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The Bush Administration has removed North Korea from the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terror, following precisely the provisional delisting scenario I outlined on the blog a couple of weeks ago.

I must say, I am rather proud to note “you read it here first” — on September 23. and September 28, Arms Control Wonk explained how this would all work.

Glenn Kessler had the story first, as far as I can tell. He’s been all over it the past few weeks and doesn’t disappoint with a solid description of the package:

Officials declined to release the text of the agreement but said North Korea had bent on two key points: potential access to facilities not included in Pyongyang’s nuclear declaration and permission for inspectors to take environmental samples. North Korea also dropped objections to Japanese and South Korean participation in the inspections, officials said.

The text uses vague terms for some of the purported concessions — it does not explicitly mention the taking of samples, for example — but the State Department’s assertions rest on a number of oral agreements, sources familiar with the document said. Rice instructed diplomats last week to obtain greater clarity from North Korea on some of the oral understandings before she signed off on the deal.

Note the use of “potential” to qualify access to non-declared facilities. The crux of the deal, as Helene Cooper explains, is to pursue a “plutonium first” approach regarding verification:

In the most significant part of the accord announced Saturday, North Korea agreed to a verification plan that would allow United States inspectors access to its main declared nuclear compound, at Yongbyon; international inspectors have worked at the site on and off for years. But the deal puts off decisions on the thorniest verification issue: what would happen if international experts suspected the North was hiding other nuclear weapons facilities, particularly those related to uranium enrichment.

Jay Solomon in the Wall Street Journal suggests North Korea agreed to some mechanism to address HEU and Syria. But the scope of inspections appears limited to declared facilities, with any investigation of the UEP or Syria addressed, for now, with interviews: “[S]enior U.S. officials said Pyongyang also approved outside inspections of all declared nuclear sites inside North Korea, as well as the scientific sampling of air, soil and other elements that could gauge the extent of the North’s production of fissile materials,” Solomon writes, “Pyongyang also agreed to allow the U.S. and international community to interview key North Korean nuclear scientists and to verify the country’s alleged efforts to produce fissile materials using highly enriched uranium, as well as to assist third countries in the development of their nuclear programs.”

Also, Kessler notes that the agreement is oral, rather than written. My guess is that is because the Chinese are (or, at least were) holding the text of the agreement pending delisting.

Comment [3]

Elaine Sciolino in the New York Times cites “European and American officials” as stating the IAEA has in its possession an Iranian document that describes assistance by a Russian scientist in developing a detonation system for a nuclear weapon design:

It was described as a “five-page document in English” dealing with experimentation with a complex initiation system to detonate a substantial amount of high explosives and to monitor the detonation with probes. There was no indication that the document was a translation of a much longer and more comprehensive document in Farsi.

The original document is described by officials familiar with it as a detailed narrative of experiments aimed at creating a perfectly-timed implosion of nuclear material.

According to experts, the two most difficult challenges in developing nuclear weapons is creating the bomb fuel and figuring out how to compress and detonate it.

An agency report last month revealed that Iran may have received “foreign expertise” in its detonator experiments.

[snip]

European and American officials now say that the “foreign expertise” was a reference to the Russian scientist, but offered only scant details. They said the scientist is believed to have helped guide Iranians in the experiments, but that he was not the author of the document.

Am I the only person who thought this sounds awfully similar to Operation Merlin — the alleged covert action to supply Iran with a Russian firing set? Here is the description of Operation Merlin, from James Risen in State of War (via an excerpt in The Grauniad):

The story dates back to the Clinton administration and February 2000, when one frightened Russian scientist walked Vienna’s winter streets. The Russian had good reason to be afraid. He was walking around Vienna with blueprints for a nuclear bomb.

To be precise, he was carrying technical designs for a TBA 480 high-voltage block, otherwise known as a “firing set”, for a Russian-designed nuclear weapon. He held in his hands the knowledge needed to create a perfect implosion that could trigger a nuclear chain reaction inside a small spherical core. It was one of the greatest engineering secrets in the world, providing the solution to one of a handful of problems that separated nuclear powers such as the United States and Russia from rogue countries such as Iran that were desperate to join the nuclear club but had so far fallen short.

The Russian, who had defected to the US years earlier, still couldn’t believe the orders he had received from CIA headquarters. The CIA had given him the nuclear blueprints and then sent him to Vienna to sell them – or simply give them – to the Iranian representatives to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

I am not saying that there can’t be two Russians who provided this assistance or that we know Risen’s sources were telling the truth. But I am saying that the two cases are close enough for the leakers to offer a clarification.

