Who Else Will Have the Bomb?

By GEORGE J. CHURCH

Whatever happens to the nuclear weapons in the disintegrating Soviet Union, the old nightmare of uncontrolled atomic proliferation is moving measurably closer to reality -- and it would not be dispelled even by an arrangement to destroy many of the Soviet nukes and keep the rest under responsible control. The Bomb may soon be brandished by a whole new class of countries -- Third World regimes far more radical and unpredictable than any of the eight present members of the nuclear club.

In fact, it is already possible to set up a crude, if debatable, timetable. North Korea might have deliverable nuclear weapons sometime in late 1993, in five years at the outside. Iran could have the Bomb in six or seven years, and possibly so could Algeria, according to pessimistic Middle East experts. Optimists think the latter two might require 10 years or never manage to develop nukes at all. But there is at least a possibility that all three will be nuclear-armed by the year 2000. Throw in the chances that Libya might be working on the Bomb -- and Western experts believe it is -- that China will continue its unrestrained sales of nuclear technology to the Middle East, and add to these cooperation among the nuclear wannabes, and the prospects get exceedingly scary.

To be sure, none of this is inevitable. It is conceivable that international pressure will cause some of the would-be nuclear powers to abandon their weapons programs, as Brazil, Argentina and South Africa appear to be doing. But that course is slow and uncertain: intelligence data on the suspects is inconclusive and open to sharp disagreement, not only about how far they are from developing usable weapons but even about how determinedly they are trying.

That consideration is not necessarily reassuring. In 1990 experts were sure that Iraq would need five to 10 more years to develop a nuclear arsenal. United Nations inspectors have since concluded that when the gulf war began last January, Saddam Hussein was as little as a year away from being able to deliver a crude nuclear bomb. U.S. and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) analysts think the war brought Saddam's program to a rude halt. But inspectors are not at all certain they have yet found all the equipment and material Iraq may have hidden away, and thus that they have eliminated the chance that Baghdad might resume a bomb-building program if it can ever get out from under intrusive international surveillance. Analysts are haunted by the thought that they might be just as badly misreading the data on other fledgling weapons programs. The U.S. is worried enough that in September it set up a special Nonproliferation Center at CIA headquarters, with 100 employees -- more than had been working on the issue throughout the government -- to coordinate and intensify collection and analysis of intelligence.

A rundown on what U.S. and allied intelligence sources already know or suspect:

NORTH KOREA. Satellite pictures show that in 1987 the country completed a 30- MW reactor. That is too big for research -- such reactors generally run 10 MW or less -- and too small for electric-power production, which generally requires a reactor producing 200 MW or more. Besides, the satellite pictures show no electric generators or power lines alongside the reactor to carry off the electricity. So the reactor appears designed to do what bombmakers need: begin the process of producing plutonium for use in weapons. Satellite photos also show another and bigger (50-to-200-MW) reactor under construction; analysts think it will come on stream next year. A plutonium-reprocessing ! plant also is nearing completion. Fuel, of course, is not enough to make a weapon; it must then be shaped into an explosive device. A recent defector says North Korea has built an underground nuclear weapons design or research facility to construct deliverable bombs. They can be dropped from airplanes; but if the aggressor has only a few bombs and the potential victim has any kind of air defense, the bombers could easily be shot down before hitting their target. Missile warheads are the preferred method for delivering a devastating blow -- and North Korea produces missiles that can carry nukes, not just for its own use but also for export. As part of the round robin among the secret developers, North Korea early this year sold to Syria (which may have a fledgling nuclear-weapons program of its own) a batch of Scuds; they carry bigger warheads than the missiles Saddam Hussein launched against Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Altogether, the evidence seems convincing that North Korea is closer to developing usable nuclear weapons than any other country that does not already have them. Nor will the West necessarily know when North Korea, or any other country, has successfully built any weapons. In days of old, the telltale sign was a test blast. But now, says Daniel Leshem, an Israeli proliferation expert at Tel Aviv University's Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, computer simulation would enable a nuclear newcomer to be "quite confident the Bomb will be effective when needed" without actually detonating one.

IRAN. Facing stalemate or defeat in the war with Iraq, Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1987 personally authorized a full-scale renewal of a nuclear-bomb program that the Shah had begun. The program has survived both the end of the Iran-Iraq war and Khomeini's death; Tehran hardly even bothers to hide its intentions anymore. On Oct. 25, Sayed Ataollah Mohajerani, an Iranian Vice President, told an Islamic conference in Tehran, "Since Israel continues to possess nuclear weapons, we, the Muslims, must cooperate to produce an atom bomb, regardless of U.N. attempts to prevent proliferation."

Ironically, Iran's program resembles that of its archfoe, Saddam Hussein. Like Iraq, Iran is carrying on its bomb program in small facilities, allegedly for peaceful research, that until recently escaped international attention. Also like Saddam, according to the most detailed accounts from nearby intelligence sources, Iran is trying a number of different methods to produce bomb fuel, which is strictly controlled on the world market. It has agreed to buy a small plutonium-producing reactor from China and is negotiating another such deal with India. At the same time, it is experimenting with three processes, including a highly sophisticated laser technique for enriching uranium to weapons grade (U-235, the readily fissionable isotope, constitutes less than 1% of freshly mined uranium; that must be increased to at least 80% for explosive purposes). Iran already has one enrichment plant, thought to employ the centrifuge method, at Mualem Kilaya, and may have another in Karaj, north of Tehran. It bought a calutron, which also enriches uranium, from the Chinese, but has not yet installed the device.

