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Testimony: North Korea’s Nuclear Program

By Gary Milhollin

Testimony of Gary Milhollin

Director, Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control

Before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations,
Subcommittee on East Asia and Pacific Affairs

November 25, 1991

I am pleased to have this opportunity to appear before the Senate Subcommittee on East Asia and Pacific Affairs, and to discuss the subject of North Korea’s nuclear program. I am a member of the University of Wisconsin Law School faculty and am director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control in Washington, D.C., a nonprofit organization dedicated to preventing the spread of nuclear weapons to developing nations.

I will address three points: First, how close is North Korea to making a nuclear weapon? Second, what are the risks the world faces if North Korea succeeds in its nuclear guest? Third, what can be done?

Since 1987, North Korea has been running a graphite-moderated reactor that produces plutonium in its spent uranium fuel. Plutonium is the nuclear explosive metal that the United States used to make the Nagasaki bomb. The reactor is near Yongbyon, about 50 miles north of Pyongyang. Its output is estimated at 30 megawatt thermal, so by now it would have produced somewhere betwe6n 18 and 36 kilograms of plutonium, enough for two to five bombs.1 The reactor does not seem intended for peaceful use. It is too big for research and too small for electricity production. North Korea already has a Soviet reactor for research, supplied in 1965, which has been upgraded from 2-4MWt to 8MWt. And recent North Korean defectors have identified a second site at Bak Chion as a nuclear weapon research facility.

North Korea is also building a larger reactor, estimated at 50-200MWt, also near Yongbyon. This reactor could produce enough plutonium for about two to ten bombs per year. Its distance from North Korea’s industrial belt and the absence of power lines disprove North Korean claims that it is intended for power production.

To produce a bomb core, the plutonium must be extracted from the existing reactor’s spent fuel by a sophisticated chemical process that must be carried out behind heavy shielding. It is reasonable to assume that North Korea has already extracted at least small amounts of plutonium on an experimental basis. This would have been done in a small-scale plant to gain the confidence needed to construct the larger plutonium extraction plant that has been built or is being built, also at Yongbyon.

It is unclear whether North Korea has extracted enough plutonium for a bomb, because it is unclear whether the large extraction plant is running, or how much plutonium might have been extracted in a smaller plant. Last summer I was told by an informed source that North Korea was operating a plutonium extraction plant. Upon inquiring at the State Department, I was told that the large plant was not operating and was not expected to operate for a year or more, and that my information was therefore incorrect. That was in July 1991. The State Department now says that it still has no evidence that the large extraction plant is operating, but cannot exclude the possibility that North Korea might be extracting plutonium at a secret site or that the large plant might be operating at a lower level of activity that would be difficult to detect.

To actually deploy a nuclear weapon, North Korea must design and build a workable implosion device that can cause the plutonium to explode in a chain reaction. There have been many reports of work on such a device, and of tests of components. It would be prudent to assume that as soon as North Korea produces the plutonium needed for a bomb–about six or seven kilograms– it will have an implosion device ready to receive it.

Thus, North Korea may be within months of assembling its first bomb, or within a year, or within two years, all depending on its progress in extracting plutonium. I urge the subcommittee to ask the government witnesses who will testify on this topic to state exactly what the government thinks the current status is.

What are the risks if North Korea succeeds in its nuclear weapon quest? The first, of course, is that North Korea will deploy nuclear weapons. If that happens, both South Korea and Japan would be forced to request a nuclear shield from the United States, or failing that, to make bombs themselves. The latter would create a new nuclear arms race in Asia just as the race in Europe is ending. No one wants to see a nuclear-armed South Korea or Japan.

The second risk is that North Korea could become a black-market supplier of nuclear weapon fuel. There is already one precedent for this. In the early 1980s, China supplied Pakistan a tested nuclear bomb design and enough high-enriched uranium to fuel it. Once North Korea’s larger reactor starts up, it will have nuclear weapon fuel to spare. North Korea has already sold nuclear-capable missiles to Iran, Libya and Syria. There is no reason to think that North Korea would shrink from selling nuclear weapon fuel, a nuclear weapon design, or even a nuclear weapon to anyone able to pay the price.

Bomb quantities of nuclear weapon fuel, secretly circulating among pariah states and possibly terrorists, are incompatible with urban civilization. Even one bomb in the wrong hands could force the evacuation of Washington, D.C. and other major cities. It is hard to feel secure if A-bomb fuel is available from a completely renegade seller.

So the issue comes down to what can be done now. There seem to be three options. The first is to do nothing effective, and watch North Korea develop nuclear weapons. The second is diplomacy–using economic and political sanctions to win compliance. The third is to take military action.

The Reagan and Bush administrations both followed the first option until now. The result has been a foreign policy disaster. The U.S. government has been smelling smoke in North Korea for almost a decade, but did nothing until the fire began licking at the door. Now, with bomb production imminent, the administration has suddenly declared a crisis and started making speeches, holding meetings, and calling the experts. This should have happened years ago, when there was still time to stop North Korea’s progress. North Korea’s large reactor started operating four years ago and was under construction for several years before that. North Korea has been refusing international inspection since 1985, despite its promise to allow inspection under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Now, North Korea may be so close to success that the second option, diplomacy, will not have time to work.

The Bush administration has belatedly begun to pursue this second option. In September, President Bush pledged to remove all short-range nuclear weapons from the peninsula,- and in mid-October he promised to remove the rest of the nuclear weapons stationed with U.S. forces. In addition, South Korean President No Tae Wu announced on November 8 that his nation would not “manufacture, possess, store, deploy or use nuclear weapons,” and he renounced plans to produce or possess any nuclear weapon-grade material. North Korea responded to all this by demanding that South Korea withdraw from the American nuclear umbrella– which can hardly be called a response.

A diplomatic victory would consist of this: North Korea would open all of its nuclear sites to international inspection, including challenge inspection, and would dismantle and promise not to construct any equipment that can make nuclear weapon material. This means dismantling the plutonium extraction plant at Yongbyon and any other extraction plant or uranium enrichment equipment that might exist elsewhere. Simply agreeing to accept the present version of safeguards applied by the International Atomic Energy Agency would not be enough. North Korea could advance to within weeks of a bomb under those safeguards legally, and could even make bombs illegally without getting caught.

The best chance to achieve this goal peacefully is to have the U.N. Security Council give North Korea a deadline for accepting full inspection. If North Korea does not respond, the Security Council should consider a trade embargo or even a blockade on shipping. Economic aid, diplomatic normalization, trade in oil and other basic supplies must all be put at stake.
If all else fails, one is left with the military option. All indications are that this would be costly. The North Korean army is strong; one cannot expect a replay of operation Desert Storm. South Korea has several nuclear reactors that could be attacked in retaliation for bombing North Korea’s reactors or its extraction plant. If this happened millions of persons would get large doses of radiation, possibly including some in Japan.

North Korea could also attack South Korean civilians with chemical-armed SCUD missiles.
It is vitally important to realize that the current situation was not inevitable. Only because our government failed to take effective action for so long are we forced to choose between watching a country cross the line to A-bomb making and starting a war to stop it. These are not decent alternatives. But they are the only choices left when one waits until the last minute to do anything.

