Select Committee on Foreign Affairs Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witness (Questions 110 - 119)

TUESDAY 11 FEBRUARY 2003

DR GARY SAMORE

  Chairman

110. Dr Samore, we are delighted to have you with us. The areas we would like to cover within your expertise include the weapons of mass destruction evidence and some of the wider regional matters for consideration. I understand you have prepared for the Committee a memorandum on the nuclear program generally and we look forward to receiving that[2]

  (Dr Samore) Yes, that is right.

  Mr Maples

  111. I think I would like to hear you tell us about the status and how far advanced you think Iran's nuclear weapons program is and also our understanding is—I think it is common knowledge—that they are developing longer range missiles and rockets than some of their neighbouring countries have. What is the status? How far advanced do you think it is? How far are they from a deliverable weapon?

  (Dr Samore) For years government experts like myself have warned that Iran was tyring to develop nuclear weapons but we could never talk about it very much because of the constraints of classified information. Now the cover has blown off Iran's nuclear weapons program and over the last couple of months there have been a series of public reports about facilities that Iran is building which can directly support their efforts to produce a fissile material for nuclear weapons. Perhaps you will have an opportunity to visit these facilities when you visit there. One is a heavy water production plant near a town called Arak and another is a gas centrifuge enrichment facility, also under construction, near a town called Natanz. Both of these facilities are still under construction. I think the exact status is a little murky, but I would say they are still a few years away from being operational. What is interesting about Iran's nuclear weapons program is that unlike other countries that have been party to the NPT[3] and have tried to cheat on their Treaty obligations by building undeclared clandestine facilities—like North Korea and Iraq—the Iranians will try to build these facilities under IAEA[4] safeguards, under international monitoring. They will try to claim them as being part of their civil nuclear program in order to build up the capabilities so that if they wanted to in the future they could make a political decision to leave the Treaty and build nuclear weapons; use those same facilities to produce nuclear weapons. I think they are still a couple of years away from being able to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons. That is the key point.


  112. Do they have the bomb technology? Can they weaponise what they have?
  (Dr Samore) It is very difficult to say. That is an area that is extremely difficult to get information about. If you look at the state of their conventional military capability and the kind of work they can do with explosives and manufacturing ordinary ordnance, it is fairly well advanced. The basic principles for relatively primitive nuclear weapons is so well known that I cannot believe that they would not be able to do it, given the commitment of resources. Whether they are actually carrying out such a program, I do not know. That is something obviously the regime is not going to acknowledge.

  113. Are you going on to the missiles?
  (Dr Samore) Yes. Their missile program is much more advanced, mainly because they have benefited so directly from North Korean assistance, starting in the early 1990s and have the technology and production facilities to manufacture liquid fuel scud type missiles. They are now, I would say, reasonably close to being able to manufacture their own version of an extended range scud missile which the Iranians call the Shahab 3, which the North Koreans call the No Dong. It is the same missile.

  114. What is the range?
  (Dr Samore) About thirteen hundred kilometres. It depends a little bit on some technical details about exactly what materials it is manufactured from. It could be thirteen hundred to fifteen hundred kilometres.

  115. Are they working on a longer range one than that?
  (Dr Samore) The Iranian regime is very sophisticated in that they do not want—or they are trying to avoid—to antagonise and raise political opposition by their activities. What they claim is that they are satisfied with the Shahab 3 as the longest range military system they need because that reaches all the potential enemies in the Middle East, including Israel. But they say they still want to work on a peaceful space launch vehicle, so they are working on a peaceful longer range system. This is comparable to their strategy in the nuclear weapons area where they claim they have purely peaceful purposes. But if you look at the actual facilities they are building they are completely unjustified by the civilian program and obviously intend to give them a nuclear weapons production program.

  116. So there is a really serious missile and nuclear weapons program going on, is there?
  (Dr Samore) Yes, I would say so.

  117. Is the missile designed to carry a nuclear weapon or are there other weapons of mass destruction?
  (Dr Samore) Iran is certainly thought to have chemical weapons and biological weapons programs. As to the exact status of those programs I think that is very difficult to be able to ascertain. They are party to the chemical weapons convention and so in theory they are subject to challenge inspections. If the United States or the United Kingdom were to call for a challenge inspection, that could take place. There are certainly very strong suspicions in western governments that Iran does have some clandestine chemical weapons capability, not only production capability but perhaps even some munitions. That certainly could be delivered by their Shahab 3 missile.

  118. My understanding is that northern Iran is so far from the sea or land based interceptor systems that if missiles were launched from northern Iran it would be very difficult for an anti-ballistic missile system to catch them. Is that right?
  (Dr Samore) I think it depends on the capabilities of the system.

  119. Sorry, a land or sea based system. It could be done with spaced based or air borne lasers. Could you take us through the issues that are at stake here?
  (Dr Samore) I think that Israel—which is obviously worried about being attacked by missiles—had tried to develop the Arrow anti-missile defence system which is intended to cover the Shahab 3 type systems. As to the exact technical capability of the system and whether it will actually perform as expected or is advertised, I just do not know the answer.


2   Ev 47. Back

3   Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Back

4   International Atomic Energy Agency. Back


 
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