Blix and ACA in NYRB

Leave a reply

Thomas Powers has a good review of Tenet’s book in the 19 July edition of the _NYRB_. Referencing a “speech”:http://www.armscontrol.org/events/20060125_transcript_panel.asp that Blix gave at the 2006 ACA annual meeting, Powers notes that, according to Blix, the UN weapons inspectors (given a bit more time) would have confirmed that Iraq had no WMD and, perhaps, prevented the U.S.-led invasion of that country.

For some reason, Powers didn’t include the part where Blix talked about his role in “Team America: World Police:”:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0372588/

bq. States are not terribly impressed by international secretariats I can tell you. You can run into resistance. What weapon does [an international organization] have? The weapon you have is that if you do not go along with this I will report to the board. That is what you have. I heard there was a [movie, Team America: World Police] here in the U.S. about Iraq and I feature as a character who tells [North Korean leader] Kim Jong Il that if you do not behave I will report. (Laughter.) And thereafter Kim says, “Fu*k you, Hans Blix,” and chops off my head and it falls down into some poo-poo or other.” I mean this is the way that I get known around the world (laughter), but my reaction is rather to the substance of it.

Maybe it wasn’t sufficiently high-brow for _NYRB_ readers.

Jeffrey “posted the video”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/956/hans-brix a while back.

Six Party Talks Communique

1 Reply

I haven’t written much about the six-party talks as of late, but will something related up later. Meantime, this is the relevant part of the Press Communiqué from the most recent 6pt meeting, which ended today.

Essentially the parties agreed to fulfill their commitments under the February “agreement”:http://www.armscontrol.org/pressroom/2007/20070212_NKJointStatement.asp and September 2005 “Joint Statement.”:http://www.armscontrol.org/country/northkorea/20050921_JointStatement.asp They also agreed to take steps to implement them:

1. *Before the end of August, the Working Groups* for Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, Normalization of DPRK-US relations, Normalization of DPRK-Japan relations, Economy and Energy Cooperation and Northeast Asia Peace and Security Mechanism *will convene their respective meetings to discuss plans for the implementation of the general consensus.*

2. *In early September, the Parties will hold the Second Session of the Sixth Round of the Six-Party Talks in Beijing* to hear reports of all Working Groups and work out the roadmap for the implementation of the general consensus.

3. *Following the Second Session of the Sixth Round of the Six-Party Talks, the Parties will hold a ministerial meeting in Beijing as soon as possible* to confirm and promote the implementation of the September 19 Joint Statement, the February 13 agreement and the general consensus, and explore ways and means to enhance security cooperation in Northeast Asia.

Full text is “here.”:http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/zxxx/t342668.htm

Iran Video Game Screenshots

Leave a reply

Courtesy of ACA’s own Alex Bolfrass, here’s a screenshot from the new Iranian video game I “blogged about”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1473/new-iranian-video-game recently.

!/images/19.jpg!

More shots can be found “here.”:http://www.sueddeutsche.de/computer/bildstrecke/8/123831/p0/?img=0.0

DPRK Hearts the RRW

1 Reply

From KCNA:

The U.S. cites the life of the existing nuclear forces and their low technical efficiency as a main reason for developing the RRW. This is, however, nothing but a deceptive artifice to cover up its black-hearted intention. *The U.S. pretext to modernize nuclear weapons is too clumsy to convince people, taking into consideration the fact that the existing U.S. nuclear forces are confirmed to last more than a hundred years.*

*The U.S. loud-mouthed development of the RRW and the like are aimed at ensuring decisive upper hand in terms of strategic nuclear forces and thus prevailing over its major rivals and establishing an unchallenged domination over the world with nukes.* The world disturbance caused by the nuclear issue is attributable to the U.S. unreasonable policy of double standards.

Tactical Nukes Out of Germany

4 Replies

Well, not all of them.

Hans Kristensen has a “great post”:http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2007/07/united_states_removes_nuclear.php#more up about the US removal of B-61 gravity bombs from “Ramstein Air Base.”:http://www.ramstein.af.mil/

Hans explains that his claim is based on the USAF’s recent removal of Ramstein from

bq. a list of installations that receive periodic nuclear weapons inspections, *indicating that nuclear weapons previously stored at the base may have been removed and withdrawn to the United States.*

Ramstein had been on the list as recently as 2005.

According to “this NRDC report,”:http://www.nukestrat.com/us/afn/nato.htm 130 nukes were based at Ramstein; 20 are still at the Buchel base. That leaves about 350 B-61s in Europe, says Hans.

p=. *Future of TNWs*

About a year ago, Oliver Meier wrote a “piece”:http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2006_07-08/NewsAnalysis.asp for _ACT_ about the possibility that the European NNWS currently particiapting in nuclear-sharing agreements (Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey) may stop doing so.

One of the main reasons is that, in the future, they may not have the planes to deliver the bombs. As Oliver put it,

bq. Public statements from and interviews with government officials and experts in Europe indicate that *European governments may not be willing to make the investments in a new generation of nuclear-capable aircraft or participate in relevant technology sharing* that would be needed to sustain the policy.

Different countries, of course, have different policies. In Germany’s case, Berlin is planning to retire the “Tornado PA-200”:http://www.militaryaircraft.de/pictures/military/aircraft/Tornado-PA200/Tornado-PA200.html, the aircraft currently assigned to carry the B-61. Germany is planning to replace those planes with the “Eurofighter.”:http://www.eurofighter.com/ But according to Oliver,

bq. …the German government in July 2004 told parliament…that it *does not intend to certify the Eurofighter to carry nuclear weapons*. Such certification would require Germany and its partners to grant the United States access to Eurofighter technology, which Europeans are reluctant to do because they fear the loss of commercial proprietary information.

