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South Africa Missile and Nuclear Milestones – 1960-1995

1960s: South African Atomic Energy Board begins research on fissile material production.

1967: U.S.-supplied Safari-1 research reactor at Pelindaba Nuclear Research Center becomes operational; over the next ten years, the U.S. supplies over 100 kilograms of weapon grade fuel.

1972: West German firm transfers enrichment technology to the Atomic Energy Board.

1975: U.S. nuclear fuel shipments to Safari-1 are suspended because of United Nations sanctions.

1977: Pretoria completes first bomb package; Armaments Corporation of South Africa (Armscor) is established.

1978: President P.W. Botha puts Armscor in charge of building a nuclear bomb.

1979: U.S. satellite detects a flash unique to nuclear weapon tests in the South Atlantic; South Africa and Israel deny responsibility.

1989: South Africa tests its first large missile, a modified version of the Israel’s Jericho missile; President F.W. de Klerk orders a halt to the South African nuclear weapon program.

1991: South Africa joins the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) as a non-nuclear weapon state; U.S. penalizes Armscor for missile cooperation with Israel.

1993: President F.W. de Klerk acknowledges that South Africa built six nuclear weapons but dismantled them in 1990-91; Pretoria cancels ballistic missile development.

1995: South Africa joins the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR).

South Africa’s Nuclear Autopsy

During the past five years, South Africa has made an astonishing strategic turnaround, voluntarily giving up its nuclear arsenal and surrendering its long-range missile capability, all under pressure from the United States. But questions remain: How did South Africa acquire the technology to build weapons of mass destruction? And how did Pretoria react to international export controls?

Hands down, Israel was South Africa’s most important missile supplier. Pretoria got most of what it needed from Tel Aviv. But the secrecy surrounding its A-bomb efforts often forced Pretoria to make do with low-tech equipment. “These guys were immensely proud of what they achieved under sanctions,” says a U.S. State Department official, “they came up with their own home-spun technology.” But for some tasks more sophisticated equipment was needed, so South Africa resorted to smuggling.

“I am not at liberty to divulge anything that we import…we do not identify our suppliers.” This was all Dr. Waldo Stumpf, the Chief Executive Officer of South Africa’s Atomic Energy Commission, would say as he fielded questions during a 1993 meeting at the South African embassy in Washington.

Dr. Stumpf declared categorically that South Africa “had no help from anybody on nuclear weapons technology…we gave no help to anybody and we received no help. On other things, yes…[but] not on enrichment technology, not on nuclear weapons technology.” He does admit that South Africa imported nuclear materials over the years, including low-enriched uranium, but he won’t say it came from China. Official German audits show it did and he denies that it was used for weapons.

In fact, Pretoria’s nuclear efforts depended on foreign help from the beginning. South Africa started nuclear shopping in the early 1960’s, when it contracted to buy its first research reactor from the United States. The Safari-I reactor at Pelindaba became operational in 1967, and for years the United States supplied its high-enriched uranium fuel and trained South African technicians to operate it.

South Africa’s nuclear program was run by its Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), whose scientists routinely culled open-source literature, including U.S. Navy manuals on nuclear weapon systems, safety and design. Pretoria’s quest for a bomb began in 1971. The AEC was charged with the most difficult task, producing the high-enriched uranium fuel. Armscor was asked to build the actual weapon. Once South Africa decided to “go nuclear,” it took only seven years to build an atomic bomb like the one the United States dropped on Hiroshima. The effort required about a thousand experts, but Dr. Stumpf says that “less than five or ten people had an oversight of the entire program.” Top secret clearance was only granted to persons born in South Africa with no other citizenship.

From the late 1970s through early 1990, South Africa produced highly enriched uranium a nuclear explosive at its pilot-scale enrichment plant at Pelindaba. The key technology, called “split-nozzle gaseous diffusion,” was supplied by West Germany in the early 1970s. Nevertheless, Dr. Abraham Johannes Andries Roux, president of the South African Atomic Energy Board, has claimed that 90 percent of the plant was manufactured in South Africa, and that the foreign content was purchased “through normal channels and was in no way crucial for the completion of the project.”

The need for secrecy made shopping difficult. According to the industry newsletter Nuclear Fuel, South Africa wanted tungsten, useful for making neutron reflectors for bomb packages. Tungsten can be wrapped around the uranium to increase the power of the neutron chain reaction in the bomb core. Tungsten has been controlled for export by the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) since the late 1970s. Pretoria was forced to find secret sources in Rhodesia, Zambia and Zaire, according to a U.S. analyst, but no one will say exactly who sold what.

