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Today's News from the U.N. and the World, visit: MaximsNews.com Established 1999. Please CONFIRM your free Subscription to MaximsNews.com: See the Bottom of this page.* MaximsNews.com Contributor
Publisher's Note: This year Dr. Blix is receiving the United Nations Correspondents Association 2004 UNCA Citizen of the World Award. To read excerpts and to purchase his book, Disarming Iraq, please visit: http://www.maximsnews.com/hansblix22march2004.htm. Dr Blix contributed this column to www.MaximsNews.com; he delivered it earlier as a speech in New Delhi on 6 November 2004.
PREVENTING NUCLEAR WEAPONS FROM FALLING INTO THE HANDS OF ROGUE STATES AND TERRORISTS by Hans Blix
I am pleased to have the opportunity to discuss the burning issue of nuclear weapons in today’s world here in New Delhi. The
title given to my comments would seem to
suggest that nuclear weapons are now in the
hands of prudent and mature states and that
we only have to watch out that they don’t
fall into the hands of some "rogues" –
whoever they may be –
or terrorists. I believe our concerns
must be broader.
Not
so many years ago we agonized – rightly in
my view – about United States and the
Soviet Union engaging in a Mutually Assured
Destruction (MAD) and wiping out the rest of
human civilization as collateral damage.
The
nuclear stockpiles have been reduced since
that time but there is little reason to be
complacent about any weapons of mass
destruction anywhere. I
am currently heading a 15 member independent
international commission on weapons of mass
destruction. It is holding its third session
next week in Vancouver and will report will
after the end of next year. We are in the
midst of our discussions and I am eager to
listen to the views of others and to hear
the reactions to my own views. What I am
presenting today are, of course, my personal
views, not the Commission’s. Let
me start by discussing the issue of
security, because the problems of
non-proliferation and of reduction and
elimination of weapons of mass destruction
are almost invariably linked to perceptions
of security. No
more world wars, but global environmental
threats, regional conflicts and civil wars.
WMDs. I
shall begin on one optimistic and one
pessimistic note. First
the optimistic: I think humanity has put the
era of world wars behind itself. Second
the pessimistic: I am as concerned about the
long term global environmental threats,
notably global warming, as I am about the
short term threats of WMDs. From time
immemorial the world’s peoples and nations
have demonstrated their talent for
destroying each other. They now seem to join
hands and talent to destroy the environment
we have been adapted to. Fuel fossil
resources, which it took the planet millions
of years to create are being burnt up in a
few hundred years. It may come to warm us
more than we like. I
shall not dwell on the point, which is not
on the agenda. Let me say only that I am as
much in favour of an expanded reliance on
nuclear power to restrain the use of fossil
fuels as I am in favour of nuclear
non-proliferation and disarmament. Needless
to say, I also favour a more efficient use
of energy and the use of renewable sources,
like wind and solar power. It is important
not only for environmental but also for
security reasons to reduce the competition
about oil and gas resources. Let
us use the enriched uranium and plutonium
for energy generation and not for weapons:
megawatts instead of megatons! It
is particularly important that huge and
populous countries like India and China,
which rapidly expand their energy use,
develop the nuclear option and do so with
full regard for the requirements of safe
operation and a safe waste disposal. Nuclear
power and nuclear weapons are not Siamese
twins: states can have nuclear weapons
without having nuclear power, but the
reverse is possible and far preferable. The
atom can be for peace, as US President
Eisenhower told us fifty years ago. Let
me return to the prospects for world peace.
Whether we want it or not the gradual global
integration that is being brought about by
the modern technical, economic, and
information evolution, I believe, is gluing
us together and will push relations between
blocs and continents toward peace. The
future controversies between the great
powers are likely, I think, to play out in
the areas of trade and finance rather than
in the battle fields. The
optimism one can feel regarding great powers
and blocs does not apply to a number of
volatile regions. There will certainly also
be armed conflicts within states.
