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"The Arms Control Association’s work is an important resource to legislators and policymakers when contemplating a new policy direction or decision."

– General John Shalikashvili
former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Kingston Reif

Saudi Arabia Threatens to Seek Nuclear Weapons


June 2018
By Kingston Reif

In the wake U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to terminate the Iran nuclear deal, Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir told CNN that “if Iran acquires a nuclear capability, we will do everything we can to do the same.”

The comments echo a similar warning from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in March and could complicate U.S. efforts to negotiate and implement a civilian nuclear cooperation agreement with the kingdom.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis welcomes Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman March 22 at the Pentagon. “If Iran developed a nuclear bomb, we will follow suit as soon as possible,” Prince Mohammed told CBS News on March 15. (Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images)“Saudi Arabia does not want to acquire any nuclear bomb, but without a doubt, if Iran developed a nuclear bomb, we will follow suit as soon as possible,” Prince Mohammed told CBS News in a March 15 interview.

Saudi Arabia is a non-nuclear-weapon state-party to the 1968 nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), which prohibits the kingdom from pursuing nuclear weapons development.

Although in the past some Saudi officials and members of the royal family have hinted at matching Iran’s nuclear capability, the recent statements from the Saudi leadership have been far more explicit.

For example, asked by Reuters in January 2016 if Saudi Arabia would seek to acquire nuclear weapons if Iran does, al-Jubeir said, “I don’t think it would be reasonable to expect me to answer this question one way or another.”

Saudi Arabia has been one of the few countries to praise Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, which put significant, long-term constraints on Iran’s nuclear program.

“We believe the nuclear deal was flawed,” al-Jubeir told CNN on May 9. “We believe the deal does not deal with Iran's ballistic missile program nor does it deal with Iran's support for terrorism.”

Neither Trump nor any member of his administration has publicly condemned the Saudi threats to acquire nuclear weapons if Iran does. Some officials have even suggested the administration might look the other way if Saudi Arabia violated its NPT commitment not to acquire nuclear weapons.

When asked later that day to comment on al-Jubier’s comment, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said, “Right now, I don’t know that we have a specific policy announcement on that front, but I can tell you that we are very committed to making sure that Iran does not have nuclear weapons.”

Long-standing, bipartisan U.S. policy has been to actively work against the spread of nuclear weapons to any country, friend or foe.

Saudi Arabia’s unabashed nuclear hedging comes as it continues to negotiate a civilian nuclear cooperation agreement, known as a 123 agreement, with the Trump administration. (See ACT, April 2018.) A 123 agreement, named after the section of the 1954 Atomic Energy Act that requires it, sets the terms for sharing U.S. nuclear energy technology, equipment, and materials with other countries.

Saudi Arabia has ambitious plans to generate nuclear power, but currently has no nuclear power plants. The kingdom plans to construct 16 nuclear power reactors over the next 20 to 25 years at a cost of more than $80 billion, according to the World Nuclear Association. It has solicited bids for the first two reactors and hopes to sign contracts by the end of this year.

A key issue in the negotiations is whether the United States will insist that Saudi Arabia agree to forgo uranium enrichment and spent fuel reprocessing as part of a 123 agreement. These activities are considered sensitive because they can be used to make fuel for nuclear power reactors and produce nuclear explosive material. To date, Saudi Arabia has resisted a ban and suggested that it seeks to make its own fuel.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said May 24 at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing that the administration has told the Saudis it wants “a gold standard section 123 agreement from them, which would not permit them to enrich.”

Pompeo’s comments were the first indication that the administration is seeking such an agreement. Other administration officials had refused to say whether the United States was pushing a prohibition on fuel-making activity.

Previously, Energy Secretary Rick Perry had warned lawmakers that if the administration insists on nonproliferation standards Riyadh won’t accept, Russia and China would then win contracts to build reactors in Saudi Arabia and would demand less stringent nonproliferation and security standards than does the United States.

Bipartisan opposition to an agreement that does not block Saudi fuel-making continues to mount. “We need a gold standard, and I’m afraid this administration is already going down the road of, you know, doing something different than that,” Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told National Journal last month.

Even if the administration does sign a 123 agreement with Saudi Arabia soon, Congress could run out of time to consider it this year.

Once the executive branch submits a signed cooperation agreement to Congress, lawmakers have 90 days in continuous session to consider the pact, after which it automatically becomes law unless Congress adopts a joint resolution opposing it. That time period is rapidly closing due to a shortened election-year calendar.

Saudi comments complicate U.S. efforts to negotiate and implement a civilian nuclear cooperation agreement with the kingdom.

