Jackie Sanders, special representative of the president for the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons, began her address to the Seventh Review Conference of the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons by noting that on March 7 of this year, President Bush urged all NPT parties to take "strong action" to confront the "threat of noncompliance" with the NPT.
Sanders urged the conferees "to recognize the depths of this problem and to agree on the main principles of our response."
"While these [Treaty] violations have undermined the security of all NPT parties, we can and must seek to correct these problems by holding accountable those in noncompliance and seek to deter future violations by setting in place new policies to deter future violations."
"North Korea’s consistent violations before it announced its intention to withdraw from the NPT, and its February 10 assertion that it has manufactured nuclear weapons, have created great instability in Northeast Asia and threaten the NPT regime."
Actually, as most conferees know, North Korea gave the required three-month notice back in 1993 that it was withdrawing from the NPT. Bill Clinton essentially bribed them – with the multi-billion dollar Agreed Framework – into "suspending" their withdrawal.
Then, in October 2002, Bush accused North Korea of having a secret nuclear-weapons-oriented uranium enrichment program. North Korea denied having such a program, and no evidence has ever been produced that they do. Nevertheless, Bush unilaterally abrogated the Agreed Framework. In December, North Korea resumed their NPT withdrawal.
Now, contrary to what Bush obviously wants, the NPT itself has no enforcing mechanism. Each nuke-state "undertakes" not to supply nukes to a no-nuke state and each no-nuke state "undertakes" not to acquire them. But the NPT itself doesn’t even mention what happens if a state violates its "undertaking."
However, Article III of the NPT does require every no-nuke state to conclude a Safeguards Agreement "in accordance with the Statute of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Agency’s safeguards system, for the exclusive purpose of verification of the fulfillment of its obligations assumed under this Treaty."
In the event a no-nuke state is determined by the IAEA Board to be in noncompliance with its Safeguards Agreement, the IAEA statute authorizes and requires the Board to report the noncompliance to the UN Security Council for possible action.
So what can Bush have been thinking? North Korea’s Safeguards Agreement –and the authority of the on-site IAEA inspectors – remained in force only so long as North Korea was an NPT signatory. Without even informing the IAEA Board of his suspicions, as the NPT requires him to do – much less providing the Board any evidence – Bush unilaterally provoked a "rogue state" (known to have enough weapons-grade plutonium in IAEA safeguarded fuel rods to make a half-dozen nukes like the one we dropped on Nagasaki) into withdrawing from the NPT.
So when Sanders asks the conferees, "What more can NPT parties do to strengthen Article II’s ban on the manufacture or acquisition of nuclear weapons?" the answer ought to be "In the future, comply with the NPT; fully support the IAEA Safeguards Regime."
But Sanders essentially encouraged the "NPT parties" to undermine – or at least usurp – the IAEA Safeguards Regime. Sign on to the Bush-Bolton Proliferation Security Initiative. Let Bush-Bolton decide what constitutes a "violation" or a "threat of noncompliance" and then let the PSI vigilantes take "firm and prompt action."
"First, NPT parties must have strong declaratory policies that establish the necessity of compliance with the NPT. It should be clear that there is zero tolerance for noncompliance with the NPT’s nonproliferation undertakings, and that NPT parties are prepared to take firm and prompt action to hold any violator accountable for its actions.
"NPT parties should also seek, through appropriate means, to halt the use of nuclear material or equipment acquired or produced by an NPT state as result of a material violation of the NPT’s nonproliferation undertakings.
"NPT parties should affirm their willingness to report cases of noncompliance with Article II to the UN Security Council.
"Finally, to strengthen the NPT’s nonproliferation obligations requires that NPT parties understand that the prohibition in Article II against the manufacture or acquisition of a nuclear weapon must apply to more than just an assembled nuclear weapon.
"In an extreme case, an NPT party might have manufactured an entire mockup of the non-nuclear shell of a nuclear explosive, while continuing to observe its safeguards obligations on all nuclear material.
"It would be folly for NPT parties to fail to act in such circumstances."
Yahoo!
