China is not a member of the MTCR or the Australia Group (AG)(on chemical and biological weapons). (In June 2004, China expressed willingnessto join the MTCR.) China did not join the 93 countries in signing the International Code of Conduct Against Ballistic Missile Proliferation in The Hague on November 25, 2002. China has not joined the Proliferation SecurityInitiative (PS announcedby President Bush on May 31, 2003. PRC weapons proliferation has persisted,aggravating trends that result in more ambiguous technical assistance
Office of the Director of National Intelligence, “Unclassified Report to Congress on the A cquisition of Technology Relating to Weapons of Mass Destruction and AdvancedConventional Munitions, 1 January-31
December 2004,” longer range missiles, more indigenous capabilities, and secondary(i.e., retransferred) proliferation.The Director of Central Intelligence (DC noted that, for July-December 1996,“China was the most significant supplier of WMD-related goods and technology toforeign countries.” As required by Section 721 of the FY1997 IntelligenceAuthorization Act, P.L.104-293, the DCI’s report to Congress, “Unclassified Reportto Congress on the Acquisition of Technology Relating to Weapons of MassDestruction and Advanced Conventional Munitions,” has named China (plus NorthKorea and Russia) as “key suppliers” of dangerous technology.
Subsequentdiscussions of this required report refer to this “Section 721 report.” Originallegislation required a semi-annual report. The FY2004 Intelligence AuthorizationAct (P.L. 108-177) changed the requirement to an annual report. The Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Analysis submitted the latest Section 721 reportto Congress in May 2006 to cover the year of 2004.1Nuclear Technology Sales to PakistanOverview. In 1996, U.S. policymakers faced the issue of whether to imposesanctions on the PRC for technology transfers to Pakistan’s nuclear program, andBeijingissued another nuclear nonproliferation pledge. Since then, the United Stateshas maintained concerns — but at a lower level — about continued PRC nuclear cooperation with Pakistan, particularly involving the construction of nuclear powerplants at Chashma. The PRC government is believed to know about some, if not all,of the ongoing nuclear cooperation with Pakistan. Nonetheless, in 2004, the BushAdministration supported China’s application to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group(NSG), despite Congressional concerns about China’s failure to apply the NSG’s“full-scope safeguards” to its nuclear projects in Pakistan. (Full-scope safeguardsapply IAEA inspections to all other declared nuclear facilities in addition to thefacility importing supplies in order to prevent diversions to any weapon programs.)Ring Magnets and Another Pledge. In 1996, some in Congress called forsanctions after reports disclosed that China sold unsafeguarded ring magnets toPakistan, apparently in violation of the NPT and in contradiction of U.S. laws,including the Arms Export Control Act (P.L. 90-629) and Export-Import Bank Act(P.L. 79-173), as amended bythe Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Act of 1994 (TitleVIII of P.L. 103-236).
On February 5, 1996, the Washington Times disclosedintelligence reports that the China National Nuclear Corporation, a state-ownedcorporation, transferred to the A.Q. Khan Research Laboratory in Kahuta, Pakistan,5,000 ring magnets that can be used in gas centrifuges to enrich uranium.Reportedly,intelligenceexperts believed that themagnets provided to Pakistanwereto be used in special suspension bearings at the top of rotating cylinders in thecentrifuges. The New York Times, on May 12, 1996, reported that the shipment wasmade after June 1994 and was worth $70,000. The PRC company involved wasChina Nuclear Energy Industry Corporation, a subsidiary of the China National
Nuclear Corporation. The State Department’s report on nonproliferation efforts in South Asia (issued on January 21, 1997) confirmed that “between late 1994 andmid-1995, a Chinese entitytransferred a large number of ringmagnets to Pakistan foruse in its uranium enrichment program.
Clinton Administration officials said that China promised to provide future assistance only to safe guarded nuclear facilities, reaffirmed its commitment to nuclear nonproliferation, and agreed to consultations on export control and proliferation issues. The Administration alsosaid that PRC leaders insisted they were not aware of the magnet transfer and thatthere was no evidence that the PRC government had willfully aided or abettedPakistan’s nuclear weapon program through the magnet transfer.
Thus, the State Department announced that sanctions were not warranted, and Export-Import Bank considerations of loans for U.S. exporters to China were returnedto normal. On May11, 1996, China’s foreign ministry issued a statement that “China will not provideassistance to unsafeguarded nuclear facilities.” In any case, since 1984, China hasdeclared a policy of nuclear nonproliferation and a requirement for recipients of itstransfers to accept IAEA safeguards, and China acceded to the NPT in 1992. That year, Congress responded to the Administration’s determination not toimpose sanctions by adding language on “persons” in the Export-Import Bank Act,as amended bySection 1303 of the National Defense Authorization Act for FY1997(P.L. 104-201), enacted on September 23, 1996.Other Nuclear Cooperation. On October 9, 1996, the Washington Timesreported that a CIA report dated September 14, 1996, said that China sold a “specialindustrial furnace” and “high-tech diagnostic equipment” to unsafeguarded nuclearfacilities in Pakistan. In September 1996, PRC technicians in Pakistan reportedlyprepared to install the dual-use equipment.
The deal was allegedly made by theChina Nuclear Energy Industry Corporation, the same firm which sold the ringmagnets. Those who suspected that the transfer was intended for Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program said that high temperature furnaces are used to mold uranium.
Mark Hibbs, “CIA Knew About Khushab D2O Plant but Not Source, Officials Claim,”Nucleonics Week, March 23, 2000; “Pakistani Separation Plant Now Producing 8-10 KgPlutonium/Yr,” Nuclear Fuel, June 12, 2000.plutonium. The CIA report was said to state that “senior-level government approvalprobablywas needed” and that PRC officials planned to submit false documentationon the final destination of theequipment. Accordingto thepress, theCIA report saidthat the equipment was set to arrive in earlySeptember 1996. The Washington Post,on October 10, 1996, further reported that the equipment was intended for a nuclearreactor to be completed by 1998 at Khushab in Pakistan. On October 9, 1996, theState Department said that it had not concluded that China violated its promise of May 11, 1996. However, the State Department did not publicly address whether thesuspected transfers occurred before May11, 1996, violated the NPT, or contradictedU.S. laws (includingthe Arms Export Control Act, Export-Import Bank Act, and theNuclear Proliferation Prevention Act).Concerns have persisted about PRC assistance to Pakistan’s nuclear facilities.As reported by Pakistani and PRC news sources in 1992, China began to build anuclear power plant at Chashma and was suspected in 1994 of helping Pakistan tobuild an unsafeguarded, plutonium-producing reactor at Khushab, according toNucleonics Week (June 19, 1997 and February 26, 199.
Operational since 2001,the Chashma reactor has IAEA safeguards but not full scope safeguards (NucleonicsWeek, April 26, 2001; and IAEA, Annual Report 2001). Referringspecificallyto Pakistan’s efforts to acquire equipment, materials, andtechnology for its nuclear weapons program, the DCI’s June 1997 “Section 721report” for the last half of 1996 (after China’s May 1996 pledge) stated that Chinawas the “principal supplier.”
Then, on May 11 and 13, 1998, India conducted nuclear tests, citing China’s nuclearties to Pakistan, and Pakistan followed with nuclear tests on May 28 and 30, 1998. China, as Pakistan’s principal military and nuclearsupplier, failed to avert the tests and did not cut off nuclear aid, but condemned the tests at the U.N. The Arms Control and Disarmament Agency’s annual report onarms control for 1998 stated that “there continued to be some contacts between ese entities and Pakistan’s unsafeguarded and nuclear weapons program.”
In 2000, news reports said that some former U.S. nonproliferation andintelligence officials suspected that China provided equipment for Pakistan’s secretheavywater production plant at Khushab, where an unsafeguarded reactor reportedlystarted up in April 1998 and has generated weapons-grade plutonium.
Clinton Administration officials at the White House and State Department reportedly denied China’s involvement but said that they did not know the origins of the plant. The DCI reported in November 2003 that, in the first half of 2003, continued contacts between PRC entities and “entities associated with Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program” cannot be ruled out, despite the PRC’s 1996 promise not to assistunsafeguarded nuclear facilities. The Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency(DIA), Vice Admiral Lowell Jacoby, testified to the Senate Intelligence Committeeon February 24, 2004, that PRC entities “remain involved with nuclear and missileprograms in Pakistan and Iran,” while “in some cases,” the entities are involved
“Pakistan, China Agree on Second Chashma Unit,” Nucleonics Week, May 6, 2004.4David Sanger and William Broad, “From Rogue Nuclear Programs, Web of Trails Leadsto Pakistan,” New York Times, January 4, 2004. Barton Gellman and Dafna Linzer, “Unprecedented Peril Forces Tough Calls,”WashingtonPost, October 26, 2004.Joby Warrick and Peter Slevin, “Libyan Arms Designs Traced Backto China,” WashingtonPost, February 15, 2004; William Broad and David Sanger, “As Nuclear Secrets Emerge inKhan Inquiry, More Are Suspected,” New York Times, December 26, 2004.7Senate Select Committee on Intelligence,hearingon“Global Intelligence Challenges 2005:Meeting Long-term Challenges with a Long-term Strategy,” February 16, 2005.without the government’s knowledge, thus implyingthat there are cases in which thePRC government has knowledge of the relationships.
On May 5, 2004, China signed a contract to build a second nuclear power eactor (Chashma-2) in Pakistan. This contract raised questions because of continuing PRC nuclear cooperation with Pakistan and its signing right before adecision by the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) on China’s membership, with U.S.support. With a pre-existing contract, Chashma-2 would be exempted from theNSG’s requirement for full-scope safeguards (not just IAEA safeguards on thereactor).3(See Nonproliferation Regimes below for policy discussion.)A. Q. Khan’s Nuclear Network. China’s past and persistingconnections toPakistan’s nuclear program raised questions about whether China was involved in orhad knowledge about the long-time efforts, publicly confirmed in early 2004, of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the former head of Pakistan’s nuclear weapon program, in sellinguranium enrichment technology to Iran, North Korea, and Libya.
