Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
PROFESSOR MALCOLM
CHALMERS AND
MR. MARK
FITZPATRICK
5 NOVEMBER 2008
Q1 Chairman: Good afternoon, everybody.
I welcome our two witnesses, Mr. Fitzpatrick and Professor Chalmers.
This is the first public evidence session of our new inquiry on
global security and non-proliferation. Today we will focus on
nuclear weapons issues, but later in the inquiry we will consider
other issues, including chemical and biological weapons. We will
also consider some conventional arms issues, including the arms
trade treaty, but the focus today will be on the nuclear issue.
To begin by going back to the history, those
of us who were around in the 1960s, '70s and '80s are well aware
of all the various books about nuclear deterrence and the argument
that in certain circumstances war was prevented by the existence
of nuclear weapons. Are the Government right in those circumstances
to have a policy of opposing all nuclear weapons proliferation,
or could there be circumstances in which potential adversaries
possessing weapons of mass destruction deter each other from the
use of such weapons?
Mr. Fitzpatrick: I would be happy
to answer, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much for inviting me to
attend and offer some thoughts. First of all, I think that the
Government are correct. They are obliged by their commitment in
the nuclear non-proliferation treaty to work towards the goal
of nuclear disarmament, and they have reaffirmed that several
times.
I think that there is a recognition that nuclear
weapons present one of the greatest dangers to mankind, and even
though nuclear weapons have played an important role in the past
60 days in helping to prevent a conflict between the major powers,
the existence of the weapons themselves means that the potential
for misuse, miscalculation and mistakes remains high. There are
instances, as you with your reference to history will know well.
In the Cuban missile crisis and the India-Pakistan standoffs of
1998 and 2002, the world came perilously close to seeing nuclear
exchanges. As a goal, disarmament remains vital.
Q2 Chairman: Thank you. I think
that you meant 60 years, not 60 days.
Mr. Fitzpatrick: Sixty years,
yes.
Q3 Chairman: I was wondering which
crisis we had had in the past 60 days. No doubt we could say that
there is always the potential for conflicts of that kind. Professor
Chalmers, do you wish to add anything?
Professor Chalmers: I concur with
everything that Mr. Fitzpatrick said. I think that it is the case
that nuclear weapons contributed to more caution on the part of
those possessing them when they were confronted with other powers
with nuclear weapons during the cold war. Therefore, I think that
they did reduce the chances of conventional conflict between the
major powers. What they did not do was to end that possibility
altogether. As Mark said, there was a real possibility that nuclear
weapons could have been used during the cold war. We were lucky
that they were not. In the current period, it continues to remain
possible that they might be used. Indeed, I think that the reason
why we are having this discussion is that there is concern that
nuclear weapons might one day be used, by accident or deliberately,
which would create a transformation in international politics,
very much for ill.
Q4 Chairman: Is the real problem
the proliferation of nuclear weapons to new countries or the existence
of nuclear weapons themselves?
Professor Chalmers: I think that
the problem is the possibility that nuclear weapons might be used.
That relates both to countries that already possess nuclear weapons
and to countries that might possess them in future. It does not
apply to all those countries equally at any one point in time,
but if we are talking about the next 20 or 30 years, I would be
just as worried about the nuclear weapons of Russia or Pakistan
as I would be about the possibility that Iran or North Korea might
have them in 20 or 30 years' time. Of course, I am less worried
about the arsenals of countries like the United Kingdom or the
United States, but even in those cases there are real issues surrounding
their accidental use and the security of those weapons, and the
associated fissile materials, against terrorism which we need
to address and which are not being addressed sufficiently right
now.
Q5 Chairman: We are going to come
on to some of these detailed areas in a moment. Mr. Fitzpatrick,
do you wish to add anything?
Mr. Fitzpatrick: I largely agree
with Professor Chalmers on that. There is a particular danger
in the proliferation when countries newly acquire nuclear weapons.
The potential for misuse, mistakes and miscalculation is higher
than in states like the United States and the United Kingdom which
have evolved careful control strategies, communications with potential
adversaries and the like.
Q6 Chairman: In the debates around
the issues there is often a tendency—the Government themselves
do it in their documents—to group together nuclear, chemical
and biological weapons under the heading of weapons of mass destruction.
