Kazakhstan's Nuclear Secret

I was always a bit confused about why the US government was so anxious to treat the Kazakhstan government with deference in leasing the air base that supports Afghanistan missions. I didn't realize that the US government had a special deal with Kazakhstan to move more than 100 tons of spent nuclear fuel, to include 11 tons of highly enriched uranium and 3 tons of plutonium, to a super-secret safe storage site within the country, closer to Russia. I'm guessing that was a factor in their discussions...

Former President Bill Clinton began the project in 1996, when the U.S. helped Kazakhstan inventory the spent nuclear fuel that had accumulated at BN-350, which started producing plutonium for Soviet nuclear weapons in 1972. The reactor also provided power to Aktau.

The year before the project commenced, Kazakhstan had returned 1,410 nuclear warheads to Moscow that it inherited when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

U.S. experts helped shut down BN-350 in 1999 and build a storage facility there until a more secure site could be found for nearly 3,000 assemblies that contained more than 140 tons of spent fuel. The spent fuel included the 14 tons of plutonium and highly enriched uranium, the largest stock of such materials outside the world’s nuclear-armed countries.

“We needed to ensure their physical security until we could decide where it could be stored,” said a second U.S. official, who requested anonymity because of the project’s sensitivity. “There were no monitoring systems, only some physical security, but it did not meet IAEA standards,” a reference to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Under former President George W. Bush, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s government agreed to build the new storage facility at the opposite end of the country from Aktau because “they were nervous over the threat of nuclear sabotage” at BN-350, the second U.S. official continued.

The U.S. officials declined to elaborate on the threat, citing classified intelligence.

The original storage point wasn't too far from the Iranian border (only separated by the Caspian Sea), a fact that might inspire ideas of what the "threat" of nuclear sabotage was. NPR has a three-part discussion of the story, offering more details. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

Comments

[Ray]

I noted that the UK put funds into this, too.

[BH]

Great piece(s) today - a couple of notes:

1. The KZ piece - Mr. Andy Weber was instrumental in the initial stages of removing the material from the country - was one of his bigger contributions to NP - while we were all out removing the BW from places like Stepnogorsk Weber was workingbehind the scenes to get rid of the nuclear material

2. Wiki Mania - having worked at DOS I can tell you that many/much of the cables are like "raw intel" that really is not intel at all - its the picture of what is going on in country X, Y or Z - no revalation there but in the end it will make some of these folks think twice about giving honest assessments of their counterparts -the reality of it is that sometimes the truth hurts!