This same pattern of procrastination and failure has plagued U.S. policies on Iraq, Libya and Algeria. The Reagan and Bush administrations refused to see Saddamis nuclear weapon ambition for what it was until the invasion of Kuwait. Instead of trying to deny Iraq high technology to build his mass-destruction arsenal, the U.S. government sold him what he wanted and looked the other way when other countries did the same.

During most of the 1980s, Libya was building a poison gas plant at Rabta. The administration complained feebly to the Germans, who were building it, but only declared a crisis when the plant was ready to start in 1989, which was already too late. The Libyans simply closed the plant for a while, and began producing again in early 1990 after global attention had shifted.

The case of Algeria is similar. For years, our government has known that China is building a dangerous reactor there, but the administration has turned a blind eye in favor of smooth relations with China, which is now helping Iran as well. When Algeria’s plutonium- and tritium-producing reactor is ready to operate, the same diminished options that are being discussed now will be rehashed.

Because of procrastination, the United States seems to have lost its best chance to stop the North Korean bomb, and is left with two miserable choices that no one wants.

U.S. Is Building Up a Picture of Vast Iraqi Atom Program

By Michael Wines

New York Times
Friday, September 27, 1991, p. A8.

Nuclear Skeletons in Iraq’s Closet

Following is a partial list of components of Iraq’s nuclear weapons program that were unknown before the Persian Gulf war and have since either been disclosed by Iraqi authorities or independently uncovered by inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency and the United Nations.

KNOWN OR REPORTED TO EXIST, BUT NOT YET FOUND

  • Foreign-made calutron parts and equipment needed to make them, including coil winders used to make large electromagnets. Calutrons are devices used to enrich uranium to make it suitable for use in weapons.
  • Foreign-made machine tools used to make gas centrifuges (stripped out of buildings to evade inspectors). The centrifuges are another device for enriching uranium.
  • Nuclear weapon parts described in documents found this week, including firing circuits, neutron initiators, shaped explosive charges, and foreign-made machine tools used to make them.
  • Identities of foreign suppliers of technical advice, steel, carbon fibers and machining equipment for building calutrons and gas centrifuges, and prospective suppliers of nuclear weapons and centrifuge parts.
  • Identity of Iraq’s chief nuclear scientist.
  • Materials needed to build a bomb, including, 1.2 tons of uranium tetrachloride, a chemical used in the calutron process of making enriched uranium; 96 tons of uranium oxide, used to make fuel for reactors and nuclear weapons; hundreds of tons of HMX, a high explosive used in detonating nuclear warheads; and quantities of uranium hexafluoride, a corrosive gas used to make enriched uranium.

ALREADY LOCATED

  • Three grams of plutonium, secretly produced at the Tuwaitha reactor in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
  • Small amounts of enriched uranium.
  • Ten foreign-made carbon-fiber rotors, used in advanced gas centrifuges, and 25 sheets of hard maraging steel shaped into crude centrifuge parts, six of which were imported.
  • Working calutrons, including a pilot project at Tuwaitha and a production line in Tarmiya.
  • Two carbon-fiber centrifuges that had been successfully tested.
  • A factory to make nuclear weapon cores at Al Atheer.

Source: Gary Milhollin, Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control

WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 — From spy satellites, defectors and United Nations inspections, the Bush Administration has assembled the outline of an Iraqi nuclear-weapons program that is far grander and more sophisticated than first suspected and that President Saddam Hussein is still working to shield from destruction, officials say.

Government and private experts who have reviewed that outline estimated today that the Iraqi program employed 10,000 or more scientists, technicians and other workers. They said it consumed billions of dollars in the 1980’s, when Iraq was struggling for survival in a war with Iran.

Much of the program’s bricks-and-mortar base was damaged or destroyed in the Persian Gulf war. But officials said other key materials and equipment survived the air attacks and are now being hidden from inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency who are in Iraq under a United Nations mandate.

More important, they said, Iraq’s formidable corps of nuclear scientists, engineers and weapons experts escaped the war virtually unharmed and could be reassembled at will should outside inspections end and global trade sanctions against Iraq be lifted.

“What we’ve found is that Iraq now has the largest technical and scientific base in the Middle East,” said Ahmed Hashim, a Washington-based consultant on Middle Eastern affairs and expert on Iraq’s military. “I’d say Israel’s is qualitatively better, but in terms of numbers, Iraq is the largest.”

Mr. Hashim, a physicist, estimated that the Iraqis might well have exploded a reasonably sophisticated nuclear weapon by 1993 or 1994 and detonated a hydrogen bomb several years later had the gulf war not cut short their plans.

Other Government experts have conceded that Iraq’s nuclear effort was far more advanced than was depicted last year by American intelligence analysts. Those analysts said then that Iraq might have produced a single crude atomic device in less than a year under a crash program, but that it was 5 to 10 years away from being able to produce more weapons, assembly-line style.

The Administration outline indicates that Iraq has employed not one, but four separate technologies in an all-out effort to manufacture plutonium and enriched uranium, either of which can form the core of an atomic bomb. It also shows that Iraq’s program has received substantial outside help, although the identities of several foreign companies or governments involved in the program remain unknown.

Seized Iraqi records and United Nations inspections show that the weapons program imported highly sensitive and restricted technologies. Among them were carbon-fiber rotors used in high-speed uranium gas centrifuges, and super-hard maraging steel that can be used both in centrifuges and in a bomb itself.

Administration officials said that Iraqi Government documents found this week by an inspection team from the Atomic Energy Agency may hold a master list of foreign suppliers. Although the team and the documents remain trapped in a Baghdad parking lot, at least some information or copies of the documents have been passed to officials at the United Nations or the atomic energy agency, an Administration official said today.

That official, like other Government experts interviewed, spoke on condition that he not be identified.

A senior Pentagon official said today that the inspection team in Iraq singled out the Baghdad office building and the actual room where Iraqi nuclear documents were being stored after being given a tip from a recent defector. The existence of the defector was first reported by CBS News.

At Least Three Defect

That defector is one of at least three Iraqi officials with detailed knowledge of the nuclear program who have fled to allied intelligence agencies since the war ended on Feb. 28, the Pentagon official said.

The first defector, an engineer who remains unidentified, disclosed that broad sections of the Iraqi nuclear-weapons project had escaped bombardment and that other key parts had almost entirely escaped detection. Among them were a vast assembly of electromagnetic devices that were already prepared to start producing enriched, bomb-grade enriched uranium.

American analysts had discounted the possibility that Iraq was using calutrons because they were judged inefficient and slow when the United States employed them in the 1940’s to produce the cores of the first atom bombs. Most experts had concluded that Iraq was seeking to enrich its uranium through the use of delicate, fast-spinning centrifuges that separate the heavier and lighter isotopes of uranium gas.

Inspectors and intelligence agencies have since learned that the Iraqis were pursuing both routes. Scientists had improved the electromagnetic separation process and built three sites for testing and production of enriched uranium, inspectors have concluded.

