Preferences
European Judas:
Germany's Proliferation of WMD Technologyby Joachim
Gruber
I. The Role of the United States As Compared to That of Germany
III. Germany's Proliferation of Nuclear Technology to Brazil and Argentina
IV. Germany's Proliferaton of Nuclear Technology to the Indian Subcontinent
Further Reading
Appendix
(In terms of explanation: Uranium based nuclear weapons need enriched uranium.)
Contents
Introduction: Nuclear Madness without Need
II. Germany's Proliferation into Iraq
Safeguards, Export Limitations and Withdrawal from Commercial Reprocessing
Introduction: Nuclear Madness without Need
German nuclear trade contributed remarkably little to Germany's economy as a whole and has had devastating impact on worldwide safety.
Germany has chosen not to exert adequate retransfer controls in violation of the intentions of Article I of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. It has thus assisted at least one non-nuclear-weapon state (Brazil) to manufacture nuclear weapons although it has been made aware of those problems by the Carter administration. (more violations)
The German government stated at the time that the "IAEA equivalent" inspections (as connected to the deal with Brazil) would suffice to preclude diversion of weapons grade material. It was known already then that in large-scale bulk handling plants even strict IAEA material accounting measures are insufficient to detect the diversion of "one significant quantity" (the amount necessary for a Hiroshima-size nuclear explosive): Measurement error exceeds one significant quantity by an order of magnitude, as has recently been experienced in the British reprocessing plant at Sellafield. Similar experience in the US weapons facilities was published in the early 1980s:
In an inventory taken between October, 1980, and March, 1981, the U.S. government could not account for about 55 pounds of plutonium and 159 pounds of uranium from its weapons facilities. The explanation given for this Missing material was "accounting error" and that the materials were "stuck in the piping" (Critical Mass Energy Journal, July, 1982)."
Transatlantic relationship is about concrete issues. Proliferation of dual-use technology is a major one of these. In his address "Weapons of Mass Destruction as Challenge for German-American Relations" (in cache) to the Annual Conference of the Hessische Stiftung Friedens- und Konfliktforschung, February 12, 2004, Karsten D. Voigt, Coordinator of German-American Cooperation at the Federal Foreign Office (Bundesaussenministerium) referred to "President [George W. Bush']s speech (in cache) yesterday as an offer to engage the world in general, and the European allies in particular, in a strategic dialogue on these important issues". He advocated transatlantic cooperation instead of conflicting disagreement. As of 2. June 2005 concrete action has not been specified on the Foreign Office website.
Are we about to leave a path that we chose in the 1970s and 1980s that disregarded the abyss our economically entirely unnecessary proliferation policy has opened up in the world? (see Text of U.S. - EU Declaration on the Non-Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, June 26, 2004, in cache).
This could be a concrete German contribution to more security: In a paper in the International Herald Tribune Mahdi Obeidi, former head of Saddam's military-industrial complex, points towards a problem area - the hundreds of jobless Iraqi scientists and technicians. Germany had closely cooperated with them, knows them - but it seems still unclear as to what extent Germany will absorb them ("Relations between Iraq and Germany", German Federal Foreign Office (Aussenministerium), January 2005, in cache).
The German effort could be similar to
... The Bonn government emphasized its understanding that beyond preventing acquisition of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices, in no case would the provisions of the treaty "lead to restricting the use of nuclear energy for other purposes by non nuclear weapon states." In particular it
said:
... The United States favored a requirement that recipient countries accept full scope safeguards as a condition for any nuclear export. Although backed on this by a number of suppliers (and the condition accepted by all NPT non nuclear weapon state parties on their own activities), this failed to win French and German support (very largely because of anticipated sales to Argentina, Brazil, and South Africa). So the guidelines provide only that any export of items on an agreed "trigger list" drawn up and occasionally supplemented by the suppliers would have to be placed under IAEA safeguards (38).
But the U.S. drive for mandatory prohibition on sensitive transfers was rejected by several members of the group as being too sweeping and likely to cause some countries to seek nuclear independence, thereby further diluting any influence suppliers might exercise over national nuclear development. However, the suppliers did agree to exercise restraint in the transfer of sensitive facilities, technology, and weapons usable materials and to encourage recipients to accept supplier involvement or other appropriate multinational arrangements as an alternative to national facilities (39). Significantly, the two members of the group least disposed to mandatory restraints on sensitive technology transfers, France and the Federal Republic of Germany subsequently independently. announced their intention not to authorize "until further notice" the export of reprocessing facilities (40).
... The second element of post 1974 U.S. nonproliferation policy had a rather different twist, and particularly after 1977 became a source of considerable controversy between the United States and its industrial nuclear partners. Unlike
"The non-proliferation precedents we set in the coming decade are likely to determine whether the world lives in anxious uncertainty from crisis to crisis or whether we are able to construct a global coalition dedicated to preventing catastrophes and to giving people the confidence and security to pursue fulfilling lives" (Richard G. Lugar).
Saddam has always been trying to acquire nuclear, chemical and biological weapons technology, according to his own statements and testimony by former high-ranking Iraqi officials (final report of the US weapons inspectors, Oct. 6, 2004, source: Siegfried Buschschlüter, foreign correspondent, Deutschandfunk, Oct. 7, 2004, US-Waffensuche im Iraq, local cache, see also U.S. Report Finds No WMD in Iraq, Associated Press, Sept. 18, 2004). After the end of UN sanctions against Iraq, Saddam would have resumed the nuclear program, according to Mahdi Obeidi. His paper (excerpt) is an account of the build-up in Iraq that mainly Germany had contributed to.
Before the first Gulf war Germany exported more into Iraq than the rest of the world taken together. Between the two Gulf wars Germany was still Iraq's major trading partner, and many of the goods were dual-use items. Some detail in chronological order:
"It takes about 15 pounds of plutonium-239 or uranium-235 to fashion a crude nuclear device. The technology to enrich the isotopes is available for about one million dollars. It is clearly possible that terrorists could acquire both the isotopes and the technology needed to enrich them. This possibility has surfaced in the news since the breakup of the Soviet Union, and the subsequent revelation of a thriving "black market" in such materials.
Thus, contrary to German government assertions, diversion of one significant quantity of weapons grade material from such a plant might therefore escape detection, which is why 1977 US President Carter banned commercial reprocessing (President Carter announced his plutonium deferral policy).
Source: Nuclear Power and Nuclear Weapons, Nuclear Energy Information Service, August 31, 2004 (in cache).
