Trust & Verify No. 127

I cannot believe that we're already at issue number 127 of this publication. Some of you might know that I a couple of year instructed a gang of unhappy interns to scan all back issues, from issue number one. Once I find a host, I'll see if I cannot put everything on-line. For now, though, this issue deals with very technical issues: infrasound monitoring and advanced photoshopping.

It's also littered with references to friends of mine. Before you accuse me of plugging friends in the Centre's publication, know that I did not draft any of the articles in verification watch. You guys just happened to be there when I reviewed the drafts - a quite pleasant surprise.

Also, by no means did I want you to have a 'restive' season, or even a 'festive' season. I'd like you all to have a restful season. Come 24 December, yours truly will switch off completely. Back on 4 January 2010.

Putting the CTBT into practice

As a director, you're never quite have the time to write about the things you like, such as wonkish observations on the state of arms control. And many of you visiting this half-dormant blog also knows that I seem to prioritize my contributions to the Arms Control Wonk. However, once in a while, good stuff happens. Such as VERTIC's new brief on the CTBT, written by a couple of really capable guys from down under.



Enjoy VERTIC Brief 10, Putting the CTBT into practice. And tomorrow, we'll put out the 127th edition of Trust & Verify.

Do have a restful season, dear friends.

VERTIC publications on CTBT

I'm quite pleased with these two, written by Ed Ifft, on on-site inspections under the CTBT. More in this series will follow in the coming months.

Occasional Paper 1: Technical Considerations

Occasional Paper 2: Modalities

If you require a paper copy (once we get the ISSN), please contact larry.macfaul (at) vertic.org.

Gchine analysis

Reading Jeffrey Lewis’s great post today, I have decided to share some preliminary analysis I wrote up a week ago or so, but never posted. I believe I come to a similar conclusion as Jeffrey. I should also note that I briefly discussed my findings with a person who does this for a living this week. This person could not comment on the analysis as such, since he or she hasn’t seen it. The analyst did, however, comment: “the tailing pond is filling up really fast - and it's a really big pond”. The figures are processed by a sophisticated piece of fuel cycle analysis software.

Gchin is mined by open-pit method. According to the Red Book, the ore grade is 2,000 parts per million and the mine contains about 100 tonnes of uranium. In other words, Iran should be able to dig up about 50,000 metric tonnes of ore before the mine is exhausted. The declared mining capacity is about 55 metric tonnes per day and the average mining recovery is declared to be somewhere between 85 and 90 per cent.

The ore is then shipped to the Bandar-Abbas Uranium Production Plant in southern Iran. Bandar-Abbas is own and run by the government. Its planned capacity is 21 metric tonnes of uranium per year. The facility is hence capable of treating about 48 tonnes of uranium ore per day. A simple mathematical operation (dividing the declared amount of ore with the planned capacity) shows that the mine is completely mined out in a little under three years. The entire mining and milling operation employs about 280 people, and is all carried out by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI).This is all, again, according to the Red Book, which just states official Iranian declarations.

Bandar Abbas extracts uranium through acid leaching. Operating at full capacity, the mill would generate roughly 9,874 metric tonnes of tailings per year. What this equates to in volume depends on the density of the tailings. But it’s likely to be something like 5,000 cubic meters. The known factor here is sulphuric acid. The mill would require some 467 metric tonnes of acid per year (for the leaching). This is about 254 cubic meters. Assuming that density of the mined material is roughly equivalent to sand and gravel (it is a salt plug after all), the remaining 9.407 metric tonnes of waste would be equivalent to about 4,657 cubic meters.

However, the area covered with waste at the mill is 10,000 square meters (see the southernmost pond in this image). The depth is difficult to estimate, but appears to be around a meter. That equals, obviously, a volume of 10,000 cubic meters. That would explain why analysts in Vienna reportedly are quite surprised at the speed of which this new deposit area is filling up. It’s filling up too fast. Of course, this calculation is based on the declared capacity of the mill. Iran could have invested some money into making it capable of handling more ore.

How much weapons grade uranium can you then get out of Gchine if it’s working at a declared capacity? The answer to that question depends on what processes you use and what your loss fractions you have in the conversion process (that’s generally around 2 per cent). It also depends on how much enrichment capacity you have and how you configure your cascade. Finally, it depends on what your loss fraction is in the metal fabrication process (that’s generally around a per cent). Your assessment will vary wildly depending on your assumptions.

A Qom style facility, with 3,000 centrifuges, would, if tails are set to a wasteful 0.4 per cent, be able to produce some 57.7 kilograms of 93 per cent enriched uranium hexafluoride gas per year. If tails were set to 0.2 per cent, which is the industrial standard, the same facility would produce 43.29 kilograms. 57 kilograms of uranium hexafluoride gas is roughly equivalent to 38 kilograms of uranium metal.

But that’s all theoretical, of course.

Gchine increases yellowcake production

Few people know that Jeffrey Lewis, two other analysts and I have poured over a fresh set of satellite imagery of the Gchine uranium mine. Today, Jonathan Tyrone at Bloomberg is breaking the story.

Nov. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Satellite photos indicate that Iran has increased production at a uranium mine, underscoring the need for wider UN inspections to determine whether the country is trying to build a nuclear weapon.Evidence of stepped-up activity at the Gchine mine, near the Persian Gulf coast city of Bandar Abbas, is seen in pictures obtained by Bloomberg News and the Washington-based New America Foundation, according to four nuclear analysts who examined the images. The mine could produce enough uranium to craft at least two atomic bombs a year, experts said.

The photographs, taken on April 26 and Oct. 3 by DigitalGlobe Inc. and GeoEye Inc., two U.S. commercial satellite companies, show Iran increased the rate at which it pumps waste from the mine during the intervening months. Iran has filled one waste pool since November 2008, when a previous photograph was taken, and built a second pond with pipes connecting it to processing tanks that separate the metal from rock.“Iran’s decision to expand mining and milling at Bandar Abbas seems to validate the suspicions of those who think it was the main uranium site for a covert program,” Jeffrey G. Lewis, nuclear strategy and non-proliferation director at the New America Foundation, a public policy institute, said in an Oct. 20 interview.

The increased uranium production indicates that United Nations inspectors need to widen their field of vision beyond facilities such as Iran’s uranium-enrichment plant in Natanz and its Esfahan conversion facility, Lewis and other analysts said. The UN’s nuclear agency should renew demands to inspect research labs, machine shops and mines including Gchine, they added.

Top Priority

The international community’s top priority should be to gain “considerably more access into the Iranian program as a whole so that there is a verifiable distance between Iran’s option to build a bomb and the exercise of that option,” said Lewis, who formerly ran the nuclear non-proliferation research program at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The U.S. and several allies say Iran’s atomic work is cover for the development of a weapon, while the government in Tehran insists that the program is peaceful and intended for civilian purposes such as electricity generation.Iran has been under investigation by the UN since 2003 because it concealed nuclear work from the world body’s International Atomic Energy Agency for two decades. It is subject to three sets of UN economic sanctions for ignoring Security Council demands that it suspend uranium enrichment and related work and allow wider inspections.

Weapon Fears

The IAEA said Oct. 29 that it would consult with world powers and Iran after the country failed to fully accept a UN- brokered plan for Russia to process nuclear fuel for a medical- research reactor in Tehran. Iran said its “technical and economic concerns” had to be addressed.

The proposal would slow any effort by Iran to make a weapon with its 1,500-kilogram (3,300-pound) stockpile of low-enriched uranium and, if accepted, improve prospects for international talks aimed at ensuring that the country doesn’t produce a bomb.

Holder of the world’s No. 2 oil and natural gas reserves, Iran has been using about530 tons of uranium obtained from South Africa in 1982 to fuel its declared enrichment program, centered at the Natanz plant, about 210 kilometers (130 miles) south of Tehran. IAEA inspectors have long sought to establish whether Iran has an alternative fuel source for a nuclear effort running in parallel with the declared program.

Yellowcake

The Gchine site, which Iran no longer allows the IAEA to visit, could produce enough raw uranium for processing into two warheads a year if Iran chose to secretly enrich the uranium to weapons grade, according to calculations by theVerification Research, Training and Information Center, a London-based institute that is a non-governmental observer at the IAEA and funded by European governments.

Gchine has the capacity to produce annually up to 21 tons of milled uranium, or yellowcake, Iran told the Paris-based Nuclear Energy Agency, part of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, in 2007. Satellite photographs taken last year showed that the mine was only beginning operations and not working at capacity.

“Although the mill has a design capacity of 21 tons of yellowcake per year, it has actually operated at much lower levels,” Lewis said. “The construction of a much larger pond suggests Iran is moving toward operating the mill at its design capacity"

About half that amount, or 9,000 kilograms of yellowcake, would be needed to produce the 25 kilograms (55 pounds) of 93 percent enriched uranium required for a weapon, according to the verification center.

History of Concealment

The satellite photos, while showing that Iran is ramping up capacity, can’t pinpoint the amount of uranium being produced, the analysts said. Inspections would be needed to find out how close to production capacity Iran is at the mine.

