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### Viewing cable 09MADRID98, SPAIN TAKING STEPS TO SAFEGUARD NUCLEAR MATERIAL

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Reference ID | Created | Released | Classification | Origin
--- | --- | --- | --- | ---
09MADRID98 | 2009-01-29 11:11 | 2011-02-01 21:09 | SECRET//NOFORN | Embassy Madrid

`

    R 291139Z JAN 09
    FM AMEMBASSY MADRID
    TO SECSTATE WASHDC 0134
    INFO AMCONSUL BARCELONA
    NCTC WASHINGTON DC
    USMISSION UNVIE VIENNA
    USEU BRUSSELS
    HOMELAND SECURITY CENTER WASHINGTON DC
    DEPT OF ENERGY WASHINGTON DC
    CIA WASHDC

` `

    S E C R E T MADRID 000098

    NOFORN

    PASS TO SUZANNE MCCORMICK AT INR/I
    ELAINE SAMSON AND STACIE ZERDECKI AT EUR/WE,
    MARC NORMAN AT S/CT
    JANICE BELL AT INR
    BETH DAUGHARTY AT OES/STC
    PASS TO NRC

    E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/26/2034
    TAGS: PINR KNNP MNUC PARM SP PINS PTER KGIC ENRG
    TRGY
    SUBJECT: SPAIN TAKING STEPS TO SAFEGUARD NUCLEAR MATERIAL
    AND FACILITIES (C-WP8-01022)

    REF: A. 08 STATE 135193
    ¶B. 08 MADRID 1362
    ¶C. 08 MADRID 1182

    Classified By: A/DCM William Duncan for reasons 1.4 (b), (c), and (d)

    ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: Cognizant of the threat posed to its nuclear
    industry by terrorists and determined to counter a spate of
    bad publicity from recent accidents at its nuclear
    facilities, the GOS is taking steps to ensure the security of
    its nuclear facilities. This cable provides a backdrop of
    past terrorist attacks against Spain's nuclear facilities,
    highlights recent security and safety incidents at nuclear
    plants, and, as requested in REFTEL A, addresses how Spain
    accounts for its nuclear material and how it is physically
    protecting its nuclear material and facilities. The IAEA
    recently fulfilled a peer review, requested by the GOS, of
    Spain's nuclear regulatory infrastructure and its safety
    practices in nuclear installations, radiation, waste,
    transport, emergency preparedness and -- for the IAEA's first
    time -- nuclear security. The IAEA,s Integrated Regulatory
    Review Service (IRRS) conducted site inspections, interviews
    and evaluations in early 2008 and in November 2008 publicly
    issued its final report, the results of which the IRRS team
    leader publicly described as "excellent" for Spain. On
    January 14, POLOFF met Julio Barcelo, Commissioner at Spain's
    Nuclear Security Council (CSN), to discuss the IRRS report
    and broader issues of nuclear security in Spain. POLOFF also
    discussed Spanish nuclear security issues on January 26 with
    knowledgeable U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)
    officials, the first of whom stated that the GOS has made a
    concerted effort to enhance physical security requirements at
    its nuclear facilities since 9/11 and the Madrid train
    bombings in 2004. The second NRC official stressed that
    there is a long-standing history of bilateral cooperation
    between the USG and the GOS on the physical protection of
    nuclear facilities. END SUMMARY.

    //Spain's Nuclear Plants - A History of Previous Terrorist
    Attacks, The Threat of Future Attacks//

    ¶2. (U) Spanish nuclear facilities - Spain currently is home
    to eight civil-use nuclear reactors at six plants, as
    detailed in REFTEL B - are a past and present target of
    terrorism. During 1977-82, the domestic terrorist group
    Basque Fatherland and Liberty (known as ETA) conducted a
    series of attacks on the nuclear plant that was under
    construction in Lemoniz, in Spain's Basque Region. On
    separate occasions, ETA exploded bombs near the reactor and
    the turbines of the plant. ETA also employed sabotage,
    letter bombs, hand grenades, kidnappings and targeted
    assassinations of the chief engineer and director involved in
    the plant's construction. The campaign resulted in a handful
    of deaths and wounded several others, which contributed to
    the GOS decision in 1983 to discontinue the plant's
    construction before it ever became operational.

