Saying there is “no greater threat” to U.S. security than nuclear proliferation, Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) yesterday outlined a set of nuclear diplomatic initiatives he would pursue if elected. His policies would leave behind some of the principles of the current Republican administration — by pursuing a new strategic arms reduction agreement with Russia, for example — but would not entail the same level of international engagement as proposed by his chief Democrat rival, Illinois Senator Barack Obama.
“If you look back over the past two decades, I don't think any of us, Republican or Democrat, can take much satisfaction in what we've accomplished to control nuclear proliferation,” McCain said (see prepared text and fact sheet). Citing North Korea’s nuclear-weapon capability and concerns over Iran’s ambitions, McCain said other nations might also consider nuclear weapons. “Other nations have begun to wonder whether they too need to have such weapons, if only in self defense. As a result, we could find ourselves in a world where a dozen or more nations — small and large, stable and unstable, responsible and irresponsible — have viable nuclear weapons programs,” he added during the speech at the University of Denver. That possibility, and the risk of terrorists acquiring nuclear weapons, creates severe danger, McCain said. “No problem we face poses a greater threat to us and the world than nuclear proliferation — no greater threat. In a time when followers of a hateful and remorseless ideology are willing to destroy themselves to destroy us, the threat of suicide bombers with the means to wreak incomprehensible devastation should call the entire world to action,” he said. A McCain presidency would have the United States lead the way by pursuing new strategic arms reductions with Russia and by extending some of the verification measures of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty that is set to expire next year. “As our two countries possess the overwhelming majority of the world's nuclear weapons, we have a special responsibility, the two of us, to reduce their number,” he said. The first step would be to order a review of U.S. strategic nuclear requirements by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, followed by talks with Moscow, he said. “I will seek to reduce the size of our nuclear arsenal to the lowest possible number, consistent with our security requirements and global commitments. Today we deploy thousands of nuclear weapons. It's my hope to move as rapidly as possible to a significantly smaller force,” McCain said. “We should reduce our nuclear forces to the lowest level we judge necessary and we should be prepared to enter into a new arms control agreement with Russia reflecting the nuclear reductions that I'll seek.” “I'd also like to explore ways we and Russia can reduce and hopefully eliminate deployments of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe,” he added. McCain pledged to continue the 16-year-old U.S. moratorium on nuclear testing, but stopped short of endorsing the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty which the United States has signed but not ratified. McCain voted against approving the treaty in 1999, but promised yesterday to “keep an open mind” toward the pact. Obama has issued statements supporting the treaty’s entry into force. Aside from unilateral and bilateral efforts, McCain expressed interest in several international nonproliferation initiatives, including the negotiation of a ban on the production of fissile materials for weapons, the creation of systems to guarantee the supply of nuclear fuel to nations that forgo uranium enrichment programs, and the establishment of an international repository for spent nuclear fuel. He also expressed support for the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. institution responsible for monitoring peaceful nuclear activities around the globe. “We need to increase IAEA funding and enhance the intelligence support it receives,” he said, days after an agency commission called for a major budget increase for the nuclear watchdog. McCain cited a key Republic icon, former President Ronald Reagan, in summarizing his nuclear-weapon vision. “A quarter of a century ago, Ronald Reagan declared, ‘Our dream is to see the day when nuclear weapons will be banished from the face of the Earth.’ That is my dream too,” McCain said. “It is a distant and difficult goal, and we must proceed toward it prudently and pragmatically, and with a focused concern for our security and the security of — of our allies, who depend on us” (Greg Webb, Global Security Newswire, May 28). Obama campaign officials said McCain’s speech reflected many aspects of policies suggested earlier by the Democratic candidate. “By embracing many aspects of Barack Obama’s nonproliferation agenda today,” said spokesman Bill Burton in a statement, “John McCain highlighted Obama’s leadership on nuclear weapons throughout this campaign, and his bipartisan work with Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) in the Senate. No speech by John McCain can change the fact that he has not led on nonproliferation issues when he had the chance in the Senate” (Elizabeth Bumiller, New York Times, May 28). One nuclear expert welcomed McCain’s remarks as break from the policies of the Bush administration. “McCain's speech, while vague in several key areas, reflects the emerging bipartisan consensus in favor of renewed U.S. leadership on nuclear disarmament that is needed to win support for steps needed to shore up the beleaguered global nonproliferation system,” said Arms Control Association chief Daryl Kimball (Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, May 28).
