Winter 03.Qxd

ADV•CACY Michael A. Levi is a fellow for science and technology in the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C. Weapons Scientists as Whistle Blowers Michael A. Levi On January 23, 2003, as United Nations not just from Iraq, but from any suspect inspectors combed Iraq for weapons of mass regime. To prevent such an initiative from destruction (WMD), a bipartisan group of being seen as merely an instrument of U.S. six U.S. senators introduced the Iraqi Scien- intelligence agencies and to secure the coop- tists Immigration Act of 2003. Weapons in- eration of international organizations, Wash- spectors had long argued that testimony ington should also pursue agreements aimed from Iraqi scientists was key to penetrating at affording whistle blowers protections un- the regime’s WMD programs. But with the der international law. potential for retribution from Saddam Hussein looming over their heads, the sci- Why Scientists Matter entists were unwilling to talk. The bill Scientific insiders have been key to alert- sought to remedy that situation by estab- ing us to the existence of WMD programs lishing a fast-track immigration procedure since the beginning of the nuclear age. In for Iraqi weapons scientists willing to aid August 1939, Albert Einstein and fellow the inspectors. nuclear physicist Leo Szilard wrote to Pres- The bill passed the Senate unanimously ident Roosevelt to warn him that Hitler’s on March 24—a day too late. The night be- Germany was secretly developing an atomic fore, frustrated by the failure of the U.N. bomb, a contribution historians consider inspectors to penetrate Iraq’s weapons pro- key to alerting FDR to the potential Nazi grams, President Bush had ordered the U.S. nuclear threat. military to commence operations to dis- In 1989, Vladimir Pasechnik, formerly arm Saddam Hussein and remove him from the general director of the Soviet Union’s power. The plodding pace of American law- Science Production Organization, defected making had been outmatched by the speed to Britain and alerted Western authorities to with which military operations could be the existence of a massive Soviet biological launched. weapons program, which Russian president Yet rather than discrediting the princi- Boris Yeltsin confirmed three years later. (In ples underlying the bill, the Iraq experience the interim, Ken Alibek, a former senior suggests the need for their more robust— deputy director of Biopreparat—the cover and timely—implementation in the future. for the Soviet biological weapons program— Washington clearly views the proliferation also defected and provided information on of WMD as among the most serious threats the program.) to U.S. security and the maintenance of in- During the early 1990s, following the ternational order, and experts broadly agree first Gulf War, defecting Iraqi scientists re- that defector accounts are essential for early vealed that Iraq had pursued an extensive detection of hidden WMD programs. The clandestine biological weapons program. United States should therefore establish a As a result of these revelations, the pro- permanent program to encourage and program was uncovered; indeed, the discovery vide protection for scientist-whistle blowers, may have deterred Saddam Hussein from Weapons Scientists as Whistle Blowers 57 reviving his WMD programs before the sec- shoulders. Or, scientists might have helped ond Gulf War. uncover parts of the program that had been It should come as no surprise that scien- put in cold storage, helping to build inter- tists have been and continue to be key to national consensus about the war’s legitima- exposing clandestine WMD programs, since cy. Last June, former Iraqi nuclear scientist physical indicators of such programs are of- Mahdi Obeidi led American inspectors to ten hard to find. Most materials needed for centrifuge components buried in his garden. WMD research, development, and production Those components were no proof that Sad- have alternative uses, making their importa- dam had posed an imminent threat, but if tion a poor flag of illicit activity. Nuclear they had been discovered during the prewar weapons production requires dedicated fa- inspections, there would have been wider cilities, but these can be hidden from pry- agreement that Iraq was misleading the ing eyes. Unlike nuclear power plants, U.N. inspectors and perhaps less diplomatic with their large telltale cooling towers, discord in the months preceding the U.S. which are easily spotted through satellite invasion. imagery, underground centrifuge-based ura- On another front, scientist-defectors nium enrichment plants, which consume might help determine the nature of Iran’s little electricity and emit few, if any, telltale nuclear program. Observers have been fo- waste products, are essentially invisible. cused on a gas-centrifuge facility at Natanz, Apparently both North Korea and Iran have which Iran claims is for making power plant built such facilities for producing weapons- fuel, but which can be converted to make grade uranium. Biological and chemical weapons-grade uranium. If