on Friday with no substantive agreement, was one of these.

For 35 years, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, or NPT, has been a cornerstone of our global security. With near universal membership, the treaty has firmly entrenched a norm against nuclear proliferation and helped confound predictions that today there would be 25 or more countries with nuclear weapons. But today, the treaty faces a dual crisis of compliance and confidence. Delegates at the month-long conference, which is held once every five years, could not furnish the world with any solutions to the grave nuclear threats we all face. And while arriving at an agreement can be more challenging in a climate of crisis, it is also at such times that it is all the more imperative to do so.

Let me be clear: Failure of a review conference to come to any agreement will not break the NPT-based regime. The vast majority of countries that are parties to the treaty recognize its enduring benefits. But there are cracks in each of the treaty's pillars - nonproliferation, disarmament and peaceful uses of nuclear technology - and each of these cracks requires urgent repair.

House Proposes Commission to Assess Nuclear Forces
(Walter Pincus, Washington Post)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...5052800817.html

Sunday, May 29
The House Armed Services Committee has proposed appointment of a civilian commission to help the Pentagon determine how to integrate nuclear and nonnuclear weapons in planning the nation's strategic strike forces for the next 20 years.

Since the Bush administration put forward its Nuclear Posture Review in December 2001 that called for transitioning from a nuclear-dominated strategic force to one with major conventional components, the Defense Department has wrestled with how to achieve that goal. The challenge is how to modernize or replace the Cold War strategic strike triad of bombers and land- and sea-based long-range missiles and its thousands of accompanying high-yield nuclear bombs and warheads. One goal of the posture review, according to the House committee report, was to develop capabilities "that would lessen the overall United States dependence on nuclear weapons."

Small, Portable, Deadly - and Absurd
(Daryl G. Kimball, International Herald Tribune - Opinion)
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/05/29/news/edkimball.php

Monday, May 30
Habits, even dangerous ones, can be hard to break. Unfortunately, maintaining arsenals of needless nuclear weapons has become just such a habit for both the United States and Russia, more than a decade after cold war hostilities ceased. Both countries possess tactical nuclear weapons originally built to fight a land war in Europe, which is no longer an imminent threat. In the meantime, the possibility that those weapons will be lost or stolen poses an unacceptable risk of nuclear terrorism.

The time for verifiably eliminating such weapons, beginning with those in Europe, is now if not sooner. The crux of the problem lies with Russia, which possesses at least 3,000 of these of these small, portable but still devastating weapons. Russia's nuclear command and control systems, as well as its weapons transportation practices, are woefully inadequate and vulnerable to infiltrators. The surest way to win Russian cooperation in eliminating as much of its tactical nuclear arsenal as possible is for Washington and its NATO partners to make some concessions of their own.

Now in Rehearsal, the Unthinkable
(Sam Nunn and Pierre Lellouche, International Herald Tribune - Opinion)
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/05/30/opinion/ednunn.php

Tuesday, May 31
On Tuesday, we will conduct an exercise called Black Dawn before NATO's Parliamentary Assembly. In this simulation, a jihadist terrorist network acquires nuclear material, constructs a crude nuclear devic, and detonates the bomb outside the gates of NATO headquarters.

More than 300 representatives from NATO countries will witness a fictionalized account of this almost unthinkable tragedy: hundreds of thousands of casualties, severe global economic disruptions, and untold environmental and societal suffering in Brussels and across Europe. Out of this nightmare scenario, two fundamental truths are clear: Catastrophic terrorism can and must be prevented, and Europe can and must do more to prevent it.

Though fictional, the Black Dawn scenario is based on real-world facts. Radical terror groups continue to plot attacks against targets in Europe and the United States and take a special interest in technologies that can inflict mass casualties, including nuclear weapons.

To view the 2004 report on the Black Dawn: Scenario-Based Exercise, see Links of Interest below.

