Home > 108th Congressional Bills > S.Con.Res. 81 (is) Expressing the deep concern of Congress regarding the failure of the [Introduced in Senate] ...S.Con.Res. 81 (is) Expressing the deep concern of Congress regarding the failure of the [Introduced in Senate] ...
108th CONGRESS
2d Session
S. CON. RES. 81
_______________________________________________________________________
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
Whereas it is the policy of the United States to oppose, and urgently to seek
the agreement of other nations also to oppose, any transfer to Iran of
any goods or technology, including dual-use goods or technology,
wherever that transfer could contribute to its acquiring chemical,
biological, or nuclear weapons;
Whereas the United Nations Security Council decided, in United Nations Security
Council Resolution 1540, that ``all States shall refrain from providing
any form of support to non-State actors that attempt to develop,
acquire, manufacture, possess, transport, transfer or use nuclear,
chemical, or biological weapons and their means of delivery'';
Whereas the United States has imposed sanctions numerous times on persons and
entities transferring equipment and technical data to Iran to assist its
weapons of mass destruction programs;
Whereas on January 1, 1968, Iran signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of
Nuclear Weapons, done at Washington, London, and Moscow July 1, 1968,
and entered into force March 5, 1970 (the ``Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty");
Whereas Iran, as a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as a non-
nuclear weapons state, is obligated never to develop or acquire nuclear
weapons;
Whereas Iran did not declare to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
the existence of the Natanz Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant and the
production-scale Fuel Enrichment Facility under construction at Natanz
until February 2003, after the existence of the plant and facility was
revealed by an opposition group;
Whereas it is estimated that the Natanz Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant could
produce enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon every year-
and-a-half to two years;
Whereas it is estimated that the Natanz Fuel Enrichment Facility could, when
completed, produce enough highly enriched uranium for as many as 25 to
30 nuclear weapons per year;
Whereas in his report of June 6, 2003, the Director General of the IAEA stated
that Iran had failed to meet its obligations under its Safeguards
Agreement with the IAEA to report all nuclear material imported into
Iran--specifically, the importation of uranium hexafluoride, uranium
tetrafluoride and uranium dioxide in 1991--the processing and use of
that material, and the facilities involved in the use and processing of
the material;
Whereas the IAEA Director General stated in the same report that Iran had
produced uranium metal and was building a uranium metal processing
facility, despite the fact that neither its light water reactors nor its
planned heavy water reactors require uranium metal for fuel;
Whereas the IAEA Board of Governors urged Iran in June 2003 to promptly rectify
its failures to meet its obligations under its Safeguards Agreement, not
to introduce nuclear material into the Natanz Pilot Fuel Enrichment
Plant, and to cooperate fully with the Agency in resolving questions
about its nuclear activities;
Whereas the IAEA Director General reported to the Board of Governors of the IAEA
in August 2003 that Iran had failed to disclose additional nuclear
activities as required by its Safeguards Agreement and continued to fail
to resolve questions about its undeclared uranium enrichment activities,
including those raised by the detection of two types of highly enriched
uranium particles at the Natanz Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant;
Whereas on August 19, 2003, after earlier denials, Iran admitted in a letter
that it had carried out uranium conversion experiments in the early
1990's, experiments that included bench scale preparation of uranium
compounds and that should have been disclosed to the IAEA in accordance
with its obligations under its Safeguards Agreement;
Whereas the IAEA Board of Governors on September 12, 2003, called on Iran to
suspend all further uranium enrichment and any plutonium reprocessing
activities, disclose all its nuclear activities, and cooperate fully
with the IAEA, and to sign, ratify, and fully implement the Additional
Protocol between Iran and the IAEA for the application of safeguards
(the ``Additional Protocol'') to strengthen investigation of all nuclear
activities within Iran, and requested all third countries to cooperate