DCI George Tenet confirmed A.Q. Khan’s network of nuclear trade in open testimony to theSenate Intelligence Committee on February 24, 2004. China’s association was raised particularlybecause China was an early recipient of the uranium enrichment technology Khan acquired in Europe. Also, there were questions about whether China shared intelligence with the United States aboutKhan’s nuclear technology transfers. With the troubling disclosures, China could bemore willing to cooperate on nonproliferation or could be reluctant to confirm itsinvolvement. A senior Pakistani diplomat was quoted as saying that, while in Beijingin 2002, PRC officials said theyknew “A.Q. Khan was in China and bribing people,and they wanted him out.” Particularly troubling was the reported intelligencefinding in early 2004 that Khan sold Libya a nuclear bomb design that he received from China in the early1980s (in return for giving China his centrifuge technology),a design that China had already tested in 1966 and had developed as a compactnuclear bomb for delivery on a missile.6That finding raised the additional questionof whether Khan also sold that bomb design to others, including Iran and NorthKorea. DCI Porter Goss testified in February 2005 that the Bush Administrationcontinued to explore opportunities to learn about Khan’s nuclear trade, adding that“getting to the end of that trail is extremely important for us. It is a seriousproliferation question.”
Office of the Secretary of Defense, Proliferation: Threat and Response, November 1997. Missile Technology Sales to PakistanOverview. From the early1990s to 2000, the George H.W. Bush and ClintonAdministrations faced the issue of whether to impose sanctions on PRC “entities” fortransferring M-11 short-range ballistic missiles or related technology to Pakistan.The Clinton Administration took eight years to determine in 2000 that PRC entitieshad transferred complete M-11 missiles as well as technologyto Pakistan, but waivedsanctions in return for another missile nonproliferation pledge from Beijing.However, despite that promise of November 2000, the United States has continued concerns about PRC technology transfers thathave helped Pakistan to build domesticmissile programs, including development of medium-range ballistic missiles.
In September 2001, the George W. Bush Administration imposed sanctions for PRC proliferation of missile technology to Pakistan, denying satellite exports to China.M-11 Missiles and Another Pledge. Transfers of the PRC’s M-11 shortrange ballistic missiles (SRBMs) or related equipment exceed MTCR guidelines,because the M-11 has the inherent capability to deliver a 500 kg (1,100 lb) warheadto 300 km (186 mi). Issues about U.S. sanctions have included the questions ofwhether PRC transfers to Pakistan involved M-11 missile-related technology(CategoryIIof the MTCR) or complete missiles (Category. Sanctions for missile-related transfers are mandated under Section 73(a) of the Arms Export Control Act(AECA) and Section 11B(b)(1) of the Export Administration Act (EAA) (asamended by the FY1991 National Defense Authorization Act).In June 1991, the Bush Administration first imposed sanctions on entities in China for transferring M-11 technology to Pakistan. Sanctions affected exports of super computers, satellites, and missile technology.
The Administration later waived the sanctions on March 23, 1992. On August 24, 1993, the Clinton Administrationdetermined that China had again transferred M-11 equipment (not whole missiles)to Pakistan and imposed new sanctions (affecting exports of some satellites).
On October 4, 1994, Secretary of State Warren Christopher and Foreign Minister Qian Qichen signed a joint statement, saying that Washington would waive the August1993 sanctions and Beijing would not export “ground-to-ground missiles”“inherently capable” of delivering a 500 kg warhead 300 km. The Administration waived the sanctions on November 1, 1994.However, contentious policy questions about imposing sanctions for the 1992transfer of complete M-11 SRBMs (not just components) persisted until 2000.
The Washington Times (March 14, 1997) said “numerous” intelligence reports indicatedthat M-11 missiles were “operational” in Pakistan, but these findings were disputedby some policy makers. Secretary of Defense William Cohen issued a Pentagonreport in 1997 stating that Pakistan acquired “SRBMs” as well as related equipmentfrom China in the early 1990s.8In a 1998 report to Congress on nuclear nonproliferation in South Asia, the State Department acknowledged its concernsabout “reports thatM-11 missiles were transferred from China to Pakistan” but addedthatit had not determinedthatsuchtransfers occurred, “which would be sanctionable
Department of State, “Report on Nuclear Nonproliferation in South Asia,” March 17, 1998.10Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States (popularly knownas the Rumsfeld Commission), report, July 15, 1998.11Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “Chairman’s Overview of China’s ProliferationTrack Record,” September 11, 2000.12National Intelligence Council, “Foreign Missile Developments and the Ballistic MissileThreat to the United States Through 2015,” September 1999.under U.S. law.”9Gordon Oehler, former head of the CIA’s
Nonproliferation Center,testified on June 11, 1998, to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that inNovember 1992, “the Chinese delivered 34 M-11s to Pakistan.” In July 1998, theRumsfeld Commission said thatChinahad transferred completeM-11s to Pakistan. Some said that sanctions were not imposed for transfers of complete M-11s,because the missiles remained inside crates at Sagodha Air Base, according to theWall Street Journal (December 15, 199. Critics in Congress said the Clinton Administration avoided making determinations of whether to impose sanctions, bydelaying tactics, re-writing reports, and setting high evidentiary standards. TheSenate Foreign Relations Committee issued a report in September 2000, saying thatthe Administration avoided such determinations by the use of “bureaucraticmaneuvers”to delay the drafting of “Statements/Findings of Fact ”by the intelligence community and by not scheduling interagency meetings to consider those findings.
On September 9, 1999, the intelligence community publicly confirmed for thefirst time that “Pakistan has M-11 SRBMs from China” and that they may have anuclear role.12However, the State Department argued on September 14, 1999, thatit required a “high standard of evidence” and had not yet determined that Category sanctions were warranted, despite the intelligence judgment. ( CategoryIsanctionswould deny licenses for exports of Munitions List items, among other actions, andCongress transferred satellites back to the Munitions List, effective March 15, 1999 )
The Far Eastern Economic Review reported on May 18, 2000, that the Clinton Administration and Senator Helms of theForeign Relations Committeestruckadealin 1999 that required a decision on sanctions for the PRC’s M-11 transfer to Pakistanin exchange for the confirmation of Robert Einhorn as Assistant Secretary of Statefor Nonproliferation (approved on November 3, 1999). On November 21, 2000, theClinton Administration said it determinedthatPRC entities had transferred CategoryI and Category II missile-related items to Pakistani entities, and sanctions would bewaived on the PRC for past transfers, given its new missile nonproliferation promise.Missile Plants and MRBMs.WhileChinapromised not to transfermissiles,it has reportedly helped Pakistan to achieve an indigenous missile capability. U.S.intelligence reportedly concluded in a National Intelligence Estimate that Chinaprovided blueprints and equipment to Pakistan to build a plant for making missiles that would violate the MTCR, according to the Washington Post (August 25, 1996). Analysts disagreed, however, about whether the plant wouldmanufacturesomemajormissile components or whole copies of the M-11 missile. Construction of the plantallegedlybegan in 1995. On August 25, 1996, Vice President Al Gore acknowledgedconcerns about the plant. Time reported on June 30, 1997, that the Clinton
Administration would not discuss possible sanctions based on intelligence on themissile plant. The November 1997 report of the Secretary of Defense also confirmedPakistan’s facility“for the production of a 300 kilometer range ballistic missile.” By1998, the missile plant in Fatehjung was almost finished, awaiting delivery of cruciale quipment from China, reported the Wall Street Journal (December 15, 199.On April 6, 1998, Pakistan first tested its nuclear-capable Ghauri (Hatf-5)medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM), which is based on the North Korean NoDong missile. U.S. intelligence was said to suspect that China Poly Ventures Company delivered, perhaps in 1999, U.S.-made specialized metal-working pressesand a special furnace to Pakistan’s National Development Center, a missile plant,reported the Washington Times (April 15, 1999). China reportedly was building asecond missile plant and providing specialty steel, guidance systems, and technicalaid, said the Far Eastern Economic Review (June 22, 2000) and New York Times(July 2, 2000).
Apparently confirming these stories, the DCI’s “Section 721 report”wrote that in August 2000, besides North Korean help, PRC entities provided“increased assistance” to Pakistan’s ballistic missile program in the second half of1999. Also, China has assisted Pakistan with development of the Shaheen-2 two-stage, solid-fuelMRBM,reported Jane’s Defense Weekly(December 13, 2000). DCIGeorge Tenet confirmed U.S. concerns about such assistance in testimony onFebruary 7, 2001, before the Senate Intelligence Committee, and in his February2001 report on proliferation.Despite the PRC’s November 2000 missile nonproliferation pledge, in the firstseveral months of 2001, a PRC company reportedly delivered 12 shipments ofmissile components to Pakistan’s Shaheen-1 SRBM and Shaheen-2 MRBMprograms, according to the Washington Times (August 6, 2001). On September 1,2001, the State Department imposed sanctions on China Metallurgical EquipmentCorporation (CMEC) for proliferation of missile technology(CategoryIIitems of theMTCR) to Pakistan. In November 2004, the DCI told Congress in a “Section 721report” that, in the second half of 2003, PRC entities helped Pakistan to advancetoward serial production of solid-fuel SRBMs (previouslyidentified as the Shaheen-1, Abdali, and Ghaznavi) and supported Pakistan’s development of solid-fuelMRBMs (previously noted as the Shaheen-2 MRBM).
