U.S. officials hoped to create a sense of urgency about Pyongyang’s nuclear program among Asian countries by concealing the fact that Pakistan was the actual dealer of North Korean nuclear material found in Libya, the Washington Post reported yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 2).
North Korea supplied uranium hexafluoride to Pakistan, which then sold the weaponizable material to Libya, said two officials with knowledge of the transaction. Pyongyang might not even have known of the second transfer, the Post reported.
Washington earlier this year told China, South Korea and Japan that North Korea had sold uranium to Libya, in order to push for a new round of six-party talks on Pyongyang’s nuclear effort. The briefings were planned quickly after Beijing and Seoul indicated they were considering abandoning the talks altogether, according to two other officials. The Bush administration’s approach increased skepticism among the United States’ negotiating partners as they learned of key omissions in the U.S. briefing, diplomats and U.S. officials told the Post. Transfers between North Korea and Pakistan have gone on for years and would not have been news to U.S. allies, the Post reported. A senior administration official said in a prepared comment that Washington “has provided allies with an accurate account of North Korea’s nuclear proliferation activities,” adding that the February briefings made it clear that the North Korean materials traveled through the nuclear black market established by former top Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan (Dafna Linzer, Washington Post, March 20).
By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire
LONDON — The international community must promote a stronger nonproliferation culture to improve the security of nuclear and radioactive materials worldwide, experts said here Friday (see GSN, March 18). “Why haven’t we yet achieved the gold standard for security for nuclear materials around the globe?” asked Laura Holgate, vice president for Russia and New Independent State Programs at the Nuclear Threat Initiative a conference sponsored by the International Atomic Energy Agency. “The answer is that we have not yet made it a priority. It’s not a matter of technology. It’s a matter of human judgment,” she said. While national leaders have called the potential for nuclear weapons terrorism the No. 1 threat, Holgate said, “We can pick out many other priorities that are competing against this supposed top priority and winning.” She said, for example, that U.S. and Russian officials are sacrificing “progress on bilateral security cooperation based on Cold War worries about theft of bomb designs when we can blow each other up several times over and the world with us.” Progress on U.S.-Russian nuclear security cooperation also has been hampered by disagreements over which party might pay damages in case of an accident at a site, along with “far-fetched scenarios of saboteurs secretly embedded in Western companies who are providing assistance to Russia’s nuclear industry,” Holgate said. Countries are fighting the development of binding international standards for nuclear security in “misguided attempts to preserve sovereignty and national pride,” she said. In Russia, nuclear facility guards have shut down alarm systems to avoid the annoyance of frequent false alarms and left their posts to forage for food, she said. “Too few people involved in nuclear security have truly internalized the threats we face today, and are therefore not setting proper priorities,” she said. “Every [security] system is inadequate if there is no security culture shared by the whole staff,” said Eric Plaisant, a commissioner at the French Economy, Finance and Industry Ministry. “Security has to be a concern for everyone and not just for some specialists,” he said. Russia and BeyondHolgate said improvements are occurring in Russia, which has the largest stores of unsecured nuclear materials. She noted the presence of nuclear security culture coordinators at some facilities whose activities are supported by U.S. aid. She said, though, that Russian security culture is a particular concern, with officials stressing the importance of improving security hardware and focusing less on factors such as “reliable funding streams, commitment to following procedures, and a management culture that recognizes the centrality of the nuclear security mission.” Holgate noted a report released by the University of Georgia’s Center for International Trade and Security in December 2004 that listed measures for improving the security culture at Russian nuclear sites. She said Russia is “far from the only nation” that needs improvements to its security culture. Andrei Malyshev, who heads Russia’s Federal Environmental, Industrial and Nuclear Supervision Service, Rostechnadzor, took exception to Holgate’s characterization of Russian security culture. “In the last few years we have substantially increased the level of physical protection,” he said. “I do not agree with the conclusions that were announced here.” He said “serious infringements” of security requirements at nuclear facilities detected by the Russian nuclear energy regulators dropped from 655 in 1999 to 175 in 2003. Quoting that same 2003 statistic last year, though, Malyshev said “The physical protection of nuclear facilities in Russia cannot be recognized as being satisfactory,” according to Russian news service Interfax. [EDITOR’S NOTE: The Nuclear Threat Initiative is the sole sponsor of Global Security Newswire, which is published independently by the National Journal Group]
