Laicie Olson and I have put together an analysis of the Senate Armed Services Committee version of the Defense Authorization Bill.  Head over to the mothership for the main course.

In the meantime, here’s an appetizer:

It remains to be seen when the full Senate will take up the bill.  Could happen this month, I’m told.  To date the Senate has declined to do much of anything until the debt ceiling impasses is resolved.

The Washington Post revealed yesterday accusations and alleged evidence of North Korean bribes for nuclear “know-how” in an article that if true, will prove extremely damning for Pyongyang, Islamabad, and Washington.  Any iota of faith left in North Korea’s desire to ever denuclearize would disappear among any of the remaining believers, for it would confirm that Pyongyang was pursuing a uranium path to nuclear weapons simultaneous to the steps it was taking towards denuclearization in the late 1990s.  The reputation of Pakistan’s former Chief of Army Staff, General Jehangir Karamat (also ex-U.S. Ambassador and Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Commissioner) would be in tatters, raising serious questions in Washington about nuclear security in a country increasingly plagued by terrorism.

In essence, The Post’s story suggests that Abdul Qadeer Khan personally handed over North Korean money to a Pakistani general in 1998 in exchange for nuclear know-how.  To corroborate, Khan provided The Posts’ source (Simon Henderson) with a letter he allegedly received from North Korean Workers’ Party Secretary, Jon Bong-ho, which detailed payments of cash and jewelry intended for two Pakistani generals.  Henderson received the backstory and letter “in the years after  [Khan’s] 2004 arrest by Pakistani authorities”, deciding to pass them onto The Post in 2011 “because he lacked the resources to authenticate it himself”.  But despite The Posts best efforts, the articles author R. Jeffrey Smith admits he was unable to confirm the allegations, instead providing argument and counter-argument from U.S. and Pakistan officials respectively.  Given the serious allegations contained in the article and the potential ramifications if proved true, it is important to look closer at both source and evidence before making any hasty conclusions.

This A.Q. Khan leak is not the first that appeared in The Post via Simon Henderson, with a piece last year (also written by Smith) drawing criticism in some areas for the faith then in Khan’s proliferation narrative.   As Jeffrey Lewis explained of Khan at that time, “he is not an historian, attempting to document the operation of a proliferation network for future scholars, or a journalist with a big scoop. He’s a perp, trying to save his own skin and repair his reputation.”  In 2009, another Khan-leaked story appeared in The Post which drew similar reactions from ISIS.  On that occasion, Albright et al suggested that, “many of his assertions are self-serving and highly dubious… He has proven that he is unable to honestly relate the facts fully as he knows them and has many reasons to deceive, obfuscate or suppress the truth.”  Whether we can take Khan’s word on this occasion as being authoritative, is thus difficult to gauge.

Another interesting aspect to The Posts’ story is timing.  From the reference to Henderson having received the letter from Khan in the years following 2004, one must ask why then it was only passed on in summer 2011.  The information would have been much more relevant to release in 2002, when allegations were rife that North Korea was simultaneously pursuing a uranium enrichment program (the form of nuclear technology AQ Khan was most knowledgeable of).  Could political reasons be behind the timing, perhaps to discredit Pakistani officials further in the aftermath of the Osama Bin Laden debacle?   Or is this because The Post needed significant time to check the credibility of an otherwise highly damaging letter and story.

Of the letter – which provided the main evidence to yesterday’s story – The Post spoke to former IAEA staffer Olli Heinonen and an unnamed Pakistani embassy official to get their opinions on its authenticity.  According to yesterday’s article, Heinonen claimed that the letter was similar to other North Korean notes that he had seen or received over the years, lacking a letterhead and bearing similarities “of clandestine payments by North Korea to Pakistani military officials and government advisers.”   Unsurprisingly the Pakistani official explained, “it is not on any official letterhead and bears no seal… The reference to alleged payment and gifts to senior Pakistani military officers is ludicrous.”  So what should we make of this difference in testimony?

Regardless of whose side you take, several things do nevertheless seem unusual for correspondence emanating from such a senior North Korean political figure in 1998, as Peter Hayes has already pointed out.   To start, all DPRK correspondence received after 1997 was dated according to the Juche calendar, with (on occasion) the regular format date alongside it.  Interestingly, the letter published by The Post only features the standard format date.  Secondly, with the degree of secrecy required by nuclear bribery, it would have been highly imprudent for Jon Byong Ho to make reference to any payments or gifts in writing – especially so when the reference in question is both casual and secondary to the main contents of the letter, reporting on a transaction that had already took place.   Another suspicious element is the quality of the photocopy of the letter itself – would its source, AQ Khan, only have had access to a photocopier so evidently on its way out (note the grainy texture and distortion).

