Disclaimer
Some Web-sites rearrange their documents without leaving a message at the old address pointing to the new one. Therefore I have included a local folder containing the cited reference material and added links pointing from here into that folder. Since some of the contents of the remote document may change over time, the local links represent the reference material as of March 22, 1999.
In addition, citations are in English, starting with the ones from Jack F. Matlock's essay "Russia's Leaking Nukes" in the New York Review of Books.
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click on picture to enlarge File photo of a US-made B61 thermonuclear bomb that can be launched from a range of different aircraft (source). See also The Nuclear Weapon Archive |
"On February 5, 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell made a dramatic presentation before the United Nations Security Council, detailing a U.S. bill of particulars alleging that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction that threatened not only the Middle East, but the rest of the world. Unbeknownst to the public at the time, a key part of the U.S. case - relating to biological weapons - was based on the direct knowledge of a single agent known as CURVEBALL, whose credibility had previously been cast in serious doubt. ...""According to both of the major official U.S. investigations into Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs-by the so-called Silberman-Robb Commission and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (Note 4) - Powell based this particular claim on data gathered by the CIA, which in turn relied principally on information it had obtained indirectly from CURVEBALL."
Note 4. "Report to the President of the United States" by The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, March 31, 2005; and "Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments on IraqÓ by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, September 8, 2006.
Note added 18 January 2016
'Even if Iraq managed to hide these weapons, what they are now hiding is harmless goo', extract from Scott Ritter's new book, 19 September 2002 (in cache)
"UN weapons inspectors are poised to return to Iraq, but does Saddam Hussein have any weapons of mass destruction for them to find? The Bush administration insists he still has chemical and biological stockpiles and is well on the way to building a nuclear bomb. Scott Ritter, a former marine officer who spent seven years hunting and destroying Saddam's arsenal, is better placed than most to know the truth. Here, in an exclusive extract from his new book [William Rivers Pitt (Author), Scott Ritter, "War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You To Know", September 25, 2002], he tells William Rivers Pitt why he believes the threat posed by the Iraqi dictator has been overstated.Pitt: Does Iraq have weapons of mass destruction?
Ritter: It's not black-and-white, as some in the Bush administration make it appear. There's no doubt that Iraq hasn't fully complied with its disarmament obligations as set forth by the UN security council in its resolution. But on the other hand, since 1998 Iraq has been fundamentally disarmed: 90-95% of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capability has been verifiably eliminated. This includes all of the factories used to produce chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, and long-range ballistic missiles; the associated equipment of these factories; and the vast majority of the products coming out of these factories."
Note added 20 July 2020
SCOTT RITTER: Powell & IraqÑRegime Change, Not Disarmament: The Fundamental Lie
< font size=-2> during an interview Powell gave to Fox News on Sept. 8, 2002 ... he was asked to comment on a quote from my speech to the Iraqi Parliament earlier that month in which I [Scott Ritter] stated:ÒThe rhetoric of fear that is disseminated by my government and others has not to date been backed up by hard facts that substantiate any allegations that Iraq is today in possession of weapons of mass destruction or has links to terror groups responsible for attacking the United States. Void of such facts, all we have is speculation.Ó
Powell responded by declaring,
ÒWe have facts, not speculation. Scott is certainly entitled to his opinion but IÕm afraid that I would not place the security of my nation and the security of our friends in the region on that kind of an assertion by somebody whoÕs not in the intelligence chain any longerÉ If Scott is right, then why are they keeping the inspectors out? If Scott is right, why donÕt they say, ÔAnytime, any place, anywhere, bring Ôem in, everybody come inÑwe are clean?Õ The reason is they are not clean. And we have to find out what they have and what weÕre going to do about it. And thatÕs why itÕs been the policy of this government to insist that Iraq be disarmed in accordance with the terms of the relevant UN resolutions.Ó
Of course, in November 2002, Iraq did just what Powell said they would never doÑthey let the UN inspectors return without preconditions. The inspectors quickly exposed the fact that the Òhigh qualityÓ U.S. intelligence they had been tasked with investigating was pure bunk. Left to their own devices, the new round of UN weapons inspections would soon be able to give Iraq a clean bill of health, paving the way for the lifting of sanctions and the continued survival of Saddam Hussein.
Powell knew this was not an option. And thus he allowed himself to be used as a vehicle for disseminating more liesÑlies that would take the U.S. to war, cost thousands of U.S. service members their lives, along with hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, all in the name of regime change.
The Memorandum of Understanding signed by UN general secretary Kofi Annan and the Iraqi government on February 23, 1998, favors Iraq to an extent that endangers the safety of the world.
