The state of international nuclear arms development has taken
center stage as Iran’s president announced Tuesday that his
country has for the first time successfully enriched uranium
““ less than a week after President Bush unveiled an extensive
U.S. nuclear weapons research plan.
Though Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran seeks
only to use this breakthrough to advance the nation’s energy
program, uranium enrichment can nonetheless give the country the
material to create atomic bombs.
While White House officials denounced Iran’s nuclear
ambitions, some experts believe Tuesday’s revelation will
strengthen American resolve to advance nuclear research while
improving security of U.S. nuclear stockpiles.
Bush’s nuclear plan, which includes the goal of developing
125 new bombs per year by 2022, aims to consolidate the
nation’s nuclear materials into one location. Currently,
weapons-grade plutonium is stored in seven different locations
nationally, including two laboratories managed by the University of
California ““ Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Los
Alamos National Laboratory.
Plutonium and uranium are the two elements used to create
nuclear weapons.
Isaac Maya, director of research for the University of Southern
California’s Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of
Terrorism Events, said consolidation would allow for better defense
of the nation’s plutonium stores from terrorist attack or
theft, as well as a concentration of qualified researchers.
But in the short term, he said Iran’s announcement will
likely spur officials to step up security measures at each of the
plutonium sites.
“We will probably increase the terrorism defense strategy
““ we’re not going to change what we’re doing but
we might protect better what we have,” Maya said.
Bush’s proposal to develop new bombs marks a change in
recent practice, as the United States had for many years merely
maintained preexisting bombs. The United States stopped building
new bombs in 1989.
Thomas D’Agostino, deputy administrator for defense
programs for the National Nuclear Security Administration,
testified before the House Armed Services Committee last week that
the United States has to modernize its nuclear weapons, which he
said are becoming outdated.
“We … worry about a hedge against geopolitical changes
and attempts by others to instigate an arms race, but that hedge is
no longer in aging and obsolete spare warheads but in the
responsive infrastructure,” D’Agostino said.
The research done at the UC’s labs comprises only part of
the bomb-development process. David Schwoegler, a spokesman for
Lawrence Livermore, said the UC-managed labs are concerned with
“experimentation and design” of weaponry, but not
construction.
“If there are any new weapons or if there’s a new
design, the design would be created at either Lawrence Livermore or
Los Alamos, but we do not build weapons,” he said.
Schwoegler said the labs’ respective missions and
operations would change very little under Bush’s new
proposal.
But the development of new bombs has drawn criticism from those
who believe such an action would reinvigorate emerging nuclear
powers, including Iran.
The U.N. Security Council has demanded that Iran stop all
enrichment by April 28 because of suspicions the program is
designed to make nuclear weapons.
Ahmadinejad warned the West that trying to force Iran to abandon
uranium enrichment would “cause an everlasting hatred in the
hearts of Iranians.”
Ahmadinejad said Iran wanted to operate its nuclear program
under supervision by the International Atomic Energy Agency and
within its rights under the regulations of the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty.
In announcing Iran’s accomplishment, Ahmadinejad said his
country had no intention of building weapons.
Ahmadinejad said Iran “relies on the sublime beliefs that
lie within the Iranian and Islamic culture. Our nation does not get
its strength from nuclear arsenals.”
With reports from Bruin wire services.