-Caveat Lector- January 25, 2003 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/25/opinion/25BASS.html?ex=1044560419 &ei=1&en=76d241c355228fe7 The Frustrations of Inspections
By WARREN BASS fter years of Iraqi deceit, United Nations inspections now feel both frustrating and familiar. "This looks like the rerun of a bad movie," President Bush said last week. In fact, that movie has been running for longer than he realizes. Nuclear weapons inspections are almost always difficult — even if the country being inspected is a friend of the United States. >From 1961 until 1969, United States nuclear inspectors were quietly sent into Israel's secret reactor at Dimona in the Negev Desert. Of course, there are obvious differences between Israel then and Iraq now; Israel was hardly a regional menace like Iraq. It sought nuclear weapons as the ultimate deterrent to Arab armies and as a guarantee against annihilation. Still, the C.I.A. warned that a nuclear Israel could set off a Middle East arms race and drive Arab states toward Moscow. The Eisenhower administration sought to channel Israel's atomic efforts toward peaceful research. It provided some technology for a small reactor outside Tel Aviv under its Atoms for Peace program, which encouraged nonmilitary nuclear science. But in 1958, a U-2 spy plane spotted a suspicious construction site in the Negev. When news reports confirmed a second reactor's existence, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion told the Knesset that Dimona was "designed exclusively for peaceful purposes." President John F. Kennedy, like his predecessor, was inclined to distrust but verify. And Ben- Gurion, fearing Soviet interference, preferred United States inspections to international ones. But Israel controlled the inspections tightly. The first tour came, after much Israeli stalling, on May 18, 1961, when two scientists from the United States Atomic Energy Commission spent the day being shown around Dimona, saw no plutonium- separation plant, and gave the reactor something close to a clean bill of health. Kennedy, however, remained skeptical. At the Waldorf-Astoria in New York on May 30, the new president told Ben-Gurion that he wanted more inspections "on the theory that a woman should not only be virtuous but also have the appearance of virtue." Sixteen months later, two other commission scientists were abruptly taken on another tour around Dimona — this time for just 40 minutes. In 1963 Kennedy finally forced a showdown. Secretary of State Dean Rusk told the Israelis that the president now wanted semiannual, unhindered visits to Dimona by American experts. Kennedy insisted on two inspections per year to see how fast Dimona was burning through fuel — a telltale sign of a weapons program. Ben-Gurion defiantly offered one supervised visit per year. That spring, Kennedy sent Ben- Gurion two scorching letters warning that U.S.-Israel relations would be "seriously jeopardized" without real inspections. When Ben-Gurion resigned over an unrelated domestic political scandal, Kennedy repeated the threat to the new prime minister, Levi Eshkol. Eshkol's advisers were split. Deputy Defense Minister Shimon Peres, who had helped start the Dimona program, wanted to defy the Americans; Israel's ambassador to Washington, Avraham Harman, urged cooperation. On Aug. 19, Eshkol sought to mollify Washington without abandoning Dimona. He agreed to regular American visits, hinting that the six-month schedule would not be a problem, and promised to return plutonium produced at Dimona to France. Meanwhile, as the Federation of American Scientists later reported, Israel installed false control-room panels and bricked over passages leading to Dimona's innards. Then Lyndon Johnson became president. He proved less resolute than Kennedy, and Eshkol kept stalling. Johnson ended up settling for one daylong visit per year, under watchful Israeli eyes. By 1969, the Nixon administration had concluded that Israel had some nuclear weapons capacity and gave up on inspections. It's tempting to use the Dimona story to conclude that inspections can't work, even under nigh-ideal conditions. But a better conclusion may be that inspections are more easily used to paper over proliferation problems than to solve them. Kennedy wanted to use inspections to stop Ben- Gurion's drive for the bomb, but Johnson and Eshkol used them as a fig leaf — averring that Israel's purpose was peaceful. They averted a regional crisis not by halting Israel's nuclear program but by allowing it to continue and muting American suspicions. None of this means that war is the Bush administration's best or only option on Iraq. But it does suggest that the success of inspections often depends on who's more determined: the inspectors or the inspected. That moral holds for friends and foes alike. Warren Bass, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, is author of the forthcoming "Support Any Friend: Kennedy's Middle East and the Making of the U.S.-Israel Alliance." Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company | Permissions | Privacy Policy Forwarded for your information. The text and intent of the article have to stand on their own merits. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe simply because it has been handed down for many genera- tions. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumoured by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is written in Holy Scriptures. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of teachers, elders or wise men. Believe only after careful observation and analysis, when you find that it agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all. Then accept it and live up to it." The Buddha on Belief, from the Kalama Sut <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html <A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html";>Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/";>ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
