- Saddam Hussein's efforts to obtain A-bombs with France
and USSR's help were brought to nothing...
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- The situation around Iraq still gets the major attention
of the world. Americans keep on insisting that Saddam has an A-bomb. The
majority of other countries, including Russia, have nothing to do but to
shrug their shoulders, saying that it is all bluff, a political game, and
nothing more. Iraq is physically incapable of making an A-bomb. This can
be done by the states that possess high technologies and the necessary
scientific potential. This article is devoted to the events that shed some
light on the arguments of the United States of America.
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- Back in 1981 senior Soviet officials entrusted the Foreign
Ministry and KBG of the USSR with looking into the situation that occurred
around Iraq back in those years. Experts concluded that Iraq possessed
a lot of "excessive" money. They said that Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein aspired to become the leader of the whole Arab world, which was
a reason to declare war on Iran. The war was conducted with a view "to
protect eastern borders of the Arab Fatherland" from the Islamic revolution
in Iran. Soviet secret agents decided that Saddam was going to turn Iraq
into the regional super-power with the help of the military force, first
and foremost. To crown it all, the Soviet Union was informed that Iraq
had achieved a considerable progress in the development of the weapons
of mass destruction. Iraq planned to launch a French nuclear reactor in
about six months. The reactor was capable of producing up to ten kilos
of plutonium a year. Adequate specialists would make it possible for Iraq
to manufacture three A-bombs already by 1983 (and five A-bombs by 1985).
KGB agents concluded that Iraq was about to become the second nuclear power
in the Middle East after Israel.
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- As a matter of fact, that information was not a piece
of sensational news for the Soviet Union. The USSR leadership was aware
of all those things. Furthermore, the Soviet government knew that Iraq
conducted active negotiations with Italian and German firms, discussing
a purchase of enriched uranium. Uranium used to be delivered to Baghdad
from Brazil, Portugal and Niger. The war between Iran and Iraq gave another
incentive to Saddam's nuclear activities.
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- Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko was certain that the
Iraqi nuclear weapon did not pose a danger to the USSR. Yet, he added that
it would cause a lot of troubles for the USA and its ally, Israel. It was
the Soviet Union that gave an opportunity to Iraq to taste the nuclear
power. The governments of the USSR and Iraq signed an agreement on August
17, 1959. The document stipulated rendering technical assistance to Iraq
in the construction of a small research reactor and an isotope laboratory.
Oleg Grinevsky, the former chairman of the Mideast department of the Soviet
Union Foreign Ministry recollects: "When we reported that to Nikita
Kruschev, he grinned and said: "First we have the Chinese asking for
bombs, now we have Arabs asking the same. We will get the headache after
all. We will cooperate, but we will not give any bombs!" A small nuclear
reactor of the 2000 kilowatts capacity started working 15 kilometers off
the Iraqi capital in nine years. The reactor could not be used for producing
the weapons of mass destruction: it was too small for that.
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- Saddam Hussein arrived in Moscow in April of 1975. He
was the prime minister of Iraq at that time. Hussein signed several coordinated
arms delivery contracts. However, the major goal of his visit was to expand
the nuclear cooperation between Iraq and the USSR. Saddam asked for nuclear
technologies and for a more powerful reactor. The USSR approved that on
the whole, although there was a condition for that. The Soviet Union demanded
that the new equipment should be subjected to the constant control of the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). This was something that Baghdad
did not want at all. It goes without saying that the Iraqi prime minister
was absolutely not happy about that. In September Saddam left for Paris
with the same mission. The French were aware of the goal of his visit,
so they took Saddam to their top secret object - Cadarache. That-era French
Prime Minister Jacques Chirac offered Saddam a reactor, which was rather
powerful for that time. In addition to the reactor, Chirac offered Hussein
a laboratory with a yearly reserve (72 kilos) of 93% enriched uranium.
Nothing was mentioned about IAEA guarantees, although that quantity of
nuclear fuel was enough for producing several A-bombs, the capacity of
which could be comparable to the one that was dropped on Hiroshima. The
French definitely realized that offering the nuclear fuel and the reactor
to Iraq was not a game. However, France eventually sacrificed that for
the sake of three billion dollars. Paris thought that Iraq would not be
able to extract plutonium without a very important component. Saddam did
not ask for it, which meant that he was going to build just a network of
nuclear power plants in his country. However, Baghdad turned out to be
rather sly: in 1976 Iraq signed a contract with Rome to purchase that very
missing component - the so-called hot chamber. This chamber is used to
process radioactive ingredients of the nuclear fuel, extracting plutonium
as a result.
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- The USSR was very unhappy to learn about the deal between
Iraq and France. Foreign Minister Gromyko was very upset, when he read
a paragraph of the official agreement, which ran: "All persons of
Jewish nationality can not take part in the program either in Iraq or in
France." Gromyko concluded that an A-bomb was meant for Israel. Nevertheless,
Moscow turned a blind eye on all those "mischievous" actions
of the Iraqi leadership. Baghdad proclaimed the establishment of the socialist
society. Iraq backed up the USSR internationally, it stood together with
Moscow against Americans and Israelis. More importantly, Iraq paid really
good money for conventional arms deliveries. The USSR received thirteen
billion dollars of the defense export from Iraq since the second half of
the 1970s until the end of the 1980s.