What the United States should do about reprocessing and plutonium use, both domestically and internationally, became an election year issue in 1976. President Gerald Ford issued a nuclear policy statement that plutonium was at the root of the security problem associated with nuclear energy. Once separated from the radioactive waste contained in spent fuel, the material could rapidly be put to military use. President Ford stated that reprocessing, that is chemical separation of plutonium, "should not proceed unless there is a sound reason to conclude that the world community can effectively overcome the associated risks of proliferation." In perhaps his boldest step, he announced that the United States would act domestically in a way that was consistent with what we asked of others. The United States would no longer in its energy planning assume future reliance on plutonium fuel. He said that he believed that we could make use of nuclear energy, and even increase reliance on it, with this security restriction. "We must be sure," he said, "that all nations recognize that the U.S. believes that nonproliferation objectives must take precedence over economic and energy benefits if a choice must be made." To this day, US policy on spent fuel assumes that it will be disposed in a repository on a "once through" basis, that is, without reprocessing, although the current reason for this probably has more to do with economics than with security. (Source: Victor Gilinsky, Marvin Miller, Harmon Hubbard, A Fresh Examination of the Proliferation Dangers of Light Water Reactors, final report of NPEC's project on Light Water Reactors. (in cache, May 26, 2006)
The "Agreement Between the United States of America and the Russian Federation Concerning the Safe and Secure Transportation, Storage, and Destruction of Weapons and the Prevention of Weapons Proliferation," signed June 17, 1992, established the legal framework for the Defense Department's Nunn-Lugar assistance to Russia, spelling out the rights and responsibilities of both countries. It had a duration of seven years; a protocol extending the agreement for another seven years was signed in June 1999. (more in Kenneth Luongo and William Hoehn, An ounce of prevention, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 61, no 5: 28-35, March/April 2005, in cache).
or
Established by the United States Department of Energy in accordance with the International Atomic Energy Agency and other partners, this initiative "aims to minimize as quickly as possible the amount of nuclear material available that could be used for nuclear weapons" and "will also seek to put into place mechanisms to ensure that nuclear and radiological materials and related equipment...are not used for malicious purposes."
I. The Role of the United States As Compared to That of Germany
after Lawrence Scheinman, "The IAEA and World Nuclear Order", Chapter 6, pp. 176-205, Resources for the Future, Washington, D.C., 1987
1. U.S. has Never Supplied Uranium Enrichment Technology
The United States has never supplied uranium enrichment technology, although it did propose sharing it with an appropriate multinational venture in the early 1970s when confronted with the reality that some of its European allies were planning to proceed with their own enrichment plans. (This aspect of the episode is very well analyzed and documented in Edward F. Wonder, "Nuclear Fuel and American Foreign Policy", An Atlantic Council Policy Study (Boulder, Colorado, Westview Press, 1977).) When the members of the URENCO gas centrifuge enrichment consortium (the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and the Federal Republic of Germany) first began discussing a joint arrangement in the early 1960s, however, the United States had prevailed on them to place their activities under strict secrecy to avoid the risk of unnecessary dissemination of a technology bearing high risk for nuclear proliferation.
2. U.S. Policy on Reprocessing of Spent Fuel:
As for reprocessing and plutonium fabrication technology, U.S. bilateral agreements for cooperation had provisions contemplating eventual reprocessing under specific terms, conditions, and limitations.
Safeguards, Export Limitations and Withdrawal from Commercial Reprocessing
... no nuclear activities in the fields of research, development, manufacture or use for peaceful purposes are prohibited nor can the transfer of information, materials and equipment be denied to non nuclear weapon states merely on the basis of allegations that such activities or transfers could be used for the manufacture of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices. (20).
The decision to take this step came in 1976 when nonproliferation policy and the adequacy of the existing safeguards based regime became an issue in the presidential campaign.
Impelled by existing congressional pressures and by candidate Carter's emphasis on the proliferation risks associated with anticipated widespread commercialization of plutonium and reprocessing, President Ford, in the waning days of his administration, announced a new nonproliferation policy:
henceforth, the United States would not regard reprocessing and plutonium recycling as necessary and inevitable steps in the nuclear fuel cycle and would defer such activities until there was good reason to conclude that the world could effectively overcome any proliferation risks associated with such activities.
President Ford declared a moratorium on exports of sensitive technologies and facilities for a minimum of three years, and called upon other suppliers to join the United States in this effort. Plutonium reprocessing issues, including safeguards effectiveness, were to be considered in the framework of a reprocessing evaluation program. Unfortunately, its precise character never was fully worked out before President Ford's term expired, but it emerged in somewhat altered form in the Carter administration in the form of an international nuclear fuel cycle evaluation (46).
3. Is Nuclear Non-Proliferation Still Attainable?
Remarks at the United Nations Foundation, June 9, 2006
(in chache)
Andrew K. Semmel, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy and Negotiations
It is the desire of the United States to work with its partners to construct a global coalition dedicated to preventing catastrophes from WMD proliferation. If the international community fails to counter the threat of WMD proliferation, the impact on future generations will be devastating, and be felt, not just here, but in every country of the world."
Yet, a clear gap persists between the global consensus about the threat of WMD proliferation and concrete action on the ground. Full implementation of UNSCR 1540 will help close this gap. We are pleased that the UNSC adopted in late April UNSCR 1673 which extends the 1540 mandate for two more years. We'll continue to work aggressively through the 1540 Committee and its panel of experts to achieve the nonproliferation objectives articulated in resolution 1540.
II. Germany's Proliferation into Iraq
Presently, during Iraq's reconstruction period under UN, International Monetary Fund (IMF), Arab Fund for Social and Economic Development and World Bank surveillance (UNSCR 1483), the picture is the reverse of what it was before the first Gulf war: German contributions ($200 million as compared to $20 billion from the US) are among the nations' smallest. As of June 2005 Germany has waived repayment of 80 % of the Iraqi debt of $5.5 billion, part of which must have gone into Saddam's military-industrial complex.
