Proliferation
News: 15 March 2005
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
For past stories and further proliferation resources, visit:
www.CarnegieEndowment.org/npp
Tuesday, March 15
Pakistan has developed new illicit channels to upgrade its nuclear
weapons programme, despite efforts by the U.N. atomic watchdog to shut
down all illegal procurement avenues, diplomats and nuclear experts
said.
Western diplomats familiar with an investigation of the nuclear black
market by the U.N.'s Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) said this news was disturbing.
While Pakistan appeared to be shopping for its own needs, the existence
of some nuclear black market channels meant there were still ways for
rogue states or terrorist groups to acquire technology that could be
used in atomic weapons, they said.
Tuesday, March 15
Behind President Bush's recent shift in dealing with Iran's nuclear
program lies a less visible goal: to rewrite, in effect, the main
treaty governing the spread of nuclear technology, without actually
renegotiating it.
In their public statements and background briefings in recent days, Mr.
Bush's aides have acknowledged that Iran appears to have the right - on
paper, at least - to enrich uranium to produce electric power. But Mr.
Bush has managed to convince his reluctant European allies that the
only acceptable outcome of their negotiations with Iran is that it must
give up that right.
In what amounts to a reinterpretation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation
Treaty, Mr. Bush now argues that there is a new class of nations that
simply cannot be trusted with the technology to produce nuclear
material even if the treaty itself makes no such distinction.
Monday, March 14
Iran's rejection of new US incentives to urge the Islamic republic to
halt its nuclear ambitions could not have been on more prominent
display. The US offer - to drop objections to Iran's entry into the
World Trade Organization and permit it to purchase spare aircraft parts
if it freezes its nuclear program - marks the first significant policy
change toward Iran since President Bush labeled it part of an "axis of
evil" in January 2002. But Iran dismisses the offer as "insignificant"
and says the price will be much higher to get it to give up nuclear
technology that it legally has a right to pursue under the nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
" The question is: How much of that [Iran rejection] is negotiating in
the bazaar, and how much of that is true?" asks Joseph Cirincione, head
of the nonproliferation program at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace in Washington, who returned last week from a
nuclear conference in Tehran that included a visit to an Iranian
conversion facility at Isfahan.
He says that, while there needs to be give and take on both sides,
"That is exactly what many in the administration don't want to do - for
some, the whole point is to overthrow the regime," he says. "So you
really have a problem: The radicals in Tehran and Washington have the
ability to torpedo any negotiations, by insisting on the right to
enrich uranium on one hand, and insisting on the right to overthrow the
government on the other."
Friday, March 11
The United States and the European Union have launched a coordinated
effort to pressure Iran to give up its nuclear program. Iran insists it
is developing nuclear power for energy purposes only, but many nations
fear Iran is working to build nuclear weapons. NPR's Madeleine Brand
discusses the latest developments in that effort with Joseph Cirincione
of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Sunday, March 13
In the weeks after Baghdad fell in April 2003, looters systematically
dismantled and removed tons of machinery from Saddam Hussein's most
important weapons installations, including some with high-precision
equipment capable of making parts for nuclear arms, a senior Iraqi
official said this week in the government's first extensive comments on
the looting.
The Iraqi official, Sami al-Araji, the deputy minister of industry,
said it appeared that a highly organized operation had pinpointed
specific plants in search of valuable equipment, some of which could be
used for both military and civilian applications, and carted the
machinery away.
Dr. Araji said his account was based largely on observations by
government employees and officials who either worked at the sites or
lived near them.