The Director of NationalIntelligence (DN’s “Section 721 report” of May 2006 reported to Congress thatPRC entities continued in 2004 to work with Pakistan on ballistic missile programs.Nuclear Technology Sales to IranOverview. In the mid-1990s, the Clinton Administration urged China tocancel ostensibly civilian nuclear projects in Iran. In negotiations leading up to the 1997 U.S.-PRC summit, China pledged to end nuclear cooperation with Iran. At the summit, President Clinton promised to implement the 1985 U.S.-PRC nuclearcooperation agreement (to sell nuclear power reactors to China). However, theUnited States has continued concerns about whether China has abided byits October1997 promise. With new reports in 2002 about Iran’s uranium enrichment program,the Bush Administration, since 2004, has sought PRC support for tough sanctionsimposed by the U.N. Security Council (UNSC). The PRC’s position has evolved tosupport some sanctions but not the use of force.
Office of the Secretary of Defense, Proliferation: Threat and Response, April 1996.Canceled Nuclear Projects. Suspecting that Iran uses nuclear technologyto build the technical infrastructure for its clandestine nuclear weapon program,Washington urged Beijing (and Moscow) not to transfer any nuclear technology toIran. In 1995, China suspended a sale of nuclear reactors to Iran. Indicating Israeliinfluence, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly stated in August 1997 thatPRC Vice Premier Li Lanqing said that China canceled plans to build the reactors.However, there were other controversial PRC nuclear deals with Iran pointingto an Iranian nuclear weapon program. PRC technicians built a calutron, orelectromagneticisotope separation system, for enrichinguranium attheKaraj nuclearresearch facility, according to “confidential reports” submitted to Iranian PresidentRafsanjani by his senior aides, according to the London Sunday Telegraph (asreported in the September 25, 1995 Washington Times).
As reported, the PRCsystem was similar to the one used in Iraq’s secret uranium enrichment program.Secretary of Defense William Perry confirmed in an April 1996 report that “theIranians have purchased an electromagnetic isotope separation unit from China.”
The China Nuclear Energy Industry Corporation had plans to sell Iran a facilityto convert uranium ore into uranium hexafluoride gas, which could be enriched toweapons-grade material, accordingto the Washington Post (April 17, 1995; June 20,1996). Intelligence reports said that the deal proceeded with PRC nuclear expertsgoing to Iran to build the new uranium conversion plant near Isfahan, reported theWashington Times (April 17, 1996). However, PRC civilian nuclear officials laterindicated to the IAEA and U.S. officials that China would not transfer the uraniumconversion facility, ostensibly because of Iran’s inability to pay, reported the Washington Post (November 6, 1996). China’s role as nuclear supplier may have been affected by Iran’s turn to Russian reactors. Also, China might have respondedto concerns of Israel (after Russia, the secondary supplier to China’s military).1997 Promise. China’s concern about its standing with the United States wasalso important. State Department official Robert Einhorn told Congress that Chinacanceled the uranium conversion project but had provided Iran with a blueprint tobuild the facility, reported the Washington Post (September 18, 1997). On the eveof a U.S.-China summit in Washington inOctober 1997, PRC Foreign Minister QianQichen provided a secret letter to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, promisingnot to begin new nuclear cooperation with Iran, after building a small nuclearresearch reactor and a factory to fabricate zirconium cladding to encase fuel rods innuclear reactors, accordingtothe Washington Post(October 30, 1997). U.S. officialssaid the projects would not be significant for nuclear proliferation.After President Clinton signed certifications in January 1998 to implement the1985 bilateral nuclear cooperation agreement, as promised at the 1997 summit, theWashington Post (March 13, 199 reported that at a closed hearing of the SenateForeign Relations Committee on March 12, 1998, Clinton Administration officialsdisclosed negotiations in January 1998 between the China Nuclear Energy Industry Corporation and Iran’s Isfahan Nuclear Research Center to provide “a lifelongsupply” of hundreds of tons of anhydrous hydrogen fluoride (AHF), or hydrofluoric
CRS-1114Mehr News Agency, Tehran, December 10, 2004, via FBIS.acid, under falsified documents about end-users. (The AHF chemical could be usedto produce uranium hexafluoride used in uranium conversion facilities. AHF is alsoa precursor for the chemical weapon agent Sarin.) According to the press, afterWashington protested, Beijing stopped the sale. The Administration argued thatBeijing responded positively and that the chemical is controlled by the AustraliaGroup and not on a nuclear control list. Later, an April 2, 1999 U.S. intelligencereport was said to suggest that the
China Non-metallic Minerals IndustrialImport/Export Corporation “revived” negotiations with the Iranian Atomic EnergyOrganization on the construction of a plant to produce graphite (used as a moderatorin some reactors), reported the Washington Times (April 15, 1999).In a February 2001 “Section 721 report” (on the first half of 2000), the DCIdropped an earlier observation that the 1997 pledge appeared to be holding.
In testimony before the Senate Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on InternationalSecurity, Proliferation, and Federal Services on June 6, 2002, Assistant Secretary ofState John Wolf stated concerns about possible PRC-Iranian interactions “despiteChina’s 1997 pledge to end its nuclear cooperation with Iran.”Uranium Enrichment. In 2002, an Iranian opposition group revealed that Iranian front companies procured materials from China (and other countries) forsecret nuclear weapons facilities, while experts from China worked at a uraniummine at Saghand and a centrifuge facility (for uranium enrichment) near Isfahan, reported the Washington Post (December 19, 2002 and February 20, 2003).Moreover, Nucleonics Week (February 27 and March 6, 2003) reported that Iran,since 2000, was building a secret uranium enrichment plant at Natanz with technology for gas centrifuge enrichment from Pakistan (Khan ResearchLaboratories), a country that has received nuclear cooperation from China. Also, theIAEA found out in 2003 that, in 1991, China supplied Iran with 1.8 metric tons ofnatural uranium, reported Nucleonics Week (June 12, 2003).
The head of the Iranian Atomic Organization reported an Iranian-PRC contract to extract uranium ore inYazd.14The DCI’s “Section 721 report” (issued in November 2004) confirmed thatthe Iranian opposition group, “beginning in August of 2002, revealed severalpreviously undisclosed Iranian nuclear facilities.”In testimony to Congress on February 11, 2003, DCI George Tenet pointed to China’s “firms” (rather than the government) and warned that they“maybe backingaway from Beijing’s 1997 bilateral commitment to forego any new nuclearcooperation with Iran.” The DCI’s “Section 721 report” of November 2003 reportedthat “some interactions of concern” between PRC and Iranian entities continued inthe first half of 2003.
The Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, ViceAdmiral Lowell Jacoby, testified to the Senate Intelligence Committee on February 24, 2004, that PRC entities “remain involved with nuclear and missile programs inPakistan and Iran, while, “in some cases,” the entities are involved without the PRCgovernment’s knowledge. Then, in April 2004, the Administration imposedsanctions under the Iran Nonproliferation Act. Assistant Secretary of State JohnWolf testified to the House International Relations Committee on May18, 2004, that
“Iran Using Chinese-made Feedstock for Enriched Uranium: Diplomats,” AFP, May 18,2006; Iranian Students News Agency, May 19, 2006.16Wall Street Journal and Washington Post, February 17, 2006; China Daily, January 6,2007; AFP, January 11 and 15, 2007; Fars News Agency, January 16, 2007; Global TradeAtlas.“most” of the sanctions related to non-nuclear transfers, but there were concerns inthe nuclear area as well.In May 2006, diplomatic sources revealed that Iran had used uraniumhexafluoride gas (UF6) fromChina toaccelerate Iran’s uraniumenrichmentprogram.An Iranian news agency acknowledged that hexafluoride from China was used ininitial uranium enrichment, after which domestic supplies were applied. UNSC Sanctions on Iran. The United States has been concerned about howChina might use its voting power at the IAEA and U.N. to affect the U.S. objectiveof containing Iran’s suspected nuclear weapon program by having the IAEA referIran’s case to the U.N. Security Council (UNSC) for sanctions in response to Iran’salleged violation of the NPT. While it might share U.S. concerns about nuclearnonproliferation, China hasexpressed reservationsabout sanctions and thecredibilityof some U.S. intelligence.
Moreover, China’s own “entities” have supplied sensitivetechnology to Iran. Beijing might have interests in raising its leverage vis-a-visWashington, and some say those interests include checking U.S. influence. Morecritical Russian cooperation with Iran has offered China maneuvering room.Also, China has priorities that include economic ties with Iran to fuel continuedeconomic growth. There is a concern that China’s economic interests in Iran,including multi-billion-dollar oil and gas deals, have undermined rising U.S. andEuropean pressure on and isolation of Iran. In October 2004, China and Iran signeda memorandum of understanding for a deal in oil and gas sales initially worth $70 billion. Amid ongoing negotiations between China’s SINOPEC group and Iran, thispotential deal was valued at up to $100 billion in early2006. In January2006, Chinasigned another energy agreement with Iran, valued at $33 million, to maintain an oildrilling platform in the Caspian Sea for three years. In addition to SINOPEC,CNOOC and an Iranian company signed a memorandum of understanding inDecember 2006 involving an investment from China worth $16 billion to produceliquified natural gas in Iran. InJanuary2007, China National Petroleum Corporation(CNPC) announced negotiations in an offshore gas project in Iran worth $3.6 billion.In 2006, Iran was the third largest foreign supplier of oil to China (after Saudi Arabiaand Angola), an increase of 46% over imports from Iran in 2005 and the supply of12% of China’s total imports.
Still, diplomatic impasses have raised the burden on China’s preferred dialogueto produce results in support of nonproliferation and stability in the Middle East. China likely fears greater instability or conflict in the Mideast, the source of about50% of China’s oil imports. China has tried to maintain a balanced position in support of Iran and U.S./European concerns, but has evolved to support thediplomatic track, the IAEA’s authority in Iran, and some UNSC sanctions on Iran. January 31, 2006.On November 5, 2004, China’s Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing talked withSecretaryof State Powell, sayingthat the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program shouldremain under the IAEA’s handling.