III. Germany's Proliferation of Nuclear Technology to Brazil and Argentina
This compilation is a follow-up of
an
activity in 1976 against the financial support provided by the German government. At that time the government had provided financial ("Hermes") securities to German companies, amongst them Interatom, a subsidiary of the Siemens AG, to enable the sale of the complete nuclear fuel cycle (i.e. enrichment and reprocessing technology to Brazil when Brazil, a non-NPT state, was pursuing the path to nuclear explosives. At the same time Germany also sold nuclear equipment to Argentina, Brazil's rival. The South American continent was then -and fortunately still is today- nuclear weapons free. A New York Times editorial entitled "Nuclear Madness" denounced the deal as a "reckless move that could set off a nuclear arms race in Latin America, trigger the nuclear arming of a half-dozen nations elsewhere and endanger the security of the United States and the world as a whole" (Nuclear Madness, New York Times, 13. June 1975, p.36, see also p. 9 of Claus Hofhansel, Commercial Competition and National Security: Comparing U.S. and German Export Control Policies, Praeger, 1996, in cache).
In the 1970s we (physicists and chemists) were affiliated with the Hahn-Meitner-Institute in Berlin, Germany (then called HMI for Nuclear Research]. We were concerned about nuclear proliferation originating from German industry and financially backed by the German Federal Government. We sent an open letter to our foreign minister, H.-D. Genscher, asking him not to undercut the non-proliferation efforts of the US president, Jimmy Carter. About half the employees of the HMI had signed the letter (Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik 22, "Dokumente zum Zeitgeschehen", Seiten 1156-1157, 1977).
At that time the Brazilian military government publicly admitted aiming at producing nuclear explosives, but declared them as peaceful. Inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency were not allowed, as Brazil was not a member of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT).
 Source: http://www.bundeskanzlerin.de |
Disregarding the danger of heating up a nuclear arms race between Brazil and Argentina on the thus far nuclear weapons free Latin American continent, the social democratic German government under Helmut Schmidt provided German nuclear suppliers with the necessary financial security backing the sale of an entire nuclear fuel cycle to Brazil.
The German-Brazil nuclear deal grew out of a decades long cooperation between the two states. It had as a major goal the development and sale of uranium enrichment technology
|
German and Brazil government officials subsequently signed the sale's agreement. At the same time, Germany was also a major supplier of nuclear technology to Argentina, which had resolved to stay roughly in step with Brazil and by 1974 had acquired heavy water reactors - the type that India had used to produce its plutonium.
"[The newly elected president of the US, Jimmy] Carter had pledged himself to heading off the German deal with Brazil. And two days after his inauguration, he dispatched Vice President Walter Mondale to Europe with the new administration's message about nuclear proliferation. In Brussels, only four days later, Mondale said that one of the "central themes" would be "stopping the sales of reprocessing plants as those to Brazil an Pakistan" (W.H. Courtney, "Brazil and Argentina: Strategies for American Diplomacy", in Nonproliferation and U.S. Foreign Policy, ed. J.A. Yager (Washington, D.C., Brookings Institution, 1980), p. 380, citing Bernard Weinraub, New York Times, January 25, 1977). In Bonn, he is said to have told Schmidt that Carter "was unalterably opposed to the transfer of the sensitive technologies to Brazil" (ibidem, p. 381). Schmidt stonily replied by noting his commitment to the Non Proliferation Treaty and the suppliers' guidelines [drawn up at a series of secret meetings of the nuclear suppliers' club in London 1974], but he also restated his commitment to the agreement with Brazil. Carter's high-visibility, high-level initiative had the predictable effect of souring the atmosphere and further complicating intractable problems. Two weeks later, Warren Christopher, Deputy Secretary of State designate, was in Bonn, trying to persuade Schmidt to defer transferring the enrichment and reprocessing materials to Brazil until its reactors had been "safeguarded"[... safeguarded by the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA. IAEA safeguards include inspections, inventories, and regular audits of sensitive materials to ensure that nuclear technology is used for peaceful purposes only. Years later, the case of Iraq has shown that IAEA does not achieve this goal (D. Kay, Iraqi Inspections: Lessons Learned. D. Kay was the team leader for three IAEA inspections in Iraq)].
Schmidt again said no. A U.S. mission to Brazil drew a cold, uncompromising reception; the Brazilians made their feelings clear by canceling a military cooperation agreement.
.... He [Carter] planned to cut off American aid to any country that detonated a "peaceful nuclear explosion". He wanted a voice in decisions involving an American client-country's other nuclear exchanges. And he wanted to be able to rule on whether a client-country could develop its own plutonium separation capability (M. Nacht, "Controlling Nuclear Proliferation", in The Eagle Entangled: U.S. Foreign Policy in a Complex World (New York: Longman, 1970), ed. K. Oye, D. Rothchild, and R. Lizber, p. 157)."
"The Federal Republic of Germany-Brazil agreement prompted a strong reaction from the United States that resulted in considerable tension between the US and both of the other countries. For an in-depth review of that situation:
--from: Lawrence Scheinman,
"The IAEA and World Nuclear Order",
Chapter 6, p. 200.
Resources for the Future, Washington, DC, 1987.
In Brazil, in the years that followed under democratic rule, scientific groups, citizens organizations, and newly-empowered legislators were able to lobby openly for constraints on wasteful nuclear activities. Scientists of US public interest groups e.g.
Brazil's deal with West Germany gradually fell apart of its own weight. The Brazilians couldn't afford the reactors and never managed to make the German-design enrichment technology work for them. ... Brazil and Argentina still refuse to sign the NPT, and in either country an immoderate regime could doubtless acquire the weapons option.
Internationally, Germany has been continuously blamed for proliferating weapons relevant technology (for details see Reading List).
IV. Germany's Proliferation of Nuclear Technology to the Indian Subcontinent
Focus of N-probes shifts from Pakistan to Europe, The
News International, Pakistan, Jan. 27, 2004.
... IAEA inspectors and experts have concluded that
... Dutch and German intelligence agencies, according to another source, are engaged in investigating what they describe as the "crucial leads" related to some officials of the Dutch-British-German Urenco consortium.
... The [European] investigators expect to unravel covert activities of more than two decades through investigations launched to identify cartels of the "middle men" who had been helping in illegal transfer of nuclear technology to Iran and Libya.
Some intelligence outfits in Europe believe that the investigation to identify the source or sources that had
been supplying nuclear technology to Iran could not be completed without
launching a thorough probe into the companies which had been providing
Pakistan the most sophisticated nuclear components to build its nuclear
programme, the source said."
"There are individuals from Pakistan, Germany, Holland, South Africa and the UAE" who had been named by Iran in its reports to the IAEA, said the official [close to the investigations following allegations raised by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in November 2003]."