Concerns
are particularly great about weapons of mass
destruction in the Middle East and on the
Indian and Korean peninsulas and about such
weapons in the hands of reckless governments
and non-state actors using terrorist
methods. The
war in Iraq was undertaken, the world was
told, precisely to eliminate ready and real
WMDs and to eliminate the risk that WMDs be
transferred to terrorists. However,
while we have witnessed how swift military
action by the world’s only superpower
removed a murderous leader, we have also
witnessed how the counter-proliferation
surgery failed simply because there were no
WMDs in Iraq. The
preemptive action was costly in terms of
life, money and international relations to
make sure there were no WMDs. I
shall return to the question of pre-emptive
– anticipatory self-defense – armed
action a little later but let me say already
at this point that in my view the best
chance to contain and solve regional
conflicts and the risks of WMDs is through
international cooperation: through diplomacy
and international agreements, international
human and economic development and, where
appropriate, economic and military
pressures. I
am not suggesting that the UN is the only
multilateral church in town but it is one
not to be lightly ignored. Acting through a
limited alliance against the will of the
majority of the UN Security Council in the
case of Iraq proved to be a much greater
problem than foreseen by those who
proclaimed the irrelevance of the UN. One
would hope that the next US administration
will resume the responsibility of the lead
wolf, which it was, and only in truly
exceptional circumstances act as a lone
wolf. Having
said where I think and hope we are going,
let me briefly discuss where we are coming
from. The
traditional causes of war. The UN security
system. The harvest of detente.
As
far back as we can see in history kings’
and people’s quests for territory have
been one of the main causes of war. How many
armed conflicts have not taken place over
the Rhine in Europe and the Amur river in
Asia? Ideological
aims have been behind many other armed
campaigns, e.g. Christian crusades, colonial
campaigns for the conversion of people to
Christianity or Islamic jihads against
infidels. I
think these two main causes of armed
conflicts between states are disappearing.
Perhaps Saddam Hussein’s war against Iran
and effort to seize space in the
Shatt-el-Arab and his occupation of Kuwait
were among the last cases of inter-state
aggression for the old fashioned purpose of
grabbing territory. During
the many years of the Cold War the Communist
camp sought to expand in the name of
ideology. The security system of the UN
Charter, which is based on the idea that the
Security Council may intervene against
breaches of the peace and acts of
aggression, was on the whole inoperative.
Any one of the five permanent members could
prevent action by casting a veto. The
states of the world had to find their
security through their own defense, through
alliances or neutrality. The great
territorial changes that did occur –
mostly peacefully – were the emancipation
of colonies. After
the end of the Cold War and the collapse of
Communism the security situation has changed
drastically in the world. There is continued
détente between all big powers and blocs
– if, indeed, one can speak of blocs any
more. There
are no significant territorial or
ideological conflicts between them. All
pursue the market economy of various shapes
and shades as their economic model. All are
bent on pragmatism and none on ideological
conquest. Many
states in Europe are reorienting their armed
forces from defence of their own territory
to use in joint international peace-keeping
or peace-enforcing operations. The
détente helped to strengthen security
globally and in several regions in Africa
and Central America tensions and conflicts
disappeared. During
the Cold War nuclear capability had spread
beyond the P 5 of the Security Council to
Israel, India, Pakistan and South Africa. After
the end of the Cold War the Ukraine and
Kazakhstan transferred their nuclear weapons
to Russia and Argentina, Brazil, Algeria
committed themselves legally to
non-proliferation. South
Africa became the first country to roll back
from a nuclear weapon status. At
the United Nations and in international
organizations détente made it possible to
achieve many things together which earlier
had been impossible. A great many
peace-keeping missions were authorized by
the Security Council, where the use of the
veto became rare. Even
after the divisive UN proceedings in the
Iraq affair, there were last year about 15
ongoing UN led peace-keeping missions,
comprising some 50.000 soldiers costing
about $ 4 billion per year. It does not
sound cheap, but it is a bargain compared to
war. The
most important joint UN action made possible
by the new climate of détente was, of
course, the authorization given to the broad
alliance created by President Bush the elder
to intervene in 1991 to stop Iraq’s naked
aggression against and occupation of Kuwait.