With regards to the actual content of the language, it would seem that tonality of the English in the letter doesn’t quite seem right.  Even the works of North Korea’s finest translators at the Foreign Language Publishing House sound awkward to a native ear, so it is surprising that the language found in Jon Byong Ho’s writing sounds as natural as it does.  Today, Mark Fitzpatrick of IISS added to this point, noting the repeated unnecessary use of the present progressive tense in the letter (“I am hoping”), in his experience “more akin to South Asian usage than what those schooled in British or American English would use”.  In addition, he observed the absence of an apostrophe in “Korean Workers’ Party”, something he claims to have never seen in communications emanating from North Korea.

Despite the unusual characteristics of the letter, some have nevertheless suggested that because The Post seems to have established that Simon Henderson did indeed receive the materials from Khan, inconsistencies with Khan’s own proliferation narrative prove the letter might well be real.  This is because it includes details that Khan himself would not have chosen to invent or publicize after his arrest in 2004. As Arms Control Wonk explained, “the letter depicts [Khan] as primarily responsible for dealing with the North Koreans and shipping centrifuge parts and components abroad. This undercuts Khan’s recent claims that various foreign black-market suppliers were acting autonomously.”   Nevertheless, by naming Jehangir Karamat and Zulfiqar Khan, A.Q. Khan is buttressing “his claims about the role of senior Pakistani military officials in sanctioning his activities,” something he might presumably have been motivated to do not long after his 2004 arrest.

While it appears more than likely that the letter and notes behind The Posts’ article were willingly passed from Khan to Henderson, the evidence to suggest the letter might be authentic from a North Korean perspective is a lot harder to ascertain.   However, North Korea’s recent uranium enrichment revelations suggest that the country has almost certainly had foreign technical assistance in this domain.  Whether that dates back to 1998 will only be answered if and when Pyongyang’s diplomatic archives become available.

Tad Farrell runs NKNews.org – a North Korea News and Information Resource

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) stand at a crossroads over the nuclear ambitions of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

On June 9, the Board of Governors at the IAEA declared Syria in noncompliance with IAEA safeguards.

Notably, the resolution was predicated not on information from unbiased IAEA inspections, but on intelligence provided by the United States and verified by data in the public domain. Eleven NAM countries chose to abstain from the vote to report Syria, in part because they were hesitant to rely on intelligence provided by the U.S. and its allies. The resolution stands no chance in New York as Russia and China, both of which possess veto power over possible sanctions as permanent members of the UN Security Council, will certainly oppose it.

India in particular faces a dilemma that typifies the choices facing the NAM. On October 1st, 2008 the U.S. Senate approved HR 7081: the United States-India Nuclear Cooperation Approval and Nonproliferation Enhancement Act. Championed by the Bush administration, the “123 agreement” elevated India to a de-facto internationally recognized nuclear weapons state despite New Delhi’s refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

A “123 agreement” is a peaceful nuclear cooperation agreement that includes the transfer of U.S.-origin nuclear material; it requires Congressional approval according to nine nonproliferation criteria stipulated in Section 123 of the Atomic Energy Act. The Henry J. Hyde U.S.-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act of 2006 exempted the nuclear cooperation deal with India from some of these requirements. The deal therefore allows India to import nuclear materials and technology to fuel its nuclear power program without renouncing its nuclear arsenal, effectively reversing three decades of non-proliferation policies designed to punish India for the first ever illegal use of civilian nuclear facilities and materials in 1974.

As Michael Krepon has outlined in great detail, the U.S. appears to have received very little in return for the deal, while nuclear stability in South Asia and nonproliferation norms have suffered.  Most recently, India was one of the eleven states on the IAEA Board of Governors that voted to abstain from referring Syria to the UN Security Council.

It is now obvious that the U.S.-India deal legitimized an expanding nuclear power, allowed New Delhi to operate outside the NPT standards fundamental to the global nonproliferation regime, and failed to win India’s cooperation on preventing the spread of nuclear weapons.

India’s noncooperation on the Syria vote illustrates the challenges facing the international non-proliferation community. The vote was complicated and politicized by wariness over an American conflict of interest in the region. Mark Hibbs, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment’s Nuclear Policy Program, made a perceptive assessment of the political concerns facing the NAM, which included:

1. The credibility of information was called into question, since IAEA inspectors on the ground never actually verified the suspected nuclear reactor at Dair Alzour. The NAM countries are wary of relying on superpower intelligence that operates with an inherent bias.

2. The lack of a decisive judgment by IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano exacerbated the credibility issue. Mr. Amano was only willing to assert that Dair Alzour was “very likely” a reactor, and urged that “reasonable inferences must be drawn.”

