Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

DATE=02/22/2004

TYPE=ON THE LINE

NUMBER=1-01462

TITLE=Stopping Nuclear Proliferation

INTERNET=Yes

EDITOR=OFFICE OF POLICY 619-0038

CONTENT= This show broadcasts Sunday

THEME: UP, HOLD UNDER AND FADE

Host: Stopping nuclear proliferation. Next, On The Line.

Host: Pakistan's top nuclear scientist has confessed to being at the center of an international black market in nuclear weapons technology. In the wake of revelations about his dangerous trade, President George W. Bush is calling for new international cooperation to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

Bush [SOT]: America and other nations are learning more about black market operatives who deal in equipment and expertise related to weapons of mass destruction. These dealers are motivated by greed, or fanaticism, or both. They find eager customers in outlaw regimes, which pay millions for the parts and plans they need to speed up their weapons programs. And with deadly technology and expertise on the market, there's the terrible possibility that terrorist groups could obtain the ultimate weapons they desire most.

Host: Mr. Bush called not only for new rules against the transfer of weapons technology, but for a new resolve to enforce those rules.

Bush [SOT]: There is a consensus among nations that proliferation cannot be tolerated. Yet this consensus means little, unless it is translated into action. Every civilized nation has a stake in preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction. These materials and technologies, and the people who traffic in them, cross many borders. To stop this trade, the nations of the world must be strong and determined.

Host: Can the trade in nuclear weapons technology be stopped? I'll ask my guests: Husain Haqqani, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; and Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy. Welcome and thanks for joining us today.

Husain Haqqani, in his speech, President Bush cited as a sort of model for the international cooperation that he's looking for, the very capture of technology that led to this proliferation ring coming undone, I guess, a ship called "B-B-C China" that was bringing centrifuge technology to Libya. How was that figured out and how was that ring broken up?

Haqqani: Well, I think that the most important factor was the feeling on the part of Libya's leader Moammar Gaddafi that after the war in Iraq, he does not want himself and his regime to be subjected to the kind of treatment that the U-S has been able to inflict on Iraq and the regime change that occurred in the case of Saddam Hussein. So I think that made the Libyans more cooperative. Otherwise, just the interception of a ship carrying centrifuges would not have persuaded them to tell the sources. Because there have been other occasions where nuclear technology that is being transferred or equipment that is being transferred from one place to another has been found, through technical means -- and the U-S does have technical means, of course they're always stretched because there's so much rogue operation going on around the world that you cannot simply focus a satellite on everything that's going on around the world. There have been occasions in the past when ships have been intercepted, when individuals carrying stuff have been intercepted. But this was the first time when the information that has been gleaned from this transaction was presented to Libya's leader and he actually was willing to reveal the sources.

Host: Frank Gaffney, how do you get around this problem of capturing technology that's in transit and then not being able to figure out who it's going to or who it's come from?

Gaffney: It's a very challenging problem. I think two things should be noted here. One, C-I-A director George Tenet talked about not only the technical means of monitoring these sorts of transactions, but actually success in placing human agents into this network in order to discern what was going on and to vector what is now being called "the proliferation security initiative," a multilateral effort to actually seize ships on the high seas - and actually it's supposed to apply to planes, I believe, and ground transport as well, when there's evidence that such sensitive technologies or materials are moving to would-be proliferators. I think what we've got to do here is understand the connections between these various elements of pipelines like A.Q. Khans, to be sure. We also have to focus on the regimes that are principally responsible for using resources to purchase this equipment. You know, there's a lot of talk in the drug trade about not worrying so much about the people doing the drug trafficking as you worry about the consumers. You cut that off [and] you're going to make an important impact, I think, on the problem. And this goes back to the point about regime change. I'm not persuaded personally that we've seen the end of the problem out of Moammar Gaddafi, for example. But we certainly aren't going to see an end of the problem from the proliferation point of view when you're dealing with countries like Iran and North Korea, I think, unless and until those regimes change in those places.

Haqqani: I mean, there's a supply side to it, and there's a demand side to it. And I agree with Frank that you have to eliminate the demand, the rogue regimes that need these, or want these, or seek these, the terrorists that may want some kind of uranium enrichment capabilities so that they can build, if nothing else, radiological weapons. That said, the important thing that we have to bear in mind is that while we can be very pleased with the fact that, right now, the ring has been broken, the ring has been in operation for almost two decades. So that is the downside to it. We have to remember that these kinds of trades have been taking place for two decades, and it has taken us twenty years to figure out what was happening and who all were involved. There may still be elements that may take a long time to be brought together and certainly to be brought to justice.

Host: Frank Gaffney.

Gaffney: We've got the problem of the plans that have been disseminated around the world, the centrifuge equipment or other component parts that have been disseminated over this two-decade period. So even if it's true -- and I must tell you, I'm a little bit less sanguine, perhaps, than Husain. Even if it's true that this pipeline has been severed, there's a lot of stuff that was in the far end of the that pipeline presumably over a twenty-year period that has already migrated into places of concern -- and I've mentioned two of them: Iran and North Korea.