“Given Iran’s history of concealing nuclear facilities, an effective safeguards regime needs to cover all of Iran’s nuclear activities from the moment the ore comes out of the earth at Bandar Abbas and elsewhere,” Lewis said.

An IAEA agreement with Iran, which allows inspection of declared nuclear sites such as Natanz and Esfahan, located about 340 kilometers south of Tehran, doesn’t extend to mining operations.

Inspectors gained some access to Gchine from 2003 until 2006, when Iran stopped complying with an IAEA agreement that allowed for more stringent investigations. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ceased Iran’s cooperation with the so-called Additional Protocol in 2006 in retaliation for the IAEA’s referral of the dispute over Iran’s nuclear work to the Security Council.

Heavy-Water Reactor

The agency has repeatedly requested more access to the mine as well as other sites involved in Iran’s atomic work, most recently in a Sept. 9 report.

The Additional Protocol, created in 1997 after the discovery that Iraq and North Korea had atomic programs, would give inspectors access to places beyond Gchine, such as an incomplete heavy-water reactor in Arak, 240 kilometers south of Tehran, and plants that make centrifuges used in uranium enrichment. Inspectors would also be allowed to take water and soil samples and talk with key figures in Iran’s nuclear program.

What the international community “would like to know now is where all that uranium yellowcake is going,” Andreas Persbo, executive director of the verification institute, said in an Oct. 21 interview.

Chain Reaction

Two of the four analysts who examined the satellite images and confirmed the production increase declined to be identified because they aren’t authorized to speak publicly on the issue. The two satellite image companies regularly take pictures of countries such as Iran and sell the photographs to interested governments and scientists.

Inspectors don’t know whether all of the mine’s output is going to Esfahan for conversion, whether some is being stockpiled at the mine or whether it is being secretly transferred to an undeclared site, said Persbo. Iran hasn’t reported details of the output.

At the conversion stage, yellowcake is turned into uranium hexafluoride gas. It is then transported in casks to Natanz, where centrifuges isolate the uranium-235 isotope used in a nuclear chain reaction.

Iran could produce a warhead without the IAEA’s knowledge if secret facilities to convert and enrich the uranium mined at Gchine were used, according to the analysts.

Underground Facility

Iran told the IAEA about a previously secret underground enrichment plant, called Fordo, some 160 kilometers south of Tehran, in September. IAEA inspectors undertook a four-day visit to the site and will report their findings to the organization’s 35-member board of governors.Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA, Aliasghar Soltanieh, when reached by telephone yesterday, wouldn’t confirm that production had increased at Gchine or comment on whether the country would submit to wider inspections.

The IAEA declined to comment on the satellite photographs. U.S. diplomats also declined to comment and referred Bloomberg News to an Oct. 21 speech by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.“The International Atomic Energy Agency doesn’t have the tools or authority to carry out its mission effectively,” Clinton said in the Washington speech. “We saw this in the institution’s failure to detect Iran’s covert enrichment plant.”

Our calculations were done through stand-alone fuel cycle analysis software and assumes that the mine ore grade is as declared in the OECD Red Book. The figures have been verified by a third party. Quite obviously, there are significant margins of error in the estimate.

Trust & Verify No. 126

This has been a hectic week. We seen the appearance of a new enrichment site in Iran, a far-reaching and inspiring Security Council resolution, and the conclusion of a very successful CTBT Article XIV Conference in New York. I have also been drafting a couple of final reports for funders, had a large number of interesting meetings, and, of course, preparing the next edition of Trust & Verify.



I'm quite pleased with this issue, especially Hassan Elbahtimy's lead article on verified nuclear disarmament, but also Richard Guthrie's update from the BWC Meeting of Experts, and my own article on a verified fissile material cut-off treaty.

ElBaradei comments on Iran compliance

Reposted from Reuters India:

VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran broke a transparency law of the U.N. nuclear watchdog by failing to disclose much earlier a nuclear plant being built for uranium enrichment, agency director Mohamed ElBaradei said in a televised interview.

Iran reported the site to the International Atomic Energy Agency on Sept. 21. Western powers said Tehran was forced to do so after learning they were about to discover a plant whose construction began 3-1/2 years ago.

Western diplomatic sources said the plant was hidden inside a mountainside on a former Iranian Revolutionary Guards base near the Shi'ite holy city of Qom. It heightened suspicions of a covert Iranian aim to develop atomic bombs, they said.

Iran has said the site is meant for enriching uranium only to low levels for civilian energy, like its much larger Natanz enrichment complex which is under IAEA monitoring, and that it had no legal obligation to reveal it until now.

ElBaradei disagreed.

"Iran was supposed to inform us on the day it was decided to construct the facility. They have not done that," he said in an interview with CNN-India during a visit to New Delhi, in remarks relayed by the IAEA's Vienna headquarters.

"They are saying that this was meant to be a back-up facility in case we (Iran) were attacked, and so they could not tell us earlier on," ElBaradei said.

IRAN "ON WRONG SIDE OF LAW"

"Nonetheless, they have been on the wrong side of the law, you know, in so far as informing the agency about the construction and as you have seen it, it has created concern in the international community.

"(This) has been a setback to the principle of transparency, to the effort by the international community to build confidence about the Iranian nuclear programme because Iran has been on the wrong side of the law in so far as to inform the agency at an earlier date," said ElBaradei.

An IAEA statute modified in 1992 requires states to notify inspectors as soon as a decision to build a nuclear plant is made. Previously, states could alert the IAEA of a new plant six months before nuclear materials were to be brought into it.

Iran adopted the "Modified Code 3.1" but in 2007 withdrew from it, reverting to the old arrangement in protest at U.N. Security Council sanctions slapped on it over its refusal to suspend enrichment or grant unfettered IAEA inspections.

The IAEA has ruled that states which formally adopted the Code cannot unilaterally go back to the old system. Iran rejects this legal interpretation. It is now the only member state with significant nuclear sites not adhering to the modified code.

World powers say they will raise the second Iranian enrichment site in talks with Iran in Geneva on Thursday, but Iranian officials said they will not discuss it.

The IAEA has told Iran to provide full design information and inspector access to the Qom-area facility as soon as possible to prove it would be put to peaceful purposes only.

Iranian officials said this week they were in contact with the IAEA to decide a date for inspectors to examine the site.

"There are regular contacts at all levels but they are so far not successful apart from a vague promise access will be granted. No idea when a timetable will arrive," said a senior U.N. official who asked for anonymity due to political sensitivities.

Israeli Nuclear Capabilities

Charlotte Spencer-Smith on Israeli Nuclear Capabilities cross-posted from Trust & Verify Online:

The resolution “Israeli Nuclear Capabilities” was adopted at the General Conference today, in a tense and occasionally fractious atmosphere, riddled with curt exchanges over procedural issues and points of order. The crux of the resolution is that it “calls upon Israel to accede to the NPT and place all its nuclear facilities under comprehensive IAEA safeguards”. This follows hot on the heels of “Application of IAEA safeguards in the Middle East” which was adopted with little resistance last night and proposes a similar idea. However “Israeli Nuclear Capabilities” differs from last night’s resolution significantly in that it makes explicit reference to Israel and “concern about Israeli nuclear capabilities”, and that it was presented for adoption in the draft submitted earlier this week without editing. For these reasons, it was adopted with considerably more difficulty than last night, facing a close call in a no-action motion vote called by Canada, and having cleared that hurdle, passing with a majority of 49 to 45 with 16 abstentions.

This has somewhat soured the buoyant mood for the US and the EU after last night’s hard-won consensus. Naturally, they are loathe to “single-out” Israel, and the US argued on the floor that the previous night’s resolution was sufficient as it was better to stick to “compromise and dialogue rather than confrontation”. The US representative also argued that it would not be productive to once again be “held captive by the rancour” of debates in the Middle East on this issue. The defeat of the no-action motion may have come as a surprise for many, as Sweden asked for a short recess in which the EU could coordinate before the vote on the resolution. This not being permitted after a vote (the procedural matter sticking at 43 – 43 and no abstentions), the EU delegations only got the opportunity to informally coordinate in an aisle of the auditorium during a statement delivered by Israel. While the adoption of the resolution may be met with disappointment by the US and Sweden who were pleased to have helped forge a consensus the previous night, those who voted in favour broke into applause after the results were announced, and the Arab States and NAM could be seen congratulating each other.

With a margin as tight as 8 votes in the no-motion vote and 4 in the resolution vote, it is clear that this resolution does not signal a sea change, but rather, suggests a numbers game. What differentiates the defeated no-motion action of this year from the successful one of last year is the presence of a handful of no-motion-defeating African countries (Angola, Burkina Faso, Gabon, Mali, Senegal) who were absent for the vote last year, alongside Ethiopia who abstained last year, and Bahrain and Tajikistan. This may be connected to increased lobbying by the Arab States in comparison to previous years. While Lebanon stated its confidence in the resolution passing, prior to the vote, due to a more weakly-worded and focussed text than in previous years, this may not explain why the resolution was adopted because the text still contains explicit references to Israel. This is also suggested by the fact that no States who supported the no-motion last year were convinced enough to switch their vote to defeat it this year. While the adoption of the resolution may not exactly be making history, it nevertheless constitutes part of a successful Conference for the Arab States, especially considering that the “Application of IAEA safeguards in the Middle East” and “Israeli nuclear capabilities” initiatives have experienced a difficult few years.