The Threat of Nuclear Terrorism
(Liz Harper, PBS Online NewsHour - Background Report)
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/internation...ist_threat.html

May 2005
On Sept. 11, 2001 19 hijackers armed only with box cutters launched the deadliest terrorist act in history. Although low-tech in its approach, the sophisticated, coordinated nature of the attack has sparked intelligence and security experts to reevaluate al-Qaida's stated goal of developing a nuclear weapon for use in the United States. Two months after the attacks, President Bush declared that America's "highest priority is to keep terrorists from acquiring weapons of mass destruction." Al-Qaida, the 9/11 Commission warned in its final report, has tried to acquire or make nuclear weapons for at least ten years. According to the commission, al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden's associates "thought their leader was intent on carrying out a 'Hiroshima.'" In 1988, he called it a religious duty for al-Qaida to acquire weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

There have been mixed signals about how aggressive al-Qaida is in its pursuit of a nuclear weapon since acquiring fissile material is incredibly difficult, Jim Walsh, executive director of the Managing the Atom Project at Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs told the Online NewsHour.

A terrorist group, no matter how determined or how well funded, could not make the nuclear material for a bomb by itself. Instead, terrorists would have to steal the material or a nuclear weapon -- most likely from the stockpiles of smaller, tactical nuclear weapons in Russia or from Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, according to Joseph Cirincione, director for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's program on nonproliferation.

Rice to Discuss Antiproliferation Program
(David E. Sanger, New York Times)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/31/politics/31nuke.html?

Tuesday, May 31
The Bush administration is preparing to discuss for the first time details of the early fruits of its efforts to join forces with other nations in intercepting weapons and missile technology bound for Iran, North Korea and Syria, according to several administration officials.

Some details are expected to be presented to foreign diplomats at the State Department on Tuesday by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the officials said. Many of the diplomats are from the 60 or so nations that have joined President Bush's Proliferation Security Initiative, an effort to use a patchwork of national laws and agreements with other countries to intercept suspected weapons shipments in ports and on the high seas.

To access a video stream of Secretary Rice's speech, see Links of Interest below.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Links of Interest:
Secretary of State Rice & Foreign Ambassadors on Nuclear Proliferation,
Video stream available under Recent Programs on the C-Span home page, 31 May 2005

Transcript of NBC's Meet the Press on the Threat & Prevention of Nuclear Terrorism:
Access an interview with Former Senator Sam Nunn(D-GA), Head of the Nuclear Threat Initiative; Senator Richard Lugar(R-IN), Chairman, Senate Foreign Relations Committee; Former Governor Thomas Kean(R-NJ); Former Representative Lee Hamilton(D-IN), Vice Chairman, 9/11 Commission; and Former Senator Fred Thompson (R-TN), Actor "Last Best Chance," 29 May 2005

"Bioterrorism: What is the Real Threat?"
Science and Technology Report No. 3 by Professor Malcolm Dando, Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford, March 2005

"Black Dawn: Scenario-Based Exercise"
Center for Strategic and International Studies, 3 May 2004

Proliferation News: 2 June 2005
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
For past stories and further proliferation resources, visit:
www.ProliferationNews.org


Nuclear Time Capsule
(Carnegie Analysis, Jane Vaynman)
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/npp/publi...a=view&id=17023

Thursday, June 2
The Carnegie International Non-Proliferation Conference, "Sixty Years Later," will be held on November 7- 8, 2005. Below is the first in a series of analyses on proliferation milestones.

In June of 1945, the Franck Report was ignored, the moral concerns of its scientific authors over the use of nuclear weapons dismissed. Sixty years later, the report seems a prescient warning of proliferation dangers. Still largely overlooked today, it typically shows up as a few paragraphs amidst the hundreds of pages written about the Manhattan Project. Yet interestingly, the report’s warnings of a nuclear arms race and recommendations for the international control of nuclear energy resonate with contemporary concerns. The proliferation challenges of today were clearly foreseen by some of the bomb’s creators.



North Korea: The War Game
(Scott Stossel, Atlantic Monthly)
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200507/stossel

Tuesday, May 31
Jessica Mathews, president of Carnegie Endowment, plays the role of director of national intelligence in a war game sponsored by Atlantic. See excerpt below and click on link for full-text.