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Das Abkommen, das UNO-Generalsekretär Annan am 23.2.98 mit der irakischen Regierung geschlossen hat, kommt dem Irak in einer Weise entgegen, die die Sicherheit der Welt gefährdet.
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In his report in "Hintergrund Politik", aired by the German station Deutschlandfunk on March 3, 1998, Holger Mey, Director of the Institute for Strategic Analyses, Zippelstraße 24-26, D-53227 Bonn, pointed out that this Memo provides president Saddam a new opportunity, backed by international law, to limit UN inspectors' access to sites. | In seinem Beitrag in "Hintergrund Politik" des Deutschlandfunks am 3.3.98 wies Holger Mey, Direktor des Instituts für Strategische Analysen, Zippelstraße 24-26, D-53227 Bonn, darauf hin, daß die Einschränkungen (siehe 2.) Präsident Saddam eine neue, durch internationales Recht abgesicherte Möglichkeit eröffnet, die Zusage des ungehinderten Zugangs (siehe 1.) nach Belieben einzuschränken. |
During all those years after the Gulf war Iraqi Vice Premier Tariq Aziz has emphazised the compliance of his country. | Während all der Jahre nach dem Golfkrieg hat Iraks Vize-Premierminister Tariq Aziz die Willfährigkeit seines Landes betont: |
Two in-depth seminars on Iraq's modern technology management schemes:
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Holger Mey führt ein Beispiel dafür an: Die Inspektoren mußten vor einem zu kontrollierenden Gebäude warten, bis die am Hinterausgang aus dem Gebäude geschafften Kisten mit Lastwagen abtransportiert worden waren (siehe auch hier und hier). |
For details see
... on June 28, 1991 Iraq tried to conceal several calutrons from an IAEA inspection team. The Iraqis transported the giant electromagnets on flatbed trucks from the Nuclear Research Center at Tuwaitha to the military barracks at Abu Ghraib.
Although the IAEA team caught a glimpse of the calutrons in transport, they were denied access to the barracks; by the time they were allowed in, the trucks and their secret cargo had vanished. With the aid of U.S. satellite intelligence, however, UNSCOM headquarters in New York was able to track the movement of the trucks to the Military Transport Command facility in Fallujah and conveyed this information to the inspection team through a secure communications link. The IAEA inspectors arrived in Fallujah just as the flatbed trucks were exiting the facility and followed in hot pursuit.
In a desperate attempt to force the inspectors to back off, Iraqi soldiers fired warning shots over their heads.
.
A summary of the technical problems encountered in controlling chemical (CW) and biological weapons (BW), not just in Iraq, was published by the Henry L. Stimson Center in Report No. 24 (in cache, May 2010), "Biological Weapons Proliferation: Reasons for Concern, Courses of Action", and in particular
in Tab. 3 of "Verification Provisions of the Chemical Weapons Convention and Their Relevance to the Biological Weapons Convention", an analysis of the applicability of the CWC verification measures to a prospective BWC protocol by Dr. Jonathan Tucker of the Monterey Institute. They include
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Eine Zusammenfassung der (allgemeinen, vom Irak unabhängigen) technischen Kontrollprobleme bei B- und C-Waffen findet sich in Tab. 3 eines Reports
"Verification Provisions of the Chemical Weapons Convention and Their Relevance to the Biological Weapons Convention"
von Jonathan Tucker vom Center For Nonproliferaion Studies des Monterey Institute for International Studies. Einige der wichtigsten Probleme sind:
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From 1987 through 1991 J.F. Matlock was US-Ambassador to the Soviet Union. He is now (1998) George F. Kennan Professor (Modern International Relations) at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, USA. | J.F. Matlock war 1987 bis 1991 US-Botschafter bei der Sovietunion und ist jetzt George F. Kennan Professor (Modern International Relations) am Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, USA. |
Andrew and Leslie Cockburn wrote an exciting and for laypeople easily comprehensible book | Andrew und Leslie Cockburn haben ein spannend und für den Laien gut verständliches Buch geschrieben: |
One Point Safe: A True Story
by Andrew Cockburn and Leslie Cockburn
288 pages, $23.95 (hardcover)
Anchor, 1997
Search for more titles written by these authors. Read more about this book.
J.F.Matlock writes on page 3 of his essay:
"The authors describe their basic propositions as follows:
Avoiding Nuclear Anarchy: Containing
the Threat of Loose Russian Nuclear
Weapons and Fissile Material
by Graham T. Allison, Owen R. Cote, Jr., Richard A. Falkenrath, and
Steven E. Miller
292 pages, $16.00 (paperback)
MIT Press, 1996
Search for more titles written by these authors. Read more about this book.