Two visions - one organization

Cross-posted from Trust & Verify Online

It is never easy to compare two speeches. Especially if one is made by a seasoned diplomat with 12 years of leading the IAEA under his belt, and the other is made by a Director-General-elect eager to follow in his footsteps.

The IAEA is a difficult organisation to run. The Director-General answers to some 150 member states, and is responsible for a multinational staff, several thousand heads strong. The IAEA's mission is diverse. It has to please nuclear workers asking for better codes on safety and management. It has to supply technical assistance to those member states who seek to develop their nuclear industry. And it has to make sure that nuclear energy is used for peaceful purposes. It does all this, and more, on a shoestring budget, restricted by harsh staff policies, and faced with an emerging disconnect between what states demand, and the organisation itself can possibly supply.

It is an economic law that one way to increase supply is to reduce marginal costs. For many years, the IAEA has been forced to do this. ElBaradei's statement yesterday, that safeguards has undergone a "transformation" should be read in that light. He correctly pointed out that the Agency "have moved beyond simple verification of declared nuclear material at declared facilities to assessing information on a State´s entire nuclear programme and, most importantly, verifying the absence of undeclared activities". This qualitative improvement has been brought about by a combination of member states' awareness of the problem of undeclared nuclear fuel cycles, but also by member states' wish to get more while paying less.

'Integrated safeguards' is a simple scheme trying to combine the measures under the comprehensive safeguards agreement with the measures of the additional protocol. The rationale is straightforward: if the IAEA can draw a conclusion that there is no undeclared activities in a state, it can move towards reducing the routine inspection effort in that state. The idea is that member states will get the same assurance as before, but at a lesser cost. At present, 40 states are implementing 'integrated safeguards'. However, so far, member states have seen no particular savings. There may be many reasons for this: foremost that it is a new concept, and that start-up costs may be high. But some members are starting to complain. One reason why European members were sceptical to a drastic increase in the IAEA's safeguards budget was this: "we were supposed to pay less, so why are we now paying more?"

ElBaradei pointed out that "universal adherence by all non-nuclear-weapon States to comprehensive safeguards agreements and additional protocols is a prerequisite for an effective verification and non-proliferation system." This is something the IAEA have been pushing ever since the conclusion of project 93+2 back in the early 1990s. It is frustrating, after all, to have produced a shiny new sports-car only to find that not everyone wants it. The Additional Protocol is important since it represents the move from the old accountancy-based safeguards system to a leaner, newer, information driven safeguards regime. The Additional Protocol does provide additional confidence that nuclear material is not used for nefarious purposes. And it is very effective, which was proved by IAEA verification activities in Iran while that country provisionally applied it.

ElBaradei wants to go further, however. In his final speech to the General Conference, he pointed towards a lacuna in the safeguards regime, highlighted by VERTIC a couple of years ago. ElBaradei said, "although the Agency´s verification mandate is centred on nuclear material, to preclude the possibility of undeclared nuclear material and activities in a country, it may be necessary for us to pursue alleged weaponization activities". Dr. ElBaradei could not have said this while he was Director-General, since this is the hottest potato of them all. Investigations into weaponization cannot be made through accountancy, which means that the IAEA needs to employ methods similar to those used by law enforcement: interviews, forensics and reliance on member-state supplied intelligence. For some members, this is clearly a bridge too far.

Intrusive investigations lead to controversy. Dr. ElBaradei recognizes this in his speech. He highlighted that "we must let diplomacy and thorough verification take their course, however lengthy and tiresome the process might be. We need to carefully assess the veracity of intelligence information so as not to let verification turn into a witch hunt." The latter point is extremely important, and relates both to the way the IAEA safeguards its independence and the way the organisation handles potentially sensitive information.

Anyone who has been involved in traditional law enforcement knows that evidence collection, collation and analysis requires straddling a fine line between sharing and withholding information from the general public. Without the public, the police may find itself without leads. The key is to ensure a strict chain of custody of collected information and, naturally, to refuse outside influence when it is time to draw conclusions. The worst sin of any investigator is to see too much in the evidence. So far, the IAEA has managed to maintain its impartiality, but it cannot allow itself to lower its guard.

Finally, the Director-General pointed out that the IAEA cannot do its job in isolation. It has to have proper backing by the UN Security Council. ElBaradei identified the problem: "The Council needs to develop a comprehensive compliance mechanism that does not rely only on sanctions, which too often hurt the vulnerable and the innocent". But he clearly has not figured out the solution. I am personally looking forward to his future thoughts on this, and whether he is hinting at the concept of a "standing resolution" often discussed in Washington DC.

Ambassador Yukiya Amano also mentioned safeguards in his inaugural address to the General Conference. His speech was understandably more measured. He said that the membership needs to "universalizing and further strengthening the nuclear non-proliferation regime, especially the Agency’s safeguards system", but fell short of presenting any ideas of how this might be done. He also said that "safeguards agreements with states must be implemented fully, professionally, and impartially with the full cooperation from all the states concerned", which is an obvious truth.

Those seeking anything inspiring from the incoming DG was probably slightly disappointed. But they should bear in mind before they cast judgement that the acceptance speech is neither the time nor the place to roll out grand initiatives. The Director-Generals have traditionally reserved this to their first "own" General Conference.

We will likely hear more from Ambassador Amano at the 54th General Conference next year.

The General Conference

The IAEA General Conference is convening next week in Vienna. For us at VERTIC, the General Conference represents an excellent opportunity to meet with old friends, meet with funders to discuss future projects, and of course to observe the IAEA membership debating the issues. The General Conference, or GC for short, consists of all IAEA members. It adopts its own rules of procedure. Each member state has one vote.

The organization's real powers do not lie with the conference, but with the Board of Governors. However, this does not mean that the conference is powerless. Its most important role is to approve the organization's budget – and the membership as a whole here has an excellent opportunity to control direction through budget allocation. If the conference is not happy with the way the budget looks, it may return it to the Board of Governors; ask it to do its homework and to resubmit the budget to the conference. The conference also has the power to approve the amendments to the Statue, and must, of course, approve the appointment of the organization's chief executive officer, the Director-General.

When it comes to substance, the conference's powers are quite limited. It may discuss any questions or any matters within the scope of this IAEA Statue. It may also discuss issues relating to the powers and functions of any organs provided for in the Statue. In addition, the conference may take decisions on any matter specifically referred to the General Conference for this purpose by the Board of Governors. Importantly, it may propose matters for consideration by the Board, and request from the Board reports on any matter relating to the functions of the Agency. The General Conference elects the organization's Governors.

So how is it organized?
The General Conference is organized into a "General Committee" (sometimes, but not always, referred to as 'the plenary') in which general statements are delivered, the "Committee of the Whole" (often referred to as 'the cow') and various subcommittees tasked to look at and draft the conference's resolutions. The General Committee isn't supposed to discuss substance, meaning that all resolutions are prepared in the cow.

Often, though, the real action is in the subcommittees. I've had the pleasure to observe the safeguards committee in action for three years straight – and its there where the real issues are aired. Most of it is, obviously, seriously uninteresting, such as the placement of commas and whether a certain sentence structure ever so slightly alters a meaning.

Sometimes, though, certain language triggers interesting legal questions, and may have an impact on the way the Secretariat does its business. What's the balance between state rights and obligations? What balance should be struck between the Secretariat's need to be free to do its job, and the member states desire to exercise some oversight and control? Many questions are surprisingly similar to those discussed at VERTIC's own annual general meeting.

What's going to be controversial?
This year's General Conference is due to discuss two interesting, and always controversial resolutions. The first is the resolution on the Middle East (see GC(52)/RES/15 for last year's resolution). The second is a resolution, proposed by Iran, calling for a ban on attacking nuclear installations, irrespective of whether they're operational or under construction.

This has been discussed before, as is highlighted in Iran's explanatory memorandum. Professor Alexandre Kiss, for example, explains that, "before the military operations of the Gulf War, on September 1990, the General Assembly of the International Atomic Energy Agency adopted a resolution recognising that attacks or threats of attack on nuclear facilities devoted to peaceful purposes could jeopardise the development of nuclear energy and emphasised the need for the Security Council to act immediately, should such a threat or attack occur".

Back in 1981, the Security Council, reacting to Israel's attack on Osiraq, said that this type of attacks constitutes "a serious threat to the entire IAEA safeguards regime". The Council's main argument, however, was that the attack on Osiraq was in clear violation of Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, which prohibits all forms of armed attack except in circumstances of self defence. However, the Security Council did not react to the Israeli attack on Syria a while ago. This does not mean much, since it has not been confirmed that the site in Al-Kibar was a reactor to begin with. It would be odd for the Council to uphold an almost 30 year old decision on no factual grounds.

