The IAEA Can’t Rule Out That Terrorists Have The Missing Kinshasa Nuclear Fuel Rod

The International Atomic Energy Agency has confirmed that a second fuel rod from the nuclear research reactor in Kinshasa is missing. I had this report in 2002.

Spokesman Mark Gwozdecky says the International Atomic Energy Agency has no idea where the fuel element is.

And Mr. Gwozdecky says the IAEA cannot rule out the possibility it is in the hands of terrorists.

“We simply don't know where the fuel rod is and any number of possibilities exist and we wouldn't discount any one.”

Mr. Gwozdecky says this is not the first case in which radioactive materials have gone missing. Another fuel rod that disappeared from the Kinshasa reactor was recovered in 1998 by authorities in Italy from criminals who were attempting to sell it.

But the IAEA spokesman says last September's terrorist attacks in the United States have increased the agency's concern over all incidents of missing nuclear material and the security of all nuclear facilities, including the one in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

“In the era of post 9/11, we're concerned about every target in the world today and that's why we're working as strenuously as we are with all countries, but in particular with this country (Democratic Republic of Congo). It's been the recipient of many, many expert missions from this agency (IAEA) to help them beef up the safety and security around this plant and they are cooperating and working to do that.”

The Congo is not the only African country that has attracted the attention of international nuclear inspectors.

IAEA experts have also recently visited Uganda, where authorities in April discovered a container of radioactive Cobalt-60. Mr. Gwozdecky declines to discuss details of that incident.

But the IAEA's director-general (Mohamed El Baradei) revealed in a published statement this week the material appeared to have been stolen for illicit resale. Experts say Cobalt-60, typically used in medical devices and industrial irradiators, is the type of material most likely to be used by terrorists in a radiological or so-called dirty bomb.

As for the low-enriched uranium fuel rod missing from the Kinshasa reactor, spokesman Gwozdecky asserts it does not pose a great risk.

“I wouldn't exaggerate the risk involved here. I'd just point out again that the fuel elements that we are talking about here are low enriched uranium. They're of essentially no use in constructing a nuclear explosive device and would be a poor choice for a radiological (dirty) bomb.”

International researchers at Stanford University have compiled what is considered the world's most complete database of lost, stolen or misplaced nuclear materials. The database has 830 entries. Some three-quarters of the entries, 643 to be precise, involve incidents of smuggling.

Next: Congolese authorities are in denial despite what the IAEA says.

AfroNuke: An International Embarrassment As Well As A Potential Hazard

A week later, following leads turned up in my initial report, I had this shocker: another nuclear fuel rod is missing from the troubled research reactor in Congo-Kinshasa and international authorities say they cannot exclude the possibility it is in the hands of terrorists.

A second fuel rod manufactured for the nuclear research reactor at the Universityof Kinshasa is unaccounted for.

It was previously reported that one rod made for the controversial facility disappeared and was recovered from criminals in Italy by police in 1998, in an undercoveroperation.

But nuclear industry sources say at the time of that incident, inspectors for the International Atomic Energy Agency, the IAEA, also raised questions about a second radioactive fuel element that was apparently lost.

The fact that a second fuel rod might be missing had not been previously reported.

However, a spokesman for the IAEA, responding to my inquiry, has now confirmed the loss of the second element. But spokesman Mark Gwozdecky downplays the loss and potential danger.

“Although the whereabouts of that single fuel element are not known, we would say that one element would be of essentially no use in constructing a nuclear device, nuclear explosive device, and it would also be a poor choice for constructing a radiological or so-called dirty bomb.”

The University of Kinshasa first went on line with a 50-kilowatt research reactor in 1959. That reactor was replaced with a more modern, one megawatt facility which was powered up in 1972. Both reactors were made by General Atomics, a US firm that also made the fuel elements for the research facility.

