It has a bit of a ring, if you’re as dorky as a guy who runs an arms control blog.
Anyway, NPEC has had “the text”:http://www.npec-web.org/us-uae/20090115-UsUae-Revised123Agreement.pdf up for a while now, but I thought I’d point out two especially interesting features:
1. Article 12 states that the United States has the right to terminate the agreement if the UAE engages in enrichment or reprocessing or obtains ENR facilities.
2. The last paragraph of the Agreed Minute apparently makes the agreement a minimum standard for other 123 agreements with countries in the region, should the US negotiate them. Here’s the key part:
bq. the fields of cooperation, terms and conditions accorded by the United States of America to the United Arab Emirates for cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy shall be no less favorable in scope and effect than those which may be accorded, from time to time, to any other non-nuclear weapon State in the Middle East in a peaceful nuclear cooperation agreement.
I didn’t want to make “the previous item”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1892/how-much-respect-does-a-nuclear-arsenal-get too, too long. Here’s something snipped out that you might appreciate anyhow.
According to a “seemingly authentic transcript”:http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/IG13Dg01.html of a speech by a North Korean Central Committee member, the United States trembles at the thought of the impoverished state’s mighty weapons:
Nobody can intercept our missiles now. All the people in the US are aware of this.
This is why all the people in the United States are completely allergic to missiles of our republic. Once they learn that we test-fired missiles, they become so worried about the rockets changing their directions and exploding over them and killing them, so they develop nervous diseases and nettle rash breaks out all over their bodies. This is what is happening in the United States.
According to the speaker, it was necessary to invest in long-range ballistic missiles even during the devastating famine years of the 1990s. Any money available
had to be spent on developing missiles, even though the generals knew that factories did not work and people were starving. This is why we have survived, and were not eaten up by those bastards. Had it not been like this, the bastards would have eaten us a long time ago.
Pity the poor, hungry bastards with their nervous diseases and nettle rash all over their bodies.
On August 31, 1998, North Korea conducted its first launch of a multi-stage ballistic missile, which flew over Japan. It failed to deliver a satellite into orbit, notwithstanding the boasts of state broadcasters.
On January 10, 2003, in the course of a dispute with the United States, North Korea declared that it was no longer bound by the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and kicked IAEA inspectors out of the country.
On July 5, 2006, North Korea’s second test of a long-range ballistic missile test ended in catastrophic failure, just seconds into flight.
On October 9, 2006, North Korea conducted its first (and so far only) test of a nuclear explosive device. (It fizzled.) Within days, the UN Security Council had outlawed all exports of nuclear or ballistic missile technology to North Korea.
Despite the technical hiccups, the government of North Korea (or DPRK) seems proud of its accomplishments in the field of strategic weaponry. One “statement from 2008”:http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2008/200804/news04/01.htm#1 reads:
The DPRK is not such state which will meekly yield to the pressure of someone to unilaterally dismantle the nuclear deterrent, a product of great Songun [i.e., military-first politics] and a shield for justice and peace.
Just recently, in January 2009, North Korean officials told a visiting American scholar that they had “weaponized”:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/18/world/asia/18korea.html their stock of plutonium:
“They’ve raised the bar and said, ‘We are a nuclear weapons state, and deal with us on that basis,'” Mr. Harrison said at a news conference in the St. Regis Hotel.
So how it is, then, despite all these fearsome bombs and missiles, that North Korea has become “the Rodney Dangerfield of rogue states”:http://cns.miis.edu/npr/pdfs/151_gusterson.pdf?
Seriously, have you seen “the t-shirt”:http://store.theonion.com/get-il-p-139.html?
To see just how little respect the DPRK gets, consider how North Korea is treated compared to its fellow surviving member of the Axis of Evil, the Islamic Republic of Iran.
(Remember, despite the amply justified suspicions of the outside world, and a chain of deceptions, violations, failed negotiations, and Security Council resolutions, Iran remains within the NPT. The Iranian authorities insist on the purely civilian nature of their nuclear facilities, “point to continuing IAEA safeguards”:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/03/opinion/l03iran.html, and say they are opposed to nuclear weapons.)
