When Ken and Carol Zwick pried open the heavy steel hatch in the backyard of their home of 13 years, they probably expected to see Desmond Hume punching in 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42 to avert worldwide calamity.

Ken Zwick

Ken Zwick

Instead, the Zwicks found a 8-by-10 foot Cold War-era fallout shelter. And it was fully stocked.

A few of the boxes bore labels suggesting they might contain explosives, so agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives responded to investigate, but nothing dangerous was inside.

“It was Hawaiian Punch,” Hollar-Zwick said. “It was all of what you would expect to find in a 1960s fallout shelter. It was food, clothing, medical supplies, tools, flashlights, batteries — items that you would want to have in a shelter if you planned to live there for two weeks.”

The Zwicks donated their findings to the Neenah Historical Society. With all these supplies, though, it’s shocking Brandon Fraser wasn’t already living beyond the hatch.

Assuming Kim Jong Un and Ayatollah Khamenei don’t have major changes of heart on the subject of nuclear ICBMs, fallout shelters may come into vogue once more. But really, they need to be updated. This is the twenty-first century and Americans demand convenience and quality. There are two things we—by which I mean, I—can’t high live without: fitness and a high-speed internet connection.

For fitness, all you need is a jumprope for cardio in an enclosed space. Strength-training-wise, split squats and push-ups can be done on your own. And then you need a laptop with wifi for entertainment and information. Keep YouTube active and we can endure nuclear winter. Assuming of course Skynet doesn’t cut the power, too.

According to U.S. intelligence and diplomatic officials, the secret agreement for the Chashma 3 reactor was signed in Beijing during the visit by a delegation from the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission from Feb. 15 to 18.

The agreement calls for the state-run China National Nuclear Corp. (CNNC) to construct a 1,000-megawatt power plant at Chashma, located in the northern province of Punjab where two earlier Chinese reactors were built.

China’s government last month issued an internal notice to officials within its nuclear establishment and to regional political leaders urging care to avoid any leaks of information about the nuclear sale that Beijing expects will be controversial, said officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The reactor deal had been in the works for several years and prompted high-level U.S. government efforts to block the sale because of concerns it will boost Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program.

The CNNC is China’s main nuclear weapons producer and has been linked in the past to Pakistan’s nuclear arms program by U.S. intelligence agencies. CNNC sold thousands of ring magnets to Pakistan during the 1990s that were used in centrifuges that produced highly enriched uranium for weapons.

Additionally, recent U.S. intelligence reports indicate that China, which supplied Pakistan with nuclear weapons design data and technology, is in the process of modernizing Islamabad’s nuclear arsenal, which is estimated to contain as many as 110 warheads.

The arms cooperation is said to include development of a new warhead for Pakistan’s growing missile arsenal as well as assistance in reprocessing spent nuclear fuel.

A Congressional Research Service report published Feb. 13 stated, “Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal probably consists of approximately 90-110 nuclear warheads, although it could be larger.”

“Islamabad is producing fissile material, adding to related production facilities, and deploying additional delivery vehicles,” the CRS report said. “These steps could enable Pakistan to undertake both quantitative and qualitative improvements to its nuclear arsenal.”

The report warned that spent fuel from Pakistan’s Karachi and Chashma nuclear power plants are vulnerable to theft or attack.

Pakistan produced one of the most dangerous cases of nuclear proliferation in the early 2000s when weapons technology was supplied to Libya, Iran, and North Korea by the group led by Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan.

The Obama administration has not publicly contested the nuclear cooperation between the two countries in the past to avoid upsetting U.S. covert efforts against Islamist terrorism in the region.

The Beijing-Islamabad nuclear cooperation also has been limited as a result of U.S. efforts to win Chinese support for sanctions on Iran for its illicit nuclear program.

The new reactor sale also will undermine the Nuclear Suppliers Group, a voluntary association with no enforcement mechanisms that is viewed as a key tool in the administration’s effort to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.

China in 2004 joined the group and agreed not to sell additional reactors to Pakistan beyond the two reactors sold earlier. China is not permitted under NSG guidelines to sell nuclear goods to any country that is not part of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Two U.S. officials confirmed that the Chashma reactor deal was finally reached.

Spokesmen for the Chinese and Pakistani embassies could not be reached for comment.

A State Department official declined to provide details of the sale but said it is not permitted under the U.S. understanding of China’s admission to the nuclear group. That understanding is China would not sell additional reactors to Pakistan’s Chashma complex.

“Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) participating governments have discussed the issue of China’s expansion of nuclear cooperation with Pakistan at the last several NSG plenary sessions,” the official said.

“We remain concerned that a transfer of new reactors at Chashma appears to extend beyond the cooperation that was ‘grandfathered’ in when China was approved for membership in the NSG.”

The administration is expected to protest the sale at an upcoming NSG meeting in June.

Pakistan does not have full-scope IAEA safeguards in place, which is required before China could provide the third Chashma reactor.

The 46-member NSG was formed in 1974. Its stated mission is to “contribute to the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons through the implementation of guidelines for nuclear exports and nuclear related exports.”

China agreed as part of its NSG membership that it would limit future reactor sales to Pakistan to the Chashma 1 and Chashma 2 reactors.

The officials said China specifically directed Pakistani officials not to make the latest reactor deal public. Beijing sought to avoid the negative publicity expected from the deal that could upset the leadership transition that took place last week at the National People’s Congress, the communist mock parliament that formally appointed top communist leaders to government posts, the officials said.

China also sought to keep the reactor agreement secret from the United States, which this year is serving as the rotating head of the NSG.

The Chinese also urged the Pakistani delegation from the Atomic Energy Commission to play down the recent transfer of control to a Chinese company of the key port of Gwadar that U.S. officials said likely will be used by Chinese warships for port calls. The port is close to the Persian Gulf, where some 20 percent of the world’s oil is produced.

The deal for Chashma was announced in July 2010 during the visit to China by Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari. However, the announced arrangement was limited to a memorandum of understanding.

Henry Sokolski, director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, said Beijing appears to be keeping the Chinese-Pakistan nuclear deal secret to avoid international opposition.