Iran, which is a weapons programs are even harder to find, signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation since production facilities can easily be dis- Treaty (NPT), is considering converting the guised as civilian industrial plants, with Natanz facility for this purpose, scientists their dual use imperceptible even to visiting somewhere must be drawing up the plans, experts. Only insiders—particularly, scien- which defectors might reveal. Similarly, if tists—can alert the outside world to their Iran wants to extract plutonium from its true purpose. used nuclear fuel, engineers must be design- If Iraqi scientists had been willing and ing a reprocessing plant; if it has imported able to speak out before last March, might undeclared equipment for a second, clandes- the war against Iraq have been averted? tine, uranium enrichment facility, scientists According to the most widely held current were likely involved in the procurement; theory about Iraq’s prewar activities—sup- and if it wishes to assemble a functioning ported by the details of the interim report bomb, scientific and engineering work on by the Iraq Survey Group, the American bomb design, including specialized explo- team dispatched to hunt for WMD in Iraq— sives arrangements suitable only for nuclear Saddam Hussein had retained the seeds of a weapons, has likely been initiated. If even weapons program since the end of the first one scientist with information about one of Gulf War but had destroyed munitions and these activities came forward, it would con- major production facilities, and had halted tribute immeasurably to our understanding nuclear weapons development. Defecting of what Iran is up to. scientists might have been able to convince Washington that Iraq had essentially dis- A Safe Haven mantled its nuclear, chemical, and biologi- Scientists, however, are unlikely to defect cal weapons programs, though this is un- and inform if they believe that either they likely since the burden of proof had already or their families will be targeted by the been placed squarely on Saddam Hussein’s regimes for which they work. Moreover, sci- 58 WORLD POLICY JOURNAL • WINTER 2003/04 entists fleeing states where they would be clean, leaving them unprotected and open to persecuted for exposing illicit weapons pro- retribution from their governments. To ad- grams have ambiguous status as refugees dress this problem, the United States could under international law. The United Na- assume the burden of proof itself: unless a tions Convention and Protocol Relating to defector’s claim could be disproved, he (or the Status of Refugees excludes from protec- she) would be given protection. This ap- tion any person who “has been guilty of acts proach would reassure any honest whistle contrary to the purposes and principles of blower that he would be protected and the United Nations.” Scientists who had would thus be more effective in inducing participated in an illegal WMD program defections. would likely fall into that category. Such a Unfortunately, this approach could also scientist could not be confident that he backfire. Scientists seeking green cards could find protection outside his home might provide false accusations, betting that country. their claims would never be verified. Unless In principle, there is a simple solution carefully structured, such an approach to this problem: the United States could might lead to abuse, discrediting the asy- offer a green card to any scientist with evi- lum system and ultimately leading to its de- dence of a clandestine WMD program who mise. One way to address this dilemma is willing to defect and speak out. There are would be to apply different standards to problems with such an approach, however. whistle blowers from different countries. Consider, for example, a hypothetical scien- Legislation could be enacted providing asy- tist who defects and claims protection under lum for whistle blowers from any state at the new American plan. He testifies that a any time, with the burden of proof resting certain facility, which he can identify on a on the whistle blower. But the legislation map, is being used to produce anthrax for could also contain a provision allowing the use as a biological weapon. How credible president to designate specific states as be- must the defector’s account be for him to ing of urgent proliferation concern. Defect- be granted protection? One approach would ing scientists from those states would be place the burden on the defector—unless presumed to be telling the truth about illic- his claim could be verified, he would not it weapons programs; if they could be be given protection. This approach would shown to have lied, they would be stripped likely work with claims about large, fixed of their special protection and deported. facilities that have no legitimate alternative Such legislation would also have to es- uses, such as undeclared plutonium repro- tablish penalties to deter scientists from de- cessing plants or uranium enrichment facili- liberately lying.

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