Officials of General Atomics, backed by the IAEA, say the missing fuel rod, like the one recovered by authorities, is considered low-enriched. That is to say, it contains between19-point-seven and 19-point-nine percent fissionable U-235. The threshhold defining highly-enriched uranium is a flat 20 percent.

It is unclear how the fuel rods disappeared from Kinshasa. The current Director of the reactor has told reporters it could have happened when his predecessor lent out keys to the facility, where visitors say security has been minimal.

It is also unclear how the one rod recovered in Italy was brought into Europe. That rod had never been irradiated or used. But industry sources say when the element was retrieved it was apparent someone had tampered with it. The sources say an effort had been made to cut into the cladding around the uranium fuel core.

The IAEA says all the other fuel rods made for the Kinshasa reactor, both fresh or unused elements and spent or used rods, are otherwise accounted for.

Spokesman Gwozdecky says the count has been re-verified during annual inspections. He also reveals several expert missions have been sent to Kinshasa in recent years to perform technical inspections to ensure the safe operation of the facility.

Nevertheless, Mr. Gwozdecky says more progress and further improvement are required to ensure the reactor poses no dangers.

Industry sources assert the Congo reactor is considered a kind of international embarrassment as well as a potential hazard. However they suggest authorities in Kinshasa have resisted, as a point of national pride, efforts to shut down or impose stricter controls on the facility.

A US government official tells me that talks are under way in an effort to retrieve the spent or used fuel rods stored at the reactor site. The International Nuclear Safety Center fact file on the Kinshasa reactor says 58 spent fuel rods are currently in storage.

Next: The IAEA cannot rule out the possibility the missing fuel rod is in the hands of terrorists.

Nuclear Terror in the Heart of Africa???

In the early months following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, like many reporters here, I probed our vulnerability to further incidents. Because of my interest in Africa and the coincidental visit of a friend and fellow journalist who knew about the topic, I came up with this piece in late June 2002 and my investigation led to new disclosures: US officials say it is no secret that terrorists would like to obtain weapons of mass destruction, especially nuclear weapons. They also say it is no secret that terrorists are on the lookout for so-called "soft" targets --- those considered at low-risk of a terrorist strike. Are there soft targets among the world's nuclear facilities? There is one reactor in sub-Saharan Africa where the security is questionable.

The Federation of American Scientists calls highly-enriched uranium of the type used in nuclear reactors "the material of choice for terrorists seeking nuclear weapons." It also says the uranium found at small research facilities is at greater risk of diversion, and should have a higher priority for elimination, than supplies found in nuclear weapons bunkers or processing plants.

So there was alarm four years ago, when Italian authorities recovered a highly-enriched uranium fuel rod from an organized crime group in Italy that was trying to sell it. The source of the fuel rod was not, however, Russia, or any of the other former Soviet states where the security of nuclear materials has in recent years been a source of deep concern.

Instead, this fuel rod came from a nuclear research reactor in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, one of the least stable countries in Africa.

Journalist Michela Wrong has visited the one megawatt reactor at the University of Kinshasa. She found rusted gates, fastened by a simple padlock, leading to the reactor. She saw only two guards, and gained entrance merely by signing her name in a book.

“I think it's an extremely worrying situation there. I mean, it's almost surreal the security conditions there, and I really emerged from there thinking I couldn't quite believe what I had seen.”

Ms. Wrong, author of "In The Footsteps Of Mr. Kurtz, Living On The Brink Of Disaster In Mobutu's Congo," interviewed the director of the reactor. He said he believed the fuel rod may have been stolen when his predecessor lent out his keys to the facility.

“As we were chatting away about the history of the reactor, he revealed, really quite casually, that one day they had realized one of the rods in the reactor had gone missing, and he had learned subsequently that it had turned up in Sicily in the hands of the Mafia, that it had been reclaimed by the Italian police.”

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the IAEA, acknowledges one of the Kinshasa reactor's fuel rods did go missing. But downplaying the potential risk, it reported the rod contained low-enriched uranium with a fissionable U-235 content of 19-point-nine percent --- just below the 20 percent threshold that defines highly-enriched uranium.