“When it comes to grandfathering, the Chinese, like the Russians before them [in Iran], like a fait accompli, which is probably why they don’t want this made public,” Sokolski said in an interview.

Mark Hibbs, with the Carnegie Endowment’s Nuclear Policy Program, said nothing in the NSG guidelines prevents the Chashma 3 reactor sale.

“The rub is that the NSG guidelines are voluntary understandings of governments,” Hibbs told the Free Beacon. “There is no enforcement mechanism. There is, however, a forum for dealing with information that suggests that a participating government is not upholding the guidelines.”

The issue could be addressed during the next NSG plenary meeting in June and at working-level NSG meetings prior to the June session, he said.

However, Hibbs said the issue could come up in talks between Washington and Beijing on the renewal of the bilateral nuclear cooperation agreement in 2015.

Hibbs said the U.S. government has raised the planned Chashma reactor sale in several NSG meetings.

“When China joined the NSG in 2004, Beijing provided the NSG a list of nuclear items which China said it intended to provide to Pakistan under a longstanding bilateral agreement between Islamabad and Beijing,” he said. “This list did not include additional power reactors beyond those already agreed to and under construction in 2004.”

However, recently China has said that additional nuclear power reactors to Pakistan are allowed under its earlier contracts.

“A lot of NSG members will tell you they beg to differ,” he said. “As of last year, China has not seen fit to provide NSG members any information which would corroborate that reactor sales beyond Chashma-1 and -2 were included in pre-2004 understandings between China and Pakistan.”

The administration’s non-proliferation policy and opposition to the Chinese-Pakistani nuclear cooperation was made more difficult by the U.S.-India civil nuclear agreement reached in 2005. That deal provides for the sharing of nuclear know-how with a state that like Pakistan is not part of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and thus not eligible for such transfers.

The NSG altered its guidelines in 2008 to permit the Indian nuclear sales but the Obama administration did not support a similar change for Pakistan.

China, meanwhile, is opposing efforts by the United States, France, Britain, and Russia to allow nuclear-armed India to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group, Reuters reported from Vienna on Thursday.

The divisions were made known during a closed-door meeting of the NSG on Monday, diplomats told the news agency.

The five states supporting India’s membership were countered by China, which wants its ally Pakistan to join the group.

India has not applied for membership in the NSG and is not expected to join when the NSG holds its major meeting in Prague in June.

Retired Col. Gen. Viktor Yesin, a consultant to the Russian Defense Ministry and former commander of strategic nuclear forces, told the Washington Free Beacon that Russia’s government had obtained new details of the Feb. 12 underground test.

Yesin said the North Koreans’ most recent test blast was “an implosion-type nuclear explosive device that used plutonium for fissile material.”

Additionally, the test produced a larger nuclear yield than Pyongyang’s two earlier tests.

“In comparison to its previous nuclear tests of 2006 and 2009, this time North Korea tested a more powerful nuclear explosive device,” Yesin said. “According to the Russian Ministry of Defense it had an estimated yield of 10 to 20 kiloton”—the equivalent of 10,000 to 20,000 tons of TNT, he said.

Yesin did not disclose how the Russian government was able to make the determination.

However, an intelligence source said the information was obtained by Russia’s SVR intelligence service, indicating it may have been provided by human agents rather than through technical means that can detect traces of radiation in the atmosphere after a test.

Yesin currently is a researcher at the state-run United States and Canada Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in addition to advising the Russian Defense Ministry on nuclear and strategic issues.

An official of Russia’s atomic energy agency said after the February nuclear test that Moscow no longer had “working relations” with North Korean nuclear engineers or technicians.

However, a North Korean scientist is known to work at Russia’s Joint Institute of Nuclear Research near Moscow. U.S. officials identified the scientist, Li Je Sen, as the North Korean.

Russia operates three regional Special Control Service laboratories that are part of the 12th GUMO of the Defense Ministry, the unit in charge of Russia’s nuclear forces. The Russians also operate nuclear monitoring sensors in the Eastern Military District.

The office of the director of national intelligence stated in a short announcement the day of the nuclear test that U.S. intelligence “assesses that North Korea probably conducted an underground nuclear explosion in the vicinity of Punggye on Feb. 12, 2013.”

“The explosion yield was approximately several kilotons. Analysis of the event continues,” the ODNI statement said.

An ODNI spokesman had no information beyond the statement issued Feb. 12.

U.S. intelligence officials said that despite multi-billion dollar sensors and other equipment devoted to foreign nuclear monitoring spy agencies have been unable to determine either the type of nuclear fuel used in the blast or its yield.

Intelligence agencies are trying to determine if the latest underground test used highly enriched uranium that would indicate the North Koreans have developed a second path to a nuclear weapon by producing enriched uranium for weapons. North Korea’s arsenal is known to be based on plutonium pits for its nuclear weapons.

The intelligence failure also is a setback for international nuclear monitoring efforts and the Obama administration’s plan for a second attempt at Senate ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, considered a high priority of the president’s arms control agenda during his second term.

The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, a group based in Vienna, Austria, set up under the CTBT, said Tuesday that a month after the North Korean test it was unable to find proof of a nuclear test from radioactive traces normally vented into the air.

As a result, the agency has been unable to determine the type of fissile material used in the blast.

The CTBTO has a network of international monitoring stations and its sensors failed to detect any traces of the test.

“It is very unlikely that we will register anything at this point … at this late stage,” CTBTO spokeswoman Annika Thunborg told Reuters News Agency.

One reason no traces of the test were detected is that North Korea may have taken steps to prevent venting in order to thwart international intelligence-gathering efforts.

A congressional aide said the test monitoring failure does not bode well for the administration’s efforts to seek Senate ratification of the test ban treaty.

“It’s clear from even the CTBTO that they haven’t collected the ‘smoking gun’ evidence of a test,” the aide said. “Just like in 2009.  It goes to show that CTBT was a bad idea in 1999—when the Senate defeated it—and it’s a bad idea today.”

The Senate voted down the treaty in 1999 after determining that the pact was not in the U.S. national security interest.

Due to a procedural move by Senate supporters, the treaty was withdrawn and thus can be ratified at a later time.

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have said since 2008 that they plan to again seek Senate ratification of the CTBT.

