The safeguards options study

The Safeguards Options Study was initiated to aid the International Safeguards Division (ISD) of the DOE Office of Arms Control and Nonproliferation in developing its programs in enhanced international safeguards. The goal was to provide a technical basis for the ISD program in this area. The Safeguards Options Study has been a cooperative effort among ten organizations. These are Argonne National Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Mound Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Pacific Northwest Laboratories, Sandia National Laboratories, and Special Technologies Laboratory. Much of the Motivation for the Safeguards Options Study is the recognition after the Iraq experience that there are deficiencies in the present approach to international safeguards. While under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards at their declared facilities, Iraq was able to develop a significant weapons program without being noticed. This is because negotiated safeguards only applied at declared sites. Even so, their nuclear weapons program clearly conflicted with Iraq`s obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) as a nonnuclear weapon state.