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War, War, War See other War, War, War Articles Title: South Africa has shown how to built the 'bomb' "If al-Qaeda or any other revolutionary group or rogue state were to consider building the bomb, they would almost certainly have to walk the same path South Africa did in the 1970s and 1980s to achieve that objective." This assertion sets the tone for a soon-to-be published examination of how South Africa built six atom bombs and then abandoned its nuclear weapons programme. Indeed, that's the title of a new book - the third by local writer Al J Venter to deal with the vexed issue of nuclear weapons proliferation. The old South African regime always insisted it would resist threats to national survival with all the force at its command. So what force was available to Pretoria, and how would it have been utilised? South Africa's nuclear deterrence strategy was developed with some sophistication and "based on three phases", the final aim of which was to obtain Western assistance in the case of an overwhelming military threat. The first phase was a "strategic uncertainty during which the regime's nuclear capability would be neither acknowledged nor denied", writes Venter. If the country were threatened militarily, it would move to phase two. The government would covertly acknowledge the existence of its nuclear weapons to leading Western governments, particularly to the United States. If phase two failed to persuade the international community to come to South Africa's assistance, the government would move to phase three: it would publicly acknowledge its capability or demonstrate it with an underground test. This policy required a credible nuclear weapon. And, according to Armscor officials, credibility required deliverability. "If the nuclear devices were only test devices, the Western powers might not take South Africa's threat seriously enough to intervene on its behalf." Venter describes the six devices that were eventually constructed as "clumsy and over-large", noting that "some pundits have described them as 'museum pieces'". They were "gun-type" weapons, in which a large slug of uranium was fired into a uranium sphere to achieve critical mass, and were of the same type as the "Little Boy" atom bomb dropped by the US on Hiroshima in August 1945. The "elegance of design" so beloved by engineers was sometimes lacking. Indeed, there was more than a whiff of 'n boer maak 'n plan. But the devices were certainly deliverable, initially by the squadron of modified British-built Buccaneer strike aircraft operated by the South African Air Force (SAAF). Much more was in the pipeline than the first basic, air-droppable gravity bombs. Development of smaller implosion-type devices was under way. An airborne, stand-off glide bomb was being constructed, plus surprisingly sophisticated ballistic missiles - the latter with more than a little Israeli assistance. (Any doubts about the existence of these delivery systems can be allayed by a visit to the SAAF Museum, near Pretoria, where the last surviving missile remains on display.) Venter describes in his book - due out next week from Ashanti Publishing - how South Africa's nuclear capability was developed in obsessive, near-total secrecy from a relatively small industrial and scientific base. Quickly, too - in half the time it took, say, Pakistan. Despite equivocation - continuing to this day - it now seems clear a nuclear device was tested in the South Atlantic Ocean on September 22, 1979. As much was admitted by Aziz Pahad, the deputy foreign minister, in 1997. Although he later retracted his statement, it was too late, the claim having been confirmed by the US embassy in Pretoria, whose operatives consistently sought to spy on the South African efforts. It was further confirmed by Tyler Drumheller, a retired CIA operative - once based in this country - who wrote just two years ago: "We had operational successes, most importantly regarding Pretoria's nuclear capability. My sources collectively provided incontrovertible evidence that the apartheid government had, in fact, tested a nuclear bomb in the South Atlantic in 1979, and that they had developed a delivery system with assistance from the Israelis." Venter writes that there remains doubt about whether there was ever a serious likelihood of the weapons being used. If so, it occurred in the latter stages of the 1987 fighting in Angola, when forces led by Soviet General Konstantin Shaganovitch battled Jonas Savimbi's Unita and its South African allies. "In the course of this, the event which presumably triggered the potential nuclear alert was a succession of intercepts of Angolan radio traffic which made mention of several unsuccessful attempts to fire shells loaded with poison gas at both the South Africans and the Unita fighters." That scare led to the renewed, and successful, efforts to make peace in Angola and then South West Africa. In retrospect, this was the high point of confrontation: what followed was an easing of tension leading to President FW de Klerk's momentous decision to unban the ANC and release Nelson Mandela. With that, he had removed the need for nuclear weapons and, indeed, these were dismantled, giving South Africa the unique distinction of being the only country to voluntarily renounce its nuclear defence capability. (One day, perhaps, the story may come out of just how much US pressure was applied to Pretoria to ensure that the ANC was unable to take over a nuclear-armed country.) The relevance of South Africa's achievement to revolutionary groups such as al-Qaeda is made clear in pages - illustrated in the book - from a since-disabled Internet website. These offered insight into possible weapons and delivery systems that terrorist networks like al-Qaeda might wish to obtain. "Islamic fundamentalists, in particular, would be most interested to learn how South Africa did it," writes Venter." Significant here is a series of lectures posted on to an international al-Qaeda jihadi website between October 2005 and January 2006 titled Nuclear Preparation Encyclopedia. Though exposure lasted only months, there were 60 000 hits before it was disabled. What did appear provides a glimpse of the mindset of some of these zealots. The pages "point to what might take place sometime in the future when this movement - never wanting for funds from its oil-rich backers - manages to recruit specialists who could take them the distance. What has not been lost on any Western strategists is that, while he still strode tall throughout parts of Asia and much of the Middle East, AQ Khan was responsible for several Pakistani nuclear physicists visiting Osama bin Laden at his Afghan hideout. "The frightening amorality of Khan, Pakistan's 'father of the Islamic bomb' who also happily dealt with 'rogue state' North Korea, set the tone for those in this country who were willing to pass on South African nuclear know-how to countries such as Libya and Iran." It has been objected that, for groups such as al-Qaeda, the preferred route would be to purchase "second-hand" nukes, said to have "gone missing" when the Soviet Union fell apart. Other scare stories involved so-called "suitcase bombs" and atomic munitions supposedly buried within the continental US by Soviet agents at the height of the Cold War. It seems, though, that the "missing nukes" story is more hype than reality, while the uranium cores of either "suitcase bombs" or buried atomic munitions would have decayed by now. Thus, the central thesis of Venter's book remains: if revolutionaries or rogue states want to go nuclear, they will most likely follow the South African path. Most frightening: they do not seek such weapons for deterrence, but to use.
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