SANDIA REPORT
SAND 2018-8690
Unlimited Release
Printed August 2018
Lessons from Past Nuclear Disarmament:
What Worked, What Did Not
Geoffrey E. Forden
Prepared by
Sandia National Laboratories
Albuquerque, New Mexico 87185 and Livermore, California 94550
Sandia National Laboratories is a multimission laboratory managed and operated by National Technology & Engineering
Solutions of Sandia, LLC., a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International, Inc., for the U.S. Departmen t of Energy’s
National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-NA0003525.
Further dissemination only as authorized to U.S. Government agencies
and their contractors; other requests shall be approved by the originating
facility or higher DOE programmatic authority.
OFFICIAL USE ONLY
Issued by Sandia National Laboratories, operated for the United States Department of Energy by
National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC.
NOTICE: This report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United
States Government. Neither the United States Government, nor any agency thereof, nor any of their
employees, nor any of their contractors, subcontractors, or their employees, make any warranty,
express or implied, or assume any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or
usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represent that its use
would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product,
process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not necessarily
constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government,
any agency thereof, or any of their contractors or subcontractors. The views and opinions expressed
herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government, any agency thereof,
or any of their contractors.
Printed in the United States of America. This report has been reproduced directly from the best
available copy.
Available to DOE and DOE contractors from
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information
P.O. Box 62
Oak Ridge, TN 37831
Telephone:
Facsimile:
E-Mail:
Online ordering:
(865) 576-8401
(865) 576-5728
reports@osti.gov
http://www.osti.gov/scitech
Available to the public from
U.S. Department of Commerce
National Technical Information Service
5301 Shawnee Rd
Alexandria, VA 22312
Telephone:
Facsimile:
E-Mail:
Online order:
(800) 553-6847
(703) 605-6900
orders@ntis.gov
https://classic.ntis.gov/help/order-methods/
2
SAND2018-8690
Printed August 2018
Unlimited Release
Lessons from Past Nuclear Disarmament:
What Worked, What Did Not
Geoffrey E Forden
Global Security Research and Analysis
Sandia National Laboratories
P.O. Box 5800
Albuquerque, New Mexico 87185-MS1373
Abstract
This report studies the efforts of the international community and the United States to
verify the denuclearization of various countries: Ukraine, South Africa, Iraq, Taiwan,
and Libya. In doing so, it considers the verification of nuclear warhead destruction and
the accounting of nuclear materials. Each case study contributes to the understanding
we have of which verification procedures worked and which did not and what factors
contributed to that success and which did not. The most important factor contributing
to successful verification is the cooperation of the subject country. If a country has
made the strategic decision to cooperate, then it is possible that verification can be
successful. If the country chooses not to cooperate, verification might rest on random
and unpredictable events. This unpredictability of verification is politically
unacceptable.
Even if verification is judged to be successful by the implementing agencies, outsiders
can cast doubts on it by pointing out small and potentially unavoidable errors in
material amounts verified. It is vitally important to systematically preserve forensic
evidence, especially shipping and receiving records to avoid just such issues.
Historically, such records are the most important evidence in verifying
denuclearization. Technology is far less important than forensic analysis of records. It
does play a supporting role in verifying some declarations but there can be an enormous
delay in drawing conclusions caused by the necessity to analyze statistically large
samples of materials. The confidence one gets from such analysis can be delayed well
past the time it is politically significant. The most important advance in technology
would be to accelerate that sample analysis process.
3
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am grateful to Dr. Joseph F. Pilat, Los Alamos National Laboratory, for carefully reading and
commenting on this text. I also owe a debt of gratitude to his excellent book, “The Politics of
Weapons Inspections: Assessing WMD Monitoring and Verification Regimes,” which he
coauthored with Nathan E. Busch and which helped clarify my thinking on many of the issues
involved in the verification of denuclearization.
4
5
CONTENTS
1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 9
2. Verified Dismantlement of Nuclear Weapons ......................................................................... 11
2.1 Ukraine .............................................................................................................................. 11
2.1.1 Background ......................................................................................................... 11
2.1.2 Approach to Verification ..................................................................................... 11
2.1.3 Assessment .......................................................................................................... 12
2.2 South Africa ...................................................................................................................... 12
2.2.1 Background ......................................................................................................... 12
2.2.2 Approach to Verification ..................................................................................... 12
2.2.3 Assessment .......................................................................................................... 13
2.3 Iraq .................................................................................................................................... 14
2.3.1 Background ......................................................................................................... 14
2.3.2 Approach to Verification ..................................................................................... 14
2.3.3 Assessment .......................................................................................................... 15
3. Fissile Material Accountancy ................................................................................................... 17
3.1 South Africa ...................................................................................................................... 17
3.1.1 Background ......................................................................................................... 17
3.1.2 Approach to Verification ..................................................................................... 17
3.1.3 Assessment .......................................................................................................... 20
3.2 Iraq .................................................................................................................................... 20
3.2.1 Background ......................................................................................................... 20
3.2.2 Approach to Verification ..................................................................................... 21
3.2.3 Assessment .......................................................................................................... 22
3.3 Taiwan............................................................................................................................... 23
3.3.1 Background ......................................................................................................... 23
3.3.2 Approach to Verification ..................................................................................... 23
3.3.3 Assessment .......................................................................................................... 24
3.4 Libya ................................................................................................................................. 24
3.4.1 Background ......................................................................................................... 24
3.4.2 Approach to Verification ..................................................................................... 25
3.4.3 Assessment .......................................................................................................... 26
4. Conclusions .............................................................................................................................. 29
5. References ................................................................................................................................ 31
Appendix A: Timeline of the Presidential Nuclear Initiatives and Ukraine’s Disarmament ...... 34
Appendix B: Timeline of South Africa’s Disarmament ............................................................... 35
Appendix C: Timeline of Iraq’s Many Attempts to Provide Fraudulent Declarations ................. 37
Appendix D: Timeline of the Verification of Taiwan’s Declarations .......................................... 38
Appendix E: Timeline and Material Details of Libya’s Denuclearization ................................... 39
Distribution ................................................................................................................................... 41
6
FIGURES
Figure 1. Schematic of the flow of material used by the IAEA in its first attempt to determine the
validity of South Africa’s material declarations.[19, p. 13] ......................................................... 18
Figure 2. The deposition of HEU derived from a nuclear enterprise-wide material balance as
determined by the IAEA. Note the large amount of unaccounted for HEU. ............................... 19
TABLES
Table 1. Timeline of PNIs and Ukraine’s TNW Disarmament .................................................... 34
Table 2. Timeline of South Africa’s Disarmament ....................................................................... 35
Table 3. Times when Iraq either made new declarations or was explicitly requested to do so. ... 37
Table 4. Timeline for verifying Taiwan's nuclear materials ......................................................... 38
Table 5. Nuclear material found and accounted for in Libya by the IAEA. All masses refer to the
uranium content. ........................................................................................................................... 39
7
NOMENCLATURE
Action Team
The name the IAEA gave to the core group of inspectors verifying Iraqi
denuclearization
Demilitarization
Changing the physical shape and, perhaps, the amount of fissile material
from the shape and amount used in the nuclear weapon
DOE
Department of Energy
EMIS
Electro-Magnetic Isotope Separation
FFCD
Full, Final, and Complete Declaration
FFCD-F
The “F” (or sixth) version of the nuclear Full, Final, and Complete
Declaration Iraq submitted to the IAEA
HEU
Highly Enriched Uranium
IAEA
International Atomic Energy Agency
IQ3 scanner
A six germanium detector scanner that is capable of measuring the
enrichment of uranium inside a steel drum.
ISG
Iraq Survey Group
LEU
Low Enriched Uranium
NPT
Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty
OPCW
Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons
Osirak
The name of the nuclear reactor France was building for Iraq
Osiris
The type of nuclear reactor France was building for Iraq
PC-3
Petrochemical Project-3 (An Iraqi nuclear weapons organization)
PIV
Physical Inventory Verification
PNI
Presidential Nuclear Initiative
SNL
Sandia National Laboratories
TNW
Tactical Nuclear Weapon
TRR
Taiwanese Research Reactor
WMD
Weapons of Mass Destruction
Y Plant
South Africa’s “pilot plant” for uranium enrichment that was used for
production of HEU for weapons
Z Plant
South Africa’s commercial uranium enrichment plant
8
1. INTRODUCTION
A surprisingly large number of examples exist where the denuclearization of nuclear weapons programs
can be analyzed for which verification methods were successful and which were not. An even larger
sample could be analyzed if all WMD and missile programs—which often share the material accounting
methods with verification of nuclear weapons programs—were included. However, including such
nonnuclear programs is beyond the scope of this preliminary study. Instead, we concentrate on nuclear
programs and, for the moment, only consider how successful verification programs were at confirming
the destruction of or nonproduction of the nuclear weapons themselves and the accounting of special
nuclear materials.
For each of the cases considered, we present a short introduction to the situation present at the time of
denuclearization followed by a narrative of the methods used in verification and finally an assessment of
how well the verification worked.
9
10
2. VERIFIED DISMANTLEMENT OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS
Dismantlement of nuclear weapons is the sine qua non of denuclearization of a country’s nuclear
weapons program. However, there are few examples where this has actually happened as part of an
international verification process. In South Africa’s case, the government of South Africa disassembled
its nuclear weapons and demilitarized1 the fissile material in secret. In the cases of Taiwan, Iraq, and
Libya, the countries had not yet produced nuclear weapons before they either were forced to or
voluntarily give up their programs. Only in the case of Ukraine were there attempts to build confidence
that actual nuclear weapons were being dismantled.
