Syria Agrees to Admit Nuclear Inspectors in April

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

Stories we're following today: Thursday, March 3, 2011:

U.N. Nuclear Inspectors to Visit Syria Plant Soon - Fredrik Dahl for Reuters [link]

• Syria has agreed to allow U.N. nuclear inspectors into a plant with possible uranium material, diplomatic sources said, but Washington said the gesture would not be enough to address allegations of covert atomic activity.
• The sources, familiar with a long-stalled U.N. nuclear watchdog inquiry into U.S. intelligence suggesting Syria tried to build a reactor suited to producing plutonium for atom bombs, said Syrian and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) officials agreed at a meeting this week to a visit on April 1.
• For over two years, Syria has refused IAEA follow-up access to the remains of a complex that was being built at Dair Alzour in the Syrian desert when Israel bombed it to rubble in 2007.U.S. intelligence reports said it was a nascent North Korean-designed nuclear reactor intended to produce bomb fuel. Inspectors found traces of uranium there in June 2008 that were not in Syria's declared nuclear inventory, heightening concerns.
• Syria, an ally of Iran, whose nuclear program is also under IAEA investigation, denies ever concealing work on nuclear weapons and says the Vienna-based agency should focus on Israel instead because of its undeclared nuclear arsenal.

Senior Lawmakers Wary of Nuclear Agency Budget Increase - Martin Matishak for Global Security Newswire [link]

• Budget constraints might make it difficult to grant the Obama administration's request to increase spending for operations to ensure the safety and performance of the nation's nuclear arsenal, leaders of a key congressional panel indicated yesterday.  The White House blueprint for the next federal budget calls for the National Nuclear Security Administration, a semiautonomous branch of the Energy Department, to receive a 5 percent funding hike to $11.8 billion.
• However, "in the fiscal environment that we are now facing, that request is unlikely to be met," House Appropriations Energy and Water Development Subcommittee Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.) said in his opening statement during a hearing on the agency's weapons operations.
• Tom D'Agostino, NNSA Administrator, and other officials also had to explain why the agency's Weapons Dismantlement and Disposition budget would shrink from slightly more than $96 million in fiscal 2010 to less than $57 million in the upcoming budget year.
• The program is intended to eliminate retired weapons and their components and to reduce the security and maintenance burden of legacy warheads and bombs. The exact number of warheads the agency intends to take apart in the next budget year is classified.

Military Drops Crazy ‘ICBMs vs. Terrorists’ Plan - David Axe for "Wired" [link]

• A few years back, the military came up with the bright idea of swapping out the nuclear warheads on some of America’s land- and sea-based ballistic missiles for conventional explosives, transforming city-obliterating rockets into so-called Prompt Global Strike systems capable of taking out terrorist targets anywhere in the world just hours from the word “go.”
• There was just one problem: The strike-anywhere missile was a nightmare for diplomats and lawmakers. Upon launch, a non-nuclear ballistic missile looks the same as a nuke to other nations’ radars. Russia or China, for instance, wouldn’t know that America was firing a non-nuclear missile to take out a terrorist camp — as opposed to, say, starting World War III on a whim.
• Proposals that the United States install special communications channels to alert nuclear powers in advance of any non-nuclear launch pretty much undermined the whole “prompt” aspect of the weapon.
• Now the Air Force thinks it has a solution that makes everyone — Congress, the State Department and the Pentagon — happy. The flying branch wants to ditch the ballistic missile aspect of Prompt Global Strike and replace it with a hypersonic glider air-launched from a heavy bomber, like any of the Air Force’s current non-nuclear cruise missiles. That way nobody can mistake the weapon for a nuke. 

Russia Demands Universal Observance of CTBT - Global Security Newswire [link]

• Russia has pressed all governments that are not yet Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty signatories to join the agreement. The pact has been ratified by 153 nations, including Russia and 34 more of the 44 states whose full endorsement is required for the international prohibition on nuclear test blasts to enter into force.  Holdouts among that group of "Annex 2" states are China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan and the United States.
• "The disarmament agenda includes a number of priority issues that need to be resolved and can be resolved today," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the international Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, Switzerland. "The task of enacting the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty as soon as possible is particularly important. We once again call on all of the countries that have not yet signed and ratified the treaty to do so."
• "Unilateral moratoriums on nuclear tests are useful, but they cannot substitute this obligation, which is key to global security," Lavrov said.  The official also called for the withdrawal of all nonstrategic nuclear weapons to their countries of origin, Interfax reported. Russia is believed to have 2,000 battlefield nuclear bombs deployed within its borders, while a recent analysis estimated that no more than 200 U.S. tactical weapons remain fielded at bases around Europe.

US and South Korea Showcase Anti-WMD Capabilities - Park Chan-Kyong for AFP [link]

• US and South Korean soldiers have displayed their techniques for handling weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the face of nuclear-armed North Korea's sabre-rattling. Personnel and a variety of equipment were on show to the media at a training exercise simulating the detection and disposal of North Korean chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons.
• "North Koreans have threatened to use weapons of mass destruction," Brigadier-General Chuck Taylor told journalists.  "This exercise helps us to deter based upon our readiness, and if deterrence fails, to help prevail in any kind of threats and environment."
• The drill is part of ongoing annual joint military exercises that the North has described as a rehearsal for invasion. Seoul and Washington, whose military alliance dates back to the 1950-53 war, say they are purely defensive.  The drills improve the capability of US and South Korean soldiers "to defend against a wide variety of threats, including the defence against weapons of mass destruction," Taylor said.
• Yonhap news agency, quoting an unidentified Seoul official, said the anti-WMD drill involved 150 Americans in 2009 and 350 last year, with the number expected to rise further this year.