On the third weekend in March, while America was transfixed by the most exciting NCAA basketball tournament in years, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was in the Far East, in the midst of a series of meetings with her opposite numbers in six Asian countries. Arriving in Seoul, South Korea, on Saturday, she boarded a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter and flew to Command Post Tango, the underground bunker that would be the nerve center for the U.S. military in the event of a war against North Korea. While not quite on the order of Ariel Sharon's parading around the Temple Mount in Israel, Rice's move was undeniably provocative. No high-ranking American official had ever visited the bunker before—and the choice of a military site as the secretary of state's first stop seemed to represent a gentle rattling of the sword. What's more, Rice spoke against a backdrop of computers and television screens monitoring the 20,000 South Korean and American soldiers who were at that very moment engaging in one of their regular war-game exercises—practicing, in effect, to fight a war with North Korea no sane person hopes ever to see.

The North Koreans responded by rattling their sword right back. First they announced they were boosting their nuclear arsenal, as a "deterrent" against U.S. attack. And then, apparently, they began to act: a few weeks after Rice's visit, U.S. spy satellites detected a reduction in activity at the Yongbyon nuclear reactor. Possibly this meant that the reactor had run into mechanical trouble; more probably, it meant that the North Koreans had shut down the plant to withdraw spent fuel rods in order to reprocess them into fissile material for nuclear weapons. What was clear was that the situation represented a grave international crisis.



China, U.S. Come at N. Korea From Different Angles
(Barbara Slavin, USA Today - News Analysis)
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-06-01-china-us_x.htm

Thursday, June 2
China's growing economic stake in North Korea is complicating U.S. efforts to isolate that country as it continues to build a nuclear arsenal. Chinese investment in North Korea has jumped from $1.3 million in 2003 to $200 million last year and continues to grow, says Sung Wook Nam, a professor at Korea University in Seoul. Nam says, "China is investing in entertainment projects, hotels, restaurants and light industry and is taking advantage of lower North Korean labor costs and recent changes that have opened the North's economy to private enterprise."

China is North Korea's biggest trading partner and provides its fuel and much of its food. Nam estimates that trade with China amounted to half of North Korea's commerce with the outside world in 2004.

Those growing economic ties are frustrating U.S. efforts to enlist Chinese help in persuading North Korea to return to talks about its nuclear program. The six-nation talks have been suspended for nearly a year; North Korea and the United states blame the other for their failure to make progress.



U.S. Hails Nonproliferation Push
(Arshad Mohamed, Reuters)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...5053101296.html

Tuesday, May 31
The United States said on Tuesday U.S.-inspired efforts had stopped 11 weapons-related transfers abroad, including two to North Korea and to Iran, but analysts said it was exaggerating the success of its program.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice marked the second anniversary of the Proliferation Security Initiative, a collective effort to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction, by trumpeting its achievements at an elaborate State Department event but providing few details.

Nonproliferation experts said the Bush administration was overselling PSI's success while neglecting or undermining other ways to stop the spread of weapons, including efforts to revise the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty. A conference of the 188 signatories to the global pact against atomic weapons ended on Friday without agreement on how to combat the danger of a nuclear holocaust and analysts blamed Washington for failing to show leadership in guiding its work.



Success of Bush Nonproliferation Doctrine Remains in Doubt as Iran, North Korea Crises Persist
(James Kitfield, National Journal)
http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/2005_6_1.html#93F32A1D

Wednesday, June 1
By the waning months of 2003, the Bush administration had honed its post-Sept. 11 doctrine of pre-emptive war to maximum sharpness. Earlier in the year, the United States had toppled the Iraqi regime in a three-week military campaign of intense ferocity, sending Saddam Hussein to join Osama bin Laden and the Taliban's Mullah Omar in the realm of the hunted. North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il, having dropped out of sight for 50 days during the initial weeks of the Iraqi Freedom campaign, went back into hiding for nearly six weeks in the fall of 2003, apparently fearing he was next in line as a candidate for regime change. During this time, the mullahs of Iran, finding themselves bracketed on the west and east by U.S. military forces, offered uncharacteristically conciliatory gestures and statements designed to accommodate a superpower on the warpath. In December 2003, Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi renounced his weapons of mass destruction programs altogether.

The thrust of the Bush Doctrine is revealed, however, in the remarkable fact that not once in three years of war, and threatened war, after 9/11 has the administration ever agreed to enter into direct negotiations with the leader of an “axis-of-evil” country. Such a record stands in stark contrast to the philosophy of “hold your enemy close” that drove Washington to engage with the Soviet Union and negotiate almost constantly with it during the Cold War.

