Quote of the Day

When asked by South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun if he could be "clearer" on his stance to officially end the Korean War, which ended in 1953 without a formal peace treaty, President Bush responded:

I can't make it any more clear, Mr. President. We look forward to the day when we can end the Korean War. That will happen when Kim Jong Il verifiably gets rid of his weapons programs and his weapons.

Yeah. Think about it.

Congressional Schedule for DoD and DoE Bills (Updated)

With Congress having returned from summer recess this week, it's time to take a look at some of the unfinished business they'll be turning to.

Provided below is an updated schedule of Congressional action on key Department of Defense (DoD) and Department of Energy (DoE) bills, as prepared by David Culp of FCNL.


Note: These dates are estimates and subject to delay.

Nuclear Weapons Mistakenly Flown Over U.S.

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a bomber loaded with nuclear weapons flying over U.S. soil?!?

The Military Times reported yesterday that a B-52H bomber mistakenly carried five nuclear-armed Advanced Cruise Missiles (ACMs) from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana on August 30. (The Associated Press later upped this figure to six.)

The missiles, mounted onto pylons under the bomber’s wings, were being transported as a part of a Defense Department plan to decommission 400 ACMs. But the mistake wasn’t discovered until the plane landed at Barksdale, leaving them unaccounted for during the 3 ½ hour flight spanning approximately 1500 miles over multiple states.

The Air Force has since issued a statement on the incident, commenting that, “There was an error which occurred during a regularly scheduled transfer of weapons between two bases,” and that “At no time was there a threat to public safety.” It also states that they have initiated a full investigation, relieved the Munitions Squadron commander of his duties, and temporarily decertified the crews involved in loading the missiles.

Between July 1961 and January 1968, the Air Force maintained a dozen bombers loaded with nuclear weapons in the air at any time during the so-called Chrome Dome missions of Dr. Strangelove fame.

Those missions were scrapped after a B-52 carrying four thermonuclear bombs crashed on the ice off Thule Air Base in Greenland during an emergency landing. (The bombs didn’t explode, but their radioactive material was dispersed at the crash site.) The accident, which followed another crash in Spain in 1966 and several other nuclear incidents, led to the decision to ground all nuclear-armed aircraft, a policy which has stood for nearly 40 years.

For the twenty-five years that followed the Greenland incident, bombers continued to be loaded with nuclear weapons, but were kept on alert on the ground with flight crews ready to take off within minutes. The ground alert ended in September 1991 when the bombers were taken off nuclear alert and the nuclear weapons ordered to be removed from the aircraft and kept in nearby storage facilities.

But, as noted by Hans Kristensen of FAS,

Beyond the safety issue of transporting nuclear weapons in the air, the most important implication of the Minot incident is the apparent break-down of nuclear command and control for the custody of the nuclear weapons. Pilots (or anyone else) are not supposed to just fly off with nuclear bombs, and base commanders are not supposed to tell them to do so unless so ordered by higher command. In the best of circumstances the system worked, and someone “upstairs” actually authorized the transport of nuclear cruise missiles on a B-52H bomber.

He also later notes,

The really important implication is beyond the immediate: The United States is in the beginning of a transition to a deep integration of nuclear and conventional capabilities.

[snip]

If the B-52 incident tells us that the military's command and control system cannot ensure with 100% certainty which weapons are nuclear and which ones are not, imagine the implications of the wrong weapon being used in a crisis or war. "Sorry Mr. President, we thought it was conventional."

I am reminded of the introductory faux-warning of Dr. Strangelove, “It is the stated position of the U.S. Air Force that their safeguards would prevent the occurrence of such events as are depicted in this film.”

Potter and Dhanapala: The perils of non-proliferation amnesia

William C. Potter of the Monterey Institute’s Center for Nonproliferation Studies and Jayantha Dhanapala recently put out a well-placed op-ed in the influential Indian daily, The Hindu, arguing, “The India-U.S. civilian nuclear deal, if endorsed by the NSG and the U.S. Congress, will virtually ensure the demise of global nuclear export restraints.”

Potter and Dhanapala begin:

Indo-U.S. nuclear cooperation means different things to different people — a reversal of decades of U.S. non-proliferation policy, a promising new market for U.S. nuclear commerce, violation of the fundamental principles of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and the prospect of a strategic partnership among vibrant democracies.

One thing it definitely does not mean is strengthened export controls. Despite efforts by the White House to portray the deal as a plus for combating the spread of nuclear weapons, the terms of the latest round of U.S.-Indian nuclear negotiations confirm the opposite conclusion. Repeatedly outfoxed by their Indian counterparts and hindered by the political unwillingness of a lame-duck administration to walk away from the negotiations, U.S. diplomats have achieved an embarrassing accord. If endorsed by the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and the U.S. Congress, it will virtually ensure the demise of global nuclear export restraints.

Click here to the complete op-ed.

Travis Sharp and Max Postman: Pressure Pakistan over Khan

The Center’s Travis Sharp and Max Postman wrote an excellent commentary for United Press International last week, arguing that “The United States must pressure Pakistan to deal appropriately with A.Q. Khan, the Pakistani nuclear scientist and weapons smuggler former CIA Director George Tenet labeled at least as dangerous as Osama Bin Laden.”

