The margin of safety is shrinking, not growing.

--FBI Director Robert Mueller, on terrorists' ability to gain access to WMD-related materials and technology.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov today to discuss ongoing negotiations on a deal to replace the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, March 17).

(Mar. 18) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at a press conference following talks in Moscow today. The officials said their governments were nearing agreement on a deal that would replace a Cold War-era nuclear arms control pact (Yuri Kadobnov/Getty Images).

"We are making substantial progress on the new START treaty, that's the word from our negotiators in Geneva," Clinton said following the discussion. "The results of the latest negotiation rounds lead us to believe we'll be reaching a final agreement soon."

Lavrov added: "We are at the end of the final straight and we hope that very soon the negotiators will announce that their work has been completed."

At the beginning of the meeting, Clinton said "the bilateral relationship between the United States and Russia has moved in a very positive direction" (Agence France-Presse I/Spacewar.com, March 18).

Washington and Moscow have maintained they are down to addressing minor details in the negotiations, despite new reports that significant issues continue to divide the former Cold War antagonists. Lavrov said he has "seen no sign of something not going well" in the talks.

"All the 'i's have been dotted and all that remains is diplomatic-technical work ... This will take some time but is purely technical," Lavrov said.

U.S. Undersecretary of State William Burns, who traveled with Clinton to Moscow, said the sides were "getting closer" to completing the deal (Alissa de Carbonnel, Agence France-Presse II, March 18).

"Certainly this is a moment when we’ve made a lot of progress, and we certainly hope to make more, and [Clinton's] involvement is extremely important," the New York Times quoted him as saying. "We want to move ahead to finish the agreement."

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and U.S. President Barack Obama pledged last July to cut their nations' respective strategic arsenals to between 1,500 and 1,675 deployed nuclear warheads under the new treaty, which would replace the now-expired 1991 pact. Negotiators have reportedly also agreed to reduce each state's arsenal of nuclear delivery vehicles -- missiles, submarines and bombers -- to between 700 and 800, down from the 1,100-vehicle limit set by the leaders.

The old treaty expired Dec. 5 of last year.

It appeared questionable whether the governments would announce reaching a deal during Clinton's trip, according to the Times. Leaders in Moscow have continued to call for the treaty to include binding limits on a planned U.S. missile shield in Europe. Washington has resisted such language.

Treaty verification is also among the matters that have yet to be resolved, according to administration sources.

"Every time you think you’re done, new issues pop up in Geneva, and what seemed like trivia become major political issues," an Obama administration official said.

The White House believes that Clinton's trip to Moscow could help pave the way for the treaty's completion.

“Otherwise, it does not get done,” the U.S. official said. “Otherwise, it drags on like the last START treaty, which I think took nine years." (Mark Landler, New York Times, March 18).

Clinton is scheduled tomorrow to meet separately with Medvedev and influential Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Reuters reported.

Diplomats have said that support from Putin, Medvedev's predecessor as president, would be crucial in finalizing a nuclear deal (Reuters, March 18).

“This situation is somewhat worrying," Viktor Kremenyuk, deputy head of the Moscow-based Institute for the U.S. and Canadian Studies, told Russia Today. "Many analysts are throwing about claims of an argument between Moscow and Washington, which is not good for us or our partners. But the fact that Secretary Clinton is here means two things: that both sides are working really hard on the treaty, but a full agreement has not yet been reached."

Another expert believed the side had worked out nuclear reductions to include in the treaty

“It is clearly a question of spheres of influence. It is clearly a question of who is seen to be holding their ground and not losing face, and I think this is why it has taken so long. The most likely date of signing the new treaty will probably be next month’s summit on [nuclear nonproliferation] in Washington, but even then we can’t be sure that both sides will have agreed all the details until then,” said the University of Kent's Adrian Pabst (Russia Today, March 18).