Haqqani: I'm certainly not sanguine. I mean I pray that the ring has been broken. But the fact remains that if Dr. A.Q. Khan, the Pakistani nuclear scientist, could get plans from Europe, and then piece together over a long period of time the sources and the means of putting all the elements together, the materials. Because the most important thing is enriched uranium if it is available. People often do know the basic technology of it. It is all [about] getting the right metals, getting the right equipment, getting uranium, and being able to put it all together. Libya, despite having everything, was not able to put it together. Iran, on the other hand, was. But the fact of the matter is if Pakistan, which initially got it, had a few individuals, if the official version is to be accepted -- and I am one of those who does not accept the official version.

Host: What about the official version do you not accept?

Haqqani: I don't think that it is possible for an individual scientist just out of greed to share the nuclear technology because a centrifuge is not something you put in a briefcase and take along with you while you're traveling. Secondly, countries like North Korea are not places where you go for a vacation. So if my nuclear scientists are traveling to North Korea, I would at least ask them: "Why are you going there?" So I do not believe the official version that no one except these nuclear scientists knew what was going on. Obviously people did. Right now politically it's not in the interest of United States to press General [Pervez] Musharraf too much because he's an ally of the U-S. But the fact remains that there are other members of the Pakistani officialdom who knew what happened. That said, the point I was trying to make was that if Pakistan could become a source of further leakages, how do we know that there haven't been further leakages of designs from Libya, Iran, and North Korea, that there haven't been scientists who have done exactly A.Q. Khan had done, which was to copy the designs that he was working with while working in Europe and carrying them with him or moving them? And nowadays that can be done. You know, you can actually copy them, you can put them on a C-D, you can actually transfer them through the internet. So it will really be a long time before this whole network as it exists or existed before A.Q. Khan's revelations, is fully unraveled.

Gaffney: Two other considerations.

Host: Frank Gaffney.

Gaffney: One is that, I think it's fair to say that relations with North Korea and Iran and Libya were part of the foreign policy of the Musharraf and, for that matter, the [Mohammad] Zia [ul-Haq] regime before him. I think these are further considerations when speculating about whether this rogue scientist was off on his own. I think it very unlikely, as Husain obviously does. The second part is, North Korea has told us, now they back and fill all the time, but at one point, they came right out and said, "We will be prepared to sell our nuclear technology to other parties." And they could - you know, we focus here to this point on rogue states principally, but -- you're absolutely right -- there's also the possibility that these things migrate to terrorists who are willing to do it sort of cheap and cheerful, that is to say, use a radiological device, one that simply scatters radioactive material rather than trying to make it come together for critical mass purposes. That's a problem that unfortunately we are probably going to confront more of in the future. Not just because of A.Q. Khan or Pakistan or these other entities, but there's also of course the problem that much of the former Soviet Union's arsenal and its scientists have been up for grabs for a long time. So the pipeline could be far more expansive than what we've focused on to this point and what's migrated through it could be quite considerable as well.

Host: Husain Haqqani, let's talk about one part of this pipeline that we really haven't touched on yet, which is Western nations in Europe. A.Q. Khan said that, in fact, European firms were begging the Pakistani program to buy their technology. And it appears that much of the technology that A.Q. Khan and, in fact, equipment that he sold to other nations was done by just putting in orders for excess equipment from European companies and then turning around and selling it to other companies. How extensive is the European connection in this trade?

Haqqani: Very extensive. You must remember, that the original designs that Dr. Khan brought were European, that subsequent to that those designs were improved upon, and they were certainly not improved upon by Pakistani scientists without some input from the original designers and the people who had some knowledge of the original designs.

Gaffney: The designs for the weapons or designs for the centrifuge?

Haqqani: Designs for the centrifuge. And then the weapons designs came from China, as we all know. But at the same time, we also know that specific materials like the metals that were required - because Dr. Khan as you may know is essentially a metallurgist. His real expertise is in metals and to be able to find the right metals to make centrifuges, to be able to enrich uranium to the stages and degrees that are required for nuclear weapons. And I think that Dr. A.Q. Khan is right when he says that there were European companies, once word got out that Pakistan was in the market, European companies started reaching out to Pakistani officials. And I, in fact, having served in the Pakistani government, can bear out that there were occasions when people said to me on tours of Europe and etc., somebody would just give me his [business] card and say, "By the way can you just pass it on to somebody in your atomic energy commission?" Meaning basically, that, "I can't discuss it with you, you are a political person. I don't know whether you understand what I am or not. But we'd like to reach out to them." And I am sure that there will be people that will be identified. There have already been some companies in Belgium, some in France, some in Germany that have been suspected. We also know that Dr. Khan got some of this centrifuge-related stuff made in Malaysia. So this is not something, you know - if somebody's willing to pay top dollar for nuclear-weapons technology, then you can get it. Pakistan got it. And now Pakistan allowed it to be leaked to other countries. Some of those countries are also capable of leaking it. And then, look, sometimes it's just a matter of a shopping list. Once I have been able to find all the ingredients around the world, all I have to sell you is a shopping list. "By the way, this is what you need and this is the way you will get it. You will get uranium through Mr. X, you will get your centrifuges through Mr. Y, and this is a where you can get your metallurgical work done, and these are the designs and this is how you can actually get these designs put together. So it's actually not even elaborate designs, but just a list of people who are willing to do this business. It's a bit like finding a - when you got a drug habit, it's like finding the dealer.

