Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

A Summit Scant Remembered

What the 1996 Moscow nuclear summit did was begin to meld a highly effective focus on proliferation threats within the G8. By 2002, this produced a brand new Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction, launched at the Kananaskis G8 meeting in Canada.

U.S.-India Atomic Energy Cooperation: Strategic and Nonproliferation Implications

China, Russia, and Iran

Stronger diplomatic action on Iran depends heavily on the policies of Russia and China. The actions that either country takes next should be understood in light of their threat perceptions, economic interests, and the strength of the U.S.-French-German coalition.

Iran's Long Nuclear Road

The best estimates indicate that Iran is 5-10 years away from the ability to enrich enough weapons-grade uranium for a nuclear weapon. But there are major uncertainties with these estimates. One worst-case scenario could have Iran with a nuclear bomb at the end of 2009, but that assumes that Iran does not encounter any of the technical problems that typically plague such programs.

Reports Raise Possibility of U.S. Strike on Iran

The End of Neoconservatism

If Francis Fukuyama is right, the neoconservative movement is dying. Good riddance. Through their network within the Bush administration, these intellectuals wreaked havoc on American national security interests, ruined the international reputation of the country and drove up a staggering national debt.

Cirincione: Time For Clear Public Understanding of Iranian Threat

Some in the U.S. administration have already made up their minds that they would like to launch a military strike against Iran, if the UN Security Council does not impose sanctions on Iran. This is a counterproductive move to the goal of enabling the Iranian people to choose their own government.

Fool Me Twice

Let’s Go to the Videotape

On March 20th, President George Bush said in Cleveland: “If I might correct a misperception, I don’t think we ever said, at least I know I didn’t say that there was a direct connection between September 11th and Saddam Hussein.”

To help judge the accuracy of this statement we reprint below a section from WMD in Iraq:  Evidence and Implications, by Joseph Cirincione, Jessica Mathews and George Perkovich (Carnegie Endowment, January 2004).  It begins with a selection of official statements on the connection, then examines the evidence supporting these statements before and after the invasion.  Since publication of the report the evidence that there was no operational connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq has only grown stronger.

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Administration Statements

Administration officials said that Iraq had operational ties to Al Qaeda, would give terrorists weapons of mass destruction to use against the United States, and implied that Saddam Hussein was linked to the September 11 attacks.

• “[T]here clearly are contacts between Al Qaeda and Iraq . . . there clearly is testimony that some of the contacts have been important contacts and that there’s a relationship here.” (National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, PBS “NewsHour with Jim Lehrer,” 25 September 2002)
• “Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of Al Qaeda. Secretly, and without fingerprints, he could provide one of his hidden weapons to terrorists, or help them develop their own. Before September the 11th, many in the world believed that Saddam Hussein could be contained. But chemical agents, lethal viruses and shadowy terrorist networks are not easily contained. Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans—this time armed by Saddam Hussein. It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known.” (President Bush, State of the Union, 28 January 2003)
• “Saddam Hussein has longstanding, direct and continuing ties to terrorist networks. Senior members of Iraqi intelligence and Al Qaeda have met at least eight times since the early 1990s. Iraq has sent bomb-making and document forgery experts to work with al Qaeda. Iraq has also provided Al Qaeda with chemical and biological weapons training. And an Al Qaeda operative was sent to Iraq several times in the late 1990s for help in acquiring poisons and gases. We also know that Iraq is harboring a terrorist network headed by a senior Al Qaeda terrorist planner. This network runs a poison and explosive training camp in northeast Iraq, and many of its leaders are known to be in Baghdad.” (President Bush, Radio Address, 8 February 2003) (Read More)

Resolving Iran

there is still a diplomatic opportunity that can resolve the nuclear crisis with Iran. The Iranians need a package of incentives to relinquish their nuclear program and it is really only America, and not the Europeans, that can offer Iran what it wants and needs. The time has come for a US-Iran rapprochement.

Time for a US/Iran Patch Up

Speaking to Tehran, With One Voice

With the Iranian nuclear crisis about to land in the Security Council, the events that led up to the war in Iraq point clearly to what needs to be done.