For
some time the action gave hope to the world
that a new will of governments to cooperate
would at long last bring the security
provisions of the Charter to life. In
the field of arms control and disarmament
the global détente brought several welcome
results, above all the conclusion of the
Chemical Weapons Convention and the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the
expectation that agreement would be reached
to stop all production of highly enriched
uranium and plutonium for more nuclear
weapons (FMCT): the so called ‘cut off’. The
peace dividends of the early détente were,
indeed, great. Many strait-jackets imposed
in a bipolar world vanished. In
recent years some have looked back with
nostalgia to the stability of the cold war
period. It is true that some lids came off
that we might have preferred to stay, but
looking at the situation today I, for one,
feel nostalgia for the period when détente
gave rich harvest. The
security philosophies post 9/11 and post
Iraq. A
fork in the road. Paradoxically,
while the détente between the great powers
has remained, the positive evolution seems
gone in the sphere of arms control and
disarmament. Not
so long ago President Bush declared that
9/11 was the Pearl Harbour of World War III
and Vice-President Cheney said that the war
against terrorism could last for generations
and require the US to have military bases
all over the world. A recent news article
even specified where such future bases were
to be placed in Iraq. A
full page article in the Financial Times (7
Aug. 04) by Mr. Bolton, Under-Secretary for
Arms Control and International Security in
the US State Department, looked like another
straw in the post-détente wind. Mr.
Bolton described how “robust”
co-operation between the US and its allies
rather than reliance on what he termed
“cumbersome treaty-based bureaucracies”
can produce “real results”. Mr.
Bolton did not discuss how successful such
alliance-cooperation was in 2003 to identify
WMDs in Iraq, nor how alliance-intelligence
compared with the reports of cumbersome
international bureaucracies – the
inspectors of the UN system. Rather,
he extolled various arrangements initiated
by the US, like the Proliferation Security
Initiative (PSI) and the securing of nuclear
material and equipment, because they are
“activities”, not organizations. How
are we to understand this apparent allergy
to precise treaty commitments, which was
also visible in the latest nuclear
verification free US disarmament accord with
Russia? Is
it a new attitude prompted by a wish to
shake off any external restraints and to
retain full freedom of action together with
those who, in any given case, “are with
us” and to ignore those who “are against
us”? If
so, one would hope that the Iraq war should
give some food for thought. Today,
we seem to be at a post 9/11 and post Iraq
war fork of the road to arms control and
disarmament. The
US agenda has emphasized
counter-proliferation, confrontation and
pre-emption, if need be through unilateral
military action. Although
use of international organizations, like the
UN or the IAEA, has continued, the reliance
on and cooperation through formal treaty
alliances and instruments and agreements
seems to have been deemphasized. The
agenda followed seems to have emerged from
the feeling that the US military power is so
great that time consuming and tedious talk
in international fora can be dispensed with.
Activity, not agreement, has been seen as
important. Where
are we going next? I shall first discuss the
WMD threats linked to terrorist groups and
thereafter the threats from WMDs in the
hands of states. How
is the world to meet the threats and actions
of terrorist groups? The
first point to make, I think, is that
terrorists do not live on clouds but must
have their feet on the territory of states.
It
is important that the international
community upholds the principle that each
government is obliged to ensure that its
territory is not used as a base for attacks
on other states. It is legally correct and
practically and politically sound. If
there is a failure in this duty, then the
world will endorse forcible intervention –
as it did with the Taliban government in
Afghanistan. Second,
the broad international efforts described by
Mr. Bolton to ensure the safe keeping of
nuclear and other dangerous material and
equipment everywhere in the world are
important to reduce the availability of such
material and equipment. If
the Pakistan government had exercised better
control of its nuclear sector, Mr. Khan’s
shop for nuclear weapon designs and
centrifuges would not have been in its
dangerous business. Most
of the
measures, which governments need to
take to reduce the risk of terrorists
wielding ‘dirty bombs’, biological
or chemical weapons are needed also
to protect their own public against
radiation, the release of bacteria or
viruses or the dangers of various chemicals.
