Sense of Urgency at U.N. Over Nuclear Trade

VIENNA — Concerned that efforts to halt nuclear proliferation have proved inadequate, the international community is developing new strategies to fight the illicit spread of atomic weapons technology by private smuggling networks.

Based on lessons from the investigation of the global black market in nuclear technology headed by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Bush administration is pushing for a larger role for the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency. It is also lobbying other nations to beef up export controls and is seeking to expand international cooperation on impeding nuclear contraband.

The Khan network began to unravel after an intelligence tip led to the seizure of a shipload of nuclear equipment bound for Libya in October 2003. Investigators later found evidence that the network had sold designs and material for a complete enrichment plant and atomic warhead to Libya as well as nuclear technology to Iran.

The two countries operated ambitious clandestine nuclear programs for many years without detection through international safeguards and export controls.

Along with improving safeguards and monitoring, top counter-proliferation officials are focused on establishing new measures to combat what they warn is the increasing threat of nuclear terrorism.

The Khan network demonstrated for the first time that a country can bypass long-term investments in research and international red tape by secretly purchasing proven nuclear technology and weapons designs from businessmen and rogue government officials.

Robert Joseph, the new undersecretary of State for arms control, said in Washington that the major elements of the Khan network have been “put out of business.”

Khan is under house arrest in Pakistan and several other people suspected of involvement in his smuggling ring are in jail in other countries.

But Joseph said the U.S. is now pursuing other networks that traffic in nuclear technology, though he said none is believed to be as extensive as the one-stop shopping offered by the Khan ring.

Under prodding from the Bush administration this month, the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency set up a committee to study ways to strengthen its system of preventing the illicit spread of nuclear weapons technology.

“It is time to revisit the whole safeguards system to see whether it is still effective to meet emerging challenges,” Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the IAEA, told the organization’s board in Vienna after it approved the committee.

Topics under consideration include efforts to encourage more nations to share intelligence and other information with the IAEA and giving the agency the authority to gather its own data on a wider range of exports with potential nuclear uses.

The committee will spend the next two years studying these issues before reporting to the IAEA board, which will determine whether to expand the agency’s authority.

The IAEA began revamping its safeguards and monitoring systems after the reach of Khan’s trafficking network was discovered. A major focus for the agency is expanding its ability to collect and analyze public information and coordinate intelligence received from the U.S. and other countries.

The agency is spending $1 million a year buying satellite images for a new six-person analysis unit. In addition, it set up a system late last year to gather information about which nations are trying to buy technology that could be used in a nuclear program.

“We need to get all the support possible from member states in terms of information sharing, particularly related to procurement activities,” said Mark Gwozdecky, the agency’s chief spokesman.

The U.S. has regularly shared intelligence and satellite imagery with the agency, but IAEA officials said cooperation cooled in 2003 after ElBaradei contradicted Bush administration statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and later the agency refused to recommend referring Iran to the U.N. Security Council after the discovery of its hidden nuclear facilities.

Relations have improved in recent weeks and the U.S. approved granting ElBaradei a third term as director general this month.

The IAEA is not an enforcement agency and it does not have investigative or law enforcement powers. It depends on voluntary cooperation from countries that agree to strict monitoring of their nuclear facilities in exchange for receiving nuclear technology for civilian uses.

An additional protocol to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty expanded the agency’s ability to conduct inspections at facilities suspected of involvement in nuclear activities, but not all countries have ratified the agreement.

In the U.S., the Senate approved the additional protocol in March 2004. A State Department official said the administration hoped that Congress would approve legislation implementing the requirements of the protocol this summer.

The Bush administration wants to make the additional protocol a standard that must be met before nuclear technology for civilian purposes is supplied to any country.

The administration also wants to strengthen the safeguards and improve the IAEA’s ability to verify that countries are complying with their agreements, but the agency has its eye on steps that go beyond those envisioned by Washington.

The most far-reaching and controversial proposal is the possible expansion of IAEA authority so it can look into the acquisition of technology that could be used to develop nuclear weapons in violation of the nonproliferation treaty.

ElBaradei broached the idea gingerly at a closed session of the 35-member board last week, but he quickly ran into opposition from countries worried that the agency might become too intrusive, according to European and U.S. officials who attended the meeting.

Some in the Bush administration are reluctant to provide the IAEA with the authority to look into weapons programs, partly because it could conflict with U.S. laws that protect American nuclear arms.

“Right now, different people have different views and it hasn’t come down to a formal administration decision,” said a State Department official, who asked to remain anonymous. “It is very fluid.”

Some in Washington also fear that giving the IAEA authority to investigate weapons activities would require expanding the expertise of scientists and technicians from around the world employed by the Austria-based agency.

Only a few people now at the agency have weapons proficiency; they are from the five countries declared to have nuclear weapons under the nonproliferation treaty -- the U.S., Russia, Britain, France and China.

“A building in Vienna with a lot of people who are acquiring knowledge or expertise in nuclear weapons represents a proliferation risk,” said a Western diplomat who works at the agency. “People sign confidentiality agreements to come to work here, but that probably would not be sufficient for the U.S. and others.”

Still, there is a broad consensus that new steps are required to meet the challenge represented by organizations like the Khan network, which disproved previous ideas about the path to possessing nuclear weapons technology.

Instead of developing its own technology slowly through assistance from other countries and the black market, Libya was able to purchase complete production facilities and training from the Khan ring.

Among the items uncovered by IAEA inspectors when they dismantled Libya’s nuclear program last year was a computer disk containing a video. On it were a description of Khan’s centrifuge lab in Pakistan and an offer to train technicians.

Existing nonproliferation and export controls were established chiefly to block advanced countries from transferring nuclear weapons technology to less developed countries, a sort of dividing line between First and Third World nations.

The Khan network avoided the control system altogether. It provided technology and expertise to Iran (which says its pursuit of nuclear power is for peaceful purposes) and Libya from private suppliers and middlemen in a range of countries, including Germany, Switzerland, Pakistan and Malaysia.

“A.Q. Khan is a demonstration of how to bypass existing controls,” said Chaim Braun, a fellow at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. “They could do everything by themselves.”

The revelations about the scope and stealth of Khan’s operation, which also is suspected of helping North Korea, has heightened global concerns about the possibility of weapons of mass destruction falling into the hands of terrorists.

Sen. Richard G. Lugar, the Indiana Republican who heads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, released a survey this month of 85 experts who evaluated the dangers of attacks using nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

The nonproliferation and international security experts estimated there is a 27% risk of an attack using a radioactive device somewhere in the world within the next five years and a 40% risk within the next 10 years.

The Lugar report also said there was “broad agreement within the group that nuclear weapons will proliferate to new countries in the coming years.” And a majority predicted that two to five additional countries would acquire nuclear weapons within the next decade.

Along with strengthening the IAEA, the Bush administration wants to combat nuclear trafficking by expanding its Proliferation Security Agreement, an informal pact among about 60 countries to impede and stop shipments of weapons of mass destruction headed for what the U.S. calls “states of concern.” Among the nations seen as states of concern are Iran, Syria and North Korea.

This month, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the program had stopped 11 shipments in the last two years, including material headed for Iran’s ballistic missile program.

Joseph, the undersecretary of State, said Thursday that “nothing radioactive” had been seized, but he declined to provide details of what was confiscated.

The program’s biggest success occurred on Oct. 4, 2003, when Italian and U.S. authorities diverted a German freighter in the Mediterranean to an Italian port. Inside, they found five crates of nuclear components manufactured by the Khan ring in Malaysia and bound for Libya.

Frantz reported from Vienna and Efron from Washington.