Safeguards Implementation Report and Safeguards Technical Report, which describe the results of safeguards activities over the previous year. The Statute allows for access anytime, anywhere, but this authority is limited in the safeguards agreement by "facility attachment," a term in the safeguards agreement which attaches inspection access to facilities containing safeguarded nuclear materials or equipment. In the event that the safeguards information is inadequate, or questions arise as to the adequacy of the declarations, the IAEA has the right to question the target country for further clarification, within the provisions of the safeguards agreement. Despite limits on its authority, the IAEA must be able to carry out its safeguards responsibilities at all times. Failure to do so would require action by the IAEA Board of Governors to settle a dispute.

A Changing Safeguards Approach

Over time, it became apparent that proliferation risks did not lie with those industrialized countries, namely Germany and Japan, for which the IAEA Statute and safeguards agreements were originally intended. Germany's alliance with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, its economic integration within the European Community, and Japan's security treaty with the United States and its relationships with other countries along the Pacific Rim, contributed to the assurance that these countries would maintain a peaceful nuclear role. The real risks lay with a few countries that choose to advance their own interests over the interests of their neighbors. As a result, a considerable number of other countries may also choose action at the nuclear level in self-defense, because they feel that their sovereignty, security and safety are threatened by the actions of the recalcitrant proliferates.

The IAEA Board of Governors recognized these realities. INFCIRC 66 was modified to make its coverage of safeguarded material more effective. Following the approval of INFCIRC 153, the IAEA Director General established the Standing Advisory Group on Safeguards Implementation which serves as a think tank on the agency's safeguards approach. As an international organization under United Nations auspices, however, the IAEA is the servant of its member states. Past attempts to improve the scope and effectiveness of safeguards in many cases have met with both political and diplomatic opposition.

Undeclared Facilities and Intelligence

The safeguards system eventually agreed upon was fundamentally different in character from earlier, more stringent proposals advanced by the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission (UNAEC). This early view called for safeguards to prevent the diversion of nuclear material, clandestine operation, and the seizure of material or facilities. Political realities and sovereignty issues contributed to a more limited safeguards approach.

Although addressed in the UNAEC report, the issue of clandestine nuclear operations was not discussed in the early years of the IAEA. The potential existence of undeclared facilities was simply not relevant in comparison to the larger discussion of the form international safeguards should take. Further, in a 1964 revision of INFCIRC 26, the predecessor to INFCIRC 66, the right of "pursuit" was added. "Pursuit" refers to the mandatory attachment of safeguards to "successively produced generations of nuclear material" (Scheinman: 128). Thus, the understanding was that the agreed-upon system of safeguards would adequately control the proliferation of nuclear material.

Despite ratification of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in 1970, international concern over proliferation grew, a by-product of the expanding nuclear energy industry. During negotiations of INFCIRC 153 in that same year, the detection of undeclared facilities was first addressed. The United States proposed that the IAEA be granted the ability to search for undeclared facilities on the basis of information obtained from any source (U.S. ACDA b: 4-99). Intelligence, it was understood, would be provided to the Agency to act as a trigger in the safeguards process. The reasons for the limited use of intelligence are as diverse as they are intriguing. First, by and large, safeguards were perceived to be functioning effectively. The complex system of safeguards had revealed few diversions of nuclear material, and in those instances of diversion, the Agency was able to resolve further questions through other means (Jennekens b: 14). Second, the IAEA was hesitant to accept intelligence information for fear that developing countries might incorrectly perceive the U.S.-IAEA relationship. Third, on the basis of intelligence information obtained on countries of proliferation concern, the U.S. was accustomed to issuing demarches to target countries or their allies as a means of curtailing proliferation (Spector and Smith: 177). Finally, the U.S. Intelligence Community did not support the release of intelligence because the information was considered too sensitive.

SUMMARY

Since the development of the atomic bomb, the global community has been confronted with the problem of proliferation. Early efforts at international control, through the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission and the Baruch Plan, met with no success. Through the "Atoms for Peace" proposal, the IAEA emerged as the compromise institution, charged with promoting the growth and development of peaceful atomic energy and preventing the diversion of nuclear material from peaceful use. A legal commitment to nonproliferation embodied itself in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty of 1968. Over time, the Agency's safeguards system, originally designed to monitor the World War II axis powers and formally instituted in INFCIRC 66 and 153, evolved in an attempt to meet the challenges of a changing world.

U.S. interests have also evolved to reflect a changing global security environment. Containing nuclear proliferation is vital to global stability. The disclosure of Iraq's extensive and complex nuclear weapons development program has again thrust nonproliferation to the forefront of the American national security agenda.

U.S. INTELLIGENCE, IRAQ, AND

NONPROLIFERATION

Audrey D. Hudgins

Captain, U.S. Army

September 1992

THE IRAQ EXPERIENCE

The disclosure of Iraq's nuclear weapons development program eroded international confidence in the nuclear nonproliferation regime. The three important pillars of the regime, it was found, required strengthening. Export control groups reacted quickly to close gaps exploited by Iraq. In April 1992, 27 countries following the Nuclear Suppliers Guidelines, and known as the London Club, agreed to stricter regulations governing the export of sensitive dual-use items. Further, the group decided on a common policy dictating the application of IAEA safeguards on significant exports to non-nuclear weapons states. Altering the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty of 1968 (NPT), however, would open a pandora's box; the result might be a weaker, less effective international agreement. Perhaps most importantly, the third pillar of the regime, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), emerged from the Iraqi experience with a mandate to strengthen its approach to safeguards (Blix a: 2).

The experience in monitoring Iraq's nuclear program has been a watershed development. The U.S. Intelligence Community has focused new attention on the IAEA since Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. The Community had suspected the existence of the Iraqi nuclear weapons program for some time, and Director of Central Intelligence Robert Gates has acknowledged that the U.S. Intelligence Community warned policymakers of Iraq's nuclear weapons program (U.S. Cong f: 14). The IAEA had similar doubts

as to the veracity of Iraq's peaceful nuclear intentions, but the IAEA had not concluded that a violation of the NPT had occurred.

The public perception was that the agency's safeguards system should have detected this frightening example of proliferation. However, Iraq's clandestine development of nuclear weapons occurred independently of its safeguarded nuclear program. No diversion of safeguarded nuclear material was detected by the IAEA because none had occurred. Iraq used an intricate web of clandestine supplier networks to obtain the necessary components for its nuclear weapons program. The effort that went into the program was significant and expensive, exploiting technologies long abandoned by the United States because of their cost and inefficiency (Timmerman; Zifferero).