Moreover, Iraq also was studying the production of bomb-grade uranium by a third, method, called thermal diffusion, and had secretly produced a minute amount of plutonium by cheating on international inspection safeguards at its experimental nuclear reactor in Tuwaitha. Inspectors from the atomic energy agency discovered the plutonium last month.

Administration officials said today that Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs, all mandated for destruction under the terms of a cease-fire dictated to Iraq at the close of the war, are currently dormant. But official said that Iraq still maintains the potential and the desire to rebuild its program.

Satellite photographs show that the Baghdad Government is actively seeking to hide weapons and equipment from United Nations inspectors, loading them aboard trucks that are moved each night, storing them in garages and, by one account, even burying chemical weapons containers in graveyards.

Keeping the Lid on Nuclear Arms

By Gary Milhollin and Jennifer Weeks

New Scientist
August 17, 1991, p. 26-30

In an historic accord last November, Argentina and Brazil agreed not to produce nuclear weapons and pledged to open their secret nuclear sites to mutual inspections. The accord. the first by two developing countries that are not signatories to the 1970 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, sets a powerful precedent for other areas where the prospect of the spread of nuclear weapons is amplifying local tensions. The agreement suggests that non-NPT countries can move towards international safeguards without sacrificing national pride or autonomy. Pakistan hailed the agreement as a potential model for future negotiations with India, and Israel has shown interest in Latin American arms-control techniques as a model for the Middle East.

But however good the intentions, formidable obstacles have still to be overcome before the agreement is implemented. In particular, it is proving difficult to establish an independent inspection system, one of the most important steps in convincing the world of the two countries’ commitment after decades of clandestine operations. Neither Argentina nor Brazil has so far agreed to accept unconditionally verification on the scale required by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is charged by the United Nations with ensuring that nuclear material for civilian purposes is not diverted to military uses. Next month the two countries will sit down with the IAEA for the fifth round of a series of negotiations to try to agree on a foolproof verification method. IAEA officials are optimistic that both countries will eventually accept thorough inspections of their nuclear facilities.

The governments of the two countries face considerable opposition from their armed forces, which want to keep the military options open. Last November’s accord, signed at the border city of Foz do Iguacu, followed a spectacular revelation the previous month by Brazil’s secretary of science and technology, Jose Goldemberg. For 15 years, he disclosed, the Brazilian military establishment had mounted a covert effort to make nuclear weapons. Called the “parallel” programme, it secretly paralleled the civilian nuclear power programme under which Brazil was openly importing technology from West Germany. Brazil’s previous governments had denied the parallel programme’s existence, even after the country returned to civilian rule in 1985 and began improving relations with its neighbour. Argentina, too, had secretly built a uranium enrichment plant suitable for a nuclear weapons programme.

Argentina and Brazil have mounted civil nu-clear power programmes built on imports, but technical snags and lack of money have plagued them both. Argentina’s two power reactors, which have a total capacity of less than 1000 megawatts, have not run reliably, and Brazil’s single 600-megawatt reactor breaks down so often it has been dubbed “the firefly”. More reactors are planned and being built, but budget cuts are forcing the two countries to reconsider their options. The Foz do Iguacu agreement appears to be part of a reappraisal of commitments to nuclear energy.

Two projects from Brazil’s parallel programme have attracted particular attention: the Aramar uranium enrichment plant at Ipero, operated by the navy, and the army’s plans to build a nuclear reactor for producing plutonium. For military use, 5 kilograms of plutonium is as effective as 15 to 20 kilo-grams of uranium, which means that plutonium bombs can be lighter or more powerful than uranium ones. According to Goldemberg, the army has scaled down the reactor from its original rating of 20 megawatts to 2 megawatts. reducing its capacity for plutonium production from one bomb’s worth, or 5 kilograms a year. to I kilogram, which is hardly enough for serious nuclear weapons manufacturing. But Brazilian critics, including Social Democrats in the legislature. say that the army should not he doing such work at all. None of the exotic uses suggested for the plutonium, including nuclear-powered satellites and buoys, and fast breeder reactors, appears feasible or relevant to Brazil’s energy or security needs.

Criticism of the Aramar plant focuses on plans to give it the capability to produce enough uranium to fuel 20 Hiroshima-sized bombs a year by 1996. Aramar will have 958 centrifuges by the end of this year, according to its director Rear Admiral Othon Luiz Pinheiro da Silva. enough to fuel about one bomb every three years. But the navy wants to spend more than $300 million to boost the plant’s output by a factor of 50 within the next five years. A budget proposal strongly supports the navy’s goal.

Aramar’s centrifuges spin uranium hexafluoride gas at high speed to separate the heavier uranium-238 isotope. which is stable, from the lighter uranium-235 isotope, which is unstable and produces the neutrons that sustain the chain reaction in a nuclear fission bomb. This enrichment increases the concentration of fissile uranium-235 from the natural level of 0.7 per cent to as much as 93 per cent, the strength generally used for nuclear weapons.

Navy officials say that Aramar’s purpose is to give Brazil the capability to produce its own supply of partially enriched uranium (less than five per cent uranium-235) to fuel power reactors. They add that the plant will also produce the fuel for Brazil’s planned nuclear-propelled submarines, which would require uranium enriched to anywhere between 7 and 93 per cent. Though the navy could buy reactor fuel more cheaply on the world market, it can plausibly claim that Brazil should aim for self-sufficiency in strategic materials.

It is less easy to excuse the navy’s desire for the submarines themselves. Since a British nuclear submarine sank the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano during the South Atlantic war of 1982, both Argentina and Brazil have viewed nuclear-powered submarines as crucial for maritime defence. But the main advantage of nuclear submarines over diesel-powered vessels is their ability to travel at sea for long periods, a feature more suited to strategic nuclear deterrence. In The Lessons of Modern War, published last year by Westview Press, American military analysts Anthony Cordesman and Abraham Wagner observe that Argentina’s single diesel submarine effectively harassed the superior British navy during the conflict.

On the Argentine side, the most threatening project is a gaseous-diffusion enrichment plant at Pilcaniyeu, near the border with Chile. The diffusion process passes uranium hexafluoride gas through porous membranes that are more readily penetrated by uranium-235 than by uranium-238. Diffusion is technically simpler than enrichment using centrifuges but requires more energy. Operating at its projected capacity, the Pilcaniyeu plant would be capable of fuelling about four nuclear weapons per year. Budget cuts seemed to have delayed its completion, however.

Argentina’s other sensitive project, a pilot-scale plutonium extraction plant at Ezeiza in Buenos Aires, was put on indefinite hold in March 1990, also for lack of funds. Its planned capacity would allow Argentina to extract 15 kilograms of plutonium per year—enough for two to three bombs—from the spent fuel produced by the German-supplied Atucha-I power reactor north-west of Buenos Aires, and the Canadian-supplied Embalse power reactor at Rio Tercero in the centre of the country. Germany or Canada would have to approve the extraction, however, because both countries reserved this right in their sales contracts.

The November accord thus came at a critical moment. Simply by spending more money on existing programmes, both Brazil and Argentina could soon have begun producing material suitable for building a nuclear weapons arsenal.