Cheney gave a succinct summation of the Bush strategy: “We don't negotiate with evil. We defeat it.” And for a brief, shining moment in late 2003, it indeed seemed possible that the Bush administration's aggressive new strategy might actually shatter the nexus of rogue states, terrorists, and weapons of mass destruction that it identified as the greatest threat to the security of the American people.



Iran Reports Gain in Test of Missile Fuel
(New York Times)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/01/internat...ast/01iran.html?

Wednesday, June 1
Iran said Tuesday that it had successfully tested a solid-fuel motor for its medium-range ballistic missile known as Shahab 3, raising concerns that it could reach its enemies, including American forces in the region and Israel, with more precision.



Rumsfeld Travels to Meet Asian Officials
(Matt Kelley, Associated Press)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?.../w232235D44.DTL

Thursday, June 2
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld gets a chance this weekend to consult with Asian allies about containing North Korea's nuclear threat and to outline U.S. military policy for the region at a conference with many of the area's top leaders.

Rumsfeld left Thursday for Singapore, where he will attend an annual Asian security conference sponsored by the International Institute for Strategic Studies. His schedule includes one-on-one meetings with his counterparts from Japan and South Korea, and a keynote speech Saturday where he is expected to discuss issues such as shipping security, fighting terrorists and his plans to restructure U.S. troop presence in the region.

North Korea is sure to be a main topic at the conference. The U.S. is trying to restart six-way talks with North Korea, South Korea, Japan, China and Russia aimed at getting North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons programs.




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Links of Interest:
"Effects of Nuclear Earth-Penetrator and Other Weapons"
Report by the Committee on the Effects of Nuclear Earth-Penetrator and Other Weapons, National Research Council of the National Academies, May 2005

"Reducing the Threat of Nuclear Terrorism: A Review of the Department of Energy's Global Threat Reduction Initiative,"
Testimony by Charles D. Ferguson, Council on Foreign Relations, Hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, 24 May 2005


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carnegie News:
On Friday, June 10 at 2:15pm in Rome, Italy, Carnegie Director for Non-Proliferation Joseph Cirincione will speak on "EU and US Non-Proliferation Strategies" at an international conference on "Transatlatic Security and Nuclear Proliferation." He will be joined by Bruno Tertrais, Senior Research Fellow at the Fondation pour la Recherche Strategique (FRS) in Paris, France; Sverre Lodgaard, Director of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, Oslo, Norway; Annalisa Giannella, Javier Solana's Personal Represenatative for WMD, Council of the European Union, Brussels, Belgium; and Ralph Thiele, Colonel Commander, Bundeswehr Center for Analyses and Studies, Germany. Marcin Zaborowski, Research-Fellow at the European Union Institute for Security Studies, will be moderating the event. The conference is sponsored by the Istituto Affare Internazionali in cooperation with the EU Institute of Security Studies (EU-ISS) and will be held at the Palazzo Rondini, Via del Corso, 518, Rome, Italy.

North Korea is Reported to Hint at Nuclear Talks
(David E. Sanger and Thom Shanker, New York Times)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/06/internat...ia/06korea.html

Monday, June 6
North Korea has contacted the Bush administration in recent days in what American officials believe could be the first indications that the country is preparing to return to substantive negotiations about its nuclear program, senior American and Asian officials said Sunday.

The contacts were disclosed as a senior Defense Department official in Singapore, traveling with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, said the administration would probably decide within weeks whether to push for United Nations Security Council penalties against North Korea.

South Korea and, more tellingly, China have also argued vigorously against any move to the United Nations, which North Korea has said it would regard as an act of war. As a permanent member of the Security Council, China has veto power, and it has been the focus of strong criticism from Mr. Rumsfeld for its increasing military buildup. Both countries have urged the United States to improve on the offer it made to North Korea last year.



S. Korea, US Agree on Contingency Plan for N. Korea
(Jung Sung-Ki, Korea Times)
http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/nation/200...17373911950.htm

Sunday, June 5
South Korea and the United States agreed Saturday to ``improve and develop," the concept of a U.S-proposed military contingency plan in the event of internal turmoil in North Korea, including the collapse of the communist regime, the Defense Ministry said.

