Conferences, Videos & Testimony
Regional Safeguards in Latin America: Implications for the Middle East?
October 27, 1997
Seminar Sponsored by The Institute for Science and International Security
Washington, D.C. and
The National Center for Middle East Studies
Cairo, Egypt October 27, 1997
Cairo Egypt
Table of Contents
Opening Remarks
Aly Sadek
David Albright
Evolution of the Argentine-Brazilian Nuclear Rapprochement
John Redick
Questions and Discussion
Origin and Role of Argentina’s and Brazil’s Nuclear Programs, and the Role of the Military and Non-Governmental Scientists in Changing the Climate on Nuclear Development
Marco Marzo
David Albright
Questions and Discussion
ABACC: Designing and Implementing Bilateral Inspections in Argentina and Brazil
Marco Marzo
Questions and Discussion
Summary: Latin American Experience and Lessons
David Albright
Questions and Discussion
Adjournment
Aly Sadek
David Albright
List of Figures
Figure 1: Material Balance Areas Safeguarded by ABACC
Figure 2: ABACC Inspections
List of Speakers and Participants
Opening Remarks
Aly Sadek, National Center for Middle East Studies (NCMES): I’d like to welcome you all to this seminar on regional safeguards in Latin America and the implications for a regional system in the Middle East.
During the last week of March 1997, Dr. Said Hamied and I represented the National Center for Middle East Studies at a meeting in Washington, D.C. on the elimination of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the Middle East. There we met for the first time Mr. David Albright, the President of ISIS. David’s participation in this meeting indicated that ISIS had a clear interest in developments in the Middle East in general, and on the topic of arms control in particular. These impressions were confirmed by his proposal to convene this seminar in Egypt.
This seminar deals with the experience of some Latin American countries in setting up a nuclear weapons free zone (NWFZ). However, we all know that there are broad differences between the situation in Latin America and the Middle East. Nevertheless, the success of Argentina, Brazil and other Latin American countries in establishing such a zone and overcoming obstacles that hindered the fulfillment of this goal is worth studying.
There are several lessons to be derived from this experience that could be useful in the Middle East context. But there are many differences. From a political point of view, the tense and conflicting relations among Latin American states were generally kept within the boundaries of the usual regional framework of developing countries. On the other hand, relations between countries of the Middle East are unique and completely different that those of Latin America. The Middle East has been the arena of five wars between Israel and its Arab neighbors.
War did not come to an end until the famous peace initiative undertaken by Egypt’s late president, Anwar Sadat. The initiative, as we all know, resulted in a bilateral peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. Subsequently, there followed by a treaty between Jordan and Israel, and mutual recognition between Israel and the Palestine Authority. This led to the beginning of peace talks between the two parties, but since the current ruling coalition under Benjamin Netanyahu took power in Israel, the situation has severely deteriorated.
With regard to the subject of nuclear arms, the situation of Latin America is different from the Middle East as well. Most Latin American countries have similar or equal scientific capabilities and facilities in the nuclear field. Furthermore, none of them ever obtained nuclear weapons. The situation in the Middle East is totally different. In our region, only Israel monopolizes nuclear weapons. It has an abundance of nuclear bombs and delivery systems. On the other hand, none of the Arab counties have nuclear weapons; Egypt, the largest country in the Middle East, adopted the strategy of non-acquisition of nuclear weapons in the 1960s. Thus, nuclear nonparity is one of the main causes of instability in the Middle East. This situation encourages some of the extremist forces in Israel to retreat from the peace strategy and push the region to a new era of conflict, maybe war.
Judging by my personal experience in security issues and disarmament, I am confident of the feasibility of ridding the Middle East of WMD. Such an arrangement would be a vital element that would ensure the security of every country in the region, including Israel, Egypt and every other Arab country—including Iraq.
There are many aspects of the Latin American experience that are worth studying, including: the technical aspects of the Latin American NWFZ; transparency; the institutions that have been set up; the contents and scope of the inspection regime; international and regional security guarantees; and those steps which were taken as confidence building measures.
To conclude my opening remarks, I would like to thank everybody for attending this seminar. I would like to thank in particular the staff of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and his excellency, Ambassador Mahmoud Karem, for their support, which enabled us to invite this distinguished group of specialists and experts to discuss this vital subject. I also want to thank ISIS for making arrangements to prepare for this seminar and see that it has come to fruition. Thank you.
Now, I will turn the floor over to Mr. Albright.
David Albright, Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS): Thank you very much. I’m very happy to be here and am looking forward to a full day of presentations and discussions.
I’m well aware, as all on this panel are, of the differences between Argentina and Brazil and the Middle East. However, we have found that there are many useful lessons that can be drawn from this experience. We are very pleased to be in Egypt to discuss these lessons with you.
ISIS and the National Center have decided to record this session in order to prepare a transcript. We will give the speakers a chance to edit their comments for clarity and style. We have found that such records can be quite valuable. Last year, we conducted a seminar in Israel, and followed this procedure. This transcript of that event was eventually made public, and I assume that this transcript will also be made public. We hope that this is acceptable to everyone.
Again, we are honored to be here in Egypt. I’d like to turn the floor over to Professor Redick, and move right into the first session. I’ll let Dr. Redick introduce himself and the rest of us.
Return to Table of Contents
Evolution of the Argentine-Brazilian Nuclear Rapprochement
John Redick, University of Virginia: Thank you David Albright and Dr. Sadek. I am pleased and deeply honored to be here in Egypt, and am very appreciative of the hospitality of the National Center for Middle East Studies for hosting this meeting, and to ISIS for organizing our discussion. To introduce myself, I am an associate professor at the University of Virginia where I teach and undertake research on issues of nuclear proliferation. My research interests have focussed principally on Latin American nuclear issues, and I have conducted considerable field research for many years. I have been associated with several prominent U.S.- based foundations working in the arms control field.
Egypt has a long and highly distinguished position of leadership in the arms control and disarmament field which includes, but extends far beyond, the Middle East region. Egypt’s early and sustained leadership in the Geneva Committee on Disarmament, among the non-aligned nations, and its continued leadership within the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), at the First Committee of the U.N. General Assembly, and in regional fora within the Middle East, are recognized by all serious experts in the arms control and disarmament field. Egyptian scholars and experts have helped define and develop the extensive body of historical experience of Middle East security, arms control and confidence-building measures. It is primarily from this historical experience that you, and your colleagues will, I deeply hope, draw inspiration and ideas to forge a system of regional peace and security in the Middle East. Nations from outside the region, including the nuclear weapon states and others, can be supportive of your efforts, but the leadership will come from within the region, and especially from Egypt.
This being true, other regional experiences can provide ideas and practical implications which may be modified, adopted, and ultimately prove useful to the search for a fair, just, and enduring peace in the Middle East. One such region with an interesting—and potentially relevant—story is Latin America. The successful Latin American experience in developing bilateral and regional mechanisms for controlling nuclear weapons has greatly contributed to the peace, security, and well-being of all nations in Central and South America. In many ways this Latin American experience is unique to that region, and, of course, there are vast differences between the Middle East and Latin American regions. Yet it is also true that Latin America as a region has been marked by strong competition and occasional serious conflict. This competition, rivalry, and suspicion could have led to the development of nuclear weapons and other WMD. While there are varying interpretations as to just how close certain Latin American nations were to developing nuclear weapons, the far more important point is that Latin American nations chose not to do so, and instead developed some innovative arms control mechanisms. Why this happened, how these mechanisms are evolving, and the possible implications for other regional situations such as the Middle East is the subject of our presentations.
The Latin American experience in controlling nuclear weapons is a very interesting and important story, and I have followed it closely for over three decades. I have had the pleasure of personally knowing many of the leaders of the Latin American efforts—none so great as the late Alfonso Garc¡a Robles, former Foreign Minister of Mexico, and father of the Treaty of Tlatelolco, which created the Latin American NWFZ. For this accomplishment he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
I mention Ambassador Garc¡a Robles in order to make a simple, but profound, point: the importance of individual tenacity and vision. The Latin American nuclear rapprochement did not just happen; it was the result of years of efforts by individuals in many Latin American nations, including in the region’s two leading nations, Argentina and Brazil.
It is unfortunate that one of Argentina’s most distinguished senior diplomats, Jul¡o Carasales, who has not only represented his nation at the highest levels in many fora, but is also his nation’s outstanding expert on nuclear policy and disarmament, is unable to be with us today because of illness. Ambassador Carasales had to cancel his participation in this seminar at the last minute, and it is unfortunate, because I know that he would have given an illuminating presentation on how this rapprochement developed over time.
Let me briefly pause to introduce the speakers who will be giving presentations today. Dr. Marco Marzo of Brazil brings the vitally important perspective of a professional practitioner. A former official in the Brazilian Nuclear Energy Commission, Dr. Marzo is now a key leader in Brazilian-Argentine Agency for Accounting and Control of Nuclear Materials (ABACC), the agency which administers the bilateral verification and inspection regime. ABACC is very much a “work in progress,” particularly as it defines its responsibilities relative to those of the multilateral verification regime, the IAEA. Mr. David Albright, President of ISIS, is a scientist who has worked for many years on nuclear proliferation issues throughout the world. Focusing on the intersection of science and policy, ISIS is highly respected for its independence and objectivity. David Albright brings a clear, seasoned, and analytical perspective to these discussions.
My assignment is, in effect, to set the stage for the main attraction, that is the presentations which will follow, and perhaps, to plant a few seeds of ideas which may prove useful. My focus is on two mutually reinforcing measures by which Latin American nations have successfully curbed nuclear competition and largely eliminated prospects for nuclear weapons development in the region. The first of these is The Latin American NWFZ, as embodied in the 1967 Treaty of Tlatelolco, and the second is the Argentine- Brazilian nuclear rapprochement, which resulted in the establishment of the Joint System for Accounting and Control of Nuclear Materials (SCCC) and ABACC.
A highly respected environmental scientist from my institution, the University of Virginia, has done pioneering research on the interaction of sand storms from the Sahara Desert blowing across the Atlantic, and the Amazonian rain forests of South America which have a profound impact on global weather. In a similar fashion, and as a point of historical interest, the seeds of the Latin American NWFZ blew westward to South America from the Middle East. In 1961, nuclear weapons testing by France in the Sahara Desert produced a highly critical reaction throughout the region, and nurtured discussion of a continent-wide NWFZ for Africa. Brazilian diplomats then brought the concept back to South America in the early 1960s and, in so doing, stimulated the interest of the then Mexican Ambassador to Brazil, Alfonso Garc¡a Robles who ultimately spearheaded the negotiating process. In the subsequent years between 1960 and the beginning of the final negotiations in Mexico City in 1964, discussions continued in the Geneva Disarmament Committee, in the U.N. First Committee, and in various Latin American capitals. In addition, the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis provided a certain catalytic momentum and velocity to these discussions as Latin American leaders, to their horror, found themselves potential nuclear targets due to the nuclear miscalculations of the superpowers.
In other words, there were complex and multiple incentives for Latin America’s efforts to explore and achieve regional nuclear arms control. The movement had deep, indigenous roots growing out of inter-American regional meetings in the 1950s, but also nourished by ideas and experiences transplanted from the Middle East and Africa. The Latin American effort was also a reaction to an immediate—and deeply serious—global crisis, and represented a shared desire to insulate the region from superpower rivalry. But it was also an effort to curtail significant bilateral rivalries within the region that could have led to ruinous results.
In a similar fashion, regional control mechanisms for nuclear weapons and other WMD in the Middle East region may ultimately evolve in response to multiple incentives and motivations. These incentives would include, of course, a desire to control the undeclared Israeli nuclear arsenal, but might also include the need to mitigate rivalries among Arab nations (which in turn are exacerbated by the existing Israeli arsenal). And, like Latin America, yet another long-term incentive may be an eventual shared view by Middle East nations that regional control mechanisms for WMD will result in reduced threatening involvement by non- regional nations.
The process that was followed in the very earliest stages of the Latin American NWFZ negotiations is both interesting, and possibly relevant, to long-term Middle East nuclear arms control efforts. Prior to the initiation of formal negotiations, an informal preliminary group of diplomats from some Latin American nations met in Mexico City in 1963 to attempt to resolve a number of issues. These “semi-official” preliminary discussions were quite successful in setting the stage for the more formal Preparatory Committee, which conducted the complex negotiations from 1964 to the signing of the treaty in 1967. Moreover, the Preparatory Committee was composed of only nations from the region; non-regional nations, including nuclear weapon states, were present only as observers. This negotiating process allowed Latin American nations to resolve among themselves certain contentious issues, thereby enhancing prospects for a successful conclusion of the negotiations.
By most interpretations, for a NWFZ to be effective and deserving of support, it must have the participation of all important nations in the region. Yet, contrary to this conventional wisdom, the Latin American experience demonstrates that a NWFZ can have value while initially lacking the participation of all core regional nations.
For over 25 years following the 1967 signing of the Tlatelolco Treaty, the Latin American zone existed without the full participation of key regional nations: Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. By any calculation such as GNP, population, or nuclear development, these nations were regional leaders, but, for a variety of reasons, they chose not to become full parties to the regional regime.
During the long absence of these nations, many experts dismissed the value of the partial Latin American zone by ignoring certain points which may have relevance for the Middle East. First, while lacking participation of key regional nations, the zone had value by providing mutual assurance to those Latin American nations which chose to become full parties to the treaty. That is, by incorporating most Latin American nations, the zone helped mute traditional rivalries, and eclipsed prospects for a regional chain reaction of nuclear competition.
Of comparable significance was the fact that, despite the lack of full participation by core nations, the Tlatelolco Treaty defined a regional “norm” that there would be no nuclear weapons in Latin America. Those Latin American nations that chose not to become full parties of the zone were viewed as at variance with the common will of their regional neighbors. The existence of the partial zone emphasized a common goal shared by most Latin Americans, and a shared presumption that, in the course of time, the zone would include all nations. In the Middle East, WMD already exist, and current political conditions limit prospects for participation of all nations in a weapon-free-zone.
Yet, the Latin American experience suggests that there is value in negotiating a partial zone as a step toward regional stabilization and eventual achievement of a region-wide agreement. A partial zone is a prudent long-term investment because it may help shape the future regional norm.
The Latin American NWFZ treaty includes certain innovative entry-into-force procedures which could be useful in the Middle East. Fashioned as an act of political expediency, the procedure, under Article 28, Paragraph 2, allowed Latin American nations to waive certain requirements and allow the treaty to come into immediate force for their territory. The features that could be waived included the completion of IAEA safeguards by all Latin American nations, and conclusion of supporting protocols by nuclear weapon states and non-regional nations with territorial interests in the area covered by the zone.
This procedure also allowed those Latin American nations that chose, at the time, not to become full parties, to still retain an organic link to the treaty. This was accomplished by making a legal distinction between “Contracting Parties,” that is, full parties, or those nations which had signed and ratified, but waived the aforementioned provision of Article 28, thereby allowing the treaty to come into force for their territory, and “Signatories,” that is those nations which had signed and ratified, but not waived the Article 28 provision and, for which, the treaty was not yet in force. Signatories, such as Brazil and Chile, therefore retained a legal mechanism by which to influence the conduct of the treaty, as defined in Article 6, while final authority remained with the full, Contracting Parties.
The possible future relevance to the Middle East is that it suggests means by which nations not yet prepared to become full parties to a regional agreement could, nonetheless, have a legal relationship to a partial zone. Under the Tlatelolco model, Signatories had very limited influence, such as the right to call a meeting of all Parties and Signatories to discuss issues relevant to the agreement. But even this limited role provides Signatories with both a voice within the zone, and a concurrent obligation to take no actions contrary to the objectives of the agreement. Such a phased, or two-tiered, relationship could provide a means of linking all Middle East nations both to an agreement for a partial zone in the short-term, and to a long-term process for completing a region-wide NWFZ.
The Tlatelolco Treaty helped set the political context for nuclear rapprochement between Latin America’s two leading nations, Argentina and Brazil. The Tlatelolco Treaty negotiations in the mid-1960s encouraged the two nations for the first time to begin to discuss and develop common positions on sensitive nuclear issues. For many years following completion of the negotiations, these common positions were limited to shared opposition to a perceived unequal and discriminatory nonproliferation regime, especially as regards the NPT and the so-called Nuclear Suppliers Group. However, over a number of years, these common positions evolved into regional nuclear confidence-building measures and finally into the establishment of the bilateral accounting and inspection regime (ABACC), acceptance of full-scope IAEA safeguards, and full membership in an amended Tlatelolco Treaty. Evolution of bilateral nuclear cooperation in turn encouraged economic, military, scientific, and political cooperation.
As noted earlier, both nations chose not to become full Tlatelolco Treaty parties for over 25 years following the completion of the negotiations in 1967. However, during that period, the Tlatelolco goal of a region totally free of nuclear weapons resulted in a pledge by both Argentina and Brazil to take no actions contrary to the objectives of the treaty. In promising to respect the goals of the agreement, the two rivals were also sending an important bilateral confidence building message to each other: that their competition should not extend to nuclear weapons development. The simple, but profound, lesson of this Latin American experience is that establishment of even a partial NWFZ can help mitigate historic rivalries between competitors, reduce bilateral tension, and promote mutual confidence and trust. Without the pre-existing Tlatelolco regime, nuclear competition between Argentina and Brazil might have taken a very different and tragic path, resulting in the destabilization of the entire South American region.