Without going into events of five years ago, there is sometimes
therefore a confusion about what is meant by WMD. We have had
at least one submission from an academic saying that it is very
unhelpful to group them together in this way and that people should
not talk about WMD because it does not give clarity. Do you agree?
Professor Chalmers: I would concur
with that. I do not think that weapons of mass destruction is
a very helpful term. People sometimes use the even worse acronym,
NBC—which is also a TV channel in the United States—for
nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, distinguishing them
as distinct categories of weapons. Mass destruction in terms of
physical destruction is a characteristic of nuclear weapons, not
of chemical and biological weapons. Chemical and biological weapons
may in some circumstances be very useful terror weapons, but in
terms of their military utility against those who have organised
their own defence, they are much more problematic. Nuclear weapons
are in a category of their own and should remain so.
Mr. Fitzpatrick: I agree with
that. WMD is usually used as shorthand. It does not create clarity.
But it is a term that has some standing in international law.
It has been used by the United Nations. We cannot simply discard
it, but it is useful when analysing the problems to try to distinguish
between the threats.
Q7 Mr. Horam: Looking at the overall
global situation today, what view do you take of the trends there
are in the possession of nuclear weapons by individual states.
Do you think the trends are helpful, very bad or how would you
assess the situation as we see it from today's perspective?
Professor Chalmers: The nuclear
non-proliferation treaty has played an important role in slowing
the pace—
Q8 Mr. Horam: It has done so?
Professor Chalmers: It has done
so up to now. I was reading recently a US national intelligence
estimate from 1957 which predicted that by 1961 Sweden would be
acquiring nuclear weapons and that several other states would
do so in the following decade. That simply did not happen. A large
number of countries—Sweden, Spain, Yugoslavia, Australia
and others—which did have nuclear weapons programmes in
various stages, abandoned those programmes in large part because
of the norm created by the NPT. Even today, the number of states
that are actively pursuing nuclear weapons options beyond the
nine states which we know have them is very limited. Iran is the
main example in that category. That is not to say that other countries
are not hedging around such options, but the idea that we have
a cascade of proliferation under way right now is not the case.
What we should worry about, and this is why
there is so much focus on Iran and North Korea, is that if those
countries acquire and consolidate a nuclear weapon capability,
there is likely to be considerable domino pressure in those regions,
which would then lead to other countries acquiring them. Yes,
we have had some degree of success, but I would come back to the
point that I made in response to a previous question. The problem
of nuclear weapons is not confined simply to new states. It is
also characteristic of those who already possess them.
Mr. Fitzpatrick: A year ago, I
might have said that the states seeking nuclear weapons were the
same states that were seeking them 20 years ago—North Korea
and Iran. The case of Syria, though, gives me further cause for
concern. In the past year we have learned that Syria was pursuing
nuclear capabilities, and it very much looked like the intention
was to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons. There is this blip
here, that there could be other states that already have been
seeking to join Iran in acquiring capabilities, and that is of
concern.
The other trend that is worrisome is that Iran
and North Korea both violated their NPT obligations, and the enforcement
of those obligations has, in my view, not been sufficient. So,
there is both the impetus on the part of some states to seek nuclear
weapon capabilities, and the insufficient will and ability of
the rest of the world to take measures both to penalise and to
stop them.
Q9 Andrew Mackinlay: Professor
Chalmers, you said something almost as an aside. To paraphrase,
you said, "I have some reservations, some concerns, about
the security of the United Kingdom arsenal"—I think
that you used the word "arsenal"—"the storage
of fissile material, and so on." I clocked that. Can you
amplify on what you said? I have seen some of our nuclear security
with the marines. What do you have in mind?
Professor Chalmers: A couple of
cases that have come up recently in relation to the United States
arsenal illustrate that there is no such thing as entirely foolproof
security. Last year, half a dozen US nuclear-armed missiles went
missing from the US Air Force for a couple of days without anybody
realising. Subsequently, of course, very senior Pentagon officials
were fired as a result. There was another case in May of this
year in which there was a fire in a Minuteman silo. The fire was
not even detected for five days by the people in charge of the
site. Things like that happen in any complex organisation. I do
not have any specific concerns in relation to UK nuclear weapons,
but I think that we need to be very careful. Perhaps the experience
of the recent financial crisis has increased our concern about
thinking that systems always work perfectly. They do not.
