For months, foreign policy circles in DC have been abuzz with a new
acronym for a new supposed threat: a looming VIRUS (Venezuela, Iran,
and Russia). According to this theory, Venezuela's recent
cooperation agreements with Iran and Russia signal what is supposed
to be our worst nightmare: Venezuela and Russia could be helping
Iran develop nuclear weapons. Thankfully, this week's Wikileaks
releases have included two cables from Caracas, which handily refute
any such fears.
Simply put, a
cable from June 2009 tells us:
A plain-spoken nuclear physicist told Econoff that those
spreading rumors that Venezuela is helping third countries (i.e.
Iran) develop atomic bombs "are full of (expletive)."
Who has been spreading these rumors? The list includes some of the
most prominent foreign-policy voices in Washington:
* Robert Morgenthau, retired Manhattan District
Attorney, sounded alarm bells in a Wall
Street Journal op-ed, claiming that "two of the
world's most dangerous regimes... will be acting together in our
backyard on the development of nuclear and missile technology."
(My colleague Jake Johnston addresses Morgenthau's column directly
here.)
* Peter Brookes, Former Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary for
Asian and Pacific Affairs under President George W. Bush,
describes his fears at length in a New
York Post op-ed:
Some experts fear Caracas and Tehran may already have
some small-scale nuclear projects underway. Plus, the two
regimes are reportedly working on the mapping and mining of
Venezuela's uranium deposits, possibly the world's largest.
This would certainly benefit Iran, whose nuke program is
laboring under punitive sanctions that are meant to inhibit
access to supporting materials and technology. Clearly, getting
its hands on uranium won't be a problem for Caracas. ...Down the
road, the concern is that Iran will also share with Venezuela
the military dimensions of its nuclear program, such as
ballistic-missile and nuke-warhead systems and technology.
* Roger Noriega, Assistant Secretary of State for Western
Hemisphere Affairs under President George W. Bush, claims in a Wall
Street Journal op-ed that Venezuela's relationship
with Iran "provides the Iranian regime with a clandestine source
of uranium."
* John Bolton, US Ambassador to the United Nations under George
W. Bush, warns it "could easily result in a
uranium-for-nuclear-knowhow trade" in a Los
Angeles Times op-ed.
* Former Venezuelan Defense Minister Raul Salazar is quoted by
The
Washington Times as saying "the country's support of
Iran's nuclear program was pushing relations with Washington past
'the point of no return.'"
Yet the U.S. State Department and its sources are confident these
are baseless claims. They have four solid reasons for their
fearlessness:
1. Venezuela has no enrichment projects underway or foreseen, even
for domestic energy. A cable
from January 2009 summarizes the opinions of several Venezuelan
nuclear physicists. One of them expressed that:
...the current discussion of developing a domestic nuclear
energy program in Venezuela is only talk, as there are no serious
scientists involved and no project is underway. Even if the
government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (GBRV) were
serious, he said, it would take 10 to 15 years to make substantial
progress towards developing a nuclear energy program using
domestic resources.
2. Even if Venezuela were to start such a program, it doesn't have
proven uranium reserves. The January cable tells us that despite
media accounts "that according to government research in the 70's,
there might be three substantial uranium deposits in Venezuela ...
XXXXXXXXXXXX, however, was firm in his assertion that Venezuela has
little uranium." The June cable reinforces this:
XXXXXXXXXXXX added that former Venezuelan President of
the Inter-American Commission on Atomic Energy Julio Cesar
Pineda's May 8 statements to the press about Venezuela having more
than 50,000 tons of uranium were "funny" and "not too clever." ...
[H]e added, there is no indication of any interest on the part of
the government to resume uranium exploration or exploitation.
3. Even if Venezuela were to start a program and somehow acquire
uranium, it has no facilities for enrichment. From the January
cable:
While the Directorate has its own lab, XXXXXXXXXXXX said
he has personally verified that none of its equipment works. He
noted that the Directorate is a purely bureaucratic operation
where scientists do not conduct research but rather attend
numerous conferences abroad. ... he cited Venezuela's sole, and now
defunct, reactor at the GBRV's Venezuelan Institute for Scientific
Research (IVIC). USB [Universidad Simon Bolivar], he said, carried
off pieces of the 1950's era reactor several years ago for student
experiments.
4. Finally, the alternative to developing its own nuclear program
would be purchasing nuclear technology from abroad, presumably from
Russia. Such a strategy is highly unlikely, given that it would
require several years to put into practice. A source for the
January cable explains:
XXXXXXXXXXXX, who after the meeting identified himself
as a Russian-educated scientist of Cuban origin, added that the
Russians are fully capable of building adequate plants but they
would take five to eight years to complete and would cost billions
of dollars.
In short, despite efforts to paint cooperation as a threat of
nuclear proliferation, "there seems to be little basis in reality to
the claims. ... [It] is highly unlikely that Venezuela is providing
Venezuelan uranium to third countries." Hopefully this recent VIRUS
panic can go the way of the swine flu and the avian flu panics, and
our foreign policy dialogue can go back to tackling actual problems.