Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control

Licensing Mass Destruction: U.S. Exports to Iraq: 1985-1990

June 1, 1991March 29, 2017 By Gary Milhollin

INTRODUCTION
The U.S. Department of Commerce licensed more than $1.5 billion worth of sensitive U.S. exports to Iraq from 1985 to 1990.[1] Most were “dual-use” items, capable of making nuclear weapons or long-range missiles if diverted from their claimed civilian purposes.

On March 11, 1991, the Commerce Department released a list of those licenses. The list showed the equipment approved, the date, the value, the buyer in Iraq and the claimed Iraqi end use. This report is an analysis of the list. It shows, beyond any doubt, that U.S. export controls suffered a massive breakdown in the period preceding the Gulf War. When U.S. planes were sent to destroy Iraq’s strategic sites, much of the equipment they bombed was made in the United States. The report finds that:

The Commerce Department knew that millions of dollars’ worth of sensitive American equipment would wind up in Iraq’s missile and other military programs, but approved the licenses anyway.
The Commerce Department failed to refer missile technology export cases to the State Department and nuclear technology cases to the Energy Department, in violation of its own procedures.
Front companies for every known nuclear, chemical and missile site in Iraq bought American computers, with total American computer exports exceeding $96 million.
American machine tools may have helped build the SCUD missiles that hit Tel Aviv and killed U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia.
American radar components may have helped shoot down U.S. aircraft and develop long-range missiles.

Based on these findings, the study recommends that Congress take dual-use licensing away from the Commerce Department, appoint a Congressional committee to oversee the licensing process, and open dual-use licensing to public view.

EXPORTS TO IRAQ: THE U.S. RECORDDangerous technologyRocket casings

” General military repair applications such as jet engines, rocketcases, etc.”This was the declared purpose of two U.S. exports to Iraq, valued at $1.4 million and approved on January 20 and February 10, 1988. The first was for precision machine tools, the second for lasers. The Iraqi buyer was a procurement agent for the Iraqi SCUD missile program. With this equipment, Iraq would be able to make precision parts for missiles, and also be able to rework the cases of its short-range SCUD missiles, enabling them to carry more fuel and fly farther. Indeed, the stated use on the application was to work on “rocketcases.” With the longer range, the new Iraqi SCUDS could hit Tel Aviv and kill U.S. soldiers in Saudi Arabia.

The exporter was a German company, exporting from the United States. The company, whose name the Commerce Department refused to disclose, first came to the attention of German officials in early 1984, when German intelligence reported that the company was suspected of selling Pakistan equipment for making nuclear weapon fuel. In May 1987, the firm was cited in news reports, this time for trying to smuggle blueprints for uranium enrichment to Pakistan through Switzerland. To make matters worse, another German firm, Uranit, was suing this company for stealing the blueprints. According to a German official, the evidence against the company was “very incriminating.”[2] The company was also suspected of hiring a Swiss firm to produce special equipment for Pakistan that could enrich uranium to nuclear weapon grade. The press reports appeared only six months before the company applied for its two U.S. export licenses on December 1 and 22, 1987.

Despite the exporter’s notoriety, the Commerce and Energy Departments took only two months to approve the first application (case B281441) and less than a month to approve the second (case B286904). Neither was referred to the State or Defense Departments for review.

The importer was the “Nesser Establishment for Mechanical Industries,” also known as the “Nassr State Enterprise for Mechanical Industries.” One of Nassr’s main jobs was to procure equipment for Project 1728, devoted to increasing the range of Iraq’s SCUD missiles. Nassr was part of the Iraqi Ministry of Industry and Military Industrialization (MIMI), run by Saddam Hussein’s son-in-law Hussein Kamil al-Majid. MIMI was generally in charge of Iraq’s missile and chemical weapon efforts. Nassr also served as the procurement arm for Taji, a site used to produce chemical munitions and, according to Western intelligence documents, “responsible for the development and manufacture of gas centrifuges for uranium enrichment.”[3] In addition, Nassr ran artillery ammunition plants, purchased “high-capacity driving nozzles” for missiles from a German company,[4] and was linked to the Condor II intermediate-range missile project.

Thus the Commerce Department approved sensitive U.S. equipment that would go directly to Iraqi nuclear weapon, chemical weapon, and missile sites, despite the fact that the exporter was suspected of nuclear smuggling, and despite the fact that the importer declared an intention to work on rocket bodies. Commerce knew that the exporter was unreliable, and knew that the end use was improper, but approved the export anyway.

This equipment may well have helped build the SCUD missile that killed American troops in Dhahran. The buyer represented the SCUD program, the equipment was used to rework rocket casings, and Iraq used a long-range SCUD with a reworked casing to reach the U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia.

Radar

In January 1988, the Commerce Department approved more than two million dollars’ worth of quartz crystals to the “Salah al Din Establishment” (case B290664) and the “Iraqi Trading Company” (case B346115), both of which frankly said that they wanted the crystals for “components in a ground radar system.” Salah al Din was a military electronics factory built by the French company Thomson-CSF. It manufactured three-dimensional early warning radars and may have made components for missile guidance and radar jamming equipment.

Quartz crystals perform a vital function in radar: they measure time accurately in small units. Because the position of an object is determined by the time it takes a radar pulse to reach the object and return, accurate time measurement is essential. Military-level quartz crystals are defined as those with high stability over a wide operating temperature, or with the ability to withstand acceleration forces up to 20 times gravity, or shock greater than 10,000 times gravity, or very high radiation. Lower grade crystals do not need a license.

The crystals carried commodity control number 1587, identifying them as especially useful for missile production. All items on the U.S. Commodity Control List require an individual license for export, but some of the items, such as quartz crystals, are singled out as sensitive for missiles. In such cases, the State Department is supposed to be consulted because State chairs the Missile Technology Export Committee (MTEC), an interagency group that evaluates export applications subject to missile controls. This means that the Commerce Department should have referred the two applications to State for interagency review. Instead, Commerce itself approved both in only ten days. Commerce claimed that the cases were “not restricted for MTCR [missile], chemical/biological, or nuclear non-proliferation.”

Salah al Din also needed advanced equipment to operate its radars. In late 1989, it bought American frequency synthesizers valued at $140,000 to “calibrate, adjust, and test surveillance radar” (case D055821). This would apparently include the radar used to shoot down U.S. aircraft in the Gulf War, and radar used as ground support for missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons. The frequency synthesizers carried commodity control number 1531, also on the missile technology control list when used for missile “launch and ground support equipment.” Commerce did not refer this case to the State Department either, as it should have done for a missile technology item. It approved the application unilaterally in only nineteen days, claiming again that the export was “not restricted for MTCR [missile], chemical/ biological, or nuclear non-proliferation.”

In fact, Commerce knew that Salah al Din was building military radar. When Commerce compiled its internal records on the frequency synthesizers, it noted that “according to our information, the end user [Salah al Din] is involved in military matters.” Commerce then deleted this statement before it released the export list to the public.

Thus, Commerce approved vital parts for a surveillance radar that Commerce knew was military. The effect was to provide ground support for Iraqi missiles, and to help Iraq detect and shoot down U.S. planes in the Gulf War. It is not surprising that Commerce concealed this knowledge from the public.

Guilty knowledgeSa’ad 16

In November of 1986, the Defense Department sent an important letter to the Commerce Department.[5] The letter informed Commerce that the Pentagon had intelligence information linking a giant Iraqi site called “Sa’ad 16” to missile development. Later, the Los Angeles Times reported that the exact date of the letter was November 6, and also said that according to government sources familiar with the letter, it revealed that Sa’ad 16 was working on other non-conventional weapons as well. Thus, by November 6, 1986, the Commerce Department should have stopped approving dual-use exports for Sa’ad 16.

There is also compelling evidence that Commerce knew what was going on at Sa’ad 16 much earlier. In February 1985 the Director of the Sa’ad General Establishment sent a letter to Gildemeister Projecta, the German company in charge of buying equipment for Sa’ad 16.[6] The letter, which described the Sa’ad 16 project in detail, was reportedly sent to Commerce along with the first license requests from the Sa’ad organization in 1985. Indeed, on May 8, 1985, Gildemeister filed an application for a $60,000 computer for the Sa’ad General Establishment, which Commerce approved six weeks later (case A897641). The letter listed 78 laboratories, including four for testing “starting material and fuel mixtures,” two for “calometric testing of fuels,” two for developing “control systems and navigation” equipment and one for “measuring aerodynamic quantities on models.” On May 3, 1986 a second letter from Sa’ad revealed that the Sa’ad General Establishment was a part of the “State Organization for Technical Industries (SOTI)” and that another name for Sa’ad 16 was the “Research and Development Center.”[7] Commerce undoubtedly received this second letter–an internal Commerce memo mentions it.[8] These two letters from Sa’ad, combined with the November 1986 message from the Pentagon, should have barred any of the organizations named from receiving sensitive U.S. exports after November 6, 1986.

But that was not the case. The Sa’ad General Establishment got over half a million dollars’ worth of U.S. computers in eight cases, seven of which were approved after November 1986. These computers went directly to Sa’ad 16, Iraq’s largest and most important missile research site. None of the cases was referred to the Department of Energy, as required for items on the Nuclear Referral List such as computers. As explained below, the Nuclear Referral List consists of items that are especially useful for making nuclear weapons if diverted from their civilian purpose. Sa’ad also got $290,000 worth of precision electronic and photographic equipment, approved in February 1987, three months after Commerce received the Pentagon’s letter and two years after the letter describing Sa’ad 16 was signed.

SOTI, the second Iraqi organization mentioned in the Sa’ad letter, got high-speed U.S. oscilloscopes in March 1988, a year and a half after Commerce received the Pentagon’s letter (case B259524). SOTI is part of the Iraqi Ministry of Defense. It directed the construction and equipping of a solid rocket motor production plant called “DOT,” and it also procured equipment for at least two SCUD missile enhancement projects. High-speed oscilloscopes are essential to maintain radar, computers and missile guidance systems, all of which have internal electronics that operate in short time frames. Oscilloscopes are also used to capture the brief signals from a nuclear weapon test, which occur in a microsecond or less. Only high-speed oscilloscopes need a license for export.

The third organization mentioned in the Sa’ad letter was the “Research and Development Center,” which the letter said was another name for Sa’ad 16. The “Center” was allowed to buy $850,000 worth of high-performance measuring, calibrating, and testing equipment (cases B060729 and B075876), all approved in January 1987, three months after the Pentagon’s letter and almost two years after the Iraqi letter describing Sa’ad 16 was signed. These cases were not referred to the Department of Energy either, despite the fact that the items exported were on the Nuclear Referral List. The Defense Department apparently objected at the staff level but did not escalate its objections to a higher level before Commerce approved the exports. The Center also got communicating and tracking equipment valued at $3,000 in 1989 (case B382561), again without referral to the Department of Energy as required for an item on the Nuclear Referral List.

In addition to the letters from Sa’ad and the Pentagon, there were other warnings. According to U.S. officials, American intelligence began to brief other U.S. agencies on the Iraqi end user network at least as early as 1987. The briefings continued throughout 1988. By early 1989, the intelligence warnings had become clear and urgent. At that time the CIA called all the U.S. agencies concerned with exports together for a special meeting on Iraq. Commerce, however, refused to attend on the ground that its “judgment might be contaminated.”

In the open press, the earliest detailed accounts of Sa’ad 16 emerged in January 1989, when the German magazine Stern published a list of the Sa’ad 16 laboratories. Over the next several months, the German press published several stories linking Sa’ad 16 to Iraqi missile, nuclear and chemical weapon development. But even these press reports did not stop Commerce from approving the tracking equipment in June of 1989.

Thus the Commerce Department continued to approve sales of sensitive American equipment to Iraqi front companies even after it knew that the equipment was likely to be diverted.

Violations of proceduresCommerce also failed to refer cases to other agencies for review, in violation of its own procedures.

The quartz crystals mentioned above were on the missile technology list–the list of items deemed especially useful for missile production.[9] Both that list and a second one, known as the Nuclear Referral List, are subsets of the U.S. Commodity Control List (CCL). All items on the CCL require an individual validated license for export. Under Commerce Department regulations, quartz crystals are defined as missile items if “usable as launch and ground support equipment.” This they clearly were, because the Iraqi buyer stated that they would be used as “components in a ground radar system.” Ground radar is essential to support the launching, testing and tracking of missiles. The frequency synthesizers were also on the missile technology list if “usable as launch and ground support equipment.” They clearly were also, because the buyer admitted that they would be used to “calibrate, adjust, and test surveillance radar.” Thus, Commerce should have referred both of these cases to the State Department for review by the Missile Technology Export Committee, the interagency group responsible for licensing missile-related exports.

The Commerce Department also failed to refer millions of dollars’ worth of compasses, gyroscopes and accelerometers to the State Department. Some of these items were sold to Iraqi Airways, which the U.S. Treasury identified in April 1991 as a “front company” in Iraq’s “arms procurement network.” Some also went to the Iraqi Air Force and some went to the Iraqi Ministry of Defense–both military organizations. Allitems in this category (ECCN 1485) are defined as missile-related because they can be used to make missile guidance systems.[10] Commerce nevertheless approved them without consulting the State Department, as required by its own procedures.

Thus when Commerce stated on March 11, 1991 in a press release that “no license applications for any MTCR [missile technology] items have been approved for export to Iraq,” it contradicted its own export records.

Commerce also violated its statutory obligation to refer nuclear cases to the Department of Energy. Section 309(c) of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act of 1978 requires that the executive branch develop a special list of items that “could be of significance for nuclear explosive purposes” if diverted from civilian use. The list is known as the “Nuclear Referral List.” All items on the list require export licenses, and all license applications must be “reviewed by the Department of Commerce in consultation with the Department of Energy.”[11]

In fact, Commerce licensed numerous items on the list without referring them to the Department of Energy. The most common item was computers, which carry CCL number 1565. Computers operating above a certain speed are regulated by the Nuclear Referral List, and some special computers are also on the missile technology list. Commerce approved the following 20 computer cases, with a total value of over $5 million, without referring any of them to the Department of Energy. The fact that these computers required licenses shows that the computing speed must have been high enough to be regulated by the list. Thus, in all 20 cases, Commerce violated its own procedures as well as Section 309(c) of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act.

Case A800390:
Importer: State Organization of Post & Tel.
Value: $3,600,000

Case A843654:
Importer: Iraq Spare Parts Manufacturing
Value: $13,000

Case A844783:
Importer: Ministry of Industry Value: $488,000

Case A847302:
Importer: Schlumberger Value: $500,000

Case A849514:
Importer: Ministry of Irrigation Value: $389,000

Case A892228:
Importer: State Organization for Tech Ind.
Value: $11,000

Case B050974:
Importer: Directorate of Mobilisation Value: $25,900

Case B061971:
Importer: Central Statistics Value: $ 87,800

Case B069513:
Importer: Iraq Nation Oil Value: $210,600

Case B072960:
Importer: Economic Commission Value: $40,810

Case B073687:
Importer: Schlumberger Value: $2,000

Case A853710:
Importer: Saab Abbas Value: $40,700

Case A854382:
Importer: Arab Petroleum Value: $37,500

Case A857954:
Importer: State Organization for Phones Value: $48,000

Case A862229:
Importer: Ministry of Education Value: $13,000

Case A862232:
Importer: Ministry of Industry Value: $22,400

Case A866566:
Importer: Scientific Council Value: $1,900

Case A866912:
Importer: Mendes Jr. International Value: $32,000

Case A887265:
Importer: University of Baghdad Value: $10,000

Case A887266:
Importer: University of Baghdad Value: $11,000

Commerce also approved several military items to military buyers without consulting the Department of Defense. These included the machine tools and lasers, discussed above, which are used to fabricate rocket casings, the quartz crystals discussed above which are used as components in ground radar, and the navigation, radar and airborne communication equipment sold to the Iraqi Air Force and Ministry of Defense. Exports of such clearly military items to military buyers should have been referred to U.S. security experts.

The Defense Department, in fact, played only a minor role in the export approval process. The Pentagon saw an export case for only two reasons. First, it was consulted for its opinion whether an item was likely to be diverted to a Cocom-proscribed country (primarily the East Bloc). For these cases, the Pentagon had no power to decide whether the export might contribute to nuclear, missile or chemical weapon proliferation. Such a decision was outside the scope of its review.

Second, the Pentagon saw a handful of nuclear cases because it participated in the Subgroup on Nuclear Export Coordination (SNEC), the interagency group that evaluates nuclear-related exports. But the SNEC reviewed only 24 of the 771 cases approved from 1985 to August 1990–three percent of the total. Commerce essentially bypassed the SNEC by failing to refer cases to it. Thus, for the vast majority of the exports–roughly 97%–the Pentagon did not participate in judgments about the risk of proliferation. Neither did the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency or the intelligence agencies. They had no role beyond their participation in the SNEC. Thus, in 97% of the cases, Commerce alone decided, or decided with the concurrence of Energy or State, whether an item increased the risk of nuclear or missile proliferation.

Commerce did not follow a consistent pattern in selecting the few cases it did send to the SNEC. The Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission, for example, bought a large computer, valued at $2.8 million (case B175217) which was not referred to the SNEC, and also bought $87,000 worth of precision electronic and photographic equipment (ECCN 6599) with no external review at all (case D042767). But a second computer, worth only $24,390 (case B108166), was referred to the SNEC, indicating that the SNEC may not have received the most important cases. Ten of the items approved for the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission were on the Nuclear Referral List, but only three were submitted to the SNEC.

Commerce also approved $200,000 worth of computers for Al-Qaqaa, the Iraqi nuclear weapon design laboratory. Commerce did not refer the computers to either the Department of Energy or the SNEC.

Violations of policiesThe Commerce Department had full authority to reject every application discussed above. Under Commerce regulations, dual-use exports must satisfy specific criteria. The criteria include the following tests: whether the stated end use is acceptable, whether the item could aid nuclear weapon or missile development, whether the importing country has a nuclear or missile development effort, and whether the recipient country has good “non-proliferation credentials.”[12]

Iraq never came close to passing those tests. The “stated end use” of some of the items was explicitly to produce rockets and radar. The items exported, such as machine tools and radar components, were obviously powerful enough to aid missile and nuclear development. It was also clear that Iraq had nuclear and missile development programs. Iraq had been trying to build nuclear weapons since at least 1981, when Israel bombed the Osirak reactor near Baghdad, and Iraq had been known since the mid-1980s to be working with Argentina and Egypt on nuclear-capable missiles. In addition, U.S. intelligence knew by the mid-1980s that many of the importers listed on the licenses were fronting for Iraqi nuclear and missile sites. If the Commerce Department had applied its own criteria, it would have denied many of the Iraqi applications.

Dangerous end usersThe annex to this report lists Iraq’s known military and nuclear end users. The sixteen buyers listed either built, equipped or operated Iraq’s nuclear, missile and chemical weapon sites. Given the centralized control of all important activity in Iraq, and the supreme importance of the Iraqi military, the true list of military users is surely longer. Any sensitive export to a buyer in Iraq must have been available to the military, regardless of what the export application said.

Nevertheless, the sales to these sixteen buyers tell an important story. All sixteen imported U.S. computers, the indispensable tool of modern research and manufacture. These computers must have aided the work of virtually every Iraqi nuclear, missile and chemical weapon site. Altogether, about $25 million worth of U.S. computers went to the sixteen military or nuclear buyers identified in this report. Iraq’s total purchases of U.S. computers amounted to more than $96 million, one fourth of all the Iraqi dual-use imports from the United States.

Exports were also licensed that–for reasons known only to Commerce–did not appear on the list released to the public. In 1987, Electronic Associates of Long Branch, New Jersey sold Sa’ad 16 a “hybrid digital-analog computer,” specially designed for wind tunnel experiments on missiles. The computer is reportedly identical to a computer now operating at the U.S. government’s White Sands missile range in New Mexico. The sale went to MBB and Gildemeister, the two German companies that were Sa’ad 16’s main missile technology suppliers. The Department of Defense opposed the sale and had the license brought before the National Security Council in September 1987. Although the NSC decided to block the export, the computer had been shipped eight months earlier in January, without the Pentagon’s knowledge.

