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Just a short note from Amman about the IAEA report on Iran …

In February, after the last IAEA DG report came out, I warned readers not to buy IAEA DG Mohamed ElBaradei’s analysis that “the pace of installing and bringing centrifuges into operation [in Iran] has slowed quite considerably since August…”

Quite the opposite. I hypothesized that Iran was accelerating installation by working on many cascades at once. That meant, in the short term, Iran might bring fewer cascades on-line, but that in the long-term they would bring cascades on-line in big bunches:

… I suspect the Iranians are actually scaling up their installation work. Here is my hypothesis:

Initially, the Iranians were building one cascade at a time, like a succession of small art projects. They had limited experience installing cascades and probably a small number of trained personnel. So, in the Board Reports, one would see a pattern: a few cascades, one or two under vacuum and a handful under installation. In the next report, the cascades under vacuum testing would have become operational, while a few more of the ones under installation had graduated to vacuum testing.

Now, Iran seems to have shifted to mass assembly. Installation on all the cascades in the second module has proceeded more or less simultaneously. So instead of small, but steady, increases in the number of centrifuges, I would expect the installation to resemble a step function in the future — with each increase being relatively large. Hence, the nine cascades about to brought into operation.

Looking at the IAEA report, and the chart I created, I think it is pretty clear that my hypothesis is correct: The Iranians are going faster now.

Comment [12]

Cross-posted from Verification, Implementation and Compliance.

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.

Comment [19]

I’ve been struggling to say something witty about the race to succeed Mohamed ElBaradei as IAEA Director-General.

Mark Heinrich at Reuters sums it up pretty well:

The International Atomic Energy Agency failed to agree on a new chief on Friday, with Japanese frontrunner Yukiya Amano falling one vote short of the required two-thirds majority.

He consistently outpolled South Africa’s Abdul Samad Minty in five rounds of voting by the nuclear watchdog’s board of governors. But neither was seen as broad-based enough to replace Mohamed ElBaradei, who steps down in November after 12 years.

So, instead, I just made baseball cards for the candidates. Enjoy

Comment [24]

Cross-posted from TotalWonkerr.com.

The Iran breakout debate has officially become tiresome.

Anyone bothering to read this blog will remember the instant analysis of the last IAEA report that ISIS put out. It got quite a bit of attention at the time.

Some of you might also have seen what Glaser and Kemp wrote in response.

Anyone on the ISIS email list certainly knows, because ISIS called them out yesterday, for some reason.

Kemp and Glaser made a quick reply.

Knowledge doesn’t grow without criticism and debate. I’ve certainly learned a thing or two from this exchange. But some of it seems waaaay too close to being a determined defense of a hasty analysis that grabbed headlines and caused confusion. This approach ill serves the cause of informing the public about science and policy issues affecting international security.

That is all.

Comment [1]

Cross-posted from TotalWonkerr.com.

I’ve just stumbled across a paper, almost a year old now, by one Peter Friend, the head of Safeguards and Security at Urenco. It concerns the safeguarding of a centrifuge enrichment facility.

Yes, this again.

It includes a short section on “new inspection techniques.” Here are the highlights:

There are many organisations – particularly in USA – currently aiming to develop new equipment and new techniques for safeguards verification purposes. But many of the developers (who might not have many contacts with IAEA or with operators experienced in safeguards implementation) seem to be too interested in the technology per se, and should give a lot more thought into the practicalities.

[snip]

In Urenco’s view, the presence of a competent inspector on site provides more effective safeguards than the use of complex remote monitoring equipment.

(VERTIC’s Persbo has mentioned the idea in the past as well.)

Without regurgitating Friend’s entire list of concerns — see page 7 of his paper if you’re interested — it suffices to say that there are many complexities involved with designing and installing new monitoring technologies in centrifuge plants, especially if the plant is already standing.

One might add to this a certain lack of trust between the monitors and the monitored: just what is that gizmo doing, anyway? And those third parties meant to be assured by the monitoring may have concerns that the gizmos can be gamed, one way or another, if there’s no one around to keep an eye on them. So having a permanent on-site presence does seem preferable in many ways.

(To be sure, sorting out the modalities, including who would make a mutually acceptable on-siter, is not entirely simple. Also, I do think continuous flow monitoring would be an excellent idea. These are not mutually exclusive ideas, or shouldn’t be.)

But there’s another benefit to having a small team of on-site inspectors always present. They can really get to know the people.

It’s the People, Stupid

Without pretending to know more than I do, let’s just say that there can only be so many humans in a given country, such as Iran, with the requisite expertise in working with centrifuge enrichment technology. Getting to know those humans and what they are doing seems like the best possible monitoring technique.

