CIR: Business of the Bomb

Nuclear (intelligence) fallout

Mark Schapiro — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 10:08:58 -0700

It was interesting to read the New York Times report on Monday revealing the reasons behind the Swiss government's destruction of evidence pertaining to a family of three Swiss engineers linked to AQ Khan's global nuclear sales enterprise. The Tinner family—father Friedrich and his two sons Urs and Marco—were under investigation for helping orchestrate Khan's sale of sophisticated nuclear technology to Libya and Iran; they were Khan's key European intermediaries. In their story, William Broad and David Sanger revealed the key reasons for the destruction: Pressure from the CIA to hide the role played by the Tinners in supplying them with information that ultimately led to the dismantling of Khan's network. Broad and Sanger delve deeply into the Tinner case as an example of the tensions between two conflicting goals: First, to block nuclear proliferation; and second, to bring the key proliferators to justice. This presents a direct challenge to intelligence agencies, which are often unwilling to share how they gathered evidence on such operations. These are themes that we explored in our hour-long radio documentary, "Business of the Bomb", a collaboration with American RadioWorks, that aired on national public radio stations across the country last April and May. In "Business of the Bomb," ARW correspondent Michael Montgomery and I visited the South African end of Khan's global operation, Tradefin Engineering, a factory outside of Johanessberg where a Swiss, a German and a South African trio of businessmen created key components for the Libyan enrichment facility purchased from Khan by Libya. Investigators found a videotape on the premises used by AQ Khan to advertise his capacity to build, on demand, nuclear enrichment and bomb-making facilities. (We obtained exclusive access to that tape, and present an audio excerpt here; you'll hear the voice of AQ Khan himself pitching to others his success at building Pakistan's nuclear arsenal). In the Tradefin case, the US Department of Energy refused to cooperate with South African authorities in a public trial due to their concerns about revealing intelligence sources and methods. The result? South Africa's ultimately unsuccessful effort to keep the trial secret established an important principle of openness in that country, and, some in South Africa suspect, led to lighter sentences for the principle players, none of whom ultimately had to serve time in prison. "I'd rather not discuss that," said the DoE's head of non-proliferation James Tobey, deputy undersecretary for nuclear non-proliferation at the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration when we asked him about the case. Back in March, up to the last minute before recording our narration, we were trying to confirm the Swiss destruction of evidence in the Tinner case, which I'd learned from an anonymous tip. The tip was confirmed by Margrit Meyer, chief assistant to Swiss Federal Magistrate, who said that the evidence had been destroyed as the case was transferred from the Swiss Attorney General's office to that of the Federal Magistrate for further investigation "Some evidence is not there anymore," she told me in a March telephone interview from her office in the Swiss capital of Berne. Meyer refused to identify the nature of the evidence or how or why it was destroyed. I was astounded to see that his U.S. address was that of the CIA in Washington DC. His given phone number was the CIA switchboard in Langley, Virginia. His title was "Agent."Two months later, in May, Switzerland's President, Pascal Couchepin, announced to the world that the Tinner files, including nuclear bomb designs, had been destroyed. Now Broad and Sanger have added considerable rich detail suggesting it was the United States which requested the file's destruction "less to thwart terrorists than to hide evidence of a clandestine relationship between the Tinners and the CIA." The three men, they report, received at least $1 million in payments from the agency for their inside tips on Khan's operation. One other point of interest to a story that no doubt will continue to unfold: When we were conducting our final reporting back in March, I researched Urs Tinner—the one of the three considered most deeply involved in Khan's illicit enterprise—through the electronic database Accurint. I was astounded at the time to see that his U.S. address was that of the Central Intelligence Agency in Washington DC. His given phone number was the CIA switchboard in Langley, Virginia. His title was "Agent." This seemed so outlandishly brazen at the time that I didn't trust it, that such a secret could be hidden in such full sight (with the help of a subscription to Accurint). Congratulations to Broad and Sanger for confirming the long and extraordinary story behind that address.

SFGate: "Hunting for nukes"

CIR Staff — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 12:23:08 -0700

The San Francisco Chronicle previews "Business of the Bomb: The Modern Nuclear Marketplace," which airs on KQED this week.

Just because weapons of mass destruction weren't found in Iraq doesn't mean they are not proliferating wildly elsewhere. According to a new, locally produced radio documentary ... today's global black market for nuclear weapons has outgrown the system designed to protect the world against proliferation. Deals aren't struck in shadowy back alleys but in country clubs and plush corporate conference rooms, the program reveals. And the dealmakers are not politically motivated ideologues but high-rolling international businesspeople driven by greed.

Need WMDs? Inquire within.

Carrie Ching — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 15:15:06 -0700

To help spread the word about his laboratory's ability to produce nuclear weapons, Pakistani engineer A.Q. Khan produced a marketing video that he sent to potential clients around the world. One of these promotional videos turned up at a pipe factory warehouse in South Africa. When police raided the warehouse in 2004, they also found a stack of shipping containers marked for export to Libya—inside were machine parts that would have given the Libyans the ability to process enough enriched uranium for several nuclear bombs. It turned out the warehouse was part of an international network—directed by Khan—supplying bomb-building materials to anyone who could pay the price. CIR obtained a five-minute audio excerpt of that marketing video. In this portion, a narrator explains how and why Khan created Pakistan's nuclear weapons arsenal—prompted, he says, by the nuclear weapons program launched in neighboring India. And A.Q. Khan himself promotes his own success, saying he promised Pakistan's president that the country could "detonate a nuclear device on a week's notice." >> Listen to the audio from Khan's tape in a CIR web exclusive.

