PERSPECTIVE ON NUCLEAR CONTROLS : Exports We Can Afford to Lose : ‘Dual-use’ is a loophole big enough to drive an atomic weapon through. Close it before others race in.

The aircraft carrier America is on patrol in the Persian Gulf, its planes and their pilots, many of them veterans of Desert Storm, ready to strike again at Iraq. For the moment, their mission is gunboat diplomacy, a show of force meant to persuade Saddam Hussein to dismantle his nuclear armory under United Nations supervision. If he continues to resist that demand, the Navy’s mission could change. Although tensions have momentarily lessened, the Navy couldbe ordered to launch an air attack on Iraqi installations that, through no small irony, exist only because the United States and our allies helped to equip the Baghdad dictator to join the nuclear arms race.

At the same time that the Administration is waving its big stick at Saddam Hussein, the White House is waving a veto threat at a bill intended to prevent others from following in his footsteps. The irony here, again no small one, is that while the President acts as though he will not let nuclear proliferation stand in Iraq, he will not act effectively to stop it elsewhere.

Between 1985 and 1990, when Reagan-Bush policy-makers were rooting for Baghdad to win the Iran-Iraq war, testimony at congressional hearings showed that the Commerce Department had approved export licenses for the sale of many nuclear-related items to Iraqi companies and the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission itself. U.S. law bars the export of nuclear fuel and reactors to nations that do not adhere to international standards or do not have formal nuclear cooperation agreements with America. The sales to Iraq went ahead because the law permits export of nuclear technology that has peaceful applications. Iraq acquired such “dual-use” components and know-how from 13 firms, two of them American. The items proved essential to Iraq’s weapons program.

The dual-use loophole is big enough to drive a nuclear weapon through, and it needs to be closed before other horsemen of the nuclear apocalypse race through it. The United States cannot bar global dual-use sales by itself, but unless we take the lead, no one will follow.

Legislation that would put us where we belong--out front in the fight against nuclear proliferation--is now pending before a House-Senate conference on the Export Administration Act. Title III of that bill, which passed the House, would stiffen existing law by denying export licenses in many cases for nuclear components, technologies and dual-use items to nations that refuse to put their nuclear facilities under comprehensive international inspection and have not reached nuclear cooperation agreements with the United States.

The bill directs the President to negotiate similar reforms with other nations. It would arm him with an array of sanctions to use against violators of international nuclear export rules. Further, Title III would ban the export of bomb-grade uranium fuel--highly enriched uranium, even for research reactors. If the Department of Energy would only complete its work on the manufacture of non-weapons-grade fuel, the highly enriched uranium that Iraq was able to obtain supposedly for peaceful research could be replaced by a non-explosive alternative.

The White House wants none of these added powers and restrictions. Threatening to veto the entire law if Title III remains in it, the President’s representatives warn against impeding “peaceful” nuclear commerce and tying the hands of American exporters while our allies remain free to trade in the dual-use gray area. Obviously, the Bush Administration shrinks from the prospect of having to apply tough trade sanctions against the President’s friends in China, the only major nuclear supplier that still has not bound itself to respect the standards of the Nuclear Suppliers Group.

Not long ago the United States led the international community in the drive to halt the spread of nuclear arms and to keep related technology out of the hands of outlaw nations. Despite those efforts, several nations in the Middle East, South Asia and Latin America obtained the material and the know-how to skirt international law against proliferation. The result is a less-secure world where American leadership--starting with our own laws--is an absolute imperative.

Iraq should be the wake-up call that ends the Reagan-Bush sleepwalk. Yes, Title III will cost us some sales of nuclear technology, but only to nations whose refusal to abide by non-proliferation rules makes them suspect, and only until our pressure brings other supplier states into line. The choice is between slight inconvenience and a potential fall-off in a few commercial exports, and, on the other hand, an unknown number of lives saved. A true leader, really committed to building a “new world order,” should be proud and eager to reassert America’s leadership against nuclear proliferation.