U.S. Fuel Cycle: Mock Terrorists Stole U.S. Nuclear Weapon Materials

U.S. nuclear weapons and production facilities are vulnerable to terrorist infiltration, according to a Project on Government Oversight report to be released today, which found that the country’s 10 nuclear weapons facilities failed to stop mock terrorists in more than half of security drills conducted by U.S. military teams.  The report is based on information from whistleblowers and classified Energy Department material.

U.S. Army and Navy teams acting as mock terrorists were able to penetrate facilities’ security and obtain nuclear material in several tests.  “The mock terrorists gained control of sensitive nuclear material which, if detonated, would have endangered significant parts of New Mexico, Colorado and downwind areas” in an October 2000 drill at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, the report said.

In an earlier test at Los Alamos, an Army Special Forces team hauled away weapons-grade uranium in a garden cart.  Navy SEALs in a test at the Rocky Flats site near Denver escaped with plutonium by cutting a hole in a chain link fence.  In both cases, the teams stole enough material to build several nuclear bombs.

The security lapses were particularly worrisome because the facilities were warned that the drills would be taking place, said Danielle Brian, manager of the Project on Government Oversight.  “These are tests where the security forces are necessarily dumbed-down so that they know the tests are coming,” Brian said.  “They are very restrictive tests [but] they’re still losing half of the time.” (Hedges/Zeleny, Chicago Tribune, Oct. 5).

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U.S. Use Policy:  More Concrete Threat of Use Urged by Conservatives

An explicit threat should be made as to when nuclear weapons will be used (see GSN, Sept. 21), according to conservatives unhappy with the Bush administration’s intentionally ambiguous policy, the Washington Post reported today. 

Even some inside the Bush administration are at least sympathetic to the idea, which runs counter to long-standing U.S. policy, according to the Washington Post.  “Under certain circumstances, very severe nuclear threats may be needed to deter any … potential adversaries,” said a January report by the National Institute for Public Policy.  The report was written, in part, by: Stephen Hadley, now President George W. Bush’s deputy national security advisor, Robert Jospeh, the head of proliferation strategy at the National Security Council, and Stephen Cambone and Willaim Schneider Jr., Bush defense advisors.   

Expanding the use of low-yield nuclear weapons is also being considered, according to the Washington Post.  Such weapons could be used against chemical and biological weapons stockpiles or to penetrate bunkers buried deep underground.  Smaller nuclear weapons should be part of a “fundamental rethinking of the role of nuclear weapons,” said a report last June by Stephen Younger, who has been chosen to head the Defense Department’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

Any shift in U.S. nuclear weapons policy will first be apparent in the Nuclear Posture Review, which the Pentagon expects to deliver to Congress by the end of the year.  Deterrence against weapons of mass destruction “is a crucial component” of the review, said Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Meyers in his confirmation hearing last month.  Meyers also said that the military already has a supply of low-yield nuclear weapons.

Some critics, however, oppose any shift away from the current ambiguity.  “We’ve purposefully avoided drawing bright lines in the past about when we might use nuclear weapons,” said a former senior Clinton administration official.  “If we change that now, it would upset a lot of our core NATO allies, not to mention others in the coalition against terrorism we’re trying to build” (Dana Milbank, Washington Post, Oct. 5).  

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North Korea: End-Stage Talks on Reactors Could Begin Soon, Official Says

North Korea and the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization are expected to hold negotiations by the end of this year on the final stages of the 1994 Agreed Framework, a South Korean official said Wednesday.

Because “the United States [has] recently eased its suspicion of North Korea,” the official said, KEDO should soon be able to complete its proposal on the details of delivering the final core components to the light-water reactors it is building in North Korea. Once the KEDO proposal is ready, negotiations can begin (Yonhap, Oct. 3 in FBIS-EAS, Oct. 3).

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Russia: Private Firm to Help Retrain Scientists

LUXOFT, a Russian information technology firm, signed an agreement on Tuesday with the National Nuclear Security Administration to be the first major Russian company to take part in the Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention program (IPP).  The program works to train Russian nuclear weapon scientists in commercial software applications for peaceful purposes.  “LUXOFT is excited to be working with NNSA in its cooperative nonproliferation efforts,” said Anatoly Karachinsky, founder and chief executive officer of LUXOFT’s parent company IBS Group.