Exaggerating the Threat of Bioterrorism

The threat of bioterrorism has been greatly exaggerated. There are fewer state bioweapons programs today than 15 years ago and to date, no state is known to have assisted any nonstate or terrorist group to obtain biological weapons.

Europe Watches from the Galleries

Unlike the United States, European Union (EU) member states do not have an EU legal obstacle to surmount in order to renew nuclear trade with India. But before any EU nation embarks on trade, it will need the U.S. Congress to act.

Oh Canada!

U.S. President George Bush last week struck a deal with India that directly violates the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT, as well as several major U.S. laws, setting off waves of criticism in the states and around the world. Canadian officials have not been part of that criticism. Instead, the nation that helped India build its first nuclear weapon may now help India build dozens more.

Ashley J. Tellis on President Bush's Visit to India

Ashley J. Tellis explains the strategic logic of a U.S.-India bilateral relationship, and provides an overview of the U.S.-India nuclear agreement, including India’s civilian-military nuclear separation plan.

Nuclear Pact to Spur U.S.-India Ties

U.S. civilian nuclear cooperation with India poses a danger for the international nonproliferation framework. This deal breaks thirty years of nonproliferation policy and will directly assist India's nuclear weapons program.

The US's Nuclear Cave-In

Premature Capitulation

There are many alternatives short of war for dealing with Iran's nuclear ambitions, but the wrong compromise today will only lead us all back to the brink tomorrow.

Nuclear Cave In

Buffeted by political turmoil at home, President Bush sought a foreign affairs victory in India.  To clinch a nuclear weapons deal, the president had to give in to demands from the Indian nuclear lobby to exempt large portions of the country’s nuclear infrastructure from international inspection.  With details of the deal still under wraps, it appears that at least one-third of current and planned Indian reactors would be exempt from IAEA inspections and that the president gave into Indian demands for “Indian-specific” inspections that would fall far short of the normal, full-scope inspections originally sought. Worse, Indian officials have made clear that India alone will decide which future reactors will be kept in the military category and exempt from any safeguards.  

The deal endorses and assists India’s nuclear weapons program.  US-supplied uranium fuel would free up India’s limited uranium reserves for fuel that would be burned in these reactors to make nuclear weapons.  This would allow India to increase its production from the estimated 6 to 10 additional nuclear bombs per year to several dozen per year.  India today has enough separated plutonium for 75 to 110 nuclear weapons, though it is not known how many it has actually produced.

The Indian leaders and press are crowing about their victory over America.  For good reason:  President Bush has done what Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and his own father refused to do--break U.S. and international law to aid India’s nuclear weapons program.  In 1974, India cheated on its agreements with the United States and other nations to do what Iran is accused of doing now:  using a peaceful nuclear energy program to build a nuclear bomb.  India used plutonium produced in a Canadian-supplied reactor to detonate a bomb it then called a “peaceful nuclear device.”  In response, President Richard Nixon and Congress stiffened U.S. laws and Nixon organized the Nuclear Suppliers Group to prevent any other nation from following India’s example.  President Bush has now unilaterally shattered those guidelines and his action would violate the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty proscription against aiding another nation’s nuclear weapons program.  It would require the repeal or revision of several major U.S. laws, including the U.S. Nonproliferation Act.  Nor has he won any significant concessions from India.  India refuses to agree to end its production of nuclear weapons material, something the U.S., the UK, France, Russia and China have already done.

This is where the president is likely to run into trouble.  Republicans and Democrats in Congress are deeply concerned about the deal and the way it was crafted.  Keeping with the administration’s penchant for secrecy, the deal was cooked by a handful of senior officials (one of whom is now a lobbyist for the Indian government) and never reviewed by the Departments of State, Defense or Energy before it was announced with a champagne toast by President Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.  Congress was never consulted.  Republican committee staff say the first members heard about it was when the fax announcing the deal came into their offices.  Worse, for the president, this appears to be another give away to a foreign government at the expense of U.S. national security interests. (Read More)