Commerce also approved exports informally that do not appear on the public list. In response to an exporter’s request, Commerce can approve a shipment by stating that no license is required. Two of these cases have recently come to light.

In 1989, the Consarc Corporation of New Jersey notified Commerce that it wanted to export a “skull” furnace to Iraq. Consarc explicitly told Commerce that the furnace could aid a nuclear program. The furnace could melt zirconium for nuclear fuel rods, could melt titanium for missile nose cones and other critical missile parts, and might be able to melt plutonium and uranium for nuclear bomb cores. The skull furnace was to be accompanied by three other furnaces: an electron beam furnace from Consarc, and furnaces for vacuum induction and heat treatment from Consarc’s subsidiary in Scotland.

Used together, the four furnaces would have far exceeded Iraq’s stated purpose, which was to manufacture artificial limbs for victims of the Iran-Iraq War. According to U.S. officials, Iraq would have had a “Cadillac” production line for atomic bomb and ballistic missile parts, even better than the facilities at American nuclear weapons labs. Commerce nevertheless told Consarc that no export license was needed.

In June 1990, a person outside the government told the Pentagon about the sale. This set off a chain of official reactions that led the White House to block the shipment.

It turns out that equipment accompanying the furnaces needed export licenses. In June 1989, Commerce licensed special computing equipment to control the furnaces’ operation (case D030956) and in January 1990, Commerce licensed numerical control equipment to make new crucibles for the furnaces (case D064342). This latter export was crucial. One of the main reasons for thinking that the original skull furnace might not be used to make A-bombs was that the original crucible was not suited for melting heavy metals such as uranium. But when Commerce licensed the equipment for making additional crucibles, Iraq got what it needed to make A-bomb cores.

Also in 1989, another New Jersey company, Struthers, Dunn, Inc. of Pitman, contacted the same Commerce representative, Michael Manning, who had advised Consarc. Iraq wanted to buy “time-delay relays,” devices that have civilian uses but are also used to separate the stages of ballistic missiles in flight. Iraq wanted a special model, “tested for shock and vibration” that would perform at 350,000 feet–66 miles above the earth. Ronald Waugaman, who handled the case for Struthers, Dunn, said “when I heard 350,000 feet, I thought missile.”[13]

Waugaman said he told Manning about the high-altitude specifications, which were military grade. They contradicted Iraq’s official claim that the relays were for “heavy industrial use.” Waugaman said he told Manning that “they’re not putting tractors 350,000 feet in the air.”[14] Nevertheless, Waugaman said that U.S. officials told him that if a civilian end use was stated, there was no reason to bar the export.

RECOMMENDATIONSStrengthening U.S. Export ControlsThe U.S. export control system has broken down for three reasons: the wrong people are in charge of it, Congress has ignored it, and it is secret.

Remove export control from the Commerce Department

It has frequently been said that there is a conflict between the Commerce Department’s duty to promote exports and its duty to regulate them–that Commerce has conflicting missions in the export field. The licenses to Iraq prove that this is true. Commerce licensed items that did not meet its export criteria, that it knew would be diverted from their supposed civilian purposes, and that it knew would help Iraq’s nuclear and missile programs. Commerce even excluded the State and Energy Departments from the licensing process, in violation of its own procedures.

The best known example of a federal agency that tried to promote and regulate at the same time is the old Atomic Energy Commission, which had the job of both promoting and regulating nuclear energy until 1974, when Congress decided to split the functions. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission now regulates; the Department of Energy promotes. Everyone agrees that nuclear regulation gained great credibility and effectiveness from this separation.

Congress should now follow this precedent for dual-use licensing. It should take this function away from Commerce and give it to an independent regulatory agency such as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission or to some other department, such as Defense, that has no export promotion function. The Commerce Department, which specializes in trade, is not the place to decide strategic questions. An agency that specializes in national security should have that task. It is essential to recognize that the real significance of dual-use items is strategic, not economic. The number of items on the control list is small; well over 90% of the applications to export them are granted; and the value of the few applications denied is tiny compared to the overall value of U.S. foreign trade.

It has been suggested that Congress should create a new agency to handle all export licensing. Such a move would be sound if Congress could insure that industrial interests would not take the agency over, as they have the Commerce Department. Industry would have a great incentive to pack such an agency with personnel loyal to its interests.

It would be safer and more logical to make the Defense Department the “hub” for controlling all exports relevant to nuclear, chemical, biological and missile proliferation. Most of the expertise is already in the Pentagon, and any additional expertise could be transferred from other agencies and obtained through the national laboratories. Commerce, which has no substantive expertise on dual-use technology, should retain only a record keeping function. Commerce should refer applications to the Pentagon, which would make the final licensing decision in consultation with the Commerce, Energy, and State Departments, and with the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and the intelligence agencies. This change would put military experts in charge of exports with military applications.

Impose Congressional oversight

Congress essentially ignored export licensing to Iraq until the invasion of Kuwait. Oversight was entirely lacking during the period preceding the Gulf War. If Congress had looked into what the Commerce Department was doing, Congress would have learned quickly that Commerce was not following the rules. A Congressional reaction might have stopped some of the worst exports from going out.

Congress should now impose an effective form of oversight. A Congressional committee with jurisdiction over national security matters should be given the task of overseeing and evaluating export licensing. That committee could be a subcommittee of one of the Armed Services committees, or of the Governmental Affairs or Government Operations committees, or of the Joint Economic Committee. The committee or subcommittee should receive complete reports on pending or approved licenses and should have sufficient staff to oversee export controls. If necessary, it could receive assistance from the General Accounting Office or the Office of Technology Assessment.

Open export licensing to public view

The other important lesson we can draw from nuclear regulation is the great benefit of making decisions in public. All of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s export licenses are granted on the public record and in the light of day. This is the main reason why there are no horror stories about U.S. nuclear exports to Iraq. Neither exporters nor regulators want to defend such transactions in public, so they do not happen.

The Commerce Department’s process is secret. Neither Congress nor the public is permitted to examine Commerce licensing in the open. This is true despite the fact that dual-use licenses are supposed to be for civilian items restricted to peaceful use.

Commerce refuses even to confirm the existence of an individual license application, and refuses to disclose which applications have been approved after the exports have gone out. Cases come into public view only when someone inside the government becomes angry enough to leak them to the press. This means that only the exporters know which cases are pending, and only the exporters’ voices are heard by the licensing officers when decisions are made. The effects are to freeze the public and Congress out of the process and to open the door to the worst forms of private lobbying.

The Commerce Department argues that secrecy is necessary to protect proprietary interests. But the U.S. nuclear industry competes well on the international market despite the openness of NRC regulation.

Congress should now require the Commerce Department to publish quarterly summaries of all dual-use licensing actions. This information already exists in a database. It could be released by pushing a button. The resulting list would be the same as the one that Commerce released in March on Iraq, but would include countries such as Iran, Libya and Syria. The list would only cover licensing actions that have been completed. Pending sales would not be revealed. Congress could accomplish this by amending Section 12(c) of the Export Administration Act, which the Commerce Department now interprets as requiring complete secrecy for dual-use licenses.

The list would also include the name of the exporter. If a company is ashamed of having sold one of its products to a developing country, the company should not have made the sale in the first place. Reputable companies do not object to telling the truth about their business. If the sales are legitimate, and satisfy the export criteria, there is no reason to keep them hidden. The decision to license them is an official government act paid for with tax dollars. Pushing export licensing into the light of day would encourage the exporters to be honest, encourage the government to be careful, and allow the public to find out whether U.S. exports are undermining national security.

ANNEX: IRAQI END USERSFollowing is a list of the known Iraqi military and nuclear end users that imported sensitive American equipment from 1985 to August 2, 1990, when Iraq invaded Kuwait:

Iraqi Airways: One of the “agents and front companies” that Iraq used for its “arms procurement network,” according to the U.S. Treasury Department. In a press release on April 1, 1991, Treasury termed these companies “Specially Designated Nationals,” and said that “when you deal with them, you’re dealing with Saddam.”

Total approvals to Iraqi Airways: over $50 million, including:

Compasses, gyroscopes, and accelerometers (ECCN 1485) valued at $13 million in seven cases.

– The Commerce Department approved these sales without external review in four of the seven cases, despite the fact that these were missile items and were approved after the missile list came into effect. All items under category 1485 are controlled as missile items.

Navigation, radar and airborne communication equipment (ECCN 1501) valued at $5 million in five cases.

– Approved without external review in four of the five cases.

Computers (ECCN 1565) valued at $5 million.

Aircraft, helicopters, engines and equipment valued at $23,000,000.

Aircraft parts, boats, diesel engines, underwater cameras, and submersible systems valued at $28 million.

Many of the items approved for Iraqi Airways fell into categories that are listed, by their commodity control numbers, as useful in the development, testing, production and deployment of missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons. Items such as compasses, gyroscopes, accelerometers, computers, radars and navigational equipment all fall into this category. It is possible that some of these items aided the Iraqi SCUD program.
The procedures by which missile technology exports are approved are not available to the public. It is widely assumed that at least the Department of State reviews and approves these sensitive exports. However, the Department of Commerce approved at least six exports that appear to be on the missile technology list with no external review. In one case (B373514), the Commerce Department approved over a million dollars’ worth of compasses, gyroscopes, and accelerometers without consulting either the State or Defense Departments. All items in category 1485 are missile items and should have been referred to the State Department.

Iraqi Air Force:

Total approvals: $57 million, including:

Navigational, radar, and air communication equipment (ECCN 1501) valued at more than $200,000 in nine cases.

– State Department approved three of the cases.

Compasses, gyroscopes, and accelerometers (ECCN 1485) valued at $957,500.

Oscilloscopes (ECCN 1584) valued at $12,391 (case A826888).

– Approved by State Department in May 1985.

Computers (ECCN 1565) valued at $11,394 (case B236580).

– No referral to Energy Department, as required for items on the Nuclear Referral List.

Aircraft and helicopters (ECCN 6460) valued at $45.8 million.

– Approved by the State and Energy Departments from April to June, 1988.

Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission: Responsible for nuclear research in Iraq, including Iraqi work on nuclear weapons.

Total approvals: over $3 million, including:

Computers (ECCN 1565) valued at $2.9 million.

– A third computer was approved without referral to the Energy Department, which is required for a commodity on the Nuclear Referral List being exported to a nuclear end user for a nuclear end use. This violated export control procedures.

Precision electronic and photographic equipment (ECCN 6599) valued at $87,000 (case D042767).

– No referral for external review.

Ten of the items approved for this end user were on the Nuclear Referral List, but only three were submitted to SNEC for interagency review.

Ministry of Defense: In charge of Iraqi defense operations. Responsible for the State Organization for Technical Industries (SOTI) and the Sa’ad General Establishment (both described below).

Total approvals: over $567 million, including:

Computers (ECCN 1565) in eighteen cases valued at $2.1 million.

– Commerce referred only two of the eighteen cases to the Energy Department, as required for items on the Nuclear Referral List. Of the two cases referred to Energy, only one was referred to the SNEC.

Compasses, gyroscopes and accelerometers (ECCN 1485) in three cases valued at over $1 million.

– Commerce did not refer one case (B204774) valued at $60,136 for external review, although the approval was in May 1987 after the establishment of the missile control list in April 1987.

Navigation, radar, and airborne communication equipment (ECCN 1501) valued at $291,000.

– The bulk of the value of this approval was for case B353226, valued at $264,000, which Commerce did not refer for external review, despite the fact that the approval was in September 1988 after the establishment of the missile control list in April 1987.

– Commerce licensed this sale of dual-use military equipment to a military end user without external review by the Defense Department.

State Organization for Technical Industries (SOTI): Subdivision of the Ministry of Defense. Commissioned the building and equipping of DOT, a solid rocket motor production plant built as part of the Condor II project. Also procured, according to U.S. officials, equipment for the Al-Hillah and Al-Fallujah SCUD modification projects and the space launch facility at Karbala.

Total approvals: $1.4 million, including:

Oscilloscopes (ECCN 1584) valued at $20,000.

– One oscilloscope went to Mansour, a military site described below.

Computers (ECCN 1565) valued at $380,000 in five cases.

– Only one of the five cases was reviewed by the Energy Department, as required for items on the Nuclear Referral List.

Measuring, calibrating, and testing equipment (ECCN 1529) valued at over $143,000 in three cases (B052572, B156528, B311058).

– Commerce referred only one of the three cases to the Energy Department, although all three were on the Nuclear Referral List.

– Commerce made no referral to the State Department, despite the fact that this item appears to be on the missile technology control list, and one of the cases was approved in 1988 after the list went into effect.

Sa’ad General Establishment: A division of SOTI. Self-described as “a state organization specialized in the planning and erection of large industrial complexes for the Government of Iraq,” Sa’ad does not operate any of the contracted facilities itself.[15] According to MidEast Markets, Sa’ad only does work on military projects. Contracted for the construction of Sa’ad 16 at Mosul.

Total approvals: $1.1 million, including:

Computers (ECCN 1565) valued at more than $450,000 in seven cases (B177669, B224682, B265627, B271629, B350736, E000057, E002881).

– No referral to the Energy Department, as required for items on the Nuclear Referral List.

Precision electronic and photographic equipment (ECCN 6599) valued at $290,000.

Monsour Factory (or Al Mansour): Linked to SOTI and served as a procurement agent, according to U.S. officials, for the SCUD enhancement facilities at Al-Fallujah and Al-Hillah, and the space launch center at Al-Anbar. According to press reports, purchased a high-speed oscilloscope from Tektronix.

Total approvals: $5.2 million, including:

Electronic manufacturing equipment (ECCN 1355) valued at $4.2 million.

– This equipment enables domestic production of transistors and diodes for use in computers and other electronics, including military systems such as communications and radar.

Electronic measuring, calibrating and testing equipment (ECCN 1529) valued at $644,000.

– No referral to the State Department, despite the fact that this item appears to be on the missile technology list and was approved in October 1989 after the list came into effect.

Computers (ECCN 1565) valued at $354,000 and $12,000.

– No referral to the Energy Department, as required for items on the Nuclear Referral List.

Superconductive electromagnets (ECCN 1574) valued at $8,280.

– No referral for outside review.

Ministry of Industry and Military Industrialization (MIMI), formerly Ministry of Industry and Minerals: Run by Saddam Hussein’s son-in-law Hussein Kamil al-Majid, with overall responsibility for Iraq’s nuclear, missile and chemical weapon programs. MIMI ordered furnaces, the sale of which was blocked by the White House in June 1990 because of Iraq’s plan to divert the furnaces to nuclear weapon production.

Total approvals: $8.5 million, including:

Computers (ECCN 1565) in twenty cases valued at almost $8 million.

– Commerce referred one case, valued at $29,300, to the Departments of State and Energy, but approved another valued at $488,000 unilaterally.

Computer-controlled machine tools (ECCN 1091) valued at $525,000 (case D064342).

– Departments of State and Energy approved in January 1990.

Nassr State Enterprise for Mechanical Industries (or Nesser Establishment for Mechanical Industries): Part of the Ministry of Industry and Military Industrialization (MIMI), described above. Nassr procured equipment for Project 1728, a SCUD modification effort; was involved in Iraq’s nuclear program; was the procurement arm for Taji, a site used to produce chemical munitions; and, according to Western intelligence documents, was “responsible for the development and manufacture of gas centrifuges for uranium enrichment.”[16] Nassr also ran artillery ammunition plants; purchased “high-capacity driving nozzles” for missiles from a German company; may have been a part of the European procurement network run by Iraqi front company TDG in London; was the main customer of Matrix Churchill, another Iraqi front company in England; and was linked to the Condor II intermediate-range missile project.

Total approvals: $1.8 million, including:

Computers (ECCN 1565) valued at $1 million.

– No referral to the Energy Department, as required for items on the Nuclear Referral List.

Computer-controlled machine tools (ECCN 1091) valued at $888,000 (case B281441).

– Energy Department approved in February 1988.

Al-Qaqaa State Establishment: Part of MIMI. Responsible, at least in part, for Iraq’s nuclear weapon program. According to Western intelligence, this center was “concerned with the development of the non-nuclear components of nuclear weapons.”[17] The intelligence report also states that Al-Qaqaa had experience with modern high explosives and high-speed measurements, both of which are necessary to develop nuclear weapons. In March 1990, customs officers at Heathrow Airport in London seized a case of capacitors bound for Al-Qaqaa that were especially designed for detonating nuclear warheads.

Total approvals: over $200 thousand, including:

Computers (ECCN 1565) in three cases valued at $200,000.

– No referral to the Energy Department, as required for items on the Nuclear Referral List.

Technical Corporation for Special Projects (Techcorp): Also part of MIMI. Operated Sa’ad 16. Responsible for the SCUD modification project and development of the Condor II missile. Also purchased parts for the Iraqi supergun.

Total approvals: $61,300, including:

Two computers (ECCN 1565) valued at $16,980 and $44,320.

– No referral to the Energy Department, as required for items on the Nuclear Referral List.

University of Mosul: Site of and procurement agent for Sa’ad 16 (also referred to as “Research & Development Center”), Iraq’s major missile research and development center, where work was done on the Condor II and SCUD modification as well as research on chemical and nuclear weapons. According to European news reports, the German company that supplied Sa’ad 16 described the project as a “laboratory and workshop complex [that] will be run in cooperation with Mosul University.”[18]

Total approvals: over $1.8 million, including:

Equipment for enhancing satellite images, including computers (ECCN 1565) valued at $1 million and related equipment (ECCN 4590) valued at $27,800.

– This equipment enhances photographs taken by satellites. The enhanced photos can be used to improve targeting by missiles or aircraft, or for other reconnaissance objectives. The licensee, International Imaging Systems of Milpitas, California, did not ship the equipment approved in 1990. However, on two previous occasions, International Imaging sent shipments to Iraq. In 1981, an image processing system went to the Iraqi Directorate General for Geological Survey and Mineral Investigation, and in 1987 a similar system went to the Space and Astronomy Research Center in Baghdad.[19]

Viruses and viroids (ECCN 4997) valued at $1.

– Commerce Department approved in December 1987 without external review.

Computer (ECCN 1565) valued at $483,000.

– Approved (case B062253) without referral to the Energy Department, as required for items on the Nuclear Referral List.

Research and Development Center: Another name for Sa’ad 16, Iraq’s main missile research and development site at Mosul.

Total approvals: $927,000, including:

Measuring, calibrating, and testing equipment (ECCN 1529) valued at $870,000 in two cases (B060729 and B075875).

– The Defense Department objected at the staff level but did not escalate its objections before Commerce approval.

– This equipment can be used to test and develop microwave circuits for missile guidance radars and microwave communications. One licensee, Wiltron of Morgan Hill, California, sold a scalar network analyzer using a radio frequency of up to 40 GHz to test and develop these circuits. According to one report, the Department of Defense tried to stop an approval valued at $49,510 in November 1986, but the Commerce Department licensed the export the following January.

Communicating and tracking equipment (ECCN 1502) valued at $3,000.

– No referral to the Energy Department, as required for items on the Nuclear Referral List.

Radio spectrum analyzer (ECCN 1533) valued at $45,664.

Computers (ECCN 1565) valued at $10,228.

Hutteen General Establishment: Iraqi government organization that purchased large-caliber artillery shell cases from Spain and Germany that could be filled with chemical payloads.

Total approvals: over $1 million, including:

Computers (ECCN 1565) in four cases (B249146, B322679, D030887, D014317) valued at over $1 million.

– No referral to the Energy Department, as required for items on the Nuclear Referral List.

Badar Establishment of Mechanical Engineering (or Bader General Establishment): A military enterprise responsible for producing aerial bombs.

Total approvals: $2 million, including:

Computer (ECCN 1565) valued at $1.6 million.

– Departments of Energy and State approved from March 1988 to June 1988.

Technical model (ECCN 9999) valued at $373,708.

– No referral for external review.

