THE ‘INSIDER THREAT’ PROBLEM

This leads to a final observation: the need to take the insider threat problem more seriously. There is a natural, but unfortunate, tendency in all elite security organizations to view terrorists as ‘outsiders’, foreign enemies seeking to harm our society. Yet, incidents of insider theft, sabotage or terrorist support have been witnessed in the security establishments of virtually all nuclear weapon States and many States with sensitive nuclear material. Such insider incidents are rare, but they are not non-existent.

Sabotage incidents by disgruntled workers were reported at some US nuclear facilities in the early 1990s, and concerns about recruitment of nuclear security guards by radical Rocky Mountain militia organizations emerged later in the decade. Many reported incidents of nuclear theft have been traced to insiders within the Russian nuclear establishment since the end of the Cold War. The arrest of two scientists from the Pakistani nuclear programme for their ties to Al-Qaida in the autumn of 2001 attests to the existence of insider threats in elite security organizations in South Asia. It is highly unlikely that any government is entirely immune from this problem.

The insider threat problem is a difficult one to deal with inside nuclear security organizations that pride themselves on their high degree of profession-alism and loyalty. Yet it will continue to be a vexing problem, especially as incentives grow to add more and more security guards and other forces in efforts to enhance the physical security of nuclear sites. An awareness of the insider threat problem should influence policy decisions concerning DBTs

(which should include insiders), PRPs and guard force recruitment, and monitoring and training at nuclear facilities in all of our countries.

In short, the threat of global terrorism requires a truly global and cooperative response. Governments must learn from their own successes and failures, but also from those of other States. We are all hostages to each other in this arena, and thus a failure by one is a failure for all.

I.A.H. NETO (Brazil): Often, when a developing country expresses an interest in acquiring a uranium enrichment capability, the question of its motives is raised and the argument that there is no economic justification for its acquiring such a capability is put forward. It is said that the country should rely on the international enrichment market for the nuclear fuel which it will need.

What is Mr. Guerreiro’s opinion regarding this issue?

A. GUERREIRO (Brazil): I have recently participated in the work of a group — convened by the IAEA Director General — on multilateral approaches to the nuclear fuel cycle, and in the group’s report there is a statement to the effect that, while there may be no economic justification in the short term for acquiring a uranium enrichment capability, there may be an economic justification in the long term.

One simply cannot predict what is going to happen in many years’ time, when what now seems to be a questionable action may prove to have been justified. In Brazil, for example, there was a big controversy about 50 years ago regarding the establishment of a State controlled oil company. Ultimately, Petrobras was established, with the State owning 51% of its shares, and thanks to its operations Brazil is almost self-sufficient in oil. I hate to think what Brazil’s trade balance would be like if Petrobras had not been established.

In my opinion, when considering the acquisition of a uranium enrichment capability one should adopt a long term approach. Moreover, possessing nuclear fuel cycle technology can produce spin-offs of value in other areas.

R. GOTTEMOELLER (United States of America): Mr. Guerreiro made a very good case for the use of various technologies by developing countries — by all countries in fact — in furthering their development.

However, countries sometimes leapfrog a technology and adopt a newer one that is more effective — as many developing countries have done in embracing mobile phone networks rather than landline networks. The current nuclear fuel cycle technology is a 60 year old technology with significant problems, including that of the link between peaceful and military uses.

Perhaps more emphasis should be placed on developing new nuclear fuel cycle technologies not associated with more problems.

A. GUERREIRO (Brazil): In my view, rather than restricting the spread of nuclear technology, we should ensure that the nuclear safeguards system is as effective as possible, giving a maximum degree of assurance that all countries are complying with their safeguards obligations.

S.B. ABDEL-HAMID (Egypt): In order to strengthen their nuclear security, developing countries need to acquire certain technologies, but

restric-tions are being placed on the necessary technology transfer. What can be done about that?

