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Nuclear Proliferation TechnologyTrends Analysis - International ...

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PNNL -14480<br />

In all, the network helped Libya purchase more than a hundred machine tools for its<br />

facility. Most of the machine tools, furnaces, and other equipment for the center came<br />

from Europe, particularly from or through Spain and Italy. The equipment was not under<br />

international controls, but was still apparently suitable for use in a centrifuge<br />

manufacturing program, particularly because the network also supplied detailed<br />

manufacturing information for almost all the parts.<br />

In October 2003, a ship containing centrifuge parts manufactured by the network and<br />

bound for Libya was boarded and the parts were seized. In December, 2003, Libya<br />

announced that it would abandon its nuclear plans 60 .<br />

If Libya had continued with its nuclear ambitions and the network had not been exposed,<br />

some have estimated that with the assistance of the network, Libya could have succeeded<br />

in about four to five more years in assembling its centrifuge plant and operating it to<br />

produce significant amounts of HEU systems. 61 This means that the project would have<br />

been completed in 2007 or 2008. Since the project was initiated in 1997, an evaluation of<br />

this estimate shows that the total elapsed time for the project to be completed could have<br />

been as short as about ten years.<br />

3.2.3.12 North Korea<br />

North Korea may have imitated discussions with the Pakistani network about acquiring<br />

centrifuge enrichment technology as early as the 1980s 62 . However, the effort to acquire<br />

the technology accelerated in 1994, when North Korea began an intensive centrifuge<br />

enrichment technology development program in violation of the 1994 Agreed<br />

Framework, in which North Korea had pledged to freeze its indigenous nuclear<br />

program 63 .<br />

Although details of North Korea’s program are not clear, there are suggestions that it is<br />

similar to the uranium enrichment programs in Iran (Section 3.2.3.10) and Libya (Section<br />

3.2.3.11) in that they are all based on original and virtually identical Urenco centrifuge<br />

design information. It is suspected that North Korea's program was based on the G-1<br />

Urenco design 64 .<br />

It has been reported that the Pakistani network shipped centrifuge designs, a small<br />

number of assembled centrifuges, depleted UF 6 gas, and a 'shopping list' of equipment<br />

needed to produce 'thousands' more, to North Korea in the late 1990s.<br />

In 2002, a consignment of aluminum tubing, shipped from Germany and headed for<br />

North Korea, was confiscated. It is likely that this was intended for a pilot uranium<br />

enrichment cascade containing between about 100 and 200 gas centrifuges. The basis for<br />

this consignment may have been a centrifuge cascade design identical or closely<br />

60 Treachery: How America's Friends and Foes Are Secretly Arming Our Enemies, Libyan sincerity on arms in doubt, Bill Gertz, The<br />

Washington Times, September 9, 2004<br />

61 Smuggling Of Weapons of Mass Destruction, Testimony of David Albright before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee,<br />

June 23, 2004, Federal Document Clearing House Congressional Testimony<br />

62 Fuel Cycle; Tracking the Technology ,Jack Boureston <strong>Nuclear</strong> Engineering <strong>International</strong>, September 30, 2004.<br />

63 Urenco report said to concur aluminum for DPRK fits centrifuge, Mark Hibbs, <strong>Nuclear</strong> Fuel, Vol. 28, No. 14; Pg. 20, July 7, 2003<br />

64 Netherlands probing suspected centrifuge-related diversions, Mark Hibbs, Nucleonics Week, Vol. 45, No. 4; Pg. 16, January 22,<br />

2004<br />

30

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