One of the things that surprised U.N. inspectors who visited South African nuclear plants was that much of the equipment was low tech. “These guys were very creative,” says a U.S. inspector, who reported that South African scientists regularly adapted lower-tech equipment to complex tasks. For example, two-axis machine tools normally used for simple manufacturing were reportedly adapted to create complex three-dimensional shapes for South Africa’s gun-type nuclear device.

By mid-1977, the AEC had completed its first bomb package, but the enrichment plant at Pelindaba, known as the “Y-Plant,” did not begin producing the high-enriched uranium fuel until 1978. A second package was built in 1978, and by late 1979 the Y-plant had made enough enriched uranium for a single bomb core. Pretoria says it built only six nuclear devices between 1977 and 1989, and the design for each was essentially the same.

South African officials say they never conducted a full-fledged nuclear test. But Soviet satellites detected preparations for a test site in the Kalahari Desert in 1977. Washington and Moscow pressured Pretoria to shut it down. In September 1979, however, an American satellite detected a distinctive double flash off the southern coast of Africa. The satellite data offered strong evidence that the flash had been caused by a low-yield nuclear explosion.

In June 1980, the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) reported to the National Security Council that the 2-3 kiloton nuclear test had probably involved Israel and South Africa. U.S. intelligence had tracked frequent visits to South Africa by Israeli nuclear scientists, technicians and defense officials in the years preceding the incident and concluded that “clandestine arrangements between South Africa and Israel for joint nuclear testing operations might have been negotiable.” Such speculation was fueled in 1986 when Israeli nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu was interviewed by the London Sunday Times. Vanunu said that it was common knowledge at Dimona that South African metallurgists, technicians, and scientists were there on exchange programs.

After Pretoria joined the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1991, inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) started visiting South African nuclear plants to verify that Pretoria had accounted for all its secret bomb material. One of the lead inspectors recently told the Risk Report: “It was a tremendous experience…we enjoyed the highest level of cooperation that you could hope for…we were able to reconstruct the activity of the enrichment facility on a daily basis, and do forensic analysis of the records.”

But no information was provided on the suppliers. The Agency’s mandate was only to assess the “correctness and completeness” of Pretoria’s nuclear material reports. “We couldn’t ask the source of the materials,” says one of the inspectors, “if we had, they would have said: None of your business.'” The South Africans were very careful about suppliers, says the inspector. “There was nothing we saw to indicate Israeli fingerprints,” he adds.

The missile story

Israel and South Africa have a long record of military cooperation, though neither admits to working together on nuclear weapons or long-range missiles. But strong evidence of missile cooperation surfaced in 1989, when a powerful rocket took off from South Africa’s Overberg Test Range and flew nearly 1,500 kilometers. It turned out to be a South African version of Israel’s Jericho-II missile. U.S. officials confirmed later that the CIA had evidence of a full-scale partnership between the Israel and South Africa to develop, test and produce long-range missiles and rockets. A U.S. official who tracks missile proliferation tells the Risk Report that South Africa’s space launcher, the RSA-4, was built around the same engines that power Israel’s Jericho-II missile and its “Shavit” space launcher. In 1990, Washington penalized Armscor for its missile activities by banning trade for two years, but President Bush declined to punish Israel.

With the end of South Africa’s nuclear program, long-range missiles made little sense: there would be nothing nuclear to put on them. Pretoria ended its missile collaboration with Israel in 1992 and then halted all ballistic missile development in mid-1993. The next step was for Pretoria to join the Missile Technology Control Regime. As the price for membership, Pretoria had to vow that it would give up its long-range missiles and cancel its space launch effort. Then the South African companies that had actually built the rockets, such as Kentron, Houwteq and Somchem, were forced to eliminate key technologies.

Houwteq, the main contractor for the space launcher, had to dismantle its largest rockets and even retrieve blueprints and technical files from its many subcontractors. “Today, Houwteq is basically defunct as a company,” says an official from Denel, Houwteq’s parent. “There’s not much there now…it’s just a potential satellite production house.” Most of Houwteq’s engineers have been hired away by other firms such as Siemens Plessey, a company that formerly made transponders for the space launcher. Siemens Plessey was forced to return “two or three cabinets full of technical files” to Houwteq as part of the rocket destruction plan, according to a Plessey engineer.

Somchem, the second most important rocket company after Houwteq, was obliged to destroy the solid propellants and rocket casings it had made for the space launcher. Its filament-winding machines are now used to make large commercial piping, and its propellant batch-mixers can only be used for smaller missiles, says a South African diplomat. U.S. inspectors can visit Somchem to verify these arrangements.