Building the South African bomb

Carrie Ching — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 21:09:57 -0700

Andre Buys is a respected scientist and university professor. He's a reserved man. But his voice swells with pride as he recalls assembling a secret nuclear weapons arsenal. "Technically, it was an achievement we were proud of," he says. "But we weren't sure whether having a nuclear device was going to be to our advantage or not." In the 1980s Buys managed a small team of South African scientists that designed and built six nuclear devices for the country's apartheid leadership. At the time, most countries were bound by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. They agreed not to become nuclear powers. But South Africa stayed outside the treaty. What's more, the country was isolated diplomatically and under international sanctions for its policy of racial segregation, or apartheid. But Andre Buys and his team managed to assemble a nuclear arsenal anyway. Their story illustrates how a determined country can develop nuclear weapons, even when it's cut off from the rest of the world. "It was technically a big challenge for us," Buys says. "It was just for scientists and engineers a wonderful technical challenge to be able to be involved in such a program." Estimates for the total cost of the South African nuclear bomb program range from $500 million to $1 billion (in early 1980s valuation). Part of the money, according to Buys, went to an international network of smugglers for technology and know-how not available on the domestic market. But Buys's team wasn't working from scratch. South Africa already had a vibrant civilian nuclear industry built from technology and know-how imported from the West a decade earlier. In the 1960s South Africa’s white leaders were looking to strengthen apartheid and modernize the country’s economy. They saw huge potential in exploiting the country’s rich uranium deposits, at first as fuel for their own nuclear energy program. During this period the United States supplied South Africa with the Safari-1 research reactor. The US also provided the reactor with about 100 kilograms of weapon-grade uranium fuel over a ten year period, according to David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington-based nuclear watchdog group. With their nuclear know-how advancing, South African scientists then came across an idea that seems ludicrous today: harnessing so-called peaceful nuclear explosions. The concept was being promoted by the Soviet Union as well as a U.S. Energy Department program known as Operation Plowshare. As a young engineer fresh out of university, Buys began working on a project inspired by the Plowshare program: to develop explosives for civilian activities such as mining and canal building. But the purpose of his work soon changed. By the 1970s, South Africa was isolated. The country was fighting proxy wars against Soviet-backed governments in southern Africa. And there was a rising resistance movement among the black majority, which South Africa brutally suppressed with police and army troops. As the U.N. tightened sanctions, South Africa's embattled leaders ordered Buys and other scientists to divert their efforts into a bomb project. But as he recalls, the leadership didn't give much guidance on the kind of weapon to build. "Simple questions like, 'How many weapons do you need?' 'What sort of energy yields?' Nobody could give us any answers," he says. So Buys chaired a working group of top scientists and politicians which honed a nuclear strategy for South Africa. The group met monthly for a year, conducting war games, reviewing nuclear strategy literature and consulting a closely-vetted group of military experts, academics and even a South African theologian, according to an account compiled by political scientist Peter Liberman. Buys was inspired by the bomb's technical challenge but he was troubled by its moral implications. "As the scientists and engineers working on the hardware, we were worried that somebody could use the bomb in an irresponsible way," he says. "We were just worried as human beings that you make this thing of such tremendous power and you give it to somebody who's not going to be responsible with it." Buys's working group eventually settled on a three-phase strategy that emphasized using the bomb as a deterrent, and diplomatic cudgel, rather than for possible battlefield deployment. The first phase was "strategic ambiguity"—neither confirming nor denying the bomb, but holding it in reserve in case of a national emergency. Phase two would have involved privately acknowledging the bomb to western powers like Great Britain and the United States in order to win diplomatic backing in a showdown with the Soviets. The third phase, as planned by Buys's team, would have involved a public demonstration of the bomb such as a detonation over the ocean. Buys's bomb lab was established at Kentron Circle, a weapons testing facility located in the rolling foothills west of Pretoria, near the Pelindaba nuclear plant. The site was controlled by Armscor, South Africa's huge armaments conglomerate. When scientists assembled the first bomb at Kentron Circle in 1983, Buys recalls, senior government and military leaders secretly celebrated at the facility. But South Africa never got past the first phase of its nuclear strategy. And Buys says none of the six bombs was ever tested. That's because by the mid-1980s, wars in Angola and Mozambique were losing steam. And reforms in Moscow reduced concerns about a Soviet threat in Southern Africa. When Frederik de Klerk became president of South Africa in 1989, he ended the program and had the bombs disassembled. South Africa remains the only country in history to voluntarily dismantle an entire nuclear weapons arsenal. Today, South Africa now plays a big role in the global non-proliferation movement. But nuclear expert David Albright says lessons from the South African bomb program aren't all comforting. Albright told the Chicago Tribune: "Even though they were complete outcasts, and even though it took them a decade of trial and error, they managed to build weapons of mass destruction with a small, inexpensive and tightly focused program." Buys does his part in trying to stop the spread of bomb technology. He now advises other countries on how to dismantle illicit nuclear weapons programs. Several years ago Buys met with a group of North Korean officials as part of a US-sponsored effort to promote nuclear non-proliferation. Buys says he passed on one piece of advice to the North Koreans. "When you're busy putting together a secret weapons program, the last thing on your mind is good record-keeping," he recalls telling the North Korean delegation. "But once you decide to dismantle a nuclear program, you need to prove to the international community that you've lived up to your word." In other words, Buys advice was to keep a paper trail detailing every step in the building of the bomb. "Otherwise, who's to believe you."

Business of the Bomb: The Modern Nuclear Marketplace

Carrie Ching — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 13:42:03 -0700

The number of nations seeking nuclear technology is rising. An hour-long radio documentary by CIR and American RadioWorks investigates the most serious threats of nuclear proliferation today. >> Listen to the radio story on ARW >> Read the story by Mark Schapiro >> More about South Africa's nuclear underground

A.Q. Khan's Nuclear Ad

Carrie Ching — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 12:31:23 -0700