But the allies decided not to put the concept plan into an operation, which has already been dubbed ``OPLAN 5029," according to Shin Hyun-don, spokesman for the ministry.Under the draft plan, the U.S. military would take command in case of an emergency in North Korea, while South Korea has control of its military in peacetime.

The latest agreement on the contingency plan is seen as Seoul's effort to patch up the military alliance between the two sides, which has soured in recent months, ahead of the South Korea-U.S. summit meeting slated on June 10 in Washington, experts said.



Rumsfeld Questions China on Missiles
(Victor Mallet, Financial Times)
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/8dcb8862-d605-11d...000e2511c8.html

Sunday, June 5
The US sharply stepped up its criticism of China at the weekend, questioning the motives behind a Chinese military build-up, calling on the country's Communist rulers to embrace “a more open and representative government” and urging Beijing to do more to persuade North Korea to abandon nuclear weapons.

Donald Rumsfeld, US defence secretary, said the Pentagon's 2005 report on the Chinese military, to be published soon, concluded that China's defence spending was much higher than officially admitted, with its military budget ranking highest in Asia and third in the world.

Speaking at the annual Asian security conference of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, Mr Rumsfeld criticised China's “significant roll-out” of ballistic missiles aimed at Taiwan. He said Beijing, although threatened by no other nation, also appeared to be expanding its long-range missile forces, “allowing them to reach targets in many areas of the world, not just the Pacific region.



U.S. Still Hopes to Revive Talks With North Korea, Rice Says
(Paul Richter and Barbara Demick, Los Angeles Times)
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wo...l=la-home-world

Monday, June 6
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice insisted Sunday that the U.S. had not given up hope of reviving six-nation talks on North Korea's nuclear program, amid signs that Pyongyang might be interested in returning to the bargaining table.

Speaking to reporters a day after a top U.S. Defense official said the Bush administration would decide within weeks whether to abandon the talks, Rice said U.S. officials "still believe there is life left" in the negotiations that have been stalled for nearly a year.



Going Ballistic? Reversing Missile Proliferation
(Aaron Karp, Arms Control Today)
http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2005_06/Karp.asp

June 2005
As symbols, missiles remain unsurpassed. They are the ultimate visible manifestation of many countries’ military power (nuclear bombs are best kept out of sight). Although it has been decades since missiles were on the technological cutting edge and more than 60 years since Germany launched the first V-2, they have lost little psychological resonance. Celebrated in parades and praised by national leaders, they are valued as a reaffirmation of national identity, strategic power, and importance. Their value as a symbol of high-tech destruction transcends military logic. After all, in purely military terms, it is what the warheads carry that matters, and the most significant concerns arise in their coupling with nuclear weapons. Ballistic missiles have come to symbolize both the erratic threats of paranoid dictators and the final defense of insecure nations.

Some observers maintain that we are approaching a tipping point in world history, as the nonproliferation and arms control accomplishments of the last two generations become vulnerable to reversal.[2] Ballistic missiles illustrate this risk. None of the existing barriers to ballistic missile proliferation are sufficient to prevent a setback.

One of the most important legal elements of the current framework, the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), is in serious danger of being rendered ineffective as missile technology spreads. Other arms control approaches remain underdeveloped. Military responses such as pre-emption and missile defense do not work well enough to become full substitutes. Instead of a strong single mechanism, we are gradually shifting to an era in which security against ballistic missile threats depends on a collection of instruments, none fully effective, several working at cross purposes.



Immaculate Destruction
(Frances Fitzgerald, New York Times - Opinion)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/03/opinion/03Fitzgerald.html

Friday, June 3
For some time now the Air Force has been pressing the White House for a new national-security directive that would permit the deployment of space weaponry. A decision could come within weeks. Most space-to-ground weapons remain futuristic, but previous presidents and Congresses have chosen not to deploy anti-satellite weapons, fearing that doing so would set off an arms race and endanger the information systems the United States relies on. The new directive, if approved, would constitute a historic change in policy as radical as President Bush's doctrine of pre-emptive war.