Salah al Din Establishment (originally called Saad 13; apparently also called University of Salahaddin): A military electronics factory built by the French company Thomson-CSF. Manufactures three-dimensional early warning radars under license from Thomson as well as other Thomson military telecommunications equipment. Some electronic countermeasures and inertial guidance components were also made here.

Total approvals: over $1.6 million, including:

Quartz crystals and assemblies (ECCN 1587) valued at $1.1 million (case B290664).

– Commerce approved without external review, despite the fact that this item is on the missile technology control list and was approved in January 1988 after the list went into effect. The stated end use was components for a radar system.

Frequency synthesizers and equipment (ECCN 1531) valued at $140,000 (case D055821).

– The stated end use of this item was for “calibrating, adjusting and testing of a surveillance radar,” which could function as a ground support system for nuclear-capable missiles.

Navigational, radar, airborne communication, and mobile communication equipment (ECCN 6598) valued at $115,000 (case D092873).

– Approved without external review in April 1990.

Communication, detection, and tracking equipment (ECCN 1502) valued at $1,825.

– Energy Department approved in February 1987.

Computers (ECCN 1565) in three cases valued at $130,000.

– Energy Department approved all three cases.

Measuring, calibration, and testing equipment (ECCN 1529) valued at $7,375 (case D066127).

Footnotes:

[1] “BXA Facts” (press release), U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Export Administration, March 11, 1991. The list covers a period from 1985 to August 2, 1990, when Iraq invaded Kuwait, and reveals that three of the approvals were for over $1 billion worth of cargo trucks, which were not shipped. Id. at p. 3. See also, Stuart Auerbach, “$1.5 Billion in U.S. Sales to Iraq,” Washington Post, March 11, 1991, p. A1; Michael Wines, “U.S. Tells of Prewar Technology Sales to Iraq Worth $500 million,” New York Times, March 12, 1991, p. A13.

[2] Mark Hibbs, “Components For Pakistan Were Intended For High-Enriched U, German Confirms,” Nuclear Fuel, May 18, 1987.

[3] Mark Hibbs, “Intelligence Reports Identify Two Sites as Key to Iraqi Weapons Program,” Nuclear Fuel, January 21, 1991, p. 3.

[4] “Involvement in Iraqi Gun Factory Reported,” Der Spiegel (Hamburg), July 9, 1990, pp. 54-56, translated in JPRS/TND, July 18, 1990, pp. 35-37.

[5] United States Government Accounting Office, “Arms Control: U.S. Efforts to Control the Transfer of Nuclear-Capable Missile Technology” (Report to the Honorable Dennis DeConcini, U.S. Senate), GAO/NSIAD-90-176, p. 14.

[6] N.B. Namody, Director of the Saad General Establishment, letter of February 27, 1985 to Gildemeister Projecta, describing the 76 laboratories at the Sa’ad 16 Research and Development Center.

[7] Sa’ad General Establishment, letter of May 3, 1986 from H. A. Al-Dahan to Gildemeister Projecta.

[8] U.S. Department of Commerce, Memorandum to John Knofala from Willard A. Workman, August 12, 1986.

[9] Quartz crystals are missile technology items if “usable as launch and ground support equipment” under commodity control number (ECCN No.) 1587. See Part 779, Supplement Four, U.S. Export Administration Regulations (April, 1987).

[10] See Part 779, Supplement Four, U.S. Export Administration Regulations (April, 1987).

[11] U.S. Export Administration Regulations, Supplement No. 1 to Part 778, p. 1.

[12] U.S. Export Administration Regulations, Sections 776.18 (missile technology) and 778.4 (nuclear technology).

[13] Henry Weinstein, “Despite Warning, U.S. Okd Sale of Missile Part to Iraq,” Los Angeles Times, April 9, 1991. p. A7.

[14] Id.

[15] Sa’ad General Establishment, letter of May 3, 1986 from H. A. Al-Dahan to Gildemeister Projecta.

[16] Mark Hibbs, “Intelligence Reports Identify Two Sites As Key to Iraqi Weapons Program,” Nuclear Fuel, January 21, 1991, p. 3.

[17] Mark Hibbs, “Intelligence Reports Identify Two Sites As Key to Iraqi Weapons Program,” Nuclear Fuel, January 21, 1991, p. 3.

[18] “A Civilian Project of Mosul University,” Stern (Hamburg), January 26, 1989. See also Alan George and Herbert Lansinger, “Rocket Merry-Go-Round,” Profil (Vienna), March 20, 1989, pp. 36-38, translated in JPRS/TND, May 5, 1989, pp. 31-34.

[19] International Imaging Systems, press statement, January 29, 1991.

A New China Syndrome: Beijing’s Atomic Bazaar

May 12, 1991March 27, 2017 By Gary Milhollin and Gerard White

The Washington Post
May 12, 1991, Page C1

It should come as no surprise that China is selling Pakistan a nuclear-capable missile and selling Algeria a reactor that could fuel nuclear weapons. These are only the latest in a long line of irresponsible Chinese weapons exports. During the 1980s, China sold billions of dollars worth of nuclear and missile technology to South Asia, South Africa, South America and the Middle East. That these sales are still happening — after a decade of U.S. efforts to stop them — shows how dismally U.S. diplomacy has failed.

Last week, President Bush sent yet another mission to Beijing, where Undersecretary of State Robert Kimmitt complained about China’s arms exports and its human rights record. Late in the week, Wu Jianmin, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, publicly rebuked the U.S. mission, saying in part that “China’s policies . . .will not be changed by external pressure.”

Wu’s public tirade did not mention Beijing’s arms-export record. A study that we have just completed shows that China has never kept its promises to restrain weapons exports and that its real goal is to expand its global influence by profiting from nuclear and missile sales.

By June 3, Bush must decide whether to renew China’s most favored nation (MFN) trading status, a benefit worth billions to Chinese exporters. China’s trade surplus with the United States jumped from $ 3.5 billion in 1988 to $ 10.4 billion in 1989, the largest U.S. trade deficit after Japan and Taiwan. This year the gap could top $ 15 billion. Revoking MFN would increase American tariffs as much as tenfold and could force China to decide whether its huge U.S. trade profits are more important than the secret nuclear and missile deals we describe below:

South Asia: In 1983, U.S. intelligence made a surprising discovery: For the first time, one developing country had given another the complete design of a tested nuclear weapon with a yield of about 25 kilotons, twice the power of the Hiroshima bomb. The supplier was China, the recipient Pakistan. According to U.S. officials, American agents even learned catalogue numbers of some weapon parts. Indignant, U.S. officials made a model of the bomb — about the size of a soccer ball and with detonators around its surface — and showed it to Pakistani diplomats. Computer modeling of the weapon by U.S. weapons experts showed it to be completely reliable.

U.S. officials now confirm that China also gave Pakistan something worse — enough weapon-grade uranium to fuel two nuclear weapons.

With the Chinese design, Pakistan has been able to make and test nuclear weapon parts one by one and to test the whole design with a dummy nuclear core. According to a news report unchallenged by U.S. officials, Pakistan now has a workable bomb weighing only 400 pounds.

Despite all this, U.S. officials in April 1984 initialed a nuclear trade agreement with China based on a famous earlier White House toast in which Premier Zhao declared that China does not “engage in nuclear proliferation ourselves, nor do we help other countries develop nuclear weapons.”

But Chinese scientists were soon seen at Pakistan’s secret Kahuta complex, helping Pakistan produce weapon-strength uranium with gas centrifuges. Meanwhile, China secretly sold sensitive nuclear material to Pakistan’s rival, India, that would allow India to start building a nuclear arsenal. A Reagan administration official admitted that this conduct “raised certain questions about how the Chinese interpret their nonproliferation policies . . . .”

The Reagan administration nevertheless signed the agreement and told Congress that “China has now declared its opposition to proliferation and taken concrete steps toward global nonproliferation norms and practices.”

China’s help to Pakistan continues. According to West German officials, China in 1986 sold Pakistan tritium, used to achieve fusion in hydrogen bombs and boost the yield of atomic bombs enough to destroy entire cities. Pakistan is believed to have enough weapon-grade uranium for about 10 nuclear weapons.

Last month, China was discovered by U.S. intelligence sources to be secretly selling Pakistan the M-11 missile, which can carry a nuclear warhead about 185 miles. U.S. intelligence has already sighted M-11 launchers in Pakistan. The M-11’s range is at the limit set by the 1987 Missile Technology Control Regime, an agreement among industrial nations not to export missiles that can carry nuclear-sized payloads more than 185 miles. China has rejected the regime, which its exports clearly undermine.

Meanwhile, from 1982 to 1987, China secretly sold India at least 130 to 150 tons of “heavy water,” dealing through a West German broker, Alfred Hempel, an ex-Nazi who figured in various Chinese nuclear technology deals. Heavy water is used to make plutonium, a nuclear weapon fuel. The Chinese could have been under no illusions about where the heavy water was going. Ton quantities of heavy water are required only for reactors, and in the mid-1980s, only India’s reactors needed multi-ton quantities.

China sold the heavy water with no strings attached, allowing India for the first time to start a reactor entirely free of international controls — meaning that the reactor’s plutonium would be free to go into atomic bombs. Chinese heavy water sales continued until 1987, enabling India to import enough to start at least two and possibly three reactors free of international controls. Running at full capacity, these three reactors can make enough plutonium for up to 40 atomic bombs per year.

South Africa, South America: As early as 1981, U.S. officials protested Chinese shipments to South Africa and South America. Hempel was sending Chinese uranium to South Africa and uranium and heavy water to Argentina. The U.S. State Department, anxious to get South Africa to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, complained that the Chinese enriched uranium “would weaken the American potential to influence South African policies.” The two large shipments could triple the production of weapon-grade bomb fuel.

Asked to explain the shipments to Argentina, China’s Assistant Foreign Minister Song Zhigaung blamed Hempel, saying he had guaranteed that “the end user was in the Federal Republic of Germany and that the delivery was destined for peaceful use.” But in almost the same breath, Song admitted being told that “the fuel reached Argentina.”

In 1982, well after the first U.S. complaints, Hempel sent at least 50 more tons of Chinese heavy water to Argentina, enough to make a few atomic bombs per year if Argentina wanted. A French report on the shipments later comented, “One receives the impression that . . . for the present, each Chinese department tries in its own way to bring in the much sought-after foreign exchange . . . .”

In 1984, China also supplied Argentina’s rival, Brazil. Secretly and without submitting to international inspection, China shipped enriched uranium useful to bomb-making. Brazil, like Argentina, rejects the Nonproliferation Treaty and has a secret nuclear program.

China also agreed with Brazil in 1985 to help with liquid fuel technology and missile guidance in return for solid fuel rocket technology. This may help Brazil build its first strategic missile, projected to have a 2,000-mile range, from its VLS space rocket.

The Middle East: Last month, U.S. intelligence revealed that China was secretly building a heavy water reactor in Algeria, which has not signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The reactor is too small to produce electricity economically and too large for research. Its sole purpose seems to be to make nuclear weapon material.

At an announced power of 15 megawatts, the reactor could make enough plutonium for about two bombs every three years. Reactor experts say that with upgrading, the Algerian reactor could make up to two bombs per year. (In the 1970s, Israel quietly scaled up its Dimona heavy water reactor from 26 to more than 100 megawatts).

Its reactor discovered, Algeria promised to put it under international inspection. But even with inspection, the only barrier to nuclear weapons will be Algeria’s pledge to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) not to divert the reactor’s plutonium for bombs. But such a pledge can be difficult to enforce at times of tension. For example, ever since the Persian Gulf war, the IAEA has been unable to inspect, and therefore to enforce, a similar pledge by Iraq.

Chinese missile sales in the region include selling the 1,500-mile range CSS-2 to Saudi Arabia. The low-accuracy missile is almost useless as a conventional weapon, but a threat when armed with a nuclear warhead, whose large blast compensates for the inaccuracy.

In July 1988, China apparently agreed to sell Syria the M-9 missile, designed to carry a nuclear warhead about 375 miles. After U.S. officials complained, a Chinese spokesman declared that “China always held a serious attitude toward the problem of selling medium-range missiles.” But even this vague statement may not apply: China may consider the M-9 a short-range missile.

Syria is already taking delivery of North Korean Scud missiles produced with Chinese help, a three-corner arrangement that makes China and North Korea the last suppliers of dangerous missiles in the world.

American diplomats have utterly failed to bring China under control. China rejects the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the two multilateral efforts that try to limit dangerous nuclear sales. China also rejects the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), a group of 16 nations pledged to halt the spread of long-range missiles.

According to a study in the journal International Security, U.S. diplomats who deal with the Foreign Ministry have been talking to the wrong people. “Decision-making on arms sales resides in specialized corporations that exercise nearly autonomous authority because of their . . .personal connections.”

The study says that the Chinese military controls the country’s two major exporting corporations. By negotiating secretly with foreign buyers and reporting directly to the highest echelons of the regime, the corporations avoid interference from the Foreign Ministry. The military wants hard currency to buy advanced weapons abroad to modernize its obsolescent armed forces.

As it turns out, the managers of the exporting firms are often the children or relatives of Communist Party leaders, including Deng Xiaoping. According to the trade journal Nucleonics Week, these managers keep a share of the profits for deposit in foreign bank accounts and have made nuclear smuggling a “quasi-official Chinese policy.”

The only way to change China’s behavior is to force a crackdown on the exporters. Washington should suspend most favored nation trade status until China makes real commitments. China must join the Nuclear Suppliers Group, which would commit China to reasonable nuclear export behavior. To show good faith, China should scale down the Algerian research reactor to two megawatts, enough for research but too small for bomb-making. This is the only real protection against the reactor’s misuse.

China must also join the MTCR, which could curb its missile exports. Again to show good faith, China should publicly renounce its M-11 missile sale to Pakistan and M-9 missile sale to Syria. Indeed, if these sales go through, China could face sanctions under the U.S. Missile Technology Control Act. The president could bar the exporter from receiving U.S. technology or exporting to the United States.

If China does not take these actions, it should lose access to U.S. high technology. Recently, Bush took the first step by blocking U.S. parts for a Chinese satellite. The state-owned buyer in China was suspected of selling missiles to Pakistan. This was no surprise: China’s high-tech importers are the same companies that make the dangerous missile sales. As a second step, Bush should hold up the sale of a high-powered computer that he approved in December. If China’s sales persist, the U.S. Commerce Department should add China to the “Z List” of countries such as North Korea and Cuba to which sales of U.S. high technology is barred.

With the Cold War over, the United States no longer needs China to counter the Soviet Union. The main threat to world security, as the Gulf War showed, now comes from Third World dictators brandishing weapons of mass destruction. To treat as a friend a country that supplies these weapons is certain folly. To coddle China’s dictators — as we did Saddam Hussein — only puts off the day of reckoning. The United States must choke the Chinese arms suppliers now or face the exports later.

Gary Milhollin is a University of Wisconsin law professor and director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control in Washington. Gerard White is assistant director of the project.

Bombs from Beijing: A Report on China’s Nuclear and Missile Exports

May 1, 1991March 27, 2017 By Gary Milhollin and Gerard White

INTRODUCTIONIn April 1991, U.S. intelligence revealed that China was selling Pakistan a nuclear-capable missile and selling Algeria a reactor that could make nuclear weapon material.

These revelations come at a time when Sino-American trade relations are at a crossroads. By June 3, 1991, President Bush must decide whether to renew China’s “most-favored nation” trading status, a benefit worth billions of dollars to Chinese exporters. Revoking the status would increase American tariffs as much as tenfold on Chinese goods.

This report reviews China’s nuclear and missile export record over the past decade. The study finds that:

During the 1980s, China secretly supplied nuclear and missile technology to South Asia, South America, South Africa and the Middle East.
In each region, China’s exports contributed to the success of secret nuclear and missile programs, some of which have resulted in nuclear weapons and the deployment of nuclear-capable missiles.
These exports have continued despite U.S. diplomatic efforts to stop them and Chinese pledges to conform to non-proliferation norms.
To influence China’s export policy, the United States should suspend China’s status as a “most favored nation” until China makes binding nonproliferation commitments. If necessary, the United States should also bar U.S. high-technology exports to China.

SOUTH ASIAPakistan

In 1983, American intelligence agents made a surprising discovery: for the first time, one developing country had given another the complete design of a tested nuclear weapon. The supplier was China, the recipient Pakistan. According to U.S. officials with first-hand knowledge, American intelligence agents had penetrated the Pakistan nuclear program so thoroughly that they even knew the catalogue numbers of some parts the Pakistanis were buying from foreign suppliers. To buttress their complaints to Pakistan, U.S. officials had their nuclear weapon experts produce a model of the bomb design, which they displayed to Pakistani diplomats. The model was about the size of a soccer ball, with multiple detonators spaced around its surface. Experts at the U.S. weapons laboratories had analyzed the design and found that it would work every time, even with small errors in manufacture.

U.S. officials now confirm that China also transferred enough weapon-grade uranium to fuel the design. It is unclear exactly how much uranium Pakistan received, but it has been reported that China gave Pakistan enough for two bombs. If the design was the same as the one for China’s fourth test device, as reported, its yield could be as high as 20 to 25 kilotons, twice the power of the Hiroshima bomb.

The Chinese design was the foundation of Pakistan’s subsequent efforts. Since mid-1985, Pakistan has manufactured parts to match the design specifications, tested the parts one by one, and tested the whole design with a dummy fuel core. According to a study confirmed by U.S. officials, Pakistan now has a workable bomb weighing only four hundred pounds.[1]

Despite China’s aid to Pakistan, U.S. officials initialed an ambitious nuclear trade agreement with China barely a year later, in April 1984. The accord followed a much-publicized toast at a White House dinner in January 1984, in which Premier Zhao announced that China does not “engage in nuclear proliferation ourselves, nor do we help other countries to develop nuclear weapons.”[2] It was on the strength of the toast that the agreement was initialed in April.

But no sooner that the agreement was initialed, Chinese scientists were observed still working at Pakistan’s secret Kahuta complex, helping Pakistan produce its own weapon-strength uranium with gas centrifuges. This cast doubt on the January toast. In addition, Section 129 of the Atomic Energy Act forbade U.S. nuclear exports to any country that assisted a non-nuclear weapon state–which Pakistan clearly was–in developing a nuclear weapon capability. According to a Reagan administration official, the new information “raised certain questions about how the Chinese interpret their nonproliferation policies.”[3]

The agreement remained in limbo until June 1985, when a team of Reagan officials was sent to Beijing for further discussions. There they claimed to have received more assurances–which the Chinese declined to put in writing. The administration refused to reveal the content of the assurances or to transmit a written version of them to Congress. Nevertheless, relying on Beijing’s new oral statements in June, the administration sent the agreement to Congress in July 1985. To support it, the administration supplied a “Nuclear Proliferation Assessment Statement” written by the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.[4] The assessment predicted that the Chinese would act “in a manner consistent with the basic non-proliferation practices common to the United States and other suppliers.” It also said that “discussions with China…since the initialing of the proposed Agreement have contributed…to a shared understanding with China of what it means not to assist other countries to acquire nuclear explosives.” The report concluded that “China has now declared its opposition to proliferation and taken concrete steps toward global non-proliferation norms and practices.”

But throughout the summer of 1984–well after the toast at the White House–China had been secretly shipping sensitive nuclear material to Pakistan’s rival, India–material that would allow India to start building a nuclear arsenal. And, as explained below, China’s nuclear help to Pakistan was to continue.

In 1986, according to criminal justice officials in West Germany, two German firms agreed to provide about 50 grams of pure tritium to Pakistan via Switzerland, but Pakistan suddenly canceled the sale. China, the Germany officials said, had agreed to supply the tritium at a lower price. Tritium is used in hydrogen bombs to achieve thermonuclear fusion and in A-bombs to boost the yield obtained by fission. According to observers in the industry, China emerged as a tritium supplier in the mid-1980s, making offers to several potential buyers in Europe and North America. With a supply of tritium, Pakistan could powerfully boost the yield of its first generation nuclear weapons. Tritium-induced boosting can make a fission bomb more dependable and much more powerful, allowing it to destroy entire cities.