To help spread the word about his laboratory's ability to produce nuclear weapons, Pakistani engineer A.Q. Khan produced a marketing video that he sent to potential clients around the world. Police from South Africa's Crimes Against the State division discovered the video when they raided a small factory on the outskirts of Johannesberg called Tradefin Engineering. Inside they also found containers filled with pipes and valves, marked for export to Libya. A factory engineer claimed the parts were for building a "water purification facility." Investigators later discovered Tradefin was supplying parts for a uranium enrichment plant that would have allowed Libya to build several nuclear bombs. Tradefin, it turned out, was part of a vast, global supply network directed by A.Q. Khan. Khan's objective: To sell the know-how and technology for building nuclear bombs to anyone who could pay the price. The video promoted the successes of KRL, the Khan Research Laboratory based at the Kahuta nuclear weapons center in Pakistan. The tape provided further evidence linking the three men behind Tradefin to AQ Khan's global network of nuclear traffickers. All three ultimately pled guilty to violating South Africa's laws against nuclear proliferation. CIR obtained a portion of the audio from that videotape. It provides a glimpse into the crude logic of nuclear proliferation: Just as Khan was able to bolster Pakistani prestige and security with nuclear weapons, the same such nuclear guarantors were available to others who could afford them. The Libyans made payments of some $80 million in their efforts to obtain a fully functional nuclear weapons facility from Khan. The tape, according to Olli Heinonen, the chief weapons inspector for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), was intended as "advertising" for AQ Khan, to demonstrate his wares and "to show to their clients how good they are in various things and … to create a certain charisma around him and his laboratory." Five minutes of the audio portion of that twenty-minute video can be heard here for the first time. The entire tape includes segments promoting Khan's ability to provide sophisticated technology for medical and industrial purposes, as well as for building weapons-grade uranium enrichment facilities for nuclear bombs. In this portion, a narrator explains how and why Khan created Pakistan's own nuclear weapons arsenal—prompted, he says, by the nuclear weapons program launched in neighboring India. And A.Q. Khan himself promotes his own success, saying he promised Pakistan's president that the country could "detonate a nuclear device on a week's notice." On May 11 and May 13, 1998, Pakistan's archrival, India, tested its nuclear arsenal with a series of five underground nuclear explosions. It took just over two weeks, but on May 28 and 30, 1998, Pakistan detonated its own nuclear bombs in a test that provided the first conclusive proof to the world that Khan had in fact succeeded. A year later Khan intermediaries in Dubai and Europe set the deal with Tradefin into motion. VIDEO PRODUCED BY CARRIE CHING TEXT BY MARK SCHAPIRO

South Africa's Nuclear Underground

Carrie Ching — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 11:15:12 -0700

When South African police raided the warehouse of a company called Tradefin Engineering, a manufacturer of pipes and valves, in September 2004, they discovered stacks of shipping containers eleven stories high loaded with parts marked for reassembly in Libya, that would have given the Libyans the ability to process enough enriched uranium for several nuclear bombs. Tradefin had become part of a vast, worldwide network supplying parts for the manufacture of nuclear weapons under the direction of A.Q. Khan, the former architect of Pakistan's nuclear program. But the three men running the Tradefin operation were not new to the nuclear black market. All three had previously worked with the South African government obtaining, through underground trafficking networks, critical technology for South Africa's own top-secret nuclear weapons program in the mid 1980s. South Africa's nuclear bomb program was conducted out of a top-secret facility called Kentron Circle, located in the broad savannah about thirty miles from Pretoria. Its still there, a conical concrete bunker, now empty, hidden in the hills about a ten-minute drive off the main road leading to Botswana. Inside, a team of twenty scientists, working in secrecy, ultimately succeeded in building six nuclear bombs, working from designs and technology smuggled in from illicit dealers around the world. At the time, South Africa's apartheid government was operating under severe international sanctions. "We would tell them what we needed, and two or three weeks later it arrived," recalls Andre Buys, who was one of those scientists. Buys, now a Physics professor at Pretoria University, has since become active in global non-proliferation efforts. "[When] such equipment arrived, I'd say 'thanks'. I didn't ask how ask how it got there … Sanctions busting was a big business back then." Sanctions-busting brought everything from oil to consumer goods into South Africa's black market. The most sensitive and secret component of that illicit trade were the black market connections supplying the material and know-how for South Africa’s nuclear weapons program. Among those sanctions-busters were three business-savvy engineers who would later surface as key players in the A.Q. Khan network: Gerhard Wisser, organizer of the Tradefin deal; Daniel Geiges, his chief engineer; and Johan Meyer, the owner of Tradefin. In the 1980's Wisser's firm, Krisch Engineering, was a "key supplier of equipment" to the South African Atomic Energy Corporation, according to Wisser's plea agreement filed with South African prosecutors last year. The energy corporation was run by the apartheid government of the time and was one of the main companies responsible for the development of the secret nuclear weapons program at Kentron Circle—the place where Buys helped to build South Africa's nuclear bombs. Daniel Geiges, Wisser's aide-de-camp and chief engineer, began working for him in 1981 and would later manage the Libyan project at Tradefin. They worked together to import technology to the South African nuclear program in defiance of international sanctions. While at the AEC, Wisser met the man who would some two decades later nickname their joint nuclear enterprise, "the beast." Johan Meyer was working for the South African Uranium Corporation—the company responsible for mining and processing the uranium that would be used in the nuclear weapons being assembled at Kentron Circle. Wisser is German and Geiges is Swiss; both had become residents of South Africa, which at the time had what amounted to an open door policy for white immigrants, no questions asked. Meyer is a native South African afrikaneer. Their trafficking was not an exclusively one-way enterprise. Wisser and Geiges were also in the business of exporting South Africa's own sensitive nuclear technology. And one of their key overseas clients was AQ Khan in Pakistan. Those dealings are laid out in the indictment of Daniel Geiges. It was all perfectly legal: South Africa's government-owned arms company made a profit too. Over some twenty years, Wisser, Geiges, and Meyer were participants in a global underground network that helped facilitate some of the most egregious violations of non-proliferation laws in history. They enabled not only South Africa to build its bombs, but also helped AQ Khan himself develop Pakistan's nuclear weapons program. By 1989, South Africa began its historic revolution. Nelson Mandela was freed from twenty-seven years in prison, and by 1993 was preparing to take office as the country's first democratically elected president. Shortly before Mandela was inaugurated, then-President FW deKlerk informed the IAEA that the country had "decommissioned" its nuclear weapons. This was unprecedented; South Africa was the first country to have built, and then destroyed, a nuclear arsenal. But this epic change did not eliminate the trafficking networks that had evolved over the many years of South Africa's international isolation. Men like Wisser, Geiges, and Meyer were left without the lucrative black market deals that had made them wealthy. By the end of the century, the three were working together once again, manufacturing and exporting parts for A.Q. Khan's global nuclear weapons manufacturing scheme. Wisser and Geiges were paid $1.5 million for their work on behalf of A.Q. Khan, with checks drawn on Libyan, Pakistani and Middle Eastern banks; another $1 million was paid to Tradefin's owner, Johan Meyer.

