Bush ’trying to derail nukes ban’

THE head of the Arms Control Association and a former senior US official accused the Bush administration today of trying to derail a proposed international ban on the production of material used to make nuclear weapons.

Daryl Kimball, executive director of the private research group, said the administration’s position that airtight safeguards against cheating could not be found was "something of a poison pill".

"We do not agree that this treaty is not effectively verifiable," Mr Kimball said at a news conference.

Robert Einhorn, a former assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation, said the US administration was determined to kill any prospect of a treaty emerging from a 65 nation conference in Geneva.

Mr Einhorn, who is senior security adviser to the Centre for Strategic International Studies, a private research group, said that in light of the September 11 attacks, "The first thing you want to do is to limit the stocks of fissile material worldwide".

David Albright, president of the private Institute for Science and International Security, said a treaty without verification provisions, which include onsite inspections, would not make sense.

The proposed treaty would outlaw the production of highly enriched uranium and plutonium for weapons purposes. A nuclear weapon cannot be made without one or the other.

US officials are in Geneva outlining the administration’s view that compliance with the treaty could not be verified.

The treaty is seen by disarmament advocates as a way to curb nuclear weapons programs in India, Pakistan and Israel, which are outside the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

But in a review, the US concluded an inspection program under the treaty could compromise countries’ national security interests and be very costly.

Jackie Sanders, the US representative, told the disarmament conference in July that the review also raised serious concerns that realistic, effective verification could be achieved.

Also, the administration takes the position that it would be very difficult to determine when fissile material found by inspectors was obtained and for what purpose it was to be used.

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