 |
|
| Founders | David Albright |
|---|---|
| Type | Think tank |
| Founded | 1993 |
| Headquarters | Washington, DC |
| Staff | David Albright |
| Area served | Predominantly United States of America |
| Focus | Nuclear nonproliferation[1] |
| Motto | To inform "the public about science and policy issues affecting international security".[1] |
| Website | www.isis-online.org |
The Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) is a non-profit institution founded in 1993 to inform "the public about science and policy issues affecting international security".[1] The group is led by founder and former United Nations IAEA nuclear inspector David Albright.[2]
Contents |
The groups says that its board consists of the following members:[3]
The groups says that it receives its funding from the Ploughshares Fund, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the United States Institute of Peace, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Ford Foundation, the Smith Richardson Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, the W. Alton Jones Foundation, and others.[4]
The groups says that its staff consists of some of the following people:[5]
Khidir Hamza, an Iraqi scientist who worked for Saddam Hussein's nuclear program in the 1980s and early 1990s, also worked at ISIS from 1997 to 1999. After his employment at ISIS, Hamza at one point asserted that Saddam Hussein was within months of developing a nuclear bomb in the promotion of a book. David Albright later said many of Hamza's claims, including those about the importance of Hamza’s role, “were just ridiculous.” No evidence of an active Iraqi nuclear program was found.[6]
The institute regularly publishes technical analyses of nuclear proliferation programs by examining technical data and satellite imagery. ISIS is cited in non-proliferation circles and in international media regarding its analysis. The majority of the current material produced by ISIS is focused on the analysis and monitoring of the nuclear programs of North Korea, Iran, Pakistan, Syria, and cases of worldwide illicit nuclear trade.[7]
In August 1991, David Albright and Mark Hibbs, writing for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists wrote that there were many technological challenges unsolved with Iran's nuclear program. Albright and Hibbs wrote that Iraq's nuclear program "was so primitive that the international sanctions put in place after the August 2 invasion may have had more substantive effect than the tons of bombs dropped by U.S. and allied planes five months later".[8]
David Albright made a number of comments during the lead up to and breakout of the 2003 Iraq War.
The New York Times quoted Albright in November 2002 as saying "we still don't know why they wanted nuclear weapons and what they intended to do with them."[9]
In response to Iraqi aluminum tubes, Albright said it was far from clear that the tubes were intended for a uranium centrifuge.[10] "If the U.S. government puts out bad information it runs a risk of undermining the good information it possesses. In this case, I fear that the information was put out there for a short-term political goal: to convince people that Saddam Hussein is close to acquiring nuclear weapons."[11]
In an October 2002 posting ISIS published a report which said "One of the most significant accomplishments of the intrusive inspections mandated by UN Security Council in 1991 is that Iraq is not believed to have nuclear weapons now. This single accomplishment demonstrates both the power and value of intrusive nuclear inspections in Iraq." The report further argued that "the nuclear inspection process provided a powerful deterrent against Iraq reconstituting its nuclear weapons program until inspectors left in late 1998."[12]
In January 2003, Fox News quoted Albright as saying "the United States at that point is going to have to produce its own evidence that there are weapons of mass destruction, or just decide to go ahead anyway."[13]
In a February 2003 posting ISIS published a report which said "Iraq is obligated to limit the diameter of its missiles to less than 600 millimeters and their range to less than 150 kilometers. Inspectors assessed that Iraq could not mount a nuclear warhead on a missile with a diameter less than 600 millimeters. Thus, any effort by Iraq to increase the diameter of its missiles raises serious questions as to whether Iraq is seeking to make its missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons."[14]
In March 2003, USA Today quoted Albright as saying "It may turn out that the Iraqis have significantly less weapons of mass destruction than the Bush administration has claimed."[15] The Washington Post quoted Albright in March 2003 saying he still believed there was a hidden nuclear weapons program to be found.[16]
Albright, in recalling one conversation shortly after US forces invaded Iraq in 2003, said "I told them an international effort was needed immediately to halt the Iranians’ program before it was too late. These guys all had such a holier-than-thou attitude. They said what’s the worry, we’ll just turn East (from Iraq) and soon there’d be no Islamic Republic to threaten anyone."[17]
ISIS has been following the circumstances surrounding the Iranian nuclear program and has created a website dedicated to informing readers about the history of Iran's nuclear program and facilities, providing IAEA reports, providing information about diplomatic efforts, and providing ISIS technical assessments.[18]
A June 2009 posting on ISIS argued that "we do know that a lasting, military solution to Iran’s nuclear program is not realistic. This leaves diplomacy as the best route to bring about a suspension of Iran’s uranium enrichment program, regardless of who holds Iran’s presidency."[19]
