Nuclear Nonproliferation

Although the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) plans to use stepped-up inspections and improved data collection to better detect clandestine nuclear weapons programs, such as those in Iraq, it lacks a long-term plan to implement these efforts and may be forced to seek added U.S. financial support to pay for them. When and if member states adopt the Additional Protocol, IAEA will be able to use more intrusive measures, such as collecting information on all aspects of a state's nuclear industry, including research and development and nuclear import and export data; conducting short-notice inspections of undeclared or suspect sites and unannounced inspections at declared nuclear facilities; and taking environmental samples beyond locations where inspections now have access. However, IAEA lacks a long-term plan that (1) identifies the total resources needed to implement the new measures, (2) provides an implementation schedule with milestones for equipment and estimated projections for adoption of the Additional Protocol, and (3) provides criteria for assessing the effectiveness of the new measures and their usefulness for reducing inspection efforts. Moreover, IAEA depends heavily on U.S. financial support to meet its safeguards obligations. As stipulated by its major contributors, the agency's regular budget is limited to zero-real growth. If such constraints continue and IAEA's assumptions about cost neutrality for the new program are not borne out by experience, IAEA will likely turn to the United States for extra contributions to pay for these efforts.

GAO noted that: (1) in response to Iraq's secret nuclear weapons program, the international community, led by the United States, launched an intensive effort to create a new capability within the IAEA's safeguards system to detect secret or undeclared activities; (2) IAEA is beginning to implement a strengthened safeguards system by introducing advanced safeguards techniques under its existing safeguards agreements; (3) it is also seeking additional rights to conduct more intrusive inspections and collect information on nuclear activities through an Additional Protocol that supplements the existing safeguards agreements; (4) IAEA's changes to its safeguards systems are intended to give its inspectors greater ability to detect clandestine nuclear activities in non-nuclear weapons states that are signatories to the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons or other regional nonproliferation treaties; (5) under existing safeguards agreements with states and regional organizations, IAEA has increased its access to information on all nuclear activities at declared facilities in non-nuclear weapons states; (6) IAEA's member states expect that the Agency will implement the strengthened safeguards system through cost neutrality, that is, through savings from expected future efficiency gains and cutbacks on certain types of inspections that on an annual basis offset the cost increases resulting from implementation; (7) while IAEA has performed some preliminary planning, it does not have a long-term implementation plan that: (a) identifies the total resource requirements for implementing the new measures; (b) provides an implementation schedule with milestones for equipment and estimated projections of adoption of the Additional Protocol; and (c) provides criteria for assessing the effectiveness of the new measures and their usefulness for reducing inspection efforts; (8) IAEA has limited options for funding the new Strengthened Safeguard System because of the practice, imposed by its major contributors, that limits the Agency's regular budget to zero-real growth, and by the Agency's practice, insisted on by IAEA's less developed member states, of maintaining a balance between IAEA's technical cooperation and its safeguards programs; and (9) as a result, if these constraints continue and IAEA's assumptions about cost neutrality for the new program are not borne out by experience, IAEA will likely turn to the United States for substantial voluntary extrabudgetary contributions to implement the Strengthened Safeguards System.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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