- a biological agent production capability and can produce at least anthrax, botulinum toxin, aflatoxin and ricin. Iraq has also developed mobile facilities to produce biological agents;
- a variety of delivery means available;
- military forces, which maintain the capability to use these weapons with command, control and logistical arrangements in place.
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) Assessments: 1999–2001
- Since 1999 the JIC has monitored Iraq’s attempts to reconstitute its nuclear weapons programme. In mid-2001 the JIC assessed that Iraq had continued its nuclear research after 1998. The JIC drew attention to intelligence that Iraq had recalled its nuclear scientists to the programme in 1998. Since 1998 Iraq had been trying to procure items that could be for use in the construction of centrifuges for the enrichment of uranium.
Iraqi nuclear weapons expertise
- Paragraphs 5 and 6 of Chapter 2 describe the Iraqi nuclear weapons programme prior to the Gulf War. It is clear from IAEA inspections and Iraq’s own declarations that by 1991 considerable progress had been made in both developing methods to produce fissile material and in weapons design. The IAEA dismantled the physical infrastructure of the Iraqi nuclear weapons
Elements of a nuclear weapons programme: nuclear fission weapon
A typical nuclear fission weapon consists of:
- fissile material for the core which gives out huge amounts of explosive energy from nuclear reactions when made “super critical” through extreme compression. Fissile material is usually either highly enriched uranium (HEU) or weapons-grade plutonium:
- HEU can be made in gas centrifuges (see separate box on p25);
- plutonium is made by reprocessing fuel from a nuclear reactor;
- explosives which are needed to compress the nuclear core. These explosives also require a complex arrangement of detonators, explosive charges to produce an even and rapid compression of the core;
- sophisticated electronics to fire the explosives;
- a neutron initiator to provide initial burst of neutrons to start the nuclear reactions.
- fissile material for the core which gives out huge amounts of explosive energy from nuclear reactions when made “super critical” through extreme compression. Fissile material is usually either highly enriched uranium (HEU) or weapons-grade plutonium:
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