The Obama administration has further pushed back the planned release of a forthcoming U.S. nuclear weapons policy review to permit further consideration of the document's content, a U.S. Defense Department official told lawmakers Tuesday (see GSN, March 8).

(Mar. 18) - A technician examines the nose cone of a U.S. B-61 Mod 11 nuclear gravity bomb. The United States has again delayed the release of a major nuclear weapons strategy review, an official said yesterday (U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration photo).

The pending Nuclear Posture Review would be unveiled within one month, Principal Deputy Defense Undersecretary James Miller said. The report was originally slated for publication last December, then pushed back to March 1 and then delayed again (see GSN, Jan. 6).

“The Nuclear Posture Review will be a foundational document for this administration,” Miller told a House Armed Services Committee panel.

Some goals established in the document are already reflected in the Obama administration's fiscal 2011 budget request, which would continue to fund a "triad" of nuclear-capable bombers, missiles and submarines while boosting spending on certain nuclear-weapon laboratory projects in California and Tennessee, he noted (see GSN, Feb. 2). The National Nuclear Security Administration would receive a 13-percent boost in funding, with some of the extra money intended for operations to maintain the nation's nuclear arsenal.

“Guaranteeing the safety, security and effectiveness of our stockpile, coupled with broader research and development efforts, will allow us to pursue nuclear reductions without compromising our security,” Miller said.

The work would help ensure the reliability of U.S. nuclear weapons as President Barack Obama pursues arsenal cutbacks with a goal of eventual worldwide disarmament, he said.

The strategy review has also helped the United States establish firmer goals in negotiating cuts to strategic weapons and delivery systems in a new nuclear arms control treaty with Russia, Miller said (see related GSN story, today).

“U.S. and Russian negotiators are now meeting in [Geneva, Switzerland] to complete an agreement that will reduce operationally deployed strategic nuclear weapons to their lowest levels in decades,” he noted in a statement (U.S. Defense Department release, March 17).

The terrorist organization al-Qaeda has not ceased its efforts to acquire a nuclear bomb or other unconventional weapons to use in a strike against the United States, FBI Director Robert Mueller told lawmakers yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 16).

(Mar. 18) - Pakistani troops pass earlier this month through a cave complex once frequented by militants in northwestern Pakistan. Al-Qaeda remains intent on obtaining weapons of mass destruction, FBI chief Robert Mueller said (A. Majeed/Getty Images).

"Al-Qaeda remains committed to its goal of conducting attacks inside the United States," Mueller warned a House Appropriations subcommittee, according to Newsmax. "Further, al-Qaeda’s continued efforts to access chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear material pose a serious threat to the United States."

Mueller noted that a 2008 National Intelligence Estimate "concluded that it remains the intent of terrorist adversaries to seek the means and capability to use WMD against the United States at home and abroad."

He also pointed to the conclusions of the December 2008 report by the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism that "the risks are growing faster than our multilayered defenses" (see GSN, Jan. 26; Ken Timmerman, Newsmax, March 17).

CIA Director Leon Panetta, though, said yesterday that a push against al-Qaeda in Pakistan's northern tribal region has forced Osama bin Laden and his senior lieutenants further into seclusion and impaired their capacity to develop complicated terror attack plans, the Washington Post reported.

"Those operations are seriously disrupting al-Qaeda," Panetta said. "It's pretty clear from all the intelligence we are getting they they are having a very difficult time putting together any kind of command and control, they they are scrambling. And that we really do have them on the run" (Warrick/Finn, Washington Post I, March 18).

In order to carry out new strikes in the United States, Mueller said al-Qaeda is endeavoring "to infiltrate overseas operatives who have no known nexus to terrorism into the United States using both legal and illegal methods of entry," Newsmax reported.

Bin Laden has said that acquiring weapons of mass destruction is a "religious duty," Mueller said. "Globalization makes it easier for terrorists, groups, and lone actors to gain access to and transfer WMD materials, knowledge, and technology throughout the world."

