Iraq's bomb: Blueprints and artifacts
- Friends of the Earth, Washington, DC (United States)
After more than half a year of investigating Iraq's clandestine nuclear program, UN and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors found the biggest remaining piece of the puzzle: details of Iraq's effort to design and develop a nuclear explosive device. On September 22, an inspection team - the seventh sent by the UN Special Commission to uncover Iraq's weapons of mass destruction - discovered the nuclear weapons program archives at program headquarters in Baghdad. Many of the documents found there recorded Iraq's plans and progress. Less than a week earlier, Rahim Al-Kital, Iraq's ambassador to the IAEA, informed the agency's 1991 conference in Vienna that Iraq had already told the United Nations everything,' and that inspectors were guessing' about a nuclear weapons program that did not exist. But the find put an end to any doubts that Iraq's secret effort to enrich uranium was for weapons purposes. The documents showed that since 1988 or 1989 Iraq had invested heavily in facilities to develop and make nuclear weapons. By mid 1990, Iraqi scientists had made some progress in understanding how a relatively crude nuclear explosive device with a core of highly enriched uranium would work, and they had done some experiments on parts of the technology. By that time, an experimental program was under way for using shaped conventional charges to activate a nuclear explosion by uniformly compressing a uranium sphere. But on the eve of the Kuwait invasion, Iraqi experts still had many theoretical and experimental questions to answer.
- OSTI ID:
- 7052080
- Journal Information:
- Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists; (United States), Vol. 48:1; ISSN 0096-5243
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Nuclear proliferation: Learning from the Iraq experience. Hearing before the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, One Hundred Second Congress, First Session, October 17 and 23, 1991
Sandia National Laboratories support of the Iraq Nuclear Facility Dismantlement and Disposal Program.
Related Subjects
29 ENERGY PLANNING
POLICY AND ECONOMY
IRAQ
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
PROLIFERATION
RESEARCH PROGRAMS
USA
NON-PROLIFERATION POLICY
INSPECTION
INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION
ASIA
COOPERATION
DEVELOPED COUNTRIES
DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
MIDDLE EAST
NORTH AMERICA
WEAPONS
350200* - Arms Control- Proliferation- (1987-)
350101 - Arms Control- Policy
Negotiations
& Legislation- Treaties- (1987-)
290600 - Energy Planning & Policy- Nuclear Energy