Editorial de “The New York Times” del 04.01.2004
Now that Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi has opened Libya's previously secret nuclear facilities, the world is learning just how much of the machinery for making bomb fuel he had been able to assemble without international detection. Over a period of many years, Libya tapped into an international underground market for specialized steel tubes and uranium enrichment centrifuges that has been scandalously easy to gain entry to and shockingly difficult to close down. Even the newly strengthened provisions of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty cannot guarantee that other countries will not attempt similar end runs. And they may not follow Libya's lead and abruptly come clean before they begin producing nuclear bombs.
A far more stringent and enforceable set of controls on nuclear equipment exports is urgently needed. The treaty loophole that several countries have exploited to begin a nuclear weapons program under the guise of civilian power generation must be closed. That route must be blocked by prohibiting uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing outside countries with well-established and carefully monitored nuclear technology industries.
Libya began its nuclear activities with a civilian power program in the 1970's, then secretly added a weapons element in the 1980's. Over the next two decades, it seems to have clandestinely acquired the equipment needed for enriching uranium into bomb fuel component by component, whenever willing sellers could be located.
Iraq also started its pre-Persian Gulf war nuclear weapons program under the guise of nuclear power development. Iran now claims, unconvincingly, that its newly uncovered uranium enrichment facilities are meant to provide power reactor fuel. North Korea has not bothered pretending. When its uranium enrichment and plutonium separation plants were found, it simply quit the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and declared it was building nuclear weapons.
That still leaves most of the world adhering to the treaty, except India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea. But the essentially voluntary inspections required under its original provisions are clearly inadequate. A tougher, more intrusive inspection system was added in the 1990's, but so far, less than half of the treaty's participants have signed up for it and less than a fifth have ratified it. Iran and Libya have now agreed to submit to intrusive inspections. But these work only when regulators are tipped off to problems. In Iran, the tip came from an opposition group; in Libya, it came from Colonel Qaddafi.
To supplement this imperfect system, strong new measures are needed to crack down on exporters of the kind of equipment Libya secretly purchased. That will require imposing stiff penalties on governments found to allow such exports, even if the exporters are private companies operating outside the law. Governments are more likely to police rogue exporters if they know they themselves will be penalized.
The nuclear power loophole must also be closed. If a country is legally allowed to develop the means to produce bomb-grade uranium through a variant of the enrichment process used to make reactor fuel and can extract bomb-grade plutonium from reactor byproducts, it can build nuclear weapons whenever it likes. There is no legitimate reason for countries to develop such capacities if they can be sure of reliable outside fuel supplies. Reactor fuel production should be limited to the few advanced countries that already have fully transparent nuclear technology industries. Other countries should have a guaranteed right to purchase all the reactor fuel they need, provided they accept intrusive inspections and return nuclear byproducts.
These steps will greatly decrease the risk of nasty nuclear surprises like those delivered by Iran and Libya. They should be taken without delay.