So when Iran launched its first multi-stage missile last month, putting a first-generation satellite into orbit, the American response was one of modulated concern.
And when North Korea announced that it was about to launch a satellite, the “Japanese”:http://gsn.nti.org/gsn/nw_20090303_7935.php and “American”:http://gsn.nti.org/gsn/nw_20090304_8706.php response was to threaten to shoot it down.
Let’s see how the _Washington Post_ “explained”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/03/AR2009020300285.html Iran’s space launch:
TEHRAN, Feb. 3 — Iran said Tuesday it had successfully sent its first domestically produced satellite into orbit using an Iranian-made long-distance missile, joining an exclusive club of fewer than a dozen nations with such capabilities.
–compared with how the same publication “framed”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/24/AR2009022400324.html North Korea’s plans to do the _exact same thing_:
TOKYO, Feb. 24 — By announcing that it is preparing to launch a “communications satellite,” North Korea on Tuesday dressed up its planned test of a long-range ballistic missile — which may be able to reach Alaska — as a benign research project.
Honest, it’s not just the “elevator shoes”:http://www.dailynk.com/english/read.php?cataId=nk02300&num=157 and the bouffant hairdo. The anticipation turns out to be a bigger deal than the reality. When it comes to staring down the Western imperialists, actually having the bomb ain’t everything it’s cracked up to be.
“Cross-posted to ArmsControlWonk.Com”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2210/how-much-respect-does-a-nuclear-arsenal-get. See “the comments at ACW”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2210/how-much-respect-does-a-nuclear-arsenal-get#comment.
The GAO has issued a “scathing report”:http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09385.pdf on the management of the Life Extension Program for U.S. nuclear weapons.
Profound observation of the day: this stuff is hard. It does not come easily. Management of anything seriously complex, that is.
If you’ve become hooked on “this”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2018/safeguards-at-natanz “Iran”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1871/iran-when-should-we-panic “breakout”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1887/inferring-iranian-centrifuge-production-rates “stuff”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1889/sound-bites-man, then don’t miss these recent additions:
* Andreas Persbo, “The Iranian breakout scenario”:http://verificationthoughts.blogspot.com/2009/03/iranian-breakout-scenario.html
* R. Scott Kemp and Alexander Glaser, “Statement on Iran’s ability to make a nuclear weapon and the significance of the 19 February 2009 IAEA report on Iran’s uranium enrichment program”:http://www.princeton.edu/~rskemp/can-iran-make-a-bomb.pdf
And, in a different vein,
* M.A. Mohammadi, “To the editor”:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/03/opinion/l03iran.html
One of the shortcomings of breakout lit so far may be its emphasis on on a single site. A hidden site is also a possibility, conceivably involving technologies other than the IR-1. The plutonium pathway is also starting to loom as an issue of concern.
Viewing things more broadly, the more time passes, the more this question becomes one of political will, not technical capacity. This is a gradual change; there really is no bright line separating these two “regions.” And in a highly factionalized system, political will is not such a simple matter as it sounds.
An added thought. In the face of such complexity, there may be a temptation to fall back on a worst-case scenario. Without wanting to ignore such a scenario entirely, I’d urge caution before embracing it.
It is _very_ easy to get confused about this stuff. Nuclear technology, I mean. And it’s even easier to confuse others — _especially_ if you try to give a crisp answer to a misleadingly phrased question. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff “ADM Mike Mullen”:http://www.defenselink.mil/bios/biographydetail.aspx?biographyid=139 was the latest to stumble over a sharp-edged soundbite this Sunday, with a big assist from CNN’s John King:
King: The International Atomic Energy Agency said last week they think they were wrong in the past, that Iran might now have enough fissile material to make a bomb. Does Iran have enough to make a bomb?
Mullen: We think they do, quite frankly.
Here’s the “video”:http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2009/03/01/sotu.mullen.iran.weapons.cnn. The gaffe embarks at 2:19.
