Al Kamen of the _Post_ has the breakdown on “Dennis Ross’s geographic area of responsibility”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1878/state-craft — the Persian Gulf littoral states plus Yemen — and much else besides. “Read it here”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/25/AR2009022503815.html.
For those of you keeping score at home, that’s Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Yemen. Alphabetically speaking.
You know, I enjoy a little harmless snark as much as anyone, but the students in “Robert Wood’s geography class”:http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2009/02/119782.htm are starting to get downright abusive. Just ’cause their industry is dying, whereas he’s standing up there with job security, doesn’t mean they have to be unpleasant.
I’ll spare you the video.
Batman Returns
In related news, Secretary Clinton has “rolled out”:http://www.state.gov/video/?videoid=14090183001 Stephen Bosworth as the senior-most U.S. representative to North Korea and the Six-Party Talks. The human props you see flashing by there at the start are Sung Kim on the left and Chris Hill on the right.
Here’s one little indicator of just how peculiar the personnel selection process has been. Just a couple of weeks ago, when he was touring the region with a gaggle of other balding, sixty-something males — “the High Council of Morts”:http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/include/print.asp?newsIdx=39176 — the wires and the South Korean press were full of reports that “Bosworth would be the envoy”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1844/track-i-and-a-half-in-pyongyang. Everybody knew this, except, it seems, “Bosworth”:http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2009a/02/119861.htm:
I was there earlier this month as a member of a private delegation. At that point, I had no idea I was going to be returning so soon, nor indeed in this particular role.
That sound you hear? Anthony Zinni’s molars grinding.
And with that, it’s time to move on from these two mini-dramas. Somebody wake me when it’s “Rose Gottemoeller’s”:http://www.carnegieendowment.org/experts/index.cfm?fa=expert_view&expert_id=101 turn.
“Reuters reports”:http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKTRE51N62E20090224?pageNumber=2&sp=true that the IAEA’s Olli Heinonen has given a briefing to diplomats about al-Kibar’s Pencil Box — you know, the place in Syria where they found “traces of uranium and graphite”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1876/graphite.
The briefing contained the following statement: “Eighty particles of uranium oxide is significant.”
So does “uranium oxide” mean that we are looking at “cross-contamination”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1865/more-than-you-wanted-to-know-about-magnox from U3O8 (i.e., yellowcake), UO3, or UO2 at another facility, as I’ve suggested, and not from “Magnox fuel”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2106/new-evidence-of-nork-syria-link located onsite, as James has suggested?
Unfortunately, it doesn’t give us much ability to distinguish between these two possibilities. As this “handy cheat sheet”:http://web.ead.anl.gov/uranium/guide/ucompound/forms/index.cfm from Argonne National Laboratory explains, uranium metal (such as that found in Magnox fuel) “is subject to surface oxidation. It tarnishes in air, with the oxide film preventing further oxidation of massive metal at room temperature.”
Microscopic particles would presumably oxidize all the way through. In other words, whatever they might have been part of before the bombs hit the building, they’re now infinitesimal specks of rust.
At the same meeting in Vienna, the “NY Times reports”:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/25/world/middleeast/25syria.html, a Syrian diplomat stated that the replacement building is missile-related:
“He made a reference to a missile, one missile,” said a European diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity under usual diplomatic protocol.
Thanks to my impeccable clandestine sources, I can now bring to you an exclusive ground-truth photograph recently taken near the site.
The South Korean press, reading the tea leaves, suggests that “reports of KJI’s presence in North Hamgyong Province”:http://uk.reuters.com/article/usTopNews/idUKTRE51O1BH20090225?sp=true mean a space launch is nigh.
That sound you hear is two or three dozen wonks sacrificing chickens to whichever deity promises to ensure the release of good footage.
If the title of this post puzzles you, “clarification is here”:http://english.cri.cn/4406/2008/09/25/1141s409110.htm.
“Kwangmyongsong”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1877/kwangmyongsong-kwangmyongsong-kwangmyongsong, or so I’ve read somewhere or other, means “bright star.”
I had it all wrong. All these “movie”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1878/state-craft and “TV metaphors”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1874/actually-its-simple are way off. It’s music. Take it from “the lady herself”:http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2009a/02/119430.htm:
QUESTION: : Just a little bit more on the special representatives and envoy. So they take this portfolio, they do this. How do you view what you do then? I mean, I know we’re going to the Middle East, but do you come in when there’s progress, do you come in as – describe how you —
SECRETARY CLINTON: But Martha, I don’t think there is one-size-fits-all. I think that I’ve tried to hire the best people that I can get in the Department, and I’ve tried to recruit the best people that I could convince to take on some of these especially complex portfolios. They work for me and for the President. They report to me and to the President. And we’re in constant contact about what they’re doing, where they’re going, what options they see. So ultimately, I’m accountable because these are my choices and I have chosen to organize the work we face in this way.