Risen claims the Russian in Operation Merlin told the Iranians that there “was a flaw somewhere in the nuclear blueprints, and he could help them find it.” So, maybe he followed up on the offer of help. Or the Iranians called one of his colleagues back home. Or it is a totally independent Russian route to a firing set.

Comment [7]

Or, well, Basingstoke. I am attending the PONI conference at the Atomic Weapons Establishment.

I am recovering from jet lag, but should be back to posting soon.

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So, it turns out that moving to another country is hard work and doesn’t leave you much time for blogging… Who knew?

Anyway, I am now installed at Carnegie and ready to start blogging again—once I have caught up on the news. I have hardly read a news source for a month so it might take a week or so to get back up to speed.

In the meantime, you may have noticed from “new in the stacks”, that my new boss, George Perkovich and I, have just published our new Adelphi Paper, Abolishing Nuclear Weapons. More on that over the next week or so…

Comment [3]

A fellow UMD alum reminds me that Mac Destler — a member of my dissertation committee — wrote a wonderful summary of the test ban fiasco in a book chapter entitlted The Reasonable Public and the Polarized Policy Process.

I am always amazed how effortlessly Mac writes about arcane subjects that deaden the prose of less gifted scholars (like me, for instance):

Test Ban Fiasco

The CTBT was the international issue where partisan conflict surfaced in rawest form. Substantively, the treaty was a centerpiece in the administration’s policy against proliferation of nuclear weapons, and the president personally signed it in 1996, making the United States the first country to do so. More than 150 other countries followed (though only about one-third had ratified it by fall 1999). It was sent to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1997, where Chairman Jesse Helms bottled it up, refusing to hold hearings until the administration submitted and the full Senate voted on (and presumably rejected) amendments to the ABM Treaty negotiated in 1997 and the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. The CTBT was also viewed with skepticism, however, by former officials in Republican administrations not associated with the far right—Brent Scowcroft and Henry Kissinger, for example.

The United States had not conducted nuclear tests since 1992, and in mid-1999 the administration was pressing India to sign and preparing for a special international conference on the treaty in early October. To the White House and the State Department, ratification was overwhelmingly in the U.S. interest. But Republicans controlled the Senate 55–45; to have any chance at all of winning the 67 votes required, Clinton would need the support of Republican centrists like Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, senior Foreign Relations member Richard Lugar, and rising internationalist Chuck Hagel—and the cooperation, at the very least, of Majority Leader Trent Lott. Rather than undertake the hard, slogging work of building a bipartisan majority, however, the president worked with Senate Democrats in a public campaign to embarrass and put heat on the Senate Republicans, to make the issue a political winner if not a legislative winner. On July 20, Clinton called for Foreign Relations Commitee hearings in a Rose Garden statement, while Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) released a letter on the same day urging such hearings signed by all forty-five Senate Democrats. Dorgan also released a poll, conducted jointly by a Democratic and a Republican polling firm, which found 82 percent of Americans (84 percent of Democrats, 80 percent of Republicans) believing that the United States should ratify the CTBT.²⁰

Senator Dorgan upped the ante on September 8, telling his colleagues that until Lott allowed consideration of the CTBT, “I intend to plant myself on the floor like a potted plant” and block any routine business. Other Democrats joined in, including ranking Foreign Relations Democrat Joseph Biden, and explained their strategy two weeks later to presidential national security adviser Samuel Berger. Unknown to them, however, hard-line Senate treaty opponent John Kyl had been working quietly with Helms for months to solidify Republican votes against the CTBT, and had commitments from well over the necessary thirty-four. Lott then called the Democrats’ bluff. He reversed himself on September 30 and offered to take up the treaty, with a vote in two weeks. Democrats, thinking they had a shot at persuading enough Republicans, quickly agreed.²¹ They learned within a week that they had no chance of winning, and suddenly became alarmed about the global impact of a Senate rejection. (The Senate had not voted down an important treaty since the Treaty of Versailles in 1920.)

By early October the White House and Minority Leader Tom Daschle had taken an 180-degree turn and were negotiating with Lott to avoid having a vote. Sixty-two senators, including twenty-four Republicans, signed a letter initiated by Warner and Democrat Pat Moynihan urging that the matter be put off until 2001, and the president formally requested to Lott that he “postpone consideration.” But this now required either unanimous consent in the Senate or an extraordinary procedural vote. Hard-line Republicans, wanting to sink the treaty once and for all, blocked the first way out. Lott was unwilling to call for, or acquiesce in, the second. So on October 13, the Senate voted 48–51 against ratifying the treaty, with only 4 Republicans in favor.²² “Never before,” declared the president, “has a serious treaty involving nuclear weapons been handled in such a reckless and ultimately partisan way.” He did not state that his own party bore its full share of the blame.²³ Nor did his national security adviser help matters when he gave an impassioned speech eight days later attacking “the isolationist right in the Congress” for the treaty’s defeat.²⁴