The two countries have also been willing to sell dangerous technology to other developing nations. From 1984 to 1990, Argentina sponsored the Condor II medium-range missile project jointly with Egypt and Iraq. using a network of companies established in Europe to provide the necessary equipment. Pressure from the US forced Argentina to withdraw from the project early last year. Similarly, international pressure forced a team of Brazilian engineers to leave Iraq late last year. during the Gulf crisis. The Brazilians had been teaching Iraqi rocket scientists how to extend the range of their Scud missiles and how to build a rocket launcher to put satellites in space.

Brazil also seems to have been involved in the development of Iraq’s nuclear weapons programme. Last year, two former Brazilian government ministers told the national newspaper Jornal do Brasil that Brazil sold natural uranium to Iraq in the early 1980s. helped Iraq prospect for uranium de-posits. analysed samples of Iraqi uranium, supplied nuclear material and equipment for laboratory tests. and designed an Buenos An’ Aires underground plant to produce the uranium dioxide used to make uranium hexatluoride for enrichment.

It is even possible that Brazil taught Iraqi engineers how to run centrifuges. Several Iraqi technical teams visited Brazil during the 1980s, and at least one had access to the Aramar enrichment plant. In 1990, the contract manager of the Brazilian firm that designed Iraq’s uranium dioxide plant told Jornal do Brasil: “It was always in our minds that the real objective of the Iraqi nuclear programme was to construct an atomic bomb.” Although neither Brazil nor Argentina is a party to the NPT, and so has not flouted an international commitment, Fernando Collor de Mello, president of Brazil, apologised late last year for the technology transfer that he described as “potentially significant”. Iraq is a signatory of the NPT, though for political and commerical reasons its suspected development of a nuclear weapons programme went unchallenged until the invasion of Kuwait.

Developing friendship

The November accord between Argentina and Brazil follows a decade of improving relations between the two countries—after years of competition for political and economic influence in South America. An agreement in 1979 on development and border issues in the Plata basin opened the way to a series of nuclear agreements in the 1980s. First came technical cooperation, then reciprocal ceremonial visits to sensitive plants and, finally, the beginnings of a mutual inspection system. According to John Redick, a specialist in Latin American nuclear politics at the University of Virginia: “The Foz, do Iguacu agreement only makes sense in the context of broader economic cooperation. Without the economic ties, the nuclear agreement doesn’t mean a lot.”

Argentina and Brazil have pledged to set up a common accounting and control system for nuclear material: exchange lists of all their plants and materials: submit their accounting system to the IAEA: and permit reciprocal inspections. The first three steps were carried out by mid-December, says Goldemberg. The two countries also promised to allow the IAEA to inspect their nuclear sites. In addition, they agreed to conform to the terms of the Treaty of Tlatelolco, which bans nuclear weapons from Latin America and has been signed and ratified by every other country in the region except Cuba and Chile.

According to the IAEA, it is still unclear exactly what kind of inspection the two countries will propose. or what degree of intrusion they will accept. The most open and comprehensive form of inspection system, enshrined in the NPT and the Treaty of Tlatelolco, encompasses what the IAEA calls “full-scope safeguards”, which entail monitoring all nuclear facilities and materials, whether imported or domestic. But not even all parties to the NPT accept such a degree of intrusion because the treaty operates a two-tier system that distinguishes between countries that have nuclear weapons and those that do not. The full-scope safe-guards are applied only to countries that do not already have nuclear weapons, a distinction that Argentina and Brazil have rejected as discriminatory.

In December last year, a Brazilian congressional committee investigating the implications of the ac-cord voted against allowing the IAEA into Brazil’s ground nuclear research sites. The committee, with the support of the military establishment, wants the monitoring done by an internal commission responsible only to the Brazilian congress. In response, Goldemberg has eschewed the term “full-scope safeguards” and called instead for “very comprehensive” inspections. In Argentina, some officials are reluctant to grant access to all parts of the Pilcaniyeu enrichment plant. They say they want to protect technical information.

If the IAEA is allowed only to review the results of a bilateral accounting system, without being able to make its own independent inspection, there can be no confidence that all nuclear material will be accounted for. For a start, the two countries have no plans to use seals, cameras, or other electronic detection methods to prevent tampering between visits, as the IAEA does (“Arms and the ban”, New Scientist, 29 July 1989). Bilateral inspections would also be vulnerable to simple changes of heart: either country could stop cooperating at any time, either for military reasons or because of friction between them. An agreement with the IAEA, however, would be an international obligation. Breaching the agreement would expose the non-cooperating country to censure by the UN.

Since May, however, the IAEA has been discussing a “comprehensive” safeguards agreement with the two countries and says it expects full-scope standards to be accepted eventually. But before any kind of inspection can begin, it will be necessary to account for the nuclear material each country has already produced, starting with a beginning balance. The last point is crucial, because both countries have been running secret plants with unknown outputs. To calculate what Pilcaniyeu and Aramar have already made, inspectors will need records such as the history of each plant’s production levels, the raw materials used, energy consumption and waste produced.

Clandestine imports will also have to be disclosed. For in-stance, in the early 1980s, China secretly sold Argentina about 70 tonnes of heavy water without imposing any restrictions on how the material could be used. Heavy water (deuterium oxide) is used to sustain a chain reaction in reactors that use natural rather than enriched uranium fuel. China also sold Brazil about 200 kilograms of uranium enriched to a concentration of 3, 7 and 20 per cent uranium-235, again without imposing any restrictions on its use.

Most of these inspection questions would be solved if both countries conformed to the Treaty of Tlatelolco, which they have signed but not implemented in full. But even the treaty has some loopholes, such as allowing “peaceful nuclear explosions”. Most parties to the treaty regard such explosions as indistinguishable from nuclear weapon tests and therefore barred, but until late last year Argentina and Brazil were not prepared to go along with this view.

Another loophole in the treaty is that, in defining nuclear weapons, it states that an instrument “used for the transport or propulsion of [a nuclear weapon] is not included . . . if it is separable from the device”. This could be interpreted as exempting submarine reactor fuel from inspection. The NPT has a similar loophole: it allows enriched uranium to be withdrawn from inspection for “non-proscribed military purposes”, which has been interpreted to include submarine fuel. Goldemberg has promised that submarine fuel will be included in inspections, but the Brazilian navy may resist this to maintain politically sanctioned access to enriched uranium.

Pressure from the countries that supply Argentina and Brazil with their nuclear equipment and materials helped to forge the November accord. Germany, a key nuclear supplier to both countries, announced earlier in 1990 that it would stop exporting to countries that did not accept full-scope safeguards. Canada, another important supplier, has had such a policy for years. And the United States was holding up the sale of a much desired IBM supercomputer to Brazil because of reports in the international press that Brazil was helping Iraq develop ballistic missiles.

Some US government officials say privately that they regard both Collor and Carlos Menem, president of Argentina, as sincere in their plans to renounce nuclear weapons. The questions are whether the two presidents can carry out this pledge, and whether the Foz do Iguacu agreement will out-last the governments that signed it. Redick says that the Brazilian air force includes “a maverick group that planned to go the Indian route and test a bomb in a supposedly peaceful nuclear explosion”.