But it’s going to be different depending upon the situation. And so I don’t think there’s any way to say, well, this is how it’s going to work because it’s more like jazz; you’ve got to improvise, you’ve got to have people who are both great individual and ensemble players.
Readers–if you are out there, then we’ve had our fun with Stephen (“Bruce Wayne”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1874/actually-its-simple) Bosworth and his “baffling job description”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1873/more-about-the-bosworth-appointment.
In the interests of equal time, it’s now the turn of another “special” whose title seems more carefully negotiated than his duties. I speak, of course, of Dennis Ross, “Special Advisor for The Gulf and Southwest Asia”:http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2009/02/119495.htm.
We go now to “Acting Department Spokesman”:http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2009/02/119730.htm and geography instructor Robert Wood. He gets off to a flying start:
QUESTION: Dennis Ross?
MR. WOOD: Yeah.
QUESTION: What is he in charge exactly of?
MR. WOOD: Well, Dennis is –
QUESTION: Is it Iran? And if it’s not Iran – if it’s Iran, why is it not written in the statement?
MR. WOOD: Well, let me just start off by saying, the Secretary is very happy that Dennis Ross agreed to serve as her special advisor for the Gulf and Southwest Asia. What Dennis is going to be charged with doing is trying to integrate policy development and implementation across a number of offices and officials in the State Department. And, you know, he is going to be providing the Secretary with strategic advice. He will be also trying to ensure that there’s a coherence in our policies and strategies across the region.
Let me be clear, he’s not an envoy. He will not be negotiating. He’ll be working on regional issues. He will not be – in terms of negotiating, will not be involved in the peace process. But again, he is going to be advising the Secretary on long-term strategic issues across the region.
QUESTION: Can you give us – well, what is the State Department’s definition geographically of Southwest Asia? What countries does that include?
MR. WOOD: Matt, I didn’t —
QUESTION: No, you guys named an envoy for Southwest Asia. I presume that you know what countries that includes.
MR. WOOD: Yes. Of course, we know. I just – I don’t have the list to run off – you know, right off the top of my head here. But obviously, that’s going to encompass – that region encompasses Iran. It will – you know, it’ll deal with —
QUESTION: Does it include Iraq?
MR. WOOD: Indeed, it does. He is going to be, again, as I said, providing her with advice – strategic advice, looking at the long term, the bigger picture and how we can make sure that our policies are coherent across the board in the region. And as I said, the Secretary is very pleased that Dennis has agreed to do this. He’s got years of experience in the region. And, you know, it’s a daunting task, but it’s one that she felt was necessary.
QUESTION: And so, does it include parts of the Middle East?
MR. WOOD: Yes.
QUESTION: It does? Does it include Syria, and it includes Israel and it includes Jordan?
MR. WOOD: Well, he’ll be looking at the entire region that will include, you know –
QUESTION: Where does that stop? I mean, you know, you have NEA which, you know, runs all the way to Morocco. So does it include –
MR. WOOD: Well, he’s going to be in touch with a number of officials who work on issues throughout this region.
QUESTION: Does it include Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, countries that are within the – within the Middle East or within the Near Eastern Affairs Bureau, but are not necessarily technically part of Southwest Asia?
MR. WOOD: He will be providing advice to the Secretary on a – across that entire region, where appropriate, where she needs it, and that’s the position he will serve.
QUESTION: So he’s going to meet with the leaders in the region as well, so you said he is going to offer an assessment —
MR. WOOD: That’s right. At some point, he will.
QUESTION: — including the Iranians?
MR. WOOD: Well, I’m not sure at this point. But again, our policy with regard to Iran is under review, so once that review is completed, we’ll be able to go forward vis-à-vis Iran. But until that time —
QUESTION: Well, was there a consideration at some point that you would have a special envoy for Iran? And why didn’t you now go in that direction?
MR. WOOD: Well, a decision was made by the Secretary that she needed broad strategic advice to look at a range of issues across the entire region that we just talked about. And it was felt that his skills could be better used to do that type of work, given the years of experience that he’s had dealing with the Middle East, other parts of the world. And so, again, as I said, Iran will be one of those countries that he will be, you know, looking at in his portfolio. But —
QUESTION: The military sometimes refer to parts of the -stans, Central Asia, as Southwest Asia. Are those included in your —
MR. WOOD: Well, look —
QUESTION: Can you find out? Because, I mean, this is —
MR. WOOD: We can get you that. Yeah, we can get you a breakdown of —
QUESTION: I mean, does this – is there a geographic limit to his portfolio, or is it really an issues-based thing so that he could be dealing with Morocco and Algeria —
MR. WOOD: Yeah.
