The Iraqi Bombshell

By William E. Smith

A diplomatic fracas is raised by Paris' nuclear aid to Baghdad

France, in its lust for oil, appears to have thrown to the wind all constraints of morality, good sense or even self-interest." Those piercing words emanated from the pen of a British Member of Parliament whose name still rings with authority: Winston Churchill, the grandson of the wartime Prime Minister. Charged Tory M.P. Churchill, 39, who on matters of Middle East politics is a fervent supporter of Israel: "The French government has taken upon itself, with a recklessness not shared by any other nuclear power, including the Soviet Union or the People's Republic of China, responsibility for giving Iraq the nuclear bomb."

Churchill's remarks, made in a letter to the London Times, whipped up a controversy that has been simmering ever since Paris let it be known in 1976 that it would deliver a nuclear-power research facility to Iraq. The big question: Is France selling technology that could be used to produce an atomic bomb? The French, of course, say no, as do the Iraqis. But the Israelis, who would be most directly threatened, insist that Iraq could accumulate enough expertise and enriched uranium to make several nuclear weapons by the mid-1980s. Jerusalem has mounted a campaign to alert Western Europe and the U.S. to what it considers a mortal danger. Israel's Transportation Minister Haim Landau went so far as to accuse France of pursuing policies "similar to those of the Vichy regime" during World War II. Deputy Defense Minister Mordechai Zippori warned that if diplomatic efforts failed to halt the nuclear program, Israel would consider "alternative steps," presumably meaning a pre-emptive military strike.

The French believe the Israelis have already gone to extreme lengths to stop the delivery of nuclear materials. In April 1979 a band of saboteurs infiltrated a top-security compound near the French port city of Toulon and exploded plastic charges near two reactor cores that were scheduled to be shipped to Iraq three days later; the explosions caused extensive damage and delayed the program by months. The French suspect the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad was responsible for the raid. In June one of Iraq's top nuclear scientists was found bludgeoned to death in a Paris hotel room. In that case, however, French police were less convinced that the murder had anything to do with international antinuclear intrigue.

The sale of a research reactor to Iraq is not of itself controversial. Seventy-six research reactors have been sold by manufacturing countries to 33 other states, including several--such as Argentina, Brazil, Israel, South Africa, India and Pakistan--that have not signed the nuclear nonproliferation treaty. What makes the current transaction with Iraq provocative is that it involves a country that has a reputation for political instability and for bellicosity in its foreign policy.

Baghdad still considers itself at war with Israel and is also a bitter rival of Iran. As the world's second largest oil exporter, after Saudi Arabia, Iraq under President Saddam Hussein has ambitions to replace Iran as the leading military power in the Persian Gulf region.

Moreover, the nuclear equipment that France is selling Iraq is highly sophisticated. Most research reactors produce less than 5 MW of power, or about .5% of the power generated by the newest commercial reactors; the facility in Iraq will generate 70 MW. Most important of all, the Iraqi plant will operate with uranium in which the percentage of the fissionable isotope U-235 has been raised to 93%, a grade suitable for the production of nuclear weapons.

The French, who have been secretive about the deal from the beginning, angrily deny that they have been careless with their nuclear technology. They insist they are limiting the size of each delivery of uranium to Iraq to the quantity needed by the reactor, and will see to it that the Iraqis have no chance to stockpile the material. In addition, the French argue that since Iraq is a signatory of the nonproliferation treaty, every aspect of the Franco-Iraqi contract is subject to supervision by the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency. Says a high-level French diplomat: "We absolutely do not want to give the bomb to Iraq. When we deliver a research reactor, we are not delivering a bomb."

There is evidence that the French government may have had some second thoughts about the sale. The French are experimenting with a form of low-enriched uranium, known as caramel for its appearance and consistency, that is militarily harmless but could be substituted for the 93% enriched uranium. The French reportedly tried to persuade the Iraqis to switch to caramel, but Iraq, which sells France more than $3 billion worth of oil per year, is said to have threatened to sever its existing contracts for the sale of oil if France did not abide by the letter of the 1975 contract. If the Iraqis, who have also bought nuclear equipment from Italy, are not interested in developing atomic weaponry, why wouldn't they be satisfied with the caramel?

The French government is convinced that Israel's current campaign against the Iraqi nuclear sale is in reality a broad side against French foreign policy, including French efforts to generate a dialogue between the European Community and the Palestine Liberation Organization. Agrees a senior British official: "An artificial wind is blowing that is designed to frighten people into believing that an Iraqi bomb is just around the corner, and when one looks to where the wind is blowing from, one looks straight at Israel."

An irony of the controversy is that Israel knows as much as any country about the techniques of nuclear proliferation, and a lot more than most. One of the world's worst-kept military secrets is that Israel possesses the means for building nuclear bombs, and that it gained the technology in part through the purchase of a French research reactor in the late 1950s.

By William E. Smith. Reported by Henry Mutter /Paris

With reporting by Henry Muller/Paris

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