@@ Iran neglected to say, Mother, may I? @@
Arash
November 22, 2003
Mother, may I?
Dr. Gordon Prather
Nuclear Weapons Physicist
gpra...@worldnetdaily.com
Do children still play Mother, May I? A game to teach children to obey
"Mother"?
Suppose "Mother" says "Sally, take three baby steps." Now, the unwary might
think that Sally has been authorized to take three baby steps. But no!
Before Sally can take three baby steps, she has to say, "Mother, may I?"
What has a children's game got to do with the vicious infighting - whose
outcome could result in World War III - that went on this week in Vienna at
a meeting of the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy
Agency?
Well, Article III, Section 1 of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of
Nuclear Weapons says:
Each non-nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes to accept
safeguards . for the exclusive purpose of verification of the fulfillment of
its obligations assumed under this Treaty with a view to preventing
diversion of nuclear energy from peaceful uses to nuclear weapons or other
nuclear explosive devices.
Procedures for the safeguards required by this Article shall be followed
with respect to source or special fissionable material whether it is being
produced, processed or used in any principal nuclear facility or is outside
any such facility.
But Article IV, Section 1 says:
Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable
right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and
use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in
conformity with Articles I and II of this Treaty.
So, as an NPT signatory, Iran has an "inalienable right" to acquire - or
produce indigenously - all kinds of peaceful nuclear stuff.
But there's a catch.
The authors of the NPT realized that no one can make a nuke unless they have
substantial quantities of "special fissionable material." The two "special
fissionable materials" used in virtually all nukes are (a) weapons-grade
uranium (at least 90 percent U-235 isotope) and (b) weapons-grade plutonium
(at least 90 percent Pu-239 isotope).
There are hundreds of reactors operating - peacefully - on (a) natural
uranium, (b) "low-enriched" uranium (3-5 percent U-235) and (c) "highly
enriched" uranium (greater than 30 percent U-235).
Even though operated peacefully, all uranium-fueled reactors produce some
plutonium - but not "weapons-grade" plutonium, unless the reactor is
designed or specifically operated to do that.
Hence, the primary NPT mechanism for preventing nuke proliferation is for
the IAEA to control essentially all uranium - the "source" material for
producing weapons-grade material - and all plutonium and the processing
thereof.
Therefore, all uranium and special fissionable material, the processing
thereof and the facilities wherein the processing occurs have to be
"declared" and made subject to an IAEA Safeguards Agreement.
Any failure to subject such materials and activities and facilities to the
Safeguards Agreement is a breach of an NPT signatory's obligations.
However, such breaches are not necessarily violations of the NPT.
For example, it would not have been a breach of Iran's Safeguards Agreement
to not "declare" their development of gas-centrifuges for isotope
enrichment. It certainly would not have been an NPT violation. After all,
gas-centrifuges are not exclusively used for enriching uranium. But once
Iran began to enrich uranium in them, they were obligated to declare the
activity and make it and the facility subject to their Safeguards Agreement.
Iran has admitted that they acquired several tons of natural uranium many
years ago, but did not declare it to the IAEA - as they were obligated to
do. It is not clear why they didn't, since it was their "inalienable right"
to acquire that material.
Nor did they declare their conversion of some of it to uranium hexafluoride.
It is not clear why they didn't, since they would have had a right to do
that once the uranium had been declared.
Iran has now admitted, and the IAEA has verified, several dozen acquisitions
and activities over a 20-year period that should have been declared, but
weren't.
The question before the IAEA Board of Governors is: "Did any Iranian breach
of their Safeguards Agreement obligations constitute a 'diversion of nuclear
energy from peaceful uses to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive
devices'?"
IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei has told the board he can find no
evidence that any of them were.
So, Undersecretary of State John Bolton can judge ElBaradei's report "simply
too impossible to believe" and Israeli intelligence can claim that Iran's
nuclear program poses "a threat to the existence of Israel."
But, the evidence so far is that - in asserting its "inalienable rights" -
Iran has neglected to say, "Mother, may I?"
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* Physicist James Gordon Prather has served as a policy implementing
official for national security-related technical matters in the Federal
Energy Agency, the Energy Research and Development Administration, the
Department of Energy, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the
Department of the Army. Dr. Prather also served as legislative assistant for
national security affairs to U.S. Sen. Henry Bellmon, R-Okla. -- ranking
member of the Senate Budget Committee and member of the Senate Energy
Committee and Appropriations Committee. Dr. Prather had earlier worked as a
nuclear weapons physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in
California and Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico.
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