Nukes

President Obama today nominated of Philip Coyle, a leading critic of Bush administration missile defense schemes, to be a top White House scientific advisor.

Coyle, who was the head weapons tester at the Pentagon during the Clinton administration, was nominated to become the Associate Director for National Security and International Affairs at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. There he will lead a team tasked with giving scientific advice to Obama on a range of national security issues and will report to Director John Holdren.

Since his last tour at the Pentagon, Coyle has been a leading analyst on weapons systems for the Center for Defense Information, a component of the World Security Institute, a defense-minded think thank. From that perch, he's been actively involved in several of the national security debates involving advanced technology and a staunch watchdog on the missile defense system the Bush administration rushed to deploy throughout its tenure.

Coyle has often pointed out that the testing done by the Pentagon on ballistic missile defense components since 2001 has been either shoddy or thin. Moreover, he has repeatedly questioned the basic rationale for investing billions to deploy ballistic missile defense around the world, especially in Eastern Europe.

"In my view, Iran is not so suicidal as to attack Europe or the United States with missiles," he testified before the House Armed Services Strategic Forces subcommittee in February, "But if you believe that Iran is bound and determined to attack Europe or America, no matter what, then I think you also have to assume that Iran would do whatever it takes to overwhelm our missile defenses, including using decoys to fool the defenses, launching stealthy warheads, and launching many missiles, not just one or two."

Coyle has often argued that the Bush administration rushed to deploy missile defense systems around the world to build momentum and keep money flowing into the program. He has repeatedly said that the Missile Defense Agency has been amassing hardware that is either not aligned with the threat or can't be relied on in case of an actual emergency.

Over $120 billion has been spent on ballistic missile defense since its inception during the Reagan administration.

Coyle's views line up with Ellen Tauscher, who was then the subcommittee chairwoman but who is now Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, which oversees missile defense diplomacy.

Tauscher was part of the decision making process that led to huge changes in the Bush administration plans for missile defense in Poland and the Czech Republic. The Obama plan now calls for more short and medium range systems, most of them mobile. These are changes Coyle has also supported.

Coyle must now be confirmed by the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. The vetting and confirmation process could take months.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave what was touted as a "major speech" on nonproliferation issues today at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington. And while Clinton has been somewhat overshadowed in today's headlines by the clutch diplomacy of Senator John Kerry in Afghanistan and Vice President Joseph Biden's meetings with European leaders, her speech on a range of strategic issues had several interesting morsels. Here are the key sections:

On North Korea:

Within the framework of the six-party talks, we are prepared to meet bilaterally with North Korea. But North Korea's return to the negotiating table is not enough.

Current sanctions will not be relaxed until Pyongyang takes verifiable, irreversible steps toward complete denuclearization. Its leaders should be under no illusion that the United States will ever have normal, sanctions-free relations with a nuclear-armed North Korea.

On Iran:

If Iran is serious about taking practical steps to address the international community's deep concerns about its nuclear program, we will continue to engage both multilaterally and bilaterally to discuss the full range of issues that have divided Iran and the United States for too long.

The door is open to a better future for Iran. But the process of engagement cannot be open-ended. We are not prepared to talk just for the sake of talking. As President Obama noted after the October 1st meeting in Geneva, we appear to have made a constructive beginning. But that needs to be followed up by constructive actions.

In particular, prompt action is needed on implementing the plan to use Iran's own low-enriched uranium to refuel the Tehran research reactor, which is used to produce medical isotopes.

On the International Atomic Energy Agency:

Enhancing the IAEA's capabilities to verify whether states are engaging in illicit nuclear activity is essential to strengthening the nonproliferation regime. The IAEA's additional protocol, which allows for more aggressive, short-notice inspections, should be made universal through concerted efforts to persuade key holdout states to join.

The IAEA should make full use of existing verification authorities, including special inspections. But it should also be given new authorities, including the ability to investigate suspected nuclear-weapons-related activities, even when no nuclear materials are present. And if we expect the IAEA to be a bulwark of the nonproliferation regime, we must give it the resources necessary to do the job.

On nuclear negotiations with Russia:

The United States is interested in a new START agreement because it will bolster our national security. We and Russia deploy far more nuclear weapons than we need or could ever potentially use without destroying our ways of life.

Clinging to nuclear weapons in excess of our security needs does not make the United States safer. And the nuclear status quo is neither desirable nor sustainable. It gives other countries the motivation or the excuse to pursue their own nuclear options.