2.1 Ukraine
2.1.1 Background
In 1991, President George H. W. Bush announced the Presidential Nuclear Initiatives (PNIs) under which
the United States would remove all ground-launched tactical nuclear weapons from Europe.[1] The U.S.
would further remove all nuclear weapons from surface ships, attack submarines, and land-based naval
aircraft. He challenged Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to do so as well. President Bush was
motivated in part to do this because of his concerns about the reliability of the Soviet nuclear command
and control during the failed coup against President Gorbachev in August 1991 and the very real
possibility that Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan might inherit control of Soviet nuclear weapons after
the Soviet Union disintegrated. President Bush hoped that by removing U.S. nuclear weapons from
Europe, the Soviets might feel confident in doing the same. Withdrawing them to Russian territory and
removing the possibility that the newly independent states might become nuclear powers by default. A
fear subsequent events, especially in Ukraine, were to prove justified.
Tactical Nuclear Weapons (TNWs) began to be removed from Ukraine in January 1992 with over 50%
having been withdrawn by March 1992. At that point, however, Ukrainian President Kravchuk
suspended their withdrawal, expressing concerns that Russia might not be dismantling all of them.[2, p.
20] The United States “made a very strong presentation to the Ukrainian Government” and succeeded
in moving Ukraine to an accommodation with Russia about verifying the dismantlement of TNWs.
Fortunately, there was a great deal of trust at the operational level between Russian and Ukrainian
military officers—who had, at one time, served with Russian officers guarding and maintaining the
nuclear weapons slated for dismantlement. These Ukrainian officers formed the “inspectors” of the
dismantlement process.
2.1.2 Approach to Verification
Ukraine had at first demanded that the TNWs be dismantled in Ukraine and only after that would the
fissile material and components be allowed to be shipped back to Russia.[2] However, both Russia and
the West were unsatisfied with such a solution since it would leave Ukraine with the facilities necessary
to assemble weapons. Russia then agreed to increased transparency about the disposition of the TNWs:
Ukrainian military officers who had once had all the necessary Soviet clearances associated with nuclear
weapons were allowed to accompany the TNWs as they were shipped by rail to the dismantlement site,
1
What we mean by “demilitarization” is changing the physical shape and, perhaps, the amount of fissile material
from the shape and amount used in the nuclear weapon. Essentially turning it into a “puck” or “ingot.”
11
in Russia. These same Ukrainian officers then observed the warheads entering the room used for
dismantlement.[3] It is not clear, however, if the Ukrainians were allowed to observe any of the
dismantled components. This procedure was acceptable to all the parties involved.
2.1.3 Assessment
This is the only known case where the dismantlement of one country’s nuclear weapons were
“monitored” by another government. The modalities adopted, however, are far from ideal. A skeptical
observer might question whether or not the warhead was actually dismantled if components were not
observed after dismantlement. There could have been a number of small changes that would have
added up to significantly increased confidence such as tagging the outer aero-shell of the weapons with
a unique seal and then observing that seal (or seals) on the dismantled components. Today, much of
these improvements would come under the rubric of “continuity of knowledge." Instead, because of
the clearances the Ukrainian monitors had held under the Soviet Union, mutual trust in the individual
parties substituted for the technical details.
2.2 South Africa
2.2.1 Background
In 1989, South Africa decided to voluntarily denuclearize and dismantle its nuclear weapons program.[4,
p. 195] Reasons suggested for this denuclearization have ranged from practical—the threat from Soviet
backed Cuban forces dramatically decreased with the fall of the Berlin Wall—to the political—newly
elected president de Klerk wished to rejoin the international community and end South Africa’s pariah
status. [5, p. 53] Regardless of the reason, South Africa dismantled its six gun-type weapons and its
nuclear weapon infrastructure in secret and without outside verification.[4, p. 196] Only then, in 1991,
did South Africa acceded to the NPT and invited in IAEA safeguards2 inspectors in 1991.[5, p. 54] South
Africa also ordered the destruction of all technical records of the bomb building process3, some 12,000
documents.[4, p. 204] Instead of verifying the dismantlement of actual weapons, the IAEA ended up
verifying the amount of material. This proved a long and intricate job, as discussed in the Fissile
Material Accountancy section below. The IAEA also attempted to verify that all technical records on
how to build nuclear weapons was also destroyed. This section will concentrate on the verification of
that record destruction.
2.2.2 Approach to Verification
In addition to verifying the completeness of South Africa’s material accountancy, the IAEA used
inspectors from the P5 to verify the destruction of major weapon subcomponents—including all
weapon-specific nonnuclear components—and the decommissioning/abandonment/conversion to
peaceful uses of all laboratories and engineering facilities involved in the weapons program. To
accomplish this, the inspection teams visited many facilities, reviewed and audited the records
2
The IAEA entered South Africa under a very different mandate than its Action Team did in Iraq. The initial South
African IAEA inspections were the standard initial inspections that are always performed when a country enters
into the NPT.
3
Detailed records of weapon dismantlement were kept for future verification though some of these varied in their
detail.[4, pp. 204–206]
12
associated with weapon dismantlement4 and interviewed many of the participants associated with the
dismantlement.
The inspectors found the correlation of records from the dismantlement of HEU components with the
records kept of HEU production to be very helpful in verifying the demilitarization of nuclear
components. However, the records of the destruction of those natural and depleted uranium
components used in the bombs did not have necessary detail to allow their destruction to be verified.[4,
p. 234]
Another useful correlation was comparing the nonnuclear pieces of components left after mechanically
cutting them apart with the sections of each weapon’s “build-history” log book and corresponding
dismantlement record.5 This highlights that one of an inspector’s most important duties is to record
serial numbers on all the equipment and components seen.
2.2.3 Assessment
The IAEA concluded in its report of September 9, 1993 (just five months after South Africa revealed it
had a nuclear weapons program) that an “examination of the records, facilities and remaining
nonnuclear components of the dismantled/destroyed nuclear weapons and from the team’s evaluation
of the amount of HEU produced by the pilot enrichment plant are consistent with the declared scope of
the nuclear weapons program.”[6, p. 11] Independent analysts, however, worry that the inspectors
were never able to establish exactly how many of each type of nonnuclear component had been
produced and, therefore, if all of them had been destroyed.[4, p. 235]
Others point out that it is impossible to verify that all copies of the technical documents on the
production and assembly of the nuclear weapons had been destroyed.[5, p. 67] They further point out
that the destruction of the demonstration device6 and pre-qualification7 model, has not been verified at
all because no records had been made of their dismantlement.[5, p. 67]
It is clear, however, that the IAEA would not have been able to achieve the level of confidence it has
about the dismantlement of South Africa’s nuclear weapons program if South Africa had not provided as
extensive cooperation as it did. For instance, before March 1993, when South Africa revealed that it had
had an active nuclear weapons program, South Africa had taken the IAEA to an important weapons
4
The South Africans, while destroying records of weapons production, preserved meticulous records for the
destruction of the weapons.
5
These logbooks included quantities of material used and serial numbers of components retained or component
parts.
6
South Africa’s Atomic Energy Board (AEB) produced a gun-type device—without an HEU core—in 1977 in case the
government needed to demonstrate a nuclear capability in a test. This device was also known as “Melba.”[4, p.
74]
7
Armscor, South Africa’s indigenous arms manufacturer, made its first device by 1982 which was capable of being
dropped from an airplane but did not represent South Africa’s final design. It was known also as “Hobo” and later
“Cabot.”
13
development facility8 but told the inspectors it was a general purpose facility for a Reactor Development
group.[4, pp. 224–225] It is a matter of speculation how much trust was injected into the disarmament
process by the election of Nelson Mandela as President of South Africa a little more than a year after the
disclosure of the weapons program.[7] However, it seems likely that the international community was
reassured as the new government continued on with disarmament process.
2.3 Iraq
2.3.1 Background
Iraq’s nuclear weapons program can be considered to start in 1968, when it commissioned a Soviet built
IRT-2000 research reactor.[8, p. Nuclear--3] A second, larger, reactor was being constructed for Iraq by
France when it was bombed by Israel in 1981, destroying the infrastructure before being loaded with
fuel.[9] Soon after that, the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission set up programs to pursue uranium
enrichment by a variety of means.[8, p. Nuclear--3] As part of that, a nuclear weapons complex at Al
Athir was established in 1988 for research, development, and production of nuclear weapons. This
became known as the Petrochemical Project 3 (PC-3) and was divided into four Groups, Group 1 was in
charge of enrichment while Group 4 was in charge of weaponization.[10, p. 15]
Operation Desert Storm, the US led effort to force Iraq out of Kuwait, destroyed many of the facilities
associated with Iraq’s nuclear weapons program.[8, p. Nuclear--4] At the time of that war, the head of
Iraq’s WMD programs, Hussein Kamil, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s son-in-law, ordered all equipment
and documents indicating violations of the NPT to be destroyed. At least one set of nuclear-related
documents and some equipment were to be saved and hidden in case Saddam chose to restart the
program.[8, p. Nuclear--5] (This included the only known nuclear weapons component, a multi-point
detonator firing set.[8, p. 60]) When IAEA inspectors arrived in Iraq in May 1991, they set out to verify
the Iraqi declarations on their nuclear program centered at Al Tuwaitha.[11, p. 5] The inspectors found
that in almost all cases, documentation and records had disappeared and were not available. This began
the “denial and deception” program that was to run in one form or another until the 2003 Operation
Iraqi Freedom ended Saddam’s regime. This denial and deception program was steadily overcome by
IAEA inspectors examining (revised) declarations, what documents were found, and interviews with Iraqi
scientists and engineers.[10, p. 14] [8, p. Nuclear--7]
2.3.2 Approach to Verification
For the most part, the IAEA only had declarations, documents, and interviews to both uncover the
weaponization activities of Iraq and verify that they had been destroyed, disbanded, or redirected. At
several times Iraq handed over documents—sometimes on optical discs which could have been copied
multiple times—that revealed new information about the weaponization program. Some of the most
important documents for revealing the status of weaponization were:
•
’90 to June ’91 Al Atheer Achievement Report (Group 4 report #991002) which provided the
status of the weaponization program as of that time.[10, p. 58] Provided to the IAEA in 1995
8
This was Building 5000, which contained a pulse reactor used to verify the computer codes needed to design the
criticality of South Africa’s nuclear weapons.[4, p. 35] It would certainly have included many sensitive nonnuclear
components.
