Israel said still making nuclear weapons
By SUSANNA LOOF
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apmideast_story.asp?category=1107&slug=Nu\
clear%20Israel

VIENNA, Austria -- Israel continues to produce atomic
weapons and already has hundreds of nuclear warheads,
researchers said as the country released a man
imprisoned for 18 years for leaking nuclear secrets.

Because Israel is not party to the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty, the Vienna-based
International Atomic Energy Agency has no power to
look into its nuclear program.

The U.N. agency, however, is seeking contacts with
Israel, and Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei
repeatedly has called for talks on eliminating weapons
of mass destruction from the Middle East.

Israeli authorities on Wednesday freed Mordechai
Vanunu, jailed for leaking details and pictures of
Israel's alleged nuclear weapons program.

Israel neither confirms nor denies it has nuclear
weapons, and refuses to discuss such allegations.

Israel continues to make nuclear weapons, said
Friedrich Steinhaeusler, a former IAEA nuclear safety
expert who now is a physics professor at the
University of Salzburg.

The best estimates put the size of the Israeli arsenal
at 150 nuclear weapons, Steinhaeusler said. With air,
sea and land-based launching systems, "they have the
Middle East under control," he said.

But Avner Cohen, an expert on Israel and nuclear
weapons at the Center for International and Security
Studies in Maryland, said "there is a lot of
uncertainty" about the number of weapons held by
Israel.

"There are all kind of estimates, from the upper teens
on the lower side to over 300 on the higher side," he
said.

John Simpson, director of the Mountbatten Center of
International Studies at Britain's University of
Southampton, estimated the number of atomic weapons
held by Israel at no more than 200.

He said his estimate was based on the presumed output
of plutonium by a reactor in Dimona, and on the number
of tunnels in cliffs from which the weapons could be
deployed.

"What the Israelis might well have is the capability
to test very rapidly," Simpson said. The country could
quickly increase production after beginning testing,
he said.

The lack of debate within Israel about the nuclear
arsenal has created uncertainty, Simpson added.

"It is not clear that these issues have been thought
through," he said. "If there was a crisis, actions
could be taken almost at the spur of the moment,
without a clear analysis of the consequences."

IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky declined to comment on
Israel, saying his agency has no jurisdiction there.

But ElBaradei, in a lecture this month, condemned
"this imbalance in the region (with) Israel sitting on
nuclear weapons and everybody else trying to stick to
the Nonproliferation Treaty."

However, he said Israel was unlikely to readily change
its stance.

"Nuclear deterrence or nuclear weapons (are) deeply
ingrained in the Israeli psychology," he said. "They
think ... that as long as many people, individuals
(and) groups continue to talk about the destruction of
Israel, they just simply cannot afford to give up the
nuclear option in the absence of a comprehensive peace
accepted by the people of the region."






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