Clinton Legacy Watch # 19: Will Gore-Chernomyrdin At Last Put a Halt to Russia’s Dangerous Nuclear Sales to Cuba, Iran?

(Washington, D.C.): Next week, the United States will host the tenth in a series of secret
meetings in which high-level representatives of the U.S. and Russian governments strive to find
ways to advance the bilateral relationship. All too often, these meetings of what has
come to
be called the Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission (GCC) after its two principals, Vice
President
Al Gore and Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, have proven to be forums for
the
United States to paper over real differences with and otherwise make concessions to
Moscow. The American delegation must use this session to break the mold — by
insisting that
the Kremlin halt activities that pose real threats to U.S. interests and/or
citizens: Russia’s
dangerous nuclear cooperation with Cuba and Iran.

The Russians Breathe New Life Into a Nuclear Nightmare in
Cuba

Such an agenda has become all the more essential within recent days. In the wake of bilateral
meetings last month between Cuban and Russian government and non-government officials, (the
appropriately titled) Russian Minister of Emergency Situation, Sergey Shoygu, announced:
“Russia has decided to extend the $350 million line of credit opened by Moscow in 1994
to
finance the supplies of Russian materials and equipment to Cuba for the construction
and
overhaul of 12 highly important installations.”⁽¹⁾

Most notable among these installations is the partially completed nuclear power
complex at
Juragua, near Cienfuegos, Cuba — 180 miles upwind from the U.S. mainland. Moscow
and
Havana launched this ambitious two-reactor venture in 1982 using designs (the obsolescent
VVER-440), equipment and financing provided by the former Soviet Union and a predominantly
Cuban workforce to perform the construction.

In 1992, following the collapse of the USSR — and the attendant disruption in the Kremlin’s
ability to underwrite such dubious, colonial ventures — Castro announced that this project was
being suspended. As the Center for Security Policy predicted at the time, this was merely a stay
of execution for the millions of Americans downwind from the Juragua reactors href=”#N_2_”>⁽²⁾: Fidel simply
had too much invested (nearly the equivalent of one year of Cuba’s total hard currency
income)
and too much riding (in terms of personal prestige and future economic
viability) on completion
of this high visibility program not to insist that one (or both) of these power plants be
brought on-line eventually, despite the inherent flaws that virtually assure they will suffer
catastrophic failures.

The magnitude of this danger has been confirmed by, among others: congressional
committees;
the General Accounting Office; defectors who previously were responsible for the so-called
“quality control” program and other aspects of the Juragua construction; and American nuclear
and national security experts.⁽³⁾ They have identified the
following as among the most ominous of
these reactors’ irremediable flaws:

• Sixty percent of the Soviet-supplied materials used in these reactors are
  defective. Soviet
  advisors reportedly told Cuban officials they could not guarantee that valves installed in the
  reactor’s emergency cooling system would function under certain conditions.
• Much of the reactor’s equipment — including the reactor vessel, six steam
  generators, five
  primary coolant pumps, twelve isolation valves and other sensitive gear — was left
  exposed to
  the elements and sea air after the project was discontinued — a total of some five years
  at
  this writing.
• In a number of cases, equipment designed for one specific function has been used
  for
  other purposes when the appropriate components were unavailable. This sort of
  jury-rigging
  increases the chances of systemic failures.
• Construction supporting primary reactor components contains numerous
  structural
  defects.
• The first reactor’s dome would not be able to contain overpressures associated
  with
  meltdown conditions. The upper portion of the containment dome has been designed to
  withstand pressures of seven pounds-per-square-inch — versus some 50 pounds-per-square-inch
  required of U.S. reactors.
• As many as fifteen percent of the 5,000 welds in the reactor’s auxiliary plumbing
  system,
  containment dome and spent fuel-cooling system are known to be flawed. According to
  Vladimir Cervera, the senior engineer responsible for overseeing quality control at the Juragua
  reactor, X-rays showed welded pipe joints weakened by air pockets, bad soldering and heat
  damage. Bear in mind that, if a single weld in a U.S. reactor were suspected
  of being
  defective, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would suspend its operations.
• Cuba’s human and technological infrastructure is inadequate to build and operate
  this
  nuclear facility.
• Even if there were no construction problems, the Juragua reactors’ design would be a serious
  liability. According to an April 1992 report by the U.S. Council for Energy Awareness ,
  “The
  VVER design is very different [from Western counterparts] and does not meet Western
  safety standards.” In fact, the German government was so concerned about the four
  VVER-440 reactors it inherited from East Germany that it shut them down within days of
  reunification. None too soon, according to NBC News, as one of these same reactors was
  perilously close to a “meltdown.”⁽⁴⁾

Taken together, these defects make it impossible to create safe
nuclear power plants out
of the partially constructed Juragua facilities. No amount of sophisticated Western
instrumentation, know-how or training — let alone that available from Russia — will rectify
deficiencies that can, as a practical matter, only be corrected by razing the site and starting afresh.

A Mortal Threat to the U.S. Mainland

Should one or more of these defects cause a failure of the cooling system in a
Juragua
reactor, there would likely be a nuclear meltdown and release of substantial quantities of
radioactive pollution. Such fallout would not be confined to Cuba. Indeed, according
to a
National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency analysis href=”#N_5_”>⁽⁵⁾:

“Based on climatological data for the summer 1991 and winter ’91-’92 the summer
east-to-west trade winds would carry radioactive pollutants over all Florida and
portions of Gulf states as far west as Texas in about four days. In winter, when
trade-winds are weaker and less persistent, pollutants would encounter strong
westerly winds that could move the pollutants toward the east, possibly as far
north as Virginia and Washington, D.C., in about four days.“

Damage to human life would be further exacerbated by the pollution of many thousands
of
square miles of rich ocean fishing grounds in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico.
Immediate
steps must be taken to assure that such a catastrophe never occurs.