At this point I turn to the third part of my presentation: the extraordinary and precedent-setting bilateral verification and inspection agreement established by Argentina and Brazil. The term “rapprochement” is often used to describe the current relationship between the two nations, particularly on nuclear issues. It refers both to their bilateral relations and to their gradual integration into the nonproliferation regime. Nuclear rapprochement was not, however, pre-destined or inevitable. Historically the two nations were political, military, and economic rivals for leadership in South America. While experiencing no direct, bilateral armed conflict since the 1820s, the rivalry nonetheless had a distinct nuclear dimension with the potential to assume a military dimension. Both nations had developed, independently, the nuclear fuel cycle, and possessed nuclear facilities not subject to regional or multilateral safeguards.
Assertive nuclear programs were accompanied by a nuclear theology grounded in opposition to the nuclear non-proliferation regime. As already noted, both nations rejected the NPT, full-scope IAEA safeguards, the Nuclear Suppliers Group, and were not full parties to the NWFZ. Both expressed active interest in so-called peaceful nuclear explosives (PNEs), and were involved in questionable nuclear export activities, including exports to nations in the Middle East. In the case of Argentina, as is well known, there was substantial cooperation with Middle East countries to jointly develop the Condor II missile.
While the aforementioned information is a matter of public record and is not controversial, there are differing interpretations as to whether either or both nations had clearly defined intentions to develop nuclear weapons. My personal view is that most Argentine officials, both military and civilian, that were involved in the nuclear program did not favor nuclear weapons development, although, as noted earlier, there was interest in PNEs. There was an appreciation, at the highest levels, that development of nuclear weapons might ultimately impede the civil nuclear program due to the inevitable strong reaction of foreign nations. There was also concern that it would stimulate a nuclear arms race with Brazil, a race Argentina would ultimately lose owing to Brazil’s superior resources.
The extent of Brazilian engagement in nuclear weapons development in the late 1970s and early 1980s remains unclear, and a matter of continued speculation and controversy. Like Argentina, Brazil possessed several unsafeguarded, sensitive nuclear fuel cycle facilities. Unlike Argentina, Brazilian military authorities had established a semi-secret “parallel” program, one facet of which included a shaft in the north central region, apparently for nuclear testing. My own interpretation is that some elements within the military in the early 1980s intended to develop and test a nuclear explosive device, but there was no consensus on this point within the military-dominated government. Moreover, there were other reasons why the military was interested in development of indigenous nuclear technology, namely nuclear-propelled submarines.
Despite the clear potential for military development, nuclear competition between Argentina and Brazil evolved into nuclear cooperation. The reasons why this occurred are complex, and in most ways unique to the Latin American situation. There are, however, aspects of this process with possible implications for other regions, including the Middle East. As mentioned previously, the existence of the partial Latin American NWFZ, and the commitment by Argentina and Brazil not to undercut its objectives, was a important factor.
In addition, beginning in the late 1970s, some limited technical and scientific contacts between the Argentine and Brazilian nuclear energy programs began. Following resolution of certain energy and water related problems in the Rio de la Plata area in 1979, the two nations signed a 1980 agreement for nuclear fuel cycle cooperation. This agreement was achieved on the occasion of a visit by the Brazilian president, General Figuerido, the first such head-of-state visit in a generation. Parenthetically, General Figuerido had previously lived in Argentina for a number of years, and had a cultural affinity for that nation, which many in the Brazilian leadership lacked.
It is significant that these, and earlier, confidence-building steps were undertaken during periods of military, non-representative, government in both nations. This illustrates that progress toward nuclear restraint can occur with non-democratic governments; military dominated governments can, and do, have objective reasons for supporting such efforts.
Nonetheless, the return to democratic government in Argentina and Brazil accelerated and deepened the nuclear rapprochement. Under democratic governments from the mid-1980s on, economic and trade issues assumed greater importance. For the first time in their 150 year history, real progress began toward a Southern Cone free trade area, and political cooperation became possible for the two historic rivals.
In the late 1980s, the civilian presidents initiated a series of reciprocal visits to indigenous unsafeguarded nuclear installations. These were not formal inspections per se, but as invited visits they had enormous symbolism as confidence-building measures. Other confidence- building measures adopted by the two nations in the late 1980s included the voluntary mutual advance notification of significant nuclear activities, such as opening a new enrichment plant; systematic technical exchanges between nuclear energy commissions; and the creation of a Standing Joint Nuclear Policy Committee, composed of representatives of foreign ministry and nuclear energy commission personnel. The Standing Joint Nuclear Policy Committee was designed to consider a wide variety of technical, economic, and political issues pertaining to nuclear cooperation. It was, in part, from the work of this Standing Committee that ABACC eventually evolved. This Argentine-Brazilian nuclear rapprochement experience underscores the importance role of certain procedural and confidence building measures in building closer relations over time.
As Marco Marzo will discuss in more detail, the bilateral verification and inspection regime entered into force in December 1991. The regime was formally linked to the IAEA through the Quadripartite Agreement in March 1994.
Let me conclude with several observations:
First, the bilateral nuclear arms control arrangement was successfully undertaken in the context of overall improving economic, political and military relations between the two nations. But the lesson of this experience is not to suggest that nuclear arrangements must await the resolution of all outstanding political issues.
Quite the contrary. The Argentine and Brazilian political leadership throughout the 1980s, both civilian and military, used bilateral progress on nuclear issues as a catalyst to stimulate and reinforce cooperation in other areas. This suggests that enlightened leadership can utilize both the sensitivity and the symbolism of nuclear issues to help prod and pace cooperation in other political and economic areas.
Second, key domestic elements in both Argentina and Brazil contributed to this nuclear rapprochement, particularly the foreign and finance ministries, the military, and the scientific communities. As one might expect, the foreign ministries in both countries were highly sensitive to the diplomatic costs of staying outside the international nonproliferation regime. They also realized the potential tragic costs, better than most, of a bilateral nuclear arms race.
The foreign ministries worked hard with their allies in the Argentine and Brazilian congresses to convince some in the military that nuclear cooperation was desirable. In Argentina, the foreign ministry had a particular advantage in this regard, because the Argentine military had been discredited by the Falklands/Malvinas War. In arguing for change in nuclear policy, the Argentine Foreign Ministry was in fact arguing for the end of Argentina’s political isolation. The Brazilian Foreign Ministry was motivated to shift Brazil’s nuclear policy as part of a larger foreign policy objective—that is, to achieve greater global stature and leadership for Brazil, including a permanent membership on the U.N. Security Council.
The finance ministries and business interests in both countries also were strong advocates for a change in nuclear policy. Greater cooperation would remove an impediment to foreign investment and trade. As the two countries moved towards democratic governments, there was a commitment to open previously closed and inefficient markets to foreign investment. Access to advanced western technology was viewed as essential to the modernization process, and change in the nuclear policy was essential to facilitate that objective for both nations.
The military in both nations generally supported a change in nuclear policy, owing to their concern that a military nuclear program would siphon resources away from other priorities. Both the Argentine and Brazilian military increasingly viewed the idea of nuclear competition as illogical. Indeed, there has been a fascinating evolution of military cooperation between the two countries in recent years. The Falklands/Malvinas War, in a very interesting way, encouraged the Argentine and Brazilian militaries to cooperate by demonstrating that both nations were vulnerable to external powers in the South Atlantic, where both countries shared geopolitical interests. The inability of the inter-American security system to provide support for Argentina in the war also reinforced the need for both countries to cooperate militarily. Their mutual vulnerability was a key lesson of the Falklands/Malvinas War.
Scientists, both in and out of the governments in both countries, also played a particularly important role in bringing about greater cooperation. In both nations, nuclear physicists and their professional societies promoted public discussions of the need for regional and multilateral nuclear arms control. These individuals and organizations were key lobbying elements before the Argentine and Brazilian congresses and presidents. On an official level, scientific exchanges between the nuclear energy commissions in the two nations contributed to mutual understanding, collegial respect and familiarity with each other’s nuclear programs. The opportunity to exchange views, work on common research projects, safeguard technologies and so forth, was a very important, if subtle, confidence building process. These scientists also came to realize that terminating nuclear programs with military potential would also help assure access to needed technology from countries with more advanced nuclear programs.
Finally, the Argentine-Brazilian arrangement suggests certain distinct advantages that bilateral or regional machinery may have relative to multilateral machinery. In particular, the ABACC system was crafted to meet the needs of the effected countries. As such, it was much more politically acceptable than the multilateral system, which is often perceived as being imposed by more powerful, non-regional nations. This suggests that the bilateral model may be more suitable to certain regional situations, where one or more parties distrusts the multilateral non-proliferation regime and resists full-scope IAEA safeguards. In the Argentine-Brazilian model, the bilateral machinery, ABACC, assumes the principal responsibility for the administration of nuclear safeguards and inspections. The IAEA is directly involved and has certain, carefully defined prerogatives, including the right to conduct special inspections. But the relationship between ABACC and the IAEA is still evolving and will continue to change over time.
The advantages of the ABACC system, which may have relevance to other areas such as the Middle East, include the rapidity of the process by which inspection results go directly to the governments through ABACC’s Commission rather than filtered through the more circumspect IAEA reporting procedures. The greater efficiency and effectiveness of the bilateral system, in turn, contributes to more manageable and cost-effective safeguards. The higher motivation of ABACC inspectors relative to IAEA inspectors, owing to the fact that ABACC inspectors are from the immediate region rather than from around the world, is another distinct advantage of the bilateral system. ABACC inspectors are also better trained than IAEA inspectors. Moreover, these inspectors are drawn from their respective nuclear energy commissions and facilities, and possess familiarity and mutual rapport with their colleagues that derive from years of technical exchanges and cooperation.
In conclusion, I believe that both the bilateral/ABACC and the regional/Tlatelolco models contain a number of concepts that may be adopted to the profoundly difficult objective of achieving peace and security in the Middle East. On the bilateral level between Argentina and Brazil, there were certain processes of particular importance, notably: the reciprocal visits by the heads of state to nuclear facilities; the advanced notification of significant nuclear activities; the gradual development of scientific cooperation, including systematic technical exchanges between the nuclear energy commissions; and the creation of a Standing Joint Committee on Nuclear Policy, which ultimately evolved into the bilateral nuclear verification and inspection machinery that is in force today.
On the regional level, the preexistence of a region-wide NWFZ was of considerable importance to the Argentine-Brazilian nuclear rapprochement. The Tlatelolco Treaty was both a confidence building measure and a regional framework in which a dynamic and innovative bilateral inspection and verification regime could develop and flourish.
I hope that the experience and success of Latin America, with its own unique set of circumstances and conditions, may be useful to governments in the Middle East as they look to a more peaceful and productive future in the region. Thank you very much.
Questions and Discussion
Aly Sadek: Thank you very much for your presentation, Dr. Redick. I would now open the floor to questions so that we may begin to discuss the issues that you’ve raised.
Seminar Participant: What were the political motivations of Argentina and Brazil at the different stages of the rapprochement? While your presentation gave an overall view, it is not an a priori analysis. I would like to know whether the nonproliferation community in the United States expected beforehand that Argentina and Brazil would take such a step.
John Redick: That’s an excellent question. In my opinion, the U.S. nonproliferation authorities were highly skeptical for many years about Argentina’s and Brazil’s motivations as they developed their rapprochement. Some even suggested that Argentina and Brazil were cooperating with each other in order to get around international safeguards and to avoid being incorporated into the nonproliferation regime.
I disagreed with this conventional wisdom. Based on my research, I believed that most leaders in both Argentina and Brazil never desired to develop nuclear weapons. A few military elements, particularly in Brazil, were interested in developing so-called PNEs and undertook measures to do so. The objective of most of the leadership in both countries was to fully master the nuclear fuel cycle for purposes of national development, and to implement a vigorous and independent nuclear program.
This being said, I believe that it is also true that neither country had a clear view as to where the rapprochement was going, especially in its earliest or even middle stages. They initially intended to develop a bilateral process where they could mute their nuclear competition and resist the multilateral nonproliferation regime, which they both viewed as discriminatory. Based on my interviews with high-level officials, in as late as 1988 most leaders in both countries did not expect their nation to adopt full-scope IAEA safeguards or to integrate into the global nonproliferation regime. For a variety of interesting reasons that situation evolved, but it was not the intended objective at the beginning of the process.
David Albright: I would like to add one thing on this point. It’s unfortunate that Ambassador Carasales could not be here at this seminar because he had planned to address this issue.
I would say that people in Argentina and Brazil were genuinely surprised about how the rapprochement developed. There was nothing inevitable about this process. From my own experience—during the 1980s when I worked with the Brazilian Physics Society—there was genuine surprise at the pace of change.
But there were also periods of frustration. For example, after Alfons¡n became President of Argentina, he wanted things to move quickly. He energized the foreign ministry to take control of the nuclear project and to find a solution to this problem with Brazil. But the Brazilian military stopped him cold. Alfons¡n had to retreat from an ambitious program to obtain mutual inspections, settling instead for mutual visits. As a result of the Brazilian military’s opposition, I think there was a great deal of frustration in the Argentine foreign ministry between 1985 and 1987. This shows how dynamic this process was. It was not ordained to be a success.
John Redick: I agree.
Marco Marzo, Brazilian-Argentine Agency for Accounting and Control of Nuclear Materials (ABACC): I would like to add that the nuclear relationship cannot be considered in isolation from the broader political and economic context. The rapprochement between Brazil and Argentina was in several other areas besides the nuclear area.
As you know, in the mid-1980s both countries, plus Uruguay and Paraguay, created a common market in South America. For this effort to be implemented, it was important to have nuclear cooperation, or at least greater trust and confidence. If you have suspicions about your neighbor, then you can not have economic cooperation with your neighbor. I think this was very important. There are a lot of internal and external political reasons that affected the rapprochement.
Seminar Participant: Was the level of nuclear development between the two countries symmetric or asymmetric? If it was symmetric, then this a reverse application of the balance of terror that exists between the nuclear weapon states. If the relationship was asymmetrical, then it needs a different interpretation.
John Redick: The programs were comparably advanced, but different in scope. Argentina introduced nuclear power a decade before Brazil and emphasized natural uranium technology in contrast to the latter’s utilization of low-enriched uranium. There was symmetry in terms of their knowledge-base on sensitive nuclear technology in that both nations developed indigenous enrichment facilities at approximately the same time, albeit of a different type. Argentina developed gaseous diffusion technology, whereas Brazil focussed on centrifuge technology. Both Argentina and Brazil developed, and subsequently closed, reprocessing facilities.
Marco Marzo: I think it is very difficult to describe the situation ten years ago as being symmetric. Basically, today Brazil has a more developed enrichment program than Argentina. But ten years ago, when we started that program, Argentina had much more experience in reprocessing. I would say that now there is more or less some symmetry.
Seminar Participant: I think Dr. Redick gave a very bright expos‚ about how the Latin American NWFZ came to being and about the Argentine-Brazilian nuclear rapprochement. He also discussed very interesting elements in the realm of security and confidence building measures between Argentina and Brazil.
How would you envisage the development of these elements to match the situation in the Middle East? That is, how would you convince Israel that negotiating and entering into Middle East NWFZ is in its best interests? What are some of the bilateral measures that Egypt and Israel could carry out?
John Redick: I should frame my answer with the caveat that I am not a Middle East expert. The Latin American experience suggests that reciprocal heads of state to nuclear installations were of enormous symbolic importance. These visits were not formal inspections, but they contributed to a process which resulted in a bilateral inspection agreement. It occurs to me that something analogous to this could be very important to building confidence in the Middle East. When these visits occurred in Argentina and Brazil, they were very much in the headlines of both countries, and they stimulated a positive feeling of mutual trust. Beyond that, the Argentine-Brazilian nuclear experience suggests the importance of quiet contacts and state- to-state courtesy. For example, it became the practice that if one country was going to do something in the nuclear area that it thought might cause concern, that country would privately inform the other before the activity became public knowledge. These notifications were carried out at the highest levels, and, consequently, encouraged confidence that resonated throughout the respective governments. In addition, I talked earlier about the importance of technical/scientific exchanges between the nuclear energy commissions. These are some of the measures which contributed to the Argentine-Brazilian nuclear rapprochement and might, under certain circumstances, be useful in the Middle East.
David Albright: I’d like to add a few things. I’m also not a Middle East expert, but I do have some experience studying the nuclear programs in the region. The message that I’ve heard from Israelis and also from some Americans is—don’t demand too much. In a sense, Argentina demanded a lot from Brazil in 1985 and was rebuffed. Then they had to settle for small measures. In the Middle East, it has been my experience that one party’s “small measure” often does not seem so small to another party. So it is very difficult to find things that don’t prompt a negative reaction.
The opening of the new Egyptian reactor offers an opportunity for technical visits between Israel and Egypt. It could be a starting point that could promote technical exchanges. I don’t think the political leadership should get involved in such a step. But a technical visit seems possible to do.
Another thing that I think would help is if the level of rhetoric between Israel and Egypt was reduced, particularly over suspected nuclear accidents, charges of nuclear testing, and the like. Reducing the level of rhetoric could make cooperation and technical discussions a little easier. This way, neither country is put in the position of defending some activity that is innocuous or that may not even have occurred. Not jumping on a “highly critical bandwagon” would help to promote some cooperation.
