For the Record; 1513; Robert Joseph

these but we also need to address and we have firmly committed to doing that for the administration of the nuclear terrorism threat to provide not only the basket was greater capabilities these types of laughter and the ability to interdict them but also to work with our friends and allies abroad so that we can expand our defense out there and we can have a layer defense against the bigger the nuclear use on an american civil rights violations and by the bern porter serving the commonwealth of virginia for the russians have created in partnership with the university of virginia center of public affairs and a conversation on politics policy and the presidency for the record i lived in germany with the dentist is a deputy jay charlottesville pbs as robert joseph the undersecretary state for arms control and international security and this war our job is a senior advisor to

president bush and he's the principal state officer arms control nonproliferation regional security and the jewish israeli public service in these areas goes back decades including service at nato in the defense department and in the national security council and writer joseph well before the record make you bigger a lot of experience nuclear nonproliferation and i wanted to start off if you could explain to us what you consider a nuclear weapon to be with a nuclear weapon is the weapon that uses this song that you're either plutonium or enrich uranium to achieving a relatively large needle and by large you're hearing the explosions i mean big explosions nuclear weapons were first developed during the second world war and in fact have only been used twice against two japanese cities in nineteen forty five bring an end to the second world war

what did those bombs were dropped compliance we have arms they get dropped out of nestle's nobody jumped out of planes the obama committee submarines do you consider something like a dirty bomb be maybe carrying a moving truck that would be exported to get nuclear material would that be considered such a classic form of nuclear weapon and a dirty bomb would spread radioactive material but the explosive nature of that device would be conventional in nature so that it is not the classic nuclear weapon but it is a real problem in a real proliferation threat i'm wondering about where the nuclear weapons are in the world since nineteen forty five there've been about a hundred and twenty thousand warheads produced most of the united states and the soviet union and that exists today

we have gone through a decades long process of building a nuclear weapon and then reducing our nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons were deployed literally in the thousands during the cold war period and most of those weapons were us weapons and soviet weapons i we have through various arms control means as well as though you lacked new lateral actions are part reduce reduce dramatically the number of weapons deployed from the tens of thousands to the low thousands and are going lower cost point in fact in the area of tactical nuclear weapons which and mara what exactly would you characterize as a tactical nuclear weapons or tactical nuclear weapon is defined arms control is a non strategic weapons strategic weapons are those that are usually delivered by long range ballistic missiles whether they're the intercontinental ballistic missiles or land based with a ballistic missiles on submarines or on long range bomber it's

a tactical nuclear weapons use they are delivered by tactical aircraft or other other means and we have drawn down i believe it's over ninety five percent in actually eliminating over ninety five percent of our tactical weapons we have a very good record in terms of arms control reductions really across the board for both strategic weapons which are those that are delivered by long range me and i as well as jack was the record of the former soviet union where in terms of strategic reductions are are our approach has been to first work with the soviet union now russia and with a treaty that president bush signed the treaty of moscow in his first term we and the russians will be reducing to the lowest level of deployed strategic weapons in decades what happens to that material when you're dismantling do away with where's ago well a lot of a lot of the material it has actually been blended down the highly enriched uranium for example that was in many weapons it is

now being blended down and made into law or enrich uranium which is actually used in the process of nuclear energy so it becomes nuclear fuel so taking sort of making that question absolutely in fact we have a program with russia the problem down growth program that produces about ten percent of the electricity of the united states that production is from uranium that used to be former soviet weapons and there have been a number of stories in the past decade of instability within the soviet system of the former soviet system and how the material remain secure is that material secure we have worked without russia for over ten years now a first in the context of the nunn lugar program which are continuing to be funded and in fact they're being funded at record levels today and these programs along with the programs that the department of energy needs are and that our are

designed and have successfully it increased the security the facilities and in the former soviet union and out and have also led to the elimination of weapons and sensitive materials are outside those two nations where the other nuclear powers will be other declared nuclear weapon states under the united states and russia are france the united kingdom and china and then we also know that india pakistan and israel have a nuclear capability or on in north korea are of course acquiring that capability and that north korea has declared that it does have nuclear weapons of those nations are you just listed out several of them are clearly allies of the united states seven several of them or maybe you'd consider neutral are up in the air and some aren't declared enemies are at least part of the axis of evil or president bush's identified what kind of steps are we taking

to address nuclear proliferation or the spread of nuclear weapons well the key challenges in terms of state corporation programs are north korea and her on it in the context of north korea we have embarked on a multilateral diplomatic process the six party talks to try to convince the north koreans to give up all of their nuclear programs because all of their programs a nuclear weapon related to the six parties involved the united states china japan russia south korea and north korea looking at one state where the isis has had some success in curtailing their nuclear activity is libya of what it tells a little bit about involvement in negotiations with you for the libyans approached us in two thousand and three in fact at the same time we were flown forces into the region to

