Nuke Experts Dispute Burmese Defector's Claims

Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2010

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Multiple nuclear weapons experts and intelligence officials have called into question
the conclusions of a high-profile June report alleging the junta controlling Myanmar
had launched a covert nuclear weapons program, ProPublica and PBS reported on
Friday (see GSN, Nov. 5).
Former International Atomic Energy Agency Deputy Director Olli Heinonen said the
report's evidence of a nuclear program -- documents and photographs smuggled out
of the country by an army defector -- do not necessarily point to weapons work. The
machinery in the photographs could be used for something else, and information
provided by a single person is not enough to determine whether a nation is pursuing a
nuclear capability, experts said.
"There is no smoking gun," Heinonen said. "There is no one single piece which puts
your mind at rest telling that this is solely for nuclear purposes and for nothing else."
The Energy Department and the CIA conducted a "line-by-line" analysis of the report
-- written by onetime IAEA weapons inspector Robert Kelley for the Burmese dissident
group, the Democratic Voice of Burma -- and dismissed the document's conclusions, a
high-ranking U.S. official said.
German officials said they knew that some machinery depicted in the smuggled
photographs had been sold to the junta by German firms, though they had
determined it was not being utilized for weapons work.
The U.S. National Endowment for Democracy, which provides substantial funding to
the Democratic Voice of Burma, said it recommended that the group scrutinize
defector Sai Thein Win's assertions. Endowment staff said they did not talk with other
officials or analysts about Win's information before staging a media briefing for the
report's publication.
NED President Carl Gershman said he did not know U.S. intelligence officials did not
believe the report's assertions. The document still had merit regardless of whether it
was disproved in the end, he added.
Robust political discourse is characteristic of a free society, Gershman said. "You can't
have everything perfect. ... You're going to make mistakes, people will have different
views, and I think that's what's happening here."
The Democratic Voice of Burma and Win both "have strong feelings about the regime,"
Kelley said in writing the report. "Their objectivity can be called into question."
Still, Kelley wrote that Win's information, when taken with other earlier allegations on
Myanmar, was convincing and "leads to only one conclusion: this technology is only
for nuclear weapons and not civilian use or nuclear power."
Heinonen pointed out the Southeast Asian nation had its own stash of uranium and
said its efforts to date could be to produce material for atomic energy reactors.
"There is no alarming factor triggering suspicions about nuclear weapons programs at
this stage," he said.
"When someone takes the first molecule from ore, it doesn't mean that he's already
developing a nuclear weapon.There's a long way to go," Heinonen said.
In the report, Kelley said a photograph of a glove box -- a closed container that can
be used for the handling of sensitive and lethal materials -- could be utilized to
produce uranium metal, which is needed to make the fuel for weapons production.
Heinonen, however, disputed that conclusion because of the high-degree of heat
required to make uranium metal. "When you look at the picture you see, for example,
that the box has rubber gloves. You would not build a box with rubber gloves to do
such a process," as the worker would "burn his fingers."
Institute for Science and International Security Director David Albright also disagreed
with the report, contending Kelley had approached Win's evidence already believing
that Myanmar had begun nuclear weapons work.
"We learn the hard way. This is what the whole thing was about with Iraqi WMD,"
Albright said in calling for a higher ceiling of proof before accusing nations of pursuing
nuclear weapons (Engelberg/Dotan, ProPublica, Nov. 12).