closely and fully with the IAEA in resolving questions about Iran's
nuclear program;
Whereas IAEA inspectors and officials continued to confront Iran with
discrepancies in its explanations of its nuclear activities;
Whereas on October 21, 2003, Iran and the Foreign Ministers of France, Germany,
and the United Kingdom issued a joint statement in which Iran indicated
that it had decided to suspend all uranium enrichment and reprocessing
activities as defined by the IAEA;
Whereas the Governments of France, Germany, and the United Kingdom promised a
dialogue with Iran to ease Iran's access to modern technologies and
supplies in a range of areas once certain international concerns
regarding Iran are fully resolved;
Whereas in a subsequent letter on October 23, 2003, Iran further admitted that
it had tested uranium enrichment centrifuges at the Kalaye Electric
Company between 1998 and 2002 using its previously undeclared imported
uranium hexafluoride;
Whereas in that same letter, Iran admitted that it had a laser uranium
enrichment program, in which it used 30 kilograms of uranium not
previously declared to the IAEA, another violation of its Safeguards
Agreement;
Whereas Iran indicated initially that its laser enrichment program had achieved
uranium enrichment levels of slightly more than 3 percent, but the
Director General's report of June 1, 2004, states that the IAEA later
learned that Iran ``had been able to achieve average enrichment levels
of 8 percent to 9 percent, with some samples of up to approximately 15
percent'';
Whereas the June 1, 2004, report states also that Iran's declaration of October
21, 2003, failed to include information that should have been provided,
including the fact that ``some samples from'' the laser uranium
enrichment project ``had been sent for assessment to the supplier's
laboratory'';
Whereas in its letter of October 23, 2003, Iran also admitted that it had
irradiated 7 kilograms of uranium dioxide targets and reprocessed them
to extract plutonium, another violation of its legal obligation to
disclose such activities under its Safeguards Agreement;
Whereas Iran told the IAEA on November 10, 2003, that it would sign and ratify
the Additional Protocol and would act in accordance with the Additional
Protocol pending its entry-into-force;
Whereas on November 10, 2003, Iran further informed the IAEA Director General
that it had decided to suspend all enrichment and reprocessing
activities in Iran, not to produce feed material for enrichment
processes, and not to import enrichment related items;
Whereas the IAEA, through its investigative and forensic activities in Iran and
elsewhere, has uncovered and confronted Iran about numerous lies
concerning its nuclear activities;
Whereas the Director General of the IAEA reported to the IAEA Board of Governors
on November 10, 2003, that Iran has concealed many aspects of its
nuclear activities from the IAEA, in breach of its obligations under its
Safeguards Agreement;
Whereas despite Iran's subsequent pledge to, once again, fully disclose all of
its nuclear activities to the IAEA, the Director General of the IAEA, in
a February 24, 2004, report, found that Iran continued to engage in
deception regarding its nuclear activities, including failing to
disclose a more sophisticated enrichment program using more advanced
enrichment centrifuge technology imported from foreign sources, and
providing incomplete and unsupported explanations about experiments to
create a highly toxic isotope of polonium that outside experts say is
useful as a neutron initiator in nuclear weapons;
Whereas the Director General's reports of February 24, 2001, and June 1, 2004,
stated that environmental samples from one room at the Kalaye Electric
Company workshop and from equipment that had been present in that
workshop showed more than trace quantities of uranium enriched to 36
percent U-235, despite finding only negligible traces of this on
imported centrifuge components, and that the types of uranium
contamination at that workshop differed from those found at Natanz,
which would appear to contradict Iran's assertion that the source of
contamination at both sites is imported centrifuge components and
perhaps also its assertion that it has not enriched uranium to more than
1.2 percent U-235 using centrifuge technology;
Whereas the Director General stated in the June 1, 2004, report, that ``the
contamination is different on domestic and imported centrifuges,'' that
``it is unlikely'' that the 36 percent U-235 contamination was due to
components acquired from Iran's principal supplier country, and that
``important information about the P-2 centrifuge programme has
frequently required repeated requests, and in some cases continues to