14
•
•
•
•
An optical disc with what Iraq claimed were all the reports published by PC-3 Group 4
(Weaponization) between 1988 and 1991.[12, p. 8] Provided to the IAEA in 1995
Computer code used for the July 1990 Lens Design to calculate the interaction of the various
explosives.[10, p. 58] Provided to the IAEA in 1995
Documents from PC-3 Group 4 at the Al Qa Qaa explosives facility concerning the design of the
lenses and detonators.[10, p. 9] Provided to the IAEA in 1995
Almost complete set of drawings for the lens molds and other design drawings “found”9 at the
Haider House Farm in 1995.
In addition to these documents, a multi-point electronic firing system, developed by Group 4,[14, p. 14]
was found in the rubble of Al Atheer[8, p. 60] and turned over to the IAEA in 1995. Equipment
associated with weaponization was also “found” by the Iraqis belonging to PC-3 Group 4 departments
40B10 and 40G11 in 1997. A number of pieces of equipment were found that were involved in uranium
metallurgy and the casting of high explosive lenses.[16, pp. 10–11] These were destroyed under IAEA
supervision but certainly contributed to an increased understanding by the IAEA of Iraq’s weaponization
program.[16, p. 9]
From this cross correlation of information painfully extracted from the Iraqis (See the Appendix C for a
timeline of the fraudulent declarations Iraq provided to the IAEA) over the period from 1991 to 1997,
the IAEA was able to state that “over the many years [the IAEA inspections lasted, it] yielded a
technically coherent picture of Iraq’s clandestine nuclear programme.”[10, p. 21] It was this “technically
coherent picture” that formed the basis of the Action Team’s decisions to certify Iraq’s denuclearization.
Based on its coherence, the IAEA stated that “there are no indications to suggest that Iraq was
successful in its attempt to produce nuclear weapons.” The IAEA went on to state that Iraq was “at, or
close to, the threshold of success in […] the fabrication of the explosive package for a nuclear
weapon.”[10, p. 21]
2.3.3 Assessment
All of the IAEA’s statements about the status of Iraq’s nuclear weapons programs have a certain amount
of uncertainty in them. This is appropriate given that much of it is based on having established a
“technically coherent picture” of Iraq’s nuclear weapons program. This, in itself, is disturbing given the
fact that forensic evidence as to the authenticity of the documents was not attainable from those
documents on optical discs.
In principle, one could object to the validity of the IAEA basing all of its verification conclusions on the
completeness and self-constancy of a “picture” developed solely from the documentation provided by
Iraq. If there had been, for instance, a completely separate nuclear weapons program, it might have
been able to remain unknown to the inspectors. Of course, “completely separate” would mean
9
The Haider House Chicken Farm episode is one of the stranger events in verification history. Shortly after Hussein
Kamel’s defection to Jordan in August 1995, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz requested the urgent visit to
Iraq by the IAEA and UNSCOM. Aziz explained that Kamel had withheld WMD information from the government
and that it had just been discovered and wished to show them to the weapons inspectors.[13]
10
40B was the subgroup on Experimentation.[15, p. 84]
11
40G was the subgroup on Material Experiments.[15, p. 84]
15
separate purchasing networks and management lines all the way up to the highest authorities. It is
doubtful that such separation could have been maintained over the years of development without some
indication of the existence of one program leading into the paper trail of the other. Fortunately, for
verification purposes, U.S. and coalition forces were able to exercise a great deal more intrusive
inspections than the IAEA.
Shortly after the Second Gulf War, the US-led Iraq Survey Group (ISG) went into Iraq to try to
substantiate these IAEA findings using a great deal more coercion on the people it interviewed than the
IAEA found possible.[17] The ISG reached similar conclusions to the IAEA, stating “Initially, Saddam
chose to conceal his nuclear program in its entirety […]. Aggressive UN inspections after Desert Storm
forced Saddam to admit the existence of the program and destroy or surrender components of the
program.”[8, p. Nuclear--1] The ISG went on to state that “Iraq did not possess a nuclear device.”[8, p.
Nuclear--7]
We can only conclude that the IAEA was able to reach the correct conclusions even in the face of so
much obstruction by Iraq. The key would appear to be the cross correlation of documents, many
relating to the same technical and organizational issues, from different sources or different
organizations. At the time of the Iraq inspections (1991 to 2003), Iraq was not technologically
sophisticated enough to counterfeit so many documents and have them add up to a coherent—thought
not too coherent—whole. Would that be the case for a more information-science sophisticated
adversity? It is hard to say but that could be concern in the future if the adversity threw as much time
and resources into a “deny and deception” program as Iraq did.
16
3. FISSILE MATERIAL ACCOUNTANCY
3.1 South Africa
3.1.1 Background
When South Africa acceded to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) was charged with accounting for its Special Nuclear Materials (SNM). South Africa
declared that it had two enrichment facilities, both of which used the novel technique of aerodynamic
enrichment[18]: the Y Plant which was capable of enriching uranium to 80% or 90% 235U[4, p. 49] and
the larger “semi-commercial” plant, known as the Z Plant. When the IAEA first started its inspections in
September 1991,[19] South Africa provided material accountancy declarations that included the HEU, in
the form of metal, removed from its weapons.[4, p. 223] Because South Africa had dismantled its six
gun-type nuclear weapons before acceding to the NPT, and because so many of its weapons production
records had been purposefully destroyed, an accurate accounting of nuclear material enrichment
became the key to verifying its denuclearization.
This verification was complicated by the twin facts that 1) the IAEA had performed few, if any,
safeguards inspections on an aerodynamic enrichment facility before and, 2) South Africa was still
developing large scale enrichment by this method at the same time it was producing HEU for bombs.
This later issue caused South Africa’s program to have a very complicated history with extensive losses
of HEU inside the enrichment cascades. Some of this HEU was lost to the program but some of it was
recovered.
3.1.2 Approach to Verification
The first method the IAEA used to confirm the amount of HEU produced centered around establishing
material balance across South Africa’s nuclear enterprise. This involved adding up all of South Africa’s
indigenous production, imports, and exports of enriched and depleted uranium. (This is shown
schematically by the IAEA[20] in Figure 1 ) However, this method failed to account for a significant
amount of HEU, as shown in Figure 2, where the unaccounted for HEU forms a significant fraction of the
amount that was used in South Africa’s nuclear arsenal. The problem is the material balance
methodology arose from two, related issues: 1) there was an unusually large amount of HEU “hung up”
in the enrichment cascade and, 2) the international community was unfamiliar with the aerodynamic
enrichment method South Africa had invented.
17
Figure 1. Schematic of the flow of material used by the IAEA in its first attempt to
determine the validity of South Africa’s material declarations.[20, p. 13]
18
DISPOSITION OF HEU
HEU with U235
< 80%
enrichment lost
in filters etc.
Weapons
Program HEU
HEU with U235
< 80%
Enrichment
Unaccounted
for HEU
HEU used for
blending
Figure 2. The deposition of HEU derived from a nuclear enterprise-wide material balance
as determined by the IAEA. Note the large amount of unaccounted for HEU.12
As a consequence of the failure of the enterprise-wide material balance method, the IAEA was forced to
develop a second method for calculating the amount of HEU produced. This second method would
require the IAEA to have a much more detailed understanding of where the uranium ended up in the
enrichment process at a single facility, the Y Plant.[4, p. 231] It was judged that measuring and
characterizing the content of all the cylinders containing depleted uranium and the waste drums
containing small quantities of HEU would be too expensive and time consuming for the immediate
needs of the inspectors.13 Instead, a program for assessing the performance of the Y Plant over its
operating history, estimating losses and yield on a daily basis, and checking estimates with the records
the operators kept, would be used. The IAEA performed various forensic analyses to ensure that these
records were genuine. As a further check of their estimates of HEU losses, the IAEA asked South Africa
to perform a number of experiments. At the end of this process, the IAEA was able to state that “it is
reasonable to conclude that the amounts of HEU which could have been produced by the pilot
enrichment plant are consistent with the amounts declared in the initial report.”[6, p. 3]
12
This figure was created by the author based on information in Revisiting South Africa’s Nuclear Weapons
Program.[4, pp. 229–230]
13
Years later, well after the IAEA had concluded that South Africa had completely denuclearized, the HEU content
in the waste drums was eventually measured.[4, p. 230]
19
3.1.3 Assessment
South Africa had made a strategic decision to give up its nuclear weapons program and be welcomed
back into the community of nations. This was made harder, however, by the fact that they also
originally tried to avoid the condemnation that might have resulted from letting the world know they
had once had nuclear weapons. They tried to hide this fact by “demilitarizing” the shapes of their HEU.14
Nevertheless, South Africa did eventually reveal it had made nuclear weapons and continued to work
with the IAEA on accounting for all of the HEU produced.