U.S. inspectors also required Denel to destroy its large engine casting pits at Somerset West. One pit was partially filled in, limiting it to small engine production. A second was completely destroyed, according to a State Department official who was involved. Denel also destroyed large X-ray equipment, though two smaller machines remain for developing aircraft parts.

South Africa’s Hangklip test range at Rooi Els, which was equipped for large rocket tests, is reverting to a nature reserve. American inspectors have verified that its static motor test facility was destroyed. South Africa still has the large Overberg Test Range, an ideal spot for launching foreign satellites, but “its future is on hold while South Africa looks for foreign partners,” says a U.S. official who has inspected the site. “With respect to the space launch vehicle (SLV) and its new MTCR membership, South Africa is as clean as a whistle,” the inspector tells the Risk Report. South Africa was allowed to join the Missile Technology Control Regime in September 1995. But not everyone in Pretoria likes the outcome. A South African businessman, who asked to remain anonymous, predicted that “someday the Americans will have to explain why they screwed us over. We had to cancel a strong civil space program and a pending joint venture with Brazil…and a lot of companies lost business.”

Smuggling charges

South Africa is still paying for its decision to smuggle parts for its ballistic missile program. In September 1990, U.S. Customs agents shut down a company in Florida called York Ltd. for illegally shipping computerized guidance equipment for large ballistic missiles to South Africa. According to a Customs spokesperson, the company was selling isolators and circulators built to military specifications to South Africa’s Telecom Industries.

In an incident in 1988, Customs seized five South Africa-bound gyroscopes. According to an affidavit by an undercover agent, Armscor wanted a total of 38 gyroscopes for anti-tank missiles. The government indicted two Americans and three South Africans in what turned out to be an elaborate series of schemes to hide the real end-user. The scheme included shipping equipment to a front company in Israel.

The most flagrant shipments were by a Pennsylvania-based company called International Signal and Control (ISC). From 1984 to 1988, it sent South Africa more than $30 million in military-related equipment, including telemetry tracking antennae to collect data from missiles in flight, gyroscopes for guidance systems, and photo-imaging film readers, all of which would form the “backbone” of a medium-range missile system, according to a U.S. intelligence official. Some of this technology was reportedly transferred to Iraq. Fuchs International, a South African firm, was indicted in 1991 by a federal grand jury for providing Iraq with parts for ammunition fuses, used in artillery shells fired against allied troops during the Gulf War.

Armscor and ISC Chairman James Guerin were also indicted. Guerin pled guilty and is now serving time in prison. U.S. prosecutors hope Armscor will help them convict Guerin’s partner, Robert Clyde Ivy, a former Armscor employee. Mr. Ivy is the last unconvicted American charged in the 1991 indictments. Ivy’s trial has been postponed several times. In 1994, several officials associated with Armscor came to the United States to provide information about the case in return for offers by U.S. prosecutors’ of light sentences. More details about South Africa’s missile suppliers are bound to surface if Armscor is ever brought to trial.

South Africa Gives Up Nukes and Missiles; Now Gets High-Tech Imports

South Africa is the only country in history to build nuclear weapons in secret and then dismantle them voluntarily. In July 1991, Pretoria stunned the world by announcing that it would join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), a pact requiring it to give up its secret arsenal of atomic bombs. South Africa then opened all its nuclear sites to international inspectors and cleared the way toward a nuclear weapon-free zone in Africa.

In 1994, under pressure from the United States, South Africa further agreed not to build long-range missiles and to destroy the plants and equipment it was using to build large space rockets. After it demolished its key rocket sites last summer, South Africa was allowed to join the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), a group of 28 countries that agrees to restrict the spread of long-range missiles. The payoff for Pretoria has been access to the high-tech and military markets of the industrialized countries. In June 1994, the U.S. Government elevated South Africa’s trading status to the same level as other formerly proscribed destinations, such as Hungary and the Czech Republic.

But one snag remains: The State Department still bans the sale of defense articles and services to South Africa’s leading defense companies, Armscor and Denel, because of a 1991 U.S. criminal indictment. Armscor is charged with violating U.S. export control laws. And Denel is seen as Armscor’s successor. At the time of the indictment, Armscor was South Africa’s key missile developer.

In an exclusive interview with the Risk Report, Denel’s Managing Director Johan Alberts vents his frustration: “It’s totally unfair that the Americans are preventing business, and it puts my president in a very awkward position.” South African President Nelson Mandela has tried for two years to persuade Washington to drop its restrictions on trade with Armscor, to no avail. Meanwhile, Denel employees are crying foul play, accusing Washington of trying to quash South Africa’s defense industry.

Libya Chemical Milestones – 1970-1995

1970: Libya tries to buy an atomic bomb from China.