By Elaine M. Grossman
National Journal
WASHINGTON — Back in college, Gen. James Cartwright captained the University of Iowa's diving team, a consuming athletic challenge he pursued "all year long, seven days a week, multiple times a day," he said in an interview. He also did gymnastics on the side as "a good way to build up [the strength and] coordination that was necessary for the diving." But once the prospective marine graduated in 1971, he never returned to the diving board. "If you walk away from it for a little bit of time, the ability to maintain the standard that you set for yourself is gone," the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff explained. "It becomes more of a disappointment than something that you look forward to. And so when I stopped, I stopped." Three and a half decades later, the general continues to show the same degree of personal discipline as he faces some daunting Defense Department-wide challenges. He has ascended to the U.S. military's highest ranks not through the old boy's fraternity of service academy graduates but through years of exacting performance. And, as he did with diving, Cartwright retains an uncanny ability to walk away from old commitments, without second thoughts, when he determines the time has come. So it was not all that difficult to imagine that the Marine Corps general might take a slightly different tack regarding the nation's nuclear weapons arsenal when he arrived at U.S. Strategic Command's Nebraska headquarters in July 2004. In fact, the fighter pilot's military career to that point had little to do with these Cold War weapons. Before his first year as commander of STRATCOM was up, Cartwright began publicly questioning the role of the nuclear arsenal in a way that none of his predecessors ever had. He did not go so far as to call for the elimination of nuclear weapons — as a former STRATCOM leader, Air Force Gen. George Lee Butler, did in 1996, more than two years after his retirement. But, while still in uniform, Cartwright has sufficiently broken with years of tradition to make some nuclear strategists nervous. Critics allege that the general naively ventured into an area outside his expertise and contend that he has no idea how much harm he is doing to U.S. national security. It all started in April 2005, when Cartwright said that the United States could "drastically" reduce the nearly 10,000 warheads then in its atomic weapons stockpile by substituting conventional warheads to destroy many of the targets listed in STRATCOM's secret strategic nuclear war plans. The change became possible, Cartwright said, because conventional warheads are now so precise that they could destroy many of the same targets — buildings, command bunkers, and missile silos — that previously were the sole domain of the "big-bang" nukes. A conventional weapon could now destroy 10 to 30 percent of STRATCOM's nuclear targets, one military analyst has estimated. Getting at hard-to-reach or very deeply buried, reinforced bunkers would, however, continue to demand levels of explosive energy offered solely by atomic bombs. The challenge, the general said, would be in the realm of timing — getting a conventional weapon to the target very quickly. For the most urgent targets possibly facing the United States today — perhaps a terrorist ringleader detected at a safe house in Pakistan or a North Korean nuclear-tipped missile being readied for launch — no conventional forces are likely to be on alert and within range. Nuclear-armed weapons mounted on intercontinental ballistic missiles, it turns out, are the nation's only military tools available to hit targets thousands of miles away within minutes. That didn't sit well with the strategic commander. Cartwright said he could offer the U.S. president no "credible" military tool with which to thwart today's surprise threats. The Information Age — with news and images spread around the globe in fractions of a second — magnifies the psychological power of gruesome attacks and compresses the amount of time national leaders feel they have to respond, he has said. "A nuclear weapon is still a viable part of our inventory, but ... one size does not fit all," he told a Senate Armed Services subcommittee in March 2006. "What we'd like to do is ... field a [conventional] weapon that will give us a broader and potentially more appropriate choice for the nation." With that, Cartwright became the first STRATCOM leader to actively press the Pentagon to build viable strategic alternatives to nuclear arms. These conventional missiles for a new mission called "global strike" would offer enough speed and range to hit a target anywhere in the world inside an hour of a launch order. Late last year, Congress put the brakes on the general's plans for a new conventional missile that would be based on submarines, citing the potential dangers that might arise from launching nuclear and non-nuclear weapons from the