He points out that European countries didn't give this issue sufficient attention. | --- Er weist darauf hin, daß die europäischen Länder sich mit dieser Sache unzureichend befaßt haben: |
According to J. Matlock we are facing enormous dangers if we do not succedd to control the proliferation of nuclear weapons of mass destruction. | Nach Meinung von J. Matlock stehen uns Gefahren riesigen Ausmaßes bevor, wenn es uns nicht gelingt, die Verbreitung von nuklearen Massenvernichtungswaffen zu kontrollieren: |
We are convinced Germany should work towards a control of the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that is more effective than what UN general secretary Kofi Annan has negotiated. Those more efficient controls are in the interest of all states on this planet, i.e also of Iraq.
We wish to encourage the reader to write a letter to the German Minister of Foreign Affairs, and perhaps send a copy of it to the President of the U.S. |
Wir sind der Überzeugung, daß Deutschland sich daher für eine Kontrolle der potentiellen irakischen Massenvernichtungswaffen einsetzen muß, die wirksamer ist, als die von Generalsekretär Annan ausgehandelte. Effiziente Kontrollen sind im Interesse aller Staaten dieser Erde, also auch des Irak.
Wir möchten den Leser dazu anregen, ähnlich wie wir einen Brief an den deutschen Außenminister, und vielleicht eine Übersetzung davon an den Präsidenten der Vereinigten Staaten, Bill Clinton, zu schicken. |
The following examples of weapons that cannot be conceiled from the inspectors have been chosen from the nuclear arsenal. In the 1970's we were scientists affiliated with the Hahn-Meitner-Institute in Berlin, Germany (then called HMI for Nuclear Research]. We were concerned about nuclear proliferation originating from German industry and financially backed by the German Federal Government. We sent an open letter to our foreign minister, H.-D. Genscher, asking him not to undercut the non-proliferation efforts of the US president, Jimmy Carter. About half the employees of the HMI had signed the letter (Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik 22, "Dokumente zum Zeitgeschehen", Seiten 1156-1157, 1977). | Die zunächst (im Abschnitt B 1.) folgenden Beispiele für Waffen, die man auf diese Weise den Inspektoren verheimlichen kann, sind aus dem nuklearen Gebiet gewählt, weil wir uns als Wissenschaftler in den 70'er Jahren im Hahn-Meitner-Institut (damals: für Kernforschung) in Berlin mit der Frage der nuklearen Proliferation (also der unkontrollierten Verbreitung von Nuklearmaterial) befaßt haben -sehr zum Unwillen der Bundesregierung und -von ihr veranlasßt- unter Repressalien der Institutsleitung. Damals hatten wir uns in einem offenen Brief an den deutschen Aussenminister, H.D. Genscher, dagegen ausgesprochen, daß Deutschland die Bemühungen der Administration des jungen US-Präsidenten Jimmy Carter unterlief, der sich für die Begrenzung der Proliferation in die Entwicklungsländer eingesetzt hatte (basierend auf einem Abkommen zur Nichtweiterverbreitung von waffentauglicher Nukleartechnologie, Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, NPT). Diesen Brief hatte etwa die Hälfte der Angestellten des Hahn-Meitner-Instituts unterschrieben (Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik 22, "Dokumente zum Zeitgeschehen", Seiten 1156-1157, 1977). |
In 1977, when half the employees of our nuclear research center in Berlin asked our foreign minister to at least not financially support the breach of the NPT by German industry (if he feels unable to take legal action against that breach), the Brazilian military government publicly admitted aiming at producing nuclear explosives, but declared them as peaceful. Inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency were not allowed, as Brazil was not a member of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). (In September 1990 Brazil's newly elected president Fernando Collor de Mello closed the nuclear test site and admitted in a speech to the UN General Assembly Brazil's secrete 15 year old nuclear bomb program (in cache)-see also the Federation of American Scientists's Report (PIR), 1990;5.) Disregarding the danger of heating up a nuclear arms race between Brazil and Argentina in the thus far nulear weapons free Latin American continent, the social democratic German government under Helmut Schmidt provided German nuclear suppliers with the necessary financial security backing the selling of an entire nuclear fuel cycle to Brazil (6 - 8 reactors, a reprocessing plant to separate plutonium from used reactor fuel and a uranium enrichment facility (based on a singular German design). German and Brazil government officials subsequently signed the sale's agreement. At the same time, Germany was also a major supplier of nuclear technology to Argentina, which had resolved to stay roughly in step with Brazil and by 1974 had acquired heavy water reactors - the type that India had used to produce its plutonium.