Call it social verification, right?

Concerns about breakout potential are clearly mounting — even if one doesn’t indulge in worst-case thinking — and undeclared centrifuge facilities are notoriously difficult to detect. So if you are worried about both a breakout at a declared site and the possibility of an undeclared site somewhere else, how would you guard against them? There’s reason to be doubtful that even the Additional Protocol, by itself, would suffice to detect undeclared plants with confidence.

You’ll sometimes hear this same argument made in favor of a multinational fuel center; personally, I find it pretty compelling, at least compared to alternative strategies. But there’s a long way to go before any such proposal can be realized. The good news is, even if the multinationalization idea can’t be achieved, the idea of a full-time presence can be adapted to safeguarding a national facility.

The difficulty, of course, remains in getting the monitored side to agree.

Comment [3]

Cross-posted from Verification, Implementation and Compliance

At the present, I believe that the likelihood of an Iranian break-out is slim. The principal reason for this argument is that Iran’s installed capacity at the uranium enrichment plant in Natanz is still low, and that a break-out would entail significant political and security risks for the country. As long as Agency safeguards are in place at the Iranian sites, the international community is likely to get advance warning of any attempt to divert material or to use the existing facilities for nefarious purposes.

The problem is that not all of the nuclear fuel cycle is under safeguards. Processes downstream from the uranium conversion facility are generally covered. But uranium mining and milling as well as certain nuclear related activities (such as research centres or centrifuge assembly sites) are not monitored. Since this is the case, it is easy for a fairly technologically advanced state to construct a parallel nuclear fuel cycle, using indigenous uranium resources to fuel a clandestine weapons programme.

Figure 1: Safeguards under INFCIRC/153

The most appealing option for the cheater is to divert material where safeguards are not applied, in this case the nuclear ore. Let’s take Iran as an example. At present, Iran’s stockpile of uranium yellowcake is unknown. The only thing that is known, really, is that the country imported 600 metric tonnes from South Africa in the 1970s. If the Iranians have used that material up until January 2009, it would have about 188 tonnes of yellowcake left by now. But again, material accountancy is not carried out, and Iran is under no obligation to give answers if asked.

Status of Iran’s mines
The status of Iran’s two known mines is largely unknown, but the OECD publication Uranium 2007 at least sheds some light on the status of activities. In Saghand, the AEOI is presently engaged in sinking two cylindrical shafts, each having 4 meters in diameter and extending 350 meters in depth, as well as tunnelling (about 620 meters in total). All projects are scheduled to be implemented by the end of 2009. Ore will be excavated using the “room and pillar”, “cut and fill” and “sub-level stoping” methods.

Mining activities are on-going in the Gchine salt plug near Bandar-Abbas. This is an open-pit mine, and mining operations have been on-going since 2006. Its ore is being transported to Iran’s only operating uranium production centre (the BUP), which is capable of treating 48 tonnes of uranium ore per day. It has a production capacity of 21 tonnes of uranium per year. Iran’s second production facility lies near Ardakan, has a production capacity of 50 tonnes of uranium per year, and is scheduled to go on-stream later in 2009. Iran’s reasonably assured resources of uranium is very low, some 591 tonnes of uranium, and its inferred resources are not much higher, about 1,356 tonnes, most of it in metasomatite rock.

If the OECD’s figures are correct, it is possible to calculate how much ore would be left in the Gchine salt mine by the end of 2010 if the BUP operates as declared. This calculation is visualized in figure 2.

Figure 2: Mining

Consequently, by the end of 2010, about 60 per cent of the deposits at Gchine would be exploited. The mine would be more or less drained by 2014.

It is also possible to estimate the stockpile of domestically produced yellowcake, again if the BUP operates as declared and if it uses the acid leach solvent extraction process.

Figure 3: Milling

By the beginning of 2009, the stockpile would be some 42 metric tonnes of yellowcake. Probability statistics show that the actual stockpile in 2009 is somewhere between 9.2 and 33.8 metric tonnes (obviously the absence of data leads to an enormous uncertainty – and this is again assuming that the OECD has provided accurate information).

As indicated above, with only the comprehensive safeguards agreement in place, it is virtually impossible to keep track of this stockpile.

In order to be enriched, the yellowcake would obviously need to be processed further. And here is the catch if Iran would want to cheat. Safeguards at uranium conversion facilities are generally quite effective, especially if the throughput is low, and this more or less excludes using the uranium conversion facility at Esfahan for processing the yellowcake. Once it gets on the Agency’s books, the material is tracked downstream, and diversion becomes risky business.