Outside Assistance to the Indian and Pakistani Nuclear Programs, by Steven Dolley, Nuclear Control Institute, June 5, 1998 (in cache)
| Supplier | Items | Notes |
| West Germany | uranium conversion
plant
enrichment technology tritium tritium purification plant plans for tritium production reactor furnaces milling machines hot isostatic presses mass spectrometers uranium shipping containers aluminum for centrifuges |
illegal transfer
illegal transfer
illegal transfer
|
Die U-Boote sind mit acht Torpedorohren des Standardkalibers 533mm ausgerüstet, von denen aus Torpedos, Flugkörper wie die amerikanischen Sub-Harpoon-Raketen und Minen eingesetzt werden können.Zu den Waffen, die Pakistan entwickelt, gehört ein Marschflugkörper namens Babur. Er wurde 2005 erstmals getestet und soll eine Reichweite von 500 km haben. Nach einem erneuten Test 2007 ist sogar von 700km Reichweite die Rede.
In der pakistanischen Fachpresse und im Internet wird offen angesprochen, dass die künftigen U-Boote Pakistans mit Babur-Flugkörpern ausgestattet werden sollen.
"... The U.S. government has issued about 100 specific communiques to the West German government related to planned exports to the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) and its affiliated organizations, according to information obtained by NuclearFuel. Documents reveal that since the early 1970s planned exports--some of which were carried out--included a range of items--from computer technology to uranium.Beginning in 1982, U.S. nonproliferation officials began warning Bonn that PAEC attempted to acquire technology for capture of pure tritium. In March, and again in May, 1986, the U.S. told German officials that the firm Linde AG was planning to export a tritium extraction facility to PAEC.
In responding to U.S. requests, German officials contacted Linde, which said it `had no plans' to export such a facility.
The U.S. sent a third warning in December 1986. `Notwithstanding Linde's assertions, we continue to believe that the information we provided you previously is correct, and that Linde submitted a proposal to PAEC for installation of a tritium recovery facility.'
While on two previous occasions German export officials asserted that technology from Linde `could not result in a form of pure tritium,' the U.S. government replied that `our technical information indicates that such a facility could result in a pure form of tritium.'
Western tritium experts queried by NuclearFuel said that the U.S. position was correct. Linde AG, one of a handful of firms in the world with expertise in the field of cryogenic distillation of hydrogen isotopes, could have supplied a heavy water detritiator with capability to purify the tritium gas product.
In 1985, Germany licensed for export to Pakistan a tritium plant by the firm NTG Nukleartechnik GmbH (NTG), preferring to call it a `heavy water purifier' instead of--as the U.S. preferred--a `tritium recovery facility' in the interests of complying with German regulations on sensitive nuclear exports. While heavy water purification technology is not subject to export controls in Germany, technology for the recovery of tritium is controlled.
The U.S. believed that Germany would control export of tritium capture technology to Pakistan according to a pledge made by German officials at a spring 1986 meeting of the Coordinating Committee on Export Controls (COCOM). While German officials previously told the U.S. they `had no authority' to control tritium technology exports, the U.S. government told Bonn that Germany `should now have the legal authority to control the export of a tritium recovery facility.' Equipment especially designed for tritium production or recovery appears on Germany's Nuclear Energy List of March 25, 1988. That list of items needing an export license is an annex to Germany's Foreign Trade Ordinance.
... Diplomatic sources also said that the U.S. is looking for an avenue to exert `more direct influence' on officials in the Economics Ministry responsible for export control. One 1986 interoffice memo penned by an Economics Ministry official said that U.S. communiques warning of planned nuclear exports to South Asia `usually land in my wastepaper basket.'"
"... West Germany, too, has quite a record for aiding proliferation. Though a Non-Nuclear Weapons State, it assisted five countries into becoming NWSs [Nuclear Weapons States].
- In at least two cases -- South Africa and Brazil -- the German government was involved.
- In the other three cases (Pakistan, Iraq, and Argentina), government involvement has not yet been proven. All five countries developed their own uranium enrichment industries thanks to Germany. Often Swiss Companies, which took subcontracts from German firms, were involved as well.
Another incredible example of German government involvement in nuclear sales consisted of simply changing the wording on a license. Pakistan had ordered a tritium production plant from a German firm. This firm asked for an export license. The German Ministry of Foreign Affairs replied that the plant was on the list of forbidden exports. But, they said, if the license application was renamed, the license should be granted. The new name they proposed was "water refinery plant", because the installation was meant to clean the cooling water of a nuclear reactor. Only, the water was heavy water and tritium was to be separated out. Nevertheless, the change was made, the license granted, the plant exported, and everything was legal. But the plant remained a tritium production installation.
... Over the past 15 years the US has warned the Germans some hundreds of times about private nuclear deals between German firms and Pakistan, Iraq, and India. The FRG government, however, has always denied the affairs and refused to investigate. Each time, though, the warnings proved to be justified. Very rarely have the parties involved been sentenced or even taken to court."
According to the Pakistani Foreign Minister, three Germans acted as middlemen in the illicit transfer of nuclear secrets during the 1980s and 1990s.
"Wal-Mart of black-market proliferation"
(Mohammed ElBaradei)The information first came to light when a German ship was intercepted in October 2003 carrying a cargo of containers filled with nuclear weapons technology headed for Libya. (more, in cache)
Gadhafi unexpectedly spilled the beans on the nuclear mafia in 2003 The seizure prompted a nervous Gadhafi to disclose the names of all those who had supplied Tripoli with material and expertise for its nuclear program. That in turn led to the unraveling of Khan's elaborately-built global arms-dealer bazaar and to the emergence of details of how it peddled nuclear technology to regimes in Iran, North Korea and Libya.
Even as tensions simmer between Iran and the West over Teheran's nuclear program, security sources in Germany say around 100 dummy firms are illegally exporting arms to the Islamic country.Johannes Schmalzl, president of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution in the state of Baden-Württemberg, told the program "Report Mainz" (im Cache) that the situation wasn't entirely new.
"We've been devoting time to the topic since 2002," he said. "And we've concluded that an estimated 100 dummy firms in Germany are involved in it."Schmalzl added that the authorities could hardly keep up with the scale of illegal exports to Iran."When I say, 100 dummy firms, you can imagine that when we discover one and the federal prosecutor opens a case against them, we're happy and pat ourselves on the back. But 99 others are still in business," Schmalzl said. (mehr, im Cache)However, German firms' involvement in illegal arms exports is not confined to Iran alone. Since the 1980s, German firms and middlemen, along with counterparts in other European countries, have been suspected of smuggling nuclear technology to regimes in Pakistan and North Korea.