LUXOFT, as well as its U.S. partner CTG, Inc., will train 500 nuclear professionals from the Kurchatov Institute, the largest nuclear research facility in Russia.  The program has four stages: trainee selection, external basic training, target conversion training at LUXOFT and provision of employment.  After the initial nine-month program, LUXOFT plans to expand the number of trainees at Kurchatov and then train scientists at other nuclear weapon facilities.

“The LUXOFT project with Kurchatov epitomizes the goal of the IPP program by turning former weapons scientists into computer programmers,” said Steven Black, Energy Department acting assistant deputy administrator for Arms Control and Nonproliferation (U.S. Industry Coalition release/U.S. Newswire, Oct. 2)

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IAEA:  Nuclear Smuggling Incidents Increasing, Agency Warns

More than 20 attempts at smuggling nuclear materials have been confirmed this year, according to Jane's Information Group Foreign Report.  The incidents this year, in addition to more than 370 which have occurred in the last seven years -- including 15 incidents involving plutonium or weapon-grade uranium -- have prompted the International Atomic Energy Agency to step up its programs to improve the physical security of nuclear materials.

A collaborative law enforcement program under IAEA leadership was started earlier this year to help with the smuggling problem.  In conjunction with the World Customs Organization, Interpol and the FBI, the IAEA program will seek better information exchanges between law enforcement agencies as well as training programs for police and customs organizations (Foreign Report, Oct. 4).

Even more IAEA action is needed to prevent nuclear materials from falling into terrorist hands, according to two nonproliferation specialists writing in Arms Control Today.  George Bunn and Fritz Steinhausler said that "adoption of stronger physical protection standards against these threats is essential, and the sooner the better."

The two supported a recent decision by IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei to convene a meeting of experts to draft a new amendment to the 1980 Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material, which currently only applies to nuclear materials in transit.

The new amendment should add "some sort of verification or reporting requirement," Bunn and Steinhausler said, adding that the convention should apply to domestic facilities and include measures on preventing sabotage (Bunn/Steinhausler, Arms Control Today, Oct. 2001).

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Iran: Russia Will Deliver Nuclear Reactor to Iran Next Month

Russia said it plans to deliver the first of two nuclear reactors next month to the nuclear power installation at Bushehr, Iran.  The announcement coincided with the signing yesterday of a new agreement between the two countries for Russia to sell up to $300 million a year in conventional arms to Iran (Michael Wines, New York Times, Oct. 3).

 “Russia strictly observes international obligations and agreements in the field of nonproliferation of mass destruction weapons and missile technologies,” said the Russian and Iranian defense ministers (Deutsche Presse-Agentur, Oct. 2). 

Russian Defense Minister Sergey Ivanov said Russia will only sell defensive weapons and will not violate any international agreements.  Several analysts said Iran seems most interested in acquiring Russia’s mid-range air defense systems, particularly the S-300 missile. 

U.S. officials have objected to Russia’s military and technological exports to Iran, and former Russian president Boris Yeltsin agreed under U.S. pressure to a ban in 1995, but President Vladimir Putin decided to resume arms exports.  Russia said the United States lacks evidence that Iran supports terrorist organizations.  “Iran is much closer to us than to the U.S., and we are not going to act to the detriment of our own national interests and our national security interests,” Kremlin spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembsky said (Sharon LaFraniere, Washington Post, Oct. 3).

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U.S. Fuel Cycle: Bush Moving on Commercial Tritium Production

The United States is pursuing a plan to use commercial nuclear plants to produce tritium, which is used to boost the explosive yield of nuclear weapons, according to a Dallas Morning News report Monday.  Tritium is used in every U.S. nuclear weapon, but it decays at a rate of 5.5 percent a year, requiring steady replenishment in the U.S. nuclear stockpile.

In recent weeks, the Bush administration designated the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Watts Bar Plant to be the first commercial reactor to produce tritium, but the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is required before tritium production can begin.  The TVA’s Sequoyah Plant is also under consideration.  Tritium has not been produced since a federal production facility closed in 1988, and the Clinton administration decided not to build a new plant, choosing instead to replenish nuclear weapons with tritium from dismantled nuclear weapons.

Using commercial plants to produce the material would reverse the U.S. policy that encouraged other countries to avoid using civilian nuclear plants to produce materials for weapons.  Critics said the new plan would undermine international nonproliferation treaties and could provide an excuse for other countries to pursue nuclear weapons programs (United Press International, Oct. 2).