There
is much international cooperation in the
field of radiation protection and in the
prevention of trafficking in nuclear
material and equipment. Similar
efforts could be undertaken in the
biological field, for instance, the
elaboration of model legislation and model
administrative routines. The WHO as well as
individual states could be of help. Third,
what is mostly needed immediately is
intensified international cooperation in the
day-to-day field work of the national
intelligence, police and financial
institutions of states to trace persons,
resources, weapons and dangerous material.
There
seems to be a somewhat futile debate whether
the combating of terrorism is a task for law
enforcement organizations or the military.
In most cases using military means would be
like deploying cannons against mosquitoes.
This
is not to deny that military operations may
be inevitable to crush or flush out armed
terrorist units, where they have been
identified as based in a particular area,
for instance, in parts of Afghanistan or
Pakistan. Such
operations need be based on reliable
evidence. After
the Al Qaeda inspired attacks on the US
embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam the
Clinton administration sent cruise missiles
on a chemical factory, which was located
outside Khartoum and which had been
erroneously identified as linked to Al
Qaeda. Such military actions – whether for
the purpose of punishment or
counter-proliferation -- are unacceptable.
They
cannot be just shrugged off with a “Sorry
about that, we shoot first and ask questions
after…” One
of the purposes claimed for the military
invasion of Iraq was to prevent the
promotion of Al Qaeda and other terrorists
groups, allegedly supported by Iraq. If this
was really an aim, it was one that failed
singularly.
It
is evident that the occupation has prompted
and stimulated terrorism and that harsh and
illegal response measures, in this case as
in similar cases – at Abu Ghraib and
Guantanamo as in Chechnya – breed further
terrorism and risks driving large numbers of
civilians, otherwise not favourable to the
extremists, to support them. Although
there is not much basis for the alarm about
a ‘war of civilizations’ it is bad
enough if the struggle against Islamic
jihadists were to be pursued in
such a way as to further strengthen
anti-American and anti-Western
attitudes among the vast number of Islamic
moderates and vice versa. It
would then stimulate the very terrorism it
seeks to stop. After
a 9/11 or a Beslan massacre the mood is
simply to punish the perpetrators and to
eradicate the responsible group.
Yet, for the longer term it is not
‘sissy sensitivity’ but rational to ask
why the terrorists commit such atrocities.
To
be sure, their motives vary and many will be
muddled or absurd. However, if reasonable
non-armed measures can be taken, which
reduce incentives to terrorism, they should
be on the agenda, whether they are in the
fields of economic or social development or
greater autonomy for particular groups or
regions. It
is not pandering to terrorism but simply
rational. It
was refreshing to hear Tony Blair recently
saying that nothing would be more important
to reduce terrorism in the Middle East than
a solution to the Israeli – Palestinian
problem and that he would devote himself to
this issue. States
and WMDs Even
though there is concern that terrorist
groups may get hold of and employ nuclear
weapons, the concern is much more acute and
indicated by recent experience about nuclear
weapons in the hands of states. I
have mentioned the success cases of Ukraine,
Kazakhstan and South Africa. Regrettably
the story is not complete without mention
also of the de facto proliferation to the
non NPT-parties Israel, India and Pakistan,
the attempted violations by the NPT-parties
DPRK, Iraq and Libya and a suspected but
denied violation by Iran, which is also a
party to the NPT. How
should the world community tackle these
questions? It
is Iran and North Korea (DPRK) that today
make us hold our breath and that raise a
host of difficult questions and fears of
domino effects should either acquire nuclear
weapons. Both
countries have acted in disregard of their
safeguards obligation. The
DPRK, which has renounced the NPT, has
claimed that it is ready to deter foreign
attacks by developing a nuclear weapon
capacity but it has also declared that it is
ready to “scrap” such capacity, if some
conditions are fulfilled, including
guarantees about security from attack.
