Campaign for a Nuclear Weapons Free World Blog » nonproliferation

One good thing in the budget

Katie Heald — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 17:23:23 +0000

Last night Congress voted to pass the final budget for 2011, and while there is a lot we are not happy about, there is one success to celebrate. Nuclear nonproliferation efforts were given an increase of $190 million over last year’s funding.

These important programs that clean up loose nuclear material around the world had been threatened with as much as a 20% cut! That would have severely jeopardized the efforts to lock down bomb-grade nuclear material within four years, one of the crucial steps on the road towards a nuclear weapons free world.

from Global Security Newswire:

The bill, [voted on last night], sets aside $2.32 billion for nuclear nonproliferation initiatives administered by the National Nuclear Security Administration. Much of the additional funding is focused on the Obama administration’s effort to secure vulnerable nuclear materials around the world….

The final version of the bill used the number the Democratic Senate had proposed, which is a 9% increase over last year’s funding. This is one of the only programs that was increased in the federal budget, many other programs were cut back. This is still lower than the President’s request for 2011, but it marks a dramatic shift from the GOP-backed House proposal to slash this funding. Their version of the bill would have given $241 million less to these critical programs.

These programs secured 800 bombs worth of nuclear material in 2010, and with this increase in funding, will be able to keep on track to complete this work within four years.

The Campaign for a Nuclear Weapons Free world organized a national April 5th Call-in Day to save nuclear security funding, and people around the country called and emailed their senators and representatives asking them to fund these programs that are working to make the world safe from the threat of nuclear weapons and nuclear proliferation.

If you were one of the people who emailed your representatives: Thank you and congratulations!

This week we will enjoy this success. Next week, we will get back to work to change next year’s budget for nuclear weapons. We’ll be urging Congress to stop spending billions of taxpayer dollars on giant bomb factories and outdated warheads, and instead to dismantle the weapons we have and deal with dangerous nuclear material. If we are ever going to achieve a world free of all nuclear weapons, we have to put our money where our mouth is.

Nuclear Security Summit

cbautista — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 21:45:46 +0000

The Nuclear Security Summit gathered 47 world leaders in DC to commit to achieving the goal of securing all vulnerable nuclear material, such as plutonium or highly enriched uranium, and securing loose nuclear weapons within four years. President Obama linked the summit to the vision of achieving a nuclear weapons free world, which he outlined in his speech from Prague last year. With world leaders gathered, the summit was also an opportunity to raise the profile of nuclear disarmament.

On the April 5 anniversary of President Obama’s speech from Prague, the Campaign for a Nuclear Weapons Free World delivered a letter signed by more than 100 faith, peace, and arms control organizations. As part of his speech from Prague, President Obama stated that negotiating a new nuclear weapons reduction treaty between the U.S. and Russia “will set the stage for further cuts, and we will seek to include all nuclear weapons states in this endeavor.” The coalition’s letter asks that the president use the occasion of the April Nuclear Security Summit to announce a new summit on nuclear disarmament in 2011. The letter can be viewed here.

The second version of the letter asked the president to make the announcement at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference at the UN in May. It was delivered to the Obama administration ahead of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference with 130 local, regional, and national organizations signed on from 31 states and Washington, DC. Thanks to all the organizations that signed on to the letter. We are no longer taking signatories.

Countries pledged to take specific actions to contribute to the four year goal of securing vulnerable nuclear material during the summit. Ukraine has announced it will give up its highly enriched uranium in the next two years. Chile shipped its 40 pounds of highly enriched uranium to the US for safekeeping last month. South Korea will host a follow up Nuclear Security Summit in 2012 providing an opportunity to ensure progress is being made.

Nuclear Weapons Budget in 2011

cbautista — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 20:48:20 +0000

The Fiscal Year 2011 budget has a 10% increase for nuclear weapons programs, bringing total funding to about $7 billion. I wanted to share with you a roundup of some excellent analysis of the budget by groups in the disarmament community, as well as two announcements about activities around the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference and the Kansas City Plant.