Atoms for Peace

Carrie Ching — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 10:28:29 -0700

With the onset of the Cold War in the early 1950s, the United States sought to change the image of atomic energy from a force of awesome destruction to one of peace and prosperity. That idea that the world should benefit from peaceful applications of nuclear energy was the center piece of an initiative launched by President Dwight D. Eisenhower that became known as "Atoms for Peace." In a speech to the United Nations General Assembly in December 1953, Eisenhower proposed a nuclear strategy that would harness the peaceful applications of atomic energy for countries around the world. Eisenhower reached out to the Soviet Union, saying the time had come for the "two atomic colossi" to work together to build a more peaceful world. Otherwise they were "doomed malevolently to eye each other indefinitely across a trembling world." At the core of Eisenhower's plan was a new international atomic energy agency, to be set up under the auspices of the United Nations. According to historian John Krige, Eisenhower called on the major powers, notably the United States and the Soviet Union, to "make joint contributions from their stockpile of normal uranium and fissionable materials" to the new agency. The nuclear material would then be allocated for medicine, agriculture and, above all, "to provide abundant electrical energy in the power-starved areas of the world." The program was also a product of Cold War rivalries, notes Krige. "It was an effort to win hearts and minds and make sure that countries like India, or Iran or Israel, that wanted nuclear technology would get it from the U.S. and not be tempted to get it from the Soviet Union." Krige says the plan also opened new markets for big U.S. corporations such as General Electric and Westinghouse. Author Catherine Collins describes Atoms for Peace as a "nuclear Marshall Plan which would promote the safe and peaceful uses of atomic energy and at the same time monitor the use of it, so it couldn't be diverted to weapons programs." Collin notes a p.r. element at work. When the initiative was announced, the United States was engaged in a major build-up of its nuclear arsenal which included controversial tests of hydrogen bombs in the Pacific. "There was grooving concern both inside the U.S. and internationally about the impact of these nuclear tests," says Collins. "So they used Atoms for Peace as a sort of distraction." Atoms for Peace allowed the great powers to maintain their nuclear monopoly while promoting the idea that nuclear energy could transform the global economy and pull developing countries out of poverty. Krige and other historians have noted the positive legacy of Atoms for Peace. The program was successful in creating the International Atomic Energy Agency, and a web of safeguards which the IAEA imposes on member states. The initiative also planted the seeds for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the cornerstone in global efforts to contain the spread of nuclear weapons. However, in some ways Atoms for Peace backfired. Several countries that received training and technology transfers through Atoms for Peace eventually used that knowledge platform for illicit weapons programs. India, Pakistan, South Africa and Israel all received direct or indirect support through Atoms for Peace. Each of these countries later built secret nuclear weapons stockpiles. Collins writes that the chairman of India's atomic energy agency called Atoms for Peace the "bedrock on which India's nuclear program was built."

Business of the Bomb: Resources

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 12:30:32 -0700

Nonproliferation regime Nuclear fuel cycle Raw uranium goes through a series of steps to become enriched uranium, used to fuel either in a nuclear power plant or in a bomb. Here is a step-by-step introduction to the “nuclear fuel cycle.” Timeline The International Atomic Energy Agency provides a detailed chronology of nonproliferation-related events, treaties and agreements. International Atomic Energy Agency A brief history of the IAEA, the multilateral agency charged with promoting the peaceful use of nuclear. As the world’s nuclear inspectorate, the IAEA safeguards civilian reactors to ensure they’re not being used for military purposes. Nonproliferation Treaty The Nonproliferation Treaty is the backbone of the global nonproliferation regime. For a quick summary of NPT basics, see this fact sheet. Zangger Committee In 1971, an informal group of states formed the Zangger Committee to institute export controls to keep nuclear material out of the wrong hands. Nuclear Suppliers Group After India—which was not party to the Nonproliferation Treaty—detonated a nuclear bomb during a 1974 test, several states joined the Zangger Committee to form the Nuclear Suppliers Group, which further regulates trade in dual-use technologies. United Nations Security Council Resolution 1540 Passed in 2004, this resolution prohibited proliferation to “non-state actors”—terrorist groups—and required all nations to develop infrastructure to prevent such proliferation, including export controls and physical protection of sensitive facilities. U.S. export controls Export controls in the United States are administered and overseen by the departments of Commerce and Justice. Here are summaries of the most recent arrests and judgments in export-related cases. Nuclear weapons free zones Nuclear-weapons countries, such as the United States, agree not to use nuclear weapons against countries in these zones, which have committed not to build or acquire nuclear bombs. The nuclear renaissance Statistics The World Nuclear Association represents the global nuclear industry association and maintains an up-to-date list of nuclear reactors currently operating, under construction and in planning stages. It also offers a fact sheet on the nuclear renaissance. Global Nuclear Energy Partnership Under President Bush, the Department of Energy runs the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, meant in part to stem proliferation concerns related to an international nuclear renaissance. (Princeton professor Frank von Hippel is among the more vocal nonproliferation experts who criticize GNEP. Watch him argue his point here.) Smuggling IAEA Illicit Trafficking Database The IAEA Illicit Trafficking Database records “proliferation-significant events”—those involving highly enriched uranium or plutonium—that have been reported to the IAEA by state governments. The Nuclear Threat Initiative/Center for Nonproliferation Studies database compiles press reports related to smuggling of uranium, plutonium and other radioactive materials. Publications Arms Control Today The publication of the Arms Control Association (ACA), a national nonpartisan membership organization dedicated to promoting public understanding of and support for effective arms control policies. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Global security news and analysis. International Security A journal put out by the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. Global Security Newswire Daily news on nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, terrorism and related issues from the Nuclear Threat Initiative. The Nonproliferation Review A journal concerned with the causes, consequences, and control of the spread of nuclear, chemical, biological, and conventional weapons by the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. International Export Control Observer Another journal from CNS that reports on weapons of mass destruction export controls in six regions of the world: the Newly Independent States (NIS), Asia, the Balkans, the Middle East, Africa, and South America. Institute for Science and International Security Issue Briefs A non-profit, non-partisan institution dedicated to informing the public about science and policy issues affecting international security. Its efforts focus on stopping the spread of nuclear weapons, bringing about greater transparency of nuclear activities worldwide, and achieving deep reductions in nuclear arsenals.