On the next day, Li arrived in Tehran andexpressed opposition to referral of Iran’s case to the UNSC.17Then, at a meeting onthe sideline of a U.N. summit in New York on September 13, 2005, President Bushtried to persuade PRC ruler Hu Jintao not to block the IAEA from referring Iran’scase to the UNSC. Before the meeting, the Administration briefed China on U.S.classified intelligence about Iran’s development of the Shahab-3 missile that coulddeliver a nuclear warhead. China (and others) abstained when the IAEA passed aresolution on September 24, 2005, declaring that Iran was not complying with theNPT, and the PRC envoy in Vienna continued to call for dealing with Iran at theIAEA.18In Beijing in November 2005, President Bush said that he had to repeat toHu Jintao the need to cooperate to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
The situation escalated on January 10, 2006, when Iran resumed work onuranium enrichment, after allowing IAEA inspectors to place seals on equipment atan enrichment plant at Natanz and starting negotiations with Britain, France, andGermanytwo years before. DeputySecretaryof StateRobert Zoellick visited BeijingJanuary 24-25, 2006, to stress the importance of the Iran problem, continue the“Senior Dialogue” over the PRC’s role as a “responsible stakeholder,” and discussa summit on April 20 between PRC leader Hu Jintao and President Bush inWashington. At a news conference in Beijingon January24, Zoellick acknowledgeddifferences with China over “diplomatic tactics.” At a special meetingin London onJanuary 30, China, France, Germany, Russia, United Kingdom, and United Statesannounced their agreement to “report” (rather than “refer”) Iran’s case to the UNSCat thespecial IAEA meetingin earlyFebruarybut to wait until March to decideat theSecurity Council on any actions to support the IAEA (without mentioningsanctions).
Still, on February 4, China was one of 27 countries that voted at theIAEA to support a resolution to report Iran to the UNSC, showing some progress inChina’s cooperation since it abstained on a resolution on Iran in September 2005.When the IAEA sent a report on Iran to the Security Council on March 8, 2006,saying that it could not conclude that there are no undeclared nuclear materials oractivities in Iran, China continued to be less critical of Iran and to favor the handlingof this issue at the IAEA rather than the SecurityCouncil. On March 29, 2006, afterweeks of negotiations, the SecurityCouncil issued a statement through its president,calling on Iran to suspend all nuclear enrichment and reprocessing activities to beverified by the IAEA and requesting an IAEA report in 30 days to the IAEA Boardof Governors “and in parallel” to the SecurityCouncil, with no mention of sanctions.The Administration called for a UNSC resolution that invokes Chapter VII of the CRS-1421“Nations Closer to Deal on Iran Sanctions,” AP, March 13, 2007; and Colum Lynch, “6Powers Agree on Sanctions for Iran,” Washington Post, March 16, 2007.22Jim Wolf, “U.S. Faults China on Shipments to Iran,” Reuters, July 12, 2007; Neil KingJr., “China-Iran Trade Surge Vexes U.S.,” Wall Street Journal, July 27, 2007.U.N. Charter (for sanctions or force), but the PRC argued against such action despitethe IAEA’s April 28 report on Iran’s non-compliance.On May 31, 2006, Secretary of State Rice announced U.S. support for a newapproach to offer a package of incentives and costs for Iran’s compliance, agreed byChina and others on June 1. However to U.S. displeasure, on June 16, the PRChosted a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SC, at which Iranattended as an observer. PRC President Hu Jintao balanced his remarks to IranianPresident Ahmadinejad by saying that Iran has a right to nuclear energy and callingfor its response to the offer. But with no Iranian response, on July12, China and theother five countries issued a statement agreeing to a two-stage approach: to seek aUNSC resolution to make it mandatory for Iran to suspend nuclear enrichment asrequired by the IAEA; and if Iran refuses, to adopt measures under Article 41(specifically for sanctions, vs. use of force) of Chapter VII.After Iran announced that it would respond on August 22, 2006, China voted onJuly 31 with other members of the UNSC (except Qatar) for Resolution 1696,demanding that Iran suspend nuclear enrichment; calling upon countries to preventtechnology transfers to Iran’s nuclear enrichment and missile programs; requestingan IAEA report on Iran’s compliance by August 31; and warning of sanctions if Irandoes not comply. After negotiations over Russian and PRC objections to the firstU.S. and European draft resolution on sanctions, China voted with all other SecurityCouncil members for Resolution 1737 on December 23, 2006, which invoked Article 41 of Chapter VII to require Iran to suspend nuclear enrichment and reprocessing activities, and heavy water-related projects.
On January 5, 2007, in Beijing, PRC President Hu Jintao stressed the “unanimous” adoption of 1737 tovisiting Iranian nuclear official Ali Larijani. After negotiations on additional sanctions on Iran (during which China and Russia objected to a ban on Iran’s armsimports and export credit guarantees for doing business in Iran),21China voted withall other members of the U.N. Security Council for Resolution 1747, adoptedunanimously on March 24, 2007. Citing Article 41 of Chapter VII, the resolutionincluded a ban on Iran’s arms exports.However, the United States has raised the issue with China of its violation ofUNSC Resolutions 1737 and 1747. In particular, U.S. officials reportedly said inJuly2007 that earlier in the year, a PRC “entity” (probablyone under U.S. sanctions)tried to ship a large amount of chemicals used to make solid fuel for ballisticmissiles.
Cooperating with U.S. intelligence, Singapore intercepted the container from China on its way to the Shahid Bagheri Industrial Group in Iran. This Iranianorganization was listed in the Annex of UNSC Resolution 1737, but sanctions forentities or people in the Annexinvolve restrictingtravel and freezingfinancial assets.Still, Resolution 1737 decided that all States shall take the necessary measures toprevent tranfers directly or indirectly from their territories that could contribute to
Karen DeYoung, “Iranian Defiance of U.N. Detailed,” Washington Post, May 24, 2007;State Department, Daily Press Briefing, July 26, 2007.Iran’s development of nuclear weapon deliverysystems. Resolution 1747 called forrestraint in transfers related to arms and missiles to Iran.After the IAEA reported on May 23, 2007, that Iran continued nuclearenrichment activities, the Bush Administration has called for a third UNSCresolution with tougher sanctions on Iran.23The process has become protracted. OnSeptember 28, China joined with the United States, France, Germany, Russia, andUnited Kingdom in issuinga foreign ministers’ statement in support of negotiations,the IAEA, as well as a third UNSC resolution with sanctions, pending reports by theIAEA and the European Union in November. On October 17, China refused toattend a meeting in Berlin on Iran’s nuclear program citing “technical” difficulties,but U.S. officials sayChina showed displeasure over the award of the CongressionalGold Medal to Tibet’s Dalai Lama. In addition to the three tracks supported by China (involvingdiplomacy, the IAEA, and current sanctions), the United States andEuropeanallies havediscussed sanctions (separatefrom talks withChinaand Russia)and possible use of force. Missile Technology Sales to IranOverview.
During the Clinton Administration, PRC entities reportedlytransferred equipment and technology to Iran’s missile programs, includingdevelopment of medium-range ballistic missiles. In November 2000, the UnitedStates determined that missile technologytransfers took place but waived sanctions,citing a new PRC promise on missile nonproliferation. However, PRC entities havecontinued missile-related proliferation activities in Iran. In contrast to the previousadministration, the Bush Administration has stressed the use of sanctions againstPRC entities, including “serial proliferators.” Nonetheless, this record has raisedquestions about the effectiveness of this approach as well as the PRC’s commitmentand capability to control its missile-related sales.
Related to ballistic missile programs in Iran, the CIA found that China delivered dozens or perhaps hundreds of missile guidanc esystems and computerized machine tools to Iran sometime between mid-1994 andmid-1995, reported the International Herald Tribune (June 23, 1995). TheNovember 21, 1996 Washington Timescited a CIA reportas sayingthatChina agreedin August 1996 to sell to Iran’s Defense Industries Organization gyroscopes,accelerometers, and test equipment, which could be used to build and testcomponents for missile guidance. On the same day,the State Department would onlysay publicly that “we believe at this stage that, in fact, the Chinese are operating within the assurances they have given us.”The Washington Times (September 10, 1997) cited Israeli and U.S. intelligence sources as saying that China Great Wall Industry Corp. (which markets satellitelaunches) was providing telemetry equipment used in flight-tests to Iran for itsdevelopment of the Shahab-3 and Shahab-4 MR BMs
In May 1998, China discussed selling telemetryequipment (for testingmissiles) to Iran. On July22, 1998, Iran first tested the mobileShahab-3 missile, which the Pentagon, on the next day, confirmed to be based on aNorth Korean Nodong MRBM. In Beijing in November 1998, Acting UnderSecretary of State John Holum protested continuing PRC missile technology aid toIran, including a reported shipment of telemetry equipment in November 1998,according to the Washington Post (November 13, 199 and Washington Times(December 7, 199. U.S. intelligence suspected continued PRC sales of missiletechnology to Iran in 1999, including specialty steel, telemetry equipment, andtraining on inertial guidance, reported the Washington Times (April 15, 1999).On November 21, 2000, under the AECA and EAA, the Clinton Administrationannounced it determined that PRC entities had transferred CategoryIIitems (missilecomponents) to Iranian entities and U.S. sanctions would be waived on China givenits new missile nonproliferation promise. Bush Administration. Still, the Washington Times (January 26, 2001) saidthat NORINCO (a PRC defense industrial conglomerate) shipped specialty metalsand chemicals used in missile production to Iran. On the national emergencyregarding weapons proliferation, President Bush continued to report to Congress inJune 2002 that PRC (and North Korean and Russian) entities “have continued tosupplyIran with a wide varietyof missile-related goods, technology,and expertise.”24The report confirmed that the May 2002 sanctions under the Iran NonproliferationAct of 2000 (P.L. 106-17 were imposed on three PRC entities for conventionaltransfers to Iran related to unspecified missiles. It also noted that the Administrationdid not impose new missile proliferation sanctions (under the AECA and EAA)between November 2001 and May2002. (The Iran Nonproliferation Act authorizessanctions on a foreign person based on “credible information” of a transfer to Iran(not necessarily a weapons program) of technology controlled by multilateralnonproliferation regimes. The AECA and EAA require sanctions based on aPresidential determination that a foreign entity “knowingly” transferred any MTCRmissile equipment or technology to a program for an MTCR Category I missile.) On May 23, 2003, the Administration imposed sanctions on NORINCO andIran’s Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group, under Executive Order (E.O.) According to U.S. officials, the Administration banned imports from NORINCO for two years (worth over $100 million annually), becauseit transferredmissile technologyto Iran, even after the PRC issued missile technology export controls in August 2002, that would assist the development of medium- orlong-range ballistic missiles, reported Reuters (May 22) and Wall Street Journal(May 23, 2003). (E.O. requires sanctions if the Secretary of State determines
John Bolton, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security,“Coordinated Allied Approaches to China,” Tokyo, Japan, February 7, 2005.26Bill Gertz,“U.S. Puts Sanctions on Chinese Firms for AidingTehran,” Washington Times,December 27, 2005.that a foreign person has “materially contributed or attempted to contribute materially” to WMD or missile proliferation.) Again on June 26, 2003, the Administration imposed sanctions under the IranNonproliferation Act on five PRC entities (including NORINC and one North Korean entity.