    ¶3. (U) The radical Islamist attacks in the United States on
    9/11 and the Madrid train bombings in 2004 prompted the GOS
    to redouble its efforts to secure its nuclear facilities from
    attack. Al-Qa'ida and al-Qa'ida in the Islamic Maghreb
    routinely call for the recapture of the former
    Muslim-controlled region in the Iberian Peninsula they still
    call "al-Andalus." The GOS in 2004 passed its Plan for the
    Development of a Nuclear, Radiological, Biological, and
    Chemical (CBRN) Defense System, which assigned 1,682 Civil
    Guards to the prevention of and reaction to a CBRN attack in
    Spain. Spain's National Intelligence Center (CNI) issued a
    report in 2006 indicating that the most devastating blow that
    jihadists could strike against Spain would be by attacking
    one of Spain's nuclear plants.

    //Spain Requested IAEA Peer Review of Its Nuclear Regulatory
    Agency//

    ¶4. (C) Barcelo, the longest-serving member of the five-person
    Commission that constitutes the senior leadership of Spain's
    nuclear regulatory agency, told POLOFF that, in requesting a
    peer review of its nuclear regulatory infrastructure, the GOS
    was motivated to compare its strengths and weakness to IAEA
    safety standards and to exchange best practices with other
    countries. While the UK, France and Romania have undergone
    similar IAEA peer reviews, Barcelo emphasized to POLOFF that
    Spain is the first country to have a "full scope" IRRS
    review, which includes a module conducted on nuclear
    security. The English language version of the IAEA,s IRRS
    final report on Spain is available at
    http://www.cs.es/publicaciones/IRRSinglesokok .pdf while the
    supplemental report on physical security is unavailable to
    the public. (COMMENT: Note that the IRRS report addresses
    how well Spain's nuclear regulatory agency takes its
    responsibilities to develop a regulatory program. The report
    was not intended to directly assess the physical security of
    Spain's nuclear facilities per se, but many of its findings
    provide useful information for this cable. END COMMENT.)
    Barcelo informed POLOFF that the GOS will be engaged in
    follow-up activities to the report for the next two or three
    years.

    ¶5. (U) The IAEA/IRRS report rated the overall results for
    Spain as "excellent." The team identified 16 good practices
    utilized by Spain, offered 26 suggestions for improvement,
    and made five general recommendations. When applicable,
    several of the security-related strengths and weaknesses are
    highlighted in the paragraphs below. Among the items listed
    as an issue for improvement, the IAEA/IRSS recommended that
    "nothing should diminish the first priority of CSN to oversee
    the safety of the nuclear and radioactive installations" and
    that Spain should "continue its focus on ongoing efforts to
    strengthen CSN's activities in physical protection..." From
    the supplemental reports on nuclear safety, there were two
    recommendations. First, that that CSN participate in
    national radioactive waste management planning. Second, CSN
    was encouraged to develop a plan and communication of plans
    for the final disposal of spent fuel and high-level waste.
    (COMMENT: Spain currently only has a domestic disposal site
    for medium-level waste. END COMMENT.)

    //Specific Security Measures at Nuclear Facilities//

    ¶6. (C) One of the areas identified by the IAEA/IRSS as a
    strength of Spain was the collaboration between CSN and the
    Ministry of Interior in physical protection-related
    activities and the use of regulatory and licensing activities
    to enhance physical security at nuclear facilities.
    According to Spanish press reports, Spanish security forces -
    primarily the Civil Guard, a paramilitary law enforcement
    force - and intelligence services are responsible for the
    external security at Spanish nuclear facilities while private
    security guards hired by the owners of the plants have
    responsibility for the interior of the facilities. Barcelo
    told POLOFF that most of the security guards at Spanish
    nuclear facilities are former members of the police or
    military.