Mohammed el ElBaradei met with German leaders in Berlin for talks over Iran amid reports of German customs agents uncovering an Iranian procurement network in the country.The [state] prosecutor's office [in Potsdam] said that the deliveries went from the Berlin company run by Russians to a company near Moscow, and from there to Iran. The shipments included electronic parts and special cables. According to an ARD report, the Iranians had attempted to acquire hydraulic pumps and transformer parts in Germany. A spokesman put the value of the deliveries at between two and three million euros ($2.4 and 3.6 million) Two million euros were seized in the raid of the Berlin business.
The export of material that could be used in a nuclear program is subject to strict regulations in Germany and must be approved by the authorities.
It was Libya, seeking to re-enter the international mainstream, that first disclosed the existence of the Pakistani proliferation ring, but the United States took the credit by stage-managing an event in October 2003. With the help of documents Tripoli had turned over to Washington, a German cargo ship was intercepted en route to Libya with centrifuge components routed through Dubai.
The Proliferation Security Initiative, Bureau of Nonproliferation, US Department of State, Washington, DC, July 28, 2004
"The President calls for swift passage of the [Security Council] resolution he proposed in September 2003, requiring all states toOver several years, American and British intelligence services gradually uncovered the [Pakistani] Abdul Qadeer Khan network's reach, and identified its key experts, agents, and financial network."
- criminalize proliferation,
- enact strict export controls, and
- secure sensitive materials within their borders.
"Among these steps [of the February 2004 White House initiative] wereThe international community also responded with the adoption of various measures by separate bodies including
- expanding the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI);
- strengthening the legal framework governing proliferation, in particular
- through a UN Security Council resolution requiring states to criminalize proliferation,
- enact strict export controls, and secure sensitive materials;
- expanding efforts to secure nuclear material in the former Soviet Union and other states;
- denying enrichment and reprocessing technology to any states that do not already possess them;
- requiring countries to implement the IAEA's advanced safeguards Additional Protocol as a necessary condition for supplying equipment and materials for civilian nuclear programs;
- and reforming the IAEA to improve its capability to enforce states' obligations.
- the passage of UN Security Council Resolution 1540,
- reforms considered by the NSG,
- expansion of the PSI,
- the G-8 Global Partnership's Action Plan on Nonproliferation, and
- proposed steps to strengthen IAEA investigations.
The UN resolution has several problems, however, in terms of its implementation. Some states, particularly in the developing world, may resist its main provisions, believing that the obligations should have been established through treaty negotiations. It will also likely be applied unevenly among even the most well-intentioned states because many, without extensive assistance, will experience difficulties in enacting, implementing, and enforcing effective export control legislation."
While pursuing these efforts, the G-8 partners agreed not to initiate any new contracts to provide reprocessing or uranium-enrichment equipment and technologies to additional states for one year [extended in April 2006 for 2 more years, in chache]. This was a weaker commitment than the one that Bush had called for and that the U.S. delegation reportedly lobbied the G-8 to adopt.
"... The United States is working on its own plan to provide assistance to other states to promote full implementation of UNSCR 1540. We are encouraging other governments in position to do so to offer assistance to countries not yet meeting the requirements of this resolution. We also encourage outreach to those governments that have not yet submitted reports to the UNSCR 1540 Committee to complete this important work. The regional seminars planned for later this year should be helpful in shaping next steps in implementation of the Resolution. Working together, we can ensure that all states fully implement this resolution and meet its aims to prevent VIN/ED proliferation." Andrew K. Semmel (Deputy Assistant Secretary, Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy and Negotiations), "Is Nuclear Non-Proliferation Still Attainable?", Remarks at the United Nations Foundation, June 9, 2006 (in chache)A complete, long-term ban on providing reprocessing and enrichment technology to new states will be difficult to achieve within either the framework of the G-8 or the NSG [Nuclear Suppliers Group], although the United States is expected to continue to work toward achieving this important goal.
This case [the Khan network] has also shown the need for the IAEA to receive more information from states about their exports and imports of key sensitive dual-use items.
In January 2004, ElBaradei said that "export controls must be dramatically improved and, in contrast to the past, must be carried out within an international framework." .... A universal treaty-based system controlling nuclear export activities would be binding on states and would include a means to verify compliance. ... In addition, a treaty-based system of export controls and verification would impose new requirements on all states, even those that have not implemented the Additional Protocol."
Illicit Procurement Infrastructure; The recruitment of key foreign players to procure both legal and illicit items, or to act as agents or trusted sources of technology.Such recruitment efforts may involve: Off-shore agents or companies, Partial or complete control of established companies, Middlemen, Experts, Specialized "know-how", Education and training, Logistics, Secrecy, The strengths and weaknesses of national export control regulations and laws and, False end-user statements.
Quick Links to Case Studies
Iraq
"In 1987, Iraq partially acquired the German company H+H Metalform GmbH. It subsequently grew to play an important role in supplying Iraq's ballistic missile and gas centrifuge programs with equipment, components, and on-site expertise. H+H specialized in the production of vertical flow-forming machines, which make thin-walled, pressure resistant precision tubes useful to militaries . Such lightweight, pressure resistant tubes have been particularly useful in ballistic missile and gas centrifuge programs."
"Schaublin is a world-famous machine tool manufacturer in Bevilard, Switzerland that provided Iraq with parts and sophisticated machine tools for its gas centrifuge manufacturing program in the 1980s [with the help of H+H Metallform employees]. In 1990 German authorities confiscated a shipment of Schaublin equipment to Iraq, although in the end no charges were filed against the company."
"In the fall of 1988, Iraq requested that the H+H team find a ballistic missile expert. In response, Bruno Stemmler recommended Karl Otto Brauer, a retired German engineer who he knew from a German flying club.In reality, the Iraqis had decided quickly that they did not want to give Brauer a contract. They viewed him as extremely frail and doubted that he could significantly help their ballistic missile program."