20. Craig Cerniello, “White House, Key Senators Intensify Push for CTBT,” Arms Control Today, July–August 1999.

21. John M. Broder, “The Tactics: Quietly, Dextrously, Senate Republicans Set a Trap,” New York Times, October 14, 1999.

22. Eric Schmitt, “Senate Kills Test Ban Treaty in Crushing Loss for Clinton,” New York Times, October 14, 1999.

23. Dave Boyer, “Senate Rejects Treaty on Nuke Testing,” The Washington Times, October 14, 1999.

24. Samuel R. Berger, “American Power: Hegemony, Isolationism, or Engagement,” Address to Council on Foreign Relations, October 21, 1999 (available on White House website). The assistant also attacked the “new isolationists” for “devastating cuts to our foreign affairs budget.”

McCain didn’t cover himself in glory during the lead up to the vote, but nor would it be correct to paint him as a great villain in the drama. McCain, for example, was among the 62 Senators who signed the Moynihan-Warner letter seeking a delay in the vote.

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The good folks at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies are sponsoring the second annual Doreen and Jim McElvany 2009 Nonproliferation Challenge Essay Contest.

Doreen and Jim McElvany 2009 Nonproliferation Challenge Essay Contest

In order to spur new thinking and policy initiatives to address today’s most urgent proliferation threats, the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies and its journal, the Nonproliferation Review, are sponsoring an essay contest to identify and publish the most outstanding new scholarly papers and reports in the nonproliferation field. Our priority is to generate new insights and specific recommendations for resolving today’s nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons challenges, including those involving both state and non-state actors.

The contest features a $10,000 grand prize and a $1,000 prize for the most outstanding student essay (students are eligible to win the grand prize).

Entries should not exceed 10,000 words (including endnotes) and must be the original, unpublished work of the author(s) and not under consideration for publication elsewhere. The submission deadline is May 15, 2009.

Complete contest rules and instructions can be found at

http://cns.miis.edu/npr/contest.htm

Last year’s winners — Ward Wilson (Grand Prize) and Russel Leslie (Most Outstanding Student Essay) — were both readers and frequent commentators on the blog. Let’s see if the Arms Control Wonk community can’t produce another pair of winners.

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Update 12:07. The egregious entry that prompted the blog post appears to have been removed.

I generally have stayed away from the election, since my bias is clear and general elections aren’t really fought on the technical details that readers expect from this blog. I prefer Obama, but he’ll need McCain’s vote for the CTBT (and vice versa, of course).

Which brings me to this morning’s outrage. The Washington Post‘s Jonathan Weisman — the ironically named fact checker, can somebody get this guy a foam trucker hat? — claims that Joe Biden was wrong about McCain voting against the CTBT:

Test Ban Treaty
10:04 p.m.
Sen. Joseph Biden asserted that Sen. John McCain opposed the comprehensive nuclear test ban and that virtually every other Republican supported it. That is false. President Clinton never submitted the test ban for formal ratification because it faced overwhelming Republican opposition in a GOP-controlled Senate.

Yeah, Weisman is wrong, not Biden.

Let’s start with the facts: Clinton submitted the treaty. The Senate voted 51-48 on October 13, 1999 to reject the CTBT (roll call in the comments). McCain voted against it. Here is an excerpt from McCain’s statement:

Mr. President, I will vote against ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. This is not a vote I take lightly. I am not ideologically opposed to arms control, having voted to ratify the START Treaty and the Chemical Weapons Convention. But, my concerns about the flaws in this Treaty’s drafting and in the administration’s plan for maintaining the viability of the stockpile leave me no other choice.

I didn’t like McCain’s “no” vote, but it was nuanced and left the door open. He said, during the course of this campaign, he would keep an “open mind” on the treaty. So, he does have a defense.

One thing that Biden did garble — Biden said “every Republican has supported” the CTBT. Most Republicans voted against the treaty. I suspect Biden meant to say “every Republican President, until George W. Bush, has supported” the CTBT. The Clinton Administration always used to say that every President since Eisenhower had sought a test ban and that talking point may have been rattling around in Biden’s noggin’ as a way to link McCain to 43. (I honestly don’t know, but will ask around.)

This is the second howler from the WaPo Fact Checkers on arms control issues that seem intended to make the Obama campaign look wrong, when if fact it was right. This “fact checking” enterprise has zero credibility with me.

In case you wonder whether Weisman is carrying water for the McCain campaign, check this and this.

