New START a Priority on a Laundry List of Looming Debates

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

Stories we're following today: Tuesday October 26, 2010.

Obama Faces Long ‘To-Do’ List After Election Day - Michael Shear in “The Caucus,” a New York Times blog [link]

• The moment Mr. Obama returns from a 10-day trip to Asia, he will face a mountain of large and contentious issues that will test the endurance of a White House and Congress whose members are already bone-tired from a bruising election season.
• The to-do list is daunting: In the few weeks after a lame-duck Congress returns from its election break, Washington will fight over taxes, war, nuclear missiles, entitlement programs, spending cuts and the military’s policy on gay service members.
• The White House has signaled that it wants the Senate to act quickly on its New Start treaty with Russia, which provides a new framework for the two countries to reduce the number of nuclear weapons. Some Republican senators have expressed misgivings about moving quickly and may seek to push the issue into next year, when Republicans expect to have greater numbers in the chamber.

Iran Says It Has Begun Loading Fuel at Nuclear Reactor - William Yong and Alan Cowell in The New York Times [link]

• Iran said on Tuesday that it had begun loading the first of 163 fuel rods into the core of its first nuclear reactor, set to go into operation early next year, and vowed to pursue nuclear activities “in other areas.”
• The United States once opposed the Russian-built Bushehr plant in the south of the country but dropped its objections after Russia provided assurances over the fuel supply and the disposal of spent fuel roads that can be used to makes weapons-grade plutonium. Russia has agreed to take back spent fuel.
• The plant is supposed to be supervised by inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, or I.A.E.A., the United Nations nuclear watchdog based in Vienna. It was not clear if I.A.E.A. inspectors were present when the fuel-loading began.
• Ramin Mehmanparast, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, said on Tuesday: “Political pressure and sanctions have not prevented Iran from proceeding with its peaceful nuclear activities according to schedule.”
• Under its normal procedures, I.A.E.A. inspectors would oversee the final processes of fuel-loading and then seal the core of the reactor to prevent tampering. The reactor is also supposed to be kept under surveillance by closed circuit television cameras that would detect any movement of fuel.
  

Ratify New START treaty now - Norm Cohen in Shore News Today [link]

• START was the largest and most complex arms control treaty in history, and by the time it was fully in force in 2001, about 80 percent of all strategic nuclear weapons then in existence were removed from service. It was not some left-wing weak-on-defense president who pushed for the START. Nope, it was that classic conservative and anti-communist fighter, President Ronald Reagan, who conceived of this treaty to make the world safer by eliminating thousands of nuclear weapons.
• The New START provides predictability between the world's two leading nuclear powers as well as additional modest reductions in U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals. Most important, it replaces the previous treaty's lapsed verification regime with a state-of-the-art system that builds on 20 years of verification experience and puts U.S. inspectors back on the ground to monitor Russia's nuclear weapons.
• Unfortunately, Sen. Jim DeMint and other far-right-wing Republicans are opposing the treaty on the grounds that once again President Obama is making us weak. The fact that we will still have enough nuclear warheads to turn most of Russia (now supposedly our friend) into a nuclear ash heap doesn't seem to matter.

Russia and China to exchange launch notifications - “Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces” blog [link]

• Russia and China will notify each other of (some) ballistic missile and space launches - the intergovernmental agreement, signed on October 13, 2009 in Beijing is making its way through the ratification process and will probably enter into force some time soon.
• Not all launches would have to be reported, though. During the first five years each country would be allowed to withhold a notification of ballistic missile launch "in exceptional cases." During the next five years (the agreement term is ten years) each country could still withhold notifications, but for no more than two ballistic missile launches a year. It appears that there is no exception for space launches.
• Unfortunately, none of the notifications will be made public. Still, this agreement is a very good development - it will help Russia and China to create one more institution of cooperation and for their military to get some experience of working together.

Nunn-Lugar Program Deactivates 48 Strategic Nukes - Global Security Newswire[link]

• The U.S. Cooperative Threat Reduction program since August has deactivated 48 strategic nuclear warheads, Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) announced Friday
• The Nunn-Lugar effort in that period also eliminated four ICBMs and 16 submarine-launched ballistic missiles, safeguarded three nuclear arms train shipments and supported disposal of nearly 70 metric tons of chemical warfare agents.
• Since being established in 1991 to secure and destroy weapons of mass destruction in former Soviet states, the CTR program has deactivated 7,599 strategic nuclear warheads and destroyed 791 ICBMs, 498 ICBM silos, 180 mobile ICBM launchers, 651 submarine-launched ballistic missiles, 492 SLBM launchers, 32 ballistic missile-capable submarines, 155 strategic bombers, 906 nuclear air-to-surface missiles and 194 nuclear test tunnels.

A View From the Dark Side

Off to a Bad START - Ed Feulner in The Washington Times [link]

• Now is hardly the right time to be tying our hands on missile defense.
• There's a push now, spearheaded by Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, to get lawmakers to vote on New START during the lame-duck session of Congress that will occur after the Nov. 2 elections.
• According to the Obama administration, senators have nothing to worry about when it comes to missile defense. New START, the White House insists, won't limit our options in this vital area of our defense, including the construction of any space-based components.
• At least half a dozen senators, however, have serious doubts about this. They're concerned about a side agreement that the administration is on the verge of completing with Russia - an agreement that very well could compromise our ability to deploy an effective missile defense, regardless of what the treaty itself says.
• But there's an easy way to settle the matter and ensure, as the White House claims, that New START does not "contain any constraints on testing, development or deployment of current or planned U.S. missile defense programs." That's to make the details of the side agreement available to the senators who wrote to Mrs. Clinton.