The commission, mandated by Congress, issued its report in November
2008, in wake of the IAEA decision to fund a nuclear energy feasibility
study for Syria. Syria, whose alleged nuclear facility was bombed in 2007,
has been criticized by the
agency for lack of nuclear transparency.
IAEA, the report said, has lacked the "clear authority to secure nuclear
materials and install near-real time surveillance at the sites it inspects."
The agency has failed to institute automatic default penalties for states
that fell short of full compliance with their safeguards or other
Nuclear Proliferation Treaty obligations, the report said.
"No review has been conducted recently to determine whether the IAEA
needs to update definitions — such as how much material is needed to make a
bomb and how much time is needed to divert this material and convert it into
bombs," the commission said.
The IAEA, hampered by lack of budget, has been forced to rely on
contributions from member countries, including the United States. The report
said the agency's financial difficulties would likely worsen.
"Because of this, the IAEA now faces uncertainties about its long-term
ability to perform its fundamental mission — detecting the illicit
diversion of nuclear materials and discovering clandestine activities
associated with weapons programs," the report said.
"In the past 20 years, while the amount of safeguarded nuclear material
usable for weapons — highly enriched uranium and separated plutonium — has
increased by a factor of 6 to 10," the report said, "the budget for
safeguards has not kept pace and there actually fewer inspections per
safeguarded facility than before."
The report said IAEA must expand efforts to monitor an
increasing number of national nuclear programs. The agency would be
required to ensure that civilian nuclear programs could not produce weapons.
"New nuclear facilities will have to be carefully monitored to ensure
that no nation uses peaceful activities as a cover for a secret nuclear
weapons program or for diverting weapons-usable material to a weapons
program," the report said. "Such monitoring will increase the strain on the
IAEA's already limited resources."
The commission said IAEA has yet to update assessments regarding the
amount of effort and time required to achieve nuclear weapons capability.
The report said this has hampered agency assessments of national nuclear
programs.
"Among the other tests facing the IAEA is the inherent difficulty of
reliably detecting dangerous illicit nuclear activities in a timely
fashion," the report said. "Some of these difficulties — such as detecting
military diversions from nuclear fuel cycle activities — are not likely to
be remedied no matter how much the IAEA's resources are increased."