VIEWPOINT
PREVENTIVE ATTACKS AGAINST NUCLEAR
PROGRAMS AND THE ‘‘SUCCESS’’ AT
OSIRAQ
Dan Reiter
Advocates of the preventive use of force against emerging nuclear, biological, or chemical
programs often look to the allegedly successful 1981 Israeli airstrike against Iraqi nuclear facilities
at Osiraq. According to the conventional wisdom, this attack may have prevented Iraq from going
nuclear before Operation Desert Storm in 1991. This article assesses the claim that the 1981 attack
substantially delayed Iraqi acquisition of nuclear weapons, both by revisiting older debates and by
introducing new evidence from Iraqi scientists. The article casts doubt on the conclusion that the
attack was successful for three reasons: (1) the reactor itself was not well equipped to generate
plutonium for a nuclear weapon; (2) illegal plutonium production would likely have caused a
cutoff in the supply of nuclear fuel and an end to weapons activities; and (3) the attack may have
actually increased Saddam’s commitment to acquiring weapons. These conclusions have
implications for the Bush Doctrine, as the lack of success in 1981 casts doubt on the possible
success of future attacks against nuclear programs.
KEYWORDS: Osiraq; Nuclear proliferation; Bush Doctrine; National Security Strategy;
Preventive war; Iraq; Israel; Nuclear weapons
The September 2002 National Security Strategy, also known as the Bush Doctrine,
describes a number of tools available for U.S. counterproliferation policy. Perhaps the most
controversial is the preventive use of force against emerging nuclear, biological, and
chemical weapons programs.1
Faith in the success of such attacks, especially limited strikes
rather than massive invasions, rests largely on a favorable account of a single historical
episode: the June 7, 1981, Israeli attack against an Iraqi nuclear reactor at an installation
known as Osiraq. This attack would seem to fit the critical criteria for success: It involved
the minimal application of force (an airstrike from a handful of F-16s), there were no
friendly casualties, there was minimal collateral damage, and, most importantly, a
dangerous leader’s nuclear program was substantially delayed by as many as 15 years
according to the 2002 estimate of former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.2
Conventional wisdom holds that this delay in Iraq’s nuclear program had great
political benefits. Many people believe that the attack prevented Iraq from acquiring
nuclear weapons by the time the 1991 Gulf War broke out, which meant both that Iraq
could not use nuclear weapons during the war itself and that Saddam Hussein was
permanently prevented from acquiring nuclear weapons, since the post-Gulf War
Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 12, No 2, July 2005
ISSN 1073-6700 print/ISSN 1746-1766 online/05/020355-17
– 2005 The Monterey Institute of International Studies, Center for Nonproliferation Studies
DOI: 10.1080/10736700500379008
sanctions/inspections regime prevented Iraq from pursuing nuclear weapons. Former U.S.
National Security Council member Kenneth Pollack made these points, proposing that the
Osiraq raid ‘‘merely set back Saddam’s nuclear program, but in doing so, it ensured that
Saddam did not have a nuclear weapon in time for either the Iran-Iraq War or the Gulf War,
and that was just enough of a delay to prevent him from ever acquiring one.’’3
One columnist was quite stark in his portrayal of what would have happened had
Israel not attacked in 1981: ‘‘Iraq would have gained nuclear weapons in the 1980s, it
might now have a province called Kuwait and a chunk of Iran, and the region might have
suffered nuclear devastation.’’4
Prominent government officials from the George W. Bush
administration*/including former Secretary of State Colin Powell, Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld, Vice President Richard Cheney (who as secretary of defense in 1991
personally thanked the Osiraq pilots for making ‘‘our job easier in Desert Storm’’), and
former Press Secretary Ari Fleischer*/have publicly subscribed to the conventional
wisdom that the Osiraq attacks worked and probably prevented the United States from
facing a nuclear Iraq in 1991.5
Others have speculated that the 1981 attack may have
prevented the Iraqi use of nuclear weapons against Israel or Iran.6
The perceived success of the 1981 attack continues to affect policy debates. In late
2004, the ‘‘success’’ of the attack was invoked by both the United States and Israel as these
two countries considered military action against Iranian nuclear facilities amid mounting
fears of Iranian nuclear breakout. Even skeptics of military action against Iran framed their
argument against the assumption that the 1981 Osiraq attack had been successful and
that its accomplishments might not be repeated.7
Similarly, the possibility of a limited
airstrike against North Korean nuclear facilities is often considered in the context of the
‘‘success’’ at Osiraq.8
But was the attack at Osiraq successful? Did it substantially delay the Iraqi nuclear
program? Though current policy debates frequently invoke the Osiraq episode, there has
been relatively little recent analysis of the effects of the attack. In light of the potential for
such attacks in the future, developing as complete and accurate an account as possible of
the Osiraq episode is critical for informing future policy decisions. If the Osiraq attack was
successful, then we may be encouraged that future, similar limited strikes against nuclear
facilities might also produce positive results, granted not under all conditions. However, a
conclusion that the attack was largely unsuccessful would cast grave doubt over the
potential success of any future such attacks, given that the historical record includes
almost no other such uses of force that have had moderate or, arguably, even marginal
success.9
This viewpoint argues that the conventional wisdom is wrong: The 1981 Israeli
attack did not substantially delay the Iraqi nuclear weapons program. Had the attack not
occurred, Iraq would not have rapidly constructed nuclear weapons, because (1) the
reactor itself was not well designed for plutonium production, (2) inspections would likely
have detected any weapons activity, and (3) such detection would have triggered a cutoff
in the supply of nuclear fuel and halted weapons activity. Further, there is some reason to
believe that the attack might have even accelerated the Iraqi nuclear weapons program,
since after the attack, Saddam Hussein increased his material commitment to the program
and pushed it underground, out of the view of the international community.
