EurasiaNet Eurasia Insight - Missing Radioactive Generators in Georgia Rais "Dirty Bomb" Concerns

EURASIA INSIGHT

MISSING RADIOACTIVE GENERATORS IN GEORGIA RAIS "DIRTY BOMB" CONCERNS

Ken Stier 6/28/02

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) investigators failed to locate two highly radioactive thermoelectric generators during an extensive search in remote areas of western Georgia. The generators, which weigh one ton each, contain a similar amount of the radioactive element strontium-90 as was released during the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

The missing generators underscore the continued vulnerability of ’orphaned’ radioactive sources left in many parts of the former Soviet Union. Experts regard the thermoelectric generators as among the most dangerous unsecured radioactive sources so far identified in Georgia. Mark Gwozdecky, an IAEA spokesman, confirmed that strontium-90 is an element that can be used in a so-called dirty bomb, which could be used by terrorists to contaminate a sizable area.

The two-week-long IAEA mission, which concluded June 24, sought to recover eight reactors. Six were found - the last two in February. However, unofficial information indicates there may be as many as six other such generators unaccounted for, according to Sergei Kakushadze, the head of Georgia’s Nuclear and Radiation Safety Service.

"We are in a very difficult situation because we don’t have exact information - about where they are or even how many there are - we have no official information from Russia," he told EurasiaNet in an interview.

There is no way to pinpoint the exact number of radioactive "sources" in Georgia, according to Gwozdecky. "They were looking for eight, six were found. � It may be that the two others never existed. � No one knows for sure. This is the problem of the former Soviet Union."

Gwozdecky explained that records maintained during the Soviet era largely disappeared amid the chaos of the Newly Independent States’ political and economic transition. "When the Soviet Union collapsed, so went the regulatory infrastructure," he said.

Russian military forces in Georgia apparently abandoned radioactive sources in hundreds of places around Georgia - without ever notifying local authorities. This has prompted Georgian officials to condemn Moscow for what Valeri Chkheidze, the head of the Georgian Border Guards, termed "criminal nonchalance."

In some instances Russian military officials have disavowed any connection with radioactive material, even those found on former Soviet bases. At other times, Russia has pleaded that it lacks the resources to address the issue.

The IAEA announced in Vienna on June 26 a new US-Russian cooperative effort to track down orphaned radioactive sources throughout the former Soviet Union. US President George W. Bush recently pledged $25 million to the project for the first year.

The two missing thermoelectric generators in Georgia were apparently used to power communications towers, but Russian officials claimed at an April 8 meeting in Paris that they had no information about them because such documentation is routinely destroyed every five years, Kakushadze said.

The six generators recovered previously were measured at 35,000 curies which in itself can be considered a "radiation accident," according to another Georgian official. "This very significant, not enough to build a nuclear bomb but it could be used to build a dirty bomb, a terrorist bomb," explains Dr. Giorgi Nabakhtiani, an official at Georgia’s Environment Ministry.

However, Melissa Fleming, another IAEA official, downplayed the danger of terrorists obtaining the generators. "Our presumption is that if we can’t find it, then no terrorists can," Fleming said.

The most recent search for the missing generators was concentrated along a 160-kilometer stretch of the Inguri River valley in northwestern Georgia - the same area the other six have been discovered, starting in May 1999. Kakushadze said the 80-strong search team spent two weeks exploring an area four kilometers east of the river, and two kilometers to west of the river.

He said a renewed search - now planned for September - would need security guarantees in order to search the area close to the breakaway republic of Abkhazia.

According to Gwozdecky, about 280 radiation sources have been recovered in Georgia since the country gained independence in 1991, many being found at former Soviet military installations. The IAEA has been working in Georgia since 1997.

So far, roughly 120 radioactive sources have been transferred to a storage facility at an undisclosed location in Georgia, which is guarded by a special unit of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. While insisting the radioactive materials are quite safe, Kakushadze admitted the facility is temporary. He said he had no idea of the cost of a more permanent storage area, adding that Georgia does not have the budget for such a facility whatever the cost. His department has a staff of 12; his annual budget was largely expended by securing the last two generators, following an incident in which three woodsmen accidentally irradiated themselves last December.

Georgia has become a particular focus of the search for missing radiation sources in the former Soviet Union. During the Soviet era, the country hosted many former military facilities, and was also home to three nuclear research facilities � two of which used to produce weapons-grade uranium. International experts are also concerned by the high level of political and social instability in the country. The government in Tbilisi is hard-pressed to exert its authority far beyond the capital.

In addition, pervasive corruption has helped make Georgia a highly porous transit country for contraband, and there are few signs that extensive Western assistance has significantly improved the government’s interdiction capabilities. [For additional information see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Georgian border guards have received close to $100 million in assistance in recent years from the United States.

Visits to key border crossings found that four donated radiation detectors often did not operate properly. Some were not even turned on. "What’s the percentage in it for them," said one foreign official. Although Georgia does not manufacture nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, components used in the country’s industrial and medical sectors could be used in weapons of mass destruction.

In July 2000, Georgian state security agents intercepted three pounds of enriched uranium - in black pellet form - during a sting operation. The previous year another two pounds of enriched uranium were nabbed in a hotel in the Black Sea port of Batumi. In both cases the uranium - which may not have in been bomb-usable condition at the time - is believed to have originated from outside Georgia.

In the early 1990s, up to two kilograms of enriched uranium disappeared from a research lab on the outskirts of Sukhumi in Abkhazia. The lab was specifically dedicated to enriching uranium for bomb production. [For additional information, click here].

Gwozdecky praised Georgia for its "extraordinary level" of cooperation with international experts in the ongoing search for radiation sources. He added that Georgian experts had received "sophisticated equipment" and training, and were "now in position to carry on the investigation on their own."

"There are probably about 20,000 powerful radioactive sources around the world, and we are concerned about all of them," Gwozdecky said.

Editor�s Note: Ken Stier is a freelance journalist who has worked in several countries.

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