We are under no illusions that this START agreement will persuade Iran and North Korea to end their illicit nuclear activities; but it will demonstrate that the United States is living up to its Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty obligation to work toward nuclear disarmament. In doing so, it will help convince the rest of the international community to strengthen nonproliferation controls and tighten the screws on states that flout their nonproliferation commitments.

On the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty:

A test-ban treaty that has entered into force will allow the United States and others to challenge states engaged in suspicious testing activities, including the option of calling on-site inspections to be sure that no testing occurs anywhere.

CTBT ratification would also encourage the international community to move forward with other essential nonproliferation steps. And make no mistake. Other states rightly or wrongly view American ratification of the CTBT as a sign of our commitment to the nonproliferation consensus.

We are well aware that we have our work cut out for us. The CTBT was rejected 10 years ago, and it has not been brought up since then. So we do have a lot of outreach and very intensive consultations to engage in with the Senate. I think that -- having been honored to serve in the Senate, I think every senator has a right to ask whatever questions and raise whatever concerns he or she might have.

But the fact is, we've essentially had a moratorium on testing. It's been bipartisan through these four administrations over these last 20 years. And we recognize the legitimate questions that some in the Senate have posed about how we take steps to ensure the sustainability and effectiveness of our nuclear stockpile without testing. We believe we have technical answers to that and that we will be discussing those in greater depth.

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As the United States gets closer to finalizing a nuclear-cooperation deal with the United Arab Emirates, one man is emerging as the poster child for critics who fear that the UAE could just become a better conduit for smuggling sensitive technology to Iran if the agreement goes through.

Saud al-Qasimi is the crown prince in control of the UAE port of Ras al-Khaimah, the site of the upcoming America's Cup race. Increasingly, it has also become the preferred distribution point for Iranian smugglers wishing to avoid the more closely watched ports in Dubai, George Webb, the head of the Canada Border Services Agency's Counter Proliferation Section, told Canada's National Post:

While nominally in the U.A.E., the port is controlled by Iran and is situated just across the Gulf from Bandar Abbas, an Iranian city with a naval base and an airport capable of landing large transport planes.

"Ras al-Khaimah is actually leased by the Iranian government, staffed by Iranian customs," Mr. Webb said, as he examined a classified satellite photo of the port.

"We found out about it about six months ago and this is just a little hop, skip and a jump over to a significant airstrip. So if they boat it over, it goes in the plane, it's in Tehran real quick."

He said his officers had been finding materials in Canada that were destined for Ras al-Khaimah but customs inspectors are now on the lookout. "All of our people in those ports are aware, so as soon as they see it, it's hauled aside for examination and follow up."

The region's former ruler, Khalid al-Qasimi, wrote in a letter sent to U.S. lawmakers last week that "The supportive posture [RAK] takes toward the Islamic Republic of Iran is undermining the policies of the United States."

And as if his reputation wasn't bad enough, it was revealed yesterday that Saud al-Qasimi was arrested for sexually assaulting a housekeeper in his hotel near the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota in 2005. The Smoking Gun reports:

While Sheikh Saud has lauded his emirate's selection at the site for the February 2010 America's Cup as a "great moment for us," critics have raised safety concerns due to Ras al-Khaimah's proximity to Iran and the activities of al-Qaeda terrorists in the region. The American team participating in the race is backed by software billionaire Larry Ellison, co-founder and chief executive of Oracle Corporation, who has launched a court challenge seeking to have the yacht race moved to Spain."

Lawmakers are already attacking the credibility of upcoming inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities, preparing their push for greater sanctions if and when the inspections fail to find a smoking gun.

The core of the argument being made by GOP senators is that the Iranians bargained for a lag time longer than the United States wanted before opening their newly discovered Qom nuclear facility to international inspectors, raising concerns that they will scrub the facility of incriminating material.

Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama pressed the issue with Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg at a meeting of the Senate Banking Committee Tuesday morning and Tennessee Republican Sen. Bob Corker piled on.

"Is there any question in anybody's mind that during this period of time between now and October 25 that much of the facility that we are getting ready to inspect will be dismantled?" Corker asked.

Steinberg said that the United States had wanted inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency to take place within two weeks, but had to settle for the Oct. 25 inspection date, more than three and a half weeks after the Oct. 1 meeting between Iran and five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany.

