nuclear technology to Iran and that issues regarding dual use deals would drive the cost of maintaining global security upward. In the 1990s, the country created the bilateral ABACC commission with Argentina, signed the Quadripartite Agreement with the IAEA, adhered to the NPT, and reiterated its peaceful nuclear ambitions on several occasions. The Lula administration (2003–2011) resuscitated the dormant Brazilian nuclear program, issued new investments in achieving industrial-scale uranium enrichment capacity and revived the nuclear-propulsion submarine project. Despite Brazil's repeated claims of peaceful nuclear development, in 2003, Science and Technology Minister Roberto Amaral made a controversial statement. During an interview with popular Brazilian daily O Globo, Amaral stated that Brazil should seek to obtain all nuclear knowledge and knowhow; when asked if his description included the knowledge to develop a nuclear bomb, he replied positively. After the statement was disseminated across national and international media, Amaral refuted it and called it a misunderstanding. One year later, Brazil denied IAEA inspectors full visual access to the Resende enrichment plant's centrifuges, which led to months of Brazil–IAEA disagreements. The two parties finally reached a compromise for Brazil to reduce the size of the panels covering the machinery. Nonetheless, Brazil's reluctance to these verification measures and constant refusal to sign the Additional Protocol have been interpreted by some as an attempt to hide undeclared activities. There were also rumors stating that the reason for concealing parts of the centrifuges was to hide technology Brazil had covertly obtained in the past, "possibly the Urenco G-2 design from Germany or another design from Pakistan." In 2008, Brazil issued its National Defense Strategy (Estratégia Nacional de Defesa), in which it reaffirmed its ambition to develop and master nuclear technology and conclude the nuclear-propulsion submarine. That year, Brazil established a cooperation agreement with France to construct the submarine. Even though the two countries will collaborate on this project, the nuclear reactor for the submarine is excluded from the contract and should be built by the Brazilian Navy on its own. Today, as a non-nuclear-weapon state party to the NPT, Brazil has the right under international norms to manufacture a naval reactor and produce highly enriched uranium to fuel it. While that has not happened yet, the possibility of Brazil enriching uranium at a level higher than the 20-percent threshold and employing it at a military facility has prompted continued concerns over its nuclear intentions. Vice President José