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GUESTS: Kalea Matsakis, Media Networks Director of Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, Jonathan Granoff, President of the Global Security Institute, Senior Advisor of the American Bar Association’s Committee on Arms Control and National Security, Vice President of the NGO Committee on Disarmament at the U.N.

The United Nation’s International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, celebrated its 50th anniversary yesterday. The UN agency has 144 member states and was set up in 1957 to ensure the peaceful use of nuclear energy. Two years ago, the IAEA and it’s head, Muhammad el-Baradei, won the Nobel Peace Prize. The IAEA has overseen the use of nuclear power in both North Korea and Iran, two countries on Bush’s so-called Axis of Evil. It is also expected to oversee a recent nuclear agreement between the US and India. Meanwhile, the Bush administration last week released a three-page policy paper called National Security and Nuclear Weapons: Maintaining Deterrence in the 21st Century. The paper reiterates a long standing goal for the US to maintain its nuclear weapons stockpile well into the future and describes a proposed new nuclear warhead called the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW).

The Bush policy paper can be found here:
http://www.nnsa.doe.gov/docs/factsheets/2007/
NA-07-FS-04.pdf