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US experts accuse Brazil of WMD programme and nuclear threat
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) - Brazil on Friday denounced a U.S. magazine report saying Brazil's uranium enrichment plant will give it the potential to build nuclear warheads.
In its latest issue, Science magazine said that Brazil's uranium enrichment plant in Resende, about 60 miles northwest of Rio de Janeiro, will be able to refine enough uranium to build up to six nuclear warheads.
The report said that at its ``announced capacity'' the plant will be able to enrich enough uranium ``to make five to six implosion-type warheads per year. By 2010, as capacity rises, it could make enough every year for 26 to 31 and by 2014 enough for 53 to 63.''
But the president of Brazil's National Nuclear Energy Commission, Odair Dias Goncalves, called the magazine's arguments ``frivolous.''
``They can only be the result of misinformation or motivated by shadowy interests,'' he said. ``Both motives are incompatible with the tradition of such a prestigious magazine like Science.''
The magazine report, ``Brazil's Nuclear Puzzle,'' was written by two writers from the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control.
Goncalves said the Resende plant was designed to enrich uranium to low levels for fuel to generate nuclear power plants.
For nuclear warheads, he said, the uranium has to be enriched to 90 percent, ``and we simply do not have the technology for that.''
The article acknowledged Brazil's commitment to enrich uranium to only 3.5 percent, ``which would be too weak to fuel a bomb.''
But, it warns, ``If Brazil should change its mind, its stockpile of uranium already enriched to 3.5 percent or 5 percent will have received more than half the work needed to bring it to weapon grade.''
``This confers what is known as 'breakout capability' - the power to make nuclear weapons before the world can react.''
The Science and Technology Ministry rejected that argument, saying that to accept it would be to acknowledge that no country has the right to have access to nuclear technology.
The article was published days after inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency visited Resende, where they were allowed to see the tubing and valves leading to the centrifuges.
They were not, however, allowed to see all the centrifuges.
Brazil claims the plant's advanced technology could be stolen by other countries if outsiders were allowed to view it.
Brazil has proposed that the agency inspect the valves and tubes leading to and from the centrifuges but not view the equipment completely.
After the inspectors' visit, Brazilian officials expressed optimism they would reach agreement with the IAEA.
Brazil's reluctance to grant the IAEA full visual access to the centrifuges is an attempt ``to hide the origin of the centrifuges,'' the Science report said.
``In December 1996, Brazil arrested Karl-Heinz Schaab, a former employee of Germany's MAN Technologie AG, a firm that developed centrifuges for the European enrichment consortium called Urenco,'' the report said. ``German authorities wanted Schaab extradited to prosecute him for selling centrifuge blueprints to Iraq. There is evidence that Schaab and other experts were helping Brazil as well.''
SOURCE: The Guardian (UK), "Brazil Reacts Angrily to Report on Nukes", 23 October 2004.
[ http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4569875,00.html ]
"The Insider" mailing list article, 25 October 2004.
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