Without this high level of cooperation—which was based on a shared goal of achieving proper
accounting of nuclear materials produced—it is doubtful that the international community could have
had the confidence it has that South Africa completed disarmed. The new method South Africa used—
aerodynamic enrichment—to produce HEU was both unfamiliar to the IAEA and had experienced
significant losses during production. Instead of using global accounting procedures, with well
understood loss factors from the IAEA’s knowledge of centrifuge enrichment, the IAEA had to model the
production process and account for losses that way. The only way that process succeeded was because
South Africa assisted in finding daily production records that had escaped destruction and by
interviewing willing participants who were familiar with the enrichment process. If those records had
not been recovered or South African experts less willing to assist the modeling effort, it is doubtful that
IAEA could have reached the conclusions it did.
The IAEA eventually tied their calculations and records comparisons to the physical measurement of
HEU “lost” to their enrichment waste stream. This was a costly and time-consuming process and, while
valuable to have, had zero impact on the political decision to accept that South Africa had denuclearized
because of the length of time it took. Various devices for speeding this measurement process up were
employed, such as a semi-automated “IQ3” assay scanner which was used to measure the 20,000 drums
containing LEU.[21] This final measurement was finished in 2011.[22]
3.2 Iraq
3.2.1 Background
It is often said that the most difficult resource to acquire in making a nuclear bomb is the fissile
material.[23] In practice, building up the human capital—both technical and managerial—has been at
least as hard for some countries.[15, p. 4] In fact, much of the effort Iraq put into acquiring fissile
material was spent on developing human capital at the same time as they were trying to acquire the
requisite technology.
This is illustrated with Iraq’s early interest in nuclear technology, which started with a desire in
purchasing various nuclear reactors. First there was a 1959 purchase agreement with the Soviet Union
of a 2-megawatt (thermal) research reactor. Over time, the Soviets agreed to increase the enrichment
14
Here we use “demilitarizing” to mean changing the shape of the HEU used in its gun-type nuclear weapons to
conceal the fact that they had once been mounted in a weapon. The IAEA was not, however, taken in by this
deception[19, p. 46] but recognized that the NPT did not require an accounting for the reasons materials were
produced prior to a country signing the treaty.
20
level for this reactor from its original 10% to 36% and finally 80%15 enrichment.[15, p. 52] Massive
technical assistance in human capacity building was given by the Soviet Union and significant aid by the
IAEA itself.[15, p. 51] In 1974 Iraq proposed to France to purchase a gas-cooled graphite-moderated
power reactor, which managed to significantly raise proliferation concerns with the international
community.[15, p. 53] At the time, Israel stated that such a reactor could be used to produce at least
one nuclear bomb per year. Because of this international pressure, France instead agreed to sell Iraq
two reactors of a different type: a 40-megawatt (thermal) research reactor for materials testing and a
500-kilowatt pool-type research reactor. The 40-MW(t) research reactor was known as the Osirak
reactor because the French design it was based on was called Osiris.[15, p. 53] First the Iranians
attacked these at the start of the Iran-Iraq war without inflicting significant damage and then, a year
later, in 1981, the Israelis destroyed it. [15, p. 67] While Saddam, Iraq’s dictatorial leader, had signaled
his interest in nuclear weapons, there was no unified, concerted effort to build one before this
attack.[15, p. 69] The Israeli strike managed to give a purpose to and unify the scientists behind a
weapons program.
The technical leader of the Iraqi weapons program, Jafar Jafar, redirected the main fissile material
production effort to enriched uranium and away from plutonium.[15, p. 75] Iraq’s goal was enriched
uranium while efficiency or economical details of the enrichment process were not their primary
concern; Iraq was, at the time, reaping a windfall in oil revenues. They were governed by a directive
from Saddam to not seek foreign technical assistance and this governed their initial efforts with striking
implications. Initially, both laser isotope separation and gaseous centrifuge enrichment were
considered too technologically advanced for Iraq’s developing technology.[15, p. 80] Producing the
barriers involved in gaseous diffusion was also considered to be beyond Iraq’s capabilities but at least
promising. This left Electromagnetic Isotope Separation (EMIS) as an option that was well covered in the
literature. As a consequence, EMIS was chosen as Iraq’s primary enrichment method but Jafar decided
to conduct research in both laser and centrifuge enrichment technology. And, despite fears of future
attacks on reactors, Iraq continued to experiment with plutonium extraction.[15, p. 86]
All these efforts, funded by increasing oil revenues, made a complex web of material acquisition,
processing, and enrichment that the IAEA Action Team had to unravel.
3.2.2 Approach to Verification
The first step in the process of verifying Iraq’s nuclear material production was to ask for a “declaration
of the locations, amounts, and types of all … nuclear-weapons-useable material(s).” Instead, Iraq simply
declared it had no such assets.[13] This was an obvious attempt to deny it had had a nuclear program,
all the more obvious since until the war, Iraq had 50 kg of safeguarded HEU. This HEU was
“rediscovered” on the first Action Team inspection of Tuwaitha Research Centre.
15
Iraq had a total of 50 kg of HEU, imported from France and the Soviet Union,[24] that would play an important
role in Saddam’s “crash program” to produce a nuclear weapon when the international community threatened him
while his army was still in Kuwait.
21
Subsequent Action Team inspections did not limit themselves to declared nuclear-related sites and the
second inspection asserted its enhanced rights16 by visiting an army barracks that member states’
overhead imagery had indicated would be of interest. The Iraqi regime, however, tried to remove
pieces of EMIS equipment out the back of the military base as the inspectors came in the front. Given
this level of obstruction, with warning shots actually fired when inspectors tried to follow the equipment
being removed, the approach the Action Team took was one of trying to find pieces of equipment and
documents Iraq was concealing in order to create a “coherent picture” of the nuclear program.[13] It
seemed like each time the Action Team discovered a new facet of the nuclear program, the Iraqis would
issue a new declaration covering just that one aspect.
The Action Teams established a procedure for dealing with Iraqi obstructionism at each site: First, they
would collect all relevant information (overhead images, open sources, previous inspections, and any
other information they might have such as information supplied by member states). Second, they would
identify the inspector expertise needed for that particular site such as measurements of nuclear
materials or to assess power production or enrichment technologies and, perhaps most importantly,
determine how many translators to take with them. Third, they would assess type of specialized
equipment they needed to accomplish the inspection. Fourth, they would identify what activities would
need to be performed during the inspection—what type of measurements or samples needed to be
taken. Finally, they would need to ensure operational security to ensure that the Iraqis did not sanitize
the site before the inspectors reached it.[25]
Information from member-states on imports of both materials and equipment was vitally important in
producing the final coherent picture. The Action Team was able to use this material to track down Iraqi
records on receiving material and equipment and, when they found it, have an increased probability of
finding other receipts. The correlation of import and export information was essential for accounting for
all the nuclear materials. Finally, as the Action Team was able to determine from technical reports it
found in the Haider House Farm trove of documents9 the centrifuge program was incapable of
producing a significant amount of enriched uranium.[13] This completed the development of the
“coherent picture” of Iraq’s nuclear weapons program.
3.2.3 Assessment
The IAEA Action Team was eventually able to declare that they had a “coherent picture” of Iraq’s nuclear
weapons program and that “there are no indications of significant discrepancies between the technically
coherent picture which has evolved of Iraq’s past programme and the information contained in Iraq’s
FFCE-F17 issued on 7 September 1996, as supplemented by the written revisions and additions provided
by Iraq since that time.”[26, p. 14]
16
Pre-Additional Protocol safeguard inspections that the IAEA would normal conduct were limited to declared
nuclear facilities. The cease fire at the end of the First Gulf War and subsequent UN Security Council Resolutions
had given the IAEA, in the form of its Action Team, the right to “go anywhere, anytime.”
17
FFCD means the Full, Final, and Complete Declaration. The designation “-F” indicates it is the sixth formal
revision of the declaration Iraq submitted to the IAEA. of course, the quote goes on to acknowledge that even that
was amended with a hand written addendum.
22
There are several lessons we can draw from this. First, the verification of the amount of HEU Iraq might
have been able to have produced in its developmental centrifuge program was highly dependent on
seemingly random chance of Saddam’s son-in-law, Husain Kamel, defecting to Jordan. Because Iraq was
afraid of him revealing the duplicity of Iraq’s “cooperation” with the IAEA, the government of Iraq
thought it was important to get those secrets they thought he might disclose out in the open before that
could happen. Could the Action Team have assured itself that Iraq had not enriched more uranium
without that defection? The answer to that might never be known. Fortunately, after the Second Gulf
War, the Iraq Survey Group had access to considerably more documentation found in the Iraqi state
archives and could interview scientists and engineers it held in prison. With those advantages, the ISG
was able to confirm that Iraq’s centrifuge program was incapable of enriching significant quantities of
uranium.[8, p. Vol 2 p.7]
In planning for a new denuclearization program of inspections, there is always the worry a determined
denial and deception program could prevent the necessary verification that a nation had disarmed. In
other words, it might take a random chance occurrence or a complete military defeat and regime
change to denuclearize a nation determined to obstruct verification. Relying on such unpredictable
events is a very unappetizing way of planning for denuclearization.
