Spanish Intelligence Warns of Algerian Nuclear Potential
"Cesid warns that in two years Algeria will have the capacity to produce military plutonium" Report by M. Gonzalez and J.M. LarrayaMadrid El Pais 23 August 1998 Madrid -- Algeria has renounced the atomic bomb by signing the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and accepting International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections. However it is going ahead with a nuclear program which far exceeds its civil needs and in two years' time it will have the installations necessary to produce military plutonium, a key element in the atomic bomb. This warning appears in a confidential report drafted in July by the Cesid [Higher Center for Defense Intelligence], according to which at the end of the century Algeria will be technically in a position to produce nuclear weapons if its authorities so decide. The nuclear tests carried out last May by India and Pakistan have set the alarm bells ringing in the West about the risk of atomic weapons proliferation among Third World countries. For Spain the main focus of concern is the nuclear program developed by Algeria, with the technical support of China and Argentina. In this context, in July the secret service Cesid submitted to the government a report, to which El Pais has had access, in which it describes the current situation of this program and warns about the danger which its diversion to military ends would involve. "At present, Algeria is fully signed up to the non-proliferation regime, after accepting the discipline required by the nuclear safeguards of the IAEA," says the intelligence service's document, classified as confidential. "However," it adds, "the Algerian nuclear program, originally conceived with a clear military purpose, continues to equip itself with the installations necessary to carry out all the activities linked to the complete cycle for obtaining military grade plutonium, a key element in a nuclear arms program." "Although the Algerian government's decision on its nuclear program is at present at variance with the policy of the 1980s, the knowledge obtained by an impressive staff of experts and scientists, as well as the availability of the installations which it will have at the end of the century, will place this country in an advantageous position to restart a military program if the corresponding political decision is taken," the report concludes. The political instability of Algeria, which has been plunged in a bloody civil conflict since the elections being won by the fundamentalists were suspended in 1991, increases the possibility that future Algerian authorities could revise its renunciation of nuclear weapons.
US pressure
The Cesid report leaves no doubt about the purpose of the secret agreements signed by Algeria with China and Argentina at the beginning of the 1980s: to produce "military grade plutonium, material necessary to be able to make nuclear weapons." It was pressure from the United States, whose satellites discovered the building of the El Salam nuclear reactor near Birine, some 250 kilometers south of Algiers, which led the Algerian authorities to accept the IAEA safeguards in 1992 and join the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1995. The inspection of the Algerian installations by the IAEA caused tensions, for it was discovered that three kilograms of enriched uranium, several liters of heavy water, and several pellets of natural uranium supplied by China had not been declared to this organization. After the resolving of these difficulties, the document judges that the IAEA's system of safeguards, which includes quarterly inspections, "will not totally guarantee the impossibility of irregular, non-declared use of the Algerian nuclear installations, but it will prevent these activities being carried out continuously." The El Salam nuclear reactor has a theoretical capacity to produce up to three kilograms of plutonium a year, but the report judges that only a few grams could be diverted to military ends without being detected by the international checks. In addition, according to the report, Algeria depends on the supplying of nuclear fuel from abroad -- the IAEA has confirmed the purchase of 150 tonnes of uranium concentrate from Niger in 1984 -- and is therefore not "self-sufficient to undertake a military nuclear program on its own, which is its main limitation at present." However this statement may be superseded by the recent discovery of uranium in the Hoggar region, in the southeast of the country. Anyway, the major cause for concern stems from the fact that Algeria's acceptance of the IAEA safeguards and joining the NPT has not meant the halting of its nuclear program and not even a rethinking of the initial plan, conceived with military ends. All the papers relating to the plan, the reports adds, are still classified secret by the Algerian authorities, "which is surprising given the totally peaceful use which, according to the official statements," these installations will have. As a result, the Nuclear Energy Commission -- which has directed all activities in this sector since last March -- finds itself "with capabilities in the nuclear field far in excess of its needs," in the view of the Cesid. These needs are, furthermore, very limited since Algeria's greatest wealth is precisely its abundant energy resources, especially natural gas. Concern about the development of the Algerian nuclear program is not confined to the Cesid. The Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington spoke in very similar terms in a document circulated at the beginning of June, which also highlighted the possession by the Algerian armed forces of delivery systems -- bombers, Soviet-made rockets and launchers -- capable of carrying nuclear weapons. Algeria also has underground sites where France carried out its own atomic bomb tests prior to Algerian independence.THIS ARTICLE MAY CONTAIN COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL. COPYING AND DISSEMINATION IS PROHIBITED WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE COPYRIGHT OWNERS.
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