On the Second Anniversary of Obama's Prague Speech

Today's top nuclear policy stories, with excerpts in bullet form.

Stories we're following today - Tuesday, April 5, 2011:

PROMISES, PROMISES: Obama's Mixed Results on Nukes - The Associated Press 

• On April 5, 2009, America's new president stood at the gates of Prague castle in front of 20,000 Czechs waving flags and offered what would be a defining moment of his presidency: a pledge to seek a world without nuclear weapons. He outlined specific steps to reach that goal.
• Two years later, President Barack Obama has delivered on some of his promises, while other goals appear stalled. Here's a look at the progress:
• The New START treaty was signed a year after the speech. After a rough road in the Senate, it was ratified by the U.S. in December and then by the Russian Duma in January.
• Obama is seeking another treaty with Russia that would make further reductions in deployed warheads as well as in shorter range and non-deployed weapons not covered by New START. But discord on U.S. missile defense plans in Europe stands in the way.
• Meantime, the administration is looking for other ways to cut its arsenal. A senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, confirmed that the U.S. is considering these cuts independent of negotiations with Russia.
• The administration has pushed in a United Nations forum for a ban on production of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium. But negotiations have by stalled by Pakistan and other countries. The administration has threatened to negotiate a deal without the countries currently standing in the way.
• Last year, Obama hosted 47 countries at a nuclear security summit that sought to win commitments to secure nuclear material. A soon-to-be published report by the Arms Control Association and the Partnership for Global Security concludes that the countries are generally on track to meet their commitments.

Japan's Ocean Radiation Hits 7.5 Million Times Legal Limit - Kenji Hall and Julie Makinen in The LA Times [link]

• The operator of Japan's stricken Fukushima nuclear plant said Tuesday that it had found radioactive iodine at 7.5 million times the legal limit in a seawater sample taken near the facility, and government officials imposed a new health limit for radioactivity in fish.
• The exact source of the radiation was not immediately clear, though Tepco has said that highly contaminated water has been leaking from a pit near the No. 2 reactor. The utility initially believed that the leak was coming from a crack, but several attempts to seal the crack failed.
• Meanwhile, Tepco continued releasing what it described as water contaminated with low levels of radiation into the sea to make room in on-site storage tanks for more highly contaminated water.
• On Tuesday chief cabinet secretary Yukio Edano said the government was imposing a standard of 2,000 bequerels of iodine per kilogram of fish, the same level it allows in vegetables. Previously, the government did not have a specific level for fish.
• The company has yet to decide how it will compensate residents near the plant for damages, though financial analysts say the claims could be in the tens of billions of dollars. Tepco's executive vice president Takashi Fujimoto said the company's decision on damages hinges on how much of the burden the government will share.
• For now the company has offered to give 20 million yen ($240,000) to each of 10 villages, towns and cities within 12 miles of the plant, Fujimoto said.

Why We Can’t Cut Corners With Nuclear Security - Maj. General Paul Monroe in The Hill’s “Congress Blog” [link]

• Nuclear terrorism remains one of the most severe threats to American safety today. Poorly stored nuclear material is inadequately warehoused across the globe, and continues to accumulate.
• This is why it is so disturbing that, in their budget for 2011, House Republicans have proposed cutting funding for critical anti-terror nonproliferation programs by more than $600 million. Fortunately, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) can play an important role in reversing these reckless cuts.
• Serving in the Army for more than four decades taught me that it’s far smarter—and far safer—to address threats as soon as possible, before they gain strength and multiply. Unsecured nuclear materials pose just such a risk: in mid-2009, the global stockpile of nuclear materials was large enough to build more than 120,000 nuclear bombs.
• While these threats appear overwhelming, our government has been effectively confronting them for years, due in large part to the efforts of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). The Department of Defense Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, funded by NNSA, has defused more than 7,500 nuclear bombs since its inception; in 2010 alone, NNSA secured material that could have been used to make as many 800 bombs.
• As the Chair of the Senate Energy and Water committee that oversees nonproliferation funding, Sen. Feinstein can play an instrumental role on this different and overlooked nuclear problem by ensuring nuclear security funding is a priority. These anti-terror nonproliferation programs have a track record of success- now is not the time to cut corners with regard to nuclear security.

Turning the Dream of a Nuclear-free World into Reality - Max Kampelman and Barry Blechman in The Hill’s “Congress Blog” [link]

• Two years ago, President Obama spoke out for universal nuclear disarmament in Prague, saying that America would seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons “clearly and with conviction.”
• It is past time to ditch the piecemeal, open-ended arms control approach that the nuclear weapon states have pursued for decades. Here’s a straight-forward proposal to get things moving.
• What if Presidents Obama and Medvedev appeared jointly before the UN General Assembly at its session this September and introduced a resolution determining that the possession of nuclear weapons is a crime against humanity, and calling all nuclear weapon states to commit themselves unequivocally to their elimination by a date certain?
• There already exists a UN agency charged with such matters, the Committee on Disarmament (CD), but as any member-state has the right to veto any of the CD’s decisions, even a decision to take up an agenda item, it has been unable to hold substantive discussion for the past 14 years.
• The new committee should operate by majority, or reasonable super-majority, vote. In the end, all states will retain a veto in that they will each choose whether or not to sign and ratify the disarmament treaty that results from the committee’s deliberations, but they should not be permitted to stand in the way of its completion.
• The point is to begin to disarm on a clear timetable, showing people and officials in all nations that the leading nuclear powers are serious about their commitment, thereby strengthening efforts to secure nuclear materials and to stem proliferation, and creating strong pressures for others to follow suit.

Russian Minister Says Next Step to ‘Reset’ Russian-US Relations is to Improve Economic Ties - The Associated Press 

• Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said security issues are important in relations between the two major powers but unless there are strong economic links Russian-U.S. relations will not be cemented.
• When Barack Obama became president in early 2009, he vowed to “reset” U.S. relations with Moscow. A cornerstone of Obama’s efforts was the U.S.-Russia nuclear arms control treaty — New START — which took effect in February. Now, U.S. and Russian defense chiefs are trying to resolve differences over a planned missile defense system in Europe.
• Ivanov said during a question-and-answer session after a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations that missile defense might be the next step in the Russian-U.S. “reset.” “But if you ask me what is the ... next step, I’m fully convinced it’s not security, it’s economy, it’s high-tech developments, it’s investments,” he said.
• In 2010, he said, bilateral trade between Russia and the United States totaled just $23.5 billion.
• The Obama administration is trying to facilitate Russia’s entry into the WTO, the organization that promotes free trade, and U.S. officials said in December the two countries have settled 95 percent of their outstanding issues.

Remembering Prague - White House Video [link]

For a transcript of the speech, click here.