My final point is that there can be tension
between, on the one hand, having nuclear weapons systems for use
in very extreme circumstances which are designed to prevent the
possibility of their not being able to be used when required,
and on the other hand, the requirement to ensure that they are
never used inadvertently. There is a trade-off there, and there
always will be.
Q10 Andrew Mackinlay: Do you have
any concerns about our single-platform delivery system—basically
submarines, which tragically do break down and go wrong—compared
with either land-based or aircraft systems? I am following your
trend. I have listened to your last few comments and I think that
you are right to caution us. Things go wrong; people get confident
and complacent. However, it occurs to me that our delivery system
is under the water—deep in the ocean—and vessels do
go wrong and have accidents.
Professor Chalmers: One of the
advantages in terms of safety that the UK has is that because
we have a survivable system, and only one system, there is less
pressure in times of crisis or uncertainty to mobilise or reduce
the safety level to be able to use those systems. Therefore, there
is a lot to be said for a system such as ours, compared with that
of other countries. I would not suggest for a moment that ours
was less safe that others; I think that it is more safe by having
single-platform delivery. Nevertheless, events happen. There could
be breakthroughs in anti-submarine warfare—there might already
be breakthroughs that I am not aware of—which mean that
we have to change our operating patterns. They are dynamic systems,
so we should never think that anything is foolproof.
Q11 Mr. Pope: You have already
mentioned three countries of concern—Iran, North Korea and
Syria—so perhaps we could look briefly at each in turn.
Professor Chalmers, in your submission you stated that there is
a real possibility that Iran will become a nuclear weapon state
within a decade, and it is possible that that might be unstoppable.
A while ago the Committee visited Iran and went to Esfahan, and
I understand that most of the nuclear facilities are in the mountains
around Esfahan. It looks like a very secure area. Is it inevitable
that Iran will become a nuclear weapon state?
Professor Chalmers: No, I do not
think that it is inevitable, but I think that it is possible.
A lot will depend on the calculation of the Iranian leadership,
which seems, like the leadership of most states, to be concerned
to a very significant extent with regime survival and security.
It has concerns in that regard and will make a calculation on
whether pursuing the goal of complete weaponisation, which is
distinct from stopping somewhere along the road towards that end
goal, will add to or diminish its security. There are very strong
reasons to suggest that going down that route could pose real
dangers to the Iranian regime, but that has not stopped leaders
going down such paths in the past. The UK and allied countries
need to continue the strategy of doing everything we can to change
the cost-benefit calculation of the Iranian leadership so that
they do not go down that road.
My final point is that it is entirely possible
that the Iranians will continue moving down a route of approaching
such a capability, going as far as they can within the constraints
of the NPT, but not actually going over that final stage, unless
there is some immediate reason for doing so, and that is perhaps
rather more likely than complete weaponisation. As politics with
Iran play out over the next two or three years, one of the things
that I worry about is avoiding a situation in which Iran pulls
out of the NPT in the way North Korea did, because that could
radically accelerate the nature of the crisis in a way that we
would all lose out from.
Q12 Mr. Pope: It could reach a
breakthrough capacity and stop short of the stage at which it
could easily weaponise if it wanted to.
Professor Chalmers: Exactly.
Mr. Fitzpatrick: I agree with
that. There is a difference between having a capability and having
a weapon, but that difference is usually invisible, and in the
case of Iran, which has such a low level of co-operation with
international inspections and which has violated its treaty obligations
in the past, if it has the capability we have to take the worst-case
analysis and assume that it would have weaponisation. However,
there are strategies that can be pursued to try to make that line
more visible and stronger. Iran is already reaching the point
at which it will soon be able to produce a quantity of enriched
uranium that, if further enriched, could be enough for a nuclear
weapon. It is very close to reaching the red line of mastery in
enrichment. These are the questions: can it be persuaded to stop
there, and can we keep its capabilities limited?
Q13 Mr. Pope: Iran is a depressing
example, so maybe I could turn to North Korea, where there has
arguably been more diplomatic success. What are the prospects
that diplomatic pressure will bring North Korea's nuclear ambitions
to an end?