There are now even examples of a similar prohibition in 'hard law'; the African Nuclear Weapon Free Zone Treaty explicitly prohibits any armed attacks on nuclear facilities (see article 11).

How states will position themselves on this issue will be very interesting to see.

VERTIC will cover the General Conference in some detail on Trust & Verify Online.

Update: a friend in Vienna points my attention to an essay entitled 'Protection of Civilian Nuclear Installations in Time of Armed Conflict' written by Professor Vanda Lamm, a former president of the International Nuclear Law Association. Good stuff and essential reading for those preparing this issue for the upcoming GC.

The Box in Burma: Preliminary Analysis

The last couple of weeks have seen intense speculation that the self-styled Union of Myanmar (known as Burma in the West) is seeking nuclear weapons. The affair started with an article in the Sydney Morning Herald based on interviews with two Burmese defectors: Moe Jo and Tin Min. The former claimed that he had been trained to be part of a thousand man strong "nuclear battalion". He also claimed that Myanmar had provided yellowcake to North Korea and Iran. The defector continued to claim that the country was planning a plutonium reprocessing facility, and that the Russian Federation were assisting them with expertise. The other defector had worked as an accountant, and claimed to have had access to documentation on various tunnel projects implemented by North Korea and Russia. This information was sketchy at best, and must be read with scepticism.

However, a number of private researchers nevertheless started to survey Myanmar for possible locations confirming the defectors stories. Initial efforts focussed on a region about 50 kilometres west of Mandalay, near a city called Pyin Oo Lwin, the former summer capital of British Burma. This region of the country is known for being important to Burma's national economy. First, it is the centre for Burma's silkworm rearing industry, it also has a research centre for indigenous medical plants, and it has a pharmaceutical production plant. In addition, various tourist websites explain that the area is frequently visited by trekkers, indicating that it's not closed off for international tourists. The region is served by the Aniskan Airfield (21°57'28"N 96°24'18"E) which is located just off the Mandalay to Lashio highway.

In particular, analysts looked at a big building about 15 kilometres from the city (at 22° 3'4.82"N96°37'46.21"E). The building is about 80 times 80 meters and is resting on a 121 by 114 meter fundament. Based on an analysis of the shadows, it appears to be about 10 meters high.A team of VERTIC volunteers started an analysis of available Landsat-7 imagery, and paid particular attention to the thermal band. Based on that analysis, we could conclude that construction had started at some time in early 2004, and that the building had been completed sometime in 2009. The thermal analysis indicated that the building was warmer than the surrounding background, which was attributed to heat being reflected off the roof, rather than activities inside the building. The vegetation in the area west of the facility also gives off some thermal radiation. The VERTIC team did not calculate the heat emissions in centigrade, although that is possible to do with Landsat-7 imagery. A colour comparison indicated that the building was not radiating significant amounts of heat, as it would if any major industrial process was on going under its roof.

In part based on this information, Jeffrey Lewis and others requested new imagery from GeoEye. One image, captured at 13 April 2004 reveals the absence of any basement level. It also showed that the access road, at that time, had not been paved. A multitude of tracks radiating out from the facility shows a significant level of human activity. It is not possible, however, to draw any conclusion from the imagery on the building's planned function. Another high resolution image, acquired on 21 February 2009, shows the building in its finished state. It seems to rest on an asphalt-concrete foundation, and there is no evidence of further excavation on the site. Construction is finished, as evidenced by the emergence of vegetation, and the disappearance of some of the dirt roads associated with the early construction period.

2004 Image

2009 Image

Some observers have commented that there is an absence of many external features indicative of a reactor. Here, many have observed the absence of a convenient nearby source of water. However, cooling could be brought to the facility through pipes from the nearby river, and then being stored in local pools. This is common practice in some parts of the world. The VERTIC team therefore paid some attention to a group of newly erected buildings by the water at the shortest distance from the river. This group is of buildings is located at 22° 4'38.57"N96°34'22.83"E. We're still assessing this imagery.

However, we learned from two sources, independent from each other, that the box-like building has been under scrutiny by the IAEA's Department of Safeguards for quite some time, and that the department is nearly certain that the building does not serve any nuclear programme. An official, associated with a Western intelligence agency, later told us that, "we've been looking at that site for years, since construction started. You cannot hide a reactor in a low building without a basement level". A relatively recent visit to the facility has reportedly confirmed with '99 per cent confidence' that it is a machine shop, and that it's not impossible that the shop is using machinery imported from the DPRK trading company Namchongang. Its relatively large size, low height, and absence of basement levels is consistent with this information.

On 10 August 2009, Mark Hibbs reported in Nuclear Fuel that nuclear activities in Myanmar are low, but slowly increasing. The country has requested a number of technical cooperation projects with the IAEA, and is presently implementing projects worth about $5.2m. But all activities are conducted in the Ministry of Science & Technology and are conceptual in nature. This is consistent with the low nuclear knowledge base of the country. As reported by Hibbs, the 'typical profile' of a Myanmar nuke worker 'is young, inexperienced, scientists and technicians in their early to mid-twenties'. The IAEA's Department of Safeguards have picked up virtually no scientific papers published by Myanmar academics of interest to the department. While this is consistent with some nuclear weapons efforts, where the most promising minds of the country are isolated and prohibited from publishing, it is also consistent with a country with a very small scientific base.

Finally, Hibbs reports that there are severe educational infrastructure deficiencies in the country. He quotes an official familiar with the IAEA Department of Safeguards open-source investigation efforts saying that a clandestine nuclear effort, 'have to be a totally black program within everything imported. In Burma there is no national R&D center for them to hide behind. It is unthinkable that they could mount a [clandestine] nuclear program on the basis of what we already know is there'.

While Burma has approached Russia for the purchase of a research reactor, a senior official at Atomstroyexport has confirmed that there is no construction in Myanmar of any reactor with Russian assistance.

We hope to conclude our investigations and to publish a VERTIC brief on this matter by the end of the month.

BBC on the UK-Norway Initaitive

BBC's Gordon Corera has a nice piece on the UK-Norway Initiative's OSI exercise last month:

"The nuclear weapon is carefully lifted out of a large container and moved onto the floor. Two engineers use an electric screwdriver to open up a side compartment and remove the "physics package" containing the sensitive parts of the bomb. A scientist with a radiation detector beckons me forward as he points his machine towards the box. It begins to emit an accelerating beeping noise. "The measurement is approximately a hundred times normal background radiation," he tells me. "But it is not dangerous, I promise," he adds with a smile.

The lack of danger is because the bomb is not real. To inject an element of realism into this experiment, a weak radioactive material - Cobalt 60 - is used. The dismantlement experiment is a joint exercise between the UK and Norway - the first of its kind - and was held a few miles from Oslo. The five-day exercise has been keenly anticipated internationally as a way of building trust between nuclear weapons states and non-nuclear weapons states. It is designed to see if one country can verify the disarmament of another country's nuclear weapon, but without any sensitive information about national security and weapon design being compromised. In a role reversal, the Norwegians play a nuclear weapons state (called Torland) and the UK team play inspectors from Luvania, a non-nuclear weapons state.

There is currently a new push for global nuclear disarmament. Russia and the US announced in Moscow in early July that they would reduce their stockpiles and the UK has said it might be willing to reduce further its nuclear deterrent as part of any global disarmament talks. The non-nuclear weapons states have been pressing for more active disarmament and if there were further moves then allowing non-nuclear states to verify the disarmament would help increase confidence between the two sides.

The 10 inspectors from UK/Luvania remain in character as soon as they enter the gates of the nuclear facility. During meal breaks they are kept separate from both the Norwegian/Torland team and the joint planning group. A huge amount of work goes in to making the exercise as realistic as possible. A large, white binder contains briefing packs with fake Torland letters inviting the team to verify dismantlement of one of their Odin gravity bombs. Stamped "secret", the Torland brief states that all details about the size, shape, composition, etc, "must be kept outside the knowledge of inspectors at all costs". To complicate matters, inspectors are given a printout from a fake website which features what is alleged to be leaked pictures of the weapon.

"The aim is to develop methodologies we could use in inspections of a real nuclear facility but in an environment in which can do trial and error," explains Andreas Persbo of Vertic, which helped organise the event. It is not an exercise in which the nuclear state is trying to clandestinely divert nuclear material or the inspecting side search for a covert facility.

The main aim instead is to try to look for practical lessons and solutions to build confidence between the haves and have-nots in the nuclear world. Even so, the British/Luvania team push the boundaries during the long negotiating sessions that begin and end each day, at one point submitting 15 questions, some of which the Norway/Torland team refuse to answer. There is even an early disagreement over the question of what type of warning - if any - the guards would give before firing their weapons.