"In 1998, Ernest Piffl, managing director of the German firm Team GmbH near Stuttgart, received a three and half year prison sentence for illegally exporting thousands of preforms for gas centrifuge scoops to Pakistan's secret uranium enrichment program. Preforms are partially finished cast or machined components, and the ones sent to Pakistan were made of a special aluminum alloy and looked like small thin-walled pipes. Bending and finishing these little pipes would have been done at the point of assembly of the centrifuge.The regional superior court of Stuttgart established that the end-user of the last consignment of preforms, which was confiscated by German authorities in 1993, would have been the Khan Research Laboratories (KRL) near Islamabad. KRL is responsible for Pakistan's secret uranium enrichment program and is well known for involvement in illicit procurement and the production of highly enriched uranium (HEU) for nuclear weapons."
Resources: Glossary, Glossary of Key Names, Link to Urenco.
"After the Gulf War, the UN-mandated inspection process revealed how German companies easily manipulated Germany's weak and over-burdened export control system with false and misleading end-user information. Other governments condemned Germany's illicit exports to Iraq and elsewhere, and Germany was accosted as a "black sheep" of export controls.The German media played an extremely important role in creating a strong political constituency demanding fundamental change. Extensive publicity about these illicit or questionable exports damaged the reputations of many German companies. They not only suffered legal consequences, but also were condemned publicly as amoral.
In order to regain its image and international respect, the German government radically tightened its export control system twice - once in 1990, and again in 1992. The penalties for foreign trade violations were drastically increased and the range of mechanisms for effective export control was expanded.
... The government also provided the export classification system with the general "catch-all clause," which says that all products are subjected to approval requirements to the extent that the exporter has knowledge of an actual or intended use for weapons production.
Under the new laws, German companies are required to create stringent internal compliance systems and senior officials are now legally responsible for the actions of their employees. The law permits the prosecution of senior company officials for the illegal exports of lower level employees, creating a powerful incentive for companies to create stringent internal controls.
Despite the tightening of German governmental standards, a major burden still resides on the companies to act with honesty and moral integrity. The companies are recognized as playing a major role in achieving nonproliferation goals. In several cases, their internal compliance systems have become models for both other companies and governments." (more)
"... the "separative work" required to obtain low-enriched uranium at, say, 4 percent enrichment, is about 70 to 90 percent of that required to produce the highly enriched uranium used in the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, or in the six weapons secretly stockpiled by the former white-minority government of South Africa in the 1980s."
... to produce one kilogram of uranium enriched to 3% U-235 requires 3.8 kg SWU (abbreviated as 3.8 SWU) if the plant is operated at a tails assay 0.25%, or 5.0 SWU if the tails assay is 0.15% (thereby requiring only 5.1 kg instead of 6.0 kg of natural U feed, containing 0.72 % U-235).About 100-120,000 SWU is required to enrich the annual fuel loading for a typical 1000 MWe light water reactor.
Cost Estimates:
Capital Costs (gas centrifuge: approx. 500 USD per one SWU/yr)
- The EUR 3 billion French plant operated by Areva is expected to start commercial operation in 2009 and ramp up to full capacity of 7.5 million SWU/yr in 2018.
- The $1.5 billion US plant in New Mexico, USA, will use the 6th generation Urenco technology, and first production is expected in 2008, with full capacity of 3 million SWU/yr being reached in 2013.
- USEC is building its American Centrifuge Plant in Piketon, Ohio, involving 1300 centrifuges as the culmination of a very major R&D program. The Lead Cascade demonstration plant is due to start operation in mid 2007. For the main centrifuge plant initial annual capacity of 3.5 million SWU from 2011 is envisaged, costing $1.7 billion, though its licence application is for 7 million SWU to allow for expansion.
Operating Costs (gas centrifuge: 50 kWh per one SWU)
Enrichment costs are substantially related to electrical energy used.
- The gaseous diffusion process consumes about 2500 kWh (9000 MJ) per SWU, while
- modern gas centrifuge plants require only about 50 kWh (180 MJ) per SWU.
Separative Work Units (SWU) as a function of feed enrichment xF.
SWU grows proportional to the amount of the product (see Eq.1), i.e. to produce 10 kg uranium being 90% U-235 one needs 10 times the SWU plotted in this diagram.Curve to the left: SWU = function of xF, more specifically:
Separative Work Units (kg) necessary to produce 1 kg uranium being 90% U-235 (weapons grade) as a function of initial ("feed", F) enrichment (xF) when the U-235 content in the centrifuge tails cannot be depleted more than to 0.5% of total uranium (depletion limit xT = 0.005).When one starts with an enrichment an order of magnitude above the depletion limit, the enrichment effort decreases sharply with feed enrichment, because the concommittant tails amounts are much smaller at those enrichments and thus also the size of the centrifuge array.
Example:
- Enrichment of natural uranium (0.72 % U-235) to produce 1 kg of 90% enriched uranium requires 155 (kg) SWU.
- Enrichment of 4% enriched uranium to produce 1 kg of 90% enriched uranium requires 55 (kg) SWU.
For comparison: "One P1 centrifuge -a modified Pakistani version of the Dutch 4M, developed in the mid 1970s- has an annual output of about 3 SWU per year (Director General, "Implementation of the NPT Safeguard Agreement in the Islamic Republic of Iran," International Atomic Energy Agency, June 1, 2004, GOV/2004/34, Annex 1, p. 11)." (Source: D. Albright, C. Hinderstein, The Clock is Ticking, But How Fast?, ISIS, March 27, 2006, (in cache).
Thus production of 1 kg weapons grade uranium (90% U-235) takes one year and needsCorrespondingly, the production of 97 kg weapons grade uranium (90% U-235) takes one year and needs 5000 P1 centrifuges when starting with natural uranium:
- 52 P1 centrifuges when starting with natural uranium.
- 18 P1 centrifuges when starting with power reactor grade uranium (4% enriched).
(1 kg U-235) / (52 P1 centrifuges) 5000 P1 centrifuges = 97 kg U-235.In relation to Iran
- "[In Iran] By mid-May of 2007, 8 cascades of 164 centrifuges each, as well as smaller groups, are in intermittent experimental operation fed by uranium hexafluoride from Iran's ore processing plant; Iran has claimed "industrial capability." Note that the steady operation of about 5000 centrifuges of the type operated by Iran are needed to separate HEU [Highly Enriched Uranium] for one nuclear weapon per year."
Source: Wolfgang K. H. Panofsky, "Capability versus intent: The latent threat of nuclear proliferation", The Bulletin Online, 15 June 2007 - in cache))
- "... we now know that the Iranians have 10 centrifuge cascades [each cascade consisting of 164 centrifuges], totalling 1,640 machines. However, Iran claims to have assembled at least 3000 [P-1] centrifuges, enough to make another nine or 10 cascades. As the centrifuges now operating are configured, Iran is making 4 per cent U-235, suitable for use in a power reactor: 3000 centrifuges will produce U-235 for one bomb each year.