1979: German engineers from OTRAG rocket firm start work on a medium-range missile in the Libyan desert.

1983: Soviet-supplied research reactor starts at Tajura Nuclear Research Center.

1984: European firms start construction of Rabta chemical weapon plant.

1985: Libyan-supported terrorists attack Rome and Vienna airports.

1986: United States bans trade with Libya; Libyan-supported terrorists bomb discotheque in West Berlin; U.S. bombers strike targets in Tripoli and Benghazi.

1988: CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) Director says Libya has built the third world’s largest chemical weapon production plant at Rabta; Libyan terrorists suspected of bombing Pan Am flight 103 over Scotland.

1990: German businessman Imhausen receives a five-year prison term for tax evasion and helping to build the Rabta plant.

1991: U.S. intelligence says Libya is building a second chemical weapon plant underground at Tarhuna.

1992: United Nations denies Libyan aircraft landing rights and bans military cooperation with Tripoli.

1993: U.S. authorities thwart a Libyan attempt to buy ammonium perchlorate, used for rocket fuel, from Ukraine.

1994: Washington sanctions three Thai companies for helping Libya make poison gas.

1995: The Central Intelligence Agency says Rabta is inactive but still capable of producing chemical weapons.

Iraq is Still a Threat, U.N. Says

Iraqi weapons of mass destruction are still a threat, say U.N. inspectors, who are now digesting a stunning load of incriminating documents found in a chicken coop on an Iraqi farm in August.

The 680,000 pages of documents were found a few days after Iraq revealed that, before the Gulf War, Iraqis had filled 166 bombs and 25 missile warheads with anthrax, botulinum and aflatoxin all deadly germ warfare agents and had tested missile warheads filled with VX, the most deadly known nerve gas. Some documents indicated that the weapons may have been deployed with a surprise attack in mind.

Iraq had also manufactured and tested its own Scud-type missile engines, and planned to divert nuclear material under international inspection to a crash program to make an atomic bomb. All of this was news to the inspectors. Saddam Hussein, they ruefully admitted, had hidden crucial parts of his mass-destruction war machine from them since the Gulf War, and could be hiding them still.

The revelations came only because one of Saddam Hussein’s sons-in-law, General Hussein Kamel, had defected to Jordan in early August and began divulging state secrets. The Iraqis reacted by taking U.N. inspectors to the chicken house. The Iraqis claimed Kamel had hidden documents from the Iraqi government there. Kamel was responsible for Saddam’s nuclear, chemical/biological and missile programs.

Iraq now says it has already destroyed everything revealed in August. The problem is that there is no documentation to prove the Iraqi claims; Iraq says the work was done under oral orders. The Iraqis have walked the inspectors over the ground where the destruction is supposed to have happened, but the inspectors are not convinced. “We have to assume the worst,” one inspector says. “They have destroyed things in a way that makes verification difficult.”

In an October report, the inspectors said they still did “not believe that Iraq has given a full and correct account of its biological weapons program.” Nor could they exclude the potential existence of stocks of VX nerve gas, its direct precursors and undeclared munitions in Iraq. And Iraq’s previously unknown production of Scud engines meant there was “no firm basis for establishing at this time a reliable accounting of Iraq’s proscribed missiles.” Thus, all the previous accounting for Iraq’s weaponry has to be revised.

The news was equally bad for export controls. The inspectors found that before the Gulf War, foreign companies had sold munitions specifically designed to hold chemical agents, had supplied technical help in making ingredients for VX nerve gas and had sent technical personnel directly to the Muthanna State Establishment, Iraq’s largest poison gas plant. The inspectors also reported in October that Iraq has secretly started to import missile parts again. They found “equipment, technologies, supplies and material” flowing to Iraq through middlemen and front companies. And according to one inspector, the purchases are not confined to missile components: “Why develop missiles without something to put on top?” he asked.

The most alarming revelations in August concerned nuclear material. Iraq planned to divert to bomb-making high-enriched uranium supplied by France and Russia before the Gulf War to fuel Iraq’s research reactors. There was enough in the fuel mix for one weapon. Iraq planned to divert it immediately after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had completed its bi-annual inspection in November 1990. Iraqi officials said they were set to remove the uranium from the reactor fuel by January 1991, but U.S. bombing raids stopped the work. Had the crash program gone according to schedule, the Iraqis said, there would have been enough material for a bomb by the end of 1991.

Libya’s Nuclear Research is Centered at Tajura

Libya operates a Soviet-supplied research reactor at the Tajura Nuclear Research Center, located about 60 kilometers east of Tripoli. The 10-megawatt reactor started operation in 1983 and is open to international inspection.