Mr. Fitzpatrick: I would not call
North Korea a success story, since diplomacy failed to prevent
it from crossing the line of testing a nuclear device. The diplomacy
is very active today in persuading North Korea to at least stop
producing more fissile material and disable what it already has.
The big question is whether it will be ready to go further and
disable the nuclear devices that we presume it has and get rid
of the plutonium. The big question is what would persuade North
Korea to give up what it sees as its last remaining trump card
and views as essential for the security of the regime and country.
Can it be persuaded to take the course that Libya took and realise
that nuclear weapons are not essential and are in fact a detriment
to their security? I think that it is going to be very hard to
persuade it, but a step-by-step process that establishes trust
and shows that it gets rewards for taking steps to disable them
is the only way forward.
Professor Chalmers: One of the
differences between North Korea, on the one hand, and Iran and
Libya, on the other, is that Iran and Libya, because of oil, potentially
have very prosperous economies, and international sanctions, or
the prospect of sanctions, have hampered their ability to develop
their economies and to become very viable members of international
society. On the other hand, North Korea has no such resources;
its economy is dependent on illegal or nefarious activities such
as missile exports, which are not covered by the current negotiations.
The regime is clearly concerned that if it gives away all of its
bargaining cards in this process, even if it is promised aid,
it will become a state that is essentially dependent upon international
aid, not least from South Korea, which could be withdrawn.
My judgment is that we are in a situation, as
we have been for some time, where there is a close interaction
between discussions about the political future of North Korea
and negotiations about its nuclear weapons and missiles. I think
that it is unlikely that it will give up entirely those options
without some significant political change.
Q14 Sir John Stanley: As you know,
in the immediate run-up to the American presidential election
yesterday, President Bush agreed to withdraw the Democratic People's
Republic of Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.
In Seoul the weekend before last, I found that across the political
spectrum within the Government, the view was that the Bush Administration's
decision may have been heavily influenced by the impending presidential
election. Their view was that the verification provisions that
had been agreed with the DPRK by the American negotiator, Chris
Hill, were far too loose and elastic, and that is very dangerous
country to get into when dealing with the DPRK. What is your view
of the strength of the verification provisions entered into by
the US Government?
Mr. Fitzpatrick: I believe that
it was the right decision to take North Korea off the terrorism
list. There was an agreement that if North Korea declared its
nuclear facilities, it would be taken off the list. That declaration
was apparently not complete, so there needed to be a verification
process that could confirm whether it was complete. I think that
the initial verification proposal put to North Korea was probably
the kind of proposal that a nation might put in the first round
of a negotiation seeking the maximum that one would want. I would
certainly have wanted everything that was asked for, but verification
means verifying what a country declared and North Korea only declared
the facilities at Yongbyon, so it makes sense that the verification
was largely limited to that, with some possibility for inspection
of other undeclared sites. It is those undeclared sites that did
not require access for the verification that some in Seoul took
exception to. Verification will continue to be a very important
issue as we try to learn more about the North Korean programme.
One has to take it step by step, and if the United States had
not taken that step, the process would have continued to unravel
and we would be further from the goal.
Q15 Sir John Stanley: Professor
Chalmers, do you want to add to that?
Professor Chalmers: No, I agree
with it.
Q16 Mr. Pope: I just have one
more question, which relates to Syria. A facility was destroyed
al-Kibar just over a year ago by the Israelis in an air strike.
In its written evidence, the British Foreign Office said that
the evidence provided by the CIA that the Syrian facility was
a nuclear facility was compelling. I am trying to be generous
to the CIA, but its track record in assessing with accuracy whether
or not a country has a WMD facility is patchy. I am interested
to know what your assessment is of Syria's intentions. Was the
facility at al-Kibar a nuclear one?
Mr. Fitzpatrick: I have looked
at this question deeply and it was part of an assessment dossier
we put out earlier in the year. I agree with the Foreign Office
conclusion that the evidence the CIA put forward was compelling,
in that the facility destroyed at al-Kibar was a nuclear reactor
and that the purpose of the reactor was to produce plutonium.
