|Concerns that the North African nation of Algeria might be
developing a nuclear weapons program erupted after an American
surveillance satellite photographed a large nuclear reactor
under construction in the desert in 1991. Although it was widely
known the country had been building a small 1 megawatt reactor
with the help of Argentina, the new site in an isolated area in
the Atlas Mountains some 75 miles south of Algiers was a much
larger 15 megawatt project. "Some U.S. officials at the Pentagon
and in the intelligence agencies concluded that the purpose of
the reactor site was to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons.
But State Department officials, although they were also
concerned, challenged the claim," David Albright and Corey
Hinderstein wrote in a 2001 article for the Bulletin of the
Atomic Scientists. Algeria's leaders dismissed Western concerns,
saying they had contacted both France and Germany before buying
the supposedly secret reactor from China. They maintained the
Western reaction was more an a