Iran’s Secret Nuclear Reactor

On July 29, a Kuwaiti newspaper, Al-Siyassa, ran a story claiming that the Iranians were building a new nuclear reactor in an urban area without disclosure to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The newspaper claims the source of this information comes from a classified email sent by Brig. Hassan Jalaliyan of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) to Mohammed Kayafir, manager of the Mehab Qudus Company for Construction and Supervision. Here is the English translation:

From the IRGC Commander in the city of Al-Ahwas to the director in charge at the Mehab Qudus Company for Construction and Supervision Mr. Mohammed Kayafir

Re: The nuclear reactor at Al-Zarqan

Greetings,
I thank you for the good services of the Mehab Qudus company, and at the same time I must remind you of the following items:

1. All construction materials must be transported from the warehouses to the construction site in top secrecy.

2. As part of the doctrine of caution, we reiterate yet again that during the transport of all required materials, you must ensure that this [transport] does not arouse the suspicions of any citizen in the region through which you are moving.

3. In general, it is absolutely forbidden to hire any Arabic speakers or any citizen from Khozestan in the framework of the 'Al-Zarqan Nuclear Reactor' construction project. You must ensure that all manpower, including the driver, the accountant, the warehouse manager, the laborer, the technician, or the guard, comes from the northern provinces.

In conclusion, we say yet again that all the construction work in this project must be carried out under absolute secrecy.

From the aide to IRGC commander in the city of Al-Ahwaz, Hassan Jalaliyan.

Why the Kuwaiti Government is worried (and it should be)

In the past the Kuwaiti government has expressed concern that a nuclear accident at the Bushehr nuclear plant would contaminate Kuwait City and the northern areas of the Persian Gulf. During a symposium at a US based think tank, Sami al-Faraj, president of the Kuwait Center for Strategic Studies and an advisor to the Kuwaiti government and the secretariat-general of the Gulf Cooperation Council on how to prepare for potential nuclear accidents in Iran, stated that:

“…the Gulf is a closed sea where environmental factors are important. The Gulf's currents flow counterclockwise. In case of a nuclear accident at Iran's Bushehr nuclear plant, southern Iraq and the whole of Kuwait City, including all of Kuwait's six desalination plants, will be in danger. Iran refuses to provide any information on what it is doing; therefore Kuwait has no way to control what is coming from the Iranian side. Even aside from the technical competence of the Iranian nuclear program, the region in question is prone to damaging earthquakes. Any Iranian nuclear accident would endanger three million people in Kuwait, two million of whom are expatriates who speak 128 languages. It would be a very complicated task to warn the population in the event of an emergency.”

If Al-Siyassa’s sources are correct this would mean that the new reactor is being constructed directly over an active fault (the Ahwaz Fault) even closer to the Iran – Kuwait border. Another earthquake such as the one that struck Bam, Iran in 2003 would be devastating to the region. The last two earthquakes to hit near the Ahwaz Fault occurred in 1977 and 1980. The decision to build a nuclear reactor in this region without disclosure is irresponsible at best. Al-Siyassa claimed that the reactor was built in this area to use the civilian population as a human shield to protect the facility from a military attack.