Arms Control

Iran failed to resolve lingering questions about alleged nuclear weapons research and modestly expanded its ability to produce sensitive radioactive material that could potentially be used for a bomb, says a report issued Monday by the U.N.'s atomic watchdog for its board of directors. Still, Iran is less than a third the way to producing enough nuclear material for a single atomic weapon unless it drastically expands its program, nuclear experts have said.

The Bush administration appears poised to provisionally remove North Korea from the State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism, perhaps as soon as Saturday, sources close to the administration said. The move would keep alive a faltering effort to get the government in Pyongyang to eliminate its nuclear weapons programs. President Bush had promised to delist North Korea in June but did not do so after U.S.

North Korea said Sunday that it was resuming the dismantlement of its nuclear program in response to President Bush's decision to remove it from a list of nations that sponsor terrorism. The decision means that U.N. nuclear inspectors, who were barred last month from entering the nuclear facilities but not kicked out of the country, can resume their jobs immediately at Yongbyon, North Korea's main nuclear compound.

Unless the United States modernizes its inventory of nuclear weapons and develops a replacement warhead, the atomic arsenal's long-term safety and reliability will deteriorate, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates warned Tuesday. Gates also broke with the Bush administration by saying the United States "probably should" ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, an international agreement prohibiting new testing of nuclear weapons.

An investigation into a remote Syrian site bombed by Israel 14 months ago has provided no conclusive answers so far, but sparked speculation about the source of trace amounts of radioactive material found at the site. A report published Wednesday by the International Atomic Energy Agency said satellite imagery from the location near Dair Alzour suggested that the construction site "appears to have been similar" to the layout of a nuclear reactor.

President-elect Barack Obama will probably confront a biological or nuclear attack at home or abroad if the U.S. and its allies do not act decisively to prevent it, according to a report released this week by a panel created by Congress. The report found that the U.S. had taken important steps to counteract nuclear proliferation and, to a lesser extent, biological terrorism, but had "not kept pace with growing risks."

As Washington wages a very public battle against Iran's quest for nuclear power, it is quietly gaining ground on another energy front: the oil fields that are the Islamic Republic's lifeblood. Iran's oil industry has raked in record amounts of cash during three years of high oil prices. But a new U.S. campaign to dry up financing for oil and natural gas development poses a threat to the republic's ability to continue exporting oil over the next two decades, many analysts say.

The Bush administration demanded again Friday that China explain why it conducted a test of its growing anti-satellite capability last week, successfully destroying an obsolete orbiter in a move that alarmed many U.S. allies and brought diplomatic protests. The United States, Canada, Australia and Japan have questioned China's motives in launching a ground-based missile that destroyed one of its aging weather satellites about 500 miles above Earth.

Iran announced new tests of short-range missiles Sunday, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dismissed contentions that his nation's economy had been hurt by United Nations sanctions imposed over its uranium enrichment program. The missile tests come as the U.S. Navy is sending a second aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf. U.S. officials said the John C. Stennis, which is scheduled to arrive in the Middle East in a few weeks, was meant as a warning to Iran.

The State Department has completed a preliminary report on whether Israel misused American-made cluster bombs in civilian areas of Lebanon. State Department spokesman Kurtis Cooper said Saturday that the report would be forwarded to Congress on Monday but declined to disclose the findings, emphasizing that they were preliminary. "We take our obligations under the Arms Control Act seriously," Cooper said. "Our forwarding to Congress of a preliminary assessment is an indication of that.