Egypt's quiet weapons build-up

NEW YORK - A number of documents NBC News has obtained from the United States, Russia and Israel — some of it public, some declassified under the Freedom of Information Act — help shed some light on Egypt's steady development of several weapons of mass destruction programs over the past decade and a half, including its nuclear potential and details of a joint North Korean-Egyptian missile development agreement.

The overall impression of officials in the United States, as well as those in Israel and Russia, is that Egypt has quietly been developing weapons, in particular biological weapons and missiles.  

Much of Egypt’s superweapons development, of course, is aimed at countering Israel's long standing and large-scale superweapons programs, as well as establishing itself as the leading power in the Arab world. 

Israel's weapons of mass destruction program is daunting, even to the first Arab state that signed a peace treaty with the Jewish state. With an estimated 200 nuclear warheads, more than Great Britain, and 100 medium-range missiles, Israel is in a world of diminishing nuclear programs, a regional superpower, at least.

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Still, while Egypt continues to point an accusing finger at Israel's nuclear weapons capability, there is considerable evidence that Egypt has been quietly building up its own superweapons programs, including some evidence of interest in nuclear and radiological weapons. 

In other words, Egypt may not have clean hands.

The United States has growing concerns that Egypt is working on several weapons programs it sees as destabilizing to Middle East peace.

During the past decade and a half, both the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (FIS) and the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) have publicly noted the existence of programs previously unknown. The following is a breakdown of what the documents say about Egypt’s weapons systems development programs.

Evidence of nuclear build-up
The most revealing document is the Russian intelligence document, produced by the KGB's successor organization, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service or FIS. An extraordinary public document, it was issued at a time of extraordinary public openness and has not been updated since.

In the document, "Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction," issued on Jan. 28, 1993, the Russians noted that although there is "no special program of military-applied research in the [Egyptian] nuclear sphere," there are some developments of note.

• The development of the 22-MW research reactor at Inshas, north of Cairo, built with help from Argentina;
  
• Egypt has contracted with India to upgrade a 30-year-old Soviet research reactor from 2-MW to 5-MW;
  
• Egypt has contracted with Russia to supply a MGD-20 cyclotron accelerator which would be helpful in exploring uranium enrichment technologies;
  
• Egypt has begun building a facility at its Inshas research center, which the Russians noted "in its design features and engineering protection could in the future be used to obtain weapons-grade plutonium from the uranium irradiated in the research reactors.”

In addition, NBC News obtained the U.S. Customs Service debriefing of Abdel Kadr Helmy, an Egyptian spy,  jailed in the 1980's for trying to obtain various missile technologies, including Pershing-II guidance packages. 

Helmy said in the debrief — which he now disavows — that Egypt had an active nuclear weapons development program that included sending uranium to Pakistan for enrichment to bomb-grade levels. Helmy said that an Egyptian Brigadier, Ahmad Nashet, ran both the civilian nuclear establishment in Cairo, as well as the nascent bomb program.

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