In my career, I’ve worked with and for organizations that have tried to limit the activities of the U.S. nuclear weapons production complex. In the mid-1980s, we were very worried that the United States was embarking on a process that could have lead to a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. To create a political movement that would actually go the other way, we had to start very small. I think you are now seeing the fruits of that labor in the United States, where after at least a decade of very hard work to slow down nuclear weapons production—to stop fissile materials production, to end nuclear testing, to stop the production of new nuclear weapons—you are now seeing a genuine movement within the government for nuclear disarmament. It’s unprecedented in U.S. history. It’s a small movement. Its very difficult for it to make progress, but it is nevertheless being articulated now for the very first time—that nuclear disarmament is a possible endpoint in negotiations with Russia and the rest of the world.
This experience suggests the need to be patient and committed. In this context, one should be sensitive as to how criticisms of nuclear establishments bring about defensive reactions. So in the Middle East, there are small steps that could be taken that would improve the atmosphere or the climate.
Amb. Mahmoud Karem, Ministry of Foreign Affairs: May I, Mr. Chairman, at the outset express some personal sentiments? I’m extremely happy and pleased to see David Albright in Egypt. The embryonic discussion that we had less than a year ago in New York about this seminar has become a reality, as we see here today. I would like to congratulate David for pursuing this idea through to its fruition. May I also express my personal sentiments to you, Mr. Chairman and for your esteemed and august center for convening this very important session. I hope that there will be many lessons to learn as we proceed through the day.
I listened with great interest to the statement made by Dr. Redick, and would like to thank him for some very thought provoking ideas. I have some general comments regarding what he said.
Basically, I agree with him that the Tlatelolco regime did not proceed smoothly and faced challenges from the time it started. But I am particularly grateful to him for the point he made that the “kickoff,” if you will, of the whole idea of a NWFZ came from a declaration on the denuclearization of Africa, which was adopted by a summit of the Organization of African Unity in Cairo in 1964. It is interesting to note the spill-over effect of that idea on other regions of the world. In Africa, the Cairo declaration was launched in 1964, but was not finalized until 1996 on the 11th of April, so it took us much longer than Latin America to see the fruition of that idea.
There are salient challenges to the regime in Latin America, and I would like to note some of those myself.
First, there was Guantanamo.
Second, the regime was launched as the very first NWFZ in a densely populated area. This challenge really made a difference, because what had happened previously were treaties which only established zones, or prohibited the emplacement of nuclear weapons, in unpopulated areas like the seabed or Antarctica.
The third challenge was the relationship to the NPT, and that again was a very difficult relationship. Two countries in the region chose to withhold their full accession to the NPT.
The fourth challenge was the role of the military, and it is interesting to see how, as time went by, the military’s nuclear aspirations turned peaceful. That is very interesting.
But now we have a general recognition of the concept and legitimacy of NWFZs. Brazil has introduced a resolution in the U.N. General Assembly on the establishment of a NWFZ in the southern hemisphere in its entirety. That has only become possible following the establishment of an African NWFZ, through the Rarotonga Treaty, and hopefully a NWFZ in Southeast Asia.
There are facilitative factors that made it easier to establish the Tlatelolco Treaty. Parity, for example, between Argentina and Brazil, is very interesting.
Mention has been made to Ambassador J£lio Carasales, whom I happen to know quite well. I’ve worked with him on projects before. But one of the hats that Ambassador Carasales wore in bridging the gap between Argentina and Brazil was really not nuclear. Rather, the Ambassador presided over a river authority between several countries.
Latin America is a homogenous continent. The countries speak the same language, they have similar cultures. This factor became very visible, for example, when OPANAL was established. It became possible, because of what I have just mentioned, to run OPANAL smoothly and to have people from different parts of the continent sit together.
In contrast to the Middle East, Latin America lacks the presence of a multidimensional conflict, one that is historical, cultural, political, territorial and sometimes religious in nature. This conflict has exploded in the face of all those who are dealing with the issue of establishing a NWFZ and a weapons of mass destruction free zone (WMDFZ) in the Middle East.
I am particularly interested in what Dr. Redick said about the concept of a partial NWFZ. We need to emulate examples from Latin America and custom tailor them to see how they can best serve the Middle East. But I must warn you: if we custom tailor and emulate examples in the field of confidence building measures, and ignore structural arms control, I think we will be missing a golden opportunity.
Conducting bilateral visits to reactors is all well and good, but Egypt can easily get information on Nahel Soreq, which is fully safeguarded by the IAEA. Nahel Soreq is not the problem. The problem is Dimona.
There is a structural difference between the technical visits that happened in Latin America and what you are proposing for the Middle East. The technical visits in Latin America were between leaders and occurred at unsafeguarded facilities. Emulating that in the Middle East would not be possible, because I believe such visits would only be at safeguarded facilities.
But I would be very interested to learn more about your interpretation of the partial zone concept. I think this is a very good concept. In the League of Arab States, for example, they are conducting a similar project on establishing a WMDFZ. That effort has had difficulty in addressing many questions, such as the definition of the zone. Should we begin with core countries and expand to the periphery? What is the geographic definition of the zone?
Basically—again this is building on what a previous seminar participant mentioned—what is the value of establishing a NWFZ in the region between members who have no military nuclear activities, who have all signed full-scope safeguards agreements with the IAEA, and who are all parties of the NPT—without the presence of Israel? That is a very serious challenge, but again, if I am to say anything, I am very much interested in the elaboration of this concept of a partial zone.
John Redick: Thank you. That was a masterful discussion of the OPANAL/Tlatelolco system. I doubt that I can add constructively to your excellent comments except to observe that the Latin American NWFZ had value to Latin American nations, many of which lacked a nuclear infrastructure or an interest in nuclear weapons. As you know, there are natural rivalries in South America which could have been fueled by nuclear developments. In addition to Argentina and Brazil, there is an Argentine-Chilean rivalry, a Chilean-Peruvian rivalry, and many others. Because of Tlatelolco, the legal mechanisms preceded the development of nuclear infrastructures and therefore muted the competition.
The Middle East is a very different, more complex and infinitely dangerous situation. The relevance of the Latin American experience is limited, but there are some ideas and general concepts that may prove useful in the Middle East at the appropriate point. One such concept is the development of a bilateral nuclear verification regime, similar to ABACC, and its relationship to the existing multilateral nonproliferation regime. Marco Marzo will discuss how this dynamic process is developing.
As regards the partial nuclear-weapon-free concept, in Latin America it established a framework into which Argentina, Brazil and Chile became integrated at a much later point. The partial zone had real value for those nations which were Contracting Parties, and relevance for Signatories which were, nonetheless, linked to the treaty. It suggests a conceivable means by which Israel could be engaged in a long-term process of integration into a regional nuclear verification arrangement. In other words, there may be a point in the on-going Middle East situation where the idea of a partial zone—including parties linked to, but not yet full parties to, the zone—may have relevance. It is a concept which I believe is worth serious study be regional experts and leaders.
David Albright: John, I’d like to ask a follow-up question. The Tlatelolco signatories had constraints on them, and therefore Argentina and Brazil had a tough time talking about nuclear weapons. I personally believe that parts of the military did want nuclear weapons, particularly the army in Brazil. But Tlatelolco constrained the two countries by allowing them to only have PNEs.
In the Middle East, what types of constraints might be placed on Israel? Could a partial zone constrain Israel from expanding its nuclear arsenal? Would it mean that they’d have to accept that a NWFZ is an inevitability for the region—would that be implicit?
John Redick: In my view, there could be such constraints. If a partial zone were negotiated in the Middle East, Israel might be engaged as a Signatory, analogous to the relationship that certain Latin American non-parties had for many years regarding Tlatelolco. That is, there was a commitment on their part to become, at an appropriate point, a full party to the treaty, and in the interim to take no additional actions contrary to the treaty’s objectives. Moreover, such nations had a legal relationship to the treaty and, as Signatories, certain, limited opportunities to affect the operation of the treaty. Something analogous could be explored in the Middle East.
Let me close with an important point: While the Tlatelolco negotiators knew they wished to accomplish a region-wide NWFZ, they were also aware that it would prove a complex and difficult process. Along the way the process took some interesting twists, but through perseverance and creative diplomacy, they reached their objectives. The road is much more difficult in the Middle East, and the stakes are higher, but the effort is very worthwhile.
Seminar Participant: Thank you for your presentation, Dr. Redick. I have some questions that I would like for you to discuss.
First, the gradual rapprochement that took place did not prevent Brazil from undertaking all measures to prepare for a nuclear test. Though you’ve called it a “peaceful nuclear explosive,” there is no difference between a PNE and a nuclear weapon. It seems that it was not until after these preparations were discovered that things changed dramatically. So, my first question is whether this was a critical issue that led to the ABACC arrangements and if the United States played a role in this undertaking.
Second, with all of its historical developments and all of these arrangements, why has Brazil still not joined the NPT?
Third, what does ABACC provide, in terms of safeguards and inspections, that the IAEA can not provide? Thank you.
John Redick: The United States played a supportive role in the process between Argentina and Brazil in developing ABACC. But the process, as David Albright said, unfolded very quickly and I think it was a considerable surprise to the United States. Since ABACC has come into being, I believe that the United States has been highly supportive. The U.S. Department of Energy is working very closely in a variety of ways with ABACC, as are agencies of other governments.
Regarding the second question, Brazilian President Cardozo has asked the Brazilian legislature to approve the NPT, and the issue is now before the Brazilian Congress. I suspect that any formal action will be delayed until after the presidential election in 1998, but perhaps not.
In my opinion, there is no logical reason why Brazil would not ratify the NPT, since it has already effectively accepted full-scope IAEA safeguards. There may be political reasons that make joining the NPT difficult. Part of it is a holdover from Brazil’s adamant opposition to the NPT for many years.
The third question was of particular interest to me: what does ABACC give that the IAEA arrangement does not? I think there are many ways to answer that, but the most important way for me, as a student of Argentine and Brazilian politics, is that ABACC gave the Brazilian leadership the way to do something that it wanted to do. They wanted, ultimately, to become part of the nonproliferation regime, but to join the NPT would have been politically disastrous a few years ago. So ABACC gave them another way of forming a good relationship with Argentina, muting the competition between the two countries, and ultimately linking ABACC to the IAEA. This route, in effect, accomplished the results that would have been extremely difficult politically if they tried to enter the NPT directly.
Marco Marzo: From the formal, legal point of view, ABACC and the IAEA have the same rights and obligations. But, there are important differences, since the ABACC system is a regional safeguards system and the IAEA maintains an international safeguards system.
For example, the IAEA is constrained by universal criteria when applying safeguards. The IAEA has to apply the same safeguards at fuel fabrication plants in Spain as they apply in fuel fabrication plants in Brazil or anywhere else. ABACC, as a regional organization, is less constrained by universal criteria.
ABACC can also apply more restrictive safeguards. For example, the IAEA’s safeguards criteria for enrichment plants is to detect the diversion of 75 kilograms of 235U. ABACC has established a detection limit of 30 kilograms—less than half of the IAEA criteria. We can apply this lower level, but if the IAEA established lower limits it would provoke a very difficult discussion in the Board of Governors and the General Conference.
Also, the inspectorate of ABACC is chosen from the best experts from the two countries. The IAEA has a permanent inspectorate.
But I think the most important difference is the informal channel of communication. If there is a suspicion, ABACC can directly ask the inspected party about it. We can ask for access to the facility, to the building, maybe in a formal or an informal way, and we get access. In the case of the IAEA this is very difficult. The IAEA is trying to implement provisions allowing greater access as part of its program to strengthen safeguards. But with the bilateral relationship, such communications are much more direct.
Aly Sadek: Thank you Dr. Redick for your presentation and thank you all for the discussions that followed.
Origin and Role of Argentina’s and Brazil’s Nuclear Programs, and the Role of the Military and Non-Governmental Scientists in Changing the Climate on Nuclear Development
Fawzy Hammad, NCMES: Good morning ladies and gentlemen. It gives me great pleasure to share this session with our speakers. At least for me, this is a very important day, because having first-hand information on what has taken place in Latin America, and the pioneering experience of ABACC, is of great importance to us here.
We have here two distinguished speakers. Dr. Marco Marzo, the Senior Planning and Evaluation Officer from ABACC and Mr. David Albright, whom you all know. Dr. Marzo, please.
Marco Marzo: Thank you Dr. Hammad. I have been asked to talk about the evolution of Argentina’s and Brazil’s nuclear programs, and how relations developed between the two countries in the nuclear field. As I do this, I would like to share with you my own perspective as a nuclear scientist who was involved in Brazil’s nuclear energy program and as a participant in the exchanges, events and negotiations that led to the Bilateral and Quadripartite agreements.
The cooperation between Argentina and Brazil can not be viewed in isolation. From the beginning of the rapprochement in the early 1980s, both countries had broad international problems. The Brazilian economy was very bad, and suffered a crisis in 1982. In Argentina, the main problem was the Falklands/Malvinas War with the United Kingdom. The difficulty in implementing the 1980 agreement on peaceful uses of nuclear energy therefore can not be viewed in isolation.
The way in which Argentina and Brazil came together in the nuclear field is astounding. From my own personal point of view, if you said to me at that time, in 1984 or 1985, that there would be a rapprochement between Argentina and Brazil, that the Bilateral Agreement would be signed in 10 years, I would have said that you were crazy. Because from my perspective, the situation was the following: as the Director of the Safeguards Division in Brazil at the time, I never had met any of my counterparts in Argentina. Occasionally, there would be encounters at international symposia, but these encounters never went beyond formalities. I was not well informed about nuclear developments in Argentina, and they were not well informed about developments in Brazil.
The civil governments, beginning in 1983 in Argentina under President Alfons¡n, and in 1984 in Brazil under President Sarney—the first civilian presidents in 25 years—started this rapprochement. The first steps were very small steps. The rapprochement did not start with visits to secret enrichment plants. We started with small working groups in various areas, such as radiological protection, physical protection, the development of research reactors, and for the development of specialized materials, such as zircalloy, heavy water and special steels. At the beginning we never discussed secret facilities, enrichment, or reprocessing.
The two new civilian governments at the time were under public pressure to improve nuclear safety. In 1986 the Chernobyl accident had a large impact in both countries on public opinion. In 1987 there was a very lamentable radiological accident in Brazil where several people died. These events led the two governments to try to gain more control over their nuclear programs.
In addition, in Brazil, many nuclear activities were (and are) controlled by different branches of the military. For instance, centrifuge enrichment development was carried out by the Navy, in cooperation with the Nuclear Energy Commission. The objective of this program was to produce naval propulsion fuel for submarines. The Air Force was developing laser enrichment technologies. And the Army was at the time developing a research reactor and a small power reactor.
This was not a unique situation in Brazil, where the military participated in many of the country’s developments. For instance, the military played an important role in Brazil’s communications and computers developments. This is part of Brazil’s political culture, and helps explain why it was not easy to put safeguards on military facilities.
In 1987, Argentina and Brazil began to exchange visits at really important unsafeguarded facilities. I was fortunate enough to participate in the first visit of the Brazilian delegation to the Argentine diffusion enrichment plant. At the time, the Brazilian delegation was skeptical about the visit. Our president had visited the facility one week before our visit, and we thought that our delegation was really just for protocol. We did not think there would be anything important about this visit from the technical point of view.
To our surprise, when we went to the facility, we asked a lot of questions and the Argentines answered all of them. We visited the whole facility. They showed us more than plans. We could see at that time the factory where the diffusion barriers were manufactured. This technology is very secret. This step was very important for confidence building not only between the two countries in general but also among the technical people involved in nuclear activities.
The first delegation that visited this facility included the President of Brazil, the Chairman of the Nuclear Energy Commission, who was also a physicist, myself, at the time the Director of Safeguards, and another Brazilian scientist who was an enrichment expert. After the visit the two governments signed a political declaration for the international community and also for their own domestic populations.
In 1988 the reciprocal visit took place, when an Argentine delegation visited the Aramar centrifuge plant in Iper¢,—a very modern centrifuge plant. At that time the centrifuge machines were not concealed from the visitors. This is very important: the Quadripartite Agreement gives each country the right to protect technological secrets, and the centrifuges are now covered during inspections. But in 1988 the machines were uncovered. The Argentines visited the facility and they asked many questions. This was also a very important confidence building measure.
In the beginning of the 1990s, a technical group was convened by the two governments to prepare a common system for nuclear material controls. What do I mean by a “common system?” At that time, Brazil and Argentina had their own national safeguards systems. But the two systems were different; they had different rules, different norms. This technical group sought to homogenize the two systems. The object was to be for facility operators and the national authorities to have the same rights and obligations in both countries.
I want to emphasize how limited the objective of the technical group when it was created. This group was not trying to create a formal, mutual inspection regime.
All of this changed at the end of November 1990 when the two governments issued the Declaration of Foz de Iguaz£. In this declaration the two governments pledged to establish for the first time a mutual inspection regime, based on a common control system. Under this regime, the Brazilian nuclear energy commission would inspect facilities in Argentina, and the Argentine nuclear energy commission would inspect Brazilian nuclear energy facilities.
The Foz de Iguaz£ declaration also pledged that the two countries would begin negotiations with the IAEA on an international, full-scope safeguards agreement. At that time, we thought that this agreement would take two or three years to negotiate. To our surprise, the negotiations were concluded very quickly. In July 1991, the Bilateral Agreement was signed. It entered into force in December of that year. Also in December, the Quadripartite Agreement was signed. We negotiated this international, full-scope safeguards agreement with the IAEA in less than one year. It happened very, very quickly.