"It's our judgment that this is still a period of time that we can still get a good assessment of what's going on," Steinberg argued, while trying to say that the IAEA team needed some time to prepare for the inspections.

The Shelby-Corker-Steinberg exchange comes only one day after Andrew Semmel, the IAEA's Washington representative, said that there was a real danger that Iran would have too much time to scrub the Qom facility before the inspectors arrived.

"It gives three weeks for the Iranians to clean up anything they might want to hide," Semmel said, "They've been known to do this in the past, whitewashing and so forth."

Semmel also said the whole IAEA inspection exercise might be "perfunctory," because it's not clear that the Qom facility had been developed yet to the stage where really incriminating material would have been stored there.

What Iran watchers are really looking for are definitive signs at Qom that Russian scientists have contributed to the Iranian nuclear program, after reports that Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a list of Russian nuclear scientists helping Iran during his secret meeting with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

Steinberg also indicated that the administration does not support, nor does it oppose, the bill put forth by Sens. Joseph Lieberman, Evan Bayh, and Jon Kyl, which would bar any refined petroleum products from being sold to Iran, saying that the administration wanted to preserve maximum flexibility.

That legislation has 75 Senate cosponsors.

ELIZABETH DALZIEL/AFP/Getty Images

The International Atomic Energy Agency has admitted that some of the material in the now-infamous "secret annex" about Iran's nuclear program exists, but claims it wasn't verifiable enough to release, according to the organization's Washington representative.

The classified information, which was collected as part of the IAEA's annual volume on Iran but never made the final cut, claims to prove that Iran "has sufficient information to be able to design and produce a workable implosion nuclear device," according to reports.

The Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington research organization headed by former weapons inspector David Albright, published excerpts of the omitted section, which included claims that the agency believed Iran was working on placing nuclear warheads on its Shahab-3 missile.

Andrew Semmel, the IAEA's man in DC, told a group of congressional staffers Monday that he pressed IAEA leadership for answers on the "secret annex" at the general conference in Vienna last month.

"What they're telling me is that of course there's background material ... that you have to produce a report and that report can't include everything that's been collected and surmised, so the report itself is a distillation of all that background information."

IAEA leaders decided they weren't confident in the authenticity of the information contained in the extra document, and they couldn't verify what that research had found.

"They say there is no 'secret annex' but there is 'background information', however you want to characterize that," Semmel said.

"I likened it to the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on Iran. That report too, does not include everything that was collected on background," said Semmel, "It's akin to that."

He alluded to reports that different parts of the IAEA bureaucracy have been at odds with each other about how to publicly present the collected information in Iran, but declined to get into specifics.

Some very specific reporting points to a long-running dispute between the IAEA's Department of Safeguards (which advocates a harder line) and its Department of External Relations and Policy Coordination (which is more skeptical).

Outgoing IAEA chief Mohamed Elbaradei, who will come to Washington later this month, is apparently in the risk-averse camp.

National Security Advisor Jim Jones spoke this weekend about the IAEA's secret information file.

"Whether they know how to do it or not is a matter of some conjecture, but what we are watching is what is their intent and we have been worried about that intent," he said.

But even the question of Iran's intent is clearly disputed at the top levels of the Obama administration.

Semmel also told his Capitol Hill audience that the IAEA's planned Oct. 25 visit to the newly revealed Qom facility was probably too late to catch Iran in any nefarious acts.

"One has to be somewhat suspicious. It gives three weeks for the Iranians to clean up anything they might want to hide," he said, "They've been known to do this in the past, whitewashing and so forth."

As the United States touts Thursday's rare, if small diplomatic breakthrough in nuclear talks with Iran, one key component of the Obama administration's nuclear arms-control strategy remains in limbo.

Administration officials have been promising again and again to work toward ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the 1996 agreement that prohibits any nuclear-weapons testing and has been ratified by 150 countries, but not the United States. Inside the administration, there is no clear schedule and some concerns about how and when to make the push for Senate ratification.

"The second major arms control objective of the Obama administration is the ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty," Assistant Secretary of State for Verification, Compliance, and Implementation Rose Gottemoeller said in an August speech, affirming pledges from President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to get the treaty ratified.

"There is no step that we could take that would more effectively restore our moral leadership and improve our ability to reenergize the international nonproliferation consensus than to ratify the CTBT."

America's allies see the CTBT as a litmus test of America's commitment to participate concretely in the arms-control agenda it espouses. While cognizant of the challenges Obama faces on the issue domestically, they nonetheless will judge his success or failure on the issue as an indicator of whether the administration can actually implement its progressive rhetoric.