A prudent course for supplier countries would be to reward Argentina and Brazil with non-nuclear benefits in the short term, but to withhold the more sensitive exports until the two countries put all nuclear facilities under civilian control, reveal their entire nuclear inventories, set up a thorough inspection system, and pledge publicly to stop making dangerous exports. Canada has set the tone: despite its desire to sell Argentina a fourth power reactor, the Canadian government has said that its reaction to the Foz do Iguacu agreement will depend on “the nature and scope of agreements to be negotiated with the IAEA and any changes proposed for the Tlatelolco Treaty”.

Unfortunately, the US has not followed Canada’s lead. President George Bush approved the export of the IBM supercomputer in December, overriding concern in the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, the Department of Energy and Congress that the machine would boost Brazil’s ability to design nuclear missiles. To complicate matters, Brazil then refused to guarantee that it would not use the computer for military projects or re-export the machine to another country.

In arms control as elsewhere, actions speak louder than words. Full “nuclear transparency” and a thorough, reliable inspection system are musts for international confidence in the November accord. Implemented properly, the Foz de Iguacu agreement could reach around the world.

Gary Milhollin is professor of law at the University of Wisconsin and director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, Washington DC. Jennifer Weeks, a former researcher with the Wisconsin Project, is now military policy analyst with the Arms Control and Foreign Policy Caucus of the US Congress.

Maybe Saddam Did the World a Favor

By Gary Milhollin and Gerard White

International Herald Tribune
Wednesday, August 14, 1991, p. 4

WASHINGTON — For the fourth time since the Gulf war, a pack of sleuthhounds from the United Nations is in Iraq trying to sniff out Saddam Hussein’s cache of nuclear treasure. Previous UN teams discovered that Iraq was only a few years from building a nuclear arsenal and had managed to hide bomb factories from international inspectors before the war. Unless atomic detection improves, America’s next conflict with a regional power could be nuclear.

As a UN official put it, “Inspecting Iraq has been like peeling an onion.” The first layer, weapons-grade fuel, has been removed from Iraq’s control or is trapped under rubble. The next layer, equipment needed to make the fuel, has been largely destroyed or buried by the Iraqi army, which wanted to erase clues to a deeper layer: machines and factories needed to make the fuel-making equipment.

The United Nations now has a chance to destroy this in Iraq, but is unable to destroy it in any other country that is quietly making the bomb. Therein lies the problem.

By signing the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Saddam Hussein was obligated not to make nuclear weapons and to open his sites to inspectors. But inspections were limited to what Iraq itself declared.

More aggressive inspections would have found Iraq’s calutrons, machines that concentrate the uranium isotope that produces nuclear fission. Iraq had prepared sites to run hundreds of calutrons, enough to fuel a small nuclear arsenal in less than five years. It even ran six experimental calutrons at a site near Baghdad where inspectors had gone for more than a decade and issued clean bills of health. Iraq would be running the calutrons today if it had not invaded Kuwait.

Since the Gulf war, UN inspectors armed with U.S. intelligence reports and backed by military threats have gamed admission to any suspected site in Iraq. This has paralyzed Iraq’s nuclear manufacturing base. More of the same will be needed to keep Iraq in check and to monitor other countries trying to make nuclear weapons.

The United States should now advocate Iraq-type inspections everywhere, an idea that the International Atomic Energy Agency favors. A good starting point would be South Africa, which has just signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and is suspected of hiding nuclear weapons.

America should improve its intelligence on developing countries. In the post-Cold War era, a dollar spent for intelligence on the Third World will buy more security than a dollar spent on “star wars” or the B-2 bomber.

At long last, Saddam Hussein maybe doing the world a favor. His country is now a giant laboratory for nuclear sleuthing experiments. Early results show that the old formula for stopping proliferation did not work. But a new one might.

Stop the Nuclear Threat at the Source

By Gary Milhollin and Gerard White

The New York Times
Saturday, August 10, 1991, p. A19

WASHINGTON — For the fourth time since the gulf war, a pack of sleuthhounds from the United Nations is in Iraq trying to sniff out Saddam Hussein’s remaining cache of nuclear treasure. Previous U.N. teams discovered that Iraq was only a few years from building a nuclear arsenal and had managed to hide bomb factories from international inspectors before the war. Unless atomic detection improves, America’s next conflict with a regional power could be nuclear.

“Inspecting Iraq has been like peeling an onion,” says one U.N. official. The first layer, Iraq’s weapons-grade fuel, has been removed from Iraq’s control or is trapped under rubble. The next layer, the equipment needed to make the fuel, has been largely destroyed or buried by the Iraqi Army. The army wanted to erase clues to a deeper layer — the machines and factories needed to make the fuel-making equipment. The U.N. now has a chance to destroy this in Iraq, but is unable to destroy it in any other country that is quietly making the bomb. Therein lies the problem.

By signing the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Mr. Hussein was obligated not to make nuclear weapons and to open his sites to inspectors. But inspections were limited to what Iraq itself declared, and inspectors had no authority to took for secret sites. This allowed Iraq to masquerade as a treaty supporter while secretly making bombs.

More aggressive inspection would have found Iraq’s calutrons, machines that concentrate the uranium isotope that produces nuclear fission. Iraq had prepared secret sites to run hundreds of calutrons, enough to fuel a small nuclear arsenal in lest than five years. It even ran six experimental calutrons at a site near Baghdad, where inspectors had gone for over a decade and issued clean bills of health. Iraq would be running the calutrons today if it had not invaded Kuwait.

Since the gulf war, U.N. inspectors armed with U.S. intelligence reports and backed by military threats have gained admission to any suspected site in Iraq. This has effectively uncovered and paralyzed Iraq’s nuclear manufacturing base. More of the same will be needed to keep Iraq in check and to monitor other countries trying to make nuclear weapons.

The U.S. and the Soviet Union already require a high level of intrusion under the intermediate-range nuclear forces agreement. The two countries can examine each other’s missile sites within hours of making the demand. They also have intelligence from satellites, listening posts, radar and specialists, U.N. inspectors need the same type, of access and level of technical support — probably more. Missing a handful of missiles in the US or Soviet arsenal is barely significant; missing the only nuclear warheads in a hostile developing country threatens world security.

The United States should now advocate Iraq-type inspections everywhere, an idea the International Atomic Energy Agency favors. A good starting point would be South Africa, which has just signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and is suspected of hiding nuclear weapons. The US, Soviet Union and others should furnish data on suspected nuclear sites. In addition, America should improve its intelligence on developing countries. In the post-cold-war era, a dollar spent for intelligence on the third world will buy more security than a dollar spent on “Star Wars” or the B-2 bomber.

Inspection results should be made public. The inspectors now in Iraq should name the sources and makers of the machines they find. The U.N. already has a list of Iraq’s chemical suppliers, but refuses to give it out. Unless the suppliers are named and the technology cut off, Iraq will simply resume its secret programs when it starts selling oil again.