On October 2, 2009 ISIS posted a subject to revision working document with an unknown author which it described as an "Internal IAEA Document on Alleged Iranian Nuclear Weaponization".[20] The document led media to report that Iran has tested a two-point implosion design.[21] Gordon Oehler, who ran the CIA’s nonproliferation center and served as deputy director of the presidential commission on weapons of mass destruction, wrote “if someone has a good idea for a missile program, and he has really good connections, he’ll get that program through.. But that doesn’t mean there is a master plan for a nuclear weapon.”[22] Outside experts noted that the parts of the report made public lack many dates associated with Iran's alleged activities.[23] The Washington Post reported that "nowhere are there construction orders, payment invoices, or more than a handful of names and locations possibly connected to the projects."[24] Former IAEA Director Mohamed ElBaradei said the Agency didn't have any information that nuclear material has been used and didn't have any information that any components of nuclear weapons had been manufactured.[25] Iran asserted that the documents were a fabrication, while the IAEA urged Iran to be more cooperative and Member States to provide more information about the allegations to be shared with Iran.[26]
In December 2009, the conservative-leaning[27][28] Times of London, working with ISIS analysis, claimed that a document from an unnamed Asian intelligence agency described the use of a neutron source which has no use other than in a nuclear weapon, and claimed the document appeared to be from an office in Iran's Defense Ministry and may have been from around 2007.[29][30] The Institute for Science and International Security, said that it “urges caution and further assessment” of the document and noted that "the document does not mention nuclear weapons .. and we have seen no evidence of an Iranian decision to build them.”[31] Western intelligence agencies did not give any authentication to the document,[31] while Russia noted that though the IAEA is in possession of these documents, the IAEA's findings "do not contain any conclusions about the presence of undeclared nuclear activities in Iran."[32] In response to allegations that the document was forged from Iran and some within the United States,[33][34] Albright said ISIS felt "that this document does need to be authenticated, and we welcome a debate and actually a collecting [of] information from people, people who've done linguistic analysis, inside information".[35] Anton Khlopkov, the founding director of the Center for Energy and Security Studies, said the media leak may be being used "as a pretext for inciting the campaign against Iran."[36]
On July 14, 2009 ISIS posted a report saying an illicit trading case suggested "that North Korea is either helping Myanmar develop its own ballistic missile capabilities or using it as a turntable to route items to North Korea or another country."[37] A report in the Sydney Morning Herald and Searchina, a Japanese newspaper, reported defectors from Myanmar claimed that the Myanmar junta was secretly building a nuclear reactor and plutonium extraction facility with North Korea's help, with the aim of acquiring its first nuclear bomb in five years. According to the report, "the secret complex, much of it in caves tunneled into a mountain at Naung Laing in northern Burma, runs parallel to a civilian reactor being built at another site by Russia that both the Russians and Burmese say will be put under international safeguards."[38] During an ASEAN meeting in Thailand in July 2009, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton highlighted concerns of the North Korean link. "We know there are also growing concerns about military cooperation between North Korea and Burma which we take very seriously," Clinton said.[39]
A National Journal profile in 2004 called Albright a “go-to guy for media people seeking independent analysis on Iraq’s [weapons of mass destruction] programs.”[40]
In 2006, David Albright received the prestigious Joseph A. Burton Forum Award from the American Physical Society, a professional society of American physicists. He was cited for "his tireless and productive efforts to slow the transfer of nuclear weapons technology. He brings a unique combination of deep understanding, objectivity, and effectiveness to this vexed area.”[40]
Scott Ritter, chief United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998, wrote in 2008 that while Albright has a master of science degree in physics from Indiana University and a master of science in mathematics from Wright State University, "he has never worked as a nuclear physicist on any program dedicated to the design and/or manufacture of nuclear weapons. He has never designed nuclear weapons and never conducted mathematical calculations in support of testing nuclear weapons, nor has he ever worked in a facility or with an organization dedicated to either." Ritter wrote that a nuclear expert would not have had any association with Khidir Hamza, the disgraced Iraqi defector who claimed to have firsthand knowledge of Saddam Hussein’s nuclear program. "A true nuclear expert would have recognized the technical impossibilities and inconsistencies in Hamza’s fabrications," Ritter wrote. Ritter said that Albright likewise facilitated the story of former Iraqi nuclear scientist Mahdi Obeidi being told to the world. Ritter concluded that "Albright, operating under the guise of his creation, ISIS, has a track record of inserting hype and speculation about matters of great sensitivity in a manner which skews the debate toward the worst-case scenario".[41]
   | ISIS website - Institute for Science and International Security |
|
|
Wikis
Map
Search