In 1989 there were reports that China had supplied special magnets for stabilizing the centrifuges Pakistan was using to make weapon-grade uranium at Kahuta, and that China was preparing a test site to explode a Pakistani bomb at China’s Lop Nor proving ground. Pakistan is now believed to have enough weapon-grade uranium for about ten bombs, at least twice and possibly several times as powerful as the device dropped on Hiroshima.

China has also helped Pakistan develop nuclear-capable missiles. According to the New York Times, China assisted in the development of Pakistan’s first nuclear-capable missiles, the Hatf-I and Hatf-II, which were tested in February 1989 and flew 50 and 185 miles respectively.[5]

In April 1991, the Wall Street Journal reported that China was in the process of selling Pakistan a missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads.[6] U.S. officials confirmed that the deal was for the M-11, China’s nuclear-capable, solid-fuel missile with a range of about 185 miles. U.S. intelligence had sighted mobile launchers for the M-11 in Pakistan. The M-11’s range falls precisely at the limit set by the 1987 Missile Technology Control Regime, an agreement among missile supplier nations not to export missiles that could carry a nuclear-sized payload 185 miles. China is not a member of the Regime, which its export to Pakistan appears to undermine.

India

At the same time that China was helping Pakistan, it was helping India. From 1982 to 1987, China secretly sold at least 130 to 150 tons of “heavy water” to India through a West German nuclear materials broker named Alfred Hempel, an ex-Nazi who died in 1989. Heavy water looks and tastes like ordinary water but is used to operate reactors that make plutonium, a nuclear weapon material.

After prodding by the U.S. government, German auditors opened Hempel’s books in 1983 and found that for 46.5 million German marks, Hempel had already made shipments of 60 tons of Chinese heavy water to Bombay in 1982 and 1983. The Chinese could have been under no illusions about where the water was going. Ton quantities of heavy water are only required for reactors, and the only reactors in the world that needed large quantities of heavy water in the mid-1980s were in India.

The Chinese water was decisive for India’s nuclear weapon potential. Because the Chinese water was sold secretly, with no strings attached, it allowed India for the first time to start a reactor entirely free of international controls–meaning that the plutonium the reactor made would be free to go into atomic bombs.

India’s own effort to produce heavy water had failed. In 1983 India needed 240 to 250 tons of heavy water to start its new Madras-I reactor, which was sitting idle because India’s heavy water plants could not produce enough to fill it. India’s heavy water plants had not made more than 180 tons, leaving a shortage of 60 to 70 tons.[7] To get the remainder, India had to import it, and all of the legitimate exporters required international inspection of any reactor into which their heavy water was loaded. This meant that if India bought heavy water from legitimate exporters, plutonium produced with the heavy water in Madras-I could not be used to make bombs. But with the 60 tons of Chinese heavy water, India could avoid these requirements. Madras-I could be started free of controls and India–for the first time–could build a nuclear arsenal.

China continued to supply India with heavy water until 1987. China shipped 25.1 tons in April 1984, 20 tons in May, and another 20 tons in August. This was well after the White House toast in January 1984. In a series of “talking points,” apparently prepared in 1986 or 1987 for delivery to West Germany, U.S. officials expressed their concern that Hempel was preparing to ship another 17 tons of Chinese water outside international inspection. The U.S. officials noted that “we have brought this matter to the attention of the Chinese government so that it can take whatever steps it can to avoid a possible circumvention of its safeguards policy.” Nevertheless, China shipped another 16.7 tons with Hempel’s assistance in 1987, again with no strings attached.

Altogether, India was able to import enough clandestine heavy water from China to start at least one and possibly two more reactors free of controls. The three reactors together now make enough plutonium for about 40 atomic bombs per year.

Experts in the 1980s found it difficult to believe that China would help a regional rival acquire nuclear weapons. However, it was revealed later that Chinese officials were bribed. German audits now show that on April 17, 1985, Hempel paid a bribe of 6,500 DM to his partners in China for heavy water shipments.[8] The bribe highlights the corruption in the Chinese export system, and raises the issue of how best to influence China’s behavior under such conditions.

SOUTH AMERICAArgentina

On May 18, 1981, U.S. officials alerted West Germany to an impending Chinese nuclear shipment from Hong Kong to Argentina:

[9]

The American officials had strong views on the effect of the shipment. Through diplomatic correspondence, they said that “we are concerned that the material will not be subject to IAEA safeguards, and thus could eventually be used in a nuclear explosive program.”[10] In another note at the end of May, the State Department revealed that the British, after expressing “disquiet” to the Chinese, had blocked the shipment through Hong Kong.[11] Then, at U.S. urging, the government of Luxembourg had stopped an attempt to ship it through the Luxembourg airport.

The shipment nevertheless went through. In May 1981 Argentina received the Chinese uranium concentrate (possibly 45 tons) or low-enriched uranium hexafluoride, and on June 3 Air France flew about 10 tons of Chinese heavy water through Paris to Buenos Aires.[12] Both the uranium and the heavy water could help Argentina make atomic bombs.

In response to the shipment, American diplomats sent off a flurry of cables and memos. In response to one of them, German diplomats asked their Chinese counterparts to explain the nuclear transactions with Alfred Hempel. Assistant Foreign Minister Song Zhigaung answered on August 26, 1981. He said that in November 1980, China had made its first contract with Hempel for “smaller amounts of lightly enriched uranium,” delivered in May 1981. Hempel, said Song, guaranteed that “the end user was in the Federal Republic of Germany and that the delivery was destined for peaceful use.” Song admitted, however, that “different countries have informed China that the fuel reached Argentina.”[13]

The French also asked for explanations. The heavy water, after being blocked in Hong Kong and Luxembourg, had finally been routed through Paris on Air France. After meetings in Beijing in July, the French reported their conclusions in a cable to West Germany:

[14]

Diplomatic correspondence shows that Hempel routed roughly 50 additional tons of Chinese heavy water to Argentina in 1982, well after Song had been told that Hempel was diverting the shipments. Thus, China continued to deal with Hempel even though it was already receiving a stream of complaints about him. As noted above, China continued to ship heavy water to India through Hempel until 1987. It was impossible for the Chinese not to know that the water was going into uninspected reactors.

Altogether, the Chinese heavy water shipments to Argentina were sufficient to run an uninspected reactor large enough to make a few atomic bombs per year. Although Argentina does not seem to have built such a reactor yet, there is still a risk that it could do so. Argentina has not joined the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

It is unclear how much low-enriched uranium Argentina actually received. If used as feed material in an enrichment plant, the Chinese uranium could multiply Argentine production of highly-enriched uranium for bombs by roughly a factor of three. Argentina has already installed a small amount of uninspected enrichment equipment.

Brazil

Brazil, like its rival Argentina, has received clandestine shipments of Chinese uranium. In 1984, China sold Brazil uranium enriched to three, seven, and twenty percent in three shipments totaling 200kg. Brazilian officials have confirmed the purchases. China made the sales secretly, without requiring inspection, probably soon after the toast given at the White House in January 1984.

China may also have contributed to Brazil’s effort to build nuclear-capable missiles. In 1985 Brazil agreed to trade its solid fuel technology to China for Chinese help in liquid fuel technology and missile guidance. According to General Hugo Piva, who was then in charge of Brazilian missile research efforts, Brazilian engineers on an exploratory visit to China were shown “everything we wanted to see,” and the Chinese were “willing to collaborate with us further, if we so desired.”[15]

The collaboration between the two countries has since developed into a joint venture, officially announced in June 1989 at the Paris Air Show. The parties are Brazil’s Avibras Aerospace Corporation and China’s Great Wall Industry Corporation. The new company, named International Satellite Communication Ltd. or INSCOM, will try to market space launch services and supply satellite tracking equipment to third world consumers.

By giving Brazil Chinese rocket expertise, the joint venture should speed the development of Brazil’s largest space rocket, the VLS. Brazil has turned every space rocket it has developed into a missile, so it is likely that the VLS too will become a missile. On a missile trajectory, the VLS would deliver a nuclear-sized warhead over 2000 miles.

SOUTH AFRICAIn May of 1981, at the same time that U.S. officials were trying to block the Chinese shipments to Argentina, they were also trying to prevent Chinese low-enriched uranium from being sold to South Africa. Again, Alfred Hempel was brokering the sales.

In a message to West German officials, the State Department explained that it was trying to get South Africa to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and accept IAEA safeguards on all its nuclear activities:

[16]

By August 13, the State Department had learned more details. Hempel planned two large uranium shipments–one of 30 tons enriched to 2.7% and a second of 30 tons enriched to 3.0%–enough for two thirds of the first fuel load of Pretoria’s Koeberg reactors. German documents revealed that the State Department “saw no possibility…of blocking the shipment” and was “very unsatisfied with this situation, not the least because it weakens the American potential to influence South African policies.”[17]

The Chinese uranium gave South Africa two options. As in Argentina, it could triple the output of weapon-grade uranium made in an enrichment process. South Africa had started a small, unsafeguarded enrichment plant in the late 1970s that could make about three bombs’ worth of high-enriched uranium per year. The Chinese uranium could boost production to about nine bombs’ worth per year. Alternatively, South Africa could use the Chinese uranium to help fuel its two new power reactors. This would undercut U.S. pressure on South Africa to join the Non Proliferation Treaty, which western governments were supporting with a moratorium on sales of low-enriched uranium to South Africa. It is unclear which option, or combination of these options, South Africa chose. It still has the uranium and it still has not joined the Treaty.

MIDDLE EASTNuclear aid to Algeria

In April 1991, US intelligence revealed that China was secretly building a nuclear reactor in Algeria, a country that has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The information came from leaked CIA reports. Algeria acknowledged the Chinese aid but said that it would place the 15 megawatt reactor under international inspection. Algeria’s ambassador to the United States said that the reactor, which Algeria secretly purchased in 1983, would run on low-enriched uranium, and that it was expected to be completed within several years. Chinese officials were cited as saying that the reactor would also use heavy water.

According to a nuclear trade press report, some CIA data suggests that 15 megawatt is a correct estimate of the reactor’s power level. However, according to the same account, other U.S. experts estimate from the size of the reactor’s cooling towers that the plant might have a power as high as 60 megawatts. Reports also conflicted as to the reactor’s location: most accounts said that it was on the Mediterranean coast, but according to Algeria’s ambassador to the United States, the plant was at Oussera, about 165 miles south of Algiers in the foothills of the Atlas mountains.

According to the leaked CIA information, the reactor was near a Soviet-supplied antiaircraft battery, supporting the charge that the facility was for military use. Algerian Ambassador Bensid said that the facility was protected by “normal, not extraordinary” measures, which he would not describe.[18]

The reactor will move Algeria a long way toward nuclear weapon capability. At an annual power level of 15 megawatts, the reactor could produce about 4.5 kilograms of plutonium per year (assuming a production rate of one gram of plutonium per megawatt day, the rule of thumb for research reactors of this size). It took only 6.1 kilograms of plutonium to fuel the crude U.S. bomb dropped on Nagasaki in 1945, so the Algerian reactor would be able to fuel about two crude bombs every three years. Reactor experts say that with upgrading, the Algerian reactor could make up to two bombs per year.

The nominal power level of a reactor is only an estimate of its actual capacity. By changing the fuel or adding heat exchangers, reactor power can readily be increased. The Israeli reactor at Dimona–which is also sited in a desert and powered by heavy water and possibly low-enriched uranium–was scaled up from a nominal level of 26 megawatts to over 100 megawatts, allowing it to produce 40 kilograms of plutonium per year.

There are no electric power lines near the Algerian reactor. It is too small to be an economical source of electricity, and it is too large to be necessary for research. Algeria already has a one-megawatt research reactor, imported from Argentina, which is adequate for research and isotope production. The Algerian reactor seems to have no purpose other than to make nuclear weapon material.

China did not require Algeria to put the reactor under international safeguards. Algeria has said that the reactor will be inspected eventually, but has signed nothing. Even if the reactor is inspected, the only barrier to putting the plutonium in nuclear weapons will be Algeria’s promise to allow inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

However, a pledge is difficult to enforce in times of tension. When the Gulf War began, Iraq had enough fuel for one atomic bomb. Since then, the International Atomic Energy Agency has not been able to inspect the fuel or discover where all of it is located. Thus, placing the Algerian reactor under inspection does not remove the risk that it could be used to make nuclear weapons material.

The best way to avoid military use of a research reactor is to make it small enough so that its plutonium production is negligible. This means that the Algerian reactor should be scaled down to about two megawatts, which is enough to do research but not enough to make nuclear weapons.

Nuclear aid to Iraq and Iran

In addition to Algeria, there are reports that China is supplying both Iraq and Iran with nuclear technology. In December 1989, it was reported that China was helping Iraq make sophisticated magnets used to stabilize gas centrifuges, which China was known to have previously supplied to Pakistan’s uranium enrichment plant. In 1990 it was reported that China agreed to sell Iraq seven tons of lithium hydride, useful in the manufacturing of nerve gas, missile fuel or nuclear weapons. It is not clear whether the chemicals were shipped.

In early 1990, China and Iran signed a ten-year agreement for scientific cooperation and transfer of military technology. U.S. and European officials are said to believe that China and Iran made a secret nuclear cooperation agreement sometime after 1985.[19] Since 1988 China may also have trained several Iranian nuclear technicians in China and possibly provided technology for reactor construction in Iran. According to one British press report, Iran signed a contract in the summer of 1990 to purchase a research reactor from China.[20] The revolutionary government in Iran was said to have been seeking to buy a 30 megawatt research reactor since 1979.[21]

Missiles to Saudi Arabia

China has also sold missiles to the Middle East. In March 1988, U.S. officials were surprised to learn that China had sold an undisclosed number of intermediate-range missiles (probably about 50) to Saudi Arabia.[22] For over two years, the Chinese and Saudis had kept the deal so secret that the United States did not discover it until it was too late to stop it.

Saudi officials first approached the Chinese in 1985 after the United States, Saudi Arabia’s leading weapons supplier, refused to sell the Saudis F-15 fighter aircraft and short-range Lance missiles. Unlike other suppliers, China proved ready to sell longer-range missiles, and soon was secretly training Saudi technicians in China. The missiles were shipped in early 1988. This was the first time that any country had sold intermediate-range (1,000 to 5,500 mile) missiles to a Middle Eastern nation. It was also the first time that China had ever sold a strategic missile to another country.

The missile, known as the CSS-2, is used in the Chinese arsenal to deliver nuclear warheads over 1,500 miles, giving Saudi Arabia the longest range missile in the Middle East. But the missile’s poor accuracy (its CEP is 1-1.5 miles) makes the CSS-2 ineffective as a conventional weapon. Only the large blast radius of a nuclear explosion could compensate for the inaccuracy of the missile.

The Chinese military reportedly favored the Saudi sale on the ground that it extended China’s global influence. They argued that the sale successfully countered Taiwan’s influence in Saudi Arabia. Indeed, in the summer of 1990 Riyadh broke official ties with Taiwan and established full diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China.

Missile sales to other countries

There have been several reports that China plans to sell more missiles to the Middle East. In July 1988, the Los Angeles Times reported that China had agreed to sell its M-9 surface-to-surface, solid-fuel missile to Syria.[23] The M-9 can carry a nuclear-sized payload about 370 miles.

The United States has been trying to stop the sale. In December 1989, senior U.S. officials visited China on a mission aimed in part at halting the M-9. The officials left believing that they had attained their goal. Shortly after the visit, a Chinese spokesman declared that “China has always held a serious attitude toward the problem of selling medium-range missiles.”[24] But even this vague statement may not apply: China may consider the M-9 a short-range missile.

China has also been discussing the possibility of selling its missiles to Iran. Reports say that Iran wants to buy or jointly produce Chinese M-9 and M-11 surface-to-surface missiles. Iran would also like to purchase the CSS-2 intermediate-range missile, which China sold to Saudi Arabia. China has already helped Iran develop short-range missiles, which Tehran used extensively against Iraq in the “war of the cities.” In addition, China sold Iran Silkworm anti-ship missiles in 1986 and 1987, which threatened Gulf oil tankers and the American ships escorting them.

Although neither Syria nor Iran has yet received the M-9, Syria was able this past March to start taking delivery of North Korean SCUD missiles produced with Chinese help. This recent sale of SCUDS, at a time when all other supplier countries have curbed their missile sales, leaves China and North Korea as the last suppliers of ballistic missiles in the world.

CAN CHINA BE INFLUENCED?China has not joined any of the international efforts to halt nuclear or missile proliferation. China rejects the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), the two multilateral efforts to limit dangerous nuclear exports. In March, when the Nuclear Suppliers Group discussed the possibility of bringing in additional members, China was considered the greatest challenge. One European official commented that “there is little optimism that China’s exports can be reined in and Beijing persuaded to join NSG.”[25] Pentagon officials reportedly fear that in the future, China may decide to supply nuclear technology and materials indiscriminately, without regard to proliferation risks.

China has also refused to join the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), a group of 16 nations pledged to halt the spread of long-range missiles to developing countries. Instead of binding itself formally to any multilateral effort, China has only made periodic statements of its intentions. Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr. (D-DE), in a speech on April 16, 1991, said that after one meeting this year with the Chinese political leadership, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Solomon declared that “the Chinese have indicated that they will honor the parameters” of the Missile Technology Control Regime.[26] But on the same day, according to Biden, China’s Foreign Minister announced that “those countries that did not attend the [MTCR] meeting should not be called upon to assume corresponding obligations to an agreement reached among some other countries.”[27]

According to a study by China specialists John W. Lewis, Hua Di and Xue Litai, U.S. efforts to influence China’s export behavior have failed primarily because American diplomats have been talking to the wrong people:

[28]

The Chinese military controls the exporting corporations, which negotiate secretly with foreign buyers and report directly to the highest echelons, avoiding interference from foreign ministry officials. The military also sees foreign exchange as the key to modernizing its armed forces and resists joining arms control regimes that would cut lucrative sales.

There is also the matter of personal influence and corruption. It has been reported that the managers of the exporting firms are often the children of, or otherwise related to, party leaders, including Deng Xiaoping. According to one report, the managers keep a share of the profits for deposit in foreign bank accounts and have made nuclear smuggling a “quasi-official Chinese policy.”[29]

The best hope for influencing China’s export behavior is to cause its leaders to crack down on the military exporters. One way to do this is to affect what China can sell to the United States. By June 3rd, President Bush must decide whether to renew China’s Most Favored Nation (MFN) trading status, a benefit worth billions to Chinese exporters who enjoy the lowest possible tariff on their exports to the United States. China’s trade surplus with the United States rose to $10.4 billion in 1990 from $3.5 billion in 1988, creating the largest U.S. deficit with any country except Japan and Taiwan. In 1991, the surplus is expected to top $15 billion. This forecast depends on China’s continued status as a most favored nation. Revoking the status could increase American tariffs on Chinese goods as much as tenfold. If that is done, China will have to decide whether the billions it makes from U.S. trade are more important than its nuclear and missile sales.

The United States should not renew most favored nation trade status until China makes some real commitments. China must join the Nuclear Suppliers Group, which would commit China to reasonable nuclear export behavior. To show good faith, China should scale down the Algerian research reactor to two megawatts, enough for research but too small for bomb-making. This is the only real protection against misuse of the reactor.

China must also join the Missile Technology Control Regime, which would curb its missile exports. Again to show good faith, China should publicly renounce its M-11 missile sale to Pakistan and M-9 missile sale to Syria. Indeed, if these sales got through, China could face sanctions under the U.S. Missile Technology Control Act. The President could bar the exporter from receiving U.S. technology or exporting to the United States.

If China does not take these actions, it should lose access to U.S. high technology. Recently, the President took the first step by blocking the export of U.S. parts for a Chinese satellite. The state-owned buyer in China was suspected of selling missiles to Pakistan. As this instance shows, China’s high-tech importers are often the same companies that make the dangerous missiles sales. As a second step, the President should hold up the sale of a high-powered computer that he approved for China in December 1990. This computer should remain in the United States until the Chinese export questions are sorted out. As a last resort, the U.S. Commerce Department could add China to the “Z list,” a category of countries such as North Korea and Cuba where U.S. high technology is barred.