The State Department noted that it added in the Act’s required reportto Congress (a classified report was submitted on June 25) transfers of items thathave the potential to make a “material contribution” to WMD, cruise missiles, orballistic missiles, even if the items fall below the parameters of multilateral exportcontrol lists. The Director of National Intelligence (DN’s “Section 721 report” (of May2006) reported that PRC “entities” continued through 2004 to supply ballisticmissile-related equipment, technology, and expertise to Iran. The report also saidthatPRC entities, over theyears, haveprovided missile-related assistanceto Iranthathelped it to advance toward self-sufficient production of ballistic missiles.
On April1, 2004, the Bush Administration imposed sanctions under the Iran NonproliferationAct based on “credible information” that five PRC entities (along with other foreignentities) transferred unspecifiedprohibited itemsto Iran. Assistant Secretaryof StateJohn Wolf testified to the House International Relations Committee on May 18,2004, that “most” of the sanctions related to non-nuclear transfers, but there wereconcerns in the nuclear area as well. The Washington Times reported on August 23,2004, that the U.S. government detected several weeks before that a PRC companysupplied missile technology to Iran within the past six months. On September 20,2004, under E.O. 12938 (amended by E.O. 13094), the State Department imposedsanctions on Xinshidai (New Era Company), a defense-industrial conglomerate, formaterial contributions to missile technology proliferation in a publicly un named country.
The Bush Administration again imposed sanctions on PRC entities under the Iran Nonproliferation Act, in September, November, and December 2004.Under Secretary of State John Bolton said in a speech in Tokyo in February 2005 that the PRC government still had nottaken action to stop NORINCO’s missileproliferation activities in Iran, despiterepeated sanctions on this “serial proliferator”costing NORINCO hundreds of millions of dollars in banned exports to the UnitedStates.25On December 23, 2005, the Administration again imposed sanctions formissile and chemical weapon (CW)-related proliferation in Iran by NORINCO andfive other PRC entities, although the State Department reportedlyhad considered thesanctions since
April 2005.New sanctions were imposed on previously sanctioned PRC entities on June 13, 2006. (See Table 1 for the full list of sanctions.)Chemical Sales to IranConcerningchemical weapons, the Washington Post of March 8, 1996, reportedthat U.S. intelligence, for over one year, was monitoring transfers of precursor
CRS-18chemicals and chemical-related equipment from China to Iranian organizationsaffiliated with themilitaryor theRevolutionary Guards. Accordingto thereport, theequipment included glass-lined vessels for mixing the caustic precursors and specialair filtration equipment to prevent poison gas leaks. Iran was also reportedlybuyingPRC technology for indigenous and independent production.Confirming long-suspected PRC transfers, on May 21, 1997, the ClintonAdministration imposed sanctions on two PRC companies, five PRC citizens, anda Hong Kong company for transfers to Iran contributing to chemical weaponproliferation.
U.S. sanctions, banning U.S. government procurement and imports,were imposed under the AECA and EAA, as amended by the Chemical andBiological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act of 1991 (P.L. 102-182).However, the Administration did not impose sanctions under the Iran-Iraq ArmsNonproliferation Act of 1992 (affecting “persons” or “countries”), because thetransfers apparentlyoccurred before February10, 1996, the date when provisions onWMD proliferation took effect, as amended by the FY1996 National DefenseAuthorization Act (P.L. 104-106). Also, the State Department said that it had noevidence that the PRC or Hong Kong governments were involved.An intelligence report was said to allege that China completed in June 1997 aplant in Iran for makingglass-lined equipment used in producingchemical weapons,reported the Washington Times (October 30, 1997).
The Nanjing Chemical andIndustrial Group built the factory, and North Chemical Industries Corporation(NOCINC brokered thedeal. (NOCINCO is affiliated with NORINCO, adefense-industrial firm.) However, the PRC government reportedly held up supplies of rawmaterials. The London Daily Telegraph (May 24, 199 reported that SinoChemCorp.’s branch in Tianjin, China, supplied to Iran 500 tons of phosphoruspentasulphide (controlled by the AG for making nerve agents).On June 14, 2001, the Bush Administration imposed sanctions under the Iran Nonproliferation Act of 2000 on Jiangsu Yongli Chemicals and Technology Importand Export Corporation (one of the two PRC companies sanctioned in 1997) for proliferation of chemical weapons-related materials or equipment to Iran.
According to the Washington Times (June 28, 2001), the PRC company helped Iran to build a factory to manufacture dual-use equipment applicable to chemical weapons. Again,on January 16, 2002, the Administration imposed similar sanctions (for transfers ofchemical and/or biological items controlled by the Australia Group) on LiyangChemical Equipment Company, China Machinery and Electric Equipment Importand Export Company, and a PRC citizen (Chen Qingchang, or Q.C. Chen). Chenwas also sanctioned in 1997. Sanctions were imposed for two years, but there wasno economic effect because of the absence ofU.S. government contracts, assistance,arms sales, or dual-use exports with/to such “persons.”With those actions, the State Department did not impose sanctions under the AECA, EAA, or the Iran-Iraq Arms Nonproliferation Act, apparentlybecause unlikethose laws, the Iran Nonproliferation Act requires semi-annual reports to Congressand authorizes sanctions based on “credible information” that a person, since 1999,transferred to Iranitems controlled bymultilateral export control lists (NSG, MTCR,AG, CWC, or Wassenaar Arrangement). The Administration again imposedsanctions under the Iran Nonproliferation Act on May 9, 2002, and a Presidential
President George W. Bush, Report to Congress on the Emergency RegardingProliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, June 18, 2002.28Bill Gertz,“U.S. Puts Sanctions on Chinese Firms for AidingTehran,” Washington Times,December 27, 2005.report to Congress in June 2002 confirmed that five of the eight PRC entities weresanctioned for transferring AG-controlled items to Iran. The Washington Times(May20, 2002) said that the transfers involved anti-corrosive glass-lined equipmentto make chemical weapons and that NORINCO was sanctioned but not listed amongthe eight publicly named PRC entities.On July9, 2002, the Bush Administration imposed sanctions under the Iran-IraqArms Nonproliferation Act of 1992 (in the first use of this law), as well as the AECAand EAA (as amended by the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control andWarfare Elimination Act of 1991), on eight PRC entities (including those previously sanctioned) for “knowingly and materially” contributing to Iran’s chemical weapons program, according to the State Department.
The Administration did not imposesanctions under the Iran-Iraq Act on the PRC government. The Washington Times(July 19, 2002) reported that the transfers took place between September 2000 and October 2001. The Director of National Intelligence (DN’s “Section 721 report” told Congress in 2006 that PRC “firms” continued in 2004 to provide dual-use chemicalproduction equipment and technology to Iran. On November 24, 2004, the Bush Administration again imposed sanctions under the Iran Nonproliferation Act that affected four PRC entities, includingQ.C. Chen, likely related to chemical weapons.
On December 23, 2005, the Administration again imposed sanctions for missile andchemical weapon (CW)-related proliferation in Iran by NORINCO and five other PRC entities, although the State Department reportedlyhad considered the sanctionssince April 2005. North Korea’s Missile and Nuclear Weapons Programs Suspected Missile Supplies. Since 1998, there have been public reportsabout and U.S. government confirmation of PRC assistance to North Korea’s missileprogram. There are questions about whether the PRC has interests in North Korea’smissile advances. Lieutenant General Xiong Guangkai, a Deputy Chief of GeneralStaff of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), visited North Korea in early August1998, just before the surprising launch of a medium-range Taepo Dong-1 missile onAugust 31, 1998.