U.S. analysts think Tehran would need at least a decade to wield the Bomb, even assuming all-out help from China. "China has taken over from France as the world's greatest proliferator of nuclear technology," says Kenneth Timmerman, author of a book on the Iraqi nuclear program. Beijing is recklessly peddling nuclear equipment and expertise to just about any nation willing and able to pay cash. If China can be persuaded or coerced to cut back, American intelligence officials believe, Iran will not be able to develop an explosible bomb in the foreseeable future.

But some Middle East experts take a darker view. They hear reports that in addition to help from China, Iran is getting "hot cells" -- heavily shielded compartments in which highly radioactive material can be handled by remote control -- from Argentina. And though American experts believe Tehran's Chinese calutron will produce medical isotopes, Iran might be able to modify the design and reproduce from its own resources more, and bigger, calutrons to turn out bomb fuel. In the pessimists' view, Tehran could be producing nuclear weapons in six or seven years.

ALGERIA. When Algeria signed a contract three years ago to have China build a 15-MW reactor, U.S. analysts showed little concern. They thought it would be, as advertised, a research facility. But early this year, U.S. satellites spotted antiaircraft defenses that had mystifyingly been set up in the middle of the Algerian desert. A closer look turned up signs of construction of a nearly complete nuclear reactor; vegetation planted around it in a characteristically Chinese pattern provided a strong clue as to who was building it. From the size of the cooling towers, the reactor appeared to be of 50-to-60-MW capacity. Experts such as Leonard Spector of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace say a reactor that size has only one function: to produce plutonium for bomb fuel. Also, as in the case of North Korea, there were no power lines or electrical generating equipment at the site.

Outside experts are still unsure what the size of the reactor is. The argument about what Algeria is up to may not be settled even if the country signs the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and opens its facilities to inspection by the IAEA. It might, for example, show the inspectors a reactor that really did have only a 15-MW capacity -- but could be fairly quickly expanded to 50-60 MW. In any case, what worries Western officials is not just that Algeria may develop a bomb for itself but that it may be helping others build nuclear weapons faster. U.S. intelligence has picked up rumors that some Iraqi nuclear scientists are working in Algeria and that Baghdad has provided Algiers with hard-to-get nuclear technology.

The prospect that such cooperation will broaden into a nuclear mutual-aid society haunts Israeli experts in particular. Leshem believes that "an international Mafia aimed at getting the Bomb for every member" already exists and is swapping technology and training. The buyers would include Iran, Algeria and to some extent Libya. China is the leading seller, and North Korea is playing both roles.

So far U.S. and allied efforts to contain proliferation have focused heavily on getting nations to open their facilities to inspection by the IAEA. But Iraq's success in reaching the brink of nuclear-weapons production with a clandestine program while allowing IAEA inspectors to visit its few declared facilities has demonstrated the futility of that. The agency has a theoretical right to poke into suspected but unadmitted nuclear installations but has never exercised it. Even if the agency did -- and there is much talk about making that easier -- and caught a country clandestinely making A-bombs, there is no provision in the NPT for any penalties against the offender: the matter would go to the U.N. Security Council.

The essential question is whether the U.S. and its friends can put enough pressure on the suspected bomb builders and suppliers to get them to stop. Prospects are not entirely dim. Japan, for instance, has warned North Korea that it will not get any of the Japanese trade and investment its nose-diving economy desperately needs until it drops its nuclear-weapons program. North Korea has promised to open up to IAEA inspection if a companion inspection proves there are no American nuclear weapons in South Korea. If North Korea does allow inspections, U.S. officials have evidence that they believe will force the IAEA to demand to see all of Pyongyang's major nuclear facilities -- but that still would not guarantee that bomb building would end.

U.S. and British efforts to persuade China to stop its promiscuous peddling of nuclear assistance have so far hit a brick wall. When Secretary of State James Baker visited Beijing last month, China promised to at last sign the nonproliferation treaty before April 1992. Yet it has refused to promise that it will stop anything it is now doing. But some U.S. politicians think a credible threat by Washington to do away with favorable tariff treatment for Chinese goods might be effective. The theory is that China would lose more money because of lower exports to the U.S. than it would gain through further nuclear sales. Democratic Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware goes so far as to say that "we must, in extremis, be prepared to use force to stop dangerous dictators from obtaining nuclear weapons" -- which apparently means bombing North Korea if all else fails.

That may be extreme, but all other measures are fully justified. Until recently, nonproliferation efforts achieved considerable success. Membership in the nuclear club has held steady for about a decade (Pakistan entered but South Africa dropped out); such nations as Taiwan and South Korea, in addition to Brazil and Argentina, ended once flourishing nuclear programs; France, Germany and Argentina became much more discriminating in the kind of nuclear technology they would approve for sale and to whom. But all this progress could be easily reversed. The thought of North Korea's Stalinist regime brandishing atom bombs, for instance, could easily frighten Japan and South Korea into developing their own nukes. It would be a terrible irony if the early 21st century revived a dread that the end of the cold war in the 20th had seemed to put to rest: the fear that almost any local or regional conflict could set off an escalating nuclear war.

FOOTNOTE: *Declared nuclear powers: the U.S., Soviet Union, Britain, France, China. Undeclared but known: Israel, India, Pakistan.

CHART: NOT AVAILABLE

CREDIT: TIME Graphic by Joe Lertola

CAPTION: SCAMBLE FOR THE BOMB

With reporting by Ron Ben-Yishai/Jerusalem, Farah Nayeri/Paris and Jay Peterzell/Washington