Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 16 december 2013 / Time Line December 16, 2013
Version 3.515. December 2013, 17. December 2013
12/16/2013
Proliferation Watch: U.S. Intelligence Assessments of Potential
Nuclear Powers, 1977-2001
First Publication of Recently Declassified Satellite Photographs
of South African
Nuclear Test Site--1977
New Release of CIA Report on September 1979 South Atlantic Mystery
Flash Joins Annals of Dubious Secrets by Exempting Pages of
Previously Released Information
Energy Department and Defense Intelligence Agency Reports
Illuminate Pre-War Controversy over Iraqi Procurement of Aluminum
Tubes for Alleged Gas Centrifuge Program
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 451
Washington, DC, December 16, 2013 -- The Soviet Union assisted the
United States in its effort to curb South Africa's nuclear program
in August 1977 when Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev sent
President Jimmy Carter a message that Moscow's spy satellites had
noticed signs of nuclear weapons test preparations at a site in the
Kalahari Desert. Very quickly the U.S. National Reconnaissance
Office (NRO) directed spy satellites to photograph the site which
intelligence analysts later agreed was geared to nuclear testing.
The U.S. government has declassified some of those satellite
photographs for the first time. Published today by the National
Security Archive and the Nuclear Proliferation International
History Project, the photographs of the Kalahari site appear in a
declassified article from Lawrence Livermore Laboratory's Special
Projects Division, later known as the "Z Division." This and other
reports by the Special Projects Division are also published for the
first time by the National Security Archive in a collection of
intelligence studies and articles on nuclear proliferation
issues.
Other recently released reports provide new information on
high-profile incidents such as the recent Iraq war and theÃ,
mysterious flash overÃ, the South Atlantic on 22 September
1979.
Intelligence reports produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency
(DIA) and the Department of Energy (DOE) shed light on a key claim
made by the Bush administration during the lead-up to the Iraq War:
that specialized aluminum tubes sought by the Iraqis would be used
for gas centrifuges for producing highly enriched uranium. As
national security adviser Condeleeza Rice put it, the tubes were
"only really suited for a nuclear weapons program." That was
incorrect, but it at least ran parallel to the DIA view that the
tubes' "specifications are consistent with earlier Iraqi gas
centrifuge rotor designs." By contrast, Department of Energy
experts, who were highly familiar with uranium enrichment
technology, argued that the tubes' design and construction made
them better candidates for building conventional rockets than for
gas centrifuges.
This release includes a heavily excised version of the Director of
Central Intelligence report from December 1979 titled The 22
September 1979 Event, referring to the controversial mystery flash
over the South Atlantic, which may have been a nuclear test. The
massively excised version of the report published today includes
previously unreleased material. However, most of the withheld
information -- including analysis of whether Israel, South Africa
or both were behind the event -- was declassified by the CIA years
ago. This discrepancy is a prime example of both the enduring
problem of over-classification and of the U.S. government's great
difficulty in making consistently rational declassification
decisions.
Also published today:
* A Special Projects Division report on South African nuclear
intentions and capabilities which found that it had a "high
caliber" program, but no evidence that South Africa had a
"complete" weapons capability or that it had produced or acquired
fissile material.
* A CIA analysis of South Africa's "nuclear options" which found no
"clear" capability to produce highly enriched uranium, but that it
was likely that the South Africans were preparing for a "series of
nuclear tests" before the Kalahari site was discovered.
* A CIA study of Iraq's nuclear intentions saw "no hard evidence"
that it was intent on acquiring a weapons capability but argued
that seeking one was consistent with that country's interest in a
hegemonic regional role.
This collection complements numerous Electronic Briefing Books on
nuclear proliferation intelligence, most recently "Nuclear
Proliferation Intelligence, 1966-1991," National Security Archive
Electronic Briefing Book No. 423, also published jointly with the
Nuclear Proliferation International History Project.
12/16/2013
Federal Judge Says NSA Program Appears to Violate
Constitution
A federal judge rules that the National Security Agency's program
of gathering data on all telephone calls made in the US is
unconstitutional. NBC's Pete Williams reports.
By Pete Williams, NBC News justice correspondent
December 16, 2013 "Information Clearing House - "NBC" - A federal
judge ruled Monday that the National Security Agency’s
gathering of data on all telephone calls made in the United States
appears to violate the Constitution’s protection against
unreasonable searches.
The judge, Richard Leon of U.S. District Court in Washington, said
that the NSA relied on “almost-Orwellian technology”
that would have been unimaginable a generation ago, at the time of
a landmark Supreme Court decision on phone records.
Leon, an appointee of President George W. Bush, ruled in favor of
two Americans who challenged the NSA program and wanted their data
removed from NSA records. The judge found that the two were likely
to prevail under the Fourth Amendment, the Constitution’s
protection against unreasonable search and seizure.
The plaintiffs brought their case June 6, one day after the British
newspaper The Guardian published the first revelations from Edward
Snowden, the former federal contractor who exposed details of
massive government surveillance programs.
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