AIR DEFENSE BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENSE CIVIL DEFENSE
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AIR DEFENSE BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENSE CIVIL DEFENSE |
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FOURTH QUARTER ASDA NEWSLETTER 2009
AMERICAN STRATEGIC DEFENSE ASSOCIATION Volume 39, Number 4 Jerry Strope, Editor Fourth Quarter 2009 Official planning guidance for defense against terrorist nuclear attack was published in January 2009. Bill Cumming drew my attention to it in July but the darn thing was 91 pages to download so I read the table of contents and dithered. In late August Carl Siebentritt sent me an irate e-mail alleging that the guidance used nothing from our civil defense research of the 60s and 70s. I printed out the guidance and read it. It was the worst guidance I had ever read. I was shocked initially and then I realized that the guidance was the product of a committee of federal employees, none of which knew anything about the subject and had consulted no one who did. As those of you who have visited the ASDA internet site know, I have produced a study paper on the problem of surviving a terrorist nuclear attack. You will find it on the Commentaries page. Planning guidance was the last thing I was thinking of when I wrote that paper but as I compared the two I came to the conclusion mine better served the purpose. The second page of the infamous Planning Guidance invites comments to the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the President. Accordingly, I prepared my comments, shared them with knowledgeable ASDAites who toned them down a bit, and sent them off. You may read them in the Commentaries. There has been nothing back from the Executive Office. All of the above reminds me of fantasy football in that it is not of the real world. To implement any plan to save lives from the effects of a terrorist nuclear explosion will require a large number of high-range radiation survey meters in the hands of police and fire services. These instruments don’t exist and Carl Siebentritt tells me they aren’t made any more. The police and fire services have been provided low-range instruments that are of little use after a nuclear explosion. This was not always the case. During the Cold War, we had a nationwide radiological defense system with thousands of high-range instruments, In the 1990s, the threat vanished with the Soviet Union and the civil defense system was defunded and destroyed. Today, 36 States have high-range radiation detection instruments because they are near nuclear power plants. However, the instruments and trained personnel are in the vicinity of the nuclear reactors and not in the cities that might be involved in a terrorist nuclear explosion. Thus my study as well as the infamous Planning Guidance cannot be implemented. Here is a link to the full Planning - Guidance Review: http://www.afrri.usuhs.mil/outreach/pdf/planning-guidance.pdf START has come to an end. The 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty between the US and Russia expired at midnight on December 4, 2009. Negotiators are still working on the successor treaty but Washington and Moscow have agreed to continue observing inspection terms of the expired treaty for the time being. Preparation of what is now being referred to as ‘the new START’ is complicated in a number of ways, such as the existence of a second arms treaty often called ‘the 2002 Moscow treaty’ that is very much alive. In 2002, George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin inked a treaty that committed the two nations to reduce deployed intercontinental warheads to 2,200 on each side by the year 2012. This past July, Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev agreed to reduce their nations’ respective deployed warheads to between 1,500 and 1,625 under the forthcoming treaty in lieu of the targets of the 2002 Moscow treaty. They also agreed to limit strategic delivery vehicles on each side to between 500 and 1,100. Revising the verification protocol of the 18-year-old START is also complicated. National Security Advisor James Jones went to Moscow at the end of October to help resolve some of these difficulties. The most senior official he dealt with was Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. “The old treaty was negotiated in the absence of mutual trust and under the Cold War”, Lavrov told reporters. “Now, we with the United States have unambiguously stated that we no longer view each other as enemies. Therefore, I think the regime of controls under the old agreement will be simplified and subsequently less costly.” One should also note the Russian emphasis on cost. Their economy can no longer afford their rocket force. In the previous paragraph, a range of numbers are given for warheads and delivery vehicles in the new START. The higher number is the US proposal and the lower number is that of the Russians. At the same time, the Russian conventional forces are ragged and rusty. So the leadership may regard its nuclear threat as its defense—against NATO? Would you believe 10 more uranium enrichment facilities in Iran? When we left September in the last newsletter the Obama administration and its allies in the UN Security Council were reeling from the discovery of a second uranium enrichment plant being built near Qum in Iran. Moreover, a negotiating session with Iran in Geneva was scheduled on October 1. Iran had announced it would not discuss the Qum facility at Geneva as it was in the process of