Suitcase Smugglers

Carrie Ching — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 16:49:20 -0700

Oleg Khintsagov left his apartment in southern Russia in February 2006 with 80 grams of highly enriched uranium stuffed in his pocket and a plan to make a million dollars. After slipping past border guards in neighboring Georgia, he traveled to the capital, Tbilisi, to meet a buyer who claimed he was from "a serious Muslim organization." If the buyer was satisfied with the bomb-grade quality of this small sample, Khintsagov promised up to three more kilograms. The "serious Muslim organization," however, turned out to be a Georgian government agent: While casting about for a buyer on previous trips, Khintsagov had become the target of an elaborate sting operation that involved the FBI, the US Department of Energy and police in the Republic of Georgia. He was arrested, tried in secret and sentenced to eight and a half years in prison. The story of Oleg Khintsagov encapsulates the threat from smugglers secreting nuclear material across the porous borders of the former Soviet Union. This type of nuclear smuggling is a staple of Hollywood films and is often cited as the most dangerous source of nuclear proliferation. But the Khintsagov case illustrates something else: that nearly all reported smuggling cases of fissile material involve low-level figures and only minute amounts of radioactive material—nowhere close to enough fuel to make a bomb. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Moscow lost direct control over a vast nuclear weapons infrastructure. In 1992, in response to the perceived threat from this material getting into the wrong hands, the International Atomic Energy Agency created the Illicit Trafficking Database to track incidents of nuclear smuggling. Today, when one imagines the threat posed by nuclear smuggling, it is the cases in this database—many of them widely reported by the press—on which those fears are based. Khintsagov was one of the most recent* smuggling incidents reported on the database. We conducted a review of what those cases tell us about the threat from smuggled plutonium and highly enriched uranium, the essential ingredients of a nuclear bomb. Our review suggests that the cumulative total of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium seized by law enforcement since 1992 is not enough to manufacture one bomb. Of 18 cases listed on the database, only 13 actually involved smuggling. The remainder were: two cases of missing material from nuclear power facilities, in Japan and New Jersey; radioactive material, including highly enriched uranium, stored in a bank vault in Lithuania; and two cases from Germany, one involving scrap metal contaminated with trace amounts of uranium and the other an apparently accidental theft of a vial containing .001 gram of plutonium. Of the 13 smuggling incidents, none of the individuals arrested have been linked to a larger terrorist or rogue state smuggling network, according to William Potter, one of the leading experts on the status of the former Soviet nuclear facilities and director of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies . The bulk of cases—9 out of 13—occurred in the years immediately following the fall of the Soviet Union, between 1992 and 1995. No incidents were reported to the IAEA between 1996 and 1998. Since 1999, reports have been less frequent and involved smaller quantities of fissile material than previously. "There's been a lull in nuclear smuggling activity," says Potter. "The question that is important to address is: Is this apparent lull a function of more effective security or simply the rise of more clever nuclear smugglers, and decisions by governments not to report incidents to the IAEA?" Potter and other experts we consulted identified additional common characteristics of those cases on the IAEA list:

Most of the uranium seized has not been enriched enough for use in weapons. Only three cases involved uranium enriched to more than 90 percent, the critical level for use in a nuclear weapon. Four other cases involved tiny amounts of plutonium, a fissionable material that results from the enrichment of uranium, and also has either energy or military application.
Since 1992, seizures by law enforcement amount to 3.3 kilograms of weapons-grade uranium and 370 grams of plutonium—which cumulatively are not enough to manufacture one bomb. That requires at minimum some 25 kilograms of uranium enriched to 90 percent or eight kilograms of plutonium, according to the Center for Nonproliferation Studies.
Arrests in at least five, or nearly 40 percent, of the incidents were made as the result of sting operations by Georgian, Russian, German and U.S. law enforcement--creating what Rensellaer Lee, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, calls "an artificial market for nuclear material."

All experts concede that what we don't know, of course, is how many smugglers have evaded interception. As Lee, who has been studying the nuclear and narcotics black markets for more than 20 years, puts it: "By definition, successful transactions are not going to come to light. They're going to remain in the shadows. What we don't know, what we don't see, is what worries me most." * The only more recent case occurred in March 2007, when a steel tube in Germany—part of a load of scrap metal—was discovered to contain a trace amount of highly enriched uranium.

Know Your Uranium

Carrie Ching — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 15:56:41 -0700

Media and government reports often refer to "highly-enriched" and "weapons-grade" uranium, sometimes interchangeably. But in fact the terms have different meanings that shouldn't be confused: "weapons-grade" refers to a level of enriched uranium that is capable of being used in an atomic bomb; "highly-enriched" refers only to the fact that uranium has been enriched, not necessarily enough to be used in a bomb. Alexander Melishkivili, a policy analyst at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies, says that interchanging the two descriptions can be highly misleading, and can exaggerate unnecessarily the threat posed by reported incidents of uranium trafficking . "The threat is there," says Melishkivili, "but it's not helpful to fan the flames of hysteria." Uranium straight out of the ground is composed almost entirely of a relatively heavy isotope called U-238. Nuclear fission requires the presence of a highly reactive isotope called U-235, which appears in negligible quantities in raw uranium. Enrichment involves depleting the concentration of U-238 isotopes, and dramatically increasing the concentration of U-235 isotopes. An enrichment level of 5-20% is necessary to fuel a power plant; enrichment of at least 85-90% is what's needed to fuel a nuclear weapon. An enrichment plant requires a complicated network of centrifuge processing to transform uranium from its raw to an enriched state. Much of the technology is subject to multilateral export controls. But once up and running, the same technology that increases the concentration of U-235 isotopes to a level high enough to fuel a power plant can also be used to increase the concentration to a level suitable for use in nuclear weapons. It's a question of how many centrifuges are spinning and how long they spin--in other words, of intent. Next time you encounter a uranium salesman, or more likely a reference to it in the media, here's a handy reference guide:

Raw uranium is composed of 0.7% U-235. Low-enriched uranium, used in power plants, is enriched to less than 20% U-235. Highly-enriched uranium, used in research reactors for medicine, engineering and other specialized civilian applications, is enriched to between 20 and 90 percent U-235. Weapons-grade uranium, used in bombs and in some civilian reactors, is enriched to over 90% U-235.

News stories occasionally report that a smuggler was caught with "enough enriched uranium for a dirty bomb," or radiological dispersal device. But these use conventional weapons technologies to spread radioactive material over a large area, and do not use uranium. Instead, the radioactive ingredient in a dirty bomb would more likely be cesium-137 or strontium-90. Smuggling incidents involving these materials are not recorded on the IAEA list of "proliferation-significant" events.

The Nuclear Renaissance

Carrie Ching — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 11:34:50 -0700

The Nuclear Renaissance Starts Here, says the bright sales brochure for Westinghouse Electric Corporation's newest nuclear reactor, the AP1000. The slogan is apt: In December 2006, the Chinese government awarded Westinghouse what was then the most lucrative contract in the history of commercial nuclear energy. The fast-growing, energy-hungry country would pay between $5and $8 billion for four AP1000 reactors. It was China's first step toward making good on its pledge to quadruple nuclear power production by 2020. Thanks to climbing oil prices and concern about carbon emissions' contribution to global warming, China is not alone in looking to boost nuclear power production. Bob Pierce, the global business development manager for the AP1000, said his company has fielded inquiries about the reactor from more than 40 countries. "The renaissance," he says, "is bringing lots of new players into the marketplace." But nonproliferation experts say that reviving the global nuclear energy industry presents serious security risks that, left unaddressed, far outweigh cuts in carbon emissions. Worldwide, 439 nuclear reactors are currently producing power. Nuclear energy analyst Alan McDonald of the International Atomic Energy Agency estimates that by the year 2030, there will be between 75 and 350 more reactors on line. That includes expansions of existing capacity in countries such as Japan, India and the United Kingdom, and countries entirely new to the technology, including Yemen, Indonesia and Egypt. The additional reactors aren't themselves a problem, says Laura Holgate, who previously managed a Department of Defense program to destroy excess nuclear weapons in Russia, and now serves as vice president of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a DC-based nongovernmental organization. "Modern power plants don't have material on site that can be used for a nuclear weapon directly." But each one of those new power plants will need a steady supply of low-enriched uranium to fuel the nuclear reactors. And uranium enrichment is at the heart of the basic atomic dilemma that has plagued nuclear energy since its start: The very same facility that produces low-enriched fuel for a power plant can be used to produce highly-enriched fuel for a bomb. "No one has figured out a way to break the connection between nuclear power and nuclear weapons," says David Albright, physicist and president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, DC. "The bomb and nuclear power are joined at the hip." Straight out of the earth, raw uranium is composed almost entirely of a relatively heavy isotope called U-238. A nuclear reaction requires a higher proportion of U-235, and increasing the proportion of these light atoms is what's called enrichment. There are several ways to do it, including gaseous diffusion and gas centrifuges. Like those lingering networks left behind in South Africa, the knowledge and connections that Khan assembled have not gone away. Building an enrichment plant is complicated and expensive, and requires specialized parts that are subject to multilateral export controls. But once up and running, the same technology that increases the concentration of U-235 atoms from less than one percent to five percent of the total mass—which is what's needed to fuel a power plant—can be used to increase the concentration to 90 percent, which is what's needed for a bomb. "If there is a nuclear renaissance," says Albright, "then the proliferation risk will go up, because so often countries hide their nuclear ambitions within civil programs." The fear is that countries can use nuclear power programs as an excuse to build enrichment plants, saying they need a reliable source of nuclear fuel—and then can use the enrichment plants to create weapons-grade uranium. Currently, most countries that use nuclear fuel buy it, rather than manufacturing their own. Only six nations—the United States, Russia, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom—manufacture and sell enriched uranium on the global market. But some new entrants to nuclear power are concerned that their access to enriched uranium fuel could be shut off due to political tensions. "In ten years they could say, 'We need our own enrichment abilities,'" says author and nuclear analyst Joseph Cirincione. Some countries, such as Iran, are already insisting on developing their own enrichment programs. Brazil and Argentina recently announced plans to set up a joint company to enrich uranium. To prevent more countries from building their own plants, several national governments and nongovernmental organizations are trying to reassure countries that use nuclear power that they can get a steady supply of fuel without enriching it themselves. They're taking steps toward creating a multinational fuel cycle—something like an international gas station. Russia is building an international nuclear fuel depot on its border with Kazakhstan, and last year the US Congress matched a $50 million donation by Warren Buffett to help pay for a multilateral fuel bank. Most recently, in February 2008, German officials proposed that the IAEA oversee an enrichment plant and fuel bank that would be built on international soil. "There has to be some way for countries to feel confident about their supply of low enriched uranium," says Dr. Frank von Hippel, a nuclear physicist and professor at Princeton who received the MacArthur Award in 1993 for his work on arms control. The problem is that countries bent on developing nuclear weapons could skip the fuel bank and build their own enrichment plants, a right that's guaranteed to countries party to the Nonproliferation Treaty. It's even legal to enrich uranium to 90 percent or above, points out Tariq Rauf, head of Verifications and Security Policy Coordination for the IAEA—"but it has to be used only for a peaceful purpose." Detecting whether uranium is being enriched for a peaceful purpose—to fuel a research reactor or a power plant—or for a bomb has been the central challenge since Dwight Eisenhower launched the "Atoms for Peace" initiative. It lies at the core of the current tension with Iran, whose claims about developing nuclear energy run counter to Bush administration claims that the country's ultimate aim is to build bombs. Ideally, all enrichment facilities would be under the control of a multinational agency like the IAEA, says Rauf. "That way, if a country has its own facilities, we can ask legitimate questions why," he says. "But we are still many years away from that situation."