"[The newly elected president of the US, Jimmy] Carter had pledged himself to heading off ther German deal with Brazil. And two days after his inauguration, he dispatched Vice President Walter Mondale to Europe with the new administration's message about nuclear proliferation. In Brussels, only four days later, Mondale said that one of the "central themes" would be "stopping the sales of reprocessing plants as those to Brazil an Pakistan" (W.H. Courtney, "Brazil and Argentina: Strategies for American Diplomacy", in Nonproliferation and U.S. Foreign Policy, ed. J.A. Yager (Washington, D.C., Brookings Institution, 1980), p. 380, citing Bernard Weinraub, New York Times, January 25, 1977). In Bonn, he is said to have told Schmidt that Carter "was unalterably opposed to the transfer of the sensitive technologies to Brazil" (ibidem, p. 381). Schmidt stonily replied by noting his commitment to the Non Proliferation Treaty and the suppliers' guidelines [drawn up at a series of secret meetings of the nuclear suppliers' club in London 1974] , but he also restated his commitment to the agreement with Brazil. Carter's high-visibility, high-level initiative had the predictable effect of souring the atmosphere and further complicating intractable problems. Two weeks later, Warren Christopher, Deputy Secretary of State designate, was in Bonn, trying to persuade Schmidt to defer transferring the enrichment and reprocessing materials to Brazil until its reactors had been "safeguarded"[by the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA. IAEA safeguards include inspections, inventories, and regular audits of sensitive materials to ensure that nuclear technology is used for peaceful purposes only. Years later, the case of Iraq has shown that IAEA does not achieve this goal (look with your browser's Find for the paragraph starting with "Let me be clear" in D. Kay, Iraqi Inspections: Lessons Learned. D. Kay was the team leader for three IAEA inspections in Iraq)].
Schmidt again said no. A U.S. mission to Brazil drew a cold, uncompromising reception; the Brazilians made their feelings clear by canceling a military cooperation agreement.
.... He [Carter] planned to cut off American aid to any country that detonated a "peaceful nuclear explosion". He wanted a voice in decisions involving an American client-country's other nuclear exchanges. And he wanted to be able to rule on whether a client-country could develop its own plutonium separation capability (M. Nacht, "Controlling Nuclear Proliferation", in The Eagle Entangled: U.S. Foreign Policy in a Complex World (New York: Longman, 1970), ed. K. Oye, D. Rothchild, and R. Lizber, p. 157)."
cited from J. Newhouse, "War and Peace in the Nuclear Age", A.A. Knopf, New York, 1989, p. 274 - 275. Text in [ ] added by J. Gruber.
In Brazil, in the years that followed under democratic rule, scientific groups, citizens organizations, and newly-empowered legislators were able to lobby openly for constraints on wasteful nuclear activities. Scientists of US public interest groups
e.g.
(David Albright has been chosen as the 2006 recipient of the American Physical Society's Joseph A. Burton Forum Award. The award is for outstanding contributions to the public understanding or resolution of issues involving the interface of physics and society. "For his tireless and productive efforts to slow the transfer of nuclear weapons technology. He brings a unique combination of deep understanding, objectivity, and effectiveness to this vexed area." This honor follows Albright's 2005 election as an American Physical Society (APS) Fellow. The APS Fellowship Program was created to recognize members who may have made advances in knowledge through original research and publication or made significant and innovative contributions in the application of physics to science and technology. Each year, no more than one-half of one percent of the membership of the Society is recognized by their peers for election to the status of Fellow.)David Albright, a physicist, is president of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) in Washington, D.C. He directs the project work of ISIS, heads its fundraising efforts, and chairs its board of directors. In addition, he regularly publishes and conducts scientific research. He has written numerous assessments on secret nuclear weapons programs throughout the world. Prior to founding ISIS, he worked
- as a senior staff scientist at the Federation of American Scientists and
- as a member of the research staff of Princeton UniversityÕs Center for Energy and Environmental Studies.
He has served as a consultant or contractor to
- the Environmental Policy Institute,
- the Congressional Research Service,
- the International Task Force on Prevention of Nuclear Terrorism,
- Los Alamos National Laboratory, and
- the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Albright holds a Masters of Science in physics from Indiana University and a Masters of Science in mathematics from Wright State University. In addition to the Outstanding Alumni Award, Albright also received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Wright State University in 2007.
Brazil's deal with West Germany gradually fell apart of its own weight. The Brazilians couldn't afford the reactors and never managed to make the German-design enrichment technology work for them. ... Brazil and Argentina still refuse to sign the NPT, and in either country an immoderate regime could doubtless acquire the weapons option.cited from J. Newhouse.
Finally, in September 1990, when -before the UN General Assembly- Brazil publicly revealed and revoked its nuclear weapons ambitions, the German government (under the Christian and Free Democrats, Chancellor Helmut Kohl) announced that "current and future" nuclear exports would be approved only if full-scope safeguards were in effect in the recipient country.
(For more details see "Nuclear Confidence Building between Argentina and Brazil" by the Henry L. Stimson Center, on which some of the above outline relies.)