3. The destruction of the installation at Dair Alzour by an Israeli air raid in 2007 has severely reduced the urgency of a Syrian nuclear threat.

4. Non-Aligned countries continue to express their outrage over the gross breech of national sovereignty constituted by the 2007 Israeli strike.

5. The resolution for noncompliance was been presented at a time when popular uprisings threaten the stability of the Assad regime, engendering the suspicion that the resolution is motivated by a desire for regime change.

Given these extraneous political considerations, our failed attempt to purchase the cooperation of an NAM leader is crippling.

In another astute commentary, Mr. Hibbs suggests that reliance on combined U.S. and public domain intelligence could become a new paradigm for verifying noncompliance with IAEA safeguards. Given that most NAM countries remain at best skeptical and self-interested actors in the non-proliferation community, this paradigm would severely undermine IAEA credibility and trust unless a clearer definition of noncompliance is established. If the increasing politicization of the IAEA board of governors can be separated from clearly defined technical requirements for a resolution on noncompliance, then NAM countries may be more willing to overlook “biased” sources of intelligence or disregard offensive unilateral action like the 2007 Israeli air strike.

Later this year, the board of governors at the IAEA may vote on a resolution to once again declare Iran in noncompliance with IAEA safeguards. The evidence that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons capability will probably be decisively more convincing than the case against Syria. Nevertheless, the political thicket that hampered the Syria resolution may foreshadow the political impediments that will need to be surmounted vis a vis Iran.

On June 15 the House Appropriations Committee marked up the Fiscal Year (FY) 2012 Energy and Water Appropriations Bill.  

The Committee appropriated $2.086 billion for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation account, a reduction of $463 million below the FY 2012 request of $2.549 billion.  The Committee also rescinded an additional $30 million of prior-year unobligated balances from the account.  For a detailed breakdown of the appropriation, see our analysis here.

For now I want to focus on the Committee’s cut to the Global Threat Reduction Initiative, the key program in the effort to lock down and eliminate nuclear materials around the world at an accelerated rate.  The House bill reduces the administration’s FY 2012 request by $120 million.   This cut comes on the heels of a $123 million cut to the Global Threat Reduction Initiative in the final FY 2011 Continuing Resolution passed by Congress in April.

Given the low budget ceiling it was given to work with, the Committee did it’s best to protect vital nuclear material removal and nonproliferation efforts.  However, the FY 2012 bill cuts $70 million (nearly 50% of the request) from the Global Threat Reduction Initiative’s Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) Reactor Conversion program and $50 million from domestic radiological protection activities.

By way of background, the Highly Enriched Uranium Reactor Conversion program supports the conversion of domestic and international research reactors and medical isotope production facilities that use HEU to low enriched uranium (LEU).  Dozens of reactors worldwide are still powered by HEU, many of which are not adequately secured.  Unlike HEU, LEU cannot be used to make a nuclear bomb.  

The reactor conversion program supports three key activities…

• HEU reactor conversions: To date the Global Threat Reduction Initiative has verified the shutdown of 76 HEU reactors, including five reactors in Russia.  The National Nuclear Security Administration plans to shut down a total of 200 research reactors by 2022.    
• Medical isotope production without the use of HEU: Many reactors around the world use HEU to produce Molybdenum-99, a critical medical isotope used to examine how organs such as hearts, lungs, and kidneys function.  Molybdenum-99 can also be produced using LEU, which would reduce the risk of nuclear terrorism.  The Global Threat Reduction Initiative is providing support to the private sector to accelerate the establishment of a reliable domestic production capability for Molybdenum-99.  It is also assisting South Africa in its efforts to begin exporting Molybdenum-99 isotopes using LEU.  
• New LEU fuel development: The Global Threat Reduction Initiative is continuing efforts required to fabricate the new high-density LEU fuel needed to convert the 27 HEU research reactors around the world that cannot convert with existing LEU fuel.  Collectively these reactors use approximately 675 kilograms of HEU annually, enough to make 27 nuclear weapons.

The National Nuclear Security Administration requested $148.3 million for Highly Enriched Uranium Reactor Conversion in FY 2012, an increase of $29.3 million above the FY 2011 request.  

The Committee justified its $70 million cut to this program by noting that the request “for the long-term goals to convert foreign reactors reflects an understanding that progress relies heavily on international cooperation, which is not yet assured.”  In particular, the Committee noted that only three out of a total of 71 Russian research reactors have been shut down.

Contrary to the Committee’s report, however, the vast majority of the request for reactor conversion in FY 2012 is not aimed at Russia, but rather to convert reactors in other countries, accelerate the establishment of a reliable domestic production capability for Molybdenum-99 using LEU, and develop new high-density LEU fuel.  In fact, according to information provided to Congress by the National Nuclear Security Administration, only $10 million, or 7%, of the FY 2012 request for reactor conversion is for Russian reactors.