Sharp and Postman explain:

The United States has been reluctant to rock the boat over Khan these past few years, refraining from criticizing Musharraf for fear of alienating a key ally against terrorism. But now, alarmed by the clustering of terrorist camps in Pakistan's tribal areas and frustrated by ongoing nuclear disputes with Khan customers like Iran and North Korea, some American officials are starting to voice their displeasure over Khan's legal limbo.

[snip]

American officials' dissatisfaction is well-founded. Unraveling and preventing nuclear smuggling operations allows the international community to halt the process through which hostile nations and terrorists might acquire the bomb. The ineffective punishment handed down to Khan continues to be a burr in the saddle of the international nuclear non-proliferation regime for several key reasons.

First, Pakistan's unwillingness to provide other countries access to Khan limits the vital intelligence that can be extracted from him. Unless Pakistan vigorously interrogates Khan or allows other countries to question him, much of his nuclear network will remain unidentified and undocumented.

Second, Khan's punishment -- or lack thereof -- signals that future nuclear perpetrators will get off scot-free. Earlier this year a maintenance worker at a nuclear cleanup site in Tennessee was arrested for attempting to sell centrifuge components to an undercover agent posing as a French official. Wherever there is nuclear technology, there is the risk that someone will attempt to proliferate for profit, but the Khan saga has done little to deter would-be smugglers.

Third, nuclear proliferators like Khan could enable terrorists like bin Laden to carry out their ultimate ambition: detonating a nuclear device in an American city, a tactic the National Intelligence Council recently declared a resurgent al-Qaida "would not hesitate to use." The less capable the United States appears at apprehending nuclear proliferators, the more terrorist groups will see nuclear weapons as acquirable and worth pursing.

Sharp and Postman conclude:

With Musharraf vulnerable and looking for support, now is the time for U.S. officials to ask for access to Khan and a clarification and strengthening of his murky legal status. Agreement on dealing with Khan would be a good first step toward negotiating the thornier issue of eliminating terrorist encampments in Pakistan's tribal areas, an issue that will figure prominently in U.S.-Pakistani relations regardless of whether Musharraf, Bhutto, Sharif or some combination of the three is leading Pakistan.

B is for Bomb

Click below to watch "B is for Bomb," winner of last year's Cannes Online Competition. Directed by Carey Schonegevel McKenzie of "Original Child Bomb" acclaim, the short film is a child's alphabetical listing of the history of the Atomic Age and the hazards of nuclear weapons.

President Bush Cites Iran’s Nuclear Program as a Reason for Not Leaving Iraq

I normally leave Iraq to Travis Sharp’s Iraq Insider and Iran to Carah Ong’s Iran Nuclear Watch, and instead focus on nuclear weapons and nonproliferation issues, but wanted to make note of an important development involving the explicit connection of all three.

In case you missed it, President Bush commented earlier this week that, according to the New York Times, an American withdrawal from Iraq would embolden a belligerent Iran, whose nuclear program threatens to put “a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust.” (That Bush chose to use the evocative phrase “nuclear holocaust” provides interesting insight into his thinking.)

Bush’s comments suggest that Iran’s nuclear program is next in the ever growing and evolving list of reasons given to justify the invasion and continued military presence in Iraq, which includes (nonexistent) weapons of mass destruction, toppling a repressive dictator, spreading democracy and human rights, combating al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, preventing regional instability, etc.

A likely reason for adding Iran’s nuclear program to the list is that it evokes a great deal of concern among the American people, with a recent poll showing that 63% of Americans view Iran’s influence as mostly negative and other polls indicating deep skepticism over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions and intentions. Similar apprehension also exists across both parties in Congress, although there is significant disagreement as to how to contain Iran’s nuclear program.

By piggybacking on this concern, it seems that the Bush administration hopes to increase support for its efforts in Iraq among a public and Congress weary of war but also frightened of a nuclear armed Iran. Whether this approach will actually work is another story.

Steve Andreasen: New Nuclear Weapons Policy Needed

My hometown newspaper, the Star Tribune, published an interesting op-ed by Steve Andreasen this week, in which he argues that the presidential candidates should articulate a new policy that emphasizes nuclear weapons solely as deterrence. While Andreasen’s proposed policy change would rightfully rule out first-use of nuclear weapons, he could have gone further in calling for their abolition, as William Hartung recently advocated.

Andreasen writes:

Historically, America has maintained a policy of "strategic ambiguity," refusing to rule out a nuclear first strike. Richardson's statement aside, the early salvos in the 2008 campaign suggest that by next summer, there will be little divergence from this norm. … But this is one instance where the seemingly safest political course may be far divorced from today's reality and counterproductive to America's long-term security interest in reversing reliance on nuclear weapons around the globe.

Andreasen argues that, “it is hard to define a credible scenario for the first use of American nuclear arms” and that “it is also hard to see how the threat of nuclear first use would play any discernible role in deterring a committed terrorist.”

Additionally, “the first use of nuclear weapons by the United States in the 21st century would inevitably lower the global nuclear threshold,” potentially opening the door for a devastating attack against the U.S.

And lastly, “the possibility of nuclear arms in the hands of more nations in volatile regions of the globe raises the possibility of another costly preemptive U.S. military strike or competition with a nuclear-armed adversary.”

Andreasen concludes, “For these reasons, America's national interest would be best served by advancing the proposition that nuclear weapons are legitimate in only one role: preventing their use.” This may be a difficult task during a presidential campaign, but “a candidate who can articulate a new policy designed to make the use of any nuclear weapon even more remote might hit a welcome note with the American people.”