Middle Eastern reactors for profit

Iran’s nuclear weapons program has become steadily more serious in the last few months but a new danger of reactor sales to neighbouring Arab countries is drawing little criticism because it benefits the West. Western corporations, with support from their governments, are rapidly concluding deals to sell nuclear reactors to Arab countries.

This represents a dangerous trend given the Middle East’s high level of terrorism, Islamic and personal dictatorships, frequent inter-country warfare and the dual-use nature of reactor technology. Dual-use means that the seemingly peaceful reactor technology, knowledge and plutonium by-product of reactor operations can form some essential preliminaries for a nuclear weapons program. Nevertheless, Western governments and nuclear reactor corporations see the high risk Middle East as an acceptable place to sell - worth the risk for everybody. Given the long history of the West selling weapons in the region perhaps reactor sales are not so surprising.

Looking first at Iran: various diplomatic formulas are currently being pursued to pressure Iran to reduce its capacity to further develop its weapons program. Ever present trade sanctions on Iran have been jacked up, inspections and surveillance maintained, while discussions of complex uranium swap arrangements have continued without agreement. All these measures have made little impact on the Iranian government’s resolve. Western encouragement of the pro-democracy movement in Iran might prove to be the most effective way to unseat the pro-nuclear weapon hawks in the Iranian government.

Iran’s development of enrichment facilities has been a major concern for the West. Uranium enrichment is recognised as the most difficult part of the nuclear weapon making process for an emerging weapons country. Current nuclear weapons countries have frequently claimed their uranium enrichment plants for weapons purposes are actually for peaceful purposes only. Iran’s civilian program includes the fully declared uranium enrichment plant at Natanz which has a large enough capacity (50,000 centrifuges when completed) to supply Iran’s current reactor needs. Natanz can enrich uranium to 5 per cent for peaceful use and technically could further enrich it up to the 90 per cent purity necessary for nuclear weapons. In practice International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections and round the clock surveillance only permit enrichment to around 5 per cent.

What is disturbing is the discovery that Iran, for the last three years, has been busy building a new enrichment plant in secret, probably to avoid the international restrictions placed on Natanz and because the plant, unlike Natanz, is generally considered impervious to long expected Israeli-US airstrikes. This plant is buried deep within a mountain at Fardow within an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Base near the city of Qom (hence it is usually called the “Qom plant”). Iran only declared the Qom plant in late September 2009.

It is highly significant that IAEA inspections indicate that Qom only has the capacity to provide for one 90th of Iran's nuclear power per year, however Qom has also been assessed as having the capacity to produce one or two nuclear weapons per year. The information about the Qom plant strongly points to a covert weapon’s purpose rather than an economical and peaceful purpose.

Concern in Israel and Washington over Iran’s expanding nuclear enrichment capability must have further deepened due to Iranian announcements from late November 2009 that it would build ten more plants like Qom from January 2010 to provide Iran’s program greater survivability. Five sites have apparently been finalised.

Naturally no pressure is exerted on the completed nuclear weapons program arsenal of one regional country, that is Israel, reportedly with up to 400 thermonuclear weapons courtesy of French, British and US financial and technical assistance over the years.

Iran’s activities have attracted the full weight of US diplomatic pressure and many veiled nuclear Israeli threats, however, Iran can increasingly point to other Middle Eastern countries that are also proposing to build extensive nuclear facilities - all with dual-use potential. Iran would argue that it should therefore not be held out to be a rogue state. A current difference, though, is that the other Middle Eastern countries do not intend to build enrichment plants, while Iran now has two such plants.

Outside of Israel and Iran the most important example of Middle Eastern nuclear reactor proliferation concerns a contract made last month with the United Arab Emirates (UAE). On December 27, 2009 the UAE concluded a deal worth US$40 billion with a South Korean consortium (along with Westinghouse and Toshiba) to build ($20 billion) and also operate (another $20 billion) four nuclear reactors - to be in operation by 2020. Significantly the contract includes extensive training of local staff to operate the reactors.

It may be relevant that a major portion of the “local” UAE reactor staff would likely come from India and Pakistan, both nuclear weapons countries. Of the UAE population of six million only slightly more than a million are UAE citizens but three million are guest or contract workers from India and Pakistan. The prospect of weapons-experienced Indian and Pakistani engineers working in the UAE nuclear reactor program may provide the UAE with an eventual nuclear weapons development path. Weapons engineers from other nuclear countries, such as France, could also be lured by the high wages paid to expatriates.

The UAE deal may have received the most press but many other reactors for Middle East countries are on the way. Uranium Investing News December 31, 2009 reported:

In the last eighteen months close to 20 agreements and memorandums of understanding on nuclear cooperation have been signed between Middle Eastern nations and countries with nuclear technological expertise including Canada, France, Russia and the US.

Algeria has plans to construct its first civilian nuclear plant by 2020 with additional plants every five years after, energy minister Chakin Khelil said earlier this year. Jordan plans to build a nuclear plant by 2017. Egypt inked an agreement this June with [WorleyParsons] an Australian consultancy and Kuwait met with France’s Areva earlier this year. Libya is working out a deal with Russia. And Saudi Arabia has been negotiating agreements with France, the US and Russia.

When Saudi Arabia buys peaceful nuclear reactors it will present a particular weapons proliferation risk. The Saudi’s have been suspected of using their oil wealth to help finance nuclear weapons development (“the Islamic Bomb”) in cash strapped Pakistan in return for an understanding that the Saudi’s could buy Pakistani weapons if required for Saudi Arabia’s defence. Global Security reported:

Saudi Arabia does not have weapons of mass destruction. It did, however, buy long-range CSS-2 ballistic missiles from China in 1988. More recently, Saudi officials have discussed the procurement of new Pakistani [Ghauri] intermediate-range missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads. Some concern remains that Saudi Arabia, like its neighbours, may be seeking to acquire nuclear weapons, apparently by purchase rather than indigenous development.

Even if the Saudis are unable to acquire Pakistani weapons, as such a transaction might be blocked by Western countries, the dual-use reactor industry will provide a long term basis for a weapons program.

Iran may suspect that there is a double standard wherein countries friendly to the West, like Saudi Arabia, can buy ballistic missiles from China and finance Pakistan’s weapons program without any international outrage. Yet countries less reliant on the US, like Iran, are treated as international pariahs if they buy reactors from Russia and build their own enrichment plants. US companies dominate the Saudi oil industry and the US military protects Saudi Arabia while Iran’s industry is 80 per cent owned by an Iranian company and Iran does not want the American military anywhere near it.

Iran genuinely appears to be building a weapons program - partially for a sound defensive reason. As Iran holds the third largest oil reserves in the world it would be mindful of the fate of the fourth largest owner, Iraq. Nuclear weapons deter invasion for oil. What is complicating the usually alarming picture in the Middle East is that even Saudi Arabia and the UAE will acquire a dual-use nuclear capability. This is partly to ensure their post-oil energy needs, but perhaps to develop their own nuclear weapons capability in future to protect their own oil and to counter any future Iranian nuclear threat.

For western companies this newly competitive nuclear sales environment is in the world’s most dangerous region but, no matter, commercial competition conquers caution.