3.3 Taiwan
3.3.1 Background
Taiwan appears to have considered or even started a nuclear weapons program in the late 1970s based
on a small heavy-water research reactor bought from Canada and a secret plutonium separation
facility.[27] Questions arose in 1976 regarding Taiwan’s declarations about the burn-up of irradiated
fuel rods. The IAEA found discrepancies between Taiwan’s declarations of where these rods had been
inside the reactor (which determines how much and what quality of plutonium was produced) and their
extensive measurements. IAEA inspectors then found an opening in the bottom of Taiwan’s spent fuel
pond that could be used to move fuel rods.[28] This “canal gate” was not listed in the Taiwan’s
declarations of the facilities design and could have been used to sneak irradiated fuel rods out of the
cooling pool and into a reprocessing plant. During the measurements of fuel rod longitudinal
radioactivity, IAEA inspectors also found fuel rods that had multiple undeclared aluminum inserts that
could have been used to facilitate their reprocessing and plutonium separation.
The key to verifying that Taiwan had not reprocessed any undeclared fuel became matching the burnup
records for the reactor with physical measurements made on the reactor fuel rods. If there were
significant differences, it might indicate Taiwan had diverted irradiated fuel rods to an illicit weapons
program.
3.3.2 Approach to Verification
To settle the dispute, Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) was called in to make complete scans of all
of the fuel rods to verify Taiwan’s assertions about their burn up. LANL measured the isotopic content
of the 137 irradiated fuel rods from the heavy-water reactor at INER using the gamma-ray spectra from
134
Cs, 137Cs, 144Pr, and 106Rh.[29] These measurements, plus a total radioactivity measurement, were
taken at seven positions along the axis of each fuel rod. These measurements were confirmed by the
23
other isotopes measured. Other work by LANL showed that the total uncertainty between radioactivity
and operator estimated burnup should be between 5% and 10% (at the statistical one-sigma level). [30]
Presumably, this uncertainty resulted from operator error in keeping track of burnup or uncertainty in
the nucleonics of the reactor design.
3.3.3 Assessment
Why did the IAEA find a discrepancy between their radioactivity measurements and Taiwan’s
declarations of burnup? The answer would appear to be that LANL had a specially designed and
constructed collimation assembly that it used to measure the radioactivity as the fuel elements were
reinserted into the reactor.[29, p. 2] The inspectors from the IAEA appear to have done a much more ad
hoc measurement based on a total radioactivity scan at several points along the sampled reactor
elements. They did this more or less in situ, without identifying isotopes and without the sort of
collimation that LANL used. These less than ideal measurements were certainly understandable given
the conditions the IAEA worked under and its understandable desire for measurements to be taken as
quickly as possible.
Clearly, technology—and especially technological innovation—played a major role in verifying Taiwan’s
past behavior. However, the lesson is not that a special device with a collimator needs to used on all
future inspections of reactors. Instead, the lesson is to be adaptable and able to identify when a
specialized technology should be useful and have the ability to design and produce it in time for it to be
politically meaningful.
3.4 Libya
3.4.1 Background
Libya’s nuclear program was shaped by the country’s demographics and political events both in the
country and outside it. At the end of World War II, Libya was one of the poorest and least developed
nations on Earth before the discovery of oil in the early 1960s.[31] Immediately after the war, Libya,
which also had one of the smallest population densities in Africa given its immense deserts, had an
illiteracy rate of 94% and only opened its first university in 1955. These demographic facts influenced
Libya’s defense policy—initiated by its first King and continued by Muammar Gaddafi after his coup in
1969[15, p. 134]—of substituting a few high-tech alternatives to the large conventional army that would
have been needed to secure the borders. Thus, Libya invested in jet aircraft and surface-to-surface
missiles that needed only a small cadre of trained personnel to man them.
A nuclear weapons program, with its power to deter potential enemies, must have seemed very
attractive in such a strategy. Libya is reported to have financed other bomb projects, notably Pakistan’s,
in the hopes of being at least assisted to a nuclear deterrent.[15, p. 158] However, Libya’s efforts to
start a nuclear weapons program of its own were frustrated by Gaddafi’s encompassing efforts to
eliminate all potential power centers in the nation-state except himself. To rid his government of
potential rivals, he introducing a “Cultural Revolution” modeled after the Chinese version.[15, p. 148]
Without a real management structure, the weapons program pursued a shotgun style approach to
purchasing nuclear infrastructure but never acquired the skilled personnel to operate them.[15, p. 158]
24
As a result, Libya acquired a research reactor, various chemical processing plants for producing uranium
compounds, and the start of a centrifuge cascade, to name just a few, that were either ineffectual or
never operational.
In the early 1990s, there was a significant debate within the Gaddafi regime about whether or not to
pursue nuclear weapons. The no-nukes faction pointed to the recent conflicts between nuclear and
nonnuclear states18 where nuclear weapons played no role.[15, p. 199] Then, in 1992, the United
Nations imposed sanctions on Libya for masterminding the 1988 downing of Pan Am 105.[32] At first,
these sanctions were counterproductive in terms of WMD elimination in Libya because they
undermined internal opponents of a Libyan nuclear weapons program.[15, p. 201] Eventually, however,
the sanctions proved decisive by not only blocking international trade on conventional weapons, but
making it harder for the nascent nuclear program to obtain needed parts for their centrifuges. Over a
four-year negotiation, the US and UK finally were able to reach agreement with the Gaddafi regime to
give up its WMD. This agreement, reached in March 2003, was before the invasion of Iraq by coalition
forces but after it was clear that invasion was going to happen. As a consequence, a US-led team of
inspectors first entered Libya in October of 2003, to start its WMD-elimination process.[15, p. 212] This
was immediately after the German-flagged BBC China was stopped on the high seas and found to be
transporting over 1000 centrifuges.[5, p. 111]
3.4.2 Approach to Verification
The approach the U.S. and the U.K. took toward the elimination and verification of Libya’s WMD
programs was geared towards cooperation and speed with a priority placed on removing the most
proliferation-sensitive pieces of equipment and material. Speed was important since any delay would
reduce the pressure, through sanctions relaxation if not relief, on Libya to disarm.[33, pp. 93–94]
Accounting for materials was left to the IAEA. The U.S./U.K. aim was to assist Libya in identifying and
security proliferation-sensitive items, eliminating all elements of its nuclear, chemical, and biological
weapons programs, as well as restricting its missile efforts.[34] First ,the U.S. and U.K. wrote five white
papers19 outlining their proposals for how to proceed and then presented these to the Libyan
government. Perhaps because of this openness with the Libyans, there was outstanding cooperation
from the Libyans on the ground. U.S. and U.K. inspectors were allowed to visit any location and they
were very informative on the varied aspects of Libya’s WMD and missile programs.
During the first official inspection, Libya handed over detailed nuclear weapons designs, purchased from
the A.Q. Khan network, to the joint U.S./U.K. team and flown out of Libya on a chartered aircraft two
days later.[34, p. 5] That same week, U.S./U.K. inspectors removed several containers of gaseous
uranium hexafluoride, more centrifuges purchased from Pakistan,20 and centrifuge parts, equipment,
and documentation. This constituted the first phase of disarmament. The second phase involved the
removal of the remaining nuclear equipment and material (the amounts were much greater than what
was removed during the first phase). After the most dangerous nuclear equipment was removed, the
18
These includes the Falklands war, where nuclear-armed Britain made no use of them against Argentina.
One for each of nuclear, chemical, biological, and missile together with an integrating white paper that brought
all the elements together.[34, p. 4]
20
This included some of the advanced P-2 designs.
19
25
third phase concentrated verification, which consisted mainly of interviewing the personnel involved in
the various WMD programs.[35]
The U.S. and U.K. were less than enthusiastic partners with the IAEA during the denuclearization of
Libya. If it had not been for the Gaddafi-regime instance that the IAEA play a lead role in the verification
process, the denuclearization might well have taken place without multi-international involvement.[35]
As it was, the IAEA sent two officials (both from nuclear weapons states) to be present as the U.S./U.K.
inspectors examined Libya’s nuclear weapons designs and placed IAEA seals on them.[36, p. 6] Most of
the work of the IAEA in Libya involved material accounting, which was mostly a matter of checking
amounts found in Libya with supplier country records. In addition to checking the shipment records, the
IAEA did a statistical sampling of 6,300 drums of yellowcake.[37, p. 3] It took a considerable amount of
time to test the 160 drums randomly selected for making an assay but by 2008, the IAEA was able to
state that it “confirm[s] the contents of the [yellowcake] drums as natural uranium in the form of UOC,
and the quantity of material contained in the drums, which are consistent with statements made by
Libya.”[38, p. 9] Declarations of other uranium compounds were “not inconsistent with the Agency’s
findings.”
3.4.3 Assessment
Initially, the denuclearization of Libya was viewed as a textbook example of what cooperative
disarmament could look like.[36, p. 7] In fact, the seeming success of the Libyan denuclearization—and
the fact that much of it was done by the United States and the United Kingdom—is probably why nowNational Security Advisor John Bolton famously suggested the “Libyan Model” for the denuclearization
of North Korea.[39] Since then, however, a number of questions have arisen that cast a shadow over
the Libyan Model. Most importantly, perhaps, was the discovery in 2011 of a “not large” amount of
mustard gas.[40] Some analysts have pointed to this discover of undeclared chemical agent as at least
cause for concern that the Libyan Model might not be as successful as some thought.[5, p. 110] The
problem in assessing how important this is, is with not knowing what “not large” means. Could it be
evidence of a successful attempt to preserve a relatively small amount of mustard gas for use? Or could
it be just a mistake? After all, the West keeps on finding “not small” quantities of mustard gas left over
from the World Wars.21
It is clear that initial inspections by the U.S./U.K. team concentrated on removing the most dangerous
proliferation-sensitive materials, equipment, and documents. Doing so, especially if there is an
independent agency—in the case of the mustard gas, the OPCW22—responsible for material
accountancy, can have negative effects on verification. Whether or not this is a fatal flaw will depend on
how much mustard gas was discovered in 2011. However, it is an important lesson that if it is necessary
to remove materials and documents quickly, care should be taken to preserve forensic evidence as
much as possible and to make that material available to the organization responsible for material
accountancy.
