The Myth of Iraq's Nuclear Capability

By Imad Khadduri, YellowTimes.org. Posted November 25, 2002.

As the war storm against Iraq swirls and gathers momentum, seeded by the efforts of the American and British governments, serious doubts arise as to the credibility of their intelligence sources, particularly the issue of Iraq's nuclear capability. It has been often noted that reliable intelligence on this matter is not immediately forthcoming. Moreover, such intelligence as has been presented is spurious and often contradictory. Perhaps it is not too late to rectify this misinformation campaign.

I worked with the Iraqi nuclear program from 1968 until my departure from Iraq in late 1998. Having been closely involved in most of the major nuclear activities of that program, from the Russian research reactor in the late 60s to the French research reactors in the late 70s, the Russian nuclear power program in the early 80s, the nuclear weapons program during the 80s and finally the confrontations with U.N. inspection teams in the 90s, it behooves me to admit that I find present allegations about Iraq's nuclear capability, as continuously advanced by the Americans and the British, to be ridiculous.

Let us go back to 1991. A week before the cessation of two-month saturation bombings on the target-rich Iraq, the Americans realized that a certain complex of buildings in Tarmiah, that had just been carpet-bombed for lack of any other remaining prominent targets, exhibited unusual swarming activity by rescuers the next morning. When they compared the photographs of that complex with other standing structures in Iraq, they were surprised to find an exact replica of that complex in the north of Iraq, near Sharqat, which was nearing completion. They directed their bombers to demolish the northern complex a few days before the end of hostilities. My family, along with the families of most prominent Iraqi nuclear scientists and the top management of the northern complex, were residing in the housing complex. The Tarmiah and Sharqat complexes were designed for housing the Calutron separators, similar to those used by the American Manhattan Project to develop the first atomic bombs that were dropped by the Americans on Japan.

At the end of 1991, after that infamous U.N. inspector, David Kay, got hold of many of the nuclear weapons program's reports (reports whose maintenance and security I had been in charge of), the Americans realized that their saturation bombing had missed a most important complex of buildings: that complex at Al-Atheer, which was the center for the design and assembly of the nuclear bomb. A lone, single bomb, thermally guided, had hit the electric substation outside the perimeter of the complex, causing little damage.

The glaring and revealing detail about these two events is the utter lack of any intelligence about these building complexes -- information that should have caused the repository of American and British intelligence to overflow. That is to say American and British intelligence had no idea of the programs that those buildings harbored -- programs that had been ongoing at full steam for the previous 10 years!

What really happened to Iraq's nuclear weapon program after the 1991 war?

Immediately after the cessation of hostilities, the entire organization that was responsible for the nuclear weapons project turned its attention to the reconstruction of the heavily damaged oil refineries, electric power stations, and telephone exchange buildings. The combined expertise of the several thousand scientific, engineering, and technical cadres manifested itself in the restoration of the oil, electric and communication infrastructure in a matter of months -- an impressive accomplishment, by any measure.

Then the U.N. inspectors were ushered in. The senior scientists and engineers among the nuclear cadre were instructed many times on how to cooperate with the inspectors. We were also asked to hand in to our own officials any reports or incriminating evidence, with heavy penalties (up to the death penalty, in some cases) for failing to do so. In the first few months, the "clean sheets" were hung up for all to see.

As the scientific questioning mounted, our scientists began to redirect the questioners to the actual technical documents themselves that had been amassed during the 10 years of activity. These documents had been traveling up and down and throughout Iraq in a welded train car. Then the order was issued to return the project's documents to their original location. At that point, David Kay pounced on them in the early morning hours of September 1991. Among the documents were those of Al-Atheer and the bomb specifics.

In the following few years, the nuclear weapons project organization was slowly disbanded. By 1994, its various departments were either elevated to independent civilian industrial enterprises, or absorbed within the Military Industrial Authority under Hussain Kamil, who later escaped to Jordan in 1996 and then returned to Baghdad where he was murdered.

Meanwhile, the brinksmanship with the U.N. inspectors continued. At one heated encounter, an American inspector remarked that the nuclear scientists and engineers were still around, and hinted accusingly that those scientists and engineers may be readily used for a rejuvenated nuclear program. The retort was, "What do you want us to do to satisfy you? Ask them to commit suicide?"

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