Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice speaks at
event marking the second anniversary of the Proliferation
Security Initiative (PSI) at the State Department
in Washington, Tuesday, May 31, with the Singapore
Ambassador Heng Chee Chan and Danish Ambassador
Ulrik Andreas Federspiel looking on. The PSI is
an informal U.S.-led alliance aimed at curbing
the trafficking of weapons of mass destruction.
(State Dept. photo - Janine Sides) |
|
Washington –- Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice says the Proliferation Security Initiative
(PSI) is yielding results, and points to 11 examples of successful
efforts conducted in the past nine months by the United States
and 10 other PSI partners.
In May 31 remarks observing the PSI's second
anniversary, Rice said cooperation through this initiative
has halted the transshipment of material and equipment bound
for ballistic missile programs in nations of concern, including
Iran. PSI partners, working at times with others, have prevented
Iran from acquiring what it needs to support its ballistic
missile and nuclear programs, she said.
“Bilateral PSI cooperation prevented
the ballistic missile program in another region from receiving
equipment used to produce propellant,” she added,
without identifying the nation.
The dangerous trade in weapons of mass destruction
(WMD) “can only be stopped through coordinated and
continuous efforts by the international community,”
Rice told an audience of foreign ambassadors, military attaches
and members of Congress. With over 60 nations already supporting
PSI, the secretary said that the more countries that are
actively involved “the safer people everywhere will
be.” PSI is helping build a common capacity, she said,
“to act with speed and effectiveness” to stop
WMD trafficking on land, sea and air.
If a terrorist were to acquire and use a
nuclear, chemical or biological weapon it would cause “mass
terror and devastation on a scale far worse” than
that caused by the combined attacks of September 11 [2001],
Beslan, Madrid, Bali and others, she said. Those participating
in the PSI are working daily “to ensure that such
a catastrophe never occurs in our international community,”
Rice said.
While pursuing quiet cooperation, PSI partners
have succeeded in making “it increasingly difficult
and costly for proliferators to ply their nefarious trade,”
the secretary said. PSI participation deepens the level
of diplomatic, intelligence, law enforcement and private
sector cooperation, she said, adding, “Under PSI,
customs and law enforcement officials are applying laws
already on the books in innovative ways, and cooperating
as never before to disrupt proliferation networks and to
hold accountable the front companies that support them.”
Cooperative PSI efforts also include denying
proliferators the financing they need to trade in weapons
of mass destruction (WMD), Rice said, as well as pursuing
ongoing work to strengthen anti-WMD trafficking laws at
national and international levels.
She urged those nations who have yet to
embrace PSI to join the crucial effort to halt the trafficking
of WMD, delivery systems and related material to and from
countries and other groups of proliferation concern -- which
she said pose “a deadly threat.”
While calling for further expansion of the
initiative, Rice also welcomed three new countries that
have most recently endorsed the PSI Statement of Interdiction
Principles: Argentina, Iraq and Georgia.
Rice's call for PSI expansion came just
as a PSI interdiction exercise begins in Central Europe.
The Czech Republic and Poland are conducting “Bohemian
Guard 2005” to intercept a simulated illegal rail
shipment of chemical weapons-related materials as it passes
from Poland through the Czech Republic and on into a third
nation. The exercise, scheduled to run through June 2, will
include participation by Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Latvia,
Ukraine, Romania, Slovakia and the United States.
The ambassadors of PSI partners Singapore,
Denmark and Japan joined Secretary Rice in delivering remarks
at the anniversary event.
Singapore Ambassador Heng Chee Chan said
her country sees the importance of PSI because it would
not be a far-fetched scenario for the small city-state to
be attacked with WMD, causing an enormous catastrophe. Participating
in PSI exercises, as Singapore has, ensures that standard
operating procedures are established and work in time of
need, she said.
Singapore will host a multinational maritime
exercise August 15-19 called “Deep Sabre ‘05.”
The Singaporean ambassador invited countries that have yet
to sign on to PSI to come and observe the exercise so that
any conceivable concerns that might exist about participating
in the future will be allayed.
Danish Ambassador Ulrik Andreas Federspiel
said PSI began being successful shortly after it was launched
because it provided “a significant and instant deterrent
effect.” Denmark will host the next PSI Operational
Experts Group meeting in Copenhagen in July. Because PSI
has no institutional framework and relies on the voluntary
participation of likeminded nations, Federspiel said it
is a high priority for his country to help facilitate “the
continued conceptual development” of PSI activities.
In his call for greater PSI participation the ambassador
said a larger group of PSI partners “will mean an
even more effective common international effort to crack
down on the proliferation of chemical, biological, radiological
and nuclear materials.”
Japanese Ambassador Ryozo Kato said PSI
has created “a spirit of cooperation around the world”
and it sends a strong signal that the spread of WMD will
not be tolerated. As PSI enters its third year of existence,
Kato expressed his hope that the initiative will become
“even more fruitful.”
PSI depends upon intelligence sharing to
succeed. New National Intelligence Director John Negroponte
addressed this subject at the PSI event hosted by the State
Department. Through the initiative, he said, intelligence
“can be coupled to governmental actions in whatever
way is judged to be maximally effective by the responsible
authorities.” WMD proliferation, which he described
as the gravest threat to the international community, has
to be monitored, probed and guarded against “with
maximum rigor and care," he said.
President Bush issued a statement about
PSI May 31 in which he said: “Through training exercises
involving military, law enforcement, customs, intelligence,
and legal experts, many PSI partners are developing new
tools to improve their national and collective capacities
to interdict WMD and related shipments –- whether
on land, at sea or in the air.”
On this foundation, the president added,
“PSI partners are building a record of success by
stopping the transshipment of WMD-related materials, prosecuting
proliferation networks and shutting down front companies.”
Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Richard
Lugar also highlighted the initiative by submitting a concurrent
House and Senate resolution commending PSI participants
for their “historic efforts and the successes of the
Proliferation Security Initiative in reducing the threat
posed” by illicit WMD trafficking.
The resolution calls on all responsible
nations to endorse the PSI Statement of Interdiction Principles
and to “cooperate actively to interdict and disrupt
illicit trade” in WMD, WMD delivery systems and related
materials.
The transcript
of Rice's remarks is available on the State Department’s
Web site.
For more information about counterproliferation,
see Arms
Control and Non-Proliferation.
Jacquelyn
S. Porth
Washington File Security Affairs Writer
VOA Audio