Analysis of the Fiscal Year 2011 Budget Request

Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation

“Proposed DoE funding also includes large increases for a facility that will expand plutonium production in Los Alamos, New Mexico and for a new highly enriched uranium production facility near Oak Ridge, Tennessee, each estimated to cost about $3 billion. The Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Project (CMRR) plutonium facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory increased from $97 million in FY 2010 to $225 million in FY 2011. Y-12’s Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) also increased to $115 million from $94 million in FY 2010.”

Click here to download a PDF of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation’s budget briefing book.

Alliance for Nuclear Accountability

Click here for ANA’s press release.

Nuclear Watch New Mexico

Click here for their blog post on the budget.

Project on Government Oversight

Click here for their blog post on the budget.

Tri-Valley CAREs

Click here for their press release.

Upcoming activities on nuclear weapons

1. For Peace and Human Needs: Nuclear Disarmament Now! is a new website with resources on activities and demonstrations being planned for the May NPT Review Conference. Hundreds of organizations from the U.S. and around the globe are taking new steps to renew the commitment to a nuclear free world. The website includes an online petition on nuclear disarmament.

2. Groundbreaking is expected in April for a major new production facility, the Kansas City Plant, that will be responsible for 85% of all components for possible new designs and/or half-century life extensions of existing U.S. nuclear weapons. Protests and demonstrations in Kansas City are currently being planned, just before the NPT Review Conference that begins May 3. Contact Nuclear Watch New Mexico for more information.

Photo by: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cjbrenchley/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

The Biggest Year for Nuclear Disarmament

Cara Bautista — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 23:44:37 +0000

Titan II nuclear missile in its Cold War silo.

This year is one of the biggest opportunities we’ve had since the end of the Cold War to make significant progress toward a nuclear weapons free world. Maintaining the status quo of more than 23,000 nuclear weapons worldwide is just too dangerous; so many weapons around the world increase the risk of an accidental launch with deadly consequences for hundreds of thousands of people. A quick look at the calendar confirms that 2010 will be a pivotal year:

New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) announced and Senate debate over US ratification (January estimate)

Fiscal Year 2011 Budget released (February)

Nuclear Posture Review released (March 1 estimate)

Global Nuclear Security Summit (April 12-13)

Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference (May)

Possible senate debate on ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (late in 2010 if at all)

Major nuclear weapons treaties up for ratification by the Senate. Major international conferences on nuclear weapons. Key policy and budget documents from the administration. It’s a packed agenda for the first six months of the year. As activists, you and I need to hit the ground running to ensure we’re making the most of each of these opportunities. If ever there was a time to be active and organize on nuclear weapons issues, this year is it.

New START

The US and Russia will return to the negotiating table on Monday to finish hammering out a follow on agreement to START. The treaty will reduce both US and Russian deployed nuclear weapons to between 1,500 and 1,675 and limit the number of delivery vehicles. Reports vary on what issues remain as sticking points, with some citing sharing telemetry data and others citing missile defense. According to the Washington Post:

The United States now wants the treaty signed by May to set an example for a conference it hopes will bolster the global Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.

“If you and the Russians control 95 percent of the nuclear weapons and you’re not reducing, you’re going to weaken your hand if you’re pressing for tighter measures” to rein in other nations’ nuclear programs, said Steven Pifer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Once an agreement is announced, the treaty will go to the Senate for a ratification debate. Expect that to take a while – the Senate still isn’t done dealing with healthcare legislation. The healthcare debate showed just how hard it is to move anything through the Senate, and a supermajority of 67 votes will be needed for New START’s ratification. While there is broad bipartisan support for reducing our nuclear arsenal, it will be important for our supporters to repeatedly show their senators that they favor making the world a safer place by reducing the number of nuclear weapons in the world.

Meanwhile, 41 senators (all Republicans and Independent Joe Lieberman) are making hay with a letter to Obama stating that “modernization” of our nuclear arsenal (read new nuclear weapons) are needed. The Wall Street Journal jumped on the bandwagon, publishing an atrocious editorial against reducing our arsenal with a lot of false claims about the need for new nuclear weapons. While the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is unlikely to be dealt with until late in 2010, if at all, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) is raising objections to any type of arms control in the context of the START debate and has already promised that he “will lead the charge against [the CTBT] and I will do everything in my power to see that it is defeated.”

