A Christmas Present for Thanksgiving

Throughout its first term, while calling the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction the #1 security threat to the United States, the Bush administration has pushed hard to develop new and modified nuclear weapons, causing many in the international community to question US commitment to nonproliferation and giving dangerous regimes the political cover to advance their own nuclear programs. This year, the administration requested funding for a number of initiatives:

• the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (a "bunker buster" weapon)
• Advanced Concepts (R&D on new or modified weapons designs)
• a Modern Pit Facility (to churn out, in Sorcerer's Apprentice fashion, thousands of new plutonium "pits" for nuclear weapons)
• and Enhanced Test Readiness (to shorten the time needed to prepare for a nuclear test, if ordered).

Not that these requests are out of line for this administration, which over the last four years has formulated and put in place a number of dangerous precedents that keep the saliency of US nuclear weapons high:

• the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review
• the refusal to consider ratification of the CTBT
• an emphasis on counterproliferation rather than disarmament
• a preference for non-destructive and reversible agreements such as the Moscow Treaty
• a widening of nuclear doctrine to consider nuclear strikes against non-nuclear targets
  

However, an interesting thing happened on the way to the bomb factory. Congress zeroed out all funding for new nukes. Let me say that again: the Republican-controlled Congress acted and chose to refuse to fund the Bush administration's requests for new nuclear weapons work. It's an astonishing act of independence and sanity.

By rebuking the Bush funding requests, Congress sends a clear message that nonproliferation, not a new arms race, is the path toward greater security. In all likelihood, President Bush will renew his funding requests next year, as the Bush administration does not easily admit its mistakes. But even a Republican-controlled Congress swears no loyalty oath to President Bush
or his funding requests. And on the eve of Thanksgiving here in the United States, that, along with these spending cuts, is something to be thankful for.

Here are the figures, for those of you keeping score:

Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator
Administration request: $27.6 million
Congressional funding: $0

Advanced Concepts
Admin request: $9 million
Congressional funding: $0
(shifted to "Reliable Replacement Warhead" program, a "program to improve the reliability, longevity and certifiability of existing weapons and their components.")

Modern Pit Facility
Admin request: $29 million
Congressional funding: $7 million
(and the Department of Energy was barred from using any funds to select a new construction site)

Enhanced test readiness
Admin request: $30 million
Congressional funding: $0

When your only tool is a hammer...

Richard Perle, a former assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration, former chair of the Defense Policy Board, and leading neo-conservative thinker advising the Bush administration had this to say last night on the News Hour with Jim Lehrer regarding Colin Powell's departure:

"It was his fate to be the nation's top diplomat at a time when some of the urgent problems we faced could not be dealt with by diplomatic means."

Let's see, what were some of those urgent problems?

Iraq? No, it turns out they had no weapons of mass destruction and that sanctions had been effective in containing Saddam.

Iran? Well, it seems the approach was to ignore the real nuclear program Iran has been working on for the last four years, which has only been ramped up since the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

North Korea? See the comments on Iran directly above.

Darfur? Aha! THERE'S a place where there's been all talk and no action. So this is what Perle's referring to...

So what does this mean for the presumptive Powell replacement, Dr. Condoleezza Rice, and her role for the next four years? Maybe she should start scheduling her tee times now.

Speaking of Dr. Rice, back before she was part of the Bush administration, she was, among other things, a board member of a DC international security think tank, the Henry L. Stimson Center, whose motto is "Taking pragmatic steps toward ideal objectives." Curiously, they seem a bit more nuanced than most of the Bush administration's foreign policies. Maybe while Dr. Rice is filling her dance card, she can ponder other options for US international security, should she ever have the opportunity to present them.

A special dinner for a special relationship

UK Prime Minister Tony Blair is likely prepping for dinner with President George Bush at the White House as I type this blog entry. I will assume, safely I'll guess, that Mr. Blair will not have the chance to peruse this BASIC blog before he's off for an all-American feast. But aside from Iraq and the Middle East peace process--which understandably has center stage with the death of Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat--here are some issues I would like to be discussed between the two leaders, particularly impacting the US-UK "special relationship."

Iran
The United Kingdom has been negotiating, along with France and Germany, a deal to convince Iran that pursuing an indigenous nuclear program is not in its interests. All sides are posturing, with Iran threatening to pull out of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Europeans claiming a deal is nearly reached, and the United States considering bringing the issue to the UN Security Council regardless of what happens. November 25th, in just a few short weeks, is D-Day (or I-Day?), when the IAEA meets to decide the progress of Iran, whether it is meeting its nonproliferation obligations, and whether more stringent measures should be taken.

The U.K. pulls a lot of weight in this situation, and Mr. Blair has an opportunity to take the lead in a difficult issue that has not received enough attention in the last four years. With options constrained on many sides, I hope that Mr. Blair will be willing to present options which are stringent, but fair.

Nuclear Weapons
Earlier this year, the US and UK updated an important but not often discussed document tying together the strategic interests of the United States and the United Kingdom: the US-UK Mutual Defense Agreement, as it is commonly called. Among other things, the MDA establishes close cooperation between the two countries on nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons delivery issues. Dating back to 1958, this agreement looks all the more contentious now, when nuclear non-proliferation is the hot topic, the United States is accusing several other countries of not living up to their NPT commitments, and the US has gone to war under the guise of stopping WMD in Iraq. Moreover, as soon as next year, the UK could begin internal discussions on the future of their nuclear weapons, which now all reside on UK Trident submarines. Any upgrading and modernization will be done with US assistance, further demarking the line between the nuclear haves and have-nots. More information on the US-UK MDA can be found here.