But administration officials are acutely aware of the 1999 failure to ratify the treaty in the Senate, an ordeal that stands as a cautionary tale about approaching the CTBT without a new strategy. Moreover, if ratification seems unlikely, they could abandon the push in the near term.

"We must construct a new paradigm from the debate over this same issue in 1999. Simply put, the world has changed," Gottemoeller said.

Many Republicans in the Senate, however, don't think the basis for their opposition to CTBT has gone away and are gearing up to fight a new ratification initiative.

"All of those reasons still pertain, and then some," Senate Minority Leader Jon Kyl, R-AZ, who led the successful opposition to ratification in 1999, told The Cable.

"I will lead the charge against it and I will do everything in my power to see that it is defeated," he told Congressional Quarterly.

A senior GOP Senate aide spelled out Republicans' objections and their argument going forward.

"The Republicans will say that the risks are you can't verify the agreement, countries will be cheating, and at the end of the day, we may need to test to make sure our systems are viable," he said.

They also plan to argue that the CTBT is simply not likely to actually convince countries with nuclear aspirations to forego their plans, as the administration claims.

"If you really believe that Iran is a nuclear tipping point, what's more likely to solve that problem? Is it the U.S. ratifying CTBT or is it the U.S. finding some clever way to get Russia and China to help us deal with that problem?" the GOP aide said, "It's like a drunk trying to find their keys under the streetlamp because the light is better there."

"We're only going to do it when we are going to win"

Timing is a critical factor in the administration's push for ratification. Multiple senior officials told The Cable that Senate ratification would probably be sought after the Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference, which begins next April.

The White House wants to go to the NPT conference promising to complete CTBT ratification and doesn't want to risk an embarrassing failure right before the meeting. The problem is, after the conference, the congressional time window is small before members start gearing up for the 2010 election season and put these kinds of strategic issues on the backburner.

The schedule for the CTBT will depend somewhat on how fast the START follow-on treaty is ratified, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control Ellen Tauscher told The Cable in an interview, adding that the administration will only propose CTBT ratification when the fight can be won.

She also alluded to the fact that Senate attention is scarce and even after the NPT it might be difficult to make a full-court press.

"How many arms-control treaty votes does the Senate have? They haven't done it in a long time. How long is it going to take for Senate Foreign Relations Committee to do hearings? Does the Senate Armed Services Committee want to do hearings?" Tauscher asked.

"We're going to do it, but we're only going to do it when we are going to win," she added.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman John Kerry, D-MA, told The Cable in an interview that a huge effort to compile scientific and technical data to support the administration's case for ratification was already underway.

"We have a lot or work to do be in a position to sit down with people and explain how this works," he said, "I think it would hard to do it before the NPT conference, just because of the complexity of the issues and the need to do the START treaty."

Kerry met with Secretary Clinton this week to discuss the CTBT and other issues. Clinton participated in a multilateral conference on the issue on the sidelines of last week's U.N. General Assembly meetings.

Key senators to watch include Maine Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, who both voted to reject the treaty the last time around.

Vice President Joseph Biden has been given the job of shepherding the treaty through the Senate, managed in his office by Jon Wolfsthal. The State team on CTBT, in addition to Tauscher and Gottemoeller, will be dependent on Jofi Joseph, who just came over from the office of Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey and who is a strong advocate of swift ratification.

The NSC's Gary Samore and the Pentagon's Ted Warner are also said to be important players in the CTBT drive.

"We'll take this autumn and into next year to make our case to the Senate about this and then we'll see how the actual ratification campaign unfolds," a senior administration official told The Cable, "But the effort has already begun."

Greg Bruno at the Council on Foreign Relations snags an interview with Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki during his visit to Washington and Mottaki lays out the Iranian thinking on a host of issues. Below are some excerpts.

Mottaki on the talks in Geneva:

By presenting a package of proposals, we wanted to show that Iran is serious for these negotiations. We have given three topics in the proposed package and that makes it possible for all parties to enter into discussions even about the nuclear program. That also includes political and security issues, economic matters, and international cooperation. And in the international part, some matters can be dedicated to the nuclear programs and nuclear issues. We are optimistic about the talks tomorrow. Because the negotiations are taking place after a long time, we should not have much expectation. Maybe that requires formation of some committees to continue the process.