In order to block terrorist organizations' attempts to acquire nuclear arms, Obama officials have requested more funding for efforts to uncover the smuggling of nuclear materials abroad and to assist Russia's ongoing work of improving security at its nuclear weapons sites (see GSN, March 11).

"The margin of safety is shrinking, not growing," the FBI director said.

Last month, known al-Qaeda agent Sheikh Abdullah al-Nasifi declared that terrorists could best sneak into the country through tunnels that run under the U.S.-Mexico border.

"One person, with the courage to carry 4 pounds of anthrax, will go to the White House lawn, and will spread this 'confetti' all over them," al-Nasifi said on al-Jazeera television. "9/11 will be small change in comparison" (Timmerman, Newsmax).

Panetta said the attrition of al-Qaeda leadership through arrests and killings from Pakistani and U.S. assaults has seriously undermined the organization's capacity to plan assaults beyond the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region, the Post reported

He attributed the successes against al-Qaeda to enhanced cooperation and planning with Islamabad and what he described as "the most aggressive operation that CIA has been involved in in our history."

An example of those recent successes was the March 8 drone attack that killed senior al-Qaeda operative Hussein al-Yemeni in North Waziristan, anonymous U.S. intelligence officers said.

Including that strike, the agency is thought to have carried out 22 such operations this year, putting the United States on course for a significant increase from previous years.

The whereabouts of bin Laden and his No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, have not been pinned down, Panetta said, though he said intelligence officials think the two men are in Pakistan, "either in the northern tribal areas or in North Waziristan, or somewhere in that vicinity."

"We thought that the increased pressure [of the attacks] would do one of two things: that it would either bring them out to try to exert some leadership in what is an organization in real trouble, or that they would go deeper into hiding," he said. "And so far we think they are going deeper into hiding" (Warrick/Finn, Washington Post I).

U.S. and NATO commander for Afghanistan Gen. Stanley McChrystal said yesterday that the armed forces there would absolutely seek to apprehend a living bin Laden, the Post reported.

"If Osama bin Laden comes inside Afghanistan," he said in Kabul, "we would certainly go after trying to capture him alive and bring him to justice."

His comments conflicted with remarks given by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to Congress on Tuesday. Holder that the likelihood of bin Laden being captured alive was "infinitesimal" and that the fugitive leader would probably either be struck down in a U.S. operation or by al-Qaeda agents seeking to block his capture (Craig Whitlock, Washington Post II, March 17).

The U.S. Air Force's preliminary fiscal 2011 spending plan includes a shelved project that sought to develop a next-generation nuclear warhead, Kyodo News reported yesterday (see GSN, March 9).

The Air Force said the reference to the Reliable Replacement Warhead program was accidental and that the project would receive no funding in the budget cycle that begins Oct. 1.

The effort, developed during the Bush administration, was aimed at producing a new line of nuclear warheads that would offer heightened safety and reliability to the U.S. arsenal without requiring test detonations. The Obama administration zeroed funding for the initiative, which had previously been blocked by Congress (see GSN, May 11, 2009).

The budget draft, though, states that the effort would receive support from a funding tranche set aside for nuclear weapons research and development, said Hans Kristensen, who heads the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists.

The administration is expected to clarify its stance on producing new nuclear warheads in its forthcoming Nuclear Posture Review, Kristensen noted, suggesting the project could resurface as part of another effort to ensure that existing U.S. nuclear weapons remain reliable for longer periods of time (see GSN, March 18).

"Whatever new or modified warheads they plan will not get the name RRW. ... Rather, new or modified warhead will probably emerge as part of the life-extension program" he said (Kyodo News/Breitbart.com, March 18).

While Australia is prepared to move forward with an agreement to sell uranium to Russia, a top government official today said Canberra would not consider a similar deal with India, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Nov. 12, 2009).

The Australian government yesterday dismissed the advice of a 2008 report from parliament that recommended against implementing a 2007 uranium trade deal with Moscow. The agreement was inked by then-Prime Minister John Howard and former Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is now his country's prime minister (see GSN, Nov. 25, 2008).