Many Republicans however, are opposing the idea, as banning tests under a treaty increases the risks for the reliability of the U.S. nuclear arsenal as it begins to be cut to 1,550 deployed strategic warheads under the 2010 New START arms treaty and as the president plans to seek a further one-third warhead cut in negotiations with Moscow.

“We are confident that the system works very well,” Thunborg said of CTBTO’s 270 monitoring stations.

According to U.S. officials, North Korea gave up plutonium production in 2007 under international pressure.

However, the North allowed visiting nuclear specialist Siegfried Hecker in 2010 to visit Pyongyang’s secret uranium enrichment facilities. The disclosure raised new concerns that the communist regime was running parallel nuclear programs to produce both plutonium and uranium cores for nuclear bombs.

North Korea recently ramped up threatening rhetoric against the United States and South Korea following the imposition of new United Nations sanctions on the country for its latest nuclear test.

The threats included warnings for the first time that the North will use nuclear-tipped missiles for strikes against the United States.

The regime also withdrew from the 1953 armistice with South Korea that ended hostilities during the Korean War and canceled a communications hotline.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said at a briefing on security threats Tuesday that he is “very concerned about the actions of the new young leader … and the rhetoric that has been emanating from the North Korean regime.”

“The rhetoric, while it is propaganda-laced, is also an indicator of their attitude and perhaps their intent,” he said. “So for my part I am very concerned about what they might do and they are certainly, if they so chose could initiate a provocative action against the South.”

“There’s perhaps nowhere else on earth where the capacity to wreak enormous damage is matched by the possibility of North Korea using their nuclear weapons,” said Senate Intelligence Committee chairwoman Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) during the annual threat briefing.

The underground blast in northeastern North Korea was carried out on the eve of President Barack Obama’s state of the union speech Tuesday night, when the president is expected to announce plans for steeper cuts in United States nuclear forces.

U.S. officials said the test indicates North Korea moved a step closer to having a nuclear warhead small enough to fit on a missile.

Obama called the test a “highly provocative act.”

“The danger posed by North Korea’s threatening activities warrants further swift and credible action by the international community,” Obama said in a statement early Tuesday. “The United States will also continue to take steps necessary to defend ourselves and our allies.”

House Armed Services Committee chairman Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon called the North Korean nuclear test “destabilizing” and “unfortunate.”

“It is also unfortunate that on the same day the president of the United States plans to announce further reductions in U.S. nuclear weapons, we see another hostile regime unimpressed by his example,” McKeon said. “U.S. security cannot, in the face of the president’s sequester and $500 billion in reductions to the DOD budget so far, afford even more cuts to U.S. defense capabilities, such as our nuclear deterrent.”

A North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman issued a statement through state-run media Tuesday asserting the nuclear blast was conducted in as a “countermeasure” to what the spokesman said were U.S. nuclear threats.

“The nuclear test conducted this time is the first round of countermeasures that we have carried out by exercising maximum self-restraint,” the statement said. “If the United States makes the situation complicated by remaining hostile through to the end, we will have no choice but to take serial measures with more intense second and third response.”

The official Xinhua news agency in Beijing said China’s Foreign Ministry called in North Korea’s envoy there to protest the blast. China reportedly had sought to dissuade North Korea from conducting the test although public statements by Chinese officials leading up to the test did state specifically that Pyongyang should not conduct the test.

The office of director of national intelligence James Clapper issued a statement early Monday describing what it called a “seismic event with explosive characteristics in North Korea.” Then early Tuesday the DNI stated that the North Koreans “probably conducted an underground nuclear explosion in the vicinity of Punggye” in Kilju county.

“The explosion yield was approximately several kilotons,” the DNI said in a statement. “Analysis of the event continues and we are evaluating all relevant information.”

Obama said in his statement, “North Korea’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs constitute a threat to U.S. national security and to international peace and security.

“The United States remains vigilant in the face of North Korean provocations and steadfast in our defense commitments to allies in the region,” he said.

The president, however, stopped short of saying whether the United States would increase its missile defense programs or nuclear modernization efforts. He instead stated that the danger from North Korean “threatening” activities “warrants further swift and credible action by the international community.”

“The United States will also continue to take steps necessary to defend ourselves and our allies,” he said, limiting those efforts to working with allies and partners in the six-nation nuclear talks, the United Nations Security Council, and with U.N. member states.

A KCNA commentary published after the test said it was conducted in response to the “U.S. attitude toward the DPRK’s successful launch of satellite Kwangmyongsong 3-2, in particular,” that led to a United Nations resolution condemning the launch. DPRK is the acronym for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

“The third underground nuclear test physically demonstrated the high performance of the DPRK’s nuclear deterrent which has become smaller, lighter and diversified as it was a primary counter-measure in which it exercised its maximum self-restraint,” the commentary said.

“Whether the DPRK will take the second and third tougher measures will entirely depend on the option to be taken by the U.S. in the future,” the commentary on KCNA said.

U.S. intelligence analysis of the test indicated that as with the long-range missile test in December, North Korea used deception in the days leading up to the nuclear test. A Feb. 10 report in a North Korean news outlet said the United States and other nations “jumped to conclusions that the republic is planning the third nuclear test, citing their hypothesis and argument.” Analysts interpreted the statement as an indicator a nuclear test would not be carried.

Similarly, in the days before the test launch of what the Pentagon called a long-range missile on Dec. 12, North Korean media published false news stories saying the launch was delayed because of technical problems.

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service told Seoul government officials on Tuesday that the North could conduct additional nuclear tests as well as missile firings, news reports from South Korea stated.

“The North may stage other provocations to distract international efforts to impose more sanctions on the North or to push China to eventually side with Pyongyang,” NIS director Won Sei-Hoon said, the Yonhap news agency reported.

China’s Foreign Ministry said China “firmly opposes” the latest nuclear test. “On Feb. 12, 2013, the DPRK conducted another nuclear test in disregard of the common opposition of the international community,” said the statement, noting that “the Chinese government is firmly opposed to this act.”

Shortly before the nuclear test was announced by Pyongyang, a YouTube posting by an official North Korean television channel posted a video clip titled the “Sentiment of the People” that discussed the nation’s nuclear and missile capability and stated that the “shock” of a third nuclear blast could be “enormous.”