356 DAN REITER
The rest of this viewpoint surveys the historical record surrounding the 1981 Osiraq
attack, focusing on three questions: What was the physical capacity of the Osiraq reactor
to produce fissile material? Would international inspections have detected the production
of plutonium at Osiraq had the reactor not been destroyed? What course did the Iraqi
nuclear program take after the attack? Beyond reviewing older debates about these issues,
this viewpoint also brings to bear some new evidence, coming in part from the accounts
of four former Iraqi nuclear scientists, Jafar Dhia Jafar, Khidhir Hamza, Imad Khadduri, and
Mahdi Obeidi, as well as the testimony of Saddam Hussein’s defector son-in-law, Hussein
Kamal. Though there are some disagreements among these new accounts, they do help to
flesh out our understanding of the pre-1981 Iraqi nuclear program as well as what
happened after the attack.10
The Iraqi Nuclear Program before the 1981 Raid
Iraq acquired its first nuclear reactor, supplied by the Soviet Union, in 1968. The following
year, it signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), though it
began to consider acquiring nuclear weapons as early as 1971 in reaction to fears of an
Israeli nuclear arsenal. Starting around the end of 1974, Iraq began negotiating with France
to purchase an additional nuclear reactor. The Iraqis wished to purchase a gas-graphite
reactor, which would have generated enough plutonium to produce five to eight nuclear
warheads per year. The French did not supply the gas-graphite reactor, and instead agreed
in 1975 to supply a 70-megawatt (-MW) material-test research reactor called the Osiris
model, supplemented with a smaller Isis reactor; this pair of reactors came to be known as
Osiraq. The French-supplied reactor, less efficient at plutonium production than a gasgraphite
model, was a light water-moderated swimming-pool reactor, meaning that the
reactor elements were submerged in a container of plain water.11
The reactor was part of Iraq’s quest for a nuclear weapon. On September 8, 1975,
then-Vice President Saddam Hussein declared publicly that the purchase of the French
reactors ‘‘was the first actual step in the production of an Arab atomic weapon, despite the
fact that the declared purpose for the establishment of the reactor is not the production of
atomic weapons.’’12
The Iranian revolution accelerated Iraqi interest in acquiring an atomic
bomb. In December 1979, Hussein directly commanded his nuclear scientists to defy NPT
commitments and build a nuclear weapon.13
At the same time, Israel made efforts to delay the Iraqi nuclear program. The Israelis
filed a false laser patent in the late 1970s to mislead Arab nuclear research. Their
intelligence agents triggered explosions in April 1979 at a French production plant near
Toulouse, damaging the two reactor cores destined for the Iraqi reactors. Israeli agents
may also have been behind the murders of an Egyptian nuclear engineer in Paris as well as
two Iraqi engineers, all working for the Iraqi nuclear program.14
On June 7, 1981, eight Israeli F-16s attacked Osiraq, destroying the larger 70-MW
reactor before it went operational. The attack lasted less than two minutes, and there were
no Israeli casualties.15
In assessing whether the attack was a success, three questions must
be answered. First, what was the physical capacity of the reactor to produce plutonium,
and more generally, at the time of the attack how close was Iraq to constructing a nuclear
‘‘SUCCESS’’ AT OSIRAQ 357
weapon? Second and relatedly, would international inspections have prevented plutonium
production at Osiraq? Third, what course did the Iraqi nuclear program take after the
attack? These three questions are each addressed in turn.
Iraqi Nuclear Capability before the Attack
The Iraqi weapons program before the Osiraq attack included plans to manufacture a
nuclear weapon with plutonium*/rather than enriched uranium*/produced by the
larger, 70-MW reactor. How could plutonium have been produced? Memoirs by former
Iraqi nuclear physicists do not go into detail, but there has been discussion about possible
means. The more effective method would have been to remove ‘‘reflector’’ components
from the reactor and to introduce 15Á/20 ‘‘fertile’’ uranium elements into the core itself.
The core also would have been surrounded by a blanket of fertile uranium elements. A less
efficient means would have been to produce plutonium in the neutron hall below the
reactor; this hall was also destroyed in the attack.16
There is disagreement about exactly how much plutonium could have been
produced per year from the reactor using either or both of these strategies (though, as
discussed below, engineering hurdles would have delayed the building of a working
bomb even if a bomb’s worth of fissile material had become available).17
As noted, light
water reactors, such as the one at Osiraq, are relatively inefficient producers of plutonium,
in part because there are relatively few ‘‘spare’’ neutrons to produce plutonium, especially
compared to reactors such as the Dimona installation in Israel. Khadduri goes so far as to
claim that the reactor ‘‘was specifically designed to be unsuitable for the production of
plutonium for a bomb.’’18
In late 1979, the Iraqis themselves estimated they could produce
roughly 2 kilograms (kg) of plutonium per year (an atomic bomb needs several kilograms
of plutonium; the most sophisticated, miniaturized design, which the Iraqis may not have
been capable of producing, requires 5 kg), though in his memoirs Obeidi doubted the
ability of the reactor to produce fissile material quickly, describing ‘‘a mismatch between
idea and reality.’’
The French estimated the reactor could produce about 4 kg per year, and the Israelis
estimated the reactor could produce about 8 kg per year.19
An International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) official estimated that the reactor might be able to produce enough
plutonium for a bomb every four years, assuming of course that inspections were eluded;
the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) produced a roughly similar estimate, predicting that
the reactor could have produced 1 kg of plutonium per year.20
The U.S. Congressional
Research Service estimated shortly after the attack that, assuming evasion of all
inspections, under the most likely circumstances it would have taken 10Á/30 years to
produce enough plutonium for a single nuclear warhead.21
Notably, most of those
estimates were made in the 1980s by outside observers. We now know that technical
difficulties may have introduced further delays: Obeidi reported in 2004 that at the time of
the attack there were flaws in the aluminum pipes leading to the reactor that would have
eventually required repair at the cost of some $25 million.22
An additional technical issue is the nature of the fuel the French provided to the
Iraqis. The initial agreement was to fuel the reactor with French-supplied uranium enriched
358 DAN REITER
to 93 percent U-235, the remainder being U-238 (in nature, the concentration of U235 in
pure uranium is about .7 percent). However, the French in the late 1970s had developed a
new kind of reactor fuel, called Caramel fuel. This fuel was enriched to substantially lower
levels, ultimately 7 percent, which permits operation of the reactor but lends itself less well
to the production of plutonium and could not be used as the heart of a nuclear weapon.
The French decided in the late 1970s to alter the terms of their deal with the Iraqis,
electing to provide the lower-enriched Caramel fuel. The Iraqis at first refused, and the
French held to the terms of their original agreement (largely because Caramel fuel was not
yet commercially available), sending Iraq a shipment of about 12 kg of highly enriched
uranium in 1980. By December 1981, six months after the attack, the French decided to
hold their ground on providing the lower-enriched uranium, and they soon declared that
any future fuel shipments sent to a rebuilt reactor would be Caramel fuel.23
Hence, if the
reactor had not been destroyed, then throughout the 1980s Iraq could have been supplied
with a reactor fuel that did not lend itself well to plutonium production, to be used in a
reactor not designed for efficient plutonium production.
