Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says the
Proliferation Security Initiative has scored a number of unpublicized
successes against the trafficking of items related to
weapons of mass destruction. She spoke at a State Department event marking
the second anniversary of the U.S.-led international effort.
The Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), an informal U.S.-led
alliance aimed at curbing the trafficking of weapons of mass destruction,
has held more than a dozen exercises in various regions of the world in
the last two years.
But Ms. Rice says the effort, now involving some 60 countries, has also
recorded a number of previously undisclosed operational successes.
At a diplomatic reception marking the second anniversary of the PSI's
founding in Krakow, Poland, the Secretary of State gave few details other
than to say that Iran may have figured in several of them:
"In the last nine months alone, the United States and 10 of our PSI
partners have quietly cooperated on 11 successful efforts," said Ms. Rice.
"For example, PSI cooperation stopped the trans-shipment of material and
equipment bound for ballistic missile programs in countries of concern,
including Iran. PSI partners, working at times with others, have prevented
Iran from procuring goods to support its missile and WMD programs,
including its nuclear program."
Without naming the state involved, Ms. Rice also said PSI cooperation
prevented a country in another region with a ballistic missile program
from receiving equipment used to produce propellant.
The secretary said the PSI provided the framework for the most
well-known interdiction
operation, the seizure in the Mediterranean in October 2003 of a freighter
carrying equipment for Libya's then-covert nuclear arms program.
Ms. Rice said that incident, involving U.S. and Italian naval forces,
played a major role in the unraveling of the proliferation network of
Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan, and what she termed Libya's wise
decision to eliminate its weapons of mass destruction and long-range
missile programs.
The secretary told the gathering of foreign diplomats and officials
including U.S. national intelligence director John Negroponte that
Argentina, Iraq and Georgia had become the latest countries to join the
PSI.
Appealing for still-broader participation, Ms. Rice said the
acquisition of a nuclear, biological or chemical device by a terrorist
group would mean devastation and death on a scale far worse than the
September 2001 attacks against the United States and other recent acts of
terror.
She said the trade in such weapons can only be stopped through
coordinated and continuous efforts by the international community and that
the greater the number of countries involved in the PSI, the safer people
everywhere will be. |