Proliferation News: 9 June 2005
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Failure in New York
(Carnegie Analysis, Joseph Cirincione)
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/npp/publi...a=view&id=17042

Tuesday, June 7
The analysis below is adapted from a longer interview with Joseph Cirincione by Bernard Gwertzman for the Council on Foreign Relations. The entire interview, including discussion of negotiations with North Korea and Iran, is available at the Council web site, www.cfr.org.

The 2005 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference was a disaster. It was a major missed opportunity for the United States to advance either the agenda of the Bush administration or the broader agenda against the spread of nuclear weapons. It was demoralizing for almost all of the top nonproliferation from around the world who had gathered for this unique conclave.

The conference did little to improve the image of the United States with many of the countries around the world and set it back in some instances. Specifically, the United States went into the conference with two agenda items. One, to defend the United States against any new calls to speed up its nuclear disarmament, and, two, to try to focus attention on the failure of Iran and North Korea to comply with their treaty obligations. The first objective trumped the second.



Iran Preparing for Advanced Nuclear Work, Officials Say
(Douglas Frantz, Los Angeles Times)
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wo...-home-headlines

Thursday, June 9
Iran has plans to install tens of thousands of advanced centrifuges at its huge underground nuclear plant near the central city of Natanz, which eventually would enable the nation to enrich uranium nearly twice as fast as anticipated, Western intelligence officials say.

The officials say there is no hard evidence that Iran is currently manufacturing the updated centrifuges and that the timetable for installation remains unknown. However, preparatory work is underway at the plant, they said in recent interviews, and the decision to rely on the superior type of centrifuge suggests Iran could manufacture fissile material for a possible weapon sooner than expected.



The Secret Way to War
(Mark Danner, New York Times Review of Books)
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18034

Thursday, June 9
What the Downing Street memo confirms for the first time is that President Bush had decided, no later than July 2002, to "remove Saddam, through military action," that war with Iraq was "inevitable"—and that what remained was simply to establish and develop the modalities of justification; that is, to come up with a means of "justifying" the war and "fixing" the "intelligence and facts...around the policy." The great value of the discussion recounted in the memo, then, is to show, for the governments of both countries, a clear hierarchy of decision-making. By July 2002 at the latest, war had been decided on; the question at issue now was how to justify it—how to "fix," as it were, what Blair will later call "the political context." Specifically, though by this point in July the President had decided to go to war, he had not yet decided to go to the United Nations and demand inspectors; indeed, as "C" points out, those on the National Security Council—the senior security officials of the US government—"had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record." This would later change, largely as a result of the political concerns of these very people gathered together at 10 Downing Street.

[Note: This article is by far the most comprehensive analysis of the Downing Street memo yet published. It includes the entire text of the memo and extensive discussion of Prime Minster Tony Blair's idea to use UN inspections as the "political context" for the war.]



North Korea Said to Offer to Rejoin Nuclear Talks
(David E. Sanger, New York Times)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/08/internat...ia/08korea.html

Wednesday, June 8
The United States and China said Tuesday that North Korea had committed itself to returning eventually to multinational negotiations over its nuclear program, but officials said the North had set no date.

That left both American and Asian officials wondering whether North Korea was simply trying to defuse talk about the United States going to the United Nations to ask for sanctions.

The North Korean statements, after a yearlong suspension in the six-nation talks, came during a meeting on Monday in New York between the North's representatives to the United Nations and two American diplomats, Joseph DeTrani and Jim Foster.

But after a day of conflicting signals in Washington about what the North Koreans actually said, and an optimistic prediction by the Chinese representative to the United Nations that talks would resume "in the next couple of weeks," both American and Asian officials expressed caution.



North Korea: Playing the Carrot/Stick Game
(Ralph A. Cossa, Honolulu Advertiser - Opinion)
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/...8/op/op05p.html

Wednesday, June 8
South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun meets later this week in Washington with President Bush to attempt, once again, to carve out a common position in dealing with North Korea's nuclear weapons aspirations. Roh will be urging "sweeter carrots," while Bush will be calling for "stronger sticks." They are both right.