Ploughshares Fund President Joe Cirincione deftly picks apart the Wall Street Journal’s argument:

By claiming that U.S. nuclear weapons are in serious disrepair and that removing any of the 9,400 nuclear weapons in the arsenal would threaten national security, the Journal’s editors help create public fear of changing obsolete Cold War nuclear policies.…

First, the Journal claims: “The deteriorating U.S. nuclear arsenal is emerging as a big security problem.” Not true. U.S. weapons are safe, secure, and effective. No science-based study has found otherwise. The most recent report from JASON — a premier U.S. defense advisory panel of scientists — found no evidence that aging posed any threat to the usability of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. The JASON report said, “Lifetimes of today’s nuclear warheads could be extended for decades, with no anticipated loss in confidence.” In an earlier study, JASON scientists found that the plutonium cores of these weapons are reliable for at least 100 years. In other words: The nukes are alright.

The U.S. government spends almost $6 billion a year on stockpile stewardship programs that maintain the massive nuclear arsenal. Some, like the Journal, want new facilities and new bomb production plants, but the Government Accountability Office has found that such plans would cost $150 billion. This is overkill.

The Budget

In February, we’ll see if key nuclear weapons facilities that support increased nuclear weapons productions receive a boost in funding or not. Keep an eye out for funding levels for nuclear non-proliferation programs that secure loose nuclear material around the globe. Obama has stated he’d like to secure all loose nuclear material in his first four years and he’ll need to put a big chunk of money into these programs to achieve that laudable goal.

We’ll also see if the new nuclear weapon known as the Reliable Replacement Warhead, which we defeated with your help 2 years running, is resurrected under a new name or not. One program to keep a close eye on was mentioned by Undersecretary of state for arms control and international security Ellen Tauscher:

A reliable replacement for the now-dead Reliable Replacement Warhead program will be funded in U.S. President Barack Obama’s proposed 2011 budget, said the woman most responsible for killing the RRW in 2008….

The Stockpile Management program would permit the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to “refurbish” aging nuclear warheads to ensure that they still work and are safe, Tauscher said. During refurbishment, features could be added to the warheads to make them theft-proof and more environmentally friendly, she said.

But the warheads cannot be “improved” in the sense that they are made into more effective weapons, and they cannot be tested by exploding sample warheads.

Nuclear Posture Review

Throughout 2009, Peace Action West and other groups worked to highlight to the Obama administration the need for a transformative Nuclear Posture Review – the official document that will set US nuclear weapons policy for the next 5-10 years. The review will answer important questions like what purpose nuclear weapons have in defending the US, when we would use them, and how many nuclear weapons we need to have. Reports over the summer indicated a tug of war within the administration over the direction of the review. Now, the Nuclear Posture Review has been delayed. Originally due February 1st, it’s been pushed back to March 1st. The Los Angeles Times reports:

Officials in the Pentagon and elsewhere have pushed back against Obama administration proposals to cut the number of weapons and narrow their mission, according to U.S. officials and outsiders who have been briefed on the process.

In turn, White House officials, unhappy with early Pentagon-led drafts of the blueprint known as the Nuclear Posture Review, have stepped up their involvement in the deliberations and ordered that the document reflect Obama’s preference for sweeping change, according to the U.S. officials and others, who described discussions on condition of anonymity because of their sensitivity and secrecy.

International Conferences

Finally, we’ve got two big international conferences this year. The first, a Global Nuclear Security Summit in April, will address securing loose nuclear material and preventing nuclear terrorism. Next, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference will be held in New York in May. There’s more momentum headed into the conference this year due to President Obama’s stated goal of pursuing a safer world free of nuclear weapons. According to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Deputy Director of Nonproliferation Deepti Choubey:

American leadership will be crucial for a successful NPT Review Conference, and the rest of the world will be looking for concrete action to back up President Obama’s call for nuclear disarmament. Although ratification of the START follow on will be an important step, most countries will view the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) as the key piece of evidence that the U.S. brings to the Review Conference. Choubey says the best outcome would be an NPR that narrows the purpose and role of nuclear weapons, acknowledges the U.S.’s NPT commitments, and reconciles currently conflicting messages and nuclear policies.