While the report highlighted the threat that the material could be subject to theft or diversion for illicit purposes, the government today expressed confidence in the security infrastructure for any trade agreement.

"We have taken considerable time on our part to ensure we're satisfied, the International Atomic Energy Agency is satisfied, that the strictest of safeguards are in place," Australian Trade Minister Simon Crean told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

The government, though, has said it wouldl not sell uranium to nuclear-armed India as it has yet to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

"The signal to India ... is that this is the way in which they can be recipients of our supply and it's for India to respond to that," Crean said (Rod McGuirk, Associated Press/BusinessWeek, March 19).

Canberra has yet to finalize the Russian uranium trade agreement. The Rudd administration is expected to carry out a more thorough study of the pact before deciding whether to begin exports, the Australian Associated Press reported.

"We've given this very exhaustive consideration," Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said in an interview today with ABC Radio.

"We've come to the conclusion that we can safely export uranium to Russia and it won't be diverted for military purposes," Smith said.

Moscow already has similar pacts in place with Japan and Canada, Crean said.

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, however, said nuclear security is not strong in Russia and that the nation's progress on disarmament is very poor.

"Australia would effectively be relinquishing responsibility for supplying the raw ingredient for bomb fuel to a nuclear weapons state with an acknowledged lack of transparency in its civil-military arrangements," campaign spokesman Bill Williams said (Stephen Johnson, Australian Associated Press/Herald Sun, March 19).

Anti-nuclear advocate David Noonan of the Australian Conservation Foundation said that based on the information given to the parliamentary panel that prepared the 2008 report, exported uranium would "simply disappear off the safeguards radar on arrival in Russia," ABC News reported.

"This treaty allows Australian uranium to be used for facilities that are not covered by the International Atomic Energy Agency," he said (Alexandra Kirk, ABC News, March 19).

A U.S. man pleaded guilty yesterday for gathering information for the extremist organization behind the 2008 three-day siege that killed more than 160 people in the Indian city of Mumbai, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, March 17).

At a federal court hearing in Chicago, David Headley acknowledged providing surveillance for the Paskistani-based extremist organization Lashkar-e-Taiba. He also admitted to providing similar scouting work for a never-conducted strike on a Danish newspaper that published controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

Headley, 49, had pleaded not guilty to 12 federal charges. He changed his plea as part of a brokered agreement prohibiting prosecutors from seeking the death penalty in exchange for his information on extremist groups. He is still eligible for a life term in prison.

"Not only has the criminal justice system achieved a guilty plea in this case, but David Headley is now providing us valuable intelligence about terrorist activities," Attorney General Eric Holder said.

Headley is the son of a U.S. mother and Pakistani father, and in his youth lived in Pakistan. He is believed to have met with terrorist operatives in Pakistan and Europe and to have had multiple contacts with the third-highest member of al-Qaeda, Sheikh Mustafa Abu al-Yazid. Two others have been charged in this case but have not been captured.

"He has provided significant help to the United States and aided other countries," defense attorney Robert Seeder said. He refused to divulge details on Headley's cooperation (Associated Press I/New York Times, March 19).

The Indian government announced today a request to interrogate Headley, AP reported.

The United States has yet to consent to the interview, Indian Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said. "We will continue to press our request for access to interrogate him," he said (Associated Press II/New York Times, March 19).

Some officials at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have expressed concern that a Bush administration radiological incident response guide could jeopardize public health as it would permit the drinking of water with high contamination levels, Inside EPA reported Tuesday (see GSN, Dec. 5, 2007).

The Obama administration put off issuing the protective action guide for radiological incidents not long before it was supposed to be published in January 2009. The document is meant to provide advice on dealing with the release of radiation from a terrorist attack or mishap at a nuclear power facility or industrial site.