For anyone not deeply immersed in the issue, it would be natural to conclude that Mullen had affirmed exactly what King said. And that’s just what “news”:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090302/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/mullen_iran “outlets”:http://www.ptinews.com/pti%5Cptisite.nsf/0/464683EAE58045FC6525756D002B584C?OpenDocument “around the world”:http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1235898316271&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull did. Most balanced Mullen’s alarmist-sounding claim with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’s “more judicious remarks”:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29453246/ given that same day, but the damage was done. Some “people who should know better”:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/02/washington/02military.html even chose to privilege Mullen’s statement over Gates’s, although the SecDef speaks more authoritatively than anyone in uniform.
The Pentagon public affairs office had its hands full “straightening this one out”:http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ishAxQzRl5C3ybc1Y3di0WAeft3g afterwards. As usual, the media was blamed, which is partly true, but probably not in the manner intended.
Long story short, King and Mullen gave renewed life to a “more-than-week-old error”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2193/iran-panic-induced-by-lousy-reporting.
Further responses have varied. Greg Thielmann of ACA was “irked”:http://www.armscontrol.org/node/3540. The good folks at ISIS tried to “square the circle”:http://www.isisnucleariran.org/news/detail/mullen-vs-gates-on-iran-this-sunday-did-they-really-contradict-each-other/.
This cautionary tale was the hook for “an NPR story that aired earlier tonight, March 2”:http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101354866, quoting Jeff Lewis of NAF / ACW fame, Jackie Shire of ISIS, and Yours Truly of “TotalWonkerr.Com”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1871/iran-when-should-we-panic. Give it a listen if you’d like to hear what we all sound like, assuming you don’t already know.
A Modest Proposal
This is going to sound strange coming from a blogger, but how about slowing down a little? The community of nonproliferation experts may simply be moving too fast to interpret IAEA Director-General’s reports and other milestone documents. The “race to put documents online”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1868/isis-v-acw is dandy. The race to explain their implications, not so much. Reporters are hungry to comprehend this stuff, but it takes time to think it through and then to explain it carefully enough to avoid sparking a game of telephone in the headlines.
(If you are able to listen to the “NPR story”:http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101354866, you may gather that I try. To choose. My words. With some care. But I’m new at this, too.)
Since this is all kinda heavy, just to take the edge off, how about a “musical bonus”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoWF2YalYvI?
_Warning: Mind-numbingly detailed and self-referential._
Someone requested a fuller explanation of one corner of “last week’s post on when Iran might achieve breakout capability”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1871/iran-when-should-we-panic, specifically the chart showing patterns of centrifuge installation at the Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plan (FEP) in Iran. So this is for anyone who didn’t quite grok the chart. It’s shown here with the original text that surrounded it:
So here, drawn from various IAEA reports, is the pace at which the Iranians have added centrifuge cascades at FEP:
!/images/66.jpg!
What we can gather from this chart is a sense of the minimum rate of centrifuge production. No one can install more than they have. So the solid black line is a floor of about 18 cascades’ worth of machines per year, or one unit. (There are 164 machines in a cascade, so this means close to 3,000 machines/year.) The dashed extension of the line shows the implication of that floor: unless centrifuge production has (for some unknown reason) slowed considerably, a backlog of machines is building up, awaiting installation.
It’s like this. We’re assuming that the Iranians are still churning out new IR-1 centrifuges somewhere, working towards the 50,000 or so that are supposed to go in the Natanz FEP, eventually. We don’t know exactly how fast the machines can be produced, but breakout capability — the subject of the blog post — is sensitive to this question, so we need to come up with a reasonable range of possibilities. Just to be pessimistic, let’s assume that, in the future, they can installed and made operational more or less as soon as they are produced.
The approach explained here is really pretty simplistic, just one part of a “rough and ready” analysis of the larger issue of breakout capability. A more sophisticated analysis is probably possible for those interested in attempting it. Presently, at least, I’m not.
Anyhow, it went like so:
First was reconstructing from IAEA reports just how many cascades (linked groups of 164 centrifuges) were present in the Natanz FEP when the IAEA actually counted them. Those are the colored bars.