Some experts have speculated that the 1981 Israeli attack might have caused the
French to hold the line on the Caramel issue, though there is no solid evidence to support
this speculation.24
Had the attack not occurred, France might have supplied only Caramel
fuel anyway once it had become commercially available. Indeed, the shift toward holding
fast on the Caramel issue could have been because Franc¸ois Mitterrand, who was more
pro-Israel and more committed to tightening controls on nuclear exports than previous
French leaders, became the president of France in May 1981.25
A critic might reply that
absent the attack, the French would never have upheld their threat to supply only Caramel
fuel once it became commercially available, as doing so might have jeopardized the
reactor contract and cost the French income from the deal. However, if the French were
putting financial gain ahead of nonproliferation values, then it could be argued they
would have agreed to rebuild Osiraq to maintain the revenue stream after the 1981 attack
(Saudi Arabia agreed to help pay to rebuild Osiraq) and did not because they put
nonproliferation concerns first.26
International Inspections and Osiraq
Aside from nuclear capability, a second issue is whether international inspections, by both
French technicians and IAEA inspectors, would have prevented Iraq from diverting
plutonium from the reactor. By agreement, French technicians were at the reactor
continuously, filing daily reports.27
Importantly, France seemed committed to preventing
Iraq from acquiring nuclear weapons, a conclusion drawn from its public statements,
signature to the NPT, decision not to provide Iraq with a gas-graphite reactor, and decision
to provide Iraq with Caramel fuel. Further, there is some evidence that the French actually
knew of and may have even facilitated the 1981 Israeli attack.28
IAEA inspectors would visit less frequently, ranging from monthly to biweekly
schedules.29
It is also likely that surveillance cameras inside the reactor pool would have
been installed, providing monitoring around the clock.30
Moreover, the diversion of
plutonium would have been a cumbersome, highly unusual operation essentially
‘‘SUCCESS’’ AT OSIRAQ 359
impossible to disguise. Placing a uranium blanket around the core would have been easily
detectable.31
Diversion of enough plutonium to produce a single weapon would have
required some 1,200 separate movements of highly radioactive uranium rods (each about
1 meter by 8 centimeters, weighing up to 20 kg) in and out of the reactor pool. It would
also have been necessary to rearrange the array of core elements to remove suspicion,
shut down the reactor, and falsify operation records. Plutonium diversion would have
consumed more fuel than would be consumed during normal research operations, a
development sure to have been noticed by the French, who were supplying the fuel*/
detection of plutonium diversion would have triggered a cut off in the supply of fuel,
ending progress toward constructing a weapon.32
In short, inspection would likely have prevented substantial Iraqi diversion of
plutonium from Osiraq to build a bomb. Such is the conclusion of an array of observers,
including IAEA officials, French atomic energy officials, an American physicist who visited
the site after the attack, an American physicist who worked at the Brookhaven weapons
laboratory, a U.S. government arms control official, and former Iraqi nuclear scientist
Khadduri, who wrote,
The possibility of such an undertaking [of producing plutonium] is delusional. The tight
refueling schedule for such an endeavor, which is required to prevent poisonous
plutonium 238 from developing, would be impossible to hide from the French scientists
who would have been collaborating with us for years and the IAEA inspectors. Had we
even diabolically thought of kicking both out and running the reactor ourselves for such
a purpose, the limited fresh fuel that was allowed for us would have aborted any such
attempt at the outset. Neither would the unique design of the reactor core for the
‘‘Caramel’’ fuel allow for fuel designs specific for plutonium production.33
Hamza, another former Iraqi nuclear physicist, has taken varying public stances on
whether he thinks inspections could have worked. In a 1998 article, David Albright and
Hamza claimed that the Iraqis believed they could evade outside inspections by
withdrawing unsafeguarded uranium assemblies between visits and using unspecified
techniques for defeating camera surveillance. In a 2000 interview, however, Hamza
indicated that the 1981 attack on the Osiraq reactor ‘‘relieved Saddam of any problems
with the Non-Proliferation Treaty,’’ implying that inspectors were at least something of a
concern. In the same interview, in reference to the reprocessing plant, he mentioned that
‘‘the IAEA restrictions were too high so we decided to build a small [secret] reactor’’ (this
secret reactor is discussed in greater detail below), again pointing to restrictions posed by
international inspections. In a 2003 interview, Hamza took a more straightforward position
on inspections, conceding that, ‘‘It was difficult to cheat using that reactor.’’ He also
critiqued the estimate that the reactor could make a bomb’s worth of plutonium each
year, saying the plutonium production potential was actually ‘‘much less.’’34
After the attack, some observers argued that international inspections would likely
have failed. There were some important critiques of the inspection plans made by Roger
Richter, a former IAEA official, and others that should be considered and addressed.35
One
critique was that inspections simply could have been blocked under invented pretenses,
such as when Iraq blocked IAEA inspectors from access for a few months in 1980 after an
360 DAN REITER
Iranian bombing raid, arguing that the plant was physically unstable and unsafe for
visitors.36
However, the operation of the reactor required the presence of foreign
technicians. During the 1980 episode, some French technicians remained on site and
did have access to the uranium fuel, and after the episode all fuel was accounted for by
the IAEA.37
Further, this incident occurred before the placement of surveillance cameras; a
later installation of cameras would have made verification of the uranium fuel easier, even
if the inspectors themselves had been blocked from entering the reactor.
A second critique was that the IAEA could be blocked from inspecting non-reactor
facilities with the potential to contribute to weaponization, such as the Italian-supplied
‘‘hot cells,’’ in which plutonium could be reprocessed from irradiated elements removed
from the reactor.38
However, cameras, technicians, and inspectors would probably have
observed the removal of the elements from the reactor, and technicians were regularly
near the hot cells as well, meaning that such reprocessing ‘‘could not occur without their
[foreign technicians’] knowledge.’’39
A third critique was that plutonium could be produced between inspections. That is,
inspections were to take place on a biweekly basis at most, and plutonium could be
processed between inspections. Further, camera surveillance could be evaded by, for
example, imposing blackout conditions with the argument that wartime demanded such
measures (as was done during January 1981), rendering the reactor cameras useless.
Moreover, the frequent removal of irradiated targets from the reactor would not have
been utterly extraordinary, as such actions were not uncommon in the context of running
an experimental reactor like Osiraq.40
However, such concerns are probably exaggerated.
IAEA inspectors aside, there were several (in one estimate, hundreds) of foreign
technicians constantly present at the reactor, filing daily reports.41
They were nationals
of IAEA signatories and, as noted, motivated to report evidence of Iraqi weaponization
moves, which would have resulted in a cutoff of the supply of uranium fuel. Also, the
production of plutonium would have consumed substantially greater amounts of uranium,
meaning that even if the plutonium reactor activity had gone unnoticed onsite, the
greater demand for fuel would have indicated illegal plutonium activity to both IAEA
inspectors and France as uranium supplier, triggering a cutoff of supply.42
The Actual Post-1981 Iraqi Nuclear Weapons Program
Would Iraq have been closer to acquiring a nuclear weapon in 1991 had Israel not
attacked? There is reason to believe that the attack may have actually increased Saddam’s
commitment to acquiring nuclear weapons, perhaps because it could have raised
Saddam’s estimation of the importance of acquiring nuclear weapons.43
Khadduri goes
so far as to claim that the Iraqi weapons program began only after the Israeli attack.44
Though this is probably an overstatement, others have made the more general point that
Saddam’s commitment to the nuclear program substantially increased after the attack.45
Specifically, after the attack Saddam rehabilitated the leading Iraqi nuclear physicist
Jafar, who had been imprisoned since 1979 on suspicion of collaborating with the
opposition. Saddam brought Jafar back in September 1981 to work on and eventually run
the nuclear program. After the attack, Saddam met with Jafar and told him, ‘‘How is it that
‘‘SUCCESS’’ AT OSIRAQ 361
Israel is allowed to develop nuclear technology and nuclear weapons, while we aren’t? In
the future, we will not be able to keep the Israelis’ aggression at bay without something to
deter them with!’’ Saddam stressed the importance of recovering from the bombing and
building a nuclear weapon in secret, declaring that, ‘‘From today, that’s our goal.’’46
After
the attack, the Iraqi nuclear program increased from a program of 400 scientists and $400
million to one of 7,000 scientists and $10 billion.47
The size of the program aside, another important change in Iraq’s nuclear program
after 1981 is that it went completely underground, outside of the view of international
inspectors. Iraq’s strategy was to remain a member of the NPT so that IAEA inspectors
could verify that Osiraq essentially had been destroyed, while Iraq built an unknown and
undetected weapons program. Jafar successfully persuaded Saddam to remain a member
of the NPT, arguing that, ‘‘If we walk out now, our enemies will say this is proof of our real
intentions. I say we keep them guessing. Better we stay inside and learn how to deceive
them.’’48
Indeed, Iraq used the attack to feign that its nuclear projects had been destroyed,
removing international suspicion of its weapons ambitions.