Several governments denounced the test, including most U.S. allies as well as Russia. The NATO alliance also condemned the test.

Tokyo called the test a grave threat to global and regional peace and said the government would work with the United States, China, Russia, and South Korea to urge Pyongyang to give up its nuclear program.

The latest nuclear test represents a diplomatic failure for the United States, which sought to gain Chinese support for pressure on its fraternal communist ally not to conduct the test.

The State Department privately appealed to China’s government on several occasions in recent weeks to urge North Korea not to conduct the test.

The United Nations is expected to condemn the nuclear test as further destabilizing the region. Additional sanctions on North Korea could be imposed. However, past U.N. sanctions appear to have had a limited effect on the reclusive, impoverished communist state that continues to invest in developing nuclear arms and missile delivery systems.

Obama is expected to announce during his state of the union speech before Congress that the United States will cut its declining nuclear arsenal by an additional one-third.

The United States agreed to reduce its warhead stockpile to 1,550 under the 2010 New START arms treaty. Additionally, 500 warheads could be cut under Obama’s new plan.

Critics of the cuts say the United States is reducing its nuclear arsenal at a time when all other nuclear powers are expanding and modernizing their arsenals.

Obama promised in 2010 that he would spend $85 billion over 10 years to modernize U.S. nuclear weapons but has not pressed Congress to provide the funds. The U.S. nuclear arsenal is aging and in dire need of upgrading both the weapons and the infrastructure required to maintain them.

U.S. officials told the Free Beacon last week that North Korea was preparing to conduct an underground nuclear test coinciding with a political event such as Tuesday night’s state of the union address by Obama.

The officials said North Korea is expected to conduct medium- or long-range missile tests around the time of the nuclear test, including a possible test launch of the new KN-08 road-mobile ICBM.

Testing for a nuclear blast involves seismic monitoring stations as well as special “sniffer” aircraft capable of detecting minute particles sent into the atmosphere in areas around a nuclear test facility.

U.S. officials say a key question is whether the latest test used plutonium to fuel the bomb as occurred in the two previous tests or was a new weapon based on highly enriched uranium.

The nuclear test in 2006 was assessed to have produced a yield of less than 1 kiloton, or 1,000 tons, of TNT. The May 2009 test was assessed as having a yield of about 2 kilotons.

Hagel has told senators he is no longer a staunch supporter of the nuclear weapons views of retired Marine Corps Gen. James Cartwright, who authored an anti-nuclear weapons report sponsored by the international disarmament group Global Zero.

“Hagel has thrown Cartwright under the bus about the Global Zero [report] in his meetings with senators,” said a congressional aide familiar with the closed-door sessions.

An administration official working with Hagel on the confirmation disputed the notion the former senator is changing his views during the meetings.

“He is answering questions and clarifying his long-held beliefs…about our nuclear arsenal,” the official said.

The official said Hagel believes that as long as there are nuclear threats the United States needs a safe, strong and ready nuclear arsenal and supports keeping all legs of the nuclear triad – land-based and sea-based missiles and bombers.

The former Republican senator from Nebraska has come under fire from national security specialists in the Senate and outside government who are concerned he would adopt radical anti-nuclear policies as defense secretary.

Hagel took part in a six-member Global Zero Nuclear Policy Commission headed by Cartwright that called for cutting United States nuclear warheads to 900 strategic weapons by 2022, with 450 deployed and the rest in storage.

Sen. Bob Corker (R., Tenn.) raised the issue of Hagel’s support for the Global Zero nuclear cuts during the nomination hearing Thursday of Sen. John Kerry (D., Mass.) to be secretary of state.

“[Hagel] was part of a group called Global Zero, and for those of us who care deeply about our nuclear arsenal and modernization and that type of thing, some of the things that were authored in this report candidly are just concerning,” Corker said.

Corker, new ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that if Hagel is confirmed for defense secretary, the traditional balance between the State Department, which favors arms control, and the Pentagon, which supports the weapons, “is not going to be there.”

Corker said the Obama administration’s promised nuclear modernization that was a key to gaining Republican support for ratifying the 2010 New START arms treaty with Russia “is not occurring.”

Kerry defended Hagel as “mainstream” even as he challenged those who, like Hagel, have advocated for the complete elimination of nuclear arms. “I believe in deterrence, and I find it very hard to think how you can get down to that number [zero] in today’s world,” Kerry said.

Kerry said the complete elimination of nuclear arms is “aspirational, but it’s not something that could happen in today’s world and nor could any leader today sit here or in any other chair and promote to you the notion that we ought to be cutting down our deterrent level below an adequate level to maintain deterrence.”

Kerry said Hagel is “realistic” about arms cuts and does not believe the former senator would go to the Pentagon and eliminate all nuclear weapons if he is confirmed as defense secretary. “It’s worth aspiring to, but we’ll be lucky if we get there in however many centuries the way we’re going,” he said.

The Pentagon, in its lobbying effort to win confirmation, recently published a list of “myths” about Hagel, including the claim that “Hagel would weaken our nuclear deterrent.”

The report says Hagel believes the United States and “mankind” should “work towards a world free of nuclear weapons—a goal that is squarely in line with the vision President Obama.”

However, it stated that Hagel has always believed that as long as nuclear threats exist “the United States must maintain a strong and ready nuclear arsenal.”

The Global Zero nuclear pledge Hagel signed, however, states, “We, the undersigned, believe that to protect our children, our grandchildren and our civilization from the threat of nuclear catastrophe, we must eliminate all nuclear weapons globally.”

Calls by anti-nuclear activists such as Hagel for sharp cuts come as both China and Russia are increasing their nuclear forces and other states are modernizing their arsenals as well.

Critics of Hagel say his backing away from earlier anti-nuclear arms position appears to be part of an effort to win Senate confirmation while masking his real views.

Hagel’s views on nuclear arms are being examined by several senators who are concerned he will be responsible for several strategic nuclear modernization programs in the event of his confirmation.

Hagel, as defense chief, would be required to sign off on the Pentagon’s already-completed Nuclear Posture Review implementation study, a major strategic review of U.S. nuclear forces.

