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DOD Stymies Access To Report On Israel's Nuclear Needs

The U.S. Defense Department is so far refusing to produce a report that discusses nuclear technology issues in Israel, in response to a researcher's request for information. The report at issue is called "Critical Technology Issues in Israel and NATO Countries," written nearly three decades ago. It is not classified. Grant Smith, founder of the Washington-based Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, Inc., filed a request for the report under the Freedom of Information Act three years ago. When the government failed to produce the document, he followed up with a pro se complaint in September. In a November answer, government lawyers argued simply that Smith had "failed to state a claim." U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan is presiding over the matter and has expressed concern about the pace at which this case is proceeding. "I'd like to know what is taking so long for a 386-page document,"she said at a Nov. 21st hearing in federal court in Washington. "The document was located some time ago." "It certainly wasn't our intention to circumvent the procedures in this case," said Special Asst. U.S. Attorney Laura Jennings. "Our thought was that it would, in fact, expedite the process."

The report "Critical Technology Issues in Israel and NATO Countries" appears to involve super computers and nuclear capability. It was cited but not identified by title in The Jerusalem Post in a 1990 article, "Supercomputers Slow in Coming."

Similarly, it was referred to in general terms in a 1995 issue of a publication called The Risk Report that discussed a dispute among U.S. federal agencies over whether to sell a powerful computer from Cray Research to a group of Israeli universities.

"The United States approved the sale of powerful computers that could boost Israel's well-known but officially secret A-bomb and missile programs," said the Risk Report article.

"A 1987 Pentagon-sponsored study found that Technion University, one of the schools in the network, was helping design Israel's nuclear re-entry vehicle. U.S. officials say Technion's physicists also worked in Israel's secret weapon complex at Dimona."

The article also said Hebrew University and the Weizmann Institute, two other Israeli institutions which, as members of the Inter-University Computation Center, would have access to the Cray supercomputer, had been cited in the same Pentagon study.

The push to get hold of the Pentagon report is set against the backdrop of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Israel has not signed the treaty.

Iran, on the other hand, has signed the treaty.

In his complaint, Smith noted that the Weizmann Institute, Technion, and Hebrew University raise large sums of tax-exempt donations through affiliates in the United States. The American Society for Technion-Israel Institute for Technology Inc., for example, reported raising more than $65 million in tax-exempt contributions in 2011. According to publicly available tax filings by non-profits, the American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science reported $59 million in tax-exempt contributions in 2012, and American Friends of Hebrew University raised nearly $48 million in that same year. Smith's complaint noted that those substantial sums are sent to Israel in addition to the $86 billion in direct foreign aid Israel has received from U.S. taxpayers since 1987 when the Pentagon report was written.

"The Symington Amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 prohibits most U.S. foreign aid to any country found trafficking in nuclear enrichment equipment or technology outside international safeguards," said Smith's complaint. "The Glenn Amendment of 1977 to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 calls for an end to U.S. foreign aid to countries that import nuclear reprocessing technology."

On the same day as the Nov. 21st court hearing over the government's delay in producing the report, government lawyer Jennings filed a motion saying that "non-disclosure" agreements applied to the report. "We've become aware of these non-disclosure agreements that apply," she said at the hearing. "We'll now need to do a line by line review." Smith, representing himself, said:

"So what we've seen most recently is that the government is now coming up with novel ways to try and delay this by talking about mandatory disclosure reviews. We don't think it's meaningful that their captive think tank may have signed NDAs. Perhaps they even have a sock puppet in the Pentagon that signs NDAs on their behalf. It would be the same from our perspective."

Judge Chutkan answered, "I'm not willing to characterize the government responses as necessarily trying to be evasive or deceptive." During the Nov. 21st hearing, Judge Chutkan asked DOD counsel Mark Herrington how long ago the document had been located. "Quite a while ago," he answered. "But Mr. Herrington, this case was filed on September 23," the judge continued. "We are talking about one document that's 386 pages long. I've reviewed my share of documents in my career. It should not take that long to review that document and decide what needs to be redacted." Describing the Defense Department as "a gigantic bureaucratic machine," Herrington reiterated the government position that it was in fact trying to eliminate delays in producing the report. He said he thought the government could meet a deadline imposed by the judge for responding to Smith's complaint. "We were hoping to have had a decision two days ago," he explained. "Came close, didn't quite get there." "Didn't quite get where?" asked Chutkan. "Making a determination to release the document," replied Herrington, who proceeded to cite Thanksgiving week as an additional complication. "What we'd like the Court to do," Smith answered, "is to realize that the Department of Defense has failed to respond. If it's necessary that we file an additional motion requesting your personal in-camera review of the document in question, that's what we'd like to do." Chutkan concluded the hearing by granting a short extension of time to the government. "And I want to caution the government that I'm going to be looking with disfavor on further motions for extensions of time," she warned. In a late December filing, the government against asked for more time, calling their motion a request for a schedule "modification."

The motion also changed the government's explanation for the ongoing delay, saying the government was checking with Israel to see if its government had any objections to the report's release. There was no further mention of any non-disclosure agreement.

