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Outside experts are still unsure what the size of the reactor is. The argument about what Algeria is up to may not be settled even if the country signs the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and opens its facilities to inspection by the IAEA. It might, for example, show the inspectors a reactor that really did have only a 15-MW capacity -- but could be fairly quickly expanded to 50-60 MW. In any case, what worries Western officials is not just that Algeria may develop a bomb for itself but that it may be helping others build nuclear weapons faster. U.S. intelligence has picked up rumors that some Iraqi nuclear scientists are working in Algeria and that Baghdad has provided Algiers with hard-to-get nuclear technology.
The prospect that such cooperation will broaden into a nuclear mutual-aid society haunts Israeli experts in particular. Leshem believes that "an international Mafia aimed at getting the Bomb for every member" already exists and is swapping technology and training. The buyers would include Iran, Algeria and to some extent Libya. China is the leading seller, and North Korea is playing both roles.
So far U.S. and allied efforts to contain proliferation have focused heavily on getting nations to open their facilities to inspection by the IAEA. But Iraq's success in reaching the brink of nuclear-weapons production with a clandestine program while allowing IAEA inspectors to visit its few declared facilities has demonstrated the futility of that. The agency has a theoretical right to poke into suspected but unadmitted nuclear installations but has never exercised it. Even if the agency did -- and there is much talk about making that easier -- and caught a country clandestinely making A-bombs, there is no provision in the NPT for any penalties against the offender: the matter would go to the U.N. Security Council.
The essential question is whether the U.S. and its friends can put enough pressure on the suspected bomb builders and suppliers to get them to stop. Prospects are not entirely dim. Japan, for instance, has warned North Korea that it will not get any of the Japanese trade and investment its nose-diving economy desperately needs until it drops its nuclear-weapons program. North Korea has promised to open up to IAEA inspection if a companion inspection proves there are no American nuclear weapons in South Korea. If North Korea does allow inspections, U.S. officials have evidence that they believe will force the IAEA to demand to see all of Pyongyang's major nuclear facilities -- but that still would not guarantee that bomb building would end.