But the International Nuclear Safety Center, operated by the US Department of Energy and dedicated to improving reactor safety worldwide, says the Kinshasa facility's fuel rods are, in fact, all 20 percent or highly-enriched.

Nevertheless, the IAEA is clearly concerned about security issues at the Kinshasa reactor, a Triga Mark Two type, built in 1970. Just two years ago, the director-general of the IAEA described the facility as one requiring attention. The official said an agency mission sent to inspect the reactor reported soil erosion around the facility that could soon threaten safety.

Pentagon sources tell me, authorities in Kinshasa have approached the United States about removing spent nuclear fuel rods stored at the reactor. The International Nuclear Safety Center reports there are 58 such rods in storage. However, there is no indication any rods have yet been taken away.

The Kinshasa situation is not the only one in Africa involving radioactive material that has garnered international attention.

Earlier this year, the IAEA reported sending another mission to the continent -- this time to Uganda. There, they assisted in securing what an agency statement described only as a"radioactive source" containing a significant amount of Cobalt-60. It provided no additional details, but Cobalt-60 is considered by experts to be the type of material terrorists might favor in creating a non-nuclear, but radioactive "dirty bomb."

Next: We discover another fuel rod is missing.

Coming Up

How a look at the possible threat posed by an unsecured nuclear reactor in Africa uncovered evidence of just how insecure the facility was and how international authorities sought to cover it up.

My Mixed CD of Life: Africa and Beyond

I am very pleased to introduce a guest blogger for your reading enjoyment. It’s my daughter, Katie, no longer a kid but one of the 'American-Africans' (a phrase coined by one of my sons) in the family whose formative years were spent sub-Saharan.

I can remember sitting on the veranda at my old house in Kenya, my bare toes tickling the stiff dry grass while the waning notes of Jimi Hendrix’s “The Wind Cries Mary” wafted through the air among clouds of my father’s cigarette smoke. It seems to me that every person has those one or two songs that bring them directly back to their childhood – and for me that song is “The Wind Cries Mary.” Every time I hear that song I am transported back to that day and for a few moments I can almost let go enough to be as carefree as I was then.

As a child growing up in Africa with a TV that only had two channels, news and more news, I had a very unique experience in the way that I was exposed to music. I was not being constantly stimulated by different forms of media and therefore have very specific influences. I believe that is why I have very distinct and vibrant memories of the songs from my childhood. My father incessantly played classic rock, as a result of this my brothers and I grew to appreciate it and imprint it onto our musical souls. This love of all classic rock from the Rolling Stones, Grateful Dead, Donovan to Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane lead to an obsession with the era of the sixties and all the counterculture that went along with it.

I moved back to the U.S. as a freshman in high school and HATED my life. I was a quirky theatre kid with an old soul and a love of the sixties who had just moved from Africa; needless to say I stuck out like a sore thumb. I had never experienced exclusion. I always fit in wherever I went and for some reason this just wasn’t clicking. So I did what any confused teenager would do – I turned to drugs and got really into Pink Floyd!

This period of my life is a juxtaposition in which I am aware of the irresponsible things that I did; however I have no regrets. I explored all the corners of my mind and learned much about myself. When I hear any song from “Dark Side of the Moon,” in particular the song “Time,” I am brought back to a place in time where I was just beginning to discover life and play around with the roles that I would take in it. I am able to smell the thick, sweet smoke of patchouli incense in my nostrils and can picture myself sprawled out across my bed contemplating life and all its meaning. I start to feel that feeling where it’s like my life is spinning wildly out of control and I am loving every second of it as I feel I have nothing to lose.

On the contrary my parents saw that I had everything to lose and clamped down, moving me to private school (Washington Waldorf School). I of course saw this as a personal sabotage of my life. I made it my mission to rebel against anything that my parents wanted me to do or be. I grew out crazy dreadlocks and wore dark eye makeup, spiked jewelry, and wild clothing to match. Enter the punk stage of my life! The music from this stage of my life fills me with a totally liberating feeling.