Because they were negotiating an agreement with the IAEA, the two countries decided to establish an independent agency to apply the common system. They created ABACC as this independent, international organization. But the principle of reciprocal controls remained the same, even though an independent agency was established. It is a system of neighbors watching neighbors.
I want to emphasize that the Bilateral Agreement entered into force only 6 months after it was signed. Both the Argentine and Brazilian congresses approved the agreement in less than six months. If you knew these two congresses as well as I do, then you would be surprised how quickly they acted. Normally, the Brazilian Congress would take two years or more to approve any agreement. It was very quick.
The Bilateral Agreement was quickly ratified because there was a consensus in the two countries to sign such an agreement. If you look at the Quadripartite Agreement, this took longer—the Agreement was signed in December 1991 but did not enter into force until March 1994. It took longer because the international agreement faced greater resistance, mainly in Brazil. The Bilateral Agreement was clearly easier.
As a consequence of this rapprochement process, in May 1994 the two countries brought into force the Tlatelolco Treaty. This treaty requires full-scope safeguards in order to be implemented. The Quadripartite Agreement is the safeguards agreement for Argentina and Brazil that permits them to be full parties to the Tlatelolco Treaty.
In February 1995, Argentina joined the NPT, and Brazil will do soon. Brazil’s president sent the message to the congress and we are awaiting congressional approval.
I want to point out that the Bilateral Agreement is more restrictive than the NPT in many aspects, especially with regards to the right of inspections and the type of information that the country has to provide. The Bilateral Agreement is implemented by ABACC. Safeguards for the Tlatelolco agreement and the NPT is applied by the IAEA through the Quadripartite Agreement. But the Agency has to take into account and evaluate the safeguards activities of ABACC. That is the link between the Bilateral and Quadripartite Agreements.
To conclude, let me summarize the status of inspecting nuclear facilities in Brazil and Argentina (figure 1). There are 67 material balance areas, or facilities, in the two countries. But there are only a few that are really relevant. There are three enrichment plants, one in Argentina and two in Brazil. The Argentine enrichment plant has not been operational for three years. It is being renovated.
Figure 1: Material Balance Areas Safeguarded by ABACC
| Type | Argentina | Brazil | Total |
| Conversion Plants | 7 | 1 | 8 |
| Enrichment plants | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| Fuel Fabrication Plants | 3 | 1 | 4 |
| Power Reactors | 3 | 1 | 4 |
| Research Reactors | 6 | 3 | 9 |
| Research and Development | 1 | 3 | 4 |
| Critical and Subcritical Units | — | 3 | 3 |
| Deposits | 3 | 2 | 5 |
| LOFs (fuel fabrication) | 3 | 5 | 8 |
| LOFs (research and reprocessing) | — | 1 | 1 |
| LOFs (analysis laboratory) | 3 | 2 | 5 |
| other LOFs | 8 | 6 | 14 |
| TOTAL | 37 | 30 | 67 |
There are two small centrifuge enrichment facilities in Brazil. One is called the isotope enrichment lab, and the other is a pilot plant. The lab has a capacity of less than 5,000 separative work units (SWU). The pilot plant, which went into operation three months ago, will have a capacity of less than 20,000 SWU when it is fully completed.
From the strategic point of view, the enrichment plants are the most important. But from the material inventory point of view, the most important facilities are the commercial power plants. There are two power reactors in Argentina and one in Brazil. The Argentine reactors are old reactors. One is a CANDU, the second one is a heavy water reactor provided by Germany. These reactors are very difficult to control.
In Brazil, the only operating nuclear power plant is a Westinghouse Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR). A second PWR is under construction, and may be finished by the end of 1998.
There are also a lot of research and development facilities. There are research reactors and facilities for fuel fabrication. Some of these facilities were under facility-specific IAEA safeguards before the Bilateral and Quadripartite Agreements came into force. Now all facilities are under ABACC and IAEA safeguards.
LOF is an acronym for “location outside facility.” LOFs are facilities that contain less than one effective kilogram of uranium. LOFs include small storage facilities, university departments, and other such facilities they have small amounts of material. Special controls and safeguards are applied to LOFs.
This afternoon I will talk more about the ABACC system and how it is implemented, so as to give you a complete picture. Thank you.
Fawzy Hammad: Thank you very much Dr. Marzo for this very informative presentation. Now I call upon David Albright to give his talk.
David Albright: Thank you very much. I’d like to describe the role of Brazilian scientists in changing Brazil’s nuclear policy. In particular, I will focus on the scientists in the Brazilian Physics Society and the Brazilian Association for the Progress of Science. I would like to focus on two specific aspects of these scientists’ work.
First, there were direct participants who helped to change the government’s nuclear policy, particularly during the Collor administration. These scientists were insiders, who were called upon by Collor to help him gain control of the parallel nuclear program run by the military. An example of such a scientist is Jose Goldemberg, who was president of Sao Paolo University and had been an advisor to the state government. Goldemberg was Collor’s special advisor on nuclear questions.
The second group, which Goldemberg was part of originally, were scientists who became strong critics of Brazil’s nuclear policy. Their work dates from the mid-1970s, under the military regime, and continued until the early 1990s. One of the biggest impacts these scientists made was to solidify public opinion against nuclear weapons.
Certainly these scientists weren’t acting alone, and I don’t want to give that impression. But they had a very strong influence on public opinion. They also created public support for greater controls on the nuclear establishment. Some were involved in questioning nuclear weapons, some played a role on questions of nuclear safety. They were involved in the public debate over safety following the Goiana radiological accident, which Marco mentioned earlier.
These scientists also helped to introduce the idea of bilateral inspections to the public and the media, and they worked to create strong democratic institutions that could exercise effective oversight on nuclear programs.
The scientists’ role as outside critics started in the mid-1970s as a result of the agreement that was being negotiated between West Germany and Brazil to supply Brazil with a large nuclear power program. This transfer included eight power reactors, a reprocessing plant, an enrichment plant and other important fuel cycle facilities.
The Brazilian scientists reacted very strongly against this plan. Despite the Brazilian dictatorship, these scientists established themselves as credible critics of the government’s nuclear agreement with Germany. In the scientists’ view, the agreement was fundamentally against Brazil’s interests. Instead, the scientists supported an indigenous nuclear power program that could be developed much more slowly, cheaply and efficiently. They were interested particularly in developing Brazil’s scientific infrastructure, and saw the German transfer as draining resources from indigenous scientific development.
How did they get their message out under military rule? One thing about the Brazilian dictatorship is that it respected scientists. I have met scientists from Argentina who fled the Argentine dictatorship and took professorships at Brazilian universities. The Argentine military decimated the universities. Indeed, it’s not well appreciated, but the Argentine Atomic Energy Commission in Argentina became a safe haven for some scientists during the worst periods of repression in Argentina. The Atomic Energy Commission preserved some of Argentina’s non- nuclear scientific expertise during this period.
Brazilian scientists expressed their criticism at the annual meetings of the Brazilian Physics Society and the Association for the Progress of Science. These meetings attracted several thousand participants, who were free to discuss these issues without fear of repression. Some of these early critics included Luis Pingueli Rosa and Jose Goldemberg. At a critical time in the mid-1970s, Goldemberg was president of the Brazilian Physics Society, and Pingueli convinced Goldemberg to take a stand against the West German agreement.
I mention this because this was the way the scientists established their credibility with the Brazilian public. They were seen as being willing to risk punishment to get their message out. They quickly became credible, independent technical voices.
During the 1980s these scientists started to criticize what they saw as an emerging nuclear weapons program. They clearly saw PNEs as nuclear weapons. Their activity began after press reports started appearing about the secret, parallel, nuclear program operated by the military. There were international press reports about a secret military centrifuge enrichment program. Later in the decade, following the return to democracy, the press was more aggressive. The media started uncovering secret bank accounts that the atomic energy establishment had used to buy items illicitly overseas, particularly in Europe. The media discovered the Cachimbo hole, which John Redick mentioned earlier. There were also rumors about secret plutonium production reactors that were to be built. Military leaders made statements about how PNEs could help Brazil to establish itself in the world community. So the scientists were seeing pieces of a program that was intensely secret, and that appeared to be part of a nuclear weapons program. Because of their standing, they were called upon to evaluate this information and provide some guidance for the public debate.
I met Luis Pingueli in 1988 at a conference in Rio de Janeiro. I was working with the Federation of American Scientists. Pingueli and his colleagues asked us to provide technical information. They had no experience with nuclear weapons programs, but they had just finished a study, using public information, that concluded that the Cachimbo hole was big enough in diameter to hold a nuclear explosive.
The Brazilian government vehemently denied that the Cachimbo hole could hold a nuclear explosive. They said the hole was too small. In the press, there were stories that its real intent was to store nuclear waste. One official even told me that the 200 meter deep hole was a silo for launching a ballistic missile. These were incredible statements by government officials about what that hole was, and the Brazilian Physics society needed assistance in showing that the hole was designed to test nuclear explosives.
To help the Physics Society, Ted Taylor and I did a study that concluded that a simple, implosion device could easily fit down that shaft. Ted was a former nuclear weapons designer in the United States who later opposed nuclear weapons. We gave this study, based on unclassified information, to the Brazilian Physics Society. This example showed us that the Brazilian Physics Society did need help with technical information and, once so-armed, could effectively use that information in the public debate.
The Brazilian Physics Society decided that the only way to deal with the growing uncertainties about the nuclear program was to create effective oversight over it. In the end this was accomplished through a constitutional amendment that gave the Brazilian Congress the final say about nuclear activities. But this process was begun by affecting public opinion to support greater oversight.
By this time, there was very little sympathy in the Brazilian population for developing nuclear weapons, and the population was increasingly understanding that a PNE essentially was a nuclear weapon. The public was starting to realize that Brazil would be treated as having nuclear weapons by the international community if it developed PNEs.
Therefore, gaining effective democratic control was a key goal during this period of the 1980s. And what the physicists sought, in particular, was to strengthen the constitution, which was under active discussion at that point. The scientists wanted to put the nuclear program under the control of the congress. They saw the executive branch as unable to exercise effective control. So in the constitutional convention, they proposed an article under which “Brazilian participation is forbidden in projects leading to development of nuclear weapons.” At the time, it was not possible to get this article into the constitution. Instead, an article was inserted that assured that all nuclear activity in Brazil would only be allowed for peaceful purposes and upon congressional approval. So they got half of what they wanted. But the PNE constituency was so strong in the Brazilian government that it blocked the physicist’s option.
One thing that did happen as the result of this process was that public opinion was clearly set against nuclear weapons. There was a consensus on that, and I think that the public understood the idea that PNEs and weapons were the same thing, despite what the government said. This experience also established the precedent of control over the nuclear program. They did start to exercise that authority. That is one of the reasons why the Bilateral Agreement was ratified so quickly; a lot of the groundwork for support of that agreement had already been done.
From 1988 to 1990 most of the effort of the Brazilian Physics Society was dedicated to developing a plan for effective congressional oversight over the nuclear program. They came to the United States several times to see how the United States exercises oversight, which is partially accomplished through a congressional agency called the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. We’ve chosen a model that often believes that congress and the agencies it creates are the best regulatory method.
The Brazilians decided that what they needed was an effective national control system. They were looking not so much at the technical aspects as at the institutional aspects of oversight. They understood that IAEA inspections on all nuclear facilities was politically impossible. That is what led them to conclude that a bilateral system was by far the best one. Where they differed from what’s actually happened is this idea that the bilateral system would somehow be put under congressional control, instead of the control of the executive branch.
In fact, not all of the scientists believed that oversight should be put under the congress. Some were skeptical of its oversight ability, given that it was a new congress. Some simply felt that such oversight rightly belonged under the executive branch. Jose Goldemberg fell into this camp. So a split developed in the Brazilian Physics Society between those who were working for congressional control and those who were not.
By 1989, the stage was set for dramatic changes. Nevertheless, it was a surprise to many people that President Collor, right after he got into office, decided to act so dramatically. As Goldemberg has said publicly, Collor saw a program that he had no control over. When he took office, he was presented with a secret, 15 year old program called the Solomos Project that had the aim of developing a nuclear explosive. Collor had no idea that this project existed before he became president. For him, taking control over the project was simply a question about who runs the country.
At that point Collor called in Goldemberg, who had been appointed as Minister of Science and Technology, and asked him to get to the bottom of the Solomos Project. Goldemberg went out with presidential authority and visited as many sites as he could. He came back to Collor with a report that described a very diffuse program that was not making very good progress.
Goldemberg found a lack of clear control over elements of the program, even within the program itself. He said that military leaders sometimes did not know what their subordinates were doing, and in some case they did not want to know. In essence, some lower ranking officials had autonomy over parts of the nuclear program.
Looking back, some of the confusion about what this program was up to was due to this confusion within the program itself. It was a chaotic program that did not really know where it was heading. The Cachimbo hole was dug when Brazil did not have any fissile material. In itself, this fact is not so unusual; South Africa also dug holes at its nuclear test site three or four years before it had enough highly enriched uranium to make a nuclear explosive. But in Brazil, they were digging their hole ten to 15 years before they would have enough material. Somebody in the program just decided to dig it.
The navy enrichment program, which was by far the most successful of the efforts to get fissile material, was mainly committed to getting fuel for a nuclear-powered submarine. It wasn’t that focussed on a nuclear explosive program. The air force was charged with designing a nuclear explosive, but Goldemberg found that the air force had not done very much beyond some simple studies.
Much to Goldemberg’s surprise, he found that the most committed group was the army. He told me, and has said publicly, that he was convinced that the army would build nuclear explosives and would intend them to be nuclear weapons. Whether they would make them deliverable is unknown. But the army saw some payback in such a program and had the mindset to carry it out politically. Technically the army was incompetent. Their reactor program had gotten nowhere. They wanted to build a 20 megawatt plutonium production reactor, but had not gotten beyond the very early stages of putting together a subcritical facility using graphite as a moderator. They were a long way from success.
During his investigations, Goldemberg was essentially acting alone, and he never uncovered the entire program. There has never been a full accounting by the Brazilian government about what it had intended. You can compare that with what South Africa revealed after President de Klerk decided in 1993 to announce that South Africa had dismantled its nuclear weapons program. That kind of accounting has never taken place in Brazil, so there are still many questions.
Nonetheless, with Goldemberg’s report, Collor had enough information to act. He saw the Cachimbo hole as presenting a good opportunity to clearly tell the military who was in charge. With the top military leaders accompanying him, Collor visited Cachimbo and symbolically closed it by throwing dirt down the hole. According to Goldemberg, it was a very humiliating experience for the military, but Collor had decided that only he was in control of the government and he needed to reign in the military.
This action was covered by the media around the world, and was followed by other high profile actions. Collor was invited to give an address at the United Nations. He initiated the Foz de Iguaz£ agreement where he found, in Argentine President Menem, a willing partner. I think Argentina was certainly happy to see Brazil get its military under control.
Collor did not achieve everything that he set out to do, and he was later disgraced by scandal and had to resign. But he did have many accomplishments. He canceled the construction of the army’s plutonium production reactor. Instead of a 20 megawatt reactor, the army was given the go ahead for a much smaller, two megawatt reactor. Collor allowed the gas centrifuge program to continue, but only to produce naval fuel or to enrich uranium for civil reactors. Collor also brought in other outside scientists to restructure the atomic energy commission and to make its safeguards system more accountable to a democratic government.
I’d like to summarize a few of the accomplishments of these scientists. Then I’ll briefly cover the U.S. reaction, which was asked about earlier.
The scientists made important contributions to making Brazil’s nuclear program transparent. They wanted an open system where you knew what was going on. That was difficult to accomplish in Brazil, but nowhere near as difficult as it would be in the Middle East. You don’t even have to point to Israel; look what is going on in Iraq. Seven years of the most intrusive inspections in the world, and there are still many outstanding questions about what Iraq was planning. Transparency is very hard to achieve, but it is absolutely necessary.
Early on the scientists also recognized the importance of regional inspections. That was the key—and John Redick mentioned this—to solving the problem while avoiding inevitable public conflicts over the role of international inspectors. At the time, international inspectors were deeply suspected of being spies for the more developed countries. But I think that the scientists understood that international inspections were ultimately necessary.
I remember when Pingueli presented a paper in 1988 at a seminar we co-sponsored in Rio with the Brazilian Physics Society. Pingueli’s presentation included the following time line: 1990—new national control systems; 1992—bilateral inspections; 1993—Tlatelolco would be signed; and 1995—Brazil would sign the NPT. We all said, “Luis, you’re crazy.” It’s interesting that one of the most outspoken critics of Brazil’s program was also one of the most optimistic about the program’s resolution, and I’m certainly happy that I was wrong.
Let me finish by talking about what the United States was doing. They were putting pressure on Brazil to change. There was much effort in the United States to understand what other countries were doing. They certainly had gotten wind of Brazil’s parallel program in the early 1980s. There were press leaks; Sandy Spector has covered some of these episodes in his books.
The United States concluded that Brazil had a secret gas centrifuge program. The United States also became aware of the Cachimbo hole, which they concluded was a nuclear explosive site. But they did not think that it would be used any time soon, because they understood correctly that Brazil was far away from producing sufficient fissile materials. But with such information they put together a picture of a program that was moving towards nuclear weapons.