The Iraqis reached out to the KGB to learn how to decrease their vulnerability to
future attacks. Specifically, the KGB taught them how to disguise and disperse industrial
facilities, using techniques such as blocking heat sources from being detected by strategic
reconnaissance. They also taught the Iraqis how to build in ‘‘blow-away’’ walls to new
structures, such that if the building is hit the structure is left sufficiently in place to permit
rapid reconstruction.49
In his 2000 book, Hamza remarked of the 1981 attack that, ‘‘Israel
made a mistake. They destroyed the Osirak reactor and this relieved Saddam of any
problems with the Non-Proliferation Treaty.’’50
Nonetheless, despite Iraq’s efforts and the acceleration of the program after the
August 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the nuclear program in the 1980s failed to produce a
weapon by 1991.51
Jeremy Tamsett, in what is to date the most well-argued defense of the
proposition that the 1981 attack substantially delayed the Iraqi nuclear weapons program,
proposed that the failure to produce a bomb by 1991 proves the success of the 1981
attack. For Tamsett, the attack critically delayed Iraqi weaponization, principally because
the destruction of the Osiraq reactor forced Iraq to shift from a plutonium production
strategy to a uranium enrichment strategy, which ultimately presented insuperable supply,
scientific, and engineering problems.52
A few points should be made about Tamsett’s account. First, he overestimates the
plutonium production capabilities of the Osiraq reactor, projecting it at 25 kg per year,
when the actual production capabilities were probably much lower (see estimates,
above).53
He cites comments in a 1983 CIA report that Iraq’s weapons program ‘‘depends
critically on the foreign supply of a nuclear reactor,’’ though the report makes that
comment in the context of a plutonium production approach, not the uranium
enrichment strategy that was adopted after the attack.54
Further, because (as described
above) plutonium production activities at Osiraq would have triggered a cutoff of the
supply of reactor fuel, there is no reason to believe that Iraq would have enjoyed a larger
supply of bomb fissile material in the 1980s if Osiraq had not been destroyed. Second,
Tamsett underestimates the progress Iraq made toward acquiring uranium and building
the facilities necessary for uranium enrichment. Iraq explored a number of different routes
362 DAN REITER
to uranium enrichment in the 1980s, ultimately focusing principally on the use of gas
centrifuges. By August 1990, Iraq had one working centrifuge, the equipment to make
more, and plans to construct secretly 1,000 centrifuges. In that year, Jafar estimated that
the centrifuges would have been ready by 1993 or 1994, at which point Iraq would have
had enough fissile material for one bomb and the facilities to produce 10 kg of enriched
uranium per year, roughly half a bomb’s worth every other year.55
Former weapons
inspector David Albright estimates that between the centrifuges and the smaller
electromagnetic isotope separation program, Iraq would have had enough enriched
uranium for two bombs by 1995, though by 1997 their annual enriched uranium
production would have reached 55 kg, enough for three bombs per year.56
On the supply
side, aside from the several kilograms of enriched uranium on Iraqi soil and under IAEA
supervision, Iraq had created a separate, covert stream of uranium ore in the 1980s, both
through mining and imports from Brazil, Portugal, and Niger.57
On the effects of the attack, Tamsett argues that a tremendous number of resources
had to be invested in developing uranium enrichment because Osiraq had been
destroyed, and, without the attack, those resources might have been spent on building
covert plutonium-producing reactors.58
Specifically, in 1985 Iraq began Project 182, the
secret construction of a plutonium-producing reactor, after France declined to rebuild the
Osiraq reactor. At least one source indicates that the program was essentially abandoned
in 1988 because of resource competition, particularly with the uranium electromagnetic
isotope separation program.59
Absent the attack, would Iraq have had the resources to build the secret reactor fast
enough to produce sufficient plutonium for a bomb by 1991? The answer is probably not.
Project 182 probably began only in reaction to the destruction of Osiraq, meaning that
had the attack not occurred, it would likely have taken Iraq some years to commit to the
secret reactor, after plutonium production at Osiraq had been thwarted by inspectors.60
Additionally, when the program was terminated, the secret reactor was far from being
built. It would have been based on the Canadian NRX design, which relied on heavy water,
and ‘‘studies on the indigenous production of heavy water had not progressed beyond
surveys of technical literature and preliminary laboratory measurements.’’ A 1997 IAEA
report indicated that the reactor never progressed beyond ‘‘theoretical studies.’’ Finally,
Iraq had planned on cannibalizing parts from the damaged Osiraq reactor for the secret
reactor, including heat exchangers, primary circuit pumps, and electric generators, raising
doubts as to whether the secret reactor could have been built had the attack on Osiraq
not made some of its parts available for 182.61
Tamsett also proposes that the 1981 attack increased international attention on the
Iraqi weapons program, making the acquisition of sensitive weapons-related production
materials more difficult after the attack than before it. This point is a bit puzzling, as the
attack itself did not provide any new evidence of a covert Iraqi nuclear weapons program
(actors like the Israeli government had been complaining publicly about a possible secret
Iraqi nuclear weapons program since the late 1970s), Iraq certainly did not confess to the
existence of a covert weapons program after the attack, and those international actors
(such as the French government) who believed prior to the attack that Iraq had no
weapons program retained this belief.62
‘‘SUCCESS’’ AT OSIRAQ 363
Further, the only specific examples Tamsett provides of the attack succeeding in
cutting Iraq off from sources of international support are (1) the fact that the attack caused
the French to balk at rebuilding the Osiraq reactor and (2) a claim made in a 1984 article
that the attack caused the French to insist on providing only the proliferation-resistant
Caramel reactor fuel.63
However, as described above, whether or not the Iraqis would have
rebuilt the reactor is somewhat moot, given that the reactor itself was not well designed
for plutonium production and that international inspectors would have prevented
plutonium production. In addition, as described above, the French might have supplied
only Caramel even without the attack.
