17 January 1999. Thanks to Anonymous.
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-01/17/211l-011799-idx.html The Washington Post, 17 January 1999, Page A02 U.S. Labs at Odds on Whether Pakistani Blast Used Plutonium By Dana Priest Washington Post Staff Writer The CIA told President Clinton in a highly classified report last month that material released into the atmosphere during an underground nuclear test by Pakistan the previous May contained low levels of weapons-grade plutonium, according to U.S. national security officials. The implications of the preliminary analysis, conducted at Los Alamos National Laboratory, were that Pakistan was either importing or producing plutonium without U.S. knowledge and, with it, could build smaller, easy-to-conceal, longer-range nuclear weapons that would be more threatening to neighboring India, which recently acknowledged its nuclear capability. But scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and other government experts are contesting the accuracy of the initial analysis, alleging that Los Alamos contaminated and then lost the air sample from the Pakistan blast. The CIA declined to comment last week and has not changed its initial assessment. The agency has at times been slow to accept changes that might reflect poorly on its initial judgment. In this case, said one U.S. intelligence official, "there is some disagreement here, and experts at the labs need to sort it out." Brooke Anderson, a spokeswoman for the Department of Energy, which administers the laboratories, said Friday night that Energy Secretary Bill Richardson "has asked the lab directors for a full report on the procedures used." As the flap over the sample analysis demonstrates, U.S. intelligence experts and scientists are having trouble keeping up with the demands to monitor and detect the secret development of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons around the world. That questions surrounding the test results should remain unanswered eight months after Pakistan conducted its first nuclear test "is a terrible miscarriage of how the system is supposed to work," said Christopher Paine, a senior researcher at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group. Said one official working to resolve the matter: "You can imagine how scientists want to protect their work. I am thoroughly convinced that the original test was wrongly interpreted." On May 11 and May 13, to the surprise of U.S. intelligence agencies, India conducted its first underground nuclear tests since 1974. Pakistan followed suit 15 days later with the first of six tests that ended with the May 30 explosion that is the subject of the present dispute. Secret, high-flying U.S. aircraft collected air samples in May and brought them back to Los Alamos and at least one other classified laboratory for examination. But it was one of the air samples collected from the May 30 test that set off alarms because smaller and more powerful plutonium-based weapons could fit more easily onto ballistic missiles than those fueled by the highly enriched uranium that Pakistan has produced for years. The CIA assessment was eventually included in the highly classified briefing book Clinton reviewed before he met with Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif at the White House on Dec. 2. Sources declined to say whether Clinton raised the plutonium issue with Sharif at the meeting. At the same time, however, U.S. experts on Pakistan's weapons program were expressing serious doubts about the Los Alamos analysis and requested a retest. But the original sample was lost, so scientists are unable to reevaluate it. A government official said an identical air sample is available at a second laboratory, but several people with knowledge of the events say that sample is not identical to the lost one. Nevertheless, scientists believe it will be possible to positively determine whether the initial analysis was faulty. The issue is being taken up by the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and the Joint Atomic Energy Intelligence Committee, an interagency group that monitors foreign nuclear proliferation, said two government officials. The dispute comes at a time of growing concern over nuclear proliferation by Pakistan and India. "It's part of a trend we've been seeing," said a senior national security official. "The more they move towards these weapons, the more they create a destabilizing situation." In fact, recent intelligence reports carry indications that both countries are continuing to develop their nuclear capability and missiles that could one day carry the weapons across borders. The reports indicate that Pakistan's nuclear reactor at Khushab, which has been under construction for years in the Punjab province, is fully operational and will soon be capable of producing 5 to 10 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium annually, enough for one bomb. But the only plant capable of processing the plutonium, located at the Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology (Pinstech), is small and would not be able to handle the quantities of plutonium produced at the Khushab reactor unless it is modified. "We believe the Pakistanis are taking steps to upgrade the facility," said the senior national security official. Much of what the plant needs, such as stainless steel piping, is also the type of equipment commonly used in commercial laboratories. The equipment's dual-use nature makes it particularly difficult to monitor and intercept, said the senior official. U.S. officials have told European allies to be on the lookout for suspicious shipments to Pakistan. "It's very difficult to head off this kind of procurement activity," the official said. "You've got political leaders in both countries who say they want to avoid an arms race, yet they are completely unable or unwilling to control their research establishments," said George Perkovich, director of the Secure World Program and an expert on proliferation in South Asia. "There is a momentum driven by charismatic scientists who have been unable, by themselves, to draw a line and say: No, we're not going to do that." There are also indications that India and Pakistan continue to develop ballistic missiles. On Wheeler Islands, near Bangladesh, India is preparing the first test launch of the Agni-plus, an intermediate-range ballistic missile. A test of the Dhanush, a naval version of the Prithvi short-range ballistic missile, is expected in early 1999 at a test range near Balasore. The missile has the potential to strike Karachi, Pakistan, according to U.S. intelligence reports. Weapons experts say Pakistan has been waiting for a new missile test by India to provide it with the political cover to test its Shaheen II missile, which has an expected range of 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles). State Department spokesman James P. Rubin said Friday that the United States last week "urged both sides to exercise restraint and to avoid inflammatory actions that would heighten tensions and fuel a missile arms race." Impending missile tests, he said, "would not be helpful to efforts to reduce tensions and build confidence through dialogue in South Asia." Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott will travel to India and Pakistan at the end of the month to discuss ways to reduce tension between the two countries. Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company