One thing that is not often appreciated is that Iraq did not start to think about actually making nuclear weapons until about 1985. It was then that Iraq started to look at how to put together the high explosives, the electronics equipment, and so on. Yet, the nuclear weapons program started in the early 1970s. Iraq first concentrated on building up a nuclear infrastructure. But as far as has been established, Iraq did not focus on making the nuclear explosive itself until almost 15 years after initiating the program.
So while the United States may not have seen Brazil as having nuclear weaponeers sitting around designing nuclear weapons, that doesn’t mean that the United States saw the program as peaceful. They know that the hardest part of building nuclear weapons is getting the fissile material. So when Brazil started going down that path, the United States started ratcheting up the pressure. The United States took several steps with the World Bank and exerted other pressures. The United States also held out prospects for rewards for positive developments in Brazil.
The United States played an important role, but I don’t want to overstate its impact. Fundamentally Argentina and Brazil had to work this thing out themselves. And the United States was very quick, once these settlements happened, to try to reward the two countries. Thank you.
Questions and Discussion
Fawzy Hammad: Thank you very much for your very interesting presentation. Before opening the floor for discussion, I would like to make a brief remark about the Goiana accident in Brazil. This accident involved the release of radioactive materials from a medical source. It was not an accident involving a nuclear reactor. However, it led to a discussion on safety in Brazil and it was used as argument against nuclear proliferation.
This is not like the situation in the Middle East. We have heard much about releases from the Dimona reactor. There is even an Israeli court that, just about two weeks ago, tried the case of a worker who received fatal radiation exposures while working at Dimona. It seems that there are some serious safety questions at Dimona. I would ask Mr. Albright if he has any information about this situation, but first let me ask if there are any other questions.
Seminar Participant: What is the status of the laser enrichment program in Brazil?
Marco Marzo: I am not an expert in enrichment, but I can tell you what I have seen. This work has been done at a facility called the Institute for Advanced Studies. It is run by the Brazilian Air Force. They continue to do a number of studies in this institute, for example there is a joint project there with Argentina to design a fast reactor. This does not seem economical, but these theoretical studies continue.
One of the main activities of this institute is the development of laser enrichment processes. They did a very good job, from about 1983 through 1988, on a laboratory scale. They had two labs, one for atomic separation and one for molecular separation. After 1988, the facility was practically closed for budgetary reasons. The lab is still there, but most activities have stopped. I don’t think that they have done any work on laser enrichment at the facility in about 10 years. This facility is safeguarded as a research and development facility, not as an enrichment facility. ABACC inspects this facility twice a year.
Seminar Participant: I have two questions. First, is the military still involved in nuclear activities in Brazil? Does the Bilateral Agreement cover military activities?
Second, does the Bilateral Agreement provide for nuclear cooperation between Brazil and Argentina? Is there a program of technical cooperation as part of the Bilateral Agreement?
Marco Marzo: Let me answer your second question first. We can divide the rapprochement process into two distinct parts. The first part, through 1991, was a phase of cooperation, confidence building and transparency. The second phase was when the formal nuclear inspection regime took shape.
Unfortunately, today there is little technical cooperation between Brazil and Argentina in the nuclear field. The official reason for this lack of cooperation is because of budget pressures. There may also be a lack of political initiative in the two countries to deepen the cooperation. This is unfortunate, because now the civil parts of the nuclear programs are running very well, despite funding problems in the past few years. Argentina’s fuel fabrication plant and two power reactors are running very well. Brazil’s second reactor will be finished next year, and the second part of its fuel fabrication plant will go into operation as early as next month. However, the research and development programs have been cut back. Many labs have been closed, either for political or for budgetary reasons.
To answer your first question, I would emphasize that all nuclear activities in Brazil and Argentina, even the military facilities in Brazil, are under ABACC controls. As I said earlier, it is very difficult to apply safeguards in military facilities for several reasons. At the technical level, these facilities are mainly for research and development activities. It is more difficult to apply safeguards in such facilities than in commercial facilities because commercial facilities have routine operations. Research and development facilities frequently change their operations, they use different materials, and they do a variety of activities. This makes it difficult to apply safeguards.
Conducting unannounced inspections at nuclear facilities under military control is also complicated. It is very difficult to enter into a military zone on an unannounced basis. But after very lengthy negotiations, ABACC established procedures for this kind of inspection. We have a list of approved inspectors who can make such inspections. We have special communications, notification, and other procedures that are especially designed to support unannounced inspections at these facilities.
Also, I want to emphasize that under Brazil’s constitution, all nuclear activities—including military activities—are exclusively for peaceful purposes and must be authorized by congress. This is a very unique constitution in this regard.
When we negotiated the Quadripartite Agreement with the IAEA, the IAEA wanted to discuss so-called peaceful and non-peaceful activities. But under our constitution, nuclear activities are restricted to peaceful purposes. I also want to point out that both Argentina and Brazil have renounced PNEs under the Bilateral Agreement, even though the Tlatelolco Treaty permits PNEs.
Seminar Participant: I have a question for David Albright. I conclude from your talk that the United States encouraged, supported, and helped Brazilian scientists to oppose military nuclear activities in Brazil. Would the United States help and support Israeli scientists to oppose such activities in Israel?
David Albright: We did seek help from the U.S. government to help us train Brazilian scientists. We went to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Department of Energy and to other agencies asking for help. There was never any formal mechanism established. Rather, there was just a decision by the U.S. government to provide information to these scientists.
The problem in Israel is two-fold. First, there is no such group like the Brazilian Physics Society who are outside critics of the nuclear program. The second problem is the long and complicated relationship between Israel and the United States. In the case of Brazil, we never ran into a U.S. government official who said “I don’t want you to do this.” But I could imagine that in the case of Israel, that list of government officials would be long.
There is an Israeli group, the Society for the Protection of Nature, that questioned the need for nuclear power plants in the 1970s and 1980s. Other than perhaps that group, I don’t know of groups that have challenged the nuclear weapons program in Israel. I might be wrong.
In the United States in the 1980s, when we wanted to stop U.S. nuclear weapons production, we turned a partially blind eye to some of the exaggerated claims that some environmentalists were raising about the risks of U.S. production reactors and reprocessing plants. We understood that these claims were often exaggerated. There would be claims that the United States has killed tens to thousands of people around nuclear weapons production sites, and we knew that was clearly wrong. But we also inadvertently benefitted from these exaggerations politically when we tried to argue that there was no need for these facilities.
I think in the case of Israel, such claims don’t work well. When I hear people say that Dimona is killing its workers, it doesn’t have the same impact. Instead, it just creates more defensiveness. Dr. Hammad referred to an episode a couple of weeks ago, where a Dimona worker’s family sued because radiation exposure had allegedly led to his death. This led to criticism of the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission’s radiation practices. But I think in the current climate in the Middle East, one nuclear establishment attacking the other over radiation exposures or other problems is not helpful.
In terms of Israel’s future development, I would hope that Israel could reach a point where nongovernmental organizations or scientists could look at Israeli nuclear weapons questions. But I don’t know the mechanism, partially because of the support of the program by the Israeli public. Also, this support is unstated; you can’t go to Israel and expect people to talk openly about Israeli nuclear weapons. The fact that the U.S. government doesn’t want them to talk about nuclear weapons complicates this even further.
What I would hope is that cooperative projects involving Israel and the United States could actually involve the Israeli government. The tools that we were interested in providing to Brazilian scientists could be provided more formally and directly to segments of the Israeli government. That would be ISIS’s preference.
Fawzy Hammad: Dr. Marzo, did you have something to add?
Marco Marzo: We are talking about scientists, but do not underestimate the participation of the foreign ministries in Argentina and Brazil to further the rapprochement. They coordinated the working groups and later the Standing Committee for Nuclear Policy. The foreign ministries were very clever, because they invited all sectors from the nuclear field to the table. For instance, in Brazil, we had representatives from the Ministry of Science and Technology, from both the private and public industrial sectors, from the nuclear energy commission, and from the different branches of the armed forces. All of these parts were engaged in the process. I think this was very important.
Seminar Participant: I disagree with David Albright’s assessment of the Israeli opposition. There are Israelis who are anti-nuclear, particularly some strategists. But the United States has taken a very benign look on the Israeli program, and this makes it easier for Israel to continue its program. Most of the Israeli scientists are trained in America. There is also a project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on controlling the transfer of fissionable material. But even at the time of the NPT Review Conference, the United States never used this project to pressure Israel. Also, the United States did not stop providing long range missile technology to Israel. There has been no linkage to Dimona, and the lack of linkage encourages Israel to go along with its program.
Regarding Brazil, I would like to ask if there were ever any discussions of hitting targets in Argentina? Having a weapon system assumes you have a target. You don’t just go out and throw bombs at random. A second question is: what is the aim today of the enrichment programs in Brazil? Is it a commercial program?
David Albright: Let me answer the weapon system question first. I never saw any evidence that Brazil was thinking about putting nuclear weapons on a delivery system to hit targets in Argentina. There also were no programs to use PNEs that went beyond some very rudimentary ideas. For example, there were no studies about making harbors with nuclear explosives. Statements by Brazilian officials indicated that Brazil sought nuclear explosives to increase its international political power and to show its scientific ability. It was to be a political tool.
In Argentina, no one ever found evidence that they had a nuclear weapons program. I know that the Argentine Physics Society, which worked in cooperation with the Brazilian Physics Society, once looked for people who were missing from the technical community—essentially to detect secret programs—but they did not find a significant number who were missing. Interestingly, they did find a couple of people who were working on the Condor program. So in Argentina, we never found any evidence of nuclear explosive work, though we clearly did in Brazil.
On the current enrichment programs, although it is a military program, it is committed to nuclear propulsion. The army never built its planned two megawatt reactor; the program just faded away. The air force laser program, as Marco said, is in abeyance. These developments shed light on an important point: once these programs were open and safeguarded, the military was much less interested in them.
Seminar Participant: Let me see if I fully understand you. Neither country had a clear military program? Not even Brazil?
David Albright: I don’t think so. Not in the sense of a program to drop a bomb on someone, or to even have the capability to deliver nuclear weapons. South Africa had deliverable nuclear weapons. It is now clear that part of South Africa’s strategy was to make sure that its bombs were deliverable, even though it did not intend to use them. Though South Africa’s strategy forbid the actual use of nuclear weapons, South Africa spent ten years developing a deliverable bomb, and was developing a deliverable missile warhead when the program was canceled. So deliverability can be important, even if the weapons are never to be used. But Brazil focused instead on nuclear explosives. Who knows, however, if Brazil might have tried much later to develop a warhead for a ballistic missile, which was also under development.
I want to make clear that I have been talking today about denuclearization, not about cutoff. Our effort with the Brazilian Physics Society did not seek a fissile material cutoff or a ban on further production for weapons. We wanted a zero-nuclear-weapons commitment, and a zero-PNE-commitment. Now, the group at MIT, if you are referring to Avner Cohen and Marvin Miller, is talking about capping production as an interim step. And I think in the context of Israel that is realistic. In fact, the United States would welcome Israel’s agreeing to a fissile cutoff.
Seminar Participant: So, both Argentina and Brazil had nuclear programs simply for their symbolic impact?
David Albright: Yes, and that impact should not be trivialized. I think Iraq wanted nuclear weapons for “symbolic impact.” Iraq knew that if it had only one or two bombs during the Gulf War, it could not launch a nuclear strike. Evidently, they were going to try to use a nuclear explosive for a political purpose, which was to deter the coalition from invading Iraq. Don’t underestimate the power of these weapons politically.
In Brazil, their goal was international status. They saw themselves as a great power, and the nuclear explosive program, if fulfilled, would enhance that power.
Seminar Participant: So they saw it as a negotiating chip in international negotiations?
David Albright: Well, to give them more power. It’s means more than bargaining chips.
Seminar Participant: The same thing for Argentina?
David Albright: We never found any evidence of a nuclear weapons program in Argentina.
Seminar Participant: What was the motivation of the program itself?
David Albright: I don’t know.
Seminar Participant: Maybe Dr. Marzo can shed some light on that?
Marco Marzo: The motivation for the nuclear program? I think both countries were motivated because neither had access to nuclear technologies. They needed this technology to produce electricity. For example, 95 percent of Brazil’s electricity is generated from hydroelectric plants. Brazil doesn’t have oil-fueled power plants, and the only water resources are very far from populated areas.
I also think, to some extent, the developed countries forced Argentina and Brazil to undertake their domestic programs. During the 1970s and 1980s, the nuclear programs in the two countries had a difficult time getting needed technologies from foreign suppliers. In 1978, Brazil could no longer buy fresh fuel for its power plant.
Seminar Participant: But Brazil’s program was not geared to building your own power stations, otherwise Brazil would have built CANDU reactors, as many countries did.
Marco Marzo: You are right, but how to pursue nuclear power was intensively debated in Brazil in the 1970s. The strategy of developing a low enriched uranium fuel cycle won that debate. In my opinion, that was a mistake, but that was the decision.
Seminar Participant: Is the program now being used to build nuclear power stations for peaceful use?
Marco Marzo: Yes. This is the other side of the enrichment program. Nuclear propulsion is a lower priority, although this is a legitimate function of the Brazilian enrichment program. You have to consider that Brazil has an 8,000 kilometer-long coastline.
David Albright: Can I add one thing? What Marco said about the nuclear establishments in both countries is true, but I think the military’s motivations were different. Brazil and Argentina, until the Bilateral Agreement was signed, viewed that they had a right to make PNEs, which they called a civil program. And that’s one of the confusing things of talking about Argentina and Brazil. Both countries were very free about saying that they wanted PNEs. Maybe they wouldn’t build them, and they certainly were not telling anyone if their plans were serious, but they always reserved the right, and considered it as a peaceful activity.
The United States took the position that such activities were not peaceful, and that PNEs were by definition nuclear weapons. The United States has a phrase that it now applied to countries like Iran, which it applied to Brazil a long time ago. In this view, Brazil’s “actions were inconsistent with a purely peaceful program.” And that is sufficient to raise a lot of alarms in the United States.
Seminar Participant: But I am surprised at the lack of a program to build nuclear power stations. They could have achieved that at much less expense. A CANDU does not cost all that much money.
Marco Marzo: Well, they have to build a heavy water plant. That’s very difficult.
Fawzy Hammad: I am sorry to interrupt this discussion, but we are running out of time. This session unfortunately raised more questions than we have time to answer. I hope that there will be more time for discussion in the afternoon. I would like to thank Dr. Marzo and Mr. Albright for their very enlightening presentations and also those who have participated in these discussions. The second panel is now closed.
ABACC: Designing and Implementing Bilateral Inspections in Argentina and Brazil
Aly Sadek: I would like to resume our seminar with a presentation by Dr. Marco Marzo on ABACC and the implementation of safeguards in Argentina and Brazil. Dr. Marzo, the floor is yours.
Marco Marzo: Good afternoon. It is often difficult to speak after such a nice lunch, so I will speak very loudly to keep you all from falling asleep.
This morning, I discussed the historical development of the Bilateral Agreement. Now, I’d like to talk about the Basic Undertaking from the Bilateral Agreement, about the Common System for Nuclear Material Accountancy and Controls, also known as the “SCCC,” about ABACC, and about the Quadripartite Agreement.
The Bilateral Agreement has the following basic undertaking: all nuclear material and all nuclear activities in Argentina and Brazil are to be placed under the Common System, or SCCC. If you remember from my talk this morning, a common system means that booth Argentina and Brazil have the same safeguards system. All nuclear activities, including activities that are carried out by the military, are subject to this basic undertaking.
The SCCC has evolved into a set of technical procedures that seek to detect, with a reasonable degree of certainty and within a reasonable amount of time, whether nuclear material had been diverted to uses not authorized under terms of the Bilateral Agreement. Of course, no safeguards system is perfect, so there is always some uncertainty.
ABACC was created to apply the SCCC. It’s headquarters were established at Rio by the Bilateral Agreement. In my opinion, this was very insightful of the diplomats who negotiated the agreement, because Rio is a very beautiful city.
I want to talk more about the SCCC. It is made up of two sets of documents. The first set contains the general procedures, which sets forth the general rights and obligations of facility operators, the nuclear energy commissions, and ABACC.
The second set of documents are composed of application manuals for each category of nuclear facility. Each individual facility negotiates an application manual with ABACC. These manuals detail all of the safeguards activities for each specific facility. For those who know the international system, these manuals are similar to the IAEA facility attachments.
The general procedures are fully compatible with the IAEA’s INFCIRC/153. This means that the bilateral system is fully compatible with full-scope safeguards.
The general procedures are divided into several chapters, and I will describe briefly their contents. It is a very technical document. Chapter one contains the basic criteria, such as the starting point, exemption and termination of safeguards. In our case, safeguards on nuclear material begin when the material is ready for fuel fabrication or for isotopic enrichment. But if it decides to do so, ABACC can extend the starting point further back to, for example, uranium concentrates. Other basic criteria in chapter 1 help to establish the frequency of inspections for each type of facility.
In chapter two, we have the requirements for licensing nuclear facilities and other facilities where nuclear materials are stored. These requirements concern the information that the operator has to provide to the national authority and to ABACC. This information includes records on nuclear material—the amounts, the type, balance changes—that the operator has to keep, the frequency of physical inventories that the operator has to take—generally, an annual physical inventory is required—and the measuring system that the operator has to implement. The uncertainty limits for measurements are also set forth in this chapter.