enforce un security council resolutions on iraq and over the course of a number of months we were able to i get agreement to prove too half our exports go go into libya to evaluate their programs and chemical programs nuclear programs and ballistic missile programs and in december of two thousand and three i felt that often made the decision to eliminate his new or weapons program as well as all chemical weapons and the longer range ballistic missiles that the idea that they had and i would say that the libyan experience is a prime example of an intelligence success story because the communications were conducted in intelligence channels the outcome was very much shaped by the intelligence penetration of the aq khan network a network that provided one stop shopping for nuclear weapons and was the source of the libyan nuclear weapons programs and i think it does

tell us a little bit about his pakistani you know korea is a former hero i believe that his status has changed in pakistan i given that his extracurricular activities have been exposed and i don't think that our one considers a hero an individual who provide state secrets with regard to pakistani national nuclear weapons program he had been the father of that program are going back to the nineteen seventies at some point he decided to go into business for himself and in fact he created a very lucrative business providing a new career weapons design of nuclear weapons on the carols including centrifuges to a number of proliferation concerns including the idea that also including iran and north korea we're finding out

more and more about his activities with the guards were wrong as the iaea the international atomic energy agency it investigates iranian nuclear activities iran has now been found to be in non compliance with its safeguards obligations another word has been caught cheating and the investigation in iran on the ground by this international agency continues because in some ways a nuclear catalyst he is anywhere catalyst he had a very lavish lifestyle that was financed by his nuclear proliferation activities is now a business as are most of his colleagues in this network it is as far as i understand under house arrest and now in pakistan where you control people like can it control people would have this knowledge of how to make nuclear weapons and are able to sell this technology or sell things in an open market when what kind of things are there to keep that level nuclear scientists it's very it's very difficult to control the flow of

knowledge particularly in the age of the internet however there are many things that we can do it you ask for example about libya one of the things that we're doing in libya as well as in iraq is about redirecting the activities of the training if you will the former scientists and engineers who were involved in there weapons of mass destruction programs and there are also other things one can do to guard against the export of sensitive materials and technologies or you can improve an enforcer export controls you can develop a cape billy by sharing information with other countries to identify full of renters and you can work with other countries as we are in that context the proliferation security initiative to develop a joint capability to interdict the movement of these types of sensitive materials and in fact one of the interventions that occurred i did have a direct impact on the outcome in libya and that was the introduction of the ship called

the bbc china i which was carrying literally thousands of centrifuge parts from an aq khan facility in malaysia this network extended over three continents than the actual production facility for centrifuge parts in malaysia and the intelligence community was able to identify a shipment and that shipment was injured when asked you know why a nation would want to have a nuclear weapon i know it's incredibly simple fast the question i wonder what is this exhibit the root cause of a proliferation it's the real issue the united states have to write one of these nations juana grew up well different nations want nuclear weapons states wilder scare the united states because i think we've demonstrated that were very serious about stopping their collaboration programs i believe that a state like north korea which has declared the testicular weapons it presents a real danger to the security of the region and to

the security of the united states remember we've got over thirty thousand american forces in south korea to protect the border are wrong now is a state that is not an ideologically motivated leadership element of it is a state that has a expansionist ideology it is a state that that resides in a critically a vitally important region and not just for oil but oil was part of it is it is a state that must be stopped in terms of its quest for nuclear weapons and housing as well the president said that there are no options off the table but he's also said that are owed our objective is to achieve the elimination of or on iran's nuclear program as well as the north korea nuclear program either through diplomacy and as i mentioned in the context of north

korean or through the six party talks in the context of a wrong that's working through the iaea process a process that takes place in vienna and it is one in which many states are in will the iaea has a board of governors of made up of thirty five different states and those states are on are taking steps was to convince iran that it must give up its weapons ambition soviet states is fully implementing a plan of negotiating with the rest of the world not going out of it unilaterally going along we're not doing this unilaterally just like we're not conducting negotiations and asia context you were like i we are very much want to develop an international consensus or an international grouping that will put the pressure on iran to back away from its nuclear weapons ambitions we have found

that has huge pressure on they do move back if you don't pressure on if there are no consequences for their moving forward step by step with their nuclear weapons program from conversion to enrichment for example that iran will take the next step and at the end of those steps and there are only a few more left it will have to fill up and capability we need to work hard to ensure that that doesn't happen to do that were working with the europeans will want the iranians to go back into the negotiations with the europeans were working with the russians the chinese trying to encourage them to join us in this international group that would compare what what unites states approaches to iran to push indiana recently there yet states has a corrective if i'm wrong here that has allowed and yet somewhat to be a little bit more flexible in their nuclear rules in terms of how they developed you ready well india never became a party to the nuclear nonproliferation treaty india decided on his own that he required nuclear weapons and

has developed nuclear weapons but not not in violation of the npd because of never agreed to the egg or wrong i didn't join the entity as a non nuclear weapon state and give up its right to nuclear weapons rutgers doesn't say it's pursuing nuclear weapons says it's pursuing a peaceful program which are polygamous man well i think not only are we fully convinced that i think most members of the idea are fully convinced that this is a nuclear weapons program and the cover is a peaceful program it's a guy's it's true providing cover for forty eight weapons program with regard to india the president and the prime minister of india recently agreed to attempt to expand cooperation on the civil side of the civil nuclear site india's expanding its civil nuclear energy capabilities and india of course is a democracy india is an emerging power for reasons of