With the Cold War over, the United States no longer needs China to counter the Soviet Union. The main threat to world security, as the Gulf War showed, now comes from the spread of weapons of mass destruction. If Chinese exporters continue to fuel this threat, Washington must take decisive steps to protect U.S. national security. Trade sanctions are an essential beginning.

A SAMPLE OF CHINA’S NONPROLIFERATION PLEDGESJanuary 11, 1984: China does not “engage in nuclear proliferation ourselves, nor do we help other countries to develop nuclear weapons.” –Toast by Premier Zhao Ziyang at a White house state dinner.

June 20, 1984: “We by no means favor nuclear proliferation, nor do we engage in such proliferation by helping other countries to develop nuclear weapons.” –Statement by a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman.

September 24, 1984: China “will take a discreet and responsible attitude so as to assure that cooperation is solely for peaceful purposes,” and “will, in exporting its nuclear materials and equipment, request the recipient countries to accept safeguards in line with the principles established in the agency’s statutes.” –Jiang Xinxiong, minister of the Chinese Ministry of Nuclear Industry, in China’s inaugural address to the International Atomic Energy Agency general conference.

January 18, 1985: “I wish to reiterate that China has no intention, either at present or in the future, to help nonnuclear countries develop nuclear weapons …. We will maintain good relations of cooperation with the [IAEA] and abide by its stipulations …. China’s nuclear cooperation with other countries, either at present or in the future, is confined to peaceful purposes alone.” –Vice Premier Li Peng, in an interview with the official Chinese news agency.

October 24, 1985: “China does not advocate nor practice nuclear proliferation, nor does it help other countries develop nuclear weapons …. cooperation in the field of nuclear energy with other countries, such as France, Federal Germany, the United States, Brazil, Pakistan and Japan, whether ongoing or under discussion, serves and will serve only peaceful purposes instead of any nonpeaceful purposes.” –Statement issued by the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

December 12, 1989: “Except for Saudi Arabia, where a small number of mid-range missiles were sold, China has never sold, nor is planning to sell, missiles to any Middle East country.” –Statement by a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman.

CHINESE TRANSFERS OF SENSITIVE NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY AS REPORTED BY THE PRESS: 1980-1991Importing Country, Date, Technology:

Algeria
1983-1991
Currently supplying, under secret agreement, a nuclear reactor large enough to make plutonium for nuclear weapons

Argentina
1981
Sold 9-10 metric tons of heavy water through Alfred Hempel, a West German broker, to run reactors capable of making plutonium for nuclear weapons

Argentina
1981
Sold uranium concentrate (possibly 45 tons) and low-enriched uranium hexafluoride

Argentina
1982
Sold over 50 metric tons of heavy water

Argentina
1983
Sold 4-6 tons of heavy water, said by Argentina to be insufficiently pure to use

Argentina
1983-85
Sold about 12 kilograms of 20% enriched uranium as fuel for research reactors

Brazil
1984
Sold uranium enriched to three, seven, and twenty percent, in three shipments totaling 200 kg

India
1982-1987
Sold 130-150 tons of heavy water through Alfred Hempel

Iran
after 1985
Made a secret nuclear cooperation agreement, trained several Iranian nuclear technicians in China, and may have supplied technology for reactor construction

Iran
1990
May have contracted to sell a research reactor

Iraq
1989
Helped Iraq manufacture special magnets for stabilizing ultra-high speed centrifuges for enriching uranium

Iraq
1990
Agreed, in violation of U.N. trade embargo, to sell seven tons of lithium hydride which can be used in the manufacture of nuclear weapons

North Korea
late 1950s-early 1960s
Trained North Korean scientists in nuclear technology

Pakistan
1983
Supplied a reliable, tested bomb design enabling Pakistan to make a warhead weighing less than 400 pounds

Pakistan
early 1980s
Supplied highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapon fuel, reportedly enough for two atomic bombs

Pakistan
1980s
Aided Pakistan’s efforts to enrich uranium at the Kahuta plant

Pakistan
1986
Sold tritium gas capable of boosting the yield of fission bombs

Pakistan
1989
Provided special magnets for centrifuges at Pakistan’s Kahuta enrichment plant, which produces nuclear weapon fuel

Pakistan
1989
May have scheduled a nuclear test for Pakistan at the Lop Nor testing ground

Pakistan
1989
Agreed to supply a 300MWt nuclear power station despite the de facto international nuclear supply embargo against Pakistan

South Africa
1981
Sold 30 tons of 2.7% and 30 tons of 3% enriched uranium through Alfred Hempel

CHINESE TRANSFERS OF MISSILE AND ROCKET TECHNOLOGY AS REPORTED BY THE PRESS: 1980-1991Importing Country, Date, Technology:

Brazil
1985
Agreed to provide liquid-fuel and guidance technology for Brazilian rockets and missiles in exchange for Brazilian expertise in solid-fuel technology (agreement implemented by site visits)

Brazil
1989
Formed a joint venture with Brazil to market space rocket launch services to third world countries

Iran
1985
Sold production capability for the Oghab, a short range rocket that can carry a 650 pound warhead 25 miles

Iran
1986
Sold Silkworm anti-ship missiles which can carry a 1130 pound payload 55 miles

Iran
1989
Discussed joint production of Chinese M-11 and M-9 missiles believed to have ranges of 185 and 370 miles respectively

Iraq
1987
Sold 30 Silkworm anti-ship missiles

North Korea
1970s-early 1980s
Helped reverse-engineer and upgrade SCUD missiles later sold to Iran and Syria; provided technology for rocket engine design and production, metallurgy and airframes

Pakistan
1980s
Helped develop Pakistan’s Haft I and II missiles capable of carrying a nuclear-sized payload to 50 and 185 miles respectively

Pakistan
1991
Agreed to sell an undisclosed number of M-11 nuclear-capable, surface-to-surface missiles, for which launch vehicles have already been delivered

Saudi Arabia
1987
Sold approximately 50 CSS-2 nuclear-capable, surface-to-surface missiles with a range of 1,550 miles

Syria
1989-1990
Agreed to sell an unspecified number of M-9 nuclear-capable, surface-to-surface missiles with a range of 370 miles

Footnotes

[1] Hedrick Smith, “A Bomb Ticks in Pakistan,” New York Times Magazine, March 6, 1989, p. 77.

[2] United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Nuclear Proliferation Assessment Statement, July 19, 1985, pp. I-4, I-5.

[3] Michael Knapik and Shota Ushio, “White House Finds Questions But ‘No Smoking Gun’ On China Agreement,” Nucleonics Week, June 28, 1984, p. 4.

[4] United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Nuclear Proliferation Assessment Statement, July 19, 1985.

[5] Bernard E. Trainer, “Pakistan Accused of a Nuclear Move,” New York Times, May 24, 1988, p. A1. See also N.K. Malik, “Newly Developed Pakistan Missiles May Sour Indian Ties,” Times of India (Bombay), February 15, 1989, p. 10; Mushahid Hussain, “First Sight of Pakistan’s ‘Lance,'” Jane’s Defence Weekly, March 11, 1989, pp. 380-381.

[6] John J. Fialka, “Pakistan Seeks Chinese Missile, U.S. Believes,” Wall Street Journal, April 5, 1991, p. A16.

[7] See Gary Milhollin, “Dateline New Delhi: India’s Nuclear Cover-Up,” Foreign Policy, Fall 1986, p. 161.

[8] Federal Republic of Germany, Customs Audit Office for the Upper Finance District of Dusseldorf, Report AB No. 555/88–Bp Z602, January 25, 1989.

[9] Note from the United States Government to the Federal Republic of Germany, May 18, 1981.

[10] Id.

[11] “Reported Peoples Republic of China Sales of Nuclear Material to South Africa and Argentina,” Note from the United States Government to the Federal Republic of Germany, May 29, 1981.

[12] Air Waybill No. 057-2313-2255, Air France, Paris-Buenos Aires, June 3, 1981; See also U.S. State Department, memos of May 18, May 22, and May 29, 1981 to the West German government detailing the materials and shipment plans. The shipment weighed 14.246 metric tons, consisting of 188 drums weighing 75kg each containing 50kg of heavy water. The diversion violated the Hempel group’s pledge to China to use the water only for peaceful purposes in Germany and Switzerland. Freight documents in the author’s possession show that Air France flew the water from China through Paris “in transit” to Buenos Aires.

[13] Foreign Ministry, Federal Republic of Germany, cable of August 26, 1981, from embassy in Peking to Bonn, stating that China’s first contract with Hempel was made in November 1980, for low-enriched uranium, which was delivered in May 1981, under a pledge of peaceful use and a pledge that it would be used in West Germany and Switzerland.

[14] Federal Republic of Germany, Foreign Office, “Re: Nuclear Exports of the PRC,” cable of July 22, 1981, to Bonn from Paris embassy.

[15] “CTA Director Discusses Space Accord With PRC,” Tecnologia & Defesa, (Sao Paulo) November 22, 1985, pp. 21-24.

[16] Note from the United States Government to the Federal Republic of Germany, May 18, 1981.

[17] Federal Republic of Germany, Foreign Office, cable no. 3273 of August 18, 1981, 19:56 hours, to Bonn from the embassy in Washington, D.C.

[18] R. Jeffrey Smith, “Algeria to Allow Eventual Inspection of Reactor, Envoy Says,” Washington Post, May 2, 1991, p. A36.

[19] Mark Hibbs, “Bonn Will Decline Teheran Bid to Resuscitate Bushehr Project,” Nucleonics Week, May 2, 1991, pp. 17-18.

[20] “China To Provide Atomic Reactor,” Keyhan (London), July 19, 1990, p. 4.

[21] Id.

[22] “USA in Bid to Stem Missile Proliferation,” Jane’s Defense Weekly, October 1988, p. 744. The Chinese designation for the CSS-2 as the Dong Feng 3 or DF-3. Some refer to it in its translation as the “East Wind” missile. See “An Ill Wind From China to Arabia,” New York Times, March 29, 1988, p. 26.

Most estimates say the Saudis got about 50 missiles. Nick Cook, “Ironies of Saudi’s IRBM Purchase,” Jane’s Defense Weekly, April 2, 1988, p. 627, (50 missiles); Jim Mann, “U.S. Caught Napping by Sino-Saudi Missile Deal,” Los Angeles Times, May 4, 1988, p. 1, (20-24 missiles); Bill Gertz, “State, Pentagon Worry About Saudi Missiles,” Washington Times, May 12, 1988, p. 3, (50 missiles); “Saudis Secretly Deploying Missiles,” Washington Times, September 20, 1988, p. 8, (50-60 missiles). See also, John H. Cushman Jr., “Spread of Ballistic Missiles Troubles U.S.,” New York Times, March 19, 1988, p. 3, reporting that China has produced less than 60 CSS-2s making it doubtful that the Saudis purchased more than 50; R. Jeffrey Smith, “Chinese Missile Launchers Sighted in Pakistan,” Washington Post, April 6, 1991, p. A17, (36 missiles).

[23] Jim Mann, “China-Syria Deal Concluded, Officials Say,” Los Angeles Times, July 14, 1988, p. 1.

[24] John W. Lewis, Hua Di, and Xue Litai, “Beijing’s Defense Establishment,” International Security, Spring 1991, p. 98.

[25] Mark Hibbs, “Cooling Towers Are Key to Claim Algeria Is Building Bomb Reactor,” Nucleonics Week, April 18, 1991, pp. 7-8.

[26] Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr. (D-Del.), “China” Rogue Elephant on Weapons Proliferation,” Statement before the United States Senate, April 16, 1991.

[27] Id.

[28] John W. Lewis, Hua Di, and Xue Litai, “Beijing’s Defense Establishment,” International Security, Spring 1991, p. 98.

[29] Mark Hibbs, “Cooling Towers Are Key to Claim Algeria Is Building Bomb Reactor,” Nucleonics Week, April 18, 1991, pp. 7-8.

Sensitive U.S. Exports to WMD Procurement Agents in Iraq

April 23, 1991April 4, 2017 By Gary Milhollin

Testimony of Gary Milhollin

Director, Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control

Before the House and Senate Joint Economic Committee
Subcommittee on Technology and National Security

April 23, 1991

I am pleased to have this opportunity to address the Subcommittee on Technology and National Security of the Joint Economic Committee.

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 and other weapons of mass destruction to developing countries. It is encouraging to me, and I am sure to others working in this field, that the Subcommittee has taken an active interest in U.S. export controls and policies.

The Subcommittee has asked me to address a number of topics bearing on the current state of export controls–both U.S. and multilateral–and to recommend ways to improve the present systems.

I will discuss the U.S. export record concerning Iraq, the Bush administration’s recent nonproliferation initiatives, and then I will make my own recommendations for strengthening export controls.

I. U.S. exports to Iraq

I. The Bush Administration’s Actions on Arms Proliferation

After the Gulf crisis began, and everyone realized that the allied coalition might face a mass-destruction arsenal built with imports, the Bush Administration began to announce measures on export control. On November 16, 1990, the President issued Executive Order Number 12735. The Order listed sanctions that could, at the Administration’s discretion, be imposed on foreign persons and foreign countries that promote the spread of chemical and biological weapons. The measure was intended to be a substitute for the mandatory sanctions that Congress wrote into last year’s Export Facilitation Act, which the President vetoed.

But the Order is not really a substitute; it is only a statement that sanctions may be imposed if the Administration wants to impose them. Sanctions against foreign countries can be waived entirely for “significant foreign policy or national security reasons.”

In light of the State Department’s record of pampering Iraq right up to the invasion of Kuwait, I think that there is little chance that Secretary Baker will jump to cut off foreign aid, arms sales, and trade with other proliferant countries, or to punish one of our NATO partners for supplying a proliferant with equipment or know-how. State reportedly did not even want to name the countries that are subject to new controls under the Enhanced Proliferation Control Initiative, which I will discuss in a moment.

The Executive Order also does not even apply to the spread of nuclear weapons or ballistic missiles, in spite of all the evidence of outside help to Iraq’s nuclear and missile programs. If we are going to deal effectively with supplier countries like China–which reportedly has once again broken a nonproliferation pledge to us, this time by selling medium-range missiles to Pakistan–we have to impose swift and sure penalties for aiding all kinds of nonconventional weapon programs.

The Administration’s second measure is the Enhanced Proliferation Control Initiative (EPCI), announced on December 13, 1990. In that same announcement, unfortunately, the President also revealed that he had just approved the export of supercomputers to Brazil and India and a near-supercomputer to China.

Supercomputers are the most powerful tools known for designing both nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. The Brazilian machine is slated for a Brazilian aircraft company that has a history of helping Iraq develop long-range missiles. The Indian machine is slated for an institute that is working on rocket research for the Indian government. The Chinese machine is being sent in spite of China’s recent missile deal with Pakistan, China’s nuclear help to Algeria, and China’s human rights record. Thus, while the Bush administration talks tough on proliferation, its officials are doing little to stop it. Its actions show that it is really not interested in spending any political capital to control weapons of mass destruction.

Under the Enhanced Proliferation Control Initiative, the administration applied export controls to chemical and biological weapon production equipment, and it expanded the number of precursor chemicals that require an export license. It also barred U.S. exporters from knowingly supplying goods for chemical or biological weapon or missile production.

These rules are fine as far as they go, but unfortunately that is not very far. Like the President’s executive order, the EPCI says nothing about controlling dual-use nuclear technologies, and it only addresses missile proliferation in its provision barring U.S. exports to countries or projects that the exporter knows is developing missiles. The Initiative does not make any real change in the way in which the government licensing process works. Merely expanding the list of chemicals and chemical equipment to be controlled does not equal getting tough on proliferation.

The administration’s most recent nonproliferation measure has been to require that the Commerce Department refer more license requests to other agencies for review. The Pentagon, for example, now is apparently receiving roughly 100 cases annually. This is only a tiny fraction of the many thousands of cases Commerce processes each year, but it is a larger fraction than before.

The Missile Technology Control Act, which Congress passed last session, now requires the Commerce Department to refer all items on the missile technology control list to the Pentagon for consultation if the exports are destined for a “country of concern.” The administration is supposed to be drawing up a classified list of these countries, but it is not clear where this process stands, and therefore it is unclear how thoroughly the act is being implemented. This referral procedure does not apply to nuclear-related items, so there now appears to be more Pentagon review of cases on missiles than there is of cases on the nuclear warheads that the missiles would carry.

In sum, the Bush administration is applying a few band-aids where a tourniquet is needed. If we are going to get serious about controlling nonconventional weapons proliferation, we need to adopt measures much stronger than these.

II. Strengthening U.S. Export Controls

If stopping proliferation really is a national security priority, as the President says, we need to put the people who make national security decisions in charge of controlling strategic exports. At present, the power is in the Commerce Department, which is exactly the wrong place. Commerce cannot both promote trade and police it at the same time, as the record in Iraq shows. When I last testified before the Subcommittee, I pointed out that old Atomic Energy Agency had the job of both promoting and regulating nuclear energy until 1974, when the functions were split. Everyone now agrees that the regulatory process gained great credibility and effectiveness from the separation.

I recommend that the Defense Department be made the “hub” agency for controlling all exports relevant to nuclear, chemical, biological, and missile proliferation. Commerce should have, at most, a record keeping function. Commerce should refer applications on receipt to the Pentagon, which would make the final licensing decision in consultation with the Commerce, Energy, and State Departments and the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and with advice from the intelligence agencies.

To coordinate this process, the Defense Department could merge its relevant staff, and the relevant staffs from other agencies, into a Bureau for Strategic Trade. Commerce could still handle the paperwork once an application was approved, but DOD would have the power to approve or deny the license.

This change would put military experts in charge of licensing exports with military applications. If we should ever have to use force against another proliferant country, our armed forces would not be in the position in which they found themselves at the beginning of Operation Desert Shield last fall, when they did not know which U.S. exports had enhanced Iraqi weapons systems because Commerce would not give the Pentagon information about licensed sales.

I also recommend that Congress adopt a more systematic and effective form of oversight. A Congressional committee with jurisdiction over national security matters should oversee and evaluate U.S. export control on a regular basis. That committee could be a subcommittee of one of the Armed Services committees, or of the Governmental Affairs or Governmental Operations committees, or of the Joint Economic Committee. It could even be this subcommittee. The committee or subcommittee should receive complete quarterly data on completed export cases, and should have sufficient staff to oversee the export process. If necessary, the General Accounting Office could be asked to help.

I also recommend, as I did in my previous testimony, that the dual-use export process be pushed into the light of day. Congress should amend Section 12(c) of the Export Administration Act without delay, so as to require publication of quarterly public reports describing the dual-use export licenses that have been granted, including the name of the exporter. If a company is ashamed to have it known that it sold something, it should not have made the sale. Every dual-use export licensed is for a civilian item restricted to peaceful use. There is no excuse whatever for keeping such exports secret.

III. Cocom and Other Multilateral Export Regimes

Cocom:

I have spoken and written about Cocom’s rush to celebrate the end of the Cold War by reducing its control list, which in many cases means eliminating the only export controls in member countries on equipment with nuclear weapon and missile applications. That process is scheduled to continue later this month at a high-level meeting in Paris. The entire schedule of dual-use goods may be scrapped and replaced by a much smaller “core group” limited to eight categories. After the Paris meeting, a new text will be sent to industry for comment, and new regulations should be published this summer.

Among the items that probably will be released for sale are filament winding machines to make uranium gas centrifuges, “shake and bake” equipment for testing the ability of nuclear warheads and missiles to withstand atmospheric reentry forces, and high-speed cameras used to study the implosive shock waves that detonate fission bombs. The United States has tried to keep these goods away from proliferant countries for years.

If President Bush really believes that proliferation is a threat, he should be pressing Cocom to develop North-South controls as it loosens East-West controls on these and other technologies. Instead, the Bush administration is pushing Cocom along, and is not coordinating its nonproliferation goals with its actions on Cocom controls.