Business of the Bomb: The Modern Nuclear Marketplace

Carrie Ching — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 14:38:38 -0700

In January 2000, a German engineer living in South Africa met with a friend and business partner to hatch a deal. Gerhard Wisser, a 61-year-old broker, visited his friend's pipe factory outside Johannesburg to see if he wanted to make a bid on a manufacturing project. According to what Wisser later told investigators, his friend, Johan Meyer, pointed to a foot-and-a-half tall stack of documents and said, "That is the beast. I will make an offer." "The beast" was machinery to assist with the enrichment of uranium. It was just one part of a much larger operation. Its goal: to provide the fuel enabling Libya to produce its own nuclear bombs. To men like Wisser and Meyer, it was just another business project. Wisser and Meyer's deal illustrates the increasingly white-collar nature of the nuclear bomb business. The popular image of desperate terrorists smuggling enriched uranium across borders may not be the most serious nuclear threat to the world. Instead, the people helping to make the bombs are often successful businessmen made even richer through illicit deals for making the machines to enrich uranium and build bombs. They may live in suburbs and belong to country clubs. And their ability to operate under the guise of "legitimate" business makes catching up with them far more difficult. Wisser sent word back to his business connection in Switzerland: His partner would take the job. It would cost $2.5 million between the two of them. Wisser's Swiss connection was the intermediary for a man in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. His name was Abdul Qadeer Khan. A.Q. Khan was the architect of an audacious global trafficking network in sophisticated technology that supplied nuclear know-how and uranium enrichment equipment to North Korea, Iran and Libya. Manufacturers and businesses from as many as 30 countries participated in the enterprise. "The beast," according to the National Nuclear Security Administration, was intended to become part of a uranium enrichment facility enabling Libya to produce as many as several nuclear bombs a year. Gerhard Wisser and his partner, Johan Meyer, owner of the factory called Tradefin Engineering, had become part of the global network created by Khan to build nuclear weapons. Their job was to construct the inner plumbing—pipes, valves and the like—for the processing of uranium hexafluoride, a gas that is the precursor to enriched, weapons-grade, uranium. Khan assembled a network of businesses able to dodge international export controls by secretly obtaining the technology for nuclear enrichment from multiple locales. In some instances, the job was made easier by the fact that much of the technology needed to enrich uranium and build nuclear bombs has a civilian use as well—in everything from navigation to medicine to energy production—making exports far more difficult to control (and penalties, for mere export violations, far less than those for illegally building a nuclear bomb). A global network of manufacturers, linked together by Khan according to their specialties, turned their otherwise legitimate businesses into contractors for enriching uranium. Most of them, unlike Gerhard Wisser and Johan Meyer, have yet to be prosecuted; some critics say one reason has been the United States' reluctance to cooperate on international investigations. * * * Khan operated his international sales network undetected for more than a decade. There is only one international body with the authority to monitor and prevent the trafficking of nuclear technology—the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)—and it wasn't looking for operations such as Khan's. Instead, until recently, both the United States and the IAEA have focused on the smuggling of uranium by criminals or terrorists. The U.S. poured hundreds of millions of dollars into a program aimed at providing former Soviet nuclear scientists with employment to keep them out of the black market. But while the world looked to block the traffic in enriched uranium, A.Q. Khan, with the help of men like Wisser and Meyer, set out to help countries enrich their own. "You have a situation where what you and I would view as respectable businessmen are going about selling the wherewithal to make nuclear weapons," says David Albright, a former nuclear inspector in Iraq and now president of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS). The most significant threat of nuclear proliferation today, says Albright, "comes not from smugglers with pocketfuls of uranium, but from people typically who are very successful businessmen who just want more…. You'd probably be sitting down at the country club and making a deal, or walking into someone's office and making a deal in some luxurious conference room." Tradefin is housed inside a huge warehouse in a cluster of small factories called Vanderbiljpark about 30 miles south of Johannesburg. It shares a dusty street alongside tile, tire and paint manufacturers. Inside is a complex of rusting tanks, lathes and rumbling conveyor belts. From the looks of it, Tradefin might as well be producing ball bearings. Gerhard Wisser told German investigators that the factory was producing a water-purification facility. But when South Africa's Crimes Against the State police raided Tradefin in 2004, they found 11 shipping containers packed with machinery—fully labeled for reassembly in Libya. IAEA inspectors would later confirm that the machines were capable of capturing and transporting uranium gas after it's been enriched in thousands of whirling centrifuges, the final stage before it's capable of being used for a nuclear bomb. They also found a promotional videotape from A.Q. Khan's laboratory back in Pakistan that advertised Khan's ability to build the world's "finest uranium enrichment plants." Tradefin did not produce the most sensitive technology offered by A.Q. Khan to the Libyans; that was provided by factories in Malaysia and elsewhere. But it manufactured the connecting tissue—the mechanical valves and pipes—for the complex circulatory system of transformations necessary to convert uranium from its natural state in dirt into uranium hexafluoride gas and back into highly enriched, potentially explosive material for a bomb. It's just these kinds of enterprises, doing work that looks commonplace on the surface, that make cracking down on proliferators a particular challenge, says Olli Heinonen, the IAEA's Deputy General of Safeguards, and the agency's chief nuclear inspector in Iran and Libya, "There are tens of thousands of ... these kinds of workshops ... doing the same kind of job that Tradefin was doing," Heinonen says. In September 2007, seven years after "the beast" was born at Tradefin, Gerhard Wisser pleaded guilty to making and trafficking in nuclear weapons parts ordered by A.Q. Khan in violation of South Africa's laws against nuclear proliferation. Last February, Wisser's chief engineer, Daniel Geiges, who was supervisor of the Tradefin project, confessed to similar charges. Tradefin's owner, Johan Meyer, the man who had turned that one and a half foot stack of documents into an actual, functioning "beast", had confessed to multiple charges of violating South Africa's anti-proliferation laws in 2005, and had assisted with the investigation