11:30 A.M. EDT
MODERATOR: Okay. Well then let's get started. Thank you all for coming. We're very pleased to have Under Secretary John Rood from the Department of State. This week, Saturday actually, is the anniversary of the Proliferation Security Initiative. President Bush made the announcement in Krakow five years ago and since that time the Initiative has grown in the number of countries that have signed up and adjusted their laws and regulations to be compliant. And the Initiative has had its share of successes, which the Under Secretary is here to talk about. This is on the record and we're pleased to have the Under Secretary here to talk about PSI. Would you like to start off?
MR. ROOD: Okay. Well first, thanks for all coming to talk about the Proliferation Security Initiative, which is of great importance to us in the United States and to our partners, too. And this week in Washington we will have the fifth anniversary meeting of PSI. PSI has grown since 2003 when President Bush announced it in Krakow, Poland, to now include 90 participating countries from across the globe who have endorsed the Statement of Principles. And what we'll do this week is take stock of the success that we've had, look at ways that we can deepen the initiative, and review some of the recent activities that the partners have undertaken with respect to new areas of cooperation. So on May 28th, tomorrow, we will have an all-day meeting of the senior-level participants from a variety of countries, and then the following day we'll have an outreach session where we will make available information about the Proliferation Security Initiative to countries that are considering participation that have not yet joined.
We're going to have a number of significant events, but one of which will be the keynote address by Steve Hadley, the President's National Security Advisor, tomorrow. And then we'll have a number of other people, such as, for example, the Polish -- our Polish representative. Under Secretary of State Witold Waszczykowski will give a luncheon address. The Poles, of course, are big participants in PSI and that's why it was launched in Krakow, Poland.
PSI is a global effort, as you can imagine, with -- we were just getting started. You didn't miss much yet. All I was mentioning is that this week we have the fifth anniversary meeting of PSI here in Washington, and we'll have representatives from a number of countries coming and a keynote address by Steve Hadley, the President's National Security Advisor. There are 90 countries in PSI now. PSI was born, of course, out of the President's national security strategy in 2002. It was called the National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction, which called for stepping up efforts to combat proliferation of WMD, including through interdictions. When countries participate in PSI, they make a political commitment to interdict shipments of proliferation concern, and to strengthen their national authorities as well as international law, and to share information on potential shipments. PSI activities, of course, take place consistent with national and international law. We're very pleased PSI is going to be recognized as one of the standards for nonproliferation behavior around the world. Witness the fact that there are now 90 countries that are participating. PSI doesn't replace treaties and other supplier networks, like the Nuclear Suppliers Group or the missile technology controllers, but it's a means by which countries can give those kinds of norms effect. That they can take action in a coordinated way to implement these kinds of treaties, agreements, as well as UN Security Council resolutions. And there are a number of them like Security Council Resolution 1540, which calls for states to criminalize proliferation activities and for states to cooperate. But PSI is a means to enforce them. Same thing. There are a number of Security Council resolutions on Iran and North Korea that PSI helps with.
There's broad international support for PSI. As I mentioned, the 90 countries is testament to that, but furthermore even the United Nations has recognized the value of PSI in the UN's High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change. It recommended in the 2004 report that it issued to the Secretary General that all states should be encouraged to join PSI. We have had a number of successes in PSI. For example, one of the things that PSI does is that it gives countries the ability to have capacity building. They can improve their own capabilities through this confederation of states acting together. You get a synergy of countries operating together. It creates a focus, and then a means by which countries can cooperate. So as an example, we've had 30 exercises involving over 70 countries that have participated in these. Some of them are quite elaborate. For example, I was in Japan recently. The Japanese hosted, I thought, an excellent exercise that involved not only sea and air assets, but customs, border patrol, military officials, and had a number of countries participate. All came together in a practical way, practicing interdiction of a shipment of proliferation concern.
In this case, it was a chemical weapons item, and so the Japanese authorities did decontamination exercises and other things like in a real world event. Well, those kinds of exercises are extremely valuable. One, in capacity building; two, as I mentioned, the ability of countries to operate together; and then three, they serve as a real deterrent to proliferators. And we've already seen proliferators have to take into account the strong effects of PSI. We literally had dozens of successful interdictions of items and technologies bound for countries of concern. We necessarily keep most of these successes confidential. We're sharing intelligence information among parties. In some cases, it's easier for countries to take action if the results will not be publicized. For example, if they're a major shipping hub or a major airport, it's not something they want to diminish the legitimate cargo flowing through their territories.