MOX Facility to Switch to Plutonium Pits


June 2018
By Kingston Reif

The Trump administration is ending a costly, controversial project intended to convert surplus plutonium into power reactor fuel and is proposing to re-engineer the partially constructed facility in South Carolina to provide a second source for plutonium cores for nuclear weapons.

But significant questions remain about whether Congress will back the plan, as well as about the affordability and necessity of the Trump administration’s envisioned production increase for plutonium cores, known as pits, the primary component of nuclear weapons.

A January 31 photo shows the controversial mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel fabrication plant under construction in South Carolina. (Photo courtesy of High Flyer © 2018)Energy Secretary Rick Perry submitted a certification to Congress in May that will allow the semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to formally end construction of the mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel fabrication facility at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina in favor of a cheaper alternative.

Further, the NNSA and Defense Department announced that the half-built facility will be repurposed for pit production, a move likely designed in part to soften the blow to South Carolina from ending the MOX fuel project.

“We are extremely disappointed to hear the Department of Energy plans to abandon the MOX program,” the majority of South Carolina’s congressional delegation said in a May 10 statement. “[T]he MOX program—which is one of the most important nonproliferation programs in the history of the world—is being abandoned without any clear path forward.”

The statement was signed by the state’s two Republican senators, Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott, and five of its seven members of the House of Representatives. Although the lawmakers expressed support for the opportunity to host the production of plutonium pits at Savannah River, they warned that the department “will encounter a skeptical Congress and American public on any proposal” for a new mission at the site.

The MOX fuel plant, designed to turn 34 metric tons of surplus plutonium from the U.S. nuclear weapons program into power reactor fuel, was plagued by major cost increases and schedule delays. The Energy Department has sought to end the program since 2014 in favor of a cheaper alternative, known as “dilute and dispose.” That process would down-blend the plutonium with an inert material for direct disposal at the deep underground Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico.

Congress, led by South Carolina’s congressional delegation, blocked the department’s effort to transition to the alternate approach. But the fiscal year 2018 National Defense Authorization Act, signed by President Donald Trump last November, included a provision allowing the energy secretary to stop construction if there is a cheaper alternative to dispose of the plutonium at “less than approximately half of the estimated remaining [life-cycle] cost” of the MOX fuel program. (See ACT, May 2018.)

According to a report prepared by the NNSA’s independent cost office, certified by Perry, and submitted to Congress on May 10, the dilute-and-dispose process would cost at most $19.9 billion, 40 percent of $49.4 billion cost of continuing the MOX fuel program. The agency is preparing a second, more comprehensive cost analysis planned for release in June or July.

Perry’s certification coincided with the release of a joint statement from NNSA and Defense Department officials announcing that the MOX fuel facility would join Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico in the production of at least 80 pits per year by 2030.

“This two-prong approach—with at least 50 pits per year produced at Savannah River and at least 30 pits per year at Los Alamos—is the best way to manage the cost, schedule, and risk of such a vital undertaking,” the statement said.

The plan, which would involve a smaller production role for Los Alamos than previously expected, lacked such key specifics as the estimated cost to repurpose the MOX fuel facility and produce the pits there.

Safety problems at Los Alamos forced the lab to stop production of plutonium pits from 2013 to 2016. (See ACT, July/August 2017.) Concerns about the safety of plutonium operations at Savannah River also have been documented in recent internal government reports, according to reporting last month by the Center for Public Integrity.

The Trump administration’s report on its Nuclear Posture Review, unveiled Feb. 2, calls for laying the groundwork to provide “capabilities needed to quickly produce new or additional weapons” beyond the 3,800 warheads currently in the active U.S. nuclear stockpile. (See ACT, March 2018.)

One measure of the scale of the plan for building “new or additional weapons” is given in the report’s commitment to “[p]rovide the enduring capability and capacity to produce plutonium pits at a rate of no fewer than 80 pits per year by 2030.” No basis is offered for this minimum capacity target.

In a May 10 statement, four of the five members of New Mexico’s congressional delegation, including Democratic Sens. Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich, criticized the proposal to split the plutonium-production mission between Los Alamos and Savannah River.

“Instead of wasting billions of dollars exploring the construction of a new facility that will likely never be completed somewhere else, the Department of Energy should immediately move forward with the new, modular plutonium facilities at Los Alamos—as originally endorsed by both Congress and the Nuclear Weapons Council,” they said in their statement.

Other critics of the new plan argue that there is no need to expand plutonium pit production and that the NNSA can use pits from dismantled weapons if more are needed to sustain
the arsenal.

“There is no explanation why the Department of Defense requires at least 80 pits per year, and no justification to the American taxpayer why the enormous expense of expanded production is necessary,” Jay Coghlan, the director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, said in a May 10 press release.

Ending construction of a mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel fabrication plant followsyears of controversy and cost overruns.

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