involve changing or contradictory information'';
Whereas these deceptions by Iran are continuing violations of Iran's Safeguards
Agreement and of Iran's previous assurances to the IAEA and the
international community of full transparency;
Whereas despite Iran's commitment to the IAEA and to France, Germany, and the
United Kingdom that it would suspend uranium enrichment activities, it
has repeatedly emphasized that this suspension is temporary and
continued to manufacture and, until April 2004, to import, uranium
enrichment centrifuge parts and equipment, allowing it to resume and
expand its uranium enrichment activities whenever it chooses;
Whereas the statements on February 25, 2004, of Hassan Rowhani, Secretary of the
Supreme National Security Council of Iran, that Iran was not required to
reveal to the IAEA its research into more sophisticated ``P2'' uranium
enrichment centrifuges, and that Iran has other projects which it has no
intention of declaring to the IAEA, are contrary to--
(1) Iran's commitment to the IAEA in an October 16, 2003, letter
from the Vice President of Iran and the President of Iran's Atomic
Energy Organization that Iran would present a ``full picture of its
nuclear activities'' and ``full transparency'';
(2) Iran's commitment to the foreign ministers of the United
Kingdom, France, and Germany of October 21, 2003, to full transparency
and to resolve all outstanding issues; and
(3) its statement to the IAEA's Board of Governors of September 12,
2003, of its commitment to full transparency and to ``leave no stone
unturned'' to assure the IAEA of its peaceful objectives;
Whereas Libya received enrichment equipment and technology, and a nuclear
weapons design, from the same nuclear black market that Iran has used,
raising the question of whether Iran, as well, received a nuclear weapon
design that it has refused to reveal to international inspectors;
Whereas the Russian Federation has announced that it will soon conclude an
agreement to supply Iran with enriched nuclear fuel for the Bushehr
nuclear power reactor, which, if implemented, would undercut the
international effort to persuade Iran to cease its nuclear weapons
development program;
Whereas the IAEA Board of Governors' resolution of March 13, 2004, which was
adopted unanimously, noted with ``serious concern that the declarations
made by Iran in October 2003 did not amount to the complete and final
picture of Iran's past and present nuclear programme considered
essential by the Board's November 2003 resolution,'' and also noted that
the IAEA has discovered that Iran had hidden more advanced centrifuge
associated research, manufacturing, and testing activities, two mass
spectrometers used in the laser enrichment program, and designs for hot
cells to handle highly radioactive materials;
Whereas the same resolution also noted ``with equal concern that Iran has not
resolved all questions regarding the development of its enrichment
technology to its current extent, and that a number of other questions
remain unresolved, including the sources of all HEU contamination in
Iran; the location, extent and nature of work undertaken on the basis of
the advanced centrifuge design; the nature, extent, and purpose of
activities involving the planned heavy-water reactor; and evidence to
support claims regarding the purpose of polonium-210 experiments'';
Whereas Hassan Rowhani on March 13, 2004, declared that IAEA inspections would
be indefinitely suspended as a protest against the IAEA Board of
Governors' resolution of March 13, 2004, and while Iran subsequently
agreed to readmit inspectors to one site by March 29, 2004, and to
others in mid-April, 2004, including four workshops belonging to the
Defence Industries Organization, this suspension calls into serious
question Iran's commitment to full transparency about its nuclear
activities;
Whereas Iran informed the IAEA on April 29, 2004, of its intent to produce
uranium hexafluoride in amounts that the IAEA concluded would constitute
production of feed material for uranium centrifuges and wrote in a
letter of May 18, 2004, that its suspension of all uranium enrichment
activities ``does not include suspension of production of UF6,'' which
contradicted assurances provided in its letter of November 10, 2003;
Whereas the IAEA Board of Governors' resolution of June 18, 2004, which was also
adopted unanimously, ``deplores'' the fact that ``Iran's cooperation has
not been as full, timely and proactive as it should have been'' and
``underlines that, with the passage of time, it is becoming ever more
important that Iran work proactively to enable the Agency to gain a full
understanding of Iran's enrichment programme by providing all relevant
