Speaking on the opening day of the U.N. General Assembly's disarmament committee on Oct. 6, Ambassador Sergio Querioz Duarte of Brazil noted that "to attain a nuclear-weapon-free world, it is vital to prevent nuclear proliferation, and at the same time, it is imperative to promote nuclear disarmament." The chairman of the committee, Ambassador Jarmo Sareva of Finland, listed the following as the problems faced by the international community: the acquisition by additional states of nuclear weapons, allegations of still more trying to get them, the failure by those that already have them to eliminate their stocks, and the development of new weapons that do not fall under any existing international regime -- space-based weapons, for example.

On the following day, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Stephen Rademaker accused the committee of being stuck in obsolete Cold War-era thinking that had produced "years of disappointing drift and growing irrelevance." What it should address, he said, are noncompliance with treaty obligations and efforts to prevent weapons of mass destruction from falling into the hands of terrorists.

Thus the subject of nuclear proliferation, arms control and disarmament is back on the international agenda with a vengeance. The lengthening list of proliferation-sensitive concerns includes the embarrassing failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, strident bellicosity from Pyongyang proclaiming a weaponized nuclear capability that outsiders are skeptical of but dare not discount totally, concerns expressed by the International Atomic Energy Agency about Iran's nuclear program, and reports that Saudi Arabia may be contemplating an off-the-shelf purchase of nuclear weapons.