'Victory' in Afghanistan and the elimination of the Taliban regime there, even if Bin Laden is captured or killed, will hardly make the world a safer place, as most of the Al-Quaeda network is now acknowledged to be outside Afghanistan.

A recent article in a Pakistani newspaper, the Frontier Post, claimed that Al Quaeda may have successfully smuggled suitcase nuclear weapons into the US, with the aim of targeting the UN General Assembly.

Pakistani nuclear weapons scientists, now arrested, had met with Al Quaeda, and the investigations into Al Quaeda's Kabul headquarters revealed that plans for nuclear capabilities existed.

Bin Laden has claimed to have a nuclear capability, though the Pentagon has met the claim with skepticism. However, some weeks back a Pentagon expert estimated the chance of a nuclear attack on the US within the next 12 months at 5%.

It is hardly possible to evaluate with any certainly whatsoever what might be the real probability of a terrorist attack with nuclear weapons, though antinuclear groups have warned of this possibility for literally decades.

Still more serious is the possibility that Pakistan may be destabilized by recent events and that its nuclear arsenal may come under the control of fundamentalist elements, bringing about a nuclear 'exchange' between India and Pakistan. Such a sequence of events could kill 50-150 million people.

These grim possibilities are in no way lessened by the demise of the Taliban regime and may be worsened by it. Let us hope that our worst fears are never realized.

As Butler points out, only by tackling the root causes of terrorism and by the elimination of nuclear weapons can they be truly eliminated.

John Hallam 02-9567-7533, 02-9810-2598
Irene Gale AM 08-8364-2291 08-8332-3461
Jo Vallentine 08-9272-4252

20 November 2001
Former Australian diplomat discusses nuclear arsenals 
Transcript

KERRY O'BRIEN: After the collapse of the Taliban in Afghanistan, reporters sifting through the wreckage of a house in Kabul used by Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, found instructions on how to assemble a nuclear weapon. Bin Laden, of course, recently claimed that he had access to nuclear as well as biological weapons. That's been the bad news on the nuclear front.

The good news was President Bush's promise to President Putin of Russia last week, that America would make dramatic reductions in its nuclear arsenal over the next 10 years.

But former senior Australian diplomat Richard Butler isn't impressed. The long-time disarmament campaigner and recent head of the UN team investigating Iraq's weapons program, has written a new book. In it he deplores what he sees as the Bush Administration's determination to turn its back on a global approach to nuclear weapons control and go it alone.

Richard Butler joins me now in our Sydney studio.

Richard Butler, how seriously, first of all, should we take the reports of documentary evidence linking Al-Qaeda terrorists with nuclear material and biological weapons?

RICHARD BUTLER, AUSTRALIAN DIPLOMAT: Very seriously, Kerry, because there's another fact. Pakistan, three years ago created a nuclear bomb. Some Pakistani scientists are known to have crossed the border a few months ago, and these were people who were also in their views  fundamentalist Islamists, crossed the border, met with Al-Qaeda and talked to them about making a bomb.

In particular, there was the scientist who was in charge of Pakistan's uranium enrichment facility and that's the core material you can use in a bomb and those documents discovered in that house
talked about uranium 235, enriched uranium, as the core of an Al-Qaeda bomb.

KERRY O'BRIEN: I suppose it's chilling that they would have an intent, but it's quite a big step from intent to reality, isn't it, when you're a terrorist organisation, not a State?

RICHARD BUTLER: Absolutely. These guys according to those documents were trying to make what people call a "dirty bomb". Which is a conventional explosive around which some enriched uranium is packed and it's not a real atomic bomb but it would -- it would spread a lot of radioactivity.

What we have to worry about is that they may have acquired a fully fabricated nuclear weapon, some of which are said to have gone missing from the former Soviet Union. Small ones, suit case bombs, into the hands of criminal groups, and have been offered for sale on the black market. That's what we don't know.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Assuming bin Laden is captured or killed, in the near future and the Al-Qaeda network seriously if not fatally wounded as a network, is that the end of President Bush's war on
terrorists, barring some further significant terrorist attack?

RICHARD BUTLER: I don't think so. In this context, you've got to pay serious attention to what I think was the central concept that President Bush announced in his speech to the Congress. People are even calling it the Bush doctrine.

This is where he said the United States will draw no distinction between terrorist groups and countries that harbour them or give them assistance. Kerry, if the Bush doctrine were pursued to the full, the United States would be at war tomorrow with 20 countries. Subsequently, the President stepped back a bit and made some qualifications. But the Bush doctrine is there and removing Osama bin Laden, even winding down Al-Qaeda, I don't think will be the end of the story.