In November, the President ordered the Commerce Department to eliminate validated license requirements for exports to Cocom countries by June 1, 1991. The United States has also proposed that Cocom extend license-free treatment to some non-Cocom countries, including Hong Kong, Switzerland, Finland, Austria, Singapore, and South Korea. (The director of U.S. Naval Intelligence told Congress last month that South Korea probably has an offensive chemical warfare capability. South Korea also has a large civilian nuclear power infrastructure, a rival neighbor that is clearly trying to make the bomb, and has shown a past interest itself in acquiring nuclear weapons.) Removing these license requirements will eliminate the paper trail for sensitive dual-use goods and will make it easier for countries to re-export technology without being held accountable for where it goes.

The Nuclear Suppliers Group:

The members of the European Community adhered to the Nuclear Suppliers Guidelines in 1985, and have recently begun working through this medium to develop ways of controlling dual-use nuclear exports. The Nuclear Suppliers Group met in March 1991, for the first time in thirteen years, and on the basis of recent disclosures about exports to Iraq the United States persuaded most of the 26 members to pledge to adopt export controls on dual-use goods.

The NSG members will meet again in May to draft a multilateral dual-use nuclear control list, at which time they will look at the Cocom Atomic Energy List and the U.S. Nuclear Referral List for guidance. There have been discussions about controlling items such as beryllium, zirconium, and boron carbide, and Norway has raised the possibility of heavy water controls.

There is less agreement about requiring full-scope safeguards as a condition of nuclear exports. Several countries, including the United States and Germany, favor requiring full-scope safeguards as a supply condition, but France, the Soviet Union, Britain, Belgium and Italy are resisting unilateral requirements for full-scope safeguards, although Britain will apply them if all other supplier states do the same. Argentina and Brazil have been encouraged to join the NSG but have not done so, and there also has been discussion of the need to include China.

East Bloc export controls:

All of the former East Bloc nations have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and adhered to the Nuclear Supplier Guidelines. However, without the Soviet Union as an enforcer, effective nuclear export controls are not assured. Cash-poor regimes and companies in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union may become nuclear brokers and conduits for sensitive material to proliferant countries.

Nevertheless, Cocom is moving toward a policy of approving license for all but the most sensitive technologies to civilian end users in Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia within 30 days. The United States is committed to liberalizing export policy to these countries and is working with them to develop effective export control systems, although U.S. officials concede that these countries still have strong ties with the Soviet Union and with developing countries and that there is no sure way to prevent technology from being diverted.

Chemical and biological arms control:

According to reports on the latest Australia Group meeting, there is a good chance that the other member countries will adopt export controls on all 50 precursor chemicals on the warning list as the United States has done under the Enhanced Proliferation Control Initiative. There is more resistance to controlling chemical production equipment, but I would urge the administration to press hard on this issue so that chemical and equipment controls will be as multilateral as possible.

I think it is promising that the Australia Group began last year to discuss biological weapons proliferation as well as chemical weapons issues, and since equipment for BW production is even more dual-use than that for chemical weapons, it seems logical for the United States to see whether the Australia Group can become a forum for developing multilateral controls in this area too.

I also would add that in light of President Bush’s declaration that chemical weapons proliferation is a national security threat, the United States should change its position in the Geneva negotiations on a multilateral chemical weapons convention and drop the proposal to retain two per cent of our CW stockpile for the first eight years of the agreement. As Congressman Martin Lancaster has pointed out, this position actually encourages chemical weapons proliferation, since countries with chemical weapons will have veto power over final implementation of the agreement at the eighth-year review conference. We showed very clearly in Operation Desert Storm that we do not need chemical weapons to achieve our military goals, and the Bush administration is undermining its own nonproliferation goals and slowing down the negotiations by sticking to this position.

Developments in the MTCR:

Last month the MTCR members met in Tokyo to for the first comprehensive review of the MTCR Equipment and Technology Annex since the Regime began in 1987. The Annex delineates the items that the member nations agree to control. Officials involved in the talks refused to release any specific details on what changes were accepted by the group, however, it was reported that several agreements were reached. There will be another meeting later this year to complete the review process. In addition to discussing the wording of the Annex discussions were also held to try to achieve a consistent interpretation of the provisions of the regime and how they will be enforced. These efforts are in parallel to other bilateral talks between the U.S. government and the European Space Agency on developing fair trade rules for space launch competitions. U.S. companies and ESA have clashed on several occasions over ESA offers to deliver technology offsets in exchange for launch contracts. Finally, several more nations including Austria, New Zealand, Norway and Denmark have joined the Regime bringing the total membership to sixteen. The administration has been pressing for all the European Community nations to join.

Tug of war over high-tech exports

March 1, 1991April 4, 2017 By Gary Milhollin and Gerard White

Bulletin of Atomic Scientists
March 1991, p. 7-8

Since last summer, two opposing forces have been operating in the field of export controls. On July 1, the United States and its NATO allies began to loosen their controls on dual-use items — goods that have both civilian and military applications. With the Warsaw Pact dissolving, NATO exporters saw little reason to continue restrictions on the sale of high technology. But a month later, when U.S. troops found themselves facing an Iraqi arsenal that included imported missiles and chemical weapons, calls began for stronger export controls. The issue gained in urgency because the NATO partners were decontrolling some of the very items that Iraq was counting on to make its first atomic bomb.

The move toward decontrol was made by Cocom (the Coordinating Committee on Multilateral Export Controls), whose members include Australia, Japan, and all the NATO countries except Iceland. In July Cocom dropped controls on 30 categories of sensitive equipment, which meant that for the first time developing countries could buy items such as sophisticated skull furnaces, which melt high-performance metals, directly from the United States without a license. But a little more than two weeks later, on July 19, the White House blocked a New Jersey company’s proposed sale of a skull furnace to Iraq after US intelligence learned that Iraq planned to use the furnace for military purposes, not to make artificial limbs as the buyer claimed.

The furnace episode shows the difficulty of controlling dual-use exports. A skull furnace can be used to make artificial limbs — or to make missile, aircraft, or nuclear weapon parts. Other companies, such as Germany’s Leybold-Heraus, have already sold high-performance furnaces to Iraq and may ultimately fill this order, although the furnace issue was put on hold because of the embargo.

Some of the items that Cocom dropped are still covered by unilateral US controls. These include the nuclear weapon triggering devices called krytrons that Iraqi buyers discussed with US customs agents during Iraq’s smuggling attempt last March. Many countries cannot buy these triggers from the United States without a license, but export controls on krytrons have been dropped for destinations in Eastern Europe. This means that a country like Iraq could now order them through Romanian brokers. Other items in this category include high-capacity isostatic presses, used to shape plutonium for fission bomb cores, and high-speed oscilloscopes that could be used to process data from nuclear tests.

Unlike the United States, many Cocom members use the same rules they set for the export of high-tech items to Warsaw Pact countries to govern exports to all other countries. This is true of Britain, Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands. While the United States has asked its Cocom partners to refrain from exporting a number of items to countries that are proliferation risks, it is not clear what effect these requests will have.

As the Gulf crisis deepened, both Congress and the administration responded to calls for increased US controls. In November, Congress amended a defense authorization bill to require the president to punish individuals, companies, or governments that violate the Missile Technology Control Regime. Exporters of long-range missiles and their components could be barred from US government contracts for two years and could lose their export licenses. Foreign companies found guilty could be barred from receiving sensitive US exports and their products could be banned in the United States. The act also authorizes the president to waive sanctions under certain conditions.

Congress also changed the Export Administration Act to punish countries using chemical weapons or companies trading in poison gas technology. George Bush, however, pocket-vetoed this act in November, claiming that it “would severely constrain presidential authority in carrying out foreign policy.” Instead, the president issued an executive order enabling the administration to apply such sanctions as halting foreign aid or denying aircraft landing rights to countries that use or produce chemical or biological weapons.

After his November veto was criticized, Bush announced in December the Enhanced Proliferation Control Initiative, a regime scheduled to take effect in February. The initiative, which will add trade in missile technology to the activities that may trigger sanctions, seeks worldwide controls on 50 chemicals used to make poison gas; requires export licenses for whole chemical plants and their technology; and requires licenses for any goods “destined for a publicly listed company, ministry, project, or other entity that is engaged in activities of proliferation concern.” The latter language could affect some important firms — German defense giant MBB, for example, has helped Iraq make both missiles and gasoline bombs.

The State and Commerce departments, in consultation with industry groups, are now drafting a list of dual-use equipment to be controlled, and a list of countries, projects, companies, and front organizations suspected of making or helping others to make weapons of mass destruction. The lists were to be published in the Federal Register some time in February, but the complexities of intelligence protection may delay publication. Meanwhile, some Commerce officials and industry groups are reported to oppose the initiative on the grounds that it will block billions of dollars in US sales.

The Gulf crisis seems to have built support among US allies for better export controls. At a December meeting of the Australia Group, a consortium of supplier nations concerned with the spread of chemical arms, the United States presented Bush’s Enhanced Proliferation Control Initiative. In addition to its existing controls on chemical ingredients, the Group will now work on controls for the equipment used to manufacture poison gas.

Cocom’s February meeting is expected to scrap the current schedule of restricted dual-use items in favor of a much smaller “core group” of goods, limited to eight categories. These categories appear to exclude several sensitive items that the United States has controlled for years. Among the items expected to be decontrolled are filament-winding machines used to make uranium gas centrifuge components, and “shake and bake” equipment that can test the ability of nuclear warheads and missiles to withstand the forces of reentry.

The result of all these activities is hard to predict. It seems likely that Cocom’s decontrol will be followed by new controls by the same countries — under a different name and for a different purpose. All Cocom members, including Portugal, Norway, Denmark, Turkey, and Greece, are expected to join the Missile Technology Control Regime by late spring. So the question may be one of timing — whether Cocom will decontrol proliferation-sensitive technology before new controls are implemented.

Designing the Third World Bomb

December 1, 1990April 3, 2017 By Gary Milhollin

Wisconsin Academy Review
Winter 1990-1991, p.15-18

The conflict in the Gulf should refocus attention on a frightening fact of modern life: Third World tyrants, armed with missiles and A-bombs, are fast replacing the Soviets as the greatest threat to American security.

Yet at the same time, a small group of government officials may heighten that threat by approving the export of U.S. supercomputers to Brazil, Israel, and India, three countries with secret nuclear weapon and ballistic missile programs. If the officials — undersecretaries at the State and Commerce departments — succeed, they will reverse the Reagan policy of keeping these machines away from countries that are trying to get the bomb.

In Brazil, the supercomputers could hasten the day when a nuclear-capable missile is sold to Libya or Iraq and hasten the day when Brazil finally tests the nuclear weapon it is trying to produce. In Israel, the supercomputers could design smaller, lighter nuclear warheads to attack more targets and could reduce the time required before an Israeli missile brings Moscow within range. In India, the supercomputers could hasten the day when Indian ICBMs will threaten all of China with hydrogen bombs.

Is a Supercomputer Really Necessary?

The supercomputer was invented in the mid-1970s to design U.S. nuclear weapons. It since has become the most powerful tool known for designing both nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. Today no U.S. nuclear or missile design is physically tested until it is optimized through computer simulations.

A supercomputer can simulate the implosive shock wave that detonates a nuclear warhead, calculate the multiplication of neutrons in an explosive chain reaction, and solve the equations of state that describe fusion in a hydrogen bomb. To design a nuclear weapon, the designer first runs —on a supercomputer—the proposed design through the equations that govern its performance. Then the design is assembled and exploded underground. Afterward, the test data are fed back into the supercomputer, which must predict how the design will perform in the real world, above ground.

A supercomputer can also model the burning surface of a solid-fuel rocket, calculate the heat and pressure on a warhead entering the atmosphere, and simulate virtually every other force affecting a missile from launch to impact. To design a missile, the designer creates a mathematical model of fluid flow, puts the proposed design on a computer-generated grid, and then calculates the forces affecting air particles at discrete points around the body. This technique helped design the hull of the Stars and Stripes, the boat that returned the Americas Cup to the United States. It also helped design the combustion chamber of the main engine of the space shuttle. Because of the billions of computations needed to solve these problems, a supercomputer’s speed is invaluable for finding design solutions in a practical length of time.

The lack of a supercomputer will not stop a country from making its first atomic bomb. But with a supercomputer, a country can design more efficient nuclear warheads with a minimum of tests and design long-range missiles to carry the warheads to their destination. For countries with limited money and manpower, these advantages are crucial.

The proponents of the exports argue that there were no supercomputers when the first bombs were built, and thus a supercomputer is not the key to going nuclear. But in the early days the lack of computing power was made up for by tests. The Department of Energy (DOE) estimates that about 180 physical tests were needed to design the high-explosive part of a 1955-vintage nuclear weapon. Today fewer than five tests are needed because of computation. To show modern computation’s power, DOE used a Cray supercomputer to replicate the Manhattan Project design, the yield of which could not be determined in the 1940s without a test. The Cray, however, calculated the correct yield in twenty minutes. According to DOE, a team of scientists using the calculators of the 1940s would take five years to do what a Cray supercomputer now does in one second.

Unsavory Recipients

IBM wants to sell a supercomputer to Embraer, an arm of the Brazilian Air Force in the missile-for-export business. Through its ownership in another firm called Orbita, Embraer is now trying to turn Brazil’s Sonda IV space launcher into an intermediate-range, nuclear-capable missile. In January 1988, Libyan arms buyers offered to pay Orbita’s development costs in exchange for long-range missiles and the means to make them. Brazil publicly rebuffed U.S. protests of the Libyan offer.

Embraer is also part of a Brazilian team that has been helping Iraq make long-range missiles, and that could help Iraq make nuclear weapons. According to Brazilian press reports, confirmed by U.S. officials, the Brazilian team has trained the Iraqis in rocket aerodynamics, flight testing, and the control of rocket trajectories. The team also has helped Iraq improve its Soviet-supplied Scud-B missiles— the same missiles Iraq used to bombard the civilian population of Teheran. Embraer exchanges personnel with the research arm of the Brazilian Air Force, called CTA, which West German intelligence says is secretly making nuclear weapon material. CTA, also part of the Brazilian team in Iraq, could gain access to the supercomputer through Embraer and share nuclear calculations with its Iraqi customers.

The University of Sao Paulo is IBM’s second intended Brazilian customer. West German intelligence says that one of the university’s own institutes is designing centrifuges to enrich uranium — a step leading to atomic bombs. Also on the university campus is a group called [PEN, which has secretly built lab-scale centrifuges, has built a lab-scale plant for extracting plutonium (the nuclear weapon material that destroyed Nagasaki), and is planning a secret reactor that will create enough plutonium for one atomic bomb per year. All this is being done with university personnel, who will be able to run bomb designs on the U.S. supercomputer.

Cray — America’s other supercomputer giant — wants to sell a machine to Technion University, the Israeli MIT. In 1987 a Pentagon-sponsored study revealed that Technion was helping design Israel’s ballistic missile re-entry vehicle. And, according to U.S. officials, Technion’s nuclear physicists work at Israel’s secret nuclear weapon complex at Dimona, where an Israeli reactor makes plutonium for atomic bombs. According to a Technion brochure, the Cray that Technion wants to buy will be able to do in one month calculations that now take eight years.

Hebrew University would also get a supercomputer. The Pentagon study found that its physicists work at Israel’s nuclear weapon lab at Soreq, which is using computer codes similar to the Pentagon’s for designing nuclear weapons. The study frankly said that Soreq’s scientists were “developing the kind of codes which will enable them to make hydrogen bombs.” It said that the Israelis “are roughly where the U.S. was in the fission weapon field in the 1950s.” It added, however, that the Israelis did “not yet have the capability to carry out the necessary calculations” for hydrogen bombs. A U.S. supercomputer would provide exactly that capability.

The Weizmann Institute, the third Israeli applicant, is similar to Hebrew University. The institute’s scientists are studying the high energy physics and hydrodynamics needed for nuclear bomb design and the use of lasers to enrich uranium, the most advanced method for making nuclear weapon material. The whole faculty would have access to the U.S. supercomputer.

All of the proposed Israeli recipients pose an additional risk: cooperation with South Africa. NBC News reported in October 1989 that Israel is helping South Africa build and test long-range missiles. In return, Israel receives money and the ability to test its own long-range missiles over the empty ocean off the South African coast. To enable its missiles to reach their full range — which will cover Moscow and Western Europe — Israel needs an accurate re-entry vehicle. This is exactly what a U.S. supercomputer could help design. Israel might even decide to share the supercomputer with its South African customers.

In India, U.S. supercomputers would go to the Indian Institute of Science (IIS) and the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT). Both are doing rocket research. They are studying stresses on rocket bodies, the performance of solid rocket fuel mixtures, and supersonic combustion. There is even a project to study the performance of solid rocket fuel through computer modelling. All this learning will go straight into missiles. When India launched its first intermediate range missile in 1989, it used a first stage solid fuel rocket produced by the space program. Thus, Indian missiles could profit directly from the U.S. supercomputers.

In May 1989, CIA director William Webster told a congressional committee that India appeared to be working on a hydrogen bomb. Over the next few years, India will be trying to perfect an efficient fusion warhead and an accurate long-range missile to carry it. The U.S. supercomputers could powerfully aid both endeavors.

India also presents a second risk: diversion to the Soviet Union. Soviet personnel by the thousands permeate Indian industry and science. The Soviet military, India’s primary and long-time supplier, has contacts throughout the country. U.S. officials are worried about Soviet access to the supercomputer. In cryptography, a supercomputer’s high-speed calculations are used to break codes. U.S. intelligence officers were second in line after the bomb designers to use the first Cray. If the Soviets gained access to one of the Indian supercomputers, they could carry out intelligence operations now beyond their reach.

Security Plans

To justify the sales, the proponents are proffering computer security plans. Someone, whose identity and competence is yet to be defined, could visit computer sites to see who had used the computer and for what. The problem is that the plans can’t really work. Embraer is free to design aircraft—to compute fluid flows around aircraft noses, fuselages, and wings. But the computations are basically the same as the ones for fluid flows around the noses, bodies, and fins of missiles. Hebrew University is free to study nuclear fusion by using exactly the same hydrodynamic and radiation transport codes one needs to design hydrogen bombs. It would be an extraordinary inspection that could detect a violation under such conditions.

All of the machines would be furnished on a “multi-user, multi-use” basis. India has already received a Cray supercomputer under a security plan, but it is a “single-user, single-use” machine set up to forecast monsoons. Operated by the Indian Weather Bureau, it runs a single program and receives only one kind of data. Any other program or data could be detected readily by an audit. Brazil too has received a supercomputer — an IBM — under a security plan, and it too is a single-user, single-use machine. It is set up to receive only seismic data for oil exploration. Its use for another purpose could also be detected readily through an audit.

The machines now proposed would be available to a wide range of users for many purposes. At the University of Sao Paulo, Technion, Hebrew University, and the Indian institutes, the machines would be available generally to faculty members. Each faculty includes persons who work on missiles or nuclear weapons, or who work with other researchers who do. The ability to run a variety of programs using a variety of data would make effective inspection impossible.

To make matters worse, Brazil, Israel, and India are already violating inspection agreements made in the past. In order to import West German nuclear equipment, Brazil promised to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to verify that the equipment was not used to make atomic bombs. However, Brazil has prevented inspection by refusing to report a single one of the numerous German deliveries over the past ten years. In order to import heavy water to run its Dimona reactor, Israel promised to allow Norway to verify that the water would not be used to make atomic bombs. However, Israel has repeatedly rejected Norway’s demands for inspection and is obviously breaking its pledge not to use the water for bombs. In order to import two reactors from the United States for its site at Tarapur, India promised to restrict all the reactors’ plutonium to peaceful use. However, India is now threatening to declare the plutonium — enough for about 320 Nagasaki-sized bombs — free for use in nuclear weapons because of an implausible interpretation of the nuclear sales agreement.

In October 1988, a congressional investigation revealed what Israel really might do with a U.S. supercomputer. After being denied access to the U.S. nuclear weapons laboratory at Los Alamos, two Israelis used a friendly U.S. technician to gain access to one of the lab’s Cray supercomputers. They called in on an access line from the technician’s garage. The purpose of the access? To work on a design for nuclear weapon detonation, which they accomplished before leaving the United States.

