Nuclear Weapons

CINCINNATI -During his recent trip to Europe, President Barack Obama announced that the U.S. must "seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons." This goal would undermine global nuclear security. A successful policy on international nuclear weapons security must strive to support stable possession and effective stewardship of nuclear technology. Only by stabilizing nuclear capabilities, not by eliminating them, will the world be safe from the threat of nuclear weapon use. The only time in history atomic weapons were used in warfare was when only one country possessed them in very small numbers.

BEIJING -- Negotiations on a step-by-step deal that the Bush administration hopes will lead North Korea to give up its nuclear arms program appeared near collapse yesterday over Pyongyang's demands for huge shipments of oil and electricity before agreeing to a schedule for turning over its nuclear weapons and fuel. The chief U.S. envoy, Christopher R. Hill, said he and North Korea's envoy, Kim Kye Gwan, had held a "lengthy and very frank" meeting yesterday. But Hill seemed much less optimistic than at the start of the five days of talks that a deal could be struck.

U.S intelligence agencies have concluded in a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in fall 2003 and that Tehran is now "less determined to develop nuclear weapons." The new findings will make it more difficult for the Bush administration to gain domestic and international support for the use of military force against Iran. The findings also will complicate efforts to arrange a third round of U.N. sanctions against Iran and could open the door to a policy of diplomatic engagement.

WASHINGTON -- President Bush and his aides spent a second day trying to keep pressure on Iran, with the White House saying yesterday that the disclosure that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 would not affect conditions for opening negotiations with the Islamic republic. As Monday's report by the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies continued to reverberate, raising doubts about the U.S. push to punish Iran, Bush consulted with top advisers on their talks with counterparts from Britain, Germany, France and Russia.

It's only a matter of time. That's what the experts say when asked whether a terrorist organization might detonate an atom bomb in an American city. The Bush administration has taken several initiatives to defend the country against nuclear terrorism. These measures will help to prevent the theft of uranium and plutonium and to interdict any illicit shipments of nuclear materials or equipment. The recent capture in the Republic of Georgia of a smuggler carrying enriched uranium is a case where cooperative intelligence worked quite well.

WASHINGTON -- Air Force weapons officers assigned to secure nuclear warheads failed on five separate occasions to examine a bundle of cruise missiles headed to a B-52 bomber in North Dakota, leading the plane's crew to unknowingly fly six nuclear-armed missiles across the country. That August flight, the first known incident in which the U.S. military lost track of its nuclear weapons since the dawn of the atomic age, lasted nearly three hours, until the bomber landed at Barksdale Air Force Base in northern Louisiana.

RANDALL FORSBERG, 64 Anti-nuclear activist Randall Forsberg, the activist who founded the nuclear freeze movement and led the largest-ever demonstration against nuclear weapons in 1982, died Oct. 19 of cancer in a Bronx, N.Y., hospital . Dr. Forsberg, a political science professor at City College of New York, , launched the anti-nuclear movement with a paper she wrote while earning a doctorate in international studies at Massachusetts Institute of...

VIENNA, Austria -- Defying the international community, Iran has sharply upgraded its capacity to enrich uranium in recent months while the outside world's access to and grasp of Iran's nuclear program "has deteriorated," according to a unusually blunt report yesterday by the International Atomic Energy Agency. As two U.S. aircraft carriers and a flotilla of warships steamed into the Persian Gulf for previously unannounced exercises, the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency warned that it could not "provide assurances about ... the exclusively peaceful nature" of Iran's expanding nuclear effort.

PYONGYANG, North Korea -- The way Son Hye Suk sees it, having nuclear weapons means more than security for this Stalinist state. It means North Koreans will have more food on their plates. "Our nuclear weapons are a source of great pride in our country, and if anyone insults us now, they won't survive," said Son, an ideologically vetted worker at the International Friendship Museum north of the capital. "Now that we have our pride, our great political and military power and nuclear weapons, the economic problems can be solved.

While the United States is spending $3 billion each week on the war in Iraq - a war, let us remember, that was predicated in part on nuclear fears - it refuses to pay a good part of its dues to the organization that provides for monitoring the countries it wants to prevent from developing nuclear weapons, including North Korea and Iran. The organization that is to implement the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty has installed 75 percent of its verification structure, an alarm system that monitors the entire globe for nuclear explosions.

