Iraq’s civil nuclear programme
- Iraq’s long-standing civil nuclear power programme is limited to small scale research. Activities that could be used for military purposes are prohibited by UNSCR 687 and 715.
- Iraq has no nuclear power plants and therefore no requirement for uranium as fuel.
- Iraq has a number of nuclear research programmes in the fields of agriculture, biology, chemistry, materials and pharmaceuticals. None of these activities requires more than tiny amounts of uranium which Iraq could supply from its own resources.
- Iraq’s research reactors are non-operational; two were bombed and one was never completed.
- Intelligence shows that other important procurement activity since 1998 has included attempts to purchase:
- vacuum pumps which could be used to create and maintain pressures in a gas centrifuge cascade needed to enrich uranium;
- an entire magnet production line of the correct specification for use in the motors and top bearings of gas centrifuges. It appears that Iraq is attempting to acquire a capability to produce them on its own rather than rely on foreign procurement;
- Anhydrous Hydrogen Fluoride (AHF) and fluorine gas. AHF is commonly used in the petrochemical industry and Iraq frequently imports significant amounts, but it is also used in the process of converting uranium into uranium hexafluoride for use in gas centrifuge cascades;
- one large filament winding machine which could be used to manufacture carbon fibre gas centrifuge rotors;
- a large balancing machine which could be used in initial centrifuge balancing work.
- Iraq has also made repeated attempts covertly to acquire a very large quantity (60,000 or more) of specialised aluminium tubes. The specialised aluminium in question is subject to international export controls because of its potential application in the construction of gas centrifuges used to enrich uranium, although there is no definitive intelligence that it is destined for a nuclear programme.
Nuclear weapons: timelines
- In early 2002, the JIC assessed that UN sanctions on Iraq were hindering the import of crucial goods for the production of fissile material. The JIC judged
26