Libya is a member of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), but the United States Government has determined that Libya wants to build the bomb. In its 1994 Annual Report, the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) concludes: “Libya has demonstrated a continuing interest in the acquisition of nuclear weapons, but its nuclear program has not progressed beyond the early stages….”

Over the years, Libya has tried to buy nuclear equipment and technology from suppliers worldwide, but with little success. Today, Libya has virtually no industrial ability in the nuclear field, and international export controls remain the principal barrier to the development of a Libyan bomb.

Libya Has Trouble Building the Most Deadly Weapons

For more than twenty years, Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi has tried to buy or build weapons of mass destruction. He has succeeded in making poison gas, but has failed to get his hands on a nuclear bomb and has made little progress building missiles. Qaddafi’s quest has been frustrated by a worldwide effort to deny him the technology he needs.

Nevertheless, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) estimated in 1992 that Libya had produced as much as 100 tons of chemical warfare agents, and earlier intelligence reports said the agents had been used to fill aerial bombs. Libya also has a stockpile of Soviet-supplied Scud missiles, but little or no ability to make missiles on its own. Libya’s indigenous nuclear capability is essentially nil.

Libya’s most famous buying foray was in 1970, when Qaddafi tried to get China to sell him an atomic bomb. After China said no, he tried to buy his way into Pakistan’s secret effort to enrich uranium. Libya even helped Pakistan get secret uranium shipments from Nigeria. But Pakistan severed its nuclear connection to Libya before Pakistan’s A-bomb program succeeded, so there were no nuclear gains for Mr. Qaddafi.

The story on missiles is much the same. In the late 1970s, Libya invited a group of German engineers from a company named OTRAG (Orbital Transport und Raketen, AG) to develop a medium-range missile at a secret camp in the Libyan desert. There were test flights in 1980, but pressure from the West German government caused OTRAG to withdraw in 1981. Some of the German engineers stayed on, but achieved little.

As the 1990s began, Libya was still trying. In 1991, the German press reported that Libya-bound machinery for making missiles had been seized in Hamburg. Nevertheless, knowledgeable U.S. officials say that Libya is still far from having a credible program of its own, and may not even be able to deliver chemical warheads aboard its Soviet-supplied Scuds.

Only in chemical weapons, where the technical challenge is lower, has Libya had success. The first evidence appeared in the early 1980s. U.S. satellites revealed a major construction site at Rabta, about 40 kilometers south of Tripoli. Firms from a dozen nations, led by Germany’s Imhausen-Chemie, were building “Pharma 150,” a giant complex that would house Libya’s first poison gas production plant.

Jurgen Hippenstiel-Imhausen, head of Imhausen-Chemie, had joined forces with Ihsan Barbouti, an Iraqi-born businessman whose engineering firm in Frankfurt was already helping Iraq build chemical weapons. They agreed to send equipment, supplies, construction plans and personnel to Rabta. The operation included nearly 30 German companies, several Austrian engineers and Swiss banks. Belgian and French firms also contributed. Some of the shipments left European ports under false documents, but many of the sales were legal and did not require export licenses in Europe at the time.

Construction began in 1984 and by the fall of 1988 the State Department announced that Libya could manufacture chemical weapons and had probably done so. One report said that Rabta was big enough to produce roughly 40 tons of mustard and nerve gas per month.

At first, the West German government indignantly denied that German firms had played any role in Libya’s chemical weapon efforts. A German government spokesman accused the United States of being on “thin ice.” But a barrage of U.S. and German press reports soon compelled Bonn to reverse its position. On New Year’s Day 1989, New York Times reporters Steven Engelberg and Michael Gordon laid out the details of West German participation in the design and construction of Rabta. The next day, Times columnist William Safire ridiculed Germany’s “sputtering denials” and labeled Rabta “Auschwitz-in-the-sand.”

The effect on German export control laws was dramatic. “Rabta was a real turning point,” says a German export control official. “We now speak of pre-Rabta and post-Rabta controls.” Today, it is illegal for any German national to sell even low-tech items to any weapon of mass destruction program anywhere in the world. Imhausen, however, did not violate any export control laws. He set up a trading company in Hong Kong with a branch in Hamburg. He then sold equipment to the Hamburg branch, which shipped it to Libya via Singapore and Hong Kong. The official destination was a pharmaceutical plant named “Pharma 150” being built in Hong Kong.

Imhausen had not bothered to pay taxes on his millions of profit from the deal, so he was clearly guilty of tax evasion. In a plea bargain in 1990, German officials got him to plead guilty to an export violation as well, in exchange for a five-year prison sentence and permission to keep his profits. His partner Barbouti disappeared and reportedly died in July 1990.