Risk vs. Revenue

Not only would inspection be inadequate, it would be costly. The sale to Embraer is worth only $400,000 — the price of two “vector processors.” The processors would raise Embraces existing IBM mainframe to supercomputer speed. If U.S. government inspectors ever were to visit Brazil, and go there several times a year for the next few years (which would be necessary for an adequate inspection), the costs would easily exceed the profits from the sale. U.S. taxpayers would thus foot the bill for IBM’s decision to sell computers to people whose promises are suspect.

The computer makers argue that the growth market is now overseas, but the sales figures tell a different story. Cray has sold about 140 supercomputers in the United States and exported about 100 to developed countries and NATO allies — none of which is a proliferation risk. Each machine has a security plan. IBM is estimated to have sold about 300 vector processors to the same market. Compared to these sales, the prospective handful to the proliferators is a drop in the bucket. To get the drop, however, the exporters seem ready to put the whole world at risk.

To avoid such a risk, the U.S. Commerce Department has issued specific regulations. Five criteria determine whether a country has the “non-proliferation credentials” needed to import U.S. computers: whether the country belongs to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, whether the country has all of its nuclear activities under international inspection, whether the country has an agreement for nuclear cooperation with the United States, whether the country’s public statements and policies support the goal of nuclear non-proliferation, and whether the country is generally cooperative on non-proliferation policy matters. Brazil, Israel, and India do not meet a single one of these criteria. This was why the Reagan administration wouldn’t approve the exports.

Keeping the Faith

The proposed sales would make a mockery of U.S. nuclear non-proliferation policy. The United States is now trying to stop France from selling the technology for the “Viking” rocket motor — a powerful, ICBM-sized booster — to Brazil. The United States justly fears that Brazil will use it to make an intercontinental missile. Can the United States still credibly oppose the sale, after hawking supercomputers to the very Brazilians who make such missiles? Approximately two years ago, the United States stopped West Germany from helping Libya build a poison gas plant. Could the United States credibly do that again, after selling supercomputers to the very Israelis who are working on hydrogen bombs?

If the need to restrain France and Germany were not enough, there is the need to restrain Japan. In 1984, the United States and Japan — the only supercomputer suppliers— agreed not to sell supercomputers to developing countries that had rejected the non-proliferation treaty. In 1986 they renewed the agreement. All of the proposed exports would breach that accord. If the United States does break faith with Japan by making these deals, the result could be a no-holds-barred race to sell supercomputers to the Third World. Moreover, the loss of the Japan accord would make it impossible to bring new suppliers into it. This would be a disaster for U.S. non-proliferation policy and for world security.

The Commerce Department is already chipping away at the Japan agreement. It wants to raise the agreement’s definition of a supercomputer from 100 to several hundred megaflops (million floating-point operations per second — a measure of mathematical computing speed). This would let the University of Sao Paulo get its machine (110 megaflops) without a security plan. The more cautious Japanese want to stay at 100. To justify the new definition, IBM and Cray say that their lower-end machines are now nearing the 100 megaflop threshold. Soon, they say, workstations will have near-supercomputer speed. Thus, the argument goes, the limit should be raised to reflect the advance of technology. By the same logic, however, they should argue that the MX missile is better than the early Atlas, that the neutron bomb is better than our earlier fission devices, and therefore we should sell Atlas missiles and fifties-vintage A-bomb designs to the Third World.

Commerce and State, the departments pushing the deal, are suffering from export-mania and lobbying. IBM and Cray lobbyists have flooded Washington and pressured as many Bush officials as they could find. The Arms Control and Disarmament Agency — with the help of the Pentagon and the Department of Energy — is holding out, still determined to follow the export rules.

George Bush promised after his election to work “every day” against nuclear and missile proliferation. If he really meant that, he must now tell his appointees to hold the line on supercomputers.

Testimony: Iraqi Nuclear Weapon Threat

November 30, 1990April 4, 2017 By Gary Milhollin

Testimony of Gary Milhollin

Director, Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control

Before the Senate Committee on Armed Services

November 30, 1990

I am pleased to have this opportunity to address the Committee on Armed Services on the subject of Iraq’s nuclear capabilities and what bearing these capabilities may have on Operation Desert Shield.

I will address two questions: first, whether Iraq is a near-term nuclear threat, as the Bush administration has recently argued, and second, how we should respond to Iraq’s nuclear program in both the short and the long term.

I. How Close is Iraq to the Bomb?

During the past week, President Bush and his top military advisors have said that Iraq might produce a nuclear weapon within six months to a year, and that we may have to go to war to prevent this from happening. The President told U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia on Thanksgiving that “Every day that passes brings Saddam Hussein one step closer to realizing his goal of a nuclear weapons arsenal–and that’s another reason, frankly, why our mission is marked by a real sense of urgency.” Last Sunday, National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft said that letting the international embargo against Iraq run its course “raises the possibility that we could face an Iraq armed with nuclear weapons.” Defense Secretary Cheney was more direct, saying that “It’s only a matter of time until he acquires nuclear weapons and the capability to deliver them.”

These statements apparently were based on a recent Special National Intelligence Estimate in which top U.S. officials reportedly predicted that Iraq could develop a crude nuclear device in as little as six months to a year in a crash program. Previously, experts inside and outside of the government had estimated that it would take Iraq five to ten years to develop any kind of reliable nuclear weapon. Given that President Bush has been under pressure to clarify the objectives of Operation Desert Shield and justify this massive commitment of force, I think it is important to ask why his administration revised its assessment of Iraq’s nuclear program in the way that it did and at the time that it did.

Saddam’s short-term options:

There are two methods by which Iraq conceivably could fulfill the Bush administration’s most pessimistic forecast and develop a crude nuclear weapon within a year. In either case, since Iraq has no known ability to make nuclear explosive material, it would have to use such material imported from outside sources.

The first alternative would be to divert safeguarded uranium from international inspection to make a weapon. Iraq currently possesses about 12.4 kilograms of French-supplied uranium enriched to 93% U-235, the fissile isotope used to detonate nuclear weapons. France supplied this material to run the Osirak reactor that Israel destroyed in 1981.

The French uranium is in the form of fabricated plates 1.27 millimeters thick made of an aluminum and uranium alloy. The uranium alloy is sandwiched between two aluminum cladding plates. The plates are contained in 33 standard fuel assemblies, plus six control elements, plus some spares. The total quantity of weapon-grade uranium weighs 12.4 kilograms, or 27 pounds. The alloy would have to be chemically broken down in order to get pure uranium. Also, the fuel has been lightly irradiated, which is an additional barrier. It means that the processing would have to be carried out behind shielding, or by a series of workers who would each get a small dose of radioactivity.

Iraq also has about ten kilograms of 80% enriched uranium supplied by the Soviet Union as fuel for small research reactors. Uranium enriched to this level can be used for nuclear weapons. However, even if the two fuels could be blended, twenty kilograms of enriched uranium is not enough to make a simple gun-type nuclear bomb of the type that destroyed Hiroshima. To make a bomb with its safeguarded uranium, Iraq would have to make an implosion weapon, which is a more complex design. There is no clear evidence that Iraq has mastered such a design.

Also, the French and Soviet uranium in Iraq is safeguarded by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which inspects the material regularly to insure that it is not being diverted for weapons use. The IAEA inspected this uranium last week and a spokesman said on Tuesday that it “was where it should be, and none had been diverted.”‘

If Iraq were to divert the French uranium to make a crude weapon, it would alert the world to its intentions, and would provoke preemptive action by the United States and its allies to prevent the construction of even one bomb. The six-month estimate has been generally interpreted to be predicated on Saddam taking this route. Secretary Cheney implied this on Face the Nation last Sunday when he said, “If he were to take that material [the French uranium], he could produce a crude device with it in a year or less.”

The administration also seems to be assuming that Iraq would divert the material between inspections, which are only held once every six months. However, I spoke to the director of safeguards at the IAEA on Wednesday, and he told me that the IAEA stood ready to inspect Iraq’s uranium monthly if Baghdad requested it to do so.

There is also a second possible explanation for how Iraq could make a quick bomb, which the administration has only hinted at thus far. Last Tuesday, Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, who was travelling with the President in Mexico, said that “The statements of the secretary of state and the president are based on information that there is substantial, unsafeguarded nuclear activity going on in Iraq.” It is not clear whether this comment referred to Iraq’s attempts to enrich its own uranium, which I will discuss shortly, or was meant to suggest that Iraq has obtained enough nuclear weapon material from an unspecified outside source to make a simple bomb without touching its safeguarded uranium.

If the administration is suggesting an outside source, it would be an extremely serious development for several reasons apart from the confrontation with Iraq. It would mean that somewhere in the world there is a clandestine source for nuclear weapon material that we do not know about. If the Bush administration does have evidence that Iraq has imported nuclear weapon material from a secret source, it should make this evidence public immediately and stop making vague insinuations about what Iraq might or might not do in the next six months. If Iraq has acquired enriched uranium from a foreign source, the problem is much bigger than keeping the peace in the Middle East. If the administration does not have such evidence, it should not make statements with such grave implications.

If, by one or the other of these alternatives, Iraq should produce a crude nuclear weapon in the next six months, there is another major problem with citing this threat as a cause for war. How could Saddam even be sure that this device would work, -since there would be no opportunity to test it? It would surely be a reckless, desperate act for Iraq to threaten the United States, Britain, France, and Israel–all of which could flatten Baghdad with nuclear weapons–with one untested bomb. Saddam Hussein is a gambler who overreached himself when he invaded Iran and Kuwait, but there is no evidence that he is likely to commit nuclear suicide.

II. The Long-Term Threat

Let me turn now to Iraq’s long-term prospects for acquiring nuclear weapons. This is where the real Iraqi threat lies.

Uranium enrichment:

According to U.S. intelligence reports, Iraq seems to have acquired enough technology to be able to produce a critical mass of enriched uranium within five to ten years, even if the current trade embargo is maintained indefinitely. To do so, Iraq will have to make about a thousand machines called centrifuges, which spin uranium gas at high speed and separate the unstable U-235 atoms from the stable U-238 atoms that make up over 99% of natural uranium. There is no question that Iraq is trying to do this, relying on imported technology.
Iraq has imported a stockpile of natural uranium from several countries around the world and has acquired key equipment for manufacturing centrifuges from German and Swiss suppliers. Saddam has brought in engineers from Germany to install and run the centrifuge-making machines, and has imported from German firms the materials to make centrifuge parts. Congressman Les Aspin recently released a “Persian Gulf Crisis Report Card,” in which he gave Germany a “C” with the comment, “could contribute more,” but in the nuclear area Germany has already contributed more than enough.

There are two key questions to be answered regarding Iraq’s uranium enrichment potential: how quickly can Iraq manufacture more centrifuges, and how soon can it run them efficiently? Iraq already has a handful of centrifuges running experimentally, and the blueprints it needs to make more. But it takes about a thousand centrifuges to produce a bomb’s worth of enriched uranium annually. There is a huge technological chasm between possessing blueprints and actually building and operating that many complex machines, which would fill a space roughly the size of a football field.

The Export Record

Exports have been absolutely central to the realization of Iraq’s nuclear ambitions, and a review of how Saddam has gotten where he is today tells us what is wrong with our nonprolifera¬tion policy–and why going to war will not stop the bomb from
spreading.

Baghdad’s greatest nuclear shopping success has been in West Germany. In 1987, the German firm H & H Metalform sold Iraq at least three “flow-turn” machines–devices specially capable of making high-speed gas centrifuges. The flow-turn machine produces the rotor–the thin-walled portion of the centrifuge that rotates, one of the most difficult parts to manufacture. According to H & H, the deals were licensed by the German government. Two German dealers actually ran the H & H machines at Tuwaitha to produce centrifuges. West German officials also suspect that these dealers sold Iraq the designs for the centrifuges.

In early 1990, another German firm, Export-Union, sent Iraq 50 metric tons of “maraging” steel, a type specially developed to make centrifuge rotors. This sale was cleared by West German officials, who told Export-Union that the steel did not require an export license. From another Bonn firm, Iraq apparently bought the specially-designed “ring” magnets that hold the spinning centrifuge rotors in place.

After Germany, Iraq’s next largest supplier was Brazil. Throughout the 1980s, Brazil helped Iraq obtain uranium. According to two former Brazilian government officials, Brazil agreed to ship Iraq 100 tons of pure uranium and uranium concentrate (the form in which uranium enters the enrichment process) in the early 1980s, knowing full well that Iraq intended to make atomic bombs. Three shipments were sent in 1981, but for fear of bad publicity, Brazil stopped the deliveries before all 100 tons had gone.

Brazil also prospected for uranium in Iraq, analyzed ore samples there, supplied nuclear material and equipment for laboratory tests, and designed an underground plant to make uranium concentrate, which has not yet been built. A firm in Rio, Natron Consulting and Designing, received $5-6 million for the design. Brazil may even have taught Iraqi engineers how to operate centrifuges. Several Iraqi technical teams visited Brazil during the 1980s, at least one of which had access to the secret Aramar enrichment plant at Ipero, which also uses centrifuges—like Iraq’s–based on German designs. Brazil’s president, Fernando Collor, has just expressed his regret for these episodes, which he said transferred “nuclear technology” that was “potentially significant.”

The Iraqi-Brazilian relationship appears to be a case of Germany’s nuclear progeny playing together. Before making its flow-turn machine deal with Iraq, the German firm H & H had exported the same machines to the Brazilian Navy Committee, responsible for Brazil’s uranium enrichment efforts. According to the German news magazine Der Spiegel, Walter Busse, an ex-employee of the West German company MAN, which make centrifuges, established a “dense network of relations between nuclear bomb builders in Iraq and Brazil on the one hand, and German contractors on the other.”

Other countries also have helped Iraq’s uranium enrichment effort. In December 1989, China was reported to be helping Iraq make ring magnets for centrifuge stabilization. China is known to have supplied similar magnets to Pakistan. Also in December 1989, Western officials were reported to be monitoring exchanges of personnel between Iraq and Pakistan’s centrifuge enrichment plant at Kahuta.

Switzerland entered the picture in August 1990, when it was discovered that customs officials in Frankfurt had seized end caps for centrifuges on their way to Iraq from the Swiss firm Schmiedemeccanica. End caps, specially made from high-strength steel, are needed to seal the tops and bottoms of centrifuges. Schmiedemeccanica was working under contract to Germany’s H & H. As usual, in addition to the caps, Iraq was trying to get the means to make them itself. The customs agents also seized machine tools for making end caps furnished by the Swiss firm Schaeubl in.

Enrichment is only the final stage of the uranium fuel cycle, which is a complex and expensive process. It begins with the acquisition of natural uranium. Iraq has several hundred tons of natural uranium, which cannot be used directly for nuclear weapons but will be needed as feedstock for an indigenous enrichment capability. It apparently imported 100 tons from Niger and 130 tons from Portugal in the early 1980s, without putting the shipments under IAEA inspection. In addition, Iraq has purchased tons of low-enriched and depleted uranium on the world market.

If Iraq ever does produce nuclear weapon material, it would like to have the other parts of the bomb–the “detonation package”–already waiting. Saddam has used his worldwide purchasing network to acquire bomb parts as well as enrichment technology, and the United States has been an important source.

We are all familiar with his attempt last March to smuggle American-made nuclear weapon triggers to Iraq. The triggers consisted of special high-performance capacitors used to detonate warheads in the U.S. arsenal. The Iraqi agents were also interested in buying krytrons, the high-speed electronic switches used in combination with the capacitors to detonate nuclear warheads.

If Iraq someday reaches the point of a nuclear test, it will have American equipment specially designed to monitor the explosion. In 1987, the American company Tektronix sold Iraq a digital oscilloscope which, according to a company official, had nuclear applications. Oscilloscopes are uniquely able to process the rapid data from nuclear weapon tests. They are also used to develop missile guidance systems and to sort the data from missile flight tests. The oscilloscope was licensed and was shipped to SAAD-16, Iraq’s largest complex for chemical, missile, and nuclear weapon research.

U.S. companies have also provided equipment to Iraq that has been used directly in its ballistic missile program, and may someday help deliver an Iraqi bomb. Hewlett Packard sold Iraq $1 million worth of electronic test and measurement equipment and general-purpose computers. Wiltron provided a scalar network analyser to test and develop microwave circuits for missile guidance radars. These sales were licensed by the U.S. Commerce Department between 1985 and 1987. If we go to war with Iraq, we may wind up bombing our own citizens, now held at Iraqi weapons sites, to destroy our own exports. And we would have to ask U.S. pilots to risk their lives to do it.

I strongly urge the Armed Services Committee to begin redressing this situation by increasing the Pentagon’s role in nonproliferation policy decisions. The Secretary of Defense should have the power to concur in all exports of dual-use technologies and munitions, and also in re-exports by the Department of Energy. Under the current system, the export promotion agency (Commerce), the nuclear promotion agency (Energy), and the international harmony promotion agency (State) make these decisions without the help of the security promotion -agency (Defense).

There are recent cases in which the Pentagon has intervened and blocked or slowed pending exports of nuclear and missile technologies, but in other cases DOD has taken scant interest in non-proliferation policy and has meekly accepted the export decisions of the Commerce and State departments. The best case is that of pending exports of supercomputers to Israel, India and Brazil. All of these countries have secret nuclear and missile programs and are ineligible according to our own export standards to receive supercomputers, which are the most powerful tool available for nuclear weapon and missile design. However, the Pentagon–which opposed these sales under the Reagan administration–is knuckling under to other agencies that are not as well qualified to assess the security implications of these transactions, and are simply concerned with placating other governments and promoting U.S. trade.

If the Defense Department wants to be a real player in nonproliferation policy, and not simply be tapped when it is time to send in the troops as the last line of defense against Third World nuclear weapons, it should show that it is willing to devote staff and initiative to these export decisions and keep weapons technology out of proliferator countries. The Defense Technology Security Administration, which was established to control technology transfers to the Soviet bloc, needs a new job. Congress should task it with providing technical support for export licensing decisions, through the Office of the Secretary of Defense. If we had devoted more of our military resources to controlling proliferation at the source in the past decade, we probably would not have to airlift other military resources to the Persian Gulf today.

Stopping the Bomb, in Iraq and Elsewhere

In summary, I would like to make three simple points. First, there is no real short-term risk of an Iraqi nuclear weapon–at least based on what the Bush administration has told us so far. The administration should be ashamed of itself for misleading the public about the Iraqi bomb; there should be a reasonable limit to governmental disinformation when the stakes are so high. If the administration has hard evidence that Iraq has diverted safeguarded fissile material or acquired unrestricted fissile material from outside, the president should make it public and give Congress a real basis for exercising its constitutional power of deciding whether to commit the nation to war.

Second, I believe that Iraq is a major proliferation risk in the long term, and that the current trade embargo may not be sufficient to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons.
However, I think our security would be better served by developing international efforts to contain Iraq’s nuclear efforts as tightly as possible through nonmilitary means, with military strikes on nuclear facilities only as a last resort. We carried out a forty-year campaign to contain the Soviet Union and prevent war in Central Europe, so we should be able to organize a comprehensive system to contain Iraq, particularly since the Soviet Union is now on our side.

Third, a general war against Iraq, even to stop Hussein from making the bomb, would not solve the problem of nuclear proliferation. Iraq’s pattern of arming through imports is being replicated around the world, and soldiers’ blood is not a morally defensible means of export control. Reckless exports have given Israel, South Africa, India and Pakistan the means to make nuclear weapons, and have almost done so for Argentina and Brazil. As long as there are buyers with money there will be sellers of dangerous goods. Periodic wars, randomly triggered when a nuclear aspirant invades its neighbor, are not a reliable means of containing nuclear technology.

I hope that the Armed Services Committee will keep in mind that it is much easier to prevent nuclear proliferation than to cure it with troops, and I urge the Committee to implement the new role for the Defense Department that I have suggested. If Americans must die in Kuwait to stop the spread of the bomb to Iraq, we must insure that such a sacrifice is never required again.

