Monday, the IAEA's analysis concluded the aluminum tubes were to be engineered into rocket casings. Now the analysis is 'could be' part of a nuke program, but we're not sure...ggg.
Nuclear Inspector Concedes Aluminum Tubes Could Be Modified for Nuclear Program
ap.tbo.com
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The top nuclear inspector conceded Wednesday that aluminum tubes the Iraqis had sought for rockets could be modified for a nuclear program, as President Bush reasserted in his State of the Union address.
"We believe the tubes were destined for the conventional rocket program," Mohamed ElBaradei told The Associated Press in an interview. "They could be used for enrichment but they need substantial modification before they could be used."
He said such a process would be expensive, time-consuming and detectable but that the Iraqis have the capabilities to alter the tubes. [...]
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background...
Tubes of Mass Destruction
washingtoninstitute.org
...By contrast, the technology for aluminum centrifuges -- developed in Europe to produce reactor fuel for power plants and submarines -- is still highly classified. Iraq obtained its plans for maraging steel centrifuges from a disaffected and greedy German scientist, since prosecuted. Pakistan, meanwhile, built its first centrifuge cascade using aluminum devices, with help from a Pakistani scientist formerly employed by the European enrichment consortium.
So the question is: Has Iraq obtained plans for aluminum centrifuges from a less-than-secure European industrial archive, or did Pakistan supply them? Back before Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, according to intelligence officials, Pakistani nuclear scientists visited Iraq, and Iraqis visited Pakistan's unsafeguarded enrichment plant at Kahuta, outside Islamabad. It seemed surprising that U.N. weapons inspectors never discovered a Pakistan connection when searching Iraqi facilities.
If the plans did come from Pakistan, were they handed over before 1990 or more recently? And what was the quid pro quo? (Pakistan is believed to have swapped its centrifuge technology with Beijing in 1983 for a design of a nuclear weapon and enough highly enriched uranium for two bombs in order to jump-start its nuclear arsenal.)...
Aluminum Tubing Is an Indicator of an Iraqi Gas Centrifuge Program
iraqwatch.org
...Determining an exact use of aluminum tubing is difficult without the cooperation of Iraq or the presence of inspectors in Iraq. Without such capabilities, analysts must evaluate the item itself, looking at its specifications including its type, dimensions, and any modifications made to the tube. The primary goal of analysis in this case is to determine if the part was specifically manufactured for gas centrifuges, the technical specifications of the tubes strongly imply their use in gas centrifuges. The latter case could be bolstered by looking at other items Iraq tried to import and by evaluating the significance of the overall procurement effort.... |