At long last, Saddam Hussein maybe doing the world a favor. His country is now a giant laboratory for nuclear sleuthing experiments. The early results show that the old formula for stopping proliferation didn’t work, but that a new one might.

Exports and Terrorism: U.S. Export Licenses to Iran and Syria: 1986-1990

By Gary Milhollin

From 1986 to 1990, the U-S. Commerce Department approved over $300 million worth of sensitive American exports to Iran and Syria. Most of these were “dual-use” items, capable of making nuclear weapons or long-range missiles if diverted from their claimed civilian purposes. The record of these exports, compiled from Commerce Department data, has just become available. Three hundred seventy two exports worth over $282 million were approved to Iran, and 129 exports worth over $23 million were approved to Syria.

These approvals were made in spite of the U-S. policy against international terrorism. Iran and Syria have both been implicated in the bombing of Pan American Flight 103, which sent 270 persons to their deaths at Lockerbie, Scotland. To combat these countries’ support for such terrorist acts, Congress put Iran and Syria on a special “terrorism list” under U.S. export law. From 1986 to 1990, the U.S. Export Administration Regulations (Section 785-4) provided that an enumerated list of sensitive, high-technology items “would generally be denied” to both countries.

In spite of this denial rule, millions of dollars worth of these exports were approved. The Commerce Department records reveal why some of the approvals were made, but by no means explain them all. Some were made because of loopholes in the anti-terrorism regulations; others because of an informal practice of servicing U-S.-origin goods abroad. Still others, however, seem to have been made because the regulations were ignored.

To read the complete report, click here:  Exports and Terrorism: U.S. Export Licenses to Iran and Syria: 1986-1990

Military Exports to Iraq Come Under Scrutiny

By Clyde H. Farnsworth

The New York Times
June 25, 1991 p. A11

WASHINGTON, June 23 — The Commerce Department has started an internal investigation of charges that officials of the agency altered documents related to the export of militarily useful technology to Iraq so that the material would appear less incriminating when examined by a Congressional committee, Congressional aides say.

The investigation, which is being undertaken by the department’s Inspector General, came to light as a Washington public policy group provided examples of discrepancies between the Commerce Department’s internal export control documents and those it presented to Congress and the public.

The disclosures are likely to fire still more debate over the Bush Administration’s permissive general export policies toward Iraq up until just before President Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait last August. Democrats have pointed to the shift as a sign of a weak, inconsistent and unpredictable foreign policy.

The disclosures related to a report presented to Congress last March 11 listing export licenses the Administration approved for Iraq between 1985 and 1990. The total value of the goods that received approval was $1.5 billion, of which $500 million was shipped.

Discrepancies in Reports

The public policy group, the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, which tracks the spread of nuclear weapons to developing countries, analyzed the list and found discrepancies between internal documents and those presented to the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Consumer and Monetary Affairs.

Government agencies routinely edit documents that are meant for the public. In this case, however, the editing gave an impression that the Commerce Department was not completely forthcoming with Congress.

For example, an internal document obtained by the Wisconsin group showed approval of a sale of $139,535 of equipment for calibrating, adjusting and testing surveillance radar. The equipment was ordered from the Hewlett-Packard Company of Palo Alto, Calif.

The internal document identified the buyer as the “Salah al-Din” Establishment and said “according to our information the end-user is involved in military matters.” But the report that was released to the public and Congress did not identify the American seller or provide a description of the buyer.

According to intelligence officials, Salah al-Din was a state enterprise building military radar for Saad 16, one of Iraq’s centers for missile development

Gary Milhollin, the Wisconsin group’s director, said it was “not surprising that Commerce concealed this knowledge from the public.”

He asserted that the volume of militarily useful exports to Iraq is an indication that the Government’s export control machinery “has broken down.”

State Department Blamed

Mildred Cooper, a spokeswoman for the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Export Administration, would not comment on any editing of public documents, except to note that the Export Administration Act bars disclosure to the public of proprietary information, including the name of an applicant for an export license.

Dennis E. Kloske, the Under Secretary of Commerce for Export Administration, resigned this year after telling Congress that the Administration had ignored warnings about exporting to Iraq.

But he placed the blame on the State Department, which he said overruled many of the Commerce Department’s objections to specific export licenses in hopes of keeping diplomatic lines open.

Theodore J Jacobs, the chief counsel of the House commerce and consumer subcommittee, said he would withhold comment on any editing of reports until the Department’s Inspector General made his finding. “I think the general view is that Commerce was following policies of the United States Government,” he said.

But the panel’s chairman, Representative Doug Barnard Jr., Democrat of Georgia, has said the panel would issue a report this week on ways to revamp the export control system.

US-approved exports may have aided Iraqi army, says report

By Alan Friedman

Financial Times
June 20, 1991, p. 18

The US government approved exports to Iraq between 1987 and 1989 that may have helped Baghdad improve its weapons capabilities, according to a study by a Washington-based nuclear weapons expert.

Key areas that could have benefitted included increasing the range of Iraqi Scud missiles, improvements to anti-aircraft radar systems and enabling testing to be carried out at a nuclear weapons design laboratory.

Professor Gary Milhollin’s report which makes use of both publicly available and confidential Commerce Department records, details militarily useful US exports in those years that were part of $1.5bn of equipment and technology approved for export to Iraq between 1985 and 1990.

The Bush administration released a list of these exports three months ago. A senior Commerce Department official admitted at the time that up to six of the 771 export licences issued in the 1985-1987 period would have been banned by the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), a seven-nation agreement unveiled in April 1987. He said the “lack of specificity” in export regulations made it difficult to stop some shipments.

Prof. Milhollin made public yesterday a confidential copy of some of the export licence records. He said his analysis showed “that US export controls suffered a massive breakdown in the period preceding the Gulf war”. The Commerce Department last night declined to comment on the report.

The report cites an export licence approved in November 1989 for $140,000 of frequency synthesisers made by Hewlett Packard that can be used in in radar systems. When the Commerce Department made its list public in March it described the equipment as not restricted by export controls, although it said the export was destined for the Salah al-Din establishment, one of Iraq’s key military electronics factories.

A copy of the same Hewlett Packard export licence entry from the records prepared for internal use at the Commerce Department states that “according to our information the end-user is involved in military matters”. The entry said the products would be used “in calibrating, adjusting and testing” a surveillance radar system.

Prof. Milhollin claimed yesterday the Commerce Department deleted this statement before it made public the export list in March.

Study: Commerce Dept. aided Iraqi arms buildup

By Christopher Drew

Chicago Tribune
June 20, 1991

WASHINGTON—The Commerce Department helped Saddam Hussein build his war machine in the late 1980s by approving the sale of millions of dollars of sensitive U.S. technology to military agencies and research centers in Iraq, according to a study released Wednesday.

The equipment ranged from advanced computers to precision machine tools, and the buyers included entities that US intelligence officials knew were involved in Iraqi efforts to develop nuclear weapons and missiles like the Scuds fired at Israel and Saudi Arabia in the Persian Gulf war.

Yet the Commerce Department approved some of the technology sales without consulting the Defense, State or Energy Departments, as required under federal rules, the study contended.