Iran
has declared that its intention is only to
use its legal right under the NPT to enrich
uranium in order to make fuel for its own
power reactors. It has also signaled that
while it cannot accept being deprived of
this right it might consider voluntarily
suspending some activities, including
enrichment, if the quid pro quo was
sufficient. In
both cases a number of states are at the
present time seeking solutions through
negotiations. This is welcome. The war that
was waged in Iraq is not a model that many
want to see followed. Solutions
for the DPRK and IRAN must aim at ensuring
that both states renounce all nuclear
activities through which bomb grade material
could be produced and accept far-reaching
verification. The
minimum in this regard would be full
acceptance of the additional safeguards
agreements of the IAEA. To induce them to make such commitments will require some
attractive quid pro quo. As
regards the DPRK I submit it might be wise
to make the economic part of the package
attractive by constructing it in a way that
would help the country to gradually exit
from the system that has brought it to
misery and starvation. The
economic part of an agreement with Iran will
need to cover trade and investment
relations, perhaps support for WTO
membership. Such chips seem, indeed, to
among the European proposals. If
Iran is to forego the investments it has
made in infrastructure for an indigenous
production of enriched uranium for use in
power reactors a multilateral assurance of
supply of uranium fuel at market prices for
the country’s power reactors – and more
– must
evidently be given and seems, indeed, to be
on the table. It
is my belief that both in the case of Iran
and the case of the DPRK some guarantees may
need to be given about security against
attacks from the outside. The
DPRK has talked explicitly about a
“non-aggression pact” but the substance
is more important than the form. It is
encouraging that there seems to have been
some positive responses from the US side. The
potential consequences of DPRK and/or Iran
acquiring nuclear weapons are very serious.
Let me focus on the case of Iran and say,
first that in my view it is not surprising
that many countries in the world have
suspected Iran of intending to move to
nuclear weapons or, at least, to a near
nuclear weapon status.
Iran
built infrastructure for the enrichment of
uranium disregarding the need for
transparency and disregarding express
obligations under its safeguards agreement
with the IAEA. Although
Iran assures the world that it intends to
enrich uranium only to the level needed for
its own power reactor fuel, it could later
go to a concentration needed for weapons.
Iran has further engaged in building a large
heavy water research reactor and plants to
produce the heavy water needed. This type of
reactor is deemed convenient for the
production of plutonium, provided that a
reprocessing capacity is available, which
does not seem to be the case at the present
time – at any rate not at an industrial
scale. This
is not, however, a full picture. It has been
said by some critics that there is no
justification for Iran as an oil rich
country to build nuclear power plants. This,
I think, is almost a colonialist argument.
Why should not an oil rich country produce
electricity by nuclear power and sell the
oil it thereby saves for good income in the
world market? The argument was never
advanced when the Shah was still in Iran and
the US and other states competed with each
other to sell nuclear infrastructure to the
country. It
might be said with more reason that building
an indigenous enrichment capacity to produce
nuclear fuel for a few reactors is not
necessary and might not be economic. My own
country, Sweden has eleven nuclear power
reactors generating around 10.000 MW(e) and
does not enrich the fuel it needs but buys
it in the world market. It might be more
economic. At the same time, it must be
admitted, it makes for dependence on outside
suppliers. In a free world market this might
not matter much but the reality is that the
government of Iran has had a painful
experience in this field a number of years
ago, when it needed fresh enriched uranium
fuel for its Teheran based research reactor. It
must be added that Iran is right in saying
that the NPT does not prohibit it from
enriching uranium – only to make nuclear
weapons. This should be recognized. Indeed,
three other non-nuclear weapon states
parties to the NPT have enrichment capacity:
Brazil, Japan and South Africa. Nor does NPT
bar the construction of a heavy water
research reactor. Hence, when it is urged
– wisely in my view – that Iran should
refrain from all activities, even though per
se legal, which may bring it closer to a
capacity to make weapons useable material
Iran can ask for something in return. How
much? We are in the world of diplomatic
carrots and sticks. US
representatives seem to consider it evident
that Iran has been and keeps moving to a
nuclear weapon and urge that the matter be
referred by the Board of Governors of the
IAEA to the Security Council.
