Nuclear Proliferation and the Case of Iraq

Abstract

On Thanksgiving Day, 1990, President Bush announced that Iraq might get nuclear weapons sooner than some experts believed, and from that time forward Iraq's nuclear capacity was repeatedly cited as a major justification for pursuing the use of force against Iraq. Assuming that Iraq's nuclear research facilities have surely been destroyed during the massive bombing assault that began on 16 January 1991 makes it important that everyone reexamine the possibilities of proliferation among third world and small countries, the international procedures for controlling proliferation, and whether Iraq had circumvented these procedures. The issue of whether Iraq was making nuclear weapons is not only important in itself, but gives examples of the pitfalls in the world's attempts to control, or at least slow, the proliferation of nuclear weapons among third world countries while at the same time allowing and even encouraging, their legitimate aspirations to acquire modem technology. I address four questions: Was Iraq making nuclear weapons? Is Iraq using facilities supplied by other nations for acquiring nuclear weapons? Were the three attempts by Israel to prevent the operation of the Osirak reactor necessary to prevent misuse of such technology? What are the implications for the world in these attempts?