Calls for Disarmament on Hiroshima 65th Anniversary

Today's top nuclear policy stories, with excerpts in bullet form.

Stories we're following today: Friday, August 6, 2010:

A First: U.S., Nuclear Powers Join Hiroshima Memorial - The Associated Press [link]

• The U.S., Britain and France participated for the first time Friday in the annual commemoration of the A-bomb attack on Hiroshima, in a 65th anniversary event that organizers hope will bolster global efforts toward nuclear disarmament.
• Hiroshima's mayor strongly welcomed Washington's decision to send Ambassador John Roos.
• Along with the U.S., Britain and France also made their first official appearance at the memorial, as well as U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Altogether, 74 nations were represented.
• Washington's decision to attend the anniversary has been welcomed by Japan's government, but has generated complex feelings among some Japanese who see the bombing as unjustified and want the United States to apologize.

Hiroshima Anniversary Brings U.N. Head's Call for Disarmament - CNN [link]

• U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon used an appearance at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial ceremony in Japan to advocate for his five-point plan for worldwide nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation.
• August 6 marks the 65th anniversary of the atomic bomb dropped by the United States at the end of World War II on Hiroshima.
• "Together, we are on a journey from ground zero to global zero -- a world free of weapons of mass destruction," Ban said. "That is the only sane path to a safer world. For as long as nuclear weapons exist, we will live under a nuclear shadow."
• "We must teach an elemental truth: that status and prestige belong not to those who possess nuclear weapons, but to those who reject them," he said.

U.S., Hanoi in Nuclear Talks - The Wall Street Journal [link]

• The Obama administration is in advanced negotiations to share nuclear fuel and technology with Vietnam in a deal that would allow Hanoi to enrich its own uranium—terms that critics on Capitol Hill say would undercut the more stringent demands the U.S. has been making of its partners in the Middle East.
• The State Department-led negotiations could unsettle China, which shares hundreds of miles of border with Vietnam.
• U.S. officials have hailed a nuclear-cooperation agreement that President Barack Obama signed last year with the United Arab Emirates as a nonproliferation model, because the Arab country agreed to purchase all of its nuclear fuel from the international market.
• The senior U.S. official briefed on the Vietnam talks said the State Department is setting a different standard for Hanoi, as the Middle East is viewed as posing a greater proliferation risk than Asia.
• "After the U.S. set such a good example with the U.A.E., the Vietnam deal not only sticks out, it could drive a stake through the heart of the general effort to rein in the spread of nuclear fuel-making," said Henry Sokolski, executive director of Washington's Nonproliferation Education Center.

Nuclear Nonproliferation Games - Henry Sokolski in the National Review Online [link]

• America is offering less-developed states access to nuclear-power technology to persuade as many of them as possible to help control the further spread of nuclear weapons.
• What has been the response? Mostly, more states demanding freer access to more sensitive nuclear technology than our government will share, and an ever larger number of nuclear-supplier states rushing in to fill the demand.
• Increasingly, countries are also demanding U.S. subsidies, federal contracts, and licenses to expand their American nuclear business.
• These demands could easily be used as leverage on them to bring them into line on nonproliferation export controls. Yet, so far, the U.S. has not chosen to do so. Instead, the White House has turned the other cheek.

700 Questions, One Purpose: Delay START - Max Bergmann in The Wonk Room [link]

• The logic behind Sen. John Kerry and the Obama administration’s decision to delay the Senate Foreign Relations Committee vote on New START was not — as was widely reported — because START lacked support.
• If New START is brought to the floor in September Kyl is going to make this long and painful. It is quite possible that even if Corker and Isakson vote for the treaty in committee in September, they could still support Kyl’s efforts to delay the vote on the floor by noting their continued support is conditional on the Administration meeting Kyl’s demands for nuclear modernization funding.
• What makes this all the more pernicious is that Kyl basically supports the treaty. So why is Kyl holding the treaty hostage? As an extreme nuclear hawk, Kyl is attempting to use START to extract as many concessions as possible from the Administration such that he in effect kills off any chance of further action on the President’s larger nuclear agenda.
• In the end, the only way the treaty probably gets passed this year is if the Obama administration and the Senate leadership call Kyl out and force a vote.

A View from the Lighter Side

GOP Arms-Control Experts against New START - The Heritage Foundation [link]

• Americns [sic] deserve a real debate on the new nuclear arms treaty with Russia.
• One of the most egregious arguments peddled by New START proponents is that no reasonable arms control expert is opposed to New START. That is blatantly false. Americans deserve honesty in this debate. The truth is the modern-day GOP arms control establishment is against New START.
• The list of experts is large: Eric Edelman, former undersecretary of defense for Policy; Robert Joseph, former undersecretary of state for arms control and international security; former UN Ambassador John Bolten; Paula A. DeSutter, former assistant secretary of state for verification and compliance; Kim Holmes, former assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs; and former Sen. Jim Talent (R.-Mo).