Therefore, a state determined to cheat on its non-proliferation obligations would need not only to construct a clandestine uranium enrichment plant, but also a clandestine conversion facility. This facility would not need to be large; a capacity of 10 metric tonnes of uranium per year would be more than sufficient. However, it is an additional investment and it carries with it a risk of overhead or ground detection. The centrifuge facility could be minimal.

About 1,300 IR-1 centrifuges would be able to produce enough highly enriched material for one weapon per year. The cascade hall would require about 520 square meters of space (that’s 23 by 23 meters) so the entire operation could be comfortably hidden in a factory building somewhere (amusingly, old clock factories seem to be the preferred choice). It would not require more electricity than an average workshop, so it cannot be detected by a passive infrared survey.

If Gchine is operational, there is enough unsafeguarded yellowcake for 1-5 weapons stored somewhere in Iran. The potential of this material being used in a parallel fuel cycle is the real cause for concern and not a diversion or break-out scenario using declared and safeguarded facilities.

The importance of the additional protocol
This is why it is critically important that Iran reapplies the additional protocol. This instrument allows the Agency to ask for and receive information on Iran’s mines (as well as several other activities – such as the assembly of centrifuge rotors). This information can be followed up upon by means of complementary access. The scope of the Additional Protocol is best illustrated by figure 4, which I again have borrowed from a friend’s presentation.

Figure 4: Safeguards under INFCIRC/540

It is only through the additional protocol that the Agency can provide some assurance of the absence of undeclared nuclear activities on Iran’s territory. It can do so since it will be able to analyze a much broader array of information. Using this information, they can see whether the flows match up, if only approximately.

The application of the additional protocol will not by itself be able to answer many of the question-marks currently plaguing the Iranian file. For this, transparency measures going beyond the requirement of the additional protocol will be necessary. This is not something the Iranian government seems willing to implement at the moment.

This is unfortunate since for as long as this kind of transparency is not given, the file will never close.

Comment [8]

Lally Weymouth interviews Mohamed ElBaradei in the Post. It’s a total trainwreck. A sampling:

Q: Some in the United States claim that between 2003 and 2007, you protected Iran because you did not want to see a U.S. military attack on it. In retrospect, do you think you allowed Iran to push the limits?

A. This is a complete misunderstanding. We have done as much as we can do in Iran to make sure that we understand the history and the present status of their program, to try to push them as far as we can within our authority to come clean. The idea people have that we are God, that we are able to cross borders, open doors . . . . We don’t have that authority. . . . I am very proud that within the limited authority we have, we have been able to understand the scope of the most sensitive part of the Iranian program, which is the enrichment program, which is now under complete agency inspection.

The Iranian enrichment program is now under inspection?

We know how much they produce in terms of enriched uranium.

Highly enriched uranium?

Low-enriched uranium.

You were elected director with the support of the U.S., and later the U.S. treated you quite badly.

It was during my third reelection when former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton initiated a campaign to block my reelection. They did not get one single country to stand against me, and in the end, I was elected by consensus, with U.S. support. You can disagree with the head of the international organization — we are not there to implement the policies of one country. We are supposed to be independent, but we always have to be impartial and objective. If an organization like IAEA is regarded as a broker for one country, it will be killed.

Is that what you thought the U.S. wanted you to do?

They did not like that we said we haven’t seen Iran developing nuclear weapons in 2003.

The IAEA said that?

We did not see proof that Iran had a nuclear weapon . . . . In 2007, the [U.S. intelligence community’s] National Intelligence Estimate said yes, Iran might have done some studies, but they stopped in 2003. We have been vindicated in Iran, we have been vindicated in Iraq before. We are not beating our chests and saying, “We were right, and they were wrong.” They need to understand that we have to continue to report on what we see.

For the record, I really don’t think ElBaradei should offer an opinion on whether Iran has a nuclear weapons program or not. The IAEA Statute empowers the agency to safeguard materials, equipment and facilities, as well as special fissionable materials.

The Director can say whether the Agency can verify Iran’s declaration, whether there are undeclared nuclear materials or activities in Iran and whether the state is in compliance with its obligations. Those are incredibly important judgments and they don’t need to be accompanied with comments that are out of the DG’s jurisdiction.

The IAEA Board of Governors found Iran in non compliance its obligations and, most importantly, that the Agency is “not in a position to conclude that there are no undeclared nuclear materials or activities in Iran.”

Although I find compelling the argument that Iran “halted” (I prefer “paused”) its weaponization program in late-2003, I really don’t think the IAEA DG should give Iran what will be interpreted, again, as a clean bill of health.