Chapter three contains provisions and requirements for Brazil and Argentina and their respective nuclear energy commissions. They have to follow a common reporting system. Each country, thorough its national authority, has to inform ABACC about all changes in nuclear material inventories. A country must also notify ABACC if it imports or exports material or transfers material to another country, or even internally from one facility to another. Recently, for example, Argentina exported nuclear material to Egypt. ABACC had to verify the nuclear material before the export and asked Egypt to return the ABACC seals once they had been removed.
Chapter three also concerns inspections of nuclear facilities by the national authorities. These inspections should not be confused with ABACC inspections. Rather, each country has to have its own national inspection system, not only for safeguards reasons, but also for physical and radiological protection.
Chapter four contains provisions for bilateral controls. This is the part that concerns the application of the SCCC by ABACC. This chapter sets forth the relevant information that each country has to provide to ABACC, the reports that periodically must be sent, provisions for transfers of material, and ABACC inspections. There are many kinds of inspections, including routine inspections, special inspections, unannounced inspections, and so on. This chapter sets forth how ABACC should evaluate its inspections and other safeguards activities.
Let met now talk about ABACC. In ABACC, everything is symmetric, with a Brazilian and Argentine counterpart. Take the ABACC Commission, for instance. This is the highest organizational level in ABACC. It consists of four members, two from each country. ABACC’s Secretariat, which carries out day to day activities, consists of technical and administrative officers and support staff. The technical and administrative officers are designated by the commission. Each nationality takes turns in acting as ABACC’s secretary. This is a unique model.
The main functions of ABACC’s Commission include approving the general procedures and the application manuals. Since there are only four people on the commission, this approval process very flexible. The general procedures are written in such a way that any changes to these procedures must only be approved by the commission. These changes would not require a renegotiation of the Bilateral Agreement. This makes the general procedures very dynamic, and it can be changed as safeguards technologies and requirements change.
ABACC’s Commission also supervises the chairman of the secretariat and appoints the professional staff. The commission informs the parties of any anomaly that may be found on an inspection. In case of non-compliance, a very serious anomaly that remains unsolved, then the commission informs both the party found to be in noncompliance, and also the U.N. Security Council and the Secretariat of the Organization of American States.
One of the most important features of the bilateral system in the speed with which anomalies can be rectified. This can happen very, very quickly. Let me give you a real life example of how the bilateral system is much more direct than the IAEA safeguards system. On an inspection at a facility, ABACC inspectors were unable to get some information about the mass of material that was to be inspected. The operator is required to keep records both of total uranium and U235 and provide this information to ABACC. But the operator at that facility decided to provide only information about total uranium to the inspectors. The operator told the inspectors that he had changed his records system, and from now on would only provide information about total uranium. But without information about total 235U, we could not close the mass balance of the material.
So, there was an anomaly. The inspectors informed headquarters, and we, the Planning and Evaluation officers, informed ABACC’s Secretary. Our Secretary informed, by fax, the four commissioners. The commissioners from the country where the anomaly occurred informed the foreign ministry, who then informed the president. The president discussed it with the agency who had jurisdiction over the facility in question. At that point, the ABACC inspectors got the information they required, and the anomaly was resolved. The whole process took three or four days, the same amount of time, I think, that an IAEA inspector would need to travel back to Vienna.
The ABACC Secretariat performs several functions. They implement the directives and instructions issued by the commission. They perform necessary activities to implement the SCCC, such as planning inspections and maintaining records from one inspection to the next. They designate the inspectors who are to carry out specific inspections. They inform the commission about any serious discrepancy. And they prepare ABACC’s budget, which is approved annually.
ABACC’s staff is headed by one secretary and one deputy secretary. They alternate every year. In 1997 the secretary is a Brazilian officer, and the deputy is an Argentine. On December 12 they change their roles. This is a very different and unique way to lead an organization.
There are also two technical officers for each area. I am a Brazilian planning and evaluation officer and I have an Argentine counterpart. Normally, I would evaluate inspections in Argentina, and my counterpart would evaluate inspections in Brazil. But it does not have to be this way. Each officer can evaluate inspections in either country.
We have two operations officers, also one from each country. There are also two officers for accounting, technical support officers, and administration, always one Brazilian and one Argentine. We also have five administrative auxiliaries, and the inspectorate. As you can see, we have a very small staff.
Let me talk about the inspectorate, which is also unique. The inspectorate consists of about 70 experts, around 35 from each country. The countries present a list of inspectors to the commission. From this list, the ABACC Secretariat can select inspectors to perform specific inspections.
The experts that make up the inspectorate have expertise in several areas of safeguards interest. Many are also experts in the types of facilities and procedures to be inspected, such as fuel fabrication, research reactors, enrichment, reprocessing or commercial power plants. They have detailed knowledge of the design and operation of these types of facilities. On an inspection, this inspector can tell if there was any change in design of a facility. That means, with this model, we verify on every inspection the design of a facility in addition to performing traditional safeguards audits.
For inspections, we try to select a two-man team—one an expert in safeguards, and one an expert in the type of facility to be inspected. And of course, inspections are performed on a cross national basis. It is also unique that the inspectors do not work permanently for ABACC. They work for private or public organizations—universities, nuclear energy commissions, and facilities in the private sector.
Let me talk about our inspection system. Sometimes a facility operator is performing an inspection in the other country. When this facility operator is performing such an inspection, he understands which factors are relevant for safeguards and which are not. When he returns to his own facility, he can improve its accounting system.
Another unique factor in our system is that we can select the best expertise from the two countries when selecting inspectors. The international system, which is made up of a permanent inspectorate, does not have this flexibility. ABACC inspectors get their salary from their respective company or organization, but not from ABACC. But ABACC gives a generous per diem.
After several years of being involved with ABACC, I’ve observed that inspectors are very proud of their role in performing inspections in the other country. They are proud to be selected, because in some sense they represent their own country when performing an inspection for ABACC. There is nothing comparable in the international safeguards regime.
As I said, our inspectors are not permanent staff of ABACC. So they have to spend a lot of time in ABACC headquarters to prepare for an inspection. They need to confer with the operation and planning and evaluation officers in preparing for their inspection. We give them directions what to do. If necessary, they also meet with the IAEA inspectors, if the IAEA is also performing an inspection of that facility.
During an inspection, inspectors perform conventional inspection activities—records auditing, comparison with reports, and verification of nuclear material. Verification is usually accomplished through non-destructive analysis with portable equipment. In a few cases, we may take samples and sent them to a lab in the other country for analysis. We also maintain containment and surveillance equipment, such as cameras. And of course, inspectors perform any follow up action that is necessary.
In our system, we expect inspectors to do more than fill out forms, however. We prefer that our inspectors perform both quantitative and qualitative analyses. So in addition to verifying the quantity of material and the size and design of a facility, for example, we expect inspectors to have the capability in the field to decide if something is amiss. This is the most important part of the inspector’s skills, in my opinion.
I think that this qualitative aspect is very important in safeguards and nuclear material control. There are many aspects of safeguards that can not be quantified, but they are as important as quantitative aspects.
The first level of evaluating inspections is in the field. Finding the solution of discrepancies and resolving anomalies is the task of inspectors before they return to ABACC. Evaluations take place at ABACC headquarters following the initial evaluation in the field, but this evaluation at headquarters is more of a conventional evaluation.
Applying bilateral safeguards is very expensive. Neither Brazil nor Argentina is a rich country. Both countries share ABACC’s costs equally. It could be different, and there has been a lot of discussion about how to share costs. Brazil would like to share costs in proportion to plutonium holdings, since Argentina has more plutonium. Argentina would like to share costs in proportion to U235. But in the end they decided on a fifty-fifty split.
ABACC’s regular budget is about $ 3.2 million per year. This does not include inspectors salaries, and there is a special budget for equipment. Support from other organizations and through cooperation agreements, such as with the U.S. Department of Energy, is also not included in this budget.
Let me show you some figures about ABACC’s inspection efforts (figure 2).
Figure 2: ABACC Inspections
| Type of inspections | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 |
| DIQ Verification | 11 | 73 | 5 | 8 |
| Initial Inventory and Interim Verifications | 24 | 113 | 139 | 152 |
| Total Number of Inspections | 35 | 186 | 144 | 160 |
| Inspection Effort (persons-day) | 106 | 562 | 683 | 627 |
| Inspectors (persons-day) | 373 | 1506 | 1489 | 1415 |
The last row in the table shows how much time the inspectors are available to ABACC. This includes the large amount of time that is spent preparing for inspections or in evaluating inspections at ABACC headquarters. As I discussed earlier, because inspectors are not full-time ABACC employees, this time spent in planning and evaluation can be substantial.
Inspection efforts are the amount of time that an inspector spends in the field on an inspection. This figure is therefore less than the total time the inspector is available to ABACC.
In 1996, we had 627 inspection efforts, measured in person-days. In comparison, there about 1,400 person-days when the inspector was available to ABACC. Given 70 inspectors, this averages to about 20 person-days for ABACC. That is a lot, and sometimes makes their employers upset that they are missing so much time.
As you can see, the ABACC inspectorate has become more efficient over time. In 1994, for instance, the ratio between availability and time in the field was about 3 to 1, and now it is about 2.2 to 1. Also, the number of inspections in 1996 has increased over the number of inspections in 1995, but both availability and time in the field were lower in 1996.
Let me summarize a few points about the status of the bilateral system’s implementation. First, implementing this system over the past five years has been challenging. But several factors have helped the implementation. First, the two countries have very organized national systems, at least from the human resources point of view. When ABACC was formed, people were already relatively well trained in safeguards and non-destructive analysis. The two countries have laboratories for analytical measurements. These aspects contributed to the fast implementation of the ABACC system.
ABACC is also very well organized. For example, we have a computerized data processing system, so we can store data electronically or on tape, and transfer the data to the IAEA in the same way. When inspectors return from an inspection, they can automatically update the database.
All design information questionnaire (DIQ) verification inspections were performed by ABACC in 6 months. As I said, on almost all routine inspections, we continue to perform design verification.
However, as I discussed earlier, establishing procedures for ABACC inspections was not easy, especially for facilities that are located on military bases. It was not easy to negotiate procedures to gain access to these facilities.
Over the last four years, we have spent about $700 thousand for portable equipment, not including surveillance equipment, and to prepare labs to analyze samples. We’ve had to support many labs in the two countries, since ABACC started out with access to only one lab specifically dedicated to safeguards. We had numerous other labs, but they are not prepared to work specifically on safeguards.
In order to maintain the quality of ABACC’s analyses, ABACC periodically performs an intercomparison of samples with different labs. Facilities in the United States (New Brunswick), the IAEA (Seibersdorf) and Euratom (Trans-Uranium Institute, or TUI) take part in that effort.
We also perform training for our inspectors. We have well prepared safeguards inspectors, but training is always important. There are always new technologies, such as remote monitoring, environmental sampling, and new surveillance techniques being considered. We hold annual training courses in both countries every year with the support from the United States the IAEA and several countries. Additional training courses are sometimes held, often on particular topics, outside the two countries.
I would like to take five minutes to talk about the Quadripartite Agreement. As I said this morning, the Quadripartite Agreement is a full-scope safeguards agreement where the IAEA has the right to verify and perform inspections of all nuclear material and activities in the two countries.
Why do you need IAEA safeguards if you already have regional safeguards? In my opinion, when the Bilateral Agreement was signed, regional safeguards were insufficient for the international community. The two countries had to sign the Quadripartite Agreement with the IAEA.
Under the Quadripartite Agreement, the IAEA has to take into account the regional safeguards activities. The formal relationship between ABACC and the IAEA is described in INFCIRC/435. Under this agreement, the two organizations are to reach independent conclusions, but also must coordinate activities to avoid unnecessary duplication. These two principles are contradictory. Despite its complex nature, the relationship between ABACC and the IAEA is very good.
The Quadripartite Agreement also says that the IAEA and ABACC shall implement safeguards according to compatible safeguards criteria. As I said earlier, the SCCC is fully compatible with the IAEA full-scope safeguards, meaning that ABACC’s safeguards criteria is at least as restrictive as the IAEA’s criteria. Actually, we may be more restrictive in some areas. Earlier, I talked about one example, but it bears repeating: where the IAEA sets a detection limit of 75 kilograms of U235, we use 30 kilograms.
I would like to briefly summarize the status of the Quadripartite Agreement’s implementation. The IAEA’s initial report verification inspections were begun in June 1994 and competed by March 1995. The IAEA also performed design information questionnaire verification inspections. Presently, we are negotiating facility attachments with the IAEA, the first five of which will enter into force next month. We have also established guidelines with the IAEA to coordinate routine and ad hoc inspections. Under the new IAEA safeguards regime, the IAEA and ABACC are routinely taking environmental samples, starting with all enrichment facilities, hot cells and reprocessing facilities. So far, the results of these analyses have all confirmed the initial declarations.
To conclude my presentation, I would like to point out some of the characteristics of the regional system that I think are very important. First, ABACC is a small, dynamic organization. With only a few people, we can be very efficient in performing safeguards. If you divide the ABACC’s budget by the person-days of inspections, you would find that ABACC spends about half as much as the IAEA for the same level of activity.
Second, ABACC doesn’t require that similar facilities be subject to identical safeguards procedures. For example, we don’t need to apply the same safeguards in all fuel fabrication plants. ABACC increases the effectiveness of safeguards by applying specific criteria and procedures that are tailored to individual facilities.
We can use the best available expertise in both countries. The IAEA is unable to take advantage of the best expertise because they have a permanent inspectorate and must consider a balance of nationalities.
I want to conclude with an observation about the role of regional safeguards in strengthening nonproliferation. Last week I participated in an international safeguards symposium in Vienna, where there were very interesting discussions on this topic. I think that regional safeguards is important to the nonproliferation regime. For example, regional organizations and the IAEA could divide up the fuel cycle, with the regional organization safeguarding non-strategic facilities and the IAEA safeguarding strategic points, such as enrichment and reprocessing plants. But this is a question for the future. Thank you very much.
Questions and Discussion
Said Abdel Hamied, NCMES: Thank you for your presentation. It was very useful, because we want to be educated about the ABACC experience in Latin America. I would raise just one point and then open the floor to questions.
Though the presentation was mainly technical, the politics of even technical elements of any monitoring and inspection system are too important to be neglected. Dr. Marzo said that keeping ABACC as small and effective as possible has been a foremost principle. Applying this principle on any prospective regional system in the Middle East would be very difficult. While ABACC concerns a bilateral arrangement, a Middle East organization would be, by nature, a multilateral project.
There is a big difference between a bilateral and a multilateral verification system. For example, having a mutual balance and equal representation of personnel and inspectors, as you described, would be a very difficult in a Middle East organization. You have here a regional verification system which represents perhaps 20 or more states. It would be very difficult to keep the size of such an organization as small as it has been in ABACC.
This is a very important point that should be reflected on in this meeting. To be sure, we are not here to copy the ABACC experience of for the Middle East, because the context is different. One of the basic differences is multilateralism versus bilateralism. How could we adjust to the problem of multilateralism, given that many countries would be expected to participate?
Marco Marzo: You raise an interesting point. The question of multilateralism is also being addressed by ABACC. There are other countries, notably Chile, that have expressed an interest in joining ABACC. If this happens, then ABACC would become a multilateral organization. From the technical point of view, I don’t think this is very important. ABACC would function well with several members. Let’s assume that Chile joins ABACC. Chile does not have as many nuclear activities as Brazil or Argentina. But Chile could join ABACC and participate based on the proportion of its facilities relative to the other parties. There are also other alternatives.
John Redick: I agree with Marco. To the extent that we have thought about the ABACC model for the Middle East, I would see an evolutionary situation. Conceivably, the ABACC model might first be established between two nations in the Middle East, using whatever elements of the ABACC model that might be applicable for the situation, and letting the regime evolve as numbers and responsibilities dictate.
Marco’s example of Chile, which would be the most logical country to join ABACC, is very applicable. The Chileans have one research reactor and no power reactors, so there would not be many inspections. Their participation would likely be proportional, perhaps to the number of facilities in Chile.
Said Abdel Hamied: This is a very good idea. I think Egypt would be open to initiating the kind of bilateral exercise with Israel as things allow. Having Egypt and Israel establish a bilateral monitoring and verification system is a start, which could perhaps emulate many elements of the ABACC experience.
Mr. Albright: In your visit to Israel last year, did you raise this point with the Israelis? What was their reaction?
David Albright: Short question, long answer. I’d prefer that we discuss that in the next session. There was at least one other question.
Seminar Participant: ABACC has a pool of 70 inspectors now. Are all of these inspectors properly trained in safeguards and accounting systems?
Marco Marzo: I am not sure if all of them are trained, but the vast majority are. During the last five years we have had six general training courses and more than 20 specific courses. We are trying to get every one trained.
There may be cases where an expert on a particular part of the fuel cycle is not very well informed about some aspects of safeguards, such as records auditing. In this case, this inspector would be paired on an inspection with a safeguards expert.
Seminar Participant: How about the remote monitoring system?
Marco Marzo: Not all people have been trained in remote monitoring, but not many inspectors have to be trained. Maybe 30 of 70 inspectors are reasonably well informed.
We’ve started to implement remote monitoring over the last six months. We want to use these systems at Argentina’s CANDU reactor, its spent fuel storage site and dry storage facilities. The intention is to decrease the number of inspections at these facilities. Also, the information from this system arrives at ABACC headquarters, so if there is something wrong, we know right away.
Seminar Participant: Can you describe some of the procedures involved in ad hoc inspections?