Japanese companies also helped. In May 1988, U.S. officials learned that Japan Steel Works was building Rabta’s metalworking plant. The facility housed precision machines capable of turning out artillery shells as well as corrosion-resistant containers for chemical agents. The company claimed that it had sold only general purpose metal-working tools, designed to make desalinization equipment. But the delivery of specialty steels used in bomb casings convinced U.S. and British intelligence that Libya was manufacturing chemical munitions. Japan later assured the State Department that Japanese firms had ended all of their activities at Rabta by July 1988.

After German and Japanese assistance ended, Thailand stepped in. During the 1990s, U.S. diplomatic efforts have been aimed at persuading Bangkok to recall its large contingent of workers.

Rabta’s current status is unclear. After strong American hints that the plant might be bombed, Libya staged a phony fire in March 1990. Burn marks were painted on undamaged buildings and flammable materials were ignited, all to create the impression of a major conflagration. After U.S. intelligence figured out the truth, U.S. officials reported that the plant had resumed production by mid-May. The plant is now considered “inactive,” but U.S. intelligence estimates that it has produced 100 to 150 tons of mustard gas and sarin nerve gas. Some of this has been place in aerial bombs, but U.S. officials are not sure how much. Estimates of Libya’s actual chemical weapon capability “have been all over the map,” according to one knowledgeable official.

Libya has recently begun a campaign to convince the world that Rabta is purely a commercial enterprise. In October 1995, Qaddafi invited leaders from around the world to attend a ribbon-cutting ceremony to inaugurate a new multi-million dollar pharmaceutical plant there. The new plant is a joint venture with Egypt’s Nasr Companies for Pharmaceuticals and is designed to produce medicines, detergents and cleansers, according to Libyan officials.

This effort to sanitize Rabta has turned the diplomatic spotlight to new, underground chemical plant under construction at Tarhuna, roughly 60 kilometers southeast of Tripoli. Codenamed “Pharma 300” by Libya, it is called “Rabta-II” by U.S. officials because it appears to be a copy of the first Rabta plant.

The exact relationship between Rabta and Tarhuna is cloudy, but U.S. officials tell the Risk Report that Qaddafi is building the second plant underground for an obvious reason to protect it from the American warplanes that destroyed Iraq’s chemical plants during the Gulf War. Tarhuna consists of two giant underground tunnels built into the side of a hill. Testifying before the U.S. Senate in January 1995, then-CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) Director James Woolsey aid that despite international efforts to deny Qaddafi foreign assistance, Libya is likely to complete Tarhuna by the end of the decade.

Once Qaddafi’s second poison gas plant is running, Libya’s production of chemical agents will greatly exceed any potential military need of its own, raising the frightening prospect that Libya could become a poison gas exporter to countries or terrorist groups in the Middle East.

Libya’s Soviet-Supplied Delivery Systems

Libya has Soviet-supplied Scud and Frog missiles and is trying to build its own heavy missile, the Al-Fatah. The most likely delivery system for Libya’s chemical weapons, however, would be Soviet-supplied fighter planes. Libya has 376 warplanes, including Soviet nuclear-capable Tu-22 bombers, MiG-23, MiG-21 and Su-24 fighters, according to the 1994-1995 Military Balance, published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.

FROG-7

Supplier: Soviet Union
Range: 60-70 kilometers
Payload: 450-550 kilograms
Length: 9-9.5 meters
Weight: 2.3-2.5 tons
Propulsion: Single-stage; solid fuel
Mission: Nuclear, chemical or high-explosive warhead
Status: 40 deployed

Scud-B

Supplier: Soviet Union
Range: 280-300 kilometers
Payload: 800-1,000 kilograms
Length: 11.5 meters
Weight: 6.37 tons
Propulsion: Single-stage; liquid fuel
Mission: Nuclear, chemical or high-explosive warhead
Status: 80 deployed

China: Westinghouse Leads the Way Into Nuclear Market

With help from the Clinton administration, Westinghouse is wedging its way into China’s nuclear power reactor market, a venue previously closed to U.S. firms because of China’s record of helping other countries build atomic bombs.

In February, during the visit of Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary to Beijing, Westinghouse signed an agreement to provide two 650-megawatt steam turbines for China’s future Qinshan nuclear power plants. The turbines, which are considered a “non-nuclear” portion of the facility, will be produced in a joint venture with China’s Harbin Turbine Company.