By Jim Wurst
Global Security Newswire
UNITED NATIONS — U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan in a new report called on nuclear weapons states to accept their “unique responsibility” in maintaining international security by making irreversible cuts in their arsenals and backed greater authority for the International Atomic Energy Agency to ensure nuclear technology is not diverted from civil to military uses (see GSN, March 10). “Progress in both disarmament and nonproliferation is essential and neither should be held hostage to the other. Recent moves towards disarmament by the nuclear-weapon states should be recognized,” Annan wrote in a report on reforming the United Nations. “However, the unique status of nuclear weapon states also entails a unique responsibility, and they must do more, including but not limited to further reductions in their arsenals of nonstrategic nuclear weapons and pursuing arms control agreements that entail not just dismantlement but irreversibility.” The report, released over the weekend and presented to the General Assembly this morning, said the nuclear powers should proceed quickly with negotiations on a fissile material cutoff treaty and should maintain the moratorium on nuclear testing. Annan added that the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty review conference in May should endorse these and other nonproliferation matters. An issue that is expected to dominate the review conference will be charges that countries such as Iran are misusing their right under the treaty to peaceful nuclear technology to develop nuclear weapons. Annan’s proposals on this issue focused on strengthening the role of the International Atomic Energy Agency. “While the access of non-nuclear weapon states to the benefits of nuclear technology should not be curtailed, we should focus on creating incentives for states to voluntarily forgo the development of domestic uranium enrichment and plutonium separation capacities, while guaranteeing their supply of the fuel necessary to develop peaceful uses,” he wrote. To this end, he called for the “universal adoption” of the Additional Protocol, which gives the U.N. agency authority to conduct more intrusive investigations of a country’s nuclear program. Another option he raised, but did not endorse, would be for the agency to “act as a guarantor for the supply of fissile material to civilian nuclear users at market rates.” Annan’s report, called In Larger Freedom:Towards development, security and human rights for all, is designed to frame the reform debate for the summit that will take place at the United Nations in September — the 60th anniversary of the founding of the organization. Under the heading of “Freedom from Fear,” Annan repeated many of the proposals on disarmament and terrorism he and other officials have made in recent years, calling for universal endorsement of a definition of terrorism and the conclusion of negotiations on a comprehensive terrorism treaty and on a treaty on the suppression of nuclear terrorism by 2006. Besides concluding the convention on nuclear terrorism, Annan wrote, “It is vital that we deny terrorists access to nuclear materials. This means consolidating, securing and, when possible, eliminating hazardous materials and implementing effective export controls. While the Group of Eight … and the Security Council have taken important steps to do this, we need to make sure that these measures are fully enforced and that they reinforce each other.” The General Assembly’s legal committee is scheduled to take up the draft comprehensive and nuclear terrorism conventions later this year. Violence against civilians can never be endorsed, Annan said in the report. “It is time to set aside debates on so-called ‘state terrorism.’ The use of force by states is already thoroughly regulated under international law. And the right to resist occupation must be understood in its true meaning. It cannot include the right to deliberately kill or maim civilians.” Therefore, Annan repeated his endorsement of the recommendation of the High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change that a definition of terrorism should include the wording that “any action constitutes terrorism if it is intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or noncombatants with the purpose of intimidating a population or compelling a government or an international organization to do or abstain from doing any act.” Annan asked the General Assembly this morning to look at his proposals as “a comprehensive strategy” and to resist the temptation “to treat the list as an a la carte menu, and select only those that you especially fancy.” Since it was designed primarily to advance the Millennium Development Goals, social and economic policies — such as increasing official development aid — took up the bulk of the report. Annan also called expansion of the Security Council, but he did not endorse a specific plan for that expansion.