In a speech to the American
Enterprise Institute in Washington,
Mr. Bolton is reported to
have said that the Agency is required
to refer cases to the Security Council once
‘questions arise’ in connection with
compliance and
that ‘moving the Iran question to
the Security Council should be a matter of
the smooth functioning of the IAEA
system.’ I
am not sure that I fully understand what
this means. There has been a common
assumption in media comments that the US
wanted the matter referred to the Council to
propose some kind of sanctions. However,
considering that China and Russia and others
as well may not – yet -- be inclined to
conclude that Iran has, in effect, so far
violated the NPT or concluded that Iran is
simply playing for time, one might wonder
what would be the prospects of a proposal
for sanctions in the Council. Perhaps the
aim to move the matter there is different?
In the remarkable and forward-looking
presidential statement from the Security
Council summit in 1992, endorsed also by
India, which at the time was a member of the
Council,
it was stated that, “The
proliferation of all weapons of mass
destruction constitutes a
threat to international peace and
security” After
a reference to the importance of the NPT,
effective IAEA safeguards and effective
export controls, the statement continued: “The
members of the Council will take appropriate
measures in the case of any violations
notified to them by the IAEA.” It
may be asked whether it is this
responsibility attributed to members –
rather than sanctions decided by the Council
– that would be the aim of a reference of
the Iran issue to the Council?
Interestingly,
on the other side the Iranian parliament is
reported by the BBC a few days ago to have
passed the first stage of a bill, which
would force the government to resume its
uranium enrichment programme. Some
parliamentarians were reported as saying
that this would “strengthen then hands of
Iran’s negotiators” (BBC News, 31
October 2004). It
would seem that the diplomatic game is on
– which is better than seeing it off.
Newspaper speculations about the bombing of
Iranian installations and about Iranian
retaliation are added features in the game.
The bargaining goes on. But time is running.
Let us hope that all sides feel the
seriousness of the situation. For Iran the
accomplished eradication of Iraq’s nuclear
programs must be an important and positive
matter. As we have recently heard from the
Head of the US appointed Iraq Survey Group,
Mr. Duelfer, Iraq’s development of weapons
of mass destruction, including nuclear, was
aimed primarily at Iran. Under
UNSC resolution 687 (1991) the eradication
of Iraq’s WMDs and the following long term
monitoring were meant to be steps toward a
zone free of WMDs in the Middle East. It is
clear that such a zone cannot be negotiated
in a time of high tension but I cannot help
wondering whether the Iranian nuclear
dimension does not add a further stark
reason for new dynamic efforts to ease the
central Israeli-Palestinian question. A new
initiative could and should start all the
states in the region on a path away from
arms races, dangerous to all of them, to a
zone of cooperation free from all WMDs. The
way forward This
brings me back to the fork in the road,
which the world has followed until recently
to eliminate WMDs. I
confess I see dangers on the road traveled
in the last few years by the US
administration. Further exploration of new
types of American nuclear weapons will not,
I think, induce others to disarm and to
renounce weapons options that are
technically open to them. There may be more
weapons and conflicts rather than less on
this road. By
contrast, a resumption of the kind of
leadership that the US used to exercise in
the arms control and disarmament fields
would, I think, be greeted with enthusiasm
by the whole world and could lead all away
from WMDs and toward greater security. *
In such efforts more attention should
be devoted to solving the political/security
problems that almost invariably underlie the
development or acquisition of WMDs;
*
US ratification of a comprehensive
test ban treaty would be likely to have a
positive domino effect, including China,
India, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq and Israel. It
would make the development of new types of
nuclear weapons much more difficult.
Continued non-ratification has potentially
high costs. * The conclusion of a verified cut off of the production of fissionable material for weapons combined with agreements on reductions in the number of weapons would gradually reduce the deadly arsenals. * A greater reliance on independent and professional international inspection with broad rights to access on the ground and with some intelligence supplied by national authorities, would give governments, governing boards and the Security Council unbiased assessments. UNMOVIC, which I headed, might be given further functions by the Security Council in the Council’s proposed stronger engagement to counter WMDs. For instance, as a subsidiary body of the Council perhaps it could perform challenge inspections in the fields of biological weapons and missiles, where no inspection mechanisms exist. * As someone who was earlier responsible for international verification and inspection, let me end by saying that in foreign affairs, as in medicine, successful operations require correct diagnoses. They must be directed to real reality – not virtual reality.
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