In his response, Smith said: "Given the Defendant's overall bad faith approach to the Plaintiff's public interest FOIA, in camera review by this Court would now be the most efficient and fair way to determine their release status." A ruling on Smith's request for release of the report "Critical Technology Issues in Israel and NATO Countries" could come as soon as Friday. By JANET MCMAHON

#department of defense #dod #pentagon #the pentagon #Israel #nuclear weapons #atomic weapons #WMD's #weapons of mass destruction #proliferation #nuclear proliferation #non-proliferation treaty

cavalierzee

~ Israel Has 80 Nuclear Warheads ~

Country Reportedly Stopped Producing Atomic Weapons In 2004 But Possesses Enough Fissile Material For Up To 190 Warheads Israel possesses a stockpile of 80 nuclear warheads, all of which were produced by 2004, when Israel froze all production, according to a report published over the weekend. The report, in the September/October issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, cited US Defense Intelligence Agency figures. Israel began to produce nuclear warheads in 1967 and gradually built up its arsenal, producing between two and three warheads each year until it amassed 80 warheads in 2004.The report did not say why Israel had ceased production, although it noted that the Jewish state is estimated to have produced enough fissile material for 115 to 190 warheads.

Previous estimates have put the number of warheads in Israel’s possession at up to 400. According to foreign reports, Israel’s military has the capacity to deliver a nuclear payload via a variety of methods, including ballistic missiles, aircraft, and submarine-launched cruise missiles.

The 80-warhead figure — fewer than once thought, and lower than the nuclear arsenal of countries that are officially in possession of atomic weapons — was cited in June in a 2013 yearbook put out by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), a leading think tank on global security issues.

Of those warheads, 50 are for medium-range ballistic missiles and 30 are for bombs carried by aircraft, the report said. In addition, “Israel may also have produced non-strategic nuclear weapons, including artillery shells and atomic demolition munitions,” the Guardian reported.

In 1986, based on information supplied by ex-Dimona nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu, later convicted of treason, the Sunday Times of London estimated that Israel had produced more than 100 nuclear warheads.

#israel #WMD's #weapons of mass destruction #nuclear weapons #atomic weapons #nuclear proliferation #non-proliferation treaty

cavalierzee

~ A Tale Of 2 Threats ~

It’s not easy for a European observer of US politics to understand why the US Congress seems so much more concerned by Iran’s nuclear activities than by those of North Korea (the DPRK). Congressional pressure on the White House to put a stop to Iranian activities seems never-ending and Congressional majorities for anti-Iranian resolutions are staggering. In comparison, when did Congress last pass a resolution requiring the administration to take action against the DPRK?

To a European, North Korea looks to be a greater and more actual threat to US interests than Iran.

North Korea is sitting atop enough plutonium for perhaps a dozen nuclear weapons. Two underground nuclear tests have shown that the North Koreans are able to put together nuclear devices, though experts surmise that these are still somewhat rudimentary.

North Korea has also acquired the capacity to enrich uranium. Western experts have seen a relatively small enrichment plant at the main DPRK nuclear research centre. There has been speculation that there exists a larger plant deep within the mountains in the North of the country.

Iran has no plutonium. Iran has so far shown no sign of wanting to enrich this material to the 90% level required for weapons. The Iranians are not suspected of having conducted nuclear tests; they may not be capable of assembling a workable nuclear explosive device.

North Korea expelled the inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) at the end of 2002, and has only allowed them back in for a brief period since. Over the last ten years no state has received as many IAEA inspections as Iran, whose two enrichment plants were declared to the IAEA before they started to operate.

North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in early 2003, having failed to correct the nuclear safeguards non-compliance declared by the IAEA in 1993. Iran corrected its pre-2004 safeguards failures within two years of their discovery; it expressed regret over these transgressions; and ever since it has affirmed the fullest of commitments to the NPT, to which it became a party fifteen years before the DPRK.

North Korea’s nuclear weapons are viewed as a threat by two of the US’s most valuable allies: Japan and South Korea (the ROK). These two allies are crucial to the US’s defence of its strategic interests in the Western Pacific. In the event of hostilities between the US and China (heaven forefend!) Japan would offer the US vital staging facilities, akin to those the US would have enjoyed in the UK if the US needed to go to war on the European mainland.

US strategic interests in South West Asia are on the wane. The US is now self-sufficient in natural gas and imports less than 12% of the crude oil it consumes from the Gulf; it could quite easily switch to African and American suppliers if Saudi and Iraqi supplies were threatened.

Since the end of the Cold War, over twenty years ago, no single power has been capable of challenging US influence in South West Asia, whereas China is increasingly seen in the US as an emerging challenger to the US in East Asia.

When it comes to making belligerent noises, Iran’s leaders can’t hold a candle to those of North Korea. And the average alienist would surely find it easier to treat the former than the latter.

In 2011 US merchandise exports to the Far East were worth $286 billion and imports $718 billion. Comparable figures for South West Asia, including Turkey and Israel, were $71 billion and $108 billion. Far Eastern investors supply the US with a far larger percentage of external credit than do Middle Eastern investors. Far Eastern corporations are major employers and tax-payers in the United States.

All of these very basic facts must be familiar to Congressional staffers, if not to members of Congress. So how can one explain the disproportionate attention that Congress pays to Iran’s nuclear activities?

I have a theory. But I think it would be more appropriate for me to leave readers to come up with their own answers. I suspect that most will be honest enough to admit to themselves that they have a pretty shrewd idea as well.

Via: "LobeLog"

#Threat #Iran #North Korea #Israeli nukes #dimona #WMD's #Clear and Present Danger #Nuclear Proliferation