HERBERT YORK, 87 A-bomb developer, arms-control advocate Herbert York, a leading physicist in the development of the atomic bomb during World War II who later became an arms-control advocate, died Tuesday in San Diego after a long illness. Beginning with his work on the Manhattan Project, Dr. York held a series of high-level posts over six decades and served as an adviser to six presidents. He wrote and lectured extensively about the threat of nuclear war. "There is no such thing as a good nuclear weapons system," Dr. York said in a 1983 interview with the Los Angeles Times.

Imperative to move to abolish nukes I couldn't disagree more with Richard J. Harknett's contention that President Barack Obama's call for the elimination of nuclear weapons is a "dangerous idea" ("A perilous call to abolish nukes," Commentary, April 14). If the U.S. and other nations continue developing nuclear weapons and keeping them on hair-trigger alert, they will eventually be used, either deliberately or by accident. It would never be morally permissible to use these weapons, since they would kill vast numbers of people.

CINCINNATI -During his recent trip to Europe, President Barack Obama announced that the U.S. must "seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons." This goal would undermine global nuclear security. A successful policy on international nuclear weapons security must strive to support stable possession and effective stewardship of nuclear technology. Only by stabilizing nuclear capabilities, not by eliminating them, will the world be safe from the threat of nuclear weapon use. The only time in history atomic weapons were used in warfare was when only one country possessed them in very small numbers.

WASHINGTON - After firing the two top Air Force leaders last year for a series of embarrassing nuclear weapons mishaps, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates was told yesterday that the same problems of inexperience, poor training and splintered authority over the nuclear mission affect the entire Pentagon, including its top leadership. A task force headed by former Defense Secretary James R. Schlesinger painted a dismal picture of a Pentagon that has drifted away from the mission of nuclear deterrence during the nearly two decades since the Cold War ended.

When President-elect Barack Obama introduced his national security team, he identified "preventing the spread of nuclear weapons to Iran and North Korea" as a priority, and for good reason. The International Atomic Energy Agency reported Nov. 19 that Iran is increasing its production of nuclear fuel while denying IAEA inspectors access to sites or documents connected to Tehran's nuclear program. That same day, Iran's nuclear chief said that Iran has increased the number of centrifuges enriching uranium from 4,000 to 5,000 since August.

WASHINGTON - President-elect Barack Obama will likely confront a biological or nuclear attack at home or abroad if the United States and its allies do not act decisively to prevent it, according to a report released this week by a panel created by Congress. The report found that the United States had taken important steps to counteract nuclear proliferation and, to a lesser extent, biological terrorism, but had "not kept pace with growing risks." The nine-member, bipartisan commission presented its conclusions yesterday to Vice President-elect Joe Biden and Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, Obama's nominee for secretary of Homeland Security.

WASHINGTON - It is a simple transfer of immense power. On Jan. 20, an unobtrusive military officer carrying a small leather-bound metal briefcase will follow President George W. Bush up to Capitol Hill. After the inauguration ceremony, he will accompany President Barack Obama back to the White House. Inside the attach?, known as "the football," are the codes to identify and authenticate a presidential order that could launch nuclear weapons and ignite a global holocaust. Routine to us, perhaps astonishing to much of the world, this peaceful passing of "the football" will propel Obama into a maelstrom.

Having removed North Korea from its list of terrorist nations in order to coax it back into compliance with a previous agreement to scrap its nuclear weapons in exchange for aid and energy assistance, the U.S. still has no idea whether the reclusive communist state really intends to fulfill its commitment to disarm. The loopholes in the deal U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill managed to salvage in Pyongyang last week are big enough to drive several atom bombs through. But that may be the best the Bush administration could hope for in its waning days.

One in 10 American light bulbs is powered with fuel from dismantled Russian nuclear bombs, which means the lights in your house represent, in a real sense, bombs that will never go off. Potential nuclear bomb material that once was stored in the equivalent of a high school gym locker with a padlock that could be cut with a bolt-cutter now is stored in secure vaults with heavy steel doors. But there is much more to be done to control the dangerous legacies of the Cold War, not only in Russia but around the world.

Misinformation adds to conflict with Iran The editorial "Two steps backward" (Sept. 29) is correct that Iran will be a foreign policy challenge going forward. But because of our profound ignorance and misperceptions about Iran, the challenge will be more difficult. Instead of the failed policy of the last 28 years of isolating Iran, a policy that has left us bereft of knowledge about that country, we should be moving quickly to open a U.S. Interest Section in Tehran staffed with our best Farsi-speaking diplomats.