It was during this stage that I realized the only person I had to please was myself and I could question anyone I wanted to, including my parents. When I hear the hard pounding bass and drums of the Dropkick Murphys “Barroom Hero,” I can distinctly remember cold November nights waiting for the Metro feeling immensely satisfied while my whole body ached from being thrown (willingly) into circle pits and I stood there proud to have held my own. I again get that invincible feeling that although I am 5 feet 4, I could kick anyone’s ass.

Over the next year or so I had a bit of maturing to do. Until this point in time I constantly felt that I had something to prove. I finally got over that. I took off the dark makeup and just let myself be the random conglomeration of things and styles that I had become. I was about to graduate high school, I was in love and I felt on top of the world. The song that brings me back to the feeling of the world being at my fingertips is Ice Cube’s “It was a good day.” I am flooded with memories of driving around with my friends on a perfect day in Spring through tunnels of pink cherry blossom trees and asking myself, “Could life get any better?”

Looking back, I have yet to top that day. This next phase is one of heartbreak and lessons learned. Young love dies hard, just as my relationship did. To this day when I hear Annie Lennox’s ”No More I Love You’s”, I want to cry. It takes me to a place where I learned that sometimes in life you lose people you really care about, and that’s just the way it is. Not everything is meant to be. Wow, what a bitter lesson that was to swallow.

Finally, I come to where I am today: happy, healthy and content. I am at a place in my life where I am about to transfer and finish up school. I have a rough blueprint for what I would like to happen with my life, and I’m really excited about it! I also feel that although I am just 21, I am still an old soul who has been through a lot (just about every identity phase possible) and with each stage of life I have created a piece of myself and taken it with me as I have moved on and grown up. For this part of my life I choose the song “Wildflowers” by Tom Petty as it fills me with a sense of being whole and complete, like I’m no longer searching for who I’m supposed to be. I just am who I am and I cannot wait to find out what songs are still to come on my mixed CD of life.

Mr. Rumsfeld Goes To Guantanamo (And I Go Along)

And while we're on the topic of war crimes and prisoners... Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld paid a brief visit to the US Navy Base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba in January 2002 for a first-hand look at the detention facilities for Taleban and al-Qaida captives held there. I was among the small group of reporters who accompanied Mr. Rumsfeld.

It was a hot, sunny but breezy day at Guantanamo Bay as the Defense Secretary arrived for his brief, three-hour visit.

But even before his plane touched down and he boarded a bus and then a ferry for his first-hand look, Mr. Rumsfeld had already made clear the Bush administration's position was unambiguous. It continues to regard the 158 Taleban and al-Qaida detainees held at the base in Cuba not as prisoners of war but as unlawful combatants.

Mr. Rumsfeld spoke to reporters aboard his aircraft shortly after take-off from Washington.

“They are not P-O-W's. They will not be determined to be P-O-W's.”

Instead, Mr. Rumsfeld calls them dangerous terrorist killers --- and clearly not members of anything close to resembling a legitimate military force.

It is a point he reiterated later after touring Camp X-Ray, as the detention facility is called.

“The characteristics of the individuals that have been captured is that they are unlawful combatants, not lawful combatants. That is why they are characterized as detainees and not prisoners of war. The al-Qaida are so obviously a part of a terrorist network as opposed to being part of an army. They didn't go around with uniforms, with their weapons in public display, with insignia, and behave in a manner that an Army behaves in. They went around like terrorists and that's a very different thing.”

The distinction is an important one because under the Geneva Conventions, prisoners-of-war have distinct legal rights that would affect the ability of officials to interrogate them. They would also have to be released after the end of hostilities.

Mr. Rumsfeld says he did not make his trip, accompanied by four US Senators, to check up on the conditions under which the detainees are being held. He says he already knew everything was being done humanely and properly and called the effort first-rate.

