[Peace-discuss] Iraq suppliers

[Dlind49 at aol.com]

Iraq Identified Nuclear Program Suppliers
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

 
Filed at 6:32 a.m. ET

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Dozens of suppliers, most in Europe, the United States 
and Japan, provided the components and know-how Saddam Hussein needed to 
build an atomic bomb, according to Iraq's 1996 accounting of its nuclear 
program.

The secret declaration, shown to The Associated Press, is virtually identical 
to the one submitted to U.N. inspectors on Dec. 7, according to U.N. 
officials. The reports have not been made public to prevent nuclear know-how 
from falling into the wrong hands and also to protect the names of companies 
that wittingly or unwittingly supplied Iraq with the means to make nuclear 
weapons.

U.N. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the only difference 
between the two reports is that the latest has a 300-page section in Arabic 
on civilian nuclear programs and a slightly larger typeface that stretches it 
to 2,100 pages.

That foreign companies helped Iraq has long been known, and some of them have 
been identified before, but the Iraqi accounting adds up to the most 
exhaustive list so far of companies involved.

Iraq's report says the equipment was either sold or made by more than 30 
German companies, 10 American companies, 11 British companies and a handful 
of Swiss, Japanese, Italian, French, Swedish and Brazilian firms. It says 
more than 30 countries supplied its nuclear program.

It details nuclear efforts from the early 1980s to the Gulf War and contains 
diagrams, plans and test results in uranium enrichment, detonation, implosion 
testing and warhead construction.

In one chapter, Iraq admits to having a pilot plan in September 1990 -- one 
month after it invaded Kuwait -- to increase the enrichment of recovered 
uranium to 93 percent using centrifuges. The process is a complicated 
extraction and purification method that at full scale requires thousands of 
connected, high speed centrifuges.

According to Iraq's report, the most detailed accounting of its former 
nuclear weapons program, it was also pursuing electromagnetic isotope 
separation as another method to enrich uranium, the key ingredient for an 
atomic explosion.

The Iraqis had everything they needed to make nuclear weapons, said Gary 
Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin Project, a Washington-based think tank 
on nuclear arms control. ``They weren't missing any components or any 
knowledge,'' he said in a phone interview. ``It was simply a matter of time.''

Milhollin said that had it not been for the 1991 Gulf War, Iraq would have 
had nuclear weapons by now, thanks to hundreds of suppliers who sold it an 
impressive array of equipment and expertise, often with their government's 
approval and without being aware of the ultimate purpose. According to the 
Iraqi accounting, induction and electron beam furnaces, which could be used 
in shaping uranium parts for an atomic bomb, came from Consarc Corp. of 
Rancocas, N.J. The company says the items were never delivered, however.

Newport Corp. of Irvine, Calif., is listed as a supplier of optical fiber, a 
product with uses ranging from communications to medical equipment. But the 
company said it doesn't carry the model listed in the declaration.

EEV Inc., based outside New York City, is listed as a supplier of a 
thyratron, which the company says is used in medical imaging equipment. It 
could not immediately verify the sale of the item.

Motorola Inc., was listed as the seller of fast photodetectors, but company 
spokeswoman Jennifer Weyrauch said she found no record to support the claim. 
``A photodetector product is not part of Motorola's current portfolio.''

Most of the sales were legal and often made with the knowledge of 
governments. In 1985-90, the U.S. Commerce Department, for example, licensed 
$1.5 billion in sales to Iraq of American technology with potential military 
uses. Iraq was then getting Western support for its war against Iran, which 
at the time was regarded as the main threat to stability in the oil-rich Gulf 
region.

But inspectors have discovered over the years that Iraq often obtained 
supplies through middlemen or by lying to companies about the products' 
intended use.

``It was useful in the past and it will be useful in the future to go to 
companies and ask them questions,'' said Ewen Buchanan, spokesman for the 
U.N. weapons inspectors. While the Iraqi declaration provides a lot of 
important information, the companies can often give inspectors insight into 
the real extent of Iraq's programs.

Since the Gulf War, dozens of companies have either admitted to sales or were 
prosecuted in Europe for helping arm Iraq. Several no longer exist.

``Revealing company names can discourage other companies from getting 
involved in deals with countries like Iraq where you don't really know the 
true end-use of your products,'' said David Albright, an American nuclear 
expert and a weapons inspector in 1996.

According to Iraq's accounting, the real help came from German experts and 
companies, in particular H&H Metallform, which sold the Iraqis old designs 
for centrifuges.

Cooperation with H&H ``was fruitful and it was called upon to render 
technical assistance and consultations in various activities,'' Iraq wrote in 
its nuclear declaration.

In 1993, German courts found two H&H employees guilty of violating export law 
and sentenced them to over two years in prison for working with Iraq.

German companies allegedly involved in other aspects of Iraq's former weapons 
programs were named in a report Tuesday in the German daily Die Tageszeitung. 
The report also said companies such as DaimlerChrysler, Siemens and Preussag 
sold items to Iraq which were diverted to the weapons programs.

The companies either declined to comment on the report, or said the 
deliveries had nothing to do with weapons, such as trucks or auto parts from 
DaimlerChrysler.

Some of Iraq's nuclear materials were destroyed during previous U.N. 
inspections, and Iraq is now banned from repurchasing much of it. But 
reconnaissance photos released by the Bush administration in October indicate 
the Iraqis have been rebuilding sites previously used for nuclear 
development. A recent U.S. intelligence report says Iraq may have nuclear 
weapons by 2010.

Iraq acknowledged to inspectors last month that it was importing aluminum 
tubes which it said were for conventional weapons. The Bush administration 
said the tubes could be used to construct centrifuges for uranium enrichment. 
But nuclear experts differ on whether the tubes are of the proper size and 
material.

What Iraq still has, however, is the expertise to start again.

Albright said the new evidence, coupled with long-running suspicions ``that 
Iraq continued its nuclear weapons program even while inspectors were on the 
ground in the '90s,'' is what makes the latest declaration such a 
disappointment.

Mohammed ElBaradei, chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said 
last week that the new submission amounts to a rehash of the 1996 report and 
covers ``material we already had before.''

A line-by-line comparison of the table of contents from the 1996 declaration 
and the 2002 version which was released last week by the United Nations finds 
subtle differences, mainly in translation, but not in substance.

Inspectors were not surprised that Iraq resubmitted old reports since Baghdad 
claims it hasn't been working on weapons of mass destruction since the 1991 
Gulf War. A submission of anything new would have contradicted that claim.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: Associated Press National Writer Matt Crenson, investigative 
researcher Randy Herschaft and Frankfurt correspondent Melissa Eddy 
contributed to this report.

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On The Net:

International Atomic Energy Agency: www.iaea.org

U.N. Monitoring Verification and Inspection Commission: www.unmovic.org 


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