The study was prepared by the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, an affiliate of the University of Wisconsin Law School, which examined documents relating to the Commerce Department’s approval of 771 licenses for the export of $1.5 billion worth of goods to Iraq from 1985 through 1990. All of the items were “dual-use” products, those that could have either civilian or military applications.

Only $500 million of the $1.5 billion worth of goods were delivered to Baghdad, because some contracts fell through and sanctions were imposed after Iraq invaded Kuwait last August.

Several congressional committees also are reviewing the sales, and a number of critics share the Wisconsin group’s conclusion that the licensing system “suffered a massive breakdown in the period preceding the gulf war.” They suggest speedy reforms before the US inadvertently helps to arm another potentially hostile dictator.

Some critics see the main problem as a conflict between the Commerce Department’s twin roles as the government’s chief trade-promotion agency and as a regulator.

In its report, the Wisconsin group cited a number of sales that it said the Commerce Department could have blocked under regulations specifically designed to prevent other countries from using American technology to develop nuclear weapons or ballistic missiles.

In early 1988, for instance, the department granted licenses to a German company to ship $1.4 million worth of US machine tools and lasers to Iraq, even though the application said the tools and lasers were to be used for “general military repair applications such as jet engines, rocket cases, etc.”

About that time, Commerce officials also authorized the sale of more than $2 million worth of quartz crystals to Iraqi trading companies that said they wanted to use them as “components in a ground radar system,” the Wisconsin group said.

And in late 1989, Commerce officials allowed one of the Iraqi firms to buy frequency synthesizers valued at $140,000 to “calibrate, adjust and test surveillance radar,” the report said.

The study said the Commerce Department did not consult with the State Department, as required in federal regulations, before approving either of the radar-related sales.

Commerce Department officials declined Wednesday to discuss the Wisconsin group’s findings. But they contended in a written statement that “all licenses to Iraq were decided in accordance with export control policies then in effect” and coordinated with other US agencies “to the extent possible.”

Some department officials also have said they had no authority to block most of the sales after the State Department dropped Iraq from a watch list of countries supporting terrorism in 1982.

One former Pentagon official, Stephen Bryen, told a House subcommittee recently that the Commerce Department repeatedly tried to prevent his office from reviewing sensitive export license applications during the 1980s.

“Obviously, there is something wrong in a system where, despite clear-cut evidence, the agency with supervisory, legal responsibility to regulate sensitive exports is, in fact, doing everything it can to promote exports and to neutralize those in the government who object,” Bryen said.

A former top Commerce Department official, Dennis Kloske, also has testified that he tried to snarl some of the sales to Iraq “in red tape” after he failed early in 1990 to make his concern about them ”clear at the very highest levels” of the Bush administration.

The Wisconsin report also contended that Commerce officials ignored a warning from the Pentagon in late 1986 that Iraq was developing missiles and unconventional weapons at a site called “Sa’ad 16.”

Commerce later approved the sales of more than $500,000 in computers, $290,000 worth of precision electronic and photographic equipment and $850,000 worth of high-performance testing equipment to organizations linked to the research at that site.

Commerce officials also told a New Jersey company in 1989 that it did not need a license to export a sophisticated furnace to Iraq, even though company officials were concerned that it could aid Iraq’s nuclear weapons program, according to press reports. The White House blocked that shipment in June, 1990, after Pentagon officials learned about plans for it and intervened.

The Wisconsin group said one problem is that the law normally requires the government to keep export license applications secret. It recommended that the authority to approve such exports be transferred to the Pentagon and that quarterly summaries of the licensing actions be made public.

Testimony: Chinese Exports of Nuclear and Missile Technology

By Gary Milhollin

Testimony of Gary Milhollin

Director, Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control

Before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations

June 13, 1991

 I am pleased to be able to address the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on the important subject of China. I am a member of the University of Wisconsin Law School Faculty and director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control in Washington, D.C., a project devoted to slowing the spread of nuclear weapons to developing countries.

I would like to begin by submitting for the record a short article that a colleague and I published last month in the “Outlook” section of the Washington Post, together with a report on China’s nuclear and missile export record that the Wisconsin Project released last month. The report lists China’s publicly reported nuclear and missile exports. It also lists China’s pledges to stop these exports. Both the article and the report show that China has been essentially a renegade supplier of nuclear and missile technology for a decade, and that American attempts to stop China’s behavior have failed. Today I would like to review China’s export record for the Committee.

I would also like to comment on the Bush administration’s reaction to these exports. I would like to suggest that the United States now seems to be misjudging China in the same way that it misjudged Iraq in the days before Iraq invaded Kuwait. We seems to be closing our eyes to China’s exports just as we closed our ears to Saddam’s threats against his neighbors. We are hoping that if we don’t make a fuss, the dicatator will change his ways. I believe that instead, we should send China the kind of clear message that we did not send Iraq. China should be told that its arms exports are unacceptable, and if they don’t stop the United States will do something about it.

China’s Export Record

During the 1980s, China secretly supplied billions of dollars worth of nuclear and missile technology to South Asia, South Africa, South America and the Middle East. In each of these regions, Chinese exports went directly into secret nuclear and missile projects, some of which resulted in nuclear weapons and nuclear-capable missiles. The effect has been to intensify regional conflicts and undermine world security.

China’s most dramatic impact has been in South Asia. According to U.S. intelligence, in the early 1980s China gave Pakistan a complete, tested nuclear weapon design with twice the yield of the Hiroshima bomb, plus enough highly enriched uranium to fuel at least one and possibly more nuclear weapons. Thanks to this design, Pakistan has been able to assemble nuclear weapon parts one by one over time, and to develop a small nuclear arsenal without conducting a test, which would have jeopardized its U.S. aid. Pakistan now appears to have a reliable bomb that weighs only 400 pounds.

Despite U.S. protests, China is still helping Pakistan. This past April, U.S. intelligence spotted launchers for the Chinese M-11 missile in Pakistan. The M-11 can deliver a 1,100 pound nuclear warhead about 185 miles, which puts it at the limit set by the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR). The Regime is an agreement among industrial nations not to export missiles that can carry nuclear-sized payloads more than 185 miles. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Clarke told the Joint Economic Committee on April 23rd that the Chinese had promised to “take into account relevant international parameters on missiles,” but China still rejects the MTCR, as the M-11 sale shows.

Even the most determined apologist for China cannot defend the missile sale to Pakistan. It undermines the MTCR, destabilizes South Asia, and shows that China does not really care what the rest of the world thinks.

China has also helped Pakistan’s rival, India. From 1982 to 1987, China secretly sold India at least 130 to 150 tons of “heavy water” without requiring international inspection. Heavy water is used to run reactors that make plutonium, a nuclear weapon fuel. With the Chinese shipments, India was able to start two and possibly three new reactors outside international inspection, giving India for the first time the ability to construct a nuclear arsenal. The three reactors together can make enough plutonium for forty atomic bombs per year. The fact that India is a rival of China indicates that money, not politics, drives Chinese export decisions.

