Transcript of Interviews
The Power of the Purse
NEWSWEEK Interview with Mohamed ElBaradei
20 October 2006
See NEWSWEEK
In an interview with NEWSWEEK magazine, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei responds to questions concerning nuclear proliferation and the Agency´s budget.
The International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna is often called the United Nations´ "nuclear watchdog." Yet for most of the nearly 50 years it´s been in existence, its main functions were to promote "Atoms for Peace" and to check that signatories of the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) abided by their obligations, based on their own voluntary cooperation. All that was changed by the discovery of Iraq´s secret weapons program in 1991. Then came the revelation of Iran´s clandestine nuclear enrichment activities, North Korea´s decision to build atomic weapons and the exposure of a clandestine nuclear network organized by Pakistani scientist AQ Khan.
On Monday, IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei will meet with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Washington. Before leaving Vienna, he gave an exclusive interview to NEWSWEEK&'s Christopher Dickey about the challenge of tracking the new and dangerous trends in nuclear proliferation.
NEWSWEEK: The IAEA is now expected to investigate and expose illicit nuclear activities, whether by states or by networks operating outside of state control. Do you have the resources to do that?
MOHAMED ELBARADEI, DIRECTOR GENERAL, IAEA: Everybody says nuclear terrorism is the No. 1 national and international security issue. But until they translate this grandstanding statement into dollars and cents, we will not be able to deal effectively with the danger we are facing. This is simple. Our safeguards budget is $120 million a year. With that, we're supposed to verify what's happening on the entire globe. I'm sure that even our little Vienna police department has a larger budget than we have.
One of the most daunting challenges is to try to discover undeclared activities: the small enrichment facility tucked somewhere in a huge country, or some weaponization activities that are taking place somewhere underground. To do that you need a lot.
NEWSWEEK: What does it take?
ELBARADEI: First of all, you need the legal authority [to investigate]. After Iraq, we developed this additional protocol [to comprehensive IAEA safeguards agreements], which gives us at least adequate authority to go places and ask questions and have an overview of a country's entire nuclear program. But that protocol, which was adopted in 1995, is now in force for only 78 countries out of 183 countries [where it might be applied]. So the pace of progress is discouraging.
To look into undeclared activity, you need satellite-monitoring imagery. We obviously cannot afford to buy as much as we want. And in many ways we rely on the good will of those who will give the imagery. But they have their own agendas. They might give me what they want to give me, and that is different from me having the independent ability to procure the imagery that I need.
I don´t have a state-of-the-art lab for particle analysis, which is key for us to know whether there is undeclared enrichment or reprocessing. I still have to rely on a network of labs in some member states. But I need to have my own lab here as a reference point, as insurance for total independence. I need to train our people, the inspectors. I need to have an R&D program, which I don&'t have. So, the money is too tight. It is just ridiculous.
NEWSWEEK: You recently said that with the money the United States spent not finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq after the invasion in 2003, you could fund the IAEA for 30 years. Why do you think there's such a discrepancy in resources?
ELBARADEI: There is still an attitude of "us vs. them." International institutions are seen as different from national interests... And we are treated like any other multinational institution. I'm not disparaging them; they all do good work. But there is a difference between us and the Universal Postal Union. You can postpone issuing commemorative stamps or improving the efficiency of mail delivery. But in our areas there are certain things that we have to do yesterday, because otherwise we are going to face a colossal danger. And people do not understand that. They do not prioritize.
NEWSWEEK: OK, so how much money do you think you need from the member states?
ELBARADEI: Probably to double our budget, which is, again, a drop in the ocean. This would allow me to plan properly, to invest in R&D, to do better training for our inspectors, to upgrade our labs. We are not talking about billions, we are talking about millions, and we are not even getting that. I do not mince words. If there is a horrible catastrophe, I do not want them to look at us as a scapegoat and say, "you haven't told us".
NEWSWEEK: Won't that happen anyway?
ELBARADEI: I try as much as possible to put the ball back where it belongs. Of course it is very tempting [for national governments] to use us, or any international organization, as a scapegoat... In our area it is even more difficult because we are an organization that is asked to sit and judge member states. We have to say whether they are in compliance [with the NPT] or if they are not in compliance. But they have the power of the purse.