The guards, who follow the inspectors everywhere, are real Norwegian soldiers but armed with non-lethal weapons, similar to paintball guns.
The key task for the inspectors is to establish a chain of custody and ensure that at no point is any sensitive material diverted. But this has to be done without ever actually seeing the sensitive material itself. Initially, a truck takes a container carrying the device to the disarmament facility.

From the start inspectors watch, photograph, seal and tag key items. They cover entry and exit points to the disarmament chamber, sweeping all those going in and out to ensure no radioactive material is smuggled away. "It is a very choreographed process, almost like a ballet," says Mr Persbo. "Timings are very precise."

The amount of fissile material in a nuclear bomb is itself classified, so a number of techniques have to be employed by the inspectors to ensure nothing is diverted when they are not able to measure it in detail themselves. Each country's scientists have separately designed and built their own prototype devices known as "information barriers", which can confirm that an agreed amount of radioactive material is present in any container. The machines provide a green light if the contents match the last reading but the actual contents are not revealed.

There is genuine relief from the scientists when both come out with an agreed result of what is inside the container. The other means for assuring the chain of custody are tags and seals.

A tag is any form of identifying label, while a seal is used to ensure a room or box is not tampered with during times inspectors are not physically watching it. These are surprisingly low-tech. A purple strip of adhesive goes across a door hinge. If it is moved then the colour changes and a warning appears on it. Additionally, the seal has a blob of glue with multi-coloured glitter inside. This is photographed close-up by the inspectors once it is in place and then again when inspectors return. The unique pattern would be almost impossible to replicate perfectly in a relatively short space of time. More high-tech variants are available involving fibre-optics and the next stage of the project may involve looking at ways of designing the most effective seals.

After the "physics package" is removed from the bomb and placed in a container, the inspectors are allowed to return into the room and watch it being placed in a storage room for the night. A tampered seal provoked a crisis on one day of the experiment The next morning, in the pouring rain, inspectors follow the container as it is moved by a cart to another part of the facility where the radioactive material is - at least notionally - removed in a hot cell using robotics arms. Finally it is moved to a storage site.

"This is about having an understanding of what it means to take some material from A to B without really knowing what it is," explains Norwegian official Ole Reistad. "Under other verification arrangements, it might be special types of fuel, it might be commercial secrets or it might be other security interests that you have to protect in some way."

In practice no nuclear weapons state has ever allowed a non-nuclear weapons state to verify disarmament. But if there was to be multilateral disarmament in the future, it may well be important to provide such states with confidence over its actions.
Officials on both sides hope that this and any future events will lead to better understanding between nuclear weapons states and non-nuclear weapons states and more collaborations, allowing trust and confidence to be increased.

This project in a way shows our commitment to try and find good practical ways of making sure we have nuclear disarmament
Gry Larsen, State Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Norway
"Norway is very much committed on the disarmament agenda," explains Gry Larsen, Norway's State Secretary for Foreign Affairs.
"This project in a way shows our commitment to try and find good practical ways of making sure we have nuclear disarmament."
UK inspectors and observers say they learnt about the challenges of being a non-nuclear weapons state and providing confidence, as well as ways of ensuring their own sensitive material is protected.
The Norwegians say they garnered a first-hand perspective of the sensitivities of nuclear states in protecting classified information.
The UK has talked of acting as a "disarmament laboratory" and being part of the process allows the UK to say that it is living up to its obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty for disarmament, although the emphasis is on developing the technical aspects of verification.

"It was lots of hard work but there's opportunity for more progress in the future," said one UK Ministry of Defence official.
Other countries are also said to have shown interest in the work, including the US, Canada, Russia, Australia and Japan."

Gary Samore at IISS

Gary Samore today visited the IISS where he gave a spirited and forceful talk on the Obama Administration's priorities over the coming year. I'll try to type up my notes in a way that doesn't completely distort everything he said.

A began by stating an underlying assumption that is today guiding White House policy on non-proliferation and disarmament. Namely that proper containment of states wanting to cheat on their obligations under the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty cannot be attained unless the regime is strengthened. The belief of the Administration is also that once the regime is shored up, it will be easier to deter or contain future cheaters.

Mr. Samore had already outlined some of the Administration's tactical objectives in this respect at a luncheon hosted by the Arms Control Association. They are well known:

• Ensuring CTBT ratification;
• Support negotiations on a verifiable FMCT; and
• Getting a new START agreed.

He said that there was a "reasonably good chance" to get agreement with the Russian Federation on START before it expires in December 2009. This agreement would be facilitated by a common understanding on ballistic missile defence. To that end, the US and Russia have started on a joint assessment of Iran's ballistic missile threat. Mr. Samore noted that Iran had shown increased capabilities in this area recently, and this was a cause for US concern. He felt that there were four major problems in US-Russian negotiations at present:

1. Missile defence (especially the issue of the third site).
2. US plans to put conventional warheads on ballistic missiles.
3. Coming up with a number of delivery vehicles that does not require Russia to produce more missiles, or the United States to destroy many of theirs.
4. Agreement on a verification protocol.

On verification he said that he did not believe that the old START verification procedure needed to be preserved in its entirety. However, a reduced, yet credible, verification system needed to be produced. This would take a lot of difficult, technical, work, and he foresaw many meetings of US-Russian technical working-groups in the months ahead.

Mr. Samore said that the really difficult task will be to agree on deeper cuts. Here, the Russians want to discuss the US strategic reserve forces, and the US wants to address Russian tactical nuclear weapons. As the two sides move to lower numbers, he anticipated that missile defence would be a problematic nut to crack.

He said that it would be easier to get agreement amongst the parties to the NPT on stronger non-proliferation measures if the US and Russia, as the holders of the largest nuclear arsenals, supports nuclear disarmament. There has been a plethora of ideas on how to strengthen the non-proliferation regime, many developed in the UK and France, and the key now was to formulate them in a concrete way, and to get them supported by the NPT membership. On withdrawal, in particular, the US would explore the possibility to get the UN Security Council to agree language by way of binding resolution, in a similar fashion as under UNSCR 1373 and 1540.

Many of the proposals that Mr. Samore referred to stems from the discovery of Iran's clandestine nuclear programme, and the country's subsequent reluctance to cooperate with the IAEA and the UN Security Council. Not surprisingly, therefore, Iran featured heavily in the question and answer session. Asked about the prospect of direct negotiations with Iran in 2009, Mr. Samore answered that negotiations were not possible until the domestic situation in Iran had settled somewhat. However, the Iranian government should know that if no progress on the nuclear issue has been made until January 2010, the US would seek stronger action from the UN Security Council. Adding that Russia felt more comfortable with the US, and that Europe felt upset about the political repression in Iran, Mr. Samore felt that getting consensus on stronger actions against the country would be comparably easy.

The DPRK also featured in questions and answers. Mr. Samore said that the question of uranium enrichment was now firmly on the US agenda and that talks, when resumed needed to address this. There were "so many unknowns", he said, "which needs addressing". He felt, though, that the DPRK now wanted to reduce tensions with the rest of the six parties. He did not see a "big deal" in the DPRK's 4 July 2009 "shooting of a few missiles".

Mr. Samore recognized that many developing nations might not support these initiatives unless their right to develop a nuclear fuel cycle was assured. He felt, thought, that it would be possible to support growth in the nuclear industry without spreading sensitive technology. The key was to set up fuel centres, such as the Russian Federation's fuel centre in Angarsk, and a framework for assured supply of nuclear fuel.

Finally, he addressed the question of the IAEA. He said that the White House had welcomed the election of Japanese Ambassador Amano to the Director-Generalship, and that the US is now proposing an eight per cent increase in the IAEA's budget. He added that there was European resistance to this, in his mind, moderate proposal. He emphasized that the IAEA will get these funds if they commit to efforts to make their management structures more efficient.

He also encouraged the IAEA to use more of the authority that they already have, by for instance pushing for special inspections in Syria.

All in all, an interesting afternoon. And I did enjoy lunch.

Trust & Verify No. 125

Why have I not blogged lately? I'm not going to make many excuses, but one of the reasons is Trust & Verify, VERTIC's old newsletter. Many of you have asked where it went. That's not important. What is important is that it's back.

Please enjoy edition number 125 of the organization's newsletter. We do encourage your views. Did we get anything wrong? Did we get anything right? Do you want to air some views. Let the editors know, and we'll make sure that you're views are published.

ElBaradei intervention to BoG

I apologize for my relative silence as of late. A lot of things have been going on at VERTIC. In June, we participated in the first ever on-site inspection exercise between a nuclear- and a non-nuclear weapon state. It was a massive logistical operation, mostly undertaken by the Norwegians that resulted in a success – at least from an organizational point of view. Lessons learned will now be extrapolated by teams on both sides of the North Sea, and VERTIC will play its own part as independent observer. I'll give more information on that at a later date.

My readers will also know that I have taken over the role of Chief Executive Officer of VERTIC. Angela Woodward will continue work as a Programme Director in the years to come, but I will assume all responsibility vis-à-vis the Board of Trustees. This blog will continue as my own personal contribution to the arms control debate, so nothing written here should or could be associated with VERTIC's Board.