same vessel. What if a U.S. submarine launched a strategic missile and the Russians or Chinese couldn't tell if it was a nuke or a conventional warhead — what would they do? lawmakers asked. It could bring World War III. But lawmakers offered Cartwright a politically strategic win by endorsing the broad concept of "global strike." Yet some defense experts are warning, "Not so fast." Cartwright may be at the forefront of a campaign to improve intelligence-gathering, but the ability to launch precise missiles at long range has outpaced the intel sector's ability to determine exactly who or what would be on the receiving end of that prompt firepower, critics charge. The conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq have demonstrated many targeting successes by air strikes. But time and again, the U.S. military has dropped bombs or missiles on suspected enemies only to learn after the fact that allied troops or innocent civilians were the lone victims. The mistakes are painful in the short term. In the long term, they risk damaging the U.S. image and the nation's interests abroad. "That we can attack faraway targets in a matter of minutes is a reckless idea," Franklin (Chuck) Spinney, a retired Pentagon-reform advocate, said in February. "It is dependent on precise, timely intelligence, which is unlikely to occur in the real world." "If you're going to strike suddenly, ... it has to be based on very powerful, very convincing intelligence," Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, the CIA director, said last June. And, he added, "in today's world, [a strike decision] has to also wash publicly." Ironically, it is those very doubts that Cartwright uses to justify building conventionally armed, long-range missiles for quick strike. "The consequence of not having perfect intelligence with nuclear weapons is pretty significant, so you don't use them unless you are absolutely sure," Cartwright said in a February 2006 interview. "Wouldn't you like to have an option other than nuclear?" Yet some see the general's candor about the geopolitical barriers to using nuclear weapons as near-heresy. If contemplating a nuclear war is "thinking the unthinkable," Cartwright has said the unspeakable: It is hard for him to imagine a U.S. president ever ordering a nuclear strike, he said last fall, even if the weapon were limited to a mere fraction of today's atomic explosive power. "I don't want to put myself in the shoes of a president," he said, "but who is not going to take [as] incredibly serious the use of a nuclear weapon?" Any such strike "is going to change not just that country's future but all of our futures when we start using these things, big or little," he said. Cartwright has acknowledged that the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons is a national objective, as outlined clearly in the original Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, but he does not think that it could happen any time soon. "There is a nuclear deterrent that's going to be necessary out there for as long as I can see into the future," Cartwright said early this year. "But it is for those things that are the last ditch in the defense of this nation." Some critics believe, though, that by so openly questioning whether a president would exercise the nuclear option, Cartwright could embolden adversaries that remain undeterred by U.S. conventional military strength. "Any senior official who diminishes in any way the perception that the U.S. might use nuclear weapons, effectively denuclearizes us," retired Air Force Col. Tom Ehrhard, a onetime ICBM launch control officer and nuclear strategist, said in e-mailed comments. "It amounts to unilateral arms control by fiat." Cartwright's response: "I'm not leading you down a path that I can get rid of nuclear weapons." The general's approach does, however, reflect a realism rarely voiced in debates over nuclear arms. As a combatant commander leading STRATCOM, the Marine general saw it as his job "to kill targets," said a defense analyst who asked not to be identified. "For many of his predecessors, [strategic warfare] was a theoretical — not a practical — problem." Back in the real world, what military response can a strategic commander recommend to a president, Cartwright asks, once an adversary has crossed a red line? It is no longer enough to tell a rogue nation that has just attacked a U.S. ally abroad, "OK, you shot at your neighbor. I'm going to sail my armada and I'll be there in a month," the general said last October. The United States needs a tool usable in Information Age timelines, without generating a nuclear holocaust, he said. "I have a gut feel and a conviction that there is something at the end of this rainbow," Cartwright said in April 2005, just as he was beginning to formulate his concept for long-range conventional strike. Until the United States fields such a weapon, "I'm not letting anybody sleep."
