Arms Control Today articles from March 2003

Arms Control Today archives from March 2003

At the crossroads on Iraq. (Focus).(weapons inspection program)
March 1, 2003... Three months after the return of UN arms inspectors to Iraq, chief inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei have, not surprisingly, reported mixed results. While there is broad international agreement on the need for Iraqi compliance with UN...

Stopping a dangerous drift in U.S. arms control policy.(threat reduction programs languishing while new nuclear weapons being considered)
March 1, 2003... Instead of accelerating our arms control efforts to meet today's dangers, the Bush administration is allowing threat reduction to tread water while exploring new nuclear weapons. The United States is facing an increasingly diverse set of...

A strategic choice: new bunker busters versus nonproliferation.(devleopment of low-yield nuclear weapons would undermne nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty)
March 1, 2003... A decision to resume testing to build low-yield nuclear weapons could deal the NPT regime a fatal blow while providing the U.S. with a capability of questionable military value. The United States has repeatedly emphasized the importance of...

Confronting ambiguity: how to handle North Korea's nuclear program.
March 1, 2003... Has North Korea decided that nuclear weapons are essential to its survival, or is the nuclear weapons program a bargaining chip that North Korea is prepared to trade away? There are growing divisions over how to deal with North Korea's...

North Korea restarts reactor; IAEA sends resolution to UN. (News and Negotiations).
March 1, 2003... FURTHER ESCALATING THE crisis over its suspected nuclear weapons activities, North Korea has restarted a small nuclear reactor that had been frozen by the 1994 Agreed Framework, U.S. officials confirmed February 27. The move came two weeks...

Decision on Iraqi disarmament divides Security Council. (News and Negotiations).
March 1, 2003... AS WEAPONS INSPECTIONS continued in Iraq, permanent members of the UN Security Council submitted competing proposals February 24 intended to address Baghdad's failure to disarm. A U.S.-British draft resolution states that Iraq has failed to...

Intelligence chiefs paint grim picture of proliferation. (News and Negotiations).(George Tenet, Lowell Jacoby)
March 1, 2003... DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL Intelligence George Tenet issued a pessimistic assessment concerning the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in a February 11 statement to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. The United States has...

U.S., Russian legislatures take up SORT ratification. (News and Negotiations).(Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty)
March 1, 2003... THE SENATE FOREIGN Relations Committee approved a resolution to ratify the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT) on February 5, but in January a committee of the Russian Duma rejected President Vladimir Putin's draft of a ratification...

Peter Scoblic leaves ACT; Pomper is new editor.(Miles Pomper to head Arms Control Today)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... This marks the final issue for Arms Control Today editor J. Peter Scoblic, who is leaving the Arms Control Association to become a fellow at the New America Foundation. Miles Pomper, formerly a foreign policy reporter for Congressional...

Iran mining uranium, greatly expanding nuclear facilities. (News and Negotiations).
March 1, 2003... IN A TELEVISED speech, Iranian President Mohammad Khatami announced February 9 that Iran has started mining uranium near the city of Yazd and is developing the facilities necessary for a complete nuclear fuel cycle. Khatami's speech, in which...

U.S. aims to deploy space-based missile interceptors in five years. (News and Negotiations).
March 1, 2003... THE UNITED STATES is exploring concepts for basing missile interceptors in space with the objective of beginning deployment of three to five armed satellites for testing purposes as early as 2008, according to recent Pentagon briefings and...

Budget office calls chem-demil 'ineffective'. (News and Negotiations).(chemical demilitarization)
March 1, 2003... AN ASSESSMENT BY the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) that accompanied President George W. Bush's fiscal year 2004 budget request rates U.S. chemical demilitarization efforts as "ineffective" and says the program, run by the Army, might...

DOD wants to field defenses without calling it deployment. (News and Negotiations).(Department of Defense request)
March 1, 2003... AS PART OF its fiscal year 2004 budget request, the Bush administration is asking Congress to treat plans to field up to 40 ground- and sea-based missile interceptors before 2006 as part of a research and development program and not as an...

Missile defense systems not ready for action, Pentagon says. (News and Negotiations).
March 1, 2003... A PENTAGON OFFICE charged with evaluating proposed U.S. weapons systems reported to Congress in February that missile defense systems scheduled to be fielded in 2004 have not yet been proven to work. As part of its annual assessment of...

Nuclear weapons activity surges in Energy Department budget. (News and Negotiations).(funding nuclear test readiness, weapons research)
March 1, 2003... AMID SPECULATION ABOUT the Bush administration's plans for the development and use of nuclear weapons, the Department of Energy (DOE) requested $6.38 billion for its nuclear weapons-related activities in fiscal year 2004--an increase of $532.2...

DOE requests funds for plutonium disposal. (News and Negotiations).(Department of Energy)
March 1, 2003... ASKING FOR A $312 million increase in its nonproliferation spending, the Department of Energy released its budget request for fiscal year 2004 on February 3. Most of the new funds would be used to begin construction on a controversial...