U.S. officials have said that study considered several warhead levels, including the radical proposal to cut nuclear warheads to as few as 300 warheads, fewer than are currently estimated in China’s strategic arsenal.

“Sen. Hagel co-authored a report published in 2012 that advocates the complete elimination of the U.S. ICBM force and deep reductions in the strategic bomber and submarine legs of the U.S. triad of nuclear forces, down to a total of 450 deployed U.S. nuclear weapons,” said Keith Payne, a former Pentagon official and strategic arms specialist.

“By contrast, the administration’s recently completed New START Treaty allows 1,550 accountable strategic nuclear weapons.”

Payne, president of the National Institute for Public Policy, said proposals for deep strategic arms cuts have been around for decades and reflect what he called the “minimum deterrence” approach to strategic arms.

“However, for six decades, every past Democratic and Republican administration has rejected minimum deterrence as a fundamentally inadequate basis for considering U.S. nuclear force requirements and incredible for preventing war,” he said.

“In addition, the [Global Zero] report recommends the possibility of unilateral and unreciprocated U.S. deep force reductions to minimum deterrence levels,” said Payne. “Deep reductions of this sort are an option rejected by every past Democratic and Republican administration, given the robust and on-going nuclear weapons programs of countries manifestly hostile to us or our allies—programs which continue today.”

Six senators with home-state nuclear bases recently expressed concerns about Hagel’s call, in the Global Zero report, to eliminate all land-based nuclear missiles and to cut the strategic bomber force sharply.

Hagel is on the board of directors of the anti-nuclear group the Ploughshares Fund in addition to Global Zero, and his ties to Ploughshares also have raised concerns among some senators, aides said.

Ploughshares funded a study last year that called for cutting U.S. spending on nuclear weapons at a time when the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile is in urgent need of modernization.

Ploughshares has spent more than $5 million in the past several years on a campaign to promote what the group calls a “world without nuclear weapons.” It has also funded public efforts to dissuade the United States from conducting or supporting military action against Iran’s illicit nuclear program.

One key senator who met Hagel on Tuesday is John McCain (R., Ariz.), a powerful national security specialist who until recently was the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee. That committee will hold hearings on the Hagel nomination Wednesday.

A McCain aide could not be reached for comment on whether Hagel’s stance on nuclear weapons came up during the meeting between the two men.

McCain voiced tepid support for Hagel on Tuesday, telling reporters “we had a very frank and candid conversation, and I’ll be looking forward to the hearing and asking questions.”

“We discussed my concerns,” McCain said without elaborating. “We’ll be talking more about them in the hearing.”

The Ploughshares anti-nuclear group also has sent hundreds of thousands of dollars to left-wing and liberal groups, including $250,000 to the Center for American Progress, a group closely aligned with the Obama White House.

Other recipients of Ploughshares money include the National Security Network, a group that opposes military action against Iran; and National Public Radio, which received more than $350,000. NPR frequently reported stories that advocated cutting U.S. nuclear arms.

Ploughshares provided more than $600,000 to the National Iranian American Council since 2007 that promoted “non-military” approaches to Iran’s nuclear program.

A group of 10 arms control proponents this week issued a statement in support of Hagel, including Ploughshares president Joseph Cirinccione.

The advocates praised Hagel for his work with Ploughshares and Global Zero in an open letter to President Barack Obama. “The U.S. must prepare for the years ahead with its defense policies as well as its other government policies,” the letter said. “Sen. Hagel is truly the man for to cope with all these challenges; he is the right man at the right time.”

Several Democratic senators, meanwhile, voiced their support for Hagel this week. Additionally, a group of 13 former secretaries of defense and state and national security advisers sent a letter to members of the Senate endorsing Hagel.

An edict issued Wednesday by Iranian authorities orders Isfahan’s one-and-a-half million people to leave the city “because pollution has now reached emergency levels,” the BBC reported.

However, outside observers suspect that the evacuation order may corroborate previous reports indicating that a uranium enrichment facility near Isfahan had been leaking radioactive material.

Tehran went to great lengths in December to deny these reports, telling state-run media outlets that “the rumors about leaking and contamination at Isfahan’s [Uranium Conversion Facility] are not true at all.”

November reports indicated that a radioactive leak might have poisoned several workers at the nuclear plant, which converts highly toxic yellowcake uranium into material that could be used in the core of a nuclear weapon.

The head of Iran’s emergency services agency said at the time that residents have no reason to worry about possible contamination resulting from a possible leak.

Stories about the potential leak soon disappeared from state-run news websites, Trend reported in late November.

Iranian officials denied that a leak has occurred and blamed Western media outlets for creating “tumult” in the region.

Wednesday’s evacuation order is now fueling concerns that Iranian officials are trying to hide something, including further fallout from a possible radioactive leak.

“Pollution in Isfahan is a problem but in the past, Iranian authorities respond by closing schools and the government to keep people at home and let the pollution dissipate, not by evacuating people,” said Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon adviser on Iran and Iraq who has written about Isfahan’s battle against pollution.

“Mass evacuations suggest a far more serious problem,” Rubin explained. “There are two possibilities here: There is a radiation leak and the regime is lying or there is really bad pollution and no one believes the regime’s explanations.”

Rubin also pointed out that Iranian officials have a history of lying to both Western officials and their own citizens.

It remains unclear whether the technology has been properly inspected for safety because Iran has denied Western officials access to many of its nuclear sites.

The nuclear site at Isfahan has been targeted for attack in the past.

An unexplained explosion at the plant in 2011 is reported to have damaged the facility.

The nuclear plant also sits on an active fault line. The city of Isfahan has been destroyed at least six times from past earthquakes, a point of concern among regional experts.

“Given that Iran is on an earthquake zone and has lost tens of thousands of people with regularity suggests that a devastating nuclear accident is only a matter of time,” said Rubin.

Clinton’s support for a future deal with GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy, a Wilmington, N.C., company, to make reactor vessels in China for a nuclear plant it hopes to build in India was disclosed in a cable sent Nov. 21 to the United States Embassy in Beijing.

The cable directs embassy officials to seek Beijing’s assurances that GE-Hitachi nuclear technology would not be transferred to other states or stolen, as outlined under the terms of a 2003 U.S.-China agreement on nuclear technology cooperation.