Pakistan: Chinese Nuclear Workers Leave Pakistan

China ordered its technical experts working on Pakistan’s Chashma Nuclear Power Project to leave Pakistan immediately, Nawa-i-Waqt reported Saturday.  Japanese, French, and Korean officials at the project have already left the country (Nawa-i-Waqt, Sept. 29 in FBIS-NES, Oct. 2).

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Pakistan: Canada Lifts Sanctions on Pakistan

Canada yesterday said it is lifting most sanctions against Pakistan and converting Pakistani debt into spending for social programs in Pakistan as a reward for that country’s cooperation in the fight against terrorism (see GSN, Sept. 24).  Canada lifted 1998 sanctions imposed after Pakistan conducted a nuclear test, which included restrictions on Canadian aid and loans from international financial institutions.  Prohibitions on military exports and nuclear cooperation remain.

The Canadian International Development Agency will convert at least $295 million of Pakistani debt into spending for social programs in Pakistan (Associated Press, Oct. 1).

“Canada commends the courageous stand that Pakistan is taking against terrorism in the region and believes that its role should be both recognized and supported by the international community,” Foreign Affairs Minister John Manley said. 

Canada eased sanctions against India last March and lifted remaining restrictions on Canadian support for international loans yesterday (Foreign Affairs Department release, Oct. 1).

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India-Pakistan: U.S. Allows Increased Exports to India and Pakistan

The U.S. Commerce Department yesterday published a rule to implement part of President George W. Bush’s waiver of nuclear-related sanctions against Pakistan and India (see GSN, Sept. 24).  The new policy presumes approval for all Indian and Pakistani companies and institutions, but items on the Commerce Control List will be considered on a case-by-case basis.  The bureau removed the license review policy of denial of exports and reexports of nuclear proliferation and missile technology items to India and Pakistan.  It removed several Indian and Pakistani companies and institutions from the Entity List and restored license exceptions for entities not on the Entity List (U.S. Department of Commerce release).

The Entity List is a group of foreign companies and institutions that are prohibited from receiving U.S. technology transfers and equipment exports.  U.S. exporters still must acquire a license to export to Pakistani and Indian companies and institutions related to nuclear, missile and space programs, but license applications will now be considered on a case-by-case basis (S. Rajagopalan, Hindustan Times, Sept. 29).

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U.S. Testing: Calls For Testing May Be Precursor to New Development

The Bush administration’s plans on nuclear testing (see GSN, Sept. 26) may be part of a larger agenda to expand nuclear weapons production, warns Jeffrey St. Clair in a report for In These Times. 

Critics have attacked the motives of those in the Bush administration, including Vice-President Dick Cheney and U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, have called for resumption of nuclear weapons testing to ensure their reliability.  “All non-nuclear parts to a weapon can be extensively lab tested and replaced as needed – if needed at all,” said Jay Coghlan, director of NukeWatch.  “The nuclear parts, specifically plutonium and surrounding high explosives, have been found to actually achieve greater stability with age,” Coghlan said, adding that the motives behind testing may be to shift the nuclear weapons to more tactical uses.  “U.S. nuclear weapons are certainly reliable in the sense that they are sure to go off,” Coghlan said.  “The concern that the military has with reliability is that the weapons are not only guaranteed to go off, but explode close to design yield.  This is important not for mere deterrence, but for nuclear warfighting,” Coghlan said.

Although the United States has not ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, it has adhered to a testing moratorium since 1992. Several high-level U.S. officials, however, have attacked the limitations of the test ban treaty.  Assistant Secretary of Defense Jack Crouch wrote a series of articles in the 1990s attacking the test ban treaty and has argued that the United States should deploy nuclear weapons in South Korea and consider using them against North Korea if it did not agree to U.S. calls to drop their nuclear and biological weapons programs, according to St. Clair.

Soon after President Bush came into office, an advisory committee released the results of a study on the reliability, safety, and security of U.S. nuclear weapons.  The panel was headed by John Foster, former director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and now an advisor to TRW, one of the U.S.’s largest defense contractors.  The report urged that testing be resumed as soon as possible and training begin on new weapons designers who could develop “robust, alternative warheads that will provide a hedge in the future.”  Foster, contrary to most nuclear scientists, has said that computer simulations of nuclear explosions are a poor substitute for real nuclear explosions.  “There are a number of underground weapons tests we can’t reproduce,” Foster has said.  “There are these enigmas.”

