World News
August 29, 2002
Secret files on Baghdad's weapons plans
by Michael Evans
THE only known store of nuclear material in Iraq sits in heavyweight
sealed barrels at Tawaitha research facility south of Baghdad. It
consists of several tonnes of low-grade uranium and is monitored by an
international agency with the full co-operation of the Iraqi regime.
The legitimacy of the Tawaitha nuclear material — 1.8 tonnes of low-
enriched uranium and “several tonnes” of depleted and natural uranium
— contrasts sharply with what Western intelligence agencies believe is
President Saddam Hussein’s clandestine programme to build a nuclear
bomb and to develop other forms of weapons of mass destruction
based on chemical and biological agents.
The unpublished “dossier” on Saddam’s secret weapons that the British
Government says will be unveiled at the appropriate time — after a
decision has been taken to launch a military attack on Iraq — goes
some way towards outlining the threat.
However, senior Whitehall sources made it clear that it was not
“revelatory”. The dossier, which has had to be redrafted several times,
is intended to give an unclassified insight into Iraq’s progress in
developing unconventional weapons since the United Nations
inspections came to an abrupt halt in December 1998.
Tony Blair is getting no inside information from President Bush about
his plans for dealing with Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction
programme, according to a former senior American diplomat. Richard
Holbrooke who was United States Ambassador to the United Nations
under President Clinton, revealed in The Washington Post that a
“senior adviser” to Mr Blair had told him “bitterly” that Mr Bush “was
giving Blair nothing” in return for his unstinting support on Iraq.
Mr Blair’s official spokesman refused to comment yesterday on Mr
Holbrooke’s remark, but said that London and Washington were “100
per cent” agreed on the need to deal with Iraq’s weapons of mass
destruction.
Much of the detail of the Whitehall dossier has come from Iraqi
defectors because of the difficulty of acquiring “primary-source”
Intelligence from within Iraq. The sources indicated that although much
of the recent focus had been on Iraq’s secret plans to “weaponise”
biological agents, such as anthrax and smallpox, the main area of
concern was still Saddam’s ambition to build a nuclear bomb.
One source said: “If Saddam managed to develop a nuclear weapon
and a delivery system to reach targets hundreds or thousands of miles
away, it would change the whole power balance in the Middle East.”
Although the Government has been anxious to keep the contents of the
dossier to itself, the thrust of its message has become clear: without the
opportunity to send in international inspectors to check on suspected
weapons-of-mass-destruction laboratories, the world will remain
dangerously ignorant of what Saddam has managed to achieve in the
past three and a half years.
The sources said that Saddam had “several hundred” scientists and
engineers fully employed on developing nuclear, chemical and
biological systems. “All of them know from the experience of the few
defectors who have managed to escape to America and Britain that
Saddam takes ruthless revenge on the families of those who dare to
betray the secrets of his weapons programme,” one said.
Not only close relations but also the extended family of defectors have
been murdered as a warning to others who may be tempted to go over
to the West, the source said.
Drawing on the discoveries made by the United Nations weapons
inspectors before they had to leave Baghdad in December 1998, those
contributing to the Whitehall dossier have said that Iraq possessed the
capability, the know-how and much of the equipment needed to build a
nuclear device.
Saddam’s team of nuclear scientists still lack the fissile material to
complete the bomb, and there have been no indications from satellite
imagery of any attempt to build a facility capable of enriching uranium to
bomb-grade quality. For that complex process the Iraqis would need
substantial infrastructure and a power supply that could be spotted by
American spy satellites.
Iraq has the know-how to create highly enriched uranium but the
equipment needed was all destroyed by the UN inspectors after the
1991 Gulf War. “But you don’t need large buildings to develop a nuclear
bomb if you can acquire weapons-grade enriched material from other
sources, such as the black market,” the source said.
There are so many research facilities across the former Soviet Union
that still have stocks of highly enriched uranium, many of them
inadequately guarded, that the biggest fear is that Saddam will be able
to shorten the time needed for building a bomb by buying smuggled
weapons-grade nuclear material. Last month four men were arrested by
police in Georgia with nearly 2kg (4.4lb) of enriched uranium.
The low-grade uranium stored at Tawaitha has remained untouched by
the Iraqis, who every January welcome a team of four or five nuclear
experts from the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency to
examine the sealed barrels. An agency official confirmed that the seals
had never been tampered with, and that the annual visit to Tawaitha
had clearly acted as a deterrent to the Iraqis.
However, there have been many indications of Saddam’s continuing
efforts to develop nuclear weapons by acquiring dual-use equipment,
which might seem innocent on the import documents but can be
adapted for his unconventional weapons programme. Three years ago
Iraq was reported to have ordered half a dozen “lithotripters”, machines
that use shock waves to get rid of kidney stones, but UN experts said
they also had a practical use for triggering atomic devices.
Before the UN inspectors had to leave Baghdad, they had concluded
that Saddam’s nuclear scientists had mastered the crucial technique of
creating an implosive shock wave that squeezes the nuclear material to
trigger a chain reaction. The inspectors also believed it was possible
that the Iraqis had managed to design a sufficiently small bomb to fit on
to a Scud ballistic missile. There were believed to be at least ten such
missiles hidden somewhere in Iraq. Most of Iraq’s Scuds were
destroyed by the UN team.
The agency keeps a “nuclear file” on Iraq, and although its inspectors,
who visit Tawaitha every year, are unable to go anywhere else in Iraq,
its officials say that it would be difficult for the Iraqis to get their hands
on enriched uranium for a bomb. “Getting the right nuclear material,
that’s Iraq’s problem,” one official said.
The Whitehall dossier, however, is believed to underline the risk that
the rest of the world faces if it waits for Saddam to achieve his goal. He
may be several years away from completing his nuclear bomb
programme, but if he were to acquire sufficient fissile material, the
countdown to his nuclear dream could start much earlier.
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