QUESTION: — and Tunisia —
MR. WOOD: I would look at it, Matt, as more of a regional —
QUESTION: — and Kyrgyzstan, and the -stans that are not covered by Ambassador Holbrooke? And does it include Turkey? Does it – you know, there are a lot of unanswered questions from – from the statement last night as to exactly what he’s going to be doing. I mean, I presume it’s all of the Gulf – Saudi Arabia, that makes sense. But does it include Somalia, which is – you know, that there is – does it include – I don’t know —
QUESTION: Or is it (inaudible) Iran?
MR. WOOD: Your question is – you know, let me answer your —
QUESTION: It could be anything. Or is he limited by the geographic —
QUESTION: Or did you just not want to put Iran in the name, and so this is your clever way of doing that?
MR. WOOD: Can I speak now?
QUESTION: Sure.
MR. WOOD: Thank you, and thank you. Look, it’s more – he’s going to be providing advice to the Secretary on a number of regional issues, and I would not try to limit Dennis’s advice to, you know, just those regions. He may have other – you know, he may have advice that he wants to give the Secretary on other issues. I don’t think we’re trying to narrow it here. If you’re looking for a geographical breakdown of those countries that he will be looking —
QUESTION: It would be nice to find out what the State Department considers to be Southwest Asia.
MR. WOOD: We can certainly do that for you.
QUESTION: Thank you.
QUESTION: And why Iran was not mentioned in the statement? And why was it published at 9:00 p.m.?
MR. WOOD: Well, it was published at 9:00 p.m. because we – that was the time when we had it ready to go. And so there was no – somebody had said to me in an email or something that we were trying to hide something, and that’s absolutely not the case. That’s when it was ready to go, and that’s when we – the Secretary wanted that announcement to go out at some point yesterday, and it did.
QUESTION: Yeah, but when she —
MR. WOOD: We just couldn’t get it out until late.
QUESTION: When she wants to announce the nomination of Richard Holbrooke, the President comes for announcing that. So it’s not the same kind of announcement. It’s very different. Why?
MR. WOOD: It’s different because the duties are different here. He is serving as an advisor to the Secretary. And the reason why we didn’t mention Iran specifically is because his duties are going to engage the entire region, as I mentioned. So it’s not just Iran. It’s other countries in the region, other issues.
QUESTION: Robert, does he have a specific role in the Iran review? And when you talk about the Afghanistan review, you’ve got Holbrooke and Bruce Riedel and others. Is there a similar structure for the Iran review? And would he have a certain status in that review?
MR. WOOD: Well, he will certainly – the Secretary will certainly seek out his advice with regard to, you know, Iran. There’s no question about that. There’s not a similar structure in place, you know, for this type of review. You know, we don’t have a cookie – you know, what do you call it, a cookie-cutter approach to, you know, doing reviews. You involve the people who you think are necessary and can provide you with the appropriate expertise and advice, and that’s how you conduct them.
So, digested the above yet? What do you say? Does this make Ross the Tom Hagen of “Monsters, Inc.”:http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/latestnews/Inside-US-poll-battle-as.3854371.jp?
Here’s the “video”:http://www.state.gov/video/?videoid=14008402001. The fun starts with a jaunty two-hand gesture around 0:58.
According to “KCNA”:http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2009/200902/news24/20090224-06ee.html:
The preparations for launching experimental communications satellite Kwangmyongsong-2 by means of delivery rocket Unha-2 are now making brisk headway at Tonghae Satellite Launching Ground in Hwadae County, North Hamgyong Province.
“FCNL”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2190/fun-with-fcnl, call your office.
Not only did the IAEA find “anthropogenic natural uranium particles”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1865/more-than-you-wanted-to-know-about-magnox at the site of Syria’s apparent graphite-moderated reactor, “they found particles of graphite”:http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE51I45R20090219, according to Reuters and other outlets.
But perhaps it was a secret military pencil factory.
OK, OK, the jury’s still out. But anyone who said that it couldn’t be a graphite-moderated reactor because no graphite was found at the site will have to cross that one off their list.