That much is very clear. What cannot be said with 100% clarity
is that Syria intended to use this plutonium to produce nuclear
weapons. There was no evidence of a facility that could reprocess
the plutonium, which you need to do before you can make nuclear
weapons. If I analyse it, it stands to reason: why would you produce
plutonium except for a nuclear weapons purpose? It is a logical
assessment. I think we can say that it is obvious that the reactor
was there and it was for plutonium production, and that the assessment
is probably correct.
The CIA's track record in past instances did
not have anywhere near the degree of hard evidence that it had
in this case. It had photographs on the ground that matched the
overhead imagery. It had somebody inside the reactor with photographs.
If somebody did not believe that, they would not believe anything.
Mr. Pope: That is very helpful. Thank
you.
Q17 Mr. Moss: May I now come on to
Pakistan? Of course, Pakistan was the source of the most well-known
illicit nuclear proliferation network. In your opinion, is Pakistan's
nuclear weapons programme now secure from proliferation risks?
Mr. Fitzpatrick: I will take the
question as I have also looked at this carefully. Not to blow
our own horn, but the International Institute for Strategic Studies
put out a dossier on this. There are three aspects of the Pakistan
programme that I think are causes for ongoing concern. One is
the security of the weapons themselves. Could they fall into the
wrong hands in Pakistan? The second is the proliferation risk.
Could it again sell the technology or used parts to other nations,
as A. Q. Khan did? The third is, will Pakistan expand its nuclear
arsenal? The last is a real concern because it is expanding its
production capabilities.
Pakistan undertook a reform of the command and
control of nuclear assets. It put in charge of the programme elements
of the Pakistani army which are the most elite and reliable of
forces available. I have a degree of confidence that it really
did change its control over these weapons in ways that make me
think they are not going to fall into the wrong hands overnight.
That does not mean that I have no concern at all. Pakistan is
a country beset by many problems. The confluence of terrorist
threats in Pakistan and the existence of these nuclear weapons
puts it very high on the list of countries that we need to be
concerned about.
Q18 Mr. Moss: Can I pick up on your
third point about proliferation and the scale of nuclear weapons?
Is that to replace older weapons and capability, or is it adding
to existing capability?
Mr. Fitzpatrick: It is largely
adding to existing capabilities. Pakistan's programme has largely
been based on highly enriched uranium. This was the technology
that A. Q. Khan sold. It has supplemented that with the plutonium-based
weapons programme, which is the one that is expanding. Pakistan
is in competition with India. It is perhaps too much to call it
a race, because they have not been racing as fast as they can,
but Pakistan is making very significant efforts to increase its
capabilities.
Q19 Mr. Moss: What are the prospects
that India, Israel and Pakistan might be brought into the nuclear
non-proliferation treaty?
Professor Chalmers: I think the
prospects of that are very limited. However, one of the questions
is whether there are other ways in which those countries can be
brought into multilateral arms control—through a comprehensive
test ban treaty, or some sort of limitation on fissile material
production, for example. There are more possibilities, perhaps
particularly in relation to the former.
Opportunities were missed after the cold war
by not proceeding more rapidly in some of those areas, when India
and Pakistan became openly nuclear. Then, when we got into the
recent discussion between the US and India about a nuclear deal,
not enough advances were made in those areas for India and Pakistan
to have had something that they were then under pressure to join.
There are now real prospects in relation to
the comprehensive test ban treaty; we may now be in a situation
where the US can ratify that treaty, which would then put significant
pressure on countries such as India. It is entirely possible that
Israel would ratify such a treaty. China would probably ratify
it if the US did. It would very quickly come down to India and
Pakistan being the only countries remaining. There may be risks
that, in a situation in which India and Pakistan were the two
main holdouts to CTBT entry into force, like France before its
CTBT ratification, they might be tempted to test in advance of
ratification. That would clearly create enormous problems. Mark
may wish to add to that, but that is an area in which there could
be progress.
Similarly—perhaps not now, but at some
stage in the coming years—it is possible that India and
Pakistan may come to the view that they have enough fissile material
that they are prepared to sign on to a fissile material cut-off
treaty. I do not think that is yet the case. As Mark was explaining
in relation to Pakistan—it is also true of India—there
is still a build-up of fissile material and warheads in those
two countries. However, I think that it is possible in the not-too-distant
future.
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