The two leaders share a common objective: Both want North Korea to return to the six-party negotiating table and give up its nuclear weapons programs. This will require both sweeter carrots and stronger sticks. In order to get Pyongyang to seriously negotiate, it must be convinced that the benefits of cooperating outweigh the benefits of not cooperating and that the costs of not cooperating outweigh the costs of cooperating.



The Way to Deal with North Korea
(Interview with Joseph Cirincione, Council on Foreign Relations)
http://www.cfr.org/publication.php?id=8162

Non-Proliferation Director Joseph Cirincione spoke June 6 with Bernard Gwertzman of the Council on Foreign Relations on the possibility of a deal with North Korea.

I would do what Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Christopher R. Hill is reported to want: To improve the negotiating offer. To offer the North Koreans--preferably in one-on-one talks--a clear path forward, of how they can, one: freeze their program; two: expect in return that there would be some economic incentives coming primarily from South Korea and China; and, three: open their facilities to inspectors again and lay out a plan for dismantling their program in return for a U.S. statement, such as President Bush has made in the past but a bit more formal this time, that the United States has no hostile intentions toward North Korea. They don't get the ultimate pay-off of a peace treaty, for example, or diplomatic recognition by the United States, until we are completely satisfied that that program has been shut down and destroyed or moved out of the country.



U.S. Drops Opposition to IAEA Chief
(Dafna Linzer, Washington Post)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...5060701542.html

Wednesday, June 8
The Bush administration, having found no alternate candidate or support from any allies, has given up on its attempt to force out Mohamed ElBaradei as director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, according to two U.S. officials.

With ElBaradei's bid for a third term virtually guaranteed when the agency's board meets next week, the White House decided to invite him to Washington for a talk tomorrow with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice about the terms of U.S. support, the officials said. "We're willing to lift our objections under certain conditions," one of the officials said. "Namely, get tougher on Iran."

The Bush administration's vigorous but solitary campaign -- including a complete halt of intelligence sharing, recruitment of potential replacements and eavesdropping on ElBaradei in search of ammunition against him -- won not a single ally on the IAEA board.



The Hunt For ElBaradei
(Joseph Cirincione, Foreign Policy Magazine)
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=2854

This analysis was featured on the Foreign Policy web site in May 2005.

ElBaradei is in many ways the perfect man for this very difficult job at this difficult moment. He is sensitive to the passions and protocols of the Middle East, and dedicated to enforcing compliance with treaty obligations. He has balanced intrusive inspections of Iran with delicate diplomacy, convincing Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to support a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East. He understands that he is responsible to all 35 members of the agency’s board of governors, not just one. He is pushing the envelope by not just enforcing inspections but seeking innovative fixes for a weapons regime in need of repair.

This is the kind of leadership the United States should want at the IAEA. Turning the corner office over to an American lapdog would only undermine the organization’s credibility and usefulness. The IAEA can only work if it is seen as—and truly is—independent of any one nation’s agenda. Rather than engaging in a vindictive head-hunting operation, the United States should use its political power to ensure the agency has the funds, staff, and resources it needs to police the world’s nuclear danger points.




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Sense of Urgency at U.N. Over Nuclear Trade
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Its watchdog agency is developing new ways to thwart a black market in weapons technology. The U.S. pushes to give monitors a larger role.

By Doug Frantz and Sonni Efron
Times Staff Writers

June 26 2005

VIENNA; Concerned that efforts to halt nuclear proliferation have proved inadequate, the international community is developing new strategies to fight the illicit spread of atomic weapons technology by private smuggling networks.

The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wo...headlines-world

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Iran President-Elect Vows to Pursue Nukes
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By KATHY GANNON
Associated Press Writer

June 26 2005, 6:21 AM PDT

TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran President-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed Sunday to pursue a peaceful nuclear program -- an effort the United States maintains is really a cover for trying to build atomic bombs.

The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wi...0,1033970.story

http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/2005_6_24.html#DE004107




An F-15 fighter jet prepares to take off from a U.S. Air Force base in Italy. These and other aircraft can deliver U.S. nuclear warheads based in Europe. (Getty Images/United State Air Force).

U.S. Nuclear Weapons in Europe Remain Off NATO’s Agenda

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The NATO alliance so far has refrained from considering the withdrawal of hundreds of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons from military bases in Europe, despite growing calls to do so by members of European governments and political