But I can say, as an example, we've stopped the export to Iran of missile technologies and goods, dual use technologies that we thought were headed for Iran's missile program, as well as things in the nuclear area, such as destined for Iran's heavy water nuclear program, which is under the UN Security Council resolutions -- commerce and goods related to Iran's heavy water reactor program are prohibited.
In addition to having states cooperate who are interdicting items, we've also reached agreements with eight of the world's largest carriers of shipped traffic. These are key flag states. Countries that rent their -- for charge allow the usage of their flag on commercial shipping. And so we've entered into ship-boarding agreements with the eight -- eight of the largest, which occupied more than 50 percent of the world's commerce. Panama, Liberia, the Marshall Islands, Croatia, Cyprus, Belize, Malta, and Mongolia are the countries that are among the largest users of their flags -- of commercial registry of their flags, and so they've all signed ship-boarding agreements with us.
This is -- so this will be a big week for PSI. It's been two years since our last meeting. It's an important time to take stock of where we've been, where we're going, and look at some ways to deepen the initiative through things like greater usage of customs and border authorities, through usage of financial tools, because after all, most of the people involved in the proliferation game around the world, whether it's front companies or middlemen or others, are in it for financial gain. And if we can make this a more costly endeavor, that serves our interests. And to deter and prevent these kinds of shipments is obviously our goal. So with as a brief introduction, I'd be happy to take any particular questions you have.
MODERATOR: And if I could remind you to state your name and your media organization.
QUESTION: I'm Arshad Mohammed. I cover the State Department for Reuters. A couple of questions. You know, as you celebrate or mark the fifth anniversary, you really are going to be arguing that this has been successful. Given the understandable intelligence reasons for not sharing how much information about such interdictions as you have made, it makes it very hard to gauge the success for the outside public. So I have a couple questions. One, you said that you had literally dozens of interdictions, that your predecessor Bob Joseph, in the summer of 2006 said that there have been roughly two dozen successful interdictions. Can you be more precise about how many? Is it three, four, five or are we still at about two dozen? Second, can you provide any more detail about the two incidents -- the two interdictions that you described with regard to dual use items headed for Iran and then the nuclear items, the missile and then the nuclear? When did those occur and can you flesh out a little bit more on how PSI was helpful in that? And then the last question I have is to the extent that it has been successful, if I understand it correctly, there are no special additional authorities that were enacted under U.S. law. There's no line item in the budget or anything for PSI. If it has been -- and obviously it's the extension of activities that were previously going on. How do you -- whoever wins the election this November, how do you work to preserve what is useful about this in a new administration?
MR. ROOD: Well, I think that - let me take your last question first. There are no special authorities or a particular budget item for PSI, and the reason is that we think it's integral to what we're doing. And to take a step back, when we created PSI we didn't create a secretariat or an organization or a capital for it, but rather we wanted this to be an activity of countries that were committed to implementing it. And in some cases, when you create a bureaucracy to implement something, one of the side effects of that treatment is, of course, bureaucratic actions. And we wanted to avoid that, but rather challenge countries by setting the bar high on what the standards of conduct would be and then challenge them to cooperate. And that's actually been very successful because it creates a political commitment from countries. And they've already made legal commitments in treaties and elsewhere, but it's this political commitment that we then give a structure to and a means for action to take place that's important. So for us, in terms of our budget in the United States, we have individuals that are assigned - the State Department, for example, in a counterproliferation office that staff this activity for us. The different departments around the government have created groups including an inter-agency group called the Suppliers Interdiction Group, headed by CIA, that man this activity. But the funding for it comes out of our budgets for intelligence, defense, and other activities, for example, at the State Department, to do that.
In terms of special authorities, the reason we didn't think those were necessary is that if countries put in place strong export control laws, they will have the domestic legal authorities to deal with this kind of proliferation. There's been some international law created through things like Security Council Resolution 1540 that help. Or, say the various Security Council resolutions on Iran or North Korea. The numbers are 1718 for North Korea, and 1737, 1747, and 1803 for Iran. Those give some international legal authorities but usually states have pretty strong legal authorities inside their waters or their -- at their ports, the airfields and their land entry points to screen cargo, to look for illicit goods and, in this particular case, for proliferation goods. If you have good export control, you'll have the authority to stop them.