information, as well as by providing prompt access to all relevant
places, data and persons'';
Whereas the same resolution also expresses regret that Iran's suspension
``commitments have not been comprehensively implemented and calls on
Iran immediately to correct all remaining shortcomings'';
Whereas the same resolution also calls on Iran, as further confidence-building
measures, voluntarily to reconsider its decision to begin production
testing at the Uranium Conversion Facility and its decision to start
construction of a research reactor moderated by heavy water, as the
reversal of those decisions would make it easier for Iran to restore
international confidence undermined by past reports of undeclared
nuclear activities in Iran;
Whereas Iran then announced its decision to resume production of centrifuge
components, notwithstanding both the IAEA Board of Governors resolution
of September 12, 2003, which called on Iran ``to suspend all further
uranium enrichment-related activities,'' and Iran's voluntary suspension
of all uranium enrichment activities pursuant to its agreement of
October 21, 2003, with the foreign ministers of the United Kingdom,
France, and Germany;
Whereas Iran's pattern of deception and concealment in dealing with the IAEA,
the Foreign Ministers of France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, and
the international community, its receipt from other countries of the
means to enrich uranium, its use of sources who provided a nuclear
weapon design to another country, its production of centrifuge
components at Defence Industries Organization workshops, and its
repeated breaches of its Safeguards Agreement suggest strongly that Iran
has also violated its legal obligation under article II of the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty not to acquire or seek assistance in acquiring
nuclear weapons; and
Whereas the maintenance or construction by Iran of unsafeguarded nuclear
facilities or uranium enrichment or reprocessing facilities will
continue to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security
and threaten United States national interests: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring),
That Congress--
(1) condemns--
(A) the failure of the Government of Iran for
nearly two decades to report material, facilities, and
activities to the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) in contravention of its obligations under its
Safeguards Agreement; and
(B) Iran's continuing deceptions and falsehoods to
the IAEA and the international community about its
nuclear programs and activities;
(2) concurs with the conclusion reached in the Department
of State's Annual Report on Adherence to and Compliance with
Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Agreements and Commitments
that Iran is pursuing a program to develop nuclear weapons;
(3) urges the President to provide to the IAEA whatever
financial, material, or intelligence resources are necessary to
enable the IAEA it to fully investigate Iran's nuclear
activities;
(4) calls upon all states party to the Treaty on the Non-
Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, done at Washington, London,
and Moscow July 1, 1968, and entered into force March 5, 1970
(hereafter in this resolution referred to as the ``Nuclear Non-
Proliferation Treaty''), including the United States, to use
appropriate means to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear
weapons, including the suspension of all nuclear and other
cooperation with Iran, including the provision of dual use
items, until Iran fully implements the Additional Protocol to
its Safeguards Agreement with the IAEA (hereafter in this
resolution referred to as the ``Additional Protocol'') and is
clearly in compliance with its obligations under the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty;
(5) declares that Iran, through its many breaches during
the past 18 years of its Safeguards Agreement with the IAEA,
has forfeited the right to be trusted with the development of a
full nuclear fuel cycle, especially with uranium conversion and
enrichment and plutonium reprocessing technology, equipment,
and facilities;
(6) declares that the revelations of Iran's nondisclosure
of additional enrichment and nuclear-weapons-applicable
research activities, as detailed in the reports of February 24,
2004, and June 1, 2004, by the Director General of the IAEA,
together with the statement by the Government of Iran that it
will not disclose other research programs, constitute ample
evidence of Iran's continuing policy of noncompliance with the
letter and spirit of its obligations under its Safeguards
Agreement and the Additional Protocol;
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