Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa told the Indonesian House of Representatives yesterday that he will officially announce the ratification during the NPT Review Conference next month in New York. “We have been holding off the ratification process since 2002 as we expected the US and other nuclear weapons states to ratify first,” said Natalegawa. “However, we decided there was no point in delaying it. We do not want our policy to be steered by the US’ decisions. We can move it forward with a note that there must be a move to push the US to ratify…The US needs a template it can take as an example when dealing with the [S]enate on ratification.”

In addition to prompting the US to take action, Indonesia’s ratification will mean we are one step closer to making a ban on nuclear weapons testing a reality. Nuclear weapons testing contributes to the spread of nuclear weapons and arms races. Countries seeking to develop nuclear weapons must test them and without testing, cannot “go nuclear.” Meanwhile, countries with nuclear weapons can’t engage in escalating nuclear arms races without nuclear weapons testing to develop more deadly nuclear bombs. According to Reuters:

Indonesia is one of nine remaining nations whose ratification is required for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty to come into effect. The others are the United States, China, North Korea, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel and Pakistan.

Here are two of the captions for the photos:

The widespread contamination of soil and water prevents the land from being farmed, and most residents face unemployment because of the lack of opportunity….

National statistics show that the eastern Kazakhstan region has one of the highest mortality rates in the country. Many Kazakhs suffer deformities or have died from the radioactive fallout.

Russia ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) to ban all nuclear test explosions in 2000 with Kazakhstan following in 2002. Meanwhile, the US has signed but not ratified the treaty, leaving the door open in the future to break our moratorium and return to testing. While the Obama administration has pledged to work with the US Senate for ratification, getting enough support in the Senate for the CTBT will be challenging. The Cable reports that there will probably be,

a delay until next year for a push to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty as well. That agreement has even less chance than the START follow-on of garnering Republican support.

Vice President Biden gave a major policy speech today on nuclear weapons (full text here), discussing the administration’s nuclear weapons agenda, their funding request for nuclear weapons, and key steps towards a nuclear weapons free world, like ratification of the New START agreement and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

Much of the speech reaffirmed the Obama administration’s commitment to steps toward a nuclear weapons free world. Biden noted the bipartisan support for this nuclear security agenda:

Our goal of a world without nuclear weapons has been endorsed by leading voices in both parties. These include two former Secretaries of State from Republican administrations, Henry Kissinger and George Shultz; President Clinton’s Secretary of Defense Bill Perry; and my former colleague Sam Nunn, for years the Democratic Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Together, these four statesmen called eliminating nuclear weapons “a bold initiative consistent with America’s moral heritage.”

During the 2008 Presidential campaign, both the President and Senator McCain supported the same objective.

He also highlighted the importance of two key treaties: New START and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The New START agreement between the US and Russia to reduce both of our nuclear arsenals is expected to be announced within several weeks. Biden made the case for why the US Senate should ratify the CTBT and ban all nuclear test explosions:

During the Cold War, we tested nuclear weapons in our atmosphere, underwater and underground, to confirm that they worked before deploying them, and to evaluate more advanced concepts. But explosive testing damaged our health, disrupted our environment and set back our non-proliferation goals.

Eighteen years ago, President George H.W. Bush signed the nuclear testing moratorium enacted by Congress, which remains in place to this day.

Under the moratorium, our laboratories have maintained our arsenal through the Stockpile Stewardship Program without underground nuclear testing, using techniques that are as successful as they are cutting edge.

With the Vice President speaking out, this is an opportunity for us to mobilize and take action. Send your senators an email or give them a call and let them know you support these treaties. You can look up your senators’ contact information on Peace Action West’s website under “Your Congress.”

At the same time, Biden sought to defend the $7 billion the administration has requested in funding for the nuclear weapons complex next year. While some spending to specific programs that safely maintain our nuclear weapons as we work to reduce them makes sense, a large chunk of that funding goes to unnecessary new facilities that do not contribute to that goal. Instead, funding for a new plutonium pit facility (the bomb core of a nuclear weapon) would enable more production of new pits. Should the US decide to produce new nuclear weapons in the future, the infrastructure to do so would be in place. At the same time, funding these facilities sends the wrong message to the international community about our priorities. Biden acknowledged the large, proposed spending increase is controversial:

Some friends in both parties may question aspects of our approach. Some in my own party may have trouble reconciling investments in our nuclear complex with a commitment to arms reduction. Some in the other party may worry we’re relinquishing capabilities that keep our country safe.