On the Iran's rights under the Non-Proliferation Treaty:

We are not going to compromise our legal rights under any circumstances toward the enjoyment of legal activities. And we have no plan at the moment to withdraw from the NPT.

On allowing access to the newly revealed facility near Qom:

The date will be discussed and coordinated within the Atomic Energy Agency of Iran and the IAEA later on. They would exchange letters. So from our side, there is no problem. Any date that is agreed between the two sides would be respected and the visit or access will be exercised.

On what happened during the G-20:

We think in Pittsburgh, President Obama was misled based on wrong information and wrong analysis. The wrong analysis was provided by the British. Wrong information by certain terrorist groups ... It seems to me that President Obama should be very mindful of these issues and statements.

As the Obama administration negotiates with Russia over a new nuclear arms reduction treaty, Senate Republicans are already planning their strategy to demand maximum concessions in exchange for their potential support.

The Senate Republican Policy Committee, led by South Dakota's John Thune, shown at left, is circulating a memo (pdf) outlining the GOP strategy to deal with the "follow on" to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which expires December 5. According to the memo, obtained by The Cable, the Republicans have a long list of demands, some of which are unlikely to be met when the administration rolls out the new agreement.

"A treaty meeting the goals articulated in this paper is more likely to gain the two-thirds majority necessary for Senate consent," the memo explains.

The differences between administration plans and GOP demands are likely to complicate the push for ratification in the Senate, which is expected early next year.

The core strategy for the Senate Republicans will be to try to frame the nuclear reductions as a unilateral concession that President Obama is making to the Russians.

"The United States should not pay for what is free," the memo states. "Russia's nuclear numbers will decline dramatically in the coming years with or without an arms control treaty. The United States should not make important concessions in return for something that will happen in any event."

Republicans will also call on Obama to justify the arms reductions in the context of American security interests, not simply U.S.-Russia relations.

"Russia needs this agreement far more than the U.S. does. It is desperately trying to lock the U.S. into lower nuclear levels, not the other way around."

GOP senators such as minority whip Jon Kyl, R-AZ, have been accusing Obama of rushing to get an agreement, a theme the strategy memo says will continue as Republicans argue that an extension of the old terms is preferable to a bad treaty.

Specifically, the memo sets three basic conditions for Republican support.

First, the new treaty should not constrain U.S. missile defenses, the GOP senators argue, nor should it impinge upon the military's plans to develop what's called "global strike" capabilities -- the ability to attack any target in the world at any time.

In a previous interview with The Cable, a senior administration official said there would be no specific treaty language on missile defense, but that some verification of conventional systems such as those used in global strike might be covered in the final version.

Secondly, Republicans are demanding the administration submit a modernization plan for the nation's nuclear stockpile at the same time as the treaty. Undersecretary of State for Arms Control Ellen Tauscher has said that such a plan will be submitted in next year's budget but will not include the Bush administration's proposal for building a new type of nuclear weapon, called the Reliable Replacement Warhead.

The third condition, the one the administration won't be able to deliver to Republicans, is their call for Russian tactical nuclear weapons to be covered in the new treaty. The senior official had said that would not be part of these negotiations, but could be covered in the next treaty, what insiders are calling "the follow on to the follow on."

The administration's negotiating team, led by Rose Gottemoeller, the assistant secretary of state for verification, compliance, and implementation, has been traveling back and forth to Geneva to negotiate terms with the Russians.

And Tauscher is testifying today to the House Armed Services Committee on the administration's recent decision to alter missile-defense plans in Europe, a decision she maintains was also not a concession to Russia.

"Nothing that we did had anything to do with Russian saber-rattling or their consternation about the ground-based interceptors or the Czech radar. The decision was not part of any trade-off or quid pro quo," Tauscher said, adding, "If, as a consequence of President Obama's decision, relations with Russia improve, then we should embrace that benefit."

UPDATE: The Center for Arms Control and Non-proliferation's Kingston Reif writes in to point out that while the GOP strategy memo quotes the Perry-Schlesinger Commission more than two dozen times, it never mentions that the group of bipartisan elders actually endorses the START follow-on process. Here's a quote from the report:

"The moment appears ripe for a renewal of arms control with Russia, and this bodes well for a continued reduction in the nuclear arsenal. The United States and Russia should pursue a step-by-step approach and take a modest first step to ensure that there is a successor to START I when it expires at the end of 2009."

FILE; Mark Wilson/Getty Images