China has also been active in South Africa and South America. In 1981, over U.S. protests, China secretly sold enriched uranium to both South Africa and Argentina. The South African sale directly undermined U.S. efforts to get South Africa to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Both South Africa and Argentia had clandestine uranium enrichment programs, and the Chinese uranium could have roughly tripled their potential production of bomb-grade uranium.

These exports were shipped by a West German nuclear broker named Alfred Hempel. Hempel had made false promises to deliver the shipments to Germany, and then routed them to Argentina through Paris. When French and American officials protested, a Chinese spokesman admitted that he knew the shipments were being diverted. He said that although the uranium was supposed to go Germany, “different countries have informed China that the fuel reached Argentina.” Nevertheless, the Chinese kept selling nuclear materials to Hempel until 1987, and Hempel kept diverting the shipments. A French cable commented that “One receives the impression that…those in Peking have no real policy and specialists, and that, for the present, each Chinese department tries in its own way to bring in the much sought-after foreign exchange.”

China also supplied Argentia’s rival, Brazil. In 1984, China secretly sold Brazil 200 kilograms of enriched uranium, which went directly into Brazil’s nuclear weapon program–which, we have recently learned, was carried on in cooperation with Iraq.

Nor has China overlooked the Middle East, where it seems to have helped both Iraq and Iran at the same time. In 1989, China reportedly have helped Iraq make centrifuges to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. And in 1985, China reportedly agreed to train nuclear engineers from Iran’s nuclear research center at Isfahan. I am told that in the classified literature, there are numerous reports of Chinese aid to Iran in nuclear and missile development at Isfahan. Before the Committee makes up its mind about China’s export record, it should get a classified briefing on China’s relationship with Iran. According to Admiral Brooks, director of U.S. Naval Intelligence, Iran is among the countries “that have the intention of acquiring nuclear weapons and the financial resources to pay for them.”

But China’s missile sales to the Middle East are probably its most outrageous recent action. They include the transfer of CSS-2 missiles with a 1,500-mile range to Saudi Arabia, a deal that was concealed for two years from the U.S. government, and an agreement to sell M-9 missiles with a 370-mile range to Syria. With the M-9, Syria could hit targets accurately in Israel, Iraq, Turkey, and Egypt. Both the CSS-2 and the M-9 can deliver nuclear payloads. If President Bush is serious about stopping the spread of missles in the Middle East, he must stop the M-9.

America’s Feeble Response

The United States has complained about China’s exports for a decade. But so far, we have been all bark and no bite. Each time we complained, we settled for verbal promises that were immediately broken.

In January 1984, China’s premier pledged at the White House not to “help other countries to develop nuclear weapons.” But only months later China secretly sold tons of heavy water to India and helped Pakistan enrich uranium for atomic bombs. In October 1985, China’s vice premier declared that China “does not practice nuclear proliferation.” But in 1987, China secretly sold more heavy water to Alfred Hempel–water that it must have known would be diverted to India.

And only two months ago, the world discovered that China was building a secret nuclear reactor in Algeria. The International Atomic Energy Agency, which would have to inspect the reactor under international safeguards, did not know about it, and neither did anyone else. The reactor is in the desert, about 165 miles south of Algiers, in a military exclusion zone next to an anti-aircraft battery. There are no power lines. The reactor is not designed to produce electricity. It is supposed to be for research but its location is makes that argument absurd–for research it would be in Algiers. There is a research reactor twice its size on Long Island at the Brookhaven National Laboratory.

After being discovered, Algeria promised to put the reactor under safeguards. But that is only a promise. Algeria is not a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), so it is not obliged by treaty to put the reactor under safeguards. China is not a party to the NPT either, so it is not obliged to make Algeria to put the reactor under safeguards. China did promise, when it joined the IAEA in 1984, to “request” that its nuclear buyers accept safeguards.

Algeria and China claim that the reactor’s capacity will be fifteen megawatts. If this is true the reactor will be able to make enough plutonium for about two bombs every three years. If Algeria increases the reactor’s power, it could make even more plutonium. In the 1970s, Israel secretly increased the power of its Dimona research reactor–also in a desert–from 26 to over 100 megawatts. Some experts estimate–from the size of the reactor’s cooling towers–that it might be designed for 40 to 60 megawatts, which would produce enough plutonium for up to two bombs per year. The fifteen-megawatt figure comes solely from Chinese and Algerian officials, and to my knowledge has not been verified by western analysts.

So despite what the administration says, the reactor moves Algeria a long way toward nuclear weapon capability.

There is also the question of money. According to industry estimates, the Algerian reactor will cost about $100 million. Algeria is a foreign aid recipient, and it has recently started a one-megawatt research reactor supplied by Argentina. Why would it spend its scarce funds on another research reactor? The answer must be that the reactor will provide more than research.

From Baghdad to Beijing

This brings me to the administration’s current position on China.

One year ago, before this committee, and before Iraq invaded Kuwait, Assistant Secretary of State John Kelly made the following argument against sanctions. He said: “you attempt to remain engaged…to bring moral pressure to bear… sanctions would not improve our ability to exercise a restraining influence….” Secretary Kelly was opposing sanctions against Iraq.

In a recent speech at Yale University, President Bush used the same argument to oppose sanctions against China. He said: “we can advance our cherished ideals only by…showing our best side…it is wrong to isolate China if we hope to influence it.”

A year ago, in response to reports that Iraq was building launchers for SCUDS within range of Israel, a White House spokesman said: “we are concerned about the destabilizing effects of the spread of ballistic missiles … especially in areas of tension.”

Last month, in response to reports that China was exporting missiles to the Middle East, Assistant secretary Richard Solomon was quoted as saying: “we did indicate that we were quite concerned about countries…sending in missiles to this very sensitive and unstable part of the world.”

A year ago, a senior administration official, describing Sadam, was quoted as saying: “he is more moderate than he was in the past and there is a good chance he will be more moderate in the future.”

Last month, President Bush, describing China, said: “…though there are major problems in China…things are an awful lot better than they were in 1975.”

I draw these parallels to show that we seem to be misjudging China in the same way that we misjudged Iraq. To deal with renegade regimes one has to be both clear and firm. China is motivated by money. Its leaders understand profits and losses. If they can make more money by selling nuclear and missile technology to developing countries than than they will lose from penalties imposed by the United States, they will maximize their profits like any good businessman.

We have to make the Chinese lose more in U.S. trade than they will gain by selling weapons of mass destruction.

There is also the question of U.S. credibility. We have now told the Chinese officially that we oppose what they are doing, and they have told us to get lost. They don’t want to hear about it. If simply swallow hard and do nothing, we will be telling the rest of the world that we don’t really care about proliferation.

I urge the Committee to send Beijing a signal that there will be no more business as usual in the mass destruction trade.
Congress should require that within six months of the renewal of MFN, China must take the following steps:

  • Scale down the Algerian reactor to two megawatts, which is enough power for research but not enough to make nuclear weapons
  • Join the Missile Technology Control Regime and publicly renounce its sales of M-11 missiles to Pakistan and M-9 missiles to Syria
  • Join the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the consulting organization through which other countries structure their nuclear sales according to nonproliferation guidelines