Gaffney: I think this is very important point. It's very rarely the case that you would find somebody who is willing to turn over the whole operation. It's very unlikely, I think, that you would find a German company, French company, cynical though they were, that would be willing to actually take an entire design, sort of end-to-end and provide it. I'm not persuaded that the North Koreans wouldn't do that, or for that matter, some of the Soviet scientists might not have done it. But everybody had plausible deniability, as it's called, because you just want this widget or that piece of metallurgy or that electrical component or that unit that would go -- yes it could go into a centrifuge but maybe could go into advanced weaving looms or something. And to the extent that people were willing, governments, companies, and -- for that matter, to some extent I suspect - even the press in these Western democracies to sort of look the other way. As these transactions went down piecemeal, you gave rise to the kind of problem, going back to your introductory piece, that President Bush is talking about. We had, essentially for almost forty years now, a non-proliferation-treaty regime in place that has caused a lot of people to think, "This problem is taken care of." Anything but, and the President, specifically in the speech at the National Defense University, pointed to one of the most serious difficulties with it. And that is, it had a loophole, as he calls it -- a fatal conceit, is the way I would describe it. If people would promise not to have a nuclear weapons program, under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, they were entitled to have essentially everything they'd need for a nuclear weapons program because it would be the obligation of nuclear states or, for that matter, others to provide nuclear power technology to these countries. So whether you were getting it piecemeal, or whether you're getting whole reactors as Saddam Hussein famously did, and for that matter, the Iranians, the North Koreans, and others, you had just a massive often above board and certainly winking and nodding kind of transaction that has gotten to the point where now, we do have a world awash with the technology and probably the materials to make nuclear weapons in a lot of different places."

Haqqani: And if I may say so, there is another problem with the non-proliferation treaty. Countries like India and Pakistan never signed it. So they're not even restricted by the limitations -- whatever little limitations that treaty has. So what I think President Bush is talking about, and which I assume will be the next stage of his effort in this regard, would be to try and repair the non-proliferation treaty, expand its application, to try and also control the transfer of fissile material, make it more restrictive, and focus again on missile technology because missile technology also needs to be controlled. It's directly related. You can actually weaponize and make nuclear weapons, but unless and until you have missiles to deliver them, you still are not at that stage of being a problem [as are] those countries that already have missile technology and then are now pursuing nuclear weapons as well.

Host: President Bush has singled out Iran as one of the problem states. Let's look at what he had to say in his speech at the National Defense University.

Bush [SOT]: The government of Iran is unwilling to abandon a uranium enrichment program capable of producing material for nuclear weapons. The United States is working with our allies and the International Atomic Energy Agency to ensure that Iran meets its commitments and does not develop nuclear weapons.

Host: Frank Gaffney, John Bolton, Under Secretary of State for proliferation issues, said that the U-S is convinced that, under the guise of its civilian nuclear energy program, Iran is developing a nuclear bomb. How far along are they on that?

Gaffney: I'm not sure anybody outside of closely held circles of the Iranian government knows the answer for sure. What is pretty clear on the basis of what the Iranians have told us through the I-A-E-A and other disclosures: they've put together basically all of the ingredients -- what Husain was talking about -- of the component parts of a nuclear weapons program. "Soup to nuts," as they say, seems to be now in place in Iran. And how far they've gotten in terms of processing uranium through advanced centrifuges is something that I don't know the answer to. But I think we have to be, going back to the point I made earlier, under no illusion, that unless and until there is a change in the character and ambitions of the Iranian government, there's very little chance we're even going to know how far advanced is their program. Let alone at what point they actually start churning out possibly significant numbers of nuclear weapons.

Host: Husain Haqqani, we have just about a minute left. Iran has had a history of providing extensive weapons to terrorist organizations. How legitimate is the concern that, if they get their hands on a nuclear bomb, that it could become a nuclear bomb in the hands of terrorists?

Haqqani: It's a very legitimate concern. Iran is also a country where extremists and moderates, conservatives and reformers have been contending for power. What if people who support the extremists and terrorist groups actually get power?

Gaffney: They've got it. That's the problem right now.

Haqqani: What I mean is, if they emerge on top in the struggle, internal struggle. I agree that they have the power right now. Another irony of the international regime is that Iran was on the board of the I-A-E-A. So the agency that is charged under a non-proliferation treaty with controlling proliferation has potential proliferators as members of its board of governors. And I think that also is something that President Bush has mentioned in his speech. [It] needs to be tackled. There are forty countries at the moment who deal in materials that could be used for nuclear weapons purposes and I think all forty have to be brought into the proliferation [discussion].

Host: I'm afraid that's going to have be the last word for today. We're out of time. I'd like to thank my guests: Husain Haqqani of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; and Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy. Before we go, I'd like to invite you to send us your questions or comments. You can e-mail them to ontheline@ibb.gov. For On the Line, I'm Eric Felten.