BARCELONA, SPAIN - Does Iraq have nuclear weapons? Last week, Britain's authoritative International Institute for Strategic Studies issued a study that concluded Iraq had the ability to produce a few nuclear devices but lacked the enriched uranium or plutonium to do so.
The Institute's report was clearly timed to provide more justification for a US-British attack on Iraq. The US and British governments as well as world media seized on the report to intensify claims that Iraq was a grave nuclear threat.
As a long-time member of the Institute, I was disappointed that it would so clearly bend to pressure from the British government by producing a report that was misleading and sensational. Instead of supporting `regime change' in Baghdad, the IISS might do better to review its own weak leadership at London HQ.
Iraq has no nuclear weapons or fissionable materials. This fact has been certified by the UN's nuclear inspection agency. As to the IISS's claim that Iraq has the capability to produce nuclear devices, so do more than 40 nations. Making a nuclear weapon is relatively simple. Take 4-9 kilos of highly enriched uranium or plutonium, surrounded with a specially shaped shell of high-explosive lenses, and detonate.
The recipe is available on the internet. The trick is acquiring highly enriched uranium or plutonium. This process requires hugely expensive, laborious separation and enrichment using banks of centrifuges, as well as expertise in fusing, and shaped-charge explosives.
In the 1980's, Iraq was indeed working on a crude nuclear weapon. Saudi Arabia secretly funded this top secret project in order to counter Israel's large nuclear arsenal, believed to number over 200 devices. Iraq acquired uranium from South Africa in exchange for oil. South Africa, which produced eight nuclear devices, secretly obtained its nuclear weapons technology from Israel. Ironically, South Africa later sold the Israeli uranium enrichment technology to Iraq.
When Saddam Hussein stumbled into the trap laid for him by George Bush senior by invading Kuwait in 1990, his scientists were within a few years of producing a primitive nuclear test device. During the 1991 Gulf War, Iraq's total nuclear and, in fact, total national industrial infrastructure, were pulverized by massive US bombing. Before the war, Iraq had been the most technologically developed and best educated nation in the Arab World. After, Iraq was reduced to pre-World War I level, with even its water and sewage systems wrecked by America's ruthless air campaign.
However, Iraq still retains a cadre of about 10,000 trained nuclear scientists and technicians. Unless they are all shot, Iraq will in theory be able one day to build a nuclear weapon, provided it can obtain fissionable material. Once the crushing blockade of Iraq is lifted, Baghdad might be able to produce 1-2 nuclear warheads within five years. But having warheads and delivering them are two different things. Iraq currently lacks aircraft or missiles to deliver nuclear weapons beyond 70 miles range.
Iraq is a leading Arab nation with the Mideast's second largest oil reserves. Unless the US succeeds in implanting and maintaining a compliant regime in Baghdad, such as it has done in Kabul, whatever brutal general that succeeds Saddam will eventually seek nuclear weapons. Why?
First, to counter Israel's nuclear monopoly. Israel has repeatedly threatened to attack Iraq and Iran with nuclear weapons, and is considered a mortal threat by the Arabs and Iranians. Second, because Iraq fears neighboring Iran, which has three times its population. Interestingly, every Iraqi leader since the 1920's has vowed to invade Kuwait and reunite it to Iraq. Why, in fact, should Iraq not have the right to possess nuclear weapons to protect its vast oil reserves?
President Bush claimed this week that an attack on Iraq was justified because it had refused to bow to UN resolutions and had weapons of mass destruction. Bush could just as well have been talking about Israel - which ignores scores of UN resolutions and refuses to admit UN nuclear arms inspectors. Or of India, which also ignores UN resolutions on Kashmir, and is developing a very large nuclear arsenal with Israeli aid, that includes nuclear-armed ICBM missiles that will soon be able to reach the USA.
Foreign Correspondent