_(You can find all but the most current IAEA report on Iran at the “official site”:http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Focus/IaeaIran/index.shtml. ACW may post first, but ISIS rolls up “everything in one spot”:http://www.isisnucleariran.org/documents/iaea/. [I could have saved myself a little time if I’d noticed that the Wisconsin Project had already compiled most of this info in a table and “posted it here”:http://www.iranwatch.org/ourpubs/articles/iranucleartimetable.html. Sigh.] As you can see, for simplicity’s sake, I collapsed a couple of categories of information into one.)_
Second was drawing a simple inference about the lowest possible rate of production for the period (February 2007 to February 2009) from the height and spacing of the bars. This is the solid black line. You will notice that introduction of centrifuges for the period actually peaks in May 2008. So I drew the line from February 2007 to May 2008. That’s the _minimum_ cumulative level of production that would explain the observed number of centrifuges present at the Natanz FEP — assuming, of course, that there wasn’t a big stockpile of centrifuges already sitting around somewhere. Probably there wasn’t, either. What little we know suggests that production wasn’t that rapid in the past. See the bottom of page 9/top of page 10 in “GOV/2004/60”:http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Board/2004/gov2004-60.pdf.
In case the graphic has scrolled off your screen, here it is again.
!/images/66.jpg!
_You’ll notice that the line kinks at May 2007. If it had been drawn straight from the top of February 2007 to May 2008, it would have sliced through May 2007, which clearly would have violated the assumptions set out above: such a cumulative level of production would not have sufficed to explain the observed number of centrifuges present at the Natanz FEP. Thus the kink. In hindsight, I should have just made the line perfectly straight, so it would intercept the y-axis a bit above the February 2007 bar. Gimme a break, it’s a blog post._
Third was extending the line to the right, in dashed form. This illustrates another assumption: that the pace of production over the entire 25-month period has been roughly constant, _at a minimum_. This would mean that the reason new machines were not introduced to the FEP after May 2008, whatever it was, wasn’t because the machines were unavailable. This interpretation is supported by the gradual ramp-up in operations that you can see in the colors of the bars.
Fourth was eyeballing an annual rate of centrifuge production. I came up with 18 cascades’ worth, which happens to be how many there are in a “unit” (or module) of cascades inside the Natanz FEP. Peering at it again, it looks closer to 19 cascades’ worth, but 1) we’re trying to come up with a low-end estimate, so let’s round down and 2) 18 is more convenient because of its relationship to the structure of the FEP.
Either way, that’s around 3,000 machines/yr, or 250 machines/mo. Minimum. To come up with a reasonable guess at a maximum figure, I simply doubled the minimum. Thus, my working estimate was that Iran produces enough machines to stock one to two new units (or 18 to 36 cascades) per year.
Like it says, rough and ready.
Now, could that minimum figure actually be 3,000 machines/yr too high? Is it possible that the Iranians actually ran out of some key ingredient after May 2008? (Rotor juice? Ball grooves? Handles for the bellows?) Let’s not count on it. The latest report, “GOV/2009/8”:http://www.isisnucleariran.org/assets/pdf/IAEA_Report_Iran_Feb_2009.pdf, observes that
Installation work at Units A25, A27 and A28, including the installation of pipes and cables, is also continuing.
Hmm. Maybe that range should have been _one to three_ new units.
For your reference, here again is the link to “Jeff Lewis’s near-simultaneous post with a near-identical graphic”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2197/nine-cascades-in-vacuum. What’s fascinating is that we independently produced these illustrations to make two different points. Seriously, “what’s the chance”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1855/whats-the-chance-ctd?
Hopefully that clarifies things. Yes, it’s pretty long for a footnote to a blog entry.
You’ve suffered enough. Enjoy the “musical bonus”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKH_XpNZcqI.
The verification provisions of many arms control or nonproliferation treaties involve some version of the “special inspection.” Under whatever name, it comes down to the ability to inspect an undeclared site. There are invariably limits on these provisions, since the parties have legitimate interests in keeping unrelated secrets and in not having government or commercial activities disrupted excessively by short-notice visits from outside.
But probably the biggest checks on special inspections are unwritten. One is the concern that, once the provision is used by a state party, it could invite retaliatory uses that might prove embarrassing, intrusive, disruptive, or just humiliating. Many governments are sensitive about their national sovereignty and don’t wish to set any precedents.