And in most cases, things aren't labeled "part for Iranian heavy water reactor," because that would generally be stopped. So usually they're falsely declared by proliferators, and that sort of false declaration alone gives countries very strong legal authorities, because it's a form of smuggling, then, if you have falsified the end user. If you falsified what you're carrying, and so on. And so in the legal authorities area, we feel like they're doing pretty well.
Now, with respect to the number and types of interdictions -- first of all, we do face attention. We like to, of course, talk about some of the successes because that helps to gain the kind of political support that we need for the initiative. But on the other hand, there really are some legitimate reasons why when information has been clandestinely acquired, it has been shared, you want to protect that to the extent you can from public disclosure. But also, sometimes the countries taking the action prefer that it be private. That said, we do plan to release some more information tomorrow on this. Steve Hadley, in his remarks, will talk about some of the additional successes and some of the details of those just to try to give some texture to the initiative. So I'd point you in that direction.
QUESTION: Can you give us a number? I mean, if Mr. Joseph was able to say roughly two dozen, can you give us a number on roughly how many you have now at the five-year mark?
MR. ROOD: Certainly, there have been more since then. But I'm not in a position to be more specific right now.
QUESTION: Is that something Mr. Hadley is likely to address?
MR. ROOD: Yes, yes. He'll talk about some of the specifics and some of the success stories.
QUESTION: And the aggregate numbers as well? We will get that in his speech?
MR. ROOD: I'll see what I can do for you. (Laughter.)
QUESTION: Can you address the -- can you or can you not give any more detail about the two Iranian examples that you raised about the --
MR. ROOD: Only that I'm only in position right now to talk about the kinds of technology and the end user. In this case, Iran's missile and nuclear programs, and that it involved both missile technology and items as well as dual-use technology destined for the missile program. And then, as I said, items destined for the Iranian heavy water reactor program.
QUESTION: My name is Paul Koring. I'm with the Globe and Mail of Canada. Let me just follow up on my colleague's question here. Because - I mean, the reason you're talking to us is that you want some public profile. If this was just magnificently effective and didn't need any sort of public perception, you wouldn't be here. And Hadley wouldn't be speaking publicly tomorrow. But to take on faith that you've got dozens of interdictions and that it's all working very well is too much of a stretch. So maybe you can't be more helpful today, but if the success of PSI is to be credible, it needs to have examples. Now, that may not be individuals and convictions, but if you can't say, "we found this in such and such a place, destined for such and such a port," then it's all, frankly, hearsay. And just to sort of reinforce that, and I don't know whether you can address at all, the failures are pretty obvious. I mean, you know, the missile parts destined for Yemen that were seized on a cargo ship by a Spanish frigate you know, it turned out to be a legitimate shipment. Looked like a great proliferation coup, but it wasn't.
And similarly, somebody seems to have to been building a reactor in Syria. That must have involved all kinds of shipments either by air or by sea. So I mean, it's not your fault that the failures are so public, but if the successes are as numerous, then it would be nice to get some detail.
MR. ROOD: Sure. And it's always a struggle to put out information gathered from intelligence sources and that other countries have shared in confidence with us and maintain the right balance.
QUESTION: I'm not talking about the intelligence stuff. We're talking about successful interdictions where, you know, dozens of crew members up on some Liberian freighter know about it, but you don't want to tell us about it?
MR. ROOD: Well, it actually does involve intelligence successes because it's -- depending on the circumstances of the interdiction, it's -- various people will know or they may not know exactly what led to it. For example, the people unloading crate number 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 at the port may simple know they've off-loaded crate number 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and they're going to go another 3,000 that day. And they've placed that one in a particular holding chamber and the local authorities have then set about to inspect it. So there are a number of ways that this is done, and there is a balance between the information you have and the confidentiality and how you talk about it. And in our kind of society, when you said, to take directly the point you made in the beginning, "why are we talking about this if we wouldn't want there to be some public notice of it?" Well, in the kind of society we operate in and most of our partners operate in, you have to have supports from your public and from your parliaments and elsewhere to do these kinds of activities. And so we do talk about it to the extent we can.