Disclosure of the Obama administration’s support for GE-Hitachi’s bid to manufacture nuclear goods in China comes as GE’s chairman and CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, continues to head the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, which advises President Barack Obama on ways to improve the nation’s economy and create jobs.

GE also came under fire last year from Pentagon technology security officials over the company’s joint venture with the state-run Aviation Industry Corp. of China (AVIC) over concerns China would covertly obtain U.S. jet avionics technology that could bolster its growing force of advanced jets.

On nuclear cooperation, Clinton stated in the cable that the Embassy should seek the technology security assurances on behalf of GE-Hitachi because the company had appealed to the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration regarding the non-transfer of technology issue. The Energy Department then asked the State Department to make the request.

GE-Hitachi builds advanced nuclear reactors and wants China First Heavy Industries Group, a state-run Chinese company that is directly involved in Chinese nuclear weapons production, to build major components. According to the cable, GE-Hitachi is considering whether China First Heavy Industries would build reactor pressure vessels—special high-strength tanks that are key reactor components.

The vessels would be used in GE-Hitachi’s plans for a nuclear power plant in India that uses the company’s unique design called a simplified boiling water reactor.

Both GE-Hitachi and Westinghouse, another nuclear energy equipment manufacturer, are seeking deals with the Nuclear Power Corp. of India to build nuclear reactors, although negotiations are continuing.

What GE calls the Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor is a new design that the company says provides better safety and security, is better suited to withstanding earthquakes, and provides greater economy. The high-tech reactor is “the safest current nuclear plant design,” according to a GE fact sheet.

China has been identified by the CIA and Congress as a major proliferator of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction and also is among the most aggressive states engaged in economic espionage.

According to China First’s website, the company is engaged in both civilian and defense manufacturing. It described the company as “one of the fifty-three backbone enterprises under the management of the central government that directly related to the national security and economy.”

The company also makes tunneling equipment, an indication analysts say shows its close involvement with what has been dubbed China’s Great Underground Wall, a network of some 3,000 miles of tunnels used for both storage and production of China’s growing nuclear and missile arsenal.

A U.S. official who is critical of the Obama administration’s cooperation with GE-Hitachi on the Chinese nuclear manufacturing said Clinton was helping export U.S. jobs to China through the effort.

“You have our nuclear technology sold to the Japanese and now they are asking for the Chinese to build these major components,” the official said. “It’s getting rid of jobs needed by the American people.”

A State Department official confirmed that the Chinese were asked about the technology transfer assurances under the 2003 accord.

The official said in a statement: “In line with the above-mentioned standard process, the U.S. government did recently request such assurances from the Chinese government in connection with transfers of technology by GE-Hitachi to China.”

GE-Hitachi spokesman Christopher White confirmed that in the past the company made preliminary inquiries about production arrangements in China, including with China First Heavy Industries Group.

“We are always exploring opportunities to broaden and diversify our supply chain in the global marketplace we operate in,” White said in a statement. “This exploration, as it relates to Chinese manufacturers, is limited in nature and dates back more than a year.”

White said the company’s priorities are “to always seek and gain the necessary U.S. government approvals to explore these options and to vigorously protect the intellectual property we have amassed over our 50-year history of leading the nuclear industry.”

According to the cable, Clinton was seeking assurances that China would not retransfer U.S. nuclear technology under a September 2003 agreement between the United States and China that stipulated U.S. nuclear technology would not be retransferred by China to other countries without prior U.S. approval.

The pact was designed to prevent China’s support for weapons of mass destruction program in places like Pakistan and Iran.

China was a major supplier of nuclear weapons technology to Pakistan, providing Islamabad with both warhead design and nuclear material production technology and equipment.

U.S. intelligence reports from earlier this year revealed that China is covertly helping Pakistan modernize its nuclear facilities and nuclear weapons, including the design of a new warhead.

The intelligence reports on proliferation so far have been ignored by Obama administration policymakers who have suppressed the intelligence to avoid upsetting both China and Pakistan.

Iran also has received nuclear goods from China.

Former State Department intelligence analyst John Tkacik said China has a reputation for stealing advanced technology like the kind that would be involved in a GE-Hitachi deal with China.

“Stealing foreign technology and intellectual property is a standard business model for virtually all Chinese companies, including the biggest,” Tkacik said.

“China’s biggest telecom firm, Huawei, stole Cisco Systems’ designs and software for routers, built pirated knockoffs, and now competes worldwide with Cisco,” he added.

Also, China’s largest wind power firm stole designs and software from American Semiconductor and then refused to pay the U.S. high tech firm money that it owed, prompting American Semiconductor into a financial crisis that cost thousands of American jobs, Tkacik said.

“This happens all the time, but Washington has never retaliated effectively,” he said.

A Congressional Research Service report published last month said recipients of Chinese technology “include Pakistan and countries said by the State Department to have supported terrorism, such as Iran.”

The CRS report said the CIA in 1996 uncovered China’s sale of a special industrial furnace and high-tech diagnostic equipment to Pakistan’s unsafeguarded nuclear facilities. China also sold Pakistan ring magnets used in equipment that made fuel for nuclear bombs.

A Shanghai company pled guilty in a U.S. court in 2010 for illegally exporting U.S.-made high-performance coatings to China that were used in Pakistan’s Chasma-2 nuclear reactor.

China also was linked by U.S. officials to the covert nuclear supplier network led by A.Q. Khan that sold nuclear arms technology to Libya, Iran, and North Korea.

A CIA report to Congress in February said Chinese state-owned firms “continue to engage in [weapons of mass destruction]-related proliferation activities.”

The U.S. government in recent years imposed sanctions on Chinese companies for the illicit transfers, the report said.

This is the second time in two weeks that the IAEA’s internal computer systems have been hacked by a group calling itself Parastoo, which is the Iranian word for a swallow (bird).

Parastoo stole the personal information of nearly 200 IAEA scientists and officials last week, including one employee in the United States Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science. DOE is responsible for overseeing America’s nuclear arsenal.

Parastoo now claims to have pilfered reams of documents and personnel information from the nuclear watchdog’s internal “nuclear data section,” according to a statement by the group.