Iran plans to assemble a secret cadre of nuclear engineering experts within a year to support an alleged nuclear weapons program, Agence France-Presse reported yesterday (see GSN, March 18). “The declared purpose for establishing the faculty is to create a source of skilled and professional manpower to promote Iran’s military nuclear project, whose activity is increasing,” a Western intelligence source said recently. “By setting up this installation, the Iranians are trying to make sure they have trained people whom the West doesn’t even know about,” the source added. The source said Iran would seek to protect the faculty from international scrutiny. “Since it is new, the faculty will be compartmentalized and undeclared. It will not be under [International Atomic Energy Agency] inspection,” the source said. “In practice the faculty is to be set up within a year. It will operate as a branch of one of the leading universities in Iran in nuclear science and its activity will be mainly classified.” The source said Iran does not have enough nuclear engineers for its operations (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, March 20). Meanwhile, Iran has requested that the European Union and Russia respect its right to enrich uranium, AFP reported. “We hope these countries will be honestly committed to what they have said and respect Iran’s right to have a fuel cycle and practically prove that in the steering committee meeting on March 24,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said in a statement Saturday. “No country should be deprived of peaceful nuclear technology,” he added (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, March 19). Iran’s negotiations with the European Union are not at a crisis point, International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said today. “This is an early stage of negotiations,” he said. “I think as long as the dialogue is continuing, as long as the suspension (of uranium enrichment by Iran) is in place, as long as progress is being made, I think we're on the right track” (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, March 21). Washington would eventually have to join with its European allies if the EU decided to provide Iran with security guarantees as part of a nuclear deal, ElBaradei also said today. “The United States will have to step in because security assurances very much need the Americans,” he said (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, March 21). Elsewhere, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld yesterday denied Iranian allegations that the United States had flown reconnaissance missions over Iran. “I checked and I know we had no US aircraft doing what ... Iran was saying,” Rumsfeld told ABC’s This Week. When asked whether he had ever authorized any U.S. military flights over Iran as defense secretary, however, Rumsfeld said, “I don’t think I have, but I don’t know. I’d have to check. And I don’t know that I’d answer it if I did find out that we had, but I don’t believe we have.” When asked whether U.S. intelligence agencies could have ordered flights, he said, “I can’t speak for intelligence agencies, but not to my knowledge” (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, March 20).
The underground nuclear network established by former top Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan is believed to have sold key engineering secrets for manufacturing nuclear warheads, the New York Times reported today (see GSN, March 16). Among documents recovered last year from Libya when the country abandoned its WMD programs were step-by-step manuals, some of which appear to have Chinese and Pakistani origins, said U.S. and international investigators. The Libyan documents and others submitted to the International Atomic Energy Agency by Iran demonstrate that Khan had offered instructions on purifying uranium, casting it into a nuclear core and manufacturing specialized explosives, according to U.S. intelligence officials and European diplomats. Such secrets can take decades to master independently, scientists said. “The real secrets are in the details of the metallurgy, the manufacturing and the engineering,” said Siegfried Hecker, director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico from 1986 to 1997 and now a senior fellow there. “It’s becoming clearer to us that Khan was selling a complete package,” said a senior U.S. official involved with nuclear strategy. “Not a turnkey operation — that would be overstating it — but close to it” (Broad/Sanger, New York Times, March 21). Meanwhile, experts from the Nuclear Suppliers Group — the 44 nations that voluntarily monitor exports of nuclear-related materials and equipment — are scheduled to visit Pakistan next month to assess Islamabad’s nuclear export control regime, Reuters reported Friday. Similar visits have recently been made to Israel, India and Egypt, said the group’s chairman, Richard Ekwall. While Islamabad recently expressed an interest in joining the group, Ekwall said that was unlikely to occur because Pakistan is a nuclear-armed state that has not joined the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. “One of the criteria for joining the NSG is that you adhere to the NPT,” Ekwall said. Proof of full compliance with NSG export controls is also necessary, according to Reuters (Louis Charbonneau, Reuters, March 18).