Did anyone else see that Mohamed ElBaradei intervened at the meeting of his own Board in June? His comments are very interesting, especially since he's the outgoing Director-General. This means, perhaps, that he can inject a bit of personal flavor into his remarks. There is a lot of very interesting stuff in his remarks, and he is forthright, to the brink of being undiplomatic. For instance, ElBaradei said that:

We reported North Korean non-compliance in 1992 - today it's 2009. For seventeen years, we have been dealing with the verification issue in North Korea. This should teach us a lesson on how not to deal with verification issues. If every verification issue took us 20 years to clarify, then we are obviously on the wrong track. I would even dare to say that we are not very useful.

Strong words from the Director-General. He is making a point that the verification process is dependent on underlying issues of transparency and trust. And this is, of course, true. The effectiveness of a verification regime is dependent on several factors, but two stand out: the clarity of the norm to be verified and the level of cooperation afforded by the inspected state party. North Korea, as many will recall, has withdrawn from the NPT, but the IAEA, lacking direction from its member states, still applies North Korea's comprehensive safeguards agreement. The issues outstanding in 1992 are still outstanding today. Agency activities for the last seventeen years have been to monitor other things than compliance with the safeguards agreement. He emphasized time and time again the importance of the Additional Protocol for the viability of Agency inspections:

I made it very clear ten years ago that without the Additional Protocol, we cannot really do our work in a credible way. Without an Additional Protocol, we can only talk about declared nuclear material. We have learned since 1991 in Iraq, that if any country tries to divert nuclear material, they don´t divert from declared material, they divert through a clandestine programme. And yet we still have over 100 countries without Additional Protocols, which means we do not have the authority. We are sometimes called the "watchdog," but we don´t bark at all if we don´t have the legal authority to do the work.

Making a reference to the absence of a magic wand, ElBaradei makes a stern remark about the nature of his secretariat's reports.

We don´t have a magic wand and our legal authority, in many cases, is very limited. That´s why we have to be very careful of what we say. I cannot say that a country is absolutely clean if I don´t have all the tools that allow me to do that. We learned from Iraq how jumping the gun can lead to total disaster. You have to understand that every statement we issue here goes through at least twenty drafts because we have to be as objective and impartial as humanly possible. We know the implications of what we say.

Perhaps he would be willing to borrow my wand? According to some, it has the power to change foreign policy at an instant. ElBaradei also makes a stern comment on Iran:

We have been working in Iran for six years. We have made a lot of important progress. There is no question about that. Loads of people criticized what we call the "work plan," saying we were trying to stretch the process. With the work plan, however, we managed to clarify the scope and nature of the enrichment. That was a major achievement. And the Security Council in the end paid tribute to the work plan. The work plan clarified the enrichment programme in Iran, but because of the confidence deficit, we very much need the additional protocol. It´s not because it´s obligatory but because I need the additional protocol to be sure that there are no undeclared activities in Iran, as happened in the past. That is a normal common sense approach.

He singles out enrichment as the most pressing issue to be resolved.

Enrichment is, of course, the crux of the problem. Nobody, I think, questions anybody´s right to have a fuel cycle, not even the Security Council. One of the ideas I put forward a couple of years ago, which I repeated yesterday, is: with the new overture coming from Washington, why can´t we go for a freeze-for-freeze? Why is there a rush now for Iran to build its enrichment capability in terms of industrial capacity? There is no commercial need for it right now. You have the technology, and I´ve said that publicly. There is no reason to continue to build that capacity and there is also, if we are going into a negotiation, no reason to have additional sanctions applied. Negotiation should not be limited to the nuclear issue but should include security issues, economic issues and many other issues that span over 50 years. To me, a freeze-for-freeze would be a very important step which might calm down the atmosphere so that the international community will not be worried that Iran is building up capacity and LEU. And Iran cannot really lose because it has the knowledge and has demonstrated that it has the capacity. We need to look forward and we do not need to continue to have this kabuki dance where we keep repeating the same thing, shuffling our papers and shuffling our statements. It doesn´t really help anybody, frankly.

But he also makes a strong case for Iranian cooperation on the alleged weaponization studies. While expressing regret over the fact that some government will not have the information transmitted to the Iranian side, he casts no doubt on how seriously he's viewing the uncovered information.

… there is enough in these alleged studies to create concern in the minds of our professional inspectors, who work twenty-four hours a day on this issue. Although sixteen U.S. intelligence agencies said Iran stopped alleged work on nuclear weapons studies in 2003, we do not know whether it has stopped or not. We continue to receive new information. We also do not know whether the information is authentic or not. These are important issues. Naturally we cannot make a quick conclusion. These are issues of war and peace.

So what is ElBaradei's solution to the problems? It's simple. He is calling on the states concerned to show more transparency. Not because that's in the interest of the international community, but rather because it's in the interest of the state concerned.

To me the whole of non-proliferation, of verification, is about transparency. If we don´t have the additional protocol, we have limited authority. We also have limited authority because our focus is only on nuclear material. If we go into weaponization, our authority is almost negligible. Here I would like to talk about Syria. If Syria wants to prove that the allegations are not accurate, the best thing it can do is to be fully transparent. We are ready to work with any modality to protect Syria´s confidential military and non-military information, as we are ready to do with every country. But it is in every country´s interest, if it is clean, to work with us through transparency measures, if needed. I deplored Israel for not giving us a chance to verify this facility before it was destroyed. Not many of you did. I did, and I continue to do so because we lost a very important opportunity.

Finally, he outlines, in no uncertain terms, the challenges facing the IAEA today. And these challenges should neither be underestimated nor brushed under the carpet. They need to be addressed effectively, and quickly, by the IAEA membership.

We have, in many cases, very limited authority. We don´t have the technology. We are very short of satellite imagery. In many cases, we don´t get it when we ask for it. We are not able to validate environmental particle analysis. These are issues at the heart of our independence and credibility. I am grateful to the US for committing US$ 10 million in additional extra budgetary contributions to the Agency, but I do not understand those who continue to insist on zero budget growth despite all our efforts to achieve efficiency gains and savings. I am not willing to tell world public opinion that we are able to deal with issues that have to do with our very survival when I know that we are not able to.

As it were, General Sir Hugh Beach, one of my trustees will be writing about this in the April-June issue of Trust & Verify. In the same issue, I will focus on Iran. Without revealing too much of what I've written, I can only conclude that my own views are very similar to ElBaradei's on these matters. The good doctor even managed to put in some catchy final words, which would sound familiar to a CEO of any organization governed by a board, irrespective of size: "As to how we write our reports, that´s our business. We are not co-managing safeguards. You delegated us to manage safeguards and we´ve continued to manage safeguards with as much impartiality, as much objectivity as we can".

I don't know what you think, but I am going to miss him after he steps down. And I do apologize to him and his team if I quoted something out of context.

US AP declaration due

Secrecy News published this gem today:

A compilation of hundreds of U.S. nuclear sites and activities that were to be declared to the International Atomic Energy Agency by the United States was transmitted to Congress last month by President Obama.

"The enclosed draft declaration lists each site, location, facility, and activity I intend to declare to the IAEA, and provides a detailed description of such sites, locations, facilities, and activities, and the provisions of the U.S.-IAEA Additional Protocol under which they would be declared," the President wrote. "Each site, location, facility, and activity would be declared in order to meet the obligations of the United States of America with respect to these provisions."

"The IAEA classification of the enclosed declaration is 'Highly Confidential Safeguards Sensitive'," the President noted in his May 5, 2009 transmittal letter, "however, the United States regards this information as 'Sensitive but Unclassified'."

Very interesting reading. 

VERTIC seminar on the CTBT

The last time Tibor Toth and I held a seminar together was when North Korea tested a nuclear device. That time, he had to leave for Vienna, leaving me stranded in New York with a bewildered CTBTO legal officer in charge of delivering his organization's message. Things went well, however, since VERTIC had prepared a number of briefing packs on test ban treaty verification. These packs dissapeared within seconds of being put on the table (they were gone even faster than the free lunch).

Now, Tibor has decided to visit my humble centre to give a talk on the DPRK test and the implications for the CTBT. I had a period of covert pre-registration before announcing the event, so we're almost full.


If you are in the UK and would want to attend, please register your interest with me at andreas.persbo (at) vertic.org. However, there are very few spaces left, and at the moment we're giving seating priority to the UK civil service, UK based diplomats, arms control academics, and arms control NGOs.

Some more DPRK data

More data is becoming available on yesterday's nuclear test. NORSAR has published the waveform data from two of their stations. The primary wave is very noticeable and sharp, which indicates a man-made explosive events (earthquakes tend to brew a while before really making noise).


Moreover, the CTBTO has published a screen grab from one of their operator consoles, showing which stations recorded the event. You can see NORSAR's two stations in, well, Norway.


