4.2 |
Iraq WMD assessments, July to September 2002
•
“Iraq still
lacks fissile material and the infrastructure to make
it.”
•
If it were
“able to acquire sufficient fissile [material] for a weapon or
centrifuges
and feed
material from outside Iraq”, the time periods to manufacture a
crude
nuclear
weapon and a nuclear warhead could, “with foreign assistance”,
be
“significantly
shortened”.400
728.
The JIC
Assessment of 10 May 2001 stated:
•
The JIC had
“no clear
intelligence on Iraq’s nuclear programme”.
There was
“evidence
of increased activity at Iraq’s only remaining nuclear facility and
a
growing
number of reports on possible
nuclear related procurement”.
•
The JIC judged
but could not confirm that Iraq was “conducting nuclear
related
research and
development into
the enrichment of
uranium and could
have
longer term
plans to produce enriched uranium for a weapon”.
•
Iraq had
“recalled its nuclear scientists in 1998”. It had made “efforts …
since
1998 to
procure items that could be used in a uranium enrichment
programme
using
centrifuges”.
•
Those
included: “aluminium
[tubes]”
and “other
dual-use items”.401
729.
The
introductory paragraph in the CIG Assessment of 15 March 2002
stated that
sanctions
were constraining programmes to develop medium and long-range
ballistic
missiles
and nuclear weapons.402
The
Assessment also stated:
•
“Iraq is
pursuing a nuclear weapons programme. But it will not be able
to
indigenously
produce a nuclear weapon while sanctions remain in place,
unless
suitable
fissile material is purchased from abroad.”
•
Iraq does
not possess a nuclear weapons capability.
•
Its
programme was effectively dismantled by the IAEA.
•
Although
there was “very little intelligence”, the CIG continued to judge
that
Iraq was
“pursuing a nuclear weapons programme” which was assessed to
be
“based on
gas centrifuge uranium
enrichment … the route
Iraq was following
for
producing fissile material prior to the Gulf War”.
•
“Recent
intelligence” indicated that “nuclear scientists were recalled to
work on
a nuclear
programme in the autumn of 1998, but we do not know if
large-scale
development
work has yet recommenced”.
•
“Procurement
of dual-use items over the last few years could be used
in
a uranium
enrichment programme. There have been determined efforts
to
purchase
high strength aluminium alloy …” A shipment stopped in Jordan
was
400
JIC
Assessment, 1 December 2000, ‘Iraq’s Military
Capabilities’.
401
JIC
Assessment, 10 May 2001, ‘Iraq’s WMD Programmes: Status and
Vulnerability’.
402
CIG
Assessment, 15 March 2002, ‘The Status of Iraqi WMD
Programmes’.
255