The National Nuclear Security Administration believes that the $70 million cut would delay the essential effort to eliminate the use of HEU in civilian applications in the following ways:

• The House cut would delay reactor conversions currently underway in Poland, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Ghana, and Nigeria.  The cut would also prevent the conversion of any new reactors in FY 2012 (the Global Threat Reduction Initiative had planned to convert an additional five reactors this year). Furthermore, the cut would delay the significant progress that has been made with Russia on the conversion of additional reactors there.
• The House cut would delay the establishment of a domestic medical isotope production capability using LEU by two years to 2017 and delay the production of the new LEU fuel and the conversion of the reactors that need this fuel by three years.
• Delays in reactor conversions would also delay the final removal of vulnerable HEU from numerous countries, since HEU cannot be removed until the reactor has been converted to use LEU and the HEU is removed from the reactor core.
• As National Nuclear Security Administration officials have suggested publically, due to the $123 million cut to the Global Threat Reduction Initiative in FY 2011, money originally budgeted for reactor conversion, Molybdenum-99 conversion, and radiological security will be used to keep the high-level commitments to remove HEU from countries such as Belarus, Ukraine, and Mexico on track in the lead up to the next Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul in March 2012.

The Highly Enriched Uranium Reactor Conversion program is a critical threat reduction activity to reduce the threats of nuclear terrorism. Underfunding this program, which the House has now done for two years in a row, undermines U.S. national security.

Senator John McCain (R-AZ) has appeared prominently in the news lately for a number of bellicose statements, including grave warnings to fellow Republicans over their reluctance to join him in advocating military force to defend American ideals around the globe.

Senator McCain has identified a dangerous “isolation strain” stemming from “the Pat Buchanan wing” of the Republican party – the same tendency, he claims, that during the 1930’s led the United States to stand idly by as Germany disregarded its Versailles treaty obligations and prepared to conquer Europe.

If the threats we face today are as overt and credible as the rise of Nazism in Germany, then the implications of the Republican “isolation strain” are truly dangerous to American security.

Of course, isolationism as an American ideology has historically been espoused by policymakers for widely varying reasons: from a continuation of President Washington’s warning against “entangling alliances,” to a rejection of Wilsonian idealism and the League of Nations at the end of World War I, to a repudiation of European balance-of-power politics, to outright xenophobia.

Senator McCain’s accusation recalls a harsh brand of isolationism wielded by public figures like Republican Senators Gerald P. Nye and Henry Cabot Lodge. This doctrine spurned not only military intervention on the side of Great Britain and France but also participation in international bodies and alliances with European nations It ignored an overt and credible German threat to the sovereignty of nations and the existence of an entire people. As a result, American foreign policy undermined the promise of collective security manifested in the League of Nations, and was one factor leading to the highly destructive Second World War where over 60 million people were killed.

Senator McCain’s comparison is problematic. The threats to American security posed by a military withdrawal from Libya or Afghanistan are neither overt nor credible. Analysts indicate that al-Qaeda in its newly decentralized and localized form is no longer able to operate substantially from an Afghani platform. Prior to the recent U.S. military intervention, a combination of sanctions and diplomacy had kept Colonel Qadaffi in his box and induced him to renounce the Libyan nuclear program.

Although Senator McCain sharply accused his colleague Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) of a “lack-of-knowledge-of-history attitude” that “seems to be on the rise in America,” he nevertheless does not hesitate to conjure gross historical inaccuracies to support his own position.

Withdrawal from Libya and Afghanistan may very well diverge from our willingness “to stand up for freedom for people all over the world.” Nevertheless, to categorize his opponents as 1930s-style “isolationists”  constitutes a flagrant exaggeration that presupposes an overt and credible threat to the sovereignty of nations. As conservative columnist George Will noted,

“Between wishing success to people fighting for freedom and sending in the Marines (or the drones), there is as much middle ground for temperate people as there is between Buchanan, a sort of come-home-America conservative, and McCain, a promiscuous interventionist.”

Senator McCain subscribes loudly to the neo-conservative doctrine that “our interests are our values.” To carry this doctrine to its logical conclusion, the United States should send its military not only to Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Yemen, but to Bahrain, Syria, Iran, and elsewhere where freedom and democracy threaten to upset the old order.

It is ironic that the politician who once considered himself a proud maverick now finds himself in a corner with a narrow group of neoconservative holdouts. Senator McCain has a right to his own opinion, but deliberately distorting history misinforms the American people and diminishes the human cost that we pay to defend our “interests” around the globe.