Most interestingly, the CTBTO also published the error ellipses and visualised them in Google Earth. As you can see, both error ellipses define a search area well within the 1,000 sq. km. maximum search grid stipulated by the treaty. In other words, if the CTBTO hypothetically were to conduct an OSI, they would have a pretty good idea where to start.

The yield estimate is still highly uncertain, but is likely to be on the low end of or below the 4-8 kT range that has been reported in mainstream media so far.

DPRK: Mb to yield calculation

As always when the DPRK tests, I'm in a seminar somewhere else. This time, I was discussing FMCT verification with the good people of SIPRI and the diplomats of the Conference on Disarmament.


The plot is based on the Mb to yield estimates for dry-rock, close coupled, underground nuclear explosions. I've used the USGS estimate for the yield calculation. The graph can only be used as a general indication because the exact geological conditions of the area is not known. It is known to have a shallow water table, which could explain why the Russians always get their yield calculations on the high end. We also don't know how well this test was coupled to the rock.

However, as indicated, today's North Korean test seems to be significantly bigger than its previous test. What is also interested is that the centre of today's test, according to the USGS, is about 5.5 kilometers away from the old test site. The IMS puts the test closer to the first site, but within the USGS margin of error. The USGS sets the error to +/- 3.8 kilometers, which strongly suggest that we're looking at a second test site in close proximity to the first.

Interestingly, a couple of years ago I learned that the South Koreans were looking for test site preparations on the "northern side of the mountain" relative from the first site. This, to me, means that the second site has been known to the South for some time.

UK-Norway Initiative Presentation

I think I forgot to post the link to the presentation that the UK-Norway Initiative gave to the 2010 NPT PrepCom. It is available on VERTIC's homepage (here).

We had a good discussion in New York. Our turn-out was lower than GSI's celebrity-loaded events, but we secured participation from all nuclear weapon states and a number of important non-nuclear weapon states.

The Initiative is now ready to run the first on-site inspection exercise. This will be held in Norway on 15-19 June 2009. The last meeting of the joint planning group was held last week. When it concluded we all loitered around for a while, shook each others hands, and wished ourselves luck. The dice are cast and there is now very few opportunities to make changes.

VERTIC will report on this process in 2010. But we all hope that we will be able to continue this work in the next NPT review cycle. There are many problems relating to warhead dismantlement verification that remain unsolved, and I hope that Norway and the UK will move to retain their cutting edge in the years to come.

Now, however, all our energies are focussed on making June 2009 run smoothly, so that we'll be able to compile a healthy set of resolved and unresolved issues later on this year.

The French Connection

The French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, has reportedly told the Pakistani government that he supports an India-style deal for Pakistan. The source of this information? None other than Pakistan's Foreign Minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi.

There has been no direct comment from the French President's office, only a reluctant confirmation that the Republic would want to work with Pakistan on nuclear safety related issues.

This is obviously an interesting development. If the deal goes through, it would need to be treated in the same way as the US-India deal in the Nuclear Suppliers Group. This in turn would probably lead to a requirement that Pakistan subscribes to comprehensive safeguards.

It has long been recognized that the US-India deal set a precedent. However, there is wide disagreement whether this precedent was good or bad. Some, like outgoing IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei, have endorsed this kind of deals since they bring the four states outside the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty closer to the non-proliferation community. Others have argued that India-style agreements challenges the non-proliferation treaty at its core since they 'reward bad behavior'.

Pakistan does have some experience in implementing IAEA safeguards. At the moment, the following facilities are monitored by the Agency:

• The Chasma-1 power reactor, Kundian;
• The Karachi power reactor, Karachi; and
• The PARR-1 & 2 research reactors, Rawalpindi.

However, large swathes of the country's nuclear infrastructure lies beyond the reach of international inspectors. This is partly because many facilities directly serves the country's nuclear weapons programme. This programme remains very active, and is indeed even expanding.

So, whether or not a nuclear deal is feasible remains to be seen.

UK-Norway Factsheet & UNHQ Event

As promised, you can find the UK-Norway Initiative factsheet here.

Also have a look at the flyer for the upcoming Initiative event in New York. Sadly, we will not be able to assist people in getting the necessary ground pass. I'm looking forward to welcoming those of you who already have a ground pass to our humble event.

New DG lineup

The International Atomic Energy Agency has announced the line-up of Director-General hopefuls.

• Mr. Yukiya Amano of Japan;

• Mr. Luis Echávarri of Spain;
  

• Mr. Abdul Samad Minty of South Africa;

• Mr. Ernest Petrič of Slovenia; and

• Mr. Jean-Pol Poncelet of Belgium.

This is not a good time to be a bookmaker. It is very difficult to see who of these people comes out as the strongest candidate. Given that Amano was only one vote away last time around, will he be able to convince the last holdout that he is the best person for the job? Would a former Areva vice-president really have fighting chance? And could the seasoned and charismatic Spaniard in charge of the OECD/NEA sneak his way into the top spot?

And above all, will Ambassador Minty be able to stage a comeback?

Reader's choice: Olli Heinonen

So, the nominations are in, which means that I have deleted the vote on the blog. In all, we had 75 votes and I think it is fair to say that my readers - who are into verification - would like to see a verification practitioner lead the Agency. Once I have confirmation on the candidates, I will possibly set up another survey on the blog.

Thanks to all that voted.

Repo at Yongbyon

I had to repost this thing – the original post had all tables out of whack, and there is no way of seeing that before you actually put the thing on the blog.

Reprocessing at Yongbyon could start within the year. What would the flow rate and the mass balances of the facility look like once it is in operation? The exact numbers are obviously impossible to find, but one can make a guess based on openly accessible information. The primary source for the following analysis is David Albright's book on North Korea's programme.

Based on the data in the book, I am assuming that the plant has a capacity of 230 metric tonnes per year, and a loss fraction of about two per cent. That would give us the following general parameters:

Uranium feed rate (MT/yr)	13.14
Plutonium feed rate (kg/yr)	6.43
Uranium flow rate (MT/yr)	12.88
Plutonium flow rate (kg/yr)	6.30
Plant throughput (kg/day)	44.92

Based on the same assumptions, the following would be the inventory mass (in kilograms) per day:

Inventory mass: total (kg)

Water	325
Acid	1340
Solvent	158
Uranium	103
Plutonium	0.0501
Neptunium	0.00222
Rhodium	6.24E-4
Ruthenium	0.00221
Iodine	1.23E-5
Xenon	0
Krypton	0
Hydrogen	5.99E-8
Other fissionable products	0.0649
Light Elements	0
Aluminium	0

Inventory activity: curies (Ci)

Uranium	0.0704
Plutonium	9.94
Neptunium	0.0015
Rhodium	195
Ruthenium	195
Iodine	9.29E-6
Xenon	0
Krypton	0
Hydrogen	0.579

While these figures are moderately useful for finding a solution to the problem, I thought they were wonkish enough to warrant publication on the blog.

Things on the horizon

You may already have noticed the changed layout of the blog. I was looking for something cleaner. I also removed a lot of the sidebar clutter that had accumulated over time. The great change is of course yesterday evening's purchase of a domain name for my blog. Since everything related to verification was taken, I opted for the impressive sounding armscontrolverification.org. There should be no need to update bookmarks or feeds, since Google is taking care of redirection for me. The remaining question is whether I should do yet another name-change. Send me an e-mail if you think that's a good idea.


I'd also like to announce the pending release of yet another VERTIC factsheet, this one on the verified dismantlement of nuclear weapons. It will go through what the UK-Norway Initiative has been doing and what we aim to do. It is currently at our printers, and will be distributed at the Initiative briefing at UN Headquarters on Friday, 8 May 2009. Keep an eye out for announcements on that. Once I've agreed something with my UK and Norwegian friends, the full text will go up here and on VERTIC's website.

DPRK: Back to Square One

The monitors have been switched off. The cameras are being removed from their mounts, and the seals are broken. The guesthouse just off the main site no longer houses the IAEA three-person team or the four-person US experts group. By now, the equipment is probably being packed into boxes by the former North Korean hosts, after which it will be carefully catalogued and transferred to storage in some building on the sprawling Yongbyon site. There, it will gather dust until the next time inspectors visit the facility. That is, if there will be a next time.

North Korea threatens to restart the facility, and there have been some educated guesses as to how fast this could be done. These guesses range from a couple of weeks, to six months, to possibly longer. Undeniably, it will take a year to get the entire facility back in order again, but some critical processes, such as the reprocessing of spent fuel, might get up and running by the summer of 2009. And this is possibly why the Russian Foreign Minister is about to visit Pyongyang quite soon, and why the Chinese are placing frantic phone calls to Washington DC.

But what are the North Korean’s required to do to get the plant up and running again? Despite wishes to the contrary, the agreed minute on disablement was never released to the wider arms control community. However, some details were nevertheless leaked, quite possibly since some involved principals on the US side felt that the disablement steps were wholly inadequate.