It also has obtained “highly sensitive information, Including Confidential ‘SafeGuard’ Documents, Satellite Images, Official letters, [and] Presentations,” according to the statement.

The hacker group has threatened to release this sensitive information unless the IAEA launches a formal investigation into Israel’s nuclear site, which some believe houses nuclear arms.

“We are demanding IAEA to start an INVESTIGATION into activities at Israel’s secret nuclear facilities,” the group wrote in its second public statement. “There are many PARASTOOs in the world, seeking for an investigation into Israel’s Human-Life threatening nuclear activities.”

The IAEA did not respond to a Free Beacon request for comment about the second infiltration of its servers.

Yukiya Amano, the United Nations’ nuclear head, said last week that he did not believe sensitive nuclear safeguards have been comprised as a result of Parastoo’s initial attack, according to Reuters.

Parastoo responded to this charge by launching a second attack last week aimed at penetrating further into the IAEA’s systems, this time its “nuclear data section.”

“We’re now publishing additional information to prove our ability to gain access to highly sensitive information,” Parastoo wrote in its statement.

“IAEA cannot just keep us away by turning off their Servers (either old or new ones!),” the group wrote. “There are plenty more of where this information came from but we guarantee that these information will stay in a very safe place with us.”

Parastoo has said that it will safeguard this information as long as the IAEA agrees to investigate Israel’s Negev Nuclear Research Center located near the southern city of Dimona. Israel has not publicly acknowledged having nuclear arms.

Parastoo’s demand appears to be in response to the IAEA’s aggressive investigation into Iran’s clandestine nuclear enrichment program, which is believed to be aimed at building nuclear weapons.

“This information only released to open eyes of IAEA and independent media to real threat of world peace, Israel,” the group states. “Our intentions are not to sabotage or misuse such data for any purposes what so ever.”

Included in the group’s statement is a link to the IAEA’s internal “nuclear data section.” The information, which includes critical technical information needed to acquire access to the system, is meant to prove that Parastoo’s claims are legitimate.

Additionally, Parastoo claims to have at least 15 portions of the IAEA’s system under its control and it lists this information for the public to view.

The group also provides a sample of several documents and satellite images it has seized from the IAEA and lists the email addresses of additional employees.

Parastoo is highly critical of Israel, accusing it of espionage and terrorism in past statements.

Both the language and political positions adopted by Parastoo are similar to dispatches from Anonymous, an anarchic collective of “hacktivists” who engage in cyber-attacks against targets it finds objectionable.

Anonymous recently threatened to launch a “cyber war” against Israel in response to its most recent incursion into the Gaza Strip. It then leaked the personal information of nearly 5,000 Israeli officials.

Details regarding Parastoo’s specific location remain vague.

The group was not publicly known before its first attack and claims to have “many” members likely scattered in various locations.

“Treaties are an important but not always necessary method for reducing nuclear arsenals,” the new report by the International Security Advisory Board says. “The United States has reduced its nuclear arsenal without negotiating a new treaty in the past—both unilaterally and reciprocally with Russia.”

A similar cut in nuclear forces could be considered again “as the United States reduces the role and number of nuclear weapons in its national security strategy,” the report says.

Disclosure of the State Department report comes as President Barack Obama, who has advocated eliminating all U.S. nuclear weapons, is close to approving a formal strategy that calls for deep cuts in nuclear forces beyond the 1,550 warheads mandated under the 2010 New START accord.

According to an arms control official, Obama earlier this month was ready to sign a new blueprint for the deep nuclear cuts as part of the Nuclear Posture Review Implementation Study that has been ready for his signature for months but has been delayed until after the election. Officials familiar with that study say a draft included a recommendation to cut U.S. warhead levels to as low as 700 warheads.

The International Security Advisory Board (ISAB) report, signed by its chairman, former Defense Secretary William J. Perry, also recommends speeding up reductions or amending the New START treaty to include cuts in both tactical and strategic warheads.

The report also suggests that further nuclear cuts can be made through “parallel” U.S. and Russian reductions or even cuts by the United States alone.

“The question is of expediency versus certainty,” the report said. “Unilateral and coordinated reductions can be quicker and less politically costly, relative to treaty with adversarial negotiations and difficult ratification processes.”

However, the report stated that without a legally binding treaty informal agreements would lack the ability to verify the reductions through inspections. Also, without a formal treaty limit, all cuts can be reversed. “Either side could decide to redeploy or increase the deployments of weapons previously reduced,” the report said.

The report recommends three “modest initiatives” for the administration. They include moving up U.S. New START nuclear cuts from 2018 to 2015 and to remove from operational status all strategic warheads slated for reduction.

A second proposal calls for Washington and Moscow to “lay the groundwork” for cuts in tactical nuclear weapons as a way of “expediting the process for a future treaty.”

Third, the board report calls for “mutual” nuclear reductions below New START levels and including non-strategic weapons.

“The United States could communicate to Russia that the United States is prepared to go to lower levels of nuclear weapons as a matter of national policy, consistent with the strategy developed in the Nuclear Posture Review, if Russia is willing to reciprocate,” the report said.

“This could improve stability by reducing Russia’s incentive to deploy a new heavy ICBM.”

The report said the prospect for significant nuclear cuts beyond the three suggested areas is “small.”

“Arms control fatigue, electoral politics and the thorny issue of missile defense have all converged in 2012, creating poor conditions for trust and dialogue,” the report said.

Russia is demanding that the United States agree to legally binding limits to missile defense deployments in Europe. The United States insists its joint NATO missile defenses are part of efforts to counter Iranian missile threats. Russia regards the defenses as a threat to its offensive strategic missiles.

The administration so far has rejected the missile defense limits. However, Obama was overheard telling then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in March that after his reelection he would have “more flexibility” in missile defense talks, comments widely interpreted by critics as a sign he will offer Russia limits on missile defenses as part of new arms reductions talks.

The Free Beacon obtained a copy of the unclassified 22-page report, dated Nov. 27. It is based on the work of a blue-ribbon commission of 24 experts including former policymakers and three retired generals.

Arms control experts on a study group directly involved in producing the new ISAB report include Joseph Cirincione, president of the anti-nuclear activist group Ploughshares Fund and Harvard political scientist Graham Allison, a defense policymaker during the administration of President Bill Clinton.

