Observers Fault U.S. for Pursuing Mini-Nukes
Critics say American 'double standard' will undermine efforts to curb nuclear arms.
By Douglas Frantz
Times Staff Writer

December 23, 2003

VIENNA — Research on a new generation of precision atomic weapons by the Bush administration threatens to undermine international efforts to stop the spread of nuclear arms and to tarnish recent successes, according to diplomats and nonproliferation experts.

The criticism focuses on the administration's decision to lay the groundwork for developing low-yield weapons — known as mini-nukes — while pursuing President Bush's doctrine of preemptive strikes against rogue states.

The diplomats and independent experts said Washington's strategy weakens support for more stringent controls at a time when the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty faces serious challenges from North Korea and Iran and amid widespread fears of terrorists acquiring atomic weapons. The U.S. strategy, critics say, may cause other countries to pursue nuclear arms.

"The U.S. follows a double standard that allows it to develop and threaten to use nuclear weapons while denying them to smaller countries," said Hussein Haniff, Malaysia's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. "We do not know whether the nuclear nonproliferation treaty can survive with these U.S. policies."

Haniff heads a group of 13 countries that constitute a nonaligned bloc on the IAEA's 35-nation Board of Governors. The bloc is often at odds with the United States and last month opposed U.S. efforts to declare Iran in violation of the nonproliferation treaty.

The Bush administration argues that mini-nukes would provide flexibility to respond to changing threats and small-scale conflicts that do not require full-size nuclear armaments.

Nonetheless, some U.S. allies are alarmed. A senior Western diplomat called the prospect of mini-nukes "politically stupid" and said it would complicate U.S. security by weakening support for tougher nuclear controls.

Anger over the U.S. policy has risen steadily since the spring when the administration requested funding for research on mini-nukes, in effect seeking a reversal of a 1993 ban on research and development of low-yield atomic weapons. After much wrangling, Congress approved the bill last month, granting $7.5 million, half of what the administration had sought.

The weapons would be designed to penetrate underground bunkers presumed to conceal weapons of mass destruction or command centers. Pentagon planners say the low yield would limit nuclear fallout, a claim some scientists dispute.

Administration officials have said the research into mini-nukes was insignificant compared with its larger arms control effort, which would cut the U.S. nuclear stockpile by two-thirds by 2012.