Marco Marzo: Ad hoc inspections depend on each facility. There are, for example, totally different procedures for the Argentine diffusion plant and the Brazilian centrifuge plant. For instance, for the centrifuge facility, as I said, inspectors arrive without any advanced notification. When they arrive at the facility, they are taken directly to the feed/removal station. The operator is given two hours to cover any confidential parts of the cascade, and then the inspectors can enter the cascade hall.
It’s important to note also that there is no need for our inspectors to use passports to travel between Argentine to Brazil. So these inspections really are unannounced.
Seminar Participant: On the figure you showed in your presentation (figure 2), the number of ABACC inspections in 1994 were much higher than the other years. What is the reason for that?
Marco Marzo: There were more inspections in 1994 for two main reasons. First, the Quadripartite Agreement came into effect, so ABACC had to perform initial inventory verification inspections for a second time. Second, these figures are also distorted because the CANDU reactor and related facilities in Argentina are very hard to control. In 1994, Argentina transferred spent fuel from the CANDU pool to a dry storage facility. As I’ve mentioned, we are now trying to implement remote monitoring at this facility, but during the transfer we had a permanent inspector in Argentina following this process.
Seminar Participant: In your talk, you mentioned that nuclear facilities must be licensed. Is this a license for both safety and safeguards, or just for safeguards?
Marco Marzo: Facilities in the two countries must be get a total of four approvals: one each for radiological protection, safety, physical protection and nuclear material controls and accounting. Let me be sure that you understand that these license are not handled by ABACC. It is the responsibility for the national systems in Argentina and Brazil to issue licenses. The national authorities in Argentina and Brazil issue one license to a facility, but it must be approved by four different departments to satisfy all of the conditions that I’ve described.
Seminar Participant: How does Argentina and Brazil interact with the IAEA? Does each country report to the IAEA directly, or does ABACC always act as an intermediary?
Marco Marzo: The two countries report to ABACC, and ABACC sends these reports to the IAEA. The countries do not have any direct contact with the IAEA.
Seminar Participant: You mentioned that ABACC has cooperation agreements with Euratom, with Germany and with other countries. Could you describe your relationship with Euratom? Also, what kinds of equipment are used on inspections? Finally, how do you inspect LOFs? Are these areas under safeguards?
Marco Marzo: All of our cooperation agreements are with a national government or government agency, or with international organizations. In general, we are very open for cooperation in many different areas.
ABACC has an umbrella cooperation agreement with Euratom, under which several individual projects are taking place. For example, there is one project to compare uranium element determination for uranium dioxide powder. Under this project, a sample of uranium dioxide is divided and the portions sent to several labs in Argentina and to the Trans-Uranium Institute in Germany. Under another project, scientists from the TUI come to ABACC labs to work with our technicians to improve our capabilities. Another project concerns the provision of surveillance cameras that are integrated with active seals. These systems are to be installed in centrifuge facilities. Euratom has some experience in these systems.
ABACC requires many types of portable equipment to carry out safeguards. Each facility is different, and there are appropriate types of equipment for each situation. For example, multichannel analyzers with germanium detectors are used to measure UF6 enrichment at an enrichment facility. But measuring the enrichment of uranium dioxide powder requires the use of an analyzer with a sodium iodide detector. Neutron coincidence measurements are taken to measure fresh fuel elements in a fuel fabrication plant or in a nuclear power plant. This measurement is taken to be sure that there are no dummy fuel pins in the reactor.
A difficult problem is taking measurements at the centrifuge cascade, because the cascade itself is covered. Inspectors need to check to see that there are no materials hidden behind the panels with the centrifuges. So we used two simultaneous methods to do this: gamma, to detect any material signatures; and neutron to detect any shielding. So as you can see, each facility is very different, and we work these problems out on a case-by-case approach.
LOFs are inspected once per year. These are small locations that have very little material. But of course they are under safeguards. These are very simple inspections, but they are under formal safeguards.
Seminar Participant: Just one clarification. You mentioned that all of the correspondence between the IAEA and the countries goes through ABACC. What happens if there are deviations in measurements. Does it go to ABACC, and then ABACC makes a response? Or does ABACC transfer this information to the country for its response? Also, if the IAEA wants to perform a short notice inspection, does it go to ABACC first?
Marco Marzo: As for your first question, so far we have not had any big problems. But under the formal procedure, if the IAEA finds any discrepancy, it communicates this to ABACC. ABACC and the IAEA then try to resolve the discrepancy. Sometimes the IAEA will find a mistake that ABACC didn’t find. But sometimes mistakes are made by the IAEA inspector and not by the facility. After ABACC communicates with the IAEA to discuss the problem, then we communicate with the country.
Regarding your second question, so far the IAEA has not performed any short notice inspections. I’m sure that the IAEA would like to perform such an inspection at the centrifuge plant, but I’m not sure that they have figured out how to perform this inspection on a real non- notice basis. For instance, while IAEA inspectors have multiple entry visas, if they come from Vienna to Argentina or Brazil, they will be immediately recognized. Also, I think it would take longer than 6 hours to travel from the airport to the facility, so there would be time to notify the operator. So in this case, the IAEA really could not perform an unannounced inspection.
But there are other alternatives. The IAEA may be performing an inspection in Argentina and then decide to perform an unannounced inspection in Brazil. Or if they are performing an inspection elsewhere in Brazil, they could decide to perform an inspection at the centrifuge facility.
We are now discussing with the IAEA about how to perform joint, unannounced inspections. This has been difficult, and we have yet to find a solution. In my opinion, there will be some kind of compromise. Perhaps ABACC and the IAEA will perform part of an unannounced inspection together, and part will be performed by the IAEA alone.
Fawzy Hammad: As you mentioned, Argentina is transferring a nuclear research reactor to Egypt. We are very pleased with this nuclear cooperation, and we would also like to have some technical cooperation between ABACC and our safeguards department. Could you organize something like that?
Marco Marzo: Yes, sure, it would be a pleasure. On behalf of my Secretary, I can say that ABACC is very open and interested in cooperating with Egyptian safeguards authorities. I think there are several areas that we can cooperate in.
Summary: Latin American Experience and Lessons
Said Abdel Hamied: We’d like to start the last session of the day. Given the interesting presentations and discussions that have taken place so far, I’m sure that the day has been beneficial for all of us.
Our speaker for the final session will be David Albright. Then the floor will be open for comments, both on what Mr. Albright’s presentation and on anything that we have heard previously.
David Albright: I’d like to summarize the points I’ve heard today that capture the essence of the Latin American experience, leaving the implications for the Middle East to the discussion period.
First, Argentina and Brazil have not fought a war for over 100 years. That makes their situation quite different than the situation in the Middle East. They’ve also had diplomatic relations for quite along time, so they are used to working with each other internationally.
Second, it’s clear that the rapprochement process was very broad in Argentina and Brazil. It was not just a nuclear rapprochement. But it became quickly apparent that the nuclear issue had to be dealt with or else rapprochement in other areas was no longer possible.
Third, significant internal changes were taking place in Argentina and Brazil that accompanied the rapprochement, including democratization. The nuclear weapons baggage, if you will, was not consistent with these changes.
Fourth, the point has been made several times that when this process started, Argentina and Brazil were not aware of where they were going. However, both countries were committed to a gradual process that depended heavily on confidence building measures of many types. More importantly, they accepted this approach. I mentioned earlier that President Alfons¡n wanted to speed up the process shortly after becoming president, but was rebuffed by the Brazilian military. Argentina had to accept a more gradual process.
Fifth, there was strong political support within the governments for the process of nuclear rapprochement. This support was anchored in the democratically elected presidents, particularly Collor and Menem. Support was also strong in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in both countries. There was also strong public expectations that both countries would be free of nuclear weapons, and the publics increasingly saw PNEs as nuclear weapons.
Sixth, the first priority of this process was to deal with national and bilateral concerns. In the 1980s, there were deliberate attempts to avoid concerns raised by the international community, namely full-scope safeguards, ratifying the Tlatelolco Treaty and joining the NPT. But it became apparent, as this process evolved, that they had to satisfy these concerns. Unless they did so, they might have been accused of working together to hide their nuclear weapons programs. So the international community’s suspicions had to be eliminated. Ratifying the Quadripartite Agreement and joining the Tlatelolco Treaty as full parties were ways to do that.
Another important factor was that once the rapprochement started to happen, there was no need for security guarantees from outside powers. Argentina and Brazil really weren’t planning to fight a war, and as suspicions were reduced, competitions and rivalries were lessened. Any national security anxiety of giving up nuclear weapons intentions or programs was alleviated quite easily on the regional level.
These are the main characteristics of the Argentine-Brazilian experience. It’s quite clear that this experience is very different than the Middle East experience. Nevertheless, I think that some of the intriguing aspects of this example is how this process was put together, and unfortunately because Ambassador Carasales could not be here due to sudden illness, you did not hear about this in as much detail as we’d hoped. But the constant attempts by diplomats, scientists and government officials to work on cooperative projects, and to maintain that commitment over years, was very important to the rapprochement. Individual tenacity and vision were critical.
Some factors that were necessary also included that both countries were prepared for inspections. They had preexisting safeguards expertise, so when the political leadership made a decision, they could actually implement that decision quickly. I think Marco gave you a good sense that the technical community did not expect this to happen, and that the political leadership was way out ahead of them. The political leadership had to pull them along, but since they had this technical expertise, they could keep up relatively easily.
Also, as I said, the publics had to be involved and had to be supportive. In the 1980s, if you ever raised the issue of IAEA inspections, you could expect a broadside of criticism in the media and by the government that such inspections were nothing but an attempt to steal secret Brazilian technologies. The public was very supportive of that attitude, and they had to learn to see international inspections as being beneficial, rather than harmful.
One thing that we did not talk about very much, though some questions came up, was that outside pressure by the United States and Germany was actually quite important to continue this process, especially during the times when it wasn’t going very well. I know that Argentine foreign ministry officials expressed frustration at certain times, and sometimes the presidential visits that Marco mentioned did not go well.
Argentina and Brazil also developed an expectation of rewards from the international community for making significant changes. Rewards turned out to be an important incentive. In the end, denuclearization had strong international support. However, I do not want to overstate the role of international rewards. ABACC and the Latin American NWFZ are the product of a regional process that was set in motion by regional actors to address regional concerns.
In terms of the idea of a partial zone that was mentioned earlier, I was intrigued by whether Israel could sign a treaty that had a distinction between Contracting Parties and Signatories, such that Israel would be committing to something that is meaningful, such as agreeing to a NWFZ at some unspecified date, or accepting other conditions. For example, Israel might be obligated to refrain from building any more nuclear weapons, or to cut off its production of fissile material.
Creating this zone would generate momentum and create a norm against nuclear weapons, putting further pressure on Israel. The international community would look at that norm and say look, Israel should take further steps. It could be a measuring stick against which the United States and others could measure progress.
Right now, there is no measuring stick. Israel has a special status because of when it got nuclear weapons, how it got nuclear weapons and how it is allied with the United States. If Israel had tried in the 1970s to get nuclear weapons, the United States effort to stop them would have been much more aggressive. But it stated in the 1950s, when 20 or 30 countries were trying to get nuclear weapons, including Egypt. Israel caught the United States unprepared. It wouldn’t have happened in the 1970s.
Take the case of Taiwan as an example. No one would question Taiwan’s security motivations for nuclear weapons, given its tensions with Beijing. But the United States took many steps in the 1970s and 1980s to prevent Taiwan from getting nuclear weapons The United States will continue to take those steps because they see a Taiwanese nuclear weapons program as disruptive to the peace process that Taiwan and China will eventually have to go through. There you have a situation where the security concerns are very high, and yet the country did not get nuclear weapons.
In terms of the scientific organizations, I really don’t know what Israeli non-governmental organizations are doing, including scientific organizations. ISIS decided to do a certain project, such as this seminar, and we made a decision not to reach out to Israeli non-governmental organizations. They might exist, so let me just back away from that. I am not an expert on the groups opposing nuclear weapons in Israel. We have no problem working with non- governmental organizations and scientific organizations in countries where only a very small minority oppose nuclear weapons. But in this case, we made our decision not to do so.
Someone asked earlier: what was the reaction to our seminar last year in Israel? The agreement we made was that we would not talk about the Middle East. Those were the ground rules. We held the seminar in Nahel Soreq. It was the first public event of the Shalheveth Freier Center for Peace Science and Technology. It was co-sponsored by the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission, and there was encouragement and participation by the Israeli Ministry of Defense. A group of about 50 people heard our presentations. They certainly came because they were interested in the implications for the Middle East; they were not a bunch of Latin American specialists. But they made a decision that they were not going to talk about the Middle East with us at this seminar.
Questions and Discussion
Said Abdel Hamied: Are there any comments?
Seminar Participant: We have been engaged in discussions with Israelis and Americans and Europeans on Israel’s nuclear policy and to be very frank—and please excuse my blunt language—I think there is a big, big problem with Israel’s nuclear policy. Three weeks ago I was in Italy, where I was on a panel with an Israeli from the Jaffe Center, where we discussed the nuclear policies of Israel and Egypt. During the question and answer period, a very pointed question was posed to this Israeli. A European analyst told him that when Mr. Freier used to attend the biannual meeting of the Italian Union of Scientists, Freier was to tell the attendees that—and this was before the advent of the Madrid process—the moment that the Arab states come to the negotiating table, Israel will be ready to discuss relinquishing its nuclear capability. Now, when Arabs states have come forth to the negotiating table, they are getting a different story from the Israelis.
There is a great deal of—please excuse me—hypocrisy in Israel’s nuclear policy. Lets look at it very frankly and very openly. What are the objectives and uses of nuclear weapons in the Middle East? Either they could be used for deterrence, for defense, as weapons of last resort or for political blackmailing.
Let us first consider deterrence. Israel’s nuclear capability did not deter Egypt and Syria from launching the October 1973 war. It did not deter the Intifada uprising by the Palestinians in the late 1980s. The utility of nuclear weapons in the Middle East, due to different factors, including geostrategic situations where very short distances separate countries in the region, is not very high, even for deterrent purposes.
How about the use of nuclear weapons to guarantee security? What does this mean? So many American and Western analysts tell us that Israel maintains nuclear weapons to guarantee its security. To guarantee its security against whom? Against what? What existential threat does Israel face now? Nothing. There is no existential threat now posed to Israel, even by the collective action of Arab states. Arab states are willing to accept Israel as an integral part of the socio-political fabric of the Middle East, provided that Israel itself is willing to do the same, and is willing to act with other states in the region on equal footing—not to combine military superiority, the nuclear capability, and Arab land.
For an arsenal to be used as a last resort, you need only 10 to 20 nuclear weapons, not 300 or 400 weapons, even if one accepts last resort as a theoretical purpose for the potential use of nuclear weapons.
I think the only thing that could be of use and value for Israel to maintain its huge nuclear arsenal is for political blackmail. This is the only feasible purpose behind Israel’s maintaining its nuclear weapons.
Egyptians, Americans and others need to convey a message to Israel: if we really are willing to work for genuine lasting peace, then this is the moment to do so. And it’s much better for Israel’s security to have peace with its neighbors than to maintain nuclear weapons. Israel’s nuclear weapons could spur its neighbors to pursue other nonconventional capabilities, perhaps even nuclear weapons, to counterbalance the Israeli arsenal. So we have to be very frank and courageous in addressing this problems. I think the ostrich logic of sticking one’s head in the sand is of no use in this context.
This is the proper way of addressing this problem. The Arab states are open to having full peace with Israel. But the price of that is for Israel to begin considering a process that aims for negotiations to establish a WMDFZ in the Middle East. I think this is a very reasonable demand.
David Albright: That was a very eloquent statement. One of the things that my organization tries to do is to understand why countries seek nuclear weapons and what conditions will lead them to give them up. Independent of the peace process, we’ve been interested in the question of why Israel has been steadfast in keeping its arsenal.
However, that’s against a background where people don’t know much about Israel’s nuclear weapons. The secrecy about the Israeli nuclear weapons program is probably the greatest in the world. Even China has been more open than Israel has been. And let me say, we don’t know how many weapons Israel has. I don’t think they have three or four hundred. I think they have a lot fewer weapons than you suggest.
This lack of knowledge illustrates one of the problems. Information about Israel’s nuclear weapons program is very difficult to come by. One thing we see—and I would just ask that you consider this—the Israeli public and government feel that they could suffer large numbers of casualties from WMD. You can best see this concern in their fear of Iraq and Iran. When Russian Foreign Minister Primakov was recently in Israel, Prime Minister Netanyahu made a point of confronting him with the issue of Russian-Iranian missile cooperation. That fear is felt very much in Israel. It’s a perception, and I’m not judging it. But it exists, and it makes it very hard for the political leadership to take any steps towards denuclearization, even if its objective security situation would permit certain steps. They have their political constituencies to answer to.
There is no magical guarantee that the Israeli public is always going to do the enlightened thing. And I think that the people in Israel that are involved in these kinds of questions are not sure that they want to cross this bridge until they know more about what the public’s reaction is going to be.
Consider Iraq. Here is a story that I heard from an UNSCOM inspector. There was a press report in late 1990 in Israel that said that if Israel was attacked by anthrax, then 80 percent of its population could be killed. The Iraqis declared, in 1995 after Kamel defected, that Kamel heard of this press report and said, “let’s try to make that happen.” So the Iraqis immediately started to develop a remotely piloted plane, armed with drop tanks to deliver anthrax over Israel.