U.S. nuclear exports to China are limited by the absence of a U.S.-China agreement for nuclear cooperation. Such an agreement was signed in 1985 on the strength of a now famous toast in the White House by Premier Zhao Ziyang, who declared that China does not “engage in nuclear proliferation ourselves, nor do we help other countries develop nuclear weapons.”

The accord was never put into effect because of reports that China was giving secret help to Pakistan’s nuclear bomb effort. China has therefore never been eligible for important U.S. nuclear exports such as reactor pressure vessels, control rod systems or primary coolant pumps, all of which are licensed by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). For China to become eligible, the President must certify to Congress that China has not, among other things, helped non-nuclear weapon states acquire materials that would have “direct significance” for the production of “nuclear explosive devices.”

In addition, the U.S. Congress imposed a second ban on exports to China in 1990 as a result of the Tiananmen Square incident. Congress barred a broad range of nuclear exports to China until the President can certify that China has given “clear and unequivocal assurances to the United States that it is not assisting and will not assist any non-nuclear-weapon state, either directly or indirectly, in acquiring nuclear explosive devices or the materials and components for such devices….”

NRC has interpreted the Tiananmen sanctions as barring any export under its licensing jurisdiction that would have a nuclear end-use. The Commerce Department has interpreted the sanctions as requiring a denial of any dual-use item under its jurisdiction going to a nuclear end-use or end-user if the item requires an individual validated license for nonproliferation reasons. Commerce can, however, approve dual-use exports to non-nuclear end-users in China. In fact, it approved the export of nearly $1 billion in dual-use nuclear commodities to China in 1994.

In March, Westinghouse announced that it was expanding its contract with China to include steam generators and reactor coolant pumps for Qinshan. According to the trade journal Nucleonics Week, Westinghouse arranged for these items to be manufactured abroad by its licensees because the components could not be exported from the United States under current law.

The question for the future is whether U.S. nuclear trade with China can increase while China makes questionable nuclear deals with other countries. In 1989, China broke the de facto nuclear supply embargo against Pakistan when it agreed to sell Islamabad a nuclear power reactor. This deal was followed by one with Iran for a 300-megawatt power reactor. In addition, there has been talk of a Chinese research reactor for Iran of roughly the same size that India and Israel have used to produce plutonium for atomic bombs. Beijing is not a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), a 31-nation consortium that has agreed to control nuclear-related exports to proliferant countries.

In late September, the Clinton administration announced that China had cancelled its power reactor deal with Iran, but the Chinese Foreign Minister promptly termed the report inaccurate and said that the sale was only suspended. There is serious doubt whether China can manufacture critical components of the reactor, and whether Iran could pay for a reactor from China after going through with its planned reactor purchases from Russia.

China’s Nuclear Ambition Grows

Despite international protests, China continues to conduct nuclear tests to develop lighter warheads for new missiles that fly farther and are more accurate.

“China is in the process of building a more reliable and longer-range arsenal because that is what great powers do. The Chinese are expending an enormous amount of money, but prestige has an awful lot to do with it,” says one U.S. government specialist who tracks China’s nuclear program. Many U.S. officials do not believe that China poses a direct threat to the United States, but U.S. defense planners still evaluate potential military scenarios in which Chinese nuclear forces could be turned against American targets. “There is a real possibility that the Chinese are developing their arsenal to keep the United States at bay as they work their will in East Asia,” says a U.S. government analyst. Chinese generals view China’s “sovereignty” as extending to Taiwan and disputed territories such as the Spratly Islands, which China seized in February 1995.

In the May issue of the Risk Report on China’s missile program, former Ambassador to China James Lilley cautioned that it is important not to have any illusions about China’s military ambitions. Asked why the Chinese continue to test nuclear weapons despite international efforts to ban such tests, Ambassador Lilley tells the Risk Report: “They consider a nuclear weapon program important because the United States has never fought a war with a nuclear power. If you cancel out the nuclear option by having capability on both sides, you drop down to conventional capabilities.” The Chinese plan years ahead and foresee a gradual expansion of their influence, Lilley says. “If you project ahead ten years, the Americans are drawing down their forces in Asia and the Chinese are building theirs up; so the balance of power will have shifted and that’s in China’s interest.”

China became the fifth nuclear weapon state in 1964 when it successfully tested its first nuclear bomb, made with high-enriched uranium. The bomb was set off at the Lop Nur Nuclear Test Base in Xinjiang province and had an explosive yield of 22 thousand tons of TNT. Shortly after the design work for the first atomic bomb was completed, Chinese scientists turned their attention to thermonuclear weapons, capable of destroying entire cities. In June 1967, China conducted its first multi-stage thermonuclear test explosion. To date, China has tested and deployed six different nuclear warhead designs, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Nuclear Weapon Databook.

