U.S. President George W. Bush plans to raise U.S. concerns that Russia is helping Iran’s nuclear weapons program when he meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin later this week, Reuters reported today.

“The president intends to talk a lot about the Russian-Iranian relationship,” U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said.  “It’s been a problem for several years … We also want to talk about weapons of mass destruction, their control — controlling the materials so that biological, chemical, nuclear leakage doesn’t happen.”

“We’ve made a lot of progress with the Russians on the counterterrorism front,” Rice added.  “We’re going to try and make progress on the nonproliferation front” (Steve Holland, Reuters, May 21).

Secret Assistance

Meanwhile, Russian officials told the Boston Globe that, despite claims that nuclear assistance to Iran is purely for civilian purposes, Russian scientists and officials are funneling weapon-related material and technology to the country (see GSN, May 17).

Russia, which is constructing a civilian nuclear reactor at Bushehr in Iran, has said its assistance to Iran is in compliance with international agreements and cannot be used to develop nuclear weapons (see GSN, April 5).  Iran has denied seeking nuclear weapons capability, but the United States has said the country is pursuing weapons of mass destruction.

Contrary to Kremlin statements, the Russian Atomic Energy Ministry is directly helping Iran develop nuclear weapons and using the Bushehr project as a cover, U.S. and Russian officials said.

Russian officials and scientists are secretly transferring technology to Iran, and such transactions and other money laundering schemes have made a fortune for some officials, several Russian officials told the Globe.

“This is a super-Mafia,” said one scientist.

“I have no doubt that the building of an atomic reactor in Bushehr is a cover-up for Iran’s plans to build an atomic bomb,” said Alexei Yablokov, a senior adviser to former Russian President Boris Yeltsin and now the head of the Center for Russian Environmental Policy.  “It is madness to build them reactors.”

“From the early 1990s, our concern was that this large project would serve as a cover for more sensitive technical interactions between Russians and Iranians,” said Robert Einhorn, former assistant secretary of state during the Clinton administration.  “The concerns we had have materialized.”

The Atomic Energy Ministry is hungry for cash, according to the Globe.  It pays little attention to Kremlin policy, submits to almost no oversight and does not report how it spends its money, the Globe reported.

“We are quite convinced that dangerous tech transfers are still taking place.  There may be some willful criminality in the Atomic Energy Ministry, and some agencies that are getting away with exports on their own,” a senior U.S. official in Moscow said.

The Atomic Energy Ministry seems to care little about whether it helps Iran become a nuclear weapons power, according to the Globe.

“So what?” said the Russian scientist.  “The Iranians will acquire these weapons.  Pakistan has them.  Israel has them.  Other countries have them.  So what if Iran has them?”

What Could Happen?

Russia has said Iran could not use the reactor at Bushehr — scheduled for completion in early 2005 — to produce nuclear weapons, but other analysts said the facility would provide the necessary materials.

Any nuclear reactor produces enough uranium and plutonium in spent nuclear fuel for creating a nuclear explosive at low cost, Yablokov said.

“In three months, 30 people with a college education could do it,” he said.  “There is no distinction between civilian and military nuclear programs; that is why handing nuclear technology to such unstable countries as Iran is a suicidal step.”

The Bushehr reactor could produce weapon-grade plutonium with the right knowledge, said Maxim Shingarkin, a former Russian officer involved with strategic weapons.

Iran’s knowledge of nuclear materials has been enhanced by student exchanges and information transfers between Russia and Iran, Yablokov said.

Why Russia Is Building Bushehr

Russia continues to say its assistance to Iran is not dangerous — similar to the light-reactor reactor the United States is building in North Korea through an international consortium (see GSN, May 13).  The project also provides needed money for Russia.  It employs more than 1,000 Russian specialists who might be otherwise jobless, and it provides contracts for Russian machine-building companies.

International Atomic Energy Agency rules also require countries with nuclear know-how to assist nonnuclear states in building power plants and to safeguard the spent fuel so it cannot be used for weapons, according to the Globe.  Russia and Iran have promised to comply with the IAEA requirements (Kornblut/Filipov, Boston Globe, May 19).  Both countries have signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (U.N. release, Jan. 31, 2000).

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