It is now obvious that Iran skilfully played for time until they reached a rather high level of technical mastery of the enrichment process. This is the price paid by the west and the Russians and Chinese for their reluctance to apply meaningful sanctions to Iran two and even three years ago.
Even if Iran abandons its plans to build more than the current 3000 centrifuges, another problem remains. Part of any negotiation will have to be an iron-clad guarantee that supplies of fuel for Iranian nuclear power reactors will be available, no matter what political winds blow. In practice that will almost certainly mean that Iran will be allowed to hold at least a year's spare fresh fuel as a buffer. The danger here is that reactor fuel, enriched to 4 per cent U-235, is already more than halfway to bomb grade because enrichment becomes easier as concentration of U-235 increases. If Iran decides to throw out international inspectors and abandon the NPT, the capabilities of its "pilot plant" will be more than doubled if it taps into its stock of reactor fuel."
Source: Peter Zimmerman, Change tack on nuclear Iran, Financial Times, London, August 16 2007. The author is professor of science & security studies at King's College London. He previously served as the chief scientist of the US Senate committee on foreign relations).
- "Reports by Reuters (6. February 2008), the Associated Press and the Vienna Press Agency have highlighted Iran's decision to move ahead with installation of modified P-2 centrifuges at the Natanz pilot fuel enrichment plant. Iran's name for the machine is the IR-2.
This decision appears to reflect Iran's commitment to expanding and improving its enrichment capabilities beyond those of the P-1 centrifuge, of which 3000 are currently operating at the larger Natanz fuel enrichment plant. According to press reports, the modified P-2/IR-2 centrifuges are still being tested and no nuclear material has been introduced yet.
The P-2 centrifuge, deployed in Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, is essentially the same design as one developed by Germany in the early 1970s and stolen by A.Q. Khan from Urenco, the uranium enrichment consortium of Britain, Germany, and the Netherlands.
Where the P-1 in Pakistan achieved an annual enrichment output of about 2 separative work units (swu) annually, the P-2 has a capacity of about 5 swu annually."more in: some basic background about this centrifuge and a brief history of Iran's research and development of them to date
Source: ISIS Newsletter, February 7, 2008 (in cache)
"Nuclear critics saw promoting LWRs without reprocessing or the further spread of enrichment plants, then, as the best path. Enrichment and reprocessing, they argued, would be difficult to hide and, therefore, could and should be discouraged. ""... the report makes clear that building and operating small, covert reprocessing and enrichment facilities are now far easier than they were portrayed to be 25 years ago.
The bottom line - LWRs no longer should be given to any nation that might divert the reactor's fresh lightly enriched fuel or the plutonium-laden spent fuel to make bombs.
- A key reason why is the increasing availability of advanced centrifuge enrichment technology. This allows nations to make weapons-grade uranium with far less energy and in far less space than was required with older enrichment methods. It also allows them to distribute and hide their uranium enrichment facilities among a number of sites, something traditional gaseous diffusion uranium enrichment (the next most popular way to enrich uranium) does not permit.
- Another reason why is that nations can quickly separate out the plutonium contained in spent reactor fuel in relatively affordable facilities that can be quite small (as little as 65 feet square) and therefore, be easily hidden.
The report details how fresh and spent LWR fuel can be used to accelerate a nation's illicit weapons program significantly. In the case of a state that can enrich uranium (either covertly or commercially),
As for spent LWR fuel, the report details how
- fresh lightly enriched reactor fuel rods could be seized and the uranium oxide pellets they contain quickly crushed and fluoridated.
- This lightly enriched uranium feed material, in turn, could enable a would-be bomb maker to produce a significant number of weapons with one-fifth the level of effort than what would otherwise be required to enrich the natural uranium to weapons grade.
- about a year after an LWR of the size Iran has was brought on line, as much as 60 Nagasaki bombs' worth of near-weapons grade material could be seized and
- the first bomb made in a matter of weeks. The report also details how
- the reliability of the bombs made of this material, moreover, is similar to that of devices made of pure weapons grade plutonium.
The running assumption today, of course, is that any nation diverting either the fresh or spent fuel from an LWR site would be detected by IAEA inspectors. This clearly is the premise of the deal the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Russia are making to Iran: Russia will provide Iran with fresh reactor fuel if Iran promises to suspend activities at its known uranium enrichment facilities and surrenders spent fuel from its LWR for transit and storage in Russia. What's not fully appreciated, however, is that Iran might well be able to divert these materials to covert enrichment or reprocessing plants and might well be able to do so without detection. Lengthy exposure to spent fuel that has just left an LWR of the sort required to package and ship long distances out of the country is quite hazardous. If Iran was set on making bombs, though, it might be willing to take the risks associated with a much shorter transit for quick reprocessing. The health hazards associated with diverting fresh LWR fuel, on the other hand, are virtually nil.
The IAEA currently
- does not have complete, real time camera monitoring of either fresh or spent fuel storage areas in Iran and
- only reviews camera tapes at these sites once every 90 days - a period within which Iran could divert this material to make its first nuclear weapon. Oddly, the IAEA is now considering expanding the intervals between these inspections (for nations other than Iran) from 90 days to a year as a way to rationalize its meager resources and to entice nations to allow the IAEA more intrusive inspection rights under the Additional Protocol.
The thinking here is that since it would take a nation about a year to construct an enrichment or reprocessing plant, the IAEA can afford to extend the time between inspections. This argument, however, assumes two things:
Yet, neither assumption seems warranted."
- First, that the IAEA can determine in advance which nations do not have covert enrichment and reprocessing plants and,
- second, that IAEA inspectors could detect covert reprocessing and enrichment plant construction in a timely fashion.
Henry D. Sokolski, Falling Behind: International Scrutiny of the Peaceful Atom, A Report of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center On the International Atomic Energy Agency's Nuclear Safeguards System, Final Updated Report (September 2007) - in cache, August 30, 2007.
This NPEC report examines the International Atomic Energy Agency's ability to safeguard peaceful nuclear energy, and provides a series of recommendations to shore up the NPT-IAEA safeguards system's shortfalls.Timely detection for plutonium, highly enriched uranium (HEU) and uranium-233 in metal and in fresh mixed oxide fuel (MOX) is simply not possible.