reporting the matter to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s watchdog agency. So, the once-secret Qum plant was discussed only in the hallways. The media did report that US Undersecretary of State William Burns “discussed matters” with Iran’s top negotiator Saeed Jalili during mid-day break. But the real news was, according to the next-day Wall Street Journal, Iran signaled willingness to send much of its low-enriched uranium stockpile to France and Russia for further refinement. Once enriched to a level still unsuitable for weapons, the uranium would be returned to Iran to fuel a small research reactor in Tehran. According to The New York Times, a high-level US official said that reducing Iran’s uranium holdings would be “a confidence-building measure to alleviate tensions and buy us some diplomatic space.” It was not clear where this proposal came from. It was referred to as “the UN proposal” and tied to IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei in mid-November. By that time we had learned a number of facts from the media reports of the negotiations. For example, Iran was alleged to have a stockpile of 1,500 kilograms of “low-enriched” uranium. Low enrichment meant 5 percent U-235 to be used in a power reactor—except that one report mentioned that it was 3.5 percent. The medical research reactor in Tehran uses 19.7 percent fuel, according to an Iranian diplomat. Weapon-grade uranium is over 90 percent U-235. The deal was that Iran would send a substantial portion of its stockpile to Russia, where it would be enriched to 19.7 percent and returned as fuel for the research reactor. Got it? The UN thought Iran ought to send 1,200 kilograms to Russia. The Iranians thought they ought to keep 1,100 kilograms in the stockpile. This difference occupied the negotiators for most of two months until Iran said forget it, we will do the enrichment ourselves. The problem is that Iran isn’t very good at uranium enrichment. They have been working at it for eight years at the Natanz facility to get raw uranium with less than one percent U-235 up to 5 percent (or is it 3.5 percent.) The now-disclosed facility at Qum is two years away from being operational. Iran needed to make its threat to engage in higher enrichment more credible. Accordingly, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mottaki announced on November 18 “We will definitely not send out our 3.5 percent (!) enriched uranium.” Ten days later, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced his country plans to build 10 new uranium enrichment facilities, with work starting on at least five sites within two months. “Iran’s power demands will burgeon over the next 15 years,” he said. Tehran’s pursuit of the new enrichment goal, 19.7 percent U-235, “would be yet another serious violation of Iran’s clear obligations under multiple UN Security Council resolutions and another example of Iran choosing to isolate itself” lamented White House spokesman Robert Gibbs. Iran is “hyping” its ability to expand its enrichment capacity, David Albright, head of the Institute for Science and International Security, told The New York Times. “They couldn’t build that number of centrifuges. They don’t have the infrastructure.” Iran announced the new enrichment goal after the IAEA’s governing board had passed a resolution, backed by Russia, China and 23 other members of the board, that called on Iran to halt work on the unfinished site and to verify that no other clandestine enrichment facilities are under construction. “We will not implement any word of it because this is a politically motivated gesture against the Iranian nation,” said Ali Asghar Soltanich, Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA. Stephen Bosworth visits Pyongyang. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao met with Kim Jung Il on October 4 in Pyongyang. He told Kim that Washington is open to a bilateral discussion but only in the context of the six-party talks. The multinational talks stalled last December and the North formally withdrew from them in April following international criticism of a North Korean rocket launch widely believed to be a long-range missile test. Pyongyang has since tested its second nuclear device and numerous missile tests. Kim told Premier Wen he was ready to return to the six-party talks but only after direct talks with the US. On October 24, US special representative Sung Kim met informally with North Korea’s Ri Gun in New York City where Ri was attending a conference. During the meeting, Ri agreed with two of the three demands set by the Obama administration as preconditions to bilateral talks. Condition 1 was only two formal direct meetings before Kim’s return to the six-nation talks. Condition 2 was US senior diplomat Stephen Bosworth to meet with NK’s First Vice Foreign Minister Kang Sok Ju in Pyongyang. Condition 3, not agreed to, was for NK to honor its 2005 agreement to abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs. President Obama approved the sending of Stephen Bosworth to Pyongyang on November 4. Bosworth traveled to North Korea on December 8. He stayed there three days during which he met with the First Vice Forign Minister but not with Kim Jong Il. Upon leaving, Bosworth said the talks were “candid and businesslike.” In a media briefing in Washington, he said that NK officials “agreed the subject of a uranium enrichment program is now on the agenda.” Heretofore, Pyongyang has denied having any such program. Sound familiar?
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