Interdict WMD Smugglers
at Sea
William R. Hawkins
Proceedings, December 2004
The Proliferation Security Initiative seeks to stop the flow of weapons
of mass destruction (WMD), in part by boarding suspect vessels and seizing
WMD-related cargoes—as exercised here in October 2004 by naval forces
from Japan, Australia, France, and the United States. Stopping ships
of nonsignatory nations in international waters is controversial, but
not without precedent.
At the National Defense University on 11 February 2004, President George
W. Bush outlined new measures aimed at countering the spread of weapons
of mass destruction. He said, “These terrible weapons are becoming easier
to acquire, build, hide, and transport. Armed with a single vial of
a biological agent or a single nuclear weapon, small groups of fanatics,
or failing states, could gain the power to threaten great nations, threaten
the world peace.”
The President’s remarks were given special meaning by the recent exposure
of the trading network of nuclear weapons technology run by Abdul Qadeer
Khan, the “father” of Pakistan’s atomic arms program. Using a factory
in Malaysia, Khan and his associates manufactured key parts for centrifuges
used to transform uranium hexafluoride into enriched uranium for nuclear
bombs. The network also sold uranium hexafluoride. Other components
were purchased through network operatives based in Europe, Africa, and
the Middle East. Dubai served as the entrepôt, where shipments were
gathered for transport by sea to clients through a front company.
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SPANISH DEFENSE MINISTRY
On 10 December 2002, Spanish forces conducted
a hostile boarding of the North Korean cargo ship So San in the
Indian Ocean. The boarding team later found 15 disassembled Scud
missiles concealed under bags of cement. While it had been legal
to stop and search the So San because she was not flying a flag,
her cargo was not deemed illegal, and she was permitted to sail
on to Yemen. Can the United States allow a dangerous rogue regime
such as North Korea the freedom to ship armaments to unstable areas
and use that money to prop up its dictatorship and menace its neighbors?
|
U.S. and British intelligence worked for
years to penetrate the Khan network. Finally, in September 2003, they
identified a shipment of centrifuge parts manufactured at the Malaysia
plant. They followed the shipment to Dubai, where it was transferred
to the BBC China, a ship owned by the German firm BBC Chartering & Logistic
GmbH & Co. but using the Antigua & Barbuda flag of convenience. After
the ship passed through the Suez Canal and headed for Libya, German
and Italian authorities intervened. The centrifuge parts were found
in several containers listed on the ship’s manifest as “used machine
parts.”[1]
President Bush credited seizure of this shipment with helping to convince
Libyan dictator Moammar Ghadafi to end his nuclear and chemical weapons
programs and not to pursue biological weapons. With the invasion and
regime change in Iraq
also before him, Ghadafi agreed to allow inspections by the International
Atomic Energy Agency and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical
Weapons.
(continued)
© 2004 The Naval Institute. All rights reserved.