The United States yesterday said it is “very troubling” that Iran is withholding information from the International Atomic Energy Agency that might clarify the nature of the Islamic state’s nuclear program, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, May 27). Following the release of a U.N. nuclear watchdog report on its investigation of Iran’s nuclear program, Washington is considering its “diplomatic next step” to pressure Tehran to abandon its disputed nuclear activities. Iran insists its nuclear program is purely civilian in nature. The IAEA report “refers to the fact that the Iranians are willfully — trying to willfully withhold information about their activities related to potential weaponization,” said U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack. “There are a number of different questions out there about the military’s involvement in this nuclear program, about Iran’s efforts to fabricate hemispheres of uranium,” he said. “And I’m not sure other than for a weapon why you would do that.” McCormack added that the report would not affect a nuclear compromise proposal that six world powers plan to present to Iran. The proposal calls for Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment program — which could produce a nuclear weapon ingredient — in exchange for a package of political and economic incentives. “The package is set,” he said (Lachlan Carmichael, Agence France-Presse I/Google News, May 27). France tentatively supported Washington’s assertion that Iran’s refusal to disclose information hints that the Middle Eastern state is hiding evidence of nuclear weapons development, Reuters reported yesterday. There are “signs of a possible military dimension” to Iran’s nuclear efforts, said French Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Pascale Andreani. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier urged NATO members meeting in Berlin to pressure Iran to better address the areas of concern. “Here, open questions remain, where we have to push for an answer with more time pressure,” Steinmeier said. He added that the ball is now in Iran’s court. “Either it is picked up there, and we’re getting reasonable answers to our questions, or the entry into talks with the aim of a diplomatic solution to the conflict is further delayed.” “The alternative would then be an increase of international pressure, also through the U.N. Security Council,” he said (Kerstin Gehmlich, Reuters, May 27). British Foreign Secretary David Miliband today also urged Iran to immediately address IAEA concerns about its nuclear work, AFP reported. “The director general of the IAEA, Dr. (Mohamed) ElBaradei, has produced another thorough report on Iran’s nuclear activities,” Miliband said in a statement. “Once again it confirms that Iran has failed to suspend enrichment-related activities, has made no progress on the transparency measures the U.N. Security Council and IAEA have long called for, and has failed to answer the IAEA’s questions relating to studies with a possible military dimension. “Dr ElBaradei says that this is a ‘matter of serious concern.’ Iran needs to provide answers immediately, and come clean about its past activities. There is no justification for further delay,” he said (Agence France-Presse II/Spacewar.com, May 28). Newly elected Iranian parliament speaker Ali Larijani said that Tehran could alter its terms of cooperation with IAEA officials due to language contained in the report, which noted remaining concerns about evidence of possible Iranian nuclear-weapon design research and warhead development. “Unfortunately, in certain parts [the agency] spoke in an ambiguous way. This was used by the media, as you have seen, in the last days. This attitude of the agency is regrettable,” the former top Iranian nuclear negotiator told lawmakers. “Parliament will not allow that such deceptions are made and if they continue along this path, the new parliament will intervene in the case and set a new line for cooperation with the IAEA” (Agence France-Presse III/Spacewar.com, May 28).
The top U.S. and North Korean nuclear negotiators met again yesterday in Beijing, the Yonhap News Agency reported (see GSN, May 27). U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill described his one-hour meeting with North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan as “very good.” The two men discussed Pyongyang’s long-overdue submission of its nuclear declaration and North Korean abduction of Japanese citizens (Yonhap News Agency, May 27). Another round of talks was scheduled for today on the declaration and what Pyongyang might receive from Washington for releasing the document, the Associated Press reported. “I hope we can get an overall time frame that I can take back to Washington,” Hill said. “There won’t be any announcement today on that, but I hope we can make some definitive progress on that so I carry that back to Washington” (Burt Herman, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, May 28). “I think we’re going to talk about the issue of how we can complete phase two, what the elements are, putting together this declaration package, and how we might go on from there,” he said (Agence France-Presse/Spacewar.com, May 28). The declaration is one component of the second phase of a 2007 agreement on shuttering North Korea’s nuclear program. North Korea is believed to possess sufficient plutonium for several weapons and has already conducted one test explosion. It was supposed to have provided the full accounting of its nuclear activities and holdings by Dec. 31, 2007. That did not occur and the Bush administration claimed that Pyongyang was unwilling to address particular parts of its nuclear program. A reported April compromise would require the Stalinist state to detail its plutonium operations while only acknowledging U.S. suspicions regarding uranium enrichment and nuclear proliferation activities. North Korea expects to be removed from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism after issuing the declaration. Upon fully dismantling its nuclear infrastructure, it would receive a host of economic, diplomatic and security concessions from China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States. Hill and Kim last met in April in Singapore, AP reported. The U.S. envoy is scheduled to meet with officials from China and Japan before leaving Thursday for Moscow, where he will hold talks with Russian officials and his counterpart from South Korea (Herman, AP). South Korean President Lee Myung-bak was also in Beijing yesterday for a meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao, Yonhap reported. The two leaders agreed on the need for strong cooperation to resolve the nuclear standoff with North Korea. Seoul’s top nuclear negotiator, Kim Sook, said he was open to a meeting with his counterpart from Pyongyang while in Beijing. “There is no plan yet for such a meeting between the two Koreas’ negotiators,” according to a South Korean Foreign Ministry official. “If the North wants it, however, we have no reason to avoid it” (Yonhap, May 28).