S.D. SAGAN (USA): The US Government is considering how other countries can be helped in the nuclear security area, through technology transfer and the provision of training. However, some people put what is in my view an excessively restrictive interpretation on NPT Article I, which states that each nuclear weapon State Party to the NPT undertakes — inter alia —

“not in any way to assist, encourage, or induce any non-nuclear-weapon State to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices, or control over such weapons or explosive devices.” They argue that helping non-nuclear-weapon States in the nuclear security area would run counter to NPT Article I. I should like to see the IAEA promoting a less restrictive interpretation of that article.

While I have the floor, I should like to say a few words about ‘best practices’, to which reference is frequently made in discussions regarding nuclear security. People seem to use the expression as if there were certain perfect practices whose adoption will solve all problems. In the nuclear security area, however, there are constantly new threats emerging, so that countries should constantly be thinking about how to make the best practices still better.

In my view, the IAEA could play a useful role in that connection.

T. RIGO (Indonesia): In my view, non-nuclear-weapon States wishing to embark on nuclear power programmes should be assisted in doing so if they are complying fully with their NPT obligations and have placed all their nuclear activities under strengthened IAEA safeguards. The international community should think more in terms of ‘carrots’, with rewards for compliance, than in terms of ‘sticks’, prompted by horrifying threat scenarios.

S.B. ELEGBA (Nigeria): I believe that such States should be encouraged to pursue their peaceful nuclear ambitions in a transparent manner and within the letter and spirit of the NPT and that — in line with what was said by Senator Nunn — the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) should ensure that such States can obtain the necessary nuclear fuel on economically reasonable terms, so that they do not have to develop a nuclear fuel production capability of their own.

C.R. STOIBER (USA): In the nuclear security area, reference is frequently made to ‘the insider threat’ associated with phenomena such as collusion, corruption and conflicts of interest. In my view, private companies generating nuclear power are probably in a better position to assess and counter the insider threat than governments. At conferences like this one, however, there are very few representatives of such companies. I should like to see something done to bridge the gap in the nuclear security area between the governmental culture and the private industry culture.

S.D. SAGAN (USA): I think the IAEA could make a start by diversifying the participation in such conferences through the inclusion not only of more representatives of private companies generating nuclear power but also of people like criminologists and experts in the workings of terrorist organiza-tions.

In this connection, I believe that what are sometimes narrow mindsets in the nuclear security area could perhaps be broadened through independent peer reviews along the lines of those carried out in the nuclear safety area.

S.C. RAMUSHU (South Africa): My country, which is a member of the NSG, is having problems with the NSG guidelines when nuclear security considerations have to be borne in mind.

S.D. SAGAN (USA): That is understandable — the question has arisen as to whether there are tensions between one guideline and another. This is an area where the IAEA could perhaps help.

A. NILSSON (IAEA): I see the issue as one of developing a common basis on which States could control their exports of nuclear technology in the light of nuclear security considerations. The IAEA may be able to assist in the development of such a common basis.

E.S. LYMAN (USA): In his presentation, Mr. Amano said that Japan was complying with the requirements of the IAEA’s INFCIRC/225/Rev.4 (Corrected) — The Physical Protection of Nuclear Material and Nuclear Facilities. However, that document was published before 11 September 2001, and some of its requirements should perhaps be reviewed. For example, it does not require that the persons guarding Category I nuclear material be armed.

At the Japanese facilities where large quantities of nuclear material are stored, are the security guards armed, and does Mr. Amano think that INFCIRC/225/Rev.4 (Corrected) should be reviewed in the light of the events of 11 September 2001?

Y. AMANO (Japan): Immediately after 11 September 2001 the Japanese Government, which is preparing to amend our relevant domestic laws, took a number of measures aimed at strengthening nuclear security in Japan. They included the introduction, at nuclear facilities, of around the clock patrols by special police and coastguard personnel, the intensification of cooperation with the national security agencies and the Ministry of Land Infrastructure and Transport, and the issuing of instructions to nuclear utilities that they restrict access to their facilities, tighten up checks on people entering and leaving those facilities, strengthen the monitoring of the areas around those facilities and organize their own patrols on a voluntary basis.