Last, contrary to Tamsett’s claims, Iraq was able to acquire substantial amounts of
weapons-related items from foreign sources during the 1980s, including a Japanese streak
camera, a German flash X-ray, explosive lenses, a Yugoslav-constructed electromagnetic
isotope separation facility, and perhaps most critically, centrifuge and centrifugeproducing
technology from West Germany.64
In sum, without the Osiraq attack, Iraq would have had the physical ability to
produce small amounts of fissile material (plutonium) by the early 1980s, though
international inspectors would likely have detected this activity and shut down the
reactor by stopping the fuel supply. With the Osiraq attack, Iraq would have had
the physical ability to produce larger amounts of fissile material (enriched uranium) by the
early 1990s, without any impediment from international inspectors. Notably, even if one
accepts the most generous assumptions about the reactor’s ability to produce plutonium
and Iraq’s abilities to dodge inspections, Saddam would likely still not have been able to
build a working bomb until some years after the Gulf War because of other technical
problems. By 1991 Iraqi scientists had not yet solved completely an array of thorny issues
of weapons design and development*/such as designing high-explosive lenses for
implosion, constructing a neutron initiator, converting the highly enriched uranium into
bomb components, learning how to miniaturize the weapons enough to allow delivery by
plane or missile, developing guidance systems, and finding an appropriate nuclear test
site*/issues that would have been relevant whether the Iraqis built a uranium or
plutonium bomb.65
That is, even without the attack, Iraq would likely not have had a
nuclear weapon by 1991 because of technical barriers separate from the production of
fissile material.
Conclusions
The 1981 Israeli attack on the Iraqi reactor on Osiraq did not substantially slow the Iraqi
acquisition of nuclear weapons. The reactor itself and the fuel it would have consumed
were not well suited for plutonium production. The presence of international inspectors,
foreign technicians, and constant camera surveillance would have at least substantially
slowed down Iraqi plutonium production, and probably, in concert with the French ability
to cut off the supply of uranium fuel, prevented it altogether. A critic might reply that a
successful inspection regime would have ultimately encouraged Iraq to produce
plutonium or enrich uranium in secret. However, this point does not justify the attack,
because of course it caused Iraq to pursue a secret nuclear weapons program anyway,
364 DAN REITER
probably sooner than it would have without the attack. Finally, the attack ironically may
have stimulated the Iraqi pursuit of nuclear weapons by increasing Saddam’s motivation
for acquiring such weapons which led him to release a key Iraqi scientist from prison and
expand the program. The attack also pushed the Iraqi program underground, removing it
from the observation of international inspectors and technicians.
What are the lessons of Osiraq for possible future attacks against nuclear facilities? If
the 1981 raid is the most successful of such preventive, anti-nuclear attacks, even this raid
had, at best, dubious success in comparison to much less successful attacks, such as the
1991 coalition air strikes against the Iraqi nuclear program and the 1980 Iranian raids on
Osiraq. It must therefore serve as a cautionary note for future endeavors. Indeed, even the
limited successes at Osiraq are unlikely to be repeated, as many states (including Iraq,
North Korea, and Iran) learned the lessons of Osiraq and after 1981 sought to disperse and
conceal their nuclear facilities, making future raids even less likely to succeed.
Last, policymakers must recognize that future airstrikes may incur much higher costs
for the United States than did the 1981 attack for the Israelis. Such attacks against Iran
would substantially undermine U.S.Á/Iranian relations, perhaps leading to increased
terrorism, to disruptions in the world oil market, or to an Iranian decision to intervene
in Iraq in support of the Shiites. The CIA reported in 2004 that Hizballah ‘‘would likely react
to an attack against it, Syria, or Iran with attacks against U.S. and Israeli targets
worldwide.’’66
Striking North Korean nuclear facilities could be even worse; as General
Gary Luck put it, ‘‘If we pull an Osirak [against North Korea], they will be coming south.’’67
American policymakers may be better off relying on more peaceful means of counterproliferation,
such as diplomacy, inspections, and economic sanctions. These tools promise
fewer costs and dangers and have demonstrated more success than military action.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to Scott Wolford and Kristin Bakke for research assistance. Thanks to Mike Horowitz, Ken
Stein, and participants in the Ridgway Center’s Preventive and Preemptive Military Intervention
Workshop for comments. All opinions and remaining errors are solely those of the author.
NOTES
1. White Office of Homeland Security, ‘‘The National Security Strategy of the United States
of America,’’ Sept. 2002, B/www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html/.
2. ‘‘Taking Apart Iraq’s Nuclear Threat,’’ New York Times, Sept. 4, 2002, p. A21.
3. Kenneth Pollack, The Persian Puzzle: The Conflict Between Iran and America (New York:
Random House, 2004), p. 392.
4. Nicholas Kristof, ‘‘The Osirak Option,’’ New York Times, Nov. 15, 2002, p. A31.
5. Joshua Burek, Ben Arnoldy, and Jim Bencivenga, ‘‘War Against Iraq: Questions and
Answers,’’ Christian Science Monitor, Feb. 12, 2003, p. 9; Joseph Leconte, ‘‘Rumsfeld’s Just
War,’’ The Press Room, Heritage Foundation website, Dec. 24, 2001, B/www.heritage.org/
Press/Commentary/ed122401.cfm/; Vice President Richard Cheney, quoted in Rodger W.
Claire, Raid On the Sun: Inside Israel’s Secret Campaign That Denied Saddam the Bomb
‘‘SUCCESS’’ AT OSIRAQ 365
(New York: Broadway Books, 2004), p. 240. See also The White House, ‘‘Vice President
Speaks at VFW 103rd National Convention,’’ Remarks by the Vice President to the
Veterans of Foreign Wars 103rd National Convention, Aug. 8, 2002, B/www.whitehouse.
gov/news/releases/2002/08/20020826.html/; Vice President Richard Cheney, remarks on
‘‘Meet the Press,’’ Dec. 9, 2001, B/www.whitehouse.gov/vicepresident/news-speeches/
speeches/vp20011209.html/; The White House, ‘‘Press Briefing by Ari Fleischer,’’ Feb. 3,
2003, B/www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030203-15.html/. See also David
Rennie, ‘‘US Hawks Look for First-Strike Precedent in 1981 Attack on N-plant Israel’s
Bombing of Saddam’s Reactor, Condemned by America, Britain and the UN, is Now Being
Hailed,’’ Daily Telegraph (London), Sept. 14, 2002, p. 22.
6. Shlomo Nakdimon, Peretz Kidron, trans., First Strike (New York: Summit Books, 1987),
p. 336.