U.S. officials estimate that China has roughly 450 nuclear warheads, though China has produced enough weapon-grade uranium and plutonium to build an arsenal more than three times that size. In August, China conducted its 43rd nuclear weapon test. U.S. analysts expect that Beijing will test again this year, and maybe two or three times in 1996 before an international treaty to ban nuclear tests comes into effect.

In 1956, China established a central nuclear ministry the Third Ministry of Machine Building Industry, now known as the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) to take charge of the country’s entire nuclear program. By mid-1958, Deng Xiaoping, the Central Committee General Secretary, had approved the sites selected for nuclear weapon development. The first major site, the Beijing Nuclear Weapons Research Institute, was a temporary facility replaced in 1962 by the Northwest Nuclear Weapons Research and Design Academy, called the Ninth Academy. Located near Haiyan in Qinghai Province, the Ninth Academy was built from Soviet designs and known as the “Los Alamos of China” during its heyday in the 1960s.

In fact, the Soviet Union built all the essentials of China’s fledgling nuclear infrastructure, based on six Sino-Soviet nuclear cooperation and assistance agreements between 1955 and 1958. The first of these, signed in April 1955, resulted in the supply of a Soviet reactor and cyclotron, useful in uranium enrichment research. During the 1950s, a time of rapid growth in China’s nuclear program, many of China’s top nuclear scientists and engineers were trained in the United States. Ironically, this was also a time when China viewed the United States as its chief adversary. Indeed, China’s nuclear arsenal and missiles were originally conceived and designed to target U.S. forces and allies. China’s first major task was to find and mine uranium ore. The ore would then be purified and converted to uranium hexafluoride gas that could be enriched to weapon-grade. In January 1955, a week after China’s official decision to pursue the bomb, China and the USSR signed a secret agreement to conduct joint surveys for uranium in China and to sell Chinese uranium to the USSR. The Soviets guided China’s early mining efforts, and China eventually developed 26 major uranium mines.

According to China Builds the Bomb, a ground-breaking work by China experts John Wilson Lewis and Xue Litai, the most extraordinary Sino-Russian agreement was the New Defense Technical Accord of October 1957, in which the Soviets agreed to give China a prototype atom bomb. The prototype was never delivered, however, because Sino-Soviet relations soured in 1960 and Moscow withdrew some 230 Soviet advisors and technicians working in China, along with important technical data and blueprints. The cutoff of Soviet assistance delayed Chinese weapon progress by several years, in particular plutonium production.

After relations with Moscow deteriorated, Chairman Mao authorized the rapid construction of new nuclear production facilities in Sichuan. The first Soviet-designed nuclear plants had been built near the Soviet border and were highly vulnerable to air or missile strikes. From the mid-1960s to the early 1970s, China rapidly duplicated its nuclear facilities in remote regions to make it more difficult for enemy aircraft to penetrate Chinese air defenses.

These “Third Line” facilities included a gaseous diffusion uranium enrichment plant, a plutonium production reactor and extraction facility, a Nuclear Fuel Component Plant, and an alternative weapon design center established in the late 1960s at Mianyang.

China is believed to have stopped making enriched uranium for military purposes in the late 1980s, and to have stopped producing plutonium for bombs in 1991. But a U.S. government nuclear specialist cautions that China’s declarations are “a masterpiece of Chinese-speak; you must listen carefully when they say they have stopped making plutonium for military purposes.'” China continues to enrich uranium for use as reactor fuel, and is building a pilot plutonium extraction plant, scheduled to start by the year 2000. China also may build another large plutonium extraction plant for “commercial” purposes, but Beijing promises that the new facilities will be open to international inspection.

The next great leap forward in China’s nuclear program will be in the civilian sector. China has embarked on a crash program to build nuclear power reactors and has plans to market its nuclear products to other countries, including Pakistan and Iran. Coming full circle, China is once again working closely with Russia. Sino-Russian relations have warmed considerably since the Cold War. The two countries have signed de-targeting agreements, and defense and nuclear cooperation is budding. European, Japanese and Canadian companies are also active in Chinese nuclear projects, but Americans are limited by the lack of an effective U.S.-China nuclear cooperation agreement.

Statistics

Capital: Beijing
Political System: Communist
Chief of State: Jiang Zemin
Head of Government: Li Peng
Population: 1.2 billion
Gross Domestic Product: $510 billion (1994 est.)
Armed Forces: 3 million, the largest in the world
Nuclear Weapon Capability: Tested first bomb in 1964
Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT): Signed in 1992
Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG): Not a member
Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR): Not a member
Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC): Signed but not ratified