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LA-UR 09-02046

Thoughts on Verification for Nuclear

Weapons Dismantlement

James E. Doyle

Los Alamos National Laboratory

International Conference on Nonproliferation

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Washington, D.C. April 6, 2009

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LA-UR 09-02046

START Delivery Vehicle Elimination Under Cooperative Threat

Reduction

Silo Launcher Elimination Heavy Bomber Elimination

SS-24/SS-25 Mobile Launcher Elimination

SSBN/SLBM Dismantlement & Elimination

Liquid Propellant ICBM/ SLBM Elimination

Solid Propellant ICBM/SLBM and Mobile Launcher Elimination

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Demonstrate operation of Attribute

Measurement System with Information Barrier

(AMS/IB)

Zero Power Physics Reactor

(ZPPR) plates; fuel-grade

plutonium metal; 1.75 kilograms of plutonium oxide;

and a nuclear-weapon pit.

LANL, U.S./August 2000

Demonstrate operation of RIS and CIVET

radiation measurement systems

weapon componentsOak Ridge Y-12, U.S./

December 1997

Demonstrate conversion of HEU component into metal shavings behind a metal barrier

HEU weapon componentOak Ridge Y-12, U.S./ August 1997

Demonstrate: - receipt of a weapon component

- HEU presence

- that two sealed components are identical

HEU weapon componentOak Ridge Y-12, U.S./ November 1996

Determine presence of plutonium and threshold mass of plutonium

Plutonium pit and ingotSiberian Chemical Combine (SKhK), Seversk,

Russia/ August 1994

Determine presence of plutonium and

threshold mass of plutonium

Plutonium pitRocky Flats Plant,

U.S./July 1994

ObjectiveMeasured ItemsLocation/Date

Joint U.S.-Russian Radiation Measurements on Classified Nuclear Weapon Components

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Integrated tamper-indicating device,

Pantex Plant, Oct.-Nov. 1999Active radiation measurement of a fully assembled weapon at the Pantex Plant

The Trusted Radiation Attributes Demonstration

System, or TRADS, Sandia

Warhead Dismantlement Monitoring Technology Development (1994-2000)

Warhead Attribute Measurement System with

Information Barrier (AMS/IB), August 2000, Los Alamos FMTTD

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Sources for the Verified Dismantlement of Nuclear Weapons

Oleg Bukharin and James Doyle, “Transparency and Predictability Measures for US and Russian Strategic Arms

Reductions,” The Nonproliferation Review, vol. 9, no. 2, Summer 2002, pp. 82-100.

Christine Comley et al., "Confidence, Security and Verification: The Challenge of Global Nuclear Arms Control,"

Aldermaston Weapons Establishment, 2000.

Committee on International Security and Arms Control (CISAC), National Academy of Sciences (NAS), Monitoring Nuclear

Weapons and Nuclear-Explosive Materials: An Assessment of Methods and Capabilities (Washington DC: National

Academies Press, 2005).

Steve Fetter, Verifying Nuclear Disarmament, the Henry L. Stimson Center, Occasional Paper No. 29 October 1996,

http://www.stimson.org/wmd/pdf/fetter.pdf

George Perkovich and James M. Acton, "Verifying the Transition to Zero" in Perkovich and Acton (ed.), Abolishing Nuclear

Weapons: A Debate, (Washington DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2009), part I, chapter 2.

Office of Nonproliferation Research and Engineering, "Technology R&D for Arms Control," Arms Control and

Nonproliferation Technologies, Spring 2001.

United Kingdom, "Verification of Nuclear Disarmament: Second Interim Report on Studies into the Verification of Nuclear

Warheads and their Components," working paper submitted to the Preparatory Committee for the 2005 Review

Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, NPT/CONF.2005/PC.III/WP.3, 8

April 2004.

Zarimpas (ed.), Transparency in Nuclear Warheads and Materials: The Political and Technical Dimensions (Oxford: Oxford

University Press for Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 2003).

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LA-UR 09-02046

Simplified Flow Diagram for Nuclear

Warhead Dismantlement