Who's next? Possibly Iraq.

KERRY O'BRIEN: From your knowledge, how much is Iraq exercising minds in Washington as a justifiable target?

RICHARD BUTLER: Very significantly. There's been a heavy argument taking place for weeks now in Washington and London about whether a move should be made on Iraq. Initially, London was very cautious about it. But day by day, Kerry, information has been coming forward which tends to link Iraq to Al-Qaeda, maybe to September 11, and my understanding is that it's moving closer and closer to a decision to make a move on Iraq, sometime in the near future.

KERRY O'BRIEN: But surely there would have to be hard evidence, clear irrefutable hard evidence, not just linking Iraq to people who might have been associated with the September 11 attack, but linking Iraq directly to the attack itself. Surely that would have to be clear before such a step was taken, because obviously it's a bigger step again with many more ramifications than the bombing of Afghanistan?

RICHARD BUTLER: Absolutely. I would like to think so. If there isn't such hard evidence, but it is nevertheless decided to make a move on Iraq, in fulfilment of the Bush doctrine, then I think we're going to see something very serious develop.

Whatever one thinks of Saddam Hussein, he is very popular on what is called the Arab street and the possibility that an attack on Iraq would lead to a general uprising in the Arab world, I think, has to be taken very seriously.

KERRY O'BRIEN: The drama in Afghanistan has overshadowed last week's pledges by the US and Russia to make huge cuts to their nuclear arsenals. In your latest book 'Fatal Choice' you argue for even bigger reductions but surely they're at least heading in the right direction?

RICHARD BUTLER: Kerry, the trend line is right, because it's reduction of nuclear weapons, but we've got to get inside to really understand, get inside what Bush said, to really understand this meaning. It's as simple as this. At the moment, the United States has 7,000 long-range nuclear weapons targeted on Russia. Russia has 6,000 the other way. They are already committed in the treaty to go down to 2,300.

Last week President Bush said he'll go to 2,200 or maybe as low as 1,700 but he'll do that over 10 years. People applauded, but I ask you -- 100 less over 10 years? I don't think that's good enough and he also said he would not put it in a treaty. He just said, "A man's got to trust me. I shake his hand." But that won't be good enough for the Russians. They need a treaty.

A contract with means of verification, means of ensuring that this promise is carried out. The trendline is to be applauded but the reality is that it's -- it's not as good as it looks.

KERRY O'BRIEN: You talk about President Bush's hopes for a new missile defence system as illusory. Why?

RICHARD BUTLER: Because it's addressing the wrong problem. The problem is nuclear weapons. Kerry, as long as they exist, they constitute the greatest threat to humankind and this planet. As long as they exist in the hands of any State, others will seek to acquire them. And now we know non-State actors, terrorist groups, will seek to acquire them as long as they exist they will one day be used either by accident or design.

Now, the inner logic of that is that the only safe thing to do with nuclear weapons is to get rid of them. But by focusing on missile defence instead, you're focusing on the vehicle, not the warhead, and pursuing the idea that an impermeable shield can be built around one country and let the whole pressure of nuclear proliferation just continue elsewhere, it seems to me is nonsense.

It won't work and we would instead face another nuclear arms race. They're looking at the wrong thing. The problem is nuclear weapons. Not the missiles.

KERRY O'BRIEN: The pretty system that was in place, especially the non-proliferation treaty, didn't stop Israel, India and Pakistan acquiring --

RICHARD BUTLER: None of who are members of that treaty.

KERRY O'BRIEN: But it didn't stop them and it certainly wouldn't have stopped Osama bin Laden. Isn't President Bush justified in saying America needs to rely on its own defence and not on treaties?

RICHARD BUTLER: It's a very popular theory but illusory as I've already said. It's addressing the wrong issue. The nuclear nonproliferation treaty, which those three countries aren't members of, has in it a provision that says that those who don't have these weapons must never get them. And those who do have them must get rid of them.  And Kerry, I point out in my book that the failure of the nuclear weapons States to keep that promise, to get rid of them, is the fundamental generator of proliferation.

If we are serious in dealing with the problem of nuclear weapons, the nuclear weapons States have to progressively move to getting rid of theirs. Then the spread of them will be contained and the big
question people ask is -- could we then have a safe world? The answer is yes. Read my book.

There is a way in which we could maintain safety without nuclear weapons.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Richard Butler, thanks for talking with us.

This transcript was created by an independent transcription service.