Tariq Aziz. Sheesh! This tiresome wog is simply trying innoculate world opinion against what Iraq has coming to it. Kind of analogous to how you might innoculate a human body against a bacillus by introducing into it a harmless bug that resembles the real thing enough to get the immune system excited.
A question worth asking, however, is why is he squawking at this point in time? What has spooked him? The attack he outlines would not be all that useful without a ground followup to occupy the country and desaddamize it.
They underestimate us.
Again.
Iraqi equivalent of the Los Alamos laboratory was its nuclear development complex at Al Atheer, 40 km south of Baghdad. This facility and the adjacent Al Hateen high-explosive facility, was blown up under UN supervision on 14 April 1992. Documents show that it was the intended center for nuclear weapons development. This state-of-the-art research facility included a 15,000 m^2 uranium metallurgy plant, a HE test firing bunker, internal explosion test chambers, a tungsten carbide production facility (usable perhaps for a weapon tamper material), and large amounts of dual use test, measuring, and fabrication equipment.
The principal component of Iraq's nuclear program was a uranium enrichment program based on electromagnetic separation technology using calutrons. That this technology was being developed was unknown prior to the international inspections following Desert Storm, and was a major surprise.
Calutron technology was acquired and developed during the early to mid 1980s. Calutrons were built and operated at Tuwaitha and Tarmiya. A plan was underway to build a large enrichment facility at Tarmiya sufficient to produce 0.5 weapons a year, using natural uranium feed, but this program was progressing more slowly than planned. A captured 1987 report shows that Iraq had planned to install 70 alpha (first stage) calutrons, and 20 beta (final stage) calutrons during 8/89-12/92. Actually just 8 alpha machines had been installed during 2/90-9/90. This was about 10 months behind schedule. Iraq was preparing to install another 17 alpha machines in January 1991, a process that would have taken months, but the installation was halted by the initiation of hostilities. No beta machines were ready for installation although 4 were due to have been installed by 10/90.
According to the original plan, the calutrons would have begun operating as they were installed. Using natural uranium as the feedstock these would have produced the first 15 kg of 93% uranium, enough for one bomb, by the time the installation of the last machine was complete. Alternatively, if 2.5% low enriched uranium was used as feedstock, the first 15 kg would have been ready in 24 months. The annual production rate for the completed facility would have been 7 kg/yr using natural uranium feed. In fact, the installed calutrons had not yet begun operation. Given an approximate one year delay for the calutron production program, and assuming Iraq would have no further difficulties in reaching full production capability, Iraq could have produced 15 kg of weapon-grade uranium as early as the beginning of 1994. Using the 1763 kg of IAEA safeguarded 2.6% uranium that Iraq possessed, this could have been advanced by a year but would have almost certainly alerted the international community before the material was ready. In all likelihood though, these estimates are too optimistic. Iraq had operated calutrons on an experimental basis, and had no experience with a large scale production operation. Additional time would have been necessary to work out problems, and build up operating capacity. Recent reports indicate that Iraq regards the calutron program as a disappointing failure and is unlikely to pursue this technology further.
Centrifuge technology was also actively pursued. While unable to acquire centrifuge design Pakistan-style through intelligence activity, Iraq appears to have been able to purchase them on a clandestine "gray market". A German formerly employed by URENCO was hired to improve the purchased design.
Iraq is now known to possess both centrifuge designs and significant centrifuge technology. Information about Iraqi centrifuge designs and knowledge is due primarily to Bruno Stemmler, a German ex-employee of MAN Technologie of Munich, which is an important partner in URENCO. In 1988 he was recruited by Walter Busse, another German centrifuge expert, and in 1988 and 1989 he traveled to Iraq and provided technology and consultation services to the Iraqi centrifuge program (both were arrested in 1989 in Germany). While in Iraq he saw designs based on the German G-1 centrifuge which may have been obtained from Pakistan or Busse. Stemmler provided help in many areas of centrifuge design and manufacturing, including oil bearings, various aspects of rotor tube and baffle design, and oxidation treatment of steel rotors, although he denies providing classified information and has not been charged.
Centrifuge test stands were constructed and operated at Tuwaitha, Rashidiya, and Al Furat using maraging steel rotors. Poor quality rotors were manufactured at Factory 10, near Baghdad. A better plant was under construction at Al Furat, which also was planned to receive a 100 centrifuge pilot enrichment cascade. Iraq is believed to have imported 400 tonnes of maraging steel for rotor construction, although only 100 tonnes were located by inspectors. Iraq was found to have carbon fiber rotors, an even more advanced material. Later investigation showed that 20 carbon fiber rotors had been supplied to Iraq by the German company RO-SCH Verbundwerstoff GmbH. Several years of work would have been required before Iraq could have begun constructing centrifuges suitable for an enrichment program.
Plutonium separation technology was developed at Tuwaitha during the 1970s. This portion of the program was abandoned after the Israeli bombing of the Osiraq reactor in 1981. Iraq has declared that 5 g of plutonium was separated at Tuwaitha.
Iraq also investigated chemical enrichment technology to partially enrich uranium to serve as calutron feed. A combination of the French Chemex and the Japanese Ashi methods were expected to produce 6-8% enriched U-235.
In 1990 Iraqi agents were detected attempting to obtain krytrons in the U.S..
After the 8 August 1995 defection of Lt. Gen. Hussein Kamel Majid, son-in-law to Saddam Hussein, and former director of weapon procurement, Iraq revealed that during the Gulf conflict in 1990-91, it had initiated a crash development program to manufacture a single nuclear weapon using highly enriched uranium fuel intended for its internationally safeguarded Tammuz test reactor. The plan was to complete the atomic bomb during the spring of 1991. Unirradiated and low-irradiated fuel was actually unloaded and some fuel elements later turned over to UN inspectors show signs of tampering. Iraq had 12.3 kg or 93% U-235, and 33.1 kg of 80% U-235 available that was unirradiated or had low radiation levels and could have been easily processed. With the start of hostilities in January these plans were aborted.
Early in 1996, the former Lt. Gen. Majid returned to Iraq under a personal guarantee of safety from Saddam Hussein. He was murdered two days later.
IRAQ said yesterday that it expects to be attacked by America and Britain, and warned of the "grave" consequences if any attempt was made to topple Saddam Hussein from power.
In an exclusive interview with The Telegraph, Tariq Aziz, the Iraqi deputy prime minister, alleged that the Baghdad regime had learned of plans by the West to strike "300 targets with 1,000 missiles".
He accused America and Britain of trying to remove Saddam under the pretext of waging war against terrorism.
He said: "We know that they are preparing for such an attack. We are watching what is being said and what is being done in the United States and in Britain and we know that it is just a matter of time before such an attack.
"That is going to be a very grave mistake. The Arab world is not going to tolerate that. Many countries are not going to tolerate that because they know that this is unjust and is sheer aggression."
He said that while he did not expect an attack against Iraq to result in Arab military retaliation, it would cause the painstakingly assembled coalition against terrorism to fall apart, isolating Britain and America.
Mr Aziz was speaking as America and Britain completed their third week of bombing attacks on Afghanistan with the heaviest assault yet on the capital, Kabul. US warplanes also pounded Taliban positions across Afghanistan in an assault lasting more than 11 hours, reportedly killing nine people.
Meanwhile, Paul Wolfowitz, America's deputy defence secretary, told The Telegraph that Britons should brace themselves for biological weapons attacks.