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said today that the United States would consider “other options” for dealing with North Korea if Pyongyang fails to return to six-party talks aimed at resolving the standoff over its nuclear program, Agence France-Presse reported today (see GSN, March 18). Rice, in Beijing for the final stop in a weeklong Asia trip, added that the United States was “prepared to think of [North Korea’s] energy needs,” alluding to a prior U.S. offer of heavy fuel oil and other benefits in exchange for Pyongyang agreeing to abandon its nuclear efforts. “We hope North Korea understands that this (six-party talks) is the only way to address their needs,” Rice said. “Everybody is aware there are other options in the international system,” she added, referring to sanctions, according to AFP. “If they continue going down this road, not only with the United States, but with Japan, with South Korea, with China and with Russia, not to mention with the rest of world, they’re going to have a problem,” she said. Meanwhile, North Korean Premier Pak Bong Ju is expected to arrive in Beijing for nuclear talks tomorrow, a day after Rice’s departure (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, March 21). Beijing’s commitment to the six-party talks remains “firm and unshakable,” Chinese President Hu Jintao told Rice yesterday, according to the Xinhua news agency. Rice discussed the issue today with Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing, Reuters reported. Chinese officials advised Rice that the United States should be more “flexible” in dealing with Pyongyang, said a U.S. official (Saul Hudson, Reuters, March 21). Elsewhere, Akitaka Saiki, deputy director general of the Japanese Foreign Ministry’s Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, proposed Thursday that North Korea be referred to the U.N. Security Council if Pyongyang does not resume talks before June, Kyodo news agency reported. “If North Korea continues to be allowed to postpone a conclusion (to the talks) by its tactics of not attending, the effect on Japan’s security will be great,” sources quoted Saiki as saying. The comments were the first public mention by any Japanese official of a deadline or of Security Council referral, Reuters reported (Reuters, March 19).
The International Atomic Energy Agency by 2009 may stop making monthly checks of 10 tons of weapon-grade uranium at the Y-12 plant in Tennessee if plans go through to blend down the material so it could not be used in nuclear arms, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, Dec. 20, 2004). The U.N. agency has been inspecting the vault containing the uranium since the Clinton administration declared the material surplus in 1993 and pledged it would not be used for weapons. Plans call for the uranium to be blended down for use in nuclear reactors. Work is to begin this year and be completed by 2009, Y-12 spokesman Steven Wyatt told the Knoxville News Sentinel. IAEA officials would verify the work was finished and then end inspections at the vault, according to AP. Additional weapons materials at the nuclear weapons plant are not expected to be placed under IAEA watch. “At this point, there are no plans to place additional U.S. (highly enriched uranium) in storage safeguards,” Wyatt said (Associated Press, March 20).
The shutdown last year at the Los Alamos National Laboratory could cost up to $367 million due to work that was delayed or not finished, National Nuclear Security Administration chief Linton Brooks said Friday (see GSN, March 16). That amount “represents an upper limit” of the possible price tag for the work suspension that lasted for months in some sections while the laboratory improved security procedures, Brooks told the House Energy and Commerce Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee. The laboratory estimates the cost at $119 million, according to the Associated Press. Tens of millions of dollars included in the Energy Department accounting are not directed related to the shutdown, Los Alamos Director Peter Nanos said. Brooks said that the U.S. government is expected to absorb the cost rather than requiring money from the University of California, which manages Los Alamos. Representative Greg Walden (R-Ore.) said that is “outrageous.” “The university was hired to do a job and they didn’t do it,” he said. Nanos also reported that two employees indicated the existence of two computer disks containing classified information by falsifying an inventory sheet. The apparent disappearance of the nonexistent disks triggered the shutdown. Nanos said no such inventory had been conducted. The two employees were fired, but Nanos at the hearing would not say if he believes they should face criminal charges, AP reported (H. Josef Hebert, Associated Press/Guardian, March 19).
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