However, increased worries about North Korea’s missile program spurred U.S. and Japanese support for missile defenses opposed by China. Some sayPRC entities acted on their own.The National SecurityAgency(NSA) reportedlysuspected in late 1998 that theChina Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT) was working with NorthKorea on its space program (closelyrelated to missiles) to develop satellites, but thatcooperation was not confirmed to be linked to the Taepo Dong-1 MRBM program,said the Washington Times (February 23, 1999). An NSA report dated March 8,1999, suggested that China sold specialty steel for use in North Korea’s missile
CRS-20program, reported the Washington Times (April 15, 1999). In June 1999, U.S.intelligence reportedly found that PRC entities transferred accelerometers,gyroscopes, and precision grinding machinery to North Korea, according to theWashington Times (July 20, 1999). An October 20, 1999 classified report was saidto saythat China’s Changda Corp. sought to buyRussian gyroscopes that were moreof the same that China supplied to the North Korean missile program earlier thatyear, reported the Washington Times (November 19, 1999). In December 1999, theNSA discovered an alleged PRC deal to supply unspecified PRC-made missile-related items to North Korea through a Hong Kong company, said the WashingtonTimes (January 1, 2000). The DCI first publicly confirmed PRC supplies to North Korea in July 1999.The DCI’s April 2003 “Section 721 report” said that, in the first half of 2002, North Korea continued to procure missile-related raw materials and components fromforeign sources, but it dropped a previous reference about those foreign supplies as especially going through North Korean firms in China. There are direct implicationsfor U.S. national security, because of North Korea’s nuclear weapons and nuclearprograms as well as delivery systems. PRC technology transfers have further implications for secondary, or retransferred, proliferation, since North Korea reportedly has supplied technology to Iran, Syria, Pakistan, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen.
The Director of National Intelligence (DN’s “Section 721 report” told Congress in2006 that “firms” in China continued in 2004 to provide dual-use missile-relateditems, raw materials, or assistance to North Korea.Secret Nuclear Programs. A serious case of such secondary proliferationinvolves North Korea’s secret program to enrich uranium to develop nuclearweapons, a program that U.S. officials said was surprisingly acknowledged by North Korea to visiting Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly during talks in Pyongyangon October 4, 2002. This acknowledgment was not publicly disclosed by the BushAdministration until October 16, 2002, at a time when President Bush soughtcongressional authorization for the war against Iraq. By early 2007, however, U.S.officials restated the assessment of the highly enriched uranium (HEU) program.
The DCI’s April 2003 “Section 721 report” stated that the United States wassuspicious of an uranium enrichment program in North Korea for “several years” but did not obtain “clear evidence indicating that North Korea had begun constructinga centrifuge facility until recently.” While the DCI previously reported that North Korea has another program using plutonium that produced one or two nuclear weapons, the Washington Post reported on April 28, 2004, that U.S. intelligencenewly estimated that North Korea has at least eight nuclear weapons.DCI George Tenet testified to the Senate Intelligence Committee on February24, 2004, that U.S. intelligence judged in the mid-1990s that North Korea hadproduced “one, possibly two, nuclear weapons” and the 8,000 fuel rods that North Korea claims to have reprocessed into plutonium metal would provide enoughplutonium for “several more.”
On February 16, 2005, the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Vice AdmiralLowell Jacoby, testifiedthatNorthKorea’s TaepoDong 2 intercontinental ballistic missile, which might be ready for testing, “coulddeliver a nuclear warhead to parts of the United States in a two-stage variant andtarget all of North America with a three-stage variant.”
Joby Warrick and Peter Slevin, “Libyan Arms Designs Traced Back to China,”Washington Post, February15, 2004; WilliamBroad and David Sanger, “As Nuclear Secrets Emerge in Khan Inquiry, More Are Suspected,” New York Times, December 26, 2004.This case raises a question about whether China’s nuclear technology hasindirectly contributed to North Korea’s nuclear weapons program through Pakistan,since China was the “principal supplier” to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program.There are also questions about China’s knowledge about the Pakistani-North Koreantrade and whether Beijing has shared useful intelligence with the United States.
The New York Times and Washington Post reported on October 18, 2002, that U.S. officials believed Pakistan provided equipment, including gas centrifuges, forthe North Korean uranium enrichment program, in return for North Korea’s supplyo f Nodong MRBMs to Pakistan by 1998. Another Washington Post report added on November 13, 2002, that the Bush Administration had knowledge that Pakistan continued to provide nuclear technologyto NorthKorea through the summer of 2002.Henry Sokolski of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center wrote in NationalReview Online (November 19, 2002) that “one might call on Pakistan, Russia, andChina to detail what nuclear technology and hardware they allowed North Korea toimport.”
John Tkacik of the Heritage Foundation wrote in the Asian Wall Street Journal (December 2, 2002) that most in the U.S. intelligence community doubtChina was “completely in the dark,” as PRC President Jiang Zemin claimed at hissummit with President Bush at Crawford, TX, on October 25, 2002.The New York Times reported on January 4, 2004, about a history of nuclear technology proliferating from Pakistan’s Khan Research Laboratories headed by Abdul Qadeer Khan and disclosed that he had transferred designs for uranium-enrichment centrifuges to China first. DCI George Tenet publicly testified to theSenate Intelligence Committee on February 24, 2004, that North Korea has pursueda “production-scale uranium enrichment program based on technology provided byA.Q. Khan.” Particularlytroublinghas been the reported intelligence finding in early2004 that Khan sold Libya a nuclear bomb design that he received from China in theearly 1980s (in return for giving China centrifuge technology), a design that China had alreadytested in 1966 and had developed as a compactnuclear bomb for deliveryon a missile. That finding raised an additional question of whether Khan also soldthat bomb design to others, including Iran and North Korea.Moreover, there might be PRC firms directly or indirectly involved in NorthKorea’s nuclear weapons programs or weapons proliferation to other countries. InJune 1999, authorities in India inspected the North Korean freighter Kuwolsan and found an assembly line for Scud ballistic missiles intended for Libya, includingmanyparts and machines from China or Japan, according to the Washington Post (August14, 2003). The Washington Times reported on December 9 and 17, 2002, that a PRCcompany in the northeastern coastal city of Dalian sold to North Korea 20 tons oftributyl phosphate (TBP), a dual-use chemical that U.S. intelligence reportedlybelieved would be used in the North Korean nuclear weapons program.PRC Ports and Airspace. Questions have arisen about China’s role inallowingPakistani, North Korean, and Iranian ships and planes to use PRC ports and
Defense Department, “Report on PRC Military Power,” May 29, 2004.airspace (and perhaps military air fields). China’s possible cooperation ininterdiction, restrictions in the use of its ports and airfields, law-enforcement, andintelligence-sharing has become a salient question in light of the BushAdministration’s Proliferation Security Initiative (PS announced in May 2003(which China did not join). As part of the militarytrade between Pakistan and NorthKorea, in July2002, Pakistan flew a C-130 transport aircraft to pick up missile partsin North Korea, reported the New York Times (November 24, 2002). In December2002, the Spanish and U.S. navies interdicted a North Korean ship (So San) withScud missiles bound for Yemen, and the Spanish Defense Minister reported that theship’s last port of call was in China.
In addition, an Iranian ship stopped at the Tianjin port in China and picked up missile components before sailing on to NorthKorea to take delivery of missiles and rocket fuel in February and November 2002,reported the South Korean newspaper, Joong Ang Ilbo (December 19, 2002). FromApril to July 2003, China reportedly gave overflight rights to Iranian Il-76 cargoplanes that flew to North Korea at least six times to pick up wooden crates suspectedof containing cruise missiles, and the Bush Administration lodged a diplomaticprotest with Beijing, reported Time (Asian edition) on July 14, 2003. At a hearingheld by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on September 11, 2003, on U.S.-China relations, Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly confirmed to SenatorRussell Feingold that the State Department raised with China the issue of NorthKorean planes flying through PRC airspace or making refueling stops in China. InJune 2005, China (and a Central Asian country) agreed to deny over-flight rights toan Iranian cargo plane that had landed in North Korea to allegedly pick up missilecomponents, according to the New York Times (October 24, 2005).Military Relations. Questions also have arisen about the PRC’s militaryrelationship with the DPRK. Nonetheless, this relationship appears to haveweakened during the crisis. In mid-August 2003, Wen Wei Po (a PRC-ownednewspaper in Hong Kong) published an article questioning whether the PRC-NorthKorean alliance under the 1961 Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and MutualAssistance continued to serve China’s interest. China took steps that appeared to pressure North Korea, including using the PLA. In early September 2003, Chinareplaced paramilitary People’s Armed Police (PAP) troops with PLA soldiers along its border with North Korea, as confirmed by the PRC Foreign Ministry and theofficial People’s Daily (September 16, 2003), apparently to warn North Koreaagainst provocations to raise tensions. Numerous reports in 2006 confirm the PLA’s construction of fencingalongthe border, construction that reportedlystarted in 2003.
The Defense Department’s 2004 report to Congress on PRC military powerskeptically critiqued that China “has avoided taking real steps to pressure North Korea.” None the less, the report confirmed that “as a potential hedge against uncertainty,
Gerry Oleman is well qualified to counsel former students of Canada’s church- and state-run schools for First Nations children. As a child, he spent six years at the Kamloops Indian Residential School under the care of Roman Catholic priests and nuns.
"I’m still doing repair work from the experiences I had there," he said. "What happened in residential schools was brutalization, violence against children … I know I was impacted by it."
Now Oleman works for the Provincial Residential School Project in Vancouver. He helps others make their own repairs decades after the damage was done.
He said the physical, sexual and emotional abuse of children in Canada’s nearly 100 residential schools is a clue as to why thousands of First Nations people are today struggling to cope.
At their worst, he added, residential schools were magnets for pedophiles. For many students, childhood sexual abuse was a brutal fact of life that time hasn’t yet healed.
"Sexual abuse is a little boy being forced to fondle or do oral sex on a grown man," he said. "That kind of stuff has a huge impact when that boy becomes a man. Now, people that love him have to wonder how come he drinks himself just about to death."
Around 100,000 First Nations children went through Canada’s residential school system since it began in the late 1900s. The federal government funded the schools and churches — mainly Roman Catholic, followed by Anglican and United — ran them. By law, children were required to live in the institutions. They usually went home twice a year — Christmas and summer.