How Soon Can We Begin?

The Bush administration, in June, instructed the Energy Department to study how to shorten the time needed to prepare nuclear tests at the Nevada Test Site.   The DOE said it would take 36 months to resume testing but some officials want to see this reduced significantly.  General John Gordon, director of the Nuclear Safety Administration at the DOE, has said he wants to reduce the time needed to four months.  “We are conducting an internal review on how we can improve significantly our readiness posture to conduct a nuclear test, should we ever be so directed,” Gordon testified before the U.S. House of Representatives.  “This is not a proposal to conduct a test, but I am not comfortable with not being able to conduct a test within three years.”  Gordon has also complained that the Pentagon has not been able to actively pursue new nuclear weapons designs, according to St. Clair, adding that Gordon has said he wanted to “reinvigorate” planning for a new generation of “advanced nuclear warheads” (Jeffrey St. Clair, In These Times, Oct. 1).   

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Russia: No Threat of Nuclear Theft, Says Former Scientist

Russian nuclear weapons and materials are at absolutely no risk from any terrorist activity, said Sergey Alekseyenko, formerly involved in the Soviet nuclear testing program, according to a Sept. 28 news report.

Alekseyenko said weapon depots, shelters and fortifications were so strong that it is impossible to steal part of or an entire nuclear weapon.  In addition the depots are invulnerable to attack because they were designed to survive a 40-kiloton blast and to last for 500 years, he said (RIA, Sept. 28 in FBIS-SOV, Sept. 28).

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Pakistan: U.S. and Pakistani Officials Discuss Nuclear Arsenal Security

U.S. military and intelligence officials met with Pakistani officials last week to discuss how the United States could help to improve the security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and two nuclear plants (see GSN, Sept. 26).  The talks focused on how to protect nuclear weapons and create new restrictions on personnel handling the weapons. 

There are formal limitations on how much assistance the United States can offer.  One restriction is Pakistan’s refusal to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which prohibits transfers of nuclear technology to countries that have not signed the treaty.  U.S. law also imposes restrictions on sharing information about nuclear weapons with other countries. 

Many experts predict the United States will find ways around such obstacles and provide Pakistan with advice and technology to increase security at nuclear facilities, according to the New York Times.  The United States could even provide classified information, such as how to create devices to disable a stolen weapon. 

A number of U.S. officials and experts have expressed concern that Pakistan’s arsenal could be at risk from attack or control by radical forces in the country and military.  “The greatest risk is a fissure within Pakistan’s military caused by officers sympathetic to the Taliban,” said Gary Milhollin of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control (Douglas Frantz, New York Times, Oct. 1).

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf assured the world that Pakistan is a stable country with a secure nuclear arsenal.  “I am very, very sure that the command and control center that we have developed for ourselves is very, very secure … There is no chance of these assets falling into the hands of extremists,” he said, adding, “There is no destabilization within.  There is no opposition, no mass opposition, to me and my government” (CNN, Sept. 30).

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U.S. Use Policy: Biological Attack Deserves Nuclear Response, Says Kyl

The United States should respond to a terrorist chemical or biological weapons attack with nuclear weapons, said U.S. Senator John Kyl (R-Ariz.) last week (see GSN, Sept. 20).  “I can’t think of any other appropriate response in the case of a massive attack with biological weapons,” Kyl said. “We have to let them know nothing is off the table.” 

Kyl was not specific about potential targets for such a strike and said it would kill innocent civilians.  A biological weapons attack may have already happened (see GSN, Sept. 27), according to Kyl, and he said he expected terrorists to strike again against the United States during the next several months (Associated Press, Sept. 29).

Testing:  Bones From Dead Babies Used in Nuclear Tests in Britain

From the mid-1950s until 1970, the bones of thousands of dead babies in Britain were removed, without their parents’ consent, and tested for radioactive fallout.  The testing was part of a study on the effects of nuclear weapons testing, a spokesman for Britain's Atomic Energy Agency said yesterday. 

The study looked at the effect atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons was having on health.  Thigh bones from 3,400 dead infants were removed, incinerated and tested for levels of strontium-90, a radioactive isotope able to penetrate the body. British scientists were able to establish strontium-90 levels in children's bones had increased when atmospheric testing was prevalent.  Results from the tests may have contributed to Britain's 1963 ban on atmospheric testing, according to the Atomic Energy Agency. 