I would discourage you, though, from measuring PSI simply as the number of scalps, if you will, number of interdictions. Because I think the objective of PSI was, first, build awareness and support among nations to stop interdiction -- to stop proliferation related shipments. So metric number one, we have 90 countries participating in five years. I think that's a good gross. Secondly, are those countries really committed? Are they doing things individually to either deepen their capacities to help other countries deepen their capacities? Are they working together more? I think there we have very good metrics as well because the track record is countries are doing things to help others with capacity building, and witness the fact we've had 70 countries participate in exercises. More than 30 of them, that's another good metric.
One of the things that we would like to see is a diminution in the proliferation trade because there is more of a deterrent effect. Countries have greater capabilities. And here we see countries working harder with more convoluted procurement networks, more front companies and other activities that raises the cost and complexity for proliferators.
On the particular examples, there we do have some - as I say - that Steve Hadley will talk about. Now, on the particular cases you cited as particular failures, one, the Yemen Scud shipment -- there I'd say first that occurred before PSI, and that was one of the real catalysts. People looked at that and said, you know, we've got to be able to do better. And one of the ways we need to be able to do better is we need to have a lot of countries committed to this example. And that's what led - partly what led to PSI. On the Syria reactor, obviously, that's a real concern. But PSI, even if implemented brilliantly, is just one tool in the toolkit. I mean, it won't be the total answer to the proliferation problem and we don't bill it as such. It's one of the very important activities that should take place. But obviously the degree to which you can create the kind of political incentives for countries not to pursue these programs in the first place, you'd like to do that. That's why we're engaged in negotiations with Iran and why we are part of a multilateral process on Iran and North Korea to try to persuade them both to pursue a different path. So there has to be a multiplicity of means to address the problem, but I think PSI should - you know, by any reasonable metric - would be seen as a sterling success.
QUESTION: I'm - one more kick at the cat. If the only measurable metric is going to be membership, you know, if we have a bunch of people signed up, then that's unconvincing, at least to me.
MR. ROOD: Well, first of all we haven't made that the only metric. If we wanted to, we could have signed up I think more countries than we have.
QUESTION: It's an empty metric, so let's find one that's better.
MR. ROOD: That's one of the metrics that's important, because I think if I'd stood here and said, "gee, we've got 20 countries in this initiative five years after its inception," you would have said, "well, that's not so great." Ninety countries are quite substantial. And not just 90 countries making laudatory statements. But 90 countries taking actions on a regular basis.
QUESTION: Yeah, I mean, I would agree. I'm Karen from - Karen Zeitvogel from AFP. I would agree with the gentleman from the Mail and Globe - Globe and Mail. (Laughter.)
But if you're just measuring it by exercises and you're not giving us concrete examples, and the public -- if you want the public to back it, why can't you give these concrete examples? What is the danger to the intelligence operations if you're saying that, you know, "we unloaded crate 1234 in Liberia?" Why we can't - you know, why can't you tell the public about it?
MR. ROOD: We do. And we have released some examples of successes before and we'll release some more tomorrow in terms of some of the specifics. But there really is -- there is intelligence and other issues involved. And it's very difficult to determine, if you will, when people have gone to great efforts over years to conceal particular activities and networks, that not only is a shipment occurring, but it's occurring next Tuesday, on this vessel, and it will be there on Friday at this time, and you should inspect this cargo -- enormous amount of effort to the tune of billions of dollars to give you that kind of capability. And many times, there are several states involved. Sometimes, by the way, these aren't all U.S. generated or inspired activities. So we do find out about them after the fact many times. And that's part of the success of PSI is countries feel like this is important and they're taking these actions on their own. And there are cases, no matter how good your export control system is, sometimes things leave your borders that you later find out were destined for a bad end user. So we've used PSI to interdict the U.S. cargo, U.S. shipments that the company had no idea was going to a bad end user. But you find out through intelligence that that's occurring. This gives you a framework and a means by which to go to countries.
And I'll tell you, one of the things that I find gratifying is when I go around the world and try to persuade countries to do A, B or C, this is always a difficult thing. But in the proliferation area, when we have sometimes asked countries to interdict a shipment and reminded them they're in PSI, they've said, "Well, we feel like we have an obligation to do that already. All you need to do is give us the information." I mean, there's a commitment there. That's meaningful for countries to think they're part of something.
QUESTION: Isn't there also -- sorry. Isn't there also -- wouldn't there be a deterrent effect if you -- even if you gave out limited information after the fact, wouldn't that deter some companies? Wouldn't they inspect what they're trying to export more closely and pay more attention? And that would help you in the long run.