Photo credit:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kingdafy/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

What is the difference between Israel and Iran???

Leonard Eiger — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 02:17:00 +0000

Friends,

I would hazard a guess that if one polled the people of the United States about what to do about the dreaded Iranian nuke threat, thanks in large part to the corporate media hype, a large percentage of people would recommend sanctions and direct military action and God knows what else. I have not heard one peep in the corporate press questioning the legitimacy of any of the claims made by the U.S. government, even the highly questionable hoopla over the planned enrichment facility near Qom, which the Iranian government announced to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) a few days ago, or Monday’s missile tests.

Tomorrow in Geneva, Switzerland, the P5+1 (China, France, Germany, Russia, United Kingdom, and United States), hold talks with Iranian officials, led by Saeed Jalili, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. The P5+1 members will be wagging their fingers and, as they have for many years, chastise Iran for enriching uranium, something the nuclear nations have been doing since the dawn of the nuclear age.

Yes Virginia, uranium, if enriched well (and I mean really well) beyond the level required to produce electricity, can be used to make bombs. The jury is out on this one so far in terms of Iran. What is relevant, however, is why we are so focused on Iran as a potential proliferator of nuclear weapons when we have turned a blind eye to Israel’s nuclear program for decades.

As with everything else with Israel, the U.S. continues to avoid the topic of its decades old nuclear program that has produced anywhere from 100 to 200 nuclear weapons that it continues to pretend it does not have. In the big picture of disarmament and nonproliferation we cannot isolate and focus on one politically expedient country (Iran) while ignoring (or should I say catering to) others that have flaunted the idea of nonproliferation (like Israel, India and Pakistan) and hope to acheive success.

Above all, until the longstanding members of the nuclear club demonstrate sincere efforts to cut back their arsenals as they work towards disarmament, they have no moral standing to call on other nations to abstain. The myth of deterrence is so strong that it continues to seduce otherwise sane people to lust after nuclear weapons. Even the vice president of Brazil said (in a recent interview) that “nuclear weapons would be a boon to the security of Brazil,” and spoke of how they could be “used as an instrument of deterrence.”

History makes dealing with Iran problematic, particularly in terms of U.S. engagement. The United States’ significant role in orchestrating the overthrow of Iran’s popular Prime Minister, Mohammed Massadegh, and the subsequent rule by Shah Mohammad Rezā Shāh Pahlavi didn’t help, and U.S. military aid to Saddam Hussein during Iraq’s war with Iran was icing on the cake of bad foreign relations. It is easy to see how a sovereign nation such as Iran may be reluctant to want to listen to the U.S. on any level.

One final matter of critical importance is Israel’s itchy trigger finger. They are ready to attack anything remotely resembling an Iranian nuclear facility, and such an action would not only be imprudent, but destabilizing to the Middle East. This is not the time for the United States to maintain its usual “hands off” stance with Israel. Allowing any military action by Israel would be tantamount to Israel acting as a U.S. proxy; not a good idea!!!

Commentator Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, in the last paragraph of her September 28 commentary in The Independent, “Don’t Israel’s Weapons Count?“, quoted Israeli human rights activist Gideon Spiro: “Rein in Israel, compel it to accept a regime of nuclear disarmament and oblige it to open all nuclear, biological and chemical facilities and missile sites to international inspection.” Alibhai-Brown then summed things up: “The US has leverage because it maintains and funds Israel. If Obama shies away from this, there can be no moral justification to go for Iran or North Korea or any other rogue state. And the leader whose election and dreams gave hope to millions thereby hastens the end of the world.”

Let’s hope that President Obama takes the moral high ground.

Peace,

Leonard