"The program was done for the best reasons," said Beth Taylor of the agency.  "It was the period when we were doing atmospheric testing of hydrogen bombs and there was quite a bit of concern about the dangers of nuclear fallout" (Alan Cowell, New York Times, Oct. 1).    

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U.S.-Russia:  Strategic Nuclear Talks Continue in Moscow

High-level U.S. and Russian officials met for unscheduled talks in Moscow Saturday to discuss strategic nuclear weapon reductions and missile defenses (see GSN, Sept, 25).  Returning through Moscow on his way from Uzbekistan, U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton met with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Georgy Mamedov (UPI, Sept. 29).

According to a Foreign Ministry statement, the two discussed “specific proposals for creating a new architecture of Russian-American strategic relations transmitted … [by] Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov (see GSN, Sept. 21) to senior Bush administration officials” in September (Foreign Ministry release, Sept. 29).

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Iran: Russian SAMs to Defend Bushehr?

Iran may be seeking Russian air defense missile systems to defend its nuclear facilities at Bushehr, according to analysts commenting on pending Iranian-Russian arms deals.  Arms talks between the two nations were scheduled to begin today in Moscow.

Russia suspended arms exports to Iran in 1995, but announced last year that it would resume sales.  U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton urged Russia to continue its moratorium when he visited Moscow last month (see GSN, Sept. 18), but Russia was finding it difficult to resist the potential $300 million a year that Iranian arms purchases would generate, experts said (Robert Cottrell, Financial Times, Sept. 30).

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British Fuel Cycle: Sellafield Could Start Up This Week

The United Kingdom could give a green light this week to British Nuclear Fuels to open a new nuclear fuel plant at Sellafield despite increased fears that the plant’s shipments are vulnerable to attack.  The plant, which produces nuclear fuel from reprocessed uranium and plutonium, was completed in 1996, but several rounds of government consultation have delayed its operation. 

Opponents to the mixed-oxide plant say that shipments of the fuel, sometimes overseas, are vulnerable to terrorist suicide attacks or theft.  BNFL Chairman Hugh Collum said the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States did not indicate that the plant’s cargo is more vulnerable.  The ships carrying nuclear fuel are usually armed and accompanied by another ship. 

The United States, which has a veto over the transport of nuclear materials originating from the plant, is likely to object to transporting the material internationally, according to the Guardian (Gow/Brown, Oct. 1). 

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Afghanistan: Taliban Has “Huge Stockpile” of Nuclear Weapons

The Taliban has nuclear weapons and is prepared to use them, according to a senior Taliban official in Islamabad in an interview in the London Sunday Mirror.

“We bought our nuclear weapons from the U.S.S.R. when it broke up.  We have a huge stockpile but I am forbidden from saying anything more.  It is top secret,” said Hafiz Hussain Ahmed.

“If the United States and Britain attack Afghanistan with nuclear weapons, we will respond with the same type of warfare,” Ahmed said.  “There are also Muslim-minded people in the West who have sworn they can provide us with the latest military technology.  If the war starts we can call upon unlimited resources from our network of supporters across the world.”

“This will be the Third World War,” Ahmed said (Dominic Turnbull, London Sunday Mirror, Sept. 30).

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North Korea: KEDO Delegation Leaves Pyongyang

A delegation from the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) left Pyongyang on Saturday after five days of talks.  KEDO spokesman Brian Kremer described the sessions as “routine meetings that we have throughout the year to discuss the implementation of light-water reactor project” (see GSN, Sept. 26).  Deputy Executive Directors Akira Nakajima and Kyu-Hyung Cho led the KEDO delegation (Greg Webb, GSN, Oct. 1).

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North Korea: Blame Belongs to United States

North Korea responded vigorously Saturday to last week’s International Atomic Energy Agency statement urging North Korea to cooperate with the IAEA’s efforts to verify the North’s nuclear holdings (see GSN, Sept. 24).

In an official statement, Pyongyang said, “If the IAEA conference wants to know who is to blame, it should first of all call the U.S. into question for being insincere in the implementation of the Agreed Framework.”

“If the U.S. had remained sincere in implementing the Agreed Framework, it would have been implemented to such a level as to enable the DPRK and the IAEA to start negotiations on verifying the accuracy and perfectness of the initial report on nuclear substance,” the statement said (KCNA, Sept. 29).

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