Internationally, Germany has been continuously blamed of proliferating weapons-grade technology. The case for Iraq has been documented by The Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies, California, USA and summarized below.
Source of photograph: Alan Lightman, "Megaton Man", New York Review of Books 69, 9:34-37 (May 23, 2002) |
The SANDIA Laboratory Science Museum in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA, shows a hydrogen bomb having a yield of approximately 1 megaton TNT. It has a diameter between 1/2 and 1 meter and has a length between a bicycle and a compact car.
The hydrogen bomb on the left that Edward Teller puts his arm on, has a yield of 100 megatons.
Im Museum des US-amerikanischen Waffenlabors SANDIA in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA ist eine Wasserstoffbombe von der Stärke etwa einer Megatonne TNT ausgestellt. Sie hat einen Durchmesser von 1/2 bis einem Meter und ist nicht länger als ein Kleinwagen. |
There are suitcase size nuclear bombs. Of these more than 100 have disappeared from the depots of the Russian military. | Es gibt koffergroße Nuklearbomben. Davon sind mehr als hundert aus den Depots des russischen Militärs verschwunden. |
The Center for Nonproliferation Studies,
Monterey Institute of International Studies,
425 Van Buren Street, Monterey, CA 93940, USA
reports in
Databases & Publications
... these ADMs, which could be carried in a case approximately 60x40x20 cm, in September and October 1996, when he was serving as secretary of the Russian Security Council. Since the ADMs, which have an explosive yield of around one kiloton (TNT equivalent), could be "activated by one person" and are "easy to transport", Lebed concluded they were "an ideal weapon for nuclear terror".[Interfax, 8 September 1997; in "Lebed Says Individual Warheads in CIS Pose Danger", FBIS-TAC-97-251.]
Obviously, it is a question of finances, whether or not president Saddam can afford such physically small weapons of mass destruction as soon as they appear on the weapons market. | Es ist offensichtlich im wesentlichen eine finanzielle Frage, ob sich Präsident Saddam solche von den Abmessungenen her kleine Massenvernichtungswaffen leisten kann, wenn sie auf dem Waffenmarkt erscheinen. |
Matlock points out a further way for the uncontrolled proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, via highly enriched uranium (HEU) or plutonium (if you have subscribed to the New York Review of Books electronic edition, see page 1 of Russia's Leaking Nukes). The radiation emitted from these materials is minor, and therefore a single person can carry a quantity in his suitcase that suffices for the construction of a Hiroshima size (20 kt TNT) bomb. Russia now has a stockpile of about 150 tons of weapons grade plutonium and 1000 tons of HEU [S. Weinberg, Can Missile Defense Work?, New York Review of Books, Febr. 14, 2002, pp. 41-47]. | Matlock weist auf einen weiteren Weg der unkontrollierten Verbreitung von Massenvernichtungswaffen hin, nämlich über hochangereichertes Uran (HEU) oder Plutonium. Wegen der geringen von diesen Materialien ausgehenden radioaktiven Strahlung kann ein einzelner Mensch davon ohne weiteres eine Menge in einem Koffer tragen, die zum Bau einer Bombe ausreicht, deren Stärke der über Hiroshima abgeworfenen gleicht: |
(Note: A rough order of magnitude estimation of the price for the HEU necessary for a Hiroshima size bomb arrives at $ 6000. Iraq possesses an implosion technology that allows her to ignite a Hiroshima size bomb. (D. Kay, Iraqi inspections: lessons learned, talk given for the Program of Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies on February 10, 1993, CNS Special Collection on the Iraqi Crisis). | (Anmerkung: Eine grobe Größenabschätzung des Preises für die Menge des hochangereicherten Urans, das man für eine Hiroshima-Bombe braucht, kommt auf 6000 Dollar. Irak hat eine weit vorangeschrittene Implosionstechnologie entwickelt, die eine 20 kt TNT Nuklearbombe (Hiroshima-Stärke) zünden kann (D. Kay, Iraqi inspections: lessons learned, talk given for the Program of Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies on February 10, 1993, CNS Special Collection on the Iraqi Crisis). |
My Answer:
B 1.4. Technical Effort To Produce and Handle Nuclear Weapons
Question: What is the technical effort and the time necessary to produce/handle nuclear weapons, and could such an effort can be concealed from inspectors?