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- Baghdad's nuclear ambition worried Tel Aviv a lot. The
Israeli intelligence managed to determine the real goals of Saddam's visit
to the Soviet Union and France. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin had
a secret conversation with Defense Minister Igal Alon. The general informed
the head of the Israeli government of the Iraqi nuclear program. The defense
minister said that Iraq agreed upon acquiring a 500-megawatt nuclear reactor
from France; a group of young Iraqi physicists left for Paris and Rome
to study there; best Arab technical specialists already worked in Baghdad.
Mossad established control over almost all Iraqi nuclear power scientists,
both abroad and in Baghdad. Mossad intelligence developed an operation
to destroy French reactors before they could reach Iraq. Israeli agents
spent 18 months, tracing the execution of the Iraqi order at a French nuclear
concern. In the beginning of April 1979, they managed to obtain the information
that two nuclear reactors were ready to be shipped to Iraq. Several "tourists"
with Belgian passports arrived in France, met in a previously agreed place,
rented two trucks, and then left for a French port to pick up reactors.
Three more men joined the group of "tourists" soon after that.
They managed to get into the warehouse, where the reactors were stored,
and fixed bombs right on them. The story was over with a very powerful
blast, which made 300 thousand hours of working on reactors (they cost
$17 million) a complete waste of time - they were destroyed.
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- Israel found out in two weeks that Prime Minister Jacques
Chirac promised Saddam Hussein to produce new reactors at the expense of
France. A large group of Iraqi scientists arrived in France to work and
to study in special nuclear power institutions. Mossad started tracing
and spying on brightest scientists. First of all, Israel offered them to
cooperate. If they refused, they were found dead soon after that (murdered
or poisoned and so on). As a matter of fact, every step of an Iraqi nuclear
specialist was watched very carefully: Iraqi agents spied on them together
with Israeli ones.
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- Yaha al-Meshad, the laureate of the Egyptian nuclear
power committee prize, the largest Arab nuclear scientist was found dead
on June 13th, 1980 in one of Paris hotels. One version said that he was
assassinated by a Mossad agent, while the other one said that it was done
by the Iraqi counterintelligence. This mess of explosions and assassinations
in the offices of pro-Iraqi companies lasted until the autumn of 1980.
They had only one goal - to warn the West against the nuclear cooperation
with Iraq. A lot of firms refused from dealing with Saddam but they were
not French firms.
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- A new reactor was built and then delivered to Iraq without
any problems by September of 1980. It was installed next to a Soviet reactor
at a newly built nuclear center. Iraqi troops transgressed the Iraqi border
after that, which was the start of the war between Iraq and Iran, which
lasted for eight years. Iran tried to bomb Iraqi reactors, although Iranian
planes were basically shot down by the Iraqi anti-missile defense. Saddam
Hussein hurried French specialists. The reactor was supposed to be launched
in July of 1981. The French asked Hussein to adjourn the launch until September.
Saddam agreed and took all the works under his personal control. He was
100% sure that plutonium will make Iran surrender. Furthermore, it would
be possible to change the situation in the Middle East with the help of
an A-bomb. Saddam thought that Iraq would be considered as powerful as
Israel, and the whole Arab world would dance to Saddam's tune.
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- The Israeli government was certain that if Iraq was going
to have an A-bomb, it would be used not against Iran, but against the Jewish
state. However, the military intelligence, Mossad, the defense ministry
of Israel were all against bombing the reactor. As they claimed, Israel
would lose a lot of friends, while Egypt would break the peace treaty,
and Iran and Iraq would unite against Israel. The adversaries of the bombing
idea offered to show the diplomatic influence on Iraq. If that was not
going to work, they suggested using wreckers or secret service agents in
Iraq.
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- In the middle of October of 1980, Israeli Prime Minister
Menachem Begin had a meeting with senior defense officials of his government.
The agenda of the meeting included only one question - what should be done
about the Iraqi reactor. The prime minister stressed out that diplomacy
could not do a thing about it, while the world community exercised its
inactivity about the problem. Raphael Eitan, the head of the Israeli military
headquarters, put forward three answers. First of all, he suggested that
there should be a group of blasters delivered to the object for destroying
it. His second suggestion was about entrusting the whole operation to Mossad
agents. Finally, Eitan said that Israel might use its Air Force for bombing
the French reactor, keeping the Soviet one intact. The first two variants
were rejected, while the third one was slightly modified. As it was decided,
Israeli planes would fly to Iraq via Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Syria. The
participants of the session agreed upon Eitan's arguments. However, the
final decision was supposed to be made by the prime minister. Several hours
later, the prime minister decided to bomb the reactor. The operation was
called "Babylon."
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- The French reactor was totally destroyed by the Israeli
aviation on June 7th, 1981. Then there was the war in the Persian Gulf.
The American aviation leveled almost every Iraqi object, where weapons
of mass destruction might be produced. International inspectors started
working in Iraq, although they have not managed to find the nuclear fuel
yet.
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- http://english.pravda.ru/main/2003/03/10/44204.html
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