7. See, for example, Senator John McCain, comments on ‘‘Meet the Press,’’ Nov. 21, 2004,
B/www.msnbc.msn.com/id/653154/; Thom Schanker, Eric Schmitt, and David E. Sanger,
‘‘U.S. Wants to Block Iran’s Nuclear Ambition, but Diplomacy Seems to be the Only Path,’’
New York Times, Dec. 12, 2004, p. A8; Laura King, ‘‘Israel May Have Iran In Its Sights,’’ Los
Angeles Times, Oct. 22, 2004, p. A1; James Fallows, ‘‘Will Iran Be Next?’’ Atlantic 294 (Dec.
2004), pp. 99Á/110; Pollack, The Persian Puzzle, pp. 391Á/395.
8. See, for example, Ann Scott Tyson, ‘‘Use of Force in Korea is Tricky Proposition,’’ Christian
Science Monitor, Feb. 12, 2003, p. 2.
9. Dan Reiter, ‘‘Preventive Wars Against Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Weapons
Programs,’’ paper presented at the ‘‘Preventive and Preemptive Military Intervention
Workshop,’’ Ridgway Center for International Security Studies, University of Pittsburgh,
Oct. 9Á/10, 2004.
10. Most centrally, Hamza, who has provided the most detailed information on many aspects
of the pre-1991 Iraqi nuclear program, has come under personal attack. Kamal has
declared that some of the documents Hamza has provided are fakes and that Hamza
himself is a ‘‘professional liar.’’ Khadduri and former weapons inspector Scott Ritter claim
that Hamza was generally uninvolved in weapons-related research. Former weapons
inspector David Albright, who coauthored a journal article with Hamza, eventually came
to conclude that Hamza had ‘‘started exaggerating his experiences in Iraq.’’ Others have
defended Hamza, including former assistant secretary of defense Richard Perle and
former CIA director James Woolsey. See Hussein Kamal, interview with UN officials, Aug.
22, 1995, Iraq Watch website, B/www.iraqwatch.org/un/UNSCOM/unmovic-kamalmeeting-082295.
pdf/; Imad Khadduri, Iraq’s Nuclear Mirage: Memoirs and Delusions (Toronto:
Springhead Publishers, 2004), pp. 72Á/73, 92; William Rivers Pitt with Scott Ritter, War On
Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn’t Want You to Know on Iraq (New York: Context Books, 2002),
pp. 52Á/53; Albright quote and Stein, Perle, and Woolsey references from Seymour M.
Hersh, Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib (New York: HarperCollins,
2004), p. 213. Insight from other sources inside the Iraqi nuclear program such as the Iraqi
scientist Hussein Shahristani come from Shyam Bhatia and Daniel McGrory, Brighter Than
the Baghdad Sun: Saddam Hussein’s Nuclear Threat to the United States (Washington, D.C.:
Regnery Publishing, 2000).
366 DAN REITER
11. Nakdimon, First Strike, pp. 40Á/45, 52; Khidhir Hamza with Jeff Stein, Saddam’s
Bombmaker: The Terrifying Inside Story of the Iraqi Nuclear and Biological Weapons
Agenda (New York: Touchstone, 2000), pp. 61Á/66, 69; Richard Wilson, foreword to Jafar
D. Jafar, Oppdraget: Innsidehistorien Om Saddams Atomvapen (Oslo: Spartacus, 2005).
English language version of foreword provided by publisher.
12. Quoted in Nakdimon, First Strike, p. 59. See also Hamza, Saddam’s Bombmaker, pp. 80Á/
83. The Iraqis referred to the reactors as Tammuz 1 and Tammuz 2, though sources differ
over which was which, Nakdimon (p. 62) claims that the larger reactor was Tammuz 1,
and Richard Wilson claims that the larger reactor was called Tammuz 2. Richard Wilson,
‘‘A Visit to the Bombed Nuclear Reactor at Tuwaitha, Iraq,’’ Nature, March 31, 1983, pp.
374.
13. Hamza, Saddam’s Bombmaker, pp. 115Á/117.
14. Ibid. pp. 97Á/101; 106; 109; 132Á/35; Mahdi Obeidi and Kurt Pitzer, The Bomb in My
Garden: The Secrets of Saddam’s Nuclear Mastermind (New York: Wiley, 2004), pp. 46Á/47.
15. For an extensive account of the Israeli side of the raid, see Claire, Raid on the Sun.
16. The 70-MW reactor could only have been run at 40 MW because a heavy water
moderator had been attached. Wilson, ‘‘A Visit,’’ p. 374; H. Gruemm, ‘‘Safeguards and
Tamuz: Setting the Record Straight,’’ IAEA Bulletin 23 (Dec. 1981), pp. 12Á/13. The smaller
reactor was ‘‘almost useless’’ for plutonium production. Hamza, Saddam’s Bombmaker,
p. 128.
17. Nakdimon cites IAEA Director General Hans Gruemm as estimating that enough
plutonium could be produced for one to two bombs per year. However, Gruemm notes
this estimate assumes a higher-than-normal input of fuel, which would be noticed about
the international community, triggering cutoff of the fuel supply. Nakdimon, First Strike,
p. 69; Gruemm, ‘‘Safeguards and Tamuz,’’ p. 12.
18. Wilson, ‘‘A Visit,’’ p. 376; Michael Jansen, Baghdad’s Bomb*/An Inside View,’’ Middle East
International, Jan. 10, 2003, p. 11.
19. David Albright, ‘‘Iraq’s Programs to Make Highly Enriched Uranium and Plutonium for
Nuclear Weapons Prior to the Gulf War,’’ Institute for Science and International Security,
Oct. 2002, B/www.exportcontrols.org/iraqs_fm_history.html/; Obeidi and Pitzer, A Bomb
in My Garden, p. 49.
20. Christopher Herzig, ‘‘Correspondence: IAEA Safeguards,’’ International Security 7 (Spring
1983), p. 196; Central Intelligence Agency, Directorate of Intelligence, Intelligence
Assessment, The Iraqi Nuclear Program: Progress Despite Setbacks, June 1983, p. 13,
B/www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/iraq19.pdf/. The CIA report says that
putting a blanket around the core could increase that output to 10 kg per year, but notes
that, ‘‘We strongly believe that building a blanket . . . would be difficult for Iraq to do
without being detected by the IAEA or the French.’’
21. U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Israeli Attack on Iraqi
Nuclear Facilities, 97th Cong., 1st sess., June 17 and 25, 1981, p. 88. Lucien S.
Vandenbroucke estimates that enough plutonium for one to two bombs could have
been produced in ten years. ‘‘The Israeli Strike Against Osiraq,’’ Air University Review 35
(Sept.Á/Oct. 1984), pp. 35Á/47.
22. Obeidi and Pitzer, The Bomb in My Garden, p. 50.
‘‘SUCCESS’’ AT OSIRAQ 367
23. Nakdimon, First Strike, pp. 74Á/78, 149, 335; Bhatia and McGrory, Brighter Than the
Baghdad Sun.