Exit Mikhailov, Enter Adamov

A further impetus for Vice President Gore to use the upcoming GCC meeting to demand that
Russia stop helping Cuba pose this nuclear threat to the United States should be the announced
choice for a successor to Russian Minister of Atomic Energy Viktor Mikhailov — Yevgeny
Adamov. In his previous capacity as head of the Research & Design Institute of Power
Engineering, Adamov was best known for being the main designer of the RBMK power reactor
that failed catastrophically in Chernobyl in April 1986. He has spent much of the succeeding
years explaining away that human and environmental disaster and arguing against shutting down
sister reactors before the end of their design life.

As the trade publication Nucleonics Week reported in its 30 July 1992 edition:

“‘Every eastern country [other than Russia] attending the meeting [in Brussels that
month on the RBMKs] and the G-24′ favored their near-term decommissioning,
[Germany’s top nuclear safety official, Klaus] Toepfer said…. Other German officials
said some members of the Russian nuclear establishment are willing to shut the RBMKs
ahead of schedule. ‘But Adamov is in there to defend the life work of the group that
designed the RBMKs. The stronger Adamov’s position, the longer those reactors
will stay on line and pose a safety threat,’ one official said.” (Emphasis added.)

Meanwhile, Back in Iran

If the Cuban nuclear time-bomb were not bad enough, the Russian government is pressing
forward with its assistance to Iran’s nuclear program. On 22 February, the Washington
Post
reported, “Russia has decided to expand its role in building a controversial nuclear power station
in Iran, despite objections from the United States and Israel that the technology could be
useful
in creating a nuclear weapons program.” (Emphasis added.)

The renewed effort is the continuation of a 1995, $780 million deal to finish a nuclear reactor
in
Bushehr, Iran which was started back in 1974 with German assistance. Recent press reports and
statements by high-level Russian MINATOM officials, including Mikhailov, indicate that the
project is running behind schedule and its completion was in jeopardy. This latest infusion of
capital and, more importantly, scientific expertise represents a concerted effort on the part of the
Russians to push ahead and finish the reactor. “Iran is not able to cope with its share of the
work,” Mikhailov told a news conference when announcing the expanded Russian role. “In order
to meet the deadline Russia should take charge of everything, and the Iranian side has agreed to
this.”

As the New York Times reported yesterday, there is reason to believe that
Adamov will happily
follow Mikhailov’s lead:

“Mr. Adamov, 58, a nuclear engineer, went to Teheran last month with Viktor
N.
Mikhailov, the minister who was ousted Monday, to meet with Iranian officials.
Mr. Adamov later assured American officials that he had no intention of helping Iran
develop nuclear weapons. But the trip still touched off concerns in Washington, which
has been trying to restrict Russian nuclear cooperation of any sort with Iran.”

“His abrupt removal on Monday raised hopes that Russia’s aggressive nuclear
marketing might end. But the selection of Mr. Adamov is widely seen as an
indication that Mr. Mikhailov’s spirit will live on.” (Emphasis added.)

The Bottom Line

Vice President Gore is on the record as believing that the Bushehr reactor project to be a
vehicle
for Iran to acquire materiel and know-how needed to realize its ambitions to become a nuclear
weapons state. For example, on 23 September 1997, Mr. Gore declared, “…It is obvious
that
there is a vigorous effort by Iran to obtain the technologies that it needs to build a ballistic
missile and to build nuclear weapons.”

Nuclear weapons in the hands of a state-sponsor of terrorism, like the prospect of a
Chernobyl-in-
the-making upwind from millions of Americans, are questions of vital American
interests. If
Prime Minister Chernomyrdin is determined to press forward with these projects, Vice President
Gore must present him with a stark choice: Russia can do business with Iran and Cuba
or it
can do business with — and receive assistance from — the United States, but not
both.
Failure to do so now will make the Vice President complicit in the tragedies sure to ensue from
Russia’s reckless nuclear cooperation with America’s adversaries.

– 30 –

1. It is interesting that Russia is somehow able to extend
multi-hundred million-dollar lines of
credit to Cuba at the same time it is desperately seeking new cash infusions from the IMF and
other Western sources.

2. See the Center’s Decision Brief entitled
Castro’s Potemkin Nuclear Shutdown: Chernobyl
at Cienfuegos Still in Prospect (No. 92-D
108, 10 September 1992).

3. For example, see: Report to the Chairman, Concerns about
the Nuclear Power Reactors in
Cuba (GAO/RCED-92-262), September 1992, prepared for the Subcommittee on Nuclear
Regulation, Committee on Environment and Public Works, U.S. Senate; testimony before the
Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, Committee on International Relations, House of
Representatives, Concerns about the Nuclear Power Reactors in Cuba
(GAO/RCED-95-236, 1
August 1995); statement by Richard J. K. Stratford, Director of Nuclear Energy Affairs, U.S.
Department of State before the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere of the Committee on
International Relations, U.S. House of Representatives, 1 August 1995; and testimony by the
former Senior Director of International Economic Affairs at the National Security Council, Roger
W. Robinson, Jr., before the House Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on the
Western Hemisphere, “Cuba and the Juragua Nuclear Power Plant,” 1 August 1995.

4. NBC Nightly News, 29 May 1991.

5. Transport and Dispersion for a Potential Accidental Release
of Radioactive Pollutants From
the Nuclear Reactor at Cienfuegos, Cuba, Jerome L. Heffter and Barbara J. B. Stunder,
NOAA,
Air Resources Laboratory (August 1992)