-Caveat Lector-
Uh, thanks for bringing up the subject, in the same breath as "Trust me"
...
Serbs Unlikely To Have Nuclear Arms
By SUSAN LADIKA
.c The Associated Press
VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- An international nuclear watchdog agency today
dismissed reports that Yugoslavia might attempt to produce nuclear weapons
and said the only danger might be posed if NATO bombs inadvertently struck a
nuclear research facility.
NATO forces are aware of the Vinca Institute of Nuclear Science, located
about 10 miles from the Yugoslav capital of Belgrade, said David Kyd,
spokesman for the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency.
``The risk of Yugoslavia misusing this material is low. The higher risk is
that a stray missile might go in this direction,'' Kyd said.
The 6.5-megawatt, Soviet-designed research reactor has about 130 pounds of
highly enriched uranium, including 5,000 uranium fuel rods stored in 30 drums
in a pond on the site, along with fresh fuel, he said.
Officials from the Institute for Science and International Security, an arms
control research group in Washington, were quoted in recent newspaper reports
as saying there was enough material at the facility to make nuclear weapons.
``I can't imagine in my wildest dreams what they would do with this,'' Kyd
said. Producing nuclear weapons could pose a danger to the Yugoslavs
themselves, and could provoke retaliation, he explained.
IAEA inspectors normally visit the Vinca facility each month. But no
inspection has been conducted since late January because of security risks in
Yugoslavia.
If the agency feared the nuclear materials were being misused, it could
request special permission to visit the site. But the country has always
complied with its nuclear obligations, Kyd said.
``I'm pretty confident we'd find everything as it should be'' if the IAEA did
an inspection, he said.
The Yugoslav government has stressed that no NATO airstrikes hit the
facility, which is located in a sparsely populated area.
``No one in their right mind'' would deliberately target the facility, Kyd
said.
The possibility remains that a bomb could go astray, but it is impossible to
predict the environmental damage it could do.
``You can't make a back-of-the-envelope calculation,'' he said, because
everything would be contingent on factors such as the strength of the weapon
and whether the facility took a direct hit.
An indirect hit could cause local contamination and radiation could seep into
the groundwater, he said.
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