By 1980 all the schools had shut down and native children joined their white counterparts in public schools.
Today there is plenty of evidence that the system was conceived as part of a deliberate policy to assimilate natives into white society and destroy their religions and cultures.
After a visit to the Kamloops school in 1898 one government official described its chief advantage as "the removal of the children from their home influences, and consequently the more speedy and thorough inculcation of the habits, customs and modes of thought of the white man."
Reports of physical and sexual abuse at residential schools have escalated over the last five years. The 1994 Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples broke the taboo when it traveled around the country talking to First Nations people. Afterwards, more victims came forward with complaints and police began to investigate.
"Our primary focus is complaints of sexual abuse," said Const. Steven Thatcher, co-ordinator of the RCMP Native Indian Residential School Task Force. The task force started investigating B.C.’s 14 residential schools in 1995.
"We’re looking at dealing with about 78 suspects," he said. "In all of the residential schools that I am aware of, with the possible exception of one, there have been incidents of abuse reported to us."
Thatcher said he spends most of his time on cases that have been backlogged for years.
"It’s frustrating in some ways," he said. "We certainly have suspects in mind … we’re just hoping that a few more pieces fall into place to allow us to proceed with a prosecution."
Thatcher said investigators don’t press witnesses to talk about their experiences, a policy that protects victims but makes prosecution difficult. He said when victims are too embarrassed or ashamed to come forward, crimes go unpunished.
Efforts of investigators haven’t been wasted, though, as the number of prosecutions climb. In the Cariboo, victims of Roman Catholic Bishop Hubert O’Connor and dormitory supervisor Derek Clarke were vindicated when, more than 30 years after the crimes, their abusers finally went to court.
In 1996, O’Connor, principal of St. Joseph’s residential school near Williams Lake during the 1960s, was brought to account for a child he had fathered with a former student. The judge concluded that he used his authority to force young women to submit to sex. At the age of 68 the ex-Bishop received a 30-month jail sentence.
Clarke, a supervisor at St. George’s Residential School in Lytton, was found guilty of buggery and indecent assault in 1988. He was nearly due for release when another victim came forward in 1996, adding another two years to his sentence.
The judge estimated Clarke had a minimum of 140 sexual encounters with the 20 boys under his care from 1964 to 1975.
But criminal prosecution isn’t the only form of reparation for victims. Canada-wide, more than 3,000 civil lawsuits have been launched by former students against the federal government, the churches and former school staff members.
At least four suits have arisen out of the Kamloops Indian Residential School. The local Catholic diocese could face millions of dollars in payouts.
Father John Brioux, a spokesman for the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, a Roman Catholic missionary group, said it’s the churches that are being wronged.
"I think it’s an injustice to us in some ways," he said "We spent a long, long time among those people and it wasn’t always a matter of abuse — although they would argue with that."
Brioux said he doesn’t see how money can compensate victims for abuse they suffered as children. He noted that the Oblates help by providing counseling services for former students.
He added that he doesn’t believe all the claims are true.
"A lot of it is exaggerated as far as I’m concerned," he said.
The Anglican Diocese of the Cariboo faces its own troubles after being found 40 per cent liable for abuse suffered by Floyd Mowatt, a victim of Derek Clarke. After the judgment, the diocese announced they might have to file for bankruptcy.
B.C.’s Anglican Archbishop David Crawley said victims deserve to be compensated with money, but the government, not the churches, should pay the lion’s share.
"At the time of Derek Clarke, all of those people were employees of the government," he said. "The courts have judged, though, that they were also employees of the church. It’s a very thorny legal thicket as to who’s accountable in what percentage."
Crawley said the Anglican Church, where it is found responsible, will pay for specific cases of abuse, but it shouldn’t have to pay for the policy of assimilation.
"Although the church was complicit in it, in a sense, right across society everyone was complicit," he said. "For example, it wasn’t the church that went around to homes and seized the children and brought them in, it was the RCMP and the Indian agents. It was government policy and society accepted it."
Gerry Oleman calls that denial.
"How could men of Christ say these things?" he asked. "They lose in court and then they appeal. They’re afraid to be financially bankrupt but what about morally bankrupt?"
Oleman said discussions to find alternatives to court are frustrating because the churches are resistant.
"I just went to a meeting with a group of ministers," he said. "The Catholic Church right away stated that they don’t ever want it to be known that they tried to destroy First Nations culture."
The court process is traumatic for victims who must relive their experiences and face aggressive church and government lawyers, Oleman said. Unfortunately, he added, court decisions seem to be the only thing that make churches and the government sit up and take notice.
"If people weren’t going to court, they would have just left this by the wayside," Oleman said.
Breaking News: Location of Mass Graves of Residential School Children Revealed for the First Time; Independent Tribunal Established
Squamish Nation Territory ('Vancouver, Canada')Thursday, April 10, 2008 11:00 am PST
At a public ceremony and press conference held today outside the colonial 'Indian Affairs' building in downtown Vancouver, the Friends and Relatives of the Disappeared (FRD) released a list of twenty eight mass graves across Canada holding the remains of untold numbers of aboriginal children who died in Indian Residential Schools.
The list was distributed today to the world media and to United Nations agencies, as the first act of the newly-formed International Human Rights Tribunal into Genocide in Canada (IHRTGC) a non-governmental body established by indigenous elders.
In a statement read by FRD spokesperson Eagle Strong Voice, it was declared that the IHRTGC would commence its investigations on April 15, 2008, the fourth Annual Aboriginal Holocaust Memorial Day. This inquiry will involve international human rights observers from Guatemala and Cyprus , and will convene aboriginal courts of justice where those persons and institutions responsible for the death and suffering of residential school children will be tried and sentenced. (The complete Statement and List of Mass Graves is reproduced below).
Eagle Strong Voice and IHRTGC elders will present the Mass Graves List at the United Nations on April 19, and will ask United Nations agencies to protect and monitor the mass graves as part of a genuine inquiry and judicial prosecution of those responsible for this Canadian Genocide.
Eyewitness Sylvester Greene spoke to the media at today's event, and described how he helped bury a young Inuit boy at the United Church's Edmonton residential school in 1953.
'We were told never to tell anyone by Jim Ludford, the Principal, who got me and three other boys to bury him. But a lot more kids got buried all the time in that big grave next to the school.'
From the middle of last century Washington's foreign policy priority in the Middle East was to establish U.S. control over what the State Department described as "a stupendous source of strategic power and one of the great material prizes in world history", namely the region's vast reserves of crude oil. Middle Eastern oil was regarded in Washington as "probably the richest economic prize in the world in the field of foreign investment", in what President Eisenhower described as the most "strategically important area in the world".
Control could be most easily maintained via a number of despotic feudal oligarchies in the Gulf which ensured the extraordinary wealth of region would be shared between a small number of ruling families and US oil companies, rather than European commercial competitors or the population of these states. Until recently the US has not required the oil for itself though it needed to ensure that the oil price stayed within a desirable range or band - not too low for profit making or too high to discourage consumption and induce inflation.
The greatest threat to this control has always been independent economic nationalism, especially nationalist politicians within the oil-producing region who, unlike the feudal oligarchies of the Gulf states, would channel wealth into endogenous development priorities rather than to US transnationals.
The US wants to secure reliable access to the world's second largest oil reserves, 112 billion barrels already known with possibly double that figure still to be mapped and claimed, thus depriving France and Russia of commercial advantages they have developed in Iraq over the last decade when US companies have been excluded. Just as importantly, access to Iraqi oil would also make the US less reliant upon - and therefore less supportive of - the regime in Saudi Arabia. The geo-political dynamics of the Middle East would be transformed.
This is not an issue of access, it is primarily about control. The US was just as concerned to control Middle East oil producing regions when it didn't depend on them at all. Until about 30 years ago, North America was the largest producer and the US scarcely used Middle East oil at all. Since then Venezuela has normally been the largest oil exporter to the United States. US intelligence projections suggest that in coming years the US will rely primarily on Western Hemisphere resources: primarily the Atlantic basin - Venezuela, Mexico, Brazil, probably Colombia, but also possibly Canada, which has huge potential reserves if they become economically competitive. Imported supplies accounted for 50% of US oil consumption in 2000 and by 2020 the figure is expected to rise to 66%.
Control over the greatest concentration of energy resources has two goals: (1) economic: huge profits for energy corporations, construction firms, arms producers, as well as petrodollars recycled to US treasury, etc; and (2) it's a lever of global geo-political control. For those trying to understand the motives behind US behaviour towards Iraq, it is impossible to underestimate the importance which oil has in the minds of Washington's strategic planners.
In the Middle East, the major concern was (and remains) the incomparable energy reserves of the region, primarily in the Arabian peninsula. These were to be incorporated within the U.S.-dominated system. As in Latin America, it was necessary to displace traditional French and British interests and to establish U.S. control over what the State Department described as "a stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in world history," "probably the richest economic prize in the world in the field of foreign investment." Later, President Eisenhower described the Middle East as the most "strategically important area in the world."82
After the war, U.S. corporations gained the leading role in Middle East oil production, while dominating the Western hemisphere, which remained the major producer until 1968. The United States did not then need Middle East oil for itself. Rather, the goal was to dominate the world system, ensuring that others would not strike an independent course. Despite the general contempt for the Japanese and disparagement of their prospects, some foresaw problems even here. George Kennan proposed in 1949 that U.S. control over Japanese oil imports would help to provide "veto power" over Japan's military and industrial policies. This advice was followed. Japan was helped to industrialize, but the U.S. maintained control over its energy supplies and oil-refining facilities. As late as 1973, "only 10 per cent of Japan's oil supply was developed by Japanese companies," Shigeko Fukai observes. By now, Japan's diversification of energy sources and conservation measures have reduced the power of the "veto" considerably, but it is still a factor not without weight.83
It is, furthermore, misleading simply to assert that the U.S. has sought to keep oil cheap, though that has generally been the case. Oil prices declined (relative to other commodities) from the 1940s until the sharp rise of the early 1970s brought them back into line. This was a major boon to the Western industrial powers, though extremely harmful to the long-term interests of the Arab world; and reduction in the real cost of oil was also of critical importance for the Reaganite veneer of prosperity. But cheap oil is a policy instrument, not an end in itself. There is good reason to believe that in the early 1970s, the U.S. was by no means averse to the increase in the price of oil, harmful to its industrial rivals, but beneficial to U.S. energy corporations and exporters. Control over energy is a lever for global dominance; the actual price and production levels gain significance within this context, and the economic effects of fluctuations are not a straightforward matter.84
U.S. interest in the Philippines derives in part from similar concerns. U.S. bases there form part of the military system surrounding the Middle East region from the Indian Ocean to Israel, Turkey, Portugal and beyond, designed to ensure that there will be no threat to control over its resources by the United States and dependable local elites. The United States is a global power, and plans accordingly.