At the same time, the only thing that gives us the moral authority to continue is to remind them of their principles. And that means to be continuously objective and impartial and to say things sometimes that they do not like to hear.
NEWSWEEK: For example?
ELBARADEI: If I look at the problems that we are facing right now - the Korean situation, the Iran situation - these problems hinge, in my view, on the parties sitting together. We need to move away from the idea that dialogue is a "reward" for good behavior. You need dialogue when you have bad behavior, because the purpose of the dialogue is to change the behavior. As former [U.S.] secretary of State James Baker said recently, talking to your enemy is not appeasement.
NEWSWEEK: Some American politicians say you're biased or, at a minimum, soft on countries like Iran.
ELBARADEI: This agency stands on its integrity and it will vanish if we lose our integrity. I shudder whenever I see anybody touching on our impartiality or dignity.
NEWSWEEK: Many U.S. officials and analysts now take it as a given that Iran - despite repeated denials - has a nuclear weapons program. But you say you've never proved that.
ELBARADEI: No. You see people confuse knowledge, industrial capacity and intention. The fact that Iran has knowledge, now, with regards to enrichment, there is no question about it and we proved a lot of that through our extensive inspections. We haven't seen, however, this knowledge translated into industrial capacity; that is, the ability to produce the material for nuclear weapons.
A lot of what you see about Iran right now is assessment of intentions. I saw recently a statement by [U.S. Director of National Intelligence John D.] Negroponte which was interesting in two ways: he says that Iran could have nuclear weapons between 2010 and 2015. So we are really talking about four to nine years, which in a way supports our assessment that they are not there yet, close to a nuclear weapon. And that is why we don´t see a clear and present danger that we have to address tomorrow, and we have ample time to negotiate. But Negroponte also said that [the United States] believes that [the Iranians] have the intention to develop a nuclear weapon. And I've been saying that this agency cannot get into reading intentions. We are not equipped to deal with that, and intentions can change overnight.
NEWSWEEK: Surely Iran's behavior doesn't inspire confidence.
ELBARADEI: The jury is still out. Remember, Iran's program started in the middle of the Iraq war in 1985. Did they then have the intention [to make nuclear weapons] and then dropped it? We came in with inspections and the international circumstances changed. Do they have the intention to pursue a nuclear weapon, or are they simply hedging their bet by developing their enrichment capability?
These are different difficult issues. But one of the lessons we learned from Iraq is that we really need to be very, very careful coming to conclusions because these issues make the difference between war and peace. And as long as I know - and I am supported by all intelligence agencies in this - that Iran in the worst-case scenario is still a few years away, I have ample time to talk to them, I have ample time to negotiate with them, and I need to encourage them to cooperate with me.
NEWSWEEK: Do you think the IAEA will be blamed for North Korea's development of atomic weapons?
ELBARADEI: I think we were very tough on North Korea in 1992 or 1993. We said they were in non-compliance. In 2003, we said they were in further non-compliance, but we were kicked out. Since 2003, North Korea has not been part of our fight. We lost jurisdiction. But I have been saying for the last two or three years that North Korea is the No. 1 security challenge to the NPT. I saw North Korea out of the [treaty] regime; I saw North Korea having plutonium; I saw North Korea feeling more and more isolated. I saw this coming.
NEWSWEEK: But how can the international community deal with rogue regimes and leaders like Iran´s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or North Korea´s Kim Jong Il?
ELBARADEI: There are two fundamental issues that people do not want to get into their heads, I think. One is that [the problem] is not really leader-specific. It is country-specific: a country feeling insecure. And if it sees that the people in the major leagues are relying on nuclear weapons, it will at the very least be tempted to do the same.
The second myth is that nuclear weapons are OK in the hands of "the good guys" and not OK in the hands of "e;the bad guys." Aside from being very subjective, this approach is not implementable, because right now whether you are good or bad, you have access to the technology. We need to have a system that is not based on subjective considerations. There is only one solution: no new country should develop nuclear weapons, and ultimately no country should rely on nuclear weapons for its defense.