This wasn’t really the point of the piece, but this 5/4 WP piece about Robert Kadlec had this interesting quote from the man:
“Even though the war on terror was still going on, the resurgence of state actors like North Korea, like Iran, like China and Russia, were raising the bar in terms of the risks of WMD offenses against our interests and potentially our homeland,” Kadlec said.”
The 2009 URENCO report about which I posted the other day contains some claims about trends in safeguards implementation. Obviously, these observations may not currently apply.
Remote Monitoring:
| The physical presence of inspectors on nuclear sites is invaluable. Many ideas are being discussed for installing safeguards monitoring equipment in GCEP’s – for example to make better use of inspectorates’ resources – but there will always be benefits in people inspecting nuclear sites. These include the direct human interaction between operators and inspectorates to avoid misinterpretations, and the ability of intelligent inspectors to spot potential indicators of misuse of a GCEP. |
Equipment Replacing Inspectors:
Will more equipment reduce total costs? Some claimed that costs for safeguards verification would be reduced by partially replacing inspectors by monitoring equipment. Others doubted that that would be so: they thought that equipment developers always underestimate the lifetime cost of equipment – particularly when such equipment is still in the early phase of development. |
Various Other Safeguards Technologies:
| Cascade header enrichment monitor (CHEM).This instrument has been used to measure the U235 enrichment in cascade header pipes during limited frequency unannounced access (LFUA) inspections for many years in Japan and UK (although the instrument in use in UK became unreliable and was withdrawn in 2008). The instrument is used to confirm the presence of LEU. Whilst delegates could see that CHEM was useful for detecting HEU production, many thought that the instrument seemed cumbersome to use and that the effort was hardly worth the limited information gained from it. Nevertheless, others were in favour of upgrading the current instrument, to improve its usability, by replacing liquid nitrogen cooling by an electrically-powered cryostat. Current continuous enrichment monitor (CEMO). This instrument has been used to continuously to measure the U235 enrichment in 22 cascade product header pipes in UK for many years. Many thought that the instrument was too expensive, and that its old software made it difficult for inspectors to use. Most seemed to prefer a modified version of CEMO, which would be installed on a unit, rather than on each cascade Flow monitoring. An instrument could be developed to monitor the flow of UF6 gas in a pipe. Most were not interested in this idea, because they thought in unnecessary or too intrusive to monitor the flows of UF6 in pipes, or because the flows could be measured more easily by load cell monitoring. Radio frequency identification devices (RFID’s). In theory, a RFID could be fitted to each UF6 cylinder to track its location on a GCEP site. There are many different types of commercially available RFID’s, and these have been tested extensively in recent years – both in the laboratory and in the field. The conference generally felt that such a device held promise for the longer-term future, but that all of the current RFID’s had limitations which would prevent their routine use in the near term. |
A report titled URENCO Conference on GCEP Safeguards, held in December 2009, refers to the lack of safeguards on uranium enrichment plants in NWS. The fact is obvious, but operator-expressed concern about the situation’s unfairness was sufficient to warrant inclusion in the report.
There is unfairness due to a lack of a level playing field. Most of the uranium enrichment plants in nuclear weapons states are not subject to international safeguards – either because the state concerned has not made them available for safeguards verification under their voluntary offer safeguards agreement, or because IAEA has chosen not to safeguard them. As these plants constitute around three-quarters of the enrichment capacity in the world, some felt that this was rather unfair on those operators whose plants are safeguarded. A few thought that the whole concept of safeguards was undermined when so much of the world capacity for uranium enrichment was outside the scheme.
While writing this post, I thought about something I once wrote about Clement Attlee and the British nuclear weapons program. Embarrassingly, I forgot that the first post cites the same document which formed the basis for the second post.
Anyway, I cited this chapter excerpt in the previous post:
The above excerpt served as one account of the 1947 meeting of the secret committee which authorized the development of nuclear weapons. I wasn’t really discussing why the Brits decided to build the weapons. Obviously, the excerpt cites prestige. But the chapter also cites a more traditional deterrence rationale:
A chapter titled “Developing the H-Bomb: An exercise in calculated Decision Making,” from the proceedings of this 2001 symposium in Stockholm, has a nice account of some of the history behind the UK’s nuclear weapons program(me).
Essentially, the chapter argues that, after deciding to build a thermonuclear weapon, the UK followed “two parallel developmental approaches.” The government tasked the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment with developing “both a fission weapon, code named Violet Club, and a two-stage design.” Despite concerns from other parts of the government, “the weapon was brought into service briefly before being replaced.” The chapter also asserts the lack of “any convincing argument” that this weapon “contributed in any significant way to the security of the UK.”
My knowledge of the British program is quite limited, so this may well be only new to me. One of my favorite parts of the chapter is its description of the risks associated with the interim weapon. The relevant part is below, but I must highlight this portion:
To minimise the possibility of an accidental explosion there was a safety device. The centre of the fissile assembly was filled with steel balls, about 1,000 pounds of them. This meant that, before an operational flight, the weapon had to be “de-balled” by a member of AWRE, and “re-balled” immediately on landing.
Anyway, here is the excerpt:
Written over 15 years ago, this was one of my first ACW posts.
Contrary to this phrase from the AP, national governments determine JCPOA compliance, not the IAEA:
Since Iran is admittedly no longer complying with several elements of the nuclear deal, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency…
I don’t know what “admittedly” means in this context either.
Former CIA Director Michael Hayden explained in this 2010 interview why the CIA chose to declassify intel concerning the Syrian reactor which Israel attacked in 2007:
You strongly advocated publicly disclosing the role intelligence played in detecting the nuclear reactor in Syria. Why did you advocate this?
It was a very complex political problem. First of all, when we became aware of it, it became very important to keep it secret. Arguably secret, because it had to be dealt with in a way that didn’t create a war in the Middle East. And the more public it became, the more difficult it would be for the Syrians to act responsibly. So no question that it needed to be kept secret.
But after a time, after the facility had been destroyed, there were two lines working—because you had two bad actors here, the Syrians and the North Koreans. With the Syrians, you needed to keep it secret, otherwise they might do something stupid if they were publicly embarrassed. With the North Koreans on the other hand, we were moving in the direction of a new arrangement with regard to things “nuclear,” including proliferation. And so, the fact that we knew the North Koreans had done this very egregious thing, I felt would undercut the confidence in the treaty when, sooner or later, it became more visible, more known, more public. So we had this line with the Syrians where you’ve got to keep it secret, but that was fading over time. Conversely, with the North Koreans, the imperative to make it public was growing over time, as we were getting to a firm agreement. I think the lines crossed about the first of the year—remember it was discovered largely in April [2007] and destroyed in September [2007]. By about December or January [2008], I think that’s when it’s crossed. So we at the Agency became very strong advocates for making it public. But in an intelligence process way, we knew that we had only told a few members of Congress, and the legitimacy for keeping it closely held was eroding as we got further away from the destruction of the facility, and therefore from any likely Syrian reaction. We had an additional impulse to tell Congress.
This post explains.I haven’t yet checked out the new material.