24. Vandenbroucke, ‘‘The Israeli Strike Against Osiraq’’. The couple of newspaper articles
Vandenbroucke cites shed little light on motivations, other than to point to a Dec. 1981
meeting of French ministers at which it was probably decided to hold fast on the
Caramel issue in negotiations over reconstructing the reactor. Edward Cody, ‘‘France
Plans to Bar Weapons-Grade Fuel for Iraq’s Reactor,’’ Washington Post, Jan. 13, 1982,
p. A18; Ronald Koven and Jim Hoagland, ‘‘Mitterrand Says France Will Hold Iraq to Strict
Conditions on Any New Reactor,’’ Washington Post, June 18, 1981, p. A1.
25. Michael Dobbs, ‘‘France Delays on Iraqi Reactor,’’ Washington Post, Dec. 3, 1984, p. A20;
David March, ‘‘France Shelves Plans to Replace Iraqi Reactor,’’ Financial Times, Jan. 19,
1984, p. 3.
26. On Saudi Arabia, see Dobbs, ‘‘France Delays.’’
27. Wilson, ‘‘A Visit,’’ p. 376. The terms of the reactor agreement committed Iraq to allow
French technicians to inspect the reactor site until 1989. Koven and Hoagland, ‘‘Mitterand
Says France.’’
28. A guidance transmitter was found in the wreckage of the reactor, possibly planted by the
French. The French technicians on site had also scheduled a meeting that day away from
the site, and tried desperately to dissuade one of their colleagues from being at the
reactor when the attack took place. That French technician ignored their pleas and was
killed by the attack. Hamza, Saddam’s Bombmaker, pp. 129Á/30.
29. Herzig, ‘‘Correspondence,’’ p. 196.
30. Ibid. Former IAEA official Roger Richter claimed in front of a House subcommittee that
there were no provisions for camera surveillance in the reactor. Richter’s qualifications to
make this and other critiques of the inspection regime have been challenged, as critics
have pointed out that he presented no specific facts in his testimony and he was not
assigned to Iraq when working with the IAEA. U.S. House of Representatives, Israeli Attack
on Iraqi Nuclear Facilities, p. 59; Sigvard Eklund, ‘‘The IAEA on Safeguards,’’ Bulletin of the
Atomic Scientists 37 (Oct. 1981), p. 32. Additionally, the reactor was not yet operational
when it was destroyed, and the specific Facility Attachment that would have drawn up
the particulars of inspection (including, in all likelihood, camera surveillance) had not yet
been drawn up. Hence, even if it was narrowly correct that no agreement had yet been
reached to install cameras, it is reasonable to expect that cameras would have been
installed before the reactor became operational. U.S. House of Representatives, Israeli
Attack on Iraqi Nuclear Facilities, p. 68.
31. Herzig, ‘‘Correspondence’’; Anthony, ‘‘Osirak and International Security,’’ Bulletin of the
Atomic Scientists 37 (Oct. 1981), pp. 33Á/34; Wilson, ‘‘A Visit,’’ p. 376.
32. See Paul Lewis, ‘‘France Says Iraqis Couldn’t Have Built A-Bomb Undetected,’’ New York
Times, June 18, 1981, p. A1; Wilson, p. 376; Fainberg, ‘‘Osirak and International Security,’’
p. 34.
33. Gruemm, ‘‘Safeguards and Tamuz’’; Herzig, ‘‘Correspondence’’; Lewis, ‘‘France Says Iraqis
Couldn’t Have Built A-Bomb Undetected’’; Eklund, ‘‘The IAEA on Safeguards’’; Wilson, ‘‘A
Visit’’; Fainberg, ‘‘Osirak and International Security’’; U.S. House of Representatives, Israeli
Attack on Iraqi Nuclear Facilities, pp. 59Á/61; Khadduri, Iraq’s Nuclear Mirage, pp. 81Á/82.
368 DAN REITER
34. David Albright and Khidhir Hamza. ‘‘Iraq’s Reconstitution of its Nuclear Weapons
Program,’’ Arms Control Today 28 (Oct. 1998), pp. 9Á/15; Khidhir Hamza, ‘‘National
Terrorist Alert Goes Up; Interview With Saddam’s Bomb Maker,’’ CNN Crossfire, Feb. 7,
2003B/http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0302/07/cf.00.html/. The secret reactor
was Project 182, discussed in the text.
35. Herzig, ‘‘Correspondence’’; Anthony, ‘‘Osirak and International Security’’; Wilson, ‘‘A Visit,’’
p. 376. Other inspection skeptics include Shai Feldman, ‘‘The Bombing of Osiraq--
Revisited,’’ International Security 7 (Fall 1982), pp. 114Á/42 (who is in turn rebutted by
Herzig, ‘‘Correspondence’’); Nakdimon, First Strike; Timothy L. H. McCormack, Self-Defense
in International Law: The Israeli Raid on the Iraqi Nuclear Reactor (New York: St. Martin’s
Press, 1996), pp. 69Á/89.
36. Feldman, ‘‘The Bombing of Osiraq,’’ p. 121; Ronald Koven, ‘‘Baghdad Blocks Inspection of
Its Nuclear Reactors,’’ Washington Post, Nov. 7, 1980, p. A1.
37. Koven, ‘‘Baghdad Blocks’’; Herzig, ‘‘Correspondence,’’ p. 198.
38. McCormack, Self-Defence in International Law, pp. 74Á/75.
39. Fainberg, ‘‘Osirak and International Security,’’ p. 34.
40. McCormack, Self-Defense in International Law, pp. 73Á/82.
41. Fainberg, ‘‘Osirak and International Security,’’ p. 34.
42. Herzig, ‘‘Correspondence,’’ p. 197.
43. Richard K. Betts predicted in 1981 that the raid would increase interest throughout the
Arab world in acquiring nuclear weapons. ‘‘Nuclear Proliferation after Osirak,’’ Arms
Control Today 11 (Sept. 1981), p. 1. Others have speculated that the 1981 attack may
have stimulated Saddam’s pursuit of biological and chemical weapons. King, ‘‘Israel May
Have Iran in Its Sights.’’
44. Khadduri, Iraq’s Nuclear Mirage, p. 82.
45. Feldman, Nuclear Weapons, p. 136; Michael Eisenstadt, ‘‘Can the United States Influence
the WMD Policies of Iraq and Iran?’’ Nonproliferation Review 7 (Summer 2000), p. 66;
Bhatia and McGrory, Brighter than the Baghdad Sun, p. 140.
46. Jafar, Oppdraget, pp. 55Á/56; Khadduri, Iraq’s Nuclear Mirage, p. 82; Hamza, Saddam’s
Bombmaker, pp. 137Á/39. Thanks to Kristin Bakke for translation of portions of Oppdraget
from the original Norwegian.