21
One of the most recent incidents is where British authorities discovered 140 mustard canisters (which, judging
from images in the news article, appear to be about a liter in size) left over from World War II stockpiles.[41]
22
Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
26
The technological inadequacy of measuring the isotopic content of a large number of drums of
yellowcake should be pointed out. It took over four years between when the U.S. and the U.K started to
normalize relations with Libya and when the IAEA completed its analysis. This can be said to have
rendered the IAEA analysis politically meaningless.
Finally, some analysists have raised the issue of too much trust in the Gadhafi government by the
U.S./U.K. teams.[42] They worry that not enough skepticism was applied because of a “euphoria”
surrounding denuclearization and more evidence of compliance should have been gathered. It is
impossible to judge whether or not this argument has merit without a more detailed examination of
documents that are not in the open literature. However, the fact that such an object could be raised
highlights the fact that verification is not an exact science. When to stop looking for evidence
countering the current technically coherent picture is a judgement call that can only be based on
experience both with the technical subjects and with the denuclearization process.
27
28
4. CONCLUSIONS
The intention of the subject country to cooperate with the verification process has been an extremely
important factor in almost all of the verification processes examined here. This cooperation facilitated
the trust that was the key to both Ukraine building confidence in Russia’s dismantling removed tactical
nuclear weapons and to Russia allowing Ukrainian military officers as deep into the dismantlement
process as they did. South Africa’s intention to cooperate, which it can be argued took several years to
truly manifest itself, was vital to verifying the material balance of its enrichment program. Without this
cooperation, the IAEA would not have understood South Africa’s enrichment process well enough to
simulate it. South Africa also cooperated by searching for archival day-to-day production records and
making them available to IAEA inspectors for comparison with the simulations.
Failure to cooperate, such as in Iraq’s program of denial and deception, have in the past been able to be
overcome by extremely intrusive inspections only made possible by the military defeat of the country. It
is very informative to see on how effective verifying declarations can be when backed up with
documents from multiple sources—the different organizations involved in an inherently large and
widespread nuclear complex. However, there are some caveats to this method that should be
recognized in today’s more sophisticated information sciences. In the 1990s, it was probably impossible
for Iraq to create out of thin air the complex interlocking documents that the IAEA used to establish its
“coherent understanding” of Iraq’s nuclear weapons program. Today, we must worry that if a country
invests as many resources into a new “denial and deception” program that Iraq did, they might be able
to create a coherent but false picture. Even back in the 1990s, many of the important documents were
only made available as computer files, preventing the more traditional forensic analyses that could
document their ages. Because of this, we should consider what computer forensic methods might be
utilized to detect such a large-scale deception program.
Getting the “interlocking” documents, however, cannot be assured. It can be argued that the Iraqi
nuclear weapons program was only “cracked” by the extremely unlikely (even bizarre) episode of
Hussain Kamel’s defection to the West. Such an event cannot be counted on in the future.
Another important aspect of denuclearizing an uncooperative country was the ability to compare
internal (to the country being denuclearized) documents of procurement activities with the documents
of external suppliers. Verifying Iraq’s procurement of various amounts of uranium compounds from
other countries did not progress until Iraq revealed who those countries were—this was a major aspect
of their denial and deception program for the enrichment of uranium. The same is true for
understanding their development of enrichment technologies using foreign experts. If there is
significant external involvement, and only South Africa seems to have had both the natural resources
and the technological capabilities to develop enrichment on their own, these sources will be vital to a
successful verification. If verification procedures are negotiated that allows foreign suppliers to remain
secret, this will almost certainly doom them to failure.
All these issues related to establishing a “coherent understanding” of a country’s nuclear weapons
program can be boiled down to one conclusion: it is vital to have information about the program from as
29
many sources as possible. If you cannot establish a material balance for the country—and it is doubtful
that will ever be possible—all aspects of the program must be combined to gain this “coherent
understanding.” This means that information about weaponization will be just a valuable as what
information is available from material balance sheets.
Technology also plays a role in verification, though perhaps not as important as some might want to
believe. It played a role in verifying Libya’s nuclear material declarations but it took four years before
those results for a statistically significant number of drums of materials could be analyzed. This was well
after the West had reestablished normal relations. Measurements of South Africa’s enrichment related
“waste” drums took even longer: eighteen years.23 Since the international community had already
advanced its normalization of relations with both South Africa and Libya by the time these
measurements were completed, it could be argued they were no longer politically significant. We have
to ask ourselves, what is the point in performing an expensive and time-consuming measurement if it
has no impact on the verification of a country’s denuclearization? Developing new technologies that
could make these measurements in a meaningful timeframe has to be a high priority.
It also seems likely that the discrepancies the IAEA found in Taiwan’s burnup declarations and the IAEA’s
radiation profiles might have arisen from the lack of a good collimating system. In the end, it was a
custom designed piece of equipment made to eliminate one specific uncertainty that solved the
problem. It is possible the need for such a collimator might be needed again but the real lesson is the
ability to improvise the right pieces of equipment needed and also supply that in a timely fashion.
Following a systematic protocol is also very important. The entire Libyan WMD-elimination has been
called into question by the discovery of a “not large” amount of mustard gas years after the OPCW had
declared all such materials had been removed. While we cannot say what was the reason for the
U.S./U.K. team and the OPCW missing this mustard, the rapid removal of records (if not the chemicals
themselves) allows the verification process to be questioned. If security considerations again require
dangerous materials to be removed before full accounting has been verified, extreme care should be
taken to record and preserve all possible forensic and provenance evidence.
We end this paper with a word of caution. Trust between the country being denuclearized and the
agency or entities verifying that is vitally important. However, given that the best that a verification
regime can achieve in practices is establishing a technically coherent picture of the nuclear weapons
program where there are no major contradictions in the evidence gathered, there must come a time to
stop looking for such evidence. The inspection agencies will always leave themselves open to criticism
about this decision which is both a technical and a political decision. The best advice we can give,
without knowing the unique circumstances of the future verification regime, is to document this
decision as well as possible and to seek the concurrence of outside experts.
23
Today, measuring South Africa’s enrichment waste would not take eighteen years because Oak Ridge National
Laboratory and Canberra Industries did develop new technologies such as the IQ3 scanner.[21] But even the
length of time it took after using that technology needs to be improved upon if material assays are ever going to
be politically meaningful.
30
5. REFERENCES
[1] S. J. Koch, “The Presidential Nuclear Initiatives of 1991-1992,” NATIONAL DEFENSE
UNIV FORT MCNAIR DC CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF WEAPONS OF MASS
DESTRUCTION, 2012.
[2] G. Arbman and C. L. Thornton, “Russia’s Tactical Nuclear Weapons,” 2003.
[3] Matt Bunn, “interview By Geoff Forden with Matt Bunn on Dismantling Soviet Theater
Nuclear Weapons Removed from Ukraine,” 18-May-2018.
[4] D. H. Albright and A. Stricker, Revisiting South Africa’s Nuclear Weapons Program: Its
History, Dismantlement, and Lessons for Toda, 1 edition. CreateSpace Independent
Publishing Platform, 2016.
[5] Nathan E. Bush and Joseph F. Pilat, The Politics of Weapons Inspections: Assessing WMD
Monitoring and Verification Regimes, 1st ed. Stanford Security Studies, 2017.
[6] Director General, “The Denuclearization of Africa,” International Atomic Energy Agency,
Vienna, Austria, General Conference gc37-1075_en, Sep. 1993.
[7] “Nelson Mandela | Biography, Life, Death, & Facts,” Encyclopedia Britannica. [Online].
Available: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nelson-Mandela. [Accessed: 02-Aug2018].
[8] Charles Duelfer, “Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq’s WMD
— Central Intelligence Agency,” Sep. 2004.
[9] “Iraq | Countries | NTI.” [Online]. Available:
http://www.nti.org/learn/countries/iraq/nuclear/. [Accessed: 21-May-2018].
[10] Director General, “Fourth Consolidated Report of the Director General of the International
Atomic Energy Agency Under Paragraph 16 of Security Council Resolution 1051 (1996),”
International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, Austria, S/1997/779, Oct. 1997.
[11] Director General, “Consolidated Report on the First Two IAEA Inspections Under Security
Council Resolution 687 (1991) of Iraqi Nuclear Capabilities,” International Atomic Energy
Agency, Vienna, Austria, S/22788, Jul. 1991.
[12] Director General, “Report on the Twenty-Nineth IAEA On-Site Inspection in Iraq Under
Security Council Resolution 687 (17-24 October 1995),” International Atomic Energy
Agency, Vienna, Austria, S/1996/14, Jan. 1996.
[13] Garry Dillion and Jacques Baute, “An Overview of the IAEA Action Team Activities in
Iraq.” [Online]. Available:
www.iaea.org/inis/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/33/034/33034358.pdf.
[14] Director General, “Report on the Twenty-Eighth IAEA On-Site Inspection in Iraq Under
Security Council Resolution 687 (9-20 September 1995),” International Atomic Energy
Agency, Vienna, Austria, S/1995/1003, Dec. 1995.
[15] M. Braut-Hegghammer, Unclear Physics: Why Iraq and Libya Failed to Build Nuclear
Weapons. Cornell University Press, 2016.