The first disablement action was to unload the 5MWe reactor, and transfer spent fuel to the cooling pond. This action does not appear to have been completed. The North Korean's would now speed up their unloading operations, and transfer the remaining spent fuel rods to the cooling pond. It is possible that they would then ask the director of the Fuel Manufacturing plant to transfer the fresh load of fuel (pictured) to the GCR for reloading.


However, a number of immediate tasks would need to be completed before then. First, the reactor's director would need to instruct his people to repipe the secondary cooling system and, obviously, rebuild the cooling tower, or jury-rig the system somehow. This is not likely to be completed before summer, so do not expect to see steam rising over Yongbyon until autumn. Naturally, the construction of the tower can be tracked by satellite. The reactor also needs to have its control rod mechanism reconnected.

At the reprocessing facility, work may progress slightly faster. The drive mechanism between the spent fuel receiving building and the hot cells need to be reconnected, and two steam lines would need to be re-attached and pressure-tested. Moreover, the drive mechanism for fuel cask transfers needs to be replaced, as well as some hot-cell doors. After these tasks are completed, the reprocessing facility is mostly ready for action. This can be done fairly soon, possible before July. The start of a reprocessing campaign can be detected through the release of radionuclides into the atmosphere.

The Fuel Fabrication Plant has also undergone some 'disablement'. In order to get the plant back in operation, the site director needs to reinstall all three uranium ore concentrate dissolver tanks, all seven uranium conversion furnaces, metal casting furnaces and the vacuum system, and eight machining lathes. Again, this is something that can be done in a matter of months.

The pressing question is, of course, what happens next? The ejection of IAEA monitors and US experts will lead to a substantial degradation in knowledge of ground truth. While the North is unlikely to substantially add to its fissile material stockpile in 2009, larger scale production may be likely in the coming year. Of course, a new nuclear test cannot be ruled out. It's very likely, even, that the test site director has already received instructions to elevate his level of readiness.

Personally, I find it very difficult to see any easy way out of this predicament.

US pledges to strengthen verification

Last week, the 2009 Carnegie Non-Proliferation Conference drew to a close. This two-day Woodstock draws a lot of heavy-duty players to Washington DC, including a number of senior officials from the Obama administration. This year saw the participation of Rose Gottemoeller, under-secretary of State for verification and compliance (who I once had the pleasure of having dinner with in Moscow) and James Steinberg, US deputy secretary of State. The IAEA and the CTBTO also had a strong presence. Tibor Toth, the CTBTO's executive secretary, participated in one of the panels, and the Agency people were very active in the debates (mostly to fend off inaccurate portrayals of the IAEA's work).

As has been reported elsewhere, the discussions at the conference were suitably inspired by U.S. President Barack Obama's progressive speech in Prague, where he, amongst other things, pledged that his "administration will immediately and aggressively pursue U.S. ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty".

At the Conference's first luncheon, James Steinberg added:

As a measure of the president's continuing commitment to this vital non-proliferation agenda, he has asked Vice President Joe Biden to help lead the administration's non-proliferation efforts. The vice president will lead the conduct of a comprehensive review of the complex technical military and diplomatic issues surrounding the comprehensive test ban treaty and develop a strategy to secure its ratification.

I later heard that the State Department is already on top of the situation, and that they've put one of their best men on the job. The person I heard is reviewing the past eight years operation of the treaty is very knowledgeable of CTBT issues and is, in addition, very keen on re-engaging in the development of the verification regime. There has been a lot of progress in the verification regime over the last decade, and it has proven exceptionally sensitive. At the end of the day, however, verifiability is likely to be just one, relatively minor, issue in the broader ratification debate.

It is equally important to protect and enhance the important role of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Secretary Steinberg held that, "we must improve the verification system. Adherence to the IAEA's protocol must become a duty, not an option. We should explore means of augmenting the IAEA safeguards authorities, and the agencies should receive the increased resources it needs to carry out its rapidly growing responsibilities".

This is not a new agenda, obviously. Making the additional protocol the new safeguards standard was raised in Mohamed ElBaradei's first speech to the General Conference in 1997, and the policy was strongly supported both by the Clinton and the Bush administrations. Exploring the means of augmenting the Agency's safeguards authorities was something sought by George W. Bush, but its attempt to set up a working group within the Agency faltered due to a botched attempt to exclude Iran, as well as increased non-nuclear weapon state reluctance to assume more responsibilities under their safeguards agreements.

Getting all members to agree to an increase in the Agency's regular budget may also prove difficult. Some IAEA members are concerned that they will pay the bill for increased verification in India through an increase in annual appropriations. The US could, however, leave the regular budget alone, and recapitalize the Agency through a series of substantial voluntary contributions with no strings attached.

It will be interesting to see what comes out of this, and whether some reform could start before next year's end of the current NPT review cycle.

Luis Echavarri joins the race

This from Reuters:

A Spanish nuclear power specialist has entered the race to lead the U.N. nuclear watchdog following last month's inconclusive vote to replace Mohamed ElBaradei.

Luis Echavarri, 59, head of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's nuclear energy arm, confirmed his candidature to be director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency on Thursday.

The director general oversees a global inspectorate that seeks to detect and deter covert diversions of nuclear energy to bomb-making and to promote peaceful uses of the atom, in keeping with the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

ElBaradei has held the role since 1997 and delegations are keen to avoid a prolonged, divisive succession battle given the challenges facing the IAEA, including technical but politically charged reports on agency investigations into suspected proliferation activity.

Iran and Syria are under scrutiny. North Korea, Libya and Saddam Hussein's Iraq were subject to earlier investigations.

An engineer and nuclear safety expert, Echavarri has been head of the OECD's Nuclear Energy Agency since 1997. In his earlier career, spanning more than 35 years in the nuclear field, he managed power plants in Spain.

"I think my experience gives me a political grasp of the issues as well as technical competency," he told Reuters by telephone.

Spain submitted his candidature to the agency's 35-nation board of governors on Wednesday, Echavarri said.

Echavarri joins new contenders from Slovenia and Malaysia, and a renomination from Japan -- Yukiya Amano, a non-proliferation veteran who failed to garner enough votes in the first vote.

Neither of the original candidates, Amano and South African diplomat Abdul Samad Minty, were seen as broad-based enough to replace ElBaradei, who steps down in November this year.

"Many have countries have called on Spain saying I could play that role -- to meditate between different sensitivities surrounding the IAEA," Echavarri said.

"I have a lot experience in dealing with many countries with different policies and experience with both developing and industrialised nations."

Board chairman Algeria invited fresh nominations following the inconclusive two-way election and another vote will be held in May just in time for the board's meeting the following month.

First new DG nomination out

From Reuters:

KUALA LUMPUR, April 2 (Reuters) - Malaysia's government endorsed the country's atomic energy board chief as a candidate for the U.N. nuclear watchdog director-general's post, a minister said on Thursday.

Malaysia will put forward Noramly Muslim, chairman of the Malaysian Atomic Energy Licensing Board, after the International Atomic Energy Agency's board of governers failed to agree on a sucessor to Mohamed ElBaradei last week.

"Yes, Professor Dr Noramly Muslim is officially endorsed by the Malaysian government (for the post)," Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Maximus Ongkili told Reuters in a mobile phone text message. He declined to give further details.

Noramly, who has researched the impact of nuclear technology in developing countries, was IAEA's deputy director-general for technical cooperation in the late 1980s.

He has argued for Malaysia to start using nuclear energy to generate electricity much sooner than its 2020 target as the Southeast Asian country's oil reserves are getting depleted.

Too bad I cant change the poll once people have started voting.

Voting for the new DG

I have set up a poll to canvass my limited readership for views as to who they want to see as the new IAEA DG. Just click the button on the right. One vote per person (but you are free to change your vote at any time). The poll closes on 27 April 2009 (which I believe is the deadline for new nominations).

I used Jeffrey's list of hot candidates. Don't worry. I cannot see who has voted or when. So go on then, click on your preferred candidate.

Illicit trafficking and the need for a new convention

I have recently recieved a Diplôme d’Université (D.U.) en Droit Nucléaire International (with très bien) from the University of Montpellier 1. I suppose that this makes me a just another pro-nuclear lawyer in the eyes of some.

Anyway, while I made it quite far, my dissertation was not quite good enough to make it into the OECD's Nuclear Law Bulletin. I know who made it there, and that person really deserves the honour. Instead, I've been asked to submit my paper, or another one, to an INLA prize committee, since it was deemed to be of "prize quality". I have not made up my mind on that yet, especially since I know who I'll be competing against.

In any case, I've decided to put my paper online at the moment. I am sure that it will be of interest to some of my readers. I chose illicit trafficking simply because I'm a bit fed up with non-proliferation and disarmament. I wanted to investigate a new area, and what I found was quite unsettling.

My deep thanks goes to Lyudmila Zaitseva and Friedrich Steinhausler of the University of Salzburg for introducing me to the shadowy world of illicit trafficking, Angela Woodward (VERTIC's dear leader) for providing the funding, OECD's Selma Kus for being so supportive, and my Viennese friends who never ceased to offer encouragement (Alexis, Karim & Lisa).