building that strategic relationship as well as reasons of energy security and i would argue nonproliferation news we've agreed to try to work with congress and try to work with other countries in the context of the nuclear suppliers group which is a group of countries that regulate the trade in nuclear technology to provide more assistance on the civil side to to india not on the nuclear we've made very clear that we will not in fact under our own obligations to the nba team really any support or any assistance to india's nuclear weapon program but it's fundamentally one can't compare india ever on india's i said is a democracy in iran is far from that iraq is a very aggressive agenda and very ambitious plan in the region are wrong ideas it very central danger not just to us interests but to the interest of the entire international community does the united states have the same policy toward

pakistan as a post modern day on the city i know in part because of the aq khan legacy but also because pakistan doesn't have the same energy requirements that india does pakistan is an important from their strategic ally in the war on terror but we don't treat india and pakistan exactly the same we don't have this hyphenated approach as we say to india and pakistan how we treat them differently they're both fronts bars i'm wondering if there is it would tell us semi safe uses in nuclear technology which is to produce energy and fear what to do with that material i do with radioactive material and one and there are safety uses for nuclear explosions is there something that they can use nuclear can use this reaction to do good things for the world set of blowing up well many years ago a number of decades ago back in the fifties even into the

sixties there was a lot of discussion about using nuclear power in the form of explosive devices for peaceful well and the whole thing and the whole discussion of the so called peonies peaceful nuclear explosives and in fact some countries did you have to change the course of rivers for example but it became very clear that the technology for peaceful nuclear explosive device is the same as for a nuclear weapon and i think the entire international community has moved away from the notion of using a peaceful nuclear explosive energy for commercial purposes is there such a thing as a low yield nuclear bomb like a bunker buster is are we entering a period technologically where the nature of the bomb could be such that you can use it on the battlefield and controlled circumstances well if you go back a few years going back to the nineteen fifties that we deploy literally as to the rest of the soviet union

and thousands and thousands of these tactical devices it was a period in which we have and how much divisions india and in the us army for shooting nuclear weapons field artillery pieces is that were carried on the backs of our soldiers they were atomic demolition devices to blow up bridges and luckily we've moved away from that from that period or to be more excitable about using nuclear weapons and we're not in a battlefield context that the i need to be in a quite clear that the nuclear weapons do play an important role in our national security posture and we continue to require nuclear weapons i would argue for nonproliferation purposes as well many countries relied very heavily on the nuclear guarantee the united states for lots of including countries like japan and as long hours without a car that is

not a nuclear power and i there's little league for it to be as long as its alliance with the united states is solid and as long as the us to turn to posture including its nuclear weapons are credible and safe and reliable we're getting close to the city and the show guy i wanna ask you what the likelihood is a voice is coming under a nuclear attack of some sort and part of this is linked to the larger question which is dealing with it the doomsday clock you maybe play with the ultimate outsider city had been tracking the doomsday clock since the league dropping the first ball and it's now seven minutes to midnight during the cuban missile crisis that was very close to midnight during the early nineties i think it was maybe about twenty minutes to win our back at the seventies how close is yes states or anywhere in the world that i think the greatest threat that we face in terms of the prospects for nuclear weapon being used against an american

city is from nuclear terrorism i was struck that during the presidential campaign to one point of agreement between senator kerry and president bush was on a nuclear terrorist as the pre eminent threat that we face as a nation clearly were concerned about north korea where we were concerned about iran that we have to look at the heart the dynamic of deterrence much differently than we get in the cold war period where we have thousands and thousands of weapons pointed at us or on in north korea are trying to achieve that type of the level of capability what they want is just a few weapons to hold our cities hostage to be able to blackmail us to be able to prevent us from coming to the assistance of our friends and allies in those regions technology to get the words to the united states well north korea's access to already have that capability and iran is clearly working on and so we need to we need to

turn back those programs but we also need to address and we are firmly committed to doing this as an administration the nuclear terrorism threat to provide not only internally and domestically greater capabilities for detecting the movement of these types of weapons and the ability to interdict them but also to work with our friends and allies abroad so that we can expand our defense of her and we can have a layer defense against this threat because the nuclear use on an american city has a world changer for all of us the doomsday clock was backwards clock is gone for that we run out on here as my pleasure to a pageant show and help you come back and we'll talk about how successful events that separates ever have not and they can be outdated or joes is the undersecretary state wants control and international security for the staff and crew and then he at va here in charlottesville our production

partners at the miller center of public affairs at the university of virginia and can germany was joined us on the next for the record for more information about the guests and topics on four the record visit our website at debbie you debbie wu that idea stations dot org nina issues and the and the and the and the and

also owe gdp for the record production funding is provided by the prairie foundation and by the bern porter foundation serving the commonwealth of virginia for the record is created in partnership with the university of virginia's miller center of public affairs three gorges a vhs copy of this program sent a check for twenty one ninety five to the address on the screen or call for three four to nine five seven six seven one please reference the program number fb i think the

path to put up with it i think the thing for a kid ms bee fb