MR. ROOD: We've tried to do some of that, and that's where we've declassified, if you will, some success stories in the past and we will do so again in the future. But we've approached it more as examples of successes as opposed to some kind of cataloguing of all the effects because there I do think it becomes more difficult to do that and still preserve the kind of tools that we need to do -- to know when aircraft are flying and cargo is moving. But ideally, also many of these successes occur when you know of a shipment that's going to happen and we prefer not to interdict things when they are moving on planes and trains and ships. It's always preferable to stop a shipment at the source. To know that it's being procured, approach the government -- that's when countries usually have the strongest legal authority, inside their own borders. And typically there's some reason that this is akin to smuggling. That they are -- they haven't applied for the proper licenses, they're concealing the shipment from the government, they've had unauthorized contacts, and so a lot of the successes are by customs and border authorities, or people -- export control authorities working inside their own territory.
QUESTION: Mike McCarthy, German press agency. If I can go back to Syria for a second. The Administration has publicly alleged that North Korea had a role in the Syrian reactor. I'm wondering if you could say at this point whether PSI helped enhance knowledge or information about North Korea's role in Syria.
MR. ROOD: We gained information about North Korean activities in Syria through a variety of means. But those were American intelligence gathering activities, so I can't strictly speaking say that those are -- U.S. intelligence activities benefited all the initiatives of the U.S. Government, so I can't strictly speaking say that was a PSI-inspired intelligence operation or something of that nature. We're obviously -- were and are concerned about the Syrian activities, and we're looking forward to seeing as the IAEA and others continue -- or, the IAEA continues to investigate what they'll turn up. Because thus far the Syrians have a lot of explaining to do. We think we've put out very convincing information about covert nuclear activities in Syria that were a real danger to regional peace and security. Now, the Syrians, rather, have some serious explaining to do. They didn't declare a reactor to the IAEA as they were required to do by their safeguards agreement. They didn't meet their international obligations. So, we'll have to see what kind of story they tell.
MODERATOR: One or two more.
QUESTION: Yeah. You talk about the political commitment of the member states and some of the successes, but don't you see a problem in how you enforce it? The willingness of these states to really enforce what the U.S. or its allies want? Because if I remember correctly, when you were trying to enforce PSI-inspired measures on the UN Security Council resolution to North Korea, members like China, they were strongly against boarding of the ships and some of the measures you are after -- including the PSI measures. So what are some of the problems you encounter, or can you still say that through back channels, you are still satisfied with what those countries are doing? And a second question. You say you're going to have an outreach session on Thursday for members who might be interested in participating?
MR. ROOD: Right.
QUESTION: Would that include South Korea and how important is it for South Korea to participate in this initiative?
MR. ROOD: The -- we have, as you mentioned, in the Security Council resolutions, sought and had discussions about language on ship boarding, on inspections of cargo shipments, and the like both on resolutions related to North Korea and on Iran. There is language in both UN Security Council Resolution 1718, as well as 1803, which deals with Iran, which speaks to this and provides some authorities for countries to engage in enhanced monitoring of cargos going to and from Iran and North Korea. So we've had some success there. PSI is a means by which countries can therefore implement those Security Council resolutions and other things.
You're correct - the Chinese have had some concerns about the activities, and so we've worked with them. China's not a participant in PSI. They're certainly welcome to join and we would encourage that. South Korea is also not a member, although we would certainly encourage them to join, and we've engaged in a number of discussions with them. We have -- the present government in Seoul is, I think, reviewing the issue, and we'll await the outcome of that. We continue to have discussions with them and with the Chinese as well. As an example, I'll be in China next week and will discuss with the Chinese a number of subjects including this one. We have a strategic security dialogue that I'll lead for the United States with China to cover all the issues in that area. Proliferation of WMD and PSI is one of the things on the agenda.
MODERATOR: I'm afraid I'm going to have to end it there.
MR. ROOD: But we'll continue to work at this with those countries and hopefully we'll get their buy-in.
QUESTION: Are PSI members public or is it classified because some don't wish their participation be known?
MR. ROOD: There are some in that category but I think we've made public the others. Is that right? Yeah. Okay.
MODERATOR: And they're on the website.
QUESTION: Okay.
MODERATOR: Thank you so much for coming.