Who knows if that story is true; the Iraqis tried to blame a lot of things on Kamel. But the Israeli public hears that story, and it has an impact. It has to be at least considered. Whether you want to believe it or not is your decision, but the terror of biological weapons is there when questions of denuclearization come up. It tremendously complicates this process.
In the long-run, however, Israel alone cannot stop Iran or Iraq from getting nuclear, chemical or biological weapons that could be placed on ballistic missiles. You may be able to thwart these programs during the next five years, but it is very hard to believe that you could prevent Iraq and Iran from acquiring these weapons 10 or 20 years from now if they are determined to get them. So Israel has a window in which to act to obtain a regional peace. If Israel eventually faces this threat, its nuclear weapons may be unable to save it. Deterrence may have no effect, since it might be a madman that makes the decision to launch that strike against Israel.
There are constituencies in Israel that understand this problem and want to work it out. But the background of public opinion and the baggage of perception is very difficult to overcome. From our point of view, we’ve decided not to criticize the Israelis on this issue.
Said Abdel Hamied: The madman may be on either side, not only on one side. Other comments?
Seminar Participant: Thank you very much. I want to thank all of you for this highly informative session. Let me draw some lessons that I think are worthy of consideration.
First, many people talk about confidence building measures, and blame the Arabs as being unwilling to engage Israel in confidence building measures. But I think there is a significant difference between trust and confidence building. Trust is a priori to any negotiation or dialogue to build a WMDFZ, where confidence building measures is a process to get involved in order to fulfill final goals. It seems to me that the Israelis lost that distinction; we have to trust each other first, and then we move along to build confidence and to take mutual measures. But we can not just jump into building confidence without first having trust.
The second point, to build a WMDFZ, you need to influence public opinion in favor of the need. Public opinion should be steered to favoring non-war, non-conflict positions.
Third, creating public opinion should be compounded by a political process that brings leaders to recognize and encourage the establishment of a WMDFZ through mutual visits.
Fourth, building a WMDFZ is a long and evolving process. A partial zone might be worth considering towards this end. Building a WMDFZ could be a two track process, combining bilateral and multilateral aspects into one package, in order to account for specific regional conditions and the experiences that we learned from this seminar.
Finally, it seems that third party intervention is a must, particularly when a region falls under a hegemonic power. However, for the Middle East, the American-Israeli special relationship works to circumvent American leadership in the region.
Thank you very much.
Said Abdel Hamied: Thank you. Now the floor for Dr. Fawzy Hammad.
Fawzy Hammad: Thank you Mr. Chairman. This was a very enlightening seminar. I thank ISIS and the NCMES for organizing this seminar, and we hope that this effort will be repeated.
I was very interested to learn that the initiation of Tlatelolco was a fallout of the Sahara tests in the early 1960s. The fallout from the Latin American nonproliferation movement to Africa, as mentioned this morning, was very slow, and very limited. The whole of North Africa is still threatened by the Israeli arsenal. Even the effectiveness of the African NWFZ is very limited, indeed.
The Israeli arsenal threatens not only states in the region. With the number of weapons that they have, even the small arsenal that you mentioned, Mr. Albright, and the ability to deliver them, the Israelis are a threat to Europe and even to the United States. In Israel’s democratic system, the government changes, and all treaties that were signed in the past are no longer respected. You can never trust a system like this. Because the system also does not trust the United States.
Israel has the whole support of the United States to balance the power against all Arab states, but they don’t trust this support and they still want to keep their arsenal despite U.S. support. In fact, our effort should not be directed only at Israel, but also at the American public who is against the proliferation of nuclear weapons. This public should be aware that the blind- eye policy of the United States is responsible for what is taking place in the Middle East. So we have to move not only in Israel, but also to our audience in the United States.
Then there are the lessons from the Latin American experience. The regional- international linkage is there, establishing a regional system, linked globally is there, so we found that this is a good model.
But at the same time we have a different viewpoint. We are talking not only about nuclear weapons but all WMD. We have a different modality altogether. We are going to monitor not only nuclear weapons but also chemical weapons, biological weapons and ballistic missiles. We have worked out a modality in the paper I distributed this morning. We found that this is a workable system, and it could answer the queries of the Israelis.
After more than five years of inspections in Iraq, the most intrusive system ever, after all these facilities have been destroyed—all agree no that all nuclear weapons program facilities have been demolished. Even the IAEA has reported, two weeks ago, that the IAEA is completely satisfied that there are no clandestine nuclear activities in Iraq. So what is the problem? The problem is chemical and biological weapons. These systems can not be eliminated whatsoever, even under the most intrusive system, unless there is a political will to build a Middle East security system without hegemony. So you could inspect forever, make confidence building measures forever, but you could not really verify that there are no biological weapons unless there is a political will to stick together.
This is a parity—it is wrong to say there is no parity. We have a parity—everyone knows the story of the biologist who had in his suitcase a bottle of biological agent, labeled as such, who went to 50 airports, through all the security systems, and no one took notice of him. Against this type of threat the Israeli arsenal is useless. So, Israel has to come down to the negotiating table. But we have not found any response.
As of 1996, all Arab states have offered peace to Israel, which is really tantamount to offering recognition. And what has been the response? It was very negative indeed.
You have crazy people running the government in Israel now. They think power is their god. This, indeed is a situation that has to involve the United States. Israel does not respect the peace process, and also the official nonproliferation policy of the United States that led the United States to stop Taiwan and North Korea from obtaining nuclear weapons—and to help Brazil and Argentina. Why is the U.S. policy failing here? Is this the democratic system of the United States? The people who went into the streets in the United States to get America to sign the nuclear test ban treaty and many other arms control treaties, why are they failing in the Middle East? I address this question to all of you. If we believe in nonproliferation, there would not be a double standard.
Certainly, in this complex area—with the Jerusalem issue, with the Palestinian issue, with the settlements issue—unless these issues are settled, then nothing can move forward. People have to live together in peace, to integrate with the social fabric of the region, to be part of civilization. The Israelis have to go to the roots, where Arabs and Jews lived together in Spain and North Africa. You get some European Zionists, who have suffered a lot from European civilization and have forgotten that the Arab civilization gave them refuge and culture. The Arab civilization allowed them to flourish in Spain—we want to go back to these roots together. Convey this message to our friends on the other side.
However, I found also some very positive things from Tlatelolco. The constitutions which insists that nuclear energy is only to be used for peaceful purposes is an example that we can use in this region. I also think that the scientist movement—and the role that scientists played in Latin America—could be emulated. We should work here to try to find colleagues in Israel to do something similar.
The problems that Dimona is creating provides a common ground to start building a constituency in Israel. A scientist movement has recently started in Egypt, called the Egyptian Scientists Against Proliferation. This is still a small group, but it would like to unite with scientists throughout the Middle East.
I have one last comment. ABACC is now organically connected with the safeguards system that we are creating in the Middle East. We are connected with Argentina, and we should know more about them. We believe that we should start creating our safeguards inspectors now. We should not wait until the right moment comes to directly recruit inspectors. We need to create them now. Even in this room, there are six or seven people who have been trained at Los Alamos and Sandia. They can also be trained by ABACC. We are creating a system that will not only monitor nuclear weapons but also other WMD.
Said Abdel Hamied: Mr. Albright, would you care to respond?
David Albright: Well, maybe other people could offer their thoughts first.
Said Hamied: OK. Yes?
Seminar Participant: Thank you. I want to thank you for a very profitable day. I learned from it the following: one way for Israel to accept nonproliferation is for the Arabs, in particular Egypt, to develop an elaborate, peaceful nuclear program. Without having nuclear technologies spread in the region, and without making Israel realize that we are capable of developing nuclear energy technologies, if only for peaceful means, then there is no logical tradeoff. I don’t agree with Dr. Hammad. I think Israel is ruled by an Armageddon mentality. But when they know that a counterweight exists, at least technologically, then a trade off will come about.
The second choice is for Israel to face a tradeoff is between “apples and oranges” rather than “apples and apples.” They must realize that there are other ways to develop counterweights, such as chemical and biological weapons or terrorists who kill a lot of Israelis. In fact, this argument makes human sacrifice rational because it produces results. But it does not produce peace.
Short of coming to terms, at least theoretically, with a balance or tradeoff, the only thing we have to think about is whether we can reach limited agreements for an interim period. I’m willing to see Egypt to refrain from indulging in a military nuclear program for 30 years if there is to be a demilitarized Palestinian state. So if Israel accepts verifiable capping, on the same basis as ABACC but between Egyptians and Israelis, then we might be able to accept the existence of a given stockpile of Israeli nuclear devices, provided it is transparent, it is not enlarged, or given a more sophisticated means of delivery.
I think the United States is party to the nuclear proliferation of Israel, through sharing techniques, resources, expertise and training, particularly in the missile field. The United States is not a silent, neutral, benign observer.
Short of this, you are leaving us with questions that are not convincing intellectually or emotionally. On the other hand, at the time when all of us are willing to see this area free of all WMD, you are looking the other way from Israel, which in the long term will not be beneficial for us, for Israel or for the peace of the world.
Said Abdel Hamied: Thank you Ambassador. Are there any further comments? If there are no further comments from the floor, I would like to summarize the questions raised in these discussions.
First, the nuclear arsenal of Israel—against whom is it directed, and for what purpose?
Second, is there interest in other countries outside the region to realize a NWFZ in the Middle East?
Third, what is the role of other countries in establishing such a zone?
I would give the floor over to David Albright.
David Albright: First of all, I’m not here to be a defender of either Israel or the U.S. government. My organization wears many hats. I don’t work for the U.S. government, so I don’t feel an obligation to defend them. I’m also not a defender of Israel. I’ve just raised some things that I wish you would consider.
The question about Israel’s nuclear weapons is certainly not going to be settled just in the bilateral context between Egypt and Israel. I think the only way that will be settled is regionally. Whether the United States is ever going to pressure Israel to give up nuclear weapons is unknown. The United States will certainly pressure them to limit their arsenal, to stop making plutonium—but whether the United States will ever pressure Israel to give up nuclear weapons, well, you all probably have as good a sense about that as I do.
On the other hand, could the United States have forced Brazil to abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions? I would say no. Finally, the responsibility for decisions like that has to rest within the region that is directly affected. There will have to be a debate within Israel about the future of nuclear weapons or any other WMD. And I think that it will be a long tough road.
Criticisms, hard rhetoric—I can tell you these tactics will not move the process in Israel forward. If conflict is what is wanted, then that’s fine. I think that the process that exists now is very unsatisfying, and it has been coupled with an extremely unsettling political development in Israel. But I would say—and this is clearly our decision—we can not condemn that process. One of the reasons that Latin America is an attractive model to me is that it required a lot of patience in Latin America to achieve success. The challenge in the Middle East is to think of the methods that can get Israel to take a positive step forward. Finally, that is the motivation for us—to seek things that can actually work. But these will be, by definition, small scale, and given the climate they will be even smaller than what happened initially in Argentina and Brazil.
But I wouldn’t give up. I think that its very important to support the arms control process that is taking place in Israel. There wasn’t any in the 1980s, and again this is perhaps an American point of view, but we see positive developments in Israel relative to where they’ve been. For Israel to start thinking about political solutions to their security problems is a big step forward that needs to be nurtured.
I understand some of the things in Israel because I live in a nuclear weapons state. And I know that the same debate that we are having today—and somehow I’m getting put on one side of—we are having all the time in the United States where I would be on your side. Getting the United States to give up nuclear weapons is immensely difficult, because it’s deep in the American psyche that those weapons are needed, regardless of their actual need. I don’t really know what purpose our weapons serve. But we are not about to give them up, and what we’ve had to do is set up stage-by-stage processes to get the United States to reduce its dependence on nuclear weapons.
Since my involvement began in this field in the early 1980s, I’ve witnessed the closure of a large number of nuclear weapons production facilities. I’ve seen the United States step back from a war fighting strategy, to one of deterrence, and finally to a debate about whether or not disarmament is an option.
If you took the position in 1985 that you wanted the United States to give up its nuclear weapons, you were finished. But if you walked in and said what you wanted is this particular goal, then you actually could win that fight. I would say that in the Middle East you have a very similar situation. The effort should focus on establishing particular tactics to achieve small goals, rather than on winning the whole game at once.
People who live in nuclear weapon states are deeply attached to their arsenals, and its very hard for people who don’t live in weapon states to understand that. But the United States military is a lot more attached to our weapons than the Israeli military is.
Adjournment
Said Abdel Hamied: Thank you Mr. Albright for your comments. I believe we are very close to the end of the session. The floor is now open to Dr. Sadek to make closing remarks.
Aly Sadek: Thank you very much. I think you’ll feel that it was a very tough, useful seminar that we had today. We learned a lot about the experience in the Argentina and Brazil, and we learned a lot about what could convince the Israelis to go through a process of eliminating WMD in the Middle East. It is I think in their interest to eliminate nuclear weapons. There are many reasons for that, and I’ll mention some of them.
First we have to think about the third generation of terrorism. If the first generation created terrorism to have a personal impact upon leadership and political elite and the second was developed to affect part of the citizenry at large, the third generation of terrorism might be called strategic because it is a matter of a large scale of deadly force. The third generation extensively uses the technology of mass destruction. The third wave is employed by a small group of individuals, who are deprived of any hope in the future in order to cause a strategic disruption in the interaction between state and society and hence having an impact on the likelihood of regional war. By the rise of the third generation of terrorism, the security dilemma no longer concerns solely how each country checks the tendency of the others to expand nationally what was traditionally done through the balance of power. Now, however, it is imperative for countries to coalesce and form a network of cooperative regional security because the threat is common. Toward this aim, no country should monopolize nuclear weapons. As the final report of the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict in 1997 asserts, people cannot thrive in an environment where they believe their survival is in jeopardy. The report goes further to confirm that the retention of nuclear weapons by any state stimulates other states and non-state actors to acquire them. These weapons should be eliminated as the only course of action to achieve common security.
Second, I see that Israel indeed suffers from excessive power. A country has excessive power when concentration of capabilities breeds a culture of neglect of others. This characteristic is harmful to peace making and preservation implies the ability to negotiate in good faith and considering the interests of the other. From this perspective, I hope that one day in the interests of the Israeli citizens, they come together with us to negotiate how guarantee their security and Egypt’s security without threatening each other.
Third, it is vital for the United States of America to distinguish between guaranteeing the security of Israel and that of specific factions of Israeli extremists, either inside or outside the government. The first is understandable; the second is not. The United States should think of the security of Israel as a whole and to account for the other Israeli security visions than those held by the Netanyahu faction. Let us hope that the United States would revise its role in the Middle East to be even-handed. Pressuring Israel in order to fulfill its duties toward the peace in the Middle East will ultimately work for the sake if Israel’s security, and not against it.
At the end of this day, I would like to thank Mr. Albright, Mr. O’Neill, Dr. Redick and Dr. Marzo for their contributions to our seminar. Thank you again, and good luck.
David Albright: I just wanted to say to Dr. Sadek how appreciative we are of his efforts to make this seminar possible, and I want to thank him personally. It’s been a very remarkable seminar and I’ve enjoyed the discussion. Hard discussions are often the best, so thank you all.
Note on the Transcription
This transcription was prepared from an original tape recording and has been edited for clarity. The Institute for Science and International Security, which prepared this transcription, would like to thank the seminar presenters for reviewing this transcript to ensure that it accurately represents their original presentations.
Because not all seminar participants were identified on the original tape recording, it was not possible in the transcript to attribute many of the remarks and comments to specific individuals. Therefore, it was decided to identify by name only those who gave formal presentations or served as panel chairs.
The seminar and transcript were funded principally by a grant from the Compton Foundation of Menlo Park, California to the Institute for Science and International Security.
Return to Table of Contents
Panelists and Participants
Panelists
David Albright
Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), Washington, DC
Marco Marzo Brazilian-Argentine Agency for the Accounting and Control of Nuclear Materials (ABACC), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
John Redick University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA
Panel Chairs
Aly Sadek National Center for Middle East Studies (NCMES)
Fawzy Hammad Atomic Energy Authority (AEA), NCMES
Said Abdel Hamied NCMES
Participants
Adel Mohamed Ahmed Aly AEA
Mostafa Alwy Cairo University
Hisham Fouda Aly AEA (Head)
Esmat Amin AEA
Hussam Ataia AEA
Gehad Auda, Center for Political and Strategic Studies, NCMES
Ismail Badawy AEA
Tahsin Basher, Amb. Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), NCMES
William Cauvess U.S. Embassy, Cairo
Said el-Dakkak Alexandria University
Mohamed Ewiss Cairo University
Mouktar el-Fayoumi, Gen. (ret.)
Wael el-Gammal Cairo University
Yassin Ibraim Cairo University
Mahmoud Karem, Amb. MFA
Amin Khalifa MFA
Mounir Megahed Nuclear Power Plants Authority (NPPA)
Said el-Mougy Cairo University
Enass Moustafa RDC
Kevin O’Neill ISIS, Washington, DC
Ashraf Radi Al-Ahram
Ahmel Abdel Rahman, Gen. (ret.)
Noha Shaaban Cairo University
Ibrahim Aly el-Shehawy NPPA
Mahomed Subegh, Amb. MFA
Morsy el-Tahawy AEA
Khalil Yasso NPPA
Nabil el-Zihhar Suez Canal University
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