[16] Director General, “Report on the Twelfth IAEA On-Site Inspection in Iraq Under Security
Council Resolution 687 (May-June 1992),” International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna,
Austria, S/24223, Jul. 1992.
[17] M. H. PM, “HELD: IRAQ’S SCIENTISTS,” Newsweek, 19-Jun-2005.
[18] R. F. RR Eaton and K. J. Touryan, “Isotope enrichment by aerodynamic means: a review
and some theoretical considerations,” J. Energy, vol. 1, no. 4, pp. 229–236, 1977.
31
[19] A. von, Garry Dillion, and Demetrius Perricos, “Nuclear verification in South Africa,”
IAEA Bull., no. 1, p. 7, 1995.
[20] “South Africa’s Nuclear Capabailities,” International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna,
Austria, GC(XXXVI)/1015, Sep. 1992.
[21] B. Rollen, G. Bosler, J. Tanaka, B. Gillespie, L. Hordijk, and R. L. Mayer, “VALIDATION
OF IQ3 MEASUREMENTS FOR HIGH-DENSITY LOW-ENRICHED-URANIUM
WASTE DRUMS AT PELINDABA,” in Proceedings of the 7th International Conference
on Facility Operations-Safeguards Interface, Charleston, South Carolina, USA, Charleston,
South Carolina, USA, 2004.
[22] T. C. Hlongwane, “NECSA Solid Radioactive Waste Management Plan,” presented at the
Regional Practical Workshop on the Decommissioning of Radioactive contaminated
facilities, 24-Aug-2011.
[23] Graham Allison, “Nuclear Disorder: Surveying Atomic Threats,” Foreign Aff., vol. 89, no.
1, pp. 74–85, 2010.
[24] “INVO - Factsheet.” [Online]. Available:
https://www.iaea.org/OurWork/SV/Invo/factsheet.html. [Accessed: 21-Jun-2018].
[25] Dimitri Perricos, “Uncovering the Secret Program—Initial Inspections,” presented at the
Understanding the Lessons of Nuclear Inspections and Monitoring in Iraq: A Ten-Year
Review, Washington, D.C., 28-Aug-2001.
[26] Director General, “Interim Status Report of the Director General of the International
Atomic Energy Agency in Response to the Presidential Statement on Iraq of 14 May 1998,”
International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, Austria, S/1998/694.
[27] “Taiwan | Countries | NTI.” [Online]. Available: http://www.nti.org/learn/countries/taiwan/.
[Accessed: 04-May-2018].
[28] D. Albright and C. Gay, “Taiwan: Nuclear nightmare averted,” Bull. At. Sci., vol. 54, no. 1,
pp. 54–60, 1998.
[29] J. R. Phillips, T. R. Bement, C. R. Hatcher, S. T. Hsue, and D. M. Lee, “Nondestructive
verification of the exposure of heavy-water reactor fuel elements,” Los Alamos National
Lab., NM (USA), LA-9432, 1982.
[30] C. C. Thomas, Jr., D. D. Cobb, and C. A. Ostenak, “Spent-Fuel Composition: A
Comparision of Predicted and Measured Data,” Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los
Alamos, New Mexico, LA-8764-MS.
[31] “The History of the Development of Libyan Gas and Oil Resources.” [Online]. Available:
http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/libyanoil.htm. [Accessed: 25-Jun-2018].
[32] Ian Hurd, “The strategic use of liberal internationalism: Libya and the UN sanctions, 1992–
2003,” Int. Organ., vol. 59, no. 3, pp. 495–526, 2005.
[33] R. Joseph, Countering WMD: The Libyan Experience. Fairfax, VA: National Institute Press,
2009.
[34] Paula A. DeSutter, Testimony of Paula A. DeSutter Assistant Secretary of State for
Verification and Compliance. Washington, D.C., 2004.
[35] W. Q. Bowen, Libya and Nuclear Proliferation: Stepping back from the brink. The
International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2015.
[36] Paula A. DeSutter, Testimony of Paula A. DeSutter Assistant Secretary of State for
Verification and Compliance Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Washington, D.C.,
2004.
32
[37] Director General, “Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement of the Socialist
People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (30 August 2004),” International Atomic Energy Agency,
Vienna, Austria, GOV/2004/59, Aug. 2004.
[38] Director General, “Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Socialist
People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (12 September 2008),” International Atomic Energy
Agency, Vienna, Austria, GOV/2008/39, Sep. 2008.
[39] J. B. CNN, “Bolton says US considering Libya model for North Korean denuclearization,”
CNN. [Online]. Available: https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/30/asia/north-korea-bolton-libyaintl/index.html. [Accessed: 30-Apr-2018].
[40] Chris Schneidmiller, “OPCW Verifies Secret Libyan Chemical Arms | Analysis | NTI,”
Global Security Newswire, 20-Jan-2012. [Online]. Available:
http://www.nti.org/gsn/article/opcw-verifies-secret-libyan-chemical-arms/. [Accessed: 25Jun-2018].
[41] “MoD experts return to mustard gas site,” BBC News, 16-Apr-2018.
[42] Joseph F. Pilat, “Geoffrey Forden’s Interview with Joe Pilat on Trust in Verification,” 01Aug-2018.
[43] “Boris Yeltsin | Biography & Facts,” Encyclopedia Britannica. [Online]. Available:
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Boris-Yeltsin. [Accessed: 28-Jun-2018].
[44] “Q+A: What was the hardline Soviet coup attempt in 1991?,” Reuters, 16-Aug-2011.
[45] “The Presidential Nuclear Initiatives (PNIs) on Tactical Nuclear Weapons at a Glance |
Arms Control Association.” [Online]. Available:
https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/pniglance. [Accessed: 28-Jun-2018].
[46] M. Alexandrov, Uneasy Alliance: Relations Between Russia and Kazakhstan in the PostSoviet Era, 1992-1997. Greenwood Publishing Group, 1999.
[47] N. V. Wielligh and L. V. Wielligh-Steyn, The Bomb: South Africa’s Nuclear Weapons
Programme, Translation edition. Pretoria: Litera Publications, 2016.
[48] Director General, “Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Socialist
People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (Sept 2008),” International Atomic Energy Agency,
Vienna, Austria, GOV/2008/39, Sep. 2008.
[49] Director General, “Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement of the Socialist
People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (May 2004),” International Atomic Energy Agency,
Vienna, Austria, GOV/2004/33, May 2004.
[50] “U.S., Russia Remove More HEU from Libya | Analysis | NTI.” [Online]. Available:
http://www.nti.org/gsn/article/us-russia-remove-more-heu-from-libya/. [Accessed: 17-May2018].
33
APPENDIX A: TIMELINE OF THE PRESIDENTIAL NUCLEAR
INITIATIVES AND UKRAINE’S DISARMAMENT
The disarmament of Ukraine of interest here is the removal and destruction of tactical nuclear weapons
as part of the Presidential Nuclear Initiatives (PNIs). This can be confusing because of the proximity to
the removal of strategic weapons from Ukraine that was arranged by both Russia and the West so that
Ukraine (and its neighbors, Kazakhstan and Belarus, could join the NPT as nonnuclear weapons states.
Its also confusing because Ukraine bulked at removing both types of weapons at different times and for
different reasons. The events that played important roles in the removal of tactical nuclear weapons are
included here.
May 29, 1990
March 31,
1991
August 19,
1991
August 21,
1991
September 27,
1991
October 5,
1991
December 21,
1991
January 1992
January 1992
March 1992
April 1992
April 1992
May 6, 1992
Table 1. Timeline of PNIs and Ukraine’s TNW Disarmament
1990
Boris Yeltsin elected president of the Russian Republic by the Russian State
Parliament[43]
1991
Warsaw Pact Dissolved[1, pp. 2–3]
President Gorbachev is confined to his summer home in Crimea but hardliners in the
military over proposals for a new Union Treaty for the Soviet Union.[44]
The coup attempt ends with troops leaving Moscow and Gorbachev flying back.[44]
President Bush announces a number of unilateral initiatives to limit and reduce U.S.
tactical nuclear weapons: all U.S. ground-launched, short-range nuclear weapons
removed from overseas; tactical nuclear weapons removed from naval ships and
submarines.[45]
Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev pledges to: eliminate all nuclear artillery,
warheads for nuclear armed tactical missiles, and nuclear mines; all tactical nuclear
weapons from surface ships and “multipurpose” submarines (i.e. not “boomers”);
move nuclear warheads from air defense missiles into central storage.[45]
Leaders of Russia (by then, President Yeltsin), Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Belarus signed
the agreement “On Joint Measures with Respect to Nuclear Weapons” that specified
that nuclear arms in the later three countries would be all removed (and destroyed)
by 1 July 1992.[46, p. 73]
1992
Tactical Nuclear Weapons removed from Kazakhstan.[2, p. 19]
Tactical Nuclear Weapons (TNW) began to be removed from Ukraine.[2, p. 20]
President Kravchuk of Ukraine suspended the removal of TNWs from Ukraine,
charging that Russia might not be destroying them as it had promised.[2, p. 20]
Tactical Nuclear Weapons removed from Belarus.[2, p. 19]
Russia and Ukraine sign an agreement[2, p. 21] to allow Ukrainian observers follow
the TNWs all the way to the dismantlement cell (but not inside).[3]
All TNWs removed from Ukraine.[2, p. 21]
34
APPENDIX B: TIMELINE OF SOUTH AFRICA’S DISARMAMENT
14 March to 6
September 1991
10 July 1991
6 September 1991
16 September
1991
20 September
1991
30 September
1991
30 October 1991
November 1991
1st few months
after November
Late 1991
20 August 1992
September 1992
October 1992
17 March 1993
23 March 1993
24 March 1993
24
25
Table 2. Timeline of South Africa’s Disarmament24
1991
All HEU (in the form of metal ingots[4, p. 223]) returned to AEC from
ARMSCORE/Circle
South Africa accession to the NPT
Last weapons HEU transferred to Pelindaba for recasting.[4, pp. 199–203]
South Africa signs a comprehensive safeguards agreement at which time, it
enters into force
IAEA General Conference adopts a resolution on ensuring early
implementation of the safeguards agreement and verification of the
completeness (as opposed to its past practice of verifying the correctness)
of South Africa’s inventory on nuclear installations and materials.