Better Nuclear Prevention Than Cure

November 29, 1990April 7, 2017 By Gary Milhollin

International Herald Tribune
November 29, 1990, p. 4

WASHINGTON — Should President George Bush use the US forces of Operation Desert Shield to strike at Iraq’s nuclear effort just a few hundred miles away? There could be high military casualties, and among those at risk would be the Western “guests” now used as human shields at Iraqi arms factories. The West could wind up bombing its own citizens to destroy its own exports.

Therein lies a moral issue that is not being discussed. The problem of Iraqis nuclear program is that of exports. Iraq imported its stockpile of natural uranium from several countries around the world and bought key nuclear processing equipment from firms m Germany and Switzerland. These were the machines needed to make the centrifuges that enrich uranium Iraq brought in engineers from Germany to install and run the centrifuge-making machines, and imported from German firms the special steel needed to make centrifuge parts. The German government has also investigated charges that the engineers supplied the centrifuge blueprints from which Iraq has been ordering parts. The German government does not dispute the widely reported fact that it licensed all of the material and equipment for export, despite the fact that it was on international control lists.

To see German-style centrifuges in action, Iraqi engineers visited a secret site in Brazil, where Brazil was running centrifuges made with machines that the same German firms had sold to Brazil a few years earlier. Brazil could have taught Iraq what it needed to know about centrifuge operation. According to a U S official, the Iraqis have received technical help from Pakistani nuclear experts who, in turn, got help from Germany and China.

The United States also allowed reckless exports to Iraq, in particular sensitive oscilloscopes that are now being used to develop ballistic missiles at Iraq’s largest military research site, Saad-16. These instruments were on the international control list, but the Commerce Department licensed them for export anyway.

American diplomats complained about German exports throughout the 1980s, but Germany ignored hundreds of secret U.S. cables. A senior adviser to Chancellor Helmut Kohl, confronted with Germany’s chemical exports to Iraq in 1984, told The New York Times: “You can probably deliver a lipstick factory and it will turn into something else.”

The German magazine Der Spiegel has called its country’s deals with Iraq “the saddest chapter in the evil history of FRG arms exports.” If US troops go to war in the Gulf, they will have to fight their way through Germany’s chemical exports to destroy Germany’s nuclear exports.

By the time Mr. Kohl began to reform German export laws it was too late. Iraq had already built a chemical arsenal and was aiming for nuclear autonomy, despite the 1981 Israeli bombing of its French-supplied 0sirak reactor.

Similarly reckless Western export policies have given Israel, South Africa, India and Pakistan the means to make nuclear weapons and may soon do the same for Argentina and Brazil. Well-heeled buyers are always looking for dangerous goods. Indeed, if Saddam Hussein had not misbehaved by taking Kuwait, the West would still be feeding his mass-destruction war machine Only because of the invasion has the West roused itself, rubbed its eyes and begun to focus on the risk of an Iraqi bomb.

The lesson from the Gulf is that the prevention of nuclear proliferation is cheaper than its cure. If countries do not stop the spread of the bomb while they can do it peacefully, they may be forced to do it with blood. If the current embargo or something like it had been in effect during the late 1980s, the Iraqi nuclear question would not be posed today. Use of military force to stop Iraq’s nuclear bomb program would risk America’s blood to counter reckless exports.

The world must learn from this mistake and turn the consensus that produced the embargo into a permanent system for stopping the spread of the bomb. Virtually every country in the world has agreed lo sanctions against Iraq. These same countries should now agree to sanctions against the secret nuclear bomb programs of other developing countries. Unless the world wants to face more Iraqs, it must raise the economic and political costs of the bomb so high that the renegades cannot afford it.

If American lives are lost to stop the spread of the bomb to Iraq, the world must ensure that such a sacrifice is never required again.

A Mideast Dilemma: What Is Saddam’s Nuclear Timetable?

November 25, 1990March 29, 2017 By Gary Milhollin

The Washington Post, Outlook
November 25, 1990, p. C5

On Thanksgiving Day President Bush told our troops in the Persian Gulf that the Iraqi nuclear-weapon program may be more advanced than previously thought He warned against “underestimating the reality of the situation.”

What he did not discuss are the U.S. intelligence reports that Iraq has taken another step forward in the complex process of producing a nuclear weapon and can proceed toward its goal despite the current trade embargo.

By the time the world ceased commerce with Iraq in retaliation for the Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait, Saddam Hussein’s scientists had apparently already imported enough technical know-how, exotic material and specialized equipment for an independent nuclear-weapon effort. Still more disturbing are reports reaching US agencies that Iraqi scientists can now make the complex gas centrifuges that are crucial for raising natural uranium to nuclear-weapon grade, substantially freeing Iraqi nuclear-material production from outside sources.

President Bush and CIA Director William Webster have made clear that Iraq’s weapons program is at the forefront of their thinking about regional security in the Persian Gulf Bush has said that even if Iraq withdrew from Kuwait tomorrow, Iraq’s chemical and other weapon potential “would be a problem [that] . . . would have to be resolved.” Webster has been even blunter. He said the Gulf “will never be secure again” until Saddam “has been disassociated with his instruments of mass destruction in one form or another.”

The Iraqi nuclear threat is not immediate. Even if the intelligence reports are accurate about Iraq’s nuclear know-how, it will take years before enough centrifuges could be built and running well enough to make bomb quantities of warhead-strength uranium. Even the earliest estimates are that Iraq probably cannot produce a critical mass of fissionable material in less than four or five years — but the threat is no less real for being just over the horizon.

Iraq already possesses more than 200 tons of natural uranium, enough for at least 50 bombs if its fledgling weapons-production industry ever reaches the technical sophistication of other nations in the nuclear club, such as Pakistan. Intelligence reports indicate that Saddam’s scientists have the technology and expertise to chemically convert the uranium to a gas and will soon begin building the centrifuges needed to enrich the gas to nuclear-weapon grade. By spinning uranium gas at high speed, the centrifuge separates the heavier isotope of uranium, which is inert, from the lighter isotope, which is unstable and produces the chain reaction needed for a bomb.

If those steps are achieved, it is within Iraq’s grasp to turn the enriched gas back into the metal needed for the core of a bomb. Sources familiar with the reports say that Iraq already has a handful of centrifuges operating and the blueprints for producing more.

But it takes about a thousand centrifuges to produce a bomb’s worth of enriched uranium annually. And there is a huge technological chasm between possessing blueprints and actually producing and operating that many complex machines, which would fill a space roughly the size of a football field. It can be presumed that an Iraqi weapons program would make every effort to have the rest of the bomb, (the “detonation package”) ready whenever the first critical mass can be produced. According to knowledgeable scientists, designing a bomb is less difficult than producing the material to fuel it.

Iraq also has a small amount of bomb-grade reactor fuel that it imported from France over a decade ago. But this is not thought to be a major threat. The amount is not enough to make a bomb with a simple design; Iraq would have to master the more complex implosion design in order to use so small an amount of material for a bomb.

Iraq also would have to divert this fuel from international inspection, risking a sharp new dispute with the West. An inspection conducted last week by the International Atomic Energy Agency of Iraq’s cache of French reactor fuel seems to have proceeded normally with no evidence that any diversion has occurred. Of course, Saddam could divert the fuel immediately after the inspectors leave. But that would leave him with only one untested bomb. Saddam is more likely to leave the French fuel intact and count on his centrifuges to provide nuclear weapons material secretly within a few years.

Should Iraq begin producing critical masses of nuclear-weapon material, there is no way to know where it might go. Saddam’s allies include Libya, which has long wanted nuclear weapons, and the Palestine Liberation Organization, which has been connected to terrorist acts. The possibility of a secret trade in nuclear weaponry is one of the gravest risks that an Iraqi bomb would pose. These developments raise a nightmarish question: Should Bush use the US forces of Operation Desert Shield to strike at Iraq’s nuclear effort just a few hundred miles away? There could be high military casualties, and among those at risk would be the Western “guests” now used as human shields at Iraqi arms factories. The West could wind up bombing its own citizens to destroy its own exports.

Therein lies a moral issue that is not being discussed. The problem of Iraq’s nuclear program is that of exports. Iraq imported its stockpile of natural uranium from several countries around the world and bought key nuclear-processing equipment from firms in Germany and Switzerland. These were the machines needed to make the centrifuges that enrich uranium. Iraq brought in engineers from Germany to install and run the centrifuge-making machines and imported from German firms the special steel needed to make centrifuge parts. The German government has also investigated charges that the engineers supplied the centrifuge blueprints from which Iraq has been ordering parts.

The German government does not dispute the widely reported fact that it licensed all of the material and equipment for export, despite the fact that it was on international control lists. To see German-style centrifuges in action, Iraqi engineers even visited a secret site in Brazil where Brazil was running centrifuges made with machines that the same German firms had sold to Brazil a few years earlier. Brazil could have taught Iraq what it needed to know about centrifuge operation. According to a US official the Iraqis have also received technical help from Pakistani nuclear experts who, in turn, got help from Germany and China.

America’s main fault, however, was its failure to stop Germany. US diplomats complained about German exports throughout the 1980s, but Germany ignored hundreds of secret US cables. A senior adviser to Chancellor Helmut Kohl, confronted with Germany’s chemical exports to Iraq m 1984, told The New York Times: “you can probably deliver a lipstick factory and it will turn into something else.”

The German magazine Der Spiegel has called its country’s deals with Iraq “the saddest chapter in the evil history of FRG arms exports.” If US troops go to war in the gulf, they will have to fight their way through Germany’s chemical exports to destroy Germany’s nuclear exports.

By the time Kohl began to reform German export laws, it was too late. Iraq had already built a chemical arsenal and was aiming for nuclear autonomy, despite the 1981 Israeli bombing of Saddam’s French-supplied Osirak reactor.

Similarly reckless Western export policies have given Israel, South Africa, India and Pakistan the means to make nuclear weapons and may soon do the same for Argentina and Brazil. Well-heeled buyers are always looking for dangerous goods. Indeed, if Saddam had not misbehaved by taking Kuwait, the West would still be feeding his mass-destruction war machine. Only because of the invasion has the West roused itself, rubbed its eyes, and begun to focus on the risk of an Iraqi bomb.

If Saddam is allowed to continue his nuclear-weapon program, Israel may decide to attack the facilities as it did in 1981. Israel has the military power to launch a devastating nuclear strike against multiple targets in Iraq. But any Israeli attack would vaporize the new U.S.-Arab coalition along with its Iraqi targets.

The lesson from the Gulf is that the prevention of nuclear proliferation is cheaper than its cure. If nations do not stop the spread of the bomb while they can still do it peacefully, they may be forced to do it with blood. If the current embargo or something like it had been in effect during the latter half of the 1980s, the Iraqi nuclear question would not be posed today. Use of military force to stop Iraq’s nuclear program bomb would risk America’s blood to counter reckless exports. It is not moral to ask people to die because exporters were greedy and government officials did not do their jobs.

The world must learn from this mistake and turn the consensus that produced the embargo into a permanent system for stopping the spread of the bomb. Virtually every country in the world has agreed to sanctions against Iraq. These same countries should now agree to sanctions against the secret nuclear-bomb programs of other developing countries. Unless the world wants to face more Iraqs, it must raise the economic and political costs of the bomb so high the renegades cannot afford it. This is already being tried in a mild way with Brazil and seems to be working.

If American lives are lost to stop the spread of the bomb to Iraq, the world must insure that such a sacrifice is never required again.

Monitoring the Nuke-Mart

November 1, 1990April 5, 2017

On Wisconsin
November-December 1990.

As the Cold War cools, Third World tyrants are rushing to build weapons of mass destruction. And according to law professor Gary Milhollin, western nations have been their best suppliers.

The nuclear club was pretty exclusive when only the United States and the Soviet Union had the bomb. Peace was kept through mutually assured destruction. Now the club is getting crowded and leaders of all kinds have a finger on the button.

In the Middle East, Iran, Iraq, and Libya have all imported chemical weapons plants and are now trying to import nuclear weapons and long range missiles. In South Asia, India and Pakistan are threatening to have the world’s first nuclear-armed border war. In South America, Argentina and Brazil are teetering on the brink of nuclear capability. And in Saudi Arabia, some of the missiles aimed at U.S. troops are guided by American equipment sold to Iraq with the blessing of the U.S. government.

Soon Third World countries with the bomb could be as commonplace as inner-city drug dealers with machine guns. An article that appeared in the New York Times just days before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait warned that “Third-World tyrants, armed with missiles and A-bombs, are fast replacing the Soviets as the greatest threat to American cities.” Its author is law professor Gary Milhollin, director of the Washington-based Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control. “I don’t claim to be a prophet,” he says. “It just seemed obvious to me that it was a dangerous situation. We have been shortsighted and imprudent in what we have sent them.”

Milhollin has made a career out of pointing out what others prefer to ignore. He tracks the sale of nuclear materials to Third World countries like Iraq that are trying to get the bomb. Then he publicizes his findings to the press to embarrass arms merchants and their governments into halting these sales. Several western nations, including the U.S., have helped Iraq achieve near nuclear capability in the name of commercial free trade. Milhollin believes that if Saddam Hussein did not pose a nuclear threat, the U.S. would not have almost a quarter-million troops in the Persian Gulf. “It’s the undeclared reason why we’re there,” he says. “The U.S. has been one of the primary sources of nuclear materials for Iraq, and now we’re threatening to spend American blood to counter the nuclear threat.”

Milhollin got into nuclear detective work after serving as an administrative law judge on the commission that investigated the Three Mile Island accident in 1979. He concluded then that the benefits of nuclear energy were minimal compared to the threat of nuclear proliferation. Now that the Cold War has ended, the behavior of such rogue nations as Iraq has underscored his concern. Milhollin compares the new world order to the old Wild West. “Either everybody hangs up their guns and we have a peaceful society, or everybody has to have a gun,” he says. “This is one area where the domino theory really works.”

In a few short years, this respected University of Wisconsin-Madison law professor has transformed himself into the conscience of the nuclear industry. He began teaching here in 1976, and founded the Washington office of the Wisconsin Project five years ago. He’s been on leave since he became the media’s favorite expert on the nuclear arms race.

“When Gary returns to teach, students will get an opportunity to learn from someone with a world of experience,” says associate law school dean Gerald Thain. “His course on nuclear arms proliferation, which examines the degree to which there is compliance with international and treaty law, will be more popular than ever. It’ll be like taking a course from a former secretary of state.”

In the meantime, Milhollin must keep up an incredible pace. He says fishing the truth out of Washington is about as hard as trying to fish a bass out of the Wisconsin River. His gaunt face and somber expression prompted one interviewer to observe that the Wisconsin nuke-tracker had the pained look of a long-distance runner-but he doesn’t even jog. Milhollin’s David vs. Goliath struggle against the spread of nuclear weapons has clearly consumed him.

The professor’s goal is to raise public awareness so governments will be forced to tighten export controls on nuclear materials. His chief weapon in this crusade is publicity. He’s an expert at getting himself into print and on television. He’s taught himself to speak in short, punchy, ten-second blurbs. “You’ve got to be a soundbite professor to get your point across,” he says. He has been interviewed on “60 Minutes” by Mike Wallace and quoted in just about every major U.S. newspaper and magazine. “The way to get people’s attention is to hit them in the media,” he says. “You have to be public and you have to be conspicuous if you want to raise money and convince people. You have to give up any sense of modesty.”

Until last fall, Milhollin worked virtually alone in a cluttered office. Now grants to the law school from the Rockefeller Foundation and others have afforded him three staffers and a suite on L Street, in the power brokers’ section of Washington, D.C.

His elevated status is the result of several notable successes. He exposed a German industrialist who was trading nuclear materials on the black market. His testimony before the Bundestag helped persuade the Germans to change their export law. He pounded away at the Norwegian government in the American press until it closed its heavy water industry. (Heavy water, or deuterium oxide, allows reactors to run on natural uranium as opposed to enriched uranium, which is more expensive and tightly controlled.)

The self-appointed watchdog targets his own government just as effectively. In September, his testimony persuaded a congressional subcommittee to demand a list from the Commerce Department of all U.S. “dual use” transactions with Iraq since 1985. Items such as supercomputers are ostensibly for peaceful purposes but are also essential to any nuclear program. “If they furnish that information and I get a look at it, it will be a devastating experience for them,” promises Milhollin, who has a bachelor’s degree in engineering in addition to his law degree.

The bomb is big business. The co-conspirator nations that armed Saddam Hussein include West Germany (centrifuges and a reactor), France (a reactor), Italy (the technology to extract plutonium from uranium), the U.S. (mainframe computers and oscilloscopes), and Brazil (rocketry expertise). Milhollin regards such trade as immoral. “People are going to be killed because other people made a buck.”

Some administration officials speculate the real reason the Soviets are not sending ground troops to the Persian Gulf is they don’t want to face their own weapons. “The Soviets sold a lot of their SCUD missiles to Iraq, and they’re going to kill our troops,” predicts Milhollin, who believes war is likely before the end of the year. Yet he favors a tightly enforced embargo against Iraq while a diplomatic solution is pursued. “Unless President Bush goes in and does something brilliant, I don’t see how he wins. And I’ll be the first one out there saying that because of failed diplomacy, we’re paying with our lives.”

Keeping up with the underground sales of nuclear components requires an in-depth understanding of international law and a disposition that’s anything but bookish. Milhollin operates like an investigative reporter. He pores through public documents. He networks in national security circles. He keeps up with industry sources, whose job it is to know what the competition is doing. He nurtures international contacts.

“One thing leads to another,” he says. “Like a beagle, I follow the trail.” He works closely with reporters, trading sources and information and using them as legmen. He recently expanded his field of inquiry to include missiles and chemical weapons (“the poor man’s bomb”).

Because of his successes, Milhollin claims, the Bush and Reagan administration have conducted “witch hunts” to see which officials talk to him. “People at the Department of Energy tell me their career is on the line if they’re seen with me,” he says.

This UW-Madison professor is no stranger to Washington. He first came to the capital the year John F. Kennedy was inaugurated (“when you could drive fifty miles into Virginia and find ‘colored-only’ water fountains”). After getting a law degree from Georgetown University, he worked in Paris, where he met his wife, Monique, now a professor on the French faculty at Johns Hopkins University. Their children have dual U.S.-French citizenship. Son Elliott is a sophomore at the University of Michigan. Daughter Jessica, sixteen, is the varsity goalie on her high school field hockey team.

Although he still thinks of himself as a professor, Milhollin won’t be back in the classroom just yet. Washington policy-makers are encouraging the Wisconsin Nuclear Arms Control Project to continue its research. They realize that Iraq is not the only Third World country that could pose a threat to the U.S., and that tyrants’ quest for the bomb can be set back permanently if the world is willing to curb its export trade of dangerous materials.

If Milhollin had his way, no one in the world would have the bomb-“Not even us,” he says emphatically. “I don’t think anybody should have a weapon of mass destruction. If I could redraw the world, we’d all be armed like the people who fought at Troy.” Reminded that the history books are filled with violent clashes from that period, Milhollin doesn’t flinch. “The casualties were much lower,” he says.

Indeed, Milhollin believes a prolonged war by the United States may no longer be possible. High-tech weapons would inflict mass carnage on both sides, he says, and television cameras in the Persian Gulf would be standing by to record the scenes in living color. Americans would see the horrors on the network news, and just as they did during the Vietnam conflict, they’d rise up from their living rooms and demand an end to the human devastation.

It’s a thesis this law professor would rather not see tested.

The Washington Post May 12, 1991, Page C1

Testimony of Gary Milhollin

Bulletin of Atomic Scientists March 1991, p. 7-8

Wisconsin Academy Review Winter 1990-1991, p.15-18

Testimony of Gary Milhollin

International Herald Tribune November 29, 1990, p. 4

The Washington Post, Outlook November 25, 1990, p. C5

On Wisconsin November-December 1990.

The Washington Post
May 12, 1991, Page C1

Bulletin of Atomic Scientists
March 1991, p. 7-8

Wisconsin Academy Review
Winter 1990-1991, p.15-18

International Herald Tribune
November 29, 1990, p. 4

The Washington Post, Outlook
November 25, 1990, p. C5

On Wisconsin
November-December 1990.