“One option is to amend the New START treaty to a lower ceiling,” the report says. “Another is to negotiate a new treaty on nonstrategic and non-deployed weapons or a new treaty aggregating all warheads. The amendment or new treaty would require Senate and [Russian] Duma approval.”

Russia currently has several thousand non-strategic nuclear warheads while the United States has several hundred. The U.S. tactical warheads are needed for so-called “extended deterrence in Europe and Asia that have prevented allies from developing their own nuclear forces.”

Critics have said cutting U.S. tactical nuclear weapons could lead other nations to build their own arsenals.

The report also states that cutting U.S. and Russian nuclear forces below the New START levels would allow both states to avoid “costly or destabilizing modernization efforts.”

That comment is likely to upset Senate Republicans who agreed to ratify the New START nuclear cuts in December 2010 only after the president agreed to commit to an urgently-needed nuclear modernization programs, including warhead life extension and new infrastructure projects costing $85 billion over 10 years.

The report also reveals that the New START treaty requires only the United States to cut its forces because it states that Moscow’s strategic arsenal will fall below START levels of 700 deployed strategic delivery vehicle and 1,550 operationally deployed warheads as Moscow’s nuclear forces reach the end of the life cycles.

As a result, Russia is considering building a new, heavy, multiple-warhead intercontinental ballistic missile as part of its current nuclear modernization program, the report says.

By contrast, U.S. nuclear forces will slowly be cut to treaty limits by downloading warheads from land-based ICBMs and submarines and reducing launchers while modernizing strategic forces.

A senior Senate arms control specialist criticized the report. “How can it be that only two years after this administration said 1,550 warheads on 700 deployed delivery vehicles is, a, not something we had to reach until 2018 and, b, good until 2021 [when New START expires], that now we have to go lower, and on our own, with or without Russia?” the specialist asked.

“The answer is that it has always been easier for the disarmers to reduce American power than to get agreement with the Senate ever to do it,” the specialist said. “We now see this, plainly and in their own words. And we are going to fight it.”

The specialist said acting State Department undersecretary of international security Rose Gottemoeller will be asked to explain the disagreement in the future when she is expected to seek Senate support.

“Elections may have consequences, but this arrogant report speaks volumes about the empty, preemptive capitulation that has become the Obama record,” the specialist said.

“The Obama administration is hell bent to denuclearize the world starting with our arsenal,” said Frank Gaffney, head of the Center for Security Policy. “The group they convened to provide political cover for doing so completely embraces this truly irresponsible and actually reckless policy approach.”

State Department spokesman Jamie Mannina said the ISAB “provides its recommendations to the Secretary of State.”

“They do not set policy,” he added.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry announced that it does not plan to extend the agreement with the U.S. when it expires next year.

The program, funded by legislation sponsored by Sen. Richard Lugar (R., Ind.) and former Sen. Sam Nunn (D., Ga.), became known as the Nunn-Lugar program and was used to help secure Soviet-era nuclear stockpiles and prevent the scientists and technicians in the Russian nuclear program from selling their expertise abroad.

The pullout is the latest in a string of foreign policy failures for President Barack Obama and his administration’s conciliatory “reset” policy toward Russia that sought to improve relations with the increasingly anti-U.S. government in Moscow.

Russia has stepped up opposition to the U.S. in the past four years in spite of administration concessions on missile defenses in Europe and other foreign policy and security issues that were designed to improve relations.

A State Department spokeswoman had no comment and said a statement on the U.S. position is expected Thursday.

Lugar, who is retiring this year, said in a statement that Russian officials told him recently that they wanted to change the Umbrella Agreement instead of simply extending the accord.

“At no time did officials indicate that, at this stage of negotiation, they were intent on ending it, only amending it,” Lugar said of his meetings in August with Foreign and Defense Ministry officials.

“Further, during my visit to the Missile Dismantlement and Elimination Facility (MDEF) at Surovatikha, near Nizhy Novgorod, where Nunn-Lugar works to destroy SS-19 and SS-18 missiles, Russian Federal Space Agency officials welcomed prospects for future work,” he said.

Several additional missiles could be dismantled this year at the site and all are capable of carrying multiple warheads, he said.

Anti-nuclear work continued through August included securing six nuclear weapons transport trains and destroying 153 metric tons of chemical nerve agent, the statement said.

So far, 7,610 strategic nuclear warheads were deactivated under the Nunn-Lugar program, along with 902 long-range missiles, 498 missile silos, 191 ICBM launchers, 155 strategic bombers, 906 nuclear surface-to-air missiles, and 492 submarine-launched ballistic missiles.

The cumulative cost of the program has been about $8 billion over the years.

Lugar said that as a result of the program Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus gave up their nuclear weapons.

A U.S. official said Russia was informed by the Pentagon earlier this year that it no longer wanted to continue working on missile elimination in Russia after next year since the Nunn-Lugar activities were a minority of the threat reduction program’s activities.

However, some defense officials in the acquisition office wanted to continue the program.

“The administration is now divided over whether to continue this work, or cave to Russian demands for changes to the agreement,” the officials said.

According to the official, the Kremlin strategy is to adopt a hardline anti-U.S. tone as part of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s displeasure with U.S. government efforts against him during recent parliamentary and presidential elections.

Up until the time Pentagon policymakers informed the Russians that the U.S. wanted to end missile dismantlement in Russia, Moscow had not played politics with the Nunn-Lugar program.

However, once the Pentagon policy shop notified the Russians early this year of their preferences for the program, Moscow jumped on the chance to cancel it.

“Not one aspect of Russian-American relations before President Obama has survived his reset,” the official said, including START I arms treaty verification, and the recent ending of the U.S. Agency for International Development program in Russia.

There is also an investigation under way of illegal Russian military and intelligence procurement inside the U.S.

That probe was triggered by the case of a Canadian naval officer recruited to spy on the U.S. Navy by the SVR, Russia’s foreign intelligence service.

Sub-Lt. Jeffrey Paul Delisle pleaded guilty to espionage on Wednesday in Halifax five years after he walked into a Russian Embassy and offered secrets for cash.