47. Hamza, ‘‘National Terrorist Alert’’; Jafar, Oppdraget. Khadduri says that after the attack
Iraqi scientists ‘‘went full speed ahead with our nuclear program, with unlimited
resources.’’ Quoted in Farah Stockman, ‘‘Confronting Iraq: Hussein’s Ex-Scientists Say
Nuclear Bid Stymied,’’ Boston Globe, Feb. 9, 2003, p. A1.
48. Quoted in Bhatia and McGrory, Brighter Than the Baghdad Sun, p. 144.
49. Scott Ritter, Endgame: Solving the Iraq Crisis (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002), p. 75.
See also Eisenstadt, ‘‘Can the United States Influence,’’ p. 66; Hamza, Saddam’s
Bombmaker, p. 221; Bhatia and McGrory, Brighter Than the Baghdad Sun.
50. Khidhir Hamza, interview with Joseph Cirincione, ‘‘Presentation at the Carnegie
Endowment Non-Proliferation Project,’’ Nov. 2, 2000, B/www.ceip.org/files/projects/
npp/resour ces/hamzatranscript.htm/. See also Bhatia and McGrory, Brighter Than the
Baghdad Sun, p. 143.
‘‘SUCCESS’’ AT OSIRAQ 369
51. This crash program envisioned building some 50 centrifuges to enrich some 14 kg of 80percent-enriched
uranium up to the 93 percent that a bomb design requires; it would
have been combined with the 12 kg of 93-percent-enriched uranium the French supplied
in 1980. Though some UN inspectors speculated that with the crash program Iraq could
have assembled an explosive device as early as mid-1991, the crash program was still
likely farther away from succeeding, given that several scientific and engineering tasks
remained to be mastered by spring 1991, including the production of uranium
hexafluoride (a precursor for enrichment), a variety of bomb design issues, and the
construction of the centrifuges themselves. Albright, ‘‘Iraq’s Programs’’; Obedi, Bomb in
My Garden, pp. 131Á/37; Hamza, Saddam’s Bombmaker, p. 334.
52. Jeremy Tamsett, ‘‘The Israeli Bombing of Osiraq Reconsidered: Successful Counterproliferation?’’
Nonproliferation Review 11 (Fall/Winter 2004), pp. 70Á/85. Hamza has also
stated that absent the 1981 attack, Iraq would have had a nuclear weapon by 1990,
though as discussed, this presumes that without the attack an array of technical
problems in weapons design (aside from production of fissile material) which were not
solved by 1991 would have been solved by 1990. This assumption is particularly
questionable, as it predicts faster scientific breakthroughs with a much smaller set of
scientists operating with a much smaller budget (as discussed, the budget and personnel
assigned to the weapons program increased some 15-fold after the attack). Interestingly,
Hamza argues without the attack Iraq would have had one nuclear weapon by 1990, but
also that with the attack the Iraqi nuclear program was on track eventually to produce six
nuclear weapons per year, before it was halted by the 1991 Gulf War. Hamza, ‘‘National
Terrorist Alert.’’
53. Tamsett, ‘‘The Israeli Bombing,’’ p. 83, n. 2.
54. Central Intelligence Agency, Iraqi Nuclear Program, pp. 12Á/14.
55. Jafar, Oppdraget.
56. Albright, ‘‘Iraq’s Programs.’’
57. Hamza, Saddam’s Bombmaker, p. 334; U.S. Senate, Armed Services Committee, Testimony
of Dr. David Kay, ‘‘Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs,’’ Jan. 28, 2004, available
at B/www.ceip.org/files/projects/npp/pdf/Iraq/kaytestimony.pdf/; Bhatia and McGrory,
Brighter Than the Baghdad Sun, p. 184.
58. Tamsett, ‘‘The Israeli Bombing,’’ p. 72. Tamsett also proposes (p. 71) that by forcing the
weapons program underground into several facilities, the attack ‘‘strained coordination
between principals (weapons scientists and engineers) and substantially slowed
progress.’’ He provides no specific examples of this increased compartmentalization
and its negative effects. More generally, under the paranoid rule of Saddam, there was
widespread compartmentalization before the attack, and limits to compartmentalization
after the attack, as when, for example, progress toward gaseous diffusion as a means of
uranium enrichment was presented to a group of Iraqi nuclear physicists at a 1984
conference. Obeidi and Pitzer, Bomb in My Garden, pp. 54Á/55.
59. International Atomic Energy Agency, ‘‘The Implementation of United Nations Security
Council Resolutions Relating to Iraq: Report by the Director General,’’ Aug. 12, 1996,
B/www.iaea.org/About/Policy/GC/GC40/Documents/gc40-13.html/.
370 DAN REITER
60. Hamza implies that plans for Project 182 existed at least as far back as 1981, though this
is in contrast to testimony given by Iraqi officials to UN inspectors. Hamza, Saddam’s
Bombmaker, p. 120.
61. IAEA, ‘‘Implementation’’; Albright, ‘‘Iraq’s Programs’’; IAEA, ‘‘Fourth Consolidated Report
of the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency under paragraph 16 of
Security Council resolution 1051 (1996),’’ S/1997/779, Oct. 8, 1997, p. 53, B/www.iaea.or.
at/worldatom/Programmes/ActionTeam/reports/s_1997_779.pdf/.
62. Israel raised its concerns to the French government formally in 1977. Nakdimon, First
Strike, pp. 77Á/80. Some two weeks after the attack French President Franc¸ois Mitterrand
publicly denounced it, declaring there was no evidence that the reactor was part of a
secret Iraqi weapons program. Koven and Hoagland, ‘‘Mitterand Says France.’’
63. Tamsett, ‘‘The Israeli Bombing,’’ p. 77, citing Vandenbroucke.
64. Obeidi and Pitzer, A Bomb in My Garden; Hamza, Saddam’s Bombmaker, p. 221; Albright,
‘‘Iraq’s Programs.’’
65. Hamza, Saddam’s Bombmaker, pp. 240, 334; Khadduri, Iraq’s Nuclear Mirage, p. 122;
Obeidi and Pitzer, The Bomb in My Garden, p. 136; Cirincione, Deadly Arsenals, p. 274;
Central Intelligence Agency, Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on
Iraq’s WMD, vol. 2, ‘‘Nuclear,’’ Sept. 30, 2004, p. 4; Kamal interview; Albright, ‘‘Iraq’s
Programs.’’ Notably, Hamza is probably the most optimistic in his assessment of Iraq’s
ability in 1991 to have solved these technical problems quickly once the fissile material
became available. Hamza, ‘‘National Terrorist Alert’’; Hamza and Cirincione, ‘‘Presentation
at the Carnegie Endowment.’’
66. Graham Allison, Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe (New York: Times
Books, 2004), p. 35.
67. James Fallows, ‘‘Will Iran Be Next?’’ Atlantic (Dec. 2004), p. 106; Joel S. Wit, Daniel B.
Poneman, and Robert L. Gallucci, Going Critical: The First North Korean Nuclear Crisis
(Washington, D.C.: Brookings 2004), p. 104.
‘‘SUCCESS’’ AT OSIRAQ 371