While there is broad bipartisan support for reducing our nuclear weapons stockpile alongside Russia, the push to ratify the CTBT is expected to be challenging. David Shorr’s blog post “Test Ban Treaty — Golden Opportunity for Republican Bipartisanship” takes stock of the current political climate:

Yet, modern bipartisanship, unfortunately, is a game with moving goalposts. It’s like the domestic political equivalent of the neoconservative approach to international negotiations — instead of give and take, conservatives want all take and no give. As a result, the center of gravity for compromise has moved steadily rightward. When it comes to arms control, Ronald Reagan’s policies look so moderate on the contemporary political spectrum that they would certainly come under scathing criticism from today’s right wing.

President Obama has touched down in Japan. While some groups have been calling for Obama to become the first American President to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki — the only two cities to be attacked using nuclear weapons — there are reports that instead President Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama will issue a joint statement sometime today calling for a nuclear weapons free world. According to one report:

In the statement, tentatively entitled the US-Japan joint initiative for a nuclear-free world, they would welcome rising international momentum toward arms reduction and non-proliferation, the Yomiuri said Thursday.

In their joint effort, the United States would seek to raise the global momentum, while Japan would push the message from its perspective as the only country to have been hit with atomic bombs.

The statement would be based on the UN resolution adopted in September at a Security Council summit hosted by Obama, Jiji Press said.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration is working furiously to negotiate a replacement treaty with Russia, as the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) is set to expire on December 5th. The new treaty is expected to modestly reduce both countries’ strategic nuclear weapons and is a good first step forward in showing renewed commitment to eliminating the risk posed by the more than 20,000 nuclear weapons in the world today. Once a new treaty is signed, it will have to be introduced for ratification by the Senate.

Additionally, there is growing momentum for US ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty to ban all nuclear weapons test explosions as part of a comprehensive agenda to reduce the threat posed by nuclear weapons. By preventing states from testing nuclear weapons, the treaty helps stop new nuclear weapons states from emerging. It also prevents newer and deadlier weapons from being tested, helping to keep arms races from spiralling out of control.

At home in the US, the effects of nuclear weapons testing in Nevada are explored in an excellent article in the Los Angeles Times by Ralph Vartabedian. Underground nuclear weapons testing at the Nevada Test Site “polluted 1.6 trillion gallons of water. That is as much water as Nevada is allowed to withdraw from the Colorado River in 16 years — enough to fill a lake 300 miles long, a mile wide and 25 feet deep.” You can read the whole article at the link, but here’s another interesting excerpt:

Over 41 years, the federal government detonated 921 nuclear warheads underground at the Nevada Test Site, 75 miles northeast of Las Vegas. Each explosion deposited a toxic load of radioactivity into the ground and, in some cases, directly into aquifers.

When testing ended in 1992, the Energy Department estimated that more than 300 million curies of radiation had been left behind, making the site one of the most radioactively contaminated places in the nation.

During the era of weapons testing, Nevada embraced its role almost like a patriotic duty. There seemed to be no better use for an empty desert. But today, as Nevada faces a water crisis and a population boom, state officials are taking a new measure of the damage.

]]> http://blog.nuclearweaponsfree.org/2009/11/japan-us-to-issue-statement-on-nuclear-weapons-free-world/feed/ 0 http://blog.peaceactionwest.org/2009/10/22/debating-the-comprehensive-test-ban-treaty/ Thu, 22 Oct 2009 23:26:08 +0000 Cara Bautista http://blog.peaceactionwest.org/?p=1050 ]]>

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal published an opinion editorial by Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) entitled “Why We Need to Test Nuclear Weapons.” If the title makes you grind your teeth, just wait until you read the whole piece, which ignores reality and spouts misleading statements about the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Sen. Kyl, we’ve had a moratorium on nuclear weapons testing since the early 1990s, and the public is just not going to support a return to nuclear testing. Ever.

For a well-reasoned explanation of why the US should ratify the CTBT, check out this OpEd from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace:

Considering these advancements, opposition to ratifying the CTBT is equivalent to handcuffing the U.S. in its efforts to prevent other nuclear weapon states from emerging. Denying the U.S. a key tool in that fight makes no sense. To date, the U.S. has contributed financially, advanced technologically, but has reaped none of the political or lasting security benefits. This is a mistake that is further complicated by the growing demand for the CTBT….

Opponents of the CTBT who ask what the U.S. will receive in return for ratification forget that the rest of the world already gave what the U.S. sought when they agreed in 1995 to extend the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty indefinitely. It is the United States that has not lived up to its end of the NPT bargain. It’s time for America to keep its promise.

]]> http://blog.nuclearweaponsfree.org/2009/10/debating-the-comprehensive-test-ban-treaty/feed/ 0