Mr. Blair could take the upper hand and begin to discuss practical means by which nuclear weapons could take a reduced role in US-UK and US-NATO security strategy, rather than press for the continuance of a policy out of step with the security realities of the 21st century.

2005 NPT Review Conference
Next spring, the NPT Review Conference in New York will meet at a time when many believe the Treaty is under dire strain and in danger of collapse. The central debate has focused on whether all states are meeting their nonproliferation obligations on one hand, and whether the nuclear-weapon states (most notably the United States) is meeting its disarmament obligations on the other. Meanwhile, the set of outlying states grows, with no solutions in sight, as India, Pakistan, and Israel are known or assumed to have nuclear weapons arsenals yet remain outside of the NPT, and other states such as Iran, North Korea, and Brazil skirt around the permissable edges. Whether the NPT can withstand the forces that threaten to pull it apart or at least render it dead in the water remains very much to be seen.

Mr. Blair again has the opportunity to bridge the gap between the US stance and that of nearly every other state in the NPT. While the UK has always been a staunch ally at the NPT conferences, there is no more pressing time to assert the leverage gained by being that staunch ally than now.

Missile Defense
The UK has already signed agreements with the US allowing the radars in North Yorkshire, UK, at Fylingdales AFB to be upgraded, for use in the US missile defense system now being "deployed" with interceptors in Alaska and California. The Fylingdales radars are seen as a critical part of the eyes of the system when it is expanded--potentially in the near future--to have added potential capability against Middle East ballistic missile launches (i.e., from Iran).

More contentious, though, is the recent revelation that, along with agreements on radar sites (also including the nearby Menwith Hill), the US and UK signed agreements that would open the door to basing missile interceptors on UK soil. This would be a major strategic advancement in US missile defense efforts, and one which has not received adequate attention, debate, or vetting on either side of the Atlantic. Mr. Blair should express caution on the speed and steps of this potential undertaking, and ensure that a full and thorough conversation can be held on the topic, within the US Congress and UK Parliament, as well as among the public constituencies.

It's natural that President Bush's first meeting after the election should be with our close ally Mr. Blair. And it's natural for them to focus on the topics staring them in the eyes--Iraq and the death of Mr. Arafat. But these other issues will push themselves to the fore whether the US and UK are ready for them or not sooner rather than later, and they will not wait another four years.

Better put on some strong coffee, it's going to be a late night.

Must the past be prologue?

I can't believe it needs to be said again, but here goes:

1) Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction and did not pose a threat to the United States, its allies, or Iraq's neighbors prior to the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, vilified and scorned by the US administration for his handling of IAEA inspections in Iraq and elsewhere around the globe, had this to say at a recent Stanford conference:

“It is true that the record and mode of behavior of [former Iraqi President] Saddam Hussein’s regime did not inspire much confidence; but it is also true that we had not seen any clear and present danger involving weapons of mass destruction, after months of intrusive inspection,” ElBaradei said.

2) The lesson of Iraq is that international sanctions and inspections worked.

Here's ElBaradei again: "The nuclear inspection process — while requiring time and patience — can be effective even when the country under inspection is providing less than active cooperation. When international inspectors are provided adequate authority, aided by all available information, backed by a credible compliance mechanism, and supported by international consensus, the verification system works.”

To look backwards, it is both easy and tragic to say that the US administration was wrong on its stated driving rationale for invading Iraq, which has led to the deaths--so far--of over 1,100 US military personnel and at least tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians, an ongoing insurgency more than a year after the "Mission Accomplished" photo op, and increased hatred and determination on the part of terrorist organizations throughout the world.

But does looking forward seem any better?

Iran is facing a showdown with the international community, which is likely to come to a head during the IAEA Board of Directors meeting starting later this month on the 27th. While elBaradei continues to exhort Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions of a complete fuel cycle, Britain, France, and Germany are working with Iran to come to an agreement ahead of the IAEA meeting. But the US administration is doubtful, regardless of what the IAEA advises, and is likely to push to have the matter taken up by the United Nations Security Council. However, regardless of US public opinion, it is the IAEA and elBaradei who have the cache of credibility and the US administration that must prove that it is not crying wolf--again.

(Many thanks to today's NTI's Global Security Newswire, from which I have cribbed ElBaradei's remarks.)

Now he tells us

Thomas Christie, the Pentagon's Director of Operational Testing, who has always defended--sometimes staunchly--US missile defense plans, yesterday announced in a Bloomberg.com article by Tony Cappacio that the GMD (the ground-based midcourse defense system with its main interceptors based in Alaska) system must pass two flight tests in the next three months before it's deemed reliable.

This comes after months, if not years, of critics, both in and out of government stating over and over that the path the Pentagon has taken has eschewed rigorous testing and replaced it with a faith-based approach. The last intercept test occured a week before President Bush announced the deployment decision back in 2002. And it failed. Since then, there have been zero intercept tests.

As recently as in Congressional testimony last year, Christie announced his confidence in the missile defense deployment decision and has shrugged off concerns over the decimated testing schedule, stating that he had high confidence in the effectiveness of the system. Now that it comes down to it, though, now--he wants proof.

What was Governor Bush's only foreign policy plank in his platform in 2000? Deploying missile defense.

After years of opportunities, when does President Bush's top missile defense overseer first announce any concerns over the deployment? Election day, 2004.

God bless America.