"conversion time" = time estimate for conversion of material into a bomb
... "as nuclear reactors spread among nations their production will enable almost every country to acquire nuclear weapons. This statement, most unfortunately, is true. I believe that eventually nuclear proliferation is unavoidable unless we find better solutions to international problems than are now on the horizon.""There is no prospect of security against atomic warfare in a system of international agreements to outlaw such weapons controlled only by a system, which relies in inspections and similar police-like methods. The reasons supporting this conclusion are not merely technical, but primarily the insuperable political, social, and organizational problems involved in enforcing agreements between nations each free to develop atomic energy but only pledged not to use bombs. So long as intrinsically dangerous activities [i.e., production and use of weapons-useable materials such as plutonium and highly-enriched uranium] may be carried out by nations, rivalries are inevitable and fears are engendered that place so great a pressure upon a system of international enforcement by police methods that no degree of ingenuity or technical competence could possibly hope to cope with them. (from Chester I. Barnard, J. R. Oppenheimer, Charles A. Thomas, Harry A. Winne, David E. Lilienthal, Chairman, A Report on the International Control of Atomic Energy Prepared for The Secretary of State's Committee on Atomic Energy by a Board of Consultants ("Acheson-Lilienthal Report"), Department of State Publication 2498, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., March 16, 1946)."
(see also related issue in: J. Robert Oppenheimer, Speech to the Association of Los Alamos Scientists, Los Alamos, New Mexico, November 2, 1945)
"Further convergence [of the German, Swedish and British export regulations] can be expected in the period to 2010 and beyond. While this is difficult to prove, table 8.5 suggests that the arms and dual-use export controls of the three countries are likely to continue to converge in the coming years around even higher levels of intergovernmental coordination and with further examples of explicit harmonization. While the scope and pace of this convergence will be contingent on future changes in the policy environments (especially the potential for deeper political integration and the development of a Single European Defense Market) and the future actions of policy stakeholders, there are strong grounds for believing that many of the factors which led to significant convergence in the 1990s will continue to shape policy agenda in the new decade."related citation: Joseph Cirincione, "The European Union has crafted its own strategy that includes tying all EU trade agreements to observance of non-proliferation treaties and norms."in Nuclear Proliferation Status, 2006 (in cache), Center for American Progress, June 9, 2006
- "Six nations abandoned indigenous nuclear weapon programs under way or under consideration in the 1960s: Egypt, Italy, Japan, Norway, Sweden, and West Germany.
- Since the late 1970s, Argentina, Australia, Belarus, Brazil, Canada, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Libya, Romania, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, Ukraine, and Yugoslavia have abandoned nuclear weapon programs or nuclear weapons (or both) on their territory.
- North Korea and Iran are the only two states that began acquiring nuclear weapon capabilities in this later period and have not ceased the effort."
- more: Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons (in cache), Video Lecture, Massachussetts Institute of Technology, SERIES: The Future of Nuclear Technology, MITWorld, February 22, 2007.
- of related interest:
- Graham Allison, Loose nukes: The Eight spoke loudly, and did little, June 12, 2004
- World should adapt to Iran atom advances (in chache) - ElBaradei, Reuters, May 16, 2007: "from a proliferation perspective, the fact of the matter is that one of the purposes of suspension -- keeping them from getting the knowledge -- has been overtaken by events. ... 'We believe they pretty much have the knowledge about how to enrich. From now on, it is simply a question of perfecting that knowledge. People will not like to hear it, but that's a fact."
"[Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) and Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG)] Regime cohesion could erode quickly. The panelists observed that the United States has always set the standard for nonproliferation rules. Although it has usually taken a long time for countries to follow the United States when it has strengthened these rules, it has taken only an instant to follow any loosening of them. Russia, France and Britain, for example, have already expressed interest in nuclear cooperation with India. In a political climate where rules are being loosened for a proliferant country like India, the easing of exports to other proliferators such as Iran is likely to follow."
(Source: Iran Watch Round Tables, November 30, 2005, Iran Watch, Finding 2 (in cache),... "The U.S. Commerce Department recently dropped legal restraints on American exports of missile-useable equipment to three subsidiaries of the Indian Space Research Organization, despite the fact that all three are active in Indian missile development. This appears to be only the first step in a general loosening of U.S. missile controls for India.
Once American firms begin to sell such items to India, eager companies in Russia, China and Europe may consider that it is safe to sell the same things to Iran. Iran recently announced plans to expand its infant satellite and space programs, both of which will need imports. Those imports, by their nature, may be useful for making missiles."
(Source: Iran Watch Round Tables, November 30, 2005, Iran Watch, Finding 3 (in cache)
(see also G. Milhollin, Bonn's Proliferation Policy, The New York Times, January 4, 1989, Page A21, in cache
"To South Africa, West German companies sent low-enriched uranium, which multiplied Pretoria's ability to make high-enriched uranium for bombs.To Israel went heavy water, which increased the output of Israel's bomb-making reactor at Dimona. To Argentina went heavy water that could run a secret bomb-making reactor in the future.
To Pakistan went an entire factory to help process uranium for bombs, plus tritium and tritium-making equipment to multiply the explosive power of its first generation of nuclear bombs.
To India went ''reflector material'' - probably beryllium for the core of the bomb itself - and enough heavy water to let India run for the first time three large bomb-making reactors outside international controls.
Many of the nuclear exports lacked the required licenses. Companies are likely to have conspired with the recipients to move the goods across borders. The fact is, most of the exports were expressly forbidden by West German pledges under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and raise strong questions whether Bonn cares about the treaty at all.
Outside protests have failed to stop the transfers. The United States asked Bonn in 1981 to stop the Hempel Group, in Düsseldorf, from sending enriched uranium to South Africa and heavy water to Argentina. Switzerland asked in 1985 for information about the same Hempel Group's sale of heavy water to India through Zürich.
In 1986, Washington asked Bonn to stop Hempel from sending heavy water to India, and warned in a memo of an even larger scheme to sell heavy water "coordinated from within West Germany by Hempel Company officials". Norway asked West Germany in 1988 to investigate Hempel's sale of Norwegian heavy water to India through Basel. In every case, Bonn refused to provide information, investigate or acknowledge any gap in its laws.
Why is West Germany so lax? To promote trade, Bonn has deliberately kept its export laws weak, and it doesn't want to think about tightening them. And the staff for policing sensitive exports is woefully inadequate, making it easy for an unscrupulous operator to evade controls.
But it's not just a