    ¶7. (C) Spain appears to have made progress since a number of
    recent high-profile incidents in which the physical security
    of its nuclear facilities was compromised. In 2002,
    Greenpeace activists stormed the Jose Cabrera nuclear
    facility in Zorita and scaled the dome of the plant, from
    which they unfurled a banner with an anti-nuclear message.
    The incident raised concerns about the physical security of
    the plant, which subsequently was shut down in 2006.
    Following the Zorita incident, CSN recommended that the
    companies that own Spain's nuclear facilities surround them
    with a double physical barrier. According to Spanish press
    reports, security at Spanish nuclear plants has been beefed
    up since early 2007, making access to the facilities more
    difficult. A late 2007 article in Spain's flagship daily El
    Pais details four security checks that workers must pass
    through at the Cofrentes nuclear plant in Valencia. The
    first identify themselves to guards, then pass through a
    finger-print check before being scanned for metals and
    explosives and finally undergoing a fourth, unspecified
    check. CNI reportedly also began conducting more stringent
    investigations of the nuclear facilities' employees.
    Finally, the article stated that there are two fences around
    the Cofrentes facility; one is electrified and the other has
    razor wire at the top of it.

    ¶8. (S) POLOFF also discussed physical security measures at
    Spain's nuclear facilities with an official from the U.S.
    Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) who has been inside the
    Cofrentes plant within the past year. The NRC official noted
    that the Cofrentes plant has detection systems along its
    fenceline that include video cameras, motion detection
    sensors, and infra-red surveillance and described the
    physical security system as very similar to those at U.S.
    nuclear facilities. The NRC official also remarked that
    physical security measures at the Cofrentes plant go beyond
    what is mandated and include an additional measure of "pretty
    impressive" technology: a camera system in place at the
    service entrance to the plant which takes an image of the
    undercarriage of any vehicle passing through. The next time
    that vehicle passes the camera system, the system will take a
    new image and be able to detect if there have been any
    alterations since the last visit.

    ¶9. (S) This NRC official remarked that the GOS and the CSN
    have taken "very seriously" several recent breaches in the
    physical security at Spanish nuclear facilities. In
    mid-2007, for instance, Greenpeace again breached the
    security of a nuclear facility, this time by overflying the
    Extremadura-based Almaraz nuclear facility in a paraglider.
    In the same event, Greenpeace activists also stormed the
    Almaraz facility by a Zodiac-style speed boat while a third
    team chained themselves to the front gate. (Publicly
    available photos of the physical removal of the activists
    from the site show the Almaraz guards equipped with sidearms
    and night sticks.) According to the NRC official, the
    Cofrentes facility responded to the paraglider incident at
    Almaraz by placing a field of razor wire along the roofs of
    building that house sensitive materials. In late September
    2007, guards at the Juzbado fuel-element producing facility
    in Salamanca found uranium tablets along a perimeter fence,
    in what authorities believe was an attempt by a member of the
    workforce to smuggle the goods out of the complex. CSN
    publicly stated shortly thereafter that the tablets could not
    be used to make a bomb. The NRC official states that the CSN
    was quite chagrined by the incident and its potential
    implications and acted to prevent its reoccurrence.

    ¶10. (S) Embassy Madrid cannot independently confirm that each
    of Spain's nuclear plants employs similar security
    precautions to those described in the preceding paragraphs
    about Cofrentes, but this NRC official indicates that the
    Cofrentes plant likely employs the physical security standard
    at which all Spanish nuclear plants are at or are on target
    to meet. The NRC official did not believe that the
    high-level of physical security at the Cofrentes plant was an
    anomaly. A second NRC official with whom POLOFF spoke
    stressed that there is a long-standing history of bilateral
    cooperation between the USG and the GOS on the physical
    protection of nuclear facilities, which includes bilateral
    meetings every few years and periodic meetings and exchanges
    by security officials.