Weisman doesn’t seem to take criticism very well — he seems to have told Brad DeLong to “f***” himself for suggesting one of his stories was a rewritten White House press release. I am so excited that we may have found a hack with a potty mouth who likes to duke it out in the gutter.

Wanna come play in my neighborhood, Jonny? You can reach me at:

armscontrolwonk [at] gmail.com

Comment [9]

Elaine Grossman recently wrote pair of excellent stories on how NNSA is modifying the existing LEP programs for the B61 and the W76 in order to achieve some of the benefits of the RRW program:

— U.S. Air Force Might Modify Nuclear Bomb, Global Security Newswire, September 26, 2008.

— Military’s RRW Alternative Is Warhead Life Extension, Global Security Newswire, September 12, 2008.

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Glenn Kessler has a pair of great stories on the breakdown of the October 3 Six Party Agreement.

On Friday, Kessler detailed how the State Department managed to impose humiliating verification demands that North Korea was sure to reject (“Far-Reaching U.S. Plan Impaired N. Korea Deal: Demands Began to Undo Nuclear Accord,” Washington Post, September 26, 2008, A20):

Under the proposal, heavily influenced by the State Department’s arms control experts, the U.S. requested “full access to all materials” at sites that might have had a nuclear purpose in the past. It sought “full access to any site, facility or location” deemed relevant to the nuclear program, including military facilities, according to the four-page document, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post. Investigators would be able to take photographs and make videos, remain on site as long as necessary, make repeated visits and collect and remove samples.

It was amazing to me that Kessler was able to write 992 words without once saying Paula DeSutter, whose fingerprints are all over the crime scene. Glenn posted the three page verification proposal online, which is a hoot to read.

Mike Chinoy, in his book Meltdown: The Inside Story of the North Korean Nuclear Crisis, documents the way in which hawks have used unreasonable verification demands to scupper the agreement. Apparently, no one was willing to point out to them that they had this kind of access in Iraq and it still wasn’t enough to keep them from invading.

Today, Kessler reports that Chris Hill is going to Pyongyang to pursue the provisional delisting (“Administration Pushing to Salvage Accord With N. Korea,” September 28, 2008, A07):

Under one idea being considered by Hill and his aides — though not yet approved by more senior officials — North Korea would give China, the host of the talks, a plan that includes sampling, access to key sites and other provisions sought by the United States. Bush would then provisionally remove North Korea from the terrorism list, and after that China would announce North Korean acceptance of the verification plan. This would allow North Korea to save face and assert that the delisting occurred before the verification plan was in place.

I outlined exactly this scenario last week on the blog — you read it here first.

1. North Korea agrees to a verification protocol that is limited to the 38 nuclear-related sites in the North Korean declaration, which includes anytime access and environmental sampling. Pyongyang hands this agreement over to the Chinese, who hold it in escrow.

2. The President of the United States publicly announces that North Korea is not involved in terrorism (which, by happy coincidence, is true) and that he is delisting North Korea provisionally on the expectation that North Korea will resume disablement activities and agree to a verification [mechanism]. If North Korea fails to agree to a verification scheme within some decent interval, he can simply place Pyongyang back on the list, right between Iran and Sudan. (For some reason, the State Department tends to list the states alphabetically, instead of by date of listing.)

3. The Chinese release the North Korean agreement, held in escrow, announcing that the North Koreans have in fact agreed to a verification proposal acceptable to the US. “How wise,” Wang Yi will opine, “of the Great Power to move first, allowing the smaller, weaker party to save face.” He will say this without any hint of irony, which is an advantage to being Chinese.

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“North Korea has cut the seals and shuttered the cameras. Next up, North Korea tosses the inspectors,” I wrote yesterday in my blog post, Provisionally Delisting North Korea.

This morning, North Korea tossed the inspectors. Elaine Scolino reports this morning in the New York Times.

North Korea has barred international inspectors from its nuclear reprocessing plant and intends to begin introducing nuclear material to the plant in a week, the International Atomic Energy Agency said on Wednesday.

This all heading toward North Korea reprocessing the spent fuel from the Yongbyon and, eventually, conducting another nuclear test. It is also totally preventable if The Decider would just suck it up and delist North Korea — provisionally, of course.

Seriously, just reread yesterday’s post, or the modified version of which is cross-posted over at Danger Room.

Image note: The Times chose the same photo of Sig Hecker at Yongbyon that I did in April. Strangely, they credit it to AP — but I believe Keith Luse took the picture. The images are online. The image I chose for this post, though lacking Dr. Hecker, is more relevant — it actually shows a corner of the reprocessing facility with some equipment that I probably ought to recognize, but don’t.

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