If you are anything like me, you probably aren’t too thrilled by the idea of Iran with nuclear weapons. There’s something about the Middle East, revisionist ideology, sectarian divisions, and extreme rhetoric that does not mix well with fissile material. And overall, the NPT is, as Martha Stewart might say, a good thing. In terms of the “Sagan-Waltz debate”:http://books.google.com/books?id=FtznHAAACAAJ, mark me down as a Sagan guy.
But then, being like me, you probably aren’t too thrilled by the idea of headlong, precipitous action, either. There’s something about the Middle East, revisionist ideology, sectarian divisions, and extreme rhetoric that does not mix well with desperate measures, either military or diplomatic. So our first inclination is to counsel patience, not panic.
!/images/65.jpg!
But let’s be fair: isn’t there some point when panic should kick in?
The subject arises by way of Jeff’s “jeremiad against the panic-mongers”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2193/iran-panic-induced-by-lousy-reporting the other day, which he “softened a little”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2196/a-correction afterwards.
A body could be forgiven for reading “FT’s lede”:http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f367aada-fec8-11dd-b19a-000077b07658.html (or the “Guardian’s headline”:http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/19/iran-iaea-united-nations-nuclear-weapon) and concluding that Iran had 1 SQ (i.e., one bomb’s worth) of HEU on hand. I don’t mean to “pick on the Brits”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1834/caveat-linker too much: the “LA Times”:http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iran-nuclear20-2009feb20,0,3140113.story was just as bad, and the “NY Times”:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/20/world/middleeast/20nuke.html wasn’t that much better.
Just One Letter Away From “Freakout”
“According to ISIS”:http://isis-online.org/publications/iran/IAEA_Report_Analysis.pdf, what the Iranians actually have achieved is “breakout capability,” meaning the ability to take a stockpile of LEU and rapidly enrich it to 1 SQ (or more) of HEU.
Not everyone agrees. Mohamed ElBaradei, for example, says Iran is “still about a year away from this point”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1860/iaea-iran-report-preview. The differences seem to have to do with just how much (or how little) HEU really constitutes a “significant quantity,” and how much U-235 would be lost during further enrichment. (Ivan Oelrich and Ivanka Barzashka have “a helpful explanation”:http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2009/02/irans-uranium-dont-panic-yet.php of the latter issue.)
Regardless, it is clear that this threshold will be crossed sooner or later. It does not matter whether every informed person agrees exactly which day or hour it occurred.
It is also clear that this threshold is primarily of a psychological or symbolic nature. It lacks practical significance, by itself. Nor does it translate unambiguously to a particular political outcome. (Would it frighten the neighbors into a more cooperative stance? Galvanize the world into concerted action? My guess is neither, but your guess is as good as mine.)
First, 1 SQ would be one heck of a thing to exit the NPT over. If the Iranians tested their first and only nuclear device to demonstrate that they had it, they would promptly stop having it. So 2 SQ would be the realistic threshold of concern, and even that seems a bit low. The North Korean precedent is instructive: they didn’t proclaim themselves to be nuclear-armed, or prove that point, until they had enough plutonium on hand for maybe half a dozen devices.
Second, breakout would not go unnoticed, for the reasons “spelled out here”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2018/safeguards-at-natanz. The IAEA inspects roughly once a month, not announcing the day in advance. To deliver a true _fait accompli,_ the Iranians would have to act within that window. (There are cameras in the cascade hall, but it’s not clear that they are monitored remotely.) This requires not just a big stockpile of LEU, but having enough SWU on hand, in the form of centrifuges, to get the job done. Perhaps this would be better described as “sneak-out.”
Third, just getting ahold of 1 SQ (or 2 SQ) of HEU is not the same as having a working weapon. Breakout is a risky undertaking, a way of gambling with the future of one’s country. It does not automatically produce an amulet against attack. In fact, it might invite an attack. But this doesn’t mean that it will never be attempted.
Update: Andreas Persbo provides “some insightful elaboration on these issues”:http://verificationthoughts.blogspot.com/2009/03/iranian-breakout-scenario.html.
OK. So When Should We Panic?
For the time being, let’s set aside Iran’s plutonium pathway, which is not progressing as rapidly as the uranium side.
There are two main uranium-enrichment scenarios to be concerned about. The first is called batch recycle: the Iranians break the seals and feed the LEU through the cascades at Natanz again until they’ve got the desired level of enrichment.
The second scenario, which is favored by ISIS, is diversion: the Iranians break the seals and cart off the LEU in trucks (presumably at night, unseen by spying eyes) to a second centrifuge plant, one not known to the IAEA. When the inspectors show up at Natanz, the Iranians would delay them until it was too late.