Source: Above mentioned review by Jack F. Matlock and the books he reviewed on diversion of nuclear material from Russia
To find an answer, I used the information provided by the Henry L. Stimson Center. For further reading you might visit the center's web site and check out the links to the Center's reports:
Provided the 5 questions below can be answered correspondingly, here is what I conclude from what I found in these reports:
This report features the following chapters, for which executive summaries may be downloaded:
"... important differences between chemical and biological weapons limit the applicability of Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) verification measures to the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC).For theses reasons, the threshold for militarily significant cheating, or "treaty breakout", is considerably lower for the BWC than for the CWC. Finally, the ambiguities between offensive and defensive research on infectious agents and the lack of well-defined indicators of biological or toxin production make it more difficult to distinguish between "treaty-prohibited" and "treaty-permitted" activities at dual-capable biological facilities. For this reason, assessing intent is as important as physical evidence in determining BWC compliance. Table 3 describes the differences between chemical and biological weapns and shows where these differences complicate BWC compliannce monitoring."
- The fact that certain microbial and toxin agents are highly potent per unit weight means that a militarily significant quantity is measured in kilograms, compared with tons for chemical nerve agents.
- Moreover, whereas production of a chemical arsenal requires a fairly large industrial plant, a stockpile of biological or toxin agents could be produced to order in a pilot-scale factory over a period of weeks.
The entire publication may also be downloaded. (Note: this is a 600kb PDF file.)
The Federation of American Scientists conducts analysis and advocacy on science, technology and public policy, including nuclear weapons, arms sales, biological hazards, secrecy, and space policy. FAS is a privately-funded non-profit policy organization whose Board of Sponsors includes half of America's living Nobel Laureates.
FAS was founded as the Federation of Atomic Scientists in 1945 by members of the Manhattan Project who produced the first atomic bomb, to address the implications and dangers of the nuclear age. FAS is the oldest organization dedicated to ending the arms race and avoiding the use of nuclear weapons, and much of its work has been in nuclear arms control and disarmament. In addition, throughout its history FAS publications and projects have addressed a wide range of science and society issues, including those of population, energy, agriculture, medical care, and ethnic conflict (in countries such as Cambodia, Peru and Yugoslavia (see also research on Yugoslavia by the US Institute of Peace). FAS combines the scholarly resources of its scientists, including 41 Nobel laureates, with a knowledge of practical politics. As a non-profit organization licensed to lobby in the public interest, FAS is uniquely qualified to bring the scientific perspective to the legislative arena through direct lobbying, membership and grassroots work, and expert testimony at Congressional hearings. FAS is administered by its President, Jeremy J. Stone who also serves as a senior staff member and director of research. The Federation's primary publication is the F.A.S. Public Interest Report.
The FAS Fund, the Federation's tax deductable arm, is a publicly supported foundation under IRS section 509a3 and tax-deductable under 501c3 working for FAS, which is a 501c4 civic organization. The FAS Fund engages in research analysis and public education on a broad range of science, technology, and public policy issues. Dr. Stone is also President of the FAS Fund. Currently, his primary endeavor is developing new FAS projects devoted to global security generally to complement existing FAS work in peace and national security. As it enters its second half century FAS is expanding the scope of its activities, with new projects being organized involving agriculture, medicine and a range of other issues.
Our strategic partners include U.S. Newswire which provides media support, our primary computer consultant Randy Winn ClarkNet where this website is hosted, and The Institute for Global Communications (IGC) Peacenet, which also provides us Internet access services.
The Federation of American Scientists is located on Capitol Hill, two blocks away from the United States Senate office buildings.
.... Everyone agrees that the amount of fissile material Iraq possesses under internal safeguards would be enough for an experienced nuclear weapons state to make into more than one nuclear device with an explosive yield of many kilotons. But how quickly Iraq could do so remains a matter of conjecture. ...In all, only about 14 kilograms of the 80 and 93 percent enriched uranium were unirradiated and could quickly have been made into a weapon, if Iraq was ready to do that. In addition, the nearly 12 kilograms of slightly irradiated 93 percent material and the partially irradiated 4.4 kilograms in the reactor might also have been recoverable. ...
"Lessons for the Future
- Intrusive on-site access is a necessary but not sufficient condition for obtaining evidence of noncompliance.
- A multilateral inspection regime can be effective only to the extent that it is coupled with accurate and timely intelligence
- Short-notice inspections can increase the likelihood that a violator will make mistakes and leave behind telltale indicators of illicit activity.
- The combined use of various monitoring tools (e.g. overhead surveillance, monitoring trade flows, visual inspection, and sampling and analysis) can yield valuable synergies.
- An effective way to investigate clandestine WMD programs s to identivy and interrogate key managerial and technical personnel.
- Only on eagency should be asigned all aspects of an international inspection regime.
- Effective verification cannot be based on periodic on-site inspections alone, but requires the integration of data from a wide variety of sources to monito patterns of host-country activity over an extended period of time.
- In the future, the task of verifying nonproliferation treaties and drawing compliance judgments will grow more difficult as technologies capable of supporting deception and denial efforts become more widely available."