CTR programs get boost with budget request. (News and Negotiations).(Cooperative Threat Reduction)
March 1, 2003... PLACING GREATER PRIORITY on Russian chemical weapons demilitarization, the Department of Defense requested an increase of more than $34 million in its fiscal year 2004 budget for the U.S.-Russian Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program. The...

Pentagon asks for $9.1 billion in missile defense funding. (News and Negotiations).
March 1, 2003... IN A BUDGET request just shy of $380 billion, the Defense Department is asking to spend $9.1 billion on missile defense in fiscal year 2004, according to a February 3 presentation by a top Pentagon official. Last February, the Pentagon sought...

Kill-vehicle contract awarded without full review, GAO says. (News and Negotiations).(Government Accounting Office)(exoatmospheric kill vehicle)
March 1, 2003... THE GENERAL ACCOUNTING Office (GAO) reported January 27 that the contract for a key element of the Pentagon's strategic missile defense system was not awarded on technical or cost considerations, but because one of the two companies competing...

Israeli arms exports to China of growing concern to U.S. (News and Negotiations).
March 1, 2003... THE UNITED STATES has reportedly increased pressure on Israel about its arms sales to China, and Israel has given assurances that it will not export any item that could harm U.S. security, according to U.S. and Israeli officials in January. ...

Annan urges CD to be productive in upcoming year. (News and Negotiations).(UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan)(Conference on Disarmament)
March 1, 2003... THE 66-MEMBER Conference on Disarmament (CD) began its 2003 negotiating session January 21 with a wish from UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan for a "most productive" year, but its initial five weeks of meetings suggest this year may well be a...

U.S., Russian academies report on nonproliferation efforts. (News and Negotiations).(U.S. National Academies)(Russian Academy of Sciences )
March 1, 2003... RECOMMENDING THE APPOINTMENT of a single senior official both in the United States and in Russia "to reduce the continuing impediments to the implementation of joint nonproliferation and threat reduction programs," the U.S. National Academies...

Russia considers missile defense. (News and Negotiations).
March 1, 2003... LONG OPPOSED TO U.S. missile defense plans, top Russian officials voiced interest throughout January in exploring missile defenses on their own or in cooperation with the United States. But Russia has little money to spend on such a project,...

Rumsfeld wants to use riot control agents in combat. (News and Negotiations).(nonlethal agents)
March 1, 2003... SECRETARY OF DEFENSE Donald Rumsfeld said February 5 that he is trying to write rules of engagement that would allow the U.S. military to use "nonlethal riot agents" in some situations--and perhaps in Iraq--without breaking the law. It is a...

India conducts four missile tests. (News and Negotiations).
March 1, 2003... INDIA CONDUCTED FOUR separate missile tests in January and February, including one of the nuclear-capable Agni-I on January 9. Calling the Agni test a "routine" part of India's guided missile program, P.K. Bandopadhyay, an Indian Ministry...

Text of new proposals on Iraq introduced at the UN. (Document).(related article: "Iraq: Failing to Disarm")(Colin Powell address to U.N. Security Counsel)(Transcript)
March 1, 2003... DraftResolution by the United Kingdom, the United States, and Spain February 24, 2003 The Security Council, PP1: Recalling all its previous relevant resolutions, in particular its resolutions 661 (1990) of August 1990, 678 (1990) of 29...

Indian company sanctioned for proliferation. (News Briefs).(NEC Engineers Private Ltd.)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... The United States levied sanctions February 4 against an Indian company and its president for aiding Iraq's chemical and biological weapons programs. Under the sanctions, imports from NEC Engineers Private Ltd. and its successors or the...

No appeal in ABM treaty case. (News Briefs).(contested withdrawl from Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) and 31 other members of the House of Representatives decided in mid-January not to appeal a federal judge's dismissal of their lawsuit charging that President George W. Bush could not unilaterally withdraw...

China buying Russian combat jets. (News Briefs).(Su-30MKK fighters)
March 1, 2003... China will acquire a third batch of advanced Su-30MKK fighter jets from Russia in a deal initially reported in January. The precise details of the buy remain secret, but China is expected to receive roughly two to three dozen of the combat...

U.S. will upgrade missile defense radar in U.K. (News Briefs).(early-warning radar at Fylingdales)
March 1, 2003... London will permit the United States to upgrade a U.S. radar based on British territory in order to enable better tracking of ballistic missiles in flight, British Secretary of Defense Geoffrey Hoon announced February 5. Located at...

U.S. concludes Ukraine policy review. (News Briefs).
March 1, 2003... The United States completed a review of U.S. policy toward Ukraine in mid-January, concluding that it is in the United States' best interest to continue pursuing closer ties with Ukraine despite unresolved concerns about its possible export of...

U.S., Japan extend missile defense cooperation. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... The United States and Japan finalized an agreement in late February to continue joint research on a sea-based missile defense system designed to intercept short- and medium-range ballistic missiles. Details of the agreement are scarce because...

New agency for Chem-Demil Program created. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... The U.S. Army has started to implement a major restructuring of its program to destroy chemical weapons in an effort to streamline the demilitarization process. The Army announced February 18 the creation of the provisional Chemical Materials...