Indian communists delayed talks planned for today with India’s ruling political party over a proposal to open the country’s civilian nuclear sites to international inspections, a key step in implementing a nuclear trade agreement with the United States, the Times of India reported (see GSN, May 21). The tentative agreement giving New Delhi access to U.S. nuclear technology and materials has faced opposition from Indian communists, who have threatened to force early elections if the government signs the safeguards agreement or take other steps to implement the trade pact. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) and its allies delayed the talks to prevent New Delhi from finalizing the inspections arrangement with the International Atomic Energy Agency, sources said. The communists communicated the delay to the Indian administration without immediately disclosing it to the public. The communists hope to push talks on the U.S.-Indian deal into August, sources said. “By then [U.S. President George W. Bush] would be in no position to help India clinch the deal. Even in India people have given up on the deal,” one source said (see GSN, May 13). The delay could undermine negotiations with the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group, which must grant New Delhi a waiver to import nuclear fuel under the trade deal because India has not signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (Akshaya Mukul, Times of India I, May 27), Last week, Indian officials told NSG members meeting in Berlin that the U.S.-Indian deal would be implemented despite the months-old political stalemate in New Delhi (see GSN, May 19). Meanwhile, a top Australian official hinted that his government could vote to permit the NSG waiver despite its reversal of a previous administration’s decision to allow uranium sales to India. Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith recently told Indian reporters: “The Labor Party has a strong policy of not exporting uranium to any country that has not signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. We have made this clear to Indian officials that we are bound by the party policy. But if the 123 agreement is passed by the Indian Parliament, we could consider joining a consensus of the NSG and IAEA.” “We will wait for the 123 agreement between India and the U.S. to emerge and then make a judgment,” Smith said (Indrani Bagchi, Times of India II, May 27).
Former top Pakistani nuclear scientist and proliferator Abdul Qadeer Khan has received a temporary leave from house arrest to meet with his hospitalized 90-year-old brother, the Press Trust of India reported Saturday (see GSN, May 22). Khan requested to meet with Abdul Qayyum after the government recently loosened the terms of the scientist’s four-year period of confinement. Khan was likely to travel to Karachi early this week to meet with Qayyum, but the date of the trip has not been released due to security concerns. Khan would also see close friends and family members during the visit. "Dr. Khan would also meet his sister, daughter, close relatives and old friends. The government has already relaxed restrictions on Dr. Khan," the Pakistani newspaper The Nation quoted sources as saying (Press Trust of India/The Hindu, May 24).
A U.S. federal court yesterday found a 50-year-old Iranian-American engineer guilty of illegal possession of information from an Arizona nuclear power station where he had been employed, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, May 14). However, the jury could not agree on prosecutors’ claims that Mohammad Reza Alavi had stolen protected software or violated U.S. trade bans on Iran. A retrial has been scheduled for Aug. 1 on those charges. Defense attorney David Laufman said he would file a motion calling on U.S. District Judge Neil Wake to nullify the conviction. “The government failed to meet its burden of proof on the main charges in this case,” Laufman said. Prosecutors say that Alavi — a naturalized U.S. citizen who emigrated from Iran — left his job at the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station in 2006 and took a laptop to Iran containing training software with technical diagrams and other details on the power plant. Power plant representatives said the software contained no dangerous information, but prosecutors contended that Alavi knowingly violated U.S. sanctions on Iran and obtained codes from the program’s developer to access the software in Iran. “He took it for his own selfish benefit,” prosecutor David Pimsner told jury members yesterday. “He thought it would help him get a job in the nuclear industry in Iran” (Chris Kahn, Associated Press/Star Tribune, May 27).
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