Founded in 1981, NCI is a research and advocacy center for preventing nuclear proliferation. Non-profit and non-partisan, we play a watchdog role in a complex and dangerous field. Active both at home and abroad, we engage government and industry officials, public-interest organizations and the media in our work.
seeks to address four basic contributors to the spread of nuclear weapons: the growing presence of atom-bomb materials in civilian nuclear power and research programs; behavior of the nuclear-weapon states that stimulates or facilitates other states to go nuclear; loopholes in U.S. nuclear-export laws and international nuclear agreements, and tensions that drive regional rivals to acquire nuclear weapons. In particular, we focus on the urgency of eliminating weapons-usable materials, plutonium and highly enriched uranium, from civilian nuclear programs.
"NTI's mission is to strengthen global security by reducing the risk of use and preventing the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. NTI seeks to raise public awareness, serve as a catalyst for new thinking and take direct action to reduce these threats.Since governments have most of the resources and authority in addressing the threats from nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, it is not just what NTI can do directly to reduce threats that matters -- it's also what NTI can persuade others to do.
That's why NTI's focus is on leverage. By combining its influential voice with direct action projects that show the way, NTI has motivated governments and private organizations to invest additional resources and take additional action to increase global security."
The W. Alton Jones Foundation is a private grantmaking foundation focusing on global environmental protection and the prevention of nuclear war or other massive release of radioactive material.
In the five years before the Persian Gulf war, for example, the Commerce Department licensed more than $1.5 billion of strategically sensitive American exports to Iraq. Many were for direct delivery to nuclear weapon, chemical weapon and missile sites. Companies like Hewlett-Packard, Honeywell, International Computer Systems, Rockwell and Tektronix sold high-performance electronics either to Saad 16, Iraq's major missile research center; to the Ministry of Industry and Military Industrialization, which set up Al Atheer; to the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission, responsible for atomic-bomb research; or to Nasr State Enterprise, in charge of Iraq's missile and nuclear procurement. Honeywell even did a feasibility study for a powerful gasoline bomb warhead, intended for an Iraqi-Egyptian missile.As bad as the American record is, Germany's is worse. Germany supplied more of Iraq's mass-destruction machinery than all other countries combined. Germany not only sold Iraq most of its centrifuge equipment, it also furnished an entire chemical weapon industry and was Iraq's greatest supplier of missile technology, including a flood of parts that enabled Iraq to extend the range of its Scud missiles. During the Persian Gulf war, enhanced Scuds hit Tel Aviv and a United States Army barracks in Saudi Arabia, killing 28 sleeping soldiers.
To develop an even longer-range missile, Iraq turned to the German armament giant Messerschmitt, now doing business as MBB (Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm). MBB supplied the know-how for a 600-mile nuclear-capable missile called the Condor II that Iraq tried to develop jointly with Egypt and Argentina before the war. The missile's range and configuration are similar to that of the American Pershing, which MBB worked on at the Pentagon. The same MBB employee who worked on the Pershing at the Pentagon also represented MBB in Iraq for the Condor, and thus was in a position tn transfer American missile technology to Baghdad.
Until 1992 Germany's manufacturers did not fully comply with UN Iraq embargo and German export laws (for details see pages 13 and 14 of Bill of Indictment by the district court in Augsburg, Germany, in 1992)
[In 1992] German authorities have begun investigating possible violations of export control laws by several German firms. In 4/92, 27 supplier countries agreed to strengthen the rules for transfer of sophisticated dual-item technology (Michael Wise, The Washington Post, 5/19/92, P. A15). ... Foreign individuals driven by a profit motive provided key know-how to Iraq. To limit such participation in the future, the FRG recently [1992] approved "citizens participation" laws that make it illegal for German citizens to take part in potential proliferation countries' nuclear weapons program (David Albright, Mark Hibbs, Arms Control Today, 7-8/92, PP. 3-11).
Source of the following compilation is from the CNS Database of the CNS SPECIAL COLLECTION ON THE IRAQ CRISIS (local link)), as excerpted in their "Iraqi Nuclear Abstracts" and "Iraqi Missile Abstracts", published by The Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies, California, USA.
Nuclear Components
Source: The Iraqi Nuclear Abstracts 1991 ... 1998.
Probable range of proliferation: uranium enrichment technology applicable to the production of weapons-grade uranium, advanced reactors and energy systems-plant operation.
Iraq enriched uranium to weapons-grade, i.e. separated the (lighter) uranium isotope needed in weapons from the remaining (heavier) uranium isotopes, by employing all established technical processes.