The scenarios differ at the margins. A centrifuge (of a given type) is a centrifuge, regardless of location. In the diversion case, we just aren’t aware of the second plant until it is too late. Also, it could be specially configured for more slightly more efficient LEU-to-HEU enrichment.
For simplicity (well, relatively), let’s consider just batch recycle with the IR-1, the centrifuge type that’s being installed and operated at the Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP) at Natanz. We know they’re there, right? Two newer types are being tested in small numbers at the adjacent Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant, but it’s not clear that there is a large-scale production capability yet.
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.
_Update: if the above chart and explanation elude you, “additional explanation”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1887/inferring-iranian-centrifuge-production-rates is now available._
[No, it does not annoy me that Jeff had “a similar idea”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2197/nine-cascades-in-vacuum at the same time. Well, not too much. What really annoys me is that his graphic is nicer-looking and more informative. Grr.]
Some Assembly Required
So, how many centrifuges would it take to deliver a _fait accompli?_
This is going to disappoint you. The answer isn’t so clear. It’s subject to a number of uncertainties. So here are several answers.
It seems there are already a few different views on this question:
* “Houston Wood, Scott Kemp, and Alexander Glaser”:http://scitation.aip.org/journals/doc/PHTOAD-ft/vol_61/iss_9/captions/40_1box3.shtml in _Physics Today._
* “Gregory Jones”:http://www.npec-web.org/Essays/20081017-Jones-IranEnrichment.pdf of RAND.
* The “Wisconsin Project”:http://www.iranwatch.org/ourpubs/articles/iranucleartimetable.html.
* “Oelrich and Barzashka”:http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2009/02/irans-uranium-dont-panic-yet.php at FAS.
* And, although it’s not fully explicit about its assumptions, the “Annual Threat Assessment of the IC”:http://www.dni.gov/testimonies/20090212_testimony.pdf, which contains two such estimates:
We judge Iran probably would be technically capable of producing enough highly enriched uranium (HEU) for a weapon sometime during the 2010-2015 time frame. INR judges Iran is unlikely to achieve this capability before 2013 because of foreseeable technical and programmatic problems.
Clearly, six is not enough, so I’ve done my own rough-and-ready estimate, working with the “FAS SWU calculator”:http://www.fas.org/cgi-bin/calculators/sep.pl. It’s ever so handy.
What makes this so tricky is that there are six important variables:
The rate at which Iran adds cascades.
The separative power of those cascades.
The desired enrichment level.
The amount of HEU needed per bomb.
The number of bombs that are worth breaking out for.
The time window that is worth the risk.
To make this manageable, let’s just say 90% enriched HEU in three weeks’ time. That leaves us with amount of HEU per bomb, separative power, number of bombs, and rate of addition. We can bound these variables, though.
The usual range for HEU-per-bomb estimates is 15 to 20 kg. (The IAEA’s official SQ is 25, but that’s generally considered too high.)
Separative power estimates for the IR-1 range between 2 and 3 kg SWU/yr. “Jeff estimates 2.3”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/1035/more-fun-with-swu.
Based on reasonable assumptions and the North Korean case, number-of-bombs should range between 2 and 6 or so, but since this is the Bomb we’re talking about, let’s be gloomy and think in terms of 1 to 3.
Then there’s rate-of-addition. Above, we came up with a floor of 18 cascades per year, so let’s say 18 to 36 cascades (1 to 2 units).
All of which gives us:
kg SWU/yr
3
3
2.3
2.3
2
2
Cascades/yr
+36
+18
+36
+18
+36
+18
1 x 15 kg
2009
2009
2010
2010
2010
2010
1 x 20 kg
2010
2010
2010
2010
2010
2011
2 x 15 kg
2010
2011
2011
2012
2012
2012
2 x 20 kg
2011
2012
2011
2013
2012
2014
3 x 15 kg
2011
2012
2012
2014
2012
2015
3 x 20 kg
2012
2014
2013
2016
2013
2017
So there you have it: breakout, broken out. You’re free to ignore any portions of the table that you find unrealistic.
One final note. His graphic design skills may be sweet, but I do have one thing Jeff does not: the “musical bonus”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AlH2oYedfk.
So “nobody can quite square”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1873/more-about-the-bosworth-appointment Stephen Bosworth’s full-time role as North Korea envoy with his full-time role as dean of the Fletcher School. Or puzzle out the difference between Sung Kim, the Special Envoy to the Six-Party Talks, and Stephen Bosworth, Special Representative to the Six-Party Talks.
But you know what? It’s so, so simple.
Sung Kim is Commissioner Gordon. Stephen Bosworth is Batman.