South Africa’s safeguards agreement enters into force.[4, p. 222]
South Africa turns over its first declaration of nuclear material
inventory.[4, p. 219]
An ad hoc[6] team of senior IAEA safeguards officials carry out the first
inspections under the comprehensive safeguards agreement
Standard PIV (Physical Inventory Verification, IAEA 1991-95 Safeguards
Criteria) used to verify South Africa’s inventory on nuclear installations and
materials
Joint Seminar on safeguards agreements and South African facilities
(where were “unique”)
1992
IAEA, acting on information from member states, visited Building 5000,
which held the weapons program’s pulse reactor. The South African’s
obfuscated the real purpose of the building.[4, p. 225]
IAEA visit the Kalahari nuclear test site. Again South Africa allowed access
but obscured the large-bore test hole by a building with concrete
foundation built over it.[4, p. 227]
Near-simultaneous PIV involving all of South Africa’s nuclear facilities25
1993
President de Klerk orders the destruction of all documentation relating to
nuclear weapons program.
Destruction of documents completed
President de Klerk announces that South Africa had developed and then
dismantled a “limited nuclear deterrent capability”: seven gun-type
nuclear weapons
Unless otherwise noted, the entries in this come from Baeckmann, Dillion, and Perricos.[19]
Without ARMSCOR/Circle, where the nuclear weapons were kept before September 1991.
35
25 March 1993
22 April to 4 May,
1991
Preliminary visit by IAEA team to ARMSCOR26/Circle.27
IAEA team, augmented by nuclear weapons experts, assesses the status of
the former nuclear weapons program
3-11 June 1993
IAEA team, augmented by nuclear weapons experts, assesses the status of
the former nuclear weapons program
Shafts for the testing of nuclear weapons at the Kalahari site were
rendered useless[6, p. 10]
IAEA team, augmented by nuclear weapons experts, assesses the status of
the former nuclear weapons program
Near-simultaneous PIV28 involving all of South Africa’s nuclear facilities
1994
Nelson Mandela becomes President of South Africa
Near-simultaneous PIV involving all of South Africa’s nuclear facilities
2011
The isotopic content of the last drum containing LUE measured, finally
confirming South Africa’s material declarations.[22]
July 26-30, 1993
9-13 August 1993
August 1993
10 May 1994
October 1994
2011
26
State-owned Armaments Corporation; ARMSCOR had been responsible for the production phase of the nuclear
weapons program.
27
The Circle, also known as the Kentron Circle facility, was a division of ARMSCOR that consisted of three
components: the main facility was used for the manufacturing of the gun-type weapons and also their vaults for
storage; an environmental testing facility to test the weapons components; and a magazine for the explosives
associated with weapon.[47, pp. 166–167]
28
Physical Inventory Verification (PIV)
36
APPENDIX C: TIMELINE OF IRAQ’S MANY ATTEMPTS TO PROVIDE
FRAUDULENT DECLARATIONS
Table 3. Times when Iraq either made new declarations or was explicitly requested to do
so.
18 Apr 1991
First Iraqi Declaration. Denies having nuclear weapons or weapons-grade
nuclear material.
27 Apr 1991
Second Iraqi Declaration. Declares nuclear materials already subject to
IAEA safeguards and lists facilities at Tuwaitha and Al Qaim.
7 Jul 1991
Third Iraqi Declaration. Declaration maintains that Iraq had complied with
the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and IAEA
Safeguards Agreement. Discloses clandestine centrifuge, chemical, and
electro-magnetic isotope separation (EMIS) uranium enrichment programs.
Al Atheer visited by IAEA 3, but Iraq conceals true function until
destruction.
28 Jul 1991
Iraq submits additional list of nuclear material to IAEA 4. List of materials
includes items not previously declared.
12 Mar 1992
Iraq hands over Full, Final and Complete Disclosure (FFCD) to IAEA
Director General. FFCD consolidates previous declarations and is treated
as a draft in light of Agency questions about its adequacy. Iraq denies
function of Al Atheer for weapons despite documentary evidence. IAEA
decision to destroy Al Atheer.
17-20 Aug 1995
IAEA High Level Delegation in Iraq. Revelations confirming extensive
clandestine nuclear weapons program indicate need for complete revision
of FFCD.
1 Mar 1996
Iraq delivers FFCD. IAEA review establishes need for clarifications and
additions to FFCD.
23-24 May 1996
IAEA requests 50 EMIS-related changes to FFCD.
20 Jun 1996
Iraq delivers revised FFCD [FFCD (F-1)] to IAEA 30.2 mission.
7 Sep 1996
Iraq delivers what it asserts is final FFCD (FFCD-F). FFCD-F incorporated
clarifications from IAEA 30.1 and 30.2 missions. Agency review
establishes need for clarifications of FFCD-F.
25 Mar 1998
Iraq delivers consolidated FFCD. Consolidates 7 Sep 1997 FFCD and
changes resulting from Feb, May, and July 1997 consultations.
37
APPENDIX D: TIMELINE OF THE VERIFICATION OF TAIWAN’S
DECLARATIONS
Table 4. Timeline for verifying Taiwan's nuclear materials29
Early 1976
July 1976
September
1976
Late 1976
(after
September)
or early 1977
1977
1982
29
Ten fuel rods for the Taiwan Research Reactor (TRR), containing about 500 gm of
plutonium, could not be located by IAEA inspectors.
IAEA inspectors measure the radiation profile of about half the spent fuel on the site
of the reactor. They found discrepancies between the Taiwanese declarations about
each rod’s burnup and their radiation profiles.
Taiwanese Premier Chiang Ching-juo promises the US government that Taiwan would
not acquire its own reprocessing facilities
IAEA Inspectors discover a “canal gate” at the bottom of the spent fuel pond.
Inspectors also found five fuel assemblies that, while looking like other fuel rods, only
contained about 70% of the normal load of uranium. The volume for the missing
uranium was taken up by aluminum plugs, which could facilitate cutting the fuel rods
up for reprocessing.
Scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory measure the radiation profile of each
fuel rod as it is put back into the TRR. They use a specially designed collimator.
Los Alamos scientists publish the results of their radiation profiles showing that they
were consistent with Taiwanese declarations of the burnup.[29]
Unless otherwise noted, all material in this table come from Albright and Gay.[28]
38
APPENDIX E: TIMELINE AND MATERIAL DETAILS OF LIBYA’S
DENUCLEARIZATION
Phase I (January 18-29 2004[36])
•
•
•
US/UK assisted Libya in the preparation of its declarations to the IAEA and the OPCW.[36]
o US organization: run out of the State Department but with experts’ groups in nuclear,
chemical, biological, and missile.
US/UK received a detailed description of Libyan missile R&D activities
Removal of the most proliferation sensitive materials and equipment:
o Designs for nuclear weapons (Placed under seals by IAEA P5 inspectors)
o UF6
o Centrifuges and related equipment/documentation (observed/documented by IAEA
inspectors) a small number of centrifuges were tagged by the IAEA[36]
o Conversion models
o Guidance sets from the North supplied SCUD-C missiles
Phase II (mid-February 2004 to…
•
•
•
Other elements of Libya’s nuclear equipment
Convert the Tajura reactor to LEU fuel
o HEU fuel shipped to Russia
o 14 kg of LEU sent back to Libya by December 2005
Redirection of Libya’s WMD scientists begun
Phase III (the verification phase) June 2004 to September 2008
•
•
Interviewing personnel for verification purposes
o Scientists/engineers on WMD (nuclear, chem, bio) and missile programs
o Procurement activities
▪ Uncertainties about where some material, including centrifuge parts (bought
through the A.Q. Kan network) is unaccounted for
o Some evidence indicated that Libya gave Egypt some nuclear and missile technology—
definitively closing the door on these concerns has proved difficult
The IAEA verified Libya’s declarations of nuclear material and concluded that “the Agency has
been able to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Libya.”[48, p. 6]
Table 5. Nuclear material found and accounted for in Libya by the IAEA.30 All masses
refer to the uranium content.
Material
Amount
Import/Export/Indigenous Date(s)
Uranium Ore
2263 tons
Imported from Niger
1978 - 1981
Concentrate (UOC)
UOC
100 kg
Exported to the Soviet
1985
Union
30
Unless otherwise stated, this information comes from reference [49]
39
UF6, UF4, UO2,
U3O8 (All natural
uranium)
UF6
“uranium
compounds”
HEU
56 kg (total): 39 kg
UF6; 6 kg U3O8; 6 kg
UO2; 5 kg UF4
Approximately 2 tons
Not indicated
Imported from the Soviet
Union
1985
Imported
Imported
2000 and 2001
2002
20 kg
Returned to Russia[50]
2004 & 2006
40
DISTRIBUTION
1
1
1
1
MS0404
MS1371
MS1371
MS1371
Jennifer Gaudioso
Amir Mohagheghi
Dianna Blair
Geoffrey Forden
6740
6833
6830
6833
1
MS0899
Technical Library
9536 (electronic copy)
41