He says that instead he focused his talks on the construction of further detention facilities and says he believes more permanent cells than the current temporary, open-air facilities are needed.

No detainee attempted to speak to Mr. Rumsfeld as he toured Camp X-Ray. While he was there, though, a loud-speaker blared the traditional Muslim call to prayer for the al-Qaida and Taleban captives, who come from 25 different countries.

Reporters were kept several hundred meters away during the Defense Secretary's visit to the cells and adjacent medical facilities for the detainees.

But Mr. Rumsfeld says ongoing interrogations of the detainees are proving fruitful "to a considerable degree." He says there have been terrorist activities halted and disrupted before more people could be killed.

The United States launched Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan against the Taleban and al-Qaida after suicide terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon last September, killing some three-thousand people.

Getting Charles Taylor: The Hidden Reward Exposed

Liberian warlord and later Liberian President Charles Taylor is on trial in the Hague for war crimes. He fled to Nigeria in 2003, after the Nigerian government offered asylum to Taylor as a temporary measure to end the bloodshed in Liberia and secure a peaceful transition to a new government. He remained in exile in Nigeria until March 2006, when the Nigerian government agreed to a request from Liberia’s government that he be surrendered to the Special Court in Sierra Leone. He was detained by Nigerian police and sent back to Liberia, where he was taken into custody by U.N. forces and transferred to the Special Court in Freetown. That’s the background. In November 2003, President Bush signed legislation to fund military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan --- but the legislation also included a provision for a reward for Taylor’s capture. I broke the story after receiving a tip and then plowing through the lengthy bill. The next morning, apparently after hearing my story on VOA’s Africa service, Taylor’s residence in exile was surrounded by guards, fearful of a raid by unknown forces out to nab Taylor. At that point, the story was picked up by others. I remember one news agency called the U.S. embassy in Lagos for comment and the spokesperson there was caught by surprise. Even the State Department the next day was struggling for a response. Here’s the original story:

Buried deep within the multi-billion dollar bill signed by the President is a provision authorizing payment of two-million dollars in reward money for what is termed "anindictee of the Special Court for Sierra Leone."

The indictee is not named in the legislation. But government and Congressional sources confirm that it is Charles Taylor, who was charged by the UN backed court in June for his alleged support of rebels in Sierra Leone.

Officials of the State Department and the Pentagon were not immediately available to comment on any plans for implementing the bounty offer.

But late last month, the State Department's then-top Africa official, Walter Kansteiner, said Mr. Taylor should face justice before the Special Court. He also disclosed the United States had held talks with Nigeria, where Mr. Taylor has been living in exile, about bringing him before the court.

Mr. Taylor was forced into exile in Nigeria in August under heavy US pressure. His departure paved the way for deployment of peacekeeping forces, including a US military contingent that provided support to African troops sent in to restore calm.

Mr. Taylor has been accused of seeking to influence events in Liberia from exile. But Mr. Kansteiner told reporters that every day that Mr. Taylor was out of the country, his influence was diminishing.

However he said Mr. Taylor, in his words, still needed to be watched "like a hawk" --- especially by Nigeria.

The US reward offer for his capture follows an offer earlier this year by a private British-American security group to kidnap Mr. Taylor and bring him before the court in Sierra Leone.

Northbridge Services Group claimed in a July 22nd statement that it had been asked to assist "certain local organizations" in enforcing the court's indictments.

News reports said the company had held talks with rebels opposed to Mr. Taylor before he went into exile. The firm was subsequently reported as being under investigation by officials in both Britain and the United States for possible violations of UN arms embargoes.

In response to the reported investigations, Northbridge said its proposal for acting as what it termed a "constabulary force" for the Special war crimes Court to bring Mr. Taylor to justice remained in force. But it stressed it would not take part in any activities unless sanctioned by the United Nations. It said it would never violate UN sanctions.

Representatives of the company failed to respond to a request for comment on the new bounty offer.