A draft of the document indicates that the public could drink water that has radiation levels thousands and even hundreds of thousands times greater than what the Environmental Protection Agency typically would permit in crisis situations, Inside EPA found.

Exposure levels allowed in the document for two particular radionuclides "may lead to subchronic (acute) effects ... such as vomiting, fever, etc.," one EPA Superfund office employee stated in a 2007 e-mail message. An official from the agency's General Counsel's Office appeared to concur later.

The head of the agency's Radiation and Indoor Air Office, which produced the guide, disagreed. The office's "health physicists advise that this is not true and that OGC's comment to this effect is ill-founded," according to ORIA Director Tom Kelly. Staffers in Kelly's office, in e-mail messages, also played down the likelihood of contaminated water causing cancer.

Inside EPA obtained the e-mails through the Freedom of Information Act (Inside EPA, March 16).

High-level Pakistani officials plan next week in Washington to press for a bilateral nuclear trade agreement similar to the deal the United States established with Islamabad's nuclear-armed rival India, Canada's Globe and Mail reported (see GSN, March 18).

The likelihood of a U.S.-Pakistani nuclear pact seems low, as Islamabad has been criticized for not moving strongly enough to combat extremism and due to the nuclear smuggling ring that former top nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan operated for years in the South Asian state. U.S. officials have repeatedly rejected such a deal.

Islamabad has some bargaining power, though, as its support is viewed as essential by many to U.S. efforts to stabilize Pakistan's northern neighbor, Afghanistan. Pakistan has also stepped up its efforts to battle militants within its borders.

"My message to Washington is: we’ve been talking a lot. The time has come to walk the talk," according to Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, who said a bilateral atomic trade deal would be raised during his trip to Washington. "We’ve done our bit. ... We’ve delivered. (Now you) start delivering."

Beginning Wednesday, Qureshi and Pakistan's army head and spy chief are scheduled to conduct high-level strategic discussions with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other U.S. officials. The two nations have not had such talks in almost two years.

A civilian nuclear pact could be the incentive needed for Islamabad to move to conclusively sever ties with extremist groups, Georgetown University Assistant Professor Christine Fair said.

"We need a big idea for Pakistan, to transform it from a source of insecurity for the region to a country committed to eliminating terrorism and ensuring that nuclear proliferation doesn’t happen again," Fair said. "At the moment, we’re trying to get Pakistan to do things that are in our strategic interests, but not in theirs."

Fair said any U.S. nuclear pact with Pakistan should include stringent requirements on nonproliferation and a pledge to suppress militants.

Many Pakistanis, even senior military and political officials, think that the United States intends to destroy its nuclear arms stockpile. A civilian nuclear pact would go far in addressing those concerns, experts have said.

The U.S. nuclear deal with India is broadly viewed to have significantly improved relations between the two nations, according to the Globe and Mail. More than the atomic power advantages an agreement with the United States would bring, Islamabad badly wants a trade deal because it wants to be on the same nuclear level as India, experts have said.

Moeed Yusuf, who studies Pakistan at the United States Institute of Peace, thinks that Islamabad has not thoroughly weighted the advantages and the disadvantages of such a deal, which would be likely to involve monitoring of nuclear facilities.

"None of that homework has been done," Yusuf said. "It is just seen through an India lens" (Saeed Shah, Globe and Mail, March 19).

Russia was set this week to formally finish dismantling five of its decommissioned nuclear submarines under the Japanese-funded "Star of Hope" program, Interfax reported (see GSN, Aug. 6, 2007).

The effort, which was launched in 2006, involved slicing apart the hulls of the vessels for scrap metal. Russia disassembled one of the submarines at its Northeastern Maintenance Center, while the other four were handled at the Zvezda shipyard in the country's far east.

The country planned to formally wrap up the effort in a ceremony on Saturday.

Japan also played a role in constructing the Landysh Liquid Radioactive Waste Treatment Plant, which has helped treat materials from Russian Victor-class nuclear submarines (Interfax, March 18).