    ¶11. (SBU) Unrelated to terrorism concerns but of interest
    from a safety standpoint, the Spanish also have experienced a
    number of accidents at their nuclear plants in the past 15
    months. Spanish press reports and anti-nuclear campaigners
    suggest that cost-cutting efforts by nuclear facilities and
    the increasing use of subcontractors are resulting in
    increased safety lapses. A radiation leak at the Asco nuclear
    plant near Tarragona in November 2007 occurred when an
    inexperienced worker dumped radioactive waste in a pool of
    cooling water. Two plant directors were fired for covering
    up the incident for months before it became public in early
    2008; an action which prompted CSN to recommend that the
    companies be fined up to roughly $30 million. Meanwhile, in
    the summer of 2008, a pipe carrying hydrogen burst and
    ignited at the Vandellos II nuclear plant. Together, the two
    plants were off-line for 114 days in 2008, compared to 21 in
    ¶2007.
    //Transport of Nuclear Materials//

    ¶12. (U) CSN has authority to carry out inspections related to
    the transport of radioactive material by land, air and sea,
    focusing on the nuclear safety and radiation protection. CSN
    conducts about 60 inspections annually. The inspections may
    be planned, reactive, announced or unannounced. The
    IAEA/IRSS report identified several good practices related to
    transportation safety, crediting the CSN for being pro-active
    and practical in this regard and praising it for maintaining
    a comprehensive, user-friendly database on the topic.

    //Plans or Procedures for Responding to the Theft of Nuclear
    Material//

    ¶13. (U) Among its good practices, Spain was praised by the
    IAEA/IRSS for its "well trained emergency preparedness
    organization" and its "very modern and well equipped
    emergency center." According to Spanish press reports, CSN
    in the aftermath of 9/11 recommended that the companies that
    own Spain's nuclear facilities have the obligation to notify
    CSN's Emergency Center - within one hour - of any detection
    of the theft or loss of any nuclear material, including any
    attempts at sabotage. Spain does have recorded incidents of
    presumed theft of nuclear material, however, as mentioned in
    paragraph 9.

    //Plans or Procedures for Attacks on Nuclear Facilities//

    ¶14. (SBU) CSN does not publicly comment on such security
    measures and the IAEA/IRSS supplemental report on physical
    security was not released to the public. However, according
    to a press report in late 2007, Spanish nuclear plants have a
    retaining wall made of concrete-reinforced steel to surround
    and protect the reactor from a missile or an airborne
    terrorist attack. These anti-missile "slabs" reportedly
    employ designs utilized by such U.S. firms as Westinghouse or
    GE. The retaining walls also are reportedly designed to
    safeguard against seismic activity.

    ¶15. (C) Spain is also taking political and operational steps
    to increase its ability to prevent an attack on its nuclear
    facilities. Throughout 2008, Spain had a very active role in
    the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism (GI).
    Spain hosted a table-top exercise in May, a plenary meeting
    in June, and a field training exercise in October. This
    series of events further developed Spain's expertise in
    nuclear terrorism-related disaster preparedness and
    contingency planning. As mentioned in REFTEL C, Madrid also
    wants to continue to deepen cooperation to combat nuclear
    terrorism by conducting more technical exercises and training
    cooperation in 2009 within a multilateral context and
    bilaterally with the United States.

    ¶16. (C) POLOFF concluded his meeting with Barcelo by asking
    how Spanish nuclear security has evolved since he became a
    Commissioner of the CSN in mid-2001. He responded that the
    GOS had "good" security measures in place before 9/11, but
    their implementation had become "relaxed." Barcelo assured
    POLOFF that these types of physical security compromises
    experienced in recent years could not happen nowadays.

    CHACON

`