- The furor over alleged Iraqi weapons of mass destruction
is like a bad penny that refuses to be taken out of circulation, even
though
everybody knows it is a bad penny. Finally, the report that chief US
weapons
inspector, Charles Duelfer, made to the White House and the Congress this
week should have put the quietus on the question. Duelfer said that Saddam
did not have any weapons of mass destruction, that he had not had any
weapons
program of significance since the early 1990s, and that Saddam's remaining
capability to produce such materials was weaker at the time of the invasion
than it had been at any point in the preceding decade.
-
- That sounded like the final knell, but then Duelfer
ruined
it. He made a polite nod to George Bush, by saying, as AP reported it,
that Saddam "had not lost his ambition to pursue weapons of mass
destruction,
but sanctions kept him from proceeding, and, given the opportunity, he
would have worked at getting them once sanctions were lifted. Therefore,
said Duelfer, Saddam remained a threat. Thus, as President Bush recited
it in the October 8 debate with Senator Kerry, Saddam was a threat to the
United States because he wanted to make such weapons and he might have
given weapons to terrorists. In the Bush view, that justified the
invasion.
-
- That all reads like an exercise in the French pluperfect
subjunctive. If Saddam were not to have been restrained by sanctions, he
could have been able to develop weapons of mass destruction. Therefore,
because of his desire to do so, he was a threat, except that Bush
intervened
to preempt that possibility by taking him down. In effect, the purpose
of taking Saddam down was to prevent him from turning his dream into an
undemonstrated reality
-
- Unfortunately, that spate of linguistic fiddlefaddle
over intentions gives Bush and the neo-cons just the window they need to
pursue preemptive strikes against any of a possible forty alleged seekers
after nuclear arms. Never mind the details. It's the thought that
counts.
-
- At the moment, eight nations are known to have nuclear
weapons. However, those nations just happen to represent roughly half of
the world population, because they include China and India"more than
a third of the world population between them. Other nuclear powers (the
United States, Russia, Britain, France, Pakistan, and Israel) bring the
nuclear weapon nations up to half the people on earth. That leaves us with
more than 180 non-nuclear powers in the family of nations that make up
the remaining half of the human condition.
-
- In a world where nuclear weapons, even a few, give the
owners enormous bargaining power over their adversaries as well as the
rest of the system, the thought of acquiring such weapons is bound to cross
the minds of a number of national leaders. Lack of money or technology
or both may prevent them from giving life to the impulse, but the thought
is unavoidable. The surprising feature of today's proliferation environment
is that only two countries, Iran and North Korea, seem to be immediate
candidates for catching this peculiar brass ring.
-
- One can wonder how accurate this appraisal might be,
given the luster of the object. But it is clear that so long as half the
world's people enjoy the deterrent protection of nuclear weapons, the other
half will try to acquire them.
-
- The unfortunate fact of this situation is that a
legitimate
path was created for potential seekers of the brass ring when President
Eisenhower launched the Atoms for Peace program. The technologies are dual
use in that the technical systems and processes needed to produce weapons
grade materials are the same ones needed to produce reactor fuel or
reprocess
it. Nuclear power plants therefore are gateway devices, depending on the
motives of the owner and how the owner acquires fuel or disposes of waste.
Depending on which report one believes, North Korea may now be a modest
nuclear power by having reprocessed nuclear fuel and weapon-ized the
recovered
plutonium.
-
- The Atoms for Peace program has had many uses. According
to some historical accounts, the big one was to reduce or avoid criticism,
or deflect attention away from US programs to test new weapons and expand
US stockpiles. One stated purpose was to share the advantages of nuclear
technologies, especially power production, with poor countries. Another
was possibly to speed the economic development of weak economies. A third
was to take the minds of non-nuclear weapons countries off that subject
by giving them something relevant to do. A fourth, probably not on the
stated list, was to share with friends the opportunity to graduate to
nuclear
status without actually giving them weapons.
-
- In the era of Atoms for Peace a five-member nuclear club
was created, and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), ratified by
the US and 186 other countries, entered into force in 1970, about seven
years after Atoms for Peace was launched. The treaty was designed to keep
the club small. No legal path to becoming a club member was provided.
However,
as demonstrated by India, Pakistan and Israel, one could become a nuclear
power by stealth, and they could keep their weapons by not signing on to
the treaty. They acquired the skills more or less in plain sight through
Atoms for Peace--a concept fully ratified by the NPT--and much under the
table skullduggery. As those three have demonstrated, the NPT has no means
to declaw nuclear powers, either original club members or unblessed
newcomers
who refuse to ratify the treaty, as do India, Pakistan, and Israel.
-
- The overriding effect of Atoms for Peace was its failure
to outlaw nuclear weapons. One of the facts that drive the impulse to
acquire
nuclear weapons is the fact that other countries have them, and the
prospect
is that club members intend to keep them. Efforts driven largely by the
United States and Russia to tame the cold war produced treaty efforts to
reduce the number of weapons in those countries and to prevent
proliferation,
meaning addition of new nuclear powers. The prospect that such weapons
might be outlawed appears to have dampened materially the interests of
non-nuclear powers in acquiring such weapons. Why make the enormous
financial"and
political--investment in learning how to make them, if they are going to
be banned by all parties?
-
- Since the cold war, however, and clearly in the past
four years under the Bush Administration, the idea that nuclear weapons
technologies would be suppressed, i.e., that the NPT would actually be
implemented, has largely evaporated under the pressure of more or less
open US efforts to improve existing weapons, acquire new ones, use nuclear
weapons in battle, sell nuclear bombs, i.e., bunker busters, to Israel,
and abandon treaty obligations to reduce nuclear stockpiles. US
unwillingness
in the run-up to Iraq to allow UN weapons inspectors to do their work only
added to doubts about US intent. With the leading nuclear power setting
such a bad example, who should take seriously any stated effort to curb
development of nuclear weapons? It is doubtful that many do, so the
principal
hurdles are now money and access to technology. Non-proliferation does
not stand much of a chance in this environment.
-
- Even more disturbing, the invasion of Iraq and the
broader
War on Terrorism have increased the will to acquire nuclear weapons and
probably other WMDs. In a bilateral standoff between countries, nukes are
the ultimate deterrent. How to make a weapon is no longer a secret, since
the basic technology is available on the Internet. Assessments by
individual
country leaders of their foreseeable security environment are the principal
determinant of whether a government will feel naked without them.
-
- The announced pre-emptive policy of the United States,
demonstrated by the invasion of Iraq, attacks in Yemen, and elsewhere,
is likely to foster global urges to obtain better weapons, including WMDs.
US policy now suggests that no nation with a history of terrorism, or any
resident terrorist group, or perhaps even a modest Atoms for Peace program
should consider itself exempt from pre-emptive attack. Russia has announced
a similar counter-terrorism intent, and others will follow. One seems to
have the choice of arming as best one can, or capitulating in advance.
Many more will try to arm themselves after Iraq than may have felt that
need before.
-
- But Duelfer, having blown the Bush rationale for invading
Iraq sky high, gave the Bush team an idea that will worry other governments
even more: Any national leader who might think it is a good idea to develop
nuclear capability has been put on notice. Not only is it dangerous to
your health to be caught trying to acquire such technology, don't even
think about it!
-
- The writer is a retired Senior Foreign Service Officer
of the US Department of State and former Chairman of the Department of
International Studies of the National War College. He will welcome comment
at wecanstopit@charter.net
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