BBC Monitoring Middle East - Political March 7, 2004
Algeria: Us Pressure Over Country's Nuclear Capabilities
SOURCE: Liberte web site, Algiers, in French 7 Mar 04
After Libya, will it be Algeria? According to our information, for several weeks Algiers has been subjected to discreet but insistent American pressure to force her to accept unscheduled visits by inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to her two nuclear reactors, Salam and Nour. All the American officials who have recently visited Algeria have addressed the topic with the Algerian authorities. Officially the Bush administration, which has made the fight against nuclear proliferation its main priority, does not suspect Algeria of wanting to provide herself with the nuclear weapon. For the past several months, relations between the two countries have improved markedly owing to cooperation in the area of the fight against terrorism.
As Liberte has already revealed, the recent operations conducted in southern Algeria against the troops of the Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC) were carried out with the support of American experts. And, despite the official denial by its embassy in Algiers, the United States will indeed set up a relay base in southern Algeria. The latter will allow the country, on an ad hoc basis, to carry out antiterrorist operations in the Sahel region which the American suspect of harbouring, for some time, elements from the Al-Qa'idah network who fled Afghanistan following the fall of the Taleban regime. "For the Bush administration, Algeria is instead perceived as a partner. In December, the US Congress authorized the sale of weapons to Algeria. And generally the Americans do not sell weapons to countries with which it has problems," explained Philippe Golub, a political science professor at the American University of Paris and a contributor to Le Monde diplomatique . Nevertheless, on the nuclear issue, the Americans are exhibiting serious worries. Starting in 1991, "the United States was worried by the fact that Algeria could develop nuclear weapons with the help of the Chinese government," the GlobalSecurity.org internet site stated, which is close to the Pentagon and reputedly serious. The site also stated that the Ain Oussera reactor is capable of enriching uranium and can produce between "three and five kilograms of plutonium annually (that is, the equivalent of one nuclear weapon)".
Furthermore, the confidential geopolitique.com newsletter, in its most recent edition, stated that "last year the General Directorate for External Security (DGSE, French intelligence services) questioned at length a top official from the Algerian programme who had fled his country. This defector provided assurances that the energy production from the Nour electric power plant that Algeria had purchased from Argentina, which, until now, had been estimated at one megawatt, can in fact be assessed at 15 megawatts; this power plant is thus reportedly capable of producing three to five kilograms of plutonium annually, sufficient to manufacture a nuclear bomb. According to these reports, Algerian and Chinese experts are already working on the second phase, that of vehicles, and are studying the changes that need to be made to certain missiles to allow them to be equipped with a nuclear or chemical charge". Geopolitique.com also quoted a report by the Spanish secret services according to which "for the past four years, Algeria has possessed the plants necessary for the production of military-grade plutonium that could be used in the manufacture of a bomb".
The increase in the number of reports in the western press about Algerian nuclear capabilities comes just three weeks after the speech delivered by George W. Bush on weapons of mass destruction. This past 11 February, the American president had in fact indicated that his administration wanted to restrict access to civilian nuclear technologies to all developing countries and not just "rogue states". The increase also occurs at a time when reports from western secret services are stating that the Algerian army is now the most modern and the most powerful in the entire Arab world. This is oddly reminiscent of another case, that of Iraq in the late 1980's.
Source: Liberte web site, Algiers, in French 7 Mar 04
© Copyright 2004, British Broadcasting Corporation