Iraq has produced at most 3 kilograms of weapons-grade uranium. Carson Mark, Theoretical Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico, estimated the yield of a uranium bomb Iraq could have manufactured from the weapons-grade uranium they had bought (that was more than the mentioned 3 kg): the bomb would have weighed at least 1 ton and had a maximum yield of 10 kilotons TNT, i.e. half the yield of the Hiroshima bomb (David Albright and Mark Hibbs, Iraq's nuclear hide-and-seek (local link), Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist, September 1991, Vol. 47, No. 7)
Technical terms used:
For a rather comprehensive glossary see "Annex I, Nuclear Energy and Nuclear Weapons: An Introductory Guide" in: MCIS NPT BRIEFING BOOK, April 2004 Edition, Mountbatten Centre for International Studies (MCIS) in association with the Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS). (local link)In principle, separation of uranium isotopes (the so-called "enrichment" of uranium isotope U-235 in the natural U-238/U-235 mixture of isotopes) is achieved by centrifugation of the (natural isotope mix of) uranium gas or uranium ions (more). The major two are the gas ultracentrifuge program, which largely utilized technology, material, and experts from Germany, and the calutron, almost entirely developed by the Iraqis and its most successful program:
- In the gas ultracentrifuge a gaseous chemical compount of uranium is spun around by mechanical forces. Because of the low efficiency of a single ultracentrifuge, this process needs a cascade of a very large number of such centrifuges.
- In the calutrons the ions are spun around by electromagnetic forces. The calutron was the major uranium enrichment device in Iraq. Cal-u-tron is an acronym composed from the words California -the device, a synchrotron, was invented by Ernest O. Lawrence in Berkeley (California), uranium and synchrotron. The latter is basically an electrical capacitor. The electrical field between its entrance and exit plate accelerates the ions. Magnets bend the ion path to a circle, thus forcing the accelated ions leaving the capacitor's exit plate back through its entrance plate. This way, the ions are accelerated again and again. This old, expensive, energy-intensive technology was developed in World War II in the US and produced the weapons-grade uranium for the Hiroshima bomb (local link).
Missile Components (some companies supplied both missile and nuclear technology.)
Source:The Iraqi Missile Abstracts 1991 ... 1998.
Missile component trade with Iraq violates a UN embargo and German export laws.
1994, owner Anton Eyerle, Walter Dittel, both German nationals, and Subramanian Venkataramanan, an Indian citizen, jailed for up to 5 1/2 years because of his firm's continued delivery of missile components to Iraq before 1991, enough ignition systems for Styx and Scud missiles "to wipe out the entire Middle East.", German judge said. "By exporting such war weapons to a war and crisis zone, the defendants caused considerable international attention to be focused on the Federal Republic of Germany and thereby made it more difficult for the FRG to realize its foreign policy goals. Such exports also served to support Iraq in its war efforts directed against the peoples of the Middle East, "said the district attorney.
Bill of Indictment (local link) details:
Biological and Chemical Weapons Components
During his distinguished diplomatic career, Ekeus has played a major role in a number of disarmament negotiations. Among his assignments, from 1978 to 1983 Ekeus was Sweden's permanent representative to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva. In 1984 and 1987, he chaired the UN Committee on Chemical Weapons, and in 1985 he chaired the Drafting Committee at the nuclear NonProliferation Treaty Review Conference. In 1996, Ekeus was a member of the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. He is expected to take up his new post in Washington on September 12.
(from: Ambassador Rolf Ekeus: Leaving Behind the UNSCOM Legacy in Iraq, Arms Control Association, Washington, DC. USA.)
Datum: 8.3.98
Sehr geehrter Herr Außenminister!
Der von den UN mit dem Irak ausgehandelte Vertrag zur Kontrolle der Rüstung im Irak läßt Präsident Saddam Hussein weiterhin die Möglichkeit, die Inspektoren schwer zu behindern und Massenvernichtungswaffen zu entwickeln.
Andere Staatsführungen mit ähnlichen Ambitionen, wie wir sie bei Präsident Saddam erkennen, könnten dadurch zu ähnlichen Schritten ermuntert werden.
Wirksame Kontrollen dieser Waffen sind jedoch im Interesse aller Staaten dieser Erde, also auch des Irak.
Bei der entschlosseneren Auseinandersetzung mit dieser Problematik der Entwicklung und Proliferation von Massenvernichtungswaffen sollte, so meinen wir, Deutschland nicht nur wie bisher die im Hinblick auf die Krise im Irak gebildete internationale Koalition unterstützen, sondern -wenn möglich- ihr beitreten, wie es z.B. Belgien, Dänemark oder die Niederlande getan haben.
Dr. Joachim Gruber, Adresse:
Marianne Steenken, Adresse:
E-Mail: Joachim.Gruber@acamedia.info
E-mail-Adresse: president@whitehouse.gov