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Many well-meaning political figures have made the mistake that Senator James Inhofe made on Meet the Press on August 18: "Our intelligence system has said that we know that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction -- I believe including nuclear.
The Iraqis focused their efforts on developing an implosion-type weapon, whose basic design involves surrounding a subcritical mass, or core, of fissile material (in this case, highly enriched uranium) with conventional high-explosive charges. The charges are uniformly detonated to compress the nuclear material into a supercritical configuration. Iraq's weaponization program was in its early stages at the time of the Gulf War. In spite of making progress in the high-explosive testing program, Iraqi scientists were still struggling to master the high-explosive charges that must be precisely fabricated in order to produce homogeneous shock waves against the core after ignition.
Iraq ratified the Non-Proliferation Treaty on October 29, 1969, pledging not to manufacture nuclear weapons and agreeing to place all its nuclear materials and facilities under IAEA safeguards. Iraq violated its NPT obligations, however, by secretly pursuing a multi-billion-dollar nuclear weapon program. Iraq's near-term potential to develop nuclear weapons has been curtailed by the implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 687, adopted in April 1991, following Iraq's defeat in the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
On August 1, the Senate agreed to an amendment proposed by Senator Richard Lugar that would allow the Bush administration to waive congressional requirements so that the Department of Defense could resume funding construction of a chemical weapons destruction facility at Shchuchye, Russia. Congress requires that administrations annually certify that Russia has complied with its chemical weapon treaty responsibilities in order for CW elimination funds to be expended.
As the Senate Foreign Relations Committee begins two days of hearings on Iraq on July 31, it is useful to review what we know and what we don't know about Saddam's efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Baghdad's pursuit of WMD and its refusal to permit UN weapon inspectors to carry out their Security Council mandate is a critical issue as Washington debates possible military action against Saddam Hussein. Weapons inspectors were able to destroy more facilities, missiles and weapons after the Gulf War than the allied military during the actual military operation.
Drawing China into the nuclear and missile non-proliferation regimes has been a long-term process. Since opening a dialogue with China in the early 1970s, the United States has used a range of positive incentives and disincentives to encourage China to sign on to the various unilateral and multi-lateral commitments that make up the international non-proliferation regime. During the 1980s and 1990s, China's nuclear-related exports, particularly to Pakistan, were of major international proliferation concern. China, however, made notable strides in the 1990s by joining formal arms control and non-proliferation regimes.
The Bush administration had three security priorities with regards to Russia when it assumed office: withdraw from the ABM Treaty, pursue its vision of nuclear arms reduction, and stop Russian assistance to Iran's nuclear and missile programs. Having achieved the first two, the Administration is poised to turn its attention to the issue of Russian assistance to Iran's nuclear weapon and long-range ballistic missile programs. Secretary of State Powell noted as much during his July 9 testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, stating that the issue of Iran would be at the top of the agenda when Powell and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld met with their Russian counterparts in September as part of the newly established four party group.
President Bush and his administration opposed negotiating a binding arms control agreement to limit nuclear force. President Putin wanted a legally binding document. Each side got what they wanted with the Treaty of Moscow; a legally binding document that fails to control or reduce anything.
President Bush and the other G-7 countries have agreed to spend up to $20 billion over the next 10 years to fund a new "global partnership for the destruction of weapons of mass destruction." The funds will help Russia better control and eliminate its vast stocks of nuclear materials, as well as chemical weapons and biological weapon agents. The pledge is a major step forward, especially for Europe, Japan and Canada, whose support for threat reduction efforts in Russia have not come any where near to matching the $5 billion contribution made by the U.S. since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Many national security experts, including this one, warned that if the United States withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty there would be an international storm of protest. On June 13, President Bush withdrew from the treaty, and the world went on without a hiccup. There is concern but no outrage. The United States and Russia have just negotiated a new treaty continuing reductions in long-range nuclear weapons but without any limits on future missile defense systems. Relations with Russia have never been better. Is this a complete vindication of the president's policies, as White House officials claim?
If Putin and Bush are able to drive forward on the agenda that they have set for themselves, then we will truly enter a new period of U.S.-Russian partnership. If they do not, then the relationship will drift, and we'll be left with the worst of all worlds -- informality without progress, casual friendship without results.
The arrest and detention of alleged dirty bomber Abdullah Al Mujahir sent waves of shock throughout the country. The threat posed by the possible use of a radiological dispersal device remains serious, and a threat for which the United States government and its people are not adequately prepared. In the days since Attorney General Ashcroft's dramatic announcement, however, it is less clear how direct the link is between Al Mujahir and the possible use of a radioactive device. If the Justice Department has exaggerated the nature of the link between the suspect and a dirty bomb, then it needs to re-calibrate its tone and approach.
Introduction by Carnegie President Jessica T. Mathews.
There is great uncertainty over the number, location and operational status of the nuclear weapons held by India and Pakistan. The project has prepared a short overview of the two nations' nuclear capabilities drawn from extensive analysis from the latest Carnegie study, Deadly Arsenals: Tracking Weapons of Mass Destruction.
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Acton holds the Jessica T. Mathews Chair and is co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Fiona Cunningham is a nonresident scholar in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and was a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow in 2020-21.
Dalton is the co-director and a senior fellow of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment. An expert on nonproliferation and nuclear energy, his work addresses regional security challenges and the evolution of the global nuclear order.
Rose Gottemoeller is a nonresident senior fellow in Carnegie’s Nuclear Policy Program. She also serves as the Frank E. and Arthur W. Payne Distinguished Lecturer at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution.
Hibbs is a Germany-based nonresident senior fellow in Carnegie’s Nuclear Policy Program. His areas of expertise are nuclear verification and safeguards, multilateral nuclear trade policy, international nuclear cooperation, and nonproliferation arrangements.
Kassenova is a nonresident fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment.
Ulrich Kühn is a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the head of the arms control and emerging technologies program at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg.
Jamie Kwong is the Stanton pre-doctoral fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Levite was the principal deputy director general for policy at the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission from 2002 to 2007.
Thomas MacDonald is a fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Vipin Narang is a nonresident scholar in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Ankit Panda is the Stanton Senior Fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Perkovich works primarily on nuclear strategy and nonproliferation issues; cyberconflict; and new approaches to international public-private management of strategic technologies.
Ülgen is a visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe in Brussels, where his research focuses on Turkish foreign policy, nuclear policy, cyberpolicy, and transatlantic relations.
Tristan Volpe is a nonresident fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and assistant professor of defense analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School.
Fumihiko Yoshida is a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Tong Zhao is a senior fellow in Carnegie’s Nuclear Policy Program.
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