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As noted, Israel's policy of nuclear opacity—which is enforced by the Israeli government's Office of the Military Censor—disallows factual reporting on the country's nuclear infrastructure, facilities, as well as the organizational structure that runs them. Theoretical or hypothetical discussion of nuclear matters is allowed, but reporting of factual information is forbidden. This unique situation shapes the limits of public knowledge and discourse on nuclear weapons in Israel, resulting in virtually no public knowledge on any operational or organizational aspects of Israel's nuclear complex.
The Israeli governmental agency in charge of executing and managing the nation's nuclear activities is the Israel Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC). The IAEC is by far the most secretive and guarded agency of all Israeli state agencies. Virtually any factual aspect of the IAEC operations, including its overall budget, its organizational structure, its relations to other military and defense organizations, or even matters regarding to parliamentary oversight, is treated as classified. What is known is that the IAEC is directly subordinate to the prime minister (like the two other secret intelligence organizations, the Mossad and the General Security Service), and that the prime minister, as the chairman of the IAEC, appoints the director general of the IAEC and its senior officials.
The IAEC was founded secretly in 1952 (its existence was revealed in 1954) by Professor Ernst Bergmann, who was its chair until his resignation in 1966. Almost from its inception, the IAEC operated with a dual identity and a dual mission. In its public identity, the IAEC was presented as a coordinating and advisory scientific agency in the prime minister's office, composed of some of the nation's nuclear scientists, with a mission to guide and to coordinate Israel's commitment to be part of the global nuclear age. But this civil-scientific identity was largely a façade to shield the IAEC's true identity: a defense-related research unit. In its early days, the IAEC was the cover for a nuclear research unit within the Ministry of Defense, which was known in the 1950s as Machon 4. The budget for the operation of Machon 4 came directly from the Ministry of Defense, and was the ministry's largest expenditure.
According to Avner Cohen's Israel and the Bomb, the IAEC was marginalized and sidelined as Shimon Peres initiated the Dimona project in 1957. Peres thought that the IAEC under Bergmann was not capable of reconstructing something as large and as complex as the nuclear center at Dimona. Instead, Peres picked an army colonel, Manes Pratt, and authorized him to build Dimona; Pratt was accountable only to Peres, who was the political chief executive of the project. During the same period, Peres established the Armament Development Authority (known by the Hebrew acronym as RAFAEL) at the Ministry of Defense to be in charge of research/development of new weapons systems. But in 1965-66, as Peres resigned from the Ministry of Defense because of a political split within the governing party and as the Dimona infrastructure was completed, it became evident that Peres' modus operandi of managing the nuclear project via "divide and rule" was no longer appropriate for the project. There was a need to combine the two major dimensions of the project—production of fissile material and work on weaponization—into one central directorate, one headquarters. It was in response to these needs that the IAEC was restructured and reborn in 1966 under the executive leadership of Israel Dostrovsky. Prime Minister Eshkol appointed himself to be the chairman, and ever since, Israel's prime minister has also been, ex-officio, the chairman of IAEC.
Ever since this reorganization in 1966, the IAEC has maintained a certain dual identity. The IAEC is officially presented as the governmental agency, under the direct responsibility of the prime minister, that executes the nuclear policies of the government of Israel (policies that are never spelled out). As such, according to this official description, the IAEC has the responsibility to direct Israel's nuclear research via the two nuclear research centers that the IAEC operates. The IAEC is also the governmental body that is responsible for representing Israel in various international nuclear forums.
While details are publicly unknown, both Avner Cohen and Israeli journalist Aluf Benn have suggested that the IAEC is a cover for a highly classified scientific bureaucracy whose task is to manage Israel's nuclear weapons infrastructure. The jurisdiction of this nuclear directorate covers the entire nuclear weapons complex, which is a much larger jurisdiction than merely operating Israel's two nuclear research centers. According to Aluf Benn, most of the funds used to operate the IAEC research facilities comes from the Ministry of Defense.
Since 1993, the director-general of the IAEC has been Gideon Frank, an engineer by profession who over the years has become one of the most skillful Israeli bureaucrats. The Associate Director-General for Policy is Dr. Ariel L. Levite, a political scientist by training, who (prior to this appointment) was deputy National Security Advisor.
Under the IAEC, Israel operates two national nuclear research centers:
Hakirya Lemchkar Gariini Ba-Nnegev (KAMAG). Negev Nuclear Research Center is located some nine miles south of the town of Dimona. KAMAG is the official Hebrew acronym for what is known colloquially as the Dimona reactor, the largest and the most significant Israeli nuclear facility. It is also Israel's most guarded facility. According to Vanunu, 3,000-4,000 people are employed at the center.
The excavation at the Dimona site started in early 1958 and by early January 1964, the reactor started with its trial run. The question of the total output of the Dimona reactor has never been fully resolved; this uncertainty has great deal of baring as to the speculation about the size of the arsenal. In his statement, Ben-Gurion referred publicly to the reactor as a 24MW reactor, but later in informal discussions with the United States, Israeli officials told their US partners that the reactor was larger than previously believed, stating that the reactor had a capacity of 32 to 40MW. Furthermore, until the Vanunu testimony in 1986, it was an open question whether Israel had built a reprocessing plant in Dimona; after Vanunu's testimony, it became common knowledge that Israel had an underground reprocessing plant. Vanunu disclosed that in the late 1970s, Israel started to produce the thermonuclear-related component lithium deuteride. He also pointed out that Israel not only produced plutonium in Dimona but also produced highly enriched uranium (HEU).
Merkaz Kemechkar Gariini (MAMAG). The Soreq Nuclear Research Center is located about 35 miles south of Tel Aviv (towards Ashdod). The center was built in the late 1950s around the small, light water, swimming pool-type reactor, expandable to 5MW, that Israel had purchased from the United States. It is widely believed that the main function of MAMAG in recent years has been to conduct nuclear weapon research and design. The facility is much smaller than that in Dimona.
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Updated April 2004 |
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