Subsequent developments in the Middle East keep to the pattern just outlined, including the deepening relations with Israel as a "strategic asset" and mercenary state; the U.S. rejection of a broad international consensus on a political settlement of the Arab-Israel conflict for many years85; and Israel's sale of U.S. arms to Iran in the 1980s, which, as high-level Israeli sources reported in the early 1980s (long before there were any hostages), was carried out in coordination with the U.S. government to encourage a military coup, which would restore the Israel-Iran-Saudia Arabia alliance on which U.S. policy had been based under the Nixon Doctrine -- one of many features of the Iran-contra affair suppressed in the congressional-media damage control operation. The same model of overthrowing an unwanted civilian government had been pursued successfully in Indonesia, Chile, and other cases
The major policy imperative is to block indigenous nationalist forces that might try to use their own resources in conflict with U.S. interests. A large-scale counterinsurgency operation in Greece from 1947 was partially motivated by the concern that the "rot" of independent nationalism there might "infect" the Middle East, Acheson warned. Greece was regarded as an outpost of U.S. power, protecting Middle East oil for the U.S. and its allies. A CIA study held that if the rebels were victorious, the U.S. would face "the possible loss of the petroleum resources of the Middle East." A Soviet threat was concocted in the usual manner. The real threat was indigenous nationalism, with its feared demonstration effects elsewhere.
Similar factors led to the CIA coup restoring the Shah in Iran in 1953. Nasser became an enemy for similar reasons. Later, Khomeini was perceived as posing another such threat, leading the U.S. to support Iraq in the Gulf War. The Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein then took over the mantle, shifting status overnight from favored friend to new Hitler when he invaded Kuwait in an effort to displace U.S.-British clients. The primary fear throughout has been that nationalist forces not under U.S. influence and control might come to have substantial influence over the oil-producing regions of the Arabian peninsula. Saudi Arabian elites, in contrast, are considered appropriate partners, managing their resources in conformity to basic U.S. interests, and assisting U.S. terror and subversion throughout the Third World.
Sept. 6, 2007 | On Sept. 18, 2002, CIA director George Tenet briefed President Bush in the Oval Office on top-secret intelligence that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, according to two former senior CIA officers. Bush dismissed as worthless this information from the Iraqi foreign minister, a member of Saddam's inner circle, although it turned out to be accurate in every detail. Tenet never brought it up again.
Nor was the intelligence included in the National Intelligence Estimate of October 2002, which stated categorically that Iraq possessed WMD. No one in Congress was aware of the secret intelligence that Saddam had no WMD as the House of Representatives and the Senate voted, a week after the submission of the NIE, on the Authorization for Use of Military Force in Iraq. The information, moreover, was not circulated within the CIA among those agents involved in operations to prove whether Saddam had WMD.
On April 23, 2006, CBS's "60 Minutes" interviewed Tyler Drumheller, the former CIA chief of clandestine operations for Europe, who disclosed that the agency had received documentary intelligence from Naji Sabri, Saddam's foreign minister, that Saddam did not have WMD. "We continued to validate him the whole way through," said Drumheller. "The policy was set. The war in Iraq was coming, and they were looking for intelligence to fit into the policy, to justify the policy."
Now two former senior CIA officers have confirmed Drumheller's account to me and provided the background to the story of how the information that might have stopped the invasion of Iraq was twisted in order to justify it. They described what Tenet said to Bush about the lack of WMD, and how Bush responded, and noted that Tenet never shared Sabri's intelligence with then Secretary of State Colin Powell. According to the former officers, the intelligence was also never shared with the senior military planning the invasion, which required U.S. soldiers to receive medical shots against the ill effects of WMD and to wear protective uniforms in the desert.
Instead, said the former officials, the information was distorted in a report written to fit the preconception that Saddam did have WMD programs. That false and restructured report was passed to Richard Dearlove, chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), who briefed Prime Minister Tony Blair on it as validation of the cause for war.
Secretary of State Powell, in preparation for his presentation of evidence of Saddam's WMD to the United Nations Security Council on Feb. 5, 2003, spent days at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., and had Tenet sit directly behind him as a sign of credibility. But Tenet, according to the sources, never told Powell about existing intelligence that there were no WMD, and Powell's speech was later revealed to be a series of falsehoods.
Both the French intelligence service and the CIA paid Sabri hundreds of thousands of dollars (at least $200,000 in the case of the CIA) to give them documents on Saddam's WMD programs. "The information detailed that Saddam may have wished to have a program, that his engineers had told him they could build a nuclear weapon within two years if they had fissile material, which they didn't, and that they had no chemical or biological weapons," one of the former CIA officers told me.
On the eve of Sabri's appearance at the United Nations in September 2002 to present Saddam's case, the officer in charge of this operation met in New York with a "cutout" who had debriefed Sabri for the CIA. Then the officer flew to Washington, where he met with CIA deputy director John McLaughlin, who was "excited" about the report. Nonetheless, McLaughlin expressed his reservations. He said that Sabri's information was at odds with "our best source." That source was code-named "Curveball," later exposed as a fabricator, con man and former Iraqi taxi driver posing as a chemical engineer.
The next day, Sept. 18, Tenet briefed Bush on Sabri. "Tenet told me he briefed the president personally," said one of the former CIA officers. According to Tenet, Bush's response was to call the information "the same old thing." Bush insisted it was simply what Saddam wanted him to think. "The president had no interest in the intelligence," said the CIA officer. The other officer said, "Bush didn't give a about the intelligence. He had his mind made up."
But the CIA officers working on the Sabri case kept collecting information. "We checked on everything he told us." French intelligence eavesdropped on his telephone conversations and shared them with the CIA. These taps "validated" Sabri's claims, according to one of the CIA officers. The officers brought this material to the attention of the newly formed Iraqi Operations Group within the CIA. But those in charge of the IOG were on a mission to prove that Saddam did have WMD and would not give credit to anything that came from the French. "They kept saying the French were trying to undermine the war," said one of the CIA officers.
The officers continued to insist on the significance of Sabri's information, but one of Tenet's deputies told them, "You haven't figured this out yet. This isn't about intelligence. It's about regime change."
The CIA officers on the case awaited the report they had submitted on Sabri to be circulated back to them, but they never received it. They learned later that a new report had been written. "It was written by someone in the agency, but unclear who or where, it was so tightly controlled. They knew what would please the White House. They knew what the king wanted," one of the officers told me.
That report contained a false preamble stating that Saddam was "aggressively and covertly developing" nuclear weapons and that he already possessed chemical and biological weapons. "Totally out of whack," said one of the CIA officers. "The first [para]graph of an intelligence report is the most important and most read and colors the rest of the report." He pointed out that the case officer who wrote the initial report had not written the preamble and the new memo. "That's not what the original memo said."
The report with the misleading introduction was given to Dearlove of MI6, who briefed the prime minister. "They were given a scaled-down version of the report," said one of the CIA officers. "It was a summary given for liaison, with the sourcing taken out. They showed the British the statement Saddam was pursuing an aggressive program, and rewrote the report to attempt to support that statement. It was insidious. Blair bought it." "Blair was duped," said the other CIA officer. "He was shown the altered report."
The information provided by Sabri was considered so sensitive that it was never shown to those who assembled the NIE on Iraqi WMD. Later revealed to be utterly wrong, the NIE read: "We judge that Iraq has continued its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs in defiance of UN resolutions and restrictions. Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons as well as missiles with ranges in excess of UN restrictions; if left unchecked, it probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade."
announcedby President Bush on May 31, 2003. PRC weapons proliferation has persisted,aggravating trends that result in more ambiguous technical assistance 
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, at which Iranattended as an observer. PRC President Hu Jintao balanced his remarks to IranianPresident Ahmadinejad by saying that Iran has a right to nuclear energy and callingfor its response to the offer. But with no Iranian response, on July12, China and theother five countries issued a statement agreeing to a two-stage approach: to seek aUNSC resolution to make it mandatory for Iran to suspend nuclear enrichment asrequired by the IAEA; and if Iran refuses, to adopt measures under Article 41(specifically for sanctions, vs. use of force) of Chapter VII.After Iran announced that it would respond on August 22, 2006, China voted onJuly 31 with other members of the UNSC (except Qatar) for Resolution 1696,demanding that Iran suspend nuclear enrichment; calling upon countries to preventtechnology transfers to Iran’s nuclear enrichment and missile programs; requestingan IAEA report on Iran’s compliance by August 31; and warning of sanctions if Irandoes not comply. After negotiations over Russian and PRC objections to the firstU.S. and European draft resolution on sanctions, China voted with all other SecurityCouncil members for Resolution 1737 on December 23, 2006, which invoked Article 41 of Chapter VII to require Iran to suspend nuclear enrichment and reprocessing activities, and heavy water-related projects.