into his former colleagues' activities on behalf of A.Q. Khan. None will serve time in jail; all were given suspended sentences and forced to pay fines that, cumulatively, amount to more than $3 million. * * * The Khan network was first exposed in September 2003, when US and British intelligence agents boarded a freighter en route to Libya and found a cargo hold full of centrifuges that were traced back to Pakistan. The leads generated by that intervention laid down a trail which led to some 30 countries—each one of which has different laws governing the export of sensitive technologies to nuclear or "rogue" states. There is no international body that can bring smugglers to justice. If they are to be prosecuted, the cases must be brought by individual countries—but prosecutors may need information and help from other nations. The discovery of the centrifuges prompted President Bush to declare, in a speech to the National Defense University, that the United States would launch an aggressive effort to cooperate with foreign military and intelligence services to "find the middlemen, the suppliers, and the buyers," and would cooperate with foreign military and intelligence services "to stop the spread of deadly weapons." But critics say that the United States has not offered as much cooperation as Bush seemed to promise in pursuing the smugglers involved in the A.Q. Khan network. And more than four years later, not one of the members of Khan's vast network is in prison. Out of the dozens of individuals and businesses in some 30 countries suspected of having links to the Khan network, no one other than the three businessmen in South Africa, and a fourth in the Netherlands (who served four months in prison in 2006) have been brought to justice. One case against the man widely considered to be Khan's chief liaison in Europe, a German engineer named Gotthard Lerch, collapsed last year after the judge accused prosecutors of misconduct; Lerch is scheduled to be retried this spring. His business partner in South Africa was Gerhard Wisser, who helped him buy prime real estate parcels in Cape Town in addition to engaging in black market nuclear deals dating back to the 1980s, according to a record of Wisser's interrogation by German police. In late February came another blow to prosecutions of the Khan network: Swiss authorities dropped a part of their criminal case against a family team of engineers, Friedrich Tinner and his sons Urs and Marco, who had allegedly organized, from Switzerland, the shipment of centrifuges from a Malaysian factory to Libya. It was those centrifuges that were found aboard the BBC China, and were ultimately slated to be connected to the equipment manufactured by Tradefin in South Africa. Friedrich Tinner was released from detention. David Albright ascribes the troubles with that prosecution at least partly to the U.S. refusal to cooperate with Swiss authorities. Key evidence in that case, he says, is the centrifuges that are now in U.S. custody at the DOE's Oak Ridge nuclear research facility. The agency brought U.S. and international journalists to see the centrifuges shortly after taking control of them in 2005, but repeatedly refused, says Albright, to give the same access to Swiss prosecutors. "That's been one of the most frustrating things to see," Albright says, "is that there hasn't been a lot of cooperation. The Swiss have been asking for help, but the U.S. is not giving it…. They're not providing help with gathering evidence and understanding that evidence so the Tinners can be prosecuted more effectively." Albright and others have speculated that the three men were intelligence sources who were promised immunity. Albright claims there's been an ongoing and unresolved "tension between those in the intelligence business, who are more focused on finding things than necessarily stopping them…and people who are engaged in the legal enforcement business of not only stopping people but holding them accountable…. It makes the world more dangerous in the end. It allows people to get away with it." The Department of Energy refused comment on the case. The sense of frustration made its way even to South Africa, where Abdul Minty, that country's Minister for Non-Proliferation, told us, "Some countries that we knew were particularly well-placed to assist us [in prosecutions] did not assist us in the way that we expected. I think that this is a disappointment when there is so much emphasis being put globally on weapons of mass destruction and the need to stop proliferation "The fact that we haven't seen much success there is disappointing … What is important is that those engaged in these types of activities must not get the impression that they can get away with these things, because it is extremely serious." Ambassador Minty did not specify which countries he was referring to. The indictments of Wisser and his colleague Daniel Geiges list meetings, participating companies, individuals and evidence based in at least four countries: Germany, Switzerland, Malaysia and the United States. After those 11 containers filled with equipment destined for Libya were confiscated from Tradefin, the U.S. Department of Energy took possession of the entire shipment. William Tobey, deputy administrator for nuclear nonproliferation at the DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration, submitted an affidavit to the South African court last May asserting that the United States would be unwilling to cooperate with the prosecution, and specifically refused to submit evidence regarding the nuclear nature of the shipment, unless the trial was held in secret, hidden from the public or the press. The South Africans acceded to the U.S. request and put the trial under seal. But the effort to close the trial was successfully challenged by one of that country's leading newspapers, the Mail & Guardian, and a coalition of free expression organizations. The coalition's success in opening the trial was followed in quick succession by the plea agreements of Gerhard Wisser and Daniel Geiges—whose avoidance of prison time, Albright argues, may be related to the government's subsequent inability to obtain cooperation from the United States in presenting evidence at a public trial. "I'd rather not discuss that," responded the DOE's William Tobey when called for comment in March. Meanwhile, A.Q. Khan himself is still a national hero inside Pakistan; he is under so-called "house arrest," confined to his mansion in Rawalpindi. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has repeatedly refused to make Khan available for questioning by either the IAEA or the United States. The knowledge and connections that Khan assembled have not gone away. Joseph Cirincione*, whom we interviewed when he was Director of Nuclear Policy at the Center for American Progress, comments: "The global nuclear black market is alive and well, despite claims by both the U.S. administration and Pakistan that the A.Q. Khan network has been smashed. It's just not true. A few people have been arrested but all the suppliers and the expediters are still out there." As the IAEA's Olli Heinonen explained to us, "If the know-how is there, and the will is there, they don't need any A.Q. Khan. They can do it without him." * Three months after our interview, Joseph Cirincione became president of the Ploughshares Fund, one of the funders of this project.