Another concern is that use of the special inspection provision could prompt a refusal, leading to a withdrawal from the treaty, perhaps leading to an unraveling of the regime. As a result, these provisions are used only very sparingly, if ever. (Has there _ever_ been a challenge inspection, as it is called, under the Chemical Weapons Convention?)
So it’s encouraging to see former IAEA official Pierre Goldschmidt — along with noted experts Mark Fitzpatrick and James Acton — calling on the IAEA to conduct a special inspection in Syria under the terms of its nuclear safeguards agreement.
An (extremely) abbreviated version of their statement appeared as a “letter in the IHT”:http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/02/26/opinion/edletters.php. The whole thing is “here”:http://carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=22791&prog=zgp&proj=znpp.
This topic has already been “kicked”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2090/traces-of-uranium-at-alkibar “around”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2071/mining-and-the-boe at “ACW”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2106/new-evidence-of-nork-syria-link.
On The Other Hand
Gaming it out a bit, though, it’s doubtful their advice will be taken. “The Syrians seem disinclined to come clean”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1881/update-from-the-pencil-factory, and the international community may lack the stomach to undertake a protracted confrontation, with referral to the Security Council, sanctions, and so forth. Without at least one of these conditions in place, pushing for special inspections could do more harm than good.
As others have argued, proceeding regardless could set a good precedent by making this type of activity more routine. But we can assume that the Syrians have learned a thing or two from the past experiences of Iraq, Iran, Egypt, South Korea, North Korea, and (of course) Syria itself. Special inspections at well-scrubbed sites that turned up nothing could further deplete the will to pursue the matter. Following this line of thought, precedent-setting special inspections might be better done elsewhere, where less is at stake.
For these reasons, cautious officials at the IAEA could easily conclude that the risk of a setback to the NPT regime wasn’t worth it. I’m not endorsing this point of view, assuming anyone actually holds it, but it seems understandable. Of course, there also seems to be something rather less calculated in play — sheer pique that Israel bombed al-Kibar rather than tipping off the IAEA, and that the U.S. stayed mum, too.
Two Strikes
If the IAEA does continue to duck calls for special inspections, it would be a shame, because it would mean losing the best remaining chance to investigate the “three mystery sites”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1865/more-than-you-wanted-to-know-about-magnox. That’s strike two.
What was strike one? Despite the efficacy of swipe sampling, Syria has managed to deny the international community any truly thorough opportunity to investigate al-Kibar. The simple acts of clearing the site, laying a concrete foundation, erecting a new structure, and declaring it be a military facility have sealed its contents away from the eyes of outsiders. “What do you suppose is under that slab”:http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1023119.html?
One of the reasons I was skeptical of early reports that the mystery building was a reactor was how little time it took to make it all vanish. Large amounts of rubble and the major structures of a reactor couldn’t be whisked away undetected quite so quickly, right? But as it happened, “the main structures were in a deep basement”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/1864/why-now to begin with. And there is no reason to assume that they were completely removed.
Actually getting at this stuff would give fresh meaning to phrases like “destructive assay”:http://www.hss.doe.gov/nuclearsafety/ns/techstds/tsdrafts/sans0001/sans0001.pdf and “nuclear archaeology”:http://www.princeton.edu/%7Eglobsec/publications/pdf/3_3-4Fetter.pdf. But when would the Syrian authorities allow such a thing? Under most circumstances, the basis of the nonproliferation regime is consent. So in the absence of an extraordinary exercise of coercive power — the sword of Damocles suspended over Iraq during the UNSCOM era, let’s say — no inspection power is quite special enough.
At the mystery sites, though, no such entombment has taken place. Or so I’d hope.
Let’s sum up.
It’s fascinating out here in wonk-land to observe the unfolding of this particular nuclear-forensic drama. But the bottom line is, as long as the big powers are not of one mind on the importance of nuclear nonproliferation, the international bureaucrats probably aren’t going to stick their necks out too, too far.
Mark Heinrich of Reuters reports that the contest for IAEA Secretary-General is deadlocked:
“A composite of Amano and Minty would be excellent but it can’t happen now. Many people here are waiting or hoping for third candidates to come out,” another European diplomat.
“Read it here”:http://www.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUSTRE51N1PX20090224?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=10112&sp=true.