Comment [16]

The view, this morning, of the UN plaza in Vienna (where the IAEA and CTBTO are based) passed onto me by a contact. Thank you, contact.

Happy change day!

Comment [14]

Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and relevant provisions of Security Council resolutions 1737 (2006), 1747 (2007), 1803 (2008) and 1835 (2008) in the Islamic Republic of Iran, GOV/2008/59 (November 19, 2008).

Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Syrian Arab Republic, GOV/2008/60 (November 19, 2008).

I think we beat our friends at ISIS, for a change. Enjoy!

(Or they put it up on their cool new Iran blog)

Comment [15]

Reader Allen Thomson sends along this image of the AlKibar dated 23 November 2007 showing an apparently thick slab of concrete over the remains of the BoE and one or two construction cranes erected on it. Credit:GeoEye/Space Imaging Middle East IKONOS Satellite Image.

A very curious set of stories appeared yesterday about the results of environmental sampling that the IAEA conducted at the AlKibar site.

Diplomats — which is to say, not the IAEA staff — told AP’s George Jahn, Reuter’s Mark Heinrich and DPA’s Arthur that the IAEA DG ElBaradei’s report for the 27-28 November Board of Governors meeting will indicate that “samples … contained traces of uranium … was processed and not in raw form.”

ElBaradei is said to be irked at the leak.

Well, that’s not surprising. The presence of processed uranium (it is unclear it is enriched or in the form of metal) has many possible implications. There wasn’t supposed to be any reactor fuel on site and the IAEA didn’t find any evidence of graphite — though that isn’t particularly exculpatory (see: Mark Hibbs, “Evidence form IAEA graphite probe not critical to Syria reactor case,” Nuclear Fuel 33:21, p. 7). Maybe it was cross contamination from the North Koreans. Or maybe Syria has some enrichment efforts.

But, at least today, I think the story hit the papers as part of an effort to press ElBaradei to request a “special inspection” in Syria.

Although Syria allowed the IAEA to visit AlKibar on a voluntary basis, they denied the IAEA access to three sites that are believed to house equipment for the reactor project and have dragged their feet on a follow-up visit. (Having IAEA’s point of contact whacked by a sniper hasn’t helped, either.)

ElBaradei has been reluctant to ask for a “special inspection” under Syria’s INFCIRC/153 safeguards agreement to visit those three sites (see Mark Hibbs, “Key IAEA directors not inclined to press for special Syria probe,” Nucleonics Week 49:41, 9 October 2008, p. 7). ElBaradei’s has taken an exceptionally narrow view of the basis on which he would ask for a special inspection — according to Hibbs “sources close to ElBaradei said last week that unless the IAEA found evidence of undeclared nuclear material, it would not be inclined to request a special inspection to pursue the allegations of an undeclared reactor project.”

The real reason that ElBaradei is reluctant may have more to do with ongoing Israeli efforts to engage Syria. Hibbs has reported that the effort to pressure Syrua has “run aground on a separate diplomatic effort … to encourage Syria to isolate Iran (Hibbs, “Diplomatic efforts to engage Syria hindering US-led campaign at IAEA,” Nuclear Fuel 33:20, p. 4).

So, that’s the rub: Some countries — read the US — want ElBaradei to push for a special inspection — which the Agency has only requested twice in its history. ElBaradei has said that he won’t unless there is evidence of undeclared nuclear material. So, delegations are seizing on the uranium finding — however scant — to force ElBaradei’s hand.

You can see why the DG and the IAEA might be irritated, particularly if the evidence is less clear-cut than the diplomats are suggesting.

And while I won’t condone using a leak to press for a preferred outcome, I would like to see the IAEA request special inspections as a more routine measure in cases when a state does not have the Additional Protocol in force. Syria does not and if there was ever a case for a special inspection, this is probably it.

As I mentioned, the IAEA has only requested special inspections twice — once at the request of a state (newly democratic Romania in 1992, which discovered that the Ceauşescu regime had a clandestine nuclear program) and once in an adversarial relationship (the DPRK rejected the IAEA’s request in 1993, although the inspection was eventually carried out under the Agreed Framework).

Part of the problem, I think, has been the IAEA’s reluctance to request special inspections. By making them rare, they are unnecessarily adversarial.

I highly commend, via James Acton’s recommendation, a paper by John Carlson and Russel Leslie entitled, Special Inspections Revisited, (Australian National Safeguards Office, July 2005). They make the rather compelling point that special inspections ought to be conducted more often, as a normal and nonconfrontational part of the safeguards effort when a state does not have the Additional Protocol in force.

Moving toward that norm almost certainly requires requesting that Syria grant a special inspection.

Comment [23]