Now, Berlin has said that it “might keep some Tornados beyond the expected end of their service life in 2020,” but that’s obviously a temporary fix.

Anyway, read the “whole thing.”:http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2006_07-08/NewsAnalysis.asp

New Iranian Video Game

2 Replies

I doubt this will be available for my MacBook anytime soon, but MNA “reports”:http://www.mehrnews.com/en/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=515669 that a new Iranian nuclear-themed video game is to hit the streets on Monday.

It sounds pretty sweet:

The main character of the game enters several countries in eight stages.

In the game, *two nuclear physicists, Saeid Kusha and his wife Maryam, are detained by U.S. troops during their journey to Karbala, Iraq.*

*In order to win the game, Iranian security officer Bahman Nasseri, who is a friend of Kusha’s father, must free Maryam and Saeid.* He also finds out that several other Iranians are imprisoned in Iraq’s prisons.

Fortunately, there’s a discount for your children b/c the game appears to be aimed at kids.

Says MNA

bq. The game will be sold at a discounted price compared to other cultural products so that it will be accessible to all children.

Get in line.

Previous Iranian video game post “here.”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1421/port-rescue-defense-in-the-firing-line

North Korean HEU – New England Edition

Leave a reply

Sorry for the light posting as of late…I have been on holiday with limited internet access.

Anyway, I thought I’d follow up on “this post”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1468/ceip-conference-hibbs-conversation in which I discussed, among other topics, Mark Hibbs’ 2002 take on the Norks’ HEU program.

While doing research for “this _ACT_ article”:http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2007_04/NewsAnalysis.asp about the program, I came across this material in my files and thought I’d share it here. It’s all from fall 2002 and discusses the ROK’s take on Pyongyang’s HEU efforts. [I also referenced the _ACT_ piece in “this post.”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1408/north-korean-heu-bad-decisions ]

p=. *N Korea/Khan Network Coop*

All three reports provide various details about what the US and ROK knew and when they knew it. For example, Yonhap reported 25 October 2002 that, at a “parliamentary briefing,” NIS Director Shin Kuhn said that *“the IS began to track” North Korea’s HEU program in “the early part of” 1999 when the ROK learned that “three North Koreans had been dispatched” to KRL.*

Shin also said that South Korean and US intelligence agencies “succeeded in *preventing North Korea from securing certain metallic alloys* needed for building centrifugal separators.”

In the same vein, ROK MoD spokesperson Hwang Eui-Don told reporters that Seoul informed Washington of *“crucial military intelligence in 1999”* regarding the HEU program, AFP reported 21 October 2002. According to Hwang, the ROK “obtained information in 1999 that North Korea was *trying to import production facilities”* for HEU.

Similarly, Yonhap reported three days earlier that, according to an unnamed “diplomatic source,” the *US started investigating the program in 1998.* The report added that Washington “know[s] *the North is receiving assistance from Russia, China, and Pakistan for the uranium-based nuclear program and that a Pakistani Nobel Prize laureate with expertise on nuclear development entered the North.”*

p=. *So What Did Seoul Think About All This?*

Well, according to the same Yonhap report, an unnamed South Korean lawmaker said that Yim Tong-won, special adviser to then-president Kim Dae-Jung, said that, “according to our government’s assessments,” the program *“is at an elementary stage.”* Moreover, he said that *the belief that North Korea admitted “to having such a program” in order to “stimulate negotiations with the United States is gaining more weight.”*

Incidentally, Washington notified Seoul about its intelligence on the HEU program in August 2002, Yim said.

Other-Promotion

1 Reply

A bit off-topic, but my friend Jill has a well-written blog called “Oliver and I”:http://oliverandi.blogspot.com/ about baseball (OK, the Mets) and sometimes politics.

Go visit. I get a cut of the ad revenues to bankroll my lavish lifestyle.

Taiwan Nukes and Self-Promotion

Leave a reply

Well, not entirely. Jane put up a good “post”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/1548/counter-proliferation-in-taiwan about, as she put it, the National Security Archive’s “new “electronic briefing book”:http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb221/index.htm on U.S. opposition to the Taiwanese nuclear program in the 1970’s.”

I haven’t had a chance to read the briefing book yet, but I hope to later this week.

The self-promotion part is that I wrote “this piece”:http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2005_01-02/Egypt_Taiwan.asp a while back on the IAEA’s investigation of some past suspicious Taiwanese nuclear activities.

At the time, I wrote that, according to _AP_, the IAEA had “found evidence that Taiwan conducted plutonium-separation experiments until the mid-1980s.” That time frame might be off, though – I was cautioned by a State Department official that “it is possible the reported experiments took place during the 1970s.”

Here’s some more history:

bq. Boucher said that Taiwan “worked under IAEA supervision and safeguards on plutonium at some point” during the 1970s. Whether Taipei ever separated plutonium, however, is unclear. *According to declassified State Department documents, the United States had concerns in the mid-1970s that Taipei was secretly separating plutonium. Taiwan reportedly began building an additional facility that could separate plutonium in 1987 but again stopped because of U.S. diplomatic pressure.*

I have occasionally taken stabs at trying to find out whatever became of the IAEA’s investigation, but to no avail.