Iraq’s Nuclear Weapons Program:
Unresolved Issues

Steven Dolley
Nuclear Control Institute

May 12, 1998

To view documentation from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspection reports, please click on the active link at the top of each issue category.

Weapons Design

• Many important weapons-design drawings and reports are still missing.
• The status of R&D on advanced weapons designs (boosted, thermonuclear) remains unclear.
• Documentation of research on explosive lenses remains incomplete. Some key design drawings are still missing.
• The extent of outside assistance offered to or received by Iraq, including a reported offer of an actual nuclear weapon design, remains unresolved.

Centrifuge R&D

• Almost all centrifuge design documents and drawings are missing.
• Information is incomplete and drawings are missing related to Iraq’s super-critical centrifuge R&D program.
• Significant inconsistencies exist between Iraqi and foreign testimony on the amount of foreign assistance and components provided to the centrifuge program.

Missing Components and Equipment

• Not all "Group 4" nuclear weaponization equipment has been located or accounted for.
• Some uranium-conversion components remain unaccounted for.
• A plutonium-beryllium neutron source, potentially useful as a neutron initiator for a nuclear bomb, is still missing.

Uranium Stocks and Enrichment Program

• Large stockpiles of natural uranium remain in Iraq.
• Historical uranium MUF’s for Iraq’s uranium conversion and enrichment are large. Over three tons of uranium remains unaccounted for.
• The credibility of low (20%) historical capacity for EMIS (calutron) uranium enrichment reported by Iraq is open to question.

Iraqi Reporting to the IAEA

• The completeness of Iraq’s FFCD (Full, Final and Complete Declaration) is questionable. No information is publicly available on this report.
• The completeness of Iraq’s report on the technical achievements of its weaponization .program is unknown. No information is publicly available on this report.
• Many documents seized by Iraq during the "parking lot stand-off" in September 1991 were never returned to the IAEA and remain unaccounted for, including key centrifuge documents.
• It is not publicly known whether all the documents from the Haider House cache have been translated and fully analyzed.

Iraqi Concealment Activities

• Iraq now officially denies that a governmental committee to minimize impact of NPT violations ever existed, even though Iraq itself first revealed the committee to the IAEA.
• Reports on Iraqi nuclear team’s interactions with IAEA inspectors are incomplete.
• It is not publicly known whether Iraq’s report on their post-war concealment activities has been completed and reviewed.
• Iraq has not enacted a criminal law to punish violations of UN resolutions.

Post-war Nuclear Program Activities

• Conversion of former weapons program facilities has not been fully documented.
• Documentation of ongoing activities at former weapons facilities remains incomplete.
• Information is inconsistent on the date of termination of weapons activity at the Al Atheer weapons facility.
• No evidence of any Iraqi decree to halt the nuclear weapons program.
• Extent of Iraq’s post-war foreign procurement network